Commentary on First Peter (21)

Before we proceed to something else, there are several important implications that we must draw from this.

First, what we have established above necessarily means that the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is Christian Scripture. No part of the Old Testament can function as "Jewish" Scripture in a sense that denies the Christian gospel. The Old Testament had always been Christian Scripture, even from its very first chapters, and it was entrusted to the Jews (Romans 3:2). But they rejected it (John 5:39-40), and now it is entrusted to the church (1 Timothy 3:15).

Despite what anyone might assert about himself, no non-Christian truly believes the Old Testament. Any Jew who claims to believe the Old Testament should also become a Christian; otherwise, he would have just as little claim to the Old Testament as a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an African witchdoctor does – that is, none at all.

Second, because the Old Testament speaks of the Christian gospel even since the beginning, this must become a controlling factor in the practice of biblical theology and exegesis. At no time must the scholar or student completely exclude the New Testament perspective in reading an Old Testament text in an attempt to avoid an anachronistic interpretation.

It is often pointed out that, when interpreting a text, one must consider the biblical and historical background of the passage, so that he would not import to the text information that the original writer and readers had no way of knowing. For example, one cannot assume that something that is said in Genesis arose from the background of the fullness of revelation that is in the New Testament. Rather, one must interpret what is said from the background of what had been revealed up to that point in time. Another way of putting this is to say that in biblical theology and exegesis, one must acknowledge the progressive nature of revelation.

Related to this is the principle that one must also consider the culture of the time. For example, even if certain remarks about an object sound to the modern reader like a description of a telephone, this would be an unlikely interpretation since the original readers could never have understood those remarks if this is indeed what the text is talking about.

On the surface, this seems to be a sound and reliable guideline in interpretation, and indeed it has its proper application. To offer an obvious example, we must not interpret something that we find in Jeremiah as if that prophet had read the Gospel of Luke. On the other hand, we know that Daniel had read Jeremiah (Daniel 9:2), so that we can interpret the Book of Daniel with this in mind. However, if we are not careful, or rather, if we fail to acknowledge what the Bible claims about itself, we can apply this seemingly sober-minded principle in a way that in fact results in a false interpretation of Scripture, and even in an indirect denial of its divine inspiration.

As we have seen, although biblical revelation is progressive, the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ had already been announced at the very beginning, and at least in this sense, we must read the entire Bible as Christian Scripture and nothing else. We must never pretend that there was ever a period or section in the Old Testament when the text is not aware of the essential elements in Christ's atoning work and its results, that is, his sufferings and the glories that would follow.

Peter observes that it was revealed to the prophets that "they were not serving themselves but you" (v. 12). That is, the whole Bible was written to be read by "Christians," and especially those who live in the age of the fulfillment of what the prophets said (see also Romans 4:23-24, 15:4; 1 Corinthians 9:9-10, 10:11). So to read the entire Bible as Christian Scripture is not to commit the fallacy of anachronism, but to read it as it is intended to be read, and to understand it better than the original readers could.

We must also keep in mind that the "real" author of Scripture is God himself, and he was thoroughly "Christian" in his outlook even before creation itself. The human writers were mere instruments, and it was the Spirit of God who really spoke and wrote. Although God progressively revealed his mind through Scripture, his own knowledge is not progressive, so that he wrote even the earliest part with complete knowledge of his own plans and purposes. We must not forget this, lest in the attempt to avoid anachronism, we make the terrible error of treating the Bible as a purely human product.