5. The objections to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.
The objections against the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures form an exceedingly sad chapter. In this respect, they stand next to the objections raised against the satisfactio vicaria Christi.799) He who denies the vicarious satisfaction of Christ denies the essence of Christian faith, because only that is Christian faith which has Christ as its object in his vicarious satisfaction.800) He who denies the inspiration of Scripture, that is, denies that the Word of the apostles and prophets is God's own infallible Word, destroys, as much as there is in him, the foundation of the Christian Church, because, according to Eph. 2:20, the Christian Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Nor is it to be forgotten that anyone who denies the inspiration of Scripture becomes eo ipso a critic of Scripture and as a critic of Scripture, which after all as God's Word does not want to be criticized but believed, falls into the Matt. 11:25 divine judgment described above. None of us, even if he were a doctor in all four faculties, can deny the inspiration of Scripture without suffering damage to his natural mental powers. This fact also appears from the nature of the arguments which are brought against the inspiration of Scripture. These arguments are clearly recognizably below the level of God's natural powers, which remained with us men even after the Fall. Against the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures was and is objected:
1. the different style in the individual books of the Scripture.801) The different style, however, is fact. Isaiah
799) The objections to the satisfactio vicaria are refuted in the doctrine of the work of Christ, II, 416.
800) 1 Cor. 2:2; 15:1-3; Jn. 1:29.
801) Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 251. Instead of the different styles, one also addresses the "differences in writing" of the individual writers. Thus Gray according to Hofmann in Baier-Walther 1, 101 f.
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writes differently than Amos, John differently than Paul, etc. Also the old dogmatists point out very certain. Quenstedt, for example, writes:802) Magna est inter sacros scriptores quoad stylum et genus dicendi diversitas. [“There is great diversity among the sacred writers as to the style and kind of speech.”] To recognize this, one does not need to understand the basic Hebrew and Greek texts. Translations also express this difference in style. Now this difference in style is said to contradict the inspiration of Scripture. The argument runs like this: If God were the actual author of the Scriptures, or, what is the same, if the Scriptures were really the Word of God, then one and the same style would have to be found in all books of the Scriptures. The difference of style, it has been emphatically said, deals the "death blow" to the doctrine of the divine inspiration of Scripture. Nitzsch-Stephan (p. 251) makes the mocking remark that the old Lutheran theology had not allowed itself to be misled in the least by the difference of style, but had stuck without wavering to the verbal inspiration. We say: That was very reasonable of the old Lutheran theology. For the matter stands thus: The different style does not contradict inspiration, but is required by it, because God did not speak merely through one man, but through several men, each of whom had his own certain style, and which God used for the communication of his Word as he found it in the individual writers. To put it a little more learnedly, there is no human style in abstracto, but always only in concreto, that is, in the individual human persons. No man has ever seen or perceived a style that would have been detached from the persons who wrote it. But why did not God write His own divine style, so as to place the πασα γραφή θεόπνευστος irrefutably in the light even externally? The Scripture answers to this that God could not use His own divine or heavenly style, because the heavenly style does not suit us men here on earth. This is expressly testified to by the Scriptures. According to 2 Cor. 12:4 Paul was caught up into the heavenly paradise and heard words there. But they were words that are not suitable for speaking on earth (άρρητα ρήματα α οὐκ εξόν άνθρώπω λαλήσαι; Luther: "which no man can say").
802) Systema I, 111.
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The heavenly style, which is not applicable here on earth, we will understand once in heaven. Therefore, it stands that the objection raised by the difference of style against inspiration does not reveal understanding, but the opposite of it. But our old dogmatists speak very intelligently about this. Thus Quenstedt says: "As the sacred writers were educated or accustomed to speak and write more loftily or more simply, so the Holy Spirit used them, and wished to adapt and ascribe to themselves the nature of men." 803) We have an analogue for this "condescension" in the person of Christ in the state of humiliation. Under the condition that Christ had to fulfill the law and suffer and die in the place of men, it was necessary that He should not go about in His divine glory in the Jewish land (otherwise everyone from Dan to Bersaba would have fled from Him), but should humble Himself and be made as a man by signs (σχήματι ενρεϑείς ώς ανϑρωπος, Phil. 2:7). Thus, even assuming that God wanted to speak to men, He had to renounce His divine or heavenly style and condescend to the human style (condescendere, attemperare) in order to be endured and understood by men. How this was possible, of course, eludes our "cognitive grasp", just as the unio personalis of God and man and especially the fact remains an incomprehensible mystery to us, how the Son of God could condescend to death on the cross without shedding or diminishing his divinity. But as the latter fact stands immovably — for the Lord of glory, God's Son, was crucified — 804) so also the fact stands firmly that God's speech in Scripture does not cease to be fully God's Word through condescension to human speech and to the human style of the writers. This is evident from all passages of Scripture in which Scripture word and God's
803) Systema I, 109: Prout informati aut assuefacti erant ad sublimius humiliusve loquendi scribendique genus, sic eodem usus Spiritus Sanctus sese indoli hominum attemperare et condescendere voluit. [“As they were informed or accustomed to a higher or lower manner of speaking and writing, so by the same use the Holy Spirit wished to conform and condescend to the character of men.”] Quenstedt adds: Res easdem per alios magnificentius, per alios tenuius exprimere; quod vero has et non alias phrases, has et non alias voces vel aequipollentes adhibuerunt scriptores sacri, hoc unice ab instinctu et inspiratione divina est. [“To express the same things more magnificently by others, and more minutely by others; but the fact that the sacred writers used these and not other phrases, these and not other words, or their equivalents, is solely from divine instinct and inspiration.”]
804) 1 Cor. 2:8; Rom. 8:32.
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Word can be identified. It is therefore certain: God has given us men through men (διά τον προφήτου κτλ.) a Word, which is not, as modern theology claims, partly God's Word and partly man's Word, but is so fully God's Word that it cannot be broken even in one word (Jn. 10:35), on which, as an immutable rock, the whole church stands with its faith until the Last Day (Eph. 2:20), according to which the events in the world are directed, or as Rudelbach aptly expresses this latter thought: "Scripture is, as it were, the spiritual hour hand in the kingdom of God; the strokes of the world clock correspond to it or are rather standardized by it."805)
As is well known, modern theologians claim with great agreement that the old dogmatists had emphasized the "divine side" of the Scriptures so much that the "human side" had come too short. Even Philippi has been tempted to agree, at least in part, with this charge.806) The strong emphasis on the divine side of Scripture on the part of the dogmatists is, however, a fact. But the dogmatists follow in this only the evangelists and apostles of Christ and Christ himself. In the first four chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, for example, the Scripture is quoted nine times, but each time according to its "divine side". For according to the divine side the scripture is considered, when we read that what is reported in those chapters from the life of Christ happened, so that the scripture would be fulfilled. According to man's word no events are directed, but according to God's Word. And when Christ overcomes the temptations of the devil reported in the fourth chapter with the "It is written", the Scripture is thereby also very decidedly observed according to its divine side. The devil is not overcome by the word of man. But the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, with which the cunning attempts of the devil are victoriously defeated.807) If we ask why the divine side of Scripture itself is so strongly emphasized, the answer is obvious. The "human side", understood in the right sense, does not stand in danger of being overlooked. Everyone sees it because the Scriptures are written in human language. However,
805) Zeitschr. f. luth. Th. u. Kirche 1841, Heft 4, p. 34.
806) Doctrine of Faith I, 179 f.<w:t>807) Eph. 6:17.
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the "divine side" stands in danger of being overlooked. Because our human mind is darkened in spiritual things after the Fall (έσκοτισμένοι τη dιavoia) and we are alienated from the life that is of God by the ignorance that is in us, by the blindness (πώρωσή) of our heart, 808) so this fact wants to fade into the background for us, even to disappear completely, that the Word written through men and entirely in human language is not man's word, but fully God's Word, τα λόγια τοϋ ϑεοΰ. Just as the Jews did not recognize Christ's Word as the Word of God, and just as modern theologians do not recognize the Scriptures as the Word of God, and therefore have also removed the Scriptures from their office of being the source and norm of theology, by the way, modern theologians do not mean the "human side" of the Scriptures at all when they say that the human side was overlooked by the ancient dogmatists. By the human side, which they have at heart, they mean the alleged errors in Scripture. Scripture should be able to be broken, so that Scripture is not seen as a "textbook" of the Christian religion, but "the pious self-consciousness of the theologizing subject" gains room for free activity.
Against the inspiration was and is further objected 2. the calling of the holy writers on historical research. This is, of course, also a fact. The evangelist Luke appeals (1:3) to the fact that he had investigated everything from the beginning. Likewise Paul appeals to the communication of historical facts by other persons, when he writes, e.g., 1 Cor. 1:11: "It has been reported to me [έδηλώϑη, indicated, reported] of you by those of Chloe's company that there is strife among you." The argument directed from this against inspiration runs thus, "If the sacred writers were given by God what to write, why then do they appeal to their own research and to communications and news from other persons?" To this objection it must be replied that it is on the same line with what has been said about the different style. Just as the Holy Spirit used the style he found in the individual writers, so he also used the historical knowledge that the writers had acquired through their own experience or through their own
808) Eph. 4:18.
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research or by communication of other persons already possessed. The example of the first day of Pentecost puts this clearly into the light. The apostles knew about the resurrection of Christ through their own experience before Pentecost. But on the first day of Pentecost they spoke, as of the other great acts of God, so also of the resurrection of Christ, "as the Spirit gave them utterance",χαϑώς το πνεύμα εδίόον αντοϊς άποφϑέγγεοϑαι, 809) In particular, it has been argued against the inspiration of the Psalms that it is absurd to suppose that the Holy Spirit should have spoken through David what he (David) felt in his heart. Thus Kahnis: "Are we to suppose that what David felt in his heart was dictated by the Holy Spirit in the form of a psalm?"810) But that the experience in one's heart and the inspiration do not cancel each other out, David himself testifies, when it is said 2 Sam. 23:1-2: "David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." Therefore Luther did not assume any contradiction between the "feeling in the heart" and the "inspiration", but rather highly praised this combination as a teaching method of the Holy Spirit and at the same time warned all of us against setting aside David's Psalms, which were so deeply felt in the heart, as containing only human instruction. As is well known, Luther writes on the words 2 Sam. 23:1-2: "David, the son of Jesse, said, . sweetly with psalms of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord has spoken through me, and his address has been through my tongue," among other things, as follows:811) "What a glorious, lofty glory is this! Whoever may boast that the Spirit of the Lord speaks through him and that his tongue speaks the word of the Holy Spirit, must certainly be very sure of his things. This will not be David, Jesse's son, born in sins, but he who is raised to be a prophet by God's promise. Should he not make sweet psalms who has such a master, who teaches him and speaks through him? Hear now who has ears to hear! My speech
809) Acts 2:4.
810) The detailed quotation in Baier-Walther 1, 102. About the misuse and mockery of the word "dictated" on the part of modern theology the necessary will be said later.
811) St. L. III, 1890.
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[nota bene in the Psalms] is not my speech, but he that heareth me heareth God; he that despiseth me despiseth God. For I see that many of my descendants shall not hear my words, to their great hurt. Neither we nor anyone who is not a prophet may lead such a fame. This we may do, provided we also be holy and have the Holy Spirit, that we catechumens and disciples of the prophets may boast, as those who repeat and preach what we have heard and learned from the prophets and apostles, and are also sure that the prophets taught it. These are called in the Old Testament 'the children of the prophets,' who put nothing of their own nor new, as the prophets do, but teach what they have from the prophets, and are 'Israel,' as David says, to whom he makes the psalms." — Especially in more recent times, the following objections have been raised against inspiration
3. the different readings (variae lectiones) found in the copies (άπόγραφα) of the originals (αντόγραφα) that have come down to us. Different readings in the transcripts preserved to us are, however, a fact. But we say first: it is unseemly to argue from this against the inspiration of the original writings. After all, we do not claim that the copyists of the Holy Scriptures were inspired. Clerical errors or oversights or even supposed improvements in the copies have nothing to do with the inspiration of the original. An example from civil life: If it appears that errors occurred in transcribing or printing a resolution of a legislature, e.g., of the State of Missouri, we do not reasonably conclude that the law was not adopted in a certain wording at all. That is generally conceded. Nor, therefore, should it be argued from errors found in copies of the Bible against the inspiration of the original. — But here the objection against inspiration in another form begins with force, namely in the form that an inspired scripture is of no use to us and therefore is not to be urged, because with the existence of different readings it must remain uncertain which is the original word of God. Theodor Kaftan claims:812) "That there is no fixed text is not hidden from any theologian";
812) Modern Theology of the Old Faith 2, p. 96 f.
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that "the number of different readings is legion", and that it must make "a shattering impression" on a "follower of verbal inspiration", "that no one, not even he, knows to say which text is the literally inspired one". Exactly the opposite is true! Despite the variants in the copies of the Bible, we have a fixed Bible text. Luther could rightly say: "The word they shall let stand", by which, as we know, he meant the text of the Bible. To remain first with the text of the New Testament (which is said to have "legion of different readings"), we know in a two-fold way that in the existing copies the word of the apostle or, what is the same, the word of Christ has really been preserved. We know this 1. a priori, that is, before all human investigation, from the divine promise. When our Savior says in the high priestly prayer, Jn. 17:20, that all who come to faith until the Last Day will believe in Him through the apostle's word, He says at the same time that the apostle's word is present in the church until the Last Day. Further: Christ exhorts John 8:31-32 all believers to abide in his word: " If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth." With this exhortation to stick to His word, Christ says at the same time that His word will be present. If there are men who do not recognize the existing word of Christ, it is certainly on account of their blindness, that with seeing eyes they do not see, and with hearing ears they do not hear, for they do not understand.813) Further, if Christ commissions not only the apostles, but His Church until the end of days, to teach the nations all (πάντα) that He has commanded to be taught, 814) it is at the same time stated that the doctrine of Christ will stand at the disposal of the Church until the Last Day in all parts and clearly and certainly recognizable. Christ also took care of the text of the Old Testament. When he says specifically with respect to the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures that they cannot be broken (λνϑnνai, John 10:35), he is certainly advocating a fixed text of the Old Testament. He does the same when he says Luke 16:29: "They have (εχονσιν) Moses and the
813) Matt. 13:13 ff.<w:t>814) Matt. 28:20.
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Prophets; let them hear the same." Likewise, in the temptation with the γεγραπτει, Christ uses the text of the Old Testament as an unalterably fixed text, Matt. 4. We do not read that the devil objected to "different readings" against it. We know, therefore, a priori, before all investigation, from the divine promise and from Christ's testimony, that we have in the Scriptures, which stand in command of the Church, a fixed text, or, what is the same, the doctrine of the apostles and prophets, resp. of God, in spite of the variae lectiones in the copies. But we also come to the same result 2. a posteriori, by scientific investigation. We can establish by human scientific investigation the fact that in the "Legion" of variants there is not the slightest change in any Christian doctrine. Modern theologians have also expressed themselves to this effect. Luthardt:815) "We may be certain, and research confirms it, that the biblical text is preserved to us in all essentials." This is also conceded by the actual textual critics who are to be taken seriously. Luthardt's expression that the biblical text is preserved to us "in all essentials" needs further definition, because it is misleading. It could be understood, and has been understood, as if, on the basis of the biblical text before us, we could recognize Christian doctrine approximately, but not in all parts and with complete certainty. But this is a mistake. Exactly the opposite is true. Anyone who compares the text of the Greek New Testament in a recent text-critical treatment, e.g. by Tischendorf or by Westcott and Hort or by Nestle, with the so-called textus receptus, which was established before actual text-critical research began, or as A. B. Bruce- Glasgow puts it, "when the science of textual criticism was unborn".816) Whoever undergoes the effort of this textual comparison is radically cured of the fear as if by the collection of the many thousands of variants, 817) which we owe to recent textual criticism, any Christian doctrine would undergo a change. We have much to find fault with the five-volume The Expositors Greek Testament. It is edited from the modern-theological point of view. But we
815) Comp. 10, p. 334.<w:t xml:space="preserve">816) The Expositor's Greek Testament I, 52.
817) Bruce calls it, op. cit., p. 55, "a formidable affair" and refers to Tischendorf's "eighth edition in two large octavos".
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do not blame the editor and the collaborators for agreeing to reprint the textus receptus, "representing the Greek text as known to Erasmus in the sixteenth century". Deviations from the textus receptus are added in notes. A twofold reason is given for retaining the old text: 1. the fact that this text is the basis of the English translation of the Bible (Authorized Version); 2. the fact that the more recent textual critics, "though they had done much to produce a purer text," did not agree in their judgment in many cases, and their results could not be regarded as conclusive.818) Bruce is a modern theologian throughout. He too gives up the "inerrancy" of Scripture. But he nevertheless very emphatically points out that a large number of the various readings are of so little importance that they could be disregarded altogether as "not affecting the sense."819) In short, it stands, as has already been noted, thus:
818) Op. cit., p. 52.
819) Even well-meaning and in other respects theologically trained people have inadequate ideas about the "legion" of different readings. The legion shrinks very considerably if we take a closer look at the different readings in relation to its nature. We can visualize this if we take, for example, two German Bibles in old and new orthography side by side and compare even only the text of the New Testament. There we have immediately after the different orthography thousands of variae lectiones. Similarly it stands with thousands of different readings in the copies of the Greek New Testament available to us. The variants concern only the orthography. This is also pointed out by Bruce when he addresses variants "not affecting the sense, but merely the spelling or grammatical form of words." He first points to the large class of proper nouns that come to us in different orthographies, such as — Ναζαρέτ — Ναζαρέϑ, Δαβίδ — Δανείδ, Ήλίας — 'Ηλείας, Μωσής — Μωνσής, 'Ιωάννης — Ίωάνης — etc. Among other insignificant variations, Bruce mentions the presence or absence of the final ν in verbs (έλεγε, έλεγεν); the utilization or insertion of μ (λήψομαι, λήμψομαι); the assimilation or non-assimilation of έν and συν in compound verbs (σνζητεΐν, αννζητεΐν; έκκακεΐν, ενκακεϊν); the doubling of μ, ν, § or the opposite (μαμμωνάς, μαμωνάς; γέννημα, γένη μα; έπιρράπτει, έπιράπτει); the binding or separation of syllables (ονκ έτι, ουκέτι); όντως for οντω, the aorist forms εϊπον, ήλϑον, etc. for the aorist forms in α (είπαν, ήλϑαν); the single and the double augment in certain verbs (εδννάμην, ήδννάμην; εμελλον, ημελλον). Those who wish to read up more on the diversities of this kind will find much material compiled by Winer. (Grammatik d. neutest. Sprachidiom 6, p. 39 ff.).
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A comparison of recent text-critical treatment of the New Testament with the textus receptus, on which Luther's translation of the Bible is essentially based, convinces us of the fact that the establishment of Christian doctrine is completely independent of recent text criticism. This is not to say that textual criticism should be completely eliminated from the theological study program of our time. In our theological institution in St. Louis we also introduce our students to recent textual criticism. This is part of the complete external equipment of a theologian of our time. 1. we know a priori from the divine promise that in the Bible, which is in our hands, we have Christ's Word, which is to be taught in the Church and by the Church until the Last Day. (2) We also recognize a posteriori the marvelous divine providence which has so held its hand over the text of the Bible that, in spite of the variae lectiones, not a single Christian doctrine is called in question.
The following may serve as a more detailed description of the situation: The Holy Scriptures are arranged in such a way that one and the same doctrine is expressed in several, mostly in many places. This is also expressed by the words of the apostle Phil. 3:1: " To write the same things to you, (τα αυτά, one and the same) to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe." Now, if the case arises that, as a result of a variant at hand, we must dispense with a point of evidence for a certain doctrine — incidentally, a rare case — we have sufficient points of evidence for that doctrine that are critically unchallenged. Attention should be drawn here to a prudence rule that is important for disputations. Disputandi causa one refrains from establishing a critically contested reading. For example, in a dispute with Unitarians about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, do not use 1 John 5:7-8 as a point of evidence. The words of the three witnesses in heaven: "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit" are missing in the old Greek copies. Now someone can be convinced on the basis of human-scientific research that the words in question stood in the original. Also we, for our person, are of this conviction on the basis of the patristic quotation from Cyprian. 820) But
820) We believe that J. E. F. Sander on this passage has not yet been refuted. Also what Strobel (Zeitschr. f. luth. Theol. 1854, p. 135 f.) says against Sander,
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in a dispute with a Unitarian who contests the authenticity of 1 John 5:7, we immediately abandon this passage as a point of evidence. The doctrine of the holy Trinity is not in the least questioned by this, because this doctrine is clearly testified — also with coordination of the three persons in God — in such scriptural words that are not critically contested, e.g. Matt. 28:19: "Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" and 2 Cor. 13:13: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."
Especially against the inspiration were and are brought into the field
4. The alleged contradictions in the Scriptures and erroneous statements in general. Philippi821) rebukes already at the time when he himself had not yet found the right position on the Scriptures, namely still admitted the possibility of errors in the Scriptures, the "modern hunt for differences", which has its reason primarily "in the self-congratulatory outrage of presuppositionlessness, whose representatives thought to be allowed to release themselves from the presupposition that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, but instead put themselves into the temple of God and presupposed that they themselves are God". With regard to the alleged contradictions in Scripture, the matter, briefly summarized, lies thus: With only some good will the possibility of the balance can be proved easily in the vast majority of cases, and the proof of the possibility of the balance must be enough for every fair-minded man. Ebrard822) should not have blamed Chemnitz
that "bottomless critical arbitrariness" sets in, if one does not let the old copies decide in the criticism, is not true. In this, the newer criticism is right when it insists that the patristic quotations often have the decisive importance even over the oldest copies. If Schömann was right in his edition of Cicero's De Natura Deorum 3 (Berlin 1865, p. 99), we have an analogue for 1 John 5:7-8 in the field of profane literature. Schömann, in his edition of De Natura Deorum I, 41, inserts the words ne intereat and remarks in a note: "These words are missing in the manuscripts, but are preserved in the quotation of this passage in Augustin, Epist. 56, tom. II, p. 267, ed. Basil. 1569." We must return to this subject again in the integrity of the text.
821) Glaubenslehre 1 I, 199.
822) Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte 2, p. 59.
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for being satisfied in the Gospel Harmony "to give probable things where he was not able to give anything certain". Chemnitz' principle is the only reasonable one. Chemnitz' principle is the only reasonable one. In more recent times, A. T. Robertson has also expressed this aptly when he says:823) "In the explanation of a difficulty, it must always be borne in mind that even a merely possible explanation (possible explanation) is sufficient to meet the one who raises the objection. If several possible explanations present themselves, the assertion that the difference is uncompensable becomes all the more unreasonable. It is a superfluous work of supererogation to go further and to declare that this or that explanation is the real solution of the problem. Sometimes, because new light stands at our command, this may be possible; but it is never necessary. Because we have only a scanty account of some points in the Gospels, it may be impossible in several cases to offer a satisfactory solution on every point. The harmonist has done his duty when he has given an acceptable (reasonable) explanation of the problem before him. ... It must also be remembered that there is as much prejudice against the supernatural element in the Gospels as favorable judgment for the accuracy of the narratives." We will have to agree with Robertson. To this we would add: if a case should occur to us where we cannot see the possibility of a balance, we as Christians leave the matter alone, because we believe the infallibility of Scripture on the authority of the Son of God, John 10:35: Ου δνναται λνϑήναι ή γραφή. All objections to the inerrancy of Scripture are unworthy of a Christian because they set human judgment against Christ's judgment. Luther also knows and practices apologetics when it applies. Luther also knows and practices apologetics when it is necessary to come to the aid of unbelievers and Christians according to their flesh. But when he describes the position to the Scriptures, which is fitting for the Christian as a Christian, he uses decisive, even harsh words. He says, for example:824) "They [the Sophists] say that Scripture is much too weak to overthrow heretics; it must be reasoned and come from the brain; from this it must be proved that faith is right, since our faith is
823) In Broadus, A Harmony of the Gospels 8, p. 232.
824) On 1 Petr. 3:15. St. L. IX. 1238 f.
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is above all reason and God's power alone. Therefore, if men will not believe, be silent; for thou art not guilty of forcing them to believe that the Scriptures are God's Book or Word of God; it is enough that thou hast given thy reason. As if they should so take it up, saying, Thou preachest not to hold the doctrine of men, when St. Peter and Paul, even Christ himself, were men; when thou hearest such men as are so blinded and obdurate as to deny that this is the Word of God, which Christ and the apostles spake and wrote, or to doubt it, only hold thy peace, speak not a word to them, and let them go. Speak only thus: I will give you reason enough from the Scriptures; if you want to believe it, good; if not, always go. Then you say: Then the Word of God must stand in disgrace. Leave that to God." Luther considers the viewpoint according to which we do not consider what Christ and the apostles have spoken and written to be the Word of God and without error to be absolutely unworthy of a Christian. Luther also applies this to the historical reliability of Scripture in all cases where there is a difference between profane writers and the statements of Scripture. He says:825) "I use them [the profane writers] in such a way that I am not forced to contradict Scripture. For I believe that in the Scriptures the true God speaks, but in the histories good men according to their ability show their diligence and faithfulness (but as men), or at least that the copyists could have erred." Likewise, Luther holds to the inerrancy of Scripture when it comes to a difference with natural scientists. He says in regard to the doctrine of the creation of the world:826) "If Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and what is in them in six days, let it remain that there have been six days, and let no gloss be found how six days have been one day. But if thou canst not hear how it hath been six day, give glory to the Holy Spirit, that he be more learned than thou." As for harmonizing the Evangelists accounts, which seem to contradict each other, Luther is content (just as Chemnitz was in the "Gospel Harmony") to point out several possible ways of reconciling them.827) He doubts the correctness of the reports so little,
825)St. L. XIV. 491.<w:t xml:space="preserve">826) St. L. III. 21.
827)St. L. VII, 1780 f.
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that he declares even apparent discrepancies in them to be the work and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.828) The proper position towards the Scriptures when it comes to "contradictions" in them was expressed by a speaker at the August Conference about thirty years ago.829) He said, among other things: "Just as the historical appearance of Jesus Christ, so also individual historical events can be viewed from different points of view. To construct contradictions from this is petty. Other things we let rest, wait for the time when they will be cleared up, and die confidently, even if they do not happen, with the testimony of the truth of the Bible on our lips and in our hearts… We find no reason, then, to abandon the position toward Scripture which the Church has taken toward it from the beginning, and we continue to praise as its glory that through it God speaks to men, and that it is his infallible address. And this also is the position of Christ and his apostles." Philippi quotes830) from Philipp Schaff (Geschichte der apostolischen Kirche, 1854, S. 101): "The full and unconditional reverence for the holy Word of God, which we find more or less lacking in the whole Schleiermacherian school, demands in such cases, where science is not yet able to clear up the darkness, a humble containment of reason under the obedience of faith, or a temporary suspension of the decisive judgment in the hope that further and deeper research will succeed in arriving at more satisfactory results." Quite recently we read in the "Deutsche Lehrerzeitung"831) among other things the following words about "contradictions" in Scripture: "You point out contradictions which you cannot solve with your intellect, but you also underline that you are convinced of the conditionality of your knowledge. Exactly the same is true of me. Such and similar 'facts', whose number I could easily still increase, are not unknown to me — and probably to no attentive Bible reader. But can and may we assert with certainty that all that appears to your and my
828) St. L. VII, 1297.
829) Pastor Schulze-Walsleben. L. u. W. 1891. p. 379. [sic - should be p. 353 ff. Quote is from page 357]
830) Doctrine of Faith 1 I. 200.
831) Year 36. no. 17. dated Berlin, April 28:1923. The words are taken from a letter signed by Rettor (ret.) August Grünweller in Rheydt and addressed to a teacher in Saxony.
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mind as a contradiction will under no circumstances ever be brought into harmony, that all that seems to us at present to be inconsistent will not yet resolve itself into harmony in the light of a better or unconditional knowledge? ‘Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ Shouldn't this apostle's word also apply to our case and your 'facts'? We both recognize that the Holy Scriptures contain 'contradictions' for our minds, but the conclusions we draw from them stand in diametrical opposition. You conclude based on the ‘primitive’ use of your mind: Contradictions show up in Scripture, consequently it cannot be inerrant. I conclude thus: Scripture, according to the clear statement of Him to whom it bears witness, is inviolable truth; therefore the 'contradictions' must be able to be resolved in the light of a higher or more perfect knowledge. Although you are convinced of the insufficiency and conditionality of your knowledge, you take a rationalistic standpoint; I, because I do not trust my limited reason with a safe judgment in divine things, take the standpoint of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. For you it is a question of intellect, for me a question of faith."
That Philippi rightly speaks of a "difference hunt" among modern theologians is evident from the fact that men like Volck in Dorpat [now Tartu] find an obvious contradiction between the numerical entries 1 Cor. 10:8 (23,000) and 4 Mos. 25:9 (24,000), while in the mentioned passages themselves the solution of the apparent contradiction is very clearly indicated.832) Lehre und Wehre says about it: "If one reads the two quoted passages one after the other and spares oneself further reflection, the thought probably settles in that the Israelites who perished in the wilderness are counted differently here, and that only one of the given sums can be correct. On closer examination of the story in Numbers 25, however, one notices a difference among those struck down by the wrath of God. The chiefs of the people, the actual ringleaders, who had seduced Israel to fornication and idolatry, were to be hanged, others are strangled by the judges with the sword. Num. 24:4-6.
832) L. u. W. 1886. p. 319 f. [G. Stöckhardt]
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Most of them were taken away by the plague, probably a pestilence. How, if Paul 1 Cor. 10:8 has in mind the 23,000 who were directly struck down by God in contrast to those who were executed by human hands, which could have been about 1000, while Numbers 25:9 summarily includes all those who were killed? Or if all 24,000 mentioned by Moses died of the plague, it is not said that the 24,000 died in one day, while according to Paul the 23,000 died in one day. Paul describes the plagues of that one day, while Moses speaks at all of the judgment provoked by the fornication of Israel. It is obviously, also after naturally reasonable calculation, hastily judged, if one puts here the one number with the other in contradiction. And so it is in other cases." Lehre und Wehre then reminds us of what was said earlier, namely, that we must reasonably be satisfied with the possibility of balancing apparent contradictions: "If in two different places of the Bible one and the same event is described differently, it is obvious that different features, different sides of the same thing are brought out here and there. We would have to know exactly all the secondary circumstances and details of the main fact in question in order to see how these different traits are connected. But since, as a rule, only some data are communicated to us, since many circumstances are unknown to us, since all kinds of intermediate elements are missing, it is often impossible for us to say with certainty how the different traits were in reality connected and how they had a place in a frame. Various possibilities can be thought of. And it is subjective arbitrariness, even crying injustice, which one inflicts on the Scriptures, if one reduces different reports to contradiction and discrepancies of the reporters. As long as no contradictory opposition is proven in the different statements, the recognition of contradictions demanded by today's scriptural science is nothing else than scientific fraud. ... It is true, the harmonistics must move within modest limits. In numerous cases it is impossible to construct a complete, exact overall picture from the different statements of the evangelists about one and the same miraculous work of Jesus and to assign to each of the different secondary features mentioned by the individual evangelists
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its place in the whole. It is much better to answer the question of how the various individual circumstances are related to each other. It is much better to answer the question, how the different individual circumstances are connected, which was the time sequence of the individual events, with Non liquet [it is not clear], than to pass off a self-declared combination for Evangelical truth. But as long as the different traits do not cancel each other out and exclude each other — and this can never be brought to evidence — it is, even judged purely humanly, folly and foolhardiness to re-stamp the differences as contradictions." This is then exemplified in the Easter story, and finally added: "For the rest, we see from this diversity of the Evangelical accounts that the holy Evangelists, in writing their writings, truly did not allow themselves to be guided by shrewd calculation and reckoning on the impression the readers would receive from their Gospels. Otherwise they would have harmonized more. The following would have followed then more exactly and more anxiously the writing of the predecessor. No, a higher hand has ordered and shaped everything here. The Holy Spirit of God has here shifted and ruled at His pleasure, as it were quite carelessly and impartially, without fearing that future criticism of His holy work might do any harm to His authority."833)
Furthermore, a whole series of real or merely assumed facts have been objected against the inspiration, e.g. "inaccurate quotations" of the New Testament writers from the Old Testament, minor things that are not decent to the Holy Spirit, solecisms and barbarisms etc., also single Bible passages like 1 Cor. 7:12 and Bible passages.
First of all, concerning the inaccurate quotations of the New Testament writers from the Old Testament, Kahnis asks whether one really has worthy thoughts of the Holy Spirit if one ascribes to Him "all the inaccurate quotations" from the Old Testament found in the New Testament.834) The Englishman Row says:835) "The manner in which the Old Testament
833) A very detailed discussion of the "alleged contradictions in the Bible" is offered following the dispute in the Baltic provinces L. u. W. 1893, pp. 33-273 [G. Stöckhardt]. Cf. also Proceeding of the Ev.-Luth. Synodical Conference 1902, pp. 5-56 [Ed. - by E.A.W. Krauss] These two writings probably discuss all the chief places where contradictions have been found.
834) The longer quotation from Kahnis in Baier-Walther 1, 102 f.
835) Quoted in Dr. R. Watts, The Rule of Faith, London 1885, p. 233.
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is quoted in the New, gives the death blow to all theories of a mechanical [!] and literal inspiration." We put here somewhat abbreviated and with some additions what we wrote in regard to the "inaccurate quotations" at the time of the Bible dispute in the Baltic provinces in Lehre und Wehre under the heading "The Form of Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament"836) . It states there: When the evangelists and apostles tell "the stories" so "passed among them" (Luke 1:1), or when they set forth the saving doctrines, they insert with an "as it stands written," "as the Scripture says," etc. When they present the doctrines of salvation, they insert sayings from the Old Testament into their speech, thus proving the fulfillment of the events prophesied in the Old Testament in the New Testament, or they bring in the testimony of the Old Testament for their doctrines. Here, however, we encounter the phenomenon, which is striking at first glance, that the words, which are expressly cited as words of the Old Testament with the "as it stands written", "as the Scripture says", nevertheless not infrequently deviate significantly in form from the Old Testament Scriptural word. Luther writes, "So one often sees how the evangelists introduce the prophets somewhat changed." 837) According to our count, there are 47 quotations from the Old Testament in the Epistle to the Romans, but only 24 of them can be considered literal quotations. The formal deviations from the wording of the Old Testament text are of various kinds. In some cases the Old Testament text is expanded (e.g. Is. 61:1; Luke 4:18), in many cases it is contracted (Is. 8:22; 9:1; Matt. 4:16), in several cases the sentences are rearranged (Hos. 2:23; Rom. 9:26), very often several passages are merged into one (Jer. 32:6ff.; Zech. 11:12, 13; Matt. 27:9). That the actual meaning of the Old Testament scriptural words is always preserved in this way of quotation stands a priori for all those who believe that the evangelists and apostles spoke and wrote by the Holy Spirit. It can also be proven a posteriori in the light of the New Testament that the intended meaning of the Old Testament scriptural passage is no different from that expressed by the quotation in the New Testament. Luther writes in the cited passage: "[It] is to be known that the evangelists care nothing that they do not attract even all the words
836) L. u. W. 32, 77-82.<w:t>837) Erl. Ausg. 10, 16.
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of the prophets; it has been enough for them that they lead the same opinion and indicate the fulfillment". And after the above-mentioned words: "Thus one often sees how the evangelists introduce the prophets somewhat changed," Luther continues: "But it all happens without a break in the understanding and opinion.”838) However, the question of the actual reason for the often so conspicuous and thoroughgoing formal deviation from the wording of the Old Testament still stands. Now, for example, when a pastor introduces passages of Scripture with an explicit "Thus writes St. Paul," "Thus writes St. John," etc., we expect him to adhere to the wording of the passage to be quoted. We would rightly find it unseemly if he were to depart from the wording with respect to the form of the quotation in the way that is evidently done by the evangelists and apostles with respect to the Old Testament scriptural word. One has tried to explain this in various ways. For example, one has put forward the view that the form of the Old Testament passages found in the New Testament was the original one. If we now have a different wording in the relevant passages of the Old Testament, this is because we no longer have the original text of the Old Testament, but only — at least in the relevant passages — a very corrupted text.839) There, however, the difference with regard to the wording would be explained. But this explanation is inadmissible. Apart from other things, the history of the text of the Old
838) Cf. the series of articles by D. Stöckhardt in "Lehre und Wehre", Jahrg. 30. 31, [Ed.: sic - not 31-32] under the heading "Weissagung und Erfüllung". These articles deal with all the chief places where one thinks to have found inaccurate or erroneous quotations from the Old Testament in the Gospel of Matthew: Is. 7:14 — Matt. 1:18-23. Micah 5:1 — Matt. 2:5-6. Hos. 11:1 — Matt. 2:15. Jer. 31:15 — Matt. 2:17-18. Is. 11:1; Zech. 6:12 — Matt. 2:23. Is. 40:3 — Matt. 3:1-3. Is. 8:23; 9:1 — Matt. 4:12-16. Is. 53:4 — Matt. 8:17. Is. 42:1 ff — Matt. 12:15-21. Is. 6:9-10 — Matt. 13:13-15. Ps. 78:2 — Matt. 13:34-35. Zech. 9:9 — Matt. 21:1-5. Ps. 118:26 — Matt. 21:9. Ps. 118:22-23 — Matt. 21:42-44. Ps. 8:3 -Matt. 21:16. Ps. 110:1 — Pastor. 22:43-46. Ex. 3:6 — Matt. 22:. 31-32. Dan. 9:23 ff. — Matt. 24:15. Zech. 13:7 — Matt. 26:31 ff. Zech. 11:12, 13; Jer. 32:6 ff. — Matt. 27:3 ff. (Here it is proven that in Matthew also Jeremiah is quoted.) Ps. 22:19 — Matt. 27:35. Ps. 22:2 — Matt. 27:46.
839) Thus Ludovicus Capellus II. Cf. Pfeiffer, Critica Sacra, Leipzig 1712, p. 105 ff.
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Testament knows nothing of such a corruption of the same. Others have tried to find the cause of the deviation in an error of memory on the part of the sacred writers. The latter would have wanted to quote the Old Testament exactly and would have meant to quote, however, would have been wrong thereby. Especially in recent times, the "inaccurate quotations" of the evangelists and apostles have been cited as a proof against the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (Kahnis, Row). But apart from the fact that the assumption of "oversights" on the part of the apostles contradicts the latter's own statements that the Holy Spirit speaks through them (1 Cor. 2:13; 14:37; 2 Cor. 13:13; 1 Petr. 1:12), the theory that attributes the deviations from the Old Testament text to "oversights" or "memory errors" in quoting must also appear untenable to purely human observation, as will be further explained below.
There is only one explanation for this often so free switching with the wording of the Old Testament scriptural passages in the New Testament. The explanation is given in scriptural passages like 1 Petr. 1:10-12, where it is explicitly declared that the same Holy Spirit, who was in the prophets of the Old Testament and spoke through them, now also testified in the New Testament through the evangelists and apostles. This testimony, of course, included the introduction and exposition of the Old Testament scriptural passages. Thus, in the quotations from the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit quotes Himself, as it were. And the Holy Spirit has power and free disposal over his words; in quoting the Old Testament scriptural word, he makes, as it were, a "new text," as Luther puts it, thereby at the same time interpreting the Old Testament text. The evangelists and apostles, driven by the Holy Spirit, therefore do not quote as well as make a "grab" at the Scriptures. Here belongs what Luther says of the Pentecost sermon of the apostles: "How powerfully they reach into the Scriptures, as if they had studied them for a hundred thousand years and had learned them at their best! I could not make such a certain grip on the Scriptures, even though I am a doctor of the Holy Scriptures. ... So God proves by the greatest foolishness and folly of the wretched, weak beggars the greatest wisdom that has come on earth, that no one can imitate them, neither Annas nor Caiaphas nor any man on earth."840) Flacius
840) Erl. Ed. 5, 183.
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writes: "It is to be noted that the Old Testament is usually quoted by the sacred writers of the New Testament in such a way that they have looked at the meaning and have added more the fulfillment of the prophecy than the words of the prophecy itself. But this will not seem surprising or audacious to anyone who is convinced of what the matter itself requires, namely, that the same Spirit spoke through the mouth of the evangelists who opened the mouth of the prophets; then that the office of the prophets was to foretell what was to come, but the office of the evangelists was to recount what had happened. Therefore, since the Spirit of God does not write out the prophecies of those in the New Testament, but interprets them, it must not be demanded that He enumerate the individual words." 841) A. Pfeifer [ed. or Pfeiffer] remarks: "That the passages of the Old Testament have not always been cited in the New Testament according to the wording (αυτολεξεί) does not come from a corruption of the text now before us, but from the fact that by inspiration of the Holy Spirit an explanation of the actual meaning of the passage is given." 842) The same (Critica Sacra, p. 109 f.): "In the New Testament the sayings of the Old Testament are not always quoted according to the words, but often according to the sense, and freely, sometimes from the Hebrew text, sometimes from the Septuagint, sometimes from both. What need is there of many words, if no contradiction is found here? The Holy Spirit has revealed the Old Testament and reserved to Himself the right to declare that in the New Testament. Where this has been done by the Septuagint, its translation has been retained; where this has not been done, it is quoted according to the basic text. Repeatedly, the Holy Spirit has not bound himself either to that translation or to the words of the basic text, but has expressed the meaning in new words. Whatever be the case, the same Holy Spirit, the best interpreter of His own words, has spoken in both places." Very well also writes Dr. Watts in the above-mentioned work, pp. 236 ff: "The New Testament writers often change the wording of the passages which they quote from the Old Testament in order to give an authentic exposition of them. ... This deviation from the wording is expected precisely in the circumstances in which the
841) Clavis Scripturae Sacrae, P. II, p. 103. (Ed. Franks, and Leipzig 1729.)
842) Thesaurus Hermeneuticus, 1704, p. 59.
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New Testament writers found themselves.. They were the chosen and inspired interpreters of the revelation of the Old Testament, commissioned by Him whose Spirit impelled the prophets of the Old Covenant to speak and write. Now, if they stood in such a relationship to the Old Testament testimony of the mystery of redemption, it would have been strange if, calling upon it, they had found it so clear that it needed no exposition and had therefore reproduced the ancient text literally in every case. True, they could have reproduced the sacred text as it stood and then added their own explanatory remarks. But in this, as elsewhere, for those who wish to prescribe rules to men who acted under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit. The apostolic admonition is appropriate: 'Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?' Rom. 11:34. ... Inspired by the free Spirit ..., they reveal the freedom with which the Holy Spirit, who was in them, freed them, and they quote from the Septuagint where it differs from the Hebrew, and from the Hebrew where it differs from the Septuagint, and often they quote a passage in a form in which it is found neither in the Hebrew basic text nor in the Greek translation. In driving the New Testament writers to deal with the Old Testament in this way, the Holy Spirit, who is the real author of both Old Testament and New Testament revelation, was only asserting his own sovereign right. In doing so, he acted according to the law of authorship, which no one questions in the case of non-inspired writers. No one holds an author bound to stick to the exact wording of the first pronunciation when repeating an earlier statement. If one concedes such freedom to a man and regards this almost as the natural right (birthright) of human authorship, then it is as disrespectful as it is unreasonable to want to abridge the freedom of the Spirit of God."
The form of the Old Testament quotations in the New Testament does not, therefore, when properly considered, give "the death blow" to the theory of "literal inspiration," but is, on the contrary, a powerful proof of the same. Let us suppose that the evangelists and apostles were not inspired but, like other writers, were merely left to their human reasoning.
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Wouldn't their quotations have turned out quite differently then? Would they not have carefully avoided all impulses that human contemplation finds in their way of quoting and would they not have quoted more literally? If one says: The right context and the right wording of the quoted passages were just not present to the apostles, then the objection is quite invalid. Assuming that they had lost both the context and the wording, there was a very simple means to remedy the deficiency. If the context and the wording of a passage to be quoted are not present, we look it up. The evangelists and apostles would have done the same; the Old Testament was at hand for them. They would have looked up the passages to be quoted, looked up the context and written out the passages exactly according to the wording. Or could someone reasonably assume that the apostles would not have taken the trouble to help their poor memory by looking up the passages, on the assumption that their readers would not notice the inaccuracy in the quotation, if such had happened to them? St. Paul, for example, regarded his readers as those "who know the law", Rom. 7:1. We think that human reason, too, if it wants to be reasonable, must refrain from declaring the deviations of the New Testament quotations from the wording of the Old Testament from an "oversight" or "error of memory" on the part of the holy writers. There is only one explanation: the Holy Spirit speaks through the apostles and switches in the same free with his own word. And just as the apparent contradictions found in the Scriptures are proof that the Scriptures are not the work of calculating men, so especially the way in which the evangelists and apostles quote the Old Testament is a powerful proof that they did not speak and write out of themselves, out of their purely human consideration, but out of inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Against the inspiration of the Scriptures it has been objected that in them there are mentioned many "little human things" or "trifles" (levicula), the mentioning of which is obviously not appropriate to the divine dignity of the Holy Spirit. Paul's cloak and the parchment that Paul left behind in Troas
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(2 Tim. 4:13), especially the dietary instruction that Timothy should give up drinking water (υδροποτεϊν) and drink a little wine (1 Tim. 5:23) were described as such little things. In this objection is revealed most decidedly an error concerning the "ethical principles" of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit believes that faithfulness in small things is quite decent and necessary. We read Luke 16:10: "He who is faithful in the least (εν ελαχίοτω) is faithful also in the greatest (εν πολλφ), and he who is wrong in the least is wrong also in the greatest." For this even the world, if it uses its reason, still has an understanding, if it sees the great man in faithfulness in the small. But every Christian should especially agree with Luther when he says, for example:843) "You must not think or wonder why the Holy Spirit should take pleasure in describing such evil and contemptible works (in the lives of the patriarchs), but hear what St. Paul says Rom. 15:4: 'But what is written before is written for our doctrine, that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we may have hope.' If we firmly believe, as I do, although I believe weakly, that the Holy Spirit Himself and God, the Creator of all things, is the right master (auctor) of this book [the Bible] and of such bad and contemptible things as seem bad and low to the flesh, then we would have the greatest comfort from it, as St. Paul says. ... This is what the Holy Spirit means when He walks so lowly in describing His saints, that even the very smallest works of the saints are pleasing to God. It is a precious thing about a Christian man; there is nothing so small about him that is pleasing to God. Shedding blood, dying, sweating, fighting and struggling against the devil is in truth a great thing and very pleasing to God. But you must conclude: If you are faithful, then the natural, carnal and bodily works are also pleasing to God; you eat or drink, you wake or sleep, which are all bodily and natural works. Faith is such a great thing. Therefore, first of all, see to it that you become a Christian, and that the person becomes pleasing and acceptable to God through the Word, through baptism and sacrament. If the person is faithful and adheres to the Word, does not persecute it, but gives thanks to God for it,
843) St. L. II, 469 ff.
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then you should not do anything else, because Solomon says in his Ecclesiastes at the 9th chapter: 'So go with joy, drink your wine with good courage; for your work pleases God. Let thy garments be always white, and let not thy head lack ointment.'" Thus, then, the ancient teachers together with the ancient dogmatists point out what important doctrines are contained in the trifles mentioned by the Apostle Paul 2 Tim. 4:13 and 1 Tim. 5:23. We see from these and other passages that the apostle Paul was not an enthusiast. He could have asked God that angels would bring him the mantle left behind in Troas together with the parchment. But because the apostle knows that God directs us men to the natural means offered by Him, as long as such means stand at our command, he gives Timothy the order to bring him the cloak and the parchment. The same is to be said of the dietary prescription. Paul directs Timothy in the latter's sickness and bodily weakness not merely to prayer, "Pray always in all intentions," 844) but also to natural means, "Timothy should cease from mere drinking of water and use a little wine."845) In Pauli's concern for his mantle, ancient teachers also find a reference to the apostle's poverty, in which poverty, however, he had not grown weary or wearied in carrying out his apostleship. Also Pauli's desire for the parchment reveals the apostle's zeal in the direction of his ministry.846) In the apostle's word 1 Tim. 5:23 we also have a reminder that we should not burden the church of God with the human commandment of prohibition. The state or, as Luther usually puts it, the "emperor" may issue food and drink commandments, and Christians are subject to such commandments. But if the "church" takes the liberty of issuing such commandments, it falls under the sharp judgment of the apostle 1 Tim.
844) Eph. 6:18; Ps. 55:23.
845) Huther z. St.: "It goes without saying that the apostle does not want to forbid Timothy to drink water at all, but only to avoid drinking wine altogether; νδροποτεΐv, strictly speaking, also does not mean 'to drink water,' but 'to be a water-drinker,' and is therefore used only of one who makes water his … exclusive drink." Likewise Winer, Gr. 6, p. 442. The verbum νδροποτεΐν occurs in the New Testament only in this one place, but is not formed by the apostle, but is genuinely Greek. Proof by Ebeling sub verbo.
846) L. u. W. 32, 297 [sic - should be p. 287].
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4:1-5: προοέχοντες πνενμασι πλάνοις και διδαοκαλίαις δαιμόνιων, because in this case it is commanded "to avoid the food that God has created, to take with thanksgiving the faithful and those who know the truth. For all the creature of God is good, and nothing reprobate that is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer." And the result of such commandments of men on the part of the Church is given by Christ Matt. 15: God's doctrines and commandments are supplanted by the commandments of men, as we see abundantly in sectarian communities in this country. In short, in the "trifles" that Scripture mentions, there are important doctrines for reasonably seeing eyes. Anyone who judges these levicula to be unworthy of the Holy Spirit does not understand the Holy Spirit and Christian life and being.847)
847) Hönecke, Dogmatik I, 351: "From these passages (1 Tim. 5:23 and 2 Tim. 4:13) two quite important principles for the Christian life can be deduced unceremoniously: from the first passage that an excessive asceticism is completely not according to the spirit of the gospel; from the other passage that only a false spirituality despises the minor things of this life and thinks itself exalted over it. But sayings of the Scriptures, which are so doctrinal, are truly not insignificant and unworthy of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit." Quenstedt I, 103: Aliud est, rem aliquam esse leviculam, si in se spectetur et iuxta aestimationem hominum, et aliud, eandem esse leviculam, si finem attendas et sapientissimum Dei consilium. Multa in Scripturis levia videntur (quale est etiam illud de penula, quam Paulus in Troade apud Carpum reliquerat, 2 Tim. 4:13), ad quae existimant indignum esse, ut deducamus Spiritus Sancti maiestatem, quae tamen magni momenti sunt, si finem spectemus, Rom. 15:4, et sapientissimum Dei consilium, quo etiam talia divinis literis inserta sunt. [Google] Philippi, Glaubenslehre 3 I, 261: "But the cloak at Troas, which was taken so hard by criticism, in which already the Anomoeans loved to wrap their unbelief, and the books, but especially the parchment 2 Tim. 4:13? And now even the dietary prescription of the apostle: "Drink no more water, but have a little wine for your stomach's sake, and that you are often sick," 1 Tim. 5:23. We do not want to be strange if our modern naturalists, to whom the whole salvation of mankind consists in food and drink, in clothing and, if it comes to it, in books, especially those written by themselves, and in parchment, turn the matter around next and give up only these passages in Scripture as inspired. But as far as the matter itself is concerned, the higher, moral relation in both sayings is easily recognizable. The latter prevents a false, excessive asceticism as well as an inordinate use of the earthly gifts of God, teaches both in the concrete case that all of God's creatures are good and nothing is reprehensible that is received with thanksgiving, 1 Tim. 4:4, and also to wait for the body, but so that it does not become lustful, Rom. 13:14. But the first saying shows us how the most zealous administration of even
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In general, whoever addresses that it is not worthy of the Holy Spirit to mention in the Scriptures such small human things as food, drink, clothing, etc., must have forgotten beforehand that the eternal Son of God did not consider it beneath His dignity to take from the Virgin Mary a human nature into a finely divine self, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes and to be taken into a manger. Whoever stands worshipping before the miracle in the manger at Bethlehem no longer finds it strange, but quite in order, that so many “human trifles" are mentioned in the Scriptures, which are the Word of God. After all, God loves men together with their trifles. Luther:848) "Moses said to Pharaoh in Exodus 10: 'Our cattle shall go with us, and not a hoof shall remain behind.' Not only shall the men, the women, the children, and the cattle go out of Egypt, but all that we have, even the least of our claws, we will not leave behind. … Yes, listen to Christ, he does it even better, Matt. 10: 'But now the very hairs of your head are all numbered.' Dear, what is less and more contemptible in the whole body of man than a hair or a nail? And these are also numbered, and the Father in heaven takes care of them. In this way we are to act on the examples of the small and bad works of the saints, so that we may be taught and comforted from them." If we are offended and annoyed by the human trifles in Scripture, this is a sure proof either that we do not believe the Incarnation of the Son of God at all, or that this central truth has nevertheless faded into the background of our minds to the point of oblivion. This is the point of Luther's well-known admonishing and warning words:849) "I faithfully ask and warn every devout Christian not to be offended by the simple speech and history that he often encounters, but do not doubt how badly it can always be regarded as the vain words, works, judgments and history of the high divine majesty and wisdom. For this is the scripture that makes fools of all the wise and prudent, and stands open only to the small and foolish, as Christ says Matt.
the highest calling in the kingdom of God is compatible with faithful care for the seemingly most insignificant good, indeed, how the one does not exclude but includes the other."
848) St. L. II, 470.<w:t xml:space="preserve">849) St. L. XIV, 3. 4.
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11:25. Therefore let go of your arrogance and feelings and think of this scripture as the highest, noblest sanctuary, as the richest treasure, which can never be completely filled, so that you may find the divine wisdom, which God presents here so foolishly and badly that he dampens all arrogance. Here you will find the swaddling clothes and the manger, where Christ lies, to which the angel also sent the shepherds, Luke 2:11. Poor and insignificant are the swaddling clothes, but dear is the treasure, Christ, which lies within.
In particular, however, solocisms, barbarisms, erroneous sentence constructions and similar things found in the Scriptures are said to make the assumption of the inspiration of the Scriptures impossible. Perhaps Kahnis, in his fight against the inspiration of the Scriptures, has compiled most extensively all that which, in his opinion, is against the dignity of the Holy Spirit. He writes:850) "Does a doctrine of inspiration which ascribes all the solecisms and barbarisms of the apostolic writings, all the mistaken constructions of Paul... to the Holy Spirit, really think itself worthy of the Holy Spirit?" It is counted as a limitation to the dogmatists that they want to admit Hebraisms but not Solocisms and Barbarisms in the Scriptures.
As far as the solocisms are concerned, the word "solocism" has not always been used in the same sense, as Quenstedt remembers and proves.851) If one understands by it a "faulty folk dialect" or a deviation from the so-called classical Greek, then the necessary will be said about it immediately with the "barbarisms". But if one understands by "solocism" a violation of the grammatical rules of a language, then with respect to this point Winer says of the New Testament:852) "The New Testament is grammatically, as far as the individual rules of language are concerned, written entirely in Greek." Anyone who examines the New Testament with respect to this point will agree with Winer. But even the wild addresses of "barbarisms" must be denied any reasonable sense.
850) Thus in the first edition of his Dogmatik, cited in Baier-Walther 1, 102 f. In the second edition in a somewhat milder form I, 281. 284 ff. 293 ff.
851) Systema I, 119. Interesting data on the use of the word solecism can also be found in The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, VII, 5755.
852) Grammar of the New Testament Language Idiom 6, p. 36.
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The New Testament is known to have been written in the so-called κοινή διάλεκτος, that is, in the Greek that had gradually become the general world language and lingua franca since Alexander the Great. Ebeling says of the New Testament writers:853) "They wrote the Hellenistic Greek which in their day was common vernacular throughout the Roman Empire." And shortly before, Ebeling notes "that the vocabulary and usage of the New Testament does not stand alone in any way, but belongs to and is found especially in letters, reports, petitions, bills, contracts, wills, and the like, that is, in the language of everyday intercourse and of the people." Robertson: "It is not speculation to speak of the κοινή as a world-speech, for the inscriptions in the κοινή testify to its spread over Asia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Sicily, and the isles of the sea. … The κοινή was in such general use that the Roman Senate and imperial governors had the decrees translated into the world-language and scattered over the empire. It is significant that the Greek speech becomes one instead of many dialects at the very time that the Roman rule sweeps over the world." 854) Thus the reason is obvious why the sacred writers wrote in the κοινή διάλεκτος that is, in the world-language or common vernacular, and according to the intention of the Holy Spirit who was in them, should write 855) . After all, they had a calling to the world. 856) Therefore, as in their oral proclamation, so also in their writings, they wanted and should be understood not only by a part of the people, such as the classically educated part, but by the whole people. After all, it was about the salvation of the whole people and the whole human world.857) How excellently the holy apostles
853) Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament 1913, Vorrede III.
854) p. 54. About the expression "Hellenistic" Greek Winer, p. 26 f.; Blaß-Debrumer, Neutest. Gr. 5, p. 1.
855) 1 Petr. 1:12; 1 Cor. 2:15; 2 Cor. 13:3.
856) Matt. 28:18-20; Mark. 16:15. 16; Luke 24:46. 47.
857) Dr. A. L. Gräbner calls (Theol. Quarterly, 1897, p. 146) the New Testament Greek "a type of Greek" "which rendered the New Testament highly adapted to its intended use for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, not to men of polite education only, but to the people at large, to entire congregations of hearers to whom these books were to be read and interpreted, and who should themselves be readers searching the Scriptures of the New Testament as well as of the Old."
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achieved their purpose of being generally understood by using the common vernacular and lingua franca is evident from the fact that they did not consider it necessary to send a commentary with their letters. We can clearly see that the apostolic letters were understood not only by the teachers of the congregations, but by the congregations themselves, i.e., by the "people", and that was the case when the letters were simply read aloud. Paul writes to the Christians at Colosse (4:16): "When the epistle is read among you, cause it to be read also in the congregation at Laodicea, and that ye read those of Laodicea," and to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 5:27): "I adjure you by the Lord, that ye cause this epistle to be read to all the holy brethren." But even apart from the purpose that the apostles wanted and should be understood by everyone, especially in their epistles, it reveals a great lack of understanding to call deviations from "classical Greek" barbarisms. The lack of understanding is so great that one is almost unwilling to even consider it. The charge of barbarisms on account of deviations from classical Greek is based on the nonsensical thought, contrary even to all natural reason, as if it had been more decent for the Holy Spirit to speak like Demosthenes or Plato instead of using the language of the people. Rightly, after all, it is true also in regard to language: "Before God nothing is small, because before him nothing is great." And therefore the dogmatists are right when they state as a principle that all judgments of the Greek of the New Testament which express censure are unseemly and should not be found among Christians.858) The Greek language as it is before us in the New Testament, and of course the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, are sacred languages, above all languages that exist elsewhere in the world. Even Cremer says859) of the Greek of the New Testament that it became the "organ of the Spirit of Christ," though this does not quite fit the position Cremer otherwise takes on the inspiration of Scripture. Even Rothe says:860) "Indeed, it is fair to speak of a language of the Holy Spirit." We should never forget:
858) Quenstedt 1, 118 sq. under status controversiae.
859) Dictionary of the Newest. Greek 3 Preface V.
860) Quoted by Cremer, op. cit., Preface VI, from Rothes Schrift "Zur Dogmatik", Gotha 1863, p. 238.
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The Greek language of the New Testament is precisely the Greek in which God speaks to the world until the Last Day and to which God binds all the world until the Last Day, because it is God's original text, according to which all translations must also be guided. Thus, however, every rebuke of New Testament Greek is offensive and annoying, because every rebuke includes in itself a rebuke of God. This is why, as has already been noted, dogmatists are rightly so sensitive when solocisms and barbarisms are addressed in the New Testament, because these expressions were used in an evil sense in their time, as they are in ours.861) As offensive and annoying as it would be to call the Son of God a "barbarian" because, when the time was fulfilled, He took to Himself a human nature from the Virgin Mary, so offensive and annoying is it to speak of "barbarisms" in relation to the Word of God, that is, in relation to the Holy Scriptures, because this Word appeared in the form of this Greek language, which in the fullness of time was the general vernacular and lingua franca.862)
861) Quenstedt 1, 119 under ϑέοις: Stylus Novi Testamenti ab omni barbarismorum et soloecismorum labe immunis est. Robertson reports 3:p. 50: "Deissmann strongly disapproves the term 'vulgar Greek,' 'bad Greek,' 'Graecitas fatiscens' in contrast with 'classic Greek.'" The criticized expressions are not merely unseemly from the point of view of linguistic history, but are above all annoying from the Christian point of view, because Christians know that the New Testament Greek is "Christ's organ." But it should be noted that the expression "vulgar Greek", "vulgar language", is not always used in the present day in a censuring sense, but also as a synonym of "vernacular".
862) In this context, we would like to remind you of a caution that is appropriate when comparing the New Testament Greek with the so-called classical Greek. Those who know the Greek of the New Testament by vocabulary and diction will find any correspondence between New Testament and classical Greek interesting. But it is going too far if we speak of this correspondence as if we would or could thereby give more prestige and dignity to the language of the New Testament. This is basically giving away the right standard of judgment. The unique prestige and dignity of New Testament Greek consists in the fact that it is the "Greek organ of the Spirit of Christ," as Cremer puts it. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that in such words as άλήϑεια, ευαγγέλιον, χάρις, πίατις, etc., we have only a consonance in words, since the peculiarly Christian meaning of these words was entirely unknown to all the writers of classical Greek (1 Cor. 2:9). The same is true, of course, of such expressions as άγιος, δίκαιος, etc., applied to life, because everything that non-Christians understand by them is situated outside Christianity.
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As for the so-called "Hebraisms" ("the Jewish coloring" of the New Testament Greek), if they are really present,863) they rightly belong in the New Testament Greek, because the New Testament does not bring a new religion, but is only the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Dr. A. L. Gräbner writes:864) "The Greek of the New Testament was to bear the stamp and imprint of the country where Jesus lived and died, and of that Church and people of which New Testament Christianity is, not in form, but as to its spiritual nature, the true continuation, its adherents living by the same faith in the same Savior as Abraham, their father according to the faith." The dogmatists also point to this, stating that Hebraisms in the New Testament are natural and quite all right because of the connection with the Old, while they reject solecisms and barbarisms as including a rebuke of God.865)
With the "missed constructions of the apostle Paul", which according to Kahnis' opinion contradict the dignity of the Holy Spirit, is probably primarily thought of so-called anakolutha. By anakolutha we usually understand such irregular sentence formations in which the construction begun is not carried out because the speaker or writer is distracted from the construction begun by inflowing thoughts. Winer says in regard to the genesis of aborted sentence formation:866) "In lively minds occupied with thought more than with linguistic expression, anacoluths are also most frequently to be expected." In popular parlance, we call this "falling out of construction." The judicious speaker or writer involuntarily or intentionally falls out of construction when he feels or realizes that this serves the clarity of exposition or the emphasis of particular terms. We therefore find anacolutha
863) Their number has been exaggerated. Cf. Winer, Gr. 6, p. 26 ff, § 3: "Hebrew-Aramaic Coloring of Old Testament Diction."
864) Theological Quarterly, p. 22.
865) Quenstedt I, 119: Aliud est εβραίζειν, aliud βαρβαρίζειν. Illud de Novo Testamento affirmamus, hoc negamus. … Placuit namque Deo con-nectere utrumque foedus atque in Vetere et Novo Testamento vere admirandam minimeque fortuitam, tam in rebus quam in verbis et phrasibus, servare conformitatem. … Barbarum Scripturae Sacrae contemtorem esse oportet, qui ipsam barbarismorum accusare audet. [Google]
866) Gr. 6, p. 500.
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precisely also in the Greek and Latin writers from the classical period, and old and new grammarians have quite a lot of kind and praiseworthy things to say about anacolutha. They do not mark them as errors, but point out their psychological origin and then also their usefulness, because they enter into the service of the clear representation and the emphasis of important thoughts. Since the Holy Spirit is also a spirit of clarity of presentation and emphasis of particularly important thoughts, he did not consider it a detriment to his dignity to make use of anacolutha in particular, as he does of human language in general.867) What the grammarians have to say about the explanation and praise of interrupted sentence construction can be read in the major grammars of older and newer times. We would like to put here what the old Matthiae says about "deviations from the regular construction" in his "Ausführliche Griechische Grammatik", p. 1296. It says there: " The best Greek writers very often abandon the logically correct order or relationship of the words of a sentence,
867) Examples in Winer, p. 500 ff. Gal. 2:6 we have, as is also evident in Luther's translation, an anacoluthic structure. From the beginning of the sentence από δε των δοκοννντων εϊναί τι should follow, in regular structure, a conclusion in passive turn, such as: ονδεν έδιδάχ&ην. (Winer.) But prompted by the intervening phrase φηήΐφεηΐαβ όποΐοί ποτε ήοαν etc., a conclusion in active (medial) turn follows. Robertson, p. 438: "One of the most striking anacolutha in Paul's epistles is found at the end of Rom. 5:12, where the apodosis to the ώσπερ clause is wanting. The next sentence (αχρι γάρ) takes up the subordinate clause εψ ω πάντες ήμαρτον, and the comparison is never completed. In verse 18 a new comparison is drawn in complete form." The more recent New Testament linguists, such as Winer, Robertson, Blaß (Blaß-Debrunner, Gr. 5, 1921, pp. 269 ff.), not infrequently diverge widely in their explanation of the anacolutha where they occur in the New Testament. There is no harm in this, because the attentive reader of the Bible understands the passages in question very well without the anacolutha being explained to him. Gal. 2:6, for example, is understood by every Bible reader without dissection of the structure. While Winer, Robertson, Buttmann et al. speak matter-of-factly about irregular constructions, it is unfortunately different with Blaß-Debrunner. Cf. e.g. E. g., p. 271: "Into a pure whirlwind runs the construction of 1 Tim. 1:3 ff. as a result of the incessant interpolations and appendages." The "Wirrsal" has its seat elsewhere than in Pauli's words. In spite of the anacolutha, each thought clearly follows the other in the whole mighty passage until the apostle concludes v. 17. Buttmann (Gr., p. 331) rightly counts the passage 1 Tim. 1:3 ff. among the passages in which "due to the richness of thought and fullness of heart" the structure that was started is left behind.
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or even the order or relationship otherwise established by the use of language, in order either to promote the emphasis placed on one or more words, or to promote clarity, or even to give the address the unforced lightness of conversational tone and thereby grace. The classical Attic writers never do this without one of these considerations; the later orators seek an elegance in it, which, however, is lost by the very fact that it is sought. Such deviations from the regular construction are called anacolutha, that is, constructions in which a sentence concludes differently than the beginning of it led one to expect or required, or when that does not follow (άκολονΰέω with the ά priv.) what should follow after the construction begun. Such deviations from the grammatically or logically correct construction are not based on an oversight, but on the intention of the writer and always have an occasion." 868)
Some scriptures have been pointed out as allegedly contradicting inspiration. For example, 1 Cor. 7:10, 12:25, where Paul explicitly says that not everything he writes is the Lord's command. While v. 10 says: "I do not command the married, but the Lord," he adds v. 12: "But I say to the others, not the Lord," and v. 26: "Of virgins I have no commandment of the Lord." To refute this objection, it is sufficient to note what Luther says about the passage:869) "Because St. Paul here testifies that this address is not the Lord's, but his, he gives to understand that it is not commanded by God, but is free to do otherwise or so. For he distinguishes his words from the word of the Lord, that the Lord's word should be commandment, but his word should be counsel." In still other words, we are dealing here with an inspired counsel of the apostle. The apostle does not distinguish here between inspired and non-inspired parts of his writing, but he indicates what in what he has written from inspiration
868) Ausführl. griech. Gr. 2, Leipzig 1825. Also Alex. Buttmann, in his neutest. Gr., which follows Ph. Buttmann's Griech. Gr., deals more extensively with the anacoluth, p. 324 ff. Very extensively treats this subject, following in part Winer, Robertson, Grammars 3, p. 435 ff. N. T., p. 435 ff: "The very jolt that is given by the anacoluthon is often successful in making more emphasis. The attention is drawn anew to the sentence to see what is the matter.
869) St. L. VIII, 1058; Walch VIII, 1109.
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is God's command binding the consciences and what is only his, the apostle's, Christian counsel releasing the consciences. Luther's distinction between commandment and counsel in this passage must be strictly adhered to. Otherwise there is a misunderstanding of the passage that can embarrass the unwary. Philippi first says quite correctly that the apostle distinguishes between an "unconditional commandment of the Lord concerning a moral necessarium and free counsel on his part concerning a moral άδιάφορον." But when Philippi adds that δοκώ δε κάγώ etc. (v. 40: "But I hold, I also have the Spirit of God") "in the mouth of an apostle does not factually admit of contradiction," this is a misunderstanding that would put the apostle in contradiction with himself. Paul not only allows contradiction to arise against his "free counsel," but repeatedly and explicitly says that anyone to whom his counsel does not seem appropriate is free to follow it or not. — Also the objection raised from 1 Cor. 1:16 against inspiration is based on a confusion of two things that have nothing to do with each other. It has been said that because the apostle admits the possibility of an error of memory regarding the number of those he personally baptized, his letters could not possibly have been written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, because errors of memory are impossible with the Holy Spirit. This objection has been answered briefly and accurately: Just as inspiration did not make the holy writers personally sinless in their lives, neither did it make them infallible or omniscient with respect to the events of their lives. — The short private letter to Philemon has also been brought into the field against inspiration, because this letter was written in such a tender and polite tone. "Shall we think," opined Kahnis, "that the Apostle Paul, when he wrote that tender, urbane letter to Philemon, touched with a quiet humor [!], was only recording what the Holy Spirit dictated to him?"870) However, this can be imagined, considering that it is the Holy Spirit's way to teach Christians delicate, lovely, polite, melodious address. Col. 4:6: "Let your address always be sweet" (εν χάριτι). Phil. 4:8: "What is lovely, what is well spoken (προσφιλή — εύφημα), — is about a virtue, is about a praise, pursue it." Kahnis finds the quiet "humor", allegedly indecent to the Holy Spirit, mainly
870) Quote from Baier-Walther 1, 102.
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in the words v. 18-20, where Paul asks Philemon to transfer to his, Paul's, account the debt that the runaway slave, then converted to Christ by Paul, owes to his master. The apostle, however, makes use here of a manner of speaking reminiscent of a transaction in business: "I, Paul, have written it with my hand, I will pay it" (εγώ άποτίσω). It sounds business-like, like our: I promise to pay. But Christians should not be totally unfamiliar with this "business," and they should not be offended by it. The εγώ άποτίσω, after all, is just the general Christian commandment of love translated into concrete: "Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ."871) And this commandment of love, with which Christians love one another, flows from the love which Christ showed us when he had the guilt of the whole world of sin transferred to his account, as Paul binds together both kinds of love, which intercedes for the other, in the words, "Walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a gift and sacrifice, a sweet savor to God." 872) If we were to call what Paul says in the letter to Philemon about the transfer of guilt a "humor" not decent to the Holy Spirit, we would be revealing that our judgment does not come from the knowledge that is of God. The ancient church, therefore, also gave the Epistle to Philemon a place in the canon without hesitation or contradiction.873) Luther judges874) in his preface to the Epistle to Philemon: "This epistle shows a masterly, lovely example of Christian love. For there we see how St. Paul takes care of poor Onesimi and represents him against his Lord with all that he is able, and does not present himself otherwise than as if he himself were Onesimus who had sinned. But he does not do this with power or force, as he would be right, but expresses himself according to his right, so that he forces Philemon to forgive himself according to his right. Just as Christ did for us against God the Father, so St. Paul does for Onesimus against Philemon. For Christ also hath declared himself right, and with love and humility hath overcome the Father, that he should take his wrath and justice,
871) Gal. 6:2. <w:t>872) Eph. 5:2.
873) Cf. Fürbringer, Einleitung in das N. T., p. 71.
874) St. L. XIV, 122.
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and receive us into favor for Christ's sake, who therefore earnestly represents us, and so cordially takes care of us."
Among the objections to inspiration is finally also the reference to evil consequences which are supposedly inseparably bound up with the "old doctrine of inspiration". Modern theology, even the "positive" one, sees, as we have had to point out repeatedly, in the identification of Scripture and Word of God an "evil inheritance" left to us by the first Church, the Church of the Reformation, and especially by the dogmatists. "Intellectualism," a mere intellectual Christianity, was the natural consequence of verbal inspiration or the equating of Scripture and the Word of God.876) This alleged evil consequence has already been dealt with. We still point out here two allegedly evil consequences which Prof. Zöckler of Greifswald particularly emphasized on the occasion of Kiers' trade and objected to "a return to the Scriptural judgment and treatment of the 17th century". These evil consequences would be the downfall of "theological science" and the transformation of the state churches into free churches. Pastor Schulze-Walsleben had declared in a lecture at the "August Conference" (1891), among other things: "We find no reason to abandon the position on Scripture which the church has taken toward it from the beginning, and we continue to declare that as its glory, that through it God speaks to men, and that it is His infallible Word." Prof. Zöckler, on the other hand, wrote at some length in the Evangelischen Kirchenzeitung, of which he was then editor, and concluded his exposition with the words: "One would not think to be able to draw theological carriers, skillful for the execution of a possible repristination plan of that kind, from the teaching institutions of our state churches or to
875) At best, one can speak here, Philemon v. 18-20, with several expositions of a "joke" on the part of the apostle. But it is a "fine, spiritual" joke. Vilmar, for example, writes in his Explanation of the New Testament II, 427: " Finally, the apostle jokes in a fine way, in that he would like to have the damage done to Philemon by the escape of Onesimus put on his account; he himself, as he wrote to him, also wants to settle with him in his own person, whereby he does not even want to take into account that Philemon himself is indebted to him [the apostle, through whom he had been converted]." Cf. in Calov, Biblia Illustrata z. St., the testimonies from the church fathers about the fine spiritual tone of the letter to Philemon.
876) Cf. pp. 70-73.
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keep in touch with state-church theological science at all, if one seriously took the path leading back to Lutheran scholasticism and its absolute concept of theopneusty. The full consequence of the absolute verbal inspiration faith is free churchism. Go over to that position which is currently being cultivated in the American West877) — and the departure from our national and people's churches would soon enough be unavoidable." What is said here about the danger for "theological science" is not as meaningless as it sounds at first. We have only to realize what Zöckler, along with the whole of modern theology, understands by theological science. He understands by it the theological science which no longer knows that the word of the prophets and apostles is Christ's word, and which has therefore made a change of basis. It wants to draw and standardize Christian doctrines not from Christ's Word, the Holy Scriptures, but from within the theologizing subject.878) This theological science, however, is not compatible with a γραφή to which the predicate θεόπνευστος belongs. The Holy Scriptures, which by inspiration are God's infallible Word, harshly condemns every theological science that has engaged in the lose-the-Scriptures movement. It says, "If any man abide not in the saving words of our Lord Jesus Christ . . he is darkened, and knoweth nothing."879) It is like the idol Dagon, when the ark of the covenant of Israel was placed next to him, to the theological science, which has transferred its basis from the Holy Scriptures to the "storm-free castle" of the theologizing subject:880) "When those of Ashdod rose early on the morrow, they found Dagon lying on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord. But they took Dagon and put him back in his place. And when they arose early on the morrow, they found Dagon again lying on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord, but his head and both his hands cut off
877) The "Missourians" are meant.
878) How emphatically Zöckler denies the inspiration of Scripture and therefore also questions the "judicial authority", the "perspicuity" and the "sufficiency" of Scripture is evident from his explanations in his "Handbuch der theol. Wissenschaften" 2 III, 148-151.
879) 1 Tim. 6:3. 4.<w:t>880) 1 Sam. 5:2 ff.
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on the threshold, and the stump alone lying thereon." It is easy to understand that the people of Ashdod, in the instinct of self-preservation, said, "Let not the ark of the God of Israel remain with us; for his hand is too hard upon us and upon Dagon our god." So it is also easy to understand that the modern theologians, out of self-preservation instinct, are anxious not to let the Scriptures remain in the church as God's infallible Word, because a Scripture so constituted is too hard upon them and their "theological science." But it is better for the church to let the word of the apostles and prophets remain with her, because it is her foundation (θεμέλιος) on which she stands, and on the other hand to give the modern theology with its "theological science" the farewell, because this "science", because of its detachment from the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, is based on imagination and ignorance (τετύφωται, μηδέν επιστάμενος). — Nor is the fear that "the full consequence of the absolute concept of theopneusty" would lead to free-churchism unfounded. For the inspired Scripture teaches a twofold thing, which is here under consideration: 1. That the "free church," that is, the church independent of the state, is divine order;881) 2. That Christians are commanded by God to depart from all teachers who cause division and offence apart from the doctrine which Christians have learned from the apostles, or, which is the same thing, from Christ.882) But that the state churches were and still are full of such έτεροδιδασκαλοϋντες883) [heterodoxy] is generally admitted. The same, of course, still applies at the present time in the same measure to the "Landes-Volkskirchen," which one strives to preserve where the separation of church and state has already been officially pronounced. "The full consequence of the absolute verbal inspiration faith" — and that is the right faith — drives Christians in all places and at all times to hold fast to the unadulterated doctrine of Christ, as it is clearly and inerrantly expressed in the inspired Holy Scriptures, even in the case of a free church constitution, and to deny the fellowship of the church to the error.
881) Luke 22:25, 26: "The worldly kings rule. … But ye do not so." Matt. 23:8: "One is your Master, Christ." Jn. 18:36: "My kingdom is not of this world."
882) Rom. 16:17; 2 John 9-11.<w:t xml:space="preserve">883) 1 Tim. 1:3; 6:3.
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