The question is one which the great majority of Commentators at once answer in the affirmative. According to them, the traveller represents human nature, — ^the falling among thieves, Adam's fall, — the lying naked, wounded, and half dead, the condition of mankind, — and the failure of the priest and Levite to help, the inability of ceremonies and forms to raise man from his low estate. The good Samaritan is Jesus Christ. The oil and wine are the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit. The inn is the Church. The host is the ministry. The two pence are the two sacraments. The promised coming again to repay what is spent more, the Lord's second advent.
This, with some minor variations, is the sense which many Commentators, both ancient and modem, extract from the par- able. Mr. Alford even speaks of those who cannot receive it, as "the superficial school of critics." — There is no denying the praise of ingenuity to the interpretation. To many it is sure to appear very clever, just because it is not natural. But the serious question remains still to be answered : " Did our Lord Jesus Christ really intend this meaning to be placed upon the parable?" — My own conviction decidedly is, that He did not; and that the allegorical sense which has been placed on the parable, is a gratuitous invention of man.
My reasons for not holding the allegorical interpretation of the parable are three-fold.
1 . I see nothing either in the passage, or in the context, to lead me to suppose that our Lord meant to convey more than one plain lesson by it. That lesson is the true nature of love to our neighbours.
2. I see much in the circumstances of the parable itself which appears to me to overthrow entirely the idea that it is an allegory of man's redemption. Without twisting and straining it in the most violent and imwarrantable manner, the parable, upon the allegorical interpretation, involves manifest absurdities. — Grant that the traveller represents human nature. At best, it is an awkward figure. The traveller was an object of pity, and only half dead. Man is more than pitiable : he deserves blame, and is dead in sins. But who then can the priest and Levite be who fail to give aid? They are part of human nature them- selves ! — Grant, in order to avoid this awkwardness, that the traveller means the Gentile, and the failure of priest and Levite to help him, the weakness of the Mosaic law. Again, the ques- tion arises, what are we to make of the inn and the host, if they mean the Church and the ministry? At this rate, the Gentiles are handed over to the care of the Gentiles, since there was no Gentile Church till Christ called and formed it ! All this may seem to some minds to admit of explanation. To my own it appears to involve inextricable confusion.
LUKE, chap; X. VER. 38 — 42. 383
3. My third and last reason is this. I hold it to he a most dangerous mode of interpreting Scripture, to regard everything which its words may he tortured into meaning, as a lawful interpretation of the words. I hold undoubtedly that there is a mighty depth in all Sci'ipture, and that in this respect it stands alone. But I also hold that the words of Scripture were intended to have one definite sense, and that our first object should be to discover that sense, and adhere rigidly to it. I believe that, as a general rule, the words of Scripture are intended to have, like all other language, one plain definite meaning, and that to say that words do mean a thing, merely because they can be tortured into meaning it, is a most dishon- ourable and dangerous way of handling Scripture. — If any one wants to see to what absurdities such a mode of interpreting Scripture leads, he has only to read the commentaries of the Fathers. Hardly any, except perhaps Chrysostom, seem satis- factory and sound on this point.
I am quite aware that in holding the views which I have endeavoured to defend, about the parable of the good Samaritan, I hold the views of a small minority of commentators. But that those with whom I agree are not all ** superficial," I think the following five names prove, — Gualter, Baxter, Scott, Poole, and Adam Clarke. Even Stella, the Roman Catholic Spanish commentator, denounces the allegorical interpretation, and Mal- donatus, is evidently unwilling to endorse it.
The question will probably never be settled as long as the world stands, but I have thought it right to bear my testimony fully and frankly to what I believe to be the truth.