<1!uururbtu m4rulugtral ilnut41y CODtiDuiDi LEHRE UND WEHRE MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK THEOLOGICAL QUARTERL Y-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Vol. VII :May, 1936 No.5 CONTENTS Der Pietismus. Theo. Hoyer •...••.•.••.••..••••.•.•.... The Principles and Teachings of the Dialectical Theology. T h. E ngelder •....• Luther, Bucer, and the Wittenberg Concordia. Page 321 329 P. E. Kretzmann • • .• 340 Der Schriftgrund fuer die Lehre von der satisfactio vicaria. P. E. Kretzmann • • .• 348 Beichtrede. o. Kaiser. . . • • • • . . . • . • . • • • • • • • • . • • • . • • • • .• 350 Dispositionen ueber die erste von der Synodalkonferenz angenommene Evangelienreihe .................... 354 :Miscellanea ........................................ 368 Theological Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches .... 374 Book Review. - Literatur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 390 Ein P redlger mWlB nlcht alleln weid ... , alao daaa er die 8chafe unterwelse, wle lie rechte Ohrlaten IOllen eeln, sondem such daneben den Woe1fen wehren., da!;!! lie die 8chaf" nlcht angreUen und mit falacher Lehre verfuehren und Irrtum eln· fuebren. - Lulher. Es 1st keln Ding, du die Leute mmr bei der Kirche behaelt denn die JUte Predigt. - Apologi_, Arl. t~. It the t rumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare hlmeel1 to the battle? 1 Ctn'. ~, 8. Published for the Ev. Lut h. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo. A CHIVE 368 Miscella.nea. be~ ~emgen ®eifte~ bon ben ®Iiiuvigen au~gevreitet. @5o madjt ~Gffu~, Me nie berfiegenbe QueUe aUer @5eIigfeit, feine ®Iiiuliigen all \Brunn" qlleUen feine~ ®eif±e~ filr anbere. IDliidjten lnir aUe aI~ lnafjre ®Iieber an bem berfIiirten 2eioe unfer~ ~eilanbe~ aUeaei± erfunben lnerben, bon ifjm trinfen im ®Iauoen unb au§ftriimen im \Befennen unb :8eugen, bamit audj burdj unfern SDiettf± biele aum 2evewftrom georadjt lnerhenl is. ~. Gf 9 9 e r~. Miscellanea. ~aar &ab = ~aaHief. ~n ,,~oridjungen unb ~or±idjritte" bom 1. ~ebruat 1936 oeridjtet q5rof. Gfif3feIbJAjaUe, tnte folgt: "mon ~aal @ab fagt ~ofua, ~ap. 13, 5, baj3 es ,am ~uj3e bes &Jermon" gebirges' Iiegt, unb ~of. 11, 17; 12,7 fUgen ijinau: ,in ber Gfbene (bik'ah) bes 21oanon'. ;fliefe fann nidjts anberes fein am bie oreite lt5enfe alttifdjen 216anon unb ~n±Hi6anon, bie nodj qeu±e ben il1amen el-bika' ±ragt, bas qeUeniftifdj"riimifdjeBiiref~rien. ;flas ,am ~uj3e bes &Jermongeoirges' fteljt bieier ~uffaffung nidjt im imege. ;flenn baS ~r±e 5teftament qat fcinen bem griedjifdjen ~ntifioanon entf+1tedjenben il1amen, fonbem geo:raudjt ben il1amen &Jermon, ber im engeren lt5inne ben ffrbHdjen ~uslaufer bes ~nti" lwanon, ben fjeutigen dschebel et-teldsch ober esch-schech (,metg bes @5djnees' ober ,bes ~r±m'), oeaeidjnet, audj flir ben ganaen @eoirgsaug. ,,~aal @ab ift bemnadj in ber ~ifa' am ~uf3e bes ~n±m6anon au ludjen, unb alnar e±lna in berfeThen ~reite roie ~pijafa. ~aft genau iiftIidj bon ~pijafa, mit iljm audj butdj dne CStraj3e betounben, Iiegt &JeIiopofis" maallief. ~aar ®ab ift affo offenliar ber aae il1ame fUr bie] e f eit bem 1. ~aijrijunbert n. Gl:ljr. als &JeliOlJoIis unb feit etroa 400 n. Gl:ijr. aIs maaI" hef oefannte It5tatte. ;fliefe @Ieidjietung empfieijr± fidj urn fo meljt, am nann, tnie bet il10tbpunft bes pljiiniaifdj'en ®eoieies bmdj ~pijafa, fo audj bet bes 21oanonlanbes, burdj cine ~r±ftatte oef±imm± ift unb man, tnie bie fdjon etroiiljnte ~onneI ,bon ;flan 6is ~eerfelia' aeigt, au @tena6eftimmungen gem bie il1amen bon ~uI±orten lienut,Jt I) at. "mon ljiet aus fiint audj aUf einen il1amen neues Eidj±, ben man fdjon frlif)et, freilidj mit unaurcidjenber )Begrfrnbllng, aUf ~aallief gebeu±e± ljat, auf bik'at-awen (,Gfoene bes unljeim') in ~mos 1,5. ;flas ift nadj bem ,8ufammenqang cine q5tobinil bes Dtcidjes bon ;flamasrus. ~a nidjiS bet ~nnaljme im imege f±eljt, baj3 aur Beit bes ~mos, um 750 b. Gl:ljr., bie ~ifa' 3u ~amasrus goeijorl ljat, Iieg± bie ~elttung be§ bik'at-awen bon ~mos 1, 5 aUf bie ljeutige )BUa feqr nalje. ;fler aroeite s:BeftanbteiI bes ~amens, awen, ift - Ittie in bet awen, ,~)aus bes Unqeifs', filr bet-el, ,&Jaus ®otte~' (&Jof. 4,15) - ailer imar,rfdjeinHdjfeit nadj ~rfa~ flir dnm @\ottesnamen; flit iDddjen, ift ungeluij3. ~bet nidjts ljinbert, an ba'al gad (,&Jerr be§ ®liicfs') lOber bieileidjt gad (,@liicf') aUein au benfen, unb tntr ijiit±en ljier bann ,cine iiljnlidje, nUt im entgegengefetten lt5inne gefdjeljene il1amensumfeljtung Ittie llmof. 35, 17-19, tno bie in ben imeljen f±eroenbe maijel ir,t .mnb 1ben-oni (,lt5oijn meine~ UnljeiIs') genannt Ittiffen Ittiil, ~afoo iljm aber ben Miscellanea. 369 ~Iamen binjamin (,(So~n be£! @fiid£!') giot. ~ie @oene ware affo nacq bem @ott ,@ome be§ )Baal @ab' benannt worben, roie umgefe~rl ber @oti unb feine (SiaM aucq nacq ber @oene oenann± roerben fonn±en. ~enn l8aaThe! ift roa~rfcqeinncq nicqi§ anbere£! ag ba'al bik'ah, ,~err ber '@oene', em ~ame, ber, burdj Me fjerrenif±ifcq~tomifcqe l8enennung bon (SiaM unb @oti af§ ~enOVon§ unb ~enopon±e§ autilcl'gebrangt, fidj offenliar in bet ein~ ljeimifcqen )BeboIferung er~arten ~a± unb beim \ll'ofterben ber fjerrenif±ifcq~ tomif cqen S\'urtUt wieber an bie :Dbetfliicqe gefommen if±. " Does Verbal Inspiration Mean Mechanical Inspiration? One of the arguments employed by the Modernists against verbal in- spiration is that verval inspiration is equivalent to mechanical inspira- tion. Dr. J. Gresham Machen examines this argument in the fifth chapter of his recent book The Ohristian Faith in the Modern World. Since this argument is advanced also by certain Lutherans, we here submit some excerpts from Dr. Machen's book. This may also serve as a preliminary review of the book. The author says: - "Well, what is this common objection to the doctrine of plenary in- spiration? It is that the doctrine of plenary inspiration represents God as acting upon the Biblical writers in a mechanical way, a way that de- grades those wTiters to the position of mere machines. "People who raise this objection sometimes ask us: 'Do you believe in the "verbal" inspiration of the Bible?' When they ask us that, they think that they have us in a dreadful hole. If we say: 'No, we do not believe in verbal inspiration,' they say, 'How, then, can you hold to your conviction that the Bible is altogether true? If God did not exercise some supernatural control over the words, then the words will surely contain those errors which are found in all human productions.' If, on the other hand, we say: 'Yes, we do believe in verbal inspiration,' ... then they hold up their hands in horror. 'How dreadful, how mechanical!' they say. 'If God really provided in supernatural fashion that the words should be thus and so, then the writers of the Biblical books are degraded to the position of mere stenographers; indeed, they are degraded even lower than that, since stenographers are human enough to err and also to help, whereas in tllis case the words would be produced with such perfect accuracy as to show that the human instruments in the production of the words were mere machines. V'lhat becomes of the marvelous beauty and variety of the Bible when the writers of it are regarded as having been treated in this de- grading way?' "Such is the hole into which we are thought to be put; or, if I may change the figure rather violently, such are the horns of the dilemma upon which we are thought to be impaled. "How can we possibly escape? iVell, I think we can escape very easily indeed. You ask me whether I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. I will answer that question very plainly and quickly. Yes, I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible; but I do insist that you and I shall get a right notion of what the word verbal means. "I certainly believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. I quite agree with you when you say that, unless God provided in supernatural 24 370 Miscellanea. fashion that the words of the Bible should be free from error, we should have to give up our conception of the Bible as being throughout a super- natural book. "Yes, inspiration certainly has to do with the words of the Bible; in that sense I certainly do believe in verbal inspiration. But if you mean by verbal inspiration the view that inspiration has to do only with the words of the Bible and not also with the souls of the Biblical writers, then I want to tell you that I do not believe in verbal inspiration in that sense. If you mean by verbal inspiration the view that God moved the hands of the Biblical writers over the page in the way in which hands are said to be moveel over a onija board, - in such a way that the writers did not know what they were doing when they wrote, - then I do hold that that kind of verbal inspiration does utterly fail to do justice to what appears in the Bible very plainly from Genesis to Revelation. "The writers of the Bible did know what they were doing when they wrote. I do not believe that they always knew all that they were doing. I believe that there' are mysterious words of prophecy in the' Prophets and the Psalms, for example, which had a far richer and more glorious fulfil- ment than the inspired writers knew when they wrote. Yet even in the case of those mysterious words I do not think that the sacred writers were mere automata. They did not know the full meaning of what they wrote, but they did know part of the meaning, and the full meaning was in no contradietiun IV ith the partial meaning, but was its glorious Ull- folding. "1 believe that the Biblical writers used ordinary sources of informa- tion; they consulted documents, they engaged in research, they listened to eye-witnesses .... "But, you say, this doctrine of inspiration is certainly a great paradox. It holds that these men were free and yet that every word that they wrote was absolutely determined by the Spirit of God. How is that possible? How could God determine the very words that these men wrote and yet not deal with them as mere machines? "Well, my friend, I will tell you how. I will tell you how God could do that. He could do it simply because God is God. There is a delicacy of discrimination in God's dealing with His creatures that far surpasses all human analogies. When God deals with men, He does not deal with them as with machines or as with sticks or stones. He deals with them as with men. "TIut what needs to be emphasized above all is that, when God dealt thus with the Biblical writers, though He dealt with them as with men and not as with machines, yet He accomplished His ends. He ordered their lives to fit them for their tasks. But then, in addition to that usc of their individual gifts of which we have spoken, there was a super- natural work of the Spirit of God that made the resulting book not man's book, bnt God's Book. . . . "That supernatural work of the Spirit of God extends to all parts of the Bible. People say that the Bible is a book of religion and not a book of science and that, where it deals with scientific matters, it is not to be trusted. When they say that, if they really know what they are saying, Miscellanea. 371 they are saying just about the most destructive thing that could possibly be imagined. . . . "When you say that the Bible is a true guide in religion, but that you do not care whether it is a true guide when it deals with history or with science, I should just like to ask you one question: What do you think of the Bible when it tells you that the body of the Lord Jesus came out of that tomb on the first Easter morning nineteen hundred years ago? That event of the resurrection, if it really happened, is an event in the external world. Account would have to be taken of it in any ideally complete scientific description of the physical universe. It is certainly a matter with which science, in principle, must deal. Well, then, is that one of those scientific matters to which the inspiration of the Bible does not extend, one of those scientific matters with Tegard to which it makes no difference to the devout Teader of the Bible whetheT the Bible is true or false? "There are many people who say just that. There are many people who do not shrink from that logical consequence of their division be- tween religion and science. There are many people who say that the Bible would retain its full religious value even if scientific history should show that it is wrong about the resurrection of Jesus and that as a matter of fact Jesus never rose from the dead. . . . "Thank God, it [the Bible] is a record of facts. The Spirit of God, in infinite mercy, was with the writers of the Bible not merely when they issued God's commands, but also and just as fully when they wrote the blessed record of what God has done. "What a dreadfully erroneous thing it is to say merely that the Bible contains the Word of God ! No, it is the Word of God. It is the Word of God when it records facts. It is the 'Vord of God when it tells us what we must do .... " E. The Church Before the Law. (The late Wm. Schoenfeld in 1918 addressed to Prof. Roscoe Pound, head of the Law Department of HarvaTd UnivcTsity, the question: "Is theTe in our law and the conception of religious organizations under our law any wanant for the contention that by incorporation a church or religious body assumes a dual character, becomes a civil body before the law?" He received in reply a letter which is heTcwith reprinted on ac- count of its general iuterest. - G.) Law School of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. REV. WILLIAM SCHOENFELD, 11th October, 1918. 115 E. 91st St., Kew York City. My DEAR SIR: - The question discussed in your letter is an interesting one, ralsmg a problem of the nature of incorporation which has been the subject of much dispute in recent years. My own notion is that religious organiza- tions have, as one might say, a natural existence quite apart from, and outside of, the State. When a State incorporates a religious body, I take it, the purpose of incorporation is simply to secure the economic interests 372 Miscellanea. of the body by enabling it to sue, and be sued, in the courts and to protect. its interests through legal means. In other words, the purpose of the law is to secure human interests. Some of the most important of human in- terests are group interests, interests of religious bodies, for instance. One may say, if he will, that important individual interests are secured through recognizing these groups, or he may feel, as I do, that these groups are realities and that their interests are as important and deserving of pro- tection by the State as many interests of individuals. In any event I should feel that incorporation is nothing more than a device by which the law is enabled to attribute rights to a group for the purposes of the legal machinery. The individual human being does not need to be incorporated by the law in order to secure his rights through the law. But there was a time when all human beings were not recognized as the subjects of rights, when the law selected a certain number of human beings and attributed rights to them, and to them only. In the same way the law selects a certain number of groups of individuals and by incorporating them points them out as the subjects of legal rights. Nevertheless the existence of the group apart from, and outside of, the law may be' just as real as the existence of the individual apart from, and outside of, the law in systems of law which do not concede a legal personality to every human being. Certainly the existence of a slave as a human being in the Southern States prior to the Civil War was just as real as the existence of the freedman whose personality was recognized by the law was after the Civil War. Whether he was a slave or free was a matter of law, and he was a human being in any event. So I should say about a church. Its ex- istence as a church has nothing to do with the law. Its existence as an ecclesiastical corporation having the benefit of capacity to sue, and be sued, in the courts and hold legal title to property proceeds from, and is de- pendent on, the law. You might read on this subject Laski, The Personality of Associa- tions, 29 Harvard Law Review, 404; Freund, The Legal Nature of 001°- porations (1897); Maitland, Introduction to Gierke's Political Theories of the Middle Age. I might add that the category of religious corporations as distinct from ordinary corporations is thoroughly recognized in our law. You will find it in Blackstone's Oommentaries, and so far as I know, no one has ever conceived that a religious corporation was exactly on the same footing, for instance, as a bank or a railroad company. Yours very truly, ROSCOE POUND. T. G. Humanizing Christ. One of the most insidious by-products of Modernism is its tendency to take the content out of the Gospel while retaining to a large extent its phraseology. It is a well-known fact that the exponents of Modernism are ready enough to speak of the "divinity" of Jesus, but evade the issue of His "deity." This tendency is becoming manifest lately in a particularly alarming manner, in the obvious attempt to "humanize" Christ. The in- Miscellanea. 373 sistence of the Scriptures on the godhead of the Savior is quietly ignored, but the emphasis is placeel, with increasing force, on the humanity of the Redeemer. The idea apparently is to bring Jesus as close to the believers as possible. There is a real danger that those pastors who are reading and study· ing a good deal of the modern literature in the .American field will be in- fected with this tendency, so tllat they also forget the fundamental fact of the eternal godhead of Jesus and speak of Him only as our Brother and Friend. .As true as this statement is, it should always be preceded, or at least accompanied, by some clear reference to the deity of the Savior. P. E. K. The Doctrinal Content of Luther's Hymns. The hymns of ~uther have been studied from many angles, from that of the dates of their composition and their history, from that of their sources, from that of their poetical form, from that of their importance and influence, and otheTs. (See, c. g., G. Koenig, Dr. Martin Luthcl"S geist- liohe Lieder)· G. F. Lambert, Luther's Hymns j Julian's Dictionary ot Hymnology)· "Luther's Use of Medieval Hymns," in CONe. THEOL. MONTHLY, II, 260 ff.; St. Louis edition of Luther's works, X, 1422 ff.) But everyone who wants to appreciate Luther's hymns properly will do well to make a special effort to understand the theological, or doctrinal, content of these masterpieces of hymnody. .An unusually fine monograph on this subject has just appeared from the presses of Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht in Goettingen, the work being done by Christa Mueller. It is clear that the author is well equipped for the work and brings into it a sympathetic understanding of the Reformation and the importance of Luther. P. E. K. The Famine under Claudius, Acts 11, 27-30. On this passage, concerning which scholars were in doubt for many years, since there did not seem to be sufficient evidence from history with reference to a universal famine, Kenneth Sperber Gapp of Princeton Theo- logical Seminary has a six-page note in the Ha1·vard Theological Review (Vol. XXVIII, No.4), in which he offers the result of his investigations on "1) the Egyptian famine, 2) the Judean famine, 3) the universal famine, and 4) the accessibility to Luke of definite evidence for the general famine." He shows that "the Egyptian famine may be dated in the year 45 on the evidence of the recently published documents from the register of the Grapheion at Tebtunis." The Judean famine is referred to by Jose- phus, showing that it occurred either in 46 or 47. The general famine really consisted in a shortage of grain and its consequent high price, due to the conjunction of the Egyptian and Syrian failures of the harvest. This preceded the Judean misfortune. Luke had access both to the lists of the annual revenue of the pTovinces anel to the reports of the grain merchants. In addition, we should say, the fact of inspiration precluded any mistakes in historical data. The last sentence of the article reads: "We conclude therefore that the evidence of official documents among the papyri from Egypt and of the independent sources, Pliny and Josephus, so supports Luke's account of the universal famine that the accuracy of the statement can no longer be challenged." P. E. K.