4. THE PERSPICUITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

According to the Roman doctrine, Scripture becomes clear through the light emanating from the “Church,” that is, from the Pope. According to the doctrine of the “enthusiasts” of all ages, it is illumined by the “inner light,” which is communicated immediately. According to the view of modern theology, the Bible is “divine-human” in the sense that Scripture presents a mixture of truth and error, and it is the business of “the self-consciousness of the theologizing subject” to shed light upon this confusion — by means of his “experience” he separates the truth from the error and thus clarifies Scripture. All these views regarding the “perspicuity” of Scripture have one common feature: It is man who must illumine Holy Scripture. According to the teaching of Scripture, however, exactly the opposite relation obtains. Not men illumine Scripture, but Scripture illumines men. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Ps. 119:105).

According to Scripture, the perspicuity of Scripture consists in this, that it presents, in language that can be understood by all, whatever men must know to be saved. By way of elaboration:

a. This perspicuity is presupposed, as a matter of course, since not only those who are specially gifted, but all Christians are to read the Scriptures, are to believe on the basis of Scripture and to judge truth and error on the same basis. The perspicuity of the Old Testament is taken for granted in Luke 16:29: “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” In like manner Christ tells the Jews who would not believe His Word: “Search the Scriptures” (John 5:39), and we are told Acts 17:11 concerning the Bereans: “They searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so.” The same applies to the writings of the New Testament. Paul admonishes the Thessalonians: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle” (2 Thess. 2:15). The fact that most of the Apostolic epistles were addressed to whole congregations and were to be read in their meetings (Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27) presupposes their perspicuity.

b. But the perspicuity of Scripture is not only presupposed as self-evident, but Scripture teaches it also very expressly; it most emphatically protests against ever regarding Scripture as an obscure book, as do not only the unbelievers, but also some within external Christendom; at times even devout Christians are disturbed. Scripture says of itself that it is a “light shining in a dark place” (2 Pet. 1:19) and that it “is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path” (Ps. 119:105). It is clear even for the unlearned, “making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7). Even children can understand it, for “from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures” (2 Tim. 3:15). Even the writings of St. John, which have been singled out as being particularly obscure,122 were understood not only by the “fathers,” not only by the “young men,” but also by the “little children” (1 John 2:12-13).

For Whom the Clear Scriptures Are an Obscure Book

1. For all those to whom the language of Scripture is altogether unknown or at least unfamiliar. On the first point Luther says: “A Turk’s speech must needs be obscure to me; a Turkish child of seven would easily understand him, whereas I do not know the language” (St. L. X:473). To him who does not understand German the German Bible is dark. One who does not command the English tongue cannot understand the English Bible. But, in the second place, it is necessary that we become accustomed to the language of the Bible by diligent study. Like with any other book, we must penetrate into the Bible by reading it diligently (“einlesen”); to use Luther’s phrase, we must familiarize ourselves (“gewohnen”) with it, or it will remain unintelligible to us. If we read the Bible as diligently as we read the newspaper, it would be clearer to us than the newspaper is, since the language of the Bible is the simpler of the two. But to one who reads a thousand words in the newspaper to ten in the Bible, the words of the Bible will appear more or less strange and obscure. For this reason some accuse the Bible of obscurity, at least in their hearts, though they may not voice this charge publicly. Just so the knowledge of, and familiarity with, the Hebrew and Greek is needed in order to understand the Scriptures in the original tongues. Whoever commands but a meager knowledge of these tongues will find the Scriptures more or less unintelligible. In short, Scripture will be clear to him who, as Luther reminds us,123 knows the languages and trains himself in the languages by the diligent reading of Scripture. And this diligent reading of Scripture is directly enjoined in the Old and the New Testament. (Ps. 1:2; Deut. 6:6-9; John 5:39; Col. 3:16; 1 Tim. 6:3 f.)

2. Scripture itself expressly says that its Word remains hidden to those who in their heart maintain a hostile attitude toward the Scriptures, i. e., who do not care to learn from the Scriptures, but aim to set Scripture right and criticize it with their own human notions. To the “wise and prudent” the divine Word will appear obscure. By the righteous judgment of God they see darkness where there is light: “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25). Likewise 2 Cor. 4:3-4: “But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” God has given us His Word in order to deliver us from our own perverse thoughts of God and divine matters. But if we will not give up our own thoughts, but oppose them to God’s thoughts and thus condemn God in His Word, the dread judgment will come upon us: We will look upon God’s Word as obscure and offensive. (Is. 6:9-10; Acts 28:25-27; Rom. 9:31-33; 10:21; 11:7-10; Matt. 13:13 ff.)

3. Scripture remains dark also to those whose prejudice against certain Scripture doctrines keeps them from even externally taking note of the respective words of Scripture. Thus Christ’s words regarding the Lord’s Supper remain hidden to some of the Reformed because of the false interpretation of these words which they have heard since their youth. When they hear or read the words of Christ: “This is My body,” they at once substitute in their thought the words: “This signifies My body,” or: “This is a symbol of My body.” They paste over the words of Scripture a human interpretation. The same thing is done by later Lutheran dogmaticians who teach an election ex praevisione fidei finalis, though the Bible in the passages that speak of the state of faith here in time represents the faith of the Christians as a consequence and result of their eternal election, as also the theologians of the 16th century and the Formula of Concord teach.124

Objections Raised Against the Perspicuity of Scripture

1. If the Scripture were clear, the office of the public ministry would be superfluous. We answer: One does not exclude the other. The public ministry is not superfluous, because it is a divine ordinance,125 and Scripture is, according to its own statements, clear, as has been shown above. And this clarity is furthermore evident from the fact that Christians are able to judge on the basis of Scripture whether pastors are true or false prophets, whether they depart from the Word of the Apostles or continue in it (Matt. 7:15; Rom. 16:17). But the divine institution of the ministry alongside the clear Scripture shows us how earnestly God is concerned about our salvation. He is so much concerned about it that He, so to say, went out of His way for it. Every one of us can come to faith and persevere in faith only by means of Scripture (John 5:39). But in order that no man fail to reach his life’s goal, God, in addition, has appointed watchmen who are officially to watch over our souls with doctrine, admonition, reproof, and consolation from Scripture and with Scripture (Heb. 13:17; Ezek.3:18).126

2) At all times, and particularly in our day, the great disagreement among theologians in the interpretation of the words of Scripture has been advanced against the perspicuity of Scripture. Unfortunately this disagreement is a fact. However it is not caused by the obscurity of Scripture, but by the departure of the theologians from the Word of Scripture and by their substituting for it and peddling their own thoughts concerning God and divine matters and taking these thoughts to market. God has so constituted Holy Scripture that one cannot err in the Christian doctrine as long as one continues in simple faith in His Word. Christ teaches that Scripture is a safe guide when He says: “If ye continue in My Word, then … ye shall know the truth” (John 8:31-32). Likewise the Apostle Paul declares (1 Tim. 6:3) that all error in doctrine can be traced to the refusal of the teacher to continue in the wholesome words of Christ. This refusal prompted Luther’s constant warning against substituting an interpretation (gloss) for the Scripture words themselves, for the “nuda Scriptura.” “Be it known, then, that Scripture, without any gloss, is the sun and sole light from which all teachers receive their light, and not the contrary.” (St. L. XVIII:1292 ff.) “The Word they still shall let remain.” It is a characteristic of the Lutheran Church that it does not base its doctrine on any exegesis, not even on the exegesis of Luther, but on the bare words of Scripture, while the Papists and the Reformed in all doctrines in which they differ from the Lutheran Church do not stand on the word of Scripture, but on an “exegesis” of the Pope, Zwingli, Calvin, etc.127 And modern theology, because of its denial of the inspiration of Scripture, declares openly that it does not stand on the-Word of Scripture, but on the so-called “Christian experience.”

3. Especially the occurrence of dark, difficult passages in Scripture has been urged against the perspicuity of Scripture. “It is indeed true,” says Luther, “some passages in Scripture are obscure” (St. L. V:335). But alongside this fact is, of course, the other fact, so clearly attested in Scripture, that Scripture is perfectly clear and is in regard to doctrine and life “a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.” To state it more fully, these obscure passages either do not pertain directly to the Christian doctrine, but give chronological, topographical, archaeological, etc., data, or, if they do pertain to doctrine, the same matter is elsewhere in Scripture set forth clearly and explicitly. Augustine, Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhard, regard it as a well-established axiom that all Christian doctrines are revealed in passages that need no explanation whatever. Augustine: “In the clear passages of Scripture everything is found that pertains to faith and life” (De Doctrina Christiana II, p. 9). Chemnitz: “Many passages of Scripture are couched in clear and lucid words, which need no far-fetched explanation but explain themselves. Access to these passages is, as Augustine says, open to the learned and the unlearned. And these clear passages of Scripture contain everything pertaining to faith and life.” (Examen, Geneva, 1667, p. 57.) Luther: “If you encounter an obscure passage in Scripture, do not doubt that it certainly contains the same truth which is elsewhere stated in clear language” (St. L. V:338). Then Luther adds: “If you cannot understand the obscure, then stay with the clear.” That sounds dictatorial. Still, it is true and Scriptural. How could Christians carry out the imposed mandate to judge all teaching and all teachers if the faith of Christians were based in part on obscure passages, which are, more or less, intelligible only to professional theologians? The obscure passages have a different purpose than to serve as a basis for the Christian doctrine. Their purpose is indicated by Augustine as follows: “The Holy Ghost has arranged Holy Scripture in such a magnificent and wholesome way that through the clear passages He appeases the hunger and through the dark passages He prevents loathing. For hardly anything is derived from those obscure passages but what is stated elsewhere most clearly.” (Quoted in Baier-Walther, I, 168.) Luther says: “Scripture without any gloss is the sun and the whole light” (St. L. XVIII:1293 f.) Luther indeed knows of “another study of the Scriptures, namely, the interpretation of obscure passages and allegories.” But this he calls “a merry chase, in which certain entertaining meanings are the game that is hunted and caught. But the study that makes one fit for warfare is to be at home in Scripture and, as St. Paul says, able to contend with abundant clear passages without any glosses or commentaries, as with a bared and drawn sword… . Then the adversary, convinced by the clear light, must see and confess that the words of God stand alone and need not the explanation of man.” 128

It has been said, formerly as now, that Luther, to be consistent, would have to admit the obscurity of the words of Scripture, since he continually and powerfully taught that without the illumination of the Holy Ghost not one letter of Scripture could be understood. On this point, Luther has verily expressed himself clearly enough. He distinguishes between the spiritual or inner understanding of Scripture, which is found only in Christians, and the external clarity or external understanding, of which also the unbelievers are capable. He writes: “If you speak of the inner clearness, no man sees one iota in the Scriptures but he that hath the Spirit of God. All have a darkened heart, so that, even if they know how to speak of, and set forth, all things in the Scripture, yet they cannot feel them or know them; nor do they believe that they are the creatures of God or anything else, according to Ps. 14:1: ‘The fool hath said in his heart, God is nothing.’ For the Spirit is required to understand the whole of the Scripture and every part of it. If you speak of the external clearness, nothing whatever is left obscure or ambiguous; but all things that are in the Scriptures are by the Word brought forth into the clearest light and proclaimed to the whole world.” (St. L. XVIII:1683 f.) So strongly does Luther insist on the external clarity of the words of Scripture that he is ready to make a Turk, a Jew, or a heathen the judge whether his [Luther’s] doctrine or Zwingli’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is expressed in the words of Scripture on the Lord’s Supper. He writes: “Even if I were a Turk, a Jew, or a pagan, who thought nothing of the faith of the Christians, but heard or read these Scripture passages on the Sacrament, I should have to say: I do not believe the doctrine of the Christians, but this I feel constrained to say: If they want to be Christians and hold to their doctrine [on the basis of what Scripture says], they will have to believe that Christ’s body and blood are eaten and drunk orally in the bread and wine” (St. L. XX:1093). As all men know, that is also the unanimous teaching of the dogmaticians.129 The inner, or spiritual, understanding of Scripture consists according to Luther primo loco in faith in Christ. Christ is the true content of Scripture. “Take Christ out of the Scriptures, and what will you find remaining in them?” But the faith in Christ, which the Holy Ghost works through the Scriptures, is always faith in the Christus crucifixus, that is, faith in the vicarious satisfaction of Christ, the faith that “Christ suffered for us” (St. L. XVIII:1681). Without this faith the so-called faith is on a level with the faith of the Turks or Jews, who believe in God “without the cost”; here the spiritual understanding of Scripture and a genuine “experience of Christ” are entirely out of the question.

4. A familiar argument against the perspicuity of Scripture runs thus: Scripture contains matters that are incomprehensible to human reason; in this respect Scripture can and must be called dark. Erasmus argued thus against Luther. (St. L. XVIII:1681.) Erasmus points, for example, to the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ, “the obscurity of which,” he says, “has never been cleared up.” One cannot see the sense of this argument. Of course the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is an inscrutable mystery to human reason. No man can comprehend how there can be three distinct persons and still only one undivided and indivisible God. And it is wholly unfathomable how in Christ God and man, Creator and creature, can form one person. But these facts, incomprehensible to narrow human reason, are so clearly revealed in Scripture that faith, which relies on the Word of Scripture, can apprehend them. He who is foolish enough to try to comprehend and fathom the articles of faith with his limited human reason, let him accuse himself of folly instead of charging Scripture with obscurity. Luther answers Erasmus: “Scripture simply confesses the Trinity of God, the humanity of Christ, and the unpardonable sin. There is here no obscurity or ambiguity whatever. But how these things are, Scripture does not say, nor is it necessary to be known. The sophists employ their dreams here; attack and condemn them, and acquit Scripture.” (St. L. XVIII, 1682 ff.) Like Luther, our theologians distinguish in the doctrines of faith between the that () and the how (). The former is clearly revealed in Scripture; the latter we should not attempt to fathom.

5. Several Scripture passages have been used to call in question the perspicuity of Scripture and thus to destroy, practically, the authority of Scripture. Particularly 2 Pet. 3:16 and 1 Cor. 13:12 have been so misused. The first passage reads: “As also in all his [Paul’s] Epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.” Quenstedt remarks (Systema I, 180): “This passage speaks for the perspicuity of Scripture.” Our old theologians have stressed the following in their polemics against Rome: 1) This passage does not say that all things, but that some things in Paul’s Epistles are hard to understand. 2) The context shows what kind of things these are. They pertain to the Last Things, the destruction of this universe and the new heaven and the new earth, a matter of which the context immediately preceding speaks. These things are, of a truth, difficult to understand, embody mysteries for us, inasmuch as we have but an imperfect conception of the great change to be effected by the destruction of the world and of the new heaven and the new earth.130 3) What Paul and the other holy writers say of these mysterious things is wrested and perverted, not by intelligent and well-read Christians, but by the unlearned and unstable. For in the sentence: “which [things] they that are unlearned and unstable wrest,” the unlearned and unstable are the active subject [also in the German], the predicate is “wrest” ( — pervert), and “which” is the object which they pervert. Not Paul’s Epistles are here accused, but the unlearned and unstable who pervert unto their own destruction what Paul and the other holy writers had written. Quenstedt remarks (loc. cit.): “Peter mentions two reasons for this perversion: the one is ignorance, the other instability. Neither results from Scripture.”

When 1 Cor. 13:12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly,” is adduced against the perspicuity of Scripture, the contrast immediately following is disregarded: “but then face to face.” The Apostle compares our knowledge of God and divine things in this life with that in yonder life. In this life God does not come to us visibly, but in an , riddle, image, that is, in the cloak of His Word, and we know Him only by faith in His Word. In eternal life, however, the cloak of the Word will be removed, and faith will cease. Then the seeing face to face will take the place of the knowledge by faith. Compared with this seeing face to face, our present seeing of God by faith in His Word is indeed a seeing “through a glass, darkly.”131 Quenstedt’s remark (Systema I, 180) is to the point: “The Apostle applies the knowledge ‘through a glass’ and ‘in an image’ to all pilgrims [to eternal life]; he does not even except himself and the other Apostles. For he does not say: ‘Now ye see,’ but ‘Now we see through a glass in an image.’ Were, then, the Scriptures dark even to the Apostle when he wrote this?”

We might add here some of the telling remarks our old theologians made in reply to the assertion of their Roman opponents that Scripture could be called clear inasmuch as the Church, that is, the Pope, explained and interpreted it — a perfect reductio ad absurdum. Quenstedt, for instance, remarks: “In that way also the riddles of the Sphinx could be called clear and lucid, since Oedipus could solve them.” Quenstedt also quotes Dannhauer, who says: “Then there is no difference between the written declarations of God and those of Delphi, and our Scriptures will be the Sphinx and the Pope our Oedipus.” When the Jesuit Gretser said: “Everything which illumines the spirit when it is explained may’be called a lamp and a light,” Dannhauer answered (Hodosophia, Phaenomenon I, p. 43): “In that way nothing remains obscure in all the sciences, in the whole world, and outside the world; even the Egyptian darkness would be a light, yea, even the ‘outer darkness,’ hell.”

Of a kind with the Roman attitude toward Scripture, according to which Scripture becomes a “light” only by the interpretation of the “Church,” that is, the Pope, is the attitude into which modern theology has drifted because of its denial of the inspiration of Scripture. As according to the Roman view the Scriptures become a “light” only through the interpretation of the Pope, so according to the view of modern theology the Scriptures receive the light needed to distinguish the truth from the error in Scripture from the “Christian Ego,” the “self-consciousness of the theologizing subject,” from “faith” which stands on its own feet. Only the “Oedipus” who interprets Scripture is changed. Likewise it is apparent that modern theology agrees fully, in principle, with the “enthusiasts” of all ages. The “enthusiast” Oedipus was and is the “inner light,” which is independent of Scripture; Luther points out in the Smalcald Articles that at bottom Pope and the “enthusiasts” are in full agreement. The Pope has “all rights in the shrine of his heart,” according to which he judges and interprets Scripture. And the “enthusiasts” are “spirits who boast that they have the Spirit, without and before the Word, and accordingly judge Scripture or the spoken Word and explain and stretch it at their pleasure, as Muenzer did and many still do at the present day who wish to be acute judges between the Spirit and letter and yet know not what they say or declare.” (Trigl. 495, 3-4.)

It is but natural that modern theology, just like Rome and the “enthusiasts,” should exhibit a deep interest in the obscurity of Scripture. If the Scriptures are dark, they are a fitting object to be illuminated by the product of the “self-consciousness of the theologizing subject.” A dark Scripture is the vital element, as for Rome and the enthusiasts, so also for modern theology. Shady characters do not thrive in the light. Zoeckler is more restrained, as befits his Protestant surroundings, when he speaks of the obscurity of Scripture. He says: “The modern believer in inspiration self-evidently” judges concerning the attributes of Scripture — its authority, perspicuity, perfection, and efficacy — “in more than one respect differently than the adherent of the old conception of inspiration. Thus, with respect to the Bible as normative and judicial authority, where the possibility of a merely partial and incomplete settlement of the respective controversy through the appeal to Scripture must often be admitted. Likewise with regard to the questions of perspicuity, where the extant hermeneutical difficulties are appreciated with less bias.” (Handbuch, 2d ed., III, 151.) Volk of Dorpat uses plainer language: “To enquire of Scripture is not so easy a matter” (loc. cit., I, 745). Without any such reserve our American representative of Rome, Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, expresses the Roman fundamental tenet concerning the obscurity of Scripture: “The Scriptures are not of themselves clear and intelligible even in matters of the highest importance.” 132