I heard it defined as the underlying spiritual truth in a story. That is to say a bible story has an obvious story and if you think on it, you'll also find a second underlying story. A message if you will.
I tend to double check things and when I went looking for definitions I noticed that actually the first definition I was given didn't say the same thing as what I found online. Here is a more complete definition as I've copied it from http://www.avhughes.com/images/laws_study.html:
Law of Double Reference-- A passage may apply primarily to a person or event near at hand, but is used by the Holy Spirit at a later time as applying to the Person of Christ, or the affairs of His kingdom.
The first definition is still correct but the second definition is more correct, if I may make that distinction.
So now how about a story where I can see this applied. Actually I know I've noticed the Law of Double Reference at work in many a bible story but I didn't know there was an actual name for it. It's not necessary to know, but it's nice to know, kind of like psychology. There are things you find out about in psychology that you know already but you didn't know it had a name. Like when my mom used to rattle on and on about why does she have to get up and go to work every day? To get a paycheck? To have a roof over her head? To buy food to eat? To buy gas to go to the store to buy food to eat. So she could go to work again. To buy clothes to go to work, and walk to the bathroom and have to pull some pants all the way down and sit on the commode and...to buy toilet paper to go to the bathroom to wipe her bum. The toilet paper was like the meaning of life. Her story was a lot longer and I'd be really depressed by the time she got to the bathroom part. It had a name: she was going existentialist on me. See, it's nice to have a name for things. That's a philosophical term not psychological, but I may has lost my point by now.
Book of 2Samuel, Chapter 8.
This one applies to Israel back then. But check it out. It applies to the USA now. How is that possible? How can the USA resemble Israel? The United States has worked steadily at getting God out of the public arena. So just as the Israelites wanted a king back then and were rejecting Jehovah, so our country is ceasing to honor God now. God is being pushed slowly out of all public arenas. We learn the Israelites are rejecting God because God has told Samuel as much. (See 2Samuel 8:7)
The next part, I kind of like this part, God says, alrighty then. Samuel, listen to the people but tell them, outline for them real clear, what they are asking for. (2Sam. 8:9) And he does.
An analogy could be a kid comes home from elementary school and informs his parents that he's been told that ifns he gets spanked by his parents, his parents can go to jail. Yay, no spankings now! It's true. But now the parent fills the child in on the rest of the truth. Yep, the folks can get in trouble with the law for disciplining their own children, but along with this the kids are going to be taken out of the home and placed in a foster home with strangers and other kids for an indefinite period of time.
And so Samuel explains everything to the Israelites. Sadly, even after a warning that it's not a good idea, they still want a king.
Well, now that I wrote this all down I can refer to myself whenever I want. That'll be good. I will remember the Law of Double Reference hopefully.
Today I thought we were going to see the Great Array, but we got there and I found out it's called The Very Large Array.
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