I gotta have my orange juice.

James Jordan writes of a three-layered meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan:

For 1900 years, pastors in every branch of the Church have interpreted the parable of the Good Samaritan as having a “first application” to our Lord Himself. Jesus is the Good Samaritan, who helped in the face of death when the Old Creation’s representatives (priest and Levite) were unable and unwilling to do so. The inn at which He left the man is the Church, the community of believers that has been given money and oil (the Spirit) to help converts. The broken man in the parable is the lawyer who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered, “I am your Neighbor, man. Don’t you see that you are near death? You have left the holy city Jerusalem and gone down to the accursed city of Jericho. You need a Neighbor, and I am He.” A secondary point of the parable of course, is to set an example for us, who are in Christ. (Theses on Worship, 56)

Luther states that “This Samaritan of course is our Lord Jesus Christ himself.” Calvin, on the other hand, notes in his commentary that he has “no liking” for this interpretation, suggesting that it “disguise[s] its natural meaning.” To be fair, Calvin here is not arguing against Luther directly, but rather against “advocates of free will” who apparently argue from the man’s injury rather than death that he was not beyond reach of saving himself. Perhaps Calvin would not after all disagree with Luther’s and Jordan’s more straightforward application.

I side with Luther and Jordan. With Frame (tri-perspectivalism) and Poythress (symphonic theology) I don’t think that we must choose a single natural meaning and application here to the exclusion of all others. For example, we follow the very same approach in the Psalms, where we acknowledge that Jesus is the first singer of the Psalms (consider Heb. 2:11-12), and yet both the church corporate (the body of Jesus) and the individual Christian (united with Jesus) are also proper singers of the Psalms.