AN INNER MEANING | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, November 18, 1884

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 61, No. 46

“AN INNER MEANING.”

The following words of warning against “an undue tendency to spiritualization” in the interpretation of the Scriptures, are taken from the Old Testament Student, as quoted by the Christian at Work of Nov. 6, 1884, and may be of service to our ministers:—

“There has ever been a disposition to try to find ‘an inner meaning’ in the words of Scripture and especially so in the Old Testament; it seems to be taken as a matter of course that a message from the Deity must contain some mysterious hidden element which can only be discovered by careful searching. . . . There is an undue tendency to spiritualization, which finds mystical meanings in the decoration of the tabernacle, the dress of priests, and the most trivial incidents of every-day life. While there are, of course, prophetical and typical elements in the Old Testament, we should not strive to find these upon all its pages, but recognize that the Book is the narration of simple fact, and is to be treated as such. . . . Much of the historical narrative was written as we believe, like other history, save only that the writers were divinely guided in the selection of the facts to be recorded; if this be so, then in our treatment of these events we should in large measure teach the sacred history as we would other history.”