Introduction

In the realm of Christian biblical hermeneutics, many Christians approach the Old Testament explicitly through the lens of the New Testament. They hold to and practice New Testament priority in interpretation. Others however object to this and argue that neither testament holds interpretive priority over the other. I hold to the former position and wish, in this post, to address some of the concerns that arise in reaction to the NT priority view.

To be more specific, the view I am defending is the Reformed view¹ of the relation of the Old & New Testaments. It holds to NT interpretive priority by which is meant that the NT is God’s authoritative commentary on and development of the OT. This view differs from the standard Dispensational view which self-consciously forbids reading the OT from the viewpoint of the NT² but believes the OT must be seen as self-contained and authoritative for its own interpretation. Vlach articulates this view: “Dispensationalism asserts ‘passage priority.’ This means that the meaning of any Bible passage is found in that passage…. [L]ater revelation does not reinterpret or change the meaning of earlier revelation.”³ The word “reinterpret” is often used by the Reformed of their position and the word and position are just as often criticized as requiring a change in the meaning of the OT. For Vlach and other Dispensationalists, the NT priority view is seen as violating the integrity and clarity of the OT such that, for those to whom it was first given, clarity and integrity are negated. Which is to say, the Dispensationalist believes the OT saints would have been unable to understand the meaning of their Scriptures if the Reformed view is correct. The purpose of this post, then, is to answer the question “Given the Reformed view, how did/would Abraham and other OT saints have understood the promises of the Abrahamic covenant?” I intend to answer it by examining statements made by them as recorded in the OT and other relevant OT data with minimal NT references.

Response

The Reformed hermeneutic neither states, requires, nor implies that the OT was incomprehensible to OT saints. This is a basic misunderstanding of the position. Overly simply stated, NT priority means that, of all the potentially valid interpretations of the OT, the NT tells us authoritatively which is correct. The word “reinterpet” does not mean that the meaning of the OT changes; it explicitly has to do with human interpretation/understanding of the unchanged meaning (to interpret again).⁴ OT saints would have understood the Scriptures available to them in basically the same way we do today–by faith through the illumination of the Spirit they would have grasped the structure of what was revealed and many/most, but not all (just like today), of the specifics. Most of the OT covenant community were not saints, did not have the Spirit’s illumination, and so misinterpreted the promises (thus they were one source of need for reinterpretation).

Consider the following statement by a Dispensational scholar regarding the meaning of the Abrahamic promises:

[The Reformed] of necessity imply that OT saints could not have known what their Bibles meant until the NT Scripture writers came along to explain them. Genesis 15 is my go-to here. Abraham plainly believed in a physical/ethnic/biological SEED who would someday fill a carefully defined block of LAND. He knew it couldn’t be Eliezer. He clearly didn’t have Jesus in view. And he’s just too specific about the land to be thinking the new earth. And it would seem that Moses thought the same thing.⁵

As he says, Abraham did clearly understand that God’s promises required a physical seed. But this is not in conflict with the Reformed understanding–Jesus had to be a physical descendant of Abraham (and Eve, Judah, David, etc), thus, Eliezer couldn’t be his heir. Ishmael was Abraham’s physical son, and so, according to the terms of the covenant as given in Gen 12 & 15, he should have been the heir. If the Dispensational reading of chapters 12 & 15 is correct, it is difficult to see how God was not unjust to reject him since the covenant made a blanket promise to Abraham’s offspring–”To your descendants I have given this land”–of which Ishmael was one (cf Gen 25:9, 12). But God justly rejected Ishmael since the authorial intent never was to include those born merely according to the flesh; Isaac was born by a miracle (Gen 18:11, cf Gal 4:23). Rather interestingly, God nevertheless did honor some promises of the covenant with Ishmael–he became a numerous people (Gen 16:10, 17:20, 21:13) of twelve(!) tribes/princes. And though it is not explicit, it seems he was also granted a land (Gen 16:12, 25:18). But it was through Isaac that Abraham’s promised seed would come.

The OT indicates, however, that Isaac himself was not, strictly speaking, the seed promised in the covenant; God renewed the same covenant with him, including the seed promise (Gen 26:3-5). If the covenant had intended Isaac when it spoke of a promised seed, then Isaac was already in/under the covenant when God promised to “establish the oath” with him. Then God again renewed it with Jacob (Gen 28:13-15, 35:9-12). (Note especially that in all three passages, the Hebrew word for seed/offspring/descendant is singular. cf Gal 3:16) The seed promise was through Isaac & Jacob, but they were only typologically the offspring promised in the covenant. This interpretation is confirmed by the NT where, among other places, Paul contrasts the physical offspring of Abraham through Isaac & Jacob (ethnic Israel) with the spiritual offspring (all who have Abraham’s faith) and tells us that the spiritual offspring are the children of promise (Gal 4:22-31).

It is further true that the covenant promised land & multiplicity to the physical descendants of Abraham. That is clear and is also accepted by Reformed theology. But it is equally clear that the promise to them was conditioned by their obedience (Gen 17:10-14) and that this promise has been fulfilled. Joshua very carefully tells us that all the promises that Israel could rightfully claim in the Abrahamic Covenant were fulfilled to them (Josh 11:23; 21:43-45; 23:1, 14; cf 1:2-6). Note Joshua’s particular emphasis that all Israel knew “in all [their] hearts and in all [their] souls” that God had fulfilled his promises to them (23:14); this is what God’s people living under the OT understood. And this understanding is confirmed throughout the rest of the OT:

• Deut 10:22 recounts Moses proclaiming that Israel had been made “as numerous as the stars of heaven”
• Deut 19:7-9 informs us that the establishment of 6 cities of refuge (instead of merely 3) was contingent on God giving Israel all the land, and we read that 6 cities were established – Josh 20:7-9; Num 35:6, 12-15
• 2 Sam 8:3 records David ruling all the way to the Euphrates, the northern border of what God promised Abraham
• 1 Kings 4:20 informs us that, under Solomon, Israel was “as numerous as the sand on the seashore in abundance”
• 1 Kings 4:21 & 2 Chron 9:26 record Solomon ruling over the entirety of the land promised
• 1 Kings 8:56 again records that God had fulfilled all his promises to Israel (though here qualified as the promises given through Moses, those promises are explicitly the same ones given through Abraham – cf Ex 6:8, 23:31, 33:1)
• Psalm 105:11, 42-44 confirms the land promise was fulfilled at the time of the conquest
• Jer 11:5 indicates Israel still possessed the land just before the Babylonian captivity
• Jer 32:21-23a plainly states God gave Israel the land in fulfillment of his covenant and they possessed it
• Neh 9:7-8, 24-25 recounts Abraham’s & Israel’s story and explicitly states that God has already fulfilled the promise of the land

The OT Israelite saints clearly would have understood that the covenant land promises made to Abraham’s physical descendants were fulfilled.

But what did Abraham specifically understand? The Dispensational scholar above argued that “he’s just too specific about the land to be thinking the new earth”^[5] but I honestly don’t know to what he is referring; I am unable to find any explicit statements made by Abraham about the land. We do however have a clue (re-interpretation) in the NT; Heb 11:13-16 tells us that “those who [confess that they are strangers and exiles on the earth] make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own…. that is, a heavenly one.” Heb 11 includes Abraham in this but we also have recorded Abraham’s statement, made while he lived in Canaan, that he was a stranger and foreigner (Gen 23:2-4). Thus, Abraham did understand that he was ultimately looking for a heavenly country. And several other OT saints confessed similarly:

• Gen 47:9 Jacob when speaking with Pharaoh (the NASB2020 obscures it but Jacob uses the same language here; see e.g. the ESV or NASB1995)
• Ex 2:22 & 18:3 Moses made the same confession in naming his son
• 1 Chron 29:15 Perhaps most shockingly, David while king of all Israel declared himself and all Israel to be strangers/sojourners in the land (see also Ps 39:12 & 119:19)
• Lev 25:23 And God himself tells Israel they will be “only strangers and residents with me” while they are in the land

Further, there is also discernible in the OT an expectation that the king of Israel would rule over the entire earth; quite explicitly we find it in Solomon (Ps 72:8) and the prophets (Zech 9:10, Mic 5:4) but there are other likely statements to this effect made by Hannah ( 1 Sam 2:10), David (Ps 2:7-9, 59:13), Isaiah (Isa 54:2–3), and Daniel (Dan 2:34-35, 44-45).

Conclusion

None of the above should be surprising since the Abrahamic promises were rooted in the expectations and promise found in Gen 1-3; Adam was charged with multiplying his descendants and spreading God’s kingdom to the whole earth and, when he failed, was given the promise of a coming seed who would accomplish what he failed. These expectations were then picked up and further developed in later revelation, very prominently by the Abrahamic Covenant. Thus, on the basis of the OT itself, God’s people always understood that the promise of land to Abraham and his seed did not terminate in a small region of the Near East but ultimately pointed to the whole earth.

The Reformed view does not fundamentally alter the view of Abraham (or Moses, Jacob, or David for that matter). Rather, it accords perfectly with theirs, though our understanding is more explicit, clear, and full than theirs since we have the NT. When we apply the above, we find that the Reformed reading of Paul, who told us in Gal 3:16 that the Abrahamic promises were made to a singular seed, is actually more faithful to the original intent of the OT author than the Dispensationalist reading; Paul did intend the whole of the Abrahamic promises, not just the spiritual promises as Dispensationalists allege.

Finally, it does seem to me that the Reformed have a strong tendency to jump straight to the NT without first engaging and interpreting the OT and this has lead (somewhat understandably) to objections that they are making the NT override the OT. Those objections, while not valid, are also not baseless. But when we wrestle with the OT, I believe we find it accords very closely with the Reformed model (or rather the Reformed model accords very closely with it).

Footnotes

1. Though I speak in terms of a singular Reformed hermeneutical view, there are many variants within Reformed theology that differ from each other in some regard. Without wishing to discount those differences, I defend here what I see as roughly the historical view held by the 15th & 16th Reformers and shared by the 17th century Particular Baptists (and arguably seen as far back as the early Church). This view seems to still be essentially representative of most within the Reformed world. ↩︎
2. Dispensationalism fails to actually uphold this in practice, as can be seen in its readiness to accept the NT’s division of the Messianic promises between a 1st and 2nd coming of the Christ. I hope to make this the subject of a future blog post or posts. ↩︎
3. Michael J. Vlach, Dispensational Hermeneutics: Interpretation Principles That Guide Dispensationalism’s Understanding of the Bible’s Storyline (Theological Studies Press, 2023). ↩︎
4. There are likely those who, by “reinterpret” and “NT priority,” do mean a change of original meaning but that stance is not required nor, I believe, normative. ↩︎
5. This quotation comes from a private email exchange. ↩︎