Does the Bible contain allegory?

The word ἀλληγορέω occurs only in Gal. 4:24. The passage does not mean that Abraham having two sons was an allegory: it was history, but that history had an allegorical application, which Paul, by the Holy Ghost, fully explains. The Greek word signifies 'to speak otherwise,' and an allegory is a description of one thing under the image of another.

Further, He most emphatically endorsed the story of Jonah. He spoke of the three days and three nights in the fish's belly as prophetic of His own impending descent into death and the grave; He spoke also of the prophet's preaching, and of the humble repentance of the Ninevites, contrasting the latter sadly with the obduracy of His own hearers (Matt. 12:39-41). Clearly to the Lord Jesus these things were not allegories, but facts. Historical facts may on occasion be used allegorically, as the apostle used the story of Hagar and Ishmael in Gal. 4:21-31, but they are nevertheless facts still.

(Vv. 21-26). The Apostle now appeals to the law itself, to show the unreasonableness of turning back to it. If they would not hear the gospel, nor listen to the Apostle, let them listen to the law to which they were turning. At once the Apostle recalls the times of Abraham and uses some facts in his history as an allegory to teach us the contrast between the bondage of a believer under law and the liberty of a believer under grace. Abraham had two sons by different women, one a bondmaid and the other a free woman. The son by the bondmaid "was born after the flesh," entirely according to the will of man. The other by the free woman was born by the sovereign intervention of God.

These two women set forth the two covenants; one of law which makes the blessing depend upon man carrying out his part of the covenant; the other the covenant of promise in which the blessing for man depends entirely upon the sovereign grace of God. Moreover, the two sons set forth the two conditions that result from these covenants; the one a condition of bondage; the other of liberty. Further, these two covenants and the conditions that result are connected with Mount Sinai, where the law was given, and with Jerusalem which is above from which sovereign grace flows forth to the world.

Then he tells us that these things are an allegory setting forth the two covenants — the covenant of law connected with Sinai, which leads to bondage, set forth by Hagar and her son; and the covenant of grace, connected with Jerusalem which is above, leading to liberty, set forth by Sarah and her son.

Verses 21-23. "Tell me, ye that desire to be under law, do ye not hear the law?" etc. The grave and dangerous character of their backsliding from the truth has been already more than convincingly shown. But he has another witness in reserve, whom he now proceeds to bring forward, in order to complete their confusion, and put a final stop to all further legal questionings or inclinations on their parts. By the law's own mouth he will convince them of their folly in desiring to assume its yoke. If they listened they would find in its testimony a reproof of instruction to restore them to the way of life (Prov. 6:23). It is noticeable that here, as often elsewhere, "the law" carries the meaning of the Old Testament generally. From the tenor of the question here put, there is room for the supposition that their unwise desire may have been imparted to him by some among themselves, who, like the Corinthian saints, may have laid their wishes and the reason of them before him by letter (cp. 1 Cor. 7:1). Be this as it may, he turns now to Moses's inspired account of the origin of Abraham's double family, with the intention of demonstrating, from a new point of view, the real nature of their error. The foundation of the apostle's reasoning in this passage is the principle of Jewish law by which the child followed the social condition of its mother. Now the Galatians were, if believers, Abraham's true seed. But Abraham had two sons, and of diverse generation. Their mothers were not equal in their social state; the one being bond, the other free; the first Abraham's slave, the last, his wedded wife. But, besides this, the children differed also essentially from each other, and did not derive their being from the same producing cause. The elder was of merely natural birth; the younger came miraculously, and against the order of nature. The son of the free-woman was by promise. The heir must be according to his heritage; equally, and immediately, of God, and in the way of sovereign good pleasure and supernatural grace. The heritage was contained in the promissory declaration "I will bless." The heir was assured to his progenitor in the further promise "I will come." And now, having recalled to their minds these Scriptural facts, he proceeds, in what follows, to apply them in such a manner as by an inspired exposition of their spiritual force to show to his children in the faith a clear way of escape from the entanglements of Jewish sophistry, with a view to their effectual re-establishment upon the firm footing of elective grace.

Verse 24. "Which things are an allegory," etc. The principle on which the apostle here allegorizes, or applies to other objects earlier historical facts, is very simple. The Scriptures are the Word of God. Their subject, therefore, first and last, is God in His varied relationships to man. The persons of Scripture are representative persons, each one exemplifying some doctrine or principle of good or evil, truth or falsehood, etc. Hence all Scripture is, in this sense, typical; and inasmuch as Christ is personally the truth, the whole of the Old Testament is to the believer a cyphered Gospel, to which the Spirit of wisdom and revelation offers him the key. The preservative from the danger of a misapplication on our parts of what was written aforetime is, first, a cautious abstinence from any attempt to originate, as an inspired writer has here done, any doctrinal argument from an earlier historical instance; and, secondly, to keep rigidly within the limits of declared apostolic teaching in our endeavours to evoke a Christian sense from the ancient Jewish Scriptures. Because these Scriptures are the "oracles of God," we are sure of finding Christ in them, if only we desire in a right spirit the sincere milk of the Word. But it should never be forgotten that an application of Scripture is not the same thing as its final interpretation; and that all the words of God are pure, and will have, at their appointed season, a strict and literal fulfilment. As himself, through grace, a "partaker of Christ," the believer has an interest, both immediate and remote, in the whole compass of those Scriptures which are now distinctively "the Word of Christ" (Col. 3:16).

Most truth is not in the plain language of the epistles. The Lord taught much in parables. The book of Revelation uses symbols almost entirely. The Christian truths in the Old Testament are taught in types and history, which we are taught to allegorise. The man of understanding in Proverbs is expected "to understand a proverb and its interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings" (Prov. 1: 6).

There is always a charm in typical and allegorical interpretation of Scripture, when undertaken soberly and in accord with the general teaching of the word of God. Scripture itself abounds in illustrations of this method, while the parables of our Lord show how constantly He made use of it. No apology then need be made for finding the gospel in the Book of Ruth.

1887 379 It is, no doubt, mischievous to pursue types too far, and calculated to weaken our estimate of the literal and historical value of scripture. Still we know from the scripture itself that many parts are to be applied most usefully in an allegorical sense, such as Paul's use of the histories of Hagar and of Melchisedek. Some passages are distinctly stated by the inspired writers to be typical, and in others the typical character is so obvious as to need no further warrant for its adoption. If we have a complicated lock, and only one key opens it, that is the proper key: if we have a cypher manuscript and only one system interprets it and lays all its fumbled letters into intelligible words, that is the true system: if we find passages in the lives of the patriarchs which are all opened and gleaming with light when we apply to them the principles of Christ, then we are justified in using them as types. Where there is evidence of such a design they do not come thus by chance.

Yet he has to admit that "the apostle Paul himself gives instances of the sacred allegory, although his use of it is so exceptional and so restrained that it does not countenance it as a method!"

Is this true, that it is so exceptional and restrained? — or that any fair examination of Scripture will show that it does not countenance the method? If by that is meant, indeed, the setting aside of the literal sense, "the natural and obvious meaning," then, of course, it does not countenance this; but Paul's allegorizing did not either. If there is meant by it simply that there are often deeper meanings than the natural and obvious one, every type in the Old Testament stands really as proof. And going back of the legal system to the book of Genesis, we shall find, from the beginning, God both in speech and act choosing to convey truth to us after this manner. What else does the ordinance of the Sabbath show in the light of the "sabbatism that remains for the people of God"? (Heb. 4:9.) What, the first paradise, in view of the "tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God"? (Rev. 2:7.) Adam is thus, as head of his race, a type of Christ the last Adam (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45); and the consequences, on either side, are compared by the apostle. So his relation to Eve represents, we are told, that of Christ to the Church (Eph. 5:32). In the history of the fall, the serpent and his doom are not to be taken in the simple letter; nor is the bruised heel of the woman's seed; Abel's sacrifice, in being typical, is simply allegorical. Going on to the flood, the salvation of Noah and his house are declared by Peter to be typical (1 Peter 3:21); the rainbow is an allegorical "sign" of the covenant with the new earth. Abraham's history has connected with it the elaborate and minute allegory of Melchizedek; the covenant as to his seed is sealed by an allegorical vision (Gen. 15); Sarah and Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, are all allegorical; circumcision is a sign; Isaac, after his offering is received back "in a figure" from the dead (Heb. 11:19). Bethel speaks allegorically, by its ladder, to Jacob; as does the wrestling with the angel upon his return to Canaan. The names of Judah, Zebulon, Issachar, Dan and Gad, are all allegorized in their father's prophecy. The dreams of the butler and baker, and of Pharaoh afterwards, are all pure allegory.

Yet allegorizing not countenanced as a method! On the other hand, we may surely assert to those who go so far it will not be possible to stop at this point. The limits are evidently not marked off: a Joseph separated from his brethren, exalted among the Gentiles, afterward receiving in the time of their necessity his brethren again, — a Benjamin, son of his mother's sorrow, but of his father's right hand, — compel us to go further; while the further we go the wider the field becomes. It is not those who have trodden this path who will be led to believe that it is not a practicable or a safe one.

Now this method is beautifully preserved in these days of Noah. Indeed the whole of Genesis is full of it. It is a book of "allegories," as St. Paul speaks — divine stories written for the school of God.