Vern Poythress:
The growth of technique and of technical detail in interpretation may snare us into idolatry. We want interpretation without crucifixion. We trust in technical expertise and in method, in order to free ourselves from the fear of the agony of hermeneutical crucifixion. That is, we do not want to crucify what we think we already know and have achieved. We want painless, straightforward progress toward understanding, rather than having to abandon a whole route already constructed.
But the way of Christ is cross bearing. Christ offers us resurrection power, and hence the hope of renewing rather than losing the old. But the renewal always involves crucifixion. Many of us are too comfortable to be willing. . . .
Hermeneutical salvation, like all other aspects of salvation, is by grace alone. We act with hermeneutical responsibility only because God has acted on us, through the Spirit of Christ, the Redeemer (John 15:16; 6:37-40, 65). The beginning of the Christian life comes through God’s grace, but progress after that beginning also comes through God’s grace (Gal. 3:3). Far from eliminating work and excusing laziness, grace is the basis for vigorous and fruitful work, the work of scholarship, the work of meditation, the work of loving God, and the work of painful obedience in the world!
—Vern S. Poythress, God-Centered Biblical Interpretation (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1999), pp. 191-192, 222.