# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S535
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

524 STUDY ON SCRIPTURE AND HERMENEUTICS

hermeneutical concern must be to appraise correctly
the “not-yet’” character of the Old Testament in its
tension with the same Testament’s forward thrust.

IV. Special Questions of New Testament
Hermeneutics

In addition to the more or less formal problems con-
nected with setting the New Testament documents in
their proper historical context of the Judaeo-Graeco-
Roman world, the interpretation of the New Testament
must proceed from principles that do justice to the
richness and variety of the organic connection between
the New Testament and the Old Testament.

For example, the promise-fulfillment pattern needs
working out in a way that does full justice to the native
sense of the text without losing sight of the basic fact
that “all the promises of God find their yes” in Jesus
Christ (2 Cor.1:19). The problems of typology and of
typological exegesis demand disciplined investigation.
Above all, the Law-Gospel distinction in its bearing
upon the relation of the Testaments requires a more
structured treatment than we have so far given it.

Finally, the questions of methodology and the legiti-
macy or illegitimacy of various “critical” techniques
must be dealt with in a sober, objective way that does
not cheat either in regard to the Biblical data or in
regard to the believing interpreter’s unqualified sub-
mission to the divine authority of the Word he handles.

V. Exegesis and Proclamation

Our hermeneutical research would be incomplete
without a careful setting forth of the service that is
rendered to proclamation by what we may call “self-
conscious” exegesis, which endeavors to deal with the
text by appropriate linguistic and historical tools and
methods. It needs to be shown both in principle and by
examples not only what value for today’s proclamation
inheres in a due respect for both the particular and the
total Biblical context but also how recognition of the
particularity and peculiarity of a given text serves
as a guide to its contemporary application.

Finally, the commission feels that this study may
serve the church’s present needs most advantageously

if it is presented in various forms for maximum utility.
The following possibilities suggest themselves:

a. A position paper for presentation to the Synod as
a whole;

b. A popular hermeneutical guide requiring no
knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, designed for instruc-
tors in the church’s schools at various levels;

c. A scholarly hermeneutical text for professional

use.
* * * * * *

Presuppositions for the Study of Biblical
Hermeneutics

The Vorverstaendnis with which I approach the
Scriptures:

A. I approach individual portions of the Scriptures
in the faith-conviction that through the united witness
of the Scriptures, living and functioning in the church,
God has told me that —

1. Iam under the wrath of God because of sin and

subject to death as the wages of sin: (Law)

2. I have been restored to life with God through the
unmerited grace of God in His Son Jesus Christ:
(Gospel)

3. I can know this truth only because God Himself
has made it known to me: (Revelation, Word of
God, Prophetic and Apostolic Word)

4. I can rely on the humanly mediated words of
Scripture as the living Word of God: (Inspiration,
Infallibility, Inerrancy)

5. I have no other source and norm for faith and
life besides the Scriptures (Sola Scriptura —
Canon)

B. This faith-conviction has been produced in me by
my baptism, conferred on me by the church on the
authority of the Scriptures and the witness of the Lu-
theran Confessions to the central intention and the
essential content of the Scriptures as God’s revelation
of Law and Gospel. The Confessions witness to —

1. the distinction of purpose of these two cardinal
teachings; and

2. my need of both in their distinct functions.