Theological Interpretation of Scripture: An Introduction and Preliminary Evaluation

Dr. Allison served many years as a staff member of Campus Crusade, where he worked in campus ministry and as a missionary to Italy and Switzerland. He also serves as the book review editor for theological, historical, and philosophical studies for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Dr. Allison is the author of Getting Deep: Understand What You Believe about God and Why (B&H, 2002) and Jesusology: Understand What You Believe About Jesus and Why (B&H, 2005). While recently engaged in some careful consideration of my own sanctification, or ongoing maturity in the Christian faith, I turned to the apostle John’s affirmation: “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18).1 I experienced a deep sense of joy as I contemplated the protection promised in this verse, while at the same time I puzzled over the evident discrepancy between the clause “does not keep on sinning” and my own propensity to “keep on sinning.” Beyond this unresolved tension in my own personal life, I was drawn to the interesting parallel between Christians, described as the group “who has been born of God,” and Christ, described as the one “who was born of God.”2 Reading this parallel as the systematic theologian that I am, I gave attention to the theological truth embedded here that the Son of God is eternally begotten, or generated, of the Father—that is, the Second Person of the Trinity eternally depends on the First Person for his Sonship.3 Ever since the Creed of Nicea (325 A.D.), the church has formally confessed its belief “in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only-begotten....”4 And my theological interpretation of this passage focused my attention on this great biblical truth and creedal confession. This illustration serves as an example of “theological interpretation of Scripture” (henceforth, TIS), the topic of this issue of SBJT. Over the course of the last several decades, a new approach to the interpretation of Scripture has come into vogue.5 Called “theological interpretation” or “theological exegesis” of Scripture, this movement may be characterized as a matrix of interpretative approaches, all of which bear some familial resemblances while exhibiting important