This is from the
chapter 5 of Election and Conversion. A Frank Discussion of
Dr. Franz Pieper’s Book on “Conversion and Election,” with
Suggestions for Lutheran Concord and Union on Another Basis
True, our Missouri
brethren will reply: “We have said again and again that this
is the mystery of election; we do not try to solve it; we
leave it with the eternal counsels of the Almighty to be
revealed in the next life.” But why should we, in our
theologizing, make the Bible a book of contradictions and
inconsistencies by a method of setting proof-text over against
proof-text? Why not study it more deeply, and see whether we
cannot coordinate its teachings and find their inner harmony?
Surely if God is the altogether excellent One, He must be
harmonious in His own being, and when He gives His children a
revelation, it surely cannot be so full of contradictions as
to turn them into infidels. We believe in “the divine unity of
the Scriptures.” By collating Scripture with Scripture, we
can, more and more, find the beautiful and higher harmony of
its teachings. We like Dr. Jacobs’ view-point here (page 9, ut
supra); he defines the proper hermeneutical principle
as being an observance of “the organic relation of the various
parts of Holy Scripture to one another.”* True, we confess to
some doubt about what is known as the doctrine of “the analogy
of faith,” for it seems to set up a human standard of
interpretation outside of the Bible, while we believe in
taking the Bible teaching just as it stands. But then every
text ought to be interpreted in its true contextual setting
and according to the meaning of the writer, with due attention
to the correct exegesis.
* GJ - I like Hoenecke for his many strengths, but it is troubling that he wrote - "We must put the election verses together..." (paraphrased) No, Professor Hoenecke, that filters the results. The Scriptures are one unified Truth. A synodical star is not always correct because he was a synodical star. The final authority is the Word, not "how we define that in our circles," a famous, dog-eared excuse offered up by smirking WELSians.
Mere phrases and brief sentences
should not be treated in an insulated way, nor wrenched from
their context, nor interpreted merely according to the sound
of the words, when the real sense may be something quite
different. You cannot truly and fairly interpret any writing
in that way – that is, by simply quoting a detached sentence
here and there; for sometimes a preceding or succeeding
statement of the author may qualify the quoted statement.
Take, for instance, 1 Cor. 2:9. Suppose a dogmatician should
try to formulate from that passage the doctrine that the
glories of heaven are far beyond human conception and
imagination, because Paul says: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard,” etc.
The true interpreter of Scripture would simply
tell him to read the next verse, when he would see that Paul
was not referring to heaven at all, but to the revelations
Christians now have through the Spirit of God. We shall have
occasion more than once, in succeeding chapters, to show how
our Concordia brethren miss the mark in drawing their peculiar
doctrines from the Scriptures by a too infinitesimal treatment
of the Bible.
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| They agree in their opposition to Luther, but they will sell you overpriced Luther trinkets. |
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| Funny how the garbage and lint collects on the drain. |
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| The Wolf of Wall Street Made Himself Famous by Bragging about His Thievery. Thrivent perked up its lupine ears and licked its slavering jaws. |
