Always Reforming

Reflections on Martin Luther and Biblical Studies

Channing L. Crisler, Robert L. Plummer

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781683594703
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Luther challenges the academy to speak beyond itself.
Whatever the theological malady, Martin Luther prescribed the same remedy: the word of God. For Luther, the Word was central to the Christian life. As a lover, translator, and interpreter of Scripture, Luther believed the Bible was too important to be left to academics. God's word has always been and must always be for God's people. What, then, can biblical studies learn from Luther?
In Always Reforming, leading Lutheran, Reformed, and Baptist scholars explore Martin Luther as an interpreter of Scripture. The contributors elucidate central themes of Luther's approach to Scripture, place him within contemporary dialogue, and suggest how he might reform biblical studies.
By retrieving Luther's voice for the conversations of today, the contributors embody a spirit that is always reforming.

1

THE PERSPICUITY OF SCRIPTURE ACCORDING TO MARTIN LUTHER

The Early Development of His Doctrine, 1520–1521

Gregg R. Allison1

Whereas most treatments of Luther’s doctrine focus mostly or exclusively on his articulation and defense of perspicuity in his treatise On the Bondage of the Will (1525), this essay focuses on the inchoate development of his view in three prior works (1520–1521): (1) To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, (2) Answer to the Hyperchristian … Book by Goat Emser, and (3) Confutatio Rationis Latomianae.2

LUTHER’S VIEW OF PERSPICUITY ACCORDING TO HIS TREATISE TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION

The year 1520 saw the publication of three momentous works by Luther, the first of which was To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.3 In this tractate, Luther overthrows three “walls” that had for centuries buttressed the position and power of the Church, and he calls for a reform of the Church by the civil authorities.4 The first wall was the secular-spiritual divide, which Luther insisted must be torn down. The second wall was the Church’s claim that the interpretation of Scripture belongs to the pope, and to the pope alone. The third wall was the pope’s claim to possess the sole prerogative to convene a church council, a strategy that Luther favored as a plan to rehabilitate the Church. Our attention will be focused on the second of the three walls torn down by Luther: the Church’s claim that the pope alone could interpret Scripture.

Luther affirms that the crucial factor in the correct interpretation of Scripture is not ecclesiastical position but the character of the interpreter. Qualities mentioned by Luther include having a pious heart and being a true or good Christian who has “the true faith, spirit, understanding, word, and mind of Christ.”5 Chief among the characteristics noted by Luther is “possess[ing] the Holy Spirit.”6 Thus, it is not the interpretation of Scripture by the pope, but its interpretation by Christians—even the most insignificant believers—possessing the above listed qualities that should be followed:

If it were to happen that the pope and his cohorts were wicked and not true Christians, were not taught by God and were without understanding, and at the same time some obscure person had a right understanding, why should the people not follow the obscure man? Has the pope not erred many times? Who would help Christendom when the pope erred if we did not have somebody we could trust more than him, somebody who had the Scriptures on his side?… The Romanists must admit that there are among us good Christians who have the true faith, spirit, understanding, word, and mind of Christ. Why, then, should we reject the word and understanding of good Christians and follow the pope, who has neither faith nor the Spirit?7

Luther also develops the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture as foundational for approaching and understanding Scripture. Luther maintains that each and every Christian has the responsibility “to test and judge what is right and wrong in matters of faith” and to ascertain “what is consistent with faith and what is not.” This discernment is carried out on the basis of one’s “believing understanding of the Scriptures.”8 Scripture itself is clear and understandable: it is fit to be the intelligible standard against which all else is to be measured. Luther maintains that it is the duty for each believer in Jesus Christ, armed with perspicuous Scripture and the proper characteristics, “to espouse the cause of the faith, to understand and defend it, and to denounce every error.”9

LUTHER’S VIEW OF PERSPICUITY ACCORDING TO ANSWER TO THE HYPERCHRISTIAN … BOOK BY GOAT EMSER

One of the most substantial critiques of Luther’s To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation was published in December of 1520. Mockingly entitled Against the Unchristian Book of the Augustinian Martin Luther, Addressed to the German Nobility, it was written by Jerome (Hieronymus) Emser (1477–1527). Luther dubbed him “the goat in Leipzig” because Emser’s coat of arms—a shield and helmet adorned with a goat—appeared on the title page of his writings. Moreover, he was Luther’s former professor, with whom the Reformer had already tussled.10 This publication sparked Luther to issue a series of four writings against Emser throughout 1521. The longest and most thorough reply to Emser’s Against the Unchristian Book is entitled Answer to the Hyperchristian, Hyperspiritual, and Hyperlearned Book by Goat Emser in Leipzig—Including Some Thoughts Regarding His Companion, the Fool Murner.11 Two points concerning Luther’s view of the perspicuity of Scripture appear in this work: his denial of the need for the Church’s clarifying interpretations of Scripture, and his dismissal of multiple meanings of Scripture. Both rejections are grounded on Luther’s doctrine of Scripture’s clarity.

LUTHER’S REJECTION OF THE CLARIFYING INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CHURCH

One of Emser’s main points in his Against the Unchristian Book is that Christians can rely on three weapons in theological sword fighting: (1) the “sword,” or Scripture; (2) the “long spear,” or tradition and ecclesiastical usage; and (3) the “short dagger,” or the interpretations of Scripture by the church fathers. Luther is disturbed by Emser’s insistence on this trinity and critiques the implication that Scripture is obscure and therefore stands in need of the Church’s clarifying interpretations.

Luther challenges this view of Scripture and hermeneutics with five points. First, it is futile to imagine that something that is more obscure (i.e., the church fathers’ interpretations of Scripture) can effectively illuminate something that is already less obscure (i.e., Scripture): “If the Spirit spoke in the fathers, he spoke even more in his own Scripture. And whoever does not understand the Spirit in his own scripture—who will believe that he understands him in the writings of someone else?… If one does not grasp it [Scripture] as it is by itself, but rather through human words and glosses, it will soon be blunt and more obscure than before.”12 Luther ties the inspiration of Scripture by the Holy Spirit to its clarity. He then draws the corollary that if the Spirit has communicated clearly in his Scripture, even if one grants the Spirit’s work in the interpretations (the “human words and glosses”) of the church fathers, the church fathers’ interpretations are still less clear than Scripture. Logically, then, if one interprets Scripture by the church fathers, the result can only be that Scripture ends up being more obscure than it was at the outset.

Second, the church fathers themselves operated on the principle that “Scripture without any glosses is the sun and the whole light from which all teachers receive their light, and not vice versa.”13 Thus, the church fathers themselves acknowledged the relative obscurity of their own teaching in comparison with Scripture itself: “This can be seen from the following: when the fathers teach something, they do not trust their own teaching. They are afraid it is too obscure and too uncertain; they run to Scripture and take a clear passage from it to illumine their own point.”14

Third, the church fathers themselves acknowledged the relative obscurity of their own biblical interpretations in relation to Scripture itself, as demonstrated by their exercise of the principle of the analogia fidei: “In the same way, when they interpret a passage in Scripture they do not do so with their own sense or words (for whenever they do that, as often happens, they generally err). Instead, they add another passage which is clearer and thus illumine and interpret Scripture with Scripture.”15 Thus, it is wrong, concludes Luther, “to attribute to the fathers the light with which to illumine Scripture,” for this is contrary to the attitude of the church fathers themselves, who “confess their own obscurity and only illumine Scripture with Scripture.”16

Fourth, one application of the Pauline command to “test every doctrine and hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess 5:21) is that the church fathers’ teachings should be evaluated. If this is so—and Luther places himself in opposition to both Emser and Eck on this point17—then there is an important implication for the clarity of Scripture: “If, however, we should test them, as St. Paul says here, what kind of touchstone should we use other than Scripture? It must really be clearer and more certain than the fathers’ teaching, for how else could we use it as a test to judge what is right or wrong?”18

Fifth, Luther appeals to Aristotle who, through the writings of Thomas Aquinas, had become an important voice in Catholic theology and practice:

Aristotle had written—and nature, without Aristotle, also teaches it to the peasants—that one cannot prove something obscure and uncertain with something obscure and uncertain, even less, light with darkness. Instead, whatever is obscure and uncertain must be illumined with something clear and certain. Since, then, all the fathers prove their point with Scripture, it is incredible that they could have been so mad and nonsensical (as follows from Emser’s philosophy and short dagger [the interpretation of Scripture by the church fathers]) as to consider Scripture an obscure fog (as Emser scolds and blasphemes) with which they clarified and illumined their teaching. Rather, they most certainly considered Scripture the principal light and the greatest clarity and certainty, to which they appealed and upon which they relied as upon the most obvious and the clearest teaching to judge and to test all teaching.19

Aristotelian logic undermines Emser’s hermeneutical position.

Luther extensively argues against the position that Scripture is obscure and therefore stands in need of the clarifying interpretations of the church fathers.

LUTHER’S REJECTION OF MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF SCRIPTURE

Luther also critiques the notion that Scripture has a twofold or fourfold meaning.20 These expressions are used interchangeably. The expression “twofold” refers to the distinction between the literal and the spiritual meanings of Scripture, and the expression “fourfold” refers to the literal, allegorical, anagogical, and tropological senses. (These last three are simply the three divisions of the spiritual meaning employed in the twofold scheme of classification.) This hermeneutic was a cornerstone of scholastic theology, and Emser promoted it with appeals to 2 Corinthians 3:6 (“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”) for scriptural warrant, and to Origen, Dionysius, and others for support from Church tradition. Luther’s objections to this multiple-sense hermeneutic are as follows.

As a starting point, such an interpretative scheme wreaks havoc with Scripture itself. Luther demonstrates the absurdity of the position with respect to Galatians 4:22–24 and Romans 7:7 and 14.21

Additionally, Scripture would be rendered null and void without the “literal” meaning, but it survives fine without the “spiritual” sense. Luther affirms that the “literal” understanding is “the highest, best, strongest, in short, the whole substance, nature and foundation of Scripture. If one abandoned it, the whole Scripture would be nothing.”22

Luther offers two reasons for this insistence on the “literal” sense of Scripture. The first has to do with the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of Scripture:

“The Holy Spirit is the simplest writer and adviser in heaven and on earth. That is why his words could have no more than the one simplest meaning which we call the written one, or the literal meaning of the tongue.”23 The second reason goes to the very nature and logic of effective communica...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Perspicuity of Scripture according to Martin Luther: The Early Development of His Doctrine, 1520–1521 (Gregg R. Allison)
• Chapter 2: Contra Origen: Martin Luther on Allegorizing the Biblical Text (Robert L. Plummer)
• Chapter 3: Luther’s Tentatio as the Center of Paul’s Theology (Channing L. Crisler)
• Chapter 4: Martin Luther’s Pedagogical Exposition of the Letter to Titus (Robert Kolb)
• Chapter 5: God’s Word, Baptism, and Regeneration (Timo Laato)
• Chapter 6: Luther on the Scriptures in Galatians—And Its Readers (A. Andrew Das)
• Chapter 7: Soundings on Simul Iustus Et Peccator: Evidence in the Pauline Epistles for Our Continuing Struggle with Sin (Thomas R. Schreiner)
• Chapter 8: The Centrality of Romans in the Life and Theology of Martin Luther (Benjamin L. Merkle)
• Chapter 9: (Re-)Centering Righteousness in Christ: A Reflection on Luther’s “Two Kinds of Righteousness” (Brian Vickers)
• Chapter 10: In Trouble and in Good Heart (Oswald Bayer)
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Old Testament