no single issue has dominated the agenda of the Reformed and Presbyterian church world today more than the issue of Hermeneutics. This is not only because various methods of interpretation have been proposed in the last few decades which have more or less made concessions to higher criticism, but many other issues which the church has faced are rooted to Hermeneutical approaches to Scripture. Evolutionism vs. Creationism, homosexuality, marriage and divorce, women in ecclesiastical office—all these issues and more are at bottom hermeneutical. The answers which theologians and ecclesiastical assemblies have given to these questions have depended upon how Scripture is to be interpreted. The door has been opened wide to every heresy within the church; evolutionism has become almost the only way to teach science; women have been ordained into the offices of minister, elder, and deacon; homosexuality has been condoned and homosexuals have not only been permitted church membership, but have even been ordained into office; and all this has happened on the basis of specific and concrete theories of hermeneutics. The way in which one interprets the Scriptures has determined one’s position in all these matters.

In many, if not most, seminaries in the country higher critical views of Scripture are taught, whether these seminaries stand in the Reformed or in the Presbyterian tradition. Concessions of every conceivable sort have been made to higher criticism and defended even by those who claim to hold to the doctrine of infallible inspiration.

And that is the root of the matter. One’s hermeneutics is, after all, determined finally by the view one takes of inspiration. How did the Bible come into existence? That it is the Word of God almost no one within the mainstream of evangelical thought will deny. That God used men to write the Scripture is also too obvious from Scripture itself to contradict. But when the question arises concerning the relation between God’s work and His use of men in writing the Scriptures, there is a great deal of disagreement. The larger the role given to the human instruments, the more reliance one places on higher criticism with its various techniques.

And yet one cannot help but gain the impression that the debate, in the final analysis, is not a debate over various techniques in Hermeneutics; one cannot escape the conclusion that not even the doctrine of inspiration is the real point at issue. One is constantly led to the conviction that when all else is said and done, the issue is a profoundly spiritual one. That is, the debates, while swirling around academic discussions concerning a proper biblical Hermeneutics and concerning the truth of inspiration, carry with them spiritual implications. By this I mean that the debate is finally one concerning the authority of Scripture.

Now that in itself is something of an academic question, of course. But the point is that when one begins to speak of the authority of Scripture, one is confronted with the fact that Scripture is unlike any other book. It does not come to us for verification. It does not present its case to be examined on evidence outside itself as to whether or not it ought to be believed. It is not a text on the philosophy of history which presents startling views on how one must explain history, views which are open to examination and questioning. It is the Word of God which comes to man with the "Thus saith the Lord." It carries with it the authority of the sovereign God Himself before which all men are required to bow in humility. Upon this hangs the issues of heaven or hell. It is this spiritual question which is the basic and underlying issue at stake. Will you bow humbly before the authority of God? To a certain extent, hermeneutical issues are smoke screens to cover the more basic issue. Or, to put it differently, various theories are proposed in the field of Hermeneutics and inspiration to escape the compelling and inescapable authority of the Word of God.

Our chief purpose in writing about these things is a positive one. Although some attention will have to be paid to modern higher critical views of Scripture, we are concerned about presenting principles of Hermeneutics which can be used by the child of God in studying God’s holy Word.

This latter is important. If modern theories of hermeneutics are to be used in the study of Scripture, Scripture is effectively taken out of the hands of God’s people as a book incapable of being understood except by those who are adept at applying, e.g., literary-historical criticism to biblical interpretation. This is a great evil and has been, at least in part, the cause of a disinterest in Bible studies among those who sit in the pew. Quite reasonably the people of God argue that if expertise is required to understand the Word of God, there is little point in taking the time and dissipating the energy required to turn to God’s Word themselves. They are better off leaving these esoteric matters in the hands of the experts. If, e.g., Genesis 1 does not mean what it says, why read it to begin with? But this is a denial of the great Reformation truth of the priesthood of all believers.

From a certain point of view, the child of God needs no instruction in Hermeneutics. If Hermeneutics is the science of biblical interpretation, it follows from the very nature of Scripture itself that no formal instruction is necessary for a regenerated saint to be able to understand what God is saying in His Word. Countless saints over the centuries have read the Word of God without ever knowing the first thing about Hermeneutics, without even having heard the word. They have read Scripture, understood what God was saying to them with stark clarity, and have taken that Word into their hearts.

Why then talk about Hermeneutics at all? It seems redundant. And, let it be clearly stated that, in a sense, instruction in Hermeneutics is redundant. The child of God, led by the Spirit, knows, as it were instinctively, intuitively, without being able to give an account of it, what the Scriptures teach. If you should ask him what a given passage means, he will be able to tell you. If you should pursue the matter further and inquire of him how it is that he can understand the Bible, what principles of Hermeneutics he has applied to his study, he will not usually be able to tell you. The Bible is, from that point of view, like any other book. If he can read anything written in the language which he speaks, he can read the Bible. If he can understand what is being conveyed by the tongue he uses, he can understand what the Bible says. The Bible means what it says. The literal meaning of God’s Word is the correct one, as we are wont to say.

All this does not mean that the Scriptures are not inexhaustible in their truth. They surely are. The perspicuity of Scripture, as we shall notice, does not mean that Scripture is shallow and devoid of content. Perspicuity is part of the wonder of the miracle of Scripture. This can be easily illustrated. One of the simplest passages of Scripture is Luke 2:7: "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." While a very little child is able to understand this passage of Scripture without difficulty, at the same time no theologian has ever been able to plumb its depths, and more books than can be counted have been written concerning this profound truth of the birth of Christ.

The answer is a very limited one. All Hermeneutics really does is crystallize, systematize, and articulate principles which are intuitive to every child of God. When a child of God hears, perhaps for the first time, what the principles of Hermeneutics are, his response ought to be (and will be, if the Hermeneutics is correct), "I knew that all the time." It makes clear and brings to consciousness that which has all along been assumed. Hermeneutics has nothing new to say, no new thing to communicate, no new insights to give information to a man who has been a serious student of holy Scripture.

We must say something concerning various theories which have been proposed in Hermeneutics, if for no other reason than that it will help us to see what others have done to destroy any proper interpretation of God’s Word, so that we may avoid these evils like the plague.

U    All views of higher criticism have their roots in modern philosophy.

Modern philosophy, beginning with Descartes, was rationalistic; i.e., it appealed to the human mind as the standard and arbiter of the truth. In reaction to the synthesis philosophy of the Scholastics, it made a distinction between philosophy and theology. Philosophy was the domain of reason; theology was the domain of faith. Philosophy answered the basic questions of the universe, of man and of his ability to know; theology dug its material out of the Bible.

This could not continue. It was a false dichotomy in knowledge. The questions of philosophy concerned ultimate things necessarily involving theological questions. And most of the time the conclusions of reason were in direct conflict with the theology of Scripture. And so some kind of solution had to be found. No man can, ultimately, live with such conflicts and be serious about what he believes.

The philosophers began, therefore, to turn their attention to theological matters. But the viewpoint, the perspective, the approach was one of reason, for the philosophers were committed to the autonomy of human reason. Whether these were the continental rationalistic philosophers or the empiricists of England, reason was the criterion of truth. That which met the standards of man’s reason could be accepted; that which failed the test of man’s reason had to be rejected. And it was inevitable that as efforts were made to square theology with philosophy, philosophers would turn their attention to Scripture and the doctrine of inspiration.

The sad part of all this is that their views found ready acceptance in the church. The insidious influence of rationalism devastated the church, partly because these rationalists professed orthodoxy in matters of faith, and partly because the church itself had in the latter part of the 17th and in the 18th centuries entered a period of dead orthodoxy which made them vulnerable to rationalism.

Also in the 18th century a school of thought arose which posited the notion of a natural religion. Leibnitz and Christian Wolff spoke of such a natural religion which was independent of Scripture and based upon scientific observation and proof. It was a religion, not formulated by a study of Scripture, but simply expressing what elements of deity were to be found in a study of the universe. Lessing in Germany carried this idea a bit further and spoke of the fact that all religions in the world were evidences of this natural religion and thus have value for us today. And Herder included in the history of this natural religion, the Bible which recorded the ancient religions of the Jewish people especially. The evil of this position was that it denied the truth of revelation and refused to believe that the origin of the religion of the Jewish people and the church had its origins in divine revelation.

Immanuel Kant, the influential German philosopher from Koningsburg, had more influence on higher criticism than any other individual. He spoke of the human intellect as being limited in its acquisition of knowledge by time and space so that it was incapable of knowing anything at all beyond this present creation and the time and space which bound it. He was an intellectual agnostic and ruled out any knowledge of spiritual things. Yet, although he pushed God out of the front door of the universe, he attempted to drag God back in through the back door. He spoke of the fact that all men could know God through the "Thou shalt" of God’s moral law. The result of this was the notion that religion is nothing but morality. The incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, e.g., is nothing more than the personalization of the moral idea as it is in God. And the church is a moral society to train men to live morally upright lives. Scripture is not the written record of God’s revelation but a lesson in morals which has come down to us from ancient peoples in their own superstitious beliefs.

Hegel and Schleiermacher followed these ideas of Kant to a certain extent. Hegel was a philosophical idealist and a theological pantheist. In his thinking. Christ was nothing but the highest God-consciousness which could be found among men. History is the absolute being of God relativized in creation and returning to the absolute. Consciousness is the highest reality, God coming to consciousness in man and especially in the Lord Jesus Christ. Schleiermacher held that God is essentially unknowable to the mind, but comes to be known through the feelings, particularly the feeling of dependence. Man has an indestructible sense of dependence upon a higher being, and this is essentially all religion. Inspiration is really holiness which comes through contact with the one holy Being. Scripture is a divine-human book which is the best of all Christian writings, but a product of the church in past years and of the general spirit in the church which arises from a collective consciousness of God. No longer must Scripture be considered of divine origin; it is only divine insofar as it expresses the sense of divinity in the church as the community of believers in every age made a record of their experiences in religion as they expressed their dependence upon a higher Being.

From all these notions which prevailed in the 18th century, it soon became necessary to explain how Scripture could include in its records of miracles and supernatural events. How was it, e.g., that the church came to believe that Christ, was born of a virgin that He suffered and died for sin, and that He arose again from the dead? David Frederick Strauss set about explaining that. He studied under both Hegel and Schleiermacher and wrote his Das Leben Jesu (The Life of Christ) in 1835. In this influential book he set forth what became known as the mythical theory of biblical interpretation. The church expressed her faith in the form of myths as being an acceptable mode of speaking, conducive to conveying their beliefs to the age in which they lived. That which is miraculous in Scripture is nothing but a mythological way of expressing one’s faith. Christ was, therefore, a mere man who wanted to reform his nation. Gradually He became persuaded that He was the Messiah of which the Old Testament Scriptures had spoken. At first He was alarmed at the thought, but gradually He came to accept it with such fervency that He was willing to die for it. So He was a man of such high moral caliber that He was willing to give His life for what He believed.

Two important schools arose during this same period. The first was the Tubingen School of F. C. Baur. Concentrating especially on the New Testament, it explained the New Testament in terms of basic differences between the Pauline and Petrine parties in the church. The Petrine party stood for close reliance upon the Old Testament laws, while the Pauline party wanted a newer and more radical doctrine. The whole history of the apostolic church was to be interpreted in terms of this conflict and its final resolution. The result was that each book of the New Testament was examined closely to determine what role each played in the conflict. And, quite understandably, most of Paul’s epistles were rejected as being authored by the apostle to the Gentiles. It is not difficult to see that such an interpretation of Scripture has nothing to do with its divine origin.

The other school was the Graf-Kuenen-Welhausen School which concentrated especially on the Old Testament. Special attention was given to the Pentateuch; its Mosaic authorship was denied; and it was explained as basically the work of editors who put it together from four separate documents which had survived many hundreds of years of Israel’s history.

In the first place, the views which we are about to discuss range over a broad spectrum of thought. They can be placed on a line, the one end of which is very modern and liberal Hermeneutics which basically denies the divine character of Scripture altogether; and the other end of which is the more "conservative" view of Hermeneutics which holds to Scripture as the Word of God in whole or in part. That they together belong to destructive higher criticism is my thesis. I am not unaware of the fact that many "conservative" Bible scholars would deny this and insist that they believe in inspiration and, in fact, the infallible inspiration of Scripture. In spite of these claims, it is my firm conviction that they belong to destructive criticism for all that and that they must be repudiated by one who holds to Scripture as God’s Word. Their disclaimers are not persuasive, and we do not hesitate to characterize their views as being rationalistic approaches to Scripture which destroy Scripture’s fundamental character and rob God’s Word of its final authority.

It is one of the striking features of modern Hermeneutics that every year brings different theories forward concerning methods of biblical interpretation. One can hardly keep up with them all. Each new pet theory is another way which is supposed to offer us insight into biblical interpretation and becomes another tool in the hands of the interpreter of God’s Word to help explain Scripture. But the proposing of a new theory does not necessarily mean that older ones have been abandoned. Those who promote, e.g., Form Criticism may at the same time hold to literary and historical criticism. The views overlap. More than one can be used.

A very commonly held idea and one which has gained wide acceptance is Form Criticism. While there are variations of this view, basically it holds that especially the New Testament books of the Bible must be interpreted in terms of writing down what were originally oral traditions. The idea goes something like this. During the years of our Lord’s ministry, gradually gospel stories and sayings of the Lord were formulated as people told others about what they had seen and heard, or what they had received from others. These stories, as stories have a way of doing, became somewhat stereotyped so that they took on a fairly fixed form.

After the Lord died and went to heaven, these stories and sayings circulated as separate units—in various Christian communities as the gospel spread throughout the world. Some of them were even written down in old documents, no longer available to us, but lying at the basis of the gospel narratives. Such documents are supposed to be the explanation for the similarities between the gospel narratives. An investigation of all this is the method used to solve the so-called "synoptic problem," which addresses itself to the question of why there are similarities but also differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke.[4]

It is clear that the efforts to discover what elements in the gospels are original and authentic are going to be determined by one’s presuppositions. Hence, very liberal critics find very little which is truly reliable. One critic went so far as to say that when we finally penetrate all the layers and discover what is really authentic, we can conclude only that there once lived a man who was called Jesus. More conservative critics find much more that is authentic and are even willing to concede that most, if not all, we find in the gospels can be relied upon as trustworthy.

Another view, somewhat related to Form Criticism, is the approach to Scripture called Gemeinde Theologie or, Church Theology. This view holds to the notion that the church at the time Scripture was written formulated her beliefs concerning Christ which she incorporated into various documents. These beliefs were the response of the church to all God’s speech. Scripture is the record of the believers’ reaction to what God has said in Christ. Scripture is a kind of confession which the church makes concerning her faith. And this is, of course, something in which the church still engages.

A distinction was often made also between Historie and Geschichte. While both German words can be translated by the one word "history," the idea of the distinction is this: Historie refers to the facts of history itself; Geschichte emphasizes the mutual encounter of persons as they participate in and personally interpret Historie. This Geschichte involves various "encounters." It involves the original encounter of a person or persons with the facts of history, the encounter of the recorder who sets about recording such data, and the encounter of the interpreter. Other aspects of such an encounter can be added. The idea of calling all this "encounter" is that through the entire process one encounters Christ Who comes through the kerygma, i.e., the proclamation of Christ.

Bultmann was the one who also proposed a de-mythologizing of Scripture in order to get at what was authentic and historically factual. He interpreted a myth as being anything which was contrary to the modern scientific world-view of our time. This included a denial of the concept of a three-story universe with hell below earth and heaven above. It included also a denial of the intervention of supernatural powers including devils and angels. And it included the possibility of miracles. All these are contrary to science and cannot be accepted by the modern man. All in Scripture, therefore, which speaks of these things must be considered as myth. And the only way to understand Scripture is to de-mythologize it. What we have left when all the myths have been stripped away is the notion that the cross and resurrection of Christ mean that judgment is brought into the world with the possibility of a new life opened for man.

Another rather popular method proposed is the Sitz im Leben theory of inspiration which must be taken into account in Bible interpretation.[5] The idea of this view, although more involved than we can explain here, is that the biblical writers were influenced by their own "situation in life so that their own cultural viewpoints were incorporated into their writings. This has become increasingly popular in our day as the view that the biblical writers were culturally conditioned in their writings. The statements of Paul, e.g., which deny the right of women to hold ecclesiastical office are only his cultural conditioning and not to be accepted today as normative for the life of the church.

U    Form Criticism, e.g., concentrates upon the literary form in which Scripture comes to us.

U   Redaction Criticism emphasizes that the final products of Scripture which we have in our possession are the work of editors who assembled traditions, writings, and other available material in one coherent document.

U    Source criticism makes an effort to determine the sources which the biblical writers used whether they were rabbinical writings, Old Testament writings, apocryphal writings, genealogies, early forms of the gospels, or whatever.

All of these belong, more or less, to what is commonly known as literary-historical criticism. This form of criticism examines the documents of Scripture to determine such things as their literary genera and their historical setting. So popular has this become in our day that there is scarcely to be found anyone in the major Seminaries of the country who does not hold to this view of biblical interpretation.

A striking example of this is to be found in Tremper Longman III’s book, Literary Approaches to Biblical Criticism.[6] Tremper Longman Ill is professor of Old Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is, therefore, a "conservative" Bible scholar who would undoubtedly claim to hold to the infallible inspiration of Scripture. After discussing in Chapter 1 Source, Form, and Redaction Criticism, he devotes his book to a study of the problem involved in literary criticism.[7]

Now apart from any other consideration, one wonders how in all God’s world it is possible for even a trained exegete, much less an untrained child of God, ever to discover what Scripture means if all these things are necessary. Not only is the process much too long and complicated for anyone to apply it successfully, but most of the information that has to be gained by this method in order to understand the biblical text is sheer speculation and almost totally unavailable to us. The whole structure is a house of cards which tumbles by its own weight. Every man has his own idea of who the narrator (whether real or fictional) is; of who the narratee and the addressee are. The simple fact of the matter is that Scripture is not pleased to reveal this to us in many instances, quite obviously because all this stuff is not necessary to understand the Word of God.

For the present, we may draw several conclusions. In the first place, it is not difficult to trace many contemporary views in Hermeneutics to rationalistic philosophy. That ought to give us pause. The approach of these modern methods of Hermeneutics is the approach of rationalism, and rationalism stands directly opposed to faith. It is the antithesis of faith vs. unbelief, of Christ vs. Belial. In the second place, wherever on the spectrum of higher criticism one may stand whether towards the liberal end or towards the conservative end—it is fundamentally all of one piece. Even such a brief survey as we have offered demonstrates clearly how many modern views in Hermeneutics share a common ground with suggestions and ideas promoted by the early philosophers who applied the principles of rationalistic philosophy to Bible studies. In the third place, one cannot doubt even for a moment that all such views ultimately make biblical interpretation impossible for the untrained believer.

As we noticed in the last issue of the Journal many theories have been proposed as ways to interpret Scripture. We are not now interested in the more liberal views which have been held by Bible critics over the years, views which blatantly and openly deny infallible inspiration; we are concerned about the views of those who claim to hold to a conservative position on Scripture, i.e., a position which affirms the inspiration of Scripture and its infallibility, but who adopt some kind of biblical criticism and claim that this is not incompatible with Scripture’s infallible inspiration. [9]

One form of biblical criticism currently in favor is called "redaction criticism." Redaction criticism is of particular interest because it embraces many other types of criticism as well.

U    A definition of redaction criticism was offered as follows:

1. A synonym for redacting is editing. Someone who redacts a piece of writing edits it, as a newspaper editor polishes a reporter’s news story.

2. "Criticism" in this case means a study of what these early "editors" did.

3. Thus redaction criticism is the study of how editing has been done. It’s the attempt to ascertain the viewpoint of a gospel writer/editor: How did he select his material? How did he arrange his material? How did he phrase the material and direct it toward particular themes or purposes? Note that we’re not talking about the editor creating new material. We’re talking about selection and focus (p. 2-1).

It is clear that all the participants agreed to a proper use of redaction criticism with all that implies, even though issuing words of caution. [10]

The viewpoint of redaction criticism (which includes form criticism, source criticism, literary and historical criticism) approaches Scripture from a distinctive viewpoint. It argues that, because God was pleased to use men in the writing of the Scriptures, the proper understanding of Scripture involves a careful and detailed analysis of how they did their writing. This careful analysis involves many different aspects. It involves determining what sources the secondary authors of Scripture used: what written sources and oral sources. It involves determining how Matthew and Luke, e.g., put the material they collected together. It involves how the gospel writers depended upon each other’s writings (the so-called synoptic problem). It involves the purpose each had for writing—which consideration in turn includes those to whom a particular book of the Bible was addressed and what problem in that group was the chief consideration in writing. It involves a careful analysis of the type of literature they used: whether they used poetry, letter-form, narrative, or prophecy. It involves all the final work and editing which Mark (or any other writer) did in order to put his document in its final form. It is a lengthy and involved study to learn the history of a document and to subject it to careful literary and historical analysis. Without finding answers to all these questions, it is impossible to come to a clear and definite answer to the meaning of Scripture.

The question is: How do those who support this method of biblical interpretation square it with their commitment to infallible and inerrant inspiration?

While repeatedly assuring us that they indeed do believe in infallible inspiration, a discussion of this question is not easy to find in their writings. The answer we give, therefore, is, at least in part, our own deductions from what they write.

The argument goes something like this. The church has, from a time very early in the history of the New Testament period, adopted what has been called the "grammatico-historical" method of exegesis. It was first developed by the school in Antioch, practiced by such great preachers as Chrysostom with more or less consistency, firmly maintained by the Reformers and followed by all the great preachers in the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions. It was a method of exegesis which was developed out of the character of Scripture itself. Scripture is, though divinely inspired, a book which was written in human language (the Hebrew of the nation of Israel and the Greek spoken in the world of Christ and the apostles) by human authors for particular and definite purposes. The Psalms were written to be sung in the worship of God in the temple; the letters of Paul were written to historical churches or persons with problems which Paul ad-dressed. Galatians, e.g., was written to the churches in Eastern Asia Minor to combat errors of Judaism which threatened the truth of salvation through the cross of Christ alone. Not only was the language used the common language of the people of the time in which Scripture was written, but the whole setting of Scripture reflects the culture of these times. For example, Jesus, in His parable of the four kinds of soil, spoke of broadcasting seed as it was then done, not as it is done today with tractors and multi-row planters. Furthermore, because God used men to write the Scriptures. God used men in such a way that their own personality was indelibly impressed upon their writings. Isaiah’s soaring prophecies reflect his personality; Paul’s close argumentation differs markedly from John’s intuitive gifts; David’s poetic soul produced poetry of unparalleled beauty, and it is inconceivable that he could write the down-to-earth prophecy of Amos, the herdsman from Tekoa.

And there is more. The men whom God used were not mere automatons who simply wrote by dictation, almost always penning ideas and stories of which they had no knowledge other than through divine inspiration. John was, as he himself testifies, an eyewitness of everything which he wrote. Matthew could very well have consulted the genealogies in the records of Bethlehem in order to construct the genealogy of our Lord which he included in his gospel account. Luke who had no firsthand knowledge of the events of Jesus’ life may very well have received some knowledge of the events which he records from others.

Because all this is true, so the argument goes, it is not only legitimate but very essential to know and understand all these things in order to come to a proper understanding of Scripture. One can hardly preach, e.g., on the text, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" (Psalm 51:7) unless he has also some knowledge of the hyssop plant which was native to Palestine. The grammatico-historical method of exegesis, so long in use in the church and accepted by every orthodox theologian throughout the entire new dispensation, implies that Scripture be interpreted by taking all these things into account. Redaction criticism, if rightly understood and not abused by those who are not committed to destructive criticism which denies infallible inspiration, is nothing else but a more exact application of what is meant by the time-honored method of exegesis called the grammatico-historical method.

In fact, so the argument goes, if you repudiate redaction criticism or literary-historical criticism, you are ipso facto committing yourself to a theory of inspiration which denies the great truth that God used men in writing of this magnificent book. You are committing yourself to a dictation theory of inspiration which fails to do justice to what kind of a book Scripture actually is. And, worst of all, you are becoming guilty of the horrendous sin of bibliolatry.

Because, therefore, the grammatico-historical method of exegesis has a long and noble history, because every orthodox theologian of all time has used it, because it alone does justice to the obvious character of Scripture as written by human men, it is that method of biblical interpretation which leads to a correct understanding of Scripture. Redaction criticism is no different essentially from the grammatico-historical method of exegesis. It simply applies the revered grammatico-historical method in some detail. Redaction criticism is the only justifiable way to engage in biblical interpretation.

So goes the defense of redaction criticism.

Let it be clearly understood first of all that we agree with much that has been written about the Scriptures being written in the particular historical setting of old dispensational and early new dispensational times. Not only do we agree with much of all this, but it is an obvious fact that no one of any standing in the whole history of the church has to my knowledge ever held to any kind of dictation theory of inspiration—a theory which simply ignores the fact that God used Moses and Habakkuk, e.g., with all their gifts and abilities, their training and upbringing, their culture and personality to write His Word. The great exegetes and preachers of all ages have held to this view and it would, on the very face of it, be insane to deny it.

We will even go a step further. If all this was not true, Scripture would not really be Scripture. Not only is it the beautiful book that it is because of the way it was written, but it could not be the Word of God to the church of all ages unless it was written in exactly the way God chose to write it.

We agree, therefore, that Obadiah wrote differently than Jonah, that Peter wrote in a way in which James could never write, that each book bears the imprint of the man whom God used to write it. It is too obvious to belabor.

We agree too that Scripture was written in the language of the day, the street language, if you will. It was not written in some unknown tongue. It was not even written in the jargon of professional classes. It was written for "the man in the street," in language which he can understand.

It was also written by people who lived in a particular time in the world’s history, were a part of a particular culture, made use of all the historical, geographical, biological, zoological, cultural, and ecclesiastical characteristics of their time. Scripture is full of such references, and the argument need not be pursued.

We also wholeheartedly adopt the obvious truth that Scripture contains various literary genera: poetry, historical narrative, prophecy, etc. God was pleased to write Scripture, not as a mathematical text book, not as a work in Dogmatics, not as an essay, but in many different literary forms, all of which were used to bring out the truths of revelation in all their riches and beauty.

It is also true that the men whom God used to write the Scriptures received some information from other sources. Peter was surely acquainted with Paul’s writings (2 Peter 3:15, 16). Matthew may have consulted the genealogical tables of Bethlehem to write his first chapter. Mark may have received information for his gospel from Peter (see Mark 16:7).[11] The acts of the kings of Israel and Judah recorded for us in the two books of the Kings and the two books of the Chronicles could very well have been written, at least in part, by consulting the written records that were kept as part of the official archives of the kingdom.

And we do not hesitate to affirm that a knowledge of all these things is helpful in understanding the text of Scripture. All this is indeed implied in the grammatico-historical method of exegesis.

What then is our argument? Why are we so insistent that redaction criticism be cast far from us as a plague on exegesis and Scripture?

Before we enter the substance of our answer to redaction criticism, some less important, though crucial points must be raised.

The members of the symposium referred to above speak again and again of the dangers of redaction criticism even though, without exception, they are prepared to adopt it. The moderator of the panel, in a concluding essay, entitles his article, "Redaction Criticism: Handle With Care." The fear of danger is not only rooted in the fact that the term "redaction criticism" is used by destructive critics who give to the term freight which more conservative Bible scholars refuse to carry. The concept itself is fraught with danger. One can, so it is argued, carry this method itself too far even though one rejects the presuppositions of liberal Bible critics. It is a worthwhile tool, but handle with care. It is a good hammer, but don’t pound too hard. This sort of an argument does not impress me. When we are dealing with Scripture, God gives us a right method to interpret His Word. There are right methods and wrong methods. Use the right one with all your vigor and enthusiasm. Shun the wrong one like a plague. If redaction criticism is right, use it without fear. I would find it extraordinarily difficult to teach my students a right method, but then try to show them how they must handle it with care lest it lead to a denial of infallible inspiration. The very fact that it can be used wrongly ought to give one pause before he employs this method.

Another difficulty with redaction criticism is its obvious limitations. It simply is a fact that the answers to the questions which redaction criticism seeks to find are often unavailable to us. We do not know with certainty (or even at all) who wrote many of the books of the Bible. We do not know who wrote Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I & II Kings, I & II Chronicles, many of the Psalms, Hebrews, and others. We can make educated guesses, and many have been made. But the answers are as varied as the men who engage in guessing.

We do not know why many of the books were written, if we are considering the matter from a purely historical viewpoint. We do not know why Esther was written by whomever wrote it if there was a historical reason for writing it rooted in the times and circumstances of Israel’s history. We may guess and may even come up with reasonable answers. But we do not know, we just do not know.

We can never be sure about the sources (if any) which were consulted in the writing of books. Maybe Matthew did consult the genealogical records of Bethlehem, but who can tell with certainty? He did not follow them slavishly—that we know. Maybe Mark did get some of his information from Peter, but we can never be certain. What role did oral tradition play in the formation of books? We cannot tell.

If we are wholeheartedly convinced that God is the Author of Scripture, there is no reason in the whole world why God could not have communicated to those whom he used to write the Scriptures things which they did not know apart from direct communication from God. Even Isaiah was astounded at the truth of the suffering Servant of Jehovah (Isaiah 53:1). The prophets searched diligently their own writings in order to understand them better, for they themselves did not fully know what they were inspired to write (1 Peter 1:10-12).

• That God revealed to them many truths concerning the work of salvation in Christ which they could never have known from a thousand sources is an obvious fact.

• That God revealed to them historical data from the past or from their own times that came to them directly by inspiration is not only possible, but almost certainly true.

Moses surely received information concerning God’s work of creation which could not have been known in any other way than through direct revelation from God. Sources containing this information were simply non-existent.

At any rate, learned men may write lengthy treatises speculating about all sorts of things concerning sources, but the interpretation of Scripture does not ultimately depend upon this.

That this is true is evident from the fact that a great deal of knowledge which we have acquired which is relatively certain concerning the background of Scripture has only recently been discovered. If our understanding of Scripture depends upon all this, then it follows with inescapable logic that the church for centuries and even millennia did not really know what Scripture was all about. They had no access to such knowledge.

These things are not essential to an understanding of Scripture. And they are not essential simply because God did not see fit to reveal them to us. If a knowledge of the author of a book is crucial and decisive to an understanding of it, why did not God (Who gave us Scripture to be understood) tell us who wrote Hebrews? Now you can have your pick. Paul? Apollos? Peter? Aquila? Priscilla? All have been suggested. Every one has been defended in a most learned way. But we do not know. We cannot tell.

And this brings up the important point of Scripture’s perspicuity (clarity or ability to be understood). While it is not our purpose to discuss this doctrine in detail at this point, the position of redaction criticism touches on this truth. If the redaction critics are right, then it simply is true that the uneducated and untrained child of God cannot understand Scripture. We have discussed this already in our first article, and we need not repeat what was said there. But let this clearly be understood. If one must find his way through the labyrinthian passageways of redaction criticism one gets lost no matter what the quality of his scholarship. It is a matter of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Everyone disagrees with everyone else not only, but no one can follow the involved and convoluted arguments in favor of this theory of dependence or that one. It is a hopeless task. Not only has the Bible been effectively taken out of the hands of the untrained child of God, but it has even been taken out of the hands of the man who devotes his life to a study of Scripture, for the questions that need answering have no answers. The Bible remains an enigma. The stirring cry of Tyndale then takes on a hollow ring: "If God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth a plow shall know more of the Scriptures than thou doest."

The issue of perspicuity is an important one. Herschel P. Smith writes of "Form Criticism and Reformed Theology" and addresses himself to that question.

Smith is correct. The Reformed doctrine of Scripture means that God gave His Word to the least of His saints. It is theirs to know it and understand it. Any theory that takes Scripture from them is anathema.

Yet all of these matters do not bring us to the heart of the issue.

We can perhaps call the method of Hermeneutics which has been used in the church throughout the ages the grammatico-historical method, but this really does not do justice to what exegesis is all about. I am not sure that a better name can be found, nor is that really necessary, for we are not all that concerned about names as such. Perhaps the name grammatico-historical-spiritual method is better, although it is not immediately evident from the addition of the word "spiritual" what we have in mind.

The point is that exegesis has as its primary goal the study of Scripture which results in learning the meaning of the Holy Spirit. And this is what we mean by the addition of the word "spiritual."

The rules for the interpretation of Scripture are determined by Scripture itself. The character of Scripture determines how Scripture must be interpreted.

Dr. Abraham Kuyper discusses in his Encyclopedia the whole field of Hermeneutics and speaks of the fact that, after all, the science of Hermeneutics can be applied to any written and spoken word. But he faces the question of whether it is possible to speak of Hermeneutics as a theological science in distinction from Hermeneutics in other branches of learning. He argues that it is indeed correct to speak of Hermeneutics as a theological science because of the unique character of Scripture. He writes:

The point which Kuyper is making is that the unique character of Scripture gives to Hermeneutics, when applied to Scripture, its own unique principles.

Now it is evident that the principles of Hermeneutics are not found explicitly stated in Scripture. This would be out of keeping with the nature of Scripture, which is the written record of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Scripture is not a textbook, not even of Hermeneutics.

But the character of Scripture determines the rules for its interpretation. This is, of course, true of any book. In a way, the rules for the interpretation of a discourse, whether written or oral, are unconsciously applied by the hearer or reader. They are implicit in the language itself and in the fact that language is a means of communication. And, while mostly one is unconscious of the rules of interpretation which he subjectively applies to any discourse, these naively applied principles can be explicated, organized, and examined.

• An important question which arises in this connection is: How do we know that Scripture is infallibly inspired by the Holy Spirit?

The answer to this question has a great deal to do with our discussion of Hermeneutics, and we ought to give an answer to that question before we go on in our discussion.

The answer to this question of how we know that Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit is the testimony of Scripture itself. It is not an exaggeration to say that every page of Scripture testifies of its divine origin. One cannot read the Scriptures without hearing this testimony ringing loud and clear. Every child of God who has taken the Scriptures in his hand will testify of this.

Now this argument is, in itself, true. From a certain point of view we admit its cogency. But that is by no means the whole story.

And yet, this argument has apparently had force with students of Scripture. And by virtue of the force of the argument, efforts are continuously being made to prove, with evidence outside of Scripture that Scripture’s claims are true.

Even "conservative" students of Scripture fall repeatedly into this trap. One can find many who attempt to "prove" Scripture’s divine inspiration by means of appeal to historical and literary criticism. They will, e.g. argue that Scripture is trustworthy in all its historical claims as is evident from the findings of archeology. They will argue that countless men throughout the centuries have accepted Scripture as God-breathed. They will go into detailed argumentation to prove that the gospels, in fact, do not contradict themselves, that there is an abundance of historical material taken from secular writings of the period in which demonstrates the truth of Scripture’s claim.

A good example of this is to be found in the discussions with which almost every recent commentary is introduced concerning the authorship of a given book. The epistle of Paul to the Colossians is said, in the sacred writing itself, to be written by Paul: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse. . ." (Colossians 1:1, 2). Now if Scripture is infallibly inspired, then these words are also infallibly inspired. That means, obviously, that because the text says so, this book was written by Paul. And yet commentators will go to great lengths to refute the attacks of higher critics which question Pauline authorship. They will marshal abundant evidence that proves, from an historical and literary viewpoint, that Paul indeed wrote this epistle. In other words, the mere testimony of Scripture is not enough. Data outside Scripture have to be summoned to prove the truth of the simple statement in Colossians 1:1, 2.

It is this whole method of interpretation which we categorically reject. And it is our contention and firm conviction that this line of argumentation basically destroys biblical interpretation. Defenders of this view may indeed come to the conclusion that Paul surely did write Colossians, but their conclusions are based on a line of argumentation which lies outside Scripture’s own testimony. They may even cite this proof from literary and historical considerations as additional proof that the Scripture is accurate in all it says. But we repudiate this nonetheless as a major and fundamental error which concedes the argument of higher criticism. We refuse to accept the Pauline authorship of Colossians on any other basis than the simple fact that the text itself says so.

The error which is made is important and crucial for the argument.

This line of argumentation is an implicit denial of infallible inspiration because it is a basically rationalistic approach to Scripture; i.e., it is an effort to place Scripture under the judgment of our own minds. It is an effort to subject Scripture’s own claims to our rational scrutiny and prove by means of rationalistic argumentation that which Scripture itself claims for itself.

If this approach is consistently followed, the results will be that we often find the evidence less than satisfactory, and we have entered the morass of higher and destructive criticism.

It is said by those who defend this approach that this is the only way to deal with genuine higher critics who make misuse of redaction criticism. We must, so it is said, meet the arguments of the unbelievers and those who deny infallible inspiration. It is said that if we refuse to follow this line of argumentation, we take a less than scholarly approach and make our writings irrelevant to current discussions in the field of Hermeneutics.

In answer to the question of whether we ought to use the terminology of the higher critics, specifically the term "redaction criticism," D A. Carson argued, "However—and this is an important point—by mixing it up in the international scholarly marketplace, we can help provide not only good scholarship, but a buffer for the next generation of students coming through. . . . The writings of Leon Morris. . . gave me more credence with my professors than I might have had otherwise."[14]

The Reformed student of Scripture believes firmly in scholarship. Scripture itself requires the most careful study simply because it is the Word of God. But if scholarship means concessions to higher criticism, then scholarship is anathema to the Reformed man. If scholarship according to higher critical standards is the only way to receive recognition in scholarly circles and Journals, the price required is too high to pay. The truth of God’s Word may not be sacrificed on the altar of scholarship. And he who is willing to do this is unfaithful to God’s Word and to God Himself. Those who are willing to argue with higher critics on their ground allow the enemy to choose the battlefield. And every officer in every army knows that to allow the enemy to choose the battlefield spells disaster. If we are relentlessly committed to defend Scripture on the fundamentally rationalistic grounds of higher criticism, we have lost the battle before we begin.

• How do we know that Scripture is the Word of God?

• How do we know this with that total conviction that brings the child of God into humble submission to the Word?

• How do we know this truth so that we are willing to lay down our life for it?

• Because some skilled and knowledgeable redaction critic has proved it with an involved argument from literary and historical sources?

This is not to say that the argument of the critics that to rest one’s case on Scripture’s testimony is a petitio, an arguing in a circle, is correct. Basically we reject that charge. To accept Scripture on the basis of the testimony of Scripture itself is not, in any true sense, a petitio. This can be easily demonstrated. Even in a court of law the self-testimony of a man or of a document is accepted as true unless there is overwhelming and utterly convincing proof to the contrary. Then a man is proved to be guilty of perjury and a document is branded a forgery. And those are after all the options. Scripture is what it claims to be or it is a forgery. One or the other must be true. When a book claims to be written by a certain author, when I pen to this article my name, it is accepted by all that the claim is true. It is not considered necessary to summon all kinds of other evidence, whether literary or historical, to substantiate the claim. The claim stands and is only rejected when there is unassailable proof that the claim is false. Such self-testimony is the strongest kind of evidence which can be presented.

• Why is it then that when the Bible claims to be written by God this is rejected?

• Why is every other book in the world accepted as written by the man who says he wrote it, and the claims of the Bible are rejected?

The answer, very simply, is: Unbelief. One either accepts the claims of Scripture at face value or one rejects these claims. To attempt to support Scripture’s claims by appeals to historical and literary arguments is basically to reject what Scripture itself says.

But this very truth makes the whole matter of faith the crucial issue. The battle which has been joined in our century is not a battle between two opposing groups in which the outcome of the battle is determined by who has the best arguments. The battle is simply one phase of the great battle of the ages, the battle between faith and unbelief. There the battle must be fought. And that is why faith can never be vanquished, for faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

That immediately brings up also the question of what we mean when we speak of faith. What is the faith which accepts without doubt and questioning the Scriptures as God’s very Word?

Various definitions of faith have been offered over the years. Some explain faith to be the acceptance of that which is unprovable. While, of course, the question is: What is meant by "unprovable," we reject that definition. It is argued, e.g., that the doctrine of the trinity cannot be proved, but we accept it nonetheless. And what is meant is, obviously, that the doctrine of the trinity cannot be proved by any line of rationalistic argumentation. So we accept it on other grounds.

And while it is true that we accept the doctrine of the trinity on the grounds that Scripture teaches it, nevertheless, we must not think that this constitutes the basic idea of faith.

Some who wish to emphasize the idea of faith as trust or confidence use other figures. A grade-school teacher once illustrated faith to her class by saying that when we put a letter into a mail box we lose control of the letter, but nevertheless expect that it will arrive at its destination because we have faith (i.e., trust and confidence) in the postal service. And while it is true that faith is such trust, this is not the essence of faith either.

The Scriptures teach that faith is fundamentally the living bond that unites the elect child of God to Christ. The knowledge of faith and the confidence of faith both arise out of this fundamental characteristic of faith. By faith we are united to Christ in Whom are all the blessings of salvation. By faith we belong to Him, live in Him and out of Him, receive all our salvation from Him, and rest upon Him in life and in death. By faith we are incorporated into the body of Christ and become members of that body. Only when that aspect of faith is understood, can we also understand why faith is so essential to our discussion.

Faith is the proof then that Scripture is the Word of God. Perhaps that can be illustrated. The knowledge of faith is not an abstract, theological "scholarly" knowledge which resembles our knowledge of the Pythagorean Theorem. The knowledge that is a part of faith, just because faith is the living bond between the believer and Christ, is a personal and intimate knowledge of fellowship and communion.

• It is the knowledge from personal acquaintance.

• It is the knowledge of friendship.

• It is the knowledge that a husband and wife have of each other.

• It is a knowledge that rests on infinitely higher "proof" than rationalistic argumentation.

If I am standing in the rain waiting for a bus, cold, wet, shivering, and wretchedly uncomfortable, and someone comes to me and asks for proof that it is raining, my answer would be, provided that I could restrain myself from hitting him in the nose: If you cannot tell that it is raining when you stand there as I do, wet and miserable, there is no proof which I can muster which will convince you that it is raining.

Or to use even a more appropriate figure: if I am sitting on the sofa with my wife talking with her about things of importance to the family, and someone has the courage to ask me for proof that the woman with whom I am speaking is my wife, then my response is not a long line of rational proof that she is indeed my wife, which includes hauling out our marriage license and various pictures of my wife taken at the wedding. My answer is: I know with such total certainty that she is my wife that if you cannot believe this, there is no line of proof which can convince you of it.

When a reporter once asked a prominent preacher for his opinion of the then current "God-is-dead" theology, his response was, appropriately, "I know He is not, for I talked with Him just this morning."

If a critic had come to Adam in Paradise and asked him for proof that God exists, Adam would have been compelled to say: "If you cannot hear His voice in the singing of the birds, in the shining of the sun, in the trees and flowers and animals, how can I find proof that will convince you?"

How crucial and important this is.

Faith is the power of salvation. The one who has faith has salvation. The one who has no faith has no salvation. The unbeliever, void of faith, is the enemy of God and of His Christ. He hates God, hates His Word, hates all that belongs to God. This is what we all are in ourselves. To be saved is to be given that priceless gift of faith. It is to have hatred and rebellion, sin and opposition to God forever banished from our lives. It is to be brought into fellowship with God and into submission to His Word. It is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom He has sent. It is to have eternal life.

It is that faith which receives Scripture as God’s Word, simply because God says it is His Word. Faith makes this possible. Faith removes rebellion and opposition. Faith knows because faith is worked by the Holy Spirit. We receive the Scriptures, therefore, as God’s Word because of the objective testimony of the Spirit in the Word itself and the subjective testimony of the Spirit in our hearts:

If I am separated by circumstances from my wife and I receive a letter from her, I need not summon all kinds of evidence from sources outside the letter itself to prove that indeed the letter is from her. I know, with an unassailable certainty, that she has written it. To enter into endless discussions concerning the authenticity of the letter would prevent me from hearing what the letter says and would cast doubt and suspicion on her. The Scriptures are that kind of a letter, a love letter from the Bridegroom in heaven to His beloved bride. His bride takes that letter with joy and receives it from Him. She knows it is His, for His love has been shed abroad in her heart.

It reminds me of a story. An old minister was preaching on the Scriptures as the Word of Christ when he was interrupted by a critic who scornfully asked for proof for his assertions, proof that the Bible was indeed Christ’s very Word. The minister responded rather gently, but much to the point: "I understand why you have these questions. You have been opening and reading someone else’s mail."

This principle has many implications for the true method of interpreting Scripture. But this must wait for a further article.

Earlier we argued for a method of the interpretation of Scripture which is not the traditional so-called "Grammatico-Historical Method," but the "Spiritual-Grammatico-Historical Method." The word "Spiritual" must be added because of the truth of the inspiration of Scripture by the Holy Spirit and the consequent necessity of interpreting all of Scripture so that the meaning of the Holy Spirit is the object of our search of the Scriptures.

Before we turn to a discussion of the meaning and importance of the "Spiritual" aspect of inspiration, it is important that we understand clearly what is meant by Scripture’s inspiration by the Holy Spirit.

It is not our intention to enter into a long discussion of the doctrine of inspiration.[15] We intend only to list a few of the attributes of Holy Scripture with a brief description of each. This will be sufficient for our purposes.

That we have clearly before our minds the truth concerning inspiration is evident from the fact that the rules for the interpretation arise out of the character of Scripture itself. The Bible is not a textbook on Hermeneutics any more than it is a textbook on any other science. It is the infallibly inspired record of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We cannot turn to a particular verse in Scripture to find any rule of Hermeneutics explicitly stated.

But the character of Scripture determines the rules for its interpretation. This ought to be obvious, for, in general, this is true of any piece of writing. A sonnet, an essay, a book on Mathematics, a novel—each, by virtue of its inherent character, determines the rules for its own interpretation. A poem is interpreted in a way quite different from a textbook on biology. The rules for the interpretation of a piece of writing are unconsciously applied by the reader, for he learns these rules as a part of learning language. Yet these naively applied principles can be explicated, examined, organized, and crystallized in one’s thinking.

The same is true of Scripture. Scripture is given by God for purposes of communicating. God tells us of Himself and of His great works which He performed and performs through Christ. But, because God communicates knowledge to us, He does so in a way in which we who are creatures can understand what He is saying. He stoops low, as Calvin said, to speak to us. He mumbles and talks baby talk. At the same time, however, He speaks in such a way that truth, the truth concerning Himself is given.

On the one hand, therefore, Scripture is like any other book written in human language.

• It is written in Greek and Hebrew. It is written in a language in which all the rules of grammar, syntax, word usage, etc., apply.

• It is not different from any other book in the genera used for its composition. it was written in historical circumstances as a part of history and with specific purposes. It was addressed to specific historical realities.

• It spoke to a people at a given time.

• And this is true because the revelation of God, of which Scripture is the record, was woven into the warp and woof of history.

On the other hand, however, Scripture is also the Word of God. It is God-breathed—as Paul tells us in II Timothy 3:16. Every Scripture is God-breathed. This can be said of no other book. It is not the Word of God and the word of man. It is not the Word of God in or through the word of man. It is not the Word of God in spite of its being also the word of man. It is God-breathed.

Revelation came in many different ways.

In a broad sense of the word, inspiration did not always differ from revelation. This was especially true of the prophets, for they received what they spoke by the inward inspiration of the Spirit of Christ. The Word of God burned as a fire within them. This was also true of the apostles in the writing of their epistles. They wrote what was revealed to them, and this revelation was itself inspiration.

When, however, we speak of the inspiration of Scripture, we speak of "graphic inspiration." That is, when the men whom God used to write the Scriptures wrote what they did, they were illuminated by the Spirit in such a way that the Spirit was the Author of what they wrote. Paul tells us in II Timothy 3:16 that "every Scripture)" i.e., every writing of the Bible, "is God-breathed." God told the men who wrote the Scriptures what to write. And He did so, through the Spirit, in such a way that God the Holy Spirit is always the Author.

Some ask the question: How is this possible? How can inspiration take place in such a way that every written Scripture is God-breathed, while at the same time Scripture is written in such a way that the literary style, e.g., of Paul differs markedly and noticeably from that of Isaiah or John? How can God inspire the Scriptures so that He did not merely dictate to them what to write as a president of a corporation dictates correspondence to a secretary.[16] How were the personal abilities, characteristics, and stylistic peculiarities of each individual writer preserved?

Whether we can finally answer this question to the satisfaction of a critic is immaterial to our discussion. Scripture is a miracle performed by God in the age of miracles. It is organically connected with the whole of the miracle of the revelation of God in Christ and is a part of that miracle. It is no more possible to explain, in terms of human thought, the wonder of the Scriptures than it is to explain the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.

That Scripture belongs organically to the wonder of salvation in Jesus Christ specifically means that it is a part of that great work of God whereby He saves His people. Scripture is a necessary part (according to God’s wisdom and purpose) of the work of salvation. It not only reveals salvation to us, but it is an essential ingredient in accomplishing salvation. Scripture is written to the church and for the church. Through that Scripture the church is saved. It is not only an objective record of God’s work; it is itself the content of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. And because the whole work of God in Christ is the miracle, also as Christ’s work is applied to the church, Scripture, as a part of that work, is a part of salvation.

This truth does not rule out the obvious fact that other documents that were not inspired were consulted. Perhaps Matthew consulted the genealogical records of the line of David before he wrote Matthew 1. It does not rule out the fact that some of the material incorporated in the infallibly inspired records of Scripture may have been obtained from oral reports. Moses surely knew the oral traditions of earlier periods handed down from generation to generation. Luke almost certainly spoke with Mary, the mother of the Lord. Mark probably received some of his material from Peter. But the accuracy and reliability of Scripture does not depend upon the accuracy of oral tradition; it rests exclusively upon the infallible inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit governed the whole process.

• He determined the collection of the data when

• He was pleased to use this. He guaranteed the accuracy and surely made corrections if such were necessary.

• He determined the arrangement of the material and the order which even narratives follow.

• He made the choice of words which were incorporated in the inspired manuscripts.

• He eliminated what He chose to eliminate.

• He included what He wanted to include. And if there was material which was not available or known to His servants, He provided that material by His own inspiration within them prior to their writing it.

The result was that every word of Scripture is the Spirit’s Word, guaranteed as to truth and accuracy by Him Who cannot lie.

There are instances when the Holy Spirit deemed it wise to tell the church the name of the man whom He used to write a part of Scripture, Paul’s letters being obvious instances of this. There are also times when the Holy Spirit did not consider this important, Hebrews being a notable example. There are times when the Holy Spirit chose to tell us the specific historical reason for a given piece of Scripture. Paul wrote to combat Spirit chose not to reveal this. We may guess and ponder. We may write learned articles for theological Journals in which we set forth our guesses with scholarly reasons why our guesses ought to be accepted and the guesses of others rejected. But the Holy Spirit makes our guesses look silly, because He did not consider this information in a given situation to be relevant. And all this is true because the Holy Spirit gives us in Scripture the great truths of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ as the God of our salvation.

An organism is a unity of and in diversity. The organism of an oak tree is the unity of one single living biological plant in and of a diversity of roots, trunk, leaves, branches, acorns, and chemicals which make it up. The organism of a human body is the unity of one rational and moral man in and of a diversity of arms, legs, eyes, ears, torso, etc.

So is also the organic unity of Scripture. Its principle of unity is the one revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Its diversity is the diversity of different testaments, different genera (poetry, narrative, letters, prophecies), different styles of writing. We may compare it all to a portrait. A skillfully done portrait is a picture of one individual. It is composed of many different parts. It has the details of its background, its size, the various elements of the features of the subject, the expression on the face, the pose which the subject assumed, etc. So also is Scripture. It is the one gloriously beautiful portrait of our Lord Jesus Christ in Whom we seethe Father. Every part of the portrait is perfect. Every part contributes in its own way to the whole. Some parts are more important than other parts: the eyes of a man are more important than the clothing he wears; the book of Ephesians is more important than the book of Esther. But each is important for a perfect portrait. From a perfect portrait nothing can be taken, and to it nothing can be added, without destroying the perfection of the whole. It is in this way that all of Scripture - from Genesis 1:1 to the last verse of Revelation 22 - is the perfect, Spirit-inspired portrait of Christ.

That is, Scripture is clear. It is easily understood. It is not the obscure book which the Roman Catholics have always claimed it is, and it is not the mysterious and unintelligible book which the proponents of theistic evolution claim it is when they make the first chapters of Genesis (and more of Scripture) myth or saga. It is so clear that it can be understood by the child as well as by the adult, by the young man and woman as well as by the elder in the church. It is so clear that covenant parents can confidently take their small children on their laps and read to them from it without any hesitation concerning the ability of these children to understand what God says.

But we must be clear on this idea of perspicuity. It rests, first of all, on the truth that the literal meaning of Scripture is the correct and only meaning. This truth was boldly proclaimed by the Reformers over against Roman Catholicism which spoke of a fourfold level of meaning - if not more levels than four, as some medieval theologians insisted. Any document with deeper and deeper levels of meaning is going to be impossible to understand except by trained theologians who are adept at penetrating various levels and uncovering hidden and obscure meanings. Only a book, the literal meaning of which is correct, is perspicuous.[17]

We may compare the perspicuity of Scripture to a clear pool of water. I have stood a number of times at the side of Emerald Pool in Yellowstone National Park. A characteristic of this pool is that periodically it erupts. Prior to the eruption one can see the huge bubbles of gases arise from the bottom of the pool and watch them as they make their way to the surface. One can watch these bubbles travel for a long time, indicative of the fact that the pool is very deep and the waters are so clear that one can see deeply into its depths. But the bottom lies beyond sight. In fact, the longer one looks into the pool, the farther down one can see; but never is the bottom visible. So it is with Scripture. It is easy to see the meaning of Scripture. But the longer one studies it, the more profound does Scripture reveal itself to be. And we can never probe its great depths. One can read any book which man has written; and, after reading it, one sets it aside and says: "Now I am finished with that book. I know what it says. I do not have to read it again." But he can never do this with Scripture. Though he reads it a hundred times from cover to cover, and though he makes it the object of a lifetime of study, always there are new truths and riches to discover, new treasures to mine from its bottomless depths. Even a little child can understand the simple words of Luke 2:7: "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." But the world’s greatest theologians have pondered the mystery of that simple verse and have not been able to understand the depths of the riches of the knowledge of God. Thousands of books have been written on it, but they all fall short of penetrating the mystery of Christ become flesh.

This great wonder of Scripture is possible only because it is God’s inspired Word.

A recent feature article appearing in U.S. News and World Report graphically portrays what is done to Hermeneutics when these truths are denied. The article is entitled, "Who Wrote The Bible?" In an introduction to the article, the editors write:

In a section devoted to the gospels we find the following:

The article goes on to discuss the whole "synoptic problem" an