Research Update

In August of 2011 for about a week, my son Peter and I, sequestered ourselves among the 450,000 volumes then housed in the Calvin College library in Grand Rapids, MI, mining the extensive collection for books dealing with pre-critical exegesis and commentary. We completed our research accumulating thousands of pages of notable and obscure authors relating to our topic. For those who have been following my blog and Facebook posts, what you are reading is the beginning of a winnowing work, discovering the theology and apologetic of Reformation era writers relating to inspiration, authority, the work of the Holy Spirit, preservation and how the principium was argued against objectors.

Theological writing, for these men, is a doxological offering. To be true to the Word, Christ must be exalted. As I was once told, “Theology is worshipping God with your entire mind” and so it is with these men. To the modern reader, much of their writings read more like sermons than commentary. Coming to the text as listeners rather than actors, the commentaries contain what is found within the text and not what is imposed upon the text.

At the earliest stages of this reading, there is an undeniable singularity of expression when dealing with the Holy Scriptures among the authors, as other researchers of pre-critical exegesis have already written. These men considered the Original (autographa), the apographa, or copies. The Scriptures are pure and preserved based on the testimony of Scripture itself and Jesus Christ. Scripture is its own authority – it is self-attesting, self-authenticating and self-interpreting. In translation, though the sound and form of the letters change, the sense of the word does not, and, receptor languages are “sanctified” by God to receive the original languages. Thus, a translation can be called the Word of God.

These truths represent the godly heritage of the Church. The witnesses to the evidence, for the Evidentialist are the Scripture itself and the Holy Spirit. The testimony of these two should substantiate for the reader the authenticity of Scripture’s claim. Indeed, to reject this testimony is to reject the word of Christ, Matt. 5:18; John 5:39, 46, etc.