The Protes’tant’s Creed

Or: The Scriptures Nowhere Teach Inspiration ex professo
By Karl Koehler

We do not accept anything-as though that were a matter of our choice.  We cherish the Scriptures as them that testify of Christ in Whom we know we have eternal life. A Christian's faith in Christ is not a matter of having accepted Him, for he knows his natural man to be only in rebellion against Him. It is a matter of Christ's having elected and accepted him and through His spirit having made a new man of him. Again, as far as this implanted faith is, and increasingly becomes a part of his soul-life, his spiritual processes, it is not a matter of reasonable understanding, rational deduction, and intellectual acceptance, nor is it an emotional hysteria, but a sane and sober judgment and conviction of the heart, for which we could not account if it were not for the testimony of these selfsame Scriptures that it is through the power of the Spirit breathed into them.

Faith exists, even when the mind has not begun to function (as in the baptized babe), when the mind does function (as with the new man over against the rebellion of the natural man), when the mind is disordered (as with the insane), and may be greater in the child and the demented than in the most proficient dogmatist.

This psychology of faith, that the grasp of Gospel truth does not proceed from the head to the heart but vice versa (when the head functions at all), is the only one that is in agreement with the Scriptures, accounts for the faith of little children whose mind has not yet begun to function, and pays due regard to what the Master has to say, "Unless ye become as little children," etc. And human psychology might take a cue from it to arrive at a true evaluation of such phenomena as the faith of the babe-in-the-mother, of intuition, and of the inspirational character of the discovery even of scientific truth.

Thus, we also cherish a belief in the Scriptures as the Word of God, their inspiration and inerrancy, not as a matter of logical deduction, but as a matter of simple faith and love. It is a self-evident matter to the believer in Christ. Even as the Master points out, John 10:35: "The Scripture cannot be broken." (which he mentions as a self-evident truth to support another statement, not to reveal or teach the doctrine of inspirational. The Scriptures nowhere teach inspiration ex professo;
always mention it only in passing, as something taken for granted, (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1: 21). John 10:35: note how beautifully Luther renders the parenthetic character of the remark of his ""doch": "und die Schrift kann doch nicht gebrochen werden."

Hence we are eager to search the Scripture in order personally to grow in the knowledge and stature of Christ and to attain eternal life with Him, and again, to fit ourselves for our only further business here on earth of witnessing for Him and winning our fellowmen to the following of Him, our Lord and King. You can only describe your creed- not define it.  As we seek to know Christ more fully and grow into Him and live in Him, for these two reasons: our personal edification and sanctification and our witnessship, so we seek to know and live completely in the Scriptures that testify of Him. And knowing from them that the great purpose of God, in Creation, Salvation (Justification) and Sanctification, is, in the fullness of times to gather together in one all things in Christ, that there is nothing in heaven , on earth, or in hell, that does not bear a relation to Christ, is affected by its relation to Christ or affects one's relation to Christ, for this reason we seek to explore the Scriptures. In the uttermost recesses of their thought for guidance, and under their guidance seek to appraise the history of the world and of our times, our own history and our fellowman's, every man's thoughts, emotions, and will, his character, actions and tastes, in the light of their relationship to Christ (our own psychology and or fellowman' as exhibited in his ideals, his character, speech, actions, and tastes) in order to bring ourselves and our fellowman into the right relationship with Christ; and as the Scriptures unfold these things to us, we speak them forth in the fear of God, without favor to ourselves, and without fear of our fellowman, because "we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard, " (Acts 4:20.)