Chapter 6 - Intentional Deception
Introducing the World’s Chief Misinformation Officer
Through the years, people have either misinterpreted, misunderstood or ignored the Word of God. Okay let’s be honest, this has been a problem since God created man and now due to technology, anyone with an opinion can make a wide-reaching stand regarding their interpretation of the Bible, while each one claims to be telling the truth. So why do we have so many viewpoints and potential interpretations of the Word? That’s easy, because we all have an enemy, the devil, Satan himself, who strongly desires to mislead us. I like to call him the world’s chief misinformation officer, the CMO. Jesus called him a liar and the father of lies (see John 8:44).
It is interesting to note that most of the letters written to the churches in the New Testament contain some form of theological correction or admonition for failing to remain faithful to the truth (including five of the seven letters in Revelation chapters two and three). How could the corruption of God’s Word occur so quickly? It did not take long for false teaching to penetrate the church body. In the epistle that bears his name, Jude wrote a very profound statement, “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:4, ESV) Jude is saying that false teachers have already crept into churches unnoticed! If the CMO was able to permeate the church so early, can you imagine the level of deception and corruption as well as the acceptance of that perversion that exists today?
One huge lie that the CMO tells Christians, especially new Christians, is that God’s Word can be understood from the world’s perspective. That we, the created, can fully understand the Creator. What? Yes, it’s true, it happens every day, believers bring God down to their level and justify changing the meaning of a Bible passage or modify a verse to fit current human thinking. Reasons for this way of thinking are widespread, the most prevalent reason seems to be when a reader doesn’t believe God can do something as it was written, they assume it must mean something else. This is a slippery slope, once on that slope, it’s hard to get off, you just keep sliding further away from the truth.
The solution? A variation of the literal principle. This may sound really basic to some while it will be completely rejected by others, namely, God said what He meant and meant what He said (or in our case, wrote). This is often referred to as the Direct Statement Principle. Why should man need to modify God’s Word? Think of it this way, since God is the author, why would He need to employ a literary device that requires a less-than-straightforward interpretation? Could He not say what He needs to say directly?
Perhaps the most effective tool false teachers use against the truth of Scripture is allegory. This is where the reader claims certain words to be metaphors instead of the actual definition of the word. As pointed out above (see Literary Devices), allegory is often used in the Bible, however, the problem begins when plain text, that does not contain a comparative term or modifier, is interpreted to mean something completely different.
In my opinion, there is nothing more fanciful than interpreting literature allegorically. If we take words and believe they mean something else (be it arbitrary or logically inferred), we run the risk of changing the intended meaning. Any sentence can then mean almost anything we want! In a sense, that is what children do when they play, through their imagination, objects are transformed into nearly anything in our galaxy and perhaps beyond. The Word of God should not be treated as some form of “Transmogrifier,”[1] a device that changes anything to anything you want.
But what about prophecy? Isn’t that allegorical? To answer that question, we need to ask another question. Why do some seek allegory when interpreting some passages? I hate to say it so bluntly, but allegorizing is often an attempt to bring God down to our own level of understanding. So, let me ask a question, how can the infinite fit into a finite brain? Okay, that’s an unfair question since prophecy is from God, for us to understand, but the answer remains true, it cannot. We are not “wired” to fully understand God, so there are times when we simply need to understand that we need to trust Him. If we are to understand prophecy, and I do believe we are, we also need to understand He will provide the guidance and intelligence to do that. What has He given us to do that? That’s right, the Bible, His Word, the answers must be in the Bible! After all the literature that has been written about the Bible, the Bible remains the best commentary of the Bible. Prophecy should not be interpreted allegorically.
The concept of “replacement theology” is known by many names and has many variations. The definition for this review is one that teaches that the church (the body of Christ, all believers) has replaced Israel in God’s plan and His covenants. Those that adhere to this concept of replacement theology believe that the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, that they forfeited that privilege when they rejected the Messiah. Resulting in the ‘church’ being the “new Israel," and therefore, God no longer has any future plans for the nation of Israel. It appears that this theological deception may have originated with several early Christian theologians including Origen and Augustine, who promoted the idea that many of the Biblical prophecies and other portions of Scripture should be allegorized (interpreted symbolically) or spiritualized (interpreted to occur in the spiritual realm only), instead of being interpreted as they were written, to be interpreted literally.
In summary, replacement theology teaches that the ‘church’ (as a whole) replaces Israel, and that the many promises and covenants made to Israel in the Bible are fulfilled in the church, not in Israel. Therefore, the prophecies concerning the blessing and restoration of Israel to the Promised Land are ‘spiritualized’ or ‘allegorized’ into promises of God's blessing for the church (see “Unfulfilled Prophecy” in the section on Eschatology below).
⇐Previous Chapter (Introduction/Table of Contents) Next Chapter⇒
[1] An invention of Calvin, of the “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip fame. The “Transmogrifier” was first introduced in Bill Watterson’s strip in March 23, 1987. It was just a cardboard box that through the imagination of Calvin, capable of great transformations.