Issues in NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY by RICHARD B. GAFFIN JR. Selected Articles on Biblical and Systematic Theology This book was compiled upon the occasion of Dr. Richard Gaffin’s 80th birthday. The Reformed evangelical community celebrates his life and ministry. What a gift Dr. Richard Gaffin has been to Christ’s church—and now for 80 years. Thanks be to God for his faithful witness in life and in theology. We are all in his debt, and we celebrate this important milestone with him in gratitude. —Albert Mohler A Westminster prof, Richard Gaffin, Exhibits the best of good staffin’: Although he is eighty His thoughts are still weighty And sprinkled with good-humored laughin’. —Don Carson TABLE of CONTENTS Contemporary Hermeneutics and the Study of the New Testament (1969) The Usefulness of the Cross (1979) The Holy Spirit (1980) Some EpistemoloGical Reflections on 1 Corinthians 2:6–16 (1995) Biblical TheoloGy and the Westminster Standards (2003) CONTEMPORARY HERMENEUTICS AND THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT1 RICHARD B. GAFFIN, JR. HE question of hermeneutics (or how the Bible is to be Tinterpreted) is at the center of contemporary theological debate. In fact, it does not go too far to say that today all theological discussion is, in one form or another, hermeneutical discussion. Particular lines of inquiry are seen to converge in a hermeneutical focus. Specific issues are considered to be reducible to a hermeneutical common denominator. In a word, the problem — for it is recognized to be such — the problem of hermeneutics is felt to be the theological problem par excellence. As long as one continues to operate with the conventional understanding of hermeneutics, this all-consuming interest in the subject remains unintelligible or its significance is, at best, only dimly perceived. Traditionally, hermeneutics has been conceived of as a particular theological discipline, closely associated with, yet distinguished from, exegesis, as both have reference to the biblical text. To be more specific, hermeneutics and exegesis are related to each other as theory to practice. Hermeneutics is concerned with enunciating principles of interpretation derived, for the most part, from previously established epistemological and philological considerations, principles which, in turn, are to facilitate understanding of the text as they are applied in the concrete act of exegesis. This, for instance, is the conception of hermeneutics developed by Abraham Kuyper in the third volume of his monumental work on theological encyclopedia: hermeneutics is "de logica der exégèse."2 1 A paper delivered at the conference of the Board of Trustees and the Faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary on October 21, 1968. 2 Encyclopaedie der Heilige Godgeleerdheid, III (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1909), 90. 129 130 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL In marked contrast to this traditional point of view is the new grasp of the proportions and nature of the hermeneutical task which has been emerging since the appearance of Karl Barth's commentary on the book of Romans and which has become increasingly dominant since about 1950. This sig- nificant expansion of the hermeneutical horizon is seen most easily in the influential encyclopedia article on "Hermeneutik" by the German church historian, Gerhard Ebeling, which appeared in 1959.3 An excellent statement of this new orienta- tion has been provided for the English reader by James M. Robinson in his essay, "Hermeneutic Since Barth."4 Guided by etymological reflection upon the three root meanings of the Greek verb which directly underlies the word "herme- neutics" and its equivalents in other modern European languages, Ebeling maintains that in his interest in explaining the text the exegete must take into consideration as well the hermeneutical significance not only of translation (from the Hebrew or Greek) but especially of the language itself. It is this — what Robinson refers to as the "interpretative inter- relatedness" of these three aspects: language, translation, and exposition — which is held to have profound implica- tions for the hermeneutical task and to serve as an indication of its true breadth. Hence in an effort to distinguish the more primal, foundational nature of this outlook over against the earlier, more limited conception, the leading movement in current developments refers to itself as the "new hermeneutic" (singular) in distinction from hermeneutics (plural). It needs especially to be underscored that what is central to this viewpoint is its concern with the phenomenon of language. Nothing is more characteristic of contemporary hermeneutic than its attention to language, be it that of the text or the interpreter. In this connection, two emphases of a more formal character stand out: (1) The first of these is the positive and indispensable role of language in understand- ing. Language is not secondary to meaning. Language is not * Kurt Galling, ed., Die Religion in Geschickte und Gegenwart, 3rd ed., Ill (Tübingen: J. C. ¬. Mohr, 1959), 242-262. * James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr., eds., The New Hermeneutic {New Frontiers in Theology, II, New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 1-77. CONTEMPORARY HERMENEUTICS AND STUDY OF Õ. T. 131 the surface distortion of a presumably deeper level of meaning. Rather, one must make his point of departure, as Robinson puts it, "the unbroken linguisticality of understanding." (2) A second stress, correlate with the first, is that all lan- guage is itself interpretation. The significant implication of this point, so far as the text is concerned, is that as it points to the subject matter, the language of the text is not only in need of interpretation but is already itself an initial inter- pretation of the subject matter. In terms of this combination of factors: the necessary correlation of language and under- standing and the hermeneutically problematic character of all language, one can begin to see why the question of herme- neutics has taken on such central importance. Hermeneutics has (of necessity, as we shall see) come more and more to deal with the phenomenon of understanding itself. It has felt compelled to concern itself with the nature of understanding, how understanding is at all possible, and other related and equally crucial questions: what is meaning? what is the nature of language? what is the precise relation between language and meaning? In other words, the hermeneutical vista has been extended to include some of the most basic questions and problems that man raises and tries to answer; and these are being treated as specifically hermeneutical questions and problems. To describe the situation in a way which serves to point up the revolutionary reshaping of theology which is taking place, we may observe that the action confined formerly to the area of prolegomena to systematic theology is now taking place on a broad front which involves equally all of the theo- logical disciplines. In a word, today theology is hermeneutic. This background needs to be kept in view in any approach to the matter of hermeneutics. Such an awareness, moreover, is particularly integral to a consideration of the topic I have been asked to deal with this evening: the question of herme- neutics as it relates to the study of the New Testament. For it is primarily in the area of New Testament studies that the contemporary preoccupation with hermeneutics which domi- nates all of the theological disciplines has had its origin and continues to receive its stimulus and direction. Hence the scope of this paper has been kept broad deliberately. It is intended as an orientation, to provide a necessary first step 132 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL toward understanding an exceedingly complex state of affairs. First, I shall try to sketch somewhat further but still in necessarily bold strokes the origin and contours of the con- trolling hermeneutical outlook of our day, and then, with my special interest in the New Testament, to indicate some- thing of the response which appears to be demanded. The discussion which follows may serve to bring out required qualifications and corrections. ************** Contemporary hermeneutics is intelligible only as it is seen to have its proximate roots in the so-called "Enlightenment." That is, contemporary hermeneutics has its origin in that period (during the latter part of the seventeenth and during the eighteenth century) when the principle of human au- tonomy — which has always been latent in the heart of man — begins to come to consistent, well-worked-out, one may say, blatant expression. Man's reason is canonized as the final authority. The notion of an external authority of equal magnitude, be it that of Scripture or the church, is em- phatically rejected. Coupled with the elimination of what has been referred to as the "God-hypothesis," is an assertion of unbounded confidence in the ability of man to penetrate the mysteries of the cosmic order. History and nature are presumed capable of a completely immanent explanation. The pointed hermeneutical significance of this Enlightenment principle of autonomy may be stated in a single sentence: "Man is his own interpreter." The consequences of this hermeneutical outlook for the interpretation of the Bible in particular are far-reaching. Several factors need to be noted here, factors which, it should be stressed, are inextricably related: (1) The doctrine of verbal inspiration, the notion of the divinely spirated, God- breathed origin of the biblical text is abandoned along with the broader understanding of the nature of God and his activity of which this doctrine is a part. (2) A distinction begins to be made, an element of discontinuity introduced, between revelation, the Word of God, on the one hand, and the Bible, the words of men, on the other. (3) The meth- CONTEMPORARY HERMENEUTICS AND STUDY OF Õ. T. 133 odological inference which is inevitably drawn is that no exceptions are to be granted to the Bible when it is dealt with as a text.