Read the Bible the Way Jesus Did
Editor’s Note: in his book Understanding God’s Word, Jon Nielson presents six hermeneutical tools and explains how to use these tools effectively in your study of the Bible. The sixth and final tool is referred to as the cross tool which is unpacked in the article below.
The Cross Tool
Far too often, Bible students seek to understand and apply Scripture without considering that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—the message of the gospel—is the very center of the Scriptures. To guard you from making this mistake in your own study of the Bible, I want to introduce you to a tool for your hermeneutical tool belts—the cross tool.
The cross tool may be the most important principle for getting into God’s word, understanding it rightly, and applying it faithfully to our lives today. We should always seek a gospel-centered interpretation and application of the Bible, specifically one that takes into account the central message and climax of the Bible—the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is no exaggeration to say that if we miss the gospel in our Bible reading and study, we have missed everything.
Understanding This Tool
Very often, using the cross tool involves asking, “How does this passage connect to the cross of Jesus Christ (as well as his incarnation, faithful life of obedience, resurrection, and future reign)?” In other words, it is all about the centrality of the gospel in the Bible—and therefore in your study of the Bible.
What is the gospel? From 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, among other passages in the Bible, we see that the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, died for sins and rose from the dead in order to save God’s people, and that all of this fulfilled the Scriptures of the Old Testament. It is good to remember the part about the Old Testament because Paul focuses on it in a very strong way, writing “in accordance with the Scriptures” twice in these verses (1 Cor. 15:3, 4). This means that all of the Bible is about the gospel; the whole Old Testament points ahead to the saving work of Jesus through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. This salvation that Jesus offers is received only by faith, as we see in the New Testament. So the gospel is a proclamation of the good news about what God, in Christ, has done for sinners, who can then receive the gospel through repentance and faith in Jesus.
Understanding God's Word
Jon Nielson
In this accessible guide to biblical interpretation, pastor Jon Nielson presents 6 hermeneutical tools and demonstrates how to use them effectively to improve personal or small-group Bible studies.
Jesus himself reminds us that it is good and legitimate for us to use the cross tool in our Bible study—even our study of the Old Testament. In Luke 24:27, we read about a sermon that Jesus preaches to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, explaining to them from the entire Old Testament all the things “concerning himself.” Also, in John 5:39, Jesus tells the Pharisees that the Old Testament Scriptures testify about him. As Jesus, the very Son of God, interacts with the Bible, he uses the cross tool, showing that everything is ultimately pointing to the great salvation that he will provide for God’s people through his death and resurrection. Jesus interprets all of Scripture with reference to himself.
Since all of this is true, it would be foolish for us, in our study of any part of Scripture, to fail to go through the cross in our interpretation and application. If the gospel really is the point of the Bible, and it all comes to a climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then we need to work hard to see how every part of the story points to him. In our Bible study, we must get to Christ. This is the principle behind the cross tool.
Problems Avoided with This Tool
The sad reality is that many people, even people who love the Bible, simply do not see that Jesus’s salvation is the climax of God’s great story and that the gospel really is central to the message of Scripture. By failing to use the cross tool, they miss the power of the gospel in the way they read and study the Bible. This can lead to all kinds of problems, including the following:
Moralism/legalism. Moralism and legalism are, by far, the most common problems that can come through Bible study that does not include an intentional effort to put the cross tool to work. If we do not see the gospel as central to the Bible and discipline ourselves to run to it in our study of every part of God’s word, we are going to tend to default to moralistic lessons that only result in legalism.
In our Bible study, we must get to Christ.
What do I mean by moralism and legalism? Moralism is merely trying to be good without seeing that true goodness is found only in God, who gives grace through Jesus to sinners who can never be good on their own. Legalism is the keeping of rules in the hope of earning God’s favor rather than seeing that God’s favor has been poured out on those who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, who alone can earn God’s favor for sinners. Without the cross tool, many passages in Scripture will be understood and applied simply as rules for life; they will be applied moralistically, without consideration of the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts as we receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Guilt with no grace. Moralism and legalism lead to this second problem: guilt with no grace. When our application from passages of Scripture is essentially “Do more and be better” again and again, we only heap guilt on people rather than exposing them to God’s amazing grace that is shown most beautifully to us at the cross of Jesus Christ. Since the Bible really does point to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in every part (Jesus says it does), to ignore the gospel as we tell people to “shape up and act right” is actually an abuse of the very word of God because it is missing the crucial climax.
A wrong view of the Bible. Finally, to miss the cross tool is to have a wrong view of the Bible. If we take Jesus’s words seriously (that the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms speak of him), then to understand the Bible rightly, we need to see that every part of it points to him. This relates to our view of God’s inspiration of the Bible as well. Since God is the divine author of Scripture, it makes sense that the Bible tells one unified story that centers on the gospel of his Son. To miss that gospel in various parts of this story is to ignore the fact that God is intentionally weaving it all together to show us his Son.
This means that utilizing the cross tool in our study of the Scriptures affirms the unity of the Bible—that it tells a unified story of God’s work of creation, redemption, and ultimately restoration in a world (and a people) marred by sin. Because the Bible is God’s story—and the person and work of Jesus is the climax of that story—every part of the story is rightly read, studied, understood, and applied with reference to the climax.
This article is adapted from Understanding God’s Word: An Introduction to Interpreting the Bible by Jon Nielson.
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