PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION

By Dr. George B. Fletcher (1900-1994)

  

In the study of Scriptural prophecy there are certain sound principles of exegesis that should guide us in the search for Truth.

Christ, the God-man

Eliphaz to Job: "Call out now; Is there anyone who will answer you? And to which of the holy ones will you turn?" (Job 5:1)
   
Job's response: "how can a man be righteous before God? If one wished to contend with Him, He could not answer Him one time out of a thousand." (9:1)... "For He is not a man, as I am, That I may answer Him, And that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his hand on us both." (v 32-33)
  
Job gets right to the heart problem very succinctly. Man cannot be reconciled to God; nor God to man without an appropriate mediator. Man cannot do this. Man cannot contend, or argue with God. Nor can man act as a mediator.
 
But, there is One who is a Mediator between both - "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5)
  
To answer Job's question: "how can a man be righteous before God?" Justification requires the work of the God-man, Jesus.
   
Only Christ is both God and Man - and able to "lay His hand on both."
   
We cannot answer God; another man cannot be the arbiter between He & us; it required Christ the God-man.

There is only one Mediator the text says. There is no other.
  
  

The Free Offer of the Gospel

     
THE FREE OFFER OF THE GOSPEL
  
By John Murray and Ned B. Stonehouse

  
Introduction
  
It would appear that the real point in dispute in connection with the free offer of the gospel is whether it can properly be said that God desires the salvation of all men. The Committee elected by the Twelfth General Assembly in its report to the Thirteenth General Assembly said “God not only delights in the penitent but is also moved by the riches of his goodness and mercy to desire the repentance and salvation of the impenitent and reprobate” (Minutes, p. 67). It should have been apparent that the aforesaid Committee, in predicating such “desire” of God, was not dealing with the decretive will of God; it was dealing with the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction and that surely respects, not the decretive or secret will of God, but the revealed will. There is no ground for the supposition that the expression was intended to refer to God’s decretive will.