8.17.2012 LUTHER I - HERMANEUTICS

taken from 'luther and the bible' by willem jan kooiman..

...influence of medieval hermeneutics on L...
(science of interpretation, especially of the scripture)
the development of his understanding of how to interpret scripture appears below...

30.1 'st. augustine and faber were..luther's primary teachers in answering the question how the psalms should be read. he followed them in their metaphorical method of exposition, by which all possible passages in the psalms were in one way or another applied to Christ. faber held strictly to this ancient allegorical tradition. for him the literal sense of a psalm is the prophetic or Christological. it is Christ who speaks in the psalms and who is here spoken of. this is what the Holy Spirit, who wrote the bible, intended. naturally faber does not deny that there is also an original, grammatical, and historical-literal sense, but this possesses no importance for the christian church. it is useful only for jews, heretics and unbelievers. through the Spirit christians have received an insight into the prophetic, spiritual-literal and Christological meaning of the bible. the art of the true expositor consists in his ability to make clear where Jesus speaks according to His human nature and where he speaks according to His divine nature, where a text must be applied to the humble and where to the glorified Son of God. there are texts (for example, where the psalmist confesses his sin) which Christ cannot speak concerning Himself, but which He speaks in the name of , or as the personification of, His mystical body, the church. this method of exposition, which seems very strange to us, had its origin in the ancient church, where allegorical exegesis of the old testament played an important role. faber here stood in the augustinian tradition.

men like nicolas of lyra had already opposed such allegorizing, in favor of the literal and historical meaning..luther, however would know nothing of these views and continued to be an ardent disciple..of faber...luther argued; 'the psalms are prophecies given by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophet david. all prophesies..must be related to Christ, unless the clear words of the text make this impossible..

...yet it was not alone the authority of tradition that led him to take this stand, for here we can distinguish the first beats of the Christological heart of all his theological thinking. even in these first lectures..for him no religious knowledge exists which does not have its origin in Christ and His cross..'as Christ is the head of the church, so the scriptures must speak, primarily of Him'. 'that is why i regard the psalms' prophetic message as its literal sense'...in his 'praefatio Jhesu Christi' to the psalter he quotes many of Christ's words from the old and new testaments.

here we can see clearly the distinction between spiritus and littera, the deadening letter and the life-giving spirit, which he had learned from augustine. in this also he follows faber. but while faber develops the neo-platonic background of this distinction (the Bible is a metaphysical document, full of secreta and mysteria, the real meaning of which can be found only through spiritual means), luther increasingly sees the bible as the witness of God's action in israel, in Christ, and in the world. this the Spirit enables us truly to see. that which is flesh cannot see the things of the Spirit. the natural man is blind to the true content of the scriptures, which can become known to him only when it is revealed by the Holy Spirit. but this true content does not lie in the explanation of mysterious phrases, but is given in Christ, His incarnation, His cross, His resurrection. through the work of the Spirit a living relationship is created between the reader and the bible. then the letter becomes Spirit, the word of the Bible becomes the living witness of that which God in Christ does with His own.

in this way luther took over the methods of literal-prophetic scriptural exegesis used in the ancient church, but..not..mechanically and arbitrarily as did the medieval scholars. on the contrary, through an intensely personal and genuinely theological use of this ..he attained a new insight..two texts were decisive for him in this connection. he applied them..and found in them the basis for his Christological explanation. one is the word of Jesus Himself, 'I am the door, and the other is the word of paul, 'i decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified'. from now on, this is to be the center of L's theological thinking.

clearly, we must associate this also with the hermeneutical principle L had held from the beginning, that we must read the new testament ..as an explanation of the old ..'every time that i find a text that is like a hard nut, of which i cannot crack the shell, i quickly throw it against the Rock (Christ), and then i find its delicious kernel'...'the old and new testaments are related..'the gospel is hidden in the law, as the water stream was hidden in the cliff, and it cannot be seen until you touch it with the wood of the cross. then the stone opens and the water pours forth'..'if the old..could be understood by our natural minds, apart from the new.., then i would dare to say that the new..has been written in vain'.

also..medieval exegesis..had  what was called the quadriga, the four-fold sense of scripture.

the first..sensus litteralis, the LITERAL/HISTORICAL within which the CHRISTOLOGICAL is to a greater or lesser extent enclosed.

the second ..sensus allegoricus (also called ..sensus mysticus) an ALLEGORICAL sense applied to the people of God, the church or to its doctrine.

the third..sensus TROPOLOGICAL
(having to do with a 'speaking by tropes' (figures of speech, figurative language)
, PERSONAL where there is direct application to the individual believer regarding his inner life and his conduct here and now.

the fourth..sensus anagogicus where the scripture has an ESCATALOGICAL sense in which the consummation is in view

there were many varieties of this scheme and the order was not always the same, but this is the most common and the one with which luther grew up. it is a complicated and often bizarre method of bible study, which encouraged arbitrariness. it did not so much imply four different explanations, the one standing alongside of the others, but sought rather to establish a principle by which the different aspects of the one text could be clearly seen. in practice, however, it often occurred that scholars on wholly subjective grounds explained one text according to the first, another according to the second, and still another according to the third or fourth sense, as each pleased them best. in this way the most fantastic and speculative allegorizing was practiced.
however..one has pointed out that this amazing method had also a good aspect in that it encouraged men to view the text from various points of view...
it must also be remembered that no allegorical interpretation of a text could be accepted unless it were supported by another statement of scripture, and that the entire method had more a devotional objective than a strictly scholarly one. this is sen in the fact that at university disputations only those proofs were acceptable which rested upon the literal sense of the biblical passage.

...the way was open to Luther through a clarification of the concept of the opus Dei, the work of the Lord.
in the first section of the psalter he still seeks to explain this expression in terms of scholatic philosophy,
(scholaticism - the system of theological and philosophical teaching predominant in the middle ages, based chiefly upon the authority of the church fathers and aristotle and his commentators)
but gradually he begins to give it a Christological meaning:
God's work is not merely to be seen in the creation and preservation of the world according to the literal sense of the biblical text. the expression must be understood Christologically also. the sending of Christ is the most glorious work of God and it had its beginnings even under the old covenant. the term opus Dei must therefore always be understood Christologically, as speaking of God's judgment and redeeming work in His Son. Christ Himself is the opus Dei, the true work of God, who works all thing through the power of His word. in the tropological sense this also applies to what happens in the believer. faith is not something that has to do with our work or our merit. god alone works faith and He does so in Christ
in the literal sense, opus Dei therefore means God's deeds;
prophetically, it means Christ;
tropologically, faith in Christ.

the work of God done in Christ repeats itself in His faithful ones. as proprium opus Dei, the true work of God, Christ is both the source and archetype of all God's works. as Christ at His first coming was conceived by the Holy Spirit, so each believer is born again, not through human will, but solely through God's work. this is the second coming, the spiritual advent, that occurs daily. but this spiritual birth is not, as the mystics thought of it, achieved through asceticism, ecstasy, or meditation, but solely through the word, through the preaching of the gospel, since
'hearing is the door through which Christ enters the soul'.
what reborn  man is and does, he is and does solely through God's work in him, just as Christ is solely God's work. as God dealt with Christ in His death and glorification, so he deals also with us. only insofar as we have part in Christ does the salvation of which the bible speaks come to us.that is why we must be patterned after his image, taking the way of suffering and the cross, so that we will live with Him.

here we must seek the exegetical roots of L's theologia crucis, his theology of the cross.
'according to the tropological rule it runs like this:
all that Christ, according to the literal meaning of the psalms, laments and prays in His physical temptations,
so every believing soul, who has been born again in Christ, laments and prays,
and has grown up to discover that he continues to be tempted and to fall.
Christ to this very day is spit upon, scourged, crucified and killed-in us.
'we begin to die with Christ-yes, Christ has died, so that we should die tropologically.
'all saints, united with him, must first die with the Lord and with Him descend to hell. by this way they will at last with Him be resurrected and ascend to heaven and send down the gifts of the Spirit upon others. all these things i say 'topologically'.
'Christ appears three times as God-
for the first time when He comes in the flesh
for the second time when He rises from the dead
for the third time when faith in Him was dead in the soul,
but rises again, that is to say, whenever someone, in repentance, turns to faith in Christ.
because just as Christ is crucified in us, so He also stands up, sleeps, awakens, acts, and rests in us.

strong emphasis is still laid upon the humility is no longer seen as a good work done by man.
it is God's work in him.

along this path of tropological exegesis and as a close parallel to his growing insight into the term opus dei, L also attained a clear understanding of the meaning of iustitia Dei, the righteousness of God. in the beginning this phrase summed up all of his fears. the problem was therefore musch more than a crux interpretum, and obscure term whose meaning was difficult to determine. it was rather a wrestling with God's word, in the most existential
(existentialism-a philosophical attitude associated especially with heidegger, jaspers, marcel, and sartre, and opposed to rationalism and empiricism, that stresses
the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his choices)
sense. in his scholastic studies L had learned to understand the concept iustitia Dei as the property of God,
that property by which God gives to every man what he deserves-
punishment to the sinner and
reward to the righteous.
at this very point L's spiritual need was concentrated. for him a retributive righteousness was a punishing righteousness. for is it not true that there is none who did what was righteous?
He certainly not.

when L had to interpret ps, 31.1,
'in Thy righteousness, deliver me,
he was not able to grasp it. it caused him such a grievous temptation to despair that even after many years had passed he could not recall this experience without trembling. the verse, understood according to the literal-prophetic sense, was a prayer of Christ to the Father. men in accordance with their concept of righteousness have crucified Him, so now He prays that God will deliver Him from His suffering in accordance with His true righteousness, since He is a righteous judge.
but can man make this prayer of Christ his own, as the tropological interpretation demands?
no,
L was afraid to make such a claim.
man is always a sinner-even the believer falls again and again into unbelief and disobedience.
a righteous God can therefore do nothing else than punish the sinner with His eternal wrath.
for sinful man, therefore, the precise opposite is true of what must be said of Christ.
if God is really righteous, He cannot deliver the sinner.
Christ can indeed say,
'in thy righteousness, deliver me,
but no other can.
L was not able to find an escape from this dilemma.

yet this text would not let him go.
we see this when he finds the same thought in ps. 71.2,
"in Thy righteousness, deliver me and rescue  me.
but now L is not willing to give it up.
the 'hard nut' must be cracked upon Christ the rock.
now he learns to interpret iustitia Dei, even as opus Dei according to a Christological-tropological interpretation.
he found help in rom. 1.17
(the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live),
to which he twice points in his exposition.
there paul says that the iustitia Dei comprises the content of the gospel and that we gain a share in it though faith.
this means, then, that righteousness and grace come together in the cross of Christ.
Christ has borne the wrath of God and precisely through this has revealed God's grace.
in the full meaning of the words, he suffered judgment for us.
then L dares to assert that iustitia Dei is,
in the literal sense, Christ in person and,
in the tropological sense, faith in Christ through which we become righteous in and with Him,
because HE LIVES AND REIGNS IN US EVEN THOUGH WE REMAIN SINNERS. (note: HALLELUJAH!

the difficulty for L had been that according to his earlier understanding this text should really have read,
'in Thy grace deliver me,
but instead it read,
'in Thy righteousness deliver me.
he had been taught to regard the righteousness and the mercy of God as two attributes that stood along side of each other and needed to be carefully weighed one against the other. now it became clear to him that in the cross of Christ grace works through righteousness and that God's righteousness and grace in Christ are one and the same for his own.

'it is a wonderful thing that grace consists of judgment and righteousness. He judges and justifies those who believe in Him.
this makes it possible for us truly to pray with Christ, tropologically,
'in Thy righteousness deliver me,
because this means,
'PUNISH ME AND SET ME FREE THROUGH THY ACTION.
now L can call out,
'how glorious are these prayers of the psalter!
just as Christ succumbs before the judgment of God's righteousness only to rise again,
so our old man and all his works ('also with his own righteousness', so L in his copy of the psalter had written above this passage) also dies in order that justified by faith, he might rise once more with Christ.

the righteousness of God, therefore, does not indicate an attribute of God that causes Him to give every man what he deserves.
rather is it the gift that God in Christ bestows upon His own.
L seeks out parallels:
Christ in us is become our truth, our wisdom, our strength and our salvation,
that is to say, God views us  as being in Christ wise, strong and blessed,
and therefore in Christ He makes us such people.
the same is true with righteousness.
Christ is God's righteousness, which is to say,
God views us as being righteous in Christ and through Him makes us righteous.

there is here a parallel to the concept of the opus Dei,
which prophetically understood means that Christ is the work of God
and which tropologically means that He does God's work in us.
the same is true of the concept iustitia-
prophetically it means Christ Himself
tropologically it means what He works in us.
'Christ is everything in one.
the work of God consists literally of the creation of the world and in the words of the old law.
tropologically the work of God is justification through faith'-
through faith.
thus L could say:
iustitia Dei is, tropologically understood, the same as faith, the faith through which we are declared just by God.
the new man of faith is wholly God's work, as Chris is God's work.
therefore, the righteousness which endures before God is not something God demands of us-
something we must present to Him.
God works this righteousness in us, when in Christ He does His work in us.
iustitia Dei is not, as the scholastics had said, a retributive righteousness, an attribute of God which causes Him to give to every man what he deserves.
it is the righteousness freely given to men,
God's gracious gift in Christ through which the believer lives.

so we see the essential elements of L's theology appearing early. Christ is the content of the scriptures and He desires to come to us through them, both in His judgment and grace.
sola scriptura (scripture alone)
is the same as solus Christus (Christ alone), and that is again
the same as sola gatia (grace alone) and
sola fide (faith alone).