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God is a spirit (John 4:23-24).  Because God is a spirit does not mean His Word requires a spiritualized interpretation.  The Bible is unique literature, but it does not, therefore, require a unique or secret interpretation.

The Book God wrote for and to mankind, He wrote for the mankind He created.  A reading consistent with understanding, which God wanted and desires for His Book, is a literal one.  God even used men to write the Bible for mankind.  He expects man to live by the Book He wrote to man (Matthew 4:4), the standard by which He also would judge man (John 12:48).

Grammatical and Historical Context

A correct interpretation of scripture mandates grammatical and historical context.  God doesn’t change, but He alters His communication to man to fit new eras.  Before the Fall, man was innocent.  His instruction fits that condition for that period.  After the Fall, man lived in and according to a different nature, a sin nature.  Although God still expected obedience, God’s curse on man in Genesis 3 brought discontinuity from the previous era of innocence.  A literal reading of the Bible acknowledges the new circumstances and the modified way God managed His creation to fulfill His will.

The characters of the Bible anticipate new periods or different dispensations.  Noah preached judgment coming.  Life wasn’t going to stay the same after that.  When Noah left the ark with His family, God gave new instructions for a new era, instituting human government, starting with the death penalty (Genesis 9:6-7).

Prophecies and Fulfillment

The Bible is filled with prophecies, promising some sure future fulfillment.  When one opens the New Testament, he sees the beginning of the fulfillment of the promised Messiah, that goes back to Genesis 3:16.  Since the kingdom didn’t come then, in Acts 1:6 the Jewish disciples of Jesus asked Him:

When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

Jesus didn’t say, “That’s not going to happen.”  The New Testament doesn’t read that the church fulfills those promises to Israel.  In part, this is why one request in the model prayer reads (Luke 11:2, Matthew 6:10):  “Thy kingdom come.”  Believers still pray for the kingdom, because it has not come yet.  This viewpoint is premillennial.  Scripture predicts a real physical one thousand year reign (millennium) of the Messiah on earth (Revelation 20:2-7).

God lays out His future plan in orderly fashion.  When someone reads all of the prophetic passages taught by various human authors, they all fit together.  The New Testament prophecies work according to the framework of Old Testament prophecies.  Both the Old and New Testaments indicate the future salvation of Israel, predicted in no uncertain terms.  The resuscitation of Israel into a nation again reads like the providential working of God for the future fulfillment of those prophecies.  This conforms to a literal interpretation, called a dispensational one.

Attacking the Extremes

A variety of interpretational difference still exists in premillennialism or dispensationalism.  Some dispensationalists seem to go much further in their descriptions of discontinuity between eras.  Because of that, some title a more extreme system of interpretation, hyperdispensationalism.  The opponents of dispensationalism pounce on the differences.  Men mock some of the dramatic license that some take in their interpretation, seeing right now signs or indications that move outside of scripture.  They use the extremes to characterize all of dispensationalism.

More to Come