“Interpreting Scripture in the Reformed Community Today” was the title of the second conference sponsored by Redeemer College of Hamilton, Ontario, on May 29–31, 1986.
Dr. David Holwerda began the conference with an address aimed at answering the question, “How does the Reformed community interpret Scripture today?” He sketched first the broad area of agreement, and then the areas of disagreement among Reformed Christians.
We all agree, Holwerda argued, on matters of epistemology (how we know truth to be true); that is, we all agree that faith is basic to reason and that the Christian faith does not depend on rational proof. Reason is not the judge of truth. Though we all share this confessional, philosophical position, our differences arise, Holwerda alleged, when we develop a structure to place on this foundation. Because the exercise of interpretation is not one of purely logical deductions, readers are bound to arrive at different conclusions.
Four differences were outlined:
1) Because some view the historical distance between the Bible (and its world) and us (and our world) as so great, a shift in the view of truth has occurred. The view of truth as relation, articulated in (the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands’) God Met Ons (God With Us), has lost an objective criterion of truth and depends upon a tension between the reader and the biblical text.
2) The Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (synodical) (GKN) provide example of another difference among Reformed Bible interpreters: a shift has occurred in the view of how Law and Gospel relate, and of how Creation and Eschaton (the Last Time) relate. Moreover, the cross of Christ is being used to relativize the Law (cf. the GKN report on homosexuality), involving a practical denial that the Word structures life.
3) A third difference concerns the use of “critical” methods of Scripture interpretation. Today some argue that historical criticism, form criticism, literary criticism, and so forth, can and may be used by “evangelicals,” among whom we who are Reformed may count ourselves.
4) A fourth difference concerns the matter of common grace and its presumed justification for adopting/adapting the conclusions of a “neutral” science of Bible interpretation.
Professor Holwerda concluded by reminding the audience of the aim of Scripture according to II Timothy 3:16, 17: obedience in the world. We can’t turn simply “to the Bible alone,” ignoring the problems that history and creation pose for Bible reading. The path of obedience isn’t directly discernible from Scripture. These differences of interpretation are inevitable, and controversy about them is, in fact, an aspect of the Spirit’s leading us into the truth.
Test-Case: Divorce/Remarriage in the CRC
On Friday morning, May 30, conferees were addressed by a panel ofthree (Dr. Al Wolters, Redeemer College; Rev. Nelson Kloosterman, Mid-America Reformed Seminary; Dr. Allen Verhey, Hope College), each of whom analyzed CRC decisions about divorce and remarriage as an example of the application of principles of Bible reading.
Dr. Wolters summarized the events begun in 1970 by an overture from Classis Toronto, and the three study reports issuing from that request. He noted the initial breadth and subsequent narrowness of meaning given to the word porneia (adultery). The 1973 report viewed porneia as anything leading to marital disruption, whereas the 1980 report argued that porneia refers to sexual infidelity. Wolters noted with appreciation the emphasis on Jesus’ clarity about the indissolubility of marriage, but wondered why no report considered Ezra’s command that the Israelites married to pagan women divorce their wives (Ezra 10:1–44).
As second speaker, I summarized the interpretations of I Corinthians 7:10–16 offered to the synods of 1906, 1957 and 1980. The various components of interpretation (context, word meanings, grammar, broader biblical history, etc.) received thorough attention in each of these reports, and differences of exegetical opinion were often discussed at length. But the surprising feature of the 1980 study is that, after setting forth an array of exegetical choices, it argued that the existence of these differences made it impossible “to state specifically what Scripture requires in this passage.”
We also noted that during the years spanned by these reports (1906-1980) the limits of exegetical uncertainty expanded considerably. As the years went by, Scripture became more and more “ambiguous” and “unclear.” This is surely surprising when contrasted with the “certain” conclusions of critical biblical scholarship more widely accepted among us! Especially the 1980 report alleged that certain passages of Scripture are obscure, an obscurity due principally to the fact that Scripture’s original situation cannot be reconstructed from the text. We therefore asked: if this be so, what does it mean to confess the clarity and sufficiency of Scripture as the only rule of faith and life?
Dr. Allen Verhey commended the 1980 study very highly for respecting and promoting “pluralism” in the interpretation of Scripture. He gave that report a high grade for its willingness to engage in source and redaction criticism of Scripture, and for its unwillingness to straightjacket the text as though one answer or interpretation is right.
If Verhey had written the 1980 report, he said that he would have pointed the church to the rabbinic schools ofHillel and Shammai, who had differing interpretations of Deuteronomy 24:1 (the “unseemly thing” refers either to sexual impurity [Shammai] or to anything distasteful [Hillel]). Here, Verhey alleged, is a good example of two people holding a high view of Scripture who nonetheless carne to quite different exegetical conclusions.
Dr. Verhey would also have taught the church, had he written the 1980 report, about the Talmudic strands of Halakah and Haggadah as important background for understanding what Mark and Matthew did with what are purported to have been the words of Jesus. (I say “purported to have been,” because, according to Verhey, we don’t have the very words of Jesus preserved for us in Scripture, and it is very difficult to reconstruct the historical Jesus, who may or may not have said these words). Matthew and Mark were interested in communicating to us not a legal permission for divorce (Matt. 5:32; 19:9), but rather the encouragement to shape our character by the story of Jesus, so that we’ll not be disposed to divorce. The appropriate question to address to the Bible, therefore, is not: what must I do?, but: who must I be? Scripture is the story of the cross enabling and requiring forgiveness, not a set of rules forming a new system of legislation. The Bible isn’t the only source for moral rules; but it is the last word on who we are and who we are to be.
(The reader is referred, for a similar line of argument in Verhey’s own words, to his book review “Grounds for remarriage?” in the May, 1986 issue of The Reformed Journal, pages 28–29).
The Proof of the Pudding: Preaching
The principles of Bible interpretation are most clearly evident in preaching. “How is Scripture used in the CRC pulpit?” was the question addressed by Dr. Carl Zylstra, minister of the Word in the Immanuel CRC, Orange City, Iowa. In spite of the facts that this address was given in the evening and that its subject ought to interest church members, the audience was comparatively small.
Dr. Zylstra structured his remarks in terms of the Past, the Present, and How Preaching Should be Done. Zylstra argued that past “heroes” of the CRC pulpit chose, in somewhat conscious aversion to biblicistic fundamentalism (a term fondly bandied about at conferences, whose precise meaning few care to explain), to preach the text’s message rather than the text’s words. Today, by contrast, preachers seem more and more to be preaching the words of the text. Witness the interest, Zylstra contended, in the expository method of verse by verse explanation of Scripture. CRC preachers have lost their fear of biblicism! Witness also the distaste for catechism preaching—a sign, Zylstra alleged, that we’re being overrun by the expository preaching of Scripture’s words.
But Zylstra’s analysis fails to ring true to the church situation generally. Moreover, it appeared to this writer that the speaker had impaled representatives of the past and of the present on the horns of a false dilemma. How, one might ask, is the text’s message understood and communicated apart from the text’s words? Even the so-called “reconstructive method,” guiding the preacher to put the text’s message into his own theme and divisions, relies on the text’s words to validate and anchor the sermon’s theme and points. More often than we preachers like to admit, we are haunted and arrested by our listeners’ question, “Now, where did you get that idea from the text?”
Observations
More addresses and other panel presentations were given at the conference. Prof. Dr. W. Velema from Apeldoom, the Netherlands, and Prof. Dr. J. Faber from the Theological College of the Canadian Reformed Churches participated in a stimulating exchange concerning the use of Scripture in ethics. Drs. Sidney Greidanus, John Stek and Henry Vander Goat brought the conference to its conclusion with their analysis of questions still needing to be faced in Reformed hermeneutics today. But, for lack of space, we are unable to report their remarks in further detail.
I should like to add two final observations to those already made.
In spite of the suggestion that “we are all agreed on the basics,” I believe there is fundamental (that is to say, basic) disagreement in the CRC on the validity of what is called “Scripture criticism.” It was shocking to see the conclusions of criticism slide unchallenged past most of the CRC participants: (NonCRC participants Faber and Velema were forthrightly critical of careless remarks and ideas about Scripture and revelation expressed by some at the conference). For example, the highly questionable assumption that Mark was written before Matthew (a “mild” one at that!) was employed to determine “what Matthew was trying to say” when the speaker reworked Mark ‘s material concerning marriage and divorce—all this without rebuttal! In fact, the openness exhibited in study reports to the conclusions of higher criticism was praised by some as a virtue!
Here lies, in my judgment, the greatest threat to Reformed hermeneutics today. Relatively little attention was devoted to distinguishing between the presuppositions, methods and conclusions of historical criticism, and to analysis of their origin.
Finally, Redeemer College deserves our compliments for hosting this second conference on CRC perspectives. Having participated in both conferences, I’ve seen the congenial hospitality of the college personnel displayed in fine form! Initiated in part by Dr. John Bolt’s concerns about polarization in the CRC, the 1985 conference dealt with the nature of truth itself. (You can obtain a copy of the main speeches given at the ‘85 conference, published under the title Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis, from Paideia Press, P.O. Box 770, Lewiston, NY 14092; or P.O. Box 1000, Jordan Station, Ont. LOR 1SO). Underlying one’s view of truth is one’s view of Scripture—hence the topic for the ’86 conference.
But now, after two meetings of representative CRC spokesmen where deep differences of conviction and practice were expressed, the question needs to be asked: How beneficial can these conferences be when irreconcilable points of view are “exchanged” (with the best of manners) as if they were equally true and valid? High on the sponsors’ agenda should be the question whether they wish to continue offering conferees the wide spectrum of divergent, contradictory CRC opinion (if so, why? for what real good? to whose edification?)-or whether genuine leadership within the church might better be provided by making a choice among the “truths” to be championed, studied and applied among us today. Avoiding such a choice will, I fear, narrow conference participation to clergymen, theologians and philosophers, continuing to talk only to themselves.
Nelson D. Kloosterman is a professor at Mid–America Reformed Seminary at Orange City, Iowa.