The Holy Spirit and the Reformation Legacy. Группа авторов

text was the direct means to grasp the substance and content of Scripture” and, hence, his argument that secular methods of textual analysis were, in principle, appropriate for biblical interpretation.117

Whereas Luther acknowledged that there were apparently obscure words and figurative language in Scripture which did not readily yield sensus literalis, he, nonetheless, argued that “those statements which have been uttered very simply without any figurative language and obscure words interpret those which are uttered with figurative and metaphorical language.”118 He believed that “the literal meaning, rightly understood, of itself contains its own proper spiritual significance; it is from the right understanding of the words themselves that the spirit of Scripture grows.”119 Luther’s sensus literalis was, in effect, a repudiation of the uncritical piety of the medieval church with its allegorical and typological or figurative interpretations of Scripture. The allegorical and typological methods had, per Luther, transformed Scripture into myths and symbolisms.120

Luther’s third hermeneutic pillar was his Christological-hermeneutical focus. Luther argued that, since Christ is the incarnate word of God, the entire content of Scripture is none other than Christ; “all of Scripture, as already said, is pure Christ . . . everything is focused on this Son, so that we might know Him distinctively . . . To him who has the Son, Scripture is an open book; and the stronger his faith in Christ becomes, the more brightly will the light of Scripture shine on him.”121 For Luther, Scripture was simply a testimony which pointed the reader to Christ who is the infallible and inerrant word: “it is Jesus Christ working in and through the Scripture who is the infallible and inerrant word, and the Scriptures faithfully reveal Jesus Christ through the human instrumentality of the inspired writers . . . Christ is the end of the Law . . . as if to say that all Scripture finds its meaning in Christ.”122

Luther’s Christological-hermeneutical focus was sui generis in the history of biblical interpretation. The Christological focus appears to hark back to Jesus’ words to the Jews thus: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39–40 NIV). The Scriptures were, thus, not efficacious conveyors of grace in and of themselves but were pointers to the giver of life, Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, according to Luther’s explication, the Scriptures are not, in terms of semiotic theory, mere signs. Rather, they are sacramental symbols in the sense that the salvific efficacy of Jesus Christ is encountered in the proclamation and experience of the Gospel.123

On the other hand, the Christological-hermeneutical approach has been viewed in some quarters of biblical scholarship as a deductive imposition on Luther’s otherwise inductive hermeneutical method.124 Moreover, since not all texts of the Bible contain explicit Christological content, Luther is often accused of using the Christological-hermeneutical criterion to create a canon within a canon. For example, such biblical texts as the Epistle of James did not receive much attention from Luther because they did not appear to contain an explicit Christological message for the Church in general.125 In retrospect, it is apparent that Luther did not have a fully developed Christological-hermeneutical theory. Nonetheless, his Christological-hermeneutical approach, which argues that Jesus Christ is the infallible, inerrant Word of God, is an insightful attempt to overcome textual difficulties in the Bible, which appear to be problematic for the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. As Luther argues, “the authority and infallibility of the Scriptures consist in its ability to accomplish salvation in the hearts of men who hear it . . . It is Jesus Christ working in and through the Scripture who is the infallible and inerrant word.”126

Luther’s fourth hermeneutic pillar was his emphasis on the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in scriptural interpretation.127 Luther argued that the word of God was not efficacious in conveying its inspired message apart from the illumining work of the Holy Spirit: “the Word of God is not spiritually effective apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit depends upon the Word of God for the content and means of His revelation . . . the Word of God speaks to the reader and the Holy Spirit enables the reader to hear the Word.”128 Luther went on to observe that, apart from the illumining work of the Holy Spirit, human rationality cannot decipher the divine message in Scripture since “the Holy Spirit is not only involved in the inspirational writing of Scripture but also in the illuminating aspect of the reading of Scripture.”129 This observation was underscored by the sixteenth century reformation theologian, John Calvin, who not only observed that “the authority of Scripture derived not from men, but from the Spirit of God,” but also that the Holy Spirit, who “is superior to reason,” illumines the minds of believers to understand the Scriptures; “these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.”130

Luther’s biblical hermeneutic had both objective and subjective dimensions. Whereas the Bible is the object that is studied using objective critical methods, the biblical interpreter “is the subject who must be influenced by the Holy Spirit for spiritual discernment of the inspired message in the biblical text.”131 Luther’s hermeneutical process thus entails two moments: The first moment is a focus on the verbum externum (verbal external “word”). This involves a literal understanding of the philological-grammatical and historical aspects of the text. As Luther argued, “this literal understanding is necessary before the exegete enters interpretation of meaning.”132 The second moment is when the exegete, through the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, is enabled to discern the spiritual significance of the text. Luther was, however, careful neither to embed the Holy Spirit in the “letter” of the Bible nor to separate the Holy Spirit from the Scriptures: “The Spirit is not bound to the Word . . . the Word may exist without the Spirit, but when it does so, it is just a letter . . . Similarly, the Spirit can exist apart from the Word; He is not bound to the Word, but He cannot be God’s revealing Spirit without the Word.”133 The deciphering of the spiritual sense of Scripture is, thus, not simply an outcome of the philological exegesis of Scripture. Rather, it entails the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. Without the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, Scripture is simply letter or Law. As Luther put it, “All Scripture is Law without the Spirit; with the Spirit, all Scripture is grace.”134

According to Luther, the spiritual sense of Scripture is appropriated by faith, and faith is created by the Holy Spirit in the believer through the proclamation of the Word; “only God can create faith as the Holy Spirit works faith in man through the preaching of the Word, and the Word provides authority for the basis of faith.”135 Not only does faith resolve the hermeneutical tension between the letter and the Spirit, but faith is, indeed, central in the interpretive process. Thus, the Holy Spirit not only inspires the Word but also creates faith in the hearer of the Word in order to appropriate the Word’s spiritual sense.

      The above arguments show that Martin Luther’s hermeneutic of Scripture is, indeed, pneumatic hermeneutic. The centrality of the Holy Spirit in Luther’s hermeneutic represents a sui generis integration of the third person of the Trinity, who had largely been neglected by the medieval Church, in the development of Christian theology. Martin Luther’s unique contribution to Christian theology in this regard is, arguably, the integration of Christology and pneumatology in biblical hermeneutics. This is a development in biblical theology that should be instructive for contemporary developments in biblical theology. In some quarters of the Church, the Holy Spirit is largely ignored, and hardly ever invoked, in biblical hermeneutics. In other quarters of the Church, particularly in the Pentecostal-Charismatic tradition, an overemphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit has tendentiously undervalued Christology in the task of biblical interpretation.

Luther augments his hermeneutic pillars with a significant rider that the context for biblical interpretation is the Church community. As James Smart aptly notes, “Luther sees the church as the matrix in which interpretation takes place, but is careful to ensure that the Church does not stifle the freedom of critical scholarship and also that critical scholarship does not bring alien concepts to the Church.”136 All in all, Luther’s Reformation hermeneutic constituted a paradigm shift in biblical interpretation; his hermeneutical method not only integrated biblical exegesis with Christological-pneumatic theological reflection but was, indeed, a hermeneutica sacra (sacred