Hermeneutics and the

Reformation:
PRINCIPLES AND METHODS

by Edwin Reynolds, PhD

The Protestant Reformation
 The Protestant Reformation was not about breaking away
from the power of the Roman Catholic Church. It was
about reforming the Church through a return to biblical
teachings.
 The Roman Catholic Church had become corrupt through
placing church tradition above the teachings of Scripture. It
believed that its authority was superior to that of Scripture,
that it could issue rulings and edicts that superceded
Scripture. It held the keys to the kingdom of God, and its
decisions were those of God Himself.
Reformation Principles
 The Reformation subscribed to 5 basic principles:
1. Sola Scriptura
2. Sola fide
3. Sola gratia
4. Solo Christo
5. Soli Dei gloria
1. Sola Scriptura
 The first principle was that Scripture and Scripture alone
(sola Scriptura) was authoritative for teaching and practice
for Christians.
 This stood in flagrant contrast to the teaching of the
Church, namely, that it was the final authority for the
believer, that Church tradition not only supplemented the
Bible but was above the Bible.
 Scholasticism, especially Thomas Aquinas, had taught that
reason and revelation were equals, that Scripture was not
the final authority.
2. Sola Fide
 The second principle was that salvation was attainable
through faith alone (sola fide), not earned through works
of penance or receiving the sacraments of the Church.
 This was in direct conflict with the teaching of the Church,
namely, that believers must receive the seven sacraments
of the Church in order to be saved, and must also practice
deeds of charity, pay penance, make pilgrimages, and
venerate saints and relics.
3. Sola Gratia
 The third principle was that salvation was by grace alone
(sola gratia), an unmerited gift from God, not something
that the Church could dole out based on the believer’s
performance.
 This principle denied the Church’s teaching that it held the
keys to the kingdom and could bind or release the
individual with respect to salvation based on their doing
what the Church required. Not the grace of God alone
could avail, but the merits of the saints needed to be added,
as distributed by the Church to the penitent.
4. Solo Christo
 The fourth principle was that salvation is found in Christ
alone (solo Christo). The once-for-all sacrifice of Christ was
sufficient to atone for our sins and provide for our salvation.
 This principle stood in direct defiance of the Church’s
teaching that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was insufficient
to atone for sins, but the penitent must come to the church
and confess to a priest, pay due penance, and receive the
daily sacrifice of the mass distributed by the priest.
5. Soli Dei Gloria
 The fifth principle was that, since salvation is from the
gracious gift of God alone, through Christ’s sacrifice of
atonement, with no human merit or work required, to God
alone belongs the glory (soli Dei Gloria).
 This principle entirely eviscerated the claims of the Church
to authority, glory, and power because of its claim to be able
to dispense salvation on its own terms. The believer could
be saved by a direct, unmediated relationship with God.
Understanding Sola Scriptura
 Sola Scriptura was the most fundamental of the five
principles of the Reformation. It was on this principle that
the other four could be established.
 Not only did it prioritize Scripture over tradition and human
reason, but it also included a clear understanding of what
constituted Scripture.
• The Reformers excluded the deuterocanonical works (OT
Apocrypha) from Scripture.
• The Reformers insisted that ‘Scripture’ designated works in
their original languages, not in the Vulgate.
 Challenging the Latin Vulgate
 For over a thousand years, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate had served
as Scripture for the Roman Church, while the Greek and
Hebrew texts were not preserved.
 When the Ottoman Turks laid siege to Constantin-ople in 1453,
many biblical manuscripts held there by the Eastern Church
were brought to the West to save them from destruction.
 The Reformers placed great value on these texts as having
priority over the Vulgate in determining the teaching of
Scripture. This was transformational.
Translating Scripture into the Vernacular
Languages
 The availability of Greek and Hebrew texts under the
European Renaissance spurred philological study and
resulted in the Reformer’s interest in translating these texts
into vernacular languages.
 Erasmus and Luther translated the Scriptures from the
original languages into German, making it possible for
people to read the Scriptures for themselves instead of
being dependent on the priests and monks to interpret the
Latin for them.
Widespread Access to Scripture
 Gutenberg’s development of the printing press enabled
widespread access to the vernacular Scriptures that
undermined the unscriptural teachings of the Roman
Catholic Church.
 Now people could check out the teachings of the Church
from Scripture and see where the teachings of the priests
and monks deviated from the teachings of Scripture.
 This was a key to the success of the Reformation. People
had unmediated access to Scripture.
Theology vs. Hermeneutics
 The Magisterial (mainstream) Reformers did not set out to
reform hermeneutics. Rather, they utilized the existing
hermeneutics of the Roman Church until their reading of
Scripture changed their theology. At that point they had to
adopt a new hermeneutic that would correctly interpret
Scripture to agree with the early Christian church.
 Theteaching of the early Christian church, rather than the
medieval teaching of the Roman Church, became the test of
correct interpretation.
Reformation Hermeneutics
 Early Reformation hermeneutics were mixed. While some
Reformers continued using the allegorical method, others
used the tropological (moral) method, and others used a
literal method.
 Over time, the literal reading of Scripture came to prevail
because it best produced the teaching of the early church.
 Itwas referred to as the grammatical reading, not because it
emphasized grammar but because in Greek gramma means
“letters.” It meant a literal reading, emphasizing the text
just as it reads.
Martin Luther’s Hermeneutics
 Luther was trained as a scholastic theologian and preferred
the tropological interpretation in his earlier years, although
he also utilized both the literal and the allegorical
interpretations.
 His biblical expositions led him theologically to develop a
unique Christological interpretation in which he taught that
everything in Scripture must point to Christ in order to have
authority for the Christian. He questioned the authority of
biblical books, like James, that did not point to Christ.
Ulrich Zwingli’s Hermeneutics
 Zwingli was basically a humanist like Erasmus (not a
secular humanist but a Renaissance humanist). Humanists
made Scripture available in the original languages and
practiced biblical exegesis as the basis for a religious
experience.
 ForZwingli, Scripture was the means for achieving a
mediated encounter with the risen Christ.
 Using a typological method grounded in a literal, historical
reading, he developed a dialectical approach to the ‘word’
and ‘sense’ of Scripture.
Martin Bucer’s Hermeneutics
 Bucer totally rejected the allegorical method, since it allows
human ideas to be imposed on Scripture so that any
interpretation can be read into it. He saw the historical sense
as fundamental, though its relevance must be discerned
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
 Bucer also emphasized the tropological, in that Scripture is
oriented toward the practical questions of human existence.
The believer is empowered by the Spirit to fulfill the
demands of the gospel.
John Calvin’s Hermeneutics
 Calvin made a decisive break with the moralist (tropological)
interpretation of Scripture. His exegetical method was
grounded in a literal, historical (historical-grammatical)
interpretation.
 He determined to make biblical commentaries widely
available, “to give access to Holy Scripture to all the children
of God, in order that they might really understand it.” By this
means he propagated the Reformed ideas of the Genevan
Reformation.
 His exegesis of Scripture is still highly regarded.
Seeking for ‘Plain Meaning’
 The Reformers believed that the Scriptures were
comprehensible to all, not only to the priests and scholars of
the Church. The “plain meaning” of the text could be made
available to everyone by translations that were faithful to the
original.
 Itwas necessary to study the grammar and the vocabulary of
the original languages to do this, but no one doubted that this
was an objective science that did not depend on one’s
theological orientation.
The Importance of a Faith Context
 The Reformers believed that the Bible needs to be read in
a theological context, whether the context was imposed
from without or discovered from within. It reflects a
coherent system of thought, namely, the faith of the
church.
 A critical attitude toward the text was regarded as a sign of
unbelief and was not acceptable. Only later did a critical
attitude toward Scripture develop (during the 18th-century
Enlightenment).
Scriptura Sui Ipsius Interpres
 Thekey issue that separated Protestants from Catholics was
whether Scripture interprets itself (sui ipsius interpres) or
requires the teaching authority of the Church to interpret it
correctly.
 TheRoman Church had long taught that only those
invested with the teaching authority of the Church could
correctly interpret Scripture, but the Reformers taught that
Scripture was self-interpreting and could be understood by
any careful, believing student of Scripture.
The Analogy of Faith
 There was general agreement as time progressed that most of
the Bible could be understood clearly and should be
interpreted in the literal sense.
 Those parts of the Bible that were not so clear were to be
interpreted according to what was called “the analogy of
faith.” This meant that the less clear passages were to be
understood in agreement with the clearer passages, and
nothing was to be inferred from the unclear texts that could
not be proved from a clearer text.
Explicit vs. Implicit Teaching
 More radical Protestants taught that only what could be proved
by Scripture could be required, while more liberal ones taught
that all practices should be allowed that are not expressly
forbidden.
 Most Reformers agreed that a teaching did not need to be
explicitly spelled out but could be taught if a doctrine was
consistently implicit in the biblical text (such as the doctrine of
the Trinity).
 Thelanguage, but not the substance, of systematic theology
might be derived from outside of Scripture.
The Biblical Canon
 Since Jerome translated the Bible into Latin (A.D. 400),
including the apocryphal additions to the Septuagint, the
Roman Church had used these additions as Scripture to teach
doctrines like the doctrine of purgatory.
 The Reformers agreed that the Hebrew canon was the only
one that should be used for the OT . Although the Council of
Trent subsequently voted to retain the apocryphal
intertestamental works, they came to be classified as
deuterocanonical.
Views of Revelation and Inspiration
 For the first generation of Reformers, Scripture was the
voice of Christ speaking to His church through the text. Just
as Christ in His humanity could have physical imperfections
without compromising His divinity and teaching authority,
the Scripture could have imperfections and still be infallible
in its teaching.
 Thus, text criticism was not a significant factor for the early
Reformers. God preserved His message pure, despite
variants in the biblical texts.
The Role of Covenant Theology
 Calvin was a systematician who sought to find a balance
between text, meaning, and application. His work led to the
development of a covenant theology that tied together the
various aspects of the history of God’s people through the
ages.
 The Bible is the story of God’s relationship to humankind. It
is the story of God’s grace to every generation through His
covenant with them. The details may change, but God’s love
and grace are unchanging. Sharing the gospel is sharing the
story of His grace, which unites humanity together.
The Historical-Grammatical Method
 Also called the grammatico-historical method, this method is
based on exegetical principles and textual analysis, including
textual criticism, but, unlike historical criticism, remains
committed to the divine inspiration and infallibility of the
text.
 The exegetical principles, which were worked out already by
the time of Erasmus, were adopted by the Reformers and
used to counter the allegorical, philosophical, and other
interpretations of the Roman Church, which led to unbiblical
teachings.
Historical-Grammatical Principles—1
 Basic to the historical-grammatical method was the principle
that the meaning of a word must be determined from its
literary context, beginning with the local context and moving
outward to its canonical context (to confirm that its rendition
is in harmony with the theology of Scripture).
 It
was assumed that the biblical text made sense both to its
writer and to its original readers.
 Scripture is understood to be a self-interpreting unity,
authoritative in religious matters and consistent in its
teaching.
Historical-Grammatical Principles—2
 Study of the historical-cultural conditions of the times in
which the text was written is important for understanding the
situation being addressed.
 Basic to interpretation is a correct understanding of the
relationship between law and gospel.
 In evaluating variants it was assumed that later scribes tended
to simplify difficulties, leading to the text-critical principle of
lectio difficilior.
 The interpreter must be illumined by the Holy Spirit, yielding
a sola fide and sola gratia experience.
Influence on Seventh-day Adventism
 The Seventh-day Adventist Church sees itself as the
extension of the Reformation. When the Reformers died and
their followers settled into creedalism, God raised up a
movement to carry out what the Reformation failed to
complete.
 While the Reformation was imperfect and incomplete, its
biblical principles were ordained of God and need to be
brought to completion.
 The 1986 “Methods of Bible Study” document is grounded in
the historical-grammatical method.
Conclusions
 God raised up the Protestant Reformation to return people’s
minds to the Scriptures and to Christ, to reform Christianity
from its corruption.
 Criticalin this process was a biblical hermeneutic that would
provide for a valid reading of Scripture and a valid text from
which to work.
 This historical-grammatical method was effective in restoring
truth to Christianity, and it is still needed to separate truth
from error in this postmodern age.
 Any deviation from this method poses a danger.