“Only Our Interpretations of the NT are Permitted”
Among those who like to criticize Dispensational Premillennialism one encounters a popular mantra: It is that the OT needs to be interpreted by the NT. The logic appears straightforward enough. Since the NT introduces Jesus Christ, and the Apostolic writings unpack the doctrine of Christ, one must go back to the OT with the NT teaching in hand so as to unlock God’s meaning.
This reasoning seems so self-eveident to its promoters that a person has to be a theological knuckle-dragger to disagree with it. And yet disagree with it I do.
Having read this mantra in hundreds of books and articles, and in countless posts on X and trolling on YouTube, I believe the main motivator is to get rid of God’s covenant promises to Israel as His special treasure (segulla). I do not accuse most of these people of anti-Semiticism. I don’t think that is their motive. I believe that, for the most part, those who insist that the NT is required to interpret the OT just cannot concieve of two or more peoples of God. They stumble at the conception of the Church existing eschatologically alongside of the kingdom of Israel after Christ’s second coming. To their minds there has to be only one people of God – the Church (although they are not often as transparent about this as one might expect).
Doesn’t the Bible Tell Us to Interpret the OT with the NT?
The NT never tells us outright that it should be utilized to reinterpret the plain sense of the OT. But it may be argued that the NT in some way encourages its readers to reinterpret the Hebrew Bible in a new way. Does not Matthew 21:43 tell us that God will set aside national Israel for the coming Church? Does not the Apostle Paul in Romans 2:28-29 inform us that a true Jew is not an ethnic descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but anyone, Jew or Gentile, who has “the circumcision of the heart” by the Spirit? Is not the same Apostle crystal clear when he declares that the Church is “the Israel of God” in Galatians 6:16? And what about 1 Peter 2:9-10? Surely one can see how Peter employs OT characterizations of Israel and applies them directly to the Church, thereby signalling that the Church is the true Israel!
But that is the thing. My contention, and the contention of all those who would share my view on this issue, is that all of the above references are misinterpreted, and that they do not teach what they are assumed to teach. Now if that is the case then the first objection to the idea that the NT reinterprets the OT would be that only a certain understanding of the NT – a partuclar interpretation of it – throws up the notion in the first place. There are other plausible interpretations of the NT which will not require the reader to interpret the OT with the NT.
Now, before anyone objects that the NT gives us added revelation, let me state pointedly that I wholeheartedly agree that it does. For example, it identifies the promised Messiah as Jesus. It describes His ministry and sacrifice and ressurection so much that the Four Gospels increase and elucidate our knowledge substantially. But it does not alter the meaning of the OT one bit. There is expansion of data but no change in meaning. When the meaning of the OT is changed we know that a certain type of hermeneutics is being employed; that certain NT passages are being understood in questionable ways.
For starters, coming up with the idea that Paul thought the Church was “the Israel of God” in Galatians 6:16 requires that the kai, which is normally translated “and” in the verse, suddenly means “even”, altering the whole sense of the passage. It has been pointed out by very many scholars that the translation “even” is necessary only if one already believes the Church is now Israel. Leave the kai to mean “and” and the issue goes away. However, if the Church = Israel view of Galatians 6:16 is allowed to stand, one is forced to reinterpret scores of OT passages as “types and shadows” instead of at face value.
The same can be said of Matthew 21:43 where interpreting the “from you” (apo hymon) to refer to the Jewish leaders and not to the entire nation makes the problem vanish away. The “replacement theology” of the passage never raises its head. And so the inclination to convert plain-sense OT covenant promises into types and shadows will never surface. Yet this easy (and accurate) solution is ignored by those who tell us the OT must be interpreted by the New. They want Matthew 21:43 to give them permission to take all those clear OT promises God gave to ethnic and national Israel in the eschaton and convert them into promises for the mainly Gentile Church.
Again, if we simply take Romans 2:28-29 (see also Rom. 9:6-8) as referring to some Israelites as over against other Israelites we will not feel the temptation to turn spiritual Jews into saved Gentiles. But we are told that this passage is really about carnal versus spiritual “Israelites” who are actually Gentiles in the Church. This means that one can then go back into the OT and make God’s covenant promises to Israel into covenant promises to the Church.
Finally, 1 Peter appears to be written to saved Jews (1 Pet. 1:1, 18), which means the language of 1 Peter 1:9-10 is appropriate to Jewish understandings.
What is Happening?
It is essential to understand what is happening here. In actual fact those who adopt these interpretations of NT passages and “typologize” the OT are guilty of misinterpreting the NT in service of their own foregone conclusions. All the above passages are disputed, with very solid alternative interpretations available to these men, but ignored because they do not produce the required end result. What is occuring then is incorrect interpretation of the NT that causes incorrect interpretation of the OT. And all this is concealed beneath the banner of “the NT must reinterpret the OT.” Whenever we hear this mantra, we should immediately reply with, “you mean your interpretations of certain NT texts are forcing you to reinterpret very many OT texts via typological hermeneutics?” That is actually what is going on.
