The Central Role of the Covenant in the Role of the Prophet

Baker rightly points out the centrality of the covenant in Bullinger’s understanding of the prophetic role of the minister when expounding Scripture to the congregation. This may be illustrated from the following quote from Bullinger’s De prophetae officio (1532) in Baker’s translation:

“Thus I admonish you, oh prophet of God, that more frequently, when you are about to expound the Scripture, you should reflect on what the essential point of the holy Scripture is and to which matter all things return. May (Baker rightly assumes here that Bullinger is referring to the Lutherans) say it is the law and the gospel – but incorrectly. For the testament, which is the title of the whole Scripture, is also the essential point of the entire Scripture.”

“So rate ich dir, Prophet Gottes, wenn du daran gehst, die Schrift auszulegen, oft bei dir selbst zu bedenken, welches die Grundlage der Schrift ist und worauf sich alles bezieht. Die mesiten behaupten ja, sie liege in die Unterscheidung von Gesetz und Evangelium, doch das ist kaum zutreffend. Denn das Testament, das der ganzen Schrift den Namen gibt, ist auch die Grundfrage der ganzen Schrift” (Heinrich Bullinger Schriften I, p14).

Bullinger continues at this juncture with:

“Das soll niemandem als neuartig oder gekünstelt erscheinen. Unter dem Begriff Testament verstehen wir nämlich einem Pakt, einen Bund oder eine Vereinbarung” – This ought nobody consider to appear to be something new or something artificial. With the concept of the Testament we understand, namely, a pact, a covenant or an agreement.

Bolliger on Bullinger and the Role of the Prophet in the Church

Daniel Bolliger has a very perceptive article “Bullinger on Church Authority: The Transformation of the Prophetic Role in Christian Ministry” (Architect of Reformation pp159-177). Not only does he give a detailed account of Bullinger’s Karlstag sermon delivered on 28 January 1532 but he also compares this with his analysis of Bullinger’s De prophetae officio (30 June 1525).

Bolliger points out the covenant context to Bullinger’s view of the prophet in the church:

“This dialectic of teaching and defending did not necessarily draw out the more attractive aspects of this new pastoral side to the prophetic office. Bullinger, therefore, connected the pastoral and teaching aspects through another essential development indicated in De prophetae officio: covenant theology. Bullinger clearly applied covenant theology bot in his teaching on scriptural interpretation and in his treatment of the pastoral office of the prophet.

Already in 1523, referring to Romans 10:4, Bullinger cautiously employed the traditional term testamentum (covenant), in his writing. At the beginning of his interpretation of the letter to the Hebrews in 1526 he openly declared that the New Testament is the fulfillment of the covenant with Israel. He then proceeded further in this direction by responding to a question which, although only implicitly posed in the 1532 oration, was present in all the new disciples of the humanist philosophia christiana of the 1520’s: if the New Testament is the important part of the Bible, what is the purpose of the rest of scripture? Bullinger’s answer lay in the covenant of God and humanity, culminating in God’s testament in Christ, which is the overall status of scripture as a whole. Therefore, and correspondingly, the status of every precept, story, periscope or letter, in short, of every passage of the Bible refers, if adequately interpreted, to this great basic status (the covenant). The prophet is responsible for linking the traditional medieval understanding of the divine covenant or testament with the new principle of scriptural sufficiency. This unity, according to Bullinger, is only possible through the adoption of a new methodological approach, which is the true task of the prophet.”

Bullinger and the strategic role of prophets

Bullinger rightly understood that the primary role of the prophet in Old Testament times was to be a covenant mediator in calling the people of God back into a right covenant relationship with God.

In De Testamento (1534) Bullinger declared that the covenant is “the source of our religion and the first chapter of it” (haec nimirum religionis nostrae origio & illiud caput primarium est). Furthermore, in his De propetae officio (printed 1539 but based on works written in 1528 and 1529) he wrote: “For testament, which is also the title for all of Scripture, surely stands for the content of all Scripture. Neither is this to be wondered at as something recent and devoid of meaning. For by the word testament we understand the covenant and the agreement by which God agreed with the entire human race, to be himself our God, our sufficiency, source of good and horn of plenty. And this he would abundantly prove by the gift of the fertile earth and the incarnation of his son. Man, however, ought to pursue integrity, that he may stand before this God with a perfect and upright mind, that he may walk in his ways and commit himself totally to him, as to the highest and most loving Father.”

Bullinger saw parallels between the idolatry and covenant unfaithfulness of Israel in Old Testament times with the idolatry and unfaithfulness of the church of the Middle Ages. Thus, Bullinger saw Zwingli in as a prophet in continuity with Moses, Isaiah, Paul and Athanasius.

Of Zwingli, Bullinger wrote: “For it was this one who restored the principle of the testament and the eternal covenant and renewed what was worn out. It is this one who restored to its former splendor the omnipotence and goodness of the unity of God which invocation and veneration of other gods had obscured” (De propetae officio, sig. Ei r-v). Bullinger also regarded Luther as a prophet. Just as Elijah had combated the prophets of Baal, so Zwingli performed the work of Elijah in Zurich in the 1520’s.

These ideas are also reflected in Bullinger one hundred sermons on the Apocalypse where he writes the the work of the prophets and apostles continues in the work of (D. Luther and D. Zwingli and other faithful witnesses of God” (huic agemus gratias, quod diu multi praedicatores boni & hodie D. Luthurus & D. Zwinglius, & alii testes Dei fideles, in tam conscelerato seculo, & in tanta Antichristi potentia, tot annis, inuitis etiam inferorum portis, ministerio suo defungi potuerunt).

This post is based on Rodney L. Petersen's article "Bullinger's Prophets of the 'Restitutio'" which is found in Mark S. Burrows and Paul Rorem (eds.) Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp245-260. At the Refo 500 Conference to be held in Zurich 8-10 June 2011. Petersen will present a paper entitled: "The apocalyptic Luther - exegesis and self-identification".

Bullinger and the role of the Prophet

In his De prophetae officio of 1532 Bullinger wrote concerning the function of the prophet:

“For it was this one who restored the principle of the testament and the eternal covenant and renewed what was worn out. It is this one who restored to its former splendour the omnipotence and goodness and unity of God which invocation and veneration of other gods had obscured”.