Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

III. THE QUESTION OF DOUBLE SENSE.

7. The so-called double sense of Scripture, especially of prophecy, concerning which there has been so much discussion among biblical writers, must be distinguished from the double sense of pure allegory, which all admit. In allegory, the first or literal meaning is only a cover for the higher spiritual sense, which alone is of importance. That we may have a true example of double sense, the obvious literal meaning must have its own proper significance, irrespective of the higher sense belonging to it, and this higher sense must be intended by the Spirit of inspiration. The question now to be considered is: Do such examples occur in Scripture, by whatever term we may choose to designate them?

To avoid logomachy, arising from the use of the same phrase in different senses, we prefer the expression literal and typical sense.

8. If, as has been shown above (chap. 37, No. 4), examples of historic types are found in the Old Testament, these contain a twofold sense. The priesthood of Melchizedek and the transactions between him and Abraham were true historic realities, having their own proper office and meaning. Yet the word of inspiration teaches us that the circumstances connected with Melchizedek's priesthood and his meeting with Abraham were intended by God to shadow forth the higher priesthood of Melchizedek's great Antitype. He brought forth bread and wine, the very symbols that should afterwards represent Christ crucified as our spiritual food and drink, blessed him that had the promises, and received at his hand tithes of all (Gen. 14:18-20), thus exercising the prerogatives of one higher than Abraham, and consequently higher than all his posterity. Heb. 7:4-10. In the intention of the Holy Ghost, the higher typical meaning lay in this transaction from the beginning, but it was not revealed to the apprehension of believers till the Christian dispensation had begun. So also the rest of the covenant people in the land of Canaan is represented in the New Testament as typical of the true heavenly rest. Heb. 4:7-11. Other examples might be adduced, but these will serve as an illustration of the principle now under consideration.

9. The most striking examples of a literal covering a typical meaning are furnished by the so-called Messianic psalms, a part of which describe the victories and universal dominion of a mighty King whom Jehovah himself establishes on Zion to reign there for ever (Psalms 2, 45, 72, 110, etc.); another part, the deep afflictions of a mighty Sufferer and his subsequent deliverance, which has for its result the conversion of all nations to the service of Jehovah. Psalms 22, 40, 69, 109, etc. That such psalms as the second and seventy-second, the twenty-second, fortieth, and sixty-ninth (not to mention others), have a true reference to Christ's person and work, cannot be denied without imputing either error or fraud to the writers of the New Testament. Nay more, our Lord himself said, after his resurrection: "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44); whence we learn that it was our Lord's custom to refer to the psalms as containing prophecies of himself. If the psalms, when legitimately interpreted, contain no such prophecies, then, when the writers of the New Testament quoted them as referring to Christ, they either believed that they were making a true application of them according to the mind of the Holy Spirit, or they simply accommodated themselves to what they knew to be the groundless prejudices of the age. Upon the former supposition they were in error; upon the latter, they were guilty of fraud. Such is the dishonor which the modern principles of rationalism put upon the word of God. In the interpretation of these psalms, then, we must assume as a fundamental truth that they contain a true reference to Christ. The only question is, whether they contain a lower reference also.

(1.) One class of interpreters understand these psalms simply of Christ; that is, they assume that the writer speaks wholly in the name of Christ, without reference to himself or any merely human personage. There are psalms—the hundred and tenth, for example—that may be very well explained in this way. The opening words of that psalm—"The Lord said unto my lord"—seem to exclude David as the subject, and it is difficult to see in what sense David could speak of himself as made by a divine oath "a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (ver. 4). But in the attempt to carry this principle consistently through all the Messianic psalms, one meets with serious difficulties. They contain, at least some of them, historic allusions of a character so marked and circumstantial that it is hard to believe that the writer had not in view his own personal situation. In some of them, moreover, the writer makes confession to God of his sins. Psa. 40:12; 69:5.

They who apply these psalms exclusively to Christ assume that these confessions of sin are made in a vicarious way, the Messiah assuming the character of a sinner because "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all." Isa. 53:6. But the form of these confessions forbids such an interpretation. When the psalmist says: "Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me;" "O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee," we cannot understand such language of any thing else than personal sinfulness. It is true that the Messiah bore our iniquities, and that God "made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;" but the Saviour nowhere speaks or can speak of "mine iniquities," "my foolishness," and "my sins."

(2.) According to another class of interpreters, the subject of these psalms, particularly of those which describe the Messiah as a sufferer, is an ideal personage, namely, the congregation of the righteous considered not separately from Christ, but in Christ their head; or, which amounts to the same thing, Christ considered, not in his simple personality apart from the church, but Christ with his body the church. The contents of these psalms are then applied, according to their nature, to Christ alone, to believers alone who are his members, or to Christ in the fullest sense and believers in a subordinate sense. Much might be said in favor of this view; yet it labors under the difficulty already indicated, that one cannot well read the psalms in question, with their marked historic allusions, without the conviction that the author had in view—not indirectly, but immediately—his own personal situation.

(3.) There remains a third, and perhaps preferable view, which may be called the typical view, maintained, as is well known, by Melanchthon, Calvin, and many later expositors. This begins with the well-established principle that David (in a less eminent degree his successors also on the throne, so far as they were true to their office) was a divinely-constituted type of the Messiah, not only in his office as the earthly head of God's kingdom, but in the events of his history also; that the psalms in question, whether they describe his victorious might or his deep suffering at the hand of his enemies, had a true historic origin; that their first and immediate reference was to the writer's own situation and the events which befell him; but that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was carried beyond himself to describe the office and history of the Messiah; that consequently these psalms have a lower fulfilment in David the type (the seventy-second in Solomon), and a higher in Christ the Antitype.

The second psalm, for example, which describes the vain conspiracy of the heathen rulers against the Lord's anointed king, and God's purpose to give him the uttermost ends of the earth for his possession, may have had its occasion in the combination of the surrounding heathen nations against David. In the victorious might with which God endowed him, it had a lower fulfilment; and this was, so to speak, the first sheaf of the harvest of victories that was to follow. It was an earnest and pledge of the complete fulfilment of the psalm in Christ, in whom alone the promise made to David: "Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever" (2 Sam. 7:16), could have its real accomplishment. Luke 1: 32, 33.

The second class of psalms, of which the twenty-second is a well-known example, may have had, in like manner, a true historic origin. When the psalmist began with the exclamation: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" he may have had immediate reference to his own distressed condition. But since he was the divinely appointed head of the line of kings which should end in Christ, and was thus in his office a type of Christ, God had so ordered the circumstances of his history as to shadow forth in them the sufferings and final triumph of the Messiah. Writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was led, through these circumstances, to say many things which applied to himself only in a lower and often figurative sense, but which were appointed to have a complete fulfilment in Christ his Antitype (Psa. 22:1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 18; 40:6-10; 69:4, 7-9, 21; 109:1-20), and which point to Christ as the chief subject of the prophecies.

How far the psalmist understood this higher reference of his words is a question difficult to be determined. With regard to the sixteenth psalm, the apostle Peter tells us that David, "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption" (Acts 2:30, 31); whence we infer that in penning this psalm David was conscious of its higher application to Christ. The spirit of the New Testament quotations from the psalms indicates that he had a deeper insight into the prophetic meaning of his words than many modern expositors are willing to admit. But however this may be, the Spirit of inspiration had in view the fulfilment of these psalms in Christ; and his intention, clearly revealed to us in the New Testament, is our rule of interpretation.

10. Different from the above literal and typical sense, yet closely related to it in principle, is that of the progressive fulfilment of prophecy, which has a wide application in the interpretation of those prophecies which relate to the last days. By the progressive fulfilment of prophecy is meant, a fulfilment not exhaustively accomplished at one particular era or crisis in the church's history, but successively from age to age; a fulfilment repeated, it may be, many times, and ending only with the final consummation of the Messiah's kingdom. An undeniable example of such a prophecy is God's message by Isaiah to the covenant people: "Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not," etc, with the threatened desolation that should follow (chap. 6:9-13). This prophecy had a true fulfilment in the ancient Jewish people before the Babylonish captivity. For their blindness of mind and hardness of heart, they were given over to the power of Nebuchadnezzar, who wasted their land, destroyed their city and temple, and carried the remnant of the people into captivity. But the same prophecy had, in both its parts, a more awful fulfilment in the generation of Jews who rejected and crucified our Lord, and were destroyed with their city and temple by the armies of Rome (Matt. 13:14, 15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:39-41; Acts 28:25-27; Rom. 11:8); and its fulfilment is yet in progress. Joel's prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit in the last days upon all flesh, with the mighty accompanying judgments (chap. 2: 28-32), and Amos' prediction of the raising up of David's fallen tabernacle (chap. 9:11, 12), had both their initial fulfilment in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and the triumphs of the gospel that followed. Acts 2:16-21; 15:16, 17. But the blessings which they promised were not exhausted in the apostolic age. The church has had rich instalments of them, but richer still are reserved for the future of millennial glory. A large part of the prophecies of the Old Testament indicate in their very structure that they are not to be understood of particular events, but of the development of God's kingdom from age to age. The reader may take, as a single example among many others, the prediction of Isaiah and Micah concerning the establishment of the Lord's house in the last days in the top of the mountains, the resort of all nations to it, and the universal peace that shall follow. Isa. 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-4. That particularism which seeks for the fulfilment of every prophecy in some one specific event of history must go widely astray in its interpretation of Scripture.