The doctrine of historical interpretation

It has to be remembered that interpretation of history is a very tricky principle and it has led many people down the path to evil and the influence of evil in reversionism. For example, historical interpretation generally depends on human viewpoint.

1. Jesus Christ controls history. a) Direct control through His divine essence. That means that Jesus Christ as God never loses control of anything. b) Indirect control through the laws of divine establishment. Jesus Christ set up a system of laws to perpetuate the human race and to allow freedom in every generation for believing in Christ, and freedom to express positive volition in the function of GAP. c) Permissive control permitting human volition to function in this phase of the angelic conflict. In other words, the angelic conflict must go on and this is why Jesus Christ permits evil to continue in the world. That is why evil and human good were rejected at the cross.

2. The Bible is the key to historical interpretation. Historical interpretation related to God, the unseen world of angels, and the visible world of mankind can only be put together properly through understanding Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine is the basis for the correct interpretation of history. To see history objectively one must possess the divine viewpoint. Through history is a series of facts about the human race but these facts can never be properly correlated unless one understands such simple doctrines as the old sin nature, power lust, materialism lust, and things of this sort. To correlate and interpret the facts of history Bible doctrine must be resident in the soul. This limits the unbeliever’s perspicacity in this field of his understanding, especially if he is out of the laws of divine establishment.

To correctly interpret history one must understand evil, reversionism, apostasy, and be able to distinguish them from sin. Sin never kept a great man from being great; sin never kept anyone from doing anything. Sin never ruined a man’s ministry. But what ruins many a pastor’s ministry is evil and reversionism. Sin is not an issue because Christ destroyed it as an issue on the cross. He was judged for our sins. That is why we simply name our sins and we are forgiven immediately. In other words, carnality should never be a hindrance to anything, but evil is a hindrance to everything.

To correctly interpret history one also must understand the doctrine of dispensations, the Church Age, the royal family of God. While many historians recognise, for example, simple facts like Rome as the centre of gravity in history, human genius is limited by ignorance of Bible doctrine and divine viewpoint.

5. Each generation of history is sustained by supergrace believers. What holds up every generation of history? The supergrace believer is the spiritual Atlas of his generation. He is responsible for blessing by association and prosperity by association. He is himself blessed of God and those associated with him are blessed by the association. The supergrace believer is the salt of the land.

6. And supergrace depends upon one category of the human race: pastor-teacher. There is no supergrace without pastor-teachers teaching the Word of God.