The Worst Eisegisis in History

Though this might have caught your eye as some controversial and deeply offensive article, don’t prepare yourself for controversy, don’t board up your mind with walls and other equally defensive barriers.  Just read, and pray, knowing that although the title might be slightly over dramatic, it is in part true, though truth still seems to be upheld.

Eisegesis  is simply the act of reading meaning into a text (most often Scripture) and this act is possibly one of the easiest things to do when we read because it can happen quite easily under the surface.  Often we don’t even see it until someone else brings it up, but other times people do it purposefully with ill-intent to prove something right or wrong.  At a base level though, eisegesis does take some inward motivation which is most often the benefits from the argument a person is trying to argue.   Now, as Christians, we can easily see some quick examples just by looking at American Christian culture, whether it be Joel Osteen proof-texting something for ‘Your Best Life Now’, or even just a young believer reading the Old Testament outside of it’s historical context.  But what if I told you that most American Christians (even you and I) have eisegeted the work of Christ?  You, at first, would say that is ridiculous, but what if it is true?  It would be, and in fact is, the worst act of eisegesis in history, one that robs us from a full understanding of Christ’s work, one that effectively robs the resurrection of it’s transformative power.

Let me just put this claim into perspective for you.  What is the context of Christ’s work?  Seemingly simple question answered simply (and incompletely) by saying, ‘the gospels’, or even 1st century Judaism.  While these two statements are true, what is the full context of Christ’s work?  It is smack dab in the middle of history, in the middle of God’s happenings in the world, and it is not an individual work set apart from the rest of God’s works in the whole of history.   Christ’s work is revealed to us in the context of God’s ultimate plan of redemption in which God created the world, man fell, and ever since, God has been in a work of renewal and he has chosen to do it through a people, that is Israel.  Israel failed over and over again, and what did God do? He remained faithful to them.  He continued to work out this plan of redemption that he had.  He sent prophets telling of a coming kingdom, he sent kings and priests to be a picture of he who would usher in the new kingdom.  Then what happened?  God exiled his people.  God sent the very people through whom he said he would save the world with out into the world, out of the promised land, out of his kingdom effectively, and he cut communication with them.  Times looked bleak for the Jews but they had hope.  Their prophets of old had told them of a coming messiah, they had a promise that God would come and gather his people, that he would bring with him a new kingdom, knowledge of himself, joy, love, and justice.  And so they waited.  After 400 years of exile a man came on the seen proclaiming the kingdom of God was at hand, John the baptist.  Then Christ came and that is the context of Christ’s work.

Here’s the question, what does that mean if we are going to exegete Christ’s work? If we are to fully understand Christ’s work, we must take it in it’s own context, see the original intended meaning of the gospel accounts.  But first, this is how we have understood it for years:

Jesus Christ, son of God, God himself, came down from heaven, lived a sinless life, so that he could take on my sin, and even the sin of the world, and then he died, on the cross, to pay the penalty of my rebellion to God, that I might have a relationship with him, as was intended in the garden, through his resurrection.  He paid my debt, reconciling me to God, and he then invites me to relationship with him by his resurrection.

If you didn’t praise God and say amen to that, then you might not be believing truth, my question to you is, is it the whole truth and nothing but the truth?  I would propose, that if we were to read Christ’s work for it’s original intended meaning in it’s original context, then no, it is not the whole truth, and in fact is a misrepresentation of it.   It isn’t that this profession is wrong, in fact it is very true.  However, it is not the whole truth, it is incomplete, and if this is our primary understanding of the purpose and effect of Christ’s work, then I would argue we have made one of the biggest mistakes in biblical interpretation, robbing His work of it’s power.

If we look at the context of Christ’s work in the whole of history, in God’s revelation, we will see a different and more primary focus of Christ’s work.  First, we will see that Christ’s work comes as a fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel.    As such, we must understand that God’s promises to Israel were promises of a new kingdom, one filled with renewal of the earth, renewal of God’s reign, and renewal of God’s people.  Joy, justice, love, forgiveness, new life were all parts of this new kingdom.  When we see Christ’s work as this partial fulfillment (as he is coming back to finish it) we see that the primary understanding of Christ’s work is that Christ is a moving forward of God’s plan of renewal, and we see it’s immediate implication as a gathering of His people to live under His reign.  It is only here that we can find our individual identity.  It is only as part of the whole that we can see ourselves, part of the Body.

This stands in stark contrast to the previous understanding of Christ’s work that we had.   The previous understanding starts with us as individuals, it starts with our individual salvation.  Why is this?  This perspective and eisegesis of Christ’s work is in part from a lack of understanding of the context of Christ’s work but is mostly a result of our western worldview.  It is profoundly individualistic that we would look to the most significant event in all of history and say that it’s primary purpose is for me.  That is our mindset though, our western culture has made our whole lives centered around the ‘me’ and it pervades our every thought and action.  We fail to understand that my salvation is only within the context of the body, and that without having my priorities in the same order that God does, it leads to a failure to live the way Scripture call us.

This is merely an introduction to this way of thinking and I didn’t unpack all of the ideas I presented, but please feel free to discuss this in the comments below. If you wanted to study this you can continue to work through it by studying the Old Testament, it’s promises, Christ’s fulfillment of them, how God has presented his plan of salvation (individual, corporate, or cosmic), the full story of Scripture (overviews and things like that), and maybe even just prayer, but be weary, for as I study, I find my own rampant, sinful individualism bursting forth like sin itself did after the fall. Be weary, in awe of God, placing him first in priority, and ourselves last.  For we are to be lovers of God, in heart, mind, soul, and strength, and lovers of others.   Love your neighbor as(or in place of) yourself.  It’s not about you, it’s always about others.