Extracted from CONCORDIA JOURNAL, September 1984, pgs. 171-180
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The Authority of Holy Scripture
Gottfried Wachler
Translated by †H. J. A. Bouman
This article by Dr. Gottfried Wachler in the original German and its English translation by Dr. Herbert J. A. Bouman was published initially in two parts in Evangelium/Gospel 9(1982):7-23, 38-56. It is being reprinted by the express permission of Die Lutherische Stunde of Bremen, West Germany. The author, Dr. Gottfried Wachler, is President of the Theological Seminary in Leipzig, East Germany. The translator, Dr. Herbert J. A. Bouman, was professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, from 1954-1974.
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Nowhere has the church been defined more simply and appropriately than in Luther's words in the Smalcald Articles: "Thank God, a seven-year-old child knows what the church is, namely, holy believers and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd."1
Looking at this definition makes clear at once the unique significance of the Good Shepherd's voice for the church. This voice alone saves straying and lost human beings by calling them to the Shepherd and His flock and keeping them in His fellowship. We need not explain further that people will follow the Word of Christ with confidence only if it is for them the only and supreme authority. If today the church does not have a word to which this ultimate authority belongs, it is like a herd without a shepherd. If the church must depend on the diffuse opinions of learned theologians and historical-critical scholars to determine what in Scripture is presumably genuine or spurious, reliable report or legendary distortion, Spirit-wrought witness or the influence of pagan religions and philosophies, etc., then the Word of its God and Savior no longer possesses ultimate authority. It has passed over to men who, however, can never have ultimate authority, since historical research can never go beyond a "presumably." Also the information that God could speak through a witness that has been distorted by primitive and erroneous ideas, by philosophies, legends, myths, and Jewish apocalyptic is of no assistance. For if what our God has to say to us does not follow from the words and the context of the Scriptural Word, and if God nowhere tells us where the truth begins and distortion ceases, everybody can hear or imagine whatever he wishes. Who will have the audacity to pass this off as being still the Word of God? To the extent that we as preachers have a conscience, we cannot evade the question concerning the authority of the Holy Scripture.
Holy Scripture Itself Demonstrates Its Divine Authority
Self-Authentication
The divine authority of the Bible cannot be proved to anyone from the outside, whether by pointing to its age, its spread, the confirmation of its accounts through excavations, and the like, or by resorting to rational proof. It is, indeed, an apologetic task (that is not unimportant) to refute the arguments against the truth of Scripture, especially in the area of history, by means of counter arguments. But in this way it can only be demonstrated to be humanly credible but not to be the Word of God. Nor will an unbeliever be moved to acknowledge Scripture's divine authority on the basis of what Scripture says of itself, that is, by means of a doctrine of its inspiration and divine character. He will not accept statements from Scripture as proof, since he first wants proof that Scripture is the truth. However, when the Holy Spirit opens the human heart by means of what Scripture says to it in Law and Gospel, Scripture authenticates itself as the Word of God to that person. The Scriptural Word of God works within man as a fire, as a hammer, as a sword (Heb. 4:12; Jer. 23:29). But one who has experienced the effect of a hammer and a sword needs no further proof that the hammer is a hammer and the sword is a sword.
As everyone who desires to do the will of God will, according to Christ's promise, know whether the teaching is from God or whether Christ is speaking on His own authority (John 7:17), so also the preaching of His apostles is not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power (1 Cor. 2:4). And this applies also to the written word of the apostles, as it does to that of the prophets. Christ Himself said that not even the word of one risen from the dead and miraculously appearing among the living as proof of the truth of his words can produce repentance and save one from the rich man's fate; only the writings of Moses and the prophets—without proofs, simply by their content—can do that (Luke 16:27ff.). External proofs compel acknowledgement, but compulsion produces neither repentance nor trust. In the days after the prophets only the prophetic writings, the Old Testament, have the power to effect both—simply by means of their content, namely, through the Law
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which convicts of sin and through the Gospel of the grace of God in the promised Messiah, the message that revises heart and conscience (2 Tim. 3:15f.). And the church of the post-apostolic times is bound to the writings of the apostles alongside the Old Testament, writings that were composed for the purpose of making men joyful and confident through faith in the coming, crucified, risen, and returning Redeemer (John 20:31; Phil. 3:1; John 17:20).
The apostles did not accomplish this by first attempting to prove the divine authority and truth of their writings.
Whoever perceives in Scripture the threatening, punitive sword of God, as did Luther, or 'the thunderbolt of Moses,' knows the dreadful conviction, not open to any discussion, that God is here speaking. And again, to whom as to Luther in his 'tower experience,' Scripture becomes the saving lifeline which keeps him from sinking down into the abyss of despair (such a one) knows too, with an absolute assurance of faith, that it is God Himself who is here upholding him. Every form of doubt would here be absurd. Its exposure would be immediate: as hybris over against the Law; as desperado over against the Gospel.2
The old Lutheran dogmaticians labeled this fact the autopistia or auctoritas causativa of Scripture which is produced by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. With copious references to the sources, Echternach has shown convincingly that the teaching of Lutheran orthodoxy concerning the self-authentication of Scripture invalidates the criticism that it strove to make the authority of Scripture acceptable to reason by means of its doctrine of inspiration. Echternach writes: "This new consideration of the autopistia thus adds clarity to the traditional doctrine of inspiration, for it removes from it a misunderstanding which has been connected with it ever since the early days of Rationalism and has time and time again given rise to the stricture that the doctrine of inspiration was designed as an argument to prove the authority, infallibility, and divinity of Scripture."3
Self-Authentication and Authoritative Claim of the Entire Scripture
Not all statements of Scripture demonstrate at one stroke their divine truth, power, and authority to our hearts. In connection with some statements, perhaps even whole sections of Scripture, we surely never in this life feel the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Does this mean that only those parts and words of Scripture that have touched me inwardly are the Word of God? This would mean that at any given moment different selections of the Bible would be authoritative for each Christian, but that an objectively valid Word of God
would not exist for the church. Already the facts of experience contradict this view. The Book of books has inwardly demonstrated its divinity to individuals at quite different places; it has proved its divine power in much of its content to each individual only gradually and in specific life situations, and Christians of all ages have had experiences with the whole Bible. I could not overlook this fact, even though the Biblical writings nowhere claimed ultimate authority for themselves as a whole—though they do precisely that (as we shall see later). Thus it is impossible for the believer to make his personal experiences with Bible passages normative for what is the Word of God in the Bible. If I have experienced that any apostolic word is Christ's own Word to me, how could I then without reason accuse the same apostle of conscious or unconscious lying when he claims divine authority for his entire oral and written message? If Jesus Himself has struck my heart through His very Words, how could I question the genuineness, truth, and obligatory character of those very words that do not so directly touch me personally today? When His Word has laid hold of me, how could I simply ignore His testimony concerning the authority of the Old Testament? Never! The situation is, rather, like this: If by faith I have come to know at one place that the claim of the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures is true, then this confirms for me this claim in its totality and not only in one part. Trust cannot be subdivided! Even though prophets and apostles do not prove their claim, as indicated above, they nevertheless come forward with the claim of speaking the Word of their God and Savior. If at first we deny this claim with regard to many of their words, in order to allow it subsequently only where we have inwardly experienced these words as Word of God, we deprive ourselves of a treasury of helpful and guiding words from our God: Words which ask simply to be believed and followed through trust in Him who speaks them to us. It may well happen that in this life we will neither inwardly nor outwardly experience their truth. And if, in time of trial, when the waters come up to our throat, we want to test the reliability of this or that word, we have already succumbed. Then only that Word that offers itself to us as an infallible support and virtually challenges us to trust it by the promise, "Thus says the Lord," is able to rekindle faith.
Holy Scripture Itself Attests Its Divine Authority
I know, of course, even without Willy Marxsen's reminder, that this heading is a simplifying summary. It will now be unfolded in detail.
Jesus Attests the Divine Authority of the Old Testament
We could also show how Old Testament prophets in the narrower and broader sense lift up their voice:
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"Hear the Word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord!" We could show how they receive God's command to write down God's Law, His deeds, promises, and threats for future generations; how they demand unconditional trust and obedience over against this Word; and how its being despised calls forth God's wrath. When all of these items are assembled like mosaic tiles, they produce a powerful self-attestation of the Old Testament. But the objection is raised that this is not yet an unbroken witness to the divine authority of the entire Old Testament. This point is not worth arguing about, for we have a greater witness for the Old Testament, namely, that of the Son of God. Over against Him that objection is not possible, for He bears witness to the whole Old Testament, referring to its closed canon in its three parts (Luke 24:44f.); and He—as Luke does here—calls it by the established term "Scripture." He knows this Scripture of the Old Testament thoroughly and has it constantly in view. Hence he can always dip into the treasure of the Old Testament. When He cites it in His sermons, He does so always as the authoritative Word that is unconditionally valid and confirms His teaching, warnings, and consoling. In controversy it is for Him the court of last appeal that decides about truth and error, because it is the Word of God. He tells the Sadducees: "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.. . . Have you not read what was said to you by God ... ?" (Matt. 22:29ff.). Shortly thereafter He proves to the Pharisees that their onesided teaching of the Messiah's Davidic ancestry is false by citing Psalm 110 to them. At the devil He hurls this threefold "It is written"; for then it is no longer human philosophy or fantasy, but it is then a matter of divine authority to which even Satan must yield (Matt. 4: Iff.). When the Father leads our Lord ever deeper into the darkness, Scripture is light on the way for Him. It points out the way for Him. It points out the way to Him; and He, the Son of God, offers no corrections by means of historical-critical or other rational arguments, but He simply submits to this authority. If it is written, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered," it will come to pass. Then the disciples will be offended in Him and flee. Then He Himself will have as enemies not only the devil and hateful men, but His own Father. This causes Him to tremble and pray for some way out (Matt. 26:31-39). Because Isaiah had prophesied, "He was reckoned with transgressors," it was certain for Jesus beyond a doubt "that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me ... " (Luke 22:37). But why must it be fulfilled? Why does the Son of God submit to Scripture written by men, although He disputes the authority arrogated by all doctrines of men and all prescriptions of the elders (Matt. 15:1-9)? Because Scripture is the Word of His Father. There can be no other explanation! He regards as Word of God not
only God's explicit Words in the Old Testament, as He affirms with regard to the Word to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," and for the Decalog (Matt. 5:3f.; 22:31), but also a word of Isaiah like the above. In exactly the same way He designates the word of Moses, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, as spoken by God" (Matt. 19:4f.), as well as everything written concerning Him in the Law of Moses, in the Psalms, and in the Prophets and must therefore be fulfilled (Luke 24:44). Indeed, the entire Scripture of the Old Testament is for Him the authoritative Word of God. He never says: This is part of Scripture's center or genuine kernel that cannot be given up, but quite simply, "It is written." Hence He can also make the flat statement, "Scripture cannot be broken or dissolved"—not even in a single word (John 10:35), not even one iota of the Law (Matt. 5:17ff.).
To the questions whether Jesus could have regarded the whole Old Testament as divine authority because of naivete or ignorance of historical-critical research, or whether He perhaps accomodated Himself to the Jews' primitive faith in Scripture, or whether the statements of Jesus appealing to the Old Testament might possibly not be genuine at all—I respond with a straight-forward No. So as not to interrupt the context at this point, I will briefly and thematically document this No in an excursus at the end.
The Apostles Attest the Divine Authority of the Old Testament
The unique authority which the whole Old Testament constituted for the apostles is demonstrated especially by the fact that they base their teaching on it and constantly resort to it for evidence. The examples of the letter to the Romans alone makes this very clear!
For proof that no one is justified by works, since all are sinners, Paul does not draw on general experience, but on Old Testament Scripture—"as it is written"— and then cites a number of passages (3: lOff.). Also his teaching on original sin is based on the Old Testament. For him the fall into sin, as written, is a fact: "As sin came into the world through one man ..." (5:12ff.). Applicable for all time is the statement that "he who through faith is righteous shall live," "as it is written" (1:17). This righteousness of faith is attested in the Law and the Prophets (3:21). Therefore he repeatedly asks, "What does the Scripture say?" (4:3). Scripture says that Abraham's faith was reckoned to him and to all who are his descendants by faith as righteousness (4:16, 22)—"as it is written" (4:17). No one has an inherent right to be Abraham's seed, but it is free grace—"as it is written" (9:13, 15, 17). And so on through the entire letter. So for Paul, "God says" and "Scripture says" mean the same thing (9:15, 17). All New Testament writings attest the same thing with "that it might be fulfilled what the Lord spoke through
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the prophet" in the Gospels, and with the Scripture proof in the Acts and in the Epistles.
The Witness of Jesus and the Self-Testimony of the Apostles Concerning the Divine Authority of the Oral and Written Apostolic Proclamation
In nearly all New Testament letters the author not only gives his name but also calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ: So Paul in most of his letters, Peter in both of his letters, and John indirectly, 1 John 1 : Iff., where he identifies himself as one who has seen, heard, and touched the Lord. In addition, Paul emphasizes several times that he was called to be an apostle by the will of God (1 and 2 Cor. 1; Eph. 1, etc.) or by the command of God our Savior (1 Tim. 1), and not from men nor through men (Gal. 1). As a messenger immediately called, sent, and empowered by Christ, he claims unconditional authority for the Word assigned to him. He expressly considers his instruction (1 Cor. 11:17) to be commands, in the name of Christ, which call for obedience. "If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If any one does not recognize this, he is not recognized" (1 Cor. 14:37f.; see 2 Cor. 2:9; Phil. 2:12). "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in the idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. . . . Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ.. . . If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that man and have nothing do do with him" (2 Thess. 3:6-14). Here Paul obviously does not think of his "word" in the narrower sense of command only. He says very plainly in 2 Thessalonians 2:13 that not only his commands are God's commands, but that all his preaching is God's Word and thus—in contrast to all words of men—the ultimate authority: "And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the Word of God. ..."
Peter says the same with regard to the word of all the apostles, mentioning them in the same breath with the Old Testament prophets, and he calls upon the Christians "that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Savior through your apostles" (2 Pet. 3:2). In the Zahn commentary Wohlenberg writes that the text deals with saving preaching of the apostles, which is the Word of the exalted Lord and which is imperatively addressed to the conscience. Here Paul and Peter assert no more and no less than what Christ Himself says of the word spoken by the messengers whom He has directly empowered: "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects
me ... " (Luke 10:16). What was here said to the seventy disciples for their limited task applied also, first of all, to the twelve for their geographically and temporally limited commission. Therefore a city that refused to hear their preaching received the same judgment as Capernaum, which despised the Lord Himself (Matt. 10:15). But this applied also to the equally immediate universal commission given to the eleven and to Paul (John 20:21; Matt. 28:16ff.; Acts 26:16).
It is only this certainty that his word is God's Word that can move the apostle to claim the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5) and of action for his proclamation, even though he desires only to be the servant of the churches and not lord it over their faith (1 Cor. 3:5; 2 Cor. 1:24). Only for that reason does the Gospel, as he has proclaimed it, possess such authority that he can anathematize every one who preaches it differently, though he be an angel (Gal. 1:8f.). Only for that reason can he declare even Old Testament ceremonial laws of God to be repealed (Col. 2:16). Only for that reason can he repeatedly admonish the churches to remain conscientiously faithful to the doctrine proclaimed by him; and he makes no distinction between oral and written proclamation. (See, for example, 2 Thess. 2:15: "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.") Only for that reason can also Peter say that the ignorant and unstable twist the content of all of Paul's letters and other writings to their own destruction (2 Pet. 3:16). It is noteworthy that in this passage Peter does not refer to Paul's letters as 'teamwork,' but as Paul's letters. Even when Paul names others as cosenders of a letter, he always mentions himself first, appealing to his apostolic office. Thus, even when he often speaks in the first person plural and says, for example, in the above-cited passage: "Stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter," he is really thinking of his teaching, which his co-workers preach no differently than he who has received commission and content directly from the Lord. For that reason he can move easily from the "we" of Galatians l:8f. to the "I" of l:10ff. (Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9f., "God has revealed to us" with Eph. 3:3, "made known to me by revelation." Similarly, Gal. 1:12.)
This passage also indicates clearly that already at that time there existed a collection of Paul's letters and other writings, to which Peter ascribed supreme authority. In the questions of the canon we must turn to the witness of the ancient church. According to all surviving sources there is unanimous testimony that at least and without any doubt the Homologoumena were written either by the apostles themselves or in the most intimate connection with the apostles. So Mark is called the "hermeneut," or the transmitter of Peter's
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missionary preaching. He is said to have accurately written down everything that Peter proclaimed, though not in chronological order (Papias). This is in harmony with Peter's reference to Mark as his son (1 Pet. 5:13) and his promise: "I will see to it that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things" (2 Pet. 1:15). Origen calls Luke's Gospel "the Gospel praised by Paul," since Luke frequently accompanied the apostle Paul and was also with him in his imprisonment in Rome (2 Tim. 4:11; Acts 28), this tradition is highly probable. Luke himself appeals to the fundamental tradition (paradosis) of the apostles when he speaks of "those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word" (Luke 1:2).
The ancient church, which was very careful in these matters, must have had powerful reasons for establishing the full apostolic authority of these two Gospels. Elert writes:
From the moment of its birth the church was under the authority of the apostles who had become instruments of the Paraclete. There never was a church that was independent of it and thus could or should have come to a conclusion regarding the authority of the apostolic witness, both oral and written. Hence the only question that remains is whether in the subsequent definitive limiting of the canon the authority of the New Testament was made dependent on 'churchly' guarantees. We answer, in the first place, the definite limitation occurred at a time when the church in all its parts had long come to realize its dependence on the apostolic witness; secondly, when in all its doctrinal controversies it followed the witness of this authority in practice. Thirdly, and above all, the canon was limited only in connection with a decision about the so-called Antilegomena.. . . With regard to the Homologoumena the synod could resolve nothing further, since their canonicity was a given for it as much as for Athanasius.4
It cannot, of course, be proved that the Homologoumena are apostolic, given to the church by the apostles themselves, as Athanasius said.5 But for one who through the word of the apostles has come to trust in Jesus Christ, who prayed for those who to the end of time would believe through the word of the apostles— for such a one it is impossible at the same time to assume that the Word of the apostles can no longer be found anywhere with certainty. In that case, the un-adulterated message of Jesus in Word and deed could no longer be discovered with certainty either. Then we would have a Shepherd whom, unfortunately, we can no longer trust and follow in all things, since because of later distortions we can no longer be sure we are hearing His voice. For the believer, for whom one
listens to the New Testament as he reflects on source and norm of the faith, such an assumption is impossible. On the contrary, the unanimous witness of the ancient apostolic church on behalf of the Homologoumena—and measured by this yardstick, also the Antilegomena containing the apostolic message—is for the believer the necessary external confession that is sealed by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. By impressing the New Testament message as Word of God upon the heart, the Holy Spirit at the same time corroborates the authors' claim to be eye and ear witnesses and apostles of Christ, as well as the recognition of their writings by the ancient church. It is simply impossible to assume that for two thousand years the Holy Spirit has sided with liars who pretended to be ear witnesses and apostles directly called by Christ, although they were not, and whose word was erroneously acknowledged by the ancient church as authority. That would have been irreparable damage. Here, too, applies what Elert says in another connection: "All subsequent false conclusions or false connections . . . can be rectified—but never the first one."6
Holy Scripture Itself Substantiates Its Divine Authority
It Appeals to Direct Revelation
It is often said that it is rationalistic to substantiate the authority of Scripture whether by means of its revelatory quality or its inspiration. But this claim overlooks 1) that it is one thing when I attempt to substantiate a Biblical miracle by means of my own hypotheses, and quite another thing when the Bible substantiates one miracle by means of another, and 2) it is one thing to prove something to reason and quite another thing to substantiate something for faith. When the Bible substantiates the miracle of our reconciliation and redemption by means of that other miracle, namely, that the Son of God became man for us, died, and rose again, then this is neither human speculation nor rational proof. God could, of course, simply have informed us, "You have been redeemed! Do not ask how or why!" But we can only be grateful to Him that He has told us more. So here. The great miracle that the prophetic and apostolic word is the Word of God is substantiated in Scripture itself by two miracles. God Himself knows best why He provided this double substantiation. Therefore we should not brush it aside but gratefully give heed to it. It sounds quite pious to claim that faith needs no substantiation for the divine character of Scripture, but usually this pious facade conceals a rejection of the full divinity of Scripture. Viewed in the light, the same people who decline a Biblical substantiation have one of their own for their view, such as: In a certain sense we could call the Bible the Word of God, because under certain
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circumstances we could hear God speaking to us through faith witness of Israel and the primitive church. Indeed, we are not bound to the faith conceptions of those days, nor may we expect to get a historically reliable record from faith testimonies which are, after all, tendentious. This, too, is a reason why the Bible is or is called Word of God—but it is a false reason, for "it is not on the side of God, but of men" (Matt. 16:23). Besides, it is not even logical. A faith testimony can certainly offer an apt description of facts in history and nature. When for example, someone describes flowers, animals, or constellations and extols them as wonders of God in which the Creator reveals Himself in His power and wisdom, the fact that this is a testimony of faith does not prove that flowers, animals, and constellations do not exist, or that their description is not accurate.
At any rate, the claim to proclaim God's Word is not based, in the Biblical Writings, on the idea that people out of their faith tendentiously trimmed or even invented historical events, but that God really revealed Himself through real events and words. Concerning God's deeds for His people Isaiah says, "The Lord has bared His holy arm" (52:10). And with regard to the miraculous deeds performed by the Son of God, the statement at the end of the account of the wedding at Cana, "He manifested His glory" (John 2:11), applies everywhere. To be sure, we must concede that God's activity in history is ambiguous—also for the believer. God's deeds in history are not first and foremost revelation, but they are deeds that effect blessing or bane. Faith would often misinterpret these deeds if God Himself had not made known their significance and thus turned them into recognizable revelation. God has spoken, not always and not to everyone, but at various times and in various ways; sometimes inwardly within the prophet. In my opinion, this is what Peter points to when he says of the prophets, "They inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory" (1 Pet. 1:11). Sometimes they may have heard God's voice in still other ways, but always so that they could recognize it as not arising out of their own desires and their fantasy, but as something outside themselves, as the divine Word (Jer. 20:7-9). God spoke to Moses as a man speaks to his friend (Ex. 33:11). Countless times it is stated in the Old Testament: "The Lord spoke to ... " or "the Lord spoke with . . . and said" or "the Word of the Lord came to. . . . " In the interest of a mere revelation of history current theology is almost completely silent on this fact or even makes it ridiculous. So, for example, Gerhardt Ebeling:
If "word" is thought of exclusively as an acoustically articulated word in a specific language and it is
spoken of as an heavenly Super Being, then "Word of God" can indeed be understood only as a figurative, symbolical mode of expression. Otherwise there arises the question, seriously debated earlier, as to what was God's own language, whether it was Hebrew or Russian, as pious Russians believed. However, God must not continue to be presented as Super Being existing in Himself and thus as a piece of cosmic reality. 7
In this way the God of the Bible—and there is no other—is made ridiculous. Only one who denies the God of the Bible, the Father of Jesus Christ, who is a "Super Being" existing in Himself, that is, a personal Supreme Being or Ego—only such a one can deny that God can speak words and has spoken to the prophets. For the believer, however, it would be completely absurd to turn the God who created our mouth, our mind, and so our language into a dumb idol of the heathen (1 Cor. 12:2). God has spoken. And this Word is a revealing Word. It is self-revelation of the divine Being as well as revelation of the will of the Ruler and Savior, as well as revelation regarding the world and human beings, as well as interpretation of God's activity in history and prediction of future events. All prophets attest what also Isaiah says, "The Lord of hosts has revealed Himself in my ears" (Is. 22:14). Amos goes so far as to say: "Surely the Lord does nothing, without revealing His secret to His servants the prophets. . . . The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?" (3:7ff.). Thus God's Word came not only to the prophets in the narrower sense, but also to others, for example, to leaders of Israel like Joshua (1:1) or the judges (e.g. Judges 6:14).
In the fulness of time God sent forth His Son. He is the Word and the revelation of God in person, and therewith also in all activity associated with His person, in act and in suffering, but also and above all in His Words. This is mostly suppressed nowadays. But He Himself designates His Words as a part of His redemptive work for which the Father has sent Him into the world (Luke 4:18-21, 43; John 18:37). Through His Words, full of Spirit and life, majesty, wisdom, and power, He revealed not only Himself as Son of God (John 6:68f.), but also the Father and the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven; and He did it in a clarity and depth no prophet could have equalled. For, "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known" (John 1:18). John the Baptist says of Him: "He who came from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what He has seen and heard" (John 3:3If). Every Word spoken by the Son was quite directly God's Word in human language. Without that His person and His deeds, His cross and resurrection, would have remained a dark secret. But through the Word all this is the most glo-
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rious revelation. No one else experienced it so intimately and heard the Words of Jesus out of His own mouth in all their fullness like the twelve disciples who accompanied Him every day. He said many things exclusively to them when He was alone with them. For them He explained the parables, spoke to them about the Kingdom of God even after His resurrection, and entrusted the Father's Word to them. So He states in His high-priestly prayer: "I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me . . . none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.. . . Sanctify them in the truth; Thy Word is the truth" (John 17:6-17). He commanded these His disciples to pass on to others all that He had entrusted to them (Matt. 28:20). But He added the promise without which they could not have carried out their task: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come" (John 16:12f.). Just as we cannot directly refer to all Christians without examination what Paul writes in the first person plural, so, following the most elementary rules of hermeneutic, we cannot apply without examination to all Christians the Words of Jesus addressed to His twelve disciples. But after His ascension He called Paul to be an apostle and said to him: "I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and bear witness to the things in which you have seen Me and to those in which I will appear to you" (Acts 26:16).
Thus the apostles also refer to the fact that they do not proclaim human wisdom or myths but divine revelation which they have themselves heard and seen, which they have received from the Lord Himself or from His Spirit (2 Pet. 1:16ff.: "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths ..."; 1 John 1:3f.: "That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you . . . and we are writing this . . ."; 1 Cor. 11:23: "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you"; 1 Cor. 2:9f: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard . . . God has revealed to us through the Spirit. . ."; Eph. 3:3: "The mystery was made known to me by revelation"; Gal. 1:12: "For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ"; see also Rev. 1).
What God has revealed in Word and deed through the prophetic and apostolic witness of Scripture is now in turn revealed to us as the saving truth. Scripture is not simply the revealed Word of God, but also the revealing Word of God and therefore dynamis (Rom. l:16f.; 16:25; 2 Cor. 2:14, 17; Col. l:25ff.; Titus 1:3). Also "whatever was written in former days," hence the entire Old Testament, is not a memorial of past Words and deeds of God that no longer concern us. Rather it
is God's Word addressed to us for instruction, for admonition, and for consolation — to the extent that it has not been explicitly repealed in the New Testament (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:11; 2 Tim. 3:15f.). Accordingly, for the Lutheran Confessions Scripture is both the revealed as well as the revealing Word of God (SA III, I, 3; SD XI, 12f., 52; cf. 64). Whoever opposes the equation of Scripture and revelation thereby opposes not only Lutheran orthodoxy, but also the witness of Scripture and the Confessions. Luther was certain: "We now have no revelation of the Holy Spirit other than Scripture."8
However, Scripture substantiates its divine authority by yet another fact.
It Appeals to Its Divine Inspiration
Why could the prophets say and write: "Thus says the Lord"? Not only because they had received God's revelation; for it is one thing to receive revelation and another to transmit it unabridged and in such words as will accurately express its meaning without distortion. God saw to it that there was no distortion, as He has promised His authorized messengers: "I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak" (Ex. 4:12). "Behold, I have put My Words in your mouth" (Jer. 1:9). Accordingly, Scripture says not only that God spoke to the prophets, but also that He spoke through them (Heb. 1:1). Both are said with regard to Hosea: "When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea" (Hos. 1:2). In his last words David confesses: "The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me, His Word is upon my tongue" (2 Sam. 23:2). In the light of this passage David could only have thought of the Holy Spirit as the "ready writer" whose pen his tongue is (Ps. 45:1). Also Jesus and the apostles attest that in their speaking holy men of God were moved or borne by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). Christ said, "David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared" (Mark 12:36). Paul states, "The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet" (Acts 28:25). And Peter: "Brethren, the Scripture has to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David" (Acts 1:16). Also a passage from Psalm 95, whose author is unknown, is cited as follows in the letter to the Hebrews: "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says" (Heb. 3:7). At very many passages, however, it is simply said that God spoke through this or that prophet or through all of them (e.g., "As indeed He [God] says in Hosea," Rom. 9:25; or the oft-recurring formulation in Matt.: "What was said by the Lord through the prophet"). The relationship of the real author to the instrument cannot be expressed any more clearly. Paul summarizes all of this and testifies that the entire Scripture of the Old Testament was God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). Thus he regards the entire Old Testament as prophetic writing, just as Peter's
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reference to the prophetic word that is a light in a dark place surely means the Old Testament, and not just the Messianic prophecies.
If inspiration applies to the writings of the Old Covenant, which ceased, should this not apply all the more to the writings of the far more glorious New Covenant which abides? At the very beginning of the new era we are told of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in His fulness upon the apostles, so that they "began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4). The Holy Spirit guided their spirit and their tongue, but not only in this special moment. Peter writes that what the Spirit of Christ said concerning Christ's suffering and glory already in the Prophets is now proclaimed to you "by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven" ( 1 Pet. 1:12). Even after years and decades the apostles could still transmit the Words of Jesus in their own words without altering the original sense because the Holy Spirit brought to their remembrance all that Jesus had said to them (John 14:26). Even in the most critical situations, where calm reflection is virtually impossible, the Holy Spirit gave the apostles the right words, for Jesus kept the promise He made to the twelve: "When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Matt. 10:19f). If this was true even for such extraordinary situations, how much more is it true for their chief commission, namely, to proclaim the Gospel to the world. It is, therefore, no presumption for Paul to say with regard to the apostolic preaching not only that "God has revealed to us through the Spirit," but then also continues, "And we impart this in Words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:10, 13).
All cited passages refer the inspiring activity of the Holy Spirit to spoken and written words. It is, therefore, contrary to Scripture to apply inspiration only to the content but not to the wording. Just as the Holy Spirit saw to it that the content of the divine message was transmitted to us unadulterated, He also saw to it that prophets and apostles found the terms that adequately expressed the content. Without those terms the content would also be lost. Only after I have grasped the meaning from the wording in its context will I be able to hand it on to others. I dare not first correct the wording with regard to what I consider to be genuine or legendary, obsolete form or kernel of truth, etc. To one who does that applies exactly what Peter Brunner writes regarding the Roman teaching of tradition and infallible teaching office:
If a directly inspired member of a church or a called or ordained official of a church . . . were
himself the judge in the dispute between genuine and spurious apostolic tradition, without permitting the canon of Holy Scripture to act as sole judge,. . . the specific apostolic authority to be the ultimate court of decision concerning what is correct preaching of the Gospel and administration of the sacraments, then has in fact been transferred to that member of the church. In this way the fundamental vis-a-vis of apostle and non-apostle, of the church's foundation and the church's building would be abolished. But this fundamental vis-a-vis is indispensable for the life of the church.9
Luther never presumed to criticize the Old Testament and the Homologoumena of the New Testament. He affirmed that Scripture was "reduced to writing by the Holy Spirit," "For not only the world but also the mode of speaking employed by the Holy Spirit and Scripture come from God."10
Nowhere in Scripture is there a description of the "how" of the process of inspiration. Nowhere an inspiration by dictation is asserted. But the "that" of inspiration is clearly attested and the authority of the prophetic and apostolic Word is based on that fact. This foundation shields the statement, "the Scripture is the Word of God," from two misunderstandings that are disastrous for exegesis. First, it reminds us that God did not have the Bible drop from heaven but chose to speak through men. Consequently we cannot simply ignore the historical circumstance and the historical place of the writer, nor his personal individuality in style and vocabulary, nor the rules of human speech. Secondly, it prevents us from asserting a coexistence or succession of man's word and God's Word. There is an indissoluble interweaving of both. It is impossible to sort out man's words and God's Words or to label Scripture as being only man's word that may now and then become God's Word.
The truth that all of Scripture is the Word of God and thus "authoritative" for Christians does not mean that everything in it is of equal weight and equally central, or that it shows us the way to salvation in equal measure, or that the theocratic ordinances of the Old Covenant are still binding in Christ's kingdom. For Lutherans it should be quite self-evident that the "chief article" is the center of Scripture and at the same time the only key to its proper understanding. Yet the key to Scripture and its center is not a norm above Scripture, according to which everything that does not "inculcate Christ" (what Luther never said in this way) is stripped of its divine authority. No, all Scripture is authority. In acknowledging that, we are not saying that we believe in the triune God, but we say with Paul: "But this I admit to you, that according to the way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law or written in the Prophets" (Acts 24:14).
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Luther did the same thing. If the "It is written" had not been divine authority for him, he would not, as he writes in the "Babylonian Captivity of the Church," single-handedly have undertaken the task of Sisyphus of rolling a huge stone uphill, a stone which, humanly speaking, would crush him.11 Of the many statements of Luther concerning Scripture I submit just one more:
Therefore if people refuse to believe, you should keep silence; for you have no obligation to force them to regard Scripture as God's Book or Word. It is sufficient for you to base your proof on Scripture. This you must do when they take it upon themselves to say: "You preach that one should not hold to the teaching of men, even though Peter and Paul, yes, even Christ, were men, too." If you hear people who are so completely blinded and hardened that they deny that this is God's Word or are in doubt about it, just keep silence, do not say a word to them, and let them go their way. Just say: "I will give you enough proof from Scripture. If you want to believe it, this is good; if not, I will give you nothing else." Then you may say: "Ah, in this way God's Word must needs be brought into disgrace!" Leave this to God.12
In the same way Scheibel acknowledged the authority of Scripture. Only so could he have the courage to defy the order of his king to introduce the Union in Prussia and, as a result, put up with being dismissed from his professorship and driven into exile. He wrote:
1. My conviction is based entirely and exclusively on statements of the Bible, and I am neither able nor willing to believe any other word, and I shall never do so. . . . As far as I am acquainted with dictionaries, grammars, and hermeneutics, the statements of this divine Holy Scripture do not admit of ten different interpretations.. . . The usage of language can be twisted and turned at will as little as the historical sources. ... 2. I believe this holy, divine Scripture verbatim. . . . And the fact that I have such literal faith should be held against me least of all by the philologians who will take care not to depart from the letter of their authors. In addition, this faith is demanded of all theologians and all Christians by the Lord and His apostles.13
Excursus: On the Truth and Genuineness of the Words of Jesus
1. Since the humanity of Jesus was not and is not an independent person or independent ego, it shares in the divine omniscience — even in the state of humiliation. Therefore it was not automatically subject to the limited knowledge ordinarily belonging to being human or even to error. (See Matt. 9:4; 20:18f.; 24;
26:31, 34; Luke 5:4ff.; 22:10ff.; Mark 14:9; John 2:25; 16:30; 21:17. — SD VIII, 11-13, 25. 74f.; Ep. VIII, 36-38; Scripture proof in SD VIII, 55-59 and the Catalogues of Testimonies.)
2. The cited Scripture passages attest that nothing was excluded from the omniscience of Jesus. He knew the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven as well as the thoughts of men; He predicted the great future events of salvation and damnation as well as very minor incidents. If the pertinent judgment of Jesus on the thoughts of His enemies or on the relation of a disciple's heart to Him is based on His omniscience, this excludes not only untruthfulness or ignorance of the saving truth but simply every erroneous verdict.
3. To be sure, because of His divine, almighty love Jesus Christ for a time did not use His omniscience in His state of humiliation and permitted it—as it were, like man's subconscious—to be quiescent in his human nature with its natural limited knowledge that was capable of growth. (See Luke 2:52; Mark 13:32; Ep. VIII, 16; SD VIII, 26; also non-use of omnipotence in John 10:18; 18:6-9, 12.)
4. However, the claim that also in His preaching Jesus did without His omniscience and taught what was erroneous would flatly contradict the fact that His preaching was part of the redeeming work to which He was sent (Luke 4:18-21, 43; John 18:37). It would charge Him with unfaithfulness to the task given Him by His Father and would give the lie to the following statements: "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known" (John 1:18). "He who is of the earth belongs to the earth, and of the earth he speaks; He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what He has seen and heard" (John 3:3If.). "I declare to the world what I have heard from Him [the Father].... I speak thus as the Father taught Me" (John 8:26, 28). "The Word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; the Father who has sent Me has Himself given Me commandment what to say and what to speak. . . . What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden Me" (John 12:48 ff.; see also 17:8, 14, 17). For that reason it is true also of His Words: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will not pass away" (Matt. 24:35), and: "Whoever is ashamed of Me and of My Words . . ." (Mark 8:38). If the Father kept something from His Son in His humiliation for our sake, the Son said nothing about it, but He did not teach something that was false.
5. Since the preaching of Jesus is part of His designed task of saving the world, His Words applied not only to the hearers of that day. Otherwise, why should He have sent forth eye and earwitnesses and promised them the Holy Spirit to bring His Words to their remembrance? Hence, when it is denied that Words of
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Jesus transmitted by the apostles are genuine, or when they are attributed to the primitive church, or when their genuineness is put in doubt, the unity of the work of redemption is destroyed. A part of what the Father sent His Son to do is suppressed or made uncertain. In this way the Gospel is deprived of its fullness, indeed, that which is the most precious next to the fact of salvation, that to which the apostolic proclamation appeals and from which it draws.
6. Through His Words Christ revealed and continues to reveal Himself to the end of time in men's hearts most gloriously as Son of God and Savior of the world. As long as we cannot see Him, we have no better mirror of His true self (Luke 4:21f.; John 4:42; 6:68f.; 17:6-8). If the genuineness of His Words is called into question, these Words will then no longer reveal who He was and is, but whom the church considered Him to be. To be sure, His Words will speak for themselves in men's hearts. But often the promise in the Words, "the Lord has said it," is the presupposition for calming a Christian and thus causing him to experience the divine power of the message sooner or later.
7. By means of the authority that belongs to Him alone Jesus also established the New Covenant with His promises and means of grace (Matt. 26:26ff.; 28:18ff.; John 20:23; 3:16). Luther is right in saying: "Let this then stand fast: The church can give no promises of grace; that is the work of God alone. Therefore she cannot institute a sacrament."14 If the Words of Jesus are called into question, the promises and institutions of the New Convenant will then also be made doubtful. No one can rely on promises and words of institution which Jesus could have given and spoken, but did not actually do so.
If Words of Jesus in the New Testament are labeled "spurious," the statement of the apostles, "Jesus said," is then turned into a lie. It is beside the point to refer to the practice of the ancient authors to put words into their hero's mouth, which was not considered to be untruthful. Whoever says that he has heard and seen what he has not heard and seen was always regarded as a liar (1 Cor. 15:15).
8. Certainly Jesus accommodated Himself to the mode of expression used by His hearers and resorted to illustrations and expressions they could understand. However, the magnitude and unique significance of Christ's prophetic office for the whole world to the end of time forbids the assumption that in His proclamation Jesus accommodated Himself to false conceptions of His time. For example, if He regarded the story of Jonah as fiction, while the hearers viewed it as fact, He could not present it as an analogy and
prototype of the greatest of all miracles, His resurrection. That would have been worse than error, it would have been deliberate deception. At other times He certainly did not hesitate to call the Jews' attention to erroneous interpretations of the Old Testament. A miracle that did not take place is no sign and therefore also no prototype of the greatest sign, where everything depends on its physical reality.
If Jesus presented fairy tales as facts, even though He knew better, He would have been Himself to blame for the fact that people enlightened by historical research lose confidence in His Word. If, because of the loss of confidence, it is already ethically dubious in false accommodation to tell children "the silly legend of the stork"15 instead of giving them the truth in simple words, how much more dubious would it be for Jesus to act thus, since life and salvation depends upon unqualified confidence in Him and His Word. And if, in accommodation to false conceptions of the time, He cited individual Words of the Old Testament as inspired and presented the entire Scripture as supreme authority, then He Himself would be guilty of a fateful false teaching. For His accommodation to these allegedly false conceptions had to be taken as confirmation and lead to a doctrine of Scripture and inspiration that is labeled from the standpoint of historical-critical scholarship as false doctrine, in which the church was held captive for 1800 years.
Notes
1 SA III, XII, 2.
2 Helmut Echternach, "The Lutheran Doctrine of the 'Autopistia' of Holy Scripture," trans, by J. T. Mueller in Concordia Theological Monthly 23 (April, 1952):250.
3 Echternach, p. 242.
4 Werner Elert, Der Christliche Glaube, 5th ed. (Hamburg: Furche-Verlag, 1960), sect. 31, pp. 179-180.
5 Elert, pp. 180f.
6 Elert, sect. 30, p. 174.
7 Gerhardt Ebeling, Das Wesen des Christliche Glaubens (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1963), pp. 109-110.
8 Luther's Works, Am. ed., vol. 18, p. 108.
9 Peter Brunner, Schüft und Tradition, Schriften des Theologischen Konvents Augsburgischen Bekenntnesse, no. 2 (Berlin: Lutherisches Verlaghaus, 1951), p. 25.
10 Luther's Works, St. Louis ed., vol. 22, col. 577; vol. 4, col. 1960.
11 Am. ed., vol. 36, p. 11.
12 Am. ed., vol. 30, p. 107.
13 Cited by G. Rost, "Johann Gottfried Scheibel und die ersten Werzeln der Selbständigen Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche," Lutherische Kirche 11 (February, 1980):33.
14 Am. ed., vol. 36, pp. 108, 118.
15 Helmut Thielicke, Theologische Ethik, ed. William H. Lazareth (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1951), band 2/1, no. 356.
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