BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION SERIES: PART 5
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Martin Luther (1483–1546). Martin Luther is considered the Father of Protestantism. He was a priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor. As a theologian, one of his major breaks from the Catholic church was that each individual can read and interpret Scripture for themselves. To further this goal, Luther eventually translated the entire Bible into German. Luther’s approach to Old Testament interpretation was that material could be understood in both a purely historical context and also in a prophetic context that points to Christ. He associates the historical interpretation with the flesh (which kills) and the prophetic interpretation with the spirit (which gives life). Luther writes:
Reading: I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the mind” (1 Corinthians 14: 15). To “sing with the spirit” is to sing with spiritual devotion and feeling, which contrasts with those who sing only with the flesh … Those who have a purely fleshly understanding of the Psalter, such as the Jews, always apply this text to ancient history apart from Christ. But Christ has opened the mind of his people, so that they might understand the Scripture. [Martin Luther, Dictata Super Psalterium, Preface]
Luther goes on to apply the Quadriga hermeneutic to the meaning of Mount Zion in the OT. This results in an eightfold interpretive method! A summary of Luther’s eightfold interpretation is shown in the below table.
| According to the letter, which kills | According to the spirit, which gives life | |
| Historically | The land of Canaan | The people living in Zion |
| Allegorically | The synagogue, or some person of importance in it | The church, or some doctor, bishop, of person |
| Tropologically | Pharisaic and legal righteousness | The righteousness of faith or something else excellent |
| Anagogically | The future glory of the flesh | The eternal glory in the heavens |
John Calvin (1509–1564). John Calvin was a French theologian and the second most important person of the Protestant Reformation after Martin Luther. Calvin was originally trained as a lawyer and moved to Switzerland after breaking with the Roman Catholic Church in 1530. Calvin’s most important work is called Institutes of the Christian Religion, or simply the Institutes. Calvin sees the OT somewhat different than Luther. Luther, for the most part, sees the OT and NT as being in different categories, referring to the OT as the Law and the NT as the Gospel. In the Institutes, in contrast, Calvin maintains that the message of the OT and the NT are identical. He writes:
Reading [emphasis added]: Now from what has been said above, we can see clearly that all people who have been adopted by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as remains in force among us […] The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so similar to ours, both in substance and in fact, that the two are really one and the same; what differences there are relate to their administration … First, we hold that it was not material prosperity and happiness which was the goal set before the Jews, and to which they were to aspire, but the hope of immortality. Faith in this adoption was made certain to them by oracles, by the law, and by the prophets. Second, the covenant by which they were bound to the Lord did not rest upon their own merits, but solely upon the mercy of the God who called them. Thirdly, they both possessed and knew Christ as mediator, through whom they were joined to God and were to benefit from his promises. [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.x.1, 2.]
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