Jens Zimmermann
“I am prepared to defer to anyone in all things; the Word of God, however, I can neither leave nor deny (2004c, 241).”
Martin Luther (1483–1556)
Martin Luther’s importance for the history of hermeneutics can hardly be overstated. What made Luther a turning point in hermeneutic history was not so much his desire to reform the church as his conviction that such reform depended on biblical interpretation. After all, his general call for church reform was shared by a number of Christian humanists of his day. It is well known, for example, that the famous humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536), also complained about the increasing number of ecclesial rules that burdened lay people and about the incompetence of priests. He also shared Luther’s dislike of scholasticism and advocated a return ad fontes, to the original Hebrew and Greek sources of the biblical text, and to faith as a simple imitatio Christi.
Nor can one reduce Luther’s astounding cultural impact merely to economic and political factors, although they certainly contributed significantly to the furor caused by the indulgence controversy started by Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. The papal abuse of indulgences to enrich the pontifical treasury and to finance the magnificent St. Peter’s Cathedral attracted great attention among Germans unwilling to finance foreign enterprises. As the indulgence controversy escalated, however, the essentially hermeneutic character of Luther’s position became increasingly apparent. Based mainly, but by no means exclusively, on his study of the Pauline writings, Luther’s fundamental conviction was that changes in church practice over time had buried under multiple layers of pious works God’s gracious offer to reconcile to himself all those who believed that Christ died for their redemption. The medieval church, argued Luther, had put the soteriological cart before the horse and inverted the relation of works and faith by seeking salvation in obedience to burdensome moral commands often invented by the church, rather than preaching forgiveness through Christ thus enabling works of love to flow from a person’s communion with God.1 This perversion of the Christian faith was for Luther at bottom a problem of hermeneutics. For too long, he argued, theology had ceased to be exegetical theology based on a systematic, comprehensive understanding of the Bible. Instead, theologians relied on received opinions, “interpreting the scriptures in light of Augustine rather than understanding Augustine in light of the scriptures” (Luther 2006a, 77). As a result, the church had obscured the good news, “the preaching of the forgiveness of sins through the name of Christ, that is the Evangel” (Luther 2006a, 41).
Luther had arrived at this theological conviction through biblical exegesis in preparation for lectures and sermons.2 It is thus highly significant that papal theologians did not attempt to refute Luther by countering his exegetical arguments, but mostly cited church councils and papal authority, demanding Luther’s absolute obedience on this basis (Lohse 1995, 205). In the spring of 1518, the papal commission entrusted with trying Luther for heresy set up the theological framework of his trial by sending him an outline of the church of Rome’s position on the interpretation of doctrine. Authored by the papal theologian Silvestro Mazzolini (1456–1527), the document clearly asserted the pope’s infallible, final authority on matters of doctrine and placed the Roman church above scripture (Lohse 1995, 124–125). Luther’s subsequent interview in the fall of the same year with the eminent theologian and Aquinas scholar, Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534), was conducted along similar lines. The cardinal could not understand why Luther insisted on conducting theology based on biblical exegesis rather than on church policy and the work of scholastic authorities (Lohse 1995, 131).
Given these experiences, it is not surprising that Luther, who at first appealed to conciliar authority for arbitration, eventually asserted that “necessity forces us to run to the Bible with the writings of all teachers, and to obtain there a verdict and judgment upon them. Scripture alone (sola scriptura) is the true lord and master of all writings and doctrine on earth” (Luther 1958b, 11–12). To those who criticized his seeming opposition of the Bible to the church by pointing out that especially the New Testament originated from the church, Luther answered in turn that the church itself was a product of God’s word: “It is the promises of God that make the church, and not the church that makes the promises of God. For the Word of God is incomparably superior to the church, and in this Word the church, being a creature, has nothing to decree, ordain, or make, but only to be decreed, ordained, and made. For who begets his own parent? Who first brings forth his own maker?” (Luther 1959, 107). Luther did not, of course, mean to say that the Bible as a book took precedence over the church as an institution, but rather that both the testimony of scripture and the tradition of the church have their origin in Christ, the living Word, by whom the church’s teachings are to be measured.
Against those who argued for ecclesial interpretive control based on the Bible’s textual complexities, Luther asserted the Bible’s authority and relative clarity. The Bible, he wrote, “is through itself certain, easily accessed, and comprehensible, its own interpreter (sui ipsius interpres) that tests, judges and illumines everything” (Luther 2006a, 81). Luther’s view of the scriptures’ perspicuity eventually developed into views of the Bible for which Luther would have had very little sympathy, such as, for example, theories of verbal inspiration (Barth 2009, 149; Janz 2010, 17), or historical criticism that examines the Bible as merely an historical source document or a literary artifact without reference to the church. Luther’s insistence on sola scriptura may have opened the door to separating theology from exegesis, but his own exegetical practice demonstrates that he never envisioned a Bible separate and independent from the church. He wrote numerous prefaces to the Bible as a whole, and to individual books, to offer “those who do not know better, a guide and lesson for reading [the Bible] profitably” (Luther 1989, 42). Aside from providing interpretive guidelines for the reader, Luther constantly interacts with various church fathers in his exegesis, and also frequently asserts doctrines such as infant baptism and even the immaculate conception of Mary on the strength of church tradition, and in the absence of convincing exegetical evidence. In short, Luther’s biblical hermeneutic flowed from a deeper theological framework that provided a dogmatic orientation or “rule of faith” for guiding biblical exegesis.3
Luther’s hermeneutic rests upon his Christological understanding of reality. Interpreting Genesis in light of the incarnation as described in the Gospel of John, Luther held that the origin and continued existence of creation are contingent on Christ the Word and Wisdom of God. In a sermon on John’s Gospel, Luther compares God’s creation to a person’s “inner word of the heart,” which is uttered and thus becomes external when the heart overflows and seeks to express itself. In the same way, Luther explains to his listeners, “God too, in his majesty and nature, is pregnant with a Word or a conversation in which He engages with Himself in His divine essence and which reflects the thoughts of His heart” (Luther 1957, 9–10). This inner Word is the Son of God, through whom God called creation into existence, based on the overflowing of his heart (Luther 1958a, 9); and the same Word later became incarnate in Jesus for the redemption of humanity. Thus, in Luther’s Chalcedonian Christology,4 Jesus Christ and the eternal Word through whom God continues to sustain all of creation are identical. God’s Word to humanity in Israel and in Jesus of the New Testament are one and the same “Word and Wisdom” through whom God even now “brings forth the invisible and non-existent to be visible and existent” (Luther 1957, 26–28).
For Luther, God’s self-revelation to humanity does not come in the non-relational framework and naked rational transparency of scholasticism that he believed misappropriated Aristotelian categories for theology.5 Rather, God communicates himself in personal, relational terms. His most important Word, for example, is given human terms in the Old Testament, which contains God’s promise of the Word clothed in flesh and blood, the incarnation, through which the human–divine discourse begun with Abraham and the people of Israel would be renewed. God’s inner Word, the second person of the Trinity, was revealed gradually. The inner Word first became audible through feeble incarnational prophecies and events, but its most perfect utterance was Jesus the Christ, whose life, work, and final kingship over creation form the basic gospel message or kerygma of both the Old and the New Testaments. This proclamation’s motivation is love, and the good news proclaimed is redemption and life for fallen man, the creation of a new humanity. Luther’s concept of the Word, then, progresses from the inner conversation of God, the inner Trinitarian communion, to the external, incarnate Word of Jesus Christ, in whom God converses in the flesh, face to face, as it were, with his creature.
The cross becomes central to Luther’s theology because it demonstrates that the incarnate Word, Jesus, trusted God even in the face of death. The resurrection is proof that God’s incarnate Word carries the power of life and new creation. This Word overcomes death and holds the power to impart new life to every listening ear. Luther’s often-quoted self-designation of his theology as theologia crucis, a theology of the cross, must be taken together with his emphasis on incarnation and resurrection to obtain a balanced view of his theology. Indeed, in his Heidelberger Disputation (1518), Luther opposes any philosophical attempt by “theologians of glory” (i.e., scholastics) to know God’s majesty through rational evidence, because reason cannot comprehend the enigma of a God suffering for human sin. God’s majesty is hidden in his suffering, wherefore “in the crucified Jesus is true theology and knowledge of God” (Luther 2006c, 53). Consequently, to know God truly is to know him existentially as the one who died for one’s sin and grants the knower new life.
This new life consists in a radical change of the human heart (by which Luther, following Paul and Augustine, means the volitional center of our being which directs human desire and ambition). This change of the creature’s being results in the beginnings of a new conversation with God, one that is free from fear, one in which selfishness may be overcome, one that drives the recipient to fulfill God’s ultimate purpose for creation: to converse with God and one’s fellow human beings in unadulterated love. Luther describes the ethics flowing from this renewed human–divine dialogue in his Commentary on Galatians: “Good works do not occur except they flow from a cheerful, willing, and joyful heart; that is, they are done in the spirit of freedom” (Luther 1979, 106). For Luther, genuine ethics is possible only through communication with the Word and its power, and results in the restoration of God’s image in human beings—a restoration brought about by the creative and life-giving power of the Word.
Approaching Luther’s biblical hermeneutics in light of his Word-theology clarifies several otherwise puzzling aspects of the German reformer’s interpretive practice. Some of these puzzling aspects are the following: Luther insists on the unique authority of scripture against that of the church or tradition while at the same time freely criticizing the canonicity of books such as James or Revelation. Luther also did not worry about obvious discrepancies between biblical accounts, but freely admitted them. Biblical inerrancy was not possible for him. The Bible, he said, often contradicts itself on the literal level (Luther 1966, 51). He also ranked the New Testament writings according to their importance for Christ’s teachings, favoring John’s Gospel together with Paul and Peter’s epistles. Moreover, Luther seemingly creates a canon within the canon by advocating Christological reading.
The solution to all these puzzling issues is Luther’s conviction that the Bible is not God’s word but rather that Jesus Christ is. Christ is the Word to which all the biblical words ultimately have reference. Thus, Luther can say, “Do you want to interpret well and safely, so put Christ in front of you (so nimm Christum vor Dich) (Luther 1989, 56). He is the man, to whom everything refers (dem alles gilt).” Christ is therefore the “middle” or central referent for the Old Testament: “What is the New Testament other than a public sermon and proclamation of Christ, established through the sayings in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Christ?” Old Testament narratives and prophesies are the “swaddling clothes” containing Christ as “the precious treasure” (Luther 1989, 42). For this reason, the Old Testament remains indispensable for the believer’s understanding of God’s character and gospel.
The same Word also animates the New Testament. For Luther, the New Testament contains not four Gospels but one: “so we see that only one gospel exists, just as there is only one Christ. Especially since ‘gospel’ cannot be anything but the proclamation of Christ, the Son of God and David, truly divine and human, whose death and resurrection have overcome all of humanity’s sin, death and hell, for us who believe in him” (Luther 1989b, 170). To read Christologically is thus also to read existentially. The Gospels should not be read merely ethically, with Christ as the model moral teacher. This would be to make Jesus another Moses, and turn the gospel into law. Prior to following Jesus ethically, readers have to “appropriate and know Jesus as a gift given to [them] by God as [their] own” (Luther 2004b, 198).
The gospel of Christ as the Bible’s unifying referent also puts into perspective Luther’s interpretive dialectic of law and gospel, or of judgment and grace. Luther does not equate the Old Testament with law (or judgment), and the New Testament with gospel (or grace). Rather, the Christian dialectic of law and gospel is inherent in the very structure of God’s address to humanity. The reader always encounters God’s Word as both law and gospel. Luther’s reason for this paradoxical view is, again, Christological. His focus is God’s love for his creatures expressed in Christ’s death as the possibility of a life free from the power of sin and death. True freedom, for Luther, requires knowing that one is loved by God without having to perform any service to merit this love. (Hence, Luther’s other well-known distinction between faith and works has the same theological root as the gospel–law dialectic). The incarnation shows, however, that this love is acquired through judgment. On the cross, the God-forsaken Christ embodies God’s judgment of human sin according to the Mosaic law, as well as the forgiveness of God. The Christian, argues Luther, participates in Christ’s death and resurrection, wherefore the Christian life is patterned accordingly as discipleship, which involves repentance, dying to self, and renewal in God through the presence of Christ in the sermon, the reading of scripture and the sacraments (Ebeling 1969, 429–431). When Christian readers encounter divine commands, be they in the Old or the New Testament, they are reminded of their own dependence on God’s grace. There are two other ways of interpreting God’s laws: one is to ignore them, while the other is to try and keep them in one’s own strength. Yet the spiritual sense of these laws, aside from their historical, cultural, or ethical meaning, is always that which “promotes Christ,” and is thus a life reconciled to God (Luther 1989a, 55).
For Luther, it would therefore be misleading to label Christianity a religion of the book.6 Luther advocated a religion of the Word who became present through the Bible but was by no means identical with it: “God and the scripture of God are two different things, no less than creator and the creation of God are two different things” (Luther 2004a, 160). Luther’s focus on the living Word who inspired the biblical writers and provided the scriptures’ ultimate reference thus explains his relaxed attitude toward the aforementioned historical-grammatical and canonical issues in the Bible. Luther would not have understood later developments of the doctrine of verbal inspiration which was constructed to shore up biblical inerrancy in response to the increasing skepticism of historical critics toward the Bible’s internal coherence. There is much, he argued, that is dark for us in the scriptures, and often our failure to understand is simply our lack of linguistic skill and the difference in cultural horizons. Yet in the main, the scripture is utterly clear concerning the gospel. More often than we care to admit, says Luther, the text is closed to us because our hearts are closed to God (Luther 2006b, 239). Thus, while tremendously important for “bringing the gospel to light,” even exegesis conducted with the full range of grammatical, linguistic, and historical skills is fruitless if not conducted in pursuit of the spiritual sense that God has revealed with abundant clarity in Christ, who “overcomes sin, death, and hell, and gives life, righteousness, and salvation” (Luther 1960, 362). “Take Christ out of the gospel,” Luther wrote to Erasmus, “and what do you have left?” (Luther 2006b, 235–239).
Luther’s focus on Christ as God’s Word by whose power the listener is transformed also explains Luther’s insistence that biblical exegesis was subordinate to preaching. The sermon was for him a sacrament that made Christ present to the listener. Indeed, preaching and the Eucharist were the two primary sources of God’s becoming present in the church. Of course, they did require the written word (and, therefore, biblical exegesis) to elucidate their meaning.
In short, Luther’s theology of the Word amounts to a Christological framework for reading the Bible. Luther’s belief in the incarnation, that divinity appears in humanity, lets him find Christ as the living, external reference of the written word not behind the biblical texts but within them.7 Luther could refer to the Bible as authority against Roman Catholic teaching and criticize the biblical canon at the same time because, together with Roman Catholicism, he still believed the scriptures to be a sacrament, a “mere” means for the setting and transmission of the of the living relationship between God and his people through Christ.8
Christological reading of the Bible is, of course, a standard feature in Christian biblical interpretation, and has always been the basis for allegorical exegesis. Luther, however, became increasingly skeptical of reading Christ into every aspect of biblical narratives, and gradually also abandoned a strict application of the medieval fourfold exegetical method.9 Instead, he focused on two senses, the spiritual and the literal or plain sense of the text. When Luther speaks about the sensus literalis, he sometimes means the grammatical text, sometimes the historical meaning. Even this established historical meaning, however, immediately transcends its own horizon in light of God’s gospel. Taking his cue from the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 3:14–16), Luther reads the Hebrew laws, histories, and prophecies as a meaningful Old Covenant “letter” whose ultimate spiritual sense is found in Christ’s New Covenant. Luther interprets, for example, Cain and Abel as real persons, but suggests that their factual story points to the larger truth that “Cain goes on killing Abel without interruption in human history” (Luther 1964, 147). And the only solution for this human depravity is Christ. In a similar way, the Exodus narrative is historical but also typological. Just as the apostle Paul and many church fathers had done before him, Luther interprets the Israelites’ liberation from Egypt as prefiguring the Christian’s liberation from the power of sin and death. The same reading applies to the move of Israel into the Promised Land, a prefiguration that was ultimately fulfilled when Christians received a more permanent spiritual home with God through the sacrifice of Christ (Luther 1989a, 54–55).
By tying the spiritual and literal senses closely together, Luther guards himself against his two main opponents. On the one hand, the papal critics say that the biblical text is so difficult and diverse that it becomes a “wax nose,” that is, subject to any interpreter’s whim, without the church’s authoritative interpretation. Against this position, Luther upholds the literary coherence and meaning of texts. On the other hand, Luther opposes sectarian enthusiasts who ignore the literal and historical sense, bending the scriptures to their subjective fancies under the purported guidance of the Holy Spirit. Against these “fanatics,” Luther upholds the “office of the word,” that is, the trained exegete’s task of showing the text’s meaning based on a knowledge of scripture (Luther 2006b, 326–327 ff.). In sum, Luther believes that a text’s meaning can be shown convincingly through its own coherence, while its full meaning requires its interpretation in light of Christ’s gospel.
Luther’s hermeneutic constitutes a complex amalgam of traditional and humanistic elements. His Christological approach goes back to the church fathers and illustrates Luther’s continuity with the tradition. Neither justification by faith alone, nor scripture alone, ultimately determines Luther’s exegesis. Rather, like the fathers, Luther extols “Christ alone” as the Bible’s ultimate referent and as the key to all aspects of his hermeneutics (Ebeling 1969, 271). There are, of course, certain accents in his hermeneutics that tend to set scripture against tradition as it was interpreted by the church in order to criticize teachings that Luther regarded as unbiblical accretions to the faith.
Luther’s humanistic training is evident in his love for philology, historical context, and his insistence that the biblical narratives and texts have their own integrity. Luther’s interpretive practice thus falls between two hermeneutical positions. Unlike fundamentalists, he does not equate the Bible with God’s word. And, unlike a number of modern scholars who attempt to restore the unity of scripture on the basis of canonicity (Brevard Childs) or narrative realism (John Barton or Hans Frei), Luther asserts that the governing subject matter of the Bible, God’s relation to humanity, in the Old and the New Testament, means that we ought to reject any separation of historical meaning from the question of its truth for the reader (pro nobis).