What is the relation between the divine and human authors of Scripture? Those who completely separate divine and human meaning have often fallen into unbridled allegory, since the text itself no longer offers any controls. This makes Poythress appreciate the insights of the position that completely equates divine and human meaning. However, even with the Hirschian distinction between meaning and significance, this approach is not sufficient because there are several complexities it cannot accommodate. For example, Malachi 3:8-12 was spoken to a Jewish audience. Malachi surely did not have us in mind. If divine meaning is identical with human meaning, then does the text have any meaning for us? The meaning/significance can be applied here, but it does not seem to be adequate for several reasons. For example, we might say that the text has implications for our day that Malachi himself was (obviously) unaware of. But God would not have been unaware of them. And if not, cannot we say that he intended them? And if so, doesn’t God’s intention in the text (meaning) go beyond Malachi’s at least in some sense?
We cannot simply equate the divine meaning with the human meaning. We need to keep in mind that the “interpretation of a piece of writing interprets the words in the light of what is known of the author and his situation.” For example, if my wife says to me “I love you,” it means something different than when a co-worker says “I love you”—even though the same words are used. The nature of the speaker affects the meaning of what is said. Consequently, “If the same words happen to be said by two authors, there are two separate interpretations”(255). And so, in Scripture, there are sometimes “two levels” of meaning. If we completely equate the meaning of Scripture with what the human author intended, we are “dangerously akin to the neo-orthodox view that when God speaks, his attributes of majesty are somehow wholly hidden under human words”(255). In addition, Poythress points out that Deuteronomy 5:22-23, which describes God’s communication through Moses and thus illuminates all of God’s communication through human beings (since later Scripture builds on Moses), shows that in God’s speech “the human instrument is taken up into the divine message, rather than the divine message being ‘trimmed down’ to suit the human instrument”(256).
None of this means that the divine and human authors can mean contradictory things. Rather, “each [author] points to the other and affirms the presence and operation of the other”(258). The divine meaning goes beyond the human, but not against it. And neither does it go against the context. It does, however, take into account a broader context than the human author—namely, later revelation. This is the control. God’s “later revelation” fills out and expands the meaning of his previous revelation by bringing to light relationships between the original text and the reality it discussed that would not otherwise have been plain. This does not mean that the understanding the original readers had of the OT was incorrect; it just means that it was incomplete. It is “quite like the difference between reading one chapter of a book and reading the whole of the book. After taking into account the whole book, we understand the one chapter as well as the whole book more deeply. But it does not mean that our understanding of the one chapter by itself was incorrect” (269). Similarly, a child’s understanding of the phrase “Jesus Loves Me” will deepen as he learns more about Jesus. This does not mean that his earliest understanding was incorrect, but it does mean that it was not all there was to the statement’s meaning.
This analogy helps illustrate how God indeed is “saying more” to us (and the apostles) now than He said to the Old Testament readers. “The ‘more’ arises from the stage of fuller revelation, and consequent fuller illumination of the Holy Spirit, in which we live. All this is true without any need to postulate an extra, ‘mystical’ sense. That is, we do not postulate an extra meaning which requires some esoteric hermeneutical method to uncover. Rather, our understanding is analogous to the way that a son’s understanding of ‘Jesus Loves Me’ arises and grows. At the end of a long period of reading and digesting a rich communication, we see each particular part of the communication through the eyes of knowledge that have been enlightened by the whole. Through that enlightenment, each part of the whole is enriched” (275).
This approach helps resolve the problem of the New Testament authors apparently using the Old Testament contrary to its original context. It shows that, in many instances, the reason it looks like they are violating the Old Testament context is because they are understanding and explaining it not in light of the “initial meaning” that is apparent if we limit ourselves to that text alone, but rather they are understanding and explaining it in light of the “fuller meaning” that God has brought to light upon it through the relationship it has to further things that he has said. As Poythress writes, “Both they and their readers typically presuppose the context of later revelation. Hence, what they say using an Old Testament passage may not always be based on the Old Testament text alone, but on relations that he text has with this greater context.” To keep this summary brief, I have of necessity left out many of the specifics of the discussion (such as his use of Psalm 22 to illustrate his points and his insightful comments on the connotative, referential, and expressive aspects of language). This summary, however, preserves the article’s significance in that it digests its main point and most helpful arguments for that point.
Notes
Poythress, Vern S. “The Divine Meaning of Scripture.” Westminster Theological Journal 48 (Fall 1996): 241-279.