I Said, You Are Gods

“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law, “I said, you are gods”?’ ”

Bible commentators often say the New Testament (NT) interprets the Old (OT), not the other way around. This principle is generally solid, though it can be taken to extremes; for example, by erroneously concluding that we cannot interpret any OT scripture properly without reference to the NT. Manifestly, we both can and should.

CT vs. Dispensational Interpretation

How we view the relationship of the NT to the OT matters a fair bit. Consider:

• If Covenant Theology is correct, the NT reinterprets the OT for us, giving us brand new meanings the original hearers and readers could never have drawn from contextual interpretation. The “new” meaning in most instances invalidates the old. Most CTs would argue this is what is happening when Peter quotes Joel in Acts 2 concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
• If Dispensationalists are closer to the truth, then such NT scriptures allude to, reference or apply the OT rather than completely reinterpreting it. The original meaning stands, but the NT writers take the principle expressed therein and demonstrate it is actually broader than most original readers ever thought. We would say Peter is not expositing the true, exhaustive meaning of what Joel wrote. He is simply saying, “This manifestation of the Spirit we see in front of us is the same sort of thing Joel described. What we are seeing here is consistent with the way the scriptures teach us to expect God to work.”

Those are two very different ways of looking at what the NT writers are doing for us. (Of course, where the NT writers do not comment on the OT, as is often the case, we must fall back on contextual interpretation of the OT text.)

Taken to Its Logical Conclusion

Paul Henebury points out the absurdity of taking “The NT interprets the Old” too far with this illustration:

“Imagine this scenario:

Jesus: ‘The [OT] Scriptures testify of Me.’

Pharisees: ‘Where are you in the Scriptures?’

Jesus: ‘In types and shadows.’

Pharisees: ‘How can anyone rightly interpret these types and shadows?’

Jesus: ‘By the New Testament.’

Pharisees: ‘By the what?’

Jesus: ‘It won’t be written for about 50 years, and won’t be widely available for longer than that, but you need the NT to rightly interpret the [OT] Scriptures.’

Pharisees: ‘?!?!?!?? … So until we can read a copy of this NT, I guess we can suspend judgment on your claim that the Scriptures testify of you?’ ”

That fails miserably as an argument, and Jesus did not make it or anything like it.

Comprehensible to Some Degree

While imperfectly understood in all respects in its day, the OT must have been comprehensible at least in some degree prior to NT revelation. All first century parties agreed the OT was authoritative. If it were authoritative, then there had to be some hope of understanding it. If not, the Lord Jesus could hardly condemn his critics for knowing “neither the scriptures nor the power of God”. Having had precisely zero help from the NT writers at that point in history, how could he expect the Sadducees to accurately interpret Moses?

But he did.

What we might say, then, is something like this: If revelation is indeed progressive (as I believe), the later scriptures help us understand the earlier, not by overwriting them or striking them out, but by teaching us further ways in which the principles behind them prove true. They give us more truth, not less.

Examining Psalm 82

I was thinking about all this when reading Asaph’s Psalm 82 this morning, the meaning of which is obscure to many, and difficult to parse in any case. It’s short, so here it is in full in the ESV translation:

“God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: ‘How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Selah

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.’

They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.’

Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!”

Five Interpretational Options

The ways in which readers interpret Psalm 82 are numerous and diverse. I picked a few examples off Reddit this morning just to illustrate the variety:

1. Present day / divine beings: Michael Heiser’s divine council interpretation, in which God chastises powerful spirit beings for their bad management of the nations over which they have charge and warns them their own judgment is coming.
2. Future day / divine beings: It’s an apocalyptic view of God judging angels at the end of the age.
3. A vestige of Israelite polytheism: Asaph’s theology reflects his Israelite polytheism (low view of scripture) or, alternatively, is a parable about theological advancement (higher view, but obscure and unlikely).
4. A parable for Christians: The “gods” in view include “anything that takes precedence over the one true God, including worldly pursuits and influential people that people worship and thus become their idols. The key message is to love and prioritize our heavenly Father and The Lord Jesus Christ above all else.”
5. Future punishment of human rulers: It’s a prophecy of punishment to the rulers of Israel.

Eliminating Possibilities

I’m sure there are more ways of looking at it, but that will suffice. I think we can quickly rule out the second, third and fourth options.

• As to the second, the judgment cannot be at the end of the age, because those whose behavior God is critiquing retain their offices at the end of the psalm. You do not tell anyone to “give justice” or “rescue the weak” if they will never again have the opportunity to do so. Moreover, the future “you shall die” suggests the judgment is later. This is a warning, not the final assessment.
• As to the third, it’s far more likely that the Israelite scribes who did the final edits to the Psalms would reject an antiquated, polytheistic view than retain it as a “vestige” of their religious history. Psalms and prayer were Israel’s primary modes of corporate praise and worship. You don’t deliberately sing error.
• As to the fourth option, influential people are not always to blame when they are idolized, and worldly pursuits are abstractions. You cannot address them and tell them what to do. The explanation makes no sense except as the loosest of allegories.

We are left choosing between the first and last options, assuming any are close to correct.

The Witness of John 10

Interestingly, few commenters went to the NT to get help understanding this OT passage. Only John 10 deals with the passage directly. Here’s the whole incident:

“The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?’ The Jews answered him, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law, “I said, you are gods”? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be broken — do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming,” because I said, “I am the Son of God”?’ ”

Note that the Lord is making no attempt to exposit the psalm for a hostile crowd of religious critics, so we won’t get too much help directly from John 10. But the statement that “Scripture cannot be broken” is an additional blow against any version of the polytheistic theological interpretation. Nor does the Lord really decide for us between the “divine beings” and “human rulers” options. What he says is, “He called them gods to whom the word of God came”, which really leaves both possibilities in play. The word of God came to human rulers. Equally, it comes to spirit-members of a divine council here in the psalm, if nowhere else. The only thing we can take away with certainty is that the line in the psalm is God speaking and nobody dares to contest what he says.

A Rhetorical Argument for the Authority of Christ

What Jesus did in his response was establish beyond argument that it is scripturally legitimate to use the word ‘gods’ about created beings who have been granted special authority by the one true God, and therefore perfectly appropriate for him to claim the same for himself. His good works established he was acting on the Father’s behalf and had status equal to or exceeding that of the divine council members referenced in the psalm. (In fact, we know his authority and status are orders of magnitude greater than any created being in heaven or on earth, but he does not push that here, knowing he has not persuaded his critics, only silenced them temporarily.)

Here, as in a few other cases, the NT is not so much interpreting the OT as it is using it to make a rhetorical argument for the authority of Christ, something that Asaph’s original audience may not have seen in Psalm 82, but which is every bit as legitimate of any other use to which it might be put.