Before Martin Luther translated the Bible into a common language, God’s truth had been hidden for over a thousand years. Common men had been conditioned to trust into the things taught by the church, without having the possibility or the desire to search the scriptures for themselves, to confirm if the things taught were so. Luther was one of the men who opened the doors for the reformation, yet he himself stayed entangled in the same net of false doctrines and teachings as so many of his contemporaries too. In Germany, the home country of Luther, the most popular writing, summing up the common belief, was a writing of anonymous origin, the Theologia Germanica. Luther said, that “Next to the Bible and St. Augustine, no book has ever come into my hands from which I have learned more of God and Christ, and man and all things that are” and re-published it in A.D.1516 (Winkworth 2). Now, when a man like Martin Luther makes a statement like this, one easily can assume that he speaks with authority concerning these things. But serious questions arise after reading in the Theologia Germanica passages like “it was because Adam ate the apple that he was lost, or fell” (Winkworth 6). There was an apple in the garden? Did Adam eat it?
Of course one easily can believe that there was an apple in the garden, because there were all kind of fruits and trees in the garden, but scripture does not state that Adam ate an apple. To make a statement declaring this is to venture into the realm of the unknown, leading to assumptions and speculations. For Martin Luther the fruit might have been an apple because it was the most common fruit in northern Europe, but for someone living in southern Europe, it might have been an orange. To split hair over such a banal thing, as if Adam ate an apple, could be considered wasted time, but everything starts with little things. If falsities are allowed to enter into teaching or preaching, no matter how small or banal they might seem, falsehood is allowed to enter. To stand on the firm ground of the truth, and to stay away from assumptions or speculations about the unknown details of the truth is something very fundamental. Adam ate a fruit, and, whosoever ask what kind of fruit, needs to search the scripture. Then, when nothing can be found concerning that fruit, the issues should be resolved, and it should be accepted that Adam ate a fruit and that it is not known what kind.
Despite the knowledge of the truth, assumptions have lead to beliefs based on fiction instead of fact, and have brought men to believe the strangest things (Jeffrey 114). Therefore, one has to examining the facts, and has to compare them to any doctrine taught today. If the facts do not fit to what is taught, one has a serious problem, and is most likely looking at the works of men who are trying to fit the facts into their preconceived ideas, instead of making their ideas fit the facts of the truth, as found in the Word of God. The more assumptions can be found in an idea, theory, or doctrine, the further it is away from the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ warned, saying “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Bible KJV: Matthew 15:9). When the Catholic Church made a statement concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, in an article written by Graham Greene, to defend the dogma of the assumption of Mary, it declared: “Our opponents sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in scripture … But the Protestant Churches have themselves accepted such dogmas as the Trinity, for which there is no such precise authority in the Gospels” (Greene 51). For this reason one seriously has to consider how many doctrines may be the commandments of men, based on assumptions and speculations instead of the facts of the truth.
To understand where all these preconceived ideas of today’s Christians come from, one has to look at the earl church and it’s problems with the newfound belief. Christianity began as a Jewish sect and therefore took over the Hebrew God and the Jewish Scriptures eventually became, for Christians, the Old Testament. Christians became to view Jesus as a divine being in His own right, which created tension with the monotheistic tradition of Judaism. The solution for the problem was the development of the doctrine of the triune God, or Trinity. The Trinity concept was developed in the course of debates on the nature of Christ, and finally formulated into a doctrine in the 4th century, using terminology still employed by Christian theologians today (Macquarrie). The Latin word “trinitas” with reference to God is found the first time in the writings of the Latin theologian Tertullian from A.D. 213. He also was the first one to use the term “persons” in this context (New Catholic Encyclopedia 1021). But the word “Trinity” itself cannot be found in scripture, and the term “persons” is not applied in scripture to the concept of a triune God (Encyclopedia Americana 69). Furthermore, the doctrine of the Trinity did not form any part of the apostles’ preaching and teaching in the New Testament, (Encyclopedia International 226) but got introduced to relive tension between the Jewish and the Christian beliefs.
When one is studying the early church, one will find that doctrines were simply developed to settle disputes about certain ideas or concepts brought forth among the Christian community. In A.D. 325, Constantine the Great, emperor of Rome, convened the first ecumenical council in Nicaea, to settle the dispute concerning the nature of Jesus Christ. Of the 1800 bishops in the Roman Empire, a minority of only 318 attended the council and made decisions for the whole church. The Nicene Creed was a result of this council and defined the official positions of the church. Despite the majority of the bishops being absent, the church of the empire had to accept the creed. The council condemned many teachings common at that time, and the status of the new creed was confirmed by bans against teachings not conforming to the council’s dogmas (Encarta: “Nicaea, Councils of”, “The Nicene Creed”). Many Christians who spoke against the dogmas of the creed were send into exile, but by A.D. 334, Emperor Constantine I, recalled many of these exiles, trying to bridge the gap between the different fractions of the Christian faith. Constantine’s successor, Constantius II, supported many of the exiles’ protests against the Nicene Creed and by A.D. 359 the exiles’ belief of Arianism was the official faith of the empire. But with the death of Constantius II, the Valens reigned and started prosecuting the Arian faith and opened the doors for the final victory of the Nicene Creed (Schatkin).
When in A.D. 589, the Council of Toledo added the “Filioque”, a combination of Latin words meaning “and from the Son”, to the Nicene Creed, a major break occurred in the church. The “Filioque” refers to the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. The Eastern Church did not accept this addition on two distinct grounds: (1) The addition was made unilaterally, altering a creed approved by early ecumenical councils; and (2) the formula reflected a particular Western conception of the Trinity, to which most Byzantine theologians objected. To the Byzantines the addition compromises the primacy of the Father. An unsuccessful attempt to reconcile these two points of view was made at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in A.D. 1439, but the Eastern and Western churches have remained separated, and the doctrine represented by the term “Filioque” stands as one of the primary points of difference between them (Encarta: “Filioque”).
Seeing how and why doctrines came into existence, one cannot any longer trust them blindly, without serious investigation if the things they express are in compliance with the Scriptures, because for many of the accepted doctrines there cannot be found any authority in the Scriptures. For believers to side with one or the other doctrine, without verifying it’s soundness and authority is exactly what the Apostle Paul warns about would happen. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (Bible KJV: 2nd Timothy 4:3-4). Now again the question may be asked, “There was an apple in the garden?”
During the first three centuries after Christ, the Roman emperors did everything in their power to destroy the new faith in Christianity by burning both Christians and the manuscripts of the Bible throughout their vast empire. In A.D. 303, the Emperor Diocletian issued an official command to kill Christians and burn their sacred books. An imperial letter was everywhere promulgated, ordering the razing of the churches to the ground and the destruction by fire of the Scriptures, and proclaiming that those in households, if they persisted in their profession of Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty (Jeffrey 21). But, despite this early persecution, Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, following the conversation of the Emperor Constantine in A.D. 325. Yet, the church felt into apostasy from biblical truth, when it started compromising the truth for the power to rule over the people. Fortunately, the church was not able to change the established text of the Bible, but it started issuing laws that made the possession of a copy of the Scriptures illegal for any layman, and centuries later, even priests in the church were usually unable to read the manuscripts of the Bible for themselves, or only under strict supervision. During those centuries there were appalling penalties for anyone found to posses a copy of the Scriptures (Jeffrey 22). As a result the church was able to introduce doctrines without the general population or even it’s own priests objecting to them, because none could confirm their soundness and compliance with the Scriptures, except the church introducing them. Fortunately for everyone today, the reformers opened the floodgates of truth, and as a result, it became possible to compare the widespread doctrines in the churches against the doctrines of the Scriptures.
Darkness began to envelop the church from the time the theological school of Alexandria began to rise to prominence. It was in the great catechetical school of Alexandria, from which the chief school of Christian thinking came forth. The object of the school, like that of Philo, a Jewish allegorist who loved Greek philosophy, was to unite philosophy with revelation. The first teacher of the school who rose to fame was the venerable Pantaenus. Clement of Alexandria, who believed in the divine origin of Greek philosophy, succeeded him, and started openly to propound the principle that all Scriptures must be understood allegorically. One of the main reasons, for the initial raise of the allegorical method of interpretation of the Scriptures within the Church was to facilitate the integration of Greek philosophy with the inspired Scriptures. In connection with the allegorical method, Origen was the first to lay down a formal theory of interpretation. He considered the Bible a living organism, consisting of three elements that answer to the body, soul, and spirit of man, after the Platonic psychology. In the application of this theory he show the same tendency as Philo, to spiritualize away the letter of the Scriptures. Instead of simply bringing out the sense of the Scriptures, these men put into them all sorts of foreign ideas and irrelevant fancies (Lindsey 72). The reason for the rapid adoption of Origin’s views by the church was the rise of ecclesiasticism and the recognition of the authority of the Church in all-doctrinal matters, which gave great impetus to the adoption of the allegorical method of interpretation. Augustine was one of the first to make the Scriptures to conform to the interpretation of the Church. His way of interpretation of Scripture is marked by the most glaring defects. He laid down the rule that the Scriptures must be interpreted with reference to church orthodoxy, snatching up the old Philonian and Rabbinic rule, that everything in the Scriptures, which appeared to be unorthodox or immoral, must be interpreted mystically. He introduced confusion into his dogma of supernatural inspiration by admitting that there are many passages written by the Holy Ghost, which are objectionable when taken in their obvious sense (Lindsey 74). Once the principle of allegory is admitted, once one starts with the rule that whole passages and books of the Scriptures say one thing when they mean another, the reader is delivered bound to the caprice of the interpreter, and can be sure of absolutely nothing, except what is dictated by the Church. But one needs to be aware, that in all ages the authority of the church has been falsely claimed for the presumptuous tyranny of false prevalent opinions. The record of church history shows clearly that the Alexandrian school’s system of allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures did not arise out of a pursuit of a better understanding of God’s message, but rather out of the desire to integrate Greek philosophy with them. It grew out of the erroneous assumption that these philosophies were equal in Divine inspiration with the Word of God. Augustine not only accepted this allegorical method, but also added another equally dangerous principle – that the church has authority superior to the Scriptures. The Roman Popes later grabbed hold of this error and developed two even greater errors – Papal infallibility and the exclusive authority of the priest to interpret the Bible. This resulted in the greatest curse of all; the Bible was removed from common men’s hands. This was the greatest single cause of the Dark Ages (Lindsey 75).
An embracing of the literal, grammatical, and historical method of interpretation of the Scriptures, and a discarding of the allegorical method of interpretation, caused the Reformation. The allegorical system had veiled the Church’s understanding of many vital truths for over a thousand years, and after a thousand years of virtual darkness, the Protestant Reformation, under the leadership of Martin Luther, opened the floodgates of biblical truth to the European population through the translation and printing of the Bible in contemporary languages such as German, French, and English. The Reformers insisted, that every doctrine taught in the church must be rooted firmly in the teachings of the Scriptures. This was in opposition to the Church’s position, that the church councils, traditions and decrees could supersede the teaching of Scripture. The absolute reliance on the actual words of the inspired Word of God placed the Reformation on the strongest possible spiritual foundation. Unfortunately many Protestants believe that the Reformation is over, but that is far from the truth, since even Protestant churches felt away from the strong spiritual foundation of the Reformers, and accepted many dogmas without serious examination. For many of these dogmas, taken over by Protestant churches, there can be found no authority in the teachings of the Scriptures. Therefore, from the Dark Ages of Christendom, utter confusion, brought about by theories and ideas of men, has been left in the minds of many believers.
When the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament was translated, the name of God was erroneously transliterated. The result was the name Jehovah, which many today still believe to be the name of God in the Old Testament. One needs to understand, that the original word in the Hebrew text consists only of four consonants JHVH, or JHWH, but, since the name of God was sacred in ancient times, the reader substituted “Lord” for it, in reading aloud. The scribes therefore wrote the vowel markings for “Adonai”, the Hebrew word for “Lord”, into the consonantal framework of JHVH as a reminder to any readers to use the word “Lord” instead of pronouncing the name of God. The translators of the Hebrew, not realizing at the time what the scribes had done, read the word as it was written down, taking the scribal vowel markings as intrinsic to the name of God, rather, than as a mere reminder not to speak it. From this came the rendition Jehovah. The evidence of the Greek Church Fathers clearly indicates that the name was originally spoken Jaweh or Yahwe, and is often spelled Yahweh in modern usage (Lieberman).
It is very easy to see, how a mistake in a translation can happen, especially if the authority of the translation is based on assumptions. Somehow over centuries, and in most Bibles of today, the name of God in the Old Testament is Jehovah. Knowing that it was erroneously transliterated, many today still believe it to be the true name of God in the Old Testament. It has been taught for such a long time, it is a tradition, fitting perfectly in the preconceived idea of man, it is an apple for convenience, because to admit, not to know, or even worse to have been wrong, would be impossible for an infallible church and it’s all knowing scholars. There was no apple in the garden and the Old Testament name of God is not Jehovah. One can very easy see how sudden an apple can turn into an orange, and can cause a lot of division.
The question here is, if one shall attempt to improve upon what God has revealed in the Scriptures? Is God to be corrected by creatures of a day? Is the infallible revelation of the infallible God to be shaped, moderated, and toned down to the fashions and fancies of the hour? When one speaks against error, one cannot soften the tone, but speak with authority, the authority of the Word of God. When one comes across false doctrines, one cannot lower the flag, because one Word of God is worth more than libraries full of human ideas. “It is written,” is the great gun, which silences all batteries of man’s thought.
Looking back on what is said, all these things might sound naïve and childish to some well-educated scholars, but it will be seen, how well their education and theories will stand up against the Word of God. Test that which is said and taught, see if the doctrines taught are the commandments of men or if they have a solid foundation in the Word of God. The Apostle Peter commands to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (Bible KJV: 1st Peter 3:15). Today everyone who teaches a doctrine should be able to explain and proof the doctrine solely with the Word of God, without having to go to secular writings. Any opening to assumption or speculation cannot be accepted, because there is no proof either for or against the assumption or speculation, except the opinions of men. Men’s opinions are like waves driven by the wind and tossed, ever changing, but God changes not, neither His Word. That is why the only authority for the doctrines of the Church can be the Word of God. Anything else has to be unacceptable, and would be, to put an apple in the garden.
Works Cited
- “Filioque.” Encarta. 1998 ed. CD ROM. Redmond: Microsoft, 1993-1997
- Greene, Graham. Life Magazine 30 October 1950, Vol. 29, No. 18: Page 51
- Jeffrey, Grant. The Signature of God. Ontario: Frontier Research, 1996. Pages 21-22, 114
- Lieberman, Saul. “Jehovah.” Encarta. 1998 ed. CD ROM. Redmond: Microsoft, 1993-1997
- Lindsey, Hal. Vanished into Thin Air. Beverly Hills: Western Front, 1999. Pages 72-75
- Macquarrie, John. “Trinity.” Encarta. 1998 ed. CD ROM. Redmond: Microsoft, 1993-1997
- “Nicaea, Councils of.” Encarta. 1998 ed. CD ROM. Redmond: Microsoft, 1993-1997
- “Nicene Creed.” Encarta. 1998 ed. CD ROM. Redmond: Microsoft, 1993-1997
- Schatkin, Margaret. “Arianism.” Encarta. 1998 ed. CD ROM. Redmond: Microsoft, 1993-1997
- “Trinity. ” Encyclopedia America. 1957 ed. Volume 27. Page 69
- “Trinity. ” Encyclopedia International. 1982 ed. Volume 18. Page 226
- “Trinity.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. 1977 ed. Volume 13. Page. 1021
- Winkworth, Susanna. Theologia Germanica. Rio: AGES, 2000. Pages 2, 6
