The Original Text of Holy Scripture
Via Pieper’s Dogmatics vol. 1, p.343-44
The Original Text of Holy Scripture and the Translations
Since Scripture is intended for the use of all Christians, of what-ever station, sex, age, etc. (Deut. 6:6-9; Joshua 1:8; Is. 34:16; Neh. 8:2-8; 2 Kings 23:1-2; Luke 16:29ff.; John 5:39; Acts 17:11: “They searched the Scripture daily”; 2 Thess 2:15; 1 John 1:4; 2:13-14; 2 Tim. 3:15; Col. 4:16; 1 Thess 5:27: “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren”), it is God’s will that the Scriptures be translated into the various human languages. And accordingly the Church, from its beginning, made it a point to furnish translations of Scripture into foreign languages. We do not say that it is absolutely necessary that one must read the Scriptures in order to be saved. What is absolutely necessary is the knowledge of those fundamental articles of the Christian faith through which repentance and faith in the remission of sins purchased by Christ is brought about in man (Luke 24:46-47), and this knowledge may be obtained by the mere hearing of a Scriptural sermon or instruction. The dogmaticians teach that a man may come to faith and thus become a member of the Christian Church without as much as knowing that there is a Holy Scripture. Gerhard: “It is not simply and absolutely necessary to salvation to believe that there are any divine Scriptures if this unbelief issues from simple ignorance, for many have been saved who have grasped the essentials, or fundamentals, of the Christian faith.” But after men have become Christians, it is indeed God’s will that they read the Scriptures, search the Scriptures, and judge according to the Scriptures, as is evident from the passages quoted above and as will be set forth more fully later. The contention of the Papacy that the reading of Scripture cannot be permitted to all Christians because that would expose the “layman” to the danger of interpreting Scripture according to their own thoughts and thus introducing false doctrine is beside the point, for experience has shown that it is, above all, the clergy and ‘primus omnium,’ the Pope who have interpreted the Scripture according to their own mind and filled the world with the most horrible heresies.