Do biblical texts carry a fuller meaning than that which was originally intended by their human authors? Most scholars who affirm the divine authorship of Scripture say yes. But what this fuller sense entails is a matter of intense debate and confusion. In this paper I will evaluate two recent evangelical proposals that seek to address the issue of sensus plenior by rooting the meaning of Scripture in human authorial intent, and specifically authorially-intended typological structures. First, Sam Emadi and Aubrey Sequeira argued in 2017 for a limiting of sensus plenior to sensus praegnans—that is, a fuller sense which arises from, coheres with, and never contravenes the human author’s intent. In response, Tom Sculthorpe claimed that even sensus praegnans leaves too much leeway for arbitrariness, and all notions of a fuller meaning in Scripture need to be rejected. Rather than expanding meaning, Sculthorpe argues, texts have a fixed meaning with expanding significance. I find that these two proposals are strikingly similar, although each has helpful nuances for the other. However, both would benefit from conversation with Kevin Vanhoozer’s recent work on the distinction between sensus plenior and referens plenior. I find potential in Vanhoozer’s clarifications, and a restricting of sensus praegnans to Scripture’s referent rather than its sense, to unify the position of Sculthorpe with that of Sequeira & Emadi and provide a fuller defense of Scripture’s authorially-intended meaning, both human and divine. I then set this new unified proposal over-against, figural reading, particularly as exemplified by Richard Hays. In the end, I claim that texts have a fixed, determinate meaning, from which significance extends over time. This means that a right reading of Scripture recognizes human and divine authorial intent as coeterminus in a given biblical text regarding sense, yet with a fuller and greater referent intended by the divine author then the human author can perceive. Therefore, the OT is rightly read for its human author’s intent, which often has prospective implications that provide the ground for the text’s developing significance across redemptive history. Nonetheless, when the full details of Christ, the ultimate referent of Scripture’s types is revealed, it is also right to see him in the older, authorially-intended prospective types that foreshadowed Him. This is precisely what I argue the New Testament authors are doing when they do typology. My proposal stands in contrast to Hays, who argues that types are retrospective re-readings of Israel’s Scripture in light of Christ’s resurrection and the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the church and the apostles.
*Note: Both Sequeria & Emadi and Sculthorpe originally presented their articles at ETS (2016 and 2021 respectively). This paper is therefore intended to participate in an ongoing conversation that’s been occurring at ETS. My paper was