The Interpretive Lens

In preparing for this coming Sunday, which is Pentecost Sunday, I am struck by Peter’s misuse of Scripture (I write as a fool) in Acts Chapter 2. How could he wrest a passage from the prophet Joel, which in its context applies to Israel, and use it to explain the Holy Spirit indwelling the people of God?

Then, as if that were not enough, Peter proceeds to Psalm 16 and takes a psalm of David, in which David writes in the first person about his relationship with God, and says that the psalm isn’t really about David but rather about Jesus.

This led me to consider how the writer of the NT book of Hebrews uses Jeremiah Chapter 31, a passage that is clearly about the restoration of Israel and Judah, as a foundational text for demonstrating that the passage is being fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in the people of Jesus Christ.

Peter is saying that Joel’s promise is fulfilled in Jesus. He is also saying that Psalm 16 (and Psalm 110) is fulfilled in Jesus. The author of Hebrews is saying that Jeremiah 31 is fulfilled in Jesus. Throughout the New Testament, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings are employed again and again to demonstrate that they speak of Jesus and The People of Jesus - the one People of Jesus, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Temple of God. There is not the remotest suggestion that Jesus has two people, that Christ has two bodies as if He were a Siamese twin, that He has two Brides, or that God lives in two Temples. In fact, the thrust of the NT message is quite the opposite - the two have been made one (Ephesians 2:11ff), the mystery hidden in ages past is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body (Ephesians 3:1ff).

The New Testament writers provide us with an interpretive lens as they find the fulfillment of the OT in Jesus Christ, as they, through the Holy Spirit, transpose the earthly upward into the heavenly; as they proclaim that there has been a reconstitution of the People of God. Jesus Himself introduces this interpretive lens; throughout His ministry He speaks of prophecies being fulfilled in Him, and after His resurrection He opens the minds of His disciples to see Him in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:27; 44 - 45).

An irony is that this is Pentecost week, and when the people of God should be focused on Jesus Christ dwelling in His people, when they should be sharing the Gospel with others with a clear message that Christ is for all people, that Christ only has one Body, one Bride, one Temple, that Jerusalem Above is our Mother, that our minds and affections have been diverted and that Jesus Christ has been eclipsed by a strain of eschatology of recent historical vintage that has departed from the interpretive lens handed down to us from Jesus, the Apostles, and the Fathers.

What happened to Jesus and the Gospel? What happened to the clear Gospel message that whether we are Jew or Gentile that without Jesus we are dead in our trespasses and sins? A rebuilt physical temple endorsed by professing Christians is a repudiation of the Gospel; it makes Galatians, Hebrews, and the rest of the NT null and void - we find ourselves rebuilding those things which God brought to an end.  Can we not see the irony in this? Can we not see that we are offering an alternative to Jesus and grace and justification by faith? Can we not see that this runs counter to the Abrahamic Covenant of faith?

That which God gave as shadows and types we are making the substance. It is as if we are rebuilding the ancient city of Jericho (Joshua 6:26); rebuilding that which God brought to an end.