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". . . . . we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy
Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (I Cor. 2: 13).
The spiritual things we are to compare are the words of the Holy Scriptures, the words
of God the Holy Spirit. We can only do this effectively by using a good concordance like
Young's Analytical Concordance. This enables us to dig into the treasury of God's Word
with all its riches. If we have difficulty in understanding a Biblical word, we should open
the concordance and note its occurrences, or the way God has used it and, more often
than not, the problem will be solved in another passage. Any interpretation that is forced
to go entirely outside the Bible should be suspect. If we keep within the covers of God's
Book and let Scripture interpret Scripture we are safe. This does not mean that we shall
never use Bible dictionaries or commentaries, or read books of exposition, but these must
never be exalted in importance to the Scriptures themselves.
The Principle of Grammatical Interpretation.
Words are the bricks, as it were, of thought, and a sentence is a unit of thought. The
many shades of thought can only be expressed in sentences. Grammar states the
principles that arrange the formation of words into sentences that clearly express
meaning. Some of us may look back to our school days with distaste when we think of
lessons in grammar, but these need not be dry and uninteresting. It all depends on the
way the subject is taught. God has conveyed His truth in words and sentences, and the
more we know of these and their construction, the better we shall understand the truth
they seek to reveal. Nothing should be extracted from Scripture as interpretation but
what is yielded by its grammatical sense. This can scarcely be overstressed. When this is
not observed, fallible human thought is bound to creep in. There is great value in paying
attention to grammatical details. When dealing with a word of action or being, which is
called a verb, it is obviously important to notice its time value, whether past, present or
future. If we do not do this we shall confuse past truth, present truth and future truth.
There are little words called prepositions which are used hundreds of times a day in
conversation and writing, e.g., by, through, in, towards, up, down, and so on. These have
a theology all their own; for instance the word "believe" either as a verb or a noun occurs
many times in the New Testament chiefly in the Gospel of John. It can be used with
what the grammarians call the dative case after it, when it means to acknowledge
mentally a fact, such as two plus two equals four. But very often the Greek reads literally
"to believe into a person". The Lord Jesus said: "He that believeth in Me hath
everlasting life", but the original reads: ". . . . . he that believeth into Me . . . . .". The
preposition "into" conveys the thought of close association with Christ and to believe into
Him means to completely commit oneself to Him and to rely absolutely on Him for
everything, a very personal and intimate relationship, and a very different thing from
believing as a fact that Jesus Christ was an historic personage. One can believe the latter
without any spiritual benefit whatsoever. The little word "into" makes all the difference.
Many claim to be believers who have never really believed "into" Christ and this is the
only belief or faith that the New Testament recognizes, and it is the only faith that saves.