Aquinas on biblical interpretation:
“[T]he author of Holy Scripture is God, in whose power it is to signify his meaning, not by words only (as man also can do) but also by things themselves. So whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification.”
Aquinas’ double signification doctrine is the key to a Christological, typological interpretation of Scripture. Just as we use words as signifiers, God uses things (events, persons, places, rituals, etc.) as signifiers. This means creation is a kind of language, in which everything has a built-in symbolic meaning. This means sacred history is a kind of language as well; proper biblical interpretation requires not just interpreting the words/signifiers on the page but also what the signification of what those words signify. The words point to historical events; the historical events point to something beyond themselves. The words signify, and what is signified by the words also signifies.
There are no raw or brute facts in God’s world. God speaks through creation and through redemptive history.
For example: In John 3, we find Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. The words on the page signify that historical fact. But night – darkness – has a further layer of signification (the meaning of which gets unpacked later in the chapter).
Another example: Mark 15 tells us Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, the place of the skull. The words on the page signify that historical fact. But the fact itself has a further layer of meaning, namely, when Jesus dies on the cross, the skull beneath his feet signifies that in his death, he is crushing the head of the serpent and thus fulfilling Genesis 3:15. Unless we read Scripture this manner, we have no way of explaining how Genesis 3:15 got fulfilled. God uses the location of Jesus’ death to signify what happened when he was crucified.
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