A Christological Hermeneutic: Crisis and Conflict in Hermeneutics

The discipline of biblical hermeneutics, which deals with the principles governing the interpretation of Scripture, is presently in crisis. For some time it has been obvious in the academic world that the scriptural texts cannot simply be taken at face value but presuppose a thought world that is alien to our own. In an attempt to bring some degree of coherence to the interpretation of Scripture, scholars have appealed to current philosophies or sociologies of knowledge. Their aim has been to come to an understanding of what is essential and what is peripheral in the Bible, but too often in the process they have lost contact with the biblical message. It is fashionable among both theologians and biblical scholars today to contend that there is no one biblical view or message but instead a plurality of viewpoints that stand at considerable variance with one an other as well as with the modem world-view.

There are a number of academically viable options today concerning biblical interpretation, some of which I shall consider in this essay. These options represent competing theologies embracing the whole of the theological spectrum.

First, there is the hermeneutic of Protestant scholastic orthodoxy, which allows for grammatical-historical exegesis, the kind that deals with the linguistic history of the text but is loathe to give due recognition to the cultural or historical conditioning of the perspective of the author of the text. Scripture is said to have one primary author, the Holy Spirit, with the prophets and Apostles as the secondary authors. For this reason Scripture is believed to contain an underlying theological and philosophical unity. It is therefore proper to speak of a uniquely biblical life and "odd-view. Every text, it is supposed, can be harmonized not only with the whole of Scripture but also with the findings of secular history and natural science. The meaning of most texts is thought to be obvious even to an unbeliever. The end result of such a treatment of Scripture is a coherent, systematic theological system, presumably reflecting the very mind of God. This approach has been represented in Reformed circles by the so-called Princeton School of Theology associated with Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, and Benjamin Warfield.

In this perspective, hermeneutics is considered a scientific discipline abiding by the rules that govern other disciplines of knowledge. Scripture, it is said, yields its meaning to a systematic, inductive analysis and does not necessarily presuppose a faith commitment to be understood. Some proponents of the old orthodoxy (such as Gordon Clark and Carl Henry) favor a metaphysical-deductive over an empirical-inductive approach, seeking to deduce the concrete meanings of Scripture from first principles given in Scripture.

A second basic approach to biblical studies is historicism in which Scripture is treated in the same way as any worthy literature of a given cultural tradition. The tools of higher criticism are applied to Scripture to find out what the author intended to say in that particular historical-cultural context. Higher criticism includes an analysis of the literary genre of the text, its historical background, the history of the oral tradition behind the text, and the cultural and psychological factors at work on the author and editor (or editors) of the text. With its appeal to the so-called historical-critical method for gaining an insight into the meaning of the text, this approach is to be associated with the liberal theology stemming from the Enlightenment.

Historicism is based on the view that the historicity of a phenomenon affords the means of comprehending its essence and reality (H. Martin Rumscheidt). It is assumed that meaning is to be found only in the historical web of things. The aim is the historical reconstruction of the text, in other words, seeing the text in its historical and cultural context (Sitz im Leben). Historical research, it is supposed, can procure for us the meaning of the Word of God.

Ernst Troeltsch articulated the basic principles of historicism, but this general approach has been conspicuous in J. S. Semler, David Friedrich Strauss, Ferdinand Christian Baur, Adolf van Hamack, and, in our day, Willi Marxsen and Krister Stendahl. A historicist bent was apparent in Rudolf Bultmann and Gerhard Ebeling, especially in their earlier years, though other quite different influences were also at work on them.

It was out of this perspective that the quest for the historical Jesus emerged, since it was believed that only by ascertaining by historical science what Jesus really believed in terms of his own culture and historical period can we find a sure foundation for faith. Albert Schweitzer broke with historicism when he discovered that the historical Jesus indisputably subscribed to an apocalyptic vision of the kingdom of God. Finding this incredible to the modern mind, he sought a new anchor for faith in the mystical Christ.

A third option in hermeneutics is the existentialist one, popularized by Rudolf Bultmann, Ernst Fuchs, Gerhard Ebeling, and Fritz Burl, among others. This approach does not deny the role of historical research but considers it incapable of giving us the significance of the salvific events for human existence. It can tell us much about the thought-world and language of the authors, but it cannot communicate to us the inferiority of their faith. Demonstrating an affinity with the Romanticist tradition of Schleiermacher and Dilthey, these men seek to uncover the seminal experience or creative insight of the authors of the texts in question, the experience that was objectified in words. Only by sharing this same kind of experience or entering into the same type of vision do we rightly understand the meaning of the text. Drawing upon both Hegel and Heidegger, these scholars affirm that real knowledge is self-knowledge and that the role of the text is to aid us in self-understanding.

In existentialist hermeneutics history is dissolved into the historicity of existence. The Word becomes formative power rather than informative statement. The message of faith becomes the breakthrough into freedom. Jesus is seen as a witness to faith or the historical occasion for faith rather than the object of faith. It is contended that we should come to Scripture with the presuppositions of existentialist anthropology so that the creative questions of our time can be answered.

In contradistinction to the above approaches I propose a christological hermeneutic by which we seek to move beyond historical criticism to the christological, as opposed to the existential, significance of the text. The text's christological meaning can in fact be shown to carry tremendous import for human existence. I believe that I am here being true to the intent of the scriptural authors themselves and even more to the Spirit who guided them, since they frequently made an effort to relate their revelatory insights to the future acts of cosmic deliverance wrought by the God of Israel (in the case of the Old Testament)i or to God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ (in the case of the New Testament). This approach, which is associated with Karl Barth, Jacques Ellul, and Wilhelm Vischer, among others, and which also has certain affinities with the confessional stances of Gerhard van Rad and Brevard Childs, seeks to supplement the historical-critical method by theological exegesis in which the innermost intentions of the author are related to the center and culmination of sacred history mirrored in the Bible, namely, the advent of Jesus Christ. It is believed that the fragmentary insights of both Old and New Testament writers are fulfilled in God's dramatic incursion into human history which we see in the incarnation and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in his life, death, and resurrection.

Here the aim is to come to Scripture without any overt presuppositions or at least holding these presuppositions in abeyance so that we can hear God's Word anew speaking to us in and through the written text. According to this view, the Word of God is not procured by historical-grammatical examination of the text, nor by historical-critical research, nor by existential analysis, but is instead received in a commitment of faith

This position has much in common with historical orthodoxy, but one major difference is that it welcomes a historical investigation of the text. Such investigation, however, can only throw light on the cultural and literary background of the text it does not give us its divinely intended meaning. Another difference is that we seek to understand the text not simply in relation to other texts but in relation to the Christ revelation. Some of the theologians of the older orthodoxy would agree but others would say that what the Bible tells us about creation for example, can be adequately understood on its own apart from a reference to the incarnation. With the theology of the Reformation and Protestant orthodoxy, I hold that we should begin by ascertaining the literal sense of the text— -- what was in the mind of the author— -and we can do this only by seeing the passage in question in its immediate context. But then we should press on to discern its christological significance— -- how it relates to the message of the cross of Jesus Christ.

In opposition to liberalism, I believe that the text should be seen not simply against its immediate historical environment but also against the background of Eternity. To do this, we need to go beyond authorial motivation to theological relation Moreover, it is neither the faith of Jesus (as in Ebeling) nor the Christ of faith (as in Bultmann and Tillich) but the Jesus Christ of sacred history that is our ultimate norm in faith and conduct.

According to this approach, God reveals himself fully and definitively only in one time and place, viz., in the life history of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the primary witness to this event or series of events. This revelation was anticipated in the Old Testament and remembered and proclaimed in the New Testament. The testimony of the biblical authors was directed to this event by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Yet this relationship is not always obvious and must be brought home to us and clarified by the illumination of the Spirit of God in the history of the church.

The Word of God is neither the text nor the psychological disposition of the author behind the text but is instead its salvific significance seen in the light of the cross of Christ. The criterion is not the original intention of the author as such but the intention of the Holy Spirit. This can be found to some degree by comparing the author's meaning to the meaning of the whole; yet even here the dogmatic norm, the very divine word itself, can elude us.

Although in the mystery of God's grace his Word is assuredly present in Scripture, it is nonetheless veiled to those who are perishing (2 Cor. 3:I4-I6; 4:I-6). It is not always obvious even to the people of faith, and this is why it must be sought in Scripture. This Word finally must be given by God alone and not until this bestowal of divine grace can we really hear or know.

It is not only what the Spirit revealed to the original author but what he reveals to us in the here and now that is the Word of God. Yet what he teaches us now does not contradict what he taught then. Indeed, it stands in an unbroken continuity with what has gone before. A can never come to mean B or C, but it can come to signify A + or A + + .

This is to say, a text can have more than one meaning in the sense that it can be used by the Holy Spirit in different ways. Certainly in his prediction of the birth of the child Immanuel in Isaiah 7, the prophet did not consciously have in mind the virgin birth of Jesus Christ; yet this text points to and is fulfilled in the virgin birth as this is attested in Matthew 1:23. The text had both an immediate reference and an eschatological significance, but the latter was, for the most part, still hidden at the time of Isaiah. The many texts about false prophets and antichrists in the New Testament have been used by the Spirit to refer to various adversaries of the faith in all ages of the church. The meaning of the text is thereby not annulled but expanded.

Under the influence of the philosopher Gadamer, the new hermeneutic today is concerned to merge the horizons of the

text and of contemporary humanity. But this fusion of horizons can take place not by a poetic divination into the language of the text, nor by a mystical identification with the preconceptual experience of the author of the text, but by the breaking in of the Word of God from the Beyond into our limited horizons and the remolding of them, in some cases even the overthrowing of them. I have in mind not only the horizons of the exegete also those of the original authors who may have only faintly grasped what the Spirit was teaching them to see (cf. I Peter 1:10-12 We should remember that some prophecies in the Bible were corrected or reinterpreted by further illuminations of the Spirit in later biblical history. To insist on a literal fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies, as dispensationalists do, is to contradict the New Testament assertion that the church is the New Israel and that at least some of these prophecies have their fulfillment in the church of Jesus Christ.

The christological hermeneutic that I propose is in accord with the deepest insights of both Luther and Calvin. Both Reformers saw Christ as the ground and center of Scripture. Both sought to relate the Old Testament, as well as the New, to the person and work of Christ. Their position, which was basically reaffirmed by Barth and Vischer, was that the hidden Christ is in the Old Testament and the manifest Christ in the New Testament.

Luther likened Christ to the "star and kernel" of Scripture, describing him as "the center part of the circle" about which everything else revolves. On one occasion he compared certain texts to "hard nuts" which resisted cracking and confessed that he had to throw these texts against the rock (Christ) so that they would yield their "delicious kernel."

The orthodox followers of Luther and Calvin did not always retain this christological focus, although most of them remained fairly close to their heritage. Philosophical speculation was the source of some of the deviations. Among Lutherans there was a drift toward natural theology in which the existence of God and the moral law were treated apart from the special revelation of God in Jesus Christ In Reformed circles, there was both a fascination with natural theology and a concentration on the eternal decrees of God. Reprobation was located in the secret will of God, which stood at variance with his revealed will in Christ. Jesus Christ was reduced to an instrument in carrying out this decree rather than being the author and finisher of our salvation (Heb. 5:9; It:). Scripture was used to support the idea of a God of absolute power, thereby obscuring the biblical conception of a God of infinite love whose power was manifest in his suffering and humiliation in Jesus Christ.

Christological exegesis, when applied to the Old Testament, often takes the form of typological exegesis in which the acts of God in Old Testament history as well as the prophecies of his servants are seen to have their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Such an approach was already discernible in the New Testament where, for example, the manna given to the children of Israel in the wilderness was regarded as a type of the bread of life (John 6:31, 32, 49-50, 58). Typological exegesis differs from allegorical and anagogical exegesis in that it is controlled by the analogy of faith, which views the events and discourses of the Old Testament in indissoluble relation to Jesus Christ, to the mystery of his incarnation and the miracle of his saving work (cf. Acts 26:22; I Peter 1:10-12).

Here is my "Christological hermeneutic":

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation. - Article I, the "Baptist Faith and Message"

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