Berkhof on “The Mystical Sense of Scripture”

Louis Berkhof

 

“The study of the mystical sense of Scripture has not always been characterized by the necessary caution. Some expositors have defended the untenable position that every part of the Bible has besides its literal, also a mystical sense. Others recoiled from that unwarranted position, and went to the extreme of denying outright the existence of any mystical sense. More careful scholars, however, preferred to take the middle ground that certain parts of Scripture have a mystical sense which, in such cases, does not constitute a second, but the real sense of the Word of God. The necessity of recognizing the mystical sense is quite evident from the way in which the New Testament often interprets the Old.

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“Scripture itself contains indications of a mystical sense. For example, it is well known that the New Testament interprets several passages of the Old Testament messianically, and in so doing, not only points to the presence of the mystical sense, in those particular passages, but also intimates that whole categories of related passages should be interpreted in a similar manner” (Principles of Biblical Interpretation, pp. 140-141).

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