LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Page 456

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456

THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE

they could not be used to interpret each other. Such writings. even when
they speak about the same subject. do so from entirely different perspec-
tives and from within different frames of reference so that each writing
Must be interpreted solely on its own terms and not from an alien van-
tage point.

The principle that Scripture interprets Scripture means that pas-
sages of Scripture which treat of the same subject explain each other.
This principle does not mean that what the Bible teaches about the way
to salvation. for instance. may be used as a criterion to justify some
minimal understanding of what the Bible says about creation. It is an
abuse of this principle when Paul's statement that men and women
Participate equally in grace is used to interpret (or interpret away!)
what he says about the social relationship of man and woman based on
the orders of creation.

B. Inspiration and the (uthority of Scripture

Post-Reformation Lutheran theologians not only distinguished
between the causative authority and the normative authority of the
Scriptures, but they also very carefully explained the close relationship
between thése two aspects of Scriptural authority. The power to create
saving faith which is inherent in the Scriptures, because the Holy Spirit
operates through their witness to Christ (the Gospel), the dogmaticians
called causative authority. The power of the Scriptures to regulate
doctrine in the church by working acceptance of their teachings the
dogmaticians regarded as a result of the causative authority and called
it normative authority. Both causative and normative authonty belong
to the Scriptures simply because they are God's Word through which
the Holy Spirit works to produce obedience to the Gospel and to all
the other articles of faith contained in the Scriptures.

“Such is the efficacy of the Word, whenever it is senously contem-
plated, heard. and used. that it is bound never to be without fruit... .
For these words are not inoperative or dead. but creative. living words”

(LC I. 100. Concordia Triglotta. p. 609). “It has, and is able to do, all
that God is and can do (since it has all the virtue and power of God
comprised in it}. ("Es hat und vermag alles, was Gottes ist’; “omnem

Dei virtutem et potentiam in se habet comprehensam."') (LC 1V..17,
Concordia Triglonta, p. 736)

The twofold authority of the Scriptures derives from the Operation
of the Holy Spirit connected with the wniting of the Scriptures (inspira-
tion), since it is by reason of this operation of the Spirit that the Biblical
word is God's Word. which speaks with God's own authority whether
men acknowledge it or not. However, the authority which the Scriptures
exercise in the church. both causative and normative. results not from
the bare fact that they are inspired. but rather from the operation of the
Holy Spirit throagh the Scriptures by which He turns men from unbelief
to faith in Christ and leads them to recognize. confess. and obey the
Scriptures as the Word of God in all that they teach.

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pel. our Gospel will be the proclamation that God forgives sin on ac-
count of the substitutionary life and death of Jesus Christ (Rom. 4:25;
1 Cor. 15:3: 2 Cor. 5:14; Gal. 2:20; 3:13). If we use terms with meaning
other than those given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit to express what
God has done in Christ for our salvation, we are not imparting the Gos-
Pel revealed in the Scriptures but a “different gospel.’ which is not
“another gospel’ (Gal. 1:6-7). There is only one Gospel.

The inspired Scriptures impart the Gospel without any distortion
or any corruption because the Holy Spirit Provided the terms for ex-
Pressing the mystery of God's grace in Christ. The inspired Scriptures,
then, provide us not merely with a model to guide us in our attempts to
speak about God's. redemptive Purposes in a way that we regard as
relevant to human needs as the world understands them. The Scriptures
Provide us with a norm for Preaching the Gospel from which we dare
not depart without invoking upon ourselves the apostolic curse. (Gal.
1:8-9)

D. Inspiration and Saving Faith

The inspiration of the Scriptures is an article of faith which Chns-
tians believe because the Scriptures have the inherent power to com-
mend themselves to men for what they claim to be and are. namely, the
Word of God. The Scriptures commend themselves to men as the Word
of God just as apostolic preaching did, namely, because it worked effec-
tively in them. (See 1 Thess. 2:13.) For Christians, then. the doctrine
of the inspiration of the Scriptures is a matter of great importance. and
they steadfastly confess that the Scriptures are the inspired Word of
God over against everything that would call this article of faith into
question.

Christians, however, also know and believe what the inspired Scrip-
tures teach about the creation of saving faith. or faith that trusts in the
merits of Christ for salvation. Such faith is created by the Holy Spirit
() Cor. 12:3) through the Gospel (Rom. 1:16; 10:17). The Gospel is the
power of God unto salvation. not by reason of the fact that it comes to
us in inspired Scriptures, but because the Holy Spirit works through the
Gospel as His instrument to enable men to confess that Christ is Lord.

For the man of God (i... for one who is already a believer) the
inspired Scriptures are profitable to equip him for every good work by
teaching. reproving. correcting. and training him. The Scriptures save
a man because they are able to make him wise unto salvation through
faith (2 Tim. 3:15-16). They save because they are able to make wise
(bestow faith); they are profitable for edifying and nurturing those who
already have faith because believers know them to be God's inspired
Word.

Faith in the Gospel of God's grace toward sinners in Christ Jesus
does not result from a prior conviction about the inspiration of the
Scriptures in which the Gospel is proclaimed. First faith is wrought by
the Gospel, and then faith recognizes the Scriptures as the very Word

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Nevertheless. an indispensible role must be ascribed to inspiration
with respect to the normative authority of the Scriptures for doctrine
and practice in the church. Great significance attaches to the fact that
the Bible is inspired when determining what it teaches on a given point
because by inspiration the Holy Spirit taught the very words best suited
to express divine truth. The words that the Holy Spirit taught in the
languages in which the Scriptures were Originally written are the foun-
dation of doctrine. In determining Biblical teaching we must work with
the words the Holy Spirit has given us, In this sense. it is inspiration
that makes the words of the Holy Scriptures normative for theology.
(See Sections C and E of part III for the importance of inspired terms.)

When Lutheran theologians speak of the Spirit's operation asso-
ciated with the uviting of the Scriptures. they use the term “inspiration”;
when they speak of the Spirit's Operation through the Scriptures as the
Word of God to produce acceptance of and obedience to Scriptural
teachings. they use the term “divine efficacy.” On the one hand. there-
fore. it is a confusion of the relationship between inspiration and Biblical
authority to say that inspiration of the written Word pertains to the
effective power of the Scriptures to bring men and women to salvation
through the Gospel. On the other hand, however. it should be noted
that while the authority of the Scriptures must be inseparably linked
to their inspiration. this ought not to be done in such a way as to fail to
take into account the operation of the Holy Spirit through the Scrip-
tures in working acceptance of their teachings.

The bare assertion of the Holy Spirit's operation connected with
the writing of the Scriptures does not move men to obey the Word: it is
the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures that
leads men to obey the Word in ail that it teaches. Inspiration explains
how we got the Scriptures: authority explains why we ought to and do
believe the Scriptures. We ought to believe the Scriptures because they
are God's Word; we do believe the Scriptures because as God's Word
they work effectively in us to enable us to believe.

Inspiration pertains to the writing of the Scriptures: authority per-
tains to the power of Scriptures to create faith and to regulate the con-
fession of the church by working acceptance of their teachings.

C. Inspiration and the Gospe/

By inspiration the Biblical authors were given the very words best
suited to express the spiritual truths they imparted in their writings.
St. Paul affirms this Particularly with respect to his proclamation of the
“secret and hidden wisdom of God. which God decreed before the ages
for our glorification” (1 Cor, 2:7). He reminds the Corinthians “in what
terms" he preached the Gospel to them and admonishes them to hold
fast to the Gospel just as they had received it. for he delivered to them
what he himself had received (1 Cor. 15:1-4) not from man, but by reve-
lation of Jesus Christ. (Gal. 1:11-12)

If we hold fast to the terms in which the Scriptures teach the Gos-

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of God profitable for teaching. The worship that faith accords to God
includes believing everything laid down and written in His Word. (Acts
24:14)

E. Inspiration and Doctrinal Formulations

While inspiration is in no way analogous to dictation. the Scriptures
do teach that the Holy Spirit “taught” the words which the sacred writers
used to express the content of Christian doctrine. In 1 Cor. 2:13 where
the apostle Paul says that what the Holy Spirit revealed he imparted in
words taught by the Spirit, he adds a participial phrase which can only
be understood to mean that the Spirit provided terms suited to the sub-
ject matter. (John 14:26; 16:13)

Biblical doctrinal formulations do not, therefore, represent mere
human attempts to press language into the service of expressing divine
truth. While the Biblical writers used terms current in the everyday
parlance of their times, Biblical doctrinal formulations are not on that
account culturally conditioned in the sense that they are provisional or
tentative; in Spirit-taught words they express what God has revealed
in a way that remains permanently valid and is for all times the only
normative way of talking about the topic they treat. For this reason the
letters to Timothy make repeated references to the use of sound (healthy)
words in imparting Christian teaching. (1 Tim. 6:3: 2 Tim. 1:13: cf.
2 Tim. 4:3)

Inspiration gives the assurance that in the Bible we have sound
doctrine imparted in Spirit-taught words, that the Biblical doctrinal
formulations express the content of revelation in terms that dare not
be discarded even when the range and function of language in theology
is a matter of much discussion as it is at present.

TV. Inspiration and Canonicity

God used the church to gather and Preserve the holy writings in
which He willed to give to mankind His saving Word until the end of
the time. The role of the church in the formulation of canon was not
active but passive. The church did not create the canon when it sought
to determine on the basis of certain criteria that it set up. which books
were authentic and which were not. For example, the church did not
on the basis of empirical evidence which satisfied it that a book was
inspired proceed to authenticate the books which make up the Bible.

The role of the church in the formulation of the canon was passive
in that the church served merely as the community in which the Sacred
Writings authenticated themselves by their inherent power to convince
God’s people that they are His Word. A Biblical book did not become
authentic because the church accepted it; the church accepted it because
it was authentic and commended itself to the church as an inspired.
prophetic, or apostolic writing. God led the church to Tecognize and

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