_7_Luther and the Inspiration of Holy Scripture

Luther a particeps criminis in the denial of the inspiration of Scripture — that is the cry of modern theology. The later dogmaticians, it is quite generally asserted, devised the “artificial theory” of an inspiration according to which Scripture and God’s Word were identified outright, but Luther took a more liberal attitude toward Scripture. Cremer calls the dogmaticians’ doctrine of inspiration “an absolute novum” (R. E., 2d and 3d ed., VI, 755). Because of certain remarks of Luther, Seeberg cannot conceive that Verbal Inspiration was in his mind (Dogmengesch., 2d ed., II, 289, note 1). In Nitzsch-Stephan there is, on the one hand, the admission that Luther “substituted for the church authority [under the Papacy] the authority of Holy Scripture,” and, on the other hand, the assertion that in Luther “pronounced traces” of a more liberal conception of the inspiration of Scripture are found. “In the Lutheran Church the intensification of the concept of inspiration began with Flacius and Chemnitz. This was completed by the Protestant scholastics of the 17th and 18th centuries after the model set by John Gerhard as early as 1610 in his locus ‘De Scriptura’ and completed by him in 1625 in his Exegesis Uberior Loci de Scriptura. It was thought that the battle against the Catholics, Socinians, Arminians, and other parties would prove successful only if the divine authority of Scripture were extended to the letter [the words of Scripture]. The Bible was considered not so much the record of the divine revelation or of the Word as rather a divine textbook of religion… . We meet this fully developed theory of inspiration in its most pointed scholastic form in those dogmaticians who sought to uphold the old orthodox system against Calixt and the syncretists” (Eν. Dogmatik, 3d ed., p. 249). That Luther took a more liberal attitude toward the doctrine of inspiration has been asserted not only by theologians of Germany, but also by American theologians, e. g., by Dr. Charles A. Briggs.92

But this assertion is void of all historical truth. The alleged difference between Luther and the Lutheran dogmaticians is pure fabrication. The real difference between Luther and the dogmaticians is this, that the dogmaticians but weakly stammer and echo what Luther taught much more powerfully about Scripture from Scripture itself. Recall what Quenstedt, for instance, states concerning Scripture as the inspired Word of God: “The canonical Holy Scriptures in the original text are the infallible truth and are free from every error, or, in other words, in the canonical Holy Scriptures there is found no lie, no falsity, no error, not even the least, whether in subject matter or words, but all things and all the details that are handed down in them are most certainly true whether they pertain to doctrine, or morals, or history, or chronology, or topography, or nomenclature; no ignorance, no thoughtlessness or forgetfulness, no lapse of memory, can and dare be ascribed to the amanuenses of the Holy Ghost in their penning of the sacred writings.” (Systema I, 112.) — This statement of Quenstedt has been called a dictum horribile. But everything that Quenstedt says concerning Scripture is said also by Luther, including the details mentioned by Quenstedt, only that Luther states these things with incomparably greater force. To demonstrate this, we shall record here, first, what Luther says regarding the entire Scriptures, and, then, what Luther says on the details concerning which it is claimed that he taught differently from the dogmaticians. To repeat here certain statements of Luther which have been already adduced in another connection will do no harm.

Concerning the entire Scriptures Luther says: “So, then, the entire Scriptures are assigned to the Holy Ghost” (St. L. III:1890). “The Holy Scriptures did not grow on earth” (St. L. VII:2095). “The Holy Scriptures have been spoken by the Holy Ghost” (St. L. III:1895). It is “the book of the Holy Ghost” (St. L. IX-.1775). It is “God’s Epistle” addressed to men (St. L. 1:1055). Hundreds of similar statements from Luther could be quoted.

But what Luther asserts of the entire Scriptures he asserts, consistently, regarding individual portions of the Scriptures, whose divine authority has been denied. Modern theology, it is well known, insists strongly that the “human side” of Scripture be duly recognized, this “human side” having been neglected by the old theologians, and it is the particular donum of modern theology, whose sense of “realities” has been so strongly developed, to bring out this “human side.” Now, Luther, too, was well acquainted with the “human side” of Scripture, but only in the sense that God caused His Word to be written by men in the human tongue. Luther is horrified at people who dare to claim that Scripture is not entirely and in all its parts the Word of God because the writers, such as Peter and Paul, after all, were men. Luther remarks on 1 Pet. 3:15: “But if they take exception and say: You preach that one should not hold to man’s doctrine, and yet Peter and Paul, and even Christ, were men — when you hear people of this stamp, who are so blinded and hardened as to deny that what Christ and the Apostles spoke and wrote is God’s Word, or doubt it, then be silent, speak no more with them, and let them go.” (St. L. IX: 1238.) And Luther maintains that just those parts of Scripture which appear rather “human” to us must be “identified” with the Word of God. A few examples: While Kahnis thinks it is hardly credible to assume that the Holy Ghost inspired David to say what David felt in his heart in the form of a Psalm, Luther says of the Psalms: “I think the Holy Ghost Himself wanted to take the trouble to compile a short Bible and book of illustrations from all Christendom and all saints” (St. L. XIV:21). And concerning those who would assign the Psalms, which describe the emotions of the human heart, not to the Holy Ghost, but to the man David, Luther concludes that they have a “carnal heart” (St. L. III:1894).

While modern theologians, together with some older theologians, hold that it would not be worthy of the Holy Ghost to recount the seemingly ordinary human things (levicula), Luther warns, in his preface to the Old Testament (St. L. XIV:3), “every pious Christian” against being misled into thinking that “the high Majesty of God” would not bother about the lowly things described in the Bible. Luther has much to say on this point. “God takes pleasure in describing such lowly things [as, e. g., Jacob’s domestic economy and married state] to show and testify that He does not despise or abhor the household, nor be far away from it and from a pious husband and from wife and children.” (St. L. 11:537 ff.) One feels as if Luther could not do enough to stress and impress upon us how important and full of wholesome doctrine these seemingly ordinary things are. For this reason these lowly things should not be thought too trivial in the church either, but “they should always be dealt with and taught the people, namely, why the Holy Spirit, who certainly has a very clean mouth, speaks with such diligence of these things, of which the Most Holy Father, the Pope, with his chaste monks and nuns, is unwilling even to think, as of things that are utterly filthy and carnal in his sight. For they move about on the high level of their celibacy and single blessedness. The filth, however, that wives became pregnant, children were born, and that the spouses perhaps quarreled with each other, they do not regard as worthy of reading. The Holy Ghost might, they say, in keeping with His holiness, have spoken of celestial and other higher things, and not of such lowly carnal things. He should have become a monk or a nun; but now He tells merely how things stood in the household and how Jacob fared in marrying. That offends us holy and angelic men, who walk above the clouds in the wisdom and spirituality of the angels. But because they despise these ordinary things and look upon them with loathing, the Holy Ghost on His part turns away from these proud and boasting saints and will not acknowledge them as His; He abandons them to their glorying, pride, and vanity, and descends to His creatures; for them He provides and them He adorns. For He has made the earth, He has created man and wife and blessed them that they be fruitful; He has subjected the world unto them, and it is He who still preserves all things; He nourishes and gives the mother milk to nourish and sustain her child… . Hence the Holy Ghost would here teach and assure us in speaking of these lowly, human, and ordinary things that we should know that He is minded to be with us, to provide for us and to prove that He is our Creator and Ruler. This the Papists do not see, but despise it; therefore they must justly bear the punishment for such contempt… . What better or more profitable thing can be taught in God’s congregation than the example of a God-fearing housewife and mother, who prays, sighs, implores, thanks God, rules the house, does what the duty of a pious wife calls for, desires to have children, in great chastity, gratitude, and godliness. What more could be expected of her? But the Pope, cardinals, and bishops are not to see that, for they are not worthy of it. The Holy Ghost lets them roam on in their fanciful, great, and supercelestial things, lets them admire nothing but their chastity and highly extol it (which really is only fit for the brothel), but these things they are by no means to see. Meanwhile the Holy Ghost so guides and rules the pious wives that thereby He proves that they are His creatures, whom He would govern not alone according to the spirit, but also according to the flesh, that they should call on Him, pray, and thank Him for the children and be obedient to their husbands,” etc.

There are passages in the Old Testament containing the record of gross sexual sins. Earlier and recent theologians have said that we must not make the Holy Ghost responsible for the telling of such “filthy stories.” Luther remarks in his commentary on Genesis 38, where the sin of Judah and Tamar is related: “The Holy Ghost is wonderfully diligent in narrating this shameful, adulterous history; He describes everything to the last detail… . What induced the most pure mouth of the Holy Ghost to condescend to such low, despised things, yea, even unchaste and filthy, even to damnable things, as though such things might be of value to teach something to the Church and Congregation of God? What has the Church to do with such things?” (St. L. II: 1200 ff.) Luther then shows at length how full of doctrine, reproof, admonition, and consolation also such Scripture passages are for the Church of all ages.

Whether a person takes the Christian attitude toward Scripture and lets Scripture be the Word of God, is seen at once from the attitude he takes as to the possibility of error in Scripture. Christ very definitely rules out the possibility of an error in Scripture when He says: “The Scripture cannot () be broken.” Philippi had not yet reached the Christian attitude toward Scripture when he wrote: “We would not like to say a priori with Calov that no error can have a place in Scripture.” He had reached the attitude befitting the Christian when he retracted his statement in the third edition of his Glaubenslehre and declared Calov’s a priori position to be the correct one. This a priori position is Luther’s position. Luther has no thought of ascertaining the inerrancy of Scripture by human investigation (a posteriori), but before all investigation he is convinced that there can be no error in Scripture.

Luther maintains this throughout. If there seems to be a conflict between Scripture and human science, he is firmly convinced from the outset that human science is in error and Scripture in the right. Thus Luther says of the hexaemeron: “If you cannot understand how it could have been done in six days, then accord the Holy Ghost the honor that He is more erudite than you. When you read the words of Holy Scripture, you must realize that God is speaking them.” (St. L. III:21.) Luther maintains this also with regard to all chronological data in Scripture, and he thus places himself in direct opposition to all modern theology. Examples: Professor Hausleiter of Greifswald prefers Josephus’ account of Herodias to the account given in Scripture. (Lehre und Wehre, 1907, p. 426.) A. B. Bruce, in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Mark 6:17, at least admits the possibility that the Biblical report is in error, even though the error cannot be established definitely. Also Ihmels assumes from the outset that at any rate the chronology of the Bible is not infallible (Zentralfragen, 2d ed., p. 72). Luther takes a different stand. Luther is certain, a priori, that in every case where the chronological data of Scripture differ from those of secular historians, the Holy Scriptures are correct. He says: “I make use of the secular writers in such a manner that I am not forced to contradict Scripture. For I believe that in the Scriptures the God of truth speaks, but in the histories good people display according to their ability their diligence and fidelity (but only as men) or at least that their copyists have perchance erred.” (St. L. XIV:491.) This is a popular theme with Luther, who was devoted to the study of history.93 On Gen. 11:27-28 he remarks that “in the case of Abraham sixty years are lost” according to the Biblical figures. At the same time he censures the “daring people” who assert that an error has occurred here. He, Luther, had likewise “diligently compiled and added the years of the world.” He protests against the assumption that he “knew nothing or had read nothing on such questions.” But he will not make common cause with these daring people who charge the Holy Scriptures with a chronological error; rather he closes with the humble confession of his “ignorance, as is fitting; for the Holy Ghost is the only One who knows and understands everything.” Luther adds that such obscurities in the chronology as the disappearance of the sixty years in the case of Abraham are intended by the Holy Ghost “in order that no one will undertake to prophesy, as from the exact figures of the age of the world, something definite as to the end of the world. For though God truly sets signs (signa) of the Judgment Day and also wants them to stand before our eyes and be noted, still He does not want us to know anything certain (cerium aliquid) of this Day, not even the year, in order that pious Christians may feel bound, in expectation of this most delightful and joyous Day, continually to exercise their faith and fear of God.” (1:721 f.) In connection with Gen. 11:11 Luther deals with the question how Arphaxad could have been born two years after the Flood. He points out possible ways of harmonizing, but then adds that our faith is not endangered if the attempts at harmonizing have no assured result. The reason why faith is not endangered is given in these words: “For that is certain that the Scriptures do not lie.” (St. L. 1:713 f.)

As Luther a priori takes all chronological data of Scripture to be correct, so, too, he a priori considers any contradictions in Scripture to be utterly impossible. And Luther took this attitude toward Scripture not only at the beginning of his public career, as neologists have asserted, but he maintained this position to the end of his life. He wrote in 1520: “The Scriptures cannot err” (St. L. XIX: 1073). In the same year: “The Scriptures have never erred” (St. L. XV:1481). In 1524: “Scripture agrees with itself everywhere” (St. L. III:18). In 1527: “It is certain that Scripture cannot disagree with itself” (St. L. XX:798). In 1535: “It is impossible that Scripture should contradict itself, only that it so appears to the senseless and obstinate hypocrites” (St. L. IX:356). And Luther’s Chronikon dates from the years 1541 and 1545; in this he states, as we saw above, that the chronology of Scripture is absolutely dependable (St. L. XIV:491).

The apparent disorder in the chronology of Scripture also dates, according to Luther, from the Holy Ghost. In his commentary on the Prophet Habakkuk he remarks that the Prophets seemingly observe no order in that, while speaking of the Jewish kingdom, they suddenly break off and begin to speak of Christ. But this, too, is due to the Holy Ghost. Luther says: “The Holy Ghost has been blamed for not speaking correctly; He speaks like a drunkard or a fool, He so mixes up things, and uses wild, queer words and statements. But it is our fault, who have not understood the language nor known the manner of the Prophets. For it cannot be otherwise; the Holy Ghost is wise and makes the Prophets also wise. A wise man must be able to speak correctly; that holds true without fail.” (St. L. XIV:1418.) Of the Evangelist Matthew, Luther says that in chapter 24 he “mixes and blends together” the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, but he adds at once: “And this is also the Holy Ghost’s manner of speaking in the Holy Scriptures” (St. L. VII:1297). The statements of Luther concerning the mixing together, the nonobservance of the proper order, etc., modern theologians employ as proofs that Luther thus “provided for the possibility of inaccuracies and contradictions” (Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 268). But they fail to add that Luther traced this “mixing together,” etc., to the intention of the Holy Ghost. Against the inspiration of Scripture Kahnis also advances this fact, that the Evangelists do not use the identical words in their report of the institution of the Lord’s Supper.94 Luther, however, writes against the Papists, who declared the administration of the Lord’s Supper invalid if a single word in the canon of the Mass were omitted: “They did not observe that the Holy Ghost intentionally so arranged it that no Evangelist agrees with the other in using the same words” (St. L. XIX:1104).

We have seen that it is characteristic of modern theology to place the inspiration of Scripture essentially on the same level with the illumination of all Christians; to assume with reference to the knowledge and the teaching of the truth, not a specific difference, but only one of degree between the writers of Holy Scripture and all Christians with their teachers; and to argue that as the illumination does not make Christians and their teachers inerrant, so, too, the inspiration of the holy writers does not guarantee the inerrancy of Scripture, though, of course, the writers of Scripture did enjoy a richer measure of the Holy Ghost. Luther, on the other hand, holds that there is not merely a difference in degree, but a specific difference between illumination and inspiration, between illuminated teachers of the Church and the inspired writers of Scripture. What the inspired writers of Holy Scripture teach is out and out God’s own Word; as to the enlightened teachers of the Church, such as Luther and the rest, they teach God’s Word only inasmuch and in so far as “we repeat and preach what we have heard and learned from the Prophets and Apostles.” (St. L. III:1890.) In his Disputatio de Fide of the year 1535 Luther indeed first says that it is one and the same Holy Ghost who was active in the Apostles and is now active in illuminating all Christians and their teachers. But then he draws a sharp line of distinction between the Apostles on the one hand and all Christians with all later teachers on the other hand, “in order that the Church might not be divided” (St. L. XIX: 1442). For he adds: “We are not all Apostles, who were sent by a firm decree of God (certo Dei decreto) to us as infallible teachers (infallibiles doctores). Hence they cannot err, but we can, and we can be deceived in our faith, since we lack such a decree of God.” The same distinction Luther makes when he defines a Prophet as distinguished from all later teachers. He says in his commentary on several chapters of Exodus, 1525: “A Prophet is one who gets his understanding immediately from God, into whose mouth the Holy Ghost puts the right word… . No one can make a Prophet by human instruction; and though it be God’s Word and I [Luther] preach the Word most purely, still I cannot be a Prophet; a learned and wise man I can be. For example, in Matthew 23 those are called ‘wise’ who derive the doctrine from the Prophets, for God speaks through men and not without means. But Prophets are those who have their doctrine from God without any means.” (St. L. III:785.) Also what the Prophets and Apostles knew before or what they took from the Scriptures already written was given them “immediately,” inasmuch as the Holy Ghost “put the right words” regarding the familiar things or thing taken from Scripture “into their mouth,” as happened to the Apostles at Pentecost, when they so “amazingly take hold of Scripture as though they had studied it 100,000 years and knew it inside out.” Luther adds: “I could not take hold of Scripture with such certainty, although I am a doctor of the Holy Scriptures.” (St. L. XIII:2053.)

Modern theologians furthermore distinguish degrees in inspiration. We mentioned Kahnis above and Henry E. Jacobs. Kahnis attempts to divide the Bible into three classes, according as he regards them more or less inspired. Jacobs says: “A text from Genesis and one from John, one from the Psalms and one from Romans, cannot stand on the same footing.” That means the complete abandonment of the Scriptural concept of inspiration. According to Scripture, inspiration is a concept which admits of no increase or decrease. Quenstedt, taking issue with the Jesuit Bonfrère (d. 1643) and others, correctly states that nothing at all can be found in Scripture (nec vola nec vestigium) to indicate that one part of the Scriptures is more divine (divinius) than another.95 Christ ascribes the same divinity to all the parts of Scripture when He says John 10:35 that “the Scripture” cannot be broken. And, according to 2 Tim. 3:16; Rom. 3:2; 2 Pet. 1:21; 1 Pet. 1:10-12; Eph. 2:20; etc., all parts of Scripture are equally a divine product. And so Luther will accept no degrees in inspiration: “So, then, the entire Scriptures are assigned to the Holy Ghost” (St. L. III:1890). Of course, Luther does make a distinction between the books of Holy Scripture as to their relative importance for the generation and preservation of Christian faith. In this sense he calls the Gospel according to St. John the “one tender, truly chief Gospel,” because it is occupied chiefly with doctrine, while the other Gospels deal more with deeds and events from the life of Christ. For the same reason, too, he gives first place in the epistles of the Apostles to “St. Paul’s epistles, especially that to the Romans, and St. Peter’s First Epistle,” “the true kernel and marrow of all books. They ought rightly be the first books, and it would be advisable for every Christian to read them first and most and, by daily reading, to make them as familiar as his daily bread.” (St. L. XIV:90 f.) Modern theologians think they can prove from these words that according to Luther’s “real opinion” the Scriptures were not in all parts equally the words of the Holy Ghost. But this is a misunderstanding and misuse of Luther’s words. Though Luther calls the Gospel according to St. John the “tender, truly chief Gospel,” because it is occupied principally with doctrine, still he assigns also the other Gospels in all their parts to the Holy Ghost. We heard above that he declares the external arrangements of the events in Matthew, according to which this Evangelist “mixes or blends together” the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world (chapter 24), the Holy Ghost’s manner of speaking (St. L. VII: 1297). Again, concerning the institution of the Lord’s Supper, which is found not in John, but in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Luther says that the Holy Ghost has intentionally so ordered it that no Evangelist agrees with the other in the words of the institution (St. L. XIX:1104). Quenstedt has been charged with an almost unbelievable exaggeration of the concept of inspiration because he does not leave the choice of the words (voces) and manner of expression (phrasis) to the discretion or the human consideration of the holy writers, but ascribes that to the divine inspiration. Quenstedt teaches, in the first place, as we saw in Section Five, that in inspiring Scripture the Holy Ghost did not create a new language in vocabulary and mode of expression, but accommodated Himself to the usage (genus loquendi) known and familiar to the writers. He says: “According as they were trained or accustomed to speak or write either in an elegant or in a more simple style, so the Holy Ghost used them and was ready to accommodate Himself to the natural aptitude of the men and condescended to it and so to express the same things by some in more magnificent, by others in more simple language.” But then Quenstedt adds, in the second place: “The fact that the holy writers, however, used these and no other phrases, these and no other words (voces) or equivalents (aequipollentes) resulted solely from the divine impulse and divine inspiration.” But in exactly the same manner Luther describes inspiration. He, too, makes the choice of definite words and of a definite mode of expression depend on inspiration. He says on Ps. 127:3: “Not only the words (vocabula), but also the mode of expression (phrasis), which the Holy Ghost and Scripture use, are divine” (St. L. IV: 1960). On top of all this there are the familiar words from Luther’s “Direction How to Study Theology,” which establish the fact that when Luther spoke of inspiration he meant “Verbal Inspiration.” He says in explanation of meditatio: “Secondly, you should meditate, that is, not in the heart alone, but also externally, work on and ply the oral speech and the lettered words in the Book [scil., in Holy Scripture], read them and reread them again and again, noting carefully and reflecting upon what the Holy Ghost means by these words [scil., by the ‘lettered words’]. And have a care that you do not tire of it or think it enough if you have read, heard, said, it once or twice, and now profoundly understand it all; for in that manner a person will never become much of a theologian.” (St. L. XIV:435.) In this forceful way, Luther ties all theological study and all endeavor to perceive the divine truth with “the lettered words in the Book,” with Verbal Inspiration. We repeat what we have said in the beginning of this chapter: if we wish to speak of a difference between Luther and the orthodox Lutheran dogmaticians, then the difference does not consist in Luther’s taking a “more liberal” attitude toward Scripture, but in his teaching with much more force and more fully than the dogmaticians that Scripture and the Word of God are identical.

We cannot close this chapter on “Luther and the Inspiration of Scripture” without considering several statements of Luther that are adduced with great confidence by nearly all modern theologians as proofs for Luther’s “liberal attitude” toward Scripture. When we examine these statements, we shall see that they do not prove Luther’s “liberal” attitude toward Scripture, but the unscientific and loose manner of the neologists in quoting Luther. In part the statements quoted do not at all deal with the inspiration of Scripture, and in part they have been torn out of the context entirely and invested with a sense that is the opposite of what Luther said. They belong to that class of quotations which without investigation have been passed down from one generation to another.

This applies in full measure to the quotation which is perhaps the one most widely known and which has given many men a false opinion on Luther’s attitude toward Scripture — the “hay, straw, and stubble” quotation. To prove that Luther “concedes errors in Scripture,” Tholuck wrote in the first edition of Herzog’s Realenzyklopaedie VI, 695: “In his preface to Link’s Annotations on the Five Books of Moses, Luther says: ‘Without doubt the Prophets studied Moses, and the later Prophets studied the first Prophets and wrote their good thoughts, inspired by the Holy Ghost, into a book. But though some hay, straw, and stubble slipped in at times (into the writing) of these good faithful teachers and searchers of the Scriptures and they did not build purely silver, gold, and precious stones, still the foundation remains; the rest the fire consumes. (St. L. XIV: 150.)’ ” In the second edition (1880) of the Realenzyklopaedie (VI, 753), Cremer, following Tholuck, writes: “On the one hand Holy Scripture is for Luther a book in which ‘one letter, yes, one tittle, is of greater importance than heaven and earth’; on the other hand he knows and tells of hay, straw, and stubble that in the case of the Prophets slipped in with their own good thoughts.” Errors in the Scriptures! Cremer’s article has been reprinted in the third edition (1901) of the Realenzyklopaedie (IX, p. 191). Also Kahnis claimed: “Luther says concerning the Prophets that they studied Moses and their predecessors and built thereon not always gold and silver, but also hay, straw, and wood” (Die luth. Dogmatik, 2d ed., I, 275). Kahnis’ words were reproduced in Nitzsch-Stephan, in 1912 (Ev. Dogmatik, 3d ed., p. 268). The facts in the case are that in this passage, so generally and even recently quoted, Luther does not at all speak of the writing of Holy Scripture and therefore also not of the inspiration of Scripture, as has been shown in extenso in Lehre und Wehre, 1885, p. 329 ff., and 1886, p. 8 ff. Also the tenth edition of Luthardt’s Kompendium admits that Luther here has been misquoted. While the text gives the “hay, straw, and stubble” passage as proof for Luther’s liberal attitude, a footnote on p. 328 says: “These words, however, as Luther meant them, do not refer to the Biblical authors, but to the exegetes; cp. Kawerau, Theol. Lit. Ztg., 1895, p. 216.” As a matter of fact, it is utterly impossible to refer Luther’s words to the “Biblical authors,” that is, to the Prophets, in so far as they wrote the Bible of the Old Testament. Luther is rather speaking of those periods in the lives of the Prophets when they were not moved as the infallible organs of the Holy Spirit to write the Holy Scriptures, but when outside the state of inspiration, they, just like other people, made the Scriptures of the Old Testament the object of their study and, in doing this, entered “in a book” the good thoughts the Holy Spirit awakened in them during this study. To this study and this writing, which took place when they were not inspired to write the Holy Scriptures, Luther’s words refer: “Though some hay, straw, and wood slipped in at times, etc.” What Luther teaches is that the Prophets of the Old Testament did not always infallibly speak and write God’s Word, but only at times, temporarily, namely, when inspired by the Holy Ghost. Read his remarks on Gen. 44:18: “The theologians have a common proverb: “The Holy Ghost did not always touch the hearts of the Prophets.’ 96 The inspiration of the Prophets does not continue forever, on and on, without stopping. Isaiah did not continuously and forever receive revelations of high and great things, but only at special times. We have also the example of the Prophet Elisha, who says of the Shunammite (2 Kings 4:27): ‘Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her; and the Lord hath hid it from me and hath not told me.’ There he confesses that the Lord does not at all times move the hearts of the Prophets. The Spirit did come at times when they played the harp or Psalter and sang several Psalms and spiritual hymns.” (St. L. II:1645.)

Tholuck overlooks the words “auf diese Weise” in the quotation from Luther; otherwise he could not have failed to see that Luther is speaking of the Prophets apart from their specific prophetic office, of the times when they were on a level with other “good, faithful teachers and searchers of Scripture” who were mediately illuminated and could err. Luther’s words read: “In this manner, without doubt, the Prophets studied Moses and the last Prophets the first,” and with the phrase “in this manner” he refers to his preceding remarks about Scripture study, which God enjoins upon all Christians and all teachers, as he himself [Luther] and also Augustine read and studied the Scriptures. Such “searching and reading” cannot be done “unless one is there with the pen and jots down the special thoughts with which he is inspired while reading and studying, so that he can hold and retain them.” Also in the words following the remark quoted by Tholuck, Luther speaks of writings as they have been written by all teachers in the Church, also by his “dear sir and friend Dr. Wenzeslaus Link.”

Lehre und Wehre, 1885, p. 329 ff., reprints Luther’s entire preface to Link’s Annotationes and then says: “From this it is evident that Luther is not speaking of the Prophets as writing the Scriptures, but as writing such books as his friend Wenzeslaus Link wrote and for which he [Luther] composed the prefaces. Luther is not speaking of writing under the influence of ‘inspiration,’ as we use the term when we speak of the doctrine of inspiration, but of a study of Scripture and noting ‘in a book’ the good thoughts which the Holy Ghost inspires in a Christian while reading Scripture… . Luther is speaking here — to use that expression — of the daily private study of the Prophets, ‘for they were not men of a kind that would put Moses on the shelf and dream their own visions and preach their dreams, but men who daily and diligently studied Moses.’ And in this sphere it was possible, says Luther, that ‘also hay, straw, wood, at times slipped into the writings of these good, faithful teachers and searchers of Scripture.’ … It is clear, then, that in this passage, so persistently quoted to prove Luther’s ‘liberal’ position in the doctrine of inspiration, Luther is not at all speaking of inspiration. Luthardt, Kahnis, Cremer, etc., have either not looked up the passage in Luther at all or have read the passage inattentively.”

Walther therefore addresses the following words of earnest reproof to Luthardt and Cremer (Lehre und Wehre, 1886, p. 10 f.): “Professor Luthardt and Professor Cremer may, on the one hand, be excused to a certain extent, since they manifestly have not looked up the passage in its context but copied Tholuck in good faith; but it is, on the other hand, inexcusable that in so important a matter they relied on a man like Tholuck, who even says of Christ ‘that the exegetical equipment, which must be merely memorized, can have been known and accessible to Him (Christ) only according to the general level of education in His day and the educational facilities supplied in His training and from His surroundings’ [!], from which Tholuck draws the conclusion: ‘Though no hermeneutical blunder is found in the extant speeches of the Redeemer, the impossibility of one cannot be asserted from the outset, as little as the impossibility of a grammatical or a chronological error.’ (See Tholuck, Das Alte Testament im Neuen Testament, Gotha, 1861, p. 59 f.)” In this connection, Walther points out that a twofold sin is here being committed: the modern theologians are doing this evil work by appealing to the authority of Luther, whose doctrine they misrepresent in order to destroy the faith of Christians in the divine authority of Scripture. “They commit, in the first place, a grave sin against the dear man of God, Luther, in ascribing to him, without looking up the reference, an opinion which would, if one compares a hundred other statements of his, make him out to be the most confused brain in all the world, yes, an opinion that he would condemn to the abyss of hell. But, in the second place, it is an even far more terrible sin against the thousands who have recognized in Luther the greatest witness of the truth since the day of the Apostles and Prophets, but who are now, contrary to all truth, shaken in their faith by the appeal to Luther’s authority.”

Next to the “hay, straw, and stubble” quotation the moderns like to use the “too weak for a thrust” passage to prove Luther’s vacillating attitude toward Scripture. But here, too, the context is utterly disregarded. When Cremer writes (R. E., 2d ed., VI, p. 753): Luther speaks “of an inadequate proof of the Apostle (Gal. 4:21: ‘zum Stich zu schwach’ — too weak for a thrust, i. e., unconvincing),” the impression is created — and Cremer intended to create that impression — as though Luther denied that the allegory used by Paul in Galatians 4 (Sarah and Isaac represent the Christian Church, Hagar and Ishmael the people of the Law) had any validity whatever, while Luther, in fact, merely says that in a controversy with the Jews (contra Iudaeos), for whom the Apostle was not yet an authority, the allegory was “too weak for a thrust.” It is too bad that Cremer and all those who make so much of this expression in order to prove Luther’s vacillating attitude did not regard it worth while to look up the Latin original. In Luther’s Commentary on Genesis (written in Latin) the expression translated with “zum Stich zu schwach” reads: “in acie minus valet” — “it has less convincing power in a controversy.” The phrase “in controversy” should have reminded these men that Luther does not say that the allegory of Galatians 4 has no convincing power whatever (it convinces the Christians, for whom Paul is an inspired Apostle of Christ), but that it does not have this power in a certain respect, namely, in controversy with the Jews.97 Therefore Walther wrote these words against Cremer: “Luther never had the notion to deny that for Christians, who recognized Paul’s authority as that of an inspired writer, a doctrine presented by Paul by means of an allegorical interpretation of a story is just as conclusive as any other doctrine presented by him directly, in line with the established hermeneutical rule: ‘Sensus allegoricus non est argumentativus, nisi a Spiritu Sancto traditur,’ that is, the allegorical sense is not conclusive unless it is taught by the Holy Ghost Himself” (Lehre und Wehre, 1886, p. 12). Christians, however, know and believe that the Holy Ghost was in Paul as an inspired Apostle of Christ.

It goes without saying that it is entirely improper to offer Luther’s distinction between homologumena and antilegomena as proof for his “free” attitude toward inspiration. Voigt, for instance, says that “Luther could not have regarded Holy Scripture word for word as the product of the Holy Ghost,” since “he felt at liberty to express the most liberal views on whole books of the Bible” (Fundamental-dogmatik, p. 536). And in Nitzsch-Stephan the remark occurs: “The Revelation of St. John displeases Luther so thoroughly that he regards it as neither Apostolic nor Prophetic.” 98 This is an illogical identification of two things that have nothing in common. In the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture we are not concerned with the extent of the canon, that is, whether the so-called antilegomena (the Epistles of James and Jude and the Revelation of St. John) belong in the canon, but we are concerned with the question whether the books which are canonical beyond a doubt (Luther calls them “the right certain, chief books”) are inspired, are God’s infallible Word. This Luther maintains from first to last, as we saw in the first part of this chapter. But as to the extent of the canon, Luther (as also Chemnitz, etc.) abides by the distinction which, according to the report of Eusebius (Church History III, 25), the Early Church made in regard to the certain or uncertain Apostolic origin of the books of the New Testament (St. L. XIV: 132). Luther states his position in his preface to the Epistle to the Hebrews in these words: “Hitherto we have had the right certain chief books of the New Testament. The four following [Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation] had, in ancient times, a different reputation.” (St. L. XIV:126.) Hoenecke writes (Dogmatik, I, 362): “One must distinguish well between the extent of the canon and the inspiration of the books which are canonical without question. Here W. Walther [Professor in Rostock, Das Erbe der Reformation im Kampfe der Gegenwart, Section 1, p. 42 ff.] says correctly that for Luther the extent of the canon was an open question, but the books that were canonical were absolutely authoritative for him as the inspired Word of God. But this distinction is always being overlooked. Modern theologians always want to draw conclusions from Luther’s remarks concerning individual books as to his attitude towards the Word and its inspiration and thus make Luther share their liberal views regarding inspiration. It is rather an established fact that Luther regarded the Word as inspired. And the dogmaticians of the 17th century could with all reason appeal to him as the constant voice of the Church; and hence their doctrine is by no means an innovation over against Luther.” On the same matter Walther of St. Louis voiced this sentiment: “Those who here draw attention to Luther’s judgment on the antilegomena, how he, e. g., calls the Epistle of James ‘a very strawy epistle as compared with them’ (the Epistles of Paul and Peter-St. L. XIV:91), and who thus mean to prove Luther’s allegedly liberal views on inspiration, we here pass up, since even the weakest mind can see without much reflection how foolish it is to conclude from an adverse verdict of Luther on a book which he did not regard as canonical that he held liberal views on the inspiration of those books which he regarded as canonical; just the opposite ought to be concluded from his verdict” (Lehre und Wehre, 1886, p. 8).

A further contention of modern theologians is to the effect that Luther limited the divine authority of Scripture to whatever in Scripture “deals with Christ”; that according to what “deals with Christ” in Scripture he determines whether the rest of Scripture is divine truth or not; that Luther assumes “a canon within the canon”; hence Luther could not possibly have assumed that all statements in Scripture were inspired by the Holy Ghost.99 For this contention principally two passages from Luther are cited. First, these words from Luther’s preface to the Epistles of James and Jude: “Whatever does not teach Christ, that is not Apostolic, even though St. Peter or Paul taught it; again, what preaches Christ would be Apostolic, even though Judas, Annas, Pilate, and Herod did it” (St. L. XIV:129). And, second, the 49th thesis of Luther’s “Disputation on Faith,” which reads: “If our adversaries urge Scripture, we urge Christ against Scripture” (St. L. XIX:1441).

These words — to begin with the second passage — do have a strange sound. Taken out of their connection, they do give the impression as though Luther set “Scripture” and “Christ” in opposition to each other, with the idea that Christ, conceived as the substance of the Scriptures, must be used to correct the words of Scripture. But we can get that impression only if we neglect to consult the context of these words in Luther. By “Scripture,” which the adversaries urge and against which Luther urges Christ, Luther means the Scripture as misused by the adversaries (the Papists), the falsely understood and falsely applied Scripture. Luther is thinking of the abuse of Scripture perpetrated by the Romanists in urging Scripture passages that speak of the Law and of human works against Christ, that is, against the Gospel and faith. That is Luther’s own explanation of his use of the term “Scripture,” in the preceding theses 42–48! There Luther castigates the Papists for introducing such Scripture passages as “Thou shalt keep the commandments” (Deut. 8:6), “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God” (Matt. 22:37), “This do, and thou shalt live” (Luke 10:28), “Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor” (Dan. 4:37), against Christ and faith, while these passages are to be understood in favor of Christ, since the works mentioned can be done only in Christ, that is, they always presuppose Christ and faith in Him. And in thesis 41, which begins this section, Luther expressly states that by “Scripture,” against which he urges Christ, he means the falsely understood Scripture. The thesis reads: “One must not understand Scripture contrary to, but in favor of Christ; therefore one must bring it into relation with Christ or not regard it as true Scripture.”

In passing, it may be said that it is futile on the part of modern theologians to seek cover for their attitude toward Scripture behind the alleged statement of Luther that only what “deals with Christ” is true in the Scriptures. For since practically all modern theologians deny the satisfactio vicaria, they teach nothing whatever of that in Scripture which “deals with Christ.” The Christ who is the theme of Scripture is always the Christ who has reconciled mankind with God through His satisfactio vicaria.

Also what Luther says in the theses following thesis 49 has, contrary to its connection, been used to deny that Luther had “the strict conception of inspiration.” Luther then expands the thought, which he also voiced on other occasions, that all who have Christ and thus the Holy Ghost can also make a decalog (decalogum quendam) and judge all things correctly. Theses 55–57 read: “For if the Gentiles, with their corrupt nature, could adopt statutes regarding God and be a law unto themselves, Romans 2, how much more can Paul or a mature Christian, filled with the Holy Ghost, arrange a sort of decalog and judge all things most correctly, just as all the Prophets and Fathers from the same Spirit of Christ spoke everything we have in Scripture.” Because Luther here places “the mature Christian” and “the Fathers” beside Paul and the Prophets as speaking from one and the same Spirit, it has been argued that Luther assumes not a specific difference, but only a difference in degree between the illumination of the Christian and the inspiration of the writers of Holy Scripture and that as the Christians through their illumination do not become infallible but remain fallible, so do also the writers of Holy Scripture. But here again it is obvious that all who ascribe such a view of Scripture to Luther have failed to look at the context. For in the theses immediately following (58–60), Luther most emphatically denounces the thought that faith in Christ qualifies or entitles a Christian or even a theologian to take a “free” attitude toward the words of Scripture, to regard himself as not bound by the words of Scripture because the words might possibly contain an error. In this very place Luther draws a very sharp line of distinction between the inspired Prophets and Apostles on the one hand and all Christians and all later teachers on the other hand. The attitude of an independent lord over against the words of Scripture he designates as the characteristic of the “roving spirits” who by introducing thoughts not contained in the Word of the Apostles and Prophets cause divisions in the Church of God. The fact that all of us, Christians as well as Christian theologians, are strictly bound to the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles and are not permitted to criticize them is due, as Luther points out, to this great difference between us and the Apostles: the Apostles are appointed by God as infallible teachers and could not err; we, however, are subject to error. The words of Luther are very clear; they read: “Because we are meanwhile of an unequal spirit [though one and the same Spirit dwells in us and the Apostles] and the flesh wars against the spirit, it is necessary, also because of the roving spirits, to adhere to the certain commandments and Scriptures of the Apostles in order that the Church be not divided. For we are not all Apostles, who were sent to us by a firm decree of God as infallible teachers. Hence they cannot err, but we can, and we can be deceived in our faith, because we lack such a decree of God.”

As to the words of Luther quoted in the first place: “Whatever does not teach Christ is not Apostolic, even though St. Peter or Paul taught it; again, what preaches Christ would be Apostolic, even though Judas, Annas, Pilate, and Herod did it,” the use of the subjunctive indicates that Luther is here speaking not of an actual, but of a supposed case. Besides, as to the Apostle’s preaching of Christ, Luther expressly states that “no one can do the like, neither Annas, nor Caiaphas, nor any man on earth” (Erl., 2d ed., V, p. 183).

The rest of the alleged proofs for Luther’s liberal attitude have been taken care of in the first part of this chapter. From the Chronikon we add this additional thought that Luther prefers to ascribe the error “to the copyist” rather than to the original. We have reference to these words in the Chronikon (St. L. XIV:600): “The time of the Judges from the death of Moses until Samuel is 357 years, including Joshua, as you see. And this calculation is not wrong, since in the First Book of Kings (ch. 6) 480 years are counted from the Exodus to the temple of Solomon. Therefore there is an obvious error in Acts 13, through the fault of the copyist. And the Latin translation is doubly wrong, because it places 450 years before the Judges, during the distribution of the land, and thus forces Lyra to go back into the years of Isaac. The Greek text, however, is corrupted through an error of the copyist, which could easily occur by his writing for .”100

But one other argument of those who seek to hide behind Luther for their liberal attitude should be considered, since it has been much employed again in recent years. The argument runs thus: Luther teaches that the Holy Scriptures can be understood and “experienced inwardly” as divine authority only through the Holy Ghost; therefore Luther cannot possibly have assumed that the words of Scripture are the words of the Holy Ghost. Among the proofs that Luther cannot have maintained the “divinity” (divinitatem) of Holy Scripture, Grimm adduced this one: “Luther considered the illumination of the Holy Ghost necessary for a mind correctly to understand Scripture” (Institutio, p. 119). In the same manner also Seeberg argues when he says that Luther demanded that “man recognize the authority of Scripture not because the Church has recognized it, but because he has experienced its truth” (Dogmengesch., 2d ed., II, 288) and quotes as first proof the words from the Erlangen edition of Luther (28:340): “Every man must believe solely for this reason that it is the Word of God and that he in his heart finds that it is the truth.” Everyone will admit that an argument of this kind: Since Holy Scripture can be understood or experienced only through the Holy Ghost, therefore the words of Scripture cannot be inspired by the Holy Ghost, has no basis in logic whatever. Therefore Luther does not place the experiencing of the truth of Scripture in opposition to the inspiration of Scripture, but he teaches in this very place most powerfully “the inspiration in its strictest sense.” On the following page (p. 341) he calls it “blasphemy” if anyone should say: “Nevertheless St. Matthew, Paul, Peter were also men; therefore their doctrine is also the doctrine of men… . If you hear such thoroughly hardened and blinded blasphemers, turn from them or plug your ears; they are not worthy to be spoken to… .” Page 342: “It is one thing if man himself speaks, another thing if God speaks through men. What the Apostles spoke, God commanded them to speak and confirmed and witnessed it by great miracles.” Furthermore Luther says, in this place, of Scripture that “in it the uniform Word of God has been taught since the beginning of the world.” And finally Luther declares on page 343: “The doctrine of men we do not condemn because men have spoken it, but because it is lies and blasphemies against Scripture, which, though it also has been written through men, is not of or by men but by God.”

It is thus evident that the modern theologians who claim Luther as patron of their liberal attitude toward Scripture either have not read Luther at all, but have copied from compilations of others without verifying them, or, if they have actually read Luther, were unable to understand him, because their wish to have Luther as their protector was stronger than their sense of historical truth. Kahnis may serve as an example of the first class. In his sharply polemical writing against Hengstenberg Zeugnis von den Grundwahrheiten des Protestantismus he asserts that Luther took the same liberal attitude toward Scripture as he (Kahnis) takes and offers this as proof: “Walch has collected such statements in his edition of Luther, in Vol. 14. Let him who desires to be quickly oriented read the articles ‘Inspiration’ (by Dr. Tholuck) and ‘Neutestamentlicher Kanon’ (by Dr. Landerer) in Herzog’s Realencyklopaedie (VI, p. 695 ff.; VII, p. 295 ff.).” Kahnis then offers from Tholuck’s catalog the quotation which he regards as the most clinching one — the “hay, straw, and stubble” passage, which, as we have seen, and also Luthardt finally admits, does not speak of the inspiration of Scripture at all. But the fact that he copies Tholuck’s quotation without correcting Tholuck’s blunder proves that he did not verify the quotation.101 In his Dogmatics Kahnis offers a lengthy catalog of opinions on Luther as proof of his assertion that “Luther takes a liberal stand” and adds in a footnote: “We are not verifying these statements, which are for the most part known to everyone, but for this verification direct the reader to the compilations mentioned.” He had mentioned the compilations of Rudelbach, Tholuck, and Koestlin.

Other neologists have, indeed, read Luther, but in such a way that they read their attitude toward Scripture into Luther, ignoring the plain sense of Luther’s statements. Seeberg, for instance, in his Dogmengeschichte, 2d ed., II, 289, refers to the Erlangen edition, 30, p. 313 f., 331, to prove “the censuring statements of Luther on some thoughts in Biblical books” and Luther’s “admission of slips” in particular. Consulting Luther, we do find that Luther says “that Matthew and Mark do not observe the strict order, but Luke does.” But Luther does not “censure” Matthew and Mark on that account; he says that both have not “promised” to do this (namely, to observe the chronological order); in Luke’s case it was different: he had promised “that he would set forth these things from the beginning and in order; and that he proves, for his Gospel follows a fine order to the end.” The predicate “censuring” Seeberg has read into Luther’s statement. Luther finds it entirely in order that Matthew and Mark follow an order other than the chronological one. Again, at the other place (page 331), Luther indeed says that Matthew and Mark describe the Lord’s Supper “imperfectly.” But with this “imperfectly” Luther is not charging Matthew and Mark with errors. He has only this in mind that Matthew and Mark do not report that “Christ has commanded us [the Church of all ages] to repeat His act and keep this Supper in like manner,” as Luke and Paul do when they report the command to the Church of all ages: “This do in remembrance of Me!”