How to Understand Bible Language.
It is contrary to all the well established and universally accepted rules of interpretation, to put an uncommon meaning into the words of any writer, unless we are especially authorized by him to do so, or unless the character of the document itself shall warrant it. The Bible was not written especially for philosophers, or metaphysicians, or poets, but for men of all classes and conditions in life. Hence we find something in it that is particularly adapted to all these several classes. We have poetry, prophecy, parables, proverbs, in which we should expect to find figures of speech and a tropical and fanciful use of words, as we do in other writings of the same sort. But by far the larger part of the word of God is in plain, sober prose. It was written for the instruction of the people generally, and ought to be understood without the aid of philosophers and metaphysicians to explain it, and would be understood far better than it now is, were it not for the metaphysical, scholastic and traditional interpretations which the schoolmen of the middle ages, and the commentators and creed-makers of the present age, following in their lead, have contrived to put upon its meaning. But this is an old device for "making the word of God of none effect." It was very common among the Hebrews. Christ denounced it in his day. Of this Jehovah speaks, when he inquires of Job, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" Indeed, we trace it back to the garden in Eden, and see the great adversary of God and man, in the very beginning, construing the threatening of death, which God had declared to be the penalty of sin, to mean, "Ye shall not surely die; ye shall be as gods, who are immortal." And could our Platonic Christian brethren have been present at that interview, they must have said "AMEN" to the declaration of the tempter, "that is just what we believe. Man is an immortal being. He cannot actually die. The death which his Creator threatens cannot mean actual death. It must mean 'an unchanging, eternal state of wretchedness and misery,' or something else, or anything but death." Now it was against this very traditional doctrine that Paul warns the early Christians, when he says: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Col. 2:8. Referring especially to this act of the adversary, he says: "I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." 2 Cor. 11:3. The word of God ought certainly to receive the same honest treatment which we accord to the writings of men. When we read fiction or poetry, we may indulge our fancy. The author invites us to do so. But when we read a volume of history, or a legal document, we are bound to construe the language in its literal sense. So should it be when we read the Bible. Who would think of giving a fanciful construction to the Constitution of the United States, or to the laws of the country? When the law specifies "death," as the penalty for capital crimes, no one understands this to be a figurative expression for some other mode of punishment. "When the judge solemnly sentences the criminal 'to be hung by the neck till he is dead, dead, dead,' the culprit does not understand him to mean perpetual and life-long imprisonment with torture. But when we read the constitution of God's government over us, and the laws which he has instituted and declared in the most solemn manner, we are taught to construe his words just in this fanciful way, and to understand the penalty of death which he threatens as meaning, not death at all, but simply "the destruction of the sinner's well-being," "a forlorn and miserable existence endlessly perpetuated!" On this point Locke says: "By death some men understand endless torments in hell-fire. But it seems a strange way of understanding a law which requires the plainest and directest word, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery. Can any one be supposed to intend by a law that says, 'For felony thou shalt surely die,' not that he should lose his life, but be kept alive in exquisite and perpetual torments? And would any one think himself fairly dealt with who was so used?" And when we read the precious promises of our Lord to his people about life—a life of purity, blessedness, and glory in his everlasting kingdom—a life that shall never end—we are taught to understand something quite different from what he promises. Indeed, he does not mean life at all, but simply a pure and blessed condition of life, that shall endure forever. As for life itself, his people are not indebted to him for it. It is their own inalienable inheritance from Adam. Christ did not die to save us from the power of death, but only from a state of sin and misery, into which we are all born, and which we must endure forever, unless we are rescued; and from the further suffering due to our own sins, to which there can be no end unless he saves us. So many believe and talk. And this would be a great salvation indeed; but the salvation which Christ offers in the gospel is a greater salvation than this; for the penalty of sin is a greater, deadlier penalty than suffering. It is DEATH. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." The pains and sorrows and miseries that follow in the train of sin, are but the inevitable results and accompaniments of sin. But they are not the death that is threatened. They are but the preludes and shadows and concomitants of that death to which they point, and to which sin inevitably leads. It is from this death that Christ saves his people. The purity and blessedness and joys of that life which he gives them are not the life itself—they are but the accompaniments of that life, the necessary accompaniments—for it is his own peculiar life that he gives them, which is pure and blessed and immortal. No other life can be perpetual but one that is in perfect harmony with the divine life. It was by this insidious device, that the great adversary of God and man succeeded at the first in compassing the ruin of man. He taught him to believe that the original threatening of death—"dying, thou shalt die"—ought to be interpreted as meaning, "ye shall be as gods and live forever." And now again he would teach his willing listeners, by the same process of interpretation, to rob the Almighty Saviour of the crown of glory which he claims, and which is his due as the Redeemer and Life-giver of his ransomed people, that man may put it on his own head, and wear it as an immortal god in Heaven or hell forever! These two words—Life and Death—are not merely the crucial words in this controversy, but they are the principal words by which the sanctions of the divine law are made known to us. They are used more than any others to mark the grand distinction between the righteous and the wicked. There are but two classes of men spoken of in the Scriptures. They are designated by a great variety of titles, as, the righteous and the wicked; the children of God and the children of this world, or of the devil; natural men and spiritual men; the elect and the reprobate; the saved and the unsaved, etc., but the specific reward that is promised to the one class is, Life, Life, Life forevermore, Life without end; and the specific doom of the other class is, Death, Death, Death. These are the principal words employed everywhere throughout the sacred volume, from Genesis to Revelation, to designate the lot, or portion, or end of these two classes respectively. The word signifying "to die," or "death," is used at least one thousand times by the various writers of the inspired volume; and the word signifying "to live," or "life," is used nearly as many more. Of course, it is not pretended that these words are employed in an absolutely literal sense at all times, and in all places where they occur. Every variety of style is to be found in this Book of many books. Some parts of it are entirely figurative, and metaphors of various sorts abound in many other parts. Perhaps there is no common word which may not be tropically used, by some one of these many writers. But it does not follow, because instances of a figurative use of the words "life" and "death" may be found here and there, that a figurative sense should be given to them all in other places, or in any other place where the reader may choose to put such a construction upon them, to suit his fancy, or to sustain his own peculiar doctrine. It does not follow, because figures of speech are employed in the poetry and prophecies and parables of the word of God, that its plain, sober prose, its didactic instructions, its judicial utterances, its gospel promises, are to be treated as tropes and metaphors, and the plain, ordinary meaning is to be taken out of them and another put in, to suit the minds of speculating theologians. If there is any book that demands of us an honest, reverent treatment, it is the word of God. We should come to its reading saying, in the simplicity of our hearts, "I will hear what the Lord will speak;" and not, as too many do, with the deliberate purpose of reading into its language what we have determined beforehand to believe. If this principle of interpreting the word of God figuratively, of finding a double meaning, or an uncommon meaning in the plain terms it uses, according to the pleasure of the reader, be allowed, anything or rather nothing can be proved by Scripture; we are all afloat in our theology, with no one truth to which we can anchor ourselves. Indeed, this practice has already wrought incalculable mischief in the church and out of it. It is one of the chief causes of the error and confusion that now prevail throughout Christendom, as regards theological questions in general, and especially in regard to this question of the destiny of man. The church of Christ, which was designed to be "the pillar and ground of the truth," and those who are set for the instruction of others in the things of the kingdom, will never be able to agree among themselves, or to know what the truth of God is on this question, until they shall consent to lay aside all their human philosophies and traditional dogmas, and come, as children, to the reading of the Scriptures, desiring only to know what the great Master himself would teach them. Then they will be able to make the great discovery, which will scatter all the fogs and mists that men have been gathering about this question for ages, and let in a flood of light upon the whole gospel system—a discovery of the truth that has always lain upon the very surface of the word, but which they could not, or would not see, because they were looking for something else—that "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."—From Prof. J. H. Pettingell's Life Everlasting.