Full Text for Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling Block for the Jews and Foolishness to the Greeks, part 14 (Text)
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Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 731
marriage ceremony without giving the couple some Christian,
pastoral advice in the shape of a well-prepared address. In many
places the address has been dropped because "The people will not
listen anyhow," or "because it takes too lang." In many cases the
form has been cut, the section concerning the troubles of the
married estate has been deleted in order not to shock the sen-
sibilities of the blushing bride, the "obey" often is omitted, and so
it happens that the parade of the bridal party to and from the
altar frequently takes longer than the ceremony itself. This is
a mistake and constitutes a lack of pastoral guidance.
It may be well to mention that one of our pastors tries to solve
the problem by offering courses of instruction on marital matters
to the parents of his church, so that they may be better qualified
to deal with their young people at home. Another pastor makes
it a practice to write to all young couples on the occasion of their
first wedding anniversary reminding them of their marriage vows,
marriage obligations, and marital blessings. One of our Sunday
schools gives the book Why Was I Not Told by Marquardt to all
r..igh school graduates in that Su.'1day schooL Other pastors have
sought to solve the problem of postwedding adjustment by clubs
for the newly married where marriage problems could be rather
freely discussed.
In conclusion it may be said that it does not make much dif-
ference whether the pastor uses one form of guidance or another,
whether he deals with the young people in groups or whether he
would rather deal with them as individuals, but all evidence points
to the fact that all Christian parents, pastors, and teachers should
give more regular, more systematic, more planned guidance to our
youth in this important matter which so definitely affects their
whole life, both physical and spiritual, and at times, because of
abuse or sinful misuse, even jeopardizes their soul's salvation.
St. Louis, Mo. ELFRED L. RaSCHKE
.. ~
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to the Jews
and Foolishness to the Greeks
( Continued)
VI
The indignation of the moderns reaches white heat when they
are asked to receive every word of Scripture as inerrant and
authoritative. If Verbal Inspiration means that every word of
Scripture must be received as God's word, with unquestioning
faith and obedience - and it means just that ~ they will have
7~2 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
none of it. That is their strongest objection to Verbal Inspiration,
and they express their abhorrence of it with the frightful word
legaListic.
Let H. E. Fosdick tell us why he can no longer believe in Verbal
Inspiration: "We used to think of Inspiration as a procedure which
produced a book guaranteed in all its parts against error and
containing from beginning to end a unanimous system of truth ....
When Josiah swore the people to a solemn league and covenant,
or when Ezra pledged the nation's loyalty to the keeping of the
Levitical Law, the Bible which thus was coming into being, was
primarily a book of divine requirements. It told the people what
they ought to do. . .. One might have expected the Christians
to break with this legalistic employment of Scripture," but "when
the New Testament was added to the Old and the whole Book was
bound up into unity by a the017 of inerrant inspiration, Christians
used the whole Book as the Jews had used part of it; it was a
divine oracle to tell men how to live." (The Modern Use of the
Bible, pp. 30, 236 ft.) R. Seeberg thanks God for the "fall of
Verbal Inspiration." "The wall to which I refer was the Verbal
Inspiration of the Bible, the conviction that every word of Holy
Scripture was given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the
authors of the Old and Nbv Testaments. . .. Every single word was
regarded as of legal validity, and precisely on that account every
single word was said to be given to man by the inspiration of God.
It was not interests specifically Christian, but the theories and
ideas of later Judaism which produced this 'old' theory of inspira-
tion." (Revelation and Inspiration, pp.1, 32.) The Lutheran
Church Quarterly thus voices its protest: "It is of course no
secret that Verbal Inspiration is not taught in some of the sem-
inaries of the United Lutheran Church. . .. What results 'when
the Word of God is identified with the words of the Scriptures" is
'a legalistic and an atomistic conception of the Scriptures, far more
congenial to Calvinism than to Lutheranism.''' (1937, p.195.)
"Scriptural theology will not set up a deified Book in the place
of the deified Church of Roman Catholicism nor hold to legalistic,
unhistorical, and unpsychological theories of its inspiration. . . .
It will not quibble over such questions as whether the Bible is
the Word of God or contains the Word of God." (1934, p.114. By
Prof. T. A. Kantonen.) "Ockham regarded the Bible as an object
p.16.) Paul never intended to set down a final system
of truth.303)
303) Fosdick says so. We read in the Lutheran, Jan. IS, 1931: "'He
Kept the Faith.' On Jan. 4 we 'listened in' to hear Dr. Fosdick's radio
sermon. And when the text, 'He kept the faith,' issued from the
transmitter, we were curious to know what the famous 'modernist"
would make of it. What he did was to expound the theory that the
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 751
There is no finality in doctrine - that is the Declaration of
Independence proclaimed by the moderns. The truth is not "final
and fixed." It would be a crime against intellectual and spiritual
freedom to keep men from developing the saving doctrine. It would
result in intellectual stagnation. Said Col. Ingersoll: "Whoever
has quit growing, he is orthodox, whether in art, politics, religion,
philosophy - no matter what. Whoever thinks he has found it
all out, he is orthodox. Orthodoxy is that which rots, and heresy is
that which grows forever. Orthodoxy is the night of the past, full of
the darkness of superstition, and heresy is the eternal coming day,
the light of which strikes the grand foreheads of the intellectual
pioneers of the world." (Op. cit., p.314.)304)
And so the moderns have assumed the right to produce new
doctrines, necessary for salvation. The conservatives insist upon
this right as strenuously as the liberals. Hofmann contended that
great apostle's proudly cherished fidelity consisted in an ability to
look forward and not chain himself to what was past. We were told
that the faith he kept was not that of his youth nor of the part of his
Hfe when he was a Pharisee nor of the period when he 'wrote to the
Thessalonians."
304) Christian theologians say: "Die orthodoxe, versteinerte Ver-
balinspirationslehre." H. Kraemer speaks of "the clumsy form of the
literal inerrancy of the document in which God's revelation is told"
and of "the justified revolt of the human spirit against the intellectual
bondage caused by the petrification of Christian truth" (The Christian
Message in a Non-Christian World, pp. 10, 218). M. Maryosip: "The
idea ... that revelation is to be conceived in terms of words, texts, and
even books, ... the dogma of a verbal inspiration, ... has paralyzed the
intellect of those who have adopted it, as every mechanical conception
of the truth must do." (Why I Believe the Bible, p.112 f.) The Luth.
Church Quart., 1939, p. 348 ff., speaking of "the tyranny of words," de-
clares that, "when we deal with these great New Testament terms and
ideas, we deal not with pieces of a system of thought which can be
put together to form some original divinely given theology. . . . In the
past, theologians have been far too sensitive to orthodoxy and heresy."
In a book review the Lutheran, May 26, 1927, complains that "to him
[the author] every sentence of the Bible is absolutely true in every
detail. The truth, historical, scientific, as well as religious, is final and
fixed." And that is "so wooden and rigid and narrow." Fosdick: No
unanimous system of truth in the Bible! (Op. cit., p.30.) C. S. Mac-
farland: "Christian revelation is not confined to a closed canon, to
a stereotyped letter, or a strictly defined confession." (Chr. Unity in
Practice and Prophecy, p.27.) The Living Church, March 9, 1938, com-
plains that "the Roman Church is doctrinally immobilized by its dogma
of the inerrancy of Scripture." The Christian Century, Feb. 10, 1937, de-
clares "that 'in the New Testament there is no unalterable doctrine
which embraces the whole scheme of Christian thought. . . . The epistles
are not contributions to a doctrinal system which shall be valid to all
eternity.' . . . The Lutherans should be paged and told about it." The
moderns do not want to be kept in a prison house, and they do not
want God to be kept a prisoner. Says G. A. Buttrick: "How could God,
so radiant and vital in His own life, be imprisoned in the past? And
what is this doctrine of an inerrant Book but the assertion that God
spoke then and cannot speak now, the avowal that the Everliving is the
captive of antiquity?" (See CONe. THEOL. MTHLY., XII, p.223.)
752 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
it is the business of the theologian "die alte Wahrheit auf neue
Weise zu lehren und sie, gehorsam der Fuehrung des Geistes Gottes,
zu mehren." P. Althaus, who quotes and approves this principle
(see Schrift und Bekenntnis, July, 1930, p.123), is busy applying it
with all the rest of the moderns. He says: "Scripture is not an ab-
solutely infallible manual of doctrine. . .. Our doctrine of justifi-
cation is not simply a repetition of the New Testament doctrine
and our eschatology is not simply a repetition of the Biblical doc-
trine but has its own form." (Op. cit., pp. 61, 74.) And the liberals
are certainly not going to be outdone by the conservatives. The
Unitarian Channing told us that he is for "looking beyond the letter
to the spirit and for discovering new truths." E. H. Delk gets
violent on this subject: "To deny that modern thought has any
new truths to offer is to deny the presence and leadership of God.
It is a kind of atheism." (Op. cit., p. 554.) - That is freedom with
a vengeance! The real freedom of the spirit! 305) Dr. Pieper says
on our present subject: "Today we have to call particular attention
to the fact that Paul insists on the perfection and completeness
of the apostolic doctrine also over against such teachers as find it
necessary to supplement and augment the doctrine of Christ on
the pretense of a higher philosophical knowledge and a higher
spirituality." (Op.cit., p.148.)
Finally, the moderns claim the right, in the interest of freedom
to operate with the "Word of God." The Word of God, not the
word of Scripture, is what counts. What is this "Word" of the
moderns? Nobody knows exactly. The moderns know for sure
what it is not. It is not Scripture. Dr. C. M. Jacobs: "With all the
emphasis which we lay upon the Scriptures we do not identify them
with the Word of God. . .. For this view of the Word of God and
this view of the Scriptures the Philadelphia Seminary has stood,
and for them it will continue, by God's help, to stand." "In Lu-
theran theology, the two are not equated." (The Lutheran, Jan. 12,
1933.) Luth Church Quart., 1937, p. 195: "What results is a legalistic
and an atomistic conception of the Scriptures as the Word of God,
far more congenial to Calvinism than to Lutheranism. Calvinism
identified the Word of God with the words of Scripture." E. Lewis
agrees with that. We heard his statement: "Without a doubt our
fathers came very close to Bibliolatry; they could make no distinc-
305) Hofmann: "Following the promptings of the spirit," G. Aulen:
"Ein Gott, von dessen Offenbarung nur als in der Vergangenheit ge-
schehen gesprochen werden kann, ist kein lebendiger Gott. Man will
Ernst machen mit dem Charakter des christlichen Gottesglaubens, dass
er Geistglaube ist, und laesst den 'Geist' den immer gegenwaertigen
Charakter der Gottesoffenbarung sein. Dieser Gedanke tritt . . . in
Gegensatz zu dem alten Biblizismus und seiner Tendenz, die Gottes-
offenbarung in und mit der Bibel 'abgeschlossen' sein zu lassen."
(Op. cit., p.386.)
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 753
tion between the Word of God and the words of men by which that
Word was given." H. L. Willett finds "portions in the Bible which
are worthy to be called the Word of God to man." But "it is un-
fortunate that the Bible has been called the Word of God" (op. cit.,
p.289). Yes, and "it would be unchristian," says W. Herrmann,
"if it meant the acknowledgment of any chance sentence of the
Scriptures as God's Word" (op. cit., p. 58). To be sure, "Scripture
contains the Word of God," Willett goes on to say; and the Luth.
Church Quart. and all the rest, the Unitarians, too, subscribe to
that. But that is as far as they will go. They refuse to operate
with the words of Scripture as such. They want to operate with
the "Word of God."
Then tell us what this Word of God is. We get various
answers. Some say it is God's revelation in history, what God
did for man's salvation, "the succession of events in which and
through which God made Himself known to men." - When God
tells men what His actions mean, you can use the term "Word of
God." But you cannot call the actions God's Word.306) - Very well,
others say, but God did explain these actions in Scripture: How-
ever - they add at once - you cannot find this meaning, the Word
of God, in all the words of Scripture. Only certain portions of
Scripture are the Word of God. Which are these portions?
Dr. Haas told us: "What the theologians call the Word of God,
namely, the spiritual content of the Bible, is an authority of free-
dom." (In What is Lutheranism?, p. 176, he says: "There must
be a clear distinction kept in mind between the Word of God
and the Bible .... The Bible is the Word of God because it con-
tains the Word of God," because of its "spiritual content.") Others,
somewhat more specific, say the Word of God contained in the
Bible is the Gospel; others, more indefinitely, the "Living Christ"
(Luth. Church Quart.), the "Living Word" (E. Lewis). Now, we
are willing, very willing to call the Gospel the Word of God.
But we also call the Law God's Word. And the moderns have
never given us a reason why only the Gospel should be God's
Word, not the Law. The Law was certainly spoken by God. The
distinction the moderns make here is utterly arbitrary, not based
in Scripture nor in common sense. Nor have the moderns ever
306) The Christian Century is not liberal enough to identify actions
with words. "The concept 'Word of God' was one of the most difficult
upon which the conference (World Conference, Edinburgh) expended
its effort. Happily there appeared to be no literalists in the con-
ference .... The Word itself-what is it? 'It is ever living and
dynamic and inseparable from God's activity. God reveals Himself to
us by what He does.' I like this immensely; only I wish it had not
been made obscure by the far-fetched necessity of connecting it up with
the concept 'Word.' ... It overstrains the meaning of 'Word' to make
it bear the meaning of action." (Sept. 8, 1937, p. 1096.)
48
754 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
told us just how much of the Bible is Gospel. Nor will they tell us
which portions of the Bible have a spiritual content. We believe
that everything in the Bible has a spiritual purpose. And we
are waiting for the moderns to publish a list enumerating tht!
spiritual portions.
And if we agree with the moderns that this and that section
has a spiritual content, may we call these sections the Word of
God? Oh, no, they tell us; these bare words, these words written
by John or Paul, are not in themselves God's Word. You mus}
separate the wheat from the chaff, distinguish between the form
(the words) and the content of John 3: 16 and Rom. 3: 28 and find
out, with the help of your Christian consciousness, etc., what the
spiritual content is: that part of John 3: 16 you have a right to
call the "Word of God." "To us the 'Word of God' is the validly
spiritual content which rises unmistakably in Scriptural utterances
and in the pronouncements of Christlike Seers." (V. Ferm, in
What is Lutheranism? p. 294.) But be sure you do not make
a mistake. You would be mistaken if you relied on the bare words.
Perhaps K. Barth and his followers can clear up the matter.
Barth teaches first, with the others, that not everything in the
Bible is God's Word. "The Word of God is within the Bible."
There is "a margin where the Bible ceases to be Bible" (The Word
of God and the Word of Man, pp. 43, 65). There are places in the
Bible "wo die Bibel aufhoert, Bibel zu sein" (Das Wort Gottes und
die Theologie, p. 77). Then what about those portions which really
are Bible? Barth and his followers tell us, secondly, that not even
these portions are absolutely God's Word. They become God's
Word and they cease to be God's Word, depending on something
else. Barth's classical phrase is: That is God's Word, "das mich
findet." Again: "We said of church proclamation that from time
to time it must become God's Word. And we said the same of
the Bible, that it must from time to time become God's Word . ..
in virtue of divine decision." (The Doctrine of the Word of God,
p. 131 f. See H. Sasse, Here We Stand, p. 161.) Barth actually
teaches that these Gospel passages are not the Word of God but
only become the Word of God under certain circumstances. One
of his followers, Adolf Keller, assures us that that is Barthianism's
definition of the Word of God in the Bible. "When we call the
Bible the Word of God, we are not referring to the human in-
terpretation of God's Word, but only to that act of faith by which
we believe in the God who speaks in the Bible wherever, whenever,
and through whatever words He will." (Religion and Revelation.
See further CONe. THEOL. MTHLY., VI, p. 715.) So, then, the Barthian
"Word of God" is not something on which you can lay your finger.
A lot of psychological operations are necessary in order to make
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 755
it assume some kind of form, and the form assumed ever remains
a hazy, evanescent phantasm. In the words of Dr. D. S. Clark:
"Briefly stated, the new cult teaches that the Word of God is the
spiritual impression or influence made by the agency of the Holy
Spirit on the mind of the man as he reads the Scripture. It is
sort of an invisible, intangible, indefinite, psychological something
which grips the mind while it uses the Scriptures as means or
medium of instruction and inspiration. It is this that is put in
the place of the written Word." (See CONe. THEOL. MTHLY., IX,
p. 779.) And Barth has many mates and followers. The leading
theologians of today are asking us to throw the idea that the
written word of Scripture is the Word of God to the moles and bats
and to operate with a "Word of God" which has no definite and
no lasting form. 307)
And making the "Word of God" still more indefinite, they tell
us that it is found and heard also outside of Scripture. In some
crisis these men will say: "Wir bekamen ein Wort Gottes." "Das
:l07) A few examples: W. Herrmann: "At any moment of our inner
development, therefore, we can point to some parts of the Scriptures
which do not have for us the significance of the Word of God. But this
does not rule out the possibility that these very parts of the Scriptures
may have possessed that significance for other people or may still
possess it, or that they may one day possess it for us as well." (Op. cit.,
p. 59.) G. Harkness: "Some parts of the Bible have more of the voice of
God than others .... Read in faith, the Bible is the Word of God."
(Op. cit., p. 70 £.) The Luth. Church Quart., 1935, p. 260 fT.: "Seekers for
authority in Scripture cannot find it in isolated portions and texts of
the Bible. . . . Finality is found in the final analysis, within the soul. ...
Here the teacher of religion finds his authority. He speaks with con-
fidence not because he quotes a scripture, but because the Word of
God has found him." C. Stange: "Der Buchstabe der Schrift ist erst
dann Gottes Wort, wenn er in der Wirkung auf uns lebendig geworden
ist." (Op. cit., p.193.) Cryptic phrases used by Professor Homrighausen:
"Far from being a mere mechanical phonograph record, the Bible is
mther a living interpretation" (italics in original). "We must re-
member that the Word of God is God Himself, disclosed, disclosed first
in real historical events. . . . The Holy Spirit makes that Word real
and contemporaneous to us through the Bible. We do not choose the
Word of God. The Word of God chooses you and me .... The Word is
its own criterion." (In the Presbyterian, March 24, 1938.) - And this is
not a "new cult." Barth popularized it, but before him Coleridge and
his school, which developed into the Broad Churchism of England,
"held that to be the Word of God which finds a man or comes home to
him with a feeling of light and warmth. Thus it exalted in a more
or less capricious way what appealed to man as a detached unit by
himself." (The Presby. Guardian, June, 1939.) And before that, Zwingli
had the same idea. "Das Wort, das gehoert wird, ist keineswegs das
Wort, durch welches wir glauben; denn wenn das gelesene oder gehoerte
Wort glaeubig machen koennte, wuerden wir all' glaeubig sein. Das
Glaubenswort haftet im Geiste der Glaeubigen, es selbst wird von
niemand gerichtet, sondern von ihm wird das aeussere Wort gerichtet."
Oekolompad: "Was die aeusserlichen Worte ueber das Getoen haben, das
haben sie von dem innerlichen Gemuete und vom innerlichen Worte."
(See Rudelbach, Ref. Luthert u. Union, p. 118 f.)
756 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
jetzt geschehende Wort Gottes in del' Barmer Synode." "The claim
has already been advanced that the Barmen Confession was in-
spired by the Holy Spirit and is consequently a Word of God."
(H. Sasse, Here We Stand, p. 169.) Dr. Moffatt believes that "the
revelation is communicated afresh to successive generations." (See
CONe. THEOL. MTHLY., XII, p. 304.) And God gives His Word not
only by means of Scripture but also through the viva vox of the
Church. - Now, what is the "Word of God?" Is it the Schrift-
ganze? That would not help us much, since nobody has yet told
us exactly what the "whole of Scripture" comprises. And the con-
fusion grows when we find that while some moderns somehow
identify the two concepts,30S) others tell us the "Word of God"
also comprises the continuing revelation, and just what that is
they will not tell us. If the Schriftganze is hazy, indefinite, and
absolutely unreliable, the "Word of God" is doubly hazy, indefinite,
and absolutely unreliable.
But the moderns claim the right to operate with, and ask
men to base their faith on, this "Word of God." They \'fill not
operate with the literal word of Scripture. That would be legalistic.
They want the right to pick and choose, to decide for themselves
what in Scripture is really worth while. They demand that in
the name of spiritual liberty. P. Althaus: "Wir sind in dem
Hoeren auf das Wort Gottes in clem biblischen Wort von diesem
letzteren als Menschenworte frei" - submitting to the Word of
God in the Biblical word, we are not bound by the Biblical word
as such, for that is the word of man. (Op. cit., p. 61.) E. Schaedel':
"The Spirit-wrought faith applies a sifting process to the Bible
word. Through this sifting process it gets the Word of God."
(Theozentrische Theologie, II, p. 69.) G. T. Ladd: "The Christian
consciousness, the consciousness of the Church, discerns the Word
of God" contained in the Bible. (Op. citt, p. 453.) Recall
Dr. Flack's statement: "The Word of God is greater than the
Book. . . . The standard by which all dogmas and teachers are to
be judged is not the Scriptures standing utterly alone, but the
Word of God attested and authenticated in the Spirit-filled life
of the early Church and projected through the centuries from
faith to faith in the corporate mind of the true Church." (The
Lutheran, Sept. 24 and Oct. 1, 1936.) "Faith refuses," says G. Weh-
308) E. Lewis: "The question is whether out of the New Testament
in its entirety we can gather the Word of God. Precisely this is what
the Church in its collective life has been able to do." (Op. cit., p.151.)
C. H. Dodd tells us "something about the way in which the Bible as
a whole may become the 'Word of God' to us" (op. cit., p. 294). Luth.
Church Quart., 1936, p. 246: "The Bible is the Word of God not because
of any theoretical explanation of the method of divine inspiration, but
because as one connected hannonious, authentic recorded whole the
sacred Scriptures testify of Christ."
Sermon Study on Rom. 14: 1-9 757
rung, "to make a legalistic use of individual passages or of the
entire Scripture .... We must be in accord with Luther and his
spirit of freedom and apply this touchstone to every word of Scrip-
ture: does it give expression to the Gospel as Gospel, the pure
and clear Gospel?" (Op. cit., pp. 306, 308.)
This, then, is the charter of liberty proclaimed by the moderns:
Having renounced the tyranny of the words of Scripture as such,
we vow allegiance to the Word of God contained in them; and
our Christian consciousness shall tell us how much of Scripture
is the Word of God to which we can submit.
We are asked to come in under this charter of liberty. We can-
not do so, for three reasons. TH. ENGELDER
(To be continued)
Sermon Study on Rom. 14:1·9
Eisenach Epistle for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity
In the first part of the Epistle to the Romans, chaps.l-H,
Paul sets forth the central doctrine of justification by faith in
the vicarious atonement of Christ. In the second part, chaps.
12-16, from which our epistle lesson is taken, the Apostle in-
dicates in the form of a lengthy exhortation the lessons for our
Christian life and conduct implied in this glorious doctrine.
In the paragraph preceding our epistle, he had urged all Chris-
tians, particularly in view of the close approach of the Last
Day, to cast off the works of darkness, to put on the armor of
light, and not to make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts
thereof, Rom. 13:12, 14. This latter exhortation is well explained
by Chrysostom, "As the Apostle forbade not drinking, but drunken-
ness, not marrying, but chambering, so he does not forbid providing
for the flesh, but providing for it to the point of stirring up desires,
as by going beyond one's actual needs." And Theophylact says,
"Unto health, but not unto wantonness, unbridled lust, provide
for the flesh."
Now, how far may one go in providing for one's flesh? Where
does the God-pleasing provision end? Where does catering to the
lusts of the flesh begin? Just what may we do, and what must
we avoid to walk honestly? Since the Apostle warns so per-
sistently against excesses in eating and drinking, just where are
the limits to be drawn? These were the questions engaging the
minds of the Christians at Rome, and the conflicting views threat-
ened to cause disturbance and eventually disruption within the
congregation. The Apostle enters at length upon this problem;
teaches his readers the correct attitude toward matters of indif-