Rev. Robert Traer

Readings: John 10:31-39, Acts 2:22-24, 33-42

The Confession of 1967 and the 1982 Guidelines for reading scripture state the consensus among Presbyterians at the end of the 20^th century. This understanding resists claims for the "inerrancy" or "infallibility" of scripture – claims that were common among Presbyterians in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries and are once again being pressed in our denomination. The Confessing Church Movement asserts that reading the Bible as the "only infallible rule of faith and life" is an "historic Christian" conviction, but this is not how the early church leaders and Protestant Reformers read the Bible.

When the church began, Jewish scripture was its only scripture. Paul’s letters and the gospels were not understood by Christians to be "scripture" until the middle of the 2^nd century, and the New Testament was not authorized by the church until the 4^th century. Presumably, Jesus and his disciples read and heard scripture in Hebrew and in Aramaic translations (called Targums), but the authors of the New Testament materials wrote in Greek and quoted from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. (We know they used the Septuagint, because it varies from the Hebrew scriptures and these variations are evident in the New Testament.)

In the 1^st and 2^nd centuries, Jews who read their scriptures literally rejected Jesus as the Messiah, because Jesus is not explicitly identified as "the anointed one" in the Hebrew scriptures. Jewish Christians, however, found hidden or spiritual meanings in their scriptures to bolster their faith. Paul interpreted Jewish scripture freely to argue that Jesus was the promised Messiah, and similarly the gospel authors filled their narratives with allusions to scripture. In the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries, Christians read these gospels as demonstrating the fulfillment of prophecies recorded in what the church had begun to call the Old Testament. This way of interpreting scripture allowed the church to reject a literal reading of the Old Testament and also to discount the importance of the Law of the Torah as the word of God.

In addition, the church argued that in scripture, as in the life of Jesus, God entered fully into the limitations of human experience and language. Therefore, the Bible was not understood as infallible, but as the "accommodation" of God to fallible human expression and knowledge. This approach enabled Christians to distinguish a particular view of God in scripture, at one point in history, from God’s ongoing revelation throughout history.

In addition, early church theologians read parts of the Bible as allegory. This method, which is used within the first three gospels to explain the some of the parables of Jesus, enabled the church to discover Jesus Christ "hidden" in the Old Testament and also to discern significance in parts of scripture that literally seem to have little spiritual meaning. In the 4^th and 5^th centuries, however, theologians concerned with defending an orthodox interpretation of scripture resisted the allegorical method. To guard against reading "our own" meaning into scripture, Augustine and other church leaders argued for the plain sense of the text understood in its grammatical and historical context.

During the following thousand years the Roman Catholic Church developed a philosophical tradition to interpret scripture and to supports its authority. In the 16^th century Protestant Reformers justified separating from the Catholic Church by arguing that scripture should be interpreted by scripture alone, which is what the phrase "sola scriptura" means. Because Jews in the 1^st and 2^nd centuries asserted the authenticity of the Hebrew scripture, rather than the Greek Septuagint, Protestants used a translation of the Hebrew Bible for their Old Testament. The Catholic Church continued to use the Septuagint as the basis for its Old Testament translation, because Paul and the gospel writers read the Septuagint. This is why Protestant and Catholic Bibles differ today.

In 1560 John Knox defended a Protestant view of scripture in the Scots Confession, which is included in the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This Confession asserts: "We dare not receive or admit any interpretation [of scripture] which is contrary to any principal point of our faith, or to any other plain text of Scripture, or to the rule of love." This statement undergirds the 1982 Presbyterian Guidelines on reading scripture.

Also writing in the 16^th century, John Calvin accepted the early church idea that God accommodated revelation to the limitations of human understanding and language. So, Calvin was not troubled by factual inconsistencies, but looked for the meaning of scripture in its content rather than in its form. Calvin also believed it was important to understand the context in which scripture was written in order to discern the intent of the author. He argued that the purpose of scripture was to witness to Jesus Christ, and he affirmed that the Holy Spirit worked through the life of the church to confirm and clarify this witness. For Calvin, the divine Word of God was revealed in the human, written witness of the Bible.

A century later the Westminster Confession of 1646 stated that "all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all," but affirmed that all Christians can understand the things in the Bible that are necessary for salvation. The Westminster Confession asserts that "the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself," which does not mean that scripture itself is infallible but that the Bible as a whole enables Christians to discern God’s will in each and every text. In the church the judge of all controversy about the Bible, the Confession concludes, "can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture."

Clearly, those interpreting scripture in the first few centuries of the church and in the 16^th and 17^th centuries were influenced by their historical and cultural contexts. Therefore, we should not expect their language or their understanding to be the same as ours. At their best, however, Christians see the scriptures of the church as "the witness without parallel" to the Word of God incarnate, and as "conditioned by language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were written." (Confession of 1967)

This understanding of the Bible marks the second ordination vow in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which reads: "Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?" Clergy, elders and deacons affirm this vow, but all of us should live the implications of such a faith (using the words of Acts 2:42) in "teaching and in fellowship," and in "the breaking of bread and the prayers," and in the mission of the church.

So, when we find in John 10:35 Jesus saying "scripture cannot be annulled," we know this refers to Jewish scripture and reflects the Christian understanding of Jesus as the fulfillment of Israelite prophecy. And when someone claims the statement in 2 Timothy 3:16 (that "all scripture is inspired") proves the Bible is "God-breathed" and thus God’s inerrant Word, we can respond that this text, too, refers only to Hebrew scripture and was not used by early Christians or by Protestant Reformers to assert that the form of the Bible as well as its content is literally the Word of God. These passages from scripture, and others, do not prove that the Bible is inerrant or infallible.

Finally, and most importantly, when we read the New Testament witness of the church to God’s saving act in Jesus Christ, we should not be distracted by disputes concerning the interpretation of scripture. The Bible calls us to make a decision about the God we know in Jesus the Christ, through the witness of scripture and the life of the church, so that we might repent and be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

9 June 2002

The Confession of 1967 

Part I. God’s Work of Reconciliation

Section C. The Communion of the Holy Spirit

Subsection 2. The Bible

The one sufficient revelation of God is Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate, to whom the Holy Spirit bears unique and authoritative witness through the Holy Scriptures, which are received and obeyed as the word of God written. The scriptures are not a witness among others, but the witness without parallel. The church has received the books of the Old and New Testaments as prophetic and apostolic testimony in which it hears the word of God and by which its faith and obedience are nourished and regulated.

The New Testament is the recorded testimony of apostles to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and the sending of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The Old Testament bears witness to God’s faithfulness in his covenant with Israel and points the way to the fulfillment of his purpose in Christ. The Old Testament is indispensable to understanding the New, and is not itself fully understood without the New.

The Bible is to be interpreted in the light of its witness to God’s work of reconciliation in Christ. The Scriptures, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are nevertheless the words of men, conditioned by language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were written. They reflect views of life, history, and the cosmos which were then current. The church, therefore, has an obligation to approach the Scriptures with literary and historical understanding. As God has spoken his word in diverse cultural situations, the church is confident that he will continue to speak through the Scriptures in a changing world and in every form of human culture.

God’s word is spoken to his church today where the Scriptures are faithfully preached and attentively read in dependence on the illumination of the Holy Spirit and with readiness to receive their truth and direction.

As the northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches prepared to merge in 1983 to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), each denomination sought to clarify its approach to the Bible. In a 1982 Report the northern Church "recommended guidelines for a positive and not a restrictive use of scripture in theological controversies." The 1982 General Assembly approved the following considerations for reading and interpreting the Bible:

1. Recognize that Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, is the center of Scripture.
2. Let the focus be on the plain text of Scripture, to the grammatical and historical context, rather than to allegory or subjective fantasy.
3. Depend upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit in interpreting and applying God’s message.
4. Be guided by the doctrinal consensus of the church, which is the "rule of faith."
5. Let all interpretations be in accord with the "rule of love," the twofold commandment to love God and to love our neighbor.
6. Remember that interpretation of the Bible requires earnest study in order to establish the best text and to interpret the influence of the historical and cultural context in which the divine message has come.
7. Seek to interpret a particular passage of the Bible in light of all the Bible.

The 1983 General Assembly of the southern Presbyterian Church adopted a statement entitled Presbyterian Understanding and Use of Holy Scripture that did not dissent in any way from the position taken by the northern Church. Therefore, these seven guidelines for reading and interpreting the Bible represent the consensus of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the mid 1980s.