Editor’s Introduction
Editor’s Introduction
About 1522, William Tyndale encountered a “learned man” who contended, “We were better without God’s law than the pope’s.” Tyndale famously replied, “I defy the pope and all his laws,” and further, “if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”1
For Tyndale, an English translation of the Bible was no mere academic exercise. Rather, for readers (including plowboys) to know the Scripture means much more than simply possessing a copy of the Bible or having a familiarity with the narratives contained in it. Tyndale’s deepest desire was for his countrymen to have the Word of God in their native tongue, in order to obtain a saving knowledge of Christ through the gospel.
In his exposition on 1 John, Tyndale wrote:
To bring unto the fellowship of God and Christ, and of them that believe in Christ, is the final intent of all the Scripture, why it was given of God unto man, and the only thing which all true preachers seek, and whereby you shall ever know and discern the true Word of God from all false and counterfeited doctrine of vain traditions, and the true preacher from the wily hypocrite.2
Tyndale observed that false doctrine and vain traditions are common obstacles to the right use of Scripture. The Roman clerics “gloss” the scriptures with faulty interpretations and philosophical presuppositions that cloud the understanding of the Word. Tyndale warned, “When God’s Word is altered with false glosses, it is no more God’s word.”3 Therefore, he believed it was essential to expose the “jugglings” of the popish clerics,4 so that readers may discern the correct meaning of the Scriptures.
As a translator and expositor of the Word, Tyndale held to the sufficiency of Scripture: “Whatever we ought to believe or do, the same is written expressly, or drawn out of that which is written.”5 Thus, he dismissed the claims of papists, who sought to supplement the Scripture with ecclesiastical decrees and ceremonies, extrabiblical revelations, or ideas derived from human imagination. “God is but His word: as Christ says: ‘I am that I say unto you’ (see Joh 8:25): that is to say, That which I preach am I. My words are spirit and life. God is that only which He testifies of Himself, and to imagine any other thing of God than that is damnable idolatry.”6
As God’s revelation, Scripture is sufficiently plain in itself and self-interpreting. Its meaning is clear regarding all matters essential to the health of a man’s soul. “One scripture will help to declare another. And the circumstances—that is to say, the places that go before and after—will give light unto the middle text. And the open and manifest scriptures will ever improve [correct] the false and wrong exposition of the darker sentences.”7
There is another essential factor regarding the understanding of Scripture: whereas it is essential to purge manmade glosses from the Word and to follow Scripture as it interprets itself (by context and the analogy of faith), these elements alone will not lead to saving faith, apart from the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, Who illuminates and regenerates the elect of God.
The Scripture speaks many things as the world speaketh. But they may not be worldly understood, but ghostly and spiritually: yea, the Spirit of God only [alone] understands them: and where He is not, there is not the understanding of the Scripture, but unfruitful disputing and brawling about words…
Read the second chapter of Paul to the Corinthians: The natural man understandeth not the things of God, but the Spirit of God only and we, says he, have received the Spirit which is of God, to understand the things which are given us of God (1Co 2:12). For without the Spirit it is impossible to understand them. 8
Because the Scriptures are the Word of God, the Bible should be understood as a unified whole; and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the theme that unifies the whole.
The Scripture is that wherewith God draws us unto Him and not wherewith we should be led from Him. The Scriptures spring out of God, and flow unto Christ, and were given to lead us to Christ. You must therefore go along by the Scripture as by a line, until you come at Christ, which is the way’s end and resting place. If any man therefore uses the Scripture to draw you from Christ, and to nuzzle you in anything save in Christ, the same is a false prophet.9
Given this Christological focus of the Bible, Tyndale frequently speaks of the office of Moses (or of the law) as a schoolmaster leading sinners to repentance and faith in Christ.
But as he who feels not his disease can long for no health, even so it is impossible for any man to believe in Christ’s blood, except Moses have had him first in cure, and with his law have robbed him of his righteousness, and condemned him unto everlasting death, and have shown him under what damnation he is in by birth in Adam, and how all his deeds (appear they never so holy) are yet but damnable sin.10
Given man’s guilty and dead condition, justification is received by faith alone. Moreover, that saving faith is not a meritorious act of the sinner, but the gift of God.
Right faith springs not of man’s fantasy, neither is it in any man’s power to obtain it; but it is altogether the pure gift of God poured into us freely, without all manner doing of us, without deserving and merits, yea, and without seeking for of us; and is (as says Paul in the second [chapter] to the Ephesians) even God’s gift and grace, purchased through Christ…
The Spirit of God accompanies faith, and brings with her light, wherewith a man beholds himself in the law of God, and sees his miserable bondage and captivity, and humbles himself, and abhors himself: she [faith] brings God’s promises of all good things in Christ. God works with His Word, and in His Word: and when His Word is preached, faith roots herself in the hearts of the elect; and as faith enters, and the Word of God is believed, the power of God looses the heart from the captivity and bondage under sin, and knits and couples him to God and to the will of God; alters him, changes him clean, fashions, and forges him anew; gives him power to love, and to do that which before was impossible for him either to love or do; and turns him unto a new nature, so that he loves that which he before hated, and hates that which he before loved; and is clean altered, and changed, and contrary disposed; and is knit and coupled fast to God’s will, and naturally brings forth good works: that is to say, that which God commands to do, and not things of his own imagination.11
The sacraments reinforce the principal truths of Scripture, serving as signs and seals of Christ’s atonement and God’s grace shown to His people. Thus, a correct understanding of the sacraments provides a key to understanding Scripture. For example, as baptism “betokens on the one part that Christ has washed our souls with His blood, even so on the other part it signifies that we have promised to quench and slay the lusts of the flesh.”12 Those who truly understand these basic concepts have the key to unlock the whole of Scripture.
Tyndale’s Pathway is one of his earliest works. It is both a gospel tract and a primer on hermeneutics: a statement of the first principles of the Protestant faith—a testimony which the author sealed with his life. May this small work direct our paths to a greater knowledge of Scripture, and thereby to know Christ, the Word of God incarnate.