Dr. Leonard Greenway, pastor of the Riverside Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is in charge of Our Question Box beginning in this issue. This department is for everyone. Questions from all ages are welcome, No signatures are required and no names will be published.
From a reader in New York I received the following:
In our Bible group discussion our pastor said that we can take the account of Genesis (before the fall) either figuratively or literally. Either way, says he, is in harmony with the teachings of Scripture. I cannot agree with his statement. My question is, Can we take the account of Genesis (in the garden of Eden before the fall) figuratively?
Answer: The sense of Holy Scripture is determined by the words. Every word matters because Divine inspiration extends to the words and secures the selection of appropriate ones. A word occurring in different passages of the Bible may have a literal meaning in one passage and a figurative meaning in another. When Jesus said that the foxes have holes (Matt. 8:20), he was speaking of animals, but when he spoke of Herod as “that fox” (Luke 13:32), he used the word figuratively and meant that Herod was like a fox. The literal sense of a word must be accepted, unless there is necessity, as obviously there is in Luke 13:32, for understanding it otherwise.
For over a thousand years, before the Protestant Reformation, the allegOrical method of interpretation prevailed in the Church. 1t was commonly believed that any text in the Bible could properly be interpreted in different ways. The use of allegory was widespread. For example, if the literal meaning of a text provoked dissension, the allegorical method was to be used. The Protestant Reformers promptly changed this practice and established as a basic rule of interpretation that every unit of the sacred text has only one definite meaning in a given context or given connection.
It appears to me that the pastor mentioned above is suggesting the impossible. You cannot have it two ways at the same time. Unless there is necessity for the figurative sense –I do not see it, and apparently the New Testament does not endorse it (cf. II Cor. 11:3; I Tim. 2:13, 14)—the given text must be taken literally. To suggest “either way” is in effect to have it no way.