Broadly, there two views I want to consider. The first is the historical-grammatical method, often referred to as the literal method of interpretation. A consistent application of this hermeneutic ALWAYS leads to a premillennial dispensationalism. Against this we have the allegorical method, which almost always yields an amillennial covenant theology. So, which is correct?
I strongly advocate a literal interpretation of Scripture in absolutely ALL cases. Let me give you a quick example. Suppose you received the following letter:
"Dear Mr. Smith,
As we have been unable to reach you by phone, we are sending you this to inform you that you owe ABC, Inc. $46.27 due no later than Jan. 21, 2006. If this payment is missed, your account will be closed and forwarded to a collection agency.
Sincerely,
Mr. ABC"
Now . . . do you read this and say, "What is ABC trying to tell me? Oh, I know. Duh. The phone clearly represents the ability to communicate between people, and ABC represents the outside world. The dollar amount and dates represent my need to interact with the world, and the collection agency represents the consequences of staying to myself too much. What a nice exhortation . . . Mr. ABC wants me to get out there and get a life!" Of course, if you think that, you'll find your account closed in a short period of time!
That is what we refer to as allegory. Simply put, to allegorize (or spiritualize) is to assign to literal objects secondary meanings while ignoring or rejecting the primary, objective interpretation. On the other hand, a literal interpretation would tell me that ABC represents ABC, the collection agency would be the collection agency, and the money and dates would be real money and dates. I read it that way, I know that I have to do something specific.
A brief background on the allegorical method: it was initially used by ancient Greeks because, when they studied the actions of their gods, they noticed that these "heros" were often more vile than they themselves were. The gods certainly couldn't be so terrible creatures, so they began to allegorize the stories to get "hidden meanings" out of them. The idea worked and was very popular. So popular, in fact, that Origin picked it up and started applying it to Christian texts. That man actually had over 200 interpretations on what the wheels of Pharaoh's chariots represented when he was chasing Moses in the wilderness! Sound extreme? It is, and for the most part, we have rejected his hermeneutic, except for when it comes to eschatology. For some reason (to be explained below), we feel the need to allegorize prophecy. Let's give two quick examples of this:
- A day of the LORD is coming when your plunder will be divided among you. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. (Zech 14:1-5, NIV)
Well, in walks in the allegorizer. "You don't understand," he says. "Jerusalem represents the Church, and the nations represent Satan's armies. The partial destruction represents the persecution of the saints, and the Lord's fighting on their behalf represents His faithfulness in preserving them as well as assuring them of victory in the end!" Sad . . . but this is how the system works. Let's give one more example, although we could easy site dozens and dozens.
- And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea. (Is. 11:6-9, NIV)
Now, you get five allegorists together, you will get five different interpretations. You get five literalists together, you get one interpretation.
This is the all important issue when it comes to eschatology, especially. The allegorist thinks that everything has been fulfilled, or is being fulfilled, in the Church. He is what we negatively refer to as a Replacement Theologian, though he would refer to himself as a Supersessionist. He believes that Church has superseded, or replaced, Israel as God's chosen people. He believes that the New Covenant has superseded, or replaced, the Old Covenant. He believes that the New Testament has superseded, or replaced, the Old Testament. This garbage has been taught for 1,900 years and was the fertile soil of Christian anti-Semitism.
But a literal interpretation allows for no such replacement. The Abrahamic Covenant was made to Abraham UNCONDITIONALLY. No disobedience--even the rejection of the Messiah--could undo that covenant. Secondly, it was everlasting. See Genesis 12:1-3. God promised Abraham three things: a land, a nation, and a blessing. Israel, to this day, has never received the land God promised in Gen. 15 (known as the Palestinian Covenant, a clarification of the first aspect of the Abrahamic Covenant). They have been a nation, but they've never seen the fulfillment of a permanent kingdom with a permanent King, as per the Davidic Covenant, which was a clarification of the second aspect. And throughout history, we see the third aspect of blessing has been and will continue to be fulfilled. Its ultimate fulfillment was in Christ, but even that has yet to be accomplished yet, for all the nations have not yet come to know Him.
So the replacement theologian has to say that God transferred the blessings of Israel and gave them to the Church. Therefore, the "land" promises have to be allegorized to refer to a "spiritual land" . . . that is, an inheritance in heaven. The nation is allegorized to be the Church, and the blessing is allegorized to be the ruling of Christ in our hearts. But, AGAIN, if we take it literally, we see that Israel could not have been cast aside, because their election was not based on their works!
I would ask any replacement theologian this:
If Israel's unconditional election in the Abrahamic Covenant could be lost by the rejection of the Messiah, why can't the Church's unconditional election be lost by that same rejection?
Now, I strongly assert that we take all prophecy literally. Naturally, that means we have to take into account figures of speech. In the above debt-collection letter, note the referenced to the "missed" payment. Does that mean that someone tried to grab for a check and missed it? Does it mean someone had bad hand-eye coordination? Of course not. That's a figure of speech to say that it didn't happen. And yet, this is still a literal interpretation. Some things in the Bible are obviously allegorical . . . the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Beast, and the Dragon all serve as examples. But the text itself makes this very obvious. I bring this up because people misunderstand the literal method to mean having to take every word at exactly face value. It doesn't mean that at all, which is why we refer to it, technically, as the historical-grammatical method. Words have meaning in their historical and grammatical setting . . . not just in themselves alone.
Now, I close this point by posing the biggest problem with the allegorical method: there is absolutely no provision for which we can systematically decide what allegorical interpretation is correct. The authority becomes the mind of the reader. He imposes on the text to make it say what he wants it to. If he wants to believe that Jesus did not physically raise from the dead, he can claim allegory! If he wants to believe that the beast has already come and gone, and he wants to assign that to Nero, then because Nero never issued a mark, he can claim the mark is allegory! This system allows a person to make the Bible say what they want it to say, rather than the other way around.
Because of all this, it is pointless to discuss eschatology or prophecy until we can agree on a method of interpretation. Since the apostles, Jesus, and the early church prior to Origin all used the literal method, and since God is not a God of confusion, and since it is the way that we interpret every other piece of literature we read, I suggest that we apply to the same standard to the Bible. Let it speak for itself.
God bless
. I'm going to pull in references, which obviously takes a few more hours.
. Obviously, many allegorists have come to the same conclusions, otherwise I couldn't have offered the interpretations I did in my original post. Most Replacement Theologians agree on a few basic interpretations, as do most literalists on a few. The point hyperbolistic, which is, to be very technical, a form of allegory in the sense that it is figurative speech. In other words, good old fashioned exaggeration, but it goes to prove my point. The grammatical-historical method takes this into account in interpretation.