LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 223

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IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

here. The Psalms and other biblical poems, for example (as one might expect),
are filled with figures of speech. But the reports of Jesus’ miracles (e.g., his
miracles of healing in Luke 5:12–13; 5:24–25; 6:10; 7:10; 7:14–15) provide no
internal basis for the assumption that they are describing anything other than
actual events in a straightforward way. Any claim that these reports were
merely metaphorical or were parables rather than descriptions of events
would seem to depend on the exegete’s prior assumption that miracles cannot
really happen. It is not grounded in the content or structure of the texts, which
naturally read as historical narrative. A speculative approach that privileges
an allegorical reading of Scripture makes it easy to dismiss passages of
Scripture that appear to create scientific, cultural or personal difficulties by
simply declaring them to have an obscure meaning. In this way many have
dismissed, for example, the opening verses of Genesis as mythical or allegorical, because they find them to be in conflict with a naturalistic evolutionary
account of the origin of life and of its diversity.
The third principle, that Scripture interprets Scripture, also has a connection to the exegesis of other books and documents. When a novel introduces a
character, it builds on that same characterization throughout. If a science text
defines a term, the reader will then be able to understand that term when it is
used elsewhere in the same text without definition. Similarly, the Bible tells of
God, providing a characterization that is developed in various ways—notably as both one in being (Deut. 6:4), yet also, mysteriously, three in persons
(Matt. 28:19). If Scripture consistently portrays God as Creator of heaven and
earth (Neh. 9:6; Is. 45:12; Jon. 1:9), from nothing (Rom. 4:17; Heb. 11:3), merely
by speaking (Ps. 33:6; 2 Pet. 3:5), and in the span of six days (Ex. 31:17; Heb.
4:4), then that, indeed, is how we are to understand the creation of the world.
If Scripture consistently portrays God as forming man from the dust (Gen.
3:19; 1 Cor. 15:47–49), forming the woman subsequently from man’s rib (1 Cor.
11:8; 1 Tim. 2:13), and creating both in His divine image (Gen. 9:6; Col. 3:10),
then that is how we are to understand the origin of humanity.
To interpret Scripture in light of the rule of faith (principle 4) is unique to
scriptural interpretation. It is, together with the fifth, sixth, and seventh
principles, directly connected to what we have emphasized earlier about the
role that knowing Christ and His justifying work—that is, the Gospel—plays
in one’s approach to Scripture. Martin Franzmann’s work, cited above,
beautifully lays out the importance of reading Scripture in light of the “rule
of faith” (his preferred term is res, that is, its central message).269 He shows
how throughout the Bible’s historical books (Genesis to Esther), the great
269
Franzmann’s concern is with what may be called the material principle of theology. The
term indicates the central teaching of Christian faith, the Gospel. The material principle is
coupled with the “formal principle,” that is, Scripture—the form by which the Gospel message is given to us. This distinction and the importance of retaining these principles rightly is
discussed at length in the CTCR’s report, Gospel and Scripture: The Interrelationship of the Material
and Formal Principles in Lutheran Theology (1972).

“melody line” (another expression akin to the rule of faith) is God’s grace
despite the rebellion, sin, failures, and brokenness of humanity in general
and Israel in particular.270 The prophets make this “radical Gospel” all the
more plain, portraying a corrupt and crushed nation nonetheless finding
promised redemption in Israel’s God.271 And—of particular importance to
this report—even as the Bible’s “Wisdom Literature” (Job to Song of Songs) is
emphatic in the value it gives to human wisdom and understanding (and we
might add, science), it nonetheless reminds us that no such accomplishments
“can avail,” ultimately, and “the victory belongs to the Lord” and to Him
alone.272 Under this same principle, the rule of faith, we would also mention
the role the ecumenical Creeds play as shorthand forms of the central biblical
truth of who the one God is—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and what He has
done in creating the world, redeeming it from sin and death, and purifying
and renewing His people. It is in Christ, then, that the New Testament fulfills
all of this utterly gracious, justifying, redeeming work of God for Israel and
the nations.273
From this, both the fifth principle (interpretation in view of Christ) and the
sixth (distinguish Law and Gospel, sin and grace) from Burgland’s list are immediately obvious. We have amply addressed the fifth principle above. As we
have noted, Christ stands at the center, for “he is before all things, and in him
all things hold together” (Col. 1:17)—including, of course, the Scriptures and
their message. All sound exegesis must begin and ever return to Christ Jesus,
the revelation of God (Matt. 11:27).
Moreover, regarding the sixth principle, it is certain that only in Christ
does humanity’s failure to keep God’s law, and all human sin and rebellion,
find an answer in the Gospel—the Good News of Christ’s gracious, redeeming death and resurrection. To read Scripture with careful distinction between
Law and Gospel, sin and grace, is to recognize that Jesus stands at the center
of Scripture because of His saving work. It is also to recognize that the means
by which the Holy Spirit does His renewing and sanctifying work is the
Word of God itself, which first makes plain human sin and God’s righteous
condemnation and threatened punishment (Law), but then so beautifully also
declares us righteous because of the life, suffering, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord (Gospel). Bohlmann has summarized this
principle, reminding us that a person who has been justified by grace through
faith in Christ “knows that in Holy Scripture God speaks a condemnatory
word (Law) and a forgiving word (Gospel), the former for the sake of the
latter.”274 The Apology of the Augsburg Confession explains:
270

Franzmann, Seven Theses, 6–7.

271

Ibid., 7–8.

272

Ibid., 8, quoting Prov. 21:30–31.

273

Ibid., 9–10.

274

Bohlmann, Principles of Biblical Interpretation, 65.

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For these are the two chief works of God in human beings, to
terrify and to justify the terrified or make them alive. The entire
Scripture is divided into these two works. One part is the law,
which reveals, denounces, and condemns sin. The second part
is the gospel, that is, the promise of grace given in Christ.275

creatures, could not understand. Rather, He reveals Himself through human
language that is shaped by the world as it appears to human beings. This is
very clearly illustrated by Jesus’ frequent assertion that “The kingdom of
heaven is like …” (for example, in Matt. 13). The Scriptures generally describe
the world according to what philosopher Wilfrid Sellars (1912–1989) called
its “manifest image”278—the way it appears to us using our five senses and
according to our given, common-sense reactions to it. Even when it recounts
the marvelous and transcendent (such as in reports of miracles and the events
of visionary and apocalyptic literature) it provides images that are sense
perceptible. Even as God communicated most profoundly to human beings
by becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ, so also He inspired fallible
human beings to communicate infallibly His truth as it was spoken by prophets and apostles and preserved infallibly in the inerrant Scriptures.

This twin message is part and parcel of the central truth of Scripture—it
is “constantly repeated” in a variety of ways throughout Scripture in its
entirety.276
The seventh principle, attending to the meaning “then and there” and also the
meaning “here and now,” is a caution against superficial readings of Scripture.
One might assume from the first few principles, especially the second, that the
Bible is always easy to understand. But that would be to ignore the fact that
the Bible was written millennia ago in a world far different from our own. Its
truths, intended for the whole of humanity, were revealed within particular
human circumstances, in specific times and places. So ordinary Bible readers
can and should give thanks that God has called for His Church to set aside
servants—pastors and teachers in particular—who are “able to teach” (1 Tim.
3:2; 2 Tim. 2:2, 24) because they have studied God’s Word deeply, learning the
languages of its original authors and the customs, practices, and idiosyncrasies of that particular world from long ago. It is by carefully understanding
the “then and there” language, setting, and meaning that we are able best to
speak of the “here and now” meaning of the Bible. In attending to this principle the Bible reader will understand, to use a simple example, that while the
commandments forbid coveting our neighbor’s “male servant, or his female
servant, or his ox, or his donkey,” they by no means exempt our coveting of
status, cars, and so forth.277

4. Biblical Exegesis and Modern Science
For our purposes here, the important question is to understand how
proper biblical exegesis relates with the discoveries, models and theories of
science. Has the Bible been discredited because it sometimes appears to be in
conflict with knowledge gleaned from science?
As we have seen in the preceding sections, God does not reveal Himself
in some eternal language of heaven, which doubtless we, as finite, fallen
275

Ap XII, 53.

276

Ibid.

277

Exodus 20:17. This is not the place to investigate fully the prerequisite knowledge and
skill of the Biblical reader. Knowledge of language and linguistics, of history and culture, of
theology and rhetoric, all contribute to the successful carrying out of the exegetical task. What
is important to mention here is that this training and formation does not happen in isolation
from other readers. Readers are formed by communities that have themselves already assumed
the role of reader and interpreter of the text in question. A helpful discussion of this is found
in Voelz, 220–221.

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A consequence of God’s communication to humans by way of the
manifest image is that scriptural texts of apparent scientific import should
not be reinterpreted in light of current, highly specialized, scientific theories,
but should be taken as accurate reports of the way things appear to sensory
human beings. Thus in the famous example of Joshua 10:12–13 (discussed
at length in chapter 1), we should limit our interpretation of the text to the
claim that, from an earthbound perspective, the sun appeared to stand still.
This is doubtless compatible with a variety of scientific interpretations,279 but
none of these can claim to be derived from text itself. This is because the Holy
Spirit inspired the writers to use human words whose original meanings had
not been shaped by these scientific theories. For scientifically literate people
today, talk of a stationary sun has been shaped by these theoretical advances,
but it would be an anachronistic equivocation to read our meaning back
into the ancient writings themselves. This is why inerrancy is not “negated
by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision,” or by
“observational descriptions of nature,” or, as another example, by the use of
“round numbers.”280 Carl Henry nicely explains this point:
Inerrancy does not imply that modern technological precision in reporting statistics and measurements, that conformity
to modern historiographic method in reporting genealogies
and other historical data, or that modern scientific method in
reporting cosmological matters, can be expected from the biblical writers …. We have no right to impose upon the biblical
278
Wilfrid Sellars, “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man,” in ed. Robert Colodny, Frontiers of Science and Philosophy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962): 35–78.
279
For some of the possibilities here, see Robert Dick Wilson’s “Understanding ‘The Sun Stood
Still’,” in ed. Walter Kaiser, Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972), 61–65. A controversial feature of this essay’s orientation is
that the author seems very concerned to avoid a miraculous interpretation of Joshua 10.
280
“Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” Article XIII. Available at: http://www.bibleresearcher.com/chicago1.html.

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2016 Convention Workbook