Hold in your mind this image from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress: the path to the Celestial City. The central figure of the story, Christian, is summoned to leave the City of Destruction and sojourn upon this difficult path. The path is straight, but fraught with peril. If Christian can faithfully walk this path, avoiding snares like the House of Legality, Vanity Fair, and Doubting Castle, he will arrive at his destination safely. Bunyan reminds us that we do not travel alone: just as Christian had Faithful, Hopeful, and Great-heart, so we too walk in the company of other saints.

God's word is described as a lamp to our feet in this journey (Ps. 119:105). Without properly interpreting the word, the church will fall into cavernous ruin. In this chapter, we will examine seven principles of faithful biblical interpretation. Some of these principles reinforce one another, while others balance each other. All of these principles interlock. If we get these principles right, our churches will thrive. If we get them wrong, our churches will wither. The costs of failure are immeasurably large; the rewards of success are unimaginably great. So we cry out with the Psalmist, "Give me life according to your word!" (Ps. 119:25) With that prayer, we will begin examination of the following seven principles:

1. The clarity of Scripture

2. The necessity of the Spirit

3. Christocentric exegesis

4. A New Covenant perspective

5. Sola scriptura

6. The sufficiency of Scripture

7. The testimony of the persecuted cloud of witnesses

Kuruvilla, Finny. King Jesus Claims His Church: A Kingdom Vision for the People of God (Kindle Locations 1177-1191). Anchor-Cross Publishing. Kindle Edition.

In the Old Testament, both taking away from or adding to the Scriptures were prohibited, implying a doctrine of sufficiency: "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you" (Deut. 4:2; see also 12:32 and Prov. 30:5-6). Confirming the law's sufficiency, the Psalms attest that God's word tells us everything needed to live a blameless life, "Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD!" (Ps. 119:1) The New Testament attests to the sufficiency of Scripture with respect to salvation: "From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15). The Scriptures "complete" a person, equipping him or her for every good work: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim. 3:16-17). In Jesus' parable about the rich man and Lazarus, He affirms that nothing outside of the Scriptures is required for salvation: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them" (Luke 16:29).

The New Testament prohibits the addition of new commandments (Col. 2:20-23) and speaks of a closure to the faith (Jude 1:3). The book of Revelation closes the New Testament canon with a warning similar to that given in Deuteronomy (the close of the Torah): "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book" (Rev. 22:18-19).

The implications of the sufficiency of Scripture are manifold. First, the doctrine reinforces sola scriptura, by confirming that our sole infallible authority is also complete. Second, sufficiency speaks against adding to Scripture any extrabiblical requirements or prohibitions. Proper commands or prohibitions must be found in Scripture or be necessary inferences from Scripture. Third, the sufficiency of Scripture should drive us to Scripture for meditation, study, memorization, and prayer, as we seek to be the "complete" people that God wills. Fourth, we should never elevate other documents to the level of Scripture, nominally or practically. Some churches recite creeds, confessions, or disciplines during their gatherings or discuss them so often that they functionally become Scripture. Such distorting practices set the stage for reading Scripture through the lens of other documents, rather than on Scripture's own terms.

Kuruvilla, Finny. King Jesus Claims His Church: A Kingdom Vision for the People of God (Kindle Locations 1462-1486). Anchor-Cross Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The principle weighs the consensus biblical interpretation of the "cloud of witnesses." Hebrews 11 portrays how we can learn from those who have gone before us, especially those who were mistreated, persecuted, and shunned by the world. The Scriptures promise that the godly will suffer persecution (2 Tim. 3:12). The godly, being endowed with the Holy Spirit, will naturally be able to interpret the Scriptures best.

It must be clear that this principle is not an exercise of simple "nose-counting" to ascertain what Scripture truly says. That would approach blasphemy, as if the word of God depended on some kind of majority vote. The Scriptures caution against such an approach by warning us that in the last days, men will go from bad to worse, and that teachers will tickle ears to gain a greater audience. Paul warns that teachers will arise to twist the word in order to gain followers after themselves. We must be cognizant that even at the close of the New Testament canon, Jesus rebukes five out of seven churches in Revelation. Today, false churches and teachers abound to an even greater degree.

While the Scriptures describe that heretics live lustful lives (2 Pet. 2:13-14), the true church will experience suffering and persecution (John 15:20). Jesus promises that a faithful remnant will never be extinguished but will resist the gates of Hades (Matt. 16:18). Integrating these insights, faithful biblical interpretation will be associated with a fivefold norm:

1. Diffusion: across distance

2. Endurance: across time

3. Breadth: across persons

4. Purity: with holiness

5. Suffering: with adversity

By weighing more heavily the persecuted, faithful "cloud of witnesses" there is much to be gained. It breaks us out of a solo scriptura mentality, which tends to fracture the church and exalt autonomy. It in fact represents an aspect of Tradition I thinking and helps us to eliminate bias and blind spots. Every generation is susceptible to "group-think," and by studying believers outside of one's culture and time period, we may more clearly see timeless truth. This exercise requires humility, acknowledging that God has worked through saints outside of our limited circle.

Examples of the "cloud of witnesses" principle in action best illustrate its use. By the end of the second century, the church had developed the regula fidei, or rule of faith, similar to the Apostle's creed of the fourth century. Useful in combating anti-trinitarian and gnostic heresies, the rule was affirmed by the persecuted church and thoughtfully drawn from Scriptures. The contents of the regula fidei were affirmed by the medieval church, the Anabaptists, and the Protestants. Given such a broad reception, especially from the early church and persecuted church, this interpretative principle would strongly suggest that the contents of the regula fidei are a faithful interpretation of Scriptures.

The persecuted groups include the ante-Nicene church, the Waldensians, the Lollards (followers of John Wycliffe), and the Anabaptists.123 In contrast, the Roman Catholic church and the Protestant churches, allied to the state, have been persecuting churches at many points in their history.

The persecuted churches are typically those that hold the clarity of Scripture most dearly: they tend to take the Bible at face value and not allow clear teachings to be accommodated to culture or prevalent expectations. When the word of God confronts a structure or institution, the suffering churches tend to modify or withdraw from the structure or institution. The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches instead tend to employ the "principle of accommodation," modifying the teaching in some way to fit existing structures and institutions. Again, the Sermon on the Mount serves as the classic litmus test. The persecuted churches have usually obeyed Jesus' prohibition to not swear oaths at all and to love their enemies, that is, to reject the taking of human life, even in war. They have also embraced the plain readings of Jesus' teachings on divorce and wealth found in the Sermon on the Mount. Conversely, the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have been much more lenient about divorce and wealth, have supported participation in state warfare, and have allowed their members to take oaths.124

The Protestants employed the "cloud of witnesses" interpretative principle in certain areas but generally avoided it in wide swaths of ecclesiology and ethics. On the positive side, Calvin took great pains to show that doctrines such as salvation by faith were the doctrines of the church fathers. His careful argument implied that the Roman Catholic church had left the historic faith, innovating in this departure. Sadly, however, Calvin and the other Protestants ignored or rejected a great deal of the early church's teachings on other matters. On matters of oaths, war, infant baptism, and separation from the world, they chose to adopt Roman Catholic views and reject the early church's position.

In contrast, the early Anabaptists much more consistently adopted the positions of the early church regarding ethics and ecclesiology. They affirmed the regula fidei and the historic creeds, but also chose to obey Jesus' teachings in ways very close to the early church.

In the last chapter we saw that interpretative systems are like packages where seemingly divergent subjects are bundled together. Regarding areas like jewelry, fashion, entertainment, the headcovering, home life, education, separation from the world, oaths, war, government involvement, remarriage, and infant baptism—the cloud of witnesses offers strong testimony. The suffering, persecuted church—beginning with the church described in Acts and progressing through the centuries—therefore offers illumination, conviction, and encouragement. On the other side are the churches that have embraced the power of temporal government, the fashions and entertainments of the world, "just war," beautiful cathedrals, and prestigious institutions. Those churches will mock the persecuted churches, disparage their doctrines, and even kill their members, imagining that they do service to God. The period of the Reformation illustrates this story in microcosm as the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches turned violent against the Anabaptists and Waldensians.

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Once over dinner with a graduate student at Harvard University, we came to discuss 1 Timothy 2:8-10 where Paul prohibits wearing gold and expensive clothes. My friend agreed that taking such a passage at face value had demanding implications for the church. But he went on to insist that someone at Princeton was about to publish a dissertation on why the straightforward reading was incorrect. He himself did not know the argument, but he was sure that it would be right. He never did report on what that argument was, but I could not help but sigh in dismay at the acrobatics sinful humanity will undertake to avoid obedience to God's word. In this case, the strategy involved a tacit subversion of the clarity of Scripture.

The clarity of Scripture challenges us precisely because Scripture is demanding and our wills are bent against God's. In the face of a demand to repent, we would rather engage in contemplative reflection, discussion, or debate, than respond with simple obedience. The fallen human mind will spin every manner of controversy and blow fog over the matter, asking "Did God really say?"

While the clarity of Scripture may be demanding, the church withers in its absence. Without the clarity of Scripture, Christian boldness and confidence evaporate. In fact, "yielding to the word is premised upon its clarity."76 We live in an age where certainty is a rare commodity, largely because clarity has been undermined. Scholars of every stripe offer a parade of conflicting views, furnishing the doubt-filled Christian with the excuse to defy God's clear command on the grounds that nobody can agree on what the passage even says.

Many passages attest to Scripture's clarity (Deut. 30:11-14; Ps. 19:7-9, 119:105; Matt. 22:31; John 7:17). In fact, most passages in Scripture presuppose their own clarity as well as the clarity of referent passages.77

Yet perhaps the best grounding for the clarity of Scripture comes from God's nature. As was discussed in chapter 6, our study of Scripture should lead us to God, and then our doctrine of Scripture should be informed by the nature of God as the author of Scripture. Because God is light and desires to illuminate our minds and hearts, Scripture as His word reflects His character:

These words are themselves God's self-revelation in the world. In them he presents his Son to us. By them he gathers his people and brings about his ancient intention. God's self-communication is no more distorted by its expression in human words than his compassion is distorted by its expression in human flesh. To put this another way, the ultimate guarantee that God's word will be heard and understood, that it will achieve the purpose for which it was spoken and written, is the power and goodness of God himself. In this sense, a conviction that Scripture is clear is something believers bring to their reading of the Bible. Yet... this is not an alien imposition on the text. It just as powerfully arises from the pages of Scripture. In the Gospels, Jesus exhibits precisely this confidence as he quotes from and alludes to passages of the Old Testament.78

Childlike faith leads to clarity better than education or privilege (Luke 10:21). After all, Jesus prayed, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children" (Matt. 11:25). As was the case in Jesus' day, a true understanding of Scripture will not generally be found in the famous seminaries or universities—but among those with childlike faith and obedience.

Another facet of the clarity of Scripture, stressed in the sixteenth century by Protestant and Anabaptist alike, is summarized by the Latin phrase, scriptura sui ipsius interpres: Scripture is its own interpreter. The passages of the Bible interpret one another. To understand the whole of Scripture, one must understand the parts. To understand the parts, one must understand the whole. This naturally implies that reading and re-reading Scripture are required for proper understanding. Diligence is therefore required to understand Scripture (2 Tim. 2:15).

Clarity does not imply that the Scriptures are clear to all persons alike, or even that the clarity is easily obtained. Neither does the clarity of Scripture imply that all of Scripture is equally easy to understand, or that certain parts will not be difficult. "Clarity is not the same thing as simplicity or uniform transparency."79 The Bible itself says that certain domains of knowledge are reserved for God (Deut. 29:29). In fact, the Bible itself repeatedly teaches that the Spirit's illumination is required to understand the Scriptures. "Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law" (Ps. 119:18). The Ethiopian eunuch required instruction to understand the passage from Isaiah (Acts 8:26-40). Even the disciples could not understand the Scriptures without Jesus' illumination. The clarity of Scripture, similar to salvation, is a gift premised on faith: "The clarity of Scripture is that quality of the biblical text that, as God's communicative act, ensures its meaning is accessible to all who come to it in faith."80

Many have objected to the clarity of Scripture on the grounds that there are so many divisive interpretations of the Bible. Yet these objections do not appropriately weigh the effects of the Fall and human disobedience. Jesus Himself, the incarnate Word of God, was misunderstood and a source of division. These divisions say little about His luminous and simple speech. In the same way, objecting to the clarity of Scripture because sinful humanity misunderstands the Bible says more about humanity than the Bible:

Holy Scripture is clear; but because its matter is that to which we must be reconciled, readers can only discern its clarity if their darkness is illuminated... Interpretation of the clear Word of God is therefore not first of all an act of clarification but the event of being clarified. Reading, therefore, always includes a humbling of the reader, the breaking of the will in which there is acted out the struggle to detach our apprehension of the text from the idolatrous schemas which we inevitably take to it, and by which we seek to command or suppress it or render it convenient to us.81

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While the Spirit's work should never justify laziness (He in fact commands diligence in 2 Tim. 2:15), human cleverness or ingenuity cannot command the Spirit's instruction. The Spirit empowers a person to obey God; obedience thus is a more important mark of a person's ability to interpret the Scriptures than education or skill with languages.

Study of the Bible should therefore never be divorced from prayer, fasting, obedience, worship, and humility. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, with its blessings pronounced on the poor, meek, and persecuted, naturally implies that such persons, being blessed of God, would be the most suited to understand God's revelation through Scripture. This mantle was claimed by the persecuted churches throughout history, including the early Anabaptists: "Anabaptists saw themselves as the true heirs of the persecuted early churches and believed this gave them insights hidden from state theologians who were comfortable, had vested interests, and were persecutors rather than the persecuted. Menno, for example, identified sufferings as one of the marks of a true church. This suffering brought the believer into deep fellowship with Christ and this fellowship was a key to understanding Scripture."83

When looking for truth, one ought to search out the persons and groups most radically committed to follow the Lord, despite the consequences. Tragically, most people select churches based on the aesthetics of the worship, the beauty of a building, the charisma of the preacher, the intelligence of the ministry, or the demographics of the membership. Holy living typically weighs little in this selection. The interrogation of the Anabaptist Claes de Praet by the Dean of Ronse brings out Claes' concerns for faithful obedience in contrast with his interrogator who values education and official status:

Dean: "You think you have the faith, but you have departed from it. And that you people are so bold and of good cheer even unto death, is all owing to the devil, who can transform himself into an angel of light. Hence, when you read the Scriptures, you were instructed by some poor, simple tradesman, who taught you the same according to his reason; therefore you are now deceived. You should have let those teach you, who have received the true doctrine, the ministers of the holy church, that is, the pastors."

Claes: "Are they the ones that have received the true doctrine?"

Dean: "Yes."

Claes: "Why, then, do they live the life of devils; as may be seen?"

Dean: "What does that concern you? It is written, Matt. 23: `Do after their commandments, but not after their works.' "

Claes: "Are you, then, the scribes and Pharisees, of whom Matthew has written?"

Dean: "Yes."

Claes: "Then all the woes come upon you, that follow further on, in said chapter."

Dean: "No, they do not."84

Claes would be burned at the stake in 1556.

The person not bearing the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control—is unlikely to hold true interpretations from the Spirit. Reprobate people will almost of necessity twist the Scriptures to fit their designs. In contrast, the obedient follower of Jesus would be granted the Spirit of understanding. "Pneumatic exegesis" thus involves "a reciprocal experience of understanding and obedience, obedience and understanding."85

Kuruvilla, Finny. King Jesus Claims His Church: A Kingdom Vision for the People of God (Kindle Locations 1243-1278). Anchor-Cross Publishing. Kindle Edition.

This cornerstone concept bears resemblance to a non-commutative operation in mathematics. A commutative operation, such as multiplication, is something in which the order does not matter. Two times three gives the same result as three times two. Division, however, is non-commutative: the order matters. Two divided by three is not the same as three divided by two.

The interpretation of Scripture is a non-commutative operation: order matters. A somewhat technical example illustrates the importance of sequence. In dispensational eschatology, the Old Testament promises to Abraham and Israel are fixed as the starting point. Dispensationalists thus believe that ethnic Israel will receive the promised land at a future date. Jesus' and the apostles' teachings are subsequently aligned with those promises. This order generates a vastly different eschatology than classical amillenial theology, which begins with the words of Jesus on the two ages.86 By starting with the Old Testament, one arrives at a different conclusion than starting with Jesus' words.

The apostles themselves begin with Jesus in their reading of the Old Testament. Many people have struggled with how quotations from the Old Testament are carried into the New in ways that appear not to square with the original context. A well known example is Matthew's citation from Hosea, "Out of Egypt I called My Son" (Matt. 2:15). While some have argued that Matthew was drawing from Hosea in a way that violated the Old Testament context, this fails to account for the radically Christocentric way that the apostles read the Old Testament. "Christ as the centre of history is the key to interpreting the earlier portions of the Old Testament and its promises."87

Order effectively dictates what is a fixed point (that is, the cornerstone), and what will be cast in reference to that point. With this background, the contrast between the Anabaptist and Protestant understandings of Scripture is more easily understood. Anabaptists have generally begun with the Gospel accounts—Jesus' teachings and examples—while Protestants have generally begun with the epistles, particularly the book of Romans. Neither side claims one set of books to be less inspired, but vastly different theologies emerge because of differing starting points, different cornerstones.

The impact of Romans on Luther's theology is well known. Calvin was similarly affected, as illustrated in his magnum opus. One of Calvin's translators into English has noted that his Institutes of the Christian Religion "may be thought of as an extended commentary on Romans."88

The early Anabaptists viewed Paul's letters as an infallible exposition of Jesus' words and deeds. But they preferred to begin at the Gospel accounts themselves. This manner of reading more appropriately uses canonical and covenantal structure as a hermeneutical lens. Using the covenantal language described in chapter 2, Anabaptists "begin at the beginning" of the covenant (preamble, history, and stipulations) rather than the later "prosecution of God's covenant lawsuit" found in the epistles. They also distrusted some of the conclusions arrived at by the Protestants on the meaning of Romans. They recognized that the book had multiple interpretations. "It is common to list saints and Christian leaders whose lives have been changed by reading [Romans]; the catalog could be balanced by a similar number who have radically misunderstood it. Troublingly, the lists would overlap."89

Christocentric interpretation involves focus as well as order. Jacobus Arminius, who trained in Geneva at Calvin's academy under Theodore Beza, rejected Calvinism because it was not adequately Christocentric.90 He and the Remonstrants felt that for the sake of their theological system, the Calvinists had lost Christ-centered exegesis.91

The distinction between the Anabaptists and Protestant thinking has been characterized as Christocentric (Anabaptist) versus Christological (Protestant).92 For the Protestants, the doctrine of salvation, especially justification by faith, provided the starting point for their theology, and formed the lens through which the rest of Scripture was read. "Anabaptist hermeneutics, however, were not only Christological but Christocentric in the sense of focusing on Jesus himself instead of a doctrine describing the effects of his redeeming work."93

The Protestants spent a great deal of time on the historic creeds of the church. Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion is organized around the structure of the Apostle's Creed. In contrast, the "Anabaptists acknowledged the Christ of the creeds, but they were captivated by the Jesus of the Gospels."94

Consistent with a Christocentric approach, simple obedience to the Sermon on the Mount characterized persecuted churches like the ante-Nicene church, the Waldensians, and the Anabaptists. In contrast, because of their prior commitment to the church-state union, the Protestants severely weakened obedience to Jesus' teachings on matters such as war, oaths, and wealth: "In Protestantism we meet with a celestial Christ, a cosmic figure who through his self-sacrifice makes possible the salvation of the soul. In Catholicism Jesus is frequently and boldly encountered in the Mass, where he is constantly offered up again for the sins of man. In Anabaptism... Jesus is all that the historic creeds claim for him but he is also more. For he is also the example for the Christian... He is not only the centre of a theological system to which one gives assent. Rather he is the centre of a way of life."95

Protestant churches have greatly suffered without a Christocentric interpretation to ethics:

That Christ alone is Lord and Saviour was, although it is the most precious insight of the Reformation, limited by the Reformers to one field of application. In soteriology and church order, Christ's uniqueness enabled a polemic against the mass, against hagiolatry and the hierarchy. Yet Christ's authority remained strangely circumscribed; He could not be normative for ethics. Christ's perfect obedience is, for orthodox Protestantism, no criterion for the obedience of the believer, but merely the prerequisite to an innocent and therefore vicariously valid death. The guide for ethics for the Reformers was neither Christ himself, nor the New Testament, but the `Rule of Love.' `Love' in this usage signified for them not that quality of God's Being which is seen in Christ, but rather whatever seemed to them to be required by the best interests of the social order. They assumed with touching naiveté, that the precise requirements of the Rule of Love were self-evident, and could be doubted only by the willfully recalcitrant ... [For the Protestants], giving immediate ethical relevance to the human obedience of Christ, so that the Christian should love as He loved, be persecuted as He was persecuted, was at the best pride, and at the worst blasphemy. The Reformers were so fully conditioned by their anti-Catholic polemic that they fell prey to the temptation to affirm simply the opposite of what the Roman Church has taught. Against Catholic immanence they leaned toward an almost Docetic transcendentalism; against Catholic legalism they tended toward antinomianism. They were far too close to the Gospel to be frankly antinomian; but they had enormous difficulty in finding a place to attach ethics to the rest of their doctrine. Having thus thrown out the baby with the bath, they condemned Protestantism to a centuries-long pendulum movement between ethical liberalism and nonethical orthodoxy. There being no essential structural connection between Christ and ethics, except the negative one that we are saved by Christ instead of by works, Protestants have had to choose between a high Christology and a high ethic. The Anabaptist claim that Christ is authoritative in ethics in the same way as for soteriology, so that only the disciple can really know him..., avoided such a posing of alternatives, and perceived that a high ethic and a high Christology are possible only together.96

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First, Jesus teaches that His commands supersede those of the Old Testament, most notably in the Sermon on the Mount. In founding His own nation, Jesus stressed that the governance of His nation was different from that of Israel. This was done by saying, "You have heard that it was said" followed by citing an Old Testament teaching. Immediately following the citation Jesus would say, "But I say to you ..."; Jesus then supersedes the Old Testament teaching, sometimes intensifying it and sometimes modifying it. One of the best examples of this "you have heard... but I say" formula concerns oaths:

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord." But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your "Yes" be "Yes," and your "No," "No." For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. (Matt. 5:33-37)

In this passage, Jesus makes a reference to Leviticus 19:12, "You shall not swear by my name falsely." Yet He astonishes his hearers by banning oaths altogether, "But I say to you, do not swear at all" (Matt. 5:34). Jesus' prohibition of all oaths is striking because in the Old Testament only false oath taking was condemned. Oath taking was approved and even commanded.97 Moreover, Israel's godly leaders like Abraham, Moses, and David swore oaths.98 Even a righteous angel could be found swearing by God in the Old Testament (Dan. 12:7).

This command against oaths serves then as a powerful example of the New Covenant marking Christ's nation, because here the New must supersede the Old. One cannot observe both Old Testament and New Testament practices simultaneously. The argument can be made simpler still: since we are under the New Covenant and not the Old, the New Covenant must take primacy.

A second theme is that without Jesus' instruction, the Old Testament cannot be understood (Luke 24:44-45). The disciples, while familiar with traditional Jewish understanding of the Old Testament, needed their eyes opened by Jesus and required His instruction to correctly understand the Old Testament. Harmonizing well with the Christocentric method of exegesis discussed earlier, this points to the requirement of the New Testament to properly understand the Old.

Scripture develops the relationship of the covenants in several passages:

- When the New Covenant is promised in the Old Testament, it is described as, "not like the covenant that I made with their fathers" (Jer. 31:33). Difference is emphasized more than similarity in Jeremiah 31:31-34 as well as Ezekiel 36:24-38.

- In Galatians 3, Paul expounds a careful argument that the Old Covenant law served as a guardian, the term used for those who protected children,99 for the people of God until Jesus came. To follow the Old Testament view of circumcision would be like an adult going back to a childish state. The motif of bondage is closely related to this unnatural condition (Gal. 4).

- A contrast is drawn between the ends of the covenants (see 2 Cor. 3:6). "The ministry of the letter, that is, the Law [Mosaic Covenant], kills fallen people (cf. Rom. 6-7), while the ministry of the Spirit [through the New Covenant] gives them life."100

- When Paul describes being "not under the law" (for example in Rom. 6:14), this is a reference to the Old Covenant—the Mosaic law. "As in all these references, nomos [law] here must be the Mosaic law, the torah."101

- A major theme of the book of Hebrews concerns the relationship between the Old and New Covenants. The author calls the Old Covenant "obsolete" (Heb. 8:13).

- Balancing what might be construed as negative views, the Old Testament is described as being written for our instruction (1 Cor. 10:11), filled with models of faith (Heb. 11). Moreover, the Old Testament is filled with portraits of Jesus, serving to validate His Messiahship and inspire His followers. This makes the Old Testament extremely profitable for study and meditation.

The Anabaptist view attempts to balance these tensions: "They taught both continuity and discontinuity. They were not arguing for the rejection of the Old Testament, nor for the complete divorce of the Testaments. But most were convinced that the New Testament was radically new and could not be seen as being in unbroken continuity with the Old. It was not that the New Testament revoked the Old and made it worthless, but that the Old was subsumed in the New and could not function in isolation from it."102

A helpful contrast of how the Protestants and Anabaptists understood Scripture is in how false prophets were treated. Citing Old Testament passages, Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin advocated that such men be executed.103 In contrast, the Anabaptists noted that the New Testament mentions that false teachers should be neither greeted nor received.104 While not explicitly overturning Old Testament teaching, the New Testament paradigm was sufficient to cause the Anabaptists to advocate rebuke and separation as opposed to execution.

On matters such as war, oaths, wealth, and baptism, the Protestants relied heavily or even primarily on the Old Testament while the Anabaptists drew their views primarily from the New Testament. The Anabaptists continued to press the charge of inconsistency. For example, they believed that the Protestants compromised on salvation by faith by maintaining the Roman Catholic, state-church position of infant baptism as the entry point into the covenant, despite the absence of the infant's faith. The Anabaptists held that believer's baptism reinforced salvation by faith. Arminius and the Remonstrants made the case that the Protestants, while using the words "salvation by faith" in fact denied that truth at the core of their theology.105

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With the Protestants, the early Anabaptists cherished sola scriptura. The Anabaptists "followed rigorously the principle of sola scriptura: only the Bible is to be followed."106 The prominent Anabaptist leader Menno Simons supported sola scriptura: "I dare not go higher nor lower, more stringent nor lenient than the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit teach me; and that out of great fear and anxiety of my conscience, lest I again burden the godfearing hearts who now have renounced the commandments of men, with those commandments. Self-conceit and human opinions I hate, nor do I desire them; for I know what tribulation and affliction they have caused me for many years."107

Most contentious with the doctrine of sola scriptura is the relationship of Scripture to tradition. Several views can be found in church history in understanding this relationship. The oldest, called Tradition I, states that tradition describes the church's understanding of Scripture.108 Tradition is not an addition to Scripture; Scripture and tradition "coinhere" and are "coextensive" with each other.109 Tradition is essentially the church's exegesis of Scripture. "Tradition I, then, represents the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as understood by the Fathers and doctors of the Church. In the case of disagreement between these interpreters, Holy Scripture has the final authority."110 As a corollary to the Tradition I viewpoint, extrabiblical tradition is rejected by Tradition I advocates. The earliest post-apostolic church leaders affirm a Tradition I view. Irenaeus and Tertullian, "deny most decidedly the existence of extra-scriptural tradition."111 Other advocates of the classical Tradition I position include Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, John Wycliffe, John Huss, and the sixteenth century Protestants.

In contrast to the early Tradition I view, a second view known as Tradition II crept into the church after 325 AD. Tradition II teaches that tradition contains material beyond the interpretation of Scripture, representing a distinct source of revelation. Tradition becomes an addition to Scripture. Tradition II also endows tradition with co-equal authority to Scripture. "Ecclesiastical traditions, including canon law, are invested with the same degree of authority as that of Holy Scripture."112 Tradition II thinking is quite similar to rabbinic Judaism's view that "oral Torah" was given at Sinai, apart from written Torah, and that it represents a distinct body of revelation. Rabbinic Judaism spent centuries debating and elaborating the contents of oral Torah, such as details concerning Sabbath observance, washings, and dietary laws.

Within Christianity, while faintly emerging in the fourth century, Tradition II advocates clearly blossomed by the late middle ages, typified by William of Occam.113 At the time of the Reformation, in reacting against the Protestants, the Roman Catholic church clung to Tradition II, despite its historic novelty. For this reason, a substantial amount of the Protestant polemic against the Roman Catholic church amounted to citations of the church fathers, demonstrating that Protestant doctrines were original and that the Roman Catholic church was the innovator: "Within this historical context, the Reformers saw themselves not as introducing some new teaching about `Scripture alone', but as overturning the dangerous innovation brought in by the growth of Tradition II, and recovering for the church as a whole the early church's `Tradition I' position. For the Reformers, sola scriptura meant a return to Tradition I. In other words, the Reformers had a high regard for the authority of inherited traditions of biblical interpretation, and of the views of earlier generations of widely respected theologians, as well as for the church's role in providing a context in which Scripture can properly be understood."114

In distinguishing between Tradition I and Tradition II, one must be clear that sola scriptura does not teach that Scripture is the only authority, but that it is the only infallible authority.115 Other authority does exist, such as the received wisdom of the early church, but such authority is subordinate to Scripture. Another way of framing this distinction draws on an analogy to faith and works. While we are saved by faith alone, we are not saved by a faith that is alone—that is, true faith always produces works. Similarly, "our final authority is Scripture alone, but not a Scripture that is alone."116 Other subordinate authorities are useful aids in comprehending and obeying the only infallible authority of Scripture.

Another view concerning the relationship between Scripture and tradition, popular in modern evangelical churches, states that Scripture is not only the sole infallible authority, it is the only authority. This "Bible and me" doctrine has largely flourished because of the rise of individualism and weak-group thinking and is radically different from Tradition I thinking. This view has been termed Tradition 0, because it allows for no room for tradition.117 Being so different from sola scriptura, Tradition 0 has been called solo scriptura.118 Solo scriptura, in contrast to sola scriptura, exalts the individual's private judgment over the corporate judgment of the church. Solo scriptura, by encouraging the autonomy of the individual, lays the groundwork for church division. Weak-group churches go hand-in-hand with solo scriptura. Besides promoting division, another serious flaw of solo scriptura is that it does not adequately confront the prejudice and bias which all readers naturally have:

Everyone who reads the Bible does so with a set of expectations and assumptions, some consciously held and some subconscious, that have been handed on to them. It is dangerous, of course, if these are misleading expectations and assumptions. What is often equally dangerous is to deny that one has them at all. Indeed, in practice, communities that espouse Tradition 0 cannot usually avoid adhering to some kind of tradition, in order to provide coherence in faith across the community, and to avoid falling into an anarchy in which each one does and believes simply what is right in his own eyes. They therefore smuggle `tradition' in, without identifying it as such, in the form of a senior position in the community given to one or more individuals judged to be especially gifted in discerning the voice of the Spirit in Scripture.119

Not surprisingly, then, solo scriptura can supply the fertile soil for the growth of charismatic (sometimes abusive) leaders.

Some are uncomfortable with saying that Scripture is the only infallible authority—should not that be reserved for God? To answer that question, we recall the presentation from chapter 6, where we saw that God's word and God Himself are closely bound, and that God's word is invested with God's very authority. Scripture's status as being the sole infallible authority comes directly from its status as God-breathed.

By now, it should also be clear how poorly misunderstood sola scriptura generally is. "It does not deny the necessity of traditions of biblical interpretation, creedal formulations of biblical faith, and inherited church practices that help to express and pass on the faith. Rather it ensures that all those traditions serve Scripture, the supreme authority, rather than compete with it. Sola scriptura means `Scripture supreme'."120 Sola scriptura can be defined in a single sentence: the Scriptures are the only infallible authority, in a Tradition I sense. This interpretative principle has a powerful binding effect upon the church, promoting the unity that Jesus earnestly sought. Sola scriptura combats against the divisiveness of unchecked individualism (Tradition 0) as well as autonomous and corrupt institutions (Tradition II).

Kuruvilla, Finny. King Jesus Claims His Church: A Kingdom Vision for the People of God (Kindle Locations 1396-1462). Anchor-Cross Publishing. Kindle Edition.

We filed outside into the crisp, dark night and trudged in silence toward the dock at the rim of the lake. Admittedly the evening sky was the clearest we had seen all week. The Milky Way was perfectly prominent, shooting stars fizzled through the atmosphere overhead, and innumerable twinkles shone forth their tidings from eons past. Yet my suspicions were confirmed as we arrived at the dock and Malcolm bent over to lay down our blankets, revealing a conspicuously square-shaped bulge in his back pocket.

Epinephrine surged through my body. My heart rate instantly jumped 20 beats and I had to consciously focus on breathing normally as I pretended to gaze at God’s handiwork. Nerves had overtaken Malcolm as well, for he almost immediately grabbed me squarely by the shoulders and faced me toward him. He spluttered out something presumably sweet that neither of us remembers and proceeded to kneel. Having difficulty removing that same square bulge from his back pocket, he paused to reposition himself, successfully wrested the box out, and nervously finished popping the question on both knees. Having already started crying minutes before, I blubbered that I would marry him, and he slipped onto my finger a beautiful diamond ring that rivaled the star-studded sky in its brilliance. After recovering, hugging, and spending some actual time admiring the stars, we spent at least 15 minutes attempting to take a selfie to document the moment. We still have a reel of terribly unflattering pictures of half of our blinking faces and my new gold-set rock.

While I love our engagement story and still think back on that night fondly, much has changed for Malcolm and me since then. The breathtaking stone is resting yet again in that telltale box, now alongside the diamond-encrusted wedding band that Malcolm gave me ten months later in front of family and friends. No, we are not divorced. And no, our relationship is not on the rocks, as some have asked and many more have likely wondered. Instead, a powerful, paradigm-shifting encounter with God’s Word has led us to make decisions we could never have anticipated.

I wore my engagement ring proudly for many months. I didn’t always realize it at the time, but the ring had an inordinate amount of power over me (unfortunately I have never read J.R. Tolkien’s masterpieces or seen the movies, but I think there is probably some hilarious reference I could make here). To begin with, the ring made us “official.” Malcolm and I had already entertained several conversations about marriage, even to the point of proposing a tentative date (that ended up sticking!). For all intents and purposes, we were getting married, but it never became real until that night on Black Donald Lake. Not because we discussed it for the 47th time, but because he asked me while offering me an expensive piece of jewelry. Somehow our words and intentions were not enough, but we also needed some sort of external marker to announce to the world that we were truly serious about getting married.

The engagement ring did not simply change our Facebook relationship status; I also found it changing my thoughts. Never before had I spent so much time scrutinizing other women’s left hands. The diamond Malcolm bought me was far from small (the computer algorithm he wrote in order to find it and the number of family members’ hands it passed through to get to me are stories for another time). Yet any ring slightly bigger than mine, or a central diamond flanked by a halo: “Goodness gracious, how gaudy! What a desperate cry for attention!” Any stone noticeably smaller: “My, how diminutive! Is she proud to wear that?” Silver, white gold, or platinum: “My gold ring is far more classic.” The ugly whisperings of my heart went on, and I was none the wiser that they were growing to hideous, pervasive shouts, or that they desperately needed to be silenced.

Around the halfway mark through our engagement, Malcolm and I began wrestling with Scripture in a life-changing way: we started to ask what our lives would look like if we actually started to obey the difficult commands we found in God’s Word. It was Malcolm who first brought up the idea of foregoing wearing wedding rings after reading challenging passages like 1 Peter 3:3-6 and 1 Timothy 2:9-10. The fierce resistance of my response should have immediately signaled to me the importance of this issue. Many excuses came to mind: “How will people know we are married? What if they think we are just cohabitating together? That will damage our witness and the gospel message!” “What about when we have kids? When people see me with our children, they might think I am a promiscuous single mother!” “Married men only take off their rings when they want to cheat on their wives.” After all, the anticipation had been building up for years, ever since college when I first noticed friend after friend getting engaged and married, and I simply assumed the same would happen to me. “I am finally allowed to wear a ring on this finger, and NOW you want me to give it up for Jesus?”

Yet, despite the dozens of objections I raised, I never verbalized the true undertones of my heart: “But I LOVE this ring. It gives me meaning, identity, pride, and glory. I am not the same person without this ring.” I knew what I was feeling was wrong, yet I could not bring myself to utter the ugly truth. So, I kept up my weak façade and perpetuated some of the other arguments I found to be more palatable.

Nonetheless, in answer to prayer, God was busy reworking my heart and my thoughts. My excuses could not withstand an even greater desire to openly accept all that God asks of me and to live obediently as His daughter and a citizen of His Kingdom. A flood of new thoughts washed over me, thoughts that may seem obvious to some but which had never been emphasized in my Evangelical background. What if modesty is not simply relative to the time and culture I live in, but an absolute standard? What if God cares not just about what we cover up, but also that we choose not to show off? Does it make more sense for “gold and pearls” to be dismissed because they do not comprise an exhaustive list, or to be taken as a synecdoche for a much broader concept?

My discomfort with these questions disappeared gradually over time, as did piece after piece of jewelry from my ears, nose, and finally my ring finger. It was amazing how removing those last carats felt like lifting a metric ton; as with so many forms of spiritual slavery, I only realized the extent of my bondage once I became free. And how truly free I now feel!

How liberating to approach God’s Word openly and faithfully, allowing a simple and logical rendering of Scripture! How freeing to read without bias or preordained conclusions that deviate from God’s heart for His people. How empowering to let “cultural context” only add richness and color to my understanding, rather than to twist and mangle Scripture to reinforce my comfortable and culturally acceptable lifestyle. How wonderful to no longer let women’s left hands dictate my thoughts toward them or fret about what message my own adornment conveys.

Though I still love to think back to the night of our engagement, I sometimes surprise myself how little I think about my bare ring finger. I never miss it. Rather than long to return to my captor, I simply mourn how long it took me to understand that God’s commands are not to restrict or punish, but instead allow us to experience fullness of life, the life He always desired for us.