Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 66
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
The
paragraph on p. 132 that explains what the spiritual sense means almost sounds
like the Historical-Grammatical sense except we know that BJ has already
completely contradicted that.
BJ
combines “spiritual or allegorical” which, if he meant it the way Paul did,
that historical accounts can have an allegorical application, we would likely
be fine. But because he is trying to prove that the accounts themselves were
allegory, it is not what Paul taught.
The
author then returns to the book of Jonah to illustrate how Old Testament texts point
to Christ and the gospel. Again, if he meant it that Jonah was real history but
it also had an allegorical application to Jesus, fine. But because he has
already told us that he denies the historicity of Jonah, not good.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Jesus’s Emmaus Way of reading Jonah looked beyond the literal and
moral sense to the gospel sense, where Jonah’s time in the belly of the fish
and his escape from it would prefigure Christ’s death and resurrection” (p.
132). |
First, how Jesus used Jonah is not the “Emmaus Way”. No case has been
made for this. Because BJ distorts what the “literal and moral sense” mean, the words
he uses are misleading. If he really meant the literal sense as the
Historical-Grammatical approach means it, and if the moral sense meant the
moral application of historical events, we may find some agreement. But each
of these are terms he has misrepresented thus far in the book, so what he is
saying here sounds like one thing when it really means something different. I have zero problem with what Jesus said about Jonah’s experience in
the whale prefiguring his death and resurrection. I only have a problem with
the poison on the pudding that BJ is peddling in this book. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“And while literalists are skittish of allegory, Jesus makes it
necessary for an Emmaus-Way interpretation” (p. 133). |
So many inflammatory words! We have the BJs on one side exaggerating the use of allegory while
pointing their finger at BJ’s strawman fabrication of “literalists” on the
other side who (poor them) have such a difficult time with Jesus using
allegory. BJ wants readers to think those are the only two options and that
his incessant mocking of his strawman literalists will push people to choose
his exaggerations without discernment. My contention is that the plumbline between these two pendulum extremes is the Historical-Grammatical approach that can treat Jonah
as history in its original form and delight in Jesus’ application of this historical
event as a picture, or sign, of his death and resurrection because the first is
what we read in Jonah and the latter is what Jesus said. That does NOT mean that Jesus takes allegory as far as BJ does, and
neither does it support the Emmaus-Way BJ is peddling. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Contrary to my training, early church fathers didn’t come up with
allegorical interpretation – Jesus and his apostolic successors were already
adept at using and modeling it to unveil the gospel” (p. 133). |
The central issue here is that what Jesus and Paul meant by “allegorical
interpretation” is different than what the BJs mean by treating historical
events of Scripture as allegory. And we know that BJ is cherry-picking which church fathers treated Old
Testament writings as allegory as if they represent all the church fathers
and affirm BJ’s view of Jesus and the apostles. I’m just putting it out there
that this twisting of words might make a fine collage, but it doesn’t give a
true picture of “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (as Jesus said
it) or “the whole counsel of God” as Paul said it. |
Paul
and Allegory (p. 134).
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“While the authors of the New Testament frequently speak
allegorically, “allegory” is explicitly named by Paul only in Galatians 4:”
(p. 134). |
What the BJs mean by the writers of New Testament Scripture speaking
allegorically is suspect, and since the author and his buds have already distorted
these things, I would need to see examples of this to make sure we understand
that they were making allegorical applications of history, not treating the
Old Testament writings themselves as allegory. And, NO, “allegory” is NOT explicitly named by Paul, and that is a big
part of the misrepresentation in this passage. |
I’m
going to skip a bunch of jargon on pp. 134-135 and just get to the point BJ is
making.
HOWEVER!!!
I… HAVE… NOW… REACHED… THE… 50%... POINT… OF… THIS…
BOOK!!!!!!!
First,
BJ has chosen a translation that supports his view that Paul meant the record
of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar was allegory. So, instead of cherry-picking through
translations, let’s see what we can find about the words in use.
The
word Paul used means, “to be allegorized v. — to be or become interpreted
metaphorically, especially as an extended metaphor; often used of narrative
text” (Bible Sense Lexicon). Again, this is not a noun, which would indicate
that the historical record WAS allegory, but a verb meaning an action Paul was
speaking of in applying that history to the two covenants. This shows right
away that it can’t mean that Paul was calling Genesis allegory (noun). He was
speaking of the action he was describing, how to apply that history to the two
covenants because the Galatians had become thoroughly confused (deceived) by
the false teachers of their day. But he was in no way using the noun “allegory”
as BJ keeps stating in English.
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in their commentary, explain Paul’s use of
the word this way, “are an allegory—rather, ‘are allegorical,’ that is, have
another besides the literal meaning.”[1] Simple. Genesis has a literal meaning, the real history that it
describes, but it has “another” meaning “besides” that, which Paul explains.
In his
commentary on Galatians, William Hendriksen translates this verse, “Now things
of this nature were spoken with another meaning in mind, for these two women
represent two covenants.…”[2] He then explains, “Such historical events were designed to convey a
meaning other than—in addition to—the strictly literal.” So the historical
description in Genesis was “strictly literal” (history), but “designed to
convey” the meaning Paul explains.
He then continues,
“God has given us such narratives not only to teach us what happened in the past, but also to enable us to apply the lessons of the past to our present situation (cf. Rom. 4:23, 24). Such things, then, are true as history and valuable as graphic pedagogy. It is in that sense that Paul is saying that things of this nature “are an allegory” (A.V.).”
This dual meaning
is clear, that the original account in Genesis was breathed out by God as
history, and Paul’s application to the false teachings infiltrating the
Galatian churches was breathed out by God as allegorical.
Hendriksen continues,
The lesson here taught is derived as naturally from the narrative as an almond-kernel is picked out of an almond-shell. With this interpretation in mind we can understand that Paul was justified in saying, “Tell me, you who desire to be under law, do you not hear the law?” He meant, of course, that the lesson implied in the incident was so obvious that anyone who listened attentively to the narrative, when it was read, should have understood the deeper meaning immediately.
This shows that Gal. 4:24 provides no comfort whatever to “allegorizers” of the wild type; such, for example, as Rabbi Akiba, who was able to distil a mystical sense from the hooks and crooks of the Hebrew letters; Philo, who imagined that the cherubim placed at Eden’s gates represented God’s lovingkindness and his sovereignty; Origen, who on occasion “tortured Scripture in every possible manner, turning it away from the true sense” (Calvin); and the author of a certain very popular present day Bible which, though valuable in some respects, can hardly be considered a trustworthy guide when it pictures Asenath, the Egyptian wife of Joseph, as the type of the Christian church, called out from among the Gentiles to be the bride of Christ!
I’m
smiling. Such a breath of fresh air while BJ pollutes minds with his incessant
demand that we treat the Jewish Scriptures as allegory so they have no
authority as the breathed-out words of God.
So, with
some clarifications in place, let’s look at how BJ continues to twist what Paul
said into things he didn’t say.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“But the passage actually may go further, claiming that these accounts
were told or spoken allegorically” (p. 134). |
No, there is no “may” go further. A verb speaking of the action Paul
was taking in his day and age does not turn into a noun changing the history
of Genesis into an allegory. It most certainly may not! |
Now, let me give you my take on BJ’s use of people like David Bentley Hart to authorize his allegorical claims. We are looking at Paul addressing with the Galatians how perplexed he is that they have stopped running the race they were given in the true gospel (Paul’s, not BJ’s) and were turning to a “different one”. As Paul said it,
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6-7).
This, of course, is what I
have been showing is BJ’s tactic as well, to distort the true gospel with his
different one.
What
BJ is doing would be like one of the Galatian Christians bringing forward one
of the false teachers Paul was asking about when he said, “O foolish Galatians!
Who has bewitched you?!” (3:1). Imagine Paul responding to the very thing BJ is
doing, someone using a false teacher to support why they are bewitched, a teaching Paul is horrified
they have swallowed to begin with!
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“That is, Hart does not see Paul’s Emmaus Way of reading the story as
eisegesis” (p. 135). |
No, he doesn’t, just as the false teachers of Paul’s day didn’t think
their twisting of Paul’s words was a problem either! And, Paul wasn’t using BJ’s “Emmaus Way” of reading Scripture. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Paul is not merely reading the gospel back into the text or overlaying
the gospel onto the history” (p. 135). |
That is opinion, not based on looking at the word Paul used (the verb
cannot be treated as a noun). |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Rather, Paul’s use of ἀλληγορούμενα (allegorizing) implies
that the text itself is written as allegory and that a gospel reading
unveils a truth already there” (p. 135). |
Absolutely not. Again, Paul’s use of the verb form makes it very clear that he did NOT
treat the historical text as allegory but was adding an allegorical
interpretation to the historical sense. And I would pit William Hendriksen
against any of BJ’s false teachers any day if a person wants to know what God’s
breathed-out words mean instead of what they appear to say with a good
injection of poison to the pudding. |
I will
skip typing out the claim about Origen. It is enough that Hendriksen (above)
quoted Calvin’s view of Origen as one who “tortured Scripture in every possible
manner, turning it away from the true sense”.[3] It is noteworthy that this is the church father BJ believes in.
BJ
closes with a sad tale. Yes, it is grievous that so many people in
institutional churches have become “disillusioned Christians” (p. 135). It is
sad that the North American church has produced so many “embittered
ex-Evangelicals” (p. 135). It is angering that there are so many “haughty New
Atheists” who “denigrate the Bible” (p. 136).
HOWEVER!!!
BJ is a huge part of the problem by suggesting that we must choose between his
twisting of Scripture into a non-literal “Literal Sense” and his prejudicial
declaration that those folks “continue to read it (the Bible)… as
fundamentalist literalists” (p. 136). Neither legalism nor cheap grace are
solutions to the other one’s pendulum extreme false teachings.
So,
when BJ is concerned for the way these fallouts “use their misinterpretation of
the sacred Scriptures against it as ammunition” (p. 136), we do not need more
false teachings presenting more misinformation (as the first half of BJ’s book
had done). We don’t need more man-centered fabrications that have only
man-centered authority to lead people astray (the real problem Paul was dealing
with in Galatians, by the way).
BJ’s
closing comment sounds noble. I’m sure the Galatian false teachers did as well (as
did a certain serpent in the Garden). That’s part of what makes them so effective.
But there is nothing “Christ-centered” about teaching “another Jesus”, a “different
spirit” and “a different gospel” as Paul warned. And just as BJ totally
misrepresents what Paul said about allegory, I believe Paul would say about BJ
what he said of the false teachers of his day,
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8-9)
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
[1]
Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R.,
& Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
(Vol. 2, p. 335). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[2]
This whole section of quotes by William Hendriksen are referenced: Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S.
J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Galatians (Vol. 8, p. 182). Baker Book House.
[3]
Hendriksen, W., &
Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Galatians (Vol. 8, p. 182). Baker
Book House.
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