See article one here and article two here.

Critique #2- Dispensationalism’s Inconsistency on Sensus Plenior and New Testament Interpretive Priority 

A survey of the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament reveals at least two essential distinctives about the hermeneutic of Scripture. First, it can be observed from the New Testament that there are several occasions in which the human authors of antecedent (Old Testament) revelation did not fully comprehend the scope of what they were communicating on behalf of the divine author of Scripture (Dan. 12:8-9; 1 Pet. 1:10-12). In these cases, the human authorial intent was not the intended meaning of the Biblical passage when viewed from God’s eternal (omniscient) perspective and from the vantage point of the completed canon of Scripture. While it is appropriate to recognize how the human author and original audience would have best understood such passages, the interpreter of Scripture should further emphasize the deeper meaning embedded within the passage in light of the fullness of God’s special revelation. In his treatise, Canon, Covenant and Christology: Rethinking Jesus and the Scriptures of Israel, Matthew Barrett provides enlightening clarification on the concept of a Biblical passage’s deeper meaning (sensus plenior). 

Sensus plenior is not to advocate (as some fear) for a secret knowledge or some mystical extra meaning that is uprooted from the text itself or from history. As God breathes out His words in and through the human author(s), His divine authorial intent is not circumscribed to what the human author understands in his immediate [redemptive-       historical] context. God, as the divine author, can convey a fuller meaning that will become clearer as His progressive revelation builds and is in His timing fulfilled in redemptive history. We may therefore legitimately speak of a ‘fuller meaning’ than any one text provides.[1] 

The reality of sensus plenior undergirding the New Testament’s use and development of the Old Testament highlights a second critical distinctive of the Bible’s intrinsic hermeneutic. Namely, because the New Testament expands, develops and clarifies much of what God was pleased to reveal to His people throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament must take interpretive priority to the Old Testament.[2] Contrary to Dispensational critics, this hermeneutical principle does not undermine the perspicuity of the Old Testament.[3] In fact, Jesus and the writers of the New Testament often held their contemporaries accountable for rightly interpreting and applying the Old Testament as it stood in itself (Matt. 12:1-16). Furthermore, the New Testament does not somehow “reinterpret” the Old Testament, nor does it strive to fix alleged contradictions or errors within the Old Testament.[4] Instead, the New Testament is to function as the lens through which older portions of special revelation can be most comprehensively understood 1) in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ and 2) in light of the finalized canon.[5] G.K. Beale elaborates on these salient hermeneutical principles in his work, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.

Old Testament passages contain thick descriptive meanings that are unravelled layer after layer by subsequent stages of canonical revelation. This means that Old Testament passages can be understood more deeply in light of the developing revelation of later parts of the Old Testament and especially of the New Testament. The Old Testament authors had a true understanding of what they wrote but not an exhaustive understanding. This means that a New Testament text’s contextual understanding of an Old Testament text will involve some essential identity of meaning between the two, but often the meaning is expanded and unfolded, growing out of the earlier meaning.[6] 

Future articles of this series will provide exegetical and theological interaction with some of the most prominent passages in Scripture that portray sensus plenior and the necessity of interpreting the Old Testament in light of the New Testament.[7] Specifically, those forthcoming articles will provide discussion on how Dispensationalism’s literalistic understanding of Israel’s future Golden Age—featuring a rebuilt temple and a Jewish centered, 1000 year earthly reign of Jesus Christ—stems from an inconsistent approach to interpreting Old Testament revelation in light of the New Testament. In the meantime, it is crucial to comment on how Dispensationalists understand the concept of sensus plenior and the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Regarding sensus plenior, Dispensationalists are remarkably inconsistent in acknowledging whether such a concept can be observed within the Bible. For the benefit of the reader, four examples of this antecedently referenced inconsistency have been provided within the scholarship of Dispensationalism, from both the Modified and Progressive versions thereof.[8] Two of these Dispensationalists affirm that sensus plenior is an observable feature within the Biblical record (to some extent), whereas the other two do not whatsoever.

Dispensationalists Who Affirm Sensus Plenior (To Some Extent)

Robert Thomas (Modified Dispensationalist)-

In the second type of New Testament citations of the Old Testament, we have inspired sensus plenior applications of the Old Testament [passages]. In such uses, [the]   New Testament writers took words from the Old Testament and applied them to situations entirely different from what was [originally] envisioned in corresponding Old Testament contexts. They disregarded the main thrust of the [literal-grammatical-historical] meanings of the Old Testament passages and applied those passages in different ways to suit the different points they were putting across. They usually maintained some connecting linkage in thought with the Old Testament passages, but the literal Old Testament meanings are absent from the New Testament usages in this kind of citation (emphasis mine). A number of passages in which differences in meaning of Old Testament and corresponding New Testament usages illustrate this ISPA (inspired sensus plenior application) usage.[9]

Darrell Bock (Progressive Dispensationalist)- 

A distinction between divine intention and the intent of the human author is to be made [by the Biblical interpreter]; but both intentions are related in their basic meaning and that relationship can be articulated. Meaning involves the sense of a passage and not primarily the referents of a passage; but the language of an Old Testament passage and its New Testament fulfillment can be related in terms of referents in one of several ways. The progress of revelation affects the detailed understanding of Old Testament passages in specifying details about the completion of the promise and the completion of salvific patterns in God’s revelation. But one should always be aware of (a) what was originally     understood by the human author at the time of the original revelation and (b) what God disclosed about the details of that revelation through later revelation or through events in Jesus’ life. New Testament alterations of Old Testament texts were neither arbitrary changes to create fulfillment in the New Testament nor reflections of later church theology placed back anachronistically into the lips of Jesus or the early church; rather they reflect accurate biblical theological considerations of the New Testament authors on the original Old Testament text.[10]

Dispensationalists Who Reject Sensus Plenior Altogether

Charles Feinberg (Modified Dispensationalist)- 

A proper hermeneutic must take each Testament on its own, refusing to make the New Testament normative for understanding the Old Testament (emphasis mine). This approach recognizes progressive revelation, the provisional nature of the Old Testament, and Old Testament typology, but argues that these are not determinative of New Testament priority in interpreting the Old Testament (emphasis mine). Both type and antitype must have their own meaning even while bearing a typological relation to the other, understanding the implications of New Testament reinterpretation of the Old Testament, and realizing that progress of revelation only renders earlier truth inoperative if God leads one to see that the meaning of both Old Testament and New Testament passages must [not] be maintained.[11] 

Michael Vlach (Progressive Dispensationalist)- 

Dispensationalism affirms that all details of the Old Testament prophecies, promises, and covenants must be fulfilled in the way the original inspired Bible authors intended. There are no non-literal or spiritual fulfillments of physical and national promises in the Bible. Nor does the New Testament reinterpret, transcend, transform, or spiritualize promises and prophecies in the Old Testament. With Dispensationalism, what you see is what you get in the Bible. There is no underlying typological trajectory or canonical progression that erases or transcends the Bible’s storyline or the significance of the details of the covenants and promises in the Bible. [Literal- Grammatical- Historical] hermeneutics will discover types in the Bible, but the concept of typological interpretation that overrides the plain meaning of Bible texts is not accepted in Dispensationalism… Dispensationalists hold to ‘passage priority’ in which the primary meaning of a passage is found in the passage at hand and not in other passages. Dispensationalists do not believe in the priority of one testament over the other (although the New is more complete), they just ask that the integrity of each passage in each testament be honored without overriding its meaning with other passages. The New Testament will offer newer revelation but it will not contradict or override the meaning of previous passages in the Old Testament. Dispensationalists, therefore, believe all Scripture harmonizes with other Scripture, but no Bible passage transforms, transcends, or reinterprets any other Scripture passage.[12]

As can be observed from each of these four quotations, the concept of sensus plenior is a polarizing subject amongst some of the most reputable Dispensationalists of the past century. Why is this significant? First and foremost, for the Dispensationalists who reject sensus plenior, they have an insurmountable array of Biblical evidence to deal with as a challenge to their denial of the “deeper sense” of Scripture. In the same paper from which Thomas’s quotation above was from, he lists over 30 explicit citations of the Old Testament being used in the New Testament in such a manner that would have been utterly foreign to the Old Testament authors/audience.[13] Thomas’s list in The Master’s Seminary Journal does not even include the myriads of other implicit allusions or echoes of Old Testament passages in the New Testament that could be deduced from good and necessary (interpretive) consequences.[14] This observation is significant because it demonstrates that there are Dispensationalists who concede that sensus plenior is a Biblically derived concept, not a subjective or artificial construct imposed onto the Word of God. 

The pushback on this issue from Dispensationalists like Robert Thomas would be that only the Biblical authors had the license to apply sensus plenior to the Old Testament by virtue of being inspired by the Holy Spirit.[15] In other words, “non-inspired” Christians do not have the grounds to mimic the hermeneutic of the Biblical authors when it comes to ascertaining sensus plenior with respect to the Old Testament’s relationship to the New Testament.[16] The flaw associated with this particular assertion is that it necessarily advocates for a dictation view of Biblical inspiration, instead of a verbal plenary view of inspiration.[17] The argument that only “inspired Christians” can observe sensus plenior in the Bible undermines the organic relationship between the freedom of the human authors to employ their unique styles of writing the Scriptures and God’s superintendence of their penmanship to transcribe exactly what He desired to be communicated in Holy Writ.[18] If one reserves sensus plenior entirely for “inspired Christians,” they effectively run the risk of championing a Roman Catholic-esque theory of Biblical inspiration.[19]

With all of this being said, regardless of whether or not a Dispensationalist affirms sensus plenior in any respect, all Dispensationalists reject a New Testament interpretive priority.[20] As will be discussed in future articles within this series, much of the Dispensationalist’s motivation for refusing to espouse a New Testament interpretive priority flows out of eschatological pre-commitments.[21] For this article, it is sufficient to point out that no Christian can reject a New Testament interpretive priority altogether. There are too many clear instances in which Biblical doctrine can only be known definitively in light of having the New Testament to build off of what was revealed in the Old Testament. 

For example, despite the prevalence of faint echoes in the Old Testament, the doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine that requires a New Testament interpretive priority (1 Cor. 8:6). Because God does not change from eternity past to eternity future, He was just as triune in the Old Testament as He is in the New Testament (Mal. 3:6). Nevertheless, in accordance with God’s infinite wisdom and redemptive-historical purposes, it pleased Him to not disclose the fullness of His triunity until the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:16-17). The formulation of the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity should be, in and of itself, satisfactory grounds for substantiating all Christians’ dependence upon a New Testament interpretive priority. However, to offer supplemental commentary on a New Testament interpretive priority of Scripture, the reader would do well to meditate on the following perspective depicted by Tom Hicks in his article, Hermeneutics: New Testament Priority. 

One important aspect of biblical hermeneutics (the theory of biblical interpretation) is the principle of ‘New Testament priority.’ At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) expressed New Testament priority with the phrase, ‘The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.’ Augustine meant that the Old Testament contains shadowy types and figures that are only clearly revealed in the New Testament. In other words, the New Testament explains the Old Testament… The interpretive principle of New Testament priority is derived from an examination of the Scriptures themselves. As we read the Bible, we notice that earlier texts never explicitly interpret later texts. Earlier texts provide the interpretive context for later texts, but earlier texts never cite later texts and explain them directly. Rather, what we find is that later texts make explicit reference to earlier texts and provide explanations of them. Moreover, the later portion of any book always makes clear the earlier portion. When you just begin to read a novel, for example, you’re still learning the characters, the setting, the context, etc., but later on, as the story progresses, things that happened earlier in the book make more sense and take on new meaning. Mysteries are resolved. Earlier conversations between characters gain new significance as the novel unfolds. Later parts of the story have primary explanatory power over the earlier parts. The hermeneutical principle of New Testament priority simply recognizes these facts. Following the Bible’s own   example, interpreters should allow later revelation in the Bible to explain earlier revelation, rather than insisting on their own uninspired interpretations of earlier revelation without reference to the authoritative explanations of later revelation… The Old Testament teaches that its own prophecies can be hard to understand because they are given in riddles (Num. 12:6-8). The New Testament too acknowledges that the Old Testament is not always clear. It tells us of ‘mysteries’ in the Old Testament yet to be revealed (Col. 1:26). The meaning of the Old Testament’ shadows’ (Heb. 10:1) and ‘types’ (Gal. 4:24) only become clear after Christ comes, [in light of His finished work declared in the New Testament].[22]

In summation, the utilization of a New Testament interpretive priority and the recognition of sensus plenior in Scripture function as two sides of the same coin; each of these hermeneutical distinctives presuppose the validity of the other. As was previously stated, the very existence of a “deeper meaning” of Scripture fundamentally requires the New Testament to further develop and shed insight as to how Old Testament revelation ought to be most fully understood.[23] As such, it is more consistent—logically speaking—to reject sensus plenior if one is going to be adamantly opposed to allowing the Old Testament to be interpreted in light of the New Testament. Of course, this issue takes the Dispensationalist back full circle to having to deal with over 30 explicit instances of sensus plenior in the New Testament’s usage of the Old Testament.[24] It is truly a wonder to contemplate how Dispensationalists can reconcile either of these conundrums in light of their approach to understanding God’s Word: rejecting a New Testament interpretive priority in light of the clear usage of sensus plenior, and/or rejecting sensus plenior when it’s so clearly evident in Scripture that some Dispensationalists are unwilling to explain away its existence therein. May both of these hermeneutical discrepancies facilitate heightened awareness amongst Dispensationalists and non-Dispensationalists alike so that the body of Christ can make continual progress towards accurately interpreting God’s Word (1 Cor. 2:12-13). 

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[1]           Matthew Barrett, Canon, Covenant and Christology: Rethinking Jesus and the Scriptures of Israel (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2020), Page 27.

[2]           https://www.reformation21.org/blogs/read-like-an-apostle.php.

[3]           https://www.reformation21.org/blogs/knowing-scripture-with-scriptu.php.

[4]           https://wyattgraham.com/does-the-new-testament-reinterpret-the-old-testament/.

[5]           Samuel D. Renihan, The Mystery of Christ: His Covenant and His Kingdom (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2019), Pages 30-31.

[6]           G.K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), Page 27.

[7]           See Articles 5, 7 and 8 (Forthcoming).

[8]           https://covenantconfessions.com/dismantling-dispensationalism-examining-the-historical-origins-of-dispensationalism/.

[9]           https://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj13d.pdf.

[10]         http://beginningwithmoses.org/oldsite/articles/bockotnt2.htm.

[11]         J. S. Feinberg, Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and the New Testaments (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1988), Pages 69-79.

[12]         http://mikevlach.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-are-most-important-differences.html.

[13]         https://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj13d.pdf.

[14]         https://covenantconfessions.com/dismantling-dispensationalism-examining-the-historical-origins-of-dispensationalism/.

[15]         https://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj13d.pdf.

[16]         https://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj13d.pdf.

[17]         https://www.gotquestions.org/inspiration-theories.html.

[18]         https://carm.org/about-the-bible/what-is-verbal-plenary-inspiration-of-the-bible/.

[19]         https://www.andrews.edu/library/car/cardigital/Periodicals/AUSS/1994-1/1994-1-02.pdf.

[20]         Michael J. Vlach, Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths (Los Angeles, CA: Theological Studies Press, 2017), Pages 31-35.

[21]         See Articles 5, 7 and 8 (Forthcoming).

[22]         https://founders.org/2016/05/26/hermeneutics-new-testament-priority/.

[23]         https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/equip/uploads/2020/02/SBJT-23.2-Will-the-Son-Rise-on-a-Fourth-Horizon-Barrett-1.pdf.

[24]         https://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj13d.pdf.