Jacob Hercamp – Page 7 – What Does This Mean?

The Death of God Movement

God was declared dead by the naturalist or nihilist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882. The study of the Bible became an endeavor that inevitably put the core tenets of the Christian faith in the crosshairs. One could take a few different approaches to address the problem: either completely distrust any knowledge that would seem to contradict the Scripture, or, as Nietzsche suggested, reject Christianity. Adolf von Harnack introduced an alternative view called ‘protestant liberalism.’ Within this movement, which was much more popular prior to the first world war, was to hold high view of humanity and its abilities alongside Scripture. For instance, Harnack’s teacher, Albrecht Ritschl, believed that the preaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God should be understood to mean that human society would improve over time.

However, as the twentieth century progressed through war, a tremendous shift occurred. The world appeared to be sitting in the pits of utter despair on the way to nihilism. Biblical scholars tried to find an off ramp rather than follow down that same path. As different worldviews separated the text from its actual proclamation, God had been reduced to Jesus, and Jesus reduced further into a good man with a good word about good living. Theistic Existentialism, following some of the themes of Søren Kierkegaard, came into vogue with one its main proponents being Karl Barth.

Barth argues that theology had become too focused on anthropology. Barth instead focused on the ‘otherness’ of God. He also called for a return to the word of God, writing,

“Theology stands and falls with the Word of God, for the Word of God precedes all theological words by creating, arousing and challenging them. Should theology wish to be more or less or anything other than action in response to that Word, its thinking and speaking would be empty, meaningless, and futile.” (Karl Barth Evangelical Theology, 17)

While this might sound very similar to the worldview of the early church, there are distinct differences. Barth affirms that God created all that exists. However, God is holy other, so Barth contends that creation is inadequate to reveal or teach anything about God. It is only in Jesus Christ that God is connected to creation. The result of these principles is that for the theist existentialist, knowledge of God is a question of faith and not reason. There is still doubt about whether or not God could actually be known.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Deism and Naturalism

In my last post, I talked about the deist worldview. However, Deism is only a pitstop on the way to full blown naturalism. Sire in The Universe Next Door writes:

“In [Christian] theism God is the infinite-personal Creator and sustainer of the cosmos. In deism God is reduced; he begins to lose his personality, though he remains Creator and (by implication) sustainer of the cosmos. In naturalism God is further reduced; he loses his very existence.” (Sire, Universe Next Door, 59)

It is during this time in particular, between deism and naturalism, that several different approaches to reading Scripture began to show up, particularly those related to the idea of scientific inquiry. Of those approaches, one of the most dynamic is called higher historical criticism. Following the queues of Gabler, a group of scholars around the beginning of the early twentieth century began close and careful study of the history of religion. Hermann Gunkel and Julius Wellhausen were two such scholars.

In reading Scripture, especially the Old Testament, Wellhausen, called the father of what is commonly referred to as the Documentary Hypothesis, argued that multiple strands of various factions from religious entities struggled with one another for superiority within the Biblical text itself. The questions began to really revolve around the composition history of the books themselves. Wellhausen’s views of Scripture are quite different from the early church and reformation era commentators. The literature is no longer deemed sacred. Scripture is the evidence of warring parties or social groups trying to gain the upper hand over one another.

It was now the job of the historical critic to ‘reconstruct’ the history and events which shaped what was written in the Bible. Another scholar Bernhard Duhm, attempted to find the historical references that best connected to the prophecies of the prophet Isaiah. Ultimately, this became the problem that many later and more recent scholars have held against the historical critical methods: if a historical reference is not easily found, there is nothing to say except that this particular section of Scripture was added at a much later date. Thus, for Isaiah and other books, like the Pentateuch, the idea of multiple authors arose.

As one can see, this historical critical method, as introduced into mainstream academic theology by the likes of Wellhausen and Duhm, has a low view of Scripture. It is no longer perceived as the very word of God, but the word of various political and religious factions. Along with that low view of Scripture, they also had an even lower view of the prophets they interpreted. The worldview that begins to show through the cracks resembles that of deism or naturalism more than the Christian theistic worldview. This worldview holds that the Bible is not God’s special revelation through which He reveals Himself to His creation. The two Testaments are not really united because of all the competing strands. There is no one united theology for men like Duhm or Wellhausen. They have placed their own rational mind above and over the text, effectively making the text fit their own mold. The methods that follow in line, such as redaction and form criticism, also seem to have the same worldview presuppositions.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Deism

During the Enlightenment a shift (or multiple shifts?) took place when it came to the question of worldview. two major worldviews took the stage, pushing the Christian theistic worldview further off stage: deism and naturalism.

James Sire (author of The Universe Next Door: A Catalogue of Worldviews) describes deists as holding to the idea that a transcendent god created the universe, but then left it to run on its own. Often the god of deism is described as the master clock maker and the world as his clock. The creator god built the world, wound it up, and left it to run undisturbed. Deism allows for a god to exist insofar as he created what is seen. This god can be known somewhat by studying what he made. However, deism does not allow for special revelation, because the god of deism does not communicate with people.

In essence then, Scripture cannot give any additional information to man about god excluded from what is already made known via creation. The deist conception of god could not break into history, nor could he be known through history, as the Christian theistic worldview and Scripture portray Him. Also, because of the stance towards special revelation, the concept of sin and the fall into sin as presented in the Scripture is denied, as well as, the revelation of Jesus Christ being both true God and true Man in One Person.

It does not appear that Gabler held to every aspect of what is being described as the deistic worldview. It seems Gabler lies somewhere in between the worldview of Irenaeus and this deistic worldview. Certainly, it can be seen that Gabler places more emphasis on man’s capability to separate out the “unchanging truth of the bible from the mythical imagery that shrouds it.”(Ben C. Ollenburger, The Flowering of Old Testament Theology, 5)

Within the deistic worldview, interpretation of Scripture effectively becomes unwarranted. Rather than Scripture, the natural sciences emerge as the guiding principle. This strategy abandons any notion of the miraculous events of Scripture because they cannot be scientifically proven. The miracles contained in Scripture were either removed entirely as found in Jefferson’s Bible, or explained away via science.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Biblical Theology and Abiding Truth

Near the end of the eighteenth century, a man by the name of Johann Phillip Gabler spoke about the subjects of historical interpretation and Biblical theology. He proposed that Biblical and dogmatic theology are different tasks. For Gabler, Biblical theology is the primary goal when interpreting Scripture. He described Biblical theology as first consisting of historical exposition that treats the Biblical statement within the author’s historical setting. After the historical context is understood, then the philosophically informed explanation of the statement is provided that determines the abiding Biblical truth.

As can be seen from Gabler, Scripture was not taken at face value to be true and abiding on its own right by itself. That determination is now supplied by the reader. Also, as part of this proposal, Gabler “borrowed from the classical and Biblical scholars Heyne and Eichorn, that people in more primitive stages of development expressed themselves in ways suited to their limited rational powers, namely in mythical images.”

If Gabler is correct, the Old Testament was to be considered inferior to the New Testament. The unity of the Two Testaments is in jeopardy because the OT is inferior to the NT simply because it was from an earlier era. As Gabler’s one time colleague Georg Lorenz Bauer would argue, “a separate theology would have to be written for each of them.” (Ben C. Ollenburger, The Flowering of Old Testament Theology, 5) This idea certainly goes against that of the early church interpreters and those of a more conventional Christian theistic worldview. The interpreters of the late eighteenth century relied much more on their rational mind than in trusting that the words of Scripture did record accurate accounts of history.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Bible or Reason? The Enlightenment and Understanding Scripture

The first and major shift of interpretation and worldview came during the seventeenth century. The question rested in that of knowledge and authority. Where does knowledge come from? And who has the authority speak on it? No longer did Scripture hold the authority as the medium of knowledge concerning the divine, rather a person’s own reason could seek out God and truth without a guide. Perhaps the first man to bring this to light was Benedict de Spinoza. Spinoza shows himself to be a rationalist and seminal figure of the Enlightenment. For Spinoza, reason, and not Scripture, holds the high place in man’s search for knowledge. As a matter of fact, Scripture is not a source of natural or speculative or historical knowledge. “Scripture only seeks to inculcate piety and obedience to God.” (Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, 42)

Notice the difference between Spinoza and Irenaeus or Luther. Spinoza’s worldview is light years away from the Christian theistic worldview. Christian theism was not thrown away entirely during these later centuries, however a couple of new worldviews came on the scene in rapid succession seeking to overthrow it, specifically deism and naturalism. Both of these could be put under the larger umbrella of rationalism. In both deism and naturalism, special revelation is, to a greater or lesser extent, denied. Knowledge is gained through human reason and scientific methods. As these two rationalistic worldviews came into vogue, the historical-critical method of interpretation rose along with them. It is difficult to determine what came first, the worldviews or the method. What can be seen is that many of the interpreters of the seventeenth century and later began to move away from the conventional Christian theistic worldview as described earlier.

Frei notes too that the literal sense moved further and further away from figurative interpretation. Literal sense would ultimately come to mean the opposite of a figural sense of Scripture. The literal sense would come to be equated to the single meaning of statements.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Luther and Interpretation of Scripture

When Luther came on the scene, he broke away from the fourfold meaning of Scripture. It is no mystery that Luther repudiated allegory and spoke favorably of typology. However, in practice, Luther still utilized allegory while interpreting Scripture passages. One only needs to read some of his commentaries to see that he does use allegory as part of his exegetical process. Go to his discussion about the doves on Noah’s ark for instance. Or pick up CPH’s two volume set: A Year in the Gospels with Martin Luther. There you will often see sections titled: Allegories.

So is Luther a hypocrite? No. As long as allegory agreed with the analogy of faith and gave comfort to troubled consciences, allegory was free to stand. This idea of allegory is not far removed from the way typology is commonly used in today’s context. Nor is it far from the middle of the road commentators from Alexandria, like Cyril. Though Luther speaks against Origen’s use of allegory, that it is not connected to the analogy of faith, Luther is thankful that Origen’s allegories are most often connected to morality. For Luther, these interpretations should always be compatible with and informed principally by Christ and to a lesser extent, the church. Luther praises Peter and Paul’s use of allegory concerning the flood (1 Pt 3) and the Red Sea (1 Cor 10) because it ‘serves to comfort hearts.

Luther appears to take what is good from the Alexandrian interpretative tradition and the best of Antioch and builds his own method. Luther asserts the historical account is the literal sense as well as the spiritual sense in his Genesis lectures, but understands allegory (or would modern scholars understand it as typology?) can work well and assist, as was shown above. Luther held to a Christology more along the lines of Cyril of Alexandria. Christological doctrine is born from exegesis of Scripture. As long as the allegory was connected to, illustrated the historical account, and agrees with the analogy of faith, allegory is permitted.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Digging into the Old Testament: Torah, Torah, Torah

Encore Post: The word Torah (תרה) found in the Old Testament is actually pretty difficult to translate because it carries so much theological weight.

So what can Torah mean? Well, you look at the first books of the bible (Genesis through Deuteronomy) that is called the Torah. It’s sometimes called the Law of Moses. Torah means Law.

But then you may be asking yourself, how is Law defined? That is a very good question. In Lutheran circles we understand the Law of God to have 3 uses. The second use is the most common because it is the one that accuses us of our sins. But the books of Moses are not just made up of that kind of Law. So we need a broader definition.

Torah means God’s Law in the sense that it is His Word. Understood in this way Torah is Law and Gospel. The Old Testament has both Law and Gospel throughout.

God’s Torah then is both Law and Gospel. It contains the 10 commandments and the all the purity laws of Leviticus, but it also has the Gospel that points us to Jesus’ atoning death on the cross. Think to Leviticus 16, Genesis 3:15, Numbers 21, to name a few.

So if God’s Torah is understood as God’s Word, then when Jesus who is called the Word of God incarnate, another way to say it is that Jesus is the Torah Incarnate. This idea comes through in the Gospel of John most prominently, and come to think of it in Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. For Jesus in both John and Matthew states the Law and then explains it and further intensifies it. We only need to think about the sin of adultery, for instance.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Digging into the Old Testament: The Theological Schools of Alexandria and Antioch

Encore Post: You might remember the Ebionites and those who followed Marcion from earlier posts. In this post I want to introduce the two theological schools that ruled the day and effectively have left marks on the way we interpret the Bible still today.

But why are they called schools? Don’t think of them so much as buildings but the way of thinking. The first is Alexandria. The other is Antioch. Both cities were centers of Christian thought. Paul and other apostles spent time in Antioch, and Alexandria was known throughout the world as another great center of learning.

So what was the difference between Antioch and Alexandria? Well, let’s look at Alexandria first. Alexandria was the melting pot of cultures. Greek philosophy was alive and well. Many theologians, Origen, for example, had a background in philosophy. If you were to read Origen’s writings that we have at our disposal you would see him interpreting the text not just literally but also philosophically or in an allegorical fashion. Words meant more than just the literal word for him and others that came after him in the Alexandria School. Now this is not always a bad thing, but we need to always be careful to always consider the literal text.

Antioch and the theologians there were of a different style. They interpreted scripture in a literal, historical sense. Antioch generally steered clear of the allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture. That being said, they did not always have a lot of opportunities to find Christ in the Old Testament.

Both schools had men fall of either side of the the proverbial horse. Origen allowed his mind to go too far. Some men in Antioch did not go far enough to find Christ in the text, and questioned some of the Old Testament’s use for the Christian. Again, we should be looking back to what Jesus says. The Scriptures are all about him. He fulfills what was said in the Law, Prophets, and Psalms. If we keep that in mind, we ought to be able to see Christ not only in the New Testament but also the Old.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Digging into the Old Testament: Marcion

Encore Post: If we think of a pendulum, it swings one way or the other. Let’s imagine the Ebionites to one extreme. At the other extreme would be the man named Marcion.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge we do not have any of Marcion’s own writings at our disposal. However, we have the early Church Fathers and their writings against his teachings. Ireaneaus of Lyon wrote against him in his work Against Heresies.

From Ireaneaus and some of the other Apostolic Fathers we learn that Marcion held to the idea that the the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New were not the same. Marcion saw the god of the Testament as a lesser Creator god who even was possibly evil. The god of the Old Testament was the Jewish God, and not the Father of the True Christ. The Old Testament may have prophesied about a Christ, but not the true one.

For Marcion, Jesus (the true Christ) came to subvert the Creator and overthrow the law and the prophets. Marcion even went so far as to change the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew to make Jesus say, “I have not come to fulfill the law but to abolish it.” This is the exact opposite of what Jesus says He came to do.

This is a major problem. If the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New, there is no promise of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. There would not be those who are righteous by faith. For all this flows out of the Old Testament. There would be no hall of faith, there would not fathers of the faith like Abraham. Jesus, Himself points us to them in the Old Testament to emulate, to rejoice with Abraham at Jesus’ Day. There would be nothing to learn from the Old Testament, even though Paul, one of the New Testament writers who is okay for Marcion, says we ought to learn from the ancient Israelites in the wilderness.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Blog Post Series

Digging into the Old Testament: The Ebionites

Encore Post: As we begin digging into the history of Christianity and how the Old Testament came to be understood by Christians (Remember we hold to what Jesus said and how Jesus used the Old Testament, namely that He is the fulfillment of it), we first come across the group that we know as the Ebionites or as we know them from Galatians, the Judaizers.

The question presented to Christians, especially of Jewish background was how the law of Moses was supposed to be understood. Should the Christian follow it still? To what extent?

If we remember the laws of Moses come in three varieties: Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial. Some of the Ebionites did not force these laws on everyone else, but from Galatians 2 we hear of a pretty vocal group. This group appeared to hold to all three varieties of the laws of Moses. They certainly held to the moral and ceremonial.

Jesus himself dealt with some of this during his earthly ministry. Paul and his companions certainly did. The first council of the church (Acts 15) dealt with the question of the ceremonial law.

We still hold to the moral law, as is given to us in the 10 commandments. Because of Christ the ceremonial law is fulfilled. These ceremonies such as the laws concerning the Day of Atonement and the ritual purification washings of the priests are no longer needed. In Christ, they are fulfilled once and for all. We no longer need to keep the ceremonial law in a rigorous fashion the way of the people of the Old Testament. And we certainly do not need to keep the laws and traditions of man also see the Solid Declaration.

We need to be aware of the trappings of what the Ebionites taught, especially about the Old Testament and the law contained therein. While the Ebionites wanted to maintain the laws of Moses in their entirety, the next push came from a man named Marcion who wanted to do the exact opposite. We will talk more about him next.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO