Reformation and Protestant Interpretation of the New Testament

By M. James Vediah Ponraj

Introduction
Reformation is one of the important periods in the History of Christianity, which transformed
the scenario of Biblical exegesis and interpretation. It is also fair to say that Reformation was
the result of the numerous opportunities thrown open for Biblical exegesis and interpretation.
The Reformation period can be classified from 1483-1564.1 Some scholars prefer to use 1500
– 1650. In this paper an attempt is made to study the Interpretation of the New Testament (NT)
during the Reformation Period through the lenses of the major reformers.

1. Background to the Reformation

For Daniel J. Adams, Reformation was part of a great change that was taking place in Europe
following the middle ages, and was one of the most significant in the history of western
civilization. He divides this period basically three parts: The Renaissance, the Reformation and
the Enlightenment, and this period stretched out almost 500 years.2 Renaissance trends
encouraged early Protestant reformers to push Biblical interpretation into a full circle. 3 These
three periods could be understood in the following manner, that the renaissance period is the
cause for reformation and the enlightenment as its result.
1.1.The Renaissance Period
This is a period between the middle ages and the modern period when there was a revival of
learning, a renewed interest in the arts and study of ancient writings, beginning of modern
science, movement towards a commerce oriented economy from agricultural, rise of modern
cities, exploration of the world (America, Asia, etc.), and renewed interest in classical Greek
philosophical studies. Humanist studies became more important than the church-controlled
theological and philosophical studies.4

1.2 Back to the Sources

The rallying cry of the Renaissance Humanists, perhaps is best exemplified in Erasmus of
Rotterdam, who emphasized on “back to the sources” and held that the Christian scriptures

1
Daniel J. Adams, Biblical Hermeneutics: An Introduction, (Madras: CLS, 1987) 24.
2
Daniel J. Adams, Biblical Hermeneutics, 24.
3
James T. Spivey Jr, “The Hermeneutics of the Medieval and Reformation Era” in Biblical Hermeneutics: A
Comprehensive Introduction to Interpreting Scriptures, Second Edition, Edited by Bruce Corley, Steve w.
Lemke, Grant L. Lovely (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002) 112.
4
Daniel J. Adams, Biblical Hermeneutics, 24.

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needed to be free of error, and sought to correct obvious errors in the text of Jerome’s Latin
Vulgate, which had suffered centuries of numerous copying errors.5 After the fall of
Constantinople in 1453, many Greek Texts were made available in the European nations, and
the growing dialogue between Jews and Christians made renewed interest to the study the Bible
in its original languages (Hebrew and Greek). But the Roman Catholic Church had made the
Vulgate as the official and authoritative version of scripture, and it also claimed exclusive
authority over interpretation of the scripture.6
1.3.Advent of the Printing Press
Introduction of the printing press by Guttenberg7 into western Europe brought the opportunity
of producing and circulating several printed copies. This also factored in the increased of
literary rate among people.8
1.4.Fall of Feudal Structures
The Religious, political and social structures of the Middle agers were successfully challenged,
the feudal systems fell and the centralize political authority also started to decline. With the
raise of literacy, economic growth, ethnic cohesiveness arose a sense of national consciousness
and assertion of independence. (e.g. England and France).

2. The Reformation Period

The Reformation could well be defined as what that whirlwind of personalities, ideas, and
events in the sixteenth century that led to the disintegration of the Western Christendom.9
Reformation began with Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. Some of the other
prominent interpreters of this period are John Knox, Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Bucer,
Andreas Karlstadt, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Muntzer, Menno Simons and William Tyndale.
Martin Luther however retains the title of “Father of Protestant Reformation”.10 Now we shall
closely look through the lenses of Luther, Zwingli & Calvin.

5
Steven L. McKenzie (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, Vol. 2 (London: Oxford
University Press, 2013) 251.
6
Steven L. McKenzie (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, 251.
7
The first major publication was Jerome’s Latin Vulgate was around 1454/55.
8
Steven L. McKenzie (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, 251.
9
Denis R Janz, (ed.), A Reformation Reader: Primary Texts with Introductions, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
1999) 69.
10
Denis R Janz, (ed.), A Reformation Reader, 69.

2
3. Reformation and Luther
Martin Luther (1483-1526) was born on 10 November 1483, in Eisleben. He was well educated
in the University of Elfurt. He became an Augustinian monk and later moved to Wittenberg for
his Biblical studies, where he later become a biblical professor (1512-1519). In addition, he
became a preacher and district vicar. During his work his theology developed which turned
against humanism, scholasticism and Aristotelianism.11 In 1517, when Luther nailed his
Ninety-Five Thesis on the door of the Church door in Wittenberg, began the Protestant
Reformation. Till then the Roman Catholic Church was a united whole, but with the advent of
Reformation, new churches were born out of newly developed perspectives and methodologies
on Biblical Interpretation, which moved into different directions. 12
3.1.Scripture as Primary
Luther’s impact as a Biblical interpreter is un parallel in the Church, he was both traditional
and revolutionary in his thinking about biblical interpretation.' He turned back to Origen to
emphasize that Christ is the central theme of the Bible. He reintroduced the Bible as the primary
book for preaching, and for him philological and historical study should serve this purpose. For
Luther, neither tradition nor the inner witness of the Spirit (as the enthusiasts claimed), nor
church authority, nor philosophy is to be consulted in interpreting the Bible, and certainly they
are not to determine its meaning. For Luther, Rather the Bible itself to judge both tradition and
the church’.13
3.2.Translation of the Bible
Luther also transformed the German language through his translation of the Bible,14 through
translation of the NT, by which he brought the teaching and example of Christ and the
Apostles to the mind and heart of the Germans in life-like reproduction. He made the Bible
the people's book in church, school, and house. His version was followed by Protestant
versions in other languages, especially the French, Dutch, and English. The Bible ceased to
be a foreign book in a foreign tongue, and became naturalized, and hence far clearer and
dearer to the common people. Everybody could read the Bible for him/her self for daily
guidance in spiritual life, without the permission or intervention of pope and priest. 15

11
Henning Graf Reventlow, History of Biblical Interpretation, Vol.3: Renaissance, Reformation, Humanism,
Translated by James O. Duke (Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature, 2010) 65-66.
12
Steven L. McKenzie (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, 251.
13
George T. Montague, Understanding the Bible: A Basic Introduction to the Biblical Interpretation, (New York:
Paulist Press, 1997) 73-74.
14
https://lutheranreformation.org/history/luthers-translation-of-the-bible/ (accessed on 26 June 2019)
15
http://www.bible-researcher.com/luther02.html (accessed on 26 June 2019)

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3.3.Canon within a canon
For Luther, Paul’s epistle to the Romans speaks more clearly about Christ, therefore it has more
authority over the other texts, and with this idea he rejected the letter or James: "His [James']
authority is not great enough to cause me to abandon the doctrine of faith and to deviate from
the authority of the other apostles and the entire Scripture.”16 Luther in his preface to the
German translation of the New Testament (1522), places the Gospel of John over the other
three Gospel’s, as it focusses more on the teaching of Jesus over his works, and he even placed
the epistles of Paul and Peter over the other three Gospels.17 Luther's prioritizing of Romans
established a canon within the canon. Till the end of his life he continued to put a different
value on the books he had put together at the end of his Bible than on the "main books.”18
3.4.Parallels between the Old and the New Testament
Luther understood the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount as Law, as found in
both Old Testament (OT) and NT. He was convicted, that both help in understanding one’s
own unworthiness and need of grace and thus drives them to Christ. "Gospel" is the good news
of justification by faith in Jesus Christ, and it is present in the OT under the form of promise,
and in the NT as fulfillment.19 Luther held both to the literal and spiritual sense with reference
to Christ. He was critical of the early church fathers who had adopted the traditional allegorical
interpretation that ignored literal meaning but discovered meanings totally alien to the text. But
Luther preferred the word sign or type, finding his justification, as he used in John 3:14, "As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,” in
interpretation.20
Luther in his 95-thesis used (1) Matt 4:17, the word ‘repentance’ to denote the entire
life of believers to be one of repentance, and (95) Acts 14:22, to enter heaven through
tribulations, rather than false security of peace. He used scripture to refute papal indulgences
as non-scriptural.21 He was concerned with the reading of the scripture with Christ as the focus.
Though he acknowledged the presence of allegories in the Bible, but only to be used where the
author has intended. He declared that “Experience is necessary for the understanding of the
Word. It is not merely to be repeated or known, but to be believed and felt.22

16
George T. Montague, Understanding the Bible: A Basic Introduction to the Biblical Interpretation, (New York:
Paulist Press, 1997) 74.
17
George T. Montague, Understanding the Bible, 76.
18
George T. Montague, Understanding the Bible, 76.
19
George T. Montague, Understanding the Bible, 76.
20
George T. Montague, Understanding the Bible, 76.
21
Carter Lindberg (ed.) The European Reformers Sourcebook, Second edition, (Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell,
2014) 29-30.
22
Craig G. Bartholomew, Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2015)

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3.5.Christum treibet
For Luther, Christum treibet, is a principle meaning “Christ is the point in circle from which
the whole circle is drawn” and “Christ is found wrapped in the swaddling clothes of
scripture”.23 He emphasized scriptural clarity in two forms: external in relation to ministry and
internal in relation to the understanding of the heart. Both are the works of the Spirit, but
external clarity is entailed because of God’s choice to explain himself in human words.24

4. The Interpreters of the Reformation

4.1.(Huldreich) Ulrich Zwingli
He was born on 1 January 1484, in a farming family in the region of Swiss federation. He was
influenced by the scholastics such as John Duns Soctous and also a great humanist scholar of
his time, Erasmus, who was a diligent student of the church fathers. During his time, Johannes
Reuchlin, had written a Hebrew syntax and grammar, which made advanced study of Hebrew
possible. Following his footsteps, Zwingli studied the NT in Greek. He was greatly influenced
by the Gospel of John and also by Paul’s writings. He was led to focus more on Christ as the
center of biblical interpretation, guided by Augustine, Jerome, Origen, Ambrose and
Irenaeus.25
4.1.1. Dialectical Approach
Zwingli’s approach to biblical interpretation in the period of 1515-1520 was basically
Erasmanian. He preferred Origen’s allegorical method of exegesis, and developed a dialectical
approach to the ‘word’ and the ‘sense’ of the scripture. For him the literal words of the scripture
may not adequately convey its meaning. (i.e. II Cor 3:16, the letter kills, but the spirit gives
life). He elaborated this idea, in Gen. 22, Abraham should be understood as the figure of God,
but in Gen. 23, Abraham is to be understood to represent the faithful believers. So it is basically
a typological understanding, rather than allegorical. But for Zwingli, the literal sense of the
meaning was also primary as it may lead to interpretation of the scripture to one’s own
preferable manners and therefore the literal interpretation is a safeguard against radical
interpretations.26

198.
23
Craig G. Bartholomew, Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics, 199.
24
Craig G. Bartholomew, Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics, 199.
25
Steven L. McKenzie (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, 252-3.
26
A.E. McGrath, in “Reformation”, R.J. Coggins and J.L. Houlden (eds.) A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation,
(London/Philadelphia: SCM Press & Trinity Press International) 582-83.

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 4.1.2. Emphasis on Biblical Language
His editorial work leading to the publication of the first Greek NT text, the Novum
Instrumentem omne (1516) was instrumental for his emphasis on literal and natural sense of
scripture, similarly he was also getting more influenced by Jerome. This was reflected in his
OT Commentaries (1520) and was used against that of the Anabaptist, wherein he emphasized
on the need of adequate knowledge of Hebrew and Septuagint for its interpretation.27 In 1523,
his 67 articles presented in the city council of Zurich, he highlighted the authority of the
scriptures against the traditional church ordinances. He emphasized that “the scriptures
interpreted the Scriptures, not the fathers of the scriptures”.28 In a 1525 treatise, on the
Preaching Office, he stressed the emphasis on philological training to preachers, he stressed
that “there is no better way” to understand the Bible “than through languages”29. This humanist
conviction grew in as the Zurich Prophecy30.
4.1.3. Significance of Zwingli
His hermeneutical principles are found in his OT Commentaries. His exegesis on the OT was
historical and Christological, not merely allegorical, as the characters and events in the OT
often transcend their own temporal significance, because what they had prefigured has reached
fulfillment in Jesus Christ.31 For Zwingli it is the power of the Word, and noted that “the word
of God will not take its course as surely as the Rhine; you can dam it up for a while, but you
cannot stop its flow”.32

4.2. John Calvin

John Calvin was born July 10, 1509 in Noyon, France. Calvin is recognized as one of the finest
theologians of the Christian tradition, because of his magisterial Institutes of the Christian
Religion. He is associated with Geneva his adopted Swiss home. Calvin followed Aquinas and
Luther and rejected allegory in favor of a historical interpretation of scripture. He also affirmed
scripture as primary, and further went on to the ‘subjective element of interpretation’ which he

27
A.E. McGrath, in “Reformation”, 583.
28
I.L. Snavely Jr., in Zwingli Ulrich, edited by Donald K. McKim, Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters,
(Illinois: IVP Academic, 2007) 1080.
29
I.L. Snavely Jr., in Zwingli Ulrich, 1081.
30
Zurich Prophecy is a theological school opened in June 1925, on the basis of I Cor 14: 6-11, wherein a group
of scholars would spend their days publicly reading and teaching the scriptures, devoting and hour each to the
Hebrew, Greek and Latin texts until the correct meaning was grasped. They were known as the “prophets” and
gathered in Cathedrals to teach School boys, ministerial students and ministers. They produced new translations
of biblical books and produced the 1531 Zurich Bible.
31
I.L. Snavely Jr., in Zwingli Ulrich, 1084-85.
32
I.L. Snavely Jr., in Zwingli Ulrich, 1085-86.

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called as “the internal witness of the Holy Spirit”, which is not to help in the process of
interpretation, but to confirm that the interpretation is correct.33
4.2.1. Allegorical Vs. Historical Interpretation
When OT interpretation was divided in three areas, between the Jewish and Christian
interpreters namely: allegory, typology and prophecy, Calvin’s approach is a kind of a middle
path or a moderate position. Calvin does not prefer the letter-spirit distinctions, and did not lay
much emphasis on allegory, but just to see the spiritual sense.34 He did not uproot the OT from
its historical soil, nor only concerned with the roots, once the full flowering has taken place in
Jesus Christ. He used the NT interpretation of the Old to establish the meaning of the OT.
Though he considered allegorical interpretation as dead against historical interpretation, he
acknowledged interpretations as allegorical, only if they do not have any historical context, and
accepted them only when the future promises are fulfilled in NT.35
Calvin based his topological exegesis on two arguments: first, the NT writers provide
sound guidance when they treat OT texts as prophecies that are fulfilled in Jesus Christ,
secondly the language of the OT figure some does not suit the represented person, but when it
perfectly suits Christ. Calvin also rejected Christian interpretations when they ignored the
historical meaning of the text.
4.2.2. NT as Guide to interpret OT
Calvin argued that the NT is a reliable guide in interpreting the OT, and emphasized that it is
vital for the reader to participate in the realities to which the scripture witnesses. He also
asserted the clarity of scripture, and further added that in order for God’s truth to remain forever
in the world, he engraved it, as it were, on “public tablets. “Scripture adorns with unmistakable
marks and tokens the one true God.” Therefore, the Word and Spirit is to be held together. 36
Calvin also believed that the NT writers sometimes twisted the OT to meanings that was foreign
to the original writer’s intention, he further argued that sometimes the NT authors used it only
for illustrative purposes. This idea is present in his interpretation of the Decalogue, especially
in the sixth commandment, “Thou shall not kill”, is to be understood not just as prohibition,
but also the opposite affirmations, i.e. to defend the life of our neighbors. 37 Jesus’ teaching in

33
William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Hummard, Robert L. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation.
(Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc., 1993) 47-48.
34
Craig G. Bartholomew, Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics 198.
35
D.L. Puckett, in Calvin, John, edited by Donald K. McKim, Historical Handbook of Major Biblical
Interpreters, (Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1998) 176-178.
36
Craig G. Bartholomew, Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics, 199.
37
D.L. Puckett, in Calvin, John, 178.

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Mt 5:22, that hateful thoughts and words deserve judgement was intended to be an expansion
of this commandment, and in I Jn 3:15, is whoever who hates his brother is a murderer.
4.2.3. Impact of Calvin:
Calvin saw doctrine as a guide to engage with scripture more deeply. He also emphasized that
Scripture is like spectacles for those having a blurred vision, to clearly seed the other wised
confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, and helps us to clearly
see God.38 His impact can be seen in the wide use of Calvin’s interpretation practice in his
commentaries, sermons and other writings.39

Evaluation
Some of the observations towards Reformation, is that it went back to a protestant form of
scholasticism. The esoteric doctrinal disputes created more divisions. After Luther and Calvin,
there was a drift from personal piety to lay more emphasis on protestant dogma. However,
Catholicism held its ground in Spain, France, Italy Austria and Poland. The newly formed
Anglican Church in England ruled on its own. Lutherans dominated in Germany, Denmark,
Sweden, Norway and Finland. The Calvinists controlled Scotland and most parts of
Switzerland, and the Anabaptists held small pockets in Germany, Poland and Hungary. This
also has played an important role in the Catholic Church, through the Council of Trent, to pave
way to affirm Biblical interpretation based on scripture and tradition.40 From our observations,
we can also find that the reformers may have had some consensus on how to interpret the Bible,
but they were in different levels when it came to understand what it means. This division have
paved the way for doctrinal differences in Lutheranism and Calvinism, and also for the birth
of Radical Reformation. (i.e. Anabaptist and Mennonites, who stressed on adult immersion
baptism). The most important and striking contribution is the factor is that it has put Bible and
the task of its interpretation in the hands of the lay people.

38
Craig G. Bartholomew, Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics, 201-202.
39
Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries & Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries.
40
William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Hummard, Robert L. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation.
(Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc., 1993) 49-50.