Rev Martin Geluk

How are we to understand the Bible? When preparing a Bible study, a Sunday school lesson, a biblical topic, or a sermon, what are the essentials? What should be included in the contents? It is possible to approach the Word of God with all kinds of good intentions, yet end up with a distorted view of what the Bible is saying. One can easily miss the heart of a passage and be unclear of what the Bible is all about.

The Aim

The aim or the purpose of God’s Word must be clear to us. The aim will determine our understanding and treatment of each separate part of the Bible in the light of the whole of it. Hence it is important that our aim must be the same as that of God in giving us His Word.

The Bible must first of all be seen as the divinely inspired, infallible and authoritative Word of God. The Bible is a true record of the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ through whom God created and will recreate the world. We can also say this differently: the Bible is the record of the story of the kingdom of God, or the story of the covenant.

Secondly, the aim or purpose of the Word of God is to also work a reaction, a response to God in the hearts of sinners. It is to have people believe and accept God and His acts.

The aim of God’s Word is not to merely teach us how to be good and how to avoid evil. The Bible teaches moral lessons and presents righteous and unrighteous people but not only to provide us with examples of how to do good and be good. Too often the Bible stories are told as though there are just good and bad people, who are either one or the other by their own power and will. If that were the case, if we could be good in our own strength, then there would be no need for Jesus the Saviour.

We can state the aim or the purpose of the Bible as follows:

To present the story of God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ and show how God worked out this grace throughout history. It is the story of God’s kingdom and of His covenant.

It follows then that our aim in understanding the Bible for ourselves, in teaching it to others, should be the same as expressed in the aim above. We must try and be clear on what God wants to reveal in a particular passage, event, situation, teaching or parable from the Bible. It is to use this understanding when persuading people to faith in God’s saving grace in Christ by means of the Word and Spirit. To do that we mention some guidelines.

The Revelation of God

God speaks through His Word. In the Scriptures we have the self-revelation of God. The Bible tells us who God is, what God has done and is doing, and how God has done it. This is to be the basis of our understanding of the Bible and our use of it as a tool for teaching.

It is tempting to say a lot about people mentioned in the Bible. About what they did, what they believed, how they believed, and the way they obeyed or sinned. No one, of course, wants to leave God out but often He is added as One who rewards and punishes. This way of understanding the Bible and telling it to others is moralistic. We are just telling a story about morals. The general pattern of a moralistic treatment of the Bible goes something like this: beware, if you do good then God is on your side, but if you act badly then you are on your own.

But this is not speaking about God’s revelation of Himself and of His grace and salvation in Jesus Christ. In every Scripture passage, even in the historical books like Judges, Samuel and Kings, God is revealing His redemption in Jesus Christ. God does this in different ways and in some passages it is easier to see than in others, but the fact remains that God is working out His grace through the course of time.

It shows God acting first. He takes the initiative. God comes to sinful man in Jesus Christ. God reveals Himself as the Redeemer. Take, for example, the creation account [Gen. 1-2]. It is not so much about us appreciating the beauty of nature. It is much more about God who is the origin of all things, the only absolute and sovereign God, the Creator and Lord. He daily upholds and governs this world for the sake of His salvation purposes in Jesus Christ and rightly demands our service and praise.

Look at the parting between Abraham and Lot [Gen. 13]. The main emphasis should not be on Abraham’s unselfishness and Lot’s greed but on the grace of God in Abraham who is enabled to fully trust God’s promises of providing for him, and about Lot’s failure to appreciate God’s grace.

Another example is the story of Joseph [Gen. 37; 39-45]. The wrong way to understand this story is to only portray Joseph as a spoiled son who experienced grief when his brothers sold him into slavery, but who later, when he became a trusted believer in God, rose from rags to riches. The right way is to show how great God is in controlling and determining all events so that His people Israel will continue to exist in order for God to fulfil His promise of the Saviour Christ. God is in the centre and is faithful to the people of His covenant. Joseph and his brothers are only instruments in God’s redemptive plan and therefore of secondary importance.

The law of God [Ex. 20] is not a set of negative rules to spoil your fun. It is a revelation from God on how we can walk with the Lord reverently, confidently, and daily repenting of our inability to obey perfectly but looking to Christ for forgiveness.

We must always ask when we deal with a particular story or event from the Bible: what is God revealing here concerning Himself and His purposes? It is wrong to argue that in order to make the story relevant you have to put yourself in the place of the Bible character. For example: “Just imagine if you were David and had to fight Goliath, how would you feel and what would you do?” This approach puts the acts, the faith and achievements of the person in the centre. Goliath insulting God’s honour, and God using David to put a stop to the devil’s work through Goliath, and God in His grace preserving His people, are neglected. We must continually strive to place in the centre God and the things He has revealed. Admittedly, this makes Bible story telling more difficult. Much thought and preparation is needed. Of course, one must present the Bible story at a level where the listener can follow and understand. If to children, then their level of comprehension must be taken into consideration. But keep in mind that everyone, adults and children alike, are selfishly inclined and tend to think of themselves first. We are to correct this inclination and help everyone to see God as number one.

The Revelation of God in the Mediator

As a result of sin we stand in need of God’s grace and the only way that grace is made possible is because Jesus Christ is the Mediator. We must continually remember that the aim of both Old and New Testaments is to reveal the Mediator. The Bible has this as its great theme. The Old Testament is about the coming of Christ and the New Testament is about the Christ who has come.

The presence of Christ is not always easy to discover in the Old Testament. We can, for example, say that God used Joseph to preserve His people Israel in Egypt and caused the Exodus to take place in order for the Saviour to be born in due course. All this is biblical and it keeps God in the centre and not man. But Christ was not only for the future, He was a present reality in Old Testament times as well. Sinners in the Old Testament were saved through Christ as much as sinners were in the New Testament. The Mediator through whom God’s grace was made possible is an ever- present reality irrespective of the time in which believers live. Christ was present and at work in Old Testament times as much as in other times. This aspect, therefore, must receive proper attention in our story telling from the Bible. It may not always be clearly mentioned in a particular passage but we must look for it.

We must also keep in mind that with God’s grace in Christ there is progress through time. God showed more of His grace as history continued to unfold. In Genesis 3:15, for example, we have the first promise from God about Christ. But actually very little is said about Christ. Yet as time moved on God revealed more and more about His promise of the Mediator. It is becoming more clear. In fact, very clear for example in Isaiah 53. So in every situation, in every story, also those in the Old Testament, lies this revelation. It begins like the bud of a flower and gradually opens, revealing all.

But in order to understand the Old Testament properly we must continually look at it in the light of the New Testament. Because we know from the New Testament about the fulfilment of the promise, we can, therefore, better understand the first hints that are made about it in earlier times.

The Old Testament is a pointer to Christ. People and events, the whole sacrificial system, are a shadow of the real things that were to come. But in these pointers and shadows we clearly see the Mediator at work. If we do not have the Mediator as a reference point then we face problems in the Old Testament that defy a solution.

For example, how must we see the book  of Esther from the viewpoint of the Mediator? How is the Mediator revealed in this Bible book? The motives and actions of Mordecai and Esther are better understood when we realise that the Mediator, working in them through the Holy Spirit, is making sure that God’s people continue to exist and that God’s promise in Christ will see its fulfilment in time. Apart from this viewpoint one would not be able to understand why Esther is in the Bible. To talk about Esther and Mordecai as noble people who plead for the safety of their people is to miss the point completely. It reduces the book of Esther to a moral tale.

Again, this way of understanding the Bible can be difficult but it is the only way God meant His Word to be understood. It is God’s

kingdom on the march through history. God’s grace in Jesus Christ is continually victorious.

The Revelation of God in His Covenant with His people

Christ is not only the Mediator but also the Head of the covenant of grace. He is the second Adam. This implies a lot more than seeing Jesus as the Saviour of individual sinners. Many only see this in the Son of God and that is a pity. Christ is so much more.

The covenant runs right through the Bible and therefore must show in our storytelling. The covenant is like a marriage relationship. In marriage there are rights and responsibilities for both parties. In recognition of these both husband and wife exchange their most intimate moments. Similarly God and His people in the covenant give each other their deepest love. In fact, in the covenant God often speaks of Himself as Husband and Bridegroom and the church as wife and bride.

Although there are two parties, God and His people, it must be stressed that the parties are not equal. The covenant proceeds from God and He made His people the recipient of His grace. In this His people receive rights from God which they can enjoy as they are united to God through His grace. As members of the covenant we should be loyal and faithful but we cannot because of our sinful nature. However, the wonderful truth about the covenant of grace is that Christ gives and teaches this loyalty and faithfulness. As our Mediator He has said ‘yes’ to the covenant in our place and on our behalf. We appreciate this all the more when we realise that outside the covenant there are no rights and fellowship.

In this covenant God treats His people as a whole and not as isolated individuals. We must continually stress this. A particular passage may not specifically point to it, yet it remains an unbroken thread running right through the Bible.    

For example, not only what God did just for Joseph but also what God did for His people through Joseph. Not what God did just for David personally but how God wanted David to be a leader for the people and a type of Christ. Not Nehemiah as a person as such but how God restored His people through Nehemiah. Not only Zacchaeus as a person but what Christ revealed to His people through Zacchaeus. Not an emphasis on what Ananias and Sapphira did wrong when they lied but how God protected the early church from the attacks of Satan, who was trying to stop Christ from establishing the beginning of His church in New Testament times.

Again, it may be argued that children, even adults, will find this understanding of the Bible difficult and therefore reject it. The degree of difficulty arises not so much because the mind cannot comprehend but because people are inclined to individualism. One of the effects of sin is the separation of people from each other and an inclination to put oneself in the centre.