Rolodex entries - sin and repentance
Repentance is beautiful.
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The selections are taken from the following authors:
Simeon Zahl, H.A. Preus, Martin Luther, C.F.W. Walther, John Colquhoun, Jordan Cooper, Richard B. Gaffin, Jonathan Edwards, Sinclair Ferguson, David Hollaz, John Theodore Mueller, John Kleinig, Ken Jones, G. H. Gerberding, Johann Gerhard, Charles Porterfield Krauth, Heinrich Bornkamm, Philip Cary, Francis Pieper, Gerhard Ebeling, Ole Hallesby, David P. Scaer, Jack Kilcrease
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From Ole Hallesby (on baptism): “The opponents of Infant Baptism have not been able to hold fast to the statements of Scripture regarding man’s total moral impotence as a result of the fall in sin. It comes to light most clearly in their preaching of repentance. It is preached thus: ‘Man must by repentance tear himself loose from his former sins and cease to love sin.’ If the sinner is not able to accomplish this, the surrender is not a wholehearted one, it is said. Their preaching of faith shows the same thing. Man, by his faith, must draw grace unto himself. Grace is, indeed, free. That is, he who seeks it can get it. Faith is the hand by means of which the sinner reaches out for and appropriates grace. If repentance and faith are understood in this way, it is clear that the little child can have neither of them. The child cannot put forth any of the soul-exertion which, according to this conception, is absolutely necessary in order that the grace of God may be transferred to the heart of the sinner.
In Scripture this is presented in an entirely different light. Man is lost because of sin. He possesses no power to tear himself loose from his old sins, still less to cease loving sin. Scripture tells us, moreover, that Christ came to release the captives. It tells us, likewise, that the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, and ‘that which is born of the flesh is flesh’ until it is born of God. Repentance, therefore, does not consist in this, that man is able by the power of his own will to tear himself loose from his former sins; neither in this, that man is able to compel himself to hate sin and to love God. No, repentance consists in this, that the sinner, convicted by the Holy Spirit of his sins, submits to this conviction and confesses that he is bound by the chains of sin and that he loves sin and not God. Faith is not a soul-exertion or a condition of the soul which makes us worthy to receive the grace of God. Neither is it a power by means of which we should draw unto ourselves the grace of God. That is not necessary, because grace is free. Not only in the sense that all may seek it. It is as free as the air which envelopes us on every hand and forces itself upon us as soon as it secures the least access. Such is the grace of God in Christ. The propitiation which Christ made by his life and death he made as the representative of and the substitute for the race. Therefore this propitiation is the property of the race. The covenant which God made in the death of Christ consists in this, that he takes upon himself to impart to each member of the race the salvation which through Christ belongs to the race. See 2 Cor. 5:18-19, where Paul mentions ‘the word of reconciliation’ as a part of the dispensation of salvation which God perfected in and by the death of Christ. As a consequence of this covenant, God provides that grace searches for the individual sinner. It is not the sinner, therefore, who first seeks grace. No, grace has already found the sinner the moment the sinner begins to seek grace. Because grace searches for the sinner long before the sinner thinks of grace, Baptism becomes Infant Baptism. Grace searches for man as soon as he is born (p.26). The little child shall, according to God’s covenant, receive its part of the finished salvation, which it has a right to because it is born into the race which Jesus has redeemed. The child can receive a part in this salvation, Jesus says. It is to that extent receptive that it is an example for us adults in receiving the kingdom of God. How, then, does the child receive the kingdom of God? It, of course, has no idea of what is taking place in the moment of Baptism. It cannot think, consequently neither repent nor believe as we adults do. But it can do something that we adults first learn through repentance and faith: It remains passive, not opposing the grace of God. Jesus gains unimpeded access to this little human life with all his grace and gifts. Now Jesus tells us adults that if we do not receive the kingdom of God ‘as a little child,’ we shall never enter therein. But how shall we adults get tot he point where we, as the child, become submissive and do not hinder Jesus from entering wiht all his salvation? Of a truth, says Jesus, through repentance we become as children (Matt. 18:3). Here we see, consequently, what purpose repentance should serve us adults. It is to remove the opposition by means of which we have prevented Jesus from coming to us with all his grace. Repentance and faith in the adult realizes and acknowledges his helplessness and decides to surreder himself unconditionally to the Savior. For Jesus needs help neither from the little child nor from the adult. All he needs is access. Thus we have seen that administration of Baptism as Infant Baptism is precisely an expression of how free and unmerited is the grace of God.
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When we set out to investigate the effect of Baptism in the infant, we encounter the difficulty that the child has only unconscious life. For we are as yet little acquainted with the nature and the laws of this life. But we shall now try to gather the knowledge we have of the unconscious life and thereby elucidate the relation between the unconscious and the conscious life. In the first place, then, we shall record the simple truth that every normally developed human life consists of these two kinds of life, the conscious and the unconscious. And the relation between these we may express by a mathematical figure, thus: They are to each other as two concentric circles, two circles with the same center but of different sizes. The greater of these circles is the unconscious life. It may possibly be that many will be surprised on hearing this. It is also in itself remarkable that the life of a human being, which is, of course, a personal life, really moves more in the realm of the unconscious than in that of the conscious. But it is not difficult to show that this is so. In the first place, we lived at least two years in the unconscious life before the conscious life began to awaken. Most people lose consciousness some time before the unconscious life is extinguished in death. With some this may take several minutes; with others, several hours, days, or weeks. In the second place, we may refer to sleep. … In the third place, we can make reference to the fact that also in the awakened state we experience vastly more than the little we apprehend in our consciousness. … Just this little investigation reveals to us that we all, every moment of our life, experience much more than we can consciously grasp and hold up before ourselves and account for. My conscious life is, therefore, only a small portion of the life which I live every moment (p. 32) … Our life with God also consists of two circles, the conscious and the unconscious. Here, too, the unconscious is the greater. Our life with God includes every moment much more than we can perceive with our minds and comprehend in our emotions. Life with God is an organism which functions uninterruptedly as long as a person possesses this life. It functions unceasingly also when the conscious life is not functioning, thus during sleep, and when the conscious life is occupied with other things than thinking of the God-life, for instance during work. It is essential for us to be clear upon this phase of the God-life. It will free us from much unnecessary fear and inward unrest, and it will give our God-life the inward rest and balance which it needs in order to grow. Especially in the first period of his Christian life, we are inclined to think that life with God consists only in the thoughts we have about God together with the emotions which attend these thoughts. For that reason we are douring this period so afraid of all that leads us away from thinking about God. It is even easy to fear and shun work since it hinders us from thinking about God. Now this leads to an unnatural and forced God-life, a trait which we find also in older Christians within those Christian groups which ahve little or no vision of the unconscious side of the Christian life. They are especially tempted to force, by artificial means, the emotional life of the Christian up to an unnatural height. If, on the other hand, we can come to see that the God-life is a life which lives and grows uninterruptedly, also when cognition, feeling, and will are otherwise occupied, then we will get the natural rest and repose our soul-life which is so indispensable to the sound growth of the God-life. Then we will go to our daily work with joy and gratitude, even if it prevents us from thinking unceasingly about God. We will gradually learn to thank God especially for work because it is such a natural and simple means of keeping our hearts and our thoughts from sinning. … Jesus expressed himself once on this unconscious side of the God-life: ‘So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth; and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear (Mark 4:26-28).
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In life with God the unconscious life is the first to function. God brings about by supernatural means a living connection with the unconscious part of our person. Before the conscious life of the child awakens, God touches its unconscious life with his lifegiving Spirit. He takes our life’s finest and deepest roots and plants them into God’s own lifeground, so our unconscious life from that moment receives nourishment and the impetus of life from God himself. And that is what happens to the infant in Baptism. The little slip of humanity is thereby put into living relationship with God. It receives life with God. Jesus illustrated this living relationship on one occasion int he beautiful parable of the vine and the branches. It is through Baptism that the little one is grafted into Christ. And no matter how small the branch may be, it has, nevertheless, the same life as the trunk (p. 39).”
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From Ole Hallesby:
“Let us also see how such a soul becomes saved.
This is the most difficult of all. He tries to repent, to feel sorry for his sins, and to believe; but the one seems as impossible for him as the other.
And in the midst of all this He is already saved.
For in the very moment that he in his distress turned to the Lord and told Him the whole truth, Jesus spread out His pierced hands over him. At that very instant the atoning blood covered all his sins. And thus he was saved, although he himself was not as yet aware of it and therefore could not be glad because of it.
That is how much it means when our High Priest spreads out His hands over sinners.
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Godspeed to you, my dear reader, you who in your spiritual distress confide in the Lord every time your conscience makes you uneasy. You are already one of that people over which the hands of Jesus are lifted up unto blessing.
I know very well that it is not always easy for you at first.
A little gleam of light now and then. A faint hope, which dawns upon your benighted soul. A passage of God’s Word which affords you some help occasionally. A song or a hymn which suddenly banishes all pain from your soul.
But as a rule these things are but of short duration.
Whereupon it often seems to you that everything is in a fearful and hopeless state of confusion again. Doubts and fears assail you. You may even doubt God and His Word, but most of all you doubt yourself and your own experiences. You ask if the blessed moments which you have experienced and which you thought were from God were anything more than products of your own imagination.
All this is a part of your salvation.
But you do not understand it as yet; and that is why you keep on asking continually why the Lord deals with you as He does.
Nor can I explain all these things to you. All I can do is to tell you that that is how the Lord deals with all of us when He saves us.
All your doubts and all your fears, all your sighing and weeping, all your anxiety and distress cannot hinder the blessing from His pierced hands from dripping down upon you. You are already in the midst of heaven’s blessings, even though you do not realize it.
This, too, you have in common with all of God’s children.
Throughout our lives, even to our latest breath, we receive, because of Jesus’ merits, a number of blessings which we do not understand and which we do not realize are blessings. But they come to us nevertheless, not because we understand them, and even less because we pray for them, but for the one and only reason that they are a fruit of Christ’s death and are therefore sent to us by God without our prayer.
Permit me to bring this out a little more clearly.
You are not saved on the ground that you have repented, or have been sorry for your sins, or because of your faith. You are saved for Christ’s sake (because of him), because He with His pierced hands imparts to you the fruit of His passion.
This He does, not because you beseech Him to do so, but because He loves you, and because He wills of His own accord to make you a partaker in the fruit of His death.
You on your part are asked to do only one thing: Confess your sins to Him. For it is written, ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9).
You who have confessed your sins and know that you have concealed nothing from Him, sit down and quietly thank Him because you are already under His pierced hands, because the Lord is gracious unto you, because, verily, His face shines upon you.
Praise Him because you are living by night and by day in the midst of that stream of blessing which flows silently but certainly from His pierced hands to all such unworthy sinners as do not by dishonesty and a guileful spirit shut themselves out from the fulness of this blessing.”
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From John Theodore Mueller, Christian Dogmatics: “To Christians, religion means true faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or in the gracious message, revealed in Holy Scripture, that a perfect reconciliation has been effected between God and man through the vicarious atonement (satisfactio vicaria) of the divine-human Christ, the Redeemer of the world. Hence religion in the true sense of the term may be ascribed only to believers in Christ Jesus. And that is precisely what God’s Word teaches on this point.
True religion, according to God’s Word, is communion with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
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The basic difference between the Christian religion and all other so-called religions has been aptly pointed out by Prof. Max Mueller of Oxford University, who writes: “In the discharge of my duties for forty years as professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford I have devoted as much time as any man living to the study of the sacred books of the East, and I have found the one key-note, the one diapason, so to speak, of all these so-called sacred books, … the one refrain through all — salvation by works. They all say that salvation must be purchased, must be bought with a price, and that the sole price, the sole purchase-money, must be our works and deservings. Our own Holy Bible, our sacred Book of the East, is from beginning to end a protest against this doctrine. Good works are indeed enjoined upon us in that sacred Book of the East; but they are only the outcome of a grateful heart; they are only a thank-offering, the fruits of our faith. They are never the ransom-money of the true disciples of Christ. Let us not shut our eyes to what is excellent and true and of good report in these sacred books; but let us teach Hindus, Buddhists, and Mohammedans that there is only one sacred Book of the East that can be their mainstay in that awful hour when they pass all alone into the unseen world. It is the sacred Book which contains that faithful saying, worthy to be received of all men, women, and children, and not merely of us Christians, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (Cf. Pieper, Christliche Dog-matik, I, 15 ff.) 3
OF THE NUMBER OF RELIGIONS IN THE WORLD.
The number of religions in the world has been variously estimated. We commonly speak of four different religions: Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan, and pagan. While such an enumeration may be employed in common speech, it must never be forgotten that in the final analysis all religions must be reduced to two classes: religions of the Law, that is, religions which endeavor to reconcile the Deity by works of the Law; and the religion of the Gospel, that is, the belief, divinely wrought and engendered by the Holy Ghost through the means of grace, that God has been reconciled to the sinner without any works on his part, through the vicarious atonement of Christ Jesus, and that salvation is thus God’s free gift, appropriated by the sinner through faith in Christ Jesus.
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Religion has been defined as “the personal relation of man to God.” This definition, it has been asserted, is broad enough to include both the Christian religion and the pagan religions. However, its inadequacy becomes apparent as we begin to analyze “man’s relation to God.” Since all men are sinners, their relation to God by nature is that of fear and despair and, consequently, of hatred toward God. This miserable condition is attested both by Scripture and experience. According to the clear teaching of God’s Word all men who are not born again through faith in Christ are “without Christ,” “have no hope,” and are “without God in the world,” Eph. 2, 12. In spite of their earnest endeavors to reconcile God by their works they continue in their fear and hopelessness; for they remain under the curse and condemnation of the divine Law. This fact St. Paul asserts when he writes: “As many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse,” Gal. 3, 10. The same apostle declares also that “the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to God,” 1 Cor., 10, 20. In short, as long as a person is without faith in Christ, his personal relation to God is a relation of dread, despair, and hopelessness and therefore also of enmity against God, Rom. 8, 7.
However, the personal relation to God changes as soon as a person becomes a child of God through faith in Christ; then he obtains “a good conscience,” 1 Pet. 3, 21, the assurance of divine grace, the conviction that his sins are forgiven, and the inestimable hope of eternal life. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” 2 Cor. 5, 17. St. Paul describes this blessed relationship in beautiful terms Rom. 5, 1. 2, where he writes: “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” And again, v. 11: “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” The believer’s personal relation to God is therefore the very opposite of the personal relation to God which is found in the unbeliever; it is a relation of peace, joy, and happiness.” (Mueller, John Theodore. Christian Dogmatics . Concordia Publishing House. Édition du Kindle).
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From “Faith Misused” by Alvin Schmidt: “As William Henry Paine Hatch (1875-1972), America’s renowned scholar of the Greek language, revealed in 1917, the Greek philosophy of Stoicism taught belief in supreme beings, ‘but of faith (pistis) as a principle of religion it made nothing.’ Hatch further noted, ‘The fact is that faith was not an important factor in the religious life of the Stoics, and hence it played no conspicuous part in their religious teaching.’ Similarly, Seneca (c. 4 BC-AD 65), Rome’s stoical philosopher, taught that, in Roman thinking, the Latin concept of fides (faith) ‘belonged to the sphere of ethics rather than to that of religion.’ More recently, Dieter Luhrmann (1939-2013), a German scholar of early Christianity, has shown that ‘faith’ cannot be deduced by a general religious linguistic usage in Hellenistic period.’ And Teresa Morgan, a scholar of Early Church history at Oxford University, in her recent book Roman Faith and Christian Faith (2015), states that in that in the Greco-Roman world, ‘no one would begin a study of Greek or Roman religiosity by looking at pistis/fides; it does not play a large enough role in the evidence of any period.’
Faith (pistis) of the early Christians, in the words of Hatch, ‘was centered in Jesus Christ as Lord and Messiah, and it was primarily intellectual in character. But it also carried with it important ethical consequences, for it brought the believer into submission to the rule of Christ; and furthermore it formed the basis of the disciples’ religious and social life.’ Hatch further states that this ‘faith is from the beginning much more than belief or conviction, for it involved the feelings and the will as well as the intellect. Trust and loyalty are included in it.’ Referring to the apostle Paul’s use of faith, Hatch said, ‘Faith is the basic principle of Christianity and the distinguishing characteristic of Christians.’ Similarly, Wilfred Cantwell Smith has stated that the New Testament ‘launched the concept of faith in a big way, as virtually a distinctive Christian category.’
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Paul’s portraying faith as ‘the gift of God’ revealed its religious significance in that faith was not only the means to obtain eternal life but also the means to motivate Christ’s followers to perform good works. As one observer has noted, faith to Paul was ‘not merely an intellectual assent to some proposition but a vital, personal commitment engaging the whole man…in all his relations with God, with other men, and with the world.’
Teresa Morgan has recently stated that the ‘New Testament writers never use pistis language to refer to anyone other than Christians.’ Similarly, Luhrmann has shown that in the New Testament, ‘the Christian use of ‘faith’ is exclusive, and its object is God alone.’ Luhrmann has also revealed that Christianity made ‘frequent use of pistis to define itself,’ which is closely related to the exclusive nature of the Christian’s use of faith.
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The Christian use of pistis also differed from the ancient Greeks’ negative view of pistis. The Greeks saw pistis as ‘the lowest grade of cognition. It was the state of mind of the uneducated who believed things on hearsay without being able to give reasons for their belief.’ But contrary to the Greeks, the early Christians had a highly positive view of pistis. They even defended their pistis by pointing to factual, empirical evidence in support of it. This is evident in the words of the apostle Peter, who urged his fellow Christians to ‘always be ready to give a defense [apologia] to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you’ (1 Peter 3:15 NKJV).
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The early Christians’ use of pistis (faith) was not only notably different from the Greeks’ in terms of its religious significance. It also had a specific source: the Word of Jesus Christ, as Paul told the Christians in Rome. ‘So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ’ (Romans 10:17). The early Christians heard the Word of Christ when His apostles in their preaching and writing assured them that they had personally seen Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, before and after His resurrection appearances. Here the words of Peter are relevant: ‘This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses’ (Acts 2:32).
Moreover, if faith comes from hearing the Word of Christ, then the faith of Christians is God-derived. This truth further underscores the distinctive nature of their faith. Its Christ-centered source was another way that distinguished the Christians’ use of pistis/fides from the pagan Greco-Romans. Hence, because the source of faith is Christ as the Word of God, it follows that anything called faith that does not come from that Word is not faith. As Jesus stated, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in [pisteunte eis] Him whom He has sent’ (John 6:29, emphasis added).
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Luther defined faith this way: ‘Faith is…a heartfelt confidence in God through Christ that Christ’s suffering and death pertain to you and should belong to you…True faith…yields its whole heart to the conviction that the Son of God was given into death for us, that sin is remitted, that death is destroyed, and that these evils have been done away with—but, more than this, that eternal life, salvation, and glory, yes, God Himself have been restored to us, and that through the Son God has made us His children.’
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Further exploring the sola fide concept, Luther’s co-worker Philip Melanchthon defined faith as consisting of three parts, or elements: notitia (knowledge), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust). When Rome rejected this definition of faith, Melanchthon wrote the Apology of the Augsburg Confession to make it clear, lest people saw faith only as historical knowledge of Christ’s death and resurrection, that Christians also needed personally to assent to and trust in Christ’s redemptive work, ‘to want to receive the offered promise of forgiveness of sins and of justification.’
The tripart definition of faith was not a novelty of Melanchthon at the time of the Reformation. In the seventeenth century, other theologians saw ‘notitia and assensus as preliminary steps to fiducia.’ Nor did this definition first appear during the Reformation. According to Scottish theologian D.M. Baillie, this definition of faith goes back at least to ‘the Middle Ages, and perhaps further still.’
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It can be argued that this definition harks back to Christ’s apostles. Their proclamations were based on their knowledge of Christ’s physical resurrection, for they had seen Him in person on several occasions after He rose from the dead. They wanted their hearers to have faith in Christ’s redemptive acts of salvation based on that historical knowledge, for their own faith was linked to this knowledge (notitia) to which they assented (assensus) and in which they trusted (fiducia).”
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From Dr. Simeon Zahl:
“first and foremost, sin is not best defined as specific acts of moral transgression—say, committing adultery, or embezzling from a charity, lying to get your way, and so on. Those are indeed what we might call sins, but they are not sin itself. Rather in the first instance, theologically speaking, sin is a condition under which human lives exist. Sin is a way of describing the fact that there is a fundamental flaw in the human system and is an explanation for why that system keeps throwing up errors. The doctrine of sin is a way of saying that reality is like a lens with a subtle but pervasive flaw, such that everything that goes through it gets distorted—plans go wrong, communications fail, good intentions decay and corrupt—and of describing the fact that, in so many things that happen, there is this slight tilt towards the perverse and the cruel. In other words, it is a description of the fact that there is a fundamental bias against flourishing that appears to be written into our hearts. So, we have to think of sin as a condition. It is like gravity, only it causes enormous suffering. ” (Source: https://mbird.com/theology/hiding-in-plain-sight-the-lost-doctrine-of-sin/)
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From H.A. Preus, A Theology to Live By : “It was Satan who caused the fall. But it was man who sinned. His sin was a simple transgression of God’s command. It was disobedience, rebellion. But at the bottom lay unbelief. Luther traces the steps in the fall. ‘Thus we see Adam and Eve so fallen and sunk in sin that they cannot sink deeper. After unbelief follows the disobedience of all of man’s powers and parts. After this disobedience follows later on the excuse and defense of sin; and after defense, the accusation and condemnation of God. This is the last step of sin, to insult God and to charge him with being the originator of sin.’ Thus man’s unbelief is turned into blasphemy, and disobedience into reproach against his Creator!
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From Luther’s interpretation of the fall, Julius Köstlin draws a definition of sin. ‘In thus portraying the first sin, Luther has already expressed the idea as to what is the essential nature of sin in general. Sin is the transgression of the divine Law—everything which is not in conformity with the Law of God. The Scriptures, Luther declares, never employ the word sin in any other sense. The fundamental sin is unbelief, which is a violation of the fundamental commandment, and thus of the entire Decalogue. The impelling force in unbelief is exaltation of self, in which man seeks himself to be God, and would have God be nothing.’
The fall of Adam brought sin into the world. His sin became the sin of the whole human race. ‘Here we must confess, as Paul says in Rom. 5:11, that sin originated from one man Adam, by whose disobedience all men were made sinners, subject to death and the devil. This is called original or capital sin.’ The basic character of original sin for theology and for life is expressed in a classic statement of Luther. He calls ‘original sin, or natural sin, or personal sin, the real chief sin; if this were not, there would be no real sin. This sin is not committed like all other sins, but it is, it lives, and it commits all sins, and is the essential sin, which does not sin for an hour or for a time; but where and for how long the person is, there, too, is the sin.’
Luther’s reference here to the person emphasizes his idea of the whole man (totus homo). The whole man is corrupt and utterly sinful. Hence everything he does and thinks and desires and wills is sinful, and in this state he can do nothing good. When he sins, it is not the body that sins, but the whole man; for the whole man is sinful. It is the person, with his center in what the Bible refers to as the heart. The whole person is sarx, flesh, i.e., man apart from God through sin.
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When we think of Luther’s definition of righteousness as ‘the righteousness that avails before God,’ this is really what man lost in the fall, namely, everything that avails before God,’ this is really what man lost in the fall, namely, everything that avails before God for righteousness. He has lost his sense of direction. He is averted (aversus) from God, and in all his affections, will, and understanding he is opposed to God. For everything that he has left is totally corrupted, and he is left completely incapacitated to move ‘God-ward,’ or to will or do the good. Thus it is evident that ‘original sin is the loss or deprivation of sight.’ Blindness is a favorite concept of Luther in describing the nature and result of the fall and original sin.
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The positive side of the fall was man’s complete corruption and total depravity. … Too often, says Luther, this corruption is thought of in terms of lust or concupiscence alone. ‘But original sin is in truth the entire fall of the whole human nature.’ With that summary statement he goes on to show how intellect, will, and conscience have all been corrupted.
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Lest someone should misunderstand Luther’s criticism of reason, as John Wesley did, it might clarify the issue to quote a paragraph from Philip S. Watson: “How does he…decry reason, right or wrong, as an irreconcilable enemy to the Gospel of Christ!” John Wesley exclaims after turning the pages of Luther’s Galatians. “Whereas,” he continues, “what is reason…but the power of apprehending, judging, and discoursing? Which power is no more to be condemned in the gross, than seeing, hearing, or feeling.” With this last statement Luther would whole-heartedly agree; but he would strongly and rightly protest that he has never decried reason “right or wrong”, nor condemned it “in the gross”. In fact, as “the power of apprehending, judging, and discoursing,” he never condemns it at all, but praises it most highly as one of the best of all God’s gifts to men. It is by virtue of his reason, Luther holds, that a man is worthy to be called, and is, a man.
Reason is a “natural light” that is kindled from the “divine light,” and “above all other things of this life, it is something excellent and divine”. It is the discoverer and governor of all arts and sciences and “whatever of wisdom, power, virtue, and glory is possessed by men in this life”. About reason in this sense of the term, Luther can wax almost lyrical. What he condemns is the use men commonly make of their reason, when they apprehend, judge, and discourse about matters pertaining to God and their own relationships with Him.29 John Wesley is neither the first nor the last theologian to be offended at Luther’s idea of the corruption of human reason. This doctrine of original sin, which says that the sin of Adam has contaminated the whole man in his very nature, including his reason and will, is probably the most offensive doctrine in the Bible, where Luther finds it. Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians alike rise up to charge that it destroys both man’s dignity and his sense of responsibility.
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Luther yielded to no one in his exaltation of the dignity of man, the crown of God’s creation. But the real dignity of man lay in his creation in the image of God. Of man in the garden thus created Luther says that he “is a unique creature and that he is suited to be a partaker of divinity and of immortality. For man is a more excellent creature than heaven and earth and everything that is in them.”39 He was “an extraordinary creature of God,”40 created to “to take possession of heaven.”41 He was “a creature far superior to the rest of the living beings that live a physical life, especially since as yet his nature had not become depraved.”42
But the thing that made man set apart and superior to all other creatures, says Luther in the same paragraph, was that God made him in His own image. This was reflected in a “keen intellect,” and “accurate knowledge of all the creatures”; he was “righteous and upright…endowed with extraordinary perception.” All this was lost in the fall, and “the name ‘original sin’ is correctly given to whatever was lost of those conditions which Adam enjoyed while his nature was still unimpaired.”43 What a glorious creature was man before he began to play God! “But who can describe in words the glory of the innocence we have lost?”44 Here lies the true “dignity” of man: his creation in the image of God. “Attention should, therefore, be given to the text [Gen. 1:26] before us, in which the Holy Spirit dignifies the nature of man in such a glorious manner and distinguishes it from all other creatures.”45 Man spoiled all this through disobedience in the garden. He does indeed remain the supreme creation of God, still towering above all other creatures. For he is still a man, retaining his humanitas—everything that makes him a man. He is still in possession of reason, “the most important and the highest in rank among all things,” marking “the essential difference by which man is distinguished from the animals and other things.”46 But this “most beautiful and most excellent of all creatures, which reason is even after sin, remains under the power of the devil.”
Therefore it must be concluded that “the whole man and every man, whether he be king, lord, servant, wise, just, and richly endowed with the good things of this life, nevertheless is and remains guilty of sin and death, under the power of Satan.”47 But do not both the psalmist and the author of Hebrews proclaim the dignity of man? “[W]hat is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:4–5; cf. Hebrews 2:6–7). Luther finds no reason here to boast of man’s dignity. For this passage, he says, refers to Christ. “Therefore those who think that this verse refers to the dignity of human nature, which is very close to that of the angels, follow an improper understanding, which is the death of true understanding…. This verse says nothing about the dignity of our nature.” It speaks of Christ. “What a man He is!” is a better translation, says Luther.48 This is all a part of his theology that his critics refer to as Luther’s “pessimism.” But they seem to know only half of Luther, the half that proclaims the utter sinfulness and helplessness of man to save himself or to cooperate in his salvation.
Man has indeed lost his dignity. But then comes the glorious Gospel that through the cross and resurrection of Christ the image of God is restored to the one who believes, and thus dignity is regained. Forgiveness becomes the great triumphant note in Luther’s theology. “For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”
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God kills in order to make alive; He humiliates in order to exalt, etc.52 Luther uses a unique terminology to explain this twofold activity of God in convicting of sin by the Law and granting forgiveness through the Gospel. God’s opus proprium (proper work) is saving and sanctifying and blessing men, and this He does through the Gospel. But before He can do His proper work, He must do His opus alienum (alien work), which is to convict of sin, to make man aware that he is a lost and condemned creature under the wrath of God.
This alien work God performs through the Law. It is by the Law He kills. By the Gospel He makes alive. “Therefore the proper function of the Law is to make us guilty, to humble us, to kill us, to lead us down to hell, and to take everything away from us.” This is the so-called “pessimistic” side of Luther’s theology. But we dare not stop there, for there is only despair and death. But this convicting, killing process of God has a divine purpose, which is carried out through the Gospel. And the purpose is “that we may be justified, exalted, made alive, lifted up to heaven, and endowed with all things. Therefore it does not merely kill, but it kills for the sake of life.”53 Luther is wrestling here with one of the most profound doctrines in the entire theology of the cross.54 It is not a mere theory for theologians to play with, but it is a matter for everyone who would be saved and live a daily Christian life. In other words, here is a theology to live by. The knowledge of this topic, the distinction between the Law and the Gospel, is necessary to the highest degree; for it contains a summary of all Christian doctrine. Therefore let everyone learn diligently how to distinguish the Law from the Gospel, not only in words but in feeling and in experience; that is, let him distinguish well between these two in his heart and in his conscience.55 Let everyone understand this basic principle of Jesus: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12). A man must know that he is sick before he will seek a cure.
The problem is that natural fallen man does not know that he is sick, sick unto death under sin. But God wants to save man, every man (Cf. 1 Timothy 2:4). To do this, He uses His Word that is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). This Word is both Law and Gospel, and God must use them both to accomplish His saving work. The theology of the cross means that Christ had to go through cross and death to resurrection, victory, and lordship. So the way to life for everyone goes through crucifixion to resurrection, through death to life. Through the Law “God kills in order to make alive.” He must do His alien work before He can do His proper work. His proper work is “to create righteousness, peace, mercy, truth, patience, kindness, joy, and health.”56 Luther continues, But he cannot come to this his proper work unless he undertakes a work that is alien and contrary to himself…. His alien work, however, is to make men sinners, unrighteous, liars, miserable, foolish, lost…. Therefore, since he can make just only those who are not just, he is compelled to perform an alien work in order to make them sinners, before he performs his proper work of justification.
Thus he says. “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal” [Deut. 32:39].57 This is the way we are brought from unbelief to faith, from death in sin to life in Christ. Conviction, confession, and death come through the Law, faith, forgiveness, and life through the Gospel. It is evident then, as St. Paul says, that no one is saved by the Law or by one’s own efforts to keep the Law. Anyone who seeks salvation in that way is under slavery to the Law. We must be brought to realize that we cannot free ourselves from this slavery. The Gospel tells us that Christ has won freedom for us. For by His perfect life He has fulfilled the Law for us, and by His cross He has suffered the Law’s penalty for our sin. This is the Gospel, the proper work of God, by which He kindles faith in the man’s heart. Like St. Paul, he is baptized into Christ and into the Church, which is the body of Christ. He has become a Christian. Now he grasps the meaning of the alien and proper work of God. Now he begins to live in the tension between the Law and the Gospel. For though his sin is forgiven, he is still a sinner. Though he now lives “in the Spirit,” the “flesh” clings to him (Romans 7). The Law keeps him awake to the presence of sin and Satan, and he often finds himself crying out with the apostle, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out…. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” But St. Paul knows where to turn from these accusations of the Law. He knows the Gospel. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:15, 18, 24–25). Thus the Christian, like the apostle, has to know that there is in the daily Christian life a time for Law and a time for Gospel, a time to confess sin and helplessness, and a time to lay hold of forgiveness in the crucified and risen Christ. Therefore when the Law terrifies you, sin accuses you, and your conscience is crushed, you must say: “There is a time to die and a time to live” (Eccl. 3:2).
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in Luther’s thinking there is a certain parallel between Law-Gospel on the one hand and reason-faith on the other. A man who even in the spiritual realm is dominated by reason is living under the Law in what Luther would call slavery. He will know the freedom of the Gospel only as his life comes to be dominated by faith. This does not mean that he despises reason, but that he accepts its limitations in the realm of the spiritual as laid down in Holy Scripture.
5. FREE WILL With the dethronement of reason in the spiritual realm must go the deposition of the free will. It did not take Luther long to find that truth in Scripture. Already in his lectures on Romans in 1516–17 he denies that natural man has a free will in matters spiritual.”The power of free decision in so far as it is not under the sway of grace has no ability whatsoever to realize righteousness, but is necessarily in sins. Hence, Blessed Augustine is right, when, in his book against Julian, he calls it ‘the enslaved, rather than free, will.’”61 By the year 1521 Luther had become so completely nauseated by the talk about a free will that he exploded with the declaration: I would wish that the words, “free will,” had never been invented. They are not found in Scripture and would better be called “self will” which is of no use. But if anyone wishes to retain these words, he ought to apply them to the newly created man, so as to understand by them the man who is without sin. He is truly free, as was Adam in Paradise, and it is of him that Scripture speaks when it deals with our freedom. But those who are involved in sins are not free, but prisoners of the devil. Since they may become free through grace you can call them men of free will, just as you might call a man rich, although he is a beggar because he can become rich.62 In the Heidelberg Disputation in April 1518 Luther had already begun to debate the question of the free will. He had evidently reached clarity at that time, as is shown by thesis 13: “Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin.” This means that “free will is captive and subject to sin. Not that it is nothing, but that it is not free except to do evil.”63 He cites Augustine, who said that “the free will without grace has the power to do nothing but sin.” The real debate on the freedom of the will, however, came when the great Erasmus in his Discourse on Free Will64 challenged Luther’s teaching of the bondage of the human will.65 Erasmus states the problem: “By freedom of the will we understand in this connection the power of the human will whereby man can apply to or turn away from that which leads unto eternal salvation.”66
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Erasmus admits that Luther’s knowledge of Scripture is far superior to his own. So he throws the weight of a galaxy of Church fathers against him, from both the early and the Medieval Church, to prove that the human will is free to make all choices also in matters concerning our salvation. It is in answer to this Diatribe of Erasmus that Luther composes his monumental work, The Bondage of the Will. Thus the two giants are locked in combat, and one of the great theological debates in history is under way.69 Before examining the argument it is well to be aware that we are dealing with one of the most important of Luther’s theological works. Probably because we have a natural aversion to this idea that man’s will is not free in spiritual matters, some writers have dismissed this treatise as a work of “the early Luther,” implying that he changed his position later in life. This is contrary to Luther’s own testimony and the findings of the best Luther scholars. In a letter to Capito in 1537 Luther acknowledges only two of his writings to be important: The Small Catechism and The Bondage of the Will.70
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What to Luther was a matter of life and death was to Erasmus a subject for speculation.
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As Franz Lau of Leipzig says, Luther attacked Erasmus with vehemence because the latter regarded religion as something human, as a human striving, a human obedience, a fulfillment of the love commandment, however it may be expressed; Luther, on the contrary, wished to proclaim not a religion of which Christianity is only a special form, but God’s work in man…. In other words, this struggle also centered upon the theme of the righteousness of men and the righteousness of God. The Luther who could show himself so perfectly open to everything great and important that humanism had produced shut himself off from the humanist world at the point where he saw the gospel of the glory and grace of God impugned by it. At the crucial point neither a capitulation to humanism nor a compromise with it was possible for him.78
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Heinrich Bornkamm’s worth quoting at length.
‘Luther was anything but a pessimist. The boundless, exuberant joyousness which breaks forth from him despite all sadness has nothing in common with the rather sour humor of a melancholy person. But he uncovered sin in man so unmercifully as no one else in New Testament days only because God demands unrestricted recognition of reality from us. Here unsparing honesty is the best policy; it is the most merciful because man can be helped only in this way. This is the only course that points to freedom. A sick person cannot be helped by the physician so long as he imagines that he is well and requires no cure. With a penetrating eye Luther recognized this spasmodic claiming to be well before God as humanity’s most dangerous sickness, the conviction that one is not so bad after all as its vilest sin. When Luther spoke of humankind’s hopeless abandonment to sin, he was far from envisaging mankind as a band of criminals. No, but the worst thing was the fact that we human beings feel insulted when we are called sinners and that we appear to be far too respectable in our own sight to require repentance. Privately we are too prone to measure ourselves according to how far we surpass others, whom we regard as our inferiors, not by the distance that separates us from our God and His Commandments. So long as we do this we will not understand a single word about God. For what He says about us men always has a double message: “Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord, your God, am holy!” and “For there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God!” This is reality. If we recognize God as reality, then we also see our own reality. The two are indissolubly connected. That we have lost our contact with the real, living God so alarmingly is undoubtedly due to the fact that we have lost sight of our true selves and, in place of our human reality, behold a man of straw clothed in our wishes and illusions. To recognize God also means to recognize our sins. And to see one’s sins also means to behold the holiness of God. Whoever speaks about God and does not know that in His sight he is a very guilty person has not felt a trace of God’s reality. It is impossible to have the one half without the other. God’s majesty and our sin, the two together constitute the entire reality. Luther’s faith was a real faith because it comprised both halves.96’
The point is that Luther’s theology of the cross does not leave the sinner in his hopeless captivity under the wrath of God. It shows him the way out, yes, it actually brings him out of his captivity into the freedom of faith in the Christ of the Gospel. But the experience of repentance, of sorrow for sin, is part of “the Way” and cannot be bypassed. David had to face the accusing finger of Nathan saying: “Thou art the man.” And it was only from his knees of contrition that he cried out in repentance, “Have mercy on me, O God…blot out my transgressions…. Against You, You only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51:1–4).
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Prostrated, overcome by his own helplessness to escape the wrath of God, the lost sinner lies there like the wounded man on the Jericho road. And here Luther paints one of the finest of all his word-pictures in showing how God raises up the lost sinner. Preaching on that story in Luke 10:23-37, he shows the futility of the Law to save the fallen sinner.
‘The dear sainted fathers saw very well that the people lay in their sins over their ears, and also felt the anguish of sin, but what could they do to remedy it? They could make it only worse, but not better. These were the preachers of the law, and showed what the world was, namely, full of deadly sins, and it lay there half dead, and could not help itself, notwithstanding all its powers, reason or free will. Go then, thou beautiful painted rogue, and boast of thy free will, of thy merits and holiness!’
The answer is not in the Law, or in man’s obedience to the Law. He has no power for that. He must be lifted up by a power outside himself. Then comes ‘Christ, the true Samaritan, takes the poor man to himself as his own, goes to him and does not require the helpless one to come to him; for here is no merit, but pure grace and mercy; and he binds up his wounds, cares for him, and pours in oil and wine, this is the whole Gospel from beginning to end. He pours in oil when grace is preached, as when one says: Behold, thou poor man, here is your unbelief, here is your condemnation, here you are wounded and sore. Wait! All this I will cure with the Gospel. Behold, here cling firmly to this Samaritan, to Christ the Savior, he will help you, and nothing else in heaven or on earth will. You know very well that oil softens, thus also the soft loving preaching of the Gospel gives me a soft, mild heart toward God and my neighbor.’
In that way Luther illustrates his principle that ‘the law discovers the disease, the Gospel ministers the medicine.’ It is Christ who must save the sinner, who must deal with his sins, who must soften his hard heart. It is God who must take his hostile, God-hating will and change it. When that miracle of grace has been performed, ‘when God works in us, the will, being changed and sweetly breathed on by the Spirit of God, desires and acts, not from compulsion, but responsively, from pure willingness, inclination, and accord.’
This is Luther’s theology of grace alone, God reaching out to raise up the fallen and condemned sinner. And where has this theology been more simply and beautifully stated than in Luther’s own explanation to the Third Article of the Apostle’s Creed? ‘I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, and sanctified and kept me in the true faith.’ This humble confession tells the whole story of fallen man rescued by God’s grace. It is God who calls man through a Gospel that has the power in it to draw the man it calls. It is God who enlightens the darkened understanding, which to Luther means the same as to kindle faith. It is God who sanctifies the man whom He has brought to faith, and who preserves him in that faith to the end.
Here belongs also that great sentence in the Fifth Article of the Augsburg Confession, ‘Through the Word and sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith, where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel.’
Luther praises God for his unspeakable gift of faith. ‘This faith, in which is contained all good, is a gift of God. I do not by reason thereof boast myself superior to others, but I think the more on what I may give the Lord in return. It is the nature of the proud to ascribe to themselves the gifts which they have above others… The way of the humble is…to consider how they may repay God; and to confess that they have received those things from His hand.’ ‘The Spirit makes alive and gives strength.’ For God ‘must inspire and teach man, and give both grace and fire.’
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Original sin is not done away with in Baptism, but its guilt is forgiven. Concupiscence remains, the evil inclination that Paul calls epithumia, which is inclining a man to actual sin. And this evil inclination, or lust, is sin, even in the man who is born again in Baptism. We must at all times ‘call upon God against original sin. For as long as we are here, we are not without sin, but there remain always the evil lust and desires in us which drag us into sin, against which we must struggle and fight.’ Luther quotes here the classic statement of Augustine, ‘Original sin is indeed forgiven in Baptism, not in such a way that it no more exists, but that God no longer imputes it to you.’ Hence Luther says that as often as you feel yourself being drawn into uncleanness and other sins, then you know that you are experiencing the deadly darts of original sin, which the devil shot into Adam’s flesh, from which you are born.
This marks the struggle between the old man and the new man, the flesh and the spirit, which make up the whole man (totus homo). Parallel with man’s justification, and simultaneous with it, is his regeneration. He is born again, born into the kingdom of God; he is a new man, and the Holy Spirit dwells in him. By adoption he is made a son of God. But here again in this whole man the old nature persists, the old Adam, the flesh.
Here Luther finds the trichotomy of flesh, soul, and spirit to be confusing. For, he says, ‘the flesh experiences no desire except through the soul and spirit, by virtue of which it is alive. By spirit and flesh, moreover, I understand the whole man, especially the soul itself.’ He is like the man on the Jericho road, left with healing by the Good Samaritan, but not yet altogether healed. ‘Thus we in the church are indeed in the process of being healed, but we are not fully healthy. For the latter reason we are called ‘flesh’; for the former, ‘spirit.’ It is the whole man who loves chastity, and the same whole man is titillated by the enticements of lust. There are two whole men, and there is only one whole man. Thus it comes about that a man fights against himself and is opposed to himself. He is willing, and he is unwilling. And this is the glory of the grace of God; it makes us enemies of our selves. For this is how it overcomes sin, just as Gideon overcame Midian…’
This inner struggle of flesh and spirit is a paradox and a mystery. St. Paul says, ‘For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15). ‘For one and the same person is spirit and flesh; thus what the flesh does the whole man is said to do. And yet what resists is not the whole man but is rightly called a part of him. Both then are true: it is he that acts and yet it is not he.’ It is the mystery that ‘our life is a life in the midst of death.’
Luther makes it clear that in all this discussion of man as body, soul, and spirit, as ‘new man’ and ‘old man,’ he rejects any atomistic view of man and insists on the oneness of the whole man. …It is the whole man who sins and the whole man who is guilty and must stand before God to be judged by Him. Luther says you cannot distinguish ‘spirit’ and ‘flesh’ as two ‘substances,’ since ‘the whole man is spirit and flesh, spirit insofar as he delights in the law of God, flesh insofar as he hates the law of God.’ … It is not the ‘old man’ who is sinner and the new man righteous. But the whole man is a sinner, yet he is wholly covered by the righteousness of Christ.
Luther applies this thinking to verses 18 and 15 of Romans 7, where the apostle says ‘I will’ and ‘I hate.’ ‘Just because one and the same man as a whole consists of flesh and spirit, he attributes to the whole man both of the opposites that come from the opposite parts of him. Thus there comes about a communio idiomatum: one and the same man is spiritual and carnal, righteous and sinful, good and evil. Just so the one person of Christ is at the same time both dead and alive, both suffering and blessed, both active and inactive, etc., because of the communio idiomatum, even though there belongs to neither of his two natures what is characteristic of the other, for, as everyone knows, they differ absolutely from each other.
For ‘because flesh and spirit are so closely connected with each other that they are one, although they feel differently, he attributes to himself as a whole person what both are doing, as if he were at one and the same time wholly flesh and wholly spirit.’
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‘The saints in being righteous are at the same time sinners; they are righteous because they believe in Christ whose righteousness covers them and is imputed to them, but they are sinners because they do not fulfill the law and are not without sinful desires. They are like sick people in the care of a physician: they are really sick, but healthy only in hope and in so far as they begin to be better, or, rather: are being healed, i.e., they will become healthy. Nothing can harm them so much as the presumption that they are in fact healthy, for it will cause a bad relapse.’
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‘Inasmuch as the saints are always aware of their sin and implore God for the merciful gift of his righteousness, they are for this very reason also always reckoned righteous by God. Therefore, they are before themselves and in truth unrighteous, but before God they are righteous because he reckons them so on account of this confession of their sin…by virtue of the reckoning of a merciful God they are righteous; they are knowingly righteous and knowingly unrighteous, sinners in fact but righteous in hope.’
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It is hard to believe that when a good Samaritan helps a sufferer, his action is contaminated with sin. But here again the secret lies in the fact that the Christian is simul iustus et peccator. He is still a sinner, and therefore what he does is poisoned with sin. As the tree, so are the branches. Doesn’t Isaiah say that ‘all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment’ (64:6)? This was a man of God speaking. Then our only salvation is that God deals with us not in judgment but in mercy. ‘Therefore, if he judges, we all sin before him, and perish if he is angry; and yet if mercy covers us, we are innocent and godly before him and all creatures.’ This is what Isaiah is saying. ‘When the covering cloud of grace is removed, a good work is by its nature unclean, and it is pure and worthy of praise and glory only through forgiving mercy.’ Luther appeals to Ecclesiastes 7:20, ‘Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.’ Then a Christian cannot glory in his good works. Even ‘the saints of God are ashamed of their works before him and glory in him alone.’ St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:31, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’
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Luther repeatedly comes back to the illustration that our Lord used so effectively. ‘As is the tree, so is the fruit. Thus he will not boast before God of the cleanliness which he has in himself, but will rather glory in the grace and gift of God, and in the fact that he has a gracious God on his side who does not impute this sin and, besides this, has given the gift through which it is purged away. He therefore confesses the truth that if he must be judged according to the nature of his works apart from grace, he cannot stand before His face; but now, because he relies upon grace, there is nothing which can accuse him.’
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This life is born under the cross, and it can only be lived under the cross. Then the Christian life is no cozy Sunday School picnic. It is a life in tension. Calvary was no picnic ground. As our Lord hung in tension between life and death, between heaven and earth, between humiliation and glory, so the Christian lives his life in tension between sin and grace, guilt and forgiveness, wrath and mercy, fear and assurance, flesh and spirit, life and death, heaven and hell. And this is only another way of saying that he lives his life in tension between Law and Gospel. It all begins in Baptism, where the sinner is baptized into Christ and into the forgiving love of God. Sin is forgiven, but ‘Paul calls that which remains after baptism, sin.’ The ‘flesh’ is still present, and the Holy Spirit given in Baptism is busy the rest of your life putting down the flesh and preventing it from taking dominion over the spirit, which is really the Holy Spirit in you. ‘From that hour of baptism he begins to make you a new person. He pours into you his grace and Holy Spirit, who begins to slay nature and sin, and to prepare you for death and the resurrection at the Last Day.’ But for you it continues to be a life in tension. For in Baptism you pledge yourself ‘to slay your sin more and more as long as you live, even until your dying day. This too God accepts. He trains and tests you all your life long, with many good works and with all kinds of sufferings. Thereby he accomplishes what you in baptism have desired, namely, that you may become free from sin, die, and rise again at the Last Day, and so fulfill your baptism.’
Here again the Christian can draw comfort from Luther’s idea of simul iustus et peccator. For although sin remains to trouble you, God ‘pledges himself not to impute to you the sins which remain in your nature after baptism, neither to take them into account nor condemn you because of them. He is satisfied and well pleased if you are constantly striving and desiring to conquer these sins and at your death to be rid of them.’
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Man’s sinfulness and consequent guilt, then, cannot be minimized in terms of dividing man into parts and blaming the ‘old man,’ any more than we can lay the blame on Adam alone, any more than we can call original sin merely the loss of superadded gifts. It is the whole man who is ‘altogether sinful and unclean,’ as the sacred liturgy says. ‘Flesh and spirit are one and the same man. That is why the ‘new man’ must reckon to himself also the sins of the old Adam.’
The mystery of the grace of God shows itself here—here, too, according to Luther’s theology. For even as the whole man is by nature sinful and utterly under the wrath of God, so the whole person is completely clothed in the righteousness of Christ. God looks at him in Christ as though he had not sinned (Romans 4)” (Source: Preus, Herman A. A Theology to Live By: The Practical Luther for the Practicing Christian . Concordia Publishing House. Édition du Kindle).
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From Martin Luther’s commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1549/1549-h/1549-h.htm#link2H_PREF ) :
“Some will object that the Law is divine and holy. Let it be divine and holy. The Law has no right to tell me that I must be justified by it. The Law has the right to tell me that I should love God and my neighbor, that I should live in chastity, temperance, patience, etc. The Law has no right to tell me how I may be delivered from sin, death, and hell. It is the Gospel's business to tell me that. I must listen to the Gospel. It tells me, not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has done for me.
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For the sake of argument let us suppose that you could fulfill the Law in the spirit of the first commandment of God: "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart." It would do you no good. A person simply is not justified by the works of the Law.
The works of the Law, according to Paul, include the whole Law, judicial, ceremonial, moral. Now, if the performance of the moral law cannot justify, how can circumcision justify, when circumcision is part of the ceremonial law?
The demands of the Law may be fulfilled before and after justification. There were many excellent men among the pagans of old, men who never heard of justification. They lived moral lives. But that fact did not justify them. Peter, Paul, all Christians, live up to the Law. But that fact does not justify them. "For I know nothing by myself," says Paul, "yet am I not hereby justified." (I Cor. 4:4.)
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The true way of salvation is this. First, a person must realize that he is a sinner, the kind of a sinner who is congenitally unable to do any good thing. "Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." Those who seek to earn the grace of God by their own efforts are trying to please God with sins. They mock God, and provoke His anger. The first step on the way to salvation is to repent.
The second part is this. God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we may live through His merit. He was crucified and killed for us. By sacrificing His Son for us God revealed Himself to us as a merciful Father who donates remission of sins, righteousness, and life everlasting for Christ's sake. God hands out His gifts freely unto all men. That is the praise and glory of His mercy.
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We say, faith apprehends Jesus Christ. Christian faith is not an inactive quality in the heart. If it is true faith it will surely take Christ for its object. Christ, apprehended by faith and dwelling in the heart, constitutes Christian righteousness, for which God gives eternal life.
In contrast to the doting dreams of the scholastics, we teach this: First a person must learn to know himself from the Law. With the prophet he will then confess: "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." And, "there is none that doeth good, no, not one." And, "against thee, thee only, have I sinned."
Having been humbled by the Law, and having been brought to a right estimate of himself, a man will repent. He finds out that he is so depraved, that no strength, no works, no merits of his own will ever deliver him from his guilt. He will then understand the meaning of Paul's words: "I am sold under sin"; and "they are all under sin."
At this state a person begins to lament: "Who is going to help me?" In due time comes the Word of the Gospel, and says: "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee. Believe in Jesus Christ who was crucified for your sins. Remember, your sins have been imposed upon Christ."
In this way are we delivered from sin. In this way are we justified and made heirs of everlasting life.
In order to have faith you must paint a true portrait of Christ. The scholastics caricature Christ into a judge and tormentor. But Christ is no law giver. He is the Lifegiver. He is the Forgiver of sins. You must believe that Christ might have atoned for the sins of the world with one single drop of His blood. Instead, He shed His blood abundantly in order that He might give abundant satisfaction for our sins.
Here let me say, that these three things, faith, Christ, and imputation of righteousness, are to be joined together. Faith takes hold of Christ. God accounts this faith for righteousness.
This imputation of righteousness we need very much, because we are far from perfect. As long as we have this body, sin will dwell in our flesh. Then, too, we sometimes drive away the Holy Spirit; we fall into sin, like Peter, David, and other holy men. Nevertheless we may always take recourse to this fact, "that our sins are covered," and that "God will not lay them to our charge." Sin is not held against us for Christ's sake. Where Christ and faith are lacking, there is no remission or covering of sins, but only condemnation.
After we have taught faith in Christ, we teach good works. "Since you have found Christ by faith," we say, "begin now to work and do well. Love God and your neighbor. Call upon God, give thanks unto Him, praise Him, confess Him. These are good works. Let them flow from a cheerful heart, because you have remission of sin in Christ."
When crosses and afflictions come our way, we bear them patiently. "For Christ's yoke is easy, and His burden is light." When sin has been pardoned, and the conscience has been eased of its dreadful load, a Christian can endure all things in Christ.
To give a short definition of a Christian: A Christian is not somebody who chalks(sp) sin, because of his faith in Christ. This doctrine brings comfort to consciences in serious trouble. When a person is a Christian he is above law and sin. When the Law accuses him, and sin wants to drive the wits out of him, a Christian looks to Christ. A Christian is free. He has no master except Christ. A Christian is greater than the whole world.
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We conclude with Paul, that we are justified by faith in Christ, without the Law. Once a person has been justified by Christ, he will not be unproductive of good, but as a good tree he will bring forth good fruit. A believer has the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will not permit a person to remain idle, but will put him to work and stir him up to the love of God, to patient suffering in affliction, to prayer, thanksgiving, to the habit of charity towards all men.
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VERSE 20. Yet not I.If we lose sight of Christ and begin to consider our past, we simply go to pieces. We must turn our eyes to the brazen serpent, Christ crucified, and believe with all our heart that He is our righteousness and our life. For Christ, on whom our eyes are fixed, in whom we live, who lives in us, is Lord over Law, sin, death, and all evil.
VERSE 20. But Christ liveth in me."Thus I live," the Apostle starts out. But presently he corrects himself, saying, "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." He is the form of my perfection. He embellishes my faith.
Since Christ is now living in me, He abolishes the Law, condemns sin, and destroys death in me. These foes vanish in His presence. Christ abiding in me drives out every evil. This union with Christ delivers me from the demands of the Law, and separates me from my sinful self. As long as I abide in Christ, nothing can hurt me.
Christ domiciling in me, the old Adam has to stay outside and remain subject to the Law. Think what grace, righteousness, life, peace, and salvation there is in me, thanks to that inseparable conjunction between Christ and me through faith!
Paul has a peculiar style, a celestial way of speaking. "I live," he says, "I live not; I am dead, I am not dead; I am a sinner, I am not a sinner; I have the Law, I have no Law." When we look at ourselves we find plenty of sin. But when we look at Christ, we have no sin. Whenever we separate the person of Christ from our own person, we live under the Law and not in Christ; we are condemned by the Law, dead before God.
Faith connects you so intimately with Christ, that He and you become as it were one person. As such you may boldly say: "I am now one with Christ. Therefore Christ's righteousness, victory, and life are mine." On the other hand, Christ may say: "I am that big sinner. His sins and his death are mine, because he is joined to me, and I to him."
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We comfort the afflicted sinner in this manner: Brother, you can never be perfect in this life, but you can be holy. He will say: "How can I be holy when I feel my sins?" I answer: You feel sin? That is a good sign. To realize that one is ill is a step, and a very necessary step, toward recovery. "But how will I get rid of my sin?" he will ask. I answer: See the heavenly Physician, Christ, who heals the broken-hearted. Do not consult that Quackdoctor, Reason. Believe in Christ and your sins will be pardoned. His righteousness will become your righteousness, and your sins will become His sins.
On one occasion Jesus said to His disciples: "The Father loveth you." Why? Not because the disciples were Pharisees, or circumcised, or particularly attentive to the Law. Jesus said: "The Father loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. It pleased you to know that the Father sent me into the world. And because you believed it the Father loves you." On another occasion Jesus called His disciples evil and commanded them to ask for forgiveness.
A Christian is beloved of God and a sinner. How can these two contradictions be harmonized: I am a sinner and deserve God's wrath and punishment, and yet the Father loves me? Christ alone can harmonize these contradictions. He is the Mediator.
Do you now see how faith justifies without works? Sin lingers in us, and God hates sin. A transfusion of righteousness therefore becomes vitally necessary. This transfusion of righteousness we obtain from Christ because we believe in Him.
VERSE 7. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.…
Let us begin with Abraham and learn how this friend of God was justified and saved. Not because he left his country, his relatives, his father's house; not because he was circumcised; not because he stood ready to sacrifice his own son Isaac in whom he had the promise of posterity. Abraham was justified because he believed. Paul's argumentation runs like this: "Since this is the unmistakable testimony of Holy Writ, why do you take your stand upon circumcision and the Law? Was not Abraham, your father, of whom you make so much, justified and saved without circumcision and the Law by faith alone?" Paul therefore concludes: "They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham."
Abraham was the father of the faithful. In order to be a child of the believing Abraham you must believe as he did. Otherwise you are merely the physical offspring of the procreating Abraham, i.e., you were conceived and born in sin unto wrath and condemnation.
Some find fault with Paul for applying the term "faith" in Genesis 15:6 to Christ. They think Paul's use of the term too wide and general. They think its meaning should be restricted to the context. They claim Abraham's faith had no more in it than a belief in the promise of God that he should have seed.
We reply: Faith presupposes the assurance of God's mercy. This assurance takes in the confidence that our sins are forgiven for Christ's sake. Never will the conscience trust in God unless it can be sure of God's mercy and promises in Christ. Now all the promises of God lead back to the first promise concerning Christ: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." The faith of the fathers in the Old Testament era, and our faith in the New Testament are one and the same faith in Christ Jesus, although times and conditions may differ. Peter acknowledged this in the words: "Which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." (Acts l5: 10, 11.) And Paul writes: "And did all drink the spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." (I Cor. 10:4.) And Christ Himself declared: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad." (John 8:56.) The faith of the fathers was directed at the Christ who was to come, while ours rests in the Christ who has come. Time does not change the object of true faith, or the Holy Spirit. There has always been and always will be one mind, one impression, one faith concerning Christ among true believers whether they live in times past, now, or in times to come. We too believe in the Christ to come as the fathers did in the Old Testament, for we look for Christ to come again on the last day to judge the quick and the dead.
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VERSE 9. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.The emphasis lies on the words "with faithful Abraham." Paul distinguishes between Abraham and Abraham. There is a working and there is a believing Abraham. With the working Abraham we have nothing to do. Let the Jews glory in the generating Abraham; we glory in the believing Abraham of whom the Scriptures say that he received the blessing of righteousness by faith, not only for himself but for all who believe as he did. The world was promised to Abraham because he believed. The whole world is blessed if it believes as Abraham believed.
The blessing is the promise of the Gospel. That all nations are to be blessed means that all nations are to hear the Gospel. All nations are to be declared righteous before God through faith in Christ Jesus. To bless simply means to spread abroad the knowledge of Christ's salvation. This is the office of the New Testament Church which distributes the promised blessing by preaching the Gospel, by administering the sacraments, by comforting the broken-hearted, in short, by dispensing the benefits of Christ.
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VERSE 6. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts.In the early Church the Holy Spirit was sent forth in visible form. He descended upon Christ in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16), and in the likeness of fire upon the apostles and other believers. (Acts 2:3.) This visible outpouring of the Holy Spirit was necessary to the establishment of the early Church, as were also the miracles that accompanied the gift of the Holy Ghost. Paul explained the purpose of these miraculous gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians 14:22, "Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." Once the Church had been established and properly advertised by these miracles, the visible appearance of the Holy Ghost ceased.
Next, the Holy Ghost is sent forth into the hearts of the believers, as here stated, "God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." This sending is accomplished by the preaching of the Gospel through which the Holy Spirit inspires us with fervor and light, with new judgment, new desires, and new motives. This happy innovation is not a derivative of reason or personal development, but solely the gift and operation of the Holy Ghost.
This renewal by the Holy Spirit may not be conspicuous to the world, but it is patent to us by our better judgment, our improved speech, and our unashamed confession of Christ. Formerly we did not confess Christ to be our only merit, as we do now in the light of the Gospel. Why, then, should we feel bad if the world looks upon us as ravagers of religion and insurgents against constituted authority? We confess Christ and our conscience approves of it. Then, too, we live in the fear of God. If we sin, we sin not on purpose, but unwittingly, and we are sorry for it. Sin sticks in our flesh, and the flesh gets us into sin even after we have been imbued by the Holy Ghost. Outwardly there is no great difference between a Christian and any honest man. The activities of a Christian are not sensational. He performs his duty according to his vocation. He takes good care of his family, and is kind and helpful to others. Such homely, everyday performances are not much admired. But the setting-up exercises of the monks draw great applause. Holy works, you know. Only the acts of a Christian are truly good and acceptable to God, because they are done in faith, with a cheerful heart, out of gratitude to Christ.
We ought to have no misgivings about whether the Holy Ghost dwells in us. We are "the temple of the Holy Ghost." (I Cor. 3:16.) When we have a love for the Word of God, and gladly hear, talk, write, and think of Christ, we are to know that this inclination toward Christ is the gift and work of the Holy Ghost. Where you come across contempt for the Word of God, there is the devil. We meet with such contempt for the Word of God mostly among the common people. They act as though the Word of God does not concern them. Wherever you find a love for the Word, thank God for the Holy Spirit who infuses this love into the hearts of men. We never come by this love naturally, neither can it be enforced by laws. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Roman theologians teach that no man can know for a certainty whether he stands in the favor of God or not. This teaching forms one of the chief articles of their faith. With this teaching they tormented men's consciences, excommunicated Christ from the Church, and limited the operations of the Holy Ghost.
St. Augustine observed that "every man is certain of his faith, if he has faith." This the Romanists deny. "God forbid," they exclaim piously, "that I should ever be so arrogant as to think that I stand in grace, that I am holy, or that I have the Holy Ghost." We ought to feel sure that we stand in the grace of God, not in view of our own worthiness, but through the good services of Christ. As certain as we are that Christ pleases God, so sure ought we to be that we also please God, because Christ is in us. And although we daily offend God by our sins, yet as often as we sin, God's mercy bends over us. Therefore sin cannot get us to doubt the grace of God. Our certainty is of Christ, that mighty Hero who overcame the Law, sin, death, and all evils. So long as He sits at the right hand of God to intercede for us, we have nothing to fear from the anger of God.
This inner assurance of the grace of God is accompanied by outward indications such as gladly to hear, preach, praise, and to confess Christ, to do one's duty in the station in which God has placed us, to aid the needy, and to comfort the sorrowing. These are the affidavits of the Holy Spirit testifying to our favorable standing with God.
If we could be fully persuaded that we are in the good grace of God, that our sins are forgiven, that we have the Spirit of Christ, that we are the beloved children of God, we would be ever so happy and grateful to God. But because we often feel fear and doubt we cannot come to that happy certainty.
Train your conscience to believe that God approves of you. Fight it out with doubt. Gain assurance through the Word of God. Say: "I am all right with God. I have the Holy Ghost. Christ, in whom I do believe, makes me worthy. I gladly hear, read, sing, and write of Him. I would like nothing better than that Christ's Gospel be known throughout the world and that many, many be brought to faith in Him."
VERSE 6. Crying, Abba, Father.Paul might have written, "God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, calling Abba, Father." Instead, he wrote, "Crying, Abba, Father." In the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle describes this crying of the Spirit as "groanings which cannot be uttered." He writes in the 26th verse: "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
The fact that the Spirit of Christ in our hearts cries unto God and makes intercession for us with groanings should reassure us greatly. However, there are many factors that prevent such full reassurance on our part. We are born in sin. To doubt the good will of God is an inborn suspicion of God with all of us. Besides, the devil, our adversary, goeth about seeking to devour us by roaring: "God is angry at you and is going to destroy you forever." In all these difficulties we have only one support, the Gospel of Christ. To hold on to it, that is the trick. Christ cannot be perceived with the senses. We cannot see Him. The heart does not feel His helpful presence. Especially in times of trials a Christian feels the power of sin, the infirmity of his flesh, the goading darts of the devil, the agues of death, the scowl and judgment of God. All these things cry out against us. The Law scolds us, sin screams at us, death thunders at us, the devil roars at us. In the midst of the clamor the Spirit of Christ cries in our hearts: "Abba, Father." And this little cry of the Spirit transcends the hullabaloo of the Law, sin, death, and the devil, and finds a hearing with God.
The Spirit cries in us because of our weakness. Because of our infirmity the Holy Ghost is sent forth into our hearts to pray for us according to the will of God and to assure us of the grace of God.
Let the Law, sin, and the devil cry out against us until their outcry fills heaven and earth. The Spirit of God outcries them all. Our feeble groans, "Abba, Father," will be heard of God sooner than the combined racket of hell, sin, and the Law.
We do not think of our groanings as a crying. It is so faint we do not know we are groaning. "But he," says Paul, "that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit." (Romans 8:27.) To this Searcher of hearts our feeble groaning, as it seems to us, is a loud shout for help in comparison with which the howls of hell, the din of the devil, the yells of the Law, the shouts of sin are like so many whispers.
In the fourteenth chapter of Exodus the Lord addresses Moses at the Red Sea: "Wherefore criest thou unto me?" Moses had not cried unto the Lord. He trembled so he could hardly talk. His faith was at low ebb. He saw the people of Israel wedged between the Sea and the approaching armies of Pharaoh. How were they to escape? Moses did not know what to say. How then could God say that Moses was crying to Him? God heard the groaning heart of Moses and the groans to Him sounded like loud shouts for help. God is quick to catch the sigh of the heart.
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VERSE 6. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.Paul concludes the whole matter with the above statement. "You want to be justified by the Law, by circumcision, and by works. We cannot see it. To be justified by such means would make Christ of no value to us. We would be obliged to perform the whole law. We rather through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness." The Apostle is not satisfied to say "justified by faith." He adds hope to faith.
Holy Writ speaks of hope in two ways: as the object of the emotion, and hope as the emotion itself. In the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians we have an instance of its first use: "For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven," i.e., the thing hoped for. In the sense of emotion we quote the passage from the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: "For we are saved by hope." As Paul uses the term "hope" here in writing to the Galatians, we may take it in either of its two meanings. We may understand Paul to say, "We wait in spirit, through faith, for the righteousness that we hope for, which in due time will be revealed to us." Or we may understand Paul to say: "We wait in Spirit, by faith for righteousness with great hope and desire." True, we are righteous, but our righteousness is not yet revealed; as long as we live here sin stays with us, not to forget the law in our members striving against the law of our mind. When sin rages in our body and we through the Spirit wrestle against it, then we have cause for hope. We are not yet perfectly righteous. Perfect righteousness is still to be attained. Hence we hope for it.
This is sweet comfort for us. And we are to make use of it in comforting the afflicted. We are to say to them: "Brother, you would like to feel God's favor as you feel your sin. But you are asking too much. Your righteousness rests on something much better than feelings. Wait and hope until it will be revealed to you in the Lord's own time. Don't go by your feelings, but go by the doctrine of faith, which pledges Christ to you."
The question occurs to us, What difference is there between faith and hope? We find it difficult to see any difference. Faith and hope are so closely linked that they cannot be separated. Still there is a difference between them.
First, hope and faith differ in regard to their sources. Faith originates in the understanding, while hope rises in the will. Secondly, they differ in regard to their functions. Faith says what is to be done. Faith teaches, describes, directs. Hope exhorts the mind to be strong and courageous. Thirdly, they differ in regard to their objectives. Faith concentrates on the truth. Hope looks to the goodness of God. Fourthly, they differ in sequence. Faith is the beginning of life before tribulation. (Hebrews 11.) Hope comes later and is born of tribulation (Romans 5.) Fifthly, they differ in regard to their effects. Faith is a judge. It judges errors. Hope is a soldier. It fights against tribulations, the Cross, despondency, despair, and waits for better things to come in the midst of evil. Without hope faith cannot endure. On the other hand, hope without faith is blind rashness and arrogance because it lacks knowledge. Before anything else a Christian must have the insight of faith, so that the intellect may know its directions in the day of trouble and the heart may hope for better things. By faith we begin, by hope we continue.
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You may say, "The trouble is I don't feel as if I am righteous." You must not feel, but believe. Unless you believe that you are righteous, you do Christ a great wrong, for He has cleansed you by the washing of regeneration, He died for you so that through Him you may obtain righteousness and everlasting life."
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From Paavola, “Patience and Perfection” :
« God doesn’t wait anxiously for a dimly reflected, quickly passing perfection that we might offer Him. He doesn’t snatch a moment of perfect reflection, a spiritual firefly that glows only long enough to be noticed but never long enough to be kept. God has seen perfection on earth already in Christ. He has seen that perfection in His Son for eternity and displayed that perfection throughout His years on earth. Now God has extended that perfection to us. He sees all those in Christ in a marriage relationship with His Son—He as the true, ideal Husband and we believers as the perfect Bride. Paul describes God’s view of us in that marriage relationship with Christ, who has ‘cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish’ (Ephesians 5:26-27). This view of absolute perfection brings patience. In fact, perfection and patience make up the wedding party, the maid of honor and the best man.
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in Christ, God declares us perfect. Again Paul speaks of this at the end of his discussion on the thorn in the flesh and his request that god remove it. God’s answer helps Paul recognize this perfection in imperfection: ‘But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). Our perfection is in God’s proclamation that we are not guilty; His proclamation is complete and perfect by the work of Christ. We see this perfection in action in how God patiently walks with us in our weakness and demonstrates His power through our faltering steps.
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However, God has chosen a different method of perfection through the ministry and especially the death of Jesus. His perfection is that of the servant, the One who emptied Himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross, as Paul summarizes in Philippians 2:6-8. He is the One who chose on the cross to be despised: ‘He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ (Isaiah 53:2-3). Perfection came as He steadfastly looked upon our sin, carried our sin away, and healed us by His wounds. How strange is this perfection? We cannot bear to see His perfection on the cross, but He can bear to see all our sins. Christ, the holy Son of God, was transformed in His bearing of our sin. ‘For our sake He made Him to become sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
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God, in restoring us, afflicts all that which is imperfect onto His Son even to the point of death and says at His broken death on Good Friday, ‘Perfect.’ That perfect bearing of sin is the companion to God’s patience. God not only sees us as the spotless Bride, but He also has seen the complete destruction of our sin through His Son. His anger is not building up with an impatient boiling, eager to pour over us. He has put that anger into the death of His Son so that a new patience exists between Himself and us. »
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From C.F.W. Walther, “The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel” :
“What is the reason that so many in our day live in uncertainty about their being true Christians? The reason is that ministers, as a rule, confound Law and Gospel and do not heed the apostolic admonition: ‘Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of Truth.’ 2 Tim 2,15. For when the Gospel is preached with an admixture of Law, it is impossible for a hearer to attain to faith in the forgiveness of his sins. On the other hand, when the Law is preached with an admixture of Gospel, it is impossible for a hearer to arrive at the knowledge that he is a poor sinner in need of the forgiveness of sins.”
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From John Colquhoun, “Evangelical Repentance”:
“The repentance then which is in the New Testament required of sinners is such an entire change of mind, or of views and sentiments respecting sin and salvation, as discovers itself by a genuine sorrow for sin, a firm resolution to hate and forsake it, and a sincere endeavour so to return to God in Christ as to walk with Him in newness of life: the sincerity of which is to be evidenced by fruits meet for repentance. As it is the gift of God, the purchase of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit, it is a saving grace. Implanted by the Spirit at regeneration, it is so inseparably connected with salvation, as to constitute an essential part of it. In the Scriptures it is called, ‘repentance to salvation,’ and ‘repentance unto life’ (Acts 11:18); as it proceeds from, and evidences spiritual life in the soul, and as it prepares for, and issues in the perfection of life eternal; as also to distinguish it from the sorrow of the world which works death (2 Cor 7:10) it is also styled, ‘repentance toward God,’ because in the exercise of it a sinner turns from all known sin, to the love and the service of God (Acts 20:21). True repentance is not a transient act, as if a sigh or a pang of sorrow for sin amounted to it. No, these may indeed be acts of true repentance, while they issue from a heart sincerely penitent: but repentance itself, instead of being a passing act, is an abiding principle, a lasting disposition of soul, a gracious principle lying deep in the heart, disposing a man at all times to mourn for and turn from sin (Zech 12:10). The waters of godly sorrow for sin in the renewed heart will continue to spring up there while sin is there, though they may, through remaining hardness of heart, be much obstructed for a time. After the heart has, at the sinner’s first conversion, been smitten with evangelical repentance, the would still bleeds, and will continue more or less to bleed until the band of glory be put about it in the holy place on high. If, therefore, a man regards repentance only as the first stage in the way to heaven, and instead of renewing daily his exercise of it, satisfies himself with concluding that he has passed the first stage, the truth of his repentance is very questionable. The man who does not see his need of exercising repentance daily may have a counterfeit, but cannot have a true repentance. He may have a superficial sorrow for his sins, and even such remorse gnawing his conscience as may be the first moving of the worm that shall never die, as that of Judas was, and yet be a total stranger to that evangelical repentance, which is both a saving grace and an abiding principle. In the heart of the true penitent, a wonderful and permanent change has been graciously effected. He is irresistibly constrained to abandon his former views of sin, of salvation from sin, and of the pleasantness and beauty of holiness, and to embrace sentiments altogether opposite. Such a change is produced in his inclinations and affections that he no longer takes pleasure in unrighteousness, but delights in the law of God and in obedience to it after the inward man. And the more pleasure he takes in holiness, the more deep, and even delicious will his sorrow for sin be, and the more vigorous will his endeavours be to turn from all sin to God.”
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Notes, paraphrasis, and quotes, from “The Whole Christ” by Sinclair Ferguson:
“To imagine that experience precedes faith has us turning inward to search our hearts for sufficient repentance and conviction, that we might follow the steps that lead back to the first cause of these benefits in Christ. “God loves you because Christ died for you,” is incorrect. The love of God for us is the reason for the death of Christ. The Son doesn’t need to persuade the Father to love us. To preach otherwise is of the Serpent, and of the Pharisees, who taught that the Father was gracious to them because of something in them.
Anxious, doubtful thoughts plague too many who think that the Father’s love is purchased by the blood of Christ. When people are ashamed of themselves, they need the gospel and they need to know a gracious and loving Father. A godly pastor is like God, asking no qualifications or conditions, running to embrace sinners. He doesn’t ask if the parishioner is sorry enough for his sin before giving him Christ.
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The proclamation of the gospel can’t be mixed with “I have failed, I must try harder.” You can have an evangelical head and yet a legalistic heart. There’s a subtle thought that justification is strengthened by growth in holiness. This only sounds antinomian if one is listening with legalistic ears. Repentance is not a qualification for coming to Christ and sanctification does not improve upon or increase justification. We are not told by Jesus Christ to be penitent in a moment but to be changed, repented. Repentance takes place within the context of faith’s grasp of God’s grace in Christ; the latter motivates the former, not vice versa. Repentance comes after the remission of sin. Faith grasps the mercy of God in Christ and the life of repentance is inaugurated as its fruit. After we are converted, we repent. We cannot love God until we know God loves us. We must first believe that God will do what He promises and rest in the hope of it. Repentance cannot precede faith. Both repentance and forgiveness of sins, newness of life and reconciliation, are conferred on us by Christ, obtained through faith. A man must know himself to belong to God which only happens when he recognizes God’s grace.
We come to Christ through faith, which is given to us. We believe into Christ—not just that Christ is true, or that we can trust Him. We don’t take anything from Christ. We are united to Him, in union with Him, and so we become branches of the vine. Christ saves through faith. The redemption is to be found in Jesus Christ. John Murray said, “The redemption is not simply that which we have in Christ. It is the redemption of which Christ is the embodiment. Redemption is not only being wrought by Christ, but in the Redeemer this redemption resides in its unabbreviated virtue and efficacy.” John Calvin says that “when we see salvation whole, its every single part is found in Christ, and so we must beware lest we derive the smallest drop from somewhere else. For if we seek salvation, the very name of Jesus teaches us that He possesses it. If other Spirit-given gifts are sought, in His anointing they are found: strength in His reign, purity in His conception, tenderness in His nativity; redemption, when we seek it, is in His Passion found, acquittal in His condemnation lies, freedom from the curse in His own cross is given; if satisfaction for our sins we seek, we’ll find it in His sacrifice and cleansing in His blood.” Faith is actively engaged in receiving Christ.”
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From Dr. Jordan Cooper:
“Union with Christ begins with Christ himself. This is why the hypostatic union of the divine Son with a human nature constitutes the ground of any union to be spoken of between God and man. In the incarnation, Christ is a collective person, and his assumption of humanity creates a mysterious union between the Second Person of the Trinity and humanity as a whole. As explained in response to Hegel, this does not negate the particularity of Christ’s own person, but it does mean that the impact of his incarnation is as universal as is the fall of Adam (Rom. 5:18-19). Thus redemption begins with the act of incarnation which is necessary for the restoration of humanity into full communion with God. As both Chemnitz and Gerhard explain, the incarnation is not a mere precursor to the ultimate act of salvation—the cross—but is itself a means of theosis for humanity. Through Christ’s own union of the divine and human natures, including the communicatio idiomatum, humanity is made capable of participation in God’s own life. This theme is further developed in T.F. Torrance’s claim that Christ did not assume humanity within an Edenic state. Instead, Christ assumed a human nature impacted by the fall, meaning that he faced strong temptation and surrounded himself with a world impacted by sin in a multitude of ways. As Gregory of Nazianzus claims, that which has not been assumed cannot be redeemed. The Logos assumed a nature bent toward sin, though without committing personal sin. In his life of obedience, Jesus became the first of a new humanity in battling this sin nature, releasing us from our Adamic curse, and bringing the human race back into communion with its Creator. This all constitutes the historia salutis reality of an objective union that then serves as the backdrop for union with Christ in the ordo salutis.
In the application of this objective reality, one must first be united to Christ in faith. Faith individuates the universal work of Christ, including his unification with God, for the human subject. This is the act which is identified as the formal union of faith (unio fidei formalis) first defined by David Hollaz. In this union, the individual believer is united to Christ as Mediator and Redeemer. It is in the context of this union that Christ’s benefits are transmitted to the individual in the great exchange. Faith is a uniting to Christ in a marriage bond between Christ (the bridegroom) and the soul (the bride). This union is further defined as the baptismal union, through which the sacrament of baptism causes one to participate in Christ’s death and resurrection as the gospel promise is delivered. In understanding this union as distinct from the unio mystica, one is then able to affirm Mannermaa’s reading of Luther in his insistence that some kind of faith-union precedes justification (logically), while also acknowledging, with the Formula of Concord, that legal justification is not based upon anything inherent in the individual.
As a result of justification, the triune God dwells within the soul of the believer in the mystical union. This union brings the Christian into an intimate bond with the triune God, as a result of the judicial cleansing which occurs through the application of Christ’s merits. This bond is both mysterious and supernatural, being impossible to define in its completeness in human language. It can, nonetheless, be justly referred to as a communion between natures, an interpenetration of the divine nature with the human person, and as a sharing in divine life. Along with these positive affirmations, this mystical union can also be defined by noting what it is not: a confusion of natures, a hypostatic union, the fusion of divine and human into a third nature, or the human person becoming essentially divine. This intimate reality is the cause of sanctification, as God’s love is reciprocated b the human person, and Christ’s image is re-formed in the individual, causing him or her to live a life of self-service and sacrifice for the sake of the neighbor.”
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From Richard B. Gaffin’s “By Faith, Not By Sight”:
“God’s verbal self-revelation has its rationale as it is tethered to, and is part within, the larger flow of the overall history of redemption. It functions as accompanying revelatory word, we may fairly generalize, to attest and interpret redemptive deed. In view here, globally considered, is the history that begins with the entrance of human sin into the original creation, which God saw was 'very good’ (Gen. 1:31), and then moves forward, largely incorporating along the way the history of Israel, God’s chosen covenant people, until it reaches its culmination, its omega point, in the person and saving work of Jesus Christ, God’s final and supreme self-revelation. The generalizations made in the preceding are in need of two important qualifications.
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three interrelated aspects of God’s ‘speech,’ which, I take it, includes deed-revelation as word-revelation (that is, verbal revelation in the strict sense). 1. Revelation is expressly in view as a historical process.
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Christ is the ‘last days’ endpoint of this history, which is nothing less than the eschatological goal of the entire redemptive-revelatory process. Our deepest concern with Paul is as he is an apostle, that is, as he is an instrument of God’s revelation, authorized by the exalted Christ to attest and interpret the salvation manifested in Christ. Our abiding preoccupation is the revelatory word that comes through Paul, focused on Christ’s climactic, redemptive deed. As we deal with Paul’s teaching, then, we should want it to be said of ourselves, above all, what he himself said in 1 Thessalonians 2:13 about the Thessalonian church’s response to his preaching, namely that they ‘accepted it not as the word of men’—though it was manifestly his and bore all the marks of his personality as someone living within the first-century Mediterranean world and having his roots in Second Temple Judaism—'but as what it truly is, the word of God.’ Ultimately and properly considered, Paul’s teaching is God’s word.
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That Paul’s teaching is God’s word is true formally as well as materially—true not just in its content, but also in its oral and written form. To deny that the text is God’s word, or to allege some factor of discontinuity between the text and God’s word, or to find a tension between the text as a linguistic phenomenon, of purely human origin and so questionable and fallible, and a message with an allegedly divine referent dialetically embedded in that text, is to construe Paul in a modern or post-modern way that he would simply find foreign.
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Paul’s letters have their origin, their integral place, and their intended function within the organically unfolding history of revelation, and Scripture as a whole, the canon, with its own production being a part of that history, provides our only normative access to it. A key part of Paul’s theology as God’s word is its essential clarity.
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The expression ordo salutis in its conventional usage has in view the logical and/or causal, or even at points chronological, ‘order’ or sequence of various discrete saving acts and benefits, as these are applied and occur within the actual life of the individual sinner. This usage clearly presupposes a more basic distinction, the distinction between salvation accomplished and salvation applied. Salvation in its ongoing application, which this ordering is concerned to explicate, is to be distinguished categorically from salvation in its once-for-all accomplishment. With an eye to the redemptive-historical character of that completed accomplishment, and following Herman Ridderbos in coining a Latin counter part, the distinction between the application and the accomplishment of salvation may be expressed by distinguishing generically between ordo salutis (the order of salvation) and historia salutis (the history of salvation).
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Paul’s central theme and focus is on Christ—not in an undefined or indefinite way, but specifically in his death and/or resurrection.
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in Scripture references to the death alone or to the resurrection alone are synecdochic. That is, to speak of the one in its significance always has in view the other in its significance. They are unintelligible apart from each other; each conditions the meaning of the other.
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It is now widely maintained that the controlling focus of Paul’s theology, as for Jesus before him, is eschatology—or what is equivalent for some, redemptive history (historia salutis). Specifically, the center of his theology has been recognized to be the death and resurrection of Christ in their eschatological significance. In my view, this basic conclusion is sound and, by now, well established.
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Above all, first to last, sin is theocentric. That is, it is priimarily against God and only then, derivatively, against human beings, including the self (e.g., Rom 1:18-32; Eph. 4:17-19). Accordingly, sin is relational or, better, ‘anti-relational.’ It is essentially rebellion, an expression of autonomous revolt against God, the image-bearing (1 Cor. 11:7-9) creature’s effective renunciation of God as Creator. In its being relational, sin is inherently illegal.
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It is the law, as the revealed will of God, that identifies and reveals sin. The law is the criterion for sin. It is undoubtedly true that almost always, when Paul refers to ‘law’ or ‘the law,’ he has in view the body of legislation given by God through Moses to Israel at Sinai—that legislation marking out the period of covenant history until Christ. He is also clear that, as a specific codification belonging to that era, the law has been terminated in its entirety by Christ in his coming (e.g., Rom. 6:14; 7:6; 10:4; 2 Cor. 3:6—11; Gal. 3:17—25). At the same time, however, it seems difficult to deny that in statements like Romans 7:12, Romans 13:9 (where several of the Ten Commandments function as exhortation incumbent on the church), and 1 Corinthians 7:19 (‘God’s commandments’), Paul recognizes that at its moral core, the ‘Torah in the Torah,’ as it could be put, the Mosaic law specifies imperatives that transcend the Mosaic economy. Included within that law are imperatives that have been bound up with the indicative of the Creator-creature relationship from the beginning and so are enduring because who God is. In its central commands, the law given at Sinai, notably the Decalogue, reveals God’s will as that which is inherent in his person and therefore incumbent on his image-bearing creatures as such, regardless of time and place, whether Jew or non-Jew. Sin as relational is thus inherently illegal—the violation of God’s will as revealed in Scripture and the creation. This means that sin incurs guilt. Sin, of whatever sort, renders the sinner inalienably guilty before God; nothing is more central to the now-broken relationship between God and the sinner than that guilt. Sin is universal, not only because every human being actually sins, but also because everyone is a sinner by birth, because everyone enters the world with an inherited disposition to sin, which is itself sinfuland therefore culpable. This, I take it, without arguing it here, is surely one of his points in the Archimedean-like passage, Romans 5:12—19. To say, as do some, that Paul ‘does believe in Original Sin, but not Original Guilt,’ introduces a disjunction the apostle would never recognize. Paul knows of no sin, whether imputed, inborn disposition, or actual commission, that does not entail guilt and judicial liability for its consequences. Sin is not only rebellion against God and violation of his law, but also an enslaving and corrupting power. Sinners are as culpable as they are helpless. Sin elicits God’s wrath. Divine wrath is neither an impersonal process nor a merely reflexive abandoning of sinners to the baleful but penultimate, innerworldly consequences of their sinning. Rather, God’s wrath is his active recoil against sin, a positive recoil that arises from concerns of his person, especially his holiness and justice. For Paul, human death in all its dimensions is penal and essentially punitive. Sin renders sinners both inexcusably guilty and helplessly enslaved.This, as Paul sees it, is the grim ‘plight’ of sinners, a plight that is all the more grim because left to themselves sinners are unable to comprehend adequately, much less acknowledge, either their guilt or the bondage of their corruption.
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the terms “for us” and “for our sins” correlate with, and are inseparable from, the terms “in him” and “with him”; the former function only within the bond indicated by the latter. At the same time, “for us” signals the uniqueness of Christ and what is irreversible and noninterchangeable within this bond. That could hardly be made clearer than by the rhetorical question in 1 Corinthians 1:13, “Was Paul crucified for you?” For those who are “in Christ,” this union or solidarity is all-encompassing, extending in fact from eternity to eternity, from what is true of them “before the creation of the world” (Eph. 1:4, 9) to their still future glorification (Rom. 8:17; 1 Cor. 15:22).
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Paul’s “in Christ” is either (1) predestinarian (Eph. 1:4), (2) past or redemptive-historical—the union involved in the once-for-all accomplishment of salvation, particularly in Christ’s death and resurrection, or (3) present, looking forward to Christ’s return—union in the actual possession or application of salvation, and in that sense existential union. These distinctions, it should not be missed, point not to different unions, but to different aspects or dimensions of a single union. At the same time, it is essential to recognize each of these dimensions and to do so without equivocating, either by denying any one of them or by blurring the distinction between them. The need for such distinguishing can be illustrated by an instructive example that is directly pertinent to our primary concern, applicatory or actual (present) union. In Romans 16:7, Paul mentions those who “were in Christ before me” or “before I was.” Here Paul, speaking autobiographically, but surely representatively for all Christians, points to a critical, before-and-after transition in being “in Christ.” Within the overall context of his teaching, Paul knows himself to have been chosen “in Christ” from eternity (“before the foundation of the world,” Eph. 1:4) and also to have been contemplated “with him” at the time of his death and resurrection (“in the fullness of time,” Gal. 4:4). Nonetheless, there was still a time in his life, during his pre-Christian past, when he was “outside” of Christ in the sense he speaks of here, a time when he was, personalizing the plural in Ephesians 2:3, “a child of wrath, like the rest.” Here an absolutely crucial question, an ordo salutis question, emerges. What effects this transition from wrath to grace, from the wrath of being “outside” Christ to salvation from that wrath by being “in Christ”?
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“Mystical” union does not efface or otherwise compromise personal integrity. This means that in present union Christ retains his representative and substitutionary role. This role is perhaps most climactically evident in his present intercession for believers “at the right hand of God” (Rom. 8:34).
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Since it is effected by the Holy Spirit, present union is neither ontological (like that between the persons of the Trinity), nor hypostatic (like that between Christ’s divine and human natures), nor psychosomatic (between body and soul in human personality), nor somatic (between husband and wife)—nor is it merely intellectual and moral, a unity in understanding, affections, and purpose. Spiritual union stems from the relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit given with Christ’s glorification and lying in back of this union. This consideration is fundamental for Paul, and some of its implications will occupy us later. Here we may briefly note that because of his resurrection and ascension, the incarnate Christ (“the last Adam”) has been so transformed by the Spirit and is now in such complete possession of the Spirit that he has “become life-giving Spirit,” with the result that now “the Lord [= the exalted Christ] is the Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17).34 In view is a functional equation that does not efface personal distinction, a oneness in their activity of giving resurrection life (1 Cor. 15) and eschatological freedom (2 Cor. 3), so that, in the life of the church and within believers, Christ and the Spirit are inseparable—in fact, one. So, for example, in Romans 8:9–10, “you in the Spirit,” “the Spirit in you,” you “belonging to Christ” or “of Christ” (close, perhaps equivalent, to “in Christ”), and “Christ in you” are all inseparable facets describing a single union. Likewise, in Ephesians 3:16–17, to have “his Spirit in your inner man” is for “Christ . . . [to] dwell in your hearts.”
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Not only are believers in Christ, but he also is in them—indeed, “the hope of glory” for the church is “Christ in you” (Col. 1:27). Such union, then, is also inherently vital. Christ’s indwelling by the Spirit is the very life of the believer: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20); “your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:4).
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In Paul, answering to the fully relational liability of sin as guilt, noted above, the relational and legal concerns in salvation, the participatory and the forensic, belong together. The participatory or relational involves an inalienable legal, forensic aspect, and the forensic does not function apart from, but always within, the participatory. This means that Paul’s relational-participatory teaching surely includes, but may not simply be equated with, the renovative (“Christ in me,” understood in that sense), as distinct or even somehow separable from the forensic (“Christ for me”). Rather, both, the forensic and the transformative, justification and sanctification, are functions or manifestations of the relational. Expressed concretely, both are manifestations or aspects of union with Christ. Christ “in us” continues to be, and is as such also, Christ “for us.”
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Faith for Paul is the bond of that union, viewed from the side of the one united with Christ (Eph. 3:17).38 Faith unites to Christ, so that his death and resurrection are mine, in the sense of now being savingly effective in my life. Better, faith is the work of God by his Spirit, effective in “calling” sinners—otherwise “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1, 5) and thus utterly incapable of faith in and of themselves—“into the fellowship of his Son” (1 Cor. 1:9), into union with Christ, who is what he now is as crucified and resurrected. This union with the exalted Christ is such that his death and resurrection in their saving efficacy from sin and all its consequences—that is, basically, from its guilt and power—are mine. Or, put even more elementally and integrally, by union with the exalted Christ, all that he now is and has secured for believers by virtue of having been crucified and raised is mine, whether presently or in the future.
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the central soteriological reality is union with the exalted Christ by Spirit-created faith. That is the nub, the essence, of the way or order of salvation for Paul.
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As we have seen, the salvation appropriated in union with Christ, by faith, consists of two basic, irreducible facets. These facets answer to sin’s two basic consequences; one facet is forensic, the other, renovative. More specifically, in Paul these two facets are instanced by justification and sanctification.
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justification in Paul is essentially and primarily soteriological. It is a “transfer” term, describing what takes place in an individual’s transition from wrath to grace, a component of what is effected at the point of being “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
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the gospel, as he expresses it programmatically elsewhere, is not the reflex, post facto, of having been saved. Rather, it is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16), or even more tersely, “the gospel of your salvation” (Eph. 1:13).
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Adam and Christ are identified as representatives or key figures in solidarity with others. The order of Paul’s outlook here is such that Adam is “the first” (ho prōtos, v. 45); there is no one before him. Christ is “the last” (ho eschatos); there is no one after him; he is literally the eschatological man. But Christ is not only “the last,” but also “the second” (ho deuteros, v. 47); there is no one between Adam and him. In other words, and this is particularly important for us here, the sweep of Paul’s covenant-historical outlook, the overarching hierarchy of his concerns here, is such that no one comes into consideration but Adam and Christ—not David, not Moses and the law given at Sinai, not even Abraham as the promise holder, not Noah, nor anyone else. Fairly utilizing the language of Romans 5:14 here in 1 Corinthians 15, Adam is the “type” or “pattern” (typos) of “the one to come,” Christ, and of no one in between. As Paul is looking at things in this passage, no one else between them “counts.” The narrative line Paul sketches here is such, as it could be put, that “Israel’s story” falls below that line. Israel’s history is beneath the horizon in view here. Better, within the overall context of Paul’s theology, Israel’s story in its unfolding subserves the larger, universal story, that larger covenant history that is here given its ultimate profiling: creation and the new creation, the original creation and its consummation, each beginning with and determined by an Adam of its own. It is from this mega-perspective, then, that Paul’s statements on justification in Romans 5:12–21, explicit in terms of the Adam-Christ contrast, will have to be considered and as, accordingly, they specify basic dimensions of his teaching on justification as a whole. These dimensions, we may say, are truly “timeless,” not in the sense of being ahistorical, of having their meaning and validity above time and history, but of being perennial and enduring, of not being tied to issues of particular times or ethnicities. Perhaps we could speak of these dimensions as transhistorical and “transethnic” in the sense that they have their ultimate point of reference in Adam’s sin and its basic consequences for all of humanity, regardless of ethnicity, throughout its history. Certainly these dimensions are antecedent in covenant history to Israel’s ethnicity and also deeper than issues raised by Israel in relation to other nations. … several further observations may be made about Romans 5:12–21: One. Within the controlling antithetical parallelism, the flow of thought is along two axes: from sin to condemnation to death, on the one side; on the other, from righteousness/obedience to justification to life. Note how this antithetical correspondence matches up with its opposite at each of the three points on these two axes: sin and righteousness, condemnation and justification, death and life. Two. Righteousness, realized in and constituted by Christ’s work, answers to sin. While righteousness surely has its place within the relationship of which he is the head and representative, it is not itself a relational reality or concept—a characteristic New Perspective misconception. Rather, it has a relational aspect as it has its sense in antithesis to sin as trespass of the divine will and, positively, as it consists in obedience to that will. Three. Justification, the consequence in view of Christ’s righteousness, answers to condemnation. In other words, as condemnation is plainly forensic and declarative, so justification is likewise forensic and declarative, and it is forensic specifically as it redresses and removes the guilt and condemnation resulting from sin. Justification is not renovative, nor is it inclusive of renovation. Nor is it an alternative metaphor for being transformed, whether personally, corporately, or cosmically. It is not based on renewal, but exclusively on Christ’s righteousness and obedience. Negatively considered, justification is acquittal, the “not guilty” verdict reversing the condemnation of the sinner; it is the forgiveness of sins as the nonreckoning of sin (cf. 4:7–8). Positively considered, it is the declaration, the judicial reckoning, that the sinner is righteous. This forensic transaction is in view, I take it, not in all, but in the large majority of Paul’s uses of the corresponding verb (dikaioō), which have a transitive-active, not a stative force. As such, this usage involves the notion of judicial reckoning or imputation.
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Union with Christ, as already noted, does not destroy the personal distinction between him and the believer. The “in him” does not cancel out the “for us/me” that Christ remains just for those in union with him. There is a very real sense in which in union with Christ, Christ remains “outside” of the believer.46 What, then, is the ground of the justification that is mine in union with Christ, the basis of my being justified in him? There would appear to be only three conceivable options in reading Paul: (1) Christ’s own righteousness, complete and finished in his obedience, culminating on the cross, the righteousness that he now is and embodies in his exaltation (1 Cor. 1:30); (2) the union itself, the fact of the relationship, the existence of the uniting bond as such; or (3) the righteousness and obedience being produced by the transforming work of the Spirit in those who are in union with Christ. In short, in union with Christ the ground of justification is resident either (1) in Christ as distinct from the believer, (2) in the uniting bond itself between Christ and the believer, or (3) in the believer as distinct from Christ. It appears that the current readiness to dispense with imputation stems from taking, whether or not intentionally, either of the latter two options just mentioned as, in effect, the ground of justification. But neither is sustainable. The relationship as such, no matter how real and intimate, distinct from the persons in that relationship, cannot be the basis of my justification. Clearly, in Paul, it is not a relationship as an entity, the relational bond in itself, but a person that justifies and saves, specifically the person of “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). I suspect that position (2) above will inevitably gravitate to (3) in some form. But, without developing a full discussion here, neither does Paul teach that justification is based on the ongoing renewing work of the Spirit in the believer. That is most apparent from the consideration that justification, as the nonimputation of sin, is the forgiveness of sin, the free remission of all sin—past, present, and future. Clearly, it is Christ’s sacrifice for me, not the Spirit’s work in me, that is the basis of my being forgiven. Certainly that renovating work is involved, especially in producing faith, but it is not the ground.
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So we are left with the first of the three options just mentioned as the only viable one for Paul. In union with Christ, his righteousness is the ground of my being justified. That is, in my justification, his righteousness becomes my righteousness. … Paul makes a categorical distinction. He sees the person of the Christian existing as both ‘inner man’ and ‘outer man,’ a distinction present by implication in references to ‘the inner man’ in Romans 7:22 and Ephesians 3:16. Despite the present trend in English usage to avoid the gender-neutral, generic masculin singular, for the sake of clarity in the discussion that follows, I will retain the traditional rendering (or ‘self’) for the Greek word used here (anthropos) and reserve the alternative ‘person’ to refer to the single subject of verse 16 who exists as both ‘outer’ and ‘inner man.’ This distinction is not partitive, in terms of two distinct personal entities or natures. Paul is not saying tha tthe Christian is a dual personality, a sort of schizophrenic or hybrid consisting of two persons, though, as we will presently note, there are partitive implications. The distinction, rather, is best taken as aspectival. It describes two ways of viewing the person of the Christian as a whole. In this regard, it is extremely important to keep in mind throughout the course of our discussion that it is the one ‘I,’ existing as both inner man and outer man, who is the single, total subject that does not ‘grow tired,’ become ‘discouraged’, or ‘give up’. That is not said of the inner as distinct from the outer. Elsewhere in Paul, on the one hand, ‘the outer man’ is virtually equivalent to, or interchangeable with, ‘body’ and ‘members,’ while ‘the inner man’ is in view frequently in his use of ‘heart’ or sometimes ‘spirit,’ understood as the human spirit. As more careful examination beyond what I undertake here would show, the outer man or body is more than the narrowly physical or biotic. It is, as we might put it, the psycho-physical ‘package’ that I am. It is I as a functioning person—as thinking, willing, speaking, and acting. All told, we may say, the outer self is the functioning I. In distinction, ‘the inner self’ or ‘heart’ has in view who I am at the core of my being, in my prefunctional disposition. It is that disposition, more basic than my functioning, giving rise to my functioning and decisively controlling and finding expression in that functioning. As Paul views human beings in general and believers particularly, we are more than what we think or say or do. It is fair to say that in verse 16, Paul expresses a certain definite, in fact quite fundamental, ‘split’ in the person of the Christian. But he is not bifurcating or dichotomizing the Christian’s personal makeup between an essential inner core and a disposable outer shell or covering. … Within the immediately preceding context, what correlates most closely with verse 16, without being precisely identical, is verse 7, ‘We have this treasure in clay jars.’ This statement, which is, strictly speaking, autobiographical, surely includes a representative dimension that points to what is true for all believers. ‘This treasure’ may be construed variously from the immediately preceding verses (vv. 4—6). It is either the gospel or its content: the eschatological glory of God in Christ or the person of Christ himself, the exalted Christ indwelling the believer. ‘Clay jars,’ in distinction, has in view the outer man of believers, believers in their bodily existence. Second, to clear away a persisting misunderstanding, the distinction in 2 Corinthians 4:16 is not the same as the old man-new man distinction found elsewhere in Paul. He is clear that ‘our old man was crucified with Christ’ (Rom. 6:6). In ‘putting on Christ’ (Gal. 3:28), that is, in being united with Christ by faith, the Christian has ‘put off the old man and put on the new man’ (Col. 3:9—10). The single subject in 2 Corinthians 4:16, the person as a whole who ‘does not despair,’ is the new person in Christ, the Christian existing, as noted, in the modes of both the inner and the outer man. Third, ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ refer to opposite, in fact antithetical, principles operative in their outcomes as death and life. ‘The outer self’ is the subject, the I that I am, undergoing decay resulting in death. ‘The inner self’ is the subject, the I that I am, marked by life—in fact, as we will see, eschatological life—and ongoing (‘day by day’) renewal. With these clarifying comments on the sense of the passage, we may go on to relate the inner-outer distinction to what we have seen to be the heart of Paul’s ordo salutis: union with the exalted Christ by faith. This union, given its obvious centrality, provides an important perspective on that distinction.
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An important facet of verse 16, though often overlooked, is that its basic anthropological differentiation is drawn in a way that keeps the proverbial “already and not yet” from being distorted into an undifferentiated, yes-and-no dialectic, a matter we will address further below. Here we may note that it points to a clear yes for the inner self and a clear no for the outer self. The benefits of union with Christ are such, it appears, that insofar as I am outer self, that is, in terms of my bodily existence, those benefits are not yet possessed. My sharing in them is still future. On the other hand, as I am inner self or heart, considered for who I am at the core of my being, in my most basic bent or disposition, those benefits are already received and possessed; they are a present reality. This fundamental state of affairs is given some clarification in the immediately following section (5:1–10). There Paul addresses the believer’s hope of bodily resurrection, in other words, hope for the outer man. In this context, verse 7 affirms, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” This statement, proverbial in its ring, is an assertion like 4:16. It opens a fundamental perspective on the Christian life. Particularly instructive here is the way it serves to interpret 4:16 (as well as 4:7). “By faith” correlates with “the inner self” (“this treasure”) and what is presently true for believers; “by sight” correlates with “the outer self” (“clay jars”) and what is still future. For the present, until Jesus comes, our union with him and our sharing in the benefits of that union are “by faith,” but not (yet) “by sight.” We have our salvation for the present, all told, in the mode of believing, but as that believing falls short of seeing. Such “sight” participation in the benefits of union with Christ is reserved for what will be openly manifest in the resurrection of the body at his return (the predominating concern of the immediate context).
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What bears highlighting about Paul’s doctrine of sanctification and renewal can be seen in the way he views Christ’s resurrection—in particular, how he relates it to the resurrection of Christians. Consistently, without exception, he stresses the unity that there is between Christ’s resurrection and theirs, the solidarity that exists between him and them in being raised. The description of Christ in his resurrection as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20) provides a point of departure into this strand of his teaching. Nowhere else in Paul is the unity or solidarity in resurrection presented so clearly and graphically.
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“Firstfruits” is an agricultural term, and its use here can be seen against the background of its Old Testament usage, where it has cultic significance, referring to certain sacrifices brought each year at the beginning of the spring harvest (Ex. 23:19; Lev. 23:10–11). That usage brings into view the initial portion of the harvest, the first installment of the whole. In doing so, however, it is not merely an indication of temporal priority. The notion of an organic connection or unity is also present and plainly essential. The firstfruits are the initial quantity brought into view only as they are a part of the whole, inseparable from the whole, and so in that sense represent the entire harvest. In other words, Paul is saying here, the resurrection of Christ and of believers cannot be separated. Why? Because, to extend the metaphor as Paul surely intends, Christ’s resurrection is the “firstfruits” of the resurrection “harvest” that includes the resurrection of believers. This thought is reinforced in verse 23: “Each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” For the sake of clarity, we should note that the resurrection of unbelievers is not in Paul’s purview here (also true in 1 Thess. 4:14–18). In verse 20 and the rest of 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection is seen in an entirely soteriological light. The solidarity in view is exclusively between Christ, as the firstfruits, and Christians; it does not include non-Christians. Paul, faithful to his Old Testament roots (e.g., Dan. 12:2), does recognize that the final resurrection will include unbelievers. That can be seen in his response to Felix in Acts 24:15, “There will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.” But this aspect receives virtually no attention in his letters. Repeatedly and consistently, the resurrection is in view on its positive, saving side. We must not miss the full impact of what Paul is saying here. For him it does not go far enough to say, as it is often put, that Christ’s resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection, in the sense of being certain because of God’s eternal purpose or his word of promise to the church, although both are certainly true for Paul. Rather, Christ’s resurrection is a guarantee in the sense that it is nothing less than the actual and, as such, representative beginning of the “general epochal event.” In Paul’s view, the general resurrection, as it includes believers, begins with Christ’s resurrection.52 So we may fairly speculate, if Paul were present, say, at a modern-day prophecy conference and were asked, “When will the resurrection of believers take place?” the first thing he would likely say is, “It has already begun!” In Christ’s resurrection, the end-time resurrection-harvest becomes a visible reality.
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In Christ’s resurrection, as it may be variously put, the age to come has begun; the new creation has actually dawned; eschatological reality has been inaugurated. Second is the primary point we have just been considering, the unity or solidarity that exists between the resurrection of Christ and the future resurrection of believers. We may say that for Paul these two resurrections are not so much two events, separate from each other, as they are two episodes, temporally distinct, of one and the same event. Together they form the beginning and end of the same “harvest.”
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In order to get the full picture of Paul’s resurrection theology, however, we need to take note of other statements, where he speaks of the believer’s resurrection using a verb in a past (Greek aorist or perfect) tense, and says that believers have already been raised with Christ (Eph. 2:5–6; Col. 2:12–13; 3:1; cf. Rom. 6:4–5, 8, 11, 13 and Gal. 2:20). How are we to understand such statements that affirm the resurrection as past for the Christian? There is surely an important element of truth in holding that the past reference in the verses cited in the preceding paragraph has in view the involvement or solidarity of Christians with Christ at the time of his resurrection. In this sense, their resurrection was contemplated in his as he, their representative, was raised “for” them. Careful reading of these passages, however, reveals another aspect that is crucial and, in fact, primary. In view principally is what has taken place in the actual life history of the Christian, an involvement in this sense that is “existential.” There are several grounds for this understanding. First, in Ephesians 2:1–10, a key word is “walking,” in the sense of a way of life and one’s actual conduct. That idea brackets the passage. It opens with the readers’ former, old-age, pre-Christian “walk” in the deadness of trespasses and sins (vv. 1, 5) and closes with their present “walk,” instanced in the good works for which they have been created in Christ (v. 10). That contrast prompts a question. What explains this radical reversal in conduct, this 180-degree turnabout in “walk”? The answer is at the virtual midpoint of the passage—as we might say, its pivot point—in verses 5–6. What has effected this decisive change in conduct is having been made alive and having been raised with Christ. An existential sense is also indicated in Colossians 2:12, where the resurrection with Christ in view takes place “through faith.” Further, in Colossians 3:1–4, as well as in Romans 6:2–7:6, the resurrection contemplated is not only the motive, but also the basis, that provides the dynamic for actual obedience and holy living. So it is best understood as underlying and effecting personal transformation. Finally, in Romans 6 and Colossians 2, having been raised with Christ is among the benefits sealed to a person in baptism. For these reasons, then, having already been raised with Christ is real, actual, “existential,” not something true merely “in principle” (whatever might be meant by that). The primary reference in the passages noted is to the ongoing application of salvation, not its once-for-all accomplishment. We may say that while the language used is that of the historia salutis, the reality described belongs to the ordo salutis. That way of putting it highlights the inseparability of historia and ordo, by virtue of union with Christ. To sum up our observations so far, three factors shape Paul’s teaching on the unity between Christ and believers in resurrection: (1) Christ’s own resurrection, three days after his crucifixion; (2) the resurrection that occurs at the inception of life in Christ, the believer’s initial appropriation of that salvation; and (3) future, bodily resurrection at Christ’s return. Furthermore, keeping in mind the organic connection between these three elements, that together they form a single “harvest,” the basic pattern of Paul’s teaching on resurrection may be expressed by saying that the unity of the resurrection of Christ and of Christians is such that the latter consists of two episodes in the experience of the individual believer: one that is past, already realized, and one that is still future, yet to be realized. Note how the formal structure of Paul’s eschatology as a whole—the overlap of the two aeons, or world-ages, of the pre-eschatological and eschatological orders—is reflected in his teaching about what personally for believers is the fundamental eschatological occurrence; their resurrection is both already realized and still future.
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If we could ask Paul to provide labels for distinguishing the two aspects of resurrection, he would likely point us to our key verse, 2 Corinthians 4:16, and the distinction he makes there: as far as the believer is “inner man” (“heart,” at the motivating center of his person), he is already raised; so far as the believer is “outer man” (“body,” “members”), he is yet to be raised. … It should be apparent that in Paul there is no more important conclusion about the Christian life, nothing about its structure that is more basic than this consideration: the Christian life in its entirety is to be subsumed under the category of resurrection. Pointedly, the Christian life is resurrection life. In terms of the metaphor of 1 Corinthians 15:20, the Christian life is part of the resurrection-harvest inaugurated by Christ’s own resurrection. The place of Christians, their share, in that harvest is now—not only in the future, but presently. The Christian life is a manifestation, an outworking, of the resurrection life and power of the resurrected Christ, become the “life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). It is in this light that statements like Galatians 2:20 (“I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”)—autobiographical, but surely applicable to every Christian—ought to be read.
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For Paul, as we saw in Chapter 2, human death is the judicial consequence of sin. Death is neither the merely natural outworking of sin nor the cumulative effect of sinning. It is not only sin’s own reflexive “reward” or payoff. As the “wages of sin” (Rom. 6:23), death is not merely pecuniary, but penal. Human death is God’s response to sin, a response that is judicial in nature. Death, as God’s ultimate curse on sin, is his just punishment of sin. Death, for Paul, is indeed inalienably penal. Romans 5:16–18 is decisive on this point. On Adam’s side of the contrast, the central thread of the argument, as noted earlier, does not simply go from sin to death, as the power unleashed by sin. Rather, that thread moves from sin to condemnation and then to death as the consequence of that condemnation, as the explicitly judicial consequence of sin. There is thus a forensic dimension that is essential on both sides of the polarity between death and resurrection. Each is the judicial consequence of, and seal on, respectively, condemnation and justification. Relating that forensic dimension to the already–not yet structure of the resurrection, then, leads to this conclusion: as believers are already raised with Christ, they have been justified; as they are not yet resurrected, they are still to be justified. In terms of the anthropological profile of 2 Corinthians 4:16, “the outer man,” subject to decay and wasting, mortal and destined for death, still awaits justification in some sense. Romans 8:10 substantiates and clarifies this conclusion: “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”69 Here Paul is considering the present situation of believers. On the one hand, and this is his primary accent, they are indwelt and enlivened by Christ through the Spirit, closely identified here with Christ as “the Spirit of Christ” (v. 9; cf. “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” in v. 2 and Christ as the “life-giving Spirit” in 1 Cor. 15:45). In other words, they have already been raised with Christ. But at the same time, the imprint of the dual, inner-outer anthropology of 2 Corinthians 4:16 is apparent in the way verse 10 is formulated. Expressed alternatively in the terms of 6:12–13 noted earlier, the believer is “alive from the dead” (v. 10c), but is that only “in the mortal body” (v. 10b). In this two-sided state of affairs, on the one side the “outer,” the body, is said to be “dead because of sin.” That is, the body of the believer is mortal as a consequence of sin. That consequence, the believer’s mortality, we are bound to say further, in the light of what we saw above in 5:16–18, is the specifically judicial consequence of sin. And on the other side, seen in terms of the “inner,” it is “because of righteousness” that the Spirit is the life of the resurrected Christ indwelling the believer (cf. Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:4). The judicial ground of that life is the righteousness embodied in Christ. That this consequence on the side of the “inner” is also specifically judicial is clear from “the justification of life” in 5:18, as noted above. It is important to stress that the righteousness in view in verse 10 as the judicial ground of life—justifying righteousness, in other words—is not God’s renovating work in the believer, righteousness as produced in believers. … I am not arguing, in terms of the inner-outer distinction, that Paul sees the believer as only partially justified as part of an ongoing process that is not yet complete or, more importantly, uncertain as to its outcome. In the immediate context of verse 10, verse 1, like a lodestar, provides a fixed and invariable point of reference. The removal of condemnation, the justification, affirmed there is true for the whole believer, not just in part. For sinners united to Christ by faith, in the judgment rendered by God, the previously existing state of being found guilty and of being condemned has been reversed by their now being found not guilty, by their being declared just. That judicial reversal applies to the whole person in every respect. In the terms of 2 Corinthians 4:16, it is the total, single subject, the person who does not “become discouraged,” who has been justified, not just “the inner man.” At the same time, however, we are bound to take into consideration the distinction—indeed, the nothing less than life-and-death disjunction—applied specifically to believers in verse 10, and to do so in terms of Paul’s teaching on the realized–still future pattern of their resurrection. In that light, it seems fair to observe, given that for believers death is inalienably penal (“because of sin”), its removal—as the judicial consequence of the reversal of judgment already effected in justification—does not take place all at once, but unfolds in two steps, one already realized and one still future. Correlatively, the open or public declaration of that judicial reversal, that manifest declaration attendant on their bodily resurrection and the final judgment, is likewise still future. In that sense, believers are already justified—by faith. But they are yet to be justified—by sight. An illustration may help to make this point clear. The situation is analogous to that of a prisoner whose conviction has been overturned and, with that reversal, his imprisonment terminated. But the procedure by which the court implements its decision, irreversible and sure in its execution, is such that the actual release from prison takes place in two stages, one immediate and the other at a point in the future (here the analogy breaks down because of the inner-outer anthropology involved). To apply the analogy, as to their inner man, sinners, when justified by faith, are instantaneously released from the prison and punishment of death; so far as their outer man is concerned, there is a delay until the resurrection in their being released from that prison. These observations are reinforced by 1 Corinthians 15:54–56 (ESV): When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Here Paul is discussing the believer’s bodily resurrection, in other words, the resurrection of the “outer man.”70 In that regard (bodily resurrection), for the believer “death [being] swallowed up in victory” is not yet a reality. “Then”—that is, at a time still future—“shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ” (v. 54).71 In terms of the controlling metaphor of the chapter (vv. 20, 23), so far as the Christian’s place in the “harvest” of bodily resurrection is concerned, death has not yet been “swallowed up in victory.” That the church’s victory over death in view here is still future is confirmed by verses 25–26. “He,” that is, Christ already resurrected, “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet,” with death being the “last” of these enemies “to be destroyed.” Given the immediate context, the present tense of the Greek verb (katargeitai) plainly has a future force, as virtually all English translations recognize. By his own resurrection, the bodily resurrection of the “firstfruits,” death’s final and complete destruction has already occurred for him personally and so is assured for the rest of the harvest. But for them, their actual, bodily participation in that destruction has yet to occur.
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To summarize, the “outer man” of the believer does not yet experience the saving benefits of union with Christ, either transformative or forensic. So far as I am “outer man,” I am not yet justified (openly), any more than I am resurrected (bodily). And that is so, without diminishing either the reality that I am already and irreversibly justified or the future certainty of my being justified in the resurrection of the body at the final judgment. Here again, in terms of the principle of 2 Corinthians 5:7, I am justified “by faith,” but not (yet) “by sight.” Adoption. This conclusion regarding the present-future structure of the Christian’s justification is confirmed by an aspect of Paul’s teaching on adoption. Like justification, adoption in Paul is a forensic reality. Briefly, human beings, as sinners alienated from God, are not naturally his sons. Quite the opposite, they are “by nature children of [his] wrath” (Eph. 2:3). This divine wrath is inalienably judicial; it is always his just wrath (Rom. 2:5, 8; 2 Thess. 1:8–9). Accordingly, removal of that wrath and restoration to fellowship with God as his sons has a legal aspect. Christians are not God’s sons either inherently or by virtue of creation. Neither is that identity the outcome of a renovative process. Rather, the believer has the status of being God’s son by his decisive, declarative act. Adoption, like justification, is judicially declarative. In Romans 8:14–17, Paul is emphatically clear that believers have already been adopted. They are now, by adoption, “sons of God,” and among the consequent privileges they enjoy, the Spirit who indwells them is “the Spirit of adoption,” assuring them that now, presently, God is their Father and they, as his adopted sons, may address him as such. But then, just a few verses later, we read: “We wait eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (v. 23). Now adoption is future, at the time of the resurrection; it is given with or realized in bodily resurrection. Here, too, for adoption, as we saw to be the case for justification, the future resurrection of the body is invested with de facto forensic significance. The resurrection of believers will be declarative of their adoption. Within basically the same context, the scope of a few verses, then, adoption as a forensic, declarative reality is seen as both present and future. Initially this could seem confusing, even incoherent. How can it be both? By the nature of the case, it would seem apparent, either I am adopted or I am not. If I am adopted, how can I be awaiting adoption? Paul, we can be sure, is not involved here in some kind of double-talk. He is not speaking in paradox, with adoption as future rendering uncertain adoption as present and settled. The left hand of the “not yet” of adoption does not take away or cancel out in dialectical fashion what the right hand of the “already” of adoption gives. Rather, the respect in which he distinguishes present and future is clear from the immediate context. What is still future is what the entire creation longs for: “the revelation of the sons of God,” which we may fairly gloss as “the open revelation of the sons of God” (v. 19). Again, what is in prospect is “the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” the free and open manifestation of their glory (v. 21). Believers await the open manifestation of their adoption in the resurrection of the body. Here, again, the principle of 2 Corinthians 5:7 is present and controlling. For now, until Jesus comes, Christians have their adoption “by faith,” but not yet “by sight.” They are God’s adopted children in the mode of “believing,” but not (yet) of “seeing.” It is in fact the case that they are not yet openly adopted. A fair commentary on Paul at this point is 1 John 3:2, “Now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Paul’s statements on adoption, we may conclude, provide a window on how he would have us view the closely related forensic blessing of justification. As adoption is both present and future, so too is justification. We have already been justified by faith, but not (yet) by sight. Akin to our adoption, our justification has still to be made public or openly manifested. We have not yet been “openly acquitted.”
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For Christians, future judgment according to works does not operate according to a different principle than their already having been justified by faith. The difference is that the final judgment will be the open manifestation of that present justification, their being “openly acquitted,” as we have seen. And in that future judgment, their good works will not be the ground or basis of their acquittal. Nor are they (co-)instrumental, a coordinate instrument for appropriating divine approbation as they supplement faith. Rather, they are the essential and manifest criterion of that faith, the integral “fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith,” appropriating the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, 16.2. It is not for nothing, and not to be dismissed as drawing too fine a distinction exegetically to observe, that in Romans 2:6 Paul writes “according to (kata) works,” not “on account of (dia) works” (which would express the ground) nor “by (ek) works” (which would express the instrument).80
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believers, in union with Christ, will appear at the final judgment as already resurrected bodily. That is, they will appear there in “spiritual,” that is, Spirit-enlivened and Spirit-transformed bodies marked by imperishability, glory, and power (1 Cor. 15:42–44) and as they are already fully conformed to the image of their firstborn brother, the exalted Christ (v. 49; cf. Rom. 8:29). This carries an implication, as important as it is obvious, for understanding and for ministering Paul’s teaching on justification as future. If believers appear at the final judgment as already resurrected bodily, then they will appear there as already openly justified. Their future justification, as we have been speaking of it, will have already taken place in their resurrection, with the de facto declarative, forensic, justifying significance it has in Paul, as we have pointed out above. That means, further, that for believers the final judgment, as it is to be according to works, will have for them a reality that will, as we have already noted, reflect and further attest their justification, which has been openly manifested in their bodily resurrection. It would be perverse, then, to read Paul’s teaching on the final judgment, as well as my discussion of it here, as leaving believers in this life, in the face of death, uncertain of the future—unable to know for sure the outcome for them at the final judgment and wondering whether they have produced enough “good works” in this life for a favorable verdict at that point entitling them to eternal life. To the contrary, everything at stake here, including their assurance, depends on Christ—specifically, if it needs to be said again, his finished righteousness, imputed to them and received by faith alone. ” (Source: Gaffin Jr., Richard B.. By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation).
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From Jonathan Edwards’ “Justification by Faith Alone” :
“Here, if I may humbly express what seems evident to me, though faith be indeed the condition of justification so as nothing else is, yet this matter is not clearly and sufficiently explained by saying that faith is the condition of justification, and that because the word seems ambiguous, both in common use, and also as used in divinity. In one sense, Christ alone performs the condition of our justification and salvation. In another sense, faith is the condition of justification, and in another sense, other qualifications and acts are conditions of salvation and justification too. There seems to be a great deal of ambiguity in such expressions as are commonly used (which yet we are forced to use), such as condition of salvation, what is required in order to salvation or justification, the terms of the covenant, and the like, and I believe they are understood in very different senses by different persons. And besides, as the word condition is very often understood in the common use of language, faith is not the only thing in us that is the condition of justification. For by the word condition, as it is very often (and perhaps most commonly) used, we mean anything that may have the place of a condition in a conditional proposition, and as such is truly connected with the consequent, especially if the proposition holds both in the affirmative and negative, as the condition is either affirmed or denied. If it be that with which, or which being supposed, a thing shall be, and without which, or it being denied, a thing shall not be, we in such a case call it a condition of that thing. But in this sense faith is not the only condition of salvation and justification. For there are many things that accompany and flow from faith, with which justification shall be, and without which, it will not be, and therefore are found to be put in Scripture in conditional propositions with justification and salvation, in multitudes of places. Such are love to God, and love to our brethren, forgiving men their trespasses, and many other good qualifications and acts. And there are many other things besides faith, which are directly proposed to us, to be pursued or performed by us, in order to eternal life, which if they are done, or obtained, we shall have eternal life, and if not done, or not obtained, we shall surely perish. And if faith was the only condition of justification in this sense, I do not apprehend that to say faith was the condition of justification, would express the sense of that phrase of Scripture, of being justified by faith. There is a difference between being justified by a thing, and that thing universally, necessarily, and inseparably attending justification: for so do a great many things that we are not said to be justified by. It is not the inseparable connection with justification that the Holy Ghost would signify (or that is naturally signified) by such a phrase, but some particular influence that faith has in the affair, or some certain dependence that effect has on its influence.
Some, aware of this, have supposed that the influence or dependence might well be expressed by faith’s being the instrument of our justification, which has been misunderstood, and injuriously represented, and ridiculed by those that have denied the doctrine of justification by faith alone, as though they had supposed faith was used as an instrument in the hand of God, whereby he performed and brought to pass that act of his, viz. approving and justifying the believer. Whereas it was not intended that faith was the instrument wherewith God justifies, but the instrument wherewith we receive justification: not the instrument wherewith the justifier acts in justifying, but wherewith the receiver of justification acts in accepting justification. But yet, it must be owned, this is an obscure way of speaking, and there must certainly be some impropriety in calling it an instrument wherewith we receive or accept justification. For the very persons who thus explain the matter, speak of faith as being the reception or acceptance itself, and if so, how can it be the instrument of reception or acceptance? Certainly there is a difference between the act and the instrument. Besides, by their own descriptions of faith, Christ, the mediator, by whom and his righteousness by which we are justified, is more directly the object of this acceptance and justification, which is the benefit arising therefrom more indirectly. Therefore, if faith be an instrument, it is more properly the instrument by which we receive Christ, than the instrument by which we receive justification.
But I humbly conceive we have been ready to look too far to find out what that influence of faith in our justification is, or what is that dependence of this effect on faith, signified by the expression of being justified by faith, overlooking that which is most obviously pointed forth in the expression, viz. that (there being a mediator that has purchased justification) faith in this mediator is that which renders it a meet and suitable thing, in the sight of God, that the believer, rather than others, should have this purchased benefit assigned to him. There is this benefit purchased, which God sees it to be a more meet and suitable thing that it should be assigned to some rather than others, because he sees them differently qualified: that qualification wherein the meetness to this benefit, as the case stands, consists, is that in us by which we are justified. If Christ had not come into the world and died, etc. to purchase justification, no qualification whatever in us could render it a meet or fit thing that we should be justified. But the case being as it now stands, viz. that Christ has actually purchased justification by his own blood for infinitely unworthy creatures, there may be certain qualifications found in some persons, which, either from the relation it bears to the mediator and his merits, or on some other account, is the thing that in the sight of God renders it a meet and condecent thing, that they should have an interest in this purchased benefit, and of which if any are destitute, it renders it an unfit and unsuitable thing that they should have it. The wisdom of God in his constitutions doubtless appears much in the fitness and beauty of them, so that those things are established to be done that are fit to be done, and that these things are connected in his constitution that are agreeable one to another. — So God justifies a believer according to his revealed constitution, without doubt, because he sees something in this qualification that, as the case stands, renders it a fit thing that such should be justified: whether it be because faith is the instrument, or as it were the hand, by which he that has purchased justification is apprehended and accepted, or because it is the acceptance itself, or whatever else. To be justified, is to be approved of God as a proper subject of pardon, with a right to eternal life. Therefore, when it is said that we are justified by faith, what else can be understood by it, than that faith is that by which we are rendered approvable, fitly so, and indeed, as the case stands, proper subjects of this benefit?
This is something different from faith being the condition of justification, though inseparably connected with justification. So are many other things besides faith, and yet nothing in us but faith renders it meet that we should have justification assigned to us: as I shall presently show in answer to the next inquiry, viz.
2. How this is said to be by faith alone, without any manner of virtue or goodness of our own. This may seem to some to be attended with two difficulties, viz. how this can be said to be by faith alone, without any virtue or goodness of ours, when faith itself is a virtue, and one part of our goodness, and is not only some manner of goodness of ours, but is a very excellent qualification, and one chief part of the inherent holiness of a Christian? And if it be a part of our inherent goodness or excellency (whether it be this part or any other) that renders it a condecent or congruous thing that we should have this benefit of Christ assigned to us, what is this less than what they mean who talk of a merit of congruity? And moreover, if this part of our Christian holiness qualifies us, in the sight of God, for this benefit of Christ, and renders it a fit or meet thing, in his sight, that we should have it, why not other parts of holiness, and conformity to God, which are also very excellent, and have as much of the image of Christ in them, and are no less lovely in God’s eyes, qualify us as much, and have as much influence to render us meet, in God’s sight, for such a benefit as this? Therefore I answer,
When it is said, that we are not justified by any righteousness or goodness of our own, what is meant is that it is not out of respect to the excellency or goodness of any qualifications or acts in us whatsoever, that God judges it meet that this benefit of Christ should be ours. It is not, in any wise, on account of any excellency or value that there is in faith, that it appears in the sight of God a meet thing, that he who believes should have this benefit of Christ assigned to him, but purely from the relation faith has to the person in whom this benefit is to be had, or as it unites to that mediator, in and by whom we are justified. Here, for the greater clearness, I would particularly explain myself under several propositions,
(1.) It is certain that there is some union or relation that the people of Christ stand in to him, that is expressed in Scripture, from time to time, by being in Christ, and is represented frequently by those metaphors of being members of Christ, or being united to him as members to the head, and branches to the stock, and is compared to a marriage union between husband and wife. I do not now pretend to determine of what sort this union is. Nor is it necessary to my present purpose to enter into any manner of disputes about it. If any are disgusted at the word union, as obscure and unintelligible, the word relation equally serves my purpose. I do not now desire to determine any more about it, than all, of all sorts, will readily allow, viz. that there is a peculiar relation between true Christians and Christ, which there is not between him and others, and which is signified by those metaphorical expressions in Scripture, of being in Christ, being members of Christ, etc.
(2.) This relation or union to Christ, whereby Christians are said to be in Christ (whatever it be), is the ground of their right to his benefits. This needs no proof: the reason of the thing, at first blush, demonstrates it. It is exceeding evident also by Scripture, 1 John 5:12, “He that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life.” 1 Cor. 1:30, “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us — righteousness.” First we must be in him, and then he will be made righteousness or justification to us. Eph. 1:6, “Who hath made us accepted in the beloved.” Our being in him is the ground of our being accepted. So it is in those unions to which the Holy Ghost has thought fit to compare this. The union of the members of the body with the head, is the ground of their partaking of the life of the head. It is the union of the branches to the stock, which is the ground of their partaking of the sap and life of the stock. It is the relation of the wife to the husband, that is the ground of her joint interest in his estate: they are looked upon, in several respects, as one in law. So there is a legal union between Christ and true Christians, so that (as all except Socinians allow) one, in some respects, is accepted for the other by the supreme Judge.
(3.) And thus it is that faith is the qualification in any person that renders it meet in the sight of God that he should be looked upon as having Christ’s satisfaction and righteousness belonging to him, viz. because it is that in him which, on his part, makes up this union between him and Christ. By what has been just now observed, it is a person’s being, according to scripture phrase, in Christ, that is the ground of having his satisfaction and merits belonging to him, and a right to the benefits procured thereby. The reason of it is plain: it is easy to see how our having Christ’s merits and benefits belonging to us, follows from our having (if I may so speak) Christ himself belonging to us, or our being united to him. And if so, it must also be easy to see how, or in what manner, that in a person, which on his part makes up the union between his soul and Christ, should be the things on the account of which God looks on it as meet that he should have Christ’s merits belonging to him. It is a very different thing for God to assign to a particular person a right to Christ’s merits and benefits from regard to a qualification in him in this respect, from his doing it for him out of respect to the value or loveliness of that qualification, or as a reward of its excellency.
As there is nobody but what will allow that there is a peculiar relation between Christ and his true disciples, by which they are in some sense in Scripture said to be one. So I suppose there is nobody but what will allow, that there may be something that the true Christian does on his part, whereby he is active in coming into this relation or union: some uniting act, or that which is done towards this union or relation (or whatever any please to call it) on the Christian’s part. Now faith I suppose to be this act.
I do not now pretend to define justifying faith, or to determine precisely how much is contained in it, but only to determine thus much concerning it, viz. That it is that by which the soul, which before was separate and alienated from Christ, unites itself to him, or ceases to be any longer in that state of alienation, and comes into that forementioned union or relation to him, or, to use the scripture phrase, it is that by which the soul comes to Christ, and receives him. This is evident by the Scriptures using these very expressions to signify faith. John 6:35-39, “He that cometh to me, shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me, shall never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me and believe not. All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” Verse 40, “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up the last day.” — John 5:38-40, “Whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the Scriptures, for — they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life.” Verse 43, 44, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another?” — John 1:12, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” If it be said that these are obscure figures of speech, which however they might be well understood of old among those who commonly used such metaphors, are with difficulty understood now. I allow, that the expressions of receiving Christ and coming to Christ, are metaphorical expressions. If I should allow them to be obscure metaphors, yet this much at least is certainly plain in them, viz. that faith is that by which those who before were separated, and at a distance from Christ (that is to say, were not so related and united to him as his people are), cease to be any longer at such a distance, and come into that relation and nearness, unless they are so unintelligible, that nothing at all can be understood by them.
God does not give those that believe a union with or an interest in the Savior as a reward for faith, but only because faith is the soul’s active uniting with Christ, or is itself the very act of unition, on their part. God sees it fit, that in order to a union being established between two intelligent active beings or persons, so as that they should be looked upon as one, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as actively joining themselves one to another. God, in requiring this in order to an union with Christ as one of his people, treats men as reasonable creatures, capable of act and choice, and hence sees it fit that they only who are one with Christ by their own act, should be looked upon as one in law. What is real in the union between Christ and his people, is the foundation of what is legal: that is, it is something really in them, and between them, uniting them, that is the ground of the suitableness of their being accounted as one by the judge. And if there be any act or qualification in believers of that uniting nature, that it is meet on that account the judge should look upon them and accept them as one, no wonder that upon the account of the same act or qualification, he should accept the satisfaction and merits of the one for the other, as if these were their own satisfaction and merits. This necessarily follows, or rather is implied.
And thus it is that faith justifies, or gives an interest in Christ’s satisfaction and merits, and a right to the benefits procured thereby, viz. as it thus makes Christ and the believer one in the acceptance of the supreme Judge. It is by faith that we have a title to eternal life, because it is by faith that we have the Son of God, by whom life is. The apostle John in these words, 1 John 5:12, “He that hath the Son hath life,” seems evidently to have respect to those words of Christ, of which he gives an account in his gospel, chap. 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life.” And where the Scripture speaks of faith as the soul’s receiving or coming to Christ, it also speaks of this receiving, coming to, or joining with Christ, as the ground of an interest in his benefits. To as many as received him, “to them gave he power” to become the sons of God. Ye will not come unto me, “that ye might have life.” And there is a wide difference between its being suitable that Christ’s satisfaction and merits should be theirs who believe, because an interest in that satisfaction and merit is a fit reward of faith — or a suitable testimony of God’s respect to the amiableness and excellency of that grace — and its being suitable that Christ’s satisfaction and merits should be theirs, because Christ and they are so united, that in the eyes of the Judge they may be looked upon and taken as one.”
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Mueller, John Theodore. Christian Dogmatics : “…we must not speak of a middle state (status medius) between conversion and non-conversion (homo renascens, homo in statu medio constitutus), since this is both unscriptural and synergistic. It is unscriptural; for Holy Scripture recognizes only two classes of men, the converted and the unconverted, or what is the same, believers and unbelievers, John 3,18. 36; Mark 16,16; 1 Pet. 2,25. According to Scripture it is impossible for a person to be in a middle state even for a moment, for there is no middle ground between belief and unbelief, between life and death, Luke 11,23. Theologians who in opposition to Scripture reject the instantaneous character of conversion and explain it as a long-drawn-out process, during which the sinner is first enlightened, then awakened, and finally brought to the decision to accept Christ, commonly do so in the interest of synergism, that is to say, to support their erroneous views that the awakened sinner in the final analysis must convert himself with spiritual powers bestowed upon him by the Holy Ghost (Latermann). As a matter of fact, the objections of modern rationalistic theologians to the instantaneous character of conversion are really not directed against the conversio momentanea, but against the sola gratia; for synergistic rationalism regards conversion both as an act of divine grace and as an act of human meritorious effort. It champions the doctrine of “successive conversion” and of “the middle state” since according to its erroneous view God endows the sinner only with the potentiality, or ability, to believe and not with faith itself. Faith, it is claimed, is man’s own free, conscious, and deliberate self-determination (Selbstbestimmung), accomplished through spiritual powers granted to him by God. From this it is clear that the onslaught upon the Scriptural doctrine of instantaneous conversion is, in the last analysis, directed against divine monergism in conversion, or against the sola gratia. It goes without saying that what is here said of synergism is true also of Arminianism. Both insist upon successive conversion because both hold that man in the last instance must convert himself.”
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Although the conversion of man is a work of God’s omnipotent power, Eph. 1,19; 2 Cor. 4, 6, divine converting grace nevertheless is not irresistible (gratia irresistibilis), as the Calvinists teach, but resistible (gratia resistibilis), as Holy Scripture affirms, Matt. 23, 37; Acts 7, 51. The reason for this is evident. Though God is irresistible whenever He deals with man according to His sovereign power (in nuda maiestate), Matt. 25, 31. 32, He can be resisted whenever He exercises His omnipotent power through means, Matt. 11, 28; 23, 37. Both in His Kingdom of Power and in the Kingdom of Grace the means by which He purposes to bless man can be rejected. Thus life, the greatest of God’s earthly gifts, though created and sustained by divine omnipotence, can nevertheless be destroyed by man. Similarly spiritual life, or conversion, though offered through the means of the omnipotent Word of God, can be rejected by man through malicious resistance. Maintaining the resistibility of converting grace (gratia conversionis), the confessional Lutheran Church disavows both Calvinism and synergism. Denying the universality of grace, the Calvinists declare that the elect are regenerated by irresistible grace, while to the non-elect only common grace is granted. The synergists, on the other hand, conclude from the resistibility of grace that, as the sinner can reject the divine grace offered to him, so also he can cooperate with the Holy Spirit in his conversion, by rightly using the spiritual powers granted to him. Both errors are opposed to the clear teaching of Holy Scripture on this point, 1 Tim. 2,4; Phil. 2,13.
TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE CONVERSION. (Conversio Transitva; Conversio Intransitiva.) On the basis of Holy Scripture our dogmaticians speak of transitive and intransitive conversion (conversio transitiva; conversio intransitiva). In other words, God is said to convert man, and again, man is said to convert himself (Jer. 31, 18, Acts 3,19, ; Jer. 24, 7,) Between the two, however, there is no real distinction (realis distinctio), since man converts himself only when God converts him. Both expressions therefore describe one and the same act, of which God alone is the efficient Cause. The expressions must therefore not be understood in the synergistic sense as though God began while man himself accomplished or completed conversion. While the expression “intransitive conversion” (“Man converts himself”) is Scriptural, it must not be forgotten that in conversion God “worketh in man both to will and to do,” Phil. 2,13. Baler’s remark on the point is truly Scriptural. He writes: “The word conversion is taken in a double sense in the Scriptures, inasmuch as at one time God is said to convert man and at another that man is said to convert himself, although as to the thing itself (quoad rem) the action is one and the same (una et eadem)” That God alone works conversion is abundantly proved in Scripture, Jer. 31,18; John 6, 44; Eph. 1,19; etc. These passages do not allow even a modified form of synergism (Man’s conversion depends on his necessary condition of passiveness and submissiveness toward the Gospel call; cp. Latermann, Dieckhoff, etc.).
CONTINUED CONVERSION. (Conversio Continuata.) On the basis of Scripture our dogmaticians speak also of continued conversion, that is, of that conversion which continues throughout the life of the believer, Matt. 18, 3. The need of continued conversion is based upon the fact that the regenerate are not fully sanctified, but retain the Old Adam, Heb. 12,1; Rom. 7, 21. 23, so that because of the sinfulness of their flesh and the manifold actual sins flowing therefrom they must live in “daily repentance,” Rom. 6, 3—6. It is this “daily repentance” with which “continued conversion” (continued regeneration, resuscitation, illumination) must be identified. (Poenitentia continuata sive quotidiana est dolor hominis iam conversi de residua ad peccandum proclivitate et vitiositate.) Holy Scripture distinguishes sharply between the first conversion (conversio prima), by which the unregenerate becomes a believer in Christ, and the continued conversion (conversio secunda) of the believer, 1 Pet. 2, 25 (cp. also v. 10), which extends throughout his life, Ps. 51,1—12. The conversio prima is complete when the believer is endowed with the first spark of faith (scintillula fidei), while his conversio secunda is never complete as long as he lives in this world, Rom. 7, 24. In the first conversion man is purely passive (mere passivus), but in the second he cooperates with the Holy Ghost according to the “new man” (; , Eph. 4, 24), implanted in him in his first conversion, Gal. 5,17. 24; Rom. 7, 22. 25. The second conversion must never be mingled with the first, as some synergists have done in the interest of denying the pure passive of the first conversion, by which the unregenerate becomes a believer. (Cp. Pieper, Christl. Dogmatik, II, 559 ff.) 11. REITERATED CONVERSION. (Conversio Reiterata.) It is a clear doctrine of Scripture that believers in Christ may fall from grace, or lose their faith, Luke 8,13.14; 1 Tim. 1,19. This is proved also by the examples of David and Peter. This truth must be emphasized over against the Calvinists, who affirm that believers, when committing mortal sins, lose indeed the exercise of faith (exercitium fidei), but not faith itself. Our Lutheran Confession strongly condemns this Calvinistic doctrine as unscriptural and pernicious. It says (Smalcald Art., III, 42): “If certain sectarists would arise … holding that all those who had once received the Spirit or the forgiveness of sins or had become believers, even though they should afterwards sin, would still remain in the faith and such sin would not harm them: … I have had before me many such insane men, and I fear that in some such a devil is still remaining.”
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if the term “free” is used in opposition to coercion, its application to conversion is justified, because conversion is that act of God by which He changes the unwilling into willing. (Ex nolentibus gratiam volentes gratiam facit.) But the term “free” may not be applied to conversion in the synergistic sense, that man before conversion is “neutral,” so that he can decide either for or against grace (ut possit velle aut non). With regard to man’s relation to God and His kingdom there is no neutrality; for man is either with or against Christ, Matt. 12, 30; Luke 9, 50. Luther writes: “Here there is no middle road; for we are necessarily either under the strong tyrant the devil, in his captivity, or under the Redeemer Christ in heaven…. Hence every man lives either with Christ against the devil or with the devil against Christ.” (St.L., VII, 172.) h. Man can cooperate in his conversion since he is capable of civil righteousness (iustitia civilis, probitas naturalis).
In answer to this argument we say that, while man by nature is indeed capable of civil righteousness (iustitia civilis), he is of himself incapable of spiritual righteousness (iustitia spiritualis). He may indeed refrain from gross sins outwardly, but inwardly he cannot truly love God nor rightly keep His commandments, since with all his external righteousness he does not believe the Gospel of Christ, but rather hates and resists it, 1 Cor. 2,14. The Pharisees gloried in their civil righteousness; yet Christ judged of them: “The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” Matt. 21, 31. In spite of their “civil righteousness” the “princes of this world … crucified the Lord of Glory,” 1 Cor. 2, 8. Even to the “best” Jews, Christ Crucified is a stumbling-block, and to the “best” Gentiles He is foolishness, 1 Cor. 1, 23, until they are converted, 1 Cor. 1, 24. i. Man is able to cooperate in his conversion since he can use the means of grace externally, that is, attend church, read the Bible, etc. We readily admit that man by nature can externally use the means of grace, as also the Formula of Concord declares (Thor. Decl., II, 53): “This Word man can externally hear and read, even though he is not yet converted to God and regenerate; for in these external things, as said above, man even since the Fall has to a certain extent a free will, so that he can go to church and hear or not hear the sermon.” Yet this external use of the means of grace does not presuppose any ability on the part of men to repent of their sins and believe in Christ; for even while they read or hear the Word, “the veil is upon their hearts,” 2 Cor. 3,15, which veil is “done away in Christ,” v. 14, that is, through faith in Christ, wrought by the Holy Spirit, vv. 16—18. j. If God alone works conversion in man, then it cannot be maintained that He really desires the salvation of all men; for actually He does not convert all.
To this we reply that Holy Scripture teaches both the sola gratia and the gratia universalis; that is, God alone converts and saves sinners, and He earnestly desires to save all sinners. Both doctrines must therefore be taught side by side without any modification or qualification of either of them. It is true, if this is done, the theologian is confronted with the perplexing problem, which human reason cannot solve, “Why, then, are not all saved?” (Cur alii, alii non? Cur alii prae aliis?) Calvinism solves the mystery by denying the universalis gratia; Synergism, by denying the sola gratia, whereas the theologian who is loyal to Scripture does not attempt any solution of the mystery at all, just as little as he endeavors to solve the mysteries involved in the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the personal union, the real presence, etc. Reason indeed argues thus: Since all men are in the same state of guilt (in eadem culpa) and only God, who earnestly desires to save all men (universalis gratia), can save sinners (sola gratia), the actual conversion of all men must needs follow. But the true theologian does not recognize reason as his principle of faith (principium cognoscendi); he is bound to Scripture as the only source and rule of faith, which, however, does not explain this crux theologorum.
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SYNONYMS OF CONVERSION.
In order that the way of salvation (ordo salutis), so clearly and simply set forth in God’s Word, may be presented in its Scriptural purity and truth, the theologian must fully understand in what relation conversion stands to regeneration, vivification, resuscitation, illumination, vocation, repentance, etc., all of which are terms which Scripture employs to describe the divine act of grace, by which the sinner is delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of Christ, Col. 1,13. Actually all these terms, in their restricted sense, are synonyms of conversion, so that the distinction between them and conversion is only nominal, or logical, and not at all real. The difference which they represent lies only in the point of view from which they depict the sinner’s return to God. a. Regeneration (regeneratio). Regeneration in its strict sense describes the new birth, John 3, 5. 6, which the sinner undergoes in his conversion, or the bestowal of new spiritual life through faith in Christ. According to Scripture every person is born of God who believes that Jesus is Christ, 1 John 5,1. The term therefore in its proper application is synonymous with conversion, Acts 11, 21. Hence we may say that the sinner who is converted is also regenerated, and vice versa, since the two terms designate one and the same act of the Holy Ghost, John 1,12.13. Luther writes: “Whoever believes in Christ … is born again, or born anew.” (St. L., VII, 1862.)
The instrumental means of regeneration is the Word of God, in particular the Gospel of Christ, 1 Pet. 1, 23, as also Baptism, Titus 3, 5, since the latter is water “comprehended in God’s command and connected with God’s word,” that is, with the gracious divine promise of remission of sins, Acts 2, 38. b. Vivification, or resuscitation (vivificatio, resuscitatio). Both terms designate the transplanting of the sinner from the state of spiritual death into the state of spiritual life, Eph. 2,1—9, through faith in Christ Jesus, Col. 2,11—13. Hence also these terms are synonyms of conversion. The Formula of Concord affirms (Thor. Decl., II, 87): “The conversion of our corrupt will is nothing else than a resuscitation of it from spiritual death.” In an unscriptural sense the term has been employed by both synergists and Pietists to denote a state, or condition, in which the sinner is indeed awakened to a sense of his guilt and to a desire for salvation through Christ, but is not yet converted because he has not yet decided to accept divine grace (status medius). However, according to Scripture all who are thus truly awakened (vivified, resuscitated) are already converted, Eph. 2, 5—8. It is true, the term awakened may be used correctly in the sense that a sinner has been alarmed by the Law, though not yet brought to faith in Christ through the Gospel. In that sense Felix, Acts 24, 25, and the jailer at Philippi, 16, 30, may be said to have been awakened. If used in this way, the “awakening” of the sinner belongs to the preparatory acts of conversion (actus praeparatorii), or to the assisting grace of God (gratia assist ens), which reacts upon the sinner merely from without (extrinsecus), as our dogmaticians have said.
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Repentance (poenitentia). The term repentance () is used in both a narrower and a wider sense. The Formula of Concord thus writes (Thor. Decl., V, 7. 8): “The term repentance is not employed in the Holy Scriptures in one and the same sense. For in some passages of Holy Scripture it is employed and taken for the entire conversion of man, as Luke 13, 5; 15, 7. But in this passage, Mark 1,15, as also elsewhere, where repentance and faith in Christ, Acts 20, 21, or repentance and remission of sins, Luke 24, 46. 47, are mentioned as distinct, to repent means nothing else than truly to acknowledge sins, to be heartily sorry for them, and to desist from them” (i. e., from outward motives of fear and punishment; cp. Judas). Thus the term denotes: a) contrition, or the knowledge of sin wrought by the Law (terrores conscientiae); this is the meaning of the word in all those passages in which repentance is distinguished from remission of sins, Luke 24, 47; b) contrition and faith, or the entire conversion of man, Luke 13, 5. In the latter sense the term repentance is a synonym of conversion. Baier writes of this distinction (III, 310): “Although repentance is sometimes used in a stricter sense for that part of conversion which is called contrition, yet often it is employed for the entire conversion.”
So also the Augsburg Confession describes repentance when it says (Art. XII): “Repentance properly consists of these two parts: One is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of the Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ’s sake sins are forgiven, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terrors.” The Augsburg Confession rightly adds that the good works which are bound to follow repentance are the fruits of repentance. Deinde sequi debent bona opera, quae sunt fructus poenitentiae. This important truth must be held against the error of the Romanists, who maintain that repentance consists of contrition, confession, and satisfaction (contritio cordis, confessio oris, satisfactio operis).
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Subjective justification may therefore be defined as the act of God by which He removes from the believer the sentence of condemnation to which he is subject because of his sin, releases him from his guilt, and ascribes to him the merit of Christ. Baier defines justification as “the act by which the sinner, who is responsible for guilt and liable to punishment (reus culpae et poenae), but who believes in Christ, is pronounced just by God, the Judge.” (Doctr. Theol, p. 424.)
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When defining justification by faith, we must bear in mind that justification by faith without works is based upon the justification of the whole world, secured by Christ’s vicarious satisfaction and offered to all men in the Gospel, Acts 10,43. Because of the objective justification (reconciliation) subjective justification takes place “freely,” Rom. 3, 24, no work on the sinner’s part being necessary to complete the justification of Christ. If the vicarious satisfaction of Christ is denied, no room is left for justification by faith.
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JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE. (Sola Fide.) According to the express teachings of Holy Scripture the believer is justified by faith alone (sola fide), without the deeds of the Law, Rom. 3, 28; 4, 5; Phil. 3, 9. Positively, Scripture affirms this truth by ascribing justification directly to faith, Rom. 3, 21—24, and negatively, by excluding from justification every work of man as a meritorious cause, Rom. 3, 27. Indeed, Scripture emphatically declares that all who would be justified by works are under the curse, Gal. 3,10, and it illustrates this fact by examples which leave no doubt as to the necessity of excluding human works from justification, Rom. 4,1—3; Luke 18, 9—14. According to Scripture the attempt on the part of man to secure justification by his own efforts is “zeal not according to knowledge,” Rom. 10, 2, and the insistence upon good works as necessary for salvation “a doctrine of the flesh,” Gal. 3, 2. 3. On the other hand, it is the characteristic teaching of the Christian religion, which is of God, that sinners are justified before God solely by faith, without works, Gal. 1, 8; 5, 4. 5.
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The doctrine of justification by faith, without the deeds of the Law, presupposes as necessary postulates a) objective justification, or the doctrine that Christ through His vicarious atonement has secured reconciliation for the whole world; b) universal grace (gratia universalis), or the doctrine that God earnestly desires the salvation of all men; c) salvation by grace alone (sola gratia), or the doctrine that the sinner is saved without any preceding, present, or subsequent human works; d) the means of grace (media gratiae), or the doctrine that the Word of God and the Sacraments are the gracious means by which God offers and conveys to men the forgiveness of sins and righteousness which Christ has secured by His death (media ). All who deny these doctrines (Romanists, Calvinists, synergists) cannot consistently teach the Scriptural doctrine of justification by faith, since the rejection of these teachings invariably leads to the teaching of work-righteousness. ”
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From Kleinig, John. Grace Upon Grace: Spirituality for Today: “What do faith and a good conscience have to do with fighting the good fight? Faith unites us with the risen Lord Jesus. By faith in Him and His promises we receive our redemption and deliverance from the evil one. By faith in Him we are cleansed from guilt and the stain of sin. By faith in Him we, who once faced the sentence of death in the divine court, have been pardoned and acquitted by God the Father. So there is now no condemnation for us since we are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Since we are united with Christ, we share in His victory over Satan. Our Lord has given us His authority to trample down all unclean spirits as well as His power over our archenemy, Satan; he cannot ever harm us by falsely discounting our justification (Luke 10:17–19).2 So as long as we have faith in Christ, we have a good conscience before God the Father. We can be certain of His approval and acceptance of us. The truth of this helps us to comprehend the strategy of Satan and his tactics with us. He knows that the only way that he can get at us is by estranging us from Christ. To achieve that goal he needs to undermine our faith in Christ and its foundation, the forgiveness of sins and our acceptance by God the Father. So he works on our conscience, a conscience that has been sensitized to the demands of God’s Law and the promises of His grace. Satan arouses a bad conscience by accusing us of sin and condemning us as sinners. In this way he insinuates himself into our conscience and tries to displace Christ from it. His ultimate goal is to destroy our faith in Christ and to usurp His place secretly in us. The upshot of Satan’s strategy with us as Christians is that the conscience is the battlefield, the place where we fight the good fight. The main battle is not waged out there in the world, but right here in our souls. Here in our conscience we “fight the good fight” by “holding faith and a good conscience.” That fight is not won by going on a crusade against the forces of darkness and their strongholds in the world around us. Instead, it is won by retaining and using what we have received from God, faith in Christ and the good conscience that comes through faith in Christ.
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The first of the weapons we have against Satan is “the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 12:11). Jesus is the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. By His blood He atones for the sins of all people, just as the blood of the lamb that was offered as a daily sacrifice at the temple atoned for the sins of the Israelites. With His blood He purchased people from all nations on earth for God the Father as His royal priesthood (5:11). That blood cleanses them from the stain of sin and abuse and gives them a good conscience.5 That blood washes their priestly robes so that they are white and holy, like the blood-sprinkled vestments of the priests in the old covenant.6 The most holy blood of Christ consecrates us as the royal priesthood of God the Father.7 When we drink the blood of the Lamb in Holy Communion, it does not just sprinkle our bodies, like the priests at the temple; it sprinkles our hearts and our conscience so that we are holy through and through.8 It covers us with Christ’s righteousness and purity and holiness. It is our holy spiritual armor, our sure protection against Satan and all the powers of darkness. He may kill our bodies, but he cannot kill our souls. By drinking Jesus’ blood and trusting in it for our deliverance and safety, we overcome Satan. The second weapon against Satan is our “word of testimony” (Revelation 12:11). This is closely connected with “the testimony of Jesus” (12:17; 19:10). By his use of this term, St. John refers to two things: the witness of Jesus to Himself (1:2) and the witness of the apostles to that self-witness of Jesus (6:9).9 That testimony is now contained in the books of the New Testament. Our word of testimony is our confession of faith in Jesus as the Lamb of God. That is our chief weapon against Satan and all the powers of darkness. By our testimony and the blood of Jesus, Satan is undone, and our spiritual warfare is won.
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Just as the Divine Service starts with the remembrance of Baptism in the Invocation and in the rite of Confession and Absolution, so our devotions begin with Baptism and build on that foundation. Baptism takes us from our earthly journey with its dead end in death and sets us on the way of the Lord, the holy way that leads from earth to heaven. That journey begins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. These are the most holy names that were spoken over us in Baptism. They make us saints, holy members of God’s holy family. So the journey begins with God and not with us. He reaches out to us in Baptism. Through Baptism Christ cleanses us by the washing of water with the Word (Ephesians 5:26) and sanctifies us with His Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11). Baptism joins us with Christ; it gets us going on a journey with Him, His holy way. And so each day in our devotions we start once again there with Him at the beginning of our holy journey. For us, that journey has to do with the confession of our sins and prayer for forgiveness. Since we are by nature sinful and unclean, we cannot safely enter into God’s holy presence as we are because the light of His holiness would destroy us in the darkness of our impurity. If we came before Him as unclean sinners, we would desecrate His holiness and be undone by it. God provides His solution to that problem through our union with Christ in Baptism. Christ has taken on our sin with its impurity and put our old polluted self to death by His death so that He could share His own perfect purity and holiness with us. So, as we come before God each day in prayer, we submit to His scrutiny and own up to the evil things that we have done. As we confess our sins, we put them on Christ’s shoulders. We also pray for pardon and cleansing. His forgiveness makes us pure in heart and righteous before God the Father; it unlocks the door of heaven for sinners and admits us, covered with Christ’s own holiness, into the Father’s presence. As we begin our devotions, we step out once again onto the holy way of the Lord by recalling our Baptism, returning to our Holy Father in repentance like the prodigal son, and receiving full cleansing from all impurity. As we come into the Father’s presence, He regards us as people who are clothed in Christ and dressed up in His holiness. He welcomes us warmly and says, “You are my beloved son; you are my beloved daughter; with you I am well-pleased.” STANDING ON HOLY GROUND When we hear of the holy way, we think, most naturally, of the way that we must travel as we go from earth to heaven. And that is not wrong! Yet, that is not its main direction. First and foremost, the holy way is the way by which the triune God comes from heaven to earth to join us in our journey from birth to death and to admit us to heaven even as we are here on earth. Like Jacob’s ladder, this way brings God and His angels down to us (Genesis 28:10–17; John 1:51). So we do not need to travel on the holy way in order to become holy; we travel on it because we are already saints. Like the angels, we stand in God’s presence and share in His holiness. By faith we all have the same holy status as the angels; we form one single community with them and the whole Church on earth and heaven. Though Jesus we have access to God the Father in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). Although we are holy in Christ and have access to the Father through Him, we do not approach God the Father directly as if we had a natural right to do so. Rather, we come as beggars before Him and plead for help. We have nothing to give and everything to receive. All that we ever receive from God the Father comes to us through Jesus, our intercessor and advocate. We depend on Him for everything. Apart from Jesus, we are helpless before God the Father. Jesus alone is holy. We borrow our holiness and everything else from Him. He is our great High Priest. He takes up our cause and ushers us as His holy blood brothers and sisters into the presence of the holy heavenly King. Our dependence on Christ shapes our practice of spirituality profoundly. Jesus does not just set us up on our own two feet by making us right with God the Father and by showing us how to travel through life by ourselves as children of God. He joins us where we are on our earthly journey and gets us to join with Him in His journey. He does everything for us and gives everything to us. He represents us before the Father; listens to the voice of His Father on our behalf, intercedes with the Father for us, and He overcomes the powers of darkness as our champion. He now includes us in all that. Jesus invites us to approach the Father in faith with Him, standing as it were in His shoes; He invites us to meditate on the Word of the Father with Him, guided by His Spirit; He invites us to pray to the Father with Him, using His holy name; He invites us to resist the devil with Him, borrowing armor from Him. In our spirituality we dress up in Jesus and impersonate Him. We do everything in His name and by the power of His Holy Spirit. Apart from Him, we can accomplish nothing spiritually. With Him, we earthlings stand on holy ground before God the Father in the heavenly sanctuary together with the whole communion of saints. He brings heaven to earth for us so that we can live heavenly lives with Him here on earth.”
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From Jones, Ken. A Lutheran Toolkit: “no longer will your identity and future be dependent on your past, your actions, your failures and foibles, your good intentions, or your deciding anything about Jesus. Instead, this baptismal life is eschatological. It comes crashing in from the future. In baptism, the judgment that God will make on you on the Last Day is declared well in advance. The baptismal life is how the predestination Paul points to in Romans 8 works. God’s promise will not be thwarted. If this is what God’s doing in baptism, then confessing your sins and hearing the absolution is merely a continuation of the present tense life of baptism. And so is the Lord’s Supper. Among many congregations today, there’s been some debate about whether it’s kosher to issue an open invitation to everyone present, baptized or not, to take part in Communion. But if the delivery of the promise of forgiveness of sins in the sacrament is an extension of the baptismal life, then the Lord’s Supper is a sacrament intended to nourish that baptismal relationship. The Lord’s Supper is for the baptized. This isn’t exclusionary. In fact, it’s exactly how things worked in the early church. Everyone was welcome to take part in the worship service, but when they got to Communion, those who weren’t baptized left. This was an evangelistic practice that we’re hard put to understand in a society bent on individual freedom and instant gratification. But the purpose here was to say, “We want you to be a part of this, so let’s talk about baptism. And then when you’ve been linked to Christ’s death and resurrection, those promises will be nurtured in this way.” Really, the best way to live your baptismal life is to take a look at yourself and say, “Ah, crap! I did it again. I’m powerless over myself. I’m thankful you’re at the wheel, Jesus, because I’m a horrible driver of my life.” Or as Luther said in the Small Catechism, baptism means that “the old creature in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily contrition and repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”1 In the very first thesis of the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther said, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”2 Baptism is ongoing. It’s not a once-and-done kind of thing. It’s constantly returning to your Lord for forgiveness and freedom. When Luther began writing “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” he initially said there were three sacraments: penance (confession and absolution), baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. But by the end of his treatise, he’d eliminated penance from the list. He saw it as merely an extension of the ongoing relationship established in baptism. Christians need to keep clinging to the very promise declared in the water and the word: you are mine and you are forgiven for Christ’s sake. That’s why it’s so hard for pastors when members approach them to ask if they could get the grandkids baptized when they come home for Thanksgiving. Their kids seem to have turned their back on the church these members raised them in and treat the faith as meaningless. They come to the pastor out of great love and concern for the grandchildren, wanting to make sure the little ones don’t go to hell because they haven’t been baptized. Surely baptizing those kids is not to be denied. Why would anyone ever want to prevent this gift from being given? But a pastor also has to think about the post-dunking life of faith. How will the promises delivered in the baptism be continually given so that faith in them grows? Baptism isn’t magic, and we ought not treat it superstitiously. It’s not the absence of the sacrament that condemns us; it’s our contempt for the promise attached to it that keeps us from having what the sacrament wants to give. When grandparents have come to me, I’ve always said, “Yes, we’ll baptize those wonderful kids.” And then I follow it by saying, “And when we do, you need to know you’re committing to making sure in every way possible that those grandbabies keep hearing about their baptism and about what Jesus has done for them.” Isn’t that why we light a candle and give it to the one baptized, even adults? We encourage them to live for others: “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” But really what we’re doing with the candle is giving them an annual reminder of the promise: “Jesus is the light of the world. He claimed you in your baptism.” And if you want to be reminded even more frequently of what God has declared about you, then when you’re standing naked in the shower, make the sign of the cross and say out loud, “I am baptized.” Because you are. The next time you pass a baptismal font, dip a finger in the font, make a cross on your forehead, and say those words: “I am baptized.” You can count on it because the one who made the promise, Jesus Christ crucified, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
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From Gerberding, G. H. (George Henry). The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church : “The Bible does indeed speak of those born of God sinning not, not committing sin, etc. But this can only mean that they do not wilfully sin. They do not intentionally live in habits of sin. Their sins are sins of weakness and not sins of malice. They repent of them, mourn over them, and strive against them. They constantly pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." But their heart-purity and sanctification are only relative. Sanctification is gradual and progressive. We have seen that Paul thus expressed himself. He was constantly "following after," "reaching forth," "pressing toward" the mark. He exhorts the Corinthians, 2 Cor. vii. 1, to be "perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord," and again, 2 Cor. iii. 18, to be "changed into the same image from glory to glory." He tells them in chapter iv. 16 that "the inward man is renewed day by day." He exhorts the saints or believers, again and again, "to grow," "to increase," "to abound yet more and more." Growth is the law of the kingdom of nature. And the same God operates in the kingdom of Grace, and, indeed, much after the same order. Our Saviour, therefore, so often compares the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of Grace, to growth from a seed, where it is "first the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear," Mark iv. 26-29.”
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From Regin Prenter, “Spiritus Creator”: “The problem is more than a specious one, it is the fundamental problem of the theology of the knowledge and consciousness of sin, which gave the young Luther the most unspeakable agonies. When the self in its self-condemnation will put itself and its own pride to death, does it gain anything other than that the pride and egocentricity move from the real self, the object of mortification, into the subject of the act of mortification? And does this not give us the most refined form of pride: the publican’s pride of humility and self-accusation? This was a real problem for Luther, for it was the whole problem of monastic piety. The only solution to the problem is that the subject of the act of self-condemnation is not the natural self of man, but God himself, who in the act of self-condemnation makes himself the master in man. Odium sui or condemnatio sui is in reality no human act, but a suffering (passio) under the effective judgment of God. This is Luther’s solution to the problem of the knowledge of sin. The Holy Spirit himself is the subject of the self-condemnatory act. We have seen how Luther described odium sui as a unity with God in his judgment of sin and the sinner. This unity is not effected by man’s lifting himself in such a way that he can view the judgment of God, but by the presence of the judging God himself as a power in man, a power which has the effect that man accepts the judgment as his own judgment. It is this presence of God that is the Holy Spirit.
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Resignatio ad infernum does not become the proof of the fact that man is now fit soon to receive grace and the Spirit, but of the fact that man already has grace and the Spirit. Only in conformitas Christi, which is wholly the work of the Spirit, is it possible for a man seriously (and not just as a spiritual exercise) to desire to go to hell at the command of God. Therefore it is possible for Luther to declare that it is impossible for such a man to go to hell. For the man who in all things wants to do what God wants is one with God. This we are able to see in Christ. Resignatio ad infernum is for Luther not a product of the imagination but first and foremost a historic reality in the descent of Christ into hell.
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When God begins his work in men, those who are dominated by the spirit of bondage again unto fear (Rom. 8:15) will say: God acts as a tyrant, he is not a father but an opponent. And it is true that God is our opponent. But these people do not know that we must agree with this opponent for then he becomes kind and fatherly—otherwise he never will. The relation to God does not mean that he agrees with us and changes himself according to our desires so that we may become his friends and sons. No, God is our opponent in the sense that to our dismay he lets everything happen contrary to our wishes and desires in spite of our prayers. When God begins to do his will, he exposes everything in man, what he has of both inward and outward glory, makes him completely perplexed and leads him into the darkness of inner conflict, where it is impossible either to know or to love God. In this darkness he finally takes away from him even the word of comfort which in the time of inner conflict can assure him that God only for a season has forsaken him. The words of Christ can be used about this darkness: that except the Lord had shortened the days no flesh would have been saved. Thus it is to be made to conform to the will of God in the crucified Christ; thus it is to be under the operatio of God. This is a theologia crucis which also is a theology of inner conflict.
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For Luther inner conflict is not a psychologically abnormal state, a disease of the mind which the pastor should try to remove if possible, but it is a means in the hand of God to reveal man’s true state when he is away from God, man’s state under the wrath of God.
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In these inner conflicts the sinner experiences the wrath of God in his conscience, so that God as the gracious one and Christ as the revelation of the grace of God completely hides himself, while death and hell and all creation assail man.
There is hardly another writing in which Luther so persistently describes the pangs of inner conflect as in operationes in Psalmos, 1519-21. Here there is a psychology of inner conflict to which there is no comparison.
The cause of inner conflict is guilt. Unpardonable guilt lays hold of the conscience in inner conflict so that man knows he is under the eternal and irrevocable condemnation of God, stricken from the book of life forever. … This torturing experience of the wrath of God in a guilty conscience becomes one with the anguish of death and hell. There is in reality no difference between death and hell and the reality of the wrath of God in one’s conscience. Hell is the terror of death itself which always accompanies it, the experience of the eternal and inevitable punishment. If not before death then in death we shall experience this struggle with Satan, yes, with God himself and the whole creation. There is no possibility of escape in this struggle. Man has been forced into a narrow pass from which there is no way out at all.
In this pass terrible temptations beset the troubled soul. Ultimately the result is blasphemy, the desire that God were someone else, or that he did not exist. The most dangerous of all conflicts is lurking there—that caused by the idea of predestination. But when the believer suffers these inner conflicts he is to know that they are also part of his training by which he is made to conform to the will of God in Christ and by which he comes under the operation of God. For Christ has also suffered the pangs of hell, yes, even the temptation of blasphemy. The inner conflicts, therefore, are the work of God, although as long as this is hidden from the anxious soul it is Satan who dominates in the conflict and who tries to separate the sinner from God. But God pursues his own aim in the conflict. God is not really angry, and he does not desire that man’s sin should be unpardonable. But through the cross of inner conflict God wants to teach us to hope only in his pure mercy. Like every other cross and all other work of wrath in the believer, the inner conflicts are God’s opus alienum, which prepares the way for his opus proprium. He takes all peace away from the conscience in order to give it peace. This is the order of the salvation of God. He puts to death before he makes alive. Our will cannot be made to conform to the will of God unless it is first put to death. Therefore it becomes even more pronounced here than before that the love to God which yields itself to his will is not an active yearning and is not like the Augustinian caritas a continuation of our appetitus boni, but a process of suffering and endurance as God establishes his work. When the work of God is the cross, pleasing God becomes the same as enduring the marvelous work of God in his saints. As the mystics put it faith, hope, and love to God mean walking into darkness, being driven and led by the Word of God, persistent suffering, a narrow and strait way, a steady and increasing impotence. But it is a way on which the sinner is gladly led, because it is God’s way, which Christ has dedicated and hallowed by traveling it first himself. In the storm of inner conflict we must learn to know that God, who as our protector forsakes us, as our helper permits us to suffer, and as our Saviour judges us.
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When the sinner groans for sighs that cannot be uttered in spite of the darkness of trial, in the midst of the excruciating experience of the wrath of God and the terror of hell, and out through his rebellious blasphemy against God, then this greatest love to God, which groans for God in the midst of the hatred of death and hell to God, is not possible for man. It is not man himself who calls upon his last resources in a final religious effort, it is not man’s inward soul that appears, but it is God himself who, as the subject of this greatest act of love, is truly present in us, it is the Holy Spirit himself who, as our helper and comforter, groans in us and for us. Now for the first time we understand what it means that the Holy Spirit is the subject for odium sui and the realization of the true conformity wiht Christ. And for the first time we understand what Luther means by totus homo.
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The ‘infused grace’ of which Luther constantly speaks can no longer be understood as a caritas which supplements and sublimates the indwelling idealistic urge in man, his amor boni, but as the actual fusion of God’s opus alienum and his opus proprium, his dying and creating work of redemption. Luther therefore speaks of the infusion in such a way that the death of the old man is God’s gift as much as the new life. Grace considered from the point of view of the idea of conformity means the fusion of God’s deadly opus alienum and his life-giving opus proprium. Thus the idea of justification by grace considered as a new nature mediated through the sacrament has become impossible in principle.
As a summary of this first impression of the young Luther’s claim about the Holy Spirit we may conclude: Luther no longer thinks of the Holy Spirit in terms of the scholastic tradition as a trasncendent cause of a new (supernatural) nature in man producing infused grace (i.e. caritas—the sublimated idealistic urge). The Holy Spirit is instead proclaimed as the real presence of God. God himself as the Spirit is really present in the groanings of the anxious and tempted soul held in the grip of death and hell. Luther sternly and firmly contends that everything outside of God himself in the inner conflict allies itself with wrath against the sinner. No form of divine power other than that of God’s own presence is available for the sinner in this conflict. No infused grace can groan for man with unutterable groanings. No one but God himself is able to do that (p. 19).
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From Johann Gerhard, On the Gospel and Repentance : “The apprehending instrument. § 33. Faith is established as the apprehending instrument of the promises of the Gospel. But it must be noted that faith is related to the Gospel in two ways: (1) As an effect; that is, through the word of the Gospel the Holy Spirit kindles faith in people’s hearts. “So faith comes from what is heard, but what is heard comes by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). As the light sprang forth from the Word of God in the first creation, so also in the recreating and repair of man the light of faith springs forth from the lights of the Gospel in the hearts [of men]. “For it is God who commanded: ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). (2) As an instrument; that is, through faith we apprehend the good things offered in the Gospel and apply them to ourselves so that there is a constant relation between the offering instrument and the apprehending instrument, between the gift and its acceptance, between the promise of grace and its trusting apprehension. “The message which they heard did not benefit them because it was not mixed with faith” (Heb. 4:2). That is why this is immediately added to the command to preach the Gospel: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16).
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The effects and goods that the Gospel offers for and bestows on believers are many and varied, though all are divine and worthy of the highest valuation, for the Gospel reveals God’s plan for our salvation (Matt. 11:[25]), and for this reason it is called “the revelation of the mystery” (Rom. 16:25). It provides faith, stirs it up, and strengthens it (Rom. 10:17), and for this reason it is called “the word of faith” (1 Tim. 4:6). It brings the grace of God and reconciliation with God (John 1:17), and for this reason it is called “the word of grace” (Luke 4:22). It gives regeneration (James 1:18), and for this reason it is called “the good seed” (Matt. 13:37); the forgiveness of sins (Luke 1:77), and for this reason it is called “the good word of God” (Heb. 6:5); righteousness which stands firm in the judgment of God (Rom. 4:5), the fulfillment of the Law of Moses (Rom. 10:4), the fellowship of the divine nature (1 Pet. 1:4), the adoption of sons (John 1:12), healing from spiritual ills (Matt. 9:12), and for this reason it is called “healthy speech” (Titus 2:8). It gives spiritual life (John 15:5), and for this reason it is called “the word of life” (Phil. 2:16); joy and peace of conscience (Acts 13:48), and for this reason it is called “the Gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15); comfort in all trials and persecutions (2 Thess. 2:16), freedom from the law of sin and death, from the curse of the Law (Rom. 8:2), the gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:2), and for this reason it is called “the ministry of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:8); trust in prayer (Gal. 4:6), new obedience which pleases God (Gal. 3:5), the inheritance of eternal life and salvation (John 3:36), and for this reason it is called “the Gospel of salvation” (Eph. 1:13).
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Furthermore, these are the salutary effects of the Gospel: that it provides reconciliation with God, remission of sins, righteousness, peace of conscience, and eternal life. They are attributed to the Gospel only with respect to its instrumental cause. Indeed, the efficacy of the doctrine of the Gospel depends on the work of the Holy Spirit, who is efficacious in people’s hearts through the word of the Gospel. Just as manna fell with the dew (Exod. 16:[14–15]), so also the dew of divine grace is conjoined with the manna of the doctrine of the Gospel (Isa. 55:10). That is why the Gospel is called “the power of God unto salvation for all who believe” (Rom. 1:16); “the word of the cross,” that is, the Gospel of Christ crucified, “is the power of God to those who are being saved” (1 Cor. 1:[18]). In the same sense and respect it is called “the scepter of divine power” (Ps. 110:2). It really is the living and efficacious instrument of divine power through which Christ administers His kingdom of grace in the hearts of those who believe…
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On the basis of the previously cited declarations of Scripture, the following affirmative corollaries expressing the difference between the two testaments result. (1) The old and new testaments differ in the time of their promulgation. The former was promulgated at the time of Israel’s departure from Egypt (Jer. 31:32), but the latter at the end of time (Isa. 2:2; Mic. 2:4). (2) They differ in the place of their promulgation. The old was promulgated on Mount Horeb in the wilderness of Sinai (Exod. 19:18), but the new went out from Zion and Jerusalem (Isa. 2:2; Gal. 4:24, [26]). (3) They differ in mediator. As mediator the old testament had Moses (Deut. 5:5). The Mediator of the new testament is Christ (Heb. 8:6; 9:15). (4) They differ in their mode of promulgation. The old testament was promulgated by the ministry of angels amid thunder, lightning, and terrors (Exod. 19:16; Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19). But the new testament was promulgated in this way: God Himself came down from heaven and lifted up the hearts of people by the pleasing preaching of the Gospel. Augustine (on John, tractate 3): “The Law He sent by His servant; with grace He Himself came down.” (5) They differ in their contents and promises. The old testament consisted in the solemn promulgation of the moral Law (and as a result the tablets of the Decalogue are called “the tablets of the covenant,” Deut. 9:11, 15; the Ten Words written on them are called “the words of the covenant,” Exod. 34:28; the Book of the Law is called “the scroll of the covenant,” Exod. 24:7; Deut. 29:21), and it had joined to it an almost countless multitude of laws, rites, and ceremonies. But the new testament contains the solemn promulgation of the Gospel and has rites much fewer in number, much easier to observe, and much more majestic in understanding, and for this reason Irenaeus (bk. 3, ch. 12, p. 196) calls the new testament “[the covenant] of freedom.” The old testament had specific promises about settling the land of Canaan and preserving its polity. It also had spiritual and eternal promises, but under the condition of keeping the Law. But the new testament has the free promise of salvation for the sake of the revealed Christ, and it promises physical goods in general, with the exception of the cross. (6) They differ in the manner of dedication. The old testament was dedicated with the blood of animals (Exod. 24:5); but the new, with the blood of the Son of God (Zech. 9:11). Also, since the blood of animals with which the old testament was dedicated was a type of the blood of Christ, with which the new testament was going to be dedicated, therefore in this sense and respect the Law is said to have “a shadow of the good things to come, not the true image of those things” (Heb. 10:1). Indeed, the legal rituals were “a shadow of what is to come; but the body is of Christ” (Col. 2:17). (7) They differ in the subject of their writing. The old testament, with regard to the moral Law, whose solemn promulgation was its main part, is said to have been engraved on stone tablets (Exod. 31:18; Deut. 9:10). But the new testament is written by the Spirit of God in the hearts of believers (Jer. 31:33; 2 Cor. 3:3). (8) They differ in the breadth of their embrace. The old testament was established with the children of Israel and was therefore closed in by the narrow borders of Jewish territory (Deut. 5:3). The new extends as broadly as the entire world reaches (Matt. 28:19). (9) They differ in duration. The old testament has been abrogated, but the new continues forever (Heb. 8:13; 10:9). (10) They differ in excellence and dignity, for in clear words the new is said to be better than the old (Heb. 7:22; 8:6). The reason for its excellence can be learned from the rest of the chief points of difference. (11) They differ in their effects. The old testament was “the letter which kills, the ministry of death and condemnation, giving birth unto bondage” (2 Cor. 3:6[–11]; Gal. 4:[24–]25), namely, because of the corruption of our nature. But the new is “the spirit which gives life, the ministry of righteousness, of the Spirit, and of life, leading to freedom.” As a result we have this well-known statement of St. Augustine (Contra Adimant. Manich.): “The clearest and briefest difference between the two testaments: fear and love.”
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We also add this argument. The promise of grace is common to all peoples, but each testament is proper to individual peoples: the former, to the Jews; the latter, to the Christians. Thus we concede that the promise of grace is one, the way of salvation is one, faith is one, etc.; but we deny that it follows from this that the substance of both testaments is the same when taken according to the wording and definition of Scripture.
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All the free forgiveness of sins, righteousness, and eternal life are offered and presented to those who truly believe in Christ the Mediator, to the salvation of mankind and to the glory of God. To God, the eternal Father, who has spoken to us in these latter days of the world through His Son and who has established the same as our Mediator and Suppliant, be praise, honor, and glory forever. With the word of His Gospel may He effectively lift up and sustain our hearts in all temptations and in the very hour of our death. Amen.
“Repentance” is used in different ways in the respect in which it is attributed to human beings. Absolutely and in general it means a change of any purpose and intent. God did not lead the Israelites by the closest way, “lest they repent” (Exod. 13:17). “God is not like a man, that He should repent” (1 Sam. 15:29), that is, that He should change His purpose and intent, the way people generally do, whom Plato thus calls “changeable creatures” [εὐμετάβολα ζῶα]. Properly and particularly the word “repentance” is used for the conversion of man to God, and this, in two ways. First, for the external acts and signs of conversion, whether that conversion is serious or pretended. Manasseh was in distress and chains, prayed to the Lord, and repented very much (2 Chron. 33:12); that is, he bore witness of his serious conversion and humiliation with outward signs and actions. “If mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes” (Matt. 11:21). Second, it is used for the inner movements of conversion and repentance from which those outward actions stem, and this again, in two ways. First, according to the whole, for the entire act of conversion. “Thus says the Lord: ‘If that nation repents of its evil, I shall also repent’ ” (Jer. 18:8). Christ says, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:13). He gave the Gentiles “repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18). Second, according to a part, to refer to contrition alone, which is the first part of repentance. “Repent and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). “I testified to Jews and to Greeks: repentance toward God and faith in Christ” (Acts 20:21). The meaning and origin of the word leans more to the latter meaning, but the usage of Scripture and the church leans more to the former. Furthermore, from the following rules it will become clear whether the word “repentance” should be taken according to the whole or a part. When the effects of the remission of sins, of divine grace, of the turning aside or the easing of punishments, of life and eternal salvation are attributed to repentance, and yet faith is not clearly mentioned, then repentance must be understood to mean the entire work of conversion. On the other hand, when faith in Christ is connected in clear words to repentance, then the word “repentance” means only the one part, namely, contrition. Those are the more important meanings of the word. There is a unique usage in Heb. 12:17, where it is used passively for a change of an earlier deed: “Esau did not find a place of repentance”; that is, he was unable to get his father, Isaac, to pronounce on him the blessing given wrongly to Jacob.
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If “repentance” is taken to mean not only internal conversion but also the external signs and profession of the inner conversion to God, it can be divided into ordinary or common daily repentance and extraordinary or special repentance of a certain time. Ordinary repentance is that repentance to which each and every adult, even those who have been reborn through Word and Baptism, must pay attention throughout the course of life because of the remnants of original sin and their daily weaknesses. In this regard: “The righteous person falls and rises again seven times a day” (Prov. 24:16). Again, the entire life of a devout person is nothing else but constant repentance and consists not only of internal conversion—that is, serious contrition and faith—but also external signs which immediately follow inner conversion, provided it is true and serious, among which signs the humble confession of sins is prominent. With regard to its objects, the confession occurs either before God or before one’s neighbor. Many statements of Scripture speak about confession in the presence of God, especially 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all iniquity.” This confession of sins before God happens either privately, when anyone confesses his sins and asks for forgiveness of them when he is away from others—as, for example, the publican (Luke 18:13)—or it happens publicly and jointly, when the entire assembly of the church, led by the pastor, confesses its sins to God and asks for forgiveness, as, for example, the Israelites (Lev. 16:21). James 5:16 speaks about the confession of sins in the presence of one’s neighbor: “Confess your sins to one another.” For since it is easy to offend one’s neighbor by words and deeds, therefore it is fitting that out of true and sincere love we confess our errors and beg mercy for them.
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The principal efficient cause of true and salutary repentance is God alone or, what is the same, the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and does not act in the work of conversion with a separate power but with the same power that is of the Father and of the Son. Thus it amounts to the same thing whether you say that God is the cause of repentance or that this work must be ascribed to the Holy Spirit. That is why the work of conversion is particularly attributed to the Holy Spirit in some statements of Scripture, because the ministry of the Word through which God works repentance in the hearts of people is called “the ministry of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:8). And as the work of creation is attributed to the Father and redemption is attributed to the Son, so sanctification is attributed to the Holy Spirit, though the Son and the Holy Spirit have not been excluded from creation, nor the Father and the Holy Spirit from redemption, nor the Father and the Son from sanctification.
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The instrumental cause of repentance is the Word of God, because the Holy Spirit works the salutary conversion of a sinner to God not immediately but mediately: through the word of Law, so that in this way He may reveal sin, announce God’s wrath, and strike terror into consciences; but through the Gospel He lifts up terrified minds by showing them Christ the Mediator and by kindling faith in Him. The two parts of repentance—contrition and faith—arise in this way. Therefore the proper and particular instrument of contrition is the preaching of the Law, to which pertain public and private calamities, which are, so to speak, “sermons in action” [reales conciones] about the hatefulness of sins and God’s wrath against them; so also meditation on Christ’s sufferings and death, which has the function of a very clear mirror from which we can recognize the gravity of God’s wrath against sins. The proper instrument to kindle faith is the Gospel, which is the preaching of the free promise of the forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ, who is the Mediator, who died on the altar of the cross for our sins. This faith is followed by an intent for a better life and by a new obedience which produces fruits worthy of repentance [Acts 26:20], about which more will be said in the specific explanation of all this [§§ 118–36].
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It is easily seen that there are two proper and essential parts of repentance, namely, contrition and faith. This is confirmed in general with these arguments. (1) Repentance is a conversion, and for this reason it is called ּתְׁשּובָה [“return”] in Hebrew. But now, every conversion takes place between two limits, one of which is called the “starting point” [terminus a quo], and the other, the “ending point” [terminus ad quem]. Therefore repentance also has these two limits. The starting point is sins and a badly conducted life; from the consideration of them come grief and contrition. The ending point is God; confidence in His mercy promised for Christ the Mediator’s sake lifts a man’s heart. It is obvious from this that there are two parts of repentance, namely, contrition and faith.
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However many chief kinds of heavenly doctrine there are, by whose ministry the Holy Spirit preaches true and salutary repentance and works the same in the hearts of men, there are that many parts of repentance. But now, there are two chief kinds of heavenly doctrine through which the Holy Spirit preaches and works repentance, namely, the Law and the Gospel, as is very evident and as can easily be proven from a sufficient listing of the other points of doctrine. Therefore there are two essential parts of repentance. The logical sequence of the major premise is obvious because each of these doctrines has its own unique and proper effect in converting a person. Although these two effects are different from each other, nevertheless they come together jointly to establish one common effect of repentance. The Law produces grief as it reveals the hatefulness of sin and God’s wrath against sin and accuses a person because of his transgression. The Gospel proclaims that Christ, who died on the altar of the cross for our sins, is the Mediator for a terrified and contrite person. Here should be placed the following statements of Scripture. “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to hell and brings back again” (1 Sam. 2:6). “The Lord chastising has chastised me, but He has not delivered me over to death” (Ps. 118:18). “My soul has fainted from distress; strengthen me.” (Ps. 119:28). “He does His strange work [opus alienum] that He may do His own [proprium]” (Isa. 28:21). “He dwells in the holy place and with a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isa. 57:15). The Lord lashes and cures. “In their tribulation, says the Lord, they will seek Me early in the morning, saying, Come, let us return to the Lord because He has struck us and will cure us” (Hosea 6:1[–2]). “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you” (Matt. 11:28). In these statements, “killing,” “striking,” “chastising,” etc., mean contrition; and “making alive,” “curing,” and “refreshing” express faith, which finds life, healing, and rest in Christ.
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Historical faith precedes contrition, but saving faith follows contrition, for God does not forgive unless we acknowledge our sins; He does not cover our sins unless we first uncover them; He does not console unless we weep. “He does not pour out His mercy except into a contrite and broken vessel,” as Bernard says (Annunt., sermon 3, col. 133). Christ speaks the Gospel, but “to the poor”; He consoles, but only “those who weep” (Isa. 61:1; Matt. 11:5; Luke 4:18). (2) Bellarmine, who knows no faith other than historical faith, calls this saving faith “Luther’s fiction.” But the contrary will be demonstrated in its own place [On Justification through Faith (Commonplace XIX), §§ 73, 110, 134]. (3) The example of the Ninevites and the explanation adduced from this prove only that historical faith precedes repentance, something we are quite willing to concede. In fact, we even add that saving and justifying faith sometimes comes before repentance, especially if repentance is used to mean the daily mortification of the flesh in the reborn by which they acknowledge and deplore the stains of sin and the daily infirmities still clinging to the flesh, ask that these be forgiven them by faith in Christ, and mortify the actions of the flesh by His Spirit. One may call this “the repentance of the reborn and upright,” which is the fruit of faith, for those who are of Christ have crucified the flesh with its lusts (Gal. 5:24). But the situation is different in the case of those who are not yet reborn and those who have fallen into mortal sins, those who have never yet had that saving faith in Christ or who have lost it through sins against conscience; more will be said about this especially in its own place [On Good Works (Commonplace XX), §§ 134–44; see also On Justification through Faith (Commonplace XIX), §§ 184–94].
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Dr. Luther writes (Latin ed., vol. 4, fol. 532): “Sin truly is as great as the One who is offended by sin; and heaven and earth cannot contain Him.”10 Granatensis (Dom. 11. post Pentec.): “Since man loses God through lethal sin, and since God is the incomprehensible Good, the consequence is that no one can recognize the gravity of the situation by which the incomprehensible Good is lost, for it is necessary that the evil which deprives one of the incomprehensible Good be incomprehensible. Therefore only God, who comprehends Himself fully, comprehends the evil of sin.” Those are his words, and they are utterly correct. Therefore since sin is an offense against an infinite God, to remove sin and to extinguish God’s wrath requires an infinite price which the God-man, Christ alone, offers in our place.
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(1) We willingly concede that absolution is not just a declaration of something which was already done beforehand within the penitent. Rather, it is also an effective means through which Christ in truth confers what He has promised upon those who repent. Thus we certainly do not say that the power of the Keys consists only in signifying that heaven is open for the repentant; rather, we say that absolution is an announcement of forgiveness of sins which is effectual by the power of the Holy Spirit, who through it offers, applies, and seals the forgiveness of sins to those who repent and believe; we also say that such absolution is valid in heaven. Sins are forgiven to the penitent by the ministry of the apostles and of other ministers of the church as truly as they are said to save those who hear them (1 Tim. 4:16). (2) Nevertheless there remains an immovable distinction between power that is in one’s own authority [αὐτεξούσιον] and power that is ministerial. God alone forgives sins principally and of His own authority [αὐτεξουσίως], using a priest as a herald and minister announcing forgiveness to people. Therefore Christ is properly the judge, and the pastors are His ministers. Christ opens as the principal cause and “Lord of the house” (Heb. 3:6); the minister opens as the instrumental cause and the established steward of the mysteries in that house (1 Cor. 4:1). Therefore he is acting not by his own power and authority but in the manner of a minister, just as the prophet Nathan never said to David: “I have taken away your sin,” but rather: “The Lord has taken away” [2 Sam. 12:13]. So also the ministers of the church do not say, “I, by my own authority and power,” but rather: “I, as a minister of Christ and the church, announce to you the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name.”
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There must also be an explanation as to why and to what end God imposes such punishments or calamities upon the reconciled, namely, that they are not merits for the forgiveness of sins nor compensations for eternal punishment nor satisfactions for sins. Rather: (a) With respect to others, they are public signs of God’s judgment against sins (Num. 12:14; 2 Sam. 12:14). “If judgment begins from the household of God, what will be the end of those who do not believe the Gospel?” (1 Pet. 4:17). (b) With respect to the devout themselves, they are reminders of what has already happened and warnings against what is to come. After reconciliation, the devout are subjected either to common calamities or to particular punishments so that this warning quickly kindles and causes to grow within them a greater hatred and loathing of sin, the fear of God, faith which has an anxious concern to retain grace and remain in goodness, a diligence to be careful about sins so that their corrupt inclinations might be restrained and mortified. They are also exercises of repentance which ought to be constant, of faith, of obedience in the cross, of hope, of the petition for and expectation of help through forgiveness and mitigation, so that they may always bear witness that they would have to perish due to their sins unless they were received for the sake of the Son of God; and also that they not take for themselves the praise of their own righteousness, lest they lift themselves up above other sinners, but rather subject themselves to God in a true and humble confession of weakness. All these come from Dr. Chemnitz (Examen Concil. Trident., part 2, ch. De satisfact. p. 370).7 Briefly speaking, they are admonitions about the other sins which still adhere to the flesh.
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The forgiveness of sins is promised to repentance not because our contrition or the correction of our life is merit for the forgiveness of sins, but rather because faith, whose forerunner is contrition and whose maidservants are good works, seeks God’s grace and reconciliation in Christ the Mediator. Therefore in this way the prophet describes “to whom” and “in what order,” but not why God is willing to forgive sins: “You have made Me to serve with your sins. I am, I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will no longer remember your sins” (Isa. 43:24–25).
True and salutary repentance is the kind of turning to God by which the sinner is moved inwardly by the grace of the Holy Spirit and by the ministry of the Word to acknowledge his sins from the Law, to grieve earnestly because of the wrath of God against them, and in turn to lift himself up by faith in Christ, which has been conceived from the Gospel. Because of Him, he considers it certain that his sins are forgiven him, and this faith is followed by his intent and zeal for a better life and by good works as fruits pleasing to God and worthy of repentance. Convert us, O God, that we may be converted to You. Bind up the wounds of our souls that we may be healed. Amen. (Gerhard, Johann; Dinda, Richard. On the Gospel and Repentance - Theological Commonplaces . Concordia Publishing House. Édition du Kindle).”
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From Johann Gerhard, On Justification through Faith :
“§ 66. Accordingly, we shall assign all the meanings of “faith” that occur in Scripture to these three classes. (I) Faith is called active, so to speak, in the sense that it is a veracity and constancy in words and deeds. The following belong to this class: (1) Faith or faithfulness or truthfulness are attributed to God. “All His works [are done] in faith” (Ps. 33:4). “The unbelief of men does not nullify the faith of God” (Rom. 3:3). That is, God remains faithful and truthful in His promises even if people do not exhibit faith toward Him. (2) It is said about Christ the Mediator: “Faith will be the belt of His loins” (Isa. 11:5). That is, He will keep His promises steadfastly. (3) When faith or fidelity, candor, and truthfulness are predicated of men. “Mercy and faith will be to you and your brothers” (2 Sam. 15:20). “Faith has perished and has been taken away from their mouth” (Jer. 7:28). Contrasted to this is the serious admonition that each person ought to pursue truthfulness and deal with his neighbor with candor, though here some take “faith” to mean true doctrine. (4) When the word “faith” is used in particular to mean constancy in retaining the truthfulness of heavenly doctrine once it is known. “Your faith is proclaimed in all the world” (Rom. 1:8). “Your faith in God has gone forth everywhere” (1 Thess. 1:8). (5) Paul declares about wanton widows: “They have voided their first faith” [1 Tim. 5:12], where Athanasius (De Trinit., bk. 6), Jerome (Praefat. epist. ad Titum), and Vincent of Lérins understand “first faith” to mean the first covenant entered with Christ at Baptism and the solemn promise by which they renounced the devil and all his works. Others take it to mean the promise to undertake a ministry involved with caring for the sick and needy. (II) Faith is called passive, so to speak, in the sense that it is the thing by which we believe and assent to the Word of God. Various meanings of “faith” belong to this class. (1) When it is used to mean the historical faith by which we are said to believe not only in God but also in people. “They believed in Jehovah and His servant Moses” (Exod. 14:31). “If you believed in Moses,” that is, if you considered what he taught as true, “you would believe also in Me, for he wrote about Me” (John 5:46). (2) When it is used to mean the general assent by which one believes in general that God is just and merciful and that His Son was sent as Redeemer into the world, but no [personal] application is made in particular. “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe, and shudder” (James 2:19). (3) Akin to these two meanings is the meaning by which it is used as the bare profession and boasting of faith. “What does it profit if a man says that he has faith but has not works? Can this faith save him?” (James 2:14). (4) When it is used to mean faith in miracles, from which justifying faith can be absent. “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed,” etc. (Matt. 17:20). “If I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2). (5) When the word “faith” is understood to mean the knowledge of Christian liberty. “Do you have faith? Have it for yourself before God” (Rom. 14:22). (6) When it is used to mean the justifying faith which is the trusting apprehension unto eternal salvation of the grace and mercy of God through Christ our Redeemer in the promise of the Gospel that comes through the Holy Spirit from acknowledging the truth of God’s Word. Therefore it includes knowledge, assent, and trust. “God justifies him who is of faith in Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:26). “Because we know that a man is not justified through the works of the Law but through faith in Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ” (Gal. 2:16). (III) The object and foundation of faith is [also] denoted by this word, namely, the divinely revealed heavenly doctrine. Lombard (Sent., bk. 3, dist. 23, letter C), from Augustine (De Trinit., bk. 13, ch. 2): “The things that are believed are one [sort of] faith; the faith by which one believes is another. And yet both are considered under the word ‘faith,’ namely, that which one believes and that by which one believes.” ** The faith which [fides quae] is believed is called material faith. The faith by which one believes [fides qua] is called formal faith because the faith which is believed is the object of the faith by which one believes; otherwise this is called “the material about which.” Now the faith by which one believes is the conviction and full assurance [πεποίθησις and πληροφορία] in the mind of the believer. ** The following belong in this class. (1) When the word “faith” is used for the entire body of heavenly doctrine in general. “While we have time, let us do good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10), that is, those who confess the same religion with us. ** “He who once persecuted us is now proclaiming the good news of the faith he was once destroying” (Gal. 1:23). “Rebuke them, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:13). ** Jude (v. 3) mentions “the faith once delivered to the saints,” that is, the heavenly doctrine that was preached. (2) When it is used for the doctrine of the Gospel in particular. “Boasting is excluded by the law of faith” (Rom. 3:27), that is, by the doctrine of the Gospel. “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law or by the hearing of faith?” (Gal. 3:2), that is, by the preaching of the Gospel. (3) Akin to this is the meaning it has when it is used for the coming of Christ in the preaching of the New Testament and the full revelation of these things which lay hidden in the obscurity of ceremonies. “Before faith came, we were confined under the Law, closed up in the faith which was to be revealed” (Gal. 3:23). (4) When it is used for the chief and fundamental headings of the heavenly doctrine set forth clearly in God’s Word. “Understanding prophecy according to the analogy of the faith” (Rom. 12:6). ** Others proceed in the following manner. Faith is used (1) for the bare profession of faith (James 2:14); (2) for the true doctrine concerning faith (Rom. 1:5; Eph. 4:5; 1 Tim 1:19); (3) for assent (John 4:50; Acts 13:8; 14:22); (4) for trust or confidence (Matt. 8:10; 15:28; Luke 17:5); (5) for steadfastness in religion (Rom. 1:8); (6) for the whole course of life and piety (2 Cor. 1:24); (7) for conscience (Rom. 14:23); (8) for miraculous faith (Matt. 17:20–21; Mark 11:22–23; 1 Cor. 13:2); (9) for constancy in keeping promises (Ps. 25:10; 86:15; Rom. 3:3); (10) for faithfulness in performing an office (Titus 2:10); (11) for righteousness (Ps. 119:75); (12) for things believed or the fulfillment of promises (Gal. 3:25). Lombard (Sent., bk. 3, dist. 23, letter C): “Faith is used in three ways, namely, for that which believes something [pro eo, quo creditur], which is virtue; for that which believes something exists [pro eo, quod creditur], which is not virtue; and for that which believes in something [pro eo, in quod creditur], which is different from that which believes something.” Bonaventure (Sent., bk. 3, dist. 23, f. 225b) says that faith is used in ten ways: (1) for a promise, (2) faithfulness, (3) conscience, (4) the mystery of faith, (5) assent, (6) the knowledge of comprehension, (7) the disposition of unformed faith, (8) the disposition of formed faith, (9) an action, (10) the object of faith. Alexander of Hales ([Sent.,] p. 3, q. 74, part 1) gives eleven ways of understanding it. Albert the Great only five (Sent., bk. 3, dist. 23, art. 1 at 3); Alphonsus de Castro, seven (Summa de haeres., verbo Fides, haer. 2); Vega, nine (in his treatise De justif., q. 1); Gregorius de Valentia, ten (bk. 3, disp. 1, q. 1, point 1, cols. 6–8). (1) It is the faith of the Christian religion. (2) It is the faith of the external confession. (3) It is the faith of miraculous operation. (4) It is the faith of historical revelation. (5) It is the faith of justification. Ten meanings for faith are found in Scripture. (1) It signifies the prime headings of the Christian religion which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed (Heb. 6:1); (2) the teaching of the Gospel (Rom. 1:5; 3:27); (3) the knowledge of the divine mysteries (Rom. 12:3); (4) a confession of doctrine which echoes in the church (Rom. 1:8); (5) the faith of miracles (1 Cor. 13:2); (6) a conscience strengthened through the doctrine of the Gospel (2 Cor. 1:24); (7) constancy and truthfulness in words and deeds (Jer. 5:3); (9) the knowledge of the history of Christ and of divine matters (Acts 13:8); (10) trust or confidence which embraces Christ along with all His merit, which is saving faith. **
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** (Faith is considered 1. materially, with respect to all the acts which come together in justifying faith, though not all of them may justify; 2. formally, according as it justifies. In the first respect it is distinguished into certain parts. However, here it must be known that since faith is neither an integral whole nor an essential whole,5 and since the parts themselves are not marked as such, therefore we use the term “parts” with a sort of latitude and mean nothing other than the various acts following each other and coming together in justifying faith. In the second respect it is merely trust or confident apprehension of Christ’s merit; in this sense it does not admit different parts.) ** With respect to knowledge and assent, it relates to the intellect and holds as its object each and every Word of God as revealed to us in prophetic and apostolic Scriptures. With respect to trust, it relates to the heart or the will, and it has as its object the Gospel promises about Christ the Mediator. The following theological rule flows from this: “When Scripture speaks about faith, it sometimes concerns knowledge more and sometimes trust more.” Also: “Some things are said about faith with greater respect to knowledge, and others, with greater respect to trust.” ** The statement of Bernard touches on this: “There is one faith of the precepts, by which faith we believe God [credimus Deo]; another of signs, by which we believe God exists [credimus Deum]; another of promises, by which we believe in God [credimus in Deum].” Augustine (on John, tract. 29): “We believe Paul, but we do not believe in Paul.” Luther (Post. eccles., First Sunday of Advent): “Historical faith is more faith about Christ than faith in Christ.”6 ** The distinction of Augustine which he repeats quite often (which he sets forth, on John, tract. 29; Sermon 61 de verbis Domini; in his explanation of Psalm 77; Sermon 181 de temp.; and De cogn. verae vitae, ch. 37) belongs here (Lombard, Sent., bk. 3, dist. 23, letter D): It is one thing to believe in God [credere in Deum], another to believe God [exists] [credere Deum], another to believe God [credere Deo]. To believe God is to believe that the things which He says are true, something which even wicked people do. We may believe someone, but we do not believe in him. To believe God [exists] is to believe that He Himself is God, something which evil people also do. To believe in God is to love by believing, to go to Him by believing, to cling to Him by believing, and to become incorporated into His members. Through this faith the ungodly is justified so that then faith itself begins to work through love.
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Though faith may not be an intuitive knowledge—touching all causes and properties of its object by the light of reason—nevertheless it is a spiritual knowledge that knows as much about the object set before it as is required for salvation on the way of this life. ** Knowledge deals either with the question as to whether something exists or with the question as to what something is and for what reason it exists. In the former case the existence of a thing is known; in the latter, its essence, cause, and mode. They call the former the knowledge of certainty because a thing is known for certain as concerns its existence. The latter they call the knowledge of perspicuity, especially since its essence becomes known either through the senses or compelling logic. We mean the first type of knowing, not the latter, when we claim that the mysteries of faith are known. We must distinguish between γνῶσις and ἐπιστήµη. The former denotes the knowledge of a thing in general, as to its nature. The latter also denotes knowledge, only in particular of necessary things through deductive proofs. Faith is not ἐπιστήµη but γνῶσις. ** Finally, though the knowledge of faith may have its own grades, so that in some people it is brighter and more clear but in others more shadowy and thinner, nevertheless these do not change the species more or less. Accordingly, even weak and dull faith is not ignorance but a sort of knowledge. With these points properly noted, Bellarmine’s arguments can easily be refuted.
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There are degrees of knowledge, but even if it is weak and dull, faith is not something which does not require any knowledge, for assent necessarily requires knowledge as a prerequisite since we cannot give assent without a knowledge of a thing.
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Faith is not the sort of knowledge which follows reason and the evidence of a thing. But from this it does not follow that it is by no means knowledge. Rather, we know the things we know by faith more perfectly than things we know by reason, as we heard a little earlier from the commentator on Richard. Thomas ([ST,] 2.2., q. 4, art. 8) concludes: “Faith is more sure than the other intellectual powers since it rests upon divine truth while the others rely on human reason. Still, the others are more certain as far as we are concerned since the intellect comprehends them more fully.”
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Justifying faith grasps the evangelical promise of Christ the Mediator and applies it to itself. Bare knowledge does not grasp the promise. Therefore justifying faith is not bare knowledge. “Therefore it is of faith freely so that the promise may be firm” (Rom. 4:16). But now, all the promises in Christ are “Amen” (2 Cor. [1:20]), that is, they include Christ as Mediator, without whom God does not deal with us. Therefore the object of faith is the promise of Christ which we ought to embrace not with a bare knowledge but with the sure trust of the heart. Luther used to say: “As is the union of male and female in lawful marriage, namely, indissoluble, such also is the union of faith and the promise.” The promise is not firm to us, that is, with respect to us, unless it is apprehended by faith; however, faith is an empty imagination unless it rests on the promise as a rock and an anchor.
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The form and, so to speak, the soul of justifying faith is the confident apprehension of Christ along with all His benefits offered in the word of the Gospel. “As many as received Him He gave them the power to become the children of God” (John 1:12). “Through Christ we have received reconciliation” (Rom. 5:11). “That we may receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14). “Let us draw near to the throne of grace with trust that we may receive mercy” (Heb. 4:16). “In order that those who are called may receive the promise of an eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:15). It is clear from these statements that justifying faith grasps, accepts, and apprehends Christ; applies Christ to itself; and in Christ applies the grace of God, the remission of sins, righteousness, and eternal salvation. But this cannot be said about bare knowledge. ** It is characteristic of trust to seek Christ the Savior (Isa. 55:6; Amos 5:4); to seek Him out eagerly and, so to speak, to pant after Him (Ps. 42:2–3; 119:30; Song 2:3; Isa. 26:8–9; 55:1; Matt. 5:6); to come to Him for relief (Matt. 11:28; John 6:35; Heb. 4:16); to apprehend Him along with His righteousness (Rom. 9:30); to embrace Him with all acceptance (1 Tim. 1:15); to appropriate His merits for oneself (Gal. 3:26; Phil. 1:21); to be borne into them with full force of heart and to rest on them very sweetly (Rom. 4:21; Heb. 10:22). Hence the ancients said, “Faith not only apprehends, which pertains to knowledge and assent, but also is at rest, which is the property of trust” (Meisner). Any kind of faith to which Scripture attributes effects which do not befit justifying faith is not justifying faith. The effects that Scripture assigns to justifying faith do not befit the faith which is only knowledge and assent and not also trust.
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The effects of faith are truly stated as [the following]. The remission of sins: “To Him” (Christ) “all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in Him receives remission of sins through His name” (Acts 10:43). Justification: “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness for all who believe” (Rom. 10:4). Adoption as sons: “To those who believe on His name He gives the power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12). Peace of conscience: “Justified by faith, we have peace” (Rom. 5:1). Freedom from the condemnation of the Law: “There is no condemnation in those who are in Christ” (Rom. 8:1). Spiritual security: “He who believes in Him will not be confounded” (Rom. 10:11). Heavenly blessing: “Those who are people of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Gal. 3:9). Purification of the heart: “Purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9). Victory over Satan: “Above all, taking the shield of faith by which you can quench all the fiery darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). “Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Pet. 5:9). Victory over the world: “Faith is our victory which overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). Patience in adversities: “Justified by faith, we boast in our infirmities” (Rom. 5:1, 3). Access to God: “Through Christ we have access by faith to the grace in which we stand” (Rom. 5:2). The seal of the truth: “He who receives this testimony sets his seal to this, that God is truthful” (John 3:33). Love of God and one’s neighbor: “Many sins are forgiven her because she loved much” (Luke 7:47). “Faith is effective through love” (Gal. 5:6). Hope of future glory: “Justified by faith, we have peace, and we boast in the hope of the glory of the sons of God” (Rom. 5:1–2). Confession of the truth, believed and understood: “We have the same spirit of faith, etc. We also believe, and so we speak” (2 Cor. 4:13). Invocation: “Because you are sons” (through faith), “God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ ” (Gal. 4:6). “How will they call upon Him whom they have not believed?” (Rom. 10:14). Obedience to God: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance, not knowing where he was to go” (Heb. 11:8). Finally, eternal life and salvation: “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “He who believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). But now, these noble effects cannot be attributed to bare knowledge, as is obvious. Therefore justifying faith is not bare knowledge.
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[Luther again] (f. 116): “Faith is the utterly stubborn gaze which sees nothing except Christ as victor over sin and death and as bestower of righteousness, salvation, and eternal life.”
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Those who truly believe are the temples and dwelling places of the Holy Spirit. But now, He is the Spirit of the adoption of sons. Therefore surely He bears witness to them that they are the sons of God. Luther (on Gal. 4[:6]): “Christ, the Son of God, is most certain that He pleases God. Therefore our hearts ought to be certain that we please God since we have the same Spirit in which Christ was certain, and we should be sure because of Christ, who is sure that He is in grace.”20 Ibid.: “Christ pleases God. Therefore we who cling to Christ also please God because of Christ. Although sin may adhere in our flesh, His grace is richer and more powerful than sin.”21 The Spirit given to believers is the Spirit of adoption, not the spirit of slavery. Therefore He drives out servile fear, uncertainty, and doubt. But, on the contrary, the Spirit in us generates trust and certainty in our hearts, and we cry out through Him: “Abba, Father.” This cry stems not from doubt but from full trust. For crying out is not to bring out something with doubt and timidity but to bear witness with a loud voice that one acknowledges God as His very beloved Father and invokes Him with such trust. The Spirit “bears witness, gives testimony, to our spirit that we are the sons of God” [Rom. 8:16]. Therefore it is not through a moral certainty nor through a conjectural opinion but from the testimony of the Holy Spirit Himself that believers know that they are the children of God. “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater” (1 John 5:9). To illustrate the certainty which the Holy Spirit works in hearts comparisons are used, namely, of a seal, a pledge, and a guarantee. Believers are said to be sealed by the Holy Spirit. To seal means to confirm something with one’s seal. It is the function of sealing and seals not to make people uncertain and doubtful but to show the faith and certainty of those things for which they are used.
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It is false that no one can be sure about true repentance and faith. For since the rule about both true repentance and faith has been prescribed in God’s Word, surely the truly devout know, even with the certainty of faith, that they are truly and seriously converted to God if they conform their repentance and faith to this rule: the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit is present, which bears witness that they are the sons of God. But now, the υἱοθεσία [“adoption as sons”] cannot exist without true repentance and faith. In addition, the fruits of conversion are also present, namely, good works, which also bear witness to the verity of faith just as good fruit testifies to the goodness of a tree. Although these are all done in weakness and are coupled with no small imperfection, nevertheless the truly devout know: that “God does not wish to quench the smoking flax nor break the bruised reed” (Isa. 42:3); that imperfect contrition is still contrition, provided it is serious; that weak faith is also faith, provided it is true and sincere; that [God] wants to cover up the stain of sin still left in the flesh and to forgive the imperfection of contrition, faith, and new obedience for Christ’s sake with His very great kindness. Therefore they say with Anselm (De miseria hominis): “It is true: my conscience has earned damnation, and my repentance is not enough for satisfaction; but it is certain that Your mercy surpasses all offense.” With the father of the lunatic they pray (Mark 9:24): “We believe, Lord. Help our unbelief!” With the disciples they groan (Luke 17:5): “Lord, help our faith!” They acknowledge their sins, deplore them deeply, hate them wholeheartedly, encourage themselves to Christ by faith, and are eager for good works. They both humbly ask and truly know that whatever imperfection clings to all these is forgiven them for the sake of Christ the Mediator.
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The Hebrew words have this: “Man’s heart is deceitful and troubled, or perverse. Who will understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the reins” [vv. 9–10]. Here the discussion involves the natural depravity of the human heart brought on through the fall of our first parents, but by no means [does it discuss] the spiritual correction of it through the Holy Spirit. The reborn acknowledge that there are many hidden sins and therefore that the innate corruption of their heart is unsearchable; thus they cast away every confidence in their own powers. Yet still by the light of faith kindled in their hearts by the Holy Spirit they acknowledge that this depravity has begun to be corrected in true and sincere conversion to God, and they are confident of God’s mercy in Christ the Mediator, which has been prepared for all who truly repent. Furthermore, though the reborn can never satisfactorily acknowledge and deplore the horrible corruption of their nature introduced through the fall of our first parents, nevertheless from the Word they have such an understanding of their innate corruption as is sufficient for them for true repentance.
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We say that historical faith is one thing; the faith of miracles is another; justifying faith, still another. Historical faith is that by which we believe that the things revealed in the Word of God are true. Some people claim that the faith of miracles is twofold: active and passive. Active is the special gift of God by which those equipped with trust in divine power work miracles. “If I had all faith so that I might move mountains” (1 Cor. 13:2), etc. Passive is the confidence by which someone claims that he will be a partaker of the benefit which comes through miracles. “A man of Lystra has faith to be healed by Paul” (Acts 14:9).
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Although there are degrees of knowing not only in different believers (because a greater and more exact knowledge of the divine mysteries and an understanding of Scripture is required from those who teach in comparison to their hearers) but also in one and the same believer, since any pious believer ought to grow daily in his understanding of the Word, nevertheless we should never seek to commend this implicit and illicit faith which is pure ignorance of the articles of faith because the Holy Spirit defines faith as σύνεσις [“understanding] (Matt 13:19), as ἐπίγνωσις [“recognition”] (Col. 1:9; Titus 1:1), and He wants everyone “to be prepared to give a satisfactory reason to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15). The Bereans were commended for not only receiving the Word µετὰ πάσης προθυµίας [“with all eagerness”] but also “for examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). They are declared blessed “who meditate on the Law of the Lord day and night” (Ps. 1:2). All people are commanded to “beware of false prophets” (Matt. 7:15), “to test the spirits” (1 John 4:1), and “to discern the voice of Christ from another’s” (John 10:5). The apostle gives thanks to God for this reason, that “the Corinthians have been made rich in Christ with all speech and all knowledge” (1 Cor. 1:5). Peter ([2 Pet.] 1:5) urges us “with all zeal see to it that virtue is added to faith and γνῶσις [‘knowledge’] to virtue.” Finally, the “Word of Christ should dwell abundantly” in all the truly devout “in all wisdom,” according to the precept of the apostle (Col. 3:16).
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We say that love is the working [ἐνέργεια] and effect of justifying faith, united with it by a permanent, indissoluble bond; but we completely deny that it is the form of faith. For the proper and specific form of justifying faith is the confident apprehension of Christ the Mediator and of His benefits which are offered to us in the word of the Gospel.
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Therefore we reject the distinction between unformed and formed faith: (I) Because it lacks the authority of Scripture since it knows only one justifying faith. This Scripture describes as embracing Christ as Mediator and applying His benefits to itself. Of course, we admit that in some passages of Scripture justifying faith is described from its effects: that it is effective through love, that it brings forth good fruits. At the same time, this working [ἐνέργεια] of faith, by which it reveals itself in the pursuit of good works, must be carefully distinguished from its form, which is the trusting apprehension of Christ. For faith is said to justify not by the production of good works (which attend the justified, as that well-known statement of Augustine holds, De fid. et oper., ch. 14) but by the trusting apprehension of Christ. Brenz says it beautifully (Apol. conf. Wirt., p. 319): “I may say it this way for the sake of explanation: faith has two hands. The first it extends upward and grasps Christ along with all His benefits, and in this respect we say that we are justified by faith. The second hand it stretches downward to perform works of love and of the rest of the virtues, and in this respect we testify to the genuineness of our faith but are not justified thereby.”
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Faith kindled through the Holy Spirit justifies not insofar as it has love connected to it but to the extent that it apprehends Christ as He is offered in the word of the Gospel. Love given through the Holy Spirit is the fruit of justifying faith, but it does not justify since it is never perfect in this life, since the Law immediately requires it, and since it becomes quite clouded in our hearts because of the fog of sins. Faith hears God promising; love hears God commanding. Faith concerns itself with God’s works; love, with our works. Faith accepts the benefits of Christ; love returns a mutual benevolence. Faith has an apprehensive power; love, an egressive power. Faith is begging, so to speak; love is giving. Faith creates children of God; love shows that they have become so. The object of faith is Christ as offered in the Gospel along with all His benefits; love’s object is God and our neighbor. Furthermore, the nucleus of the Gospel is not love, which both Christ and the apostles teach in clear language is the sum of the Law, but rather the nucleus of the Gospel is Christ alone, the Mediator, whom faith embraces and holds. To say that the Law commands faith is ambiguous. The Law commands us to believe every word of God. At the same time, however, the Gospel shows the proper object of justifying faith, namely, Christ the Mediator. Thus this is the voice not of the Law but of the Gospel: “Believe in Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). No one is justified in the Law “because the just shall live by faith; but the Law is not of faith, but he who does them will live in them” (Gal. 3:11–12). In the apostle’s disputation there is a constant contrast between Law and Gospel, works and faith, doing and believing as far as the article of justification is concerned. If faith is of the Law, and if we are justified from faith, it will follow that we are justified by the Law, which is opposite the apostle’s meaning. What was argued earlier about the distinction between the Law and the Gospel should be repeated in this place [On the Gospel (Commonplace XVII), §§ 54–55].
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Our argument goes like this. Anything that encourages, calms, and pacifies the conscience cannot have that which accuses, terrifies, condemns, and drives to despair as its proper object. Among these are the mandates of the Law and its threats, histories, and examples of punishments. Faith encourages and pacifies the conscience. Therefore, etc.
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Since we daily sin, therefore we daily ask for forgiveness of sins. Every day we befoul ourselves; therefore we daily need washing through the blood of Christ. Therefore the saints daily ask for the forgiveness of sins not because they have doubts about forgiveness, but because they must obtain forgiveness for daily sins from God by their prayers which proceed from faith. If they doubted the grace of God and the forgiveness of sins, they would not pray out of faith. Therefore as we are about to ask God in faith for the pardoning of our sins, we first set forth the very sweet name “Father” on the basis of Christ’s instruction in the Lord’s Prayer. Therefore Bellarmine’s proof rests upon the false assumption that remnants of sin do not remain in the saints. It contains the fallacy of cause: that the saints ask for forgiveness of sins because they have doubts about it; this can be refuted by inverting [the argument]. (2) [Bellarmine again:] “There will be no need for Baptism if I am sure that my sins have been forgiven through faith which should precede Baptism.” We respond. Baptism is the means of conferring and sealing or confirming faith. Faith is given to infants through Baptism because the Holy Spirit works regeneration in the hearts of baptized infants, and regeneration has no place without faith. In adults who already cling to Christ through true faith, Baptism is the salutary means through which the Holy Spirit seals, increases, and strengthens faith. Therefore specific faith does not abolish Baptism in either case. We say the same thing about repentance, for it is not abolished through faith since sin still dwells in the flesh of the reborn and since they must mortify the flesh daily; and if sin produces any faulty shoots, they must be uprooted immediately through true faith.
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Bellarmine so perverts the text that he uses the “righteousness by the Law” to mean works done without faith and “righteousness in faith from God” to mean just works done by faith, which truly justify before God. And yet the apostle’s words are clear: “I am found in Christ not having my own righteousness which is from the Law” [Phil. 3:9]. But now, the righteousness adhering to St. Paul and his new obedience are certainly the righteousness of Paul; its cause was certainly his mind renewed by the Holy Spirit. Thus surely the very righteousness of works is excluded. Furthermore, a just work cannot exist without faith (Rom. 14:23). How, then, can works done without faith be called righteousness? But we connect the text of Isa. 64:6 with this apostolic passage: “All our righteousnesses are as the rags of a menstruating woman.” Bernard comments on it in this way (De verbis Esaiae, sermon 5, col. 250): “If we have any humble righteousness, perhaps it is upright but not pure, unless, of course, we think that we are better than our fathers who said truthfully rather than humbly: ‘All our righteousnesses are as the rags of a menstruating woman.’ How will righteousness be pure where there must still be blame?”
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Our argument, which is taken from the passages previously cited and those similar, is this: Wherever the means and nature for our justification are described as regards the application or, what is the same, the instrument for apprehending Christ, there faith and nothing else is mentioned. Faith alone apprehends Christ therefore, and, as a consequence, by faith alone are we justified. From this it is easy to see what must be decided about Bellarmine’s counterargument, for nowhere does Scripture attribute the apprehension of Christ to the Sacraments or to our works. The Sacraments are indeed means of justification and salvation, but they are the offering and revealing means on God’s part; but on our part, the only receiving instrument is faith in Christ. Just as the reception of any gift requires the offering and the apprehending hand, God offers us His grace in the word of the Gospel, in holy Baptism, and in the holy Supper, and we receive it by faith alone. In the same way, wine may be poured from three decanters but is drunk by the mouth alone. Works do not accept Christ, but they do bear witness to the gracious indwelling of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Therefore we are said to have been “founded on Christ for good works” (Eph. 2:10), which are the “fruits of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22). Therefore we concede that on God’s part justification is attributed to the Sacraments as the offering means. Therefore they belong to the instrumental causes of justification, as we showed earlier (§ 64). Just as the adjective “alone” is not set against God’s grace and Christ’s merit, so also we do not set it against the Sacraments. Rather, we deny that works belong to the instrumental causes of justification, nor could this be proved from the passages cited. In Luke 7:47, the forgiveness of sins is not attributed to the woman’s love as the cause; rather, it proceeds from effect to cause, that is, the forgiveness of sins which came before is demonstrated from the love, as we showed in the treatise On Repentance ([Commonplace XVIII,] § 91), where we even explained Tobit’s statement which had to be softened with a fitting interpretation, lest it oppose the everlasting statement of the Holy Spirit set forth in the canonical books that “the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Therefore the meaning is that God compensates alms out of grace by snatching a person away from diseases and other temporal punishments. When the apostle says that “we are saved by hope” (Rom. 8:24), he is not attributing salvation to hope as cause to effect but is teaching that the devout sustain themselves with hope under the cross and calamities as they await the promise of deliverance. And also [he teaches that] the fullness of the revelation of the salvation and eternal life which we apprehend and hold to in Christ through faith are to be looked forward to amid the calamities and pressures of this life with a certain and unmoved hope as if they were present, though they are still hidden (Col. 3:3). “We are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2). The passage from Ecclus. 1:21 will have its own explanation below [§ 169]. The fear of the Lord drives out sin not by expiating a past sin but by carefully avoiding future sin.
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Justification is promised to repentance and faith not because there is some worth in these gifts and works on account of which we deserve to be justified before God (for this clearly conflicts with free justification), but because God has resolved to justify us in this order and way so that through repentance and contrition our hearts may first be stirred to a desire for justification, and then may apprehend the Gospel promise of the free remission of sins for Christ’s sake firmly through faith. God has promised justification only to repentant believers, but He has not promised to justify on account of repentance or faith but freely on account of Christ, whose merit is apprehended through faith—and the precursor of this faith is contrition; its handmaid, good works. In short, faith justifies not meritoriously but instrumentally. Moreover, the very merit of justification is not founded in us nor in a work of ours (otherwise the apostle would not have said, “Faith is imputed for righteousness”) but only in the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to faith by grace for those who believe in Him who justifies the ungodly.
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We confess that works do have a sort of worth, but it cannot be inferred from this that that is the worth of merit, for this would be to proceed from the nondistributed [middle term] to the distributed.7 We receive only the “firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23), which He works in the sort of body in which “sin still lives” (Rom. 7:17), which infects and corrupts everything. For this reason, the sort of worth on account of which we might deserve justification cannot be attributed to works which proceed from the powers of free choice aroused and moved by God.
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Love which is perfect and absolute in every respect fulfills the Law, but because not even the reborn can obtain such perfection in this life because “the Law is spiritual, but they are carnal” (Rom. 7:14), therefore faith turns from precepts to promises, from Law to Gospel, from works to grace, and seeks the perfect fulfillment of the Law in Christ the Mediator, who gave it in our place. “For God has done what the Law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and He condemned sin by sin in the flesh that the justification of the Law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:3–4). “For Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness for everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4). Therefore love fulfills the Law in one way, but faith, in another way. Love fulfills the Law by doing, but because the love of the reborn is not perfect, the fulfillment of the Law through love is imperfect and merely inchoate. Therefore people cannot rely on it before the judgment seat of God. Faith, or the faithful heart, fulfills the Law by believing, that is, by apprehending Christ, who fulfilled the Law with His most holy obedience and satisfaction. This obedience of His is imputed to us through faith. Luther is not dreaming, as Bellarmine jokes, when he applies the apostle’s words (Rom. 11:32) to this: “God has included all people under unbelief that He might have compassion on all”; and the words of John 1:12: “To those who believe on His name He gave the power to become the children of God.” For the true explanation of the apostle’s statement is clear from Gal. 3:22: “Scripture has included all things under sin that the promise and faith might be given to those who believe.” That is to say, because all people are convicted as sinners by the word of the Law, therefore those who believe are justified by the free mercy of God through faith in Christ who fulfilled the Law in our place. (See Ambrose and Theophylact on Galatians 3.)
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In one who has been justified, faith is the beginning and root of the rest of the virtues, but in the act of justification it is the only instrument for apprehending Christ.
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There are two fears: servile and filial. Servile fear precedes justification because before sins are forgiven in justification, true knowledge of them from the Law and serious grief over them are required. God first puts to death before He gives life. First He leads one down into hell before He leads him back. He does not pour out His oil of mercy except into a contrite vessel. Faith comes afterward; it overcomes these terrors and seeks the remission of sins in Christ the Mediator. Thus servile fear acts in justification in a far different way than faith, for the former is a kind of preparation and antecedent of justification, but the latter is the instrumental cause of it. Filial fear is a result of justification and the fruit of true faith, for filial fear has no place in one’s heart unless he is first a child of God through faith. It is again apparent from this that faith accompanies justification in a way different from filial fear, which Bellarmine himself seems to acknowledge, for he adds the word “almost.” This addition would be unnecessary if fear and faith acted in justification in the same way.
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Servile fear, which is brought out of a man from hearing the Law and from a sense of his sins, insofar as it is considered in itself and is still alone without faith, certainly does run away from God as from an angry judge and severe avenger of sins (just as servants flee angry masters, as is apparent from the example of Adam [in Gen. 3:10]: “I heard Your voice, and I was afraid and I hid myself”). It is far from leading us to God, for this belongs to faith alone, which the Holy Spirit kindles in hearts through the preaching of the Gospel. It is faith through which we approach God, overcome servile fear, and claim that we are beloved of God because of Christ.
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Faith is prior to love in the order of nature because faith is the cause of love. However, in time they are simultaneous. Therefore it is impossible to give a moment in time when a man justified by faith does not also have love. In addition, not only can faith be considered as the (instrumental) cause of justification, but by nature it happens before justification, though as related things they are simultaneous (for two considerations of cause—absolute and relative, material and formal—must be distinguished). Therefore faith has two relations: first, to Christ, whom it apprehends confidently for justification; second, to love, which it reveals as a manifestation of justification. These two are immediately and indivisibly united, though in the order of nature the confident apprehension of Christ and thus also justification are prior.
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If repentance is taken to mean the entire conversion, it includes faith in Christ; therefore it is not strange that it is required for justification and salvation. If it is taken as contrition alone, we say that it is required not for the act of justification but for the person going to be justified. For justification is defined as absolution for the sinner who seriously acknowledges his sins from the Law and deplores them. The particle “alone” does not exclude the Sacraments, but rather they are included by force of the relation in the term “faith.” As faith on our part is the means of apprehending and accepting, so the Sacraments on God’s part are the means of revealing and offering. Therefore in order that faith may have something to receive, it must be given through the word of the Gospel and through the Sacraments. Therefore we say that faith is required in one way but that contrition and the Sacraments are required in a different way. Faith is required as the only means on our part of apprehending righteousness; grief about sins committed is required as the ὁρµητήριον [“incentive”] to ask for the righteousness of faith; the Sacraments are required on God’s part as the means with which He offers the gift of righteousness.
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Faith is apprehension not only with respect to knowledge but also with respect to trust, which we prove in this way. “As many as received Christ became the children of God” (John 1:12). But now, this cannot be said about the bare apprehension of knowledge, for many hypocrites know Christ who nevertheless are not the children of God. We must take it to mean a reference to that confident apprehension by which we claim firmly that Christ is also our Mediator and that we in particular have the remission of sins through and because of Him. Thus Eph. 3:17: “Through faith Christ dwells in our hearts.” Surely, then, He is apprehended first through faith, something which cannot also be said about the bare apprehension of knowledge. “Christ dwells in me” (Gal. 2:20), which he explains in the same place: “I live by faith in the Son of God.” But now, Christ does not become ours through bare knowledge, nor does He live in us except through the confident apprehension by which we apprehend Christ as He is set before us in the Word of the Gospel so that He lives and dwells within us.
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To be justified διὰ τὴν πίστιν [“because of faith”] is one thing; to be justified διὰ τῆς πίστεως [“through faith”] is another. The former indicates the meritorious cause; the latter, the instrumental. We are not justified because of faith as merit but through faith which apprehends Christ’s merit.
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Luther: ‘Faith is not a human opinion or a dream which is considered faith by some people. Because they do not see the amendment of their life or any good works following, and yet hear many things about faith and can jabber much about it, they will slide back into this error and say that faith is insufficient but that they must do good works to obtain righteousness and salvation. The cause for this development is that when they hear the Gospel, they slip away from it, and on the basis of their own powers, they imagine this kind of thinking in their heart: “I believe”; and afterward they consider that this is true faith. However, just as it is a human fiction and opinion which the depths of the heart never feel, so also is it ineffective, and no amendment follows. However, faith is God’s work in us which changes and regenerates [us] from [the power of] God (John 1[:12–13]), which mortifies the old man, which makes us completely different people in our hearts, feelings, and all our powers. Therefore it brings along the Holy Spirit with it. It is a living, powerful, and effective thing and cannot help but do good works as a result. It does not ask whether good works are to be done; rather, before it asks such a thing, it is already doing them and always does them. He who does not do things of this kind is an unbeliever who moves back and forth, carefully seeking good works, but does not know what faith is, what good works are, but in the meantime prattles on and on about them and trifles with them. Faith is the living, full assurance that rests so firmly on God’s mercy that, before it fails, it is not afraid to die a thousand deaths. Both the trust of this sort and the knowledge of God’s mercy stir up joy, confidence, and love for God and all His creatures, all of which the Holy Spirit works in faith. Thus there follow in a man swiftness and promptness without coercion to do good to all, to serve all, to bring all things to the glory and honor of God, who by this benefit has made it so that it is as impossible to separate works from faith as it is to separate heat and flame from fire.’
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(1) Obviously faith is not the very righteousness of Christ. At the same time, however, it receives it and applies it to itself. Accordingly, there is a relation between Christ’s righteousness and faith, in that faith apprehends it. The apostle is speaking about faith not as a quality inherent in us (for in this respect it does not justify because it is the obedience of only one commandment, is imperfect, and was already owed beforehand) but as it apprehends the redemption of Christ. For he had said in the preceding chapter: “We are justified through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood through faith” [Rom. 3:24–25]. Now he shows that the faith inherent in this redemption is imputed for righteousness, namely, because of its correlate which it apprehended and received. (2) Faith is not the righteousness of Christ, that is, the thing by which Christ is essentially righteous, but it is our righteousness. At the same time, however, it is not a righteousness inherent in us but is imputed to us for righteousness because it apprehends the righteousness acquired from Christ. For this reason the apostle explains the words that faith is imputed to us for righteousness in this way (Rom. 3:22): “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is upon and over all who believe”; and (v. 26): “God justifies him who has faith in Jesus Christ.” (3) Scripture asserts not only that faith is imputed to us for righteousness but also that “Christ is our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6; 33:16). “In Him we have righteousness” (Isa. 45:24). “God made Him to be righteousness for us” (1 Cor. 1:30). “In Him we have become righteousness” (2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore because Christ and faith are simultaneously said to be our righteousness, the consequence is that faith therefore is and is called our righteousness because it apprehends Christ’s righteousness and makes it ours. (4) Imputation certainly signifies the sort of judgment which corresponds to truth. When faith apprehends the righteousness obtained from Christ, God declares us truly righteous not because of some righteousness inherent in us but because of Christ’s righteousness which faith apprehends and imputes to us. Lest Bellarmine go on to contrast imputation and truth, we produce a clear argument from 2 Cor. 5:21: “Christ was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Just as our sins were imputed to Christ so that He might make satisfaction for them, so also the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us believers so that we may be justified before God through it. But who would say that our sins were not truly imputed to Christ since He suffered for them with such great effort? However, we shall speak in greater detail about imputation a little later [§§ 213, 235–246]
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As wounds covered with bandages are not immediately and in a moment healed and wiped away but only begin to be healed, so also the wounds of our sins are covered by the merit of Christ’s righteousness like a salutary bandage not only so that they do not appear anymore in the sight of God but even so that they are healed and wiped away. However, in this life this happens only imputatively and inchoatively; but in the next life, completely.
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The obedience of Christ is both the meritorious and the formal cause of our justification, namely, in different respects. Considered in and by itself it is the meritorious cause, but to the extent that it is apprehended through faith and applied to us, it is the formal cause of our justification. The apostle uses the word “establish,” which is forensic and judicial. Thus he is teaching that our justification is a judicial act in which the sinner is absolved of his sins for Christ’s sake and declared righteous in the judgment of God.
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(1) We freely acknowledge that Christ was made to be sin in such a way that He became the sacrificial victim for sin. But the imputation of our sins to Christ is not thereby excluded but rather established since it was for this very reason that Christ became the sacrificial victim for the sins of the world: because they were imputed to Him before the judgment seat of God. The Holy Spirit speaks about this as follows (Isa. 53:6): “The Lord placed upon Him the iniquities of us all.” Verse 12: “He carried the sins of many.” Observe here that in these words of the prophet two things are connected: that Christ took upon Himself both the punishments of sins and our own sins. John 1:29: “Behold the Lamb of God, who ἄιρων” (“takes up, carries, and bears”) “the sins of the world.” Here the Baptist is referencing the sacrifices of the Old Testament in which the sins of those who were making the sacrifice were being transferred by a typological imputation onto the sacrificial victims. But the type of the scapegoat must especially be observed here (Lev. 16:21–22): “Let Aaron lay both hands on the head of the scapegoat and confess all the sins of the children of Israel and all their iniquities, and let him put those upon its head. He will send the goat out into the wilderness through a man prepared to do this so that in this way the goat will carry all their sins upon himself into the wilderness,” etc. No one can deny that this goat was a type of Christ. “He Himself bore (ἀνήνεγκεν) our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24).
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The apostle asserts both things: that we are justified because of Christ and that we are justified in Christ. Therefore both ought to be accepted, and neither put in conflict with the other. As we are in Christ through faith, so also through the same faith we are made the righteousness of God in Him; and as Christ was made to be sin for us through imputation, so also we are made the righteousness of God in Him through imputation. The righteousness of God which he mentions here is contrasted to sin, which Christ was made for us. Thus by force of this contrast no righteousness other than that which Christ made for us in His office can be meant, which is imputed to us through faith just as our sins were imputed to Christ.
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To be sure, the obedience and satisfaction of Christ is the efficient meritorious cause of our justification; the same, however, is the formal cause of our justification insofar as it is applied and imputed to us through faith.
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Christ not only made satisfaction for our sins but also fulfilled the Law of God in our place so that in this way both the satisfaction and the obedience of Christ constitute the righteousness which is imputed to us through faith.
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The true shining beauty which makes us pleasing to God is Christ’s righteousness as it is imputed by faith; the luster of renewal and the beauty of inherent righteousness in this life are imperfect and unclean, to be perfected finally in eternal life.
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There are two righteousnesses: imputed and inherent. By both we are called righteous: by the former relatively, perfectly, and before God; but by the latter subjectively, inchoately, imperfectly, and before men.
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Therefore when the apostle says that Abraham’s faith was imputed for righteousness and that righteousness is imputed to believers without works, his meaning is clear from what has been said and will become more clear from the following consideration. In His judgment God demands from us an account of the gifts given us, that is, of the perfection and wholeness in and with which He had created us in His image. This demand happens through the tables of the Law, which in this sense are correctly called “tables of receipt and expense,” that is to say, the receipt on our part and the expense on God’s. And yet God does not find the concreate integrity, wisdom, and righteousness in us, but, contrariwise, He finds sin and iniquity, the negative of good and the positive of evil. Therefore the voice of the Law or, what is the same, the righteousness of God as it is revealed in the Law accuses and condemns us. But here intervenes the mercy that reveals to us Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer, who takes away from us what is ours—that is, our sins and iniquities—and gives us what is His own, namely, the obedience He showed to the Law. Our justification arises from this truly amazing tempering of righteousness and mercy. For God, who is at the same time merciful and just, does not impute our sins to us but imputes the righteousness of Christ to us, namely, through faith. It is faith which flees for refuge to the mercy seat set before us in Christ, and rests and relies upon it.
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Justification is the act of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by which He forgives the sins of the sinner who truly believes in Christ, apart from any works or merits of his own, out of pure grace and mercy for the sake of the obedience and satisfaction of Christ the Mediator and Redeemer; imputes the righteousness of Christ to him; receives him to eternal life—and all this for the glory of His name and the salvation of man. To this one true God, our most kind Father, who chose us in Christ, His Son, before He laid the foundations of the world; who in the fullness of time sent His Son, born of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law; who out of His pure grace and mercy called, justified, and glorified us through and because of this only Mediator of ours: to Him be praise, honor, and glory to the eternity of the never-ending ages. Amen” (Gerhard,Johann. On Justification through Faith – Theological Commonplaces (pp. 112-114). Concordia Publishing. Édition du Kindle).
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From The Conservative Reformation by Charles Porterfield Krauth :
The third view is that of Tradutianism, or mediate Creationism: the theory that both body and soul are derived from the parents. This theory corresponds with the prevailing and clear statements of the Holy Scriptures, as, e. g. Gen. v. 3; Acts xvii. 24-26. It is a doctrine absolutely demanded by the existence of original sin, and the doctrine that God is not the author of sin. This view is defended, among the Fathers, especially by Tertullian, Athanasius, Gregory of Nissen, and many others. Augustine remained undecided, confessing his ignorance, yet leaning strongly to the Traducian View. The Lutheran Divines, with very few exceptions, are Traducian. The expressions in the Symbolical Books, such as in the Catechism, "I believe that God has created me," and in the Formula of Concord, "God has created our souls and bodies after the fall," are meant of the mediate creation, not of the direct. The trite theory of Traducianism is, that it is a creation by God, of which the parents are the divinely ordained organ. The soul of the child is related mysteriously, yet as closely, to the soul of the parent as its body is to theirs, and the inscrutable mystery of the eternal generation of God's Son from the absolute Spirit, mirrors itself in the origin of the human soul. 5. This Article presupposes, antecedent to all human sin, a state of integrity. God said, Gen. i. 26, " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." This image of God in man is something which is not absolutely lost, but is fearfully marred. See 1 Cor. xi. 7; James iii. 9; of integrity. Eph. iv. 24; and Col. iii. 10.
The traditions of the race preserve the memory of a golden age, a time of innocence and happiness; the Corfession implies that the race has fallen from a condition of glory and bliss. Man was created with an ability not to sin, which, had he been faithful, would have been merged into a condition, in which he could not sin: the "'posse non peccare" would have become a" non posse peccare," and the 'posse non mori " would have been merged into " nonposse mori." The abode of unfallen man was the Garden of Eden, or Paradise. " The state of integrity was that happy condition of man in which he was conformed to the image of God. The image of God is natural perfection, consisting, in conformity with God the prototype, in wisdom, righteousness, purity, immortality, and majesty. It was concreate in the parents of our race, so that they rightly knew and worshipped our Creator, and lived in holiness, and would have obtained a yet more glorious blessedness." "In the widest conception of the image of God, there pertains to it everything which marks man as a rational being. In this general sense, the image of God is not lost entirely, though obscured. In its more specific sense, it embraces the religious element in man, and its chief part is original righteousness. This involves the conformity of the understanding with the knowledge and wisdom of God; conformity of the will with the holiness of God, and with freedom; conformity of the affections with the purity of God. The secondary conformity consisted, partly, in the conformity within man, and partly, in that which was without man. The body of man unfallen was an image of the immortality of God. It was free from suffering and from calamity. It imaged the eternity of God by its immortality, its freedom from necessity of dying. Rom. v. 12; vi. 23.
The perfection without man, which belongs to the image of God, was conformity of his outward dominion, with the power and majesty of the Creator. He was Lord of the world, in which he had been placed; all the creatures of the world, in which he had been placed, were under his dominion. Gen. i. 26, ib. ii. 19." t Over against just and Scriptural views of the image of God are arrayed first the views which suppose it to have been one of corporeal likeness. This was the view of the Anthropomorphites. Next the Socinians and many Arminians, conceding that it was in conjunction with immortality, yet restricted it to the dominion over the animal world. The Pelagians and * Hollazius. Quenstedt. See Hutterus Rediv. (Hase) i 80, and Luthardt Komp. d. Dogm. Rationalists suppose the image of God in its religious aspect to have been little, if at all, injured. The Romish theology has a Pelagianizing tendency. The Fathers, of the Greek Church distinguish between the image of God and his likeness, referring the one to the rational nature of na7t, and the other to the spiritutal nature of man. The Reformation found a deep corruption in this, as in other doctrines. Low views of justification prevailed because men had low views of sin. Over against the spurious theology of the Church of Rome, the Apology says: "Original righteousness was not only a just blending of the qualities of the body, but, moreover, these gifts, the assured knowledge and fear of God, trust in God, and the power of rectitude." The Formula Concordie: " Original righteousness is the concreate image of God, according to which, man in.the beginning was created in truth, holiness, and righteousness." Hollazius says, "The principal perfections constituting the image of God, are excellence of understanding, perfect holiness, and freedom of will, purity of desires, and a most sweet consent of the affections, with the dictates of the understanding, and the government of the will, all in conformity with the wisdom, holiness, and purity of God. The less principal perfections of this image were: freedom from every taint of sin in the body, immunity from corrupting passions in the body, its immortality, and the full power of ruling all earthly creatures." To a correct conception of original sin it presupposes correct views of sin in general, as having its proper cause in the finite will, not in the infinite will, and as embracing the condition of the finite will, as well as its overt acts. The need of redemption rests upon the fall from God through sin.
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Augsburg Confession, Art. XIX., says: "Although God creates and preserves nature, yet the cause of sin is the will of the evil, i. e. of the Devil and of wicked men, which, God not assisting, turns itself from God; as Christ says, John viii. 44, when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of himself." When the Confession says " non adjuvante Deo," it does not mean that God does not assist in the repression of this sin, and that consequently it takes place, but. means that God in no sense assists to the production of sinl; that proceeds from the will of the evil in its independent self-moving power. The German expression parallel with this is, that " the cause of sin is the will of the Devil and of all the godless, which, so soon as God has taken away his hand, turns itself from God to the evil." But, by "the hand of God" here is not meant the moral power by which he sways the will to good, but simply his repressive external power, and the meaning is, that the sinful will consummates itself in sinful act, wherever it is not repressed by the Providence of God. Quenstedt embodies the faith of our Church, when he says emphatically: " God is in no respect whatever the efficient cause of sin as such, neither in part, nor in the whole; neither directly, nor indirectly; neither per se, nor by accident; neither in the species of Adam's fall, nor in the genus of sin of any kind. In no respect is God the cause or author of sin, or can be called such. See Ps. v. 5, ib. xlv. 12, Zach. viii. 17, 1 John i. 5, James i. 13-17. But, whatever there is of want of conformity with the law, that is to be ascribed to the free will of the creature itself, acting of its own accord. See further, tHosea xiii. 9, Matt. xxiii. 37." In regard to these passages, which speak of a hardening on the part of God, such as Exod. vii. 3, John vii. 10, Rom. ix. 18, Hollazius says: "God does not harden men causally, or effectively, by sending hardness into the hearts of men, but (judicialiter,) judicially, permissively, and desertively." The standing sophism against just views of original sin is that nothing is sin except it be voluntary; and that nothing is voluntary, unless it be done with a distinct consciousness and purpose of the will. But, over against this, the Scriptures and sound logic teach, that to a true conception of what is voluntary, i. e. is of, or pertains to the will, belongs the state of the will previous to any act. Before there can be a voluntary act, there must be a state of the will which conditions that act. Original sin, therefore, is voluntary sin on this broader and more Scriptural conception of what is voluntary. The New England theology, in our country, has laid special stress upon the false conception of what is voluntary. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession says: "The adversaries (i. e. Pelagianizing Romanists,) contend that nothing is sin except it be voluntary. These expressions may hold good among philosophers, in judging of civil morals, but they have nothing to do with the judgment of God." Hollazius says: "The element of the voluntary does not enter into a definition of sin, generically considered. A sin is said to be voluntary, either subjectively, as it inheres in the will, or eficiently, as it results from the deliberate will. In this last respect, not all sin is voluntary. This is held over against the Papists and Socinians, who define sin exclusively as the voluntary transgression of the law." 7. It presupposes that from the original state of integrity there was a FALL OF MAN into a state of sin. The original Fall of man from God resulted, according to The;Fal of Gen. iii., from external temptation and inward Man. desire, leading to doubt of the Divine goodness, and transgression of the Divine command. The consequences of this Fall were: terror before the presence of God, not filial reverence, but servile fear; the expulsion from Paradise; the troubles of earthly life - temporal death only prevented by the mercy of God - from passing into eternal death. The Fall of man is, throughout, presupposed as a fact, in the whole Biblical teaching in regard to original sin.
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Hollazius defines the first sin thus:-" The first sin of man, or Fall, is the transgression of the law of Paradise, in which our first parents violated the divine interdict which forbade them to eat the fruit of the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil,' being persuaded thereto by the Devil, and abusing the freedom of will, and thus brought on themselves, and on their posterity, born of them in the order of nature, the loss of the divine image, grievous fault (culpam), and liability (reatum) to temporal and eternal punishment. The cause of the first sin is not God, but the Devil, who persuaded, and man who transgressed the Divine law, being overcome by the persuasion of the Devil, and abusing the freedom of the will. Our first parents, in the Fall, directly violated a positive law, but indirectly and virtually, by their disobedience, broke through the restraints of the whole moral law. The Fall of Adam was not necessary to manifest the justice and mercy of God." This deflection," says Quenstelt, " embraces in its course certain distinct acts of sin, which may be classed as follows: i. Incredulity, -not having faith in the word of God. ii. Affectation of the likeness of God. iii. A purpose springing from this transgression of the law. iv. A carrying out of this purpose into action." In the Fall of our first parents began original sin. "It is called," says Quenstedt, "original sin, not because it existed either from the beginning or origin of the world, or of man, but partly, because it takes its origin in man, with the origin of each man; partly, because it is the fount and origin of all actual sin." Tertullian probably first introduced the term. A distinction is drawn between "peccatum originale originans," and " peccatum originale originatum." The latter is by preeminence styled "original sin." Thus "original sin," if not by imputation, yet by some form of association, passed over to all the posterity of Adam and Eve. The Formula Concordic says: " The hereditary evil is that fault (culpa) or liability (reatus) whereby it comes that we all, because of (propter) the disobedience of Adam and Eve, are under God's abhorrence, and are by nature children of wrath." * The Apology says: " Some dispute that original sin is not a vice or corruption in the nature of man, but only a servitude or condition of mortality, which they, who are propagated from Adam, without vice of their own, but on account of another's fault, inherit. We, that we may show that this doctrine displeases us, make mention of concupiscence, and declare that a corrupt nature is born." Whatever, therefore, may be the relation of imputation to original sin, our Church holds it to be an impious opinion, that our misery and liability are merely the results of imputation. The primary point is, that we do actually participate, in our nature, in the corruption wrought by the Fall. " Original sin is that vitiation of human nature arising from the fall of our first parents, accidental, (in the theological sense,) propagated by human conception, proper and real in all men, whereby they are destitute of the power of rightly knowing and worshipping God, and are constantly impelled to sin, and exposed to eternal death."
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All human beings have the same nature. In this nature original sin inheres, and all alike inherit it.. With reference to this inherited character, it is sometimes called hereditary sin. In German its usual title is " Erbsiinde." In the doctrine that all men (orines homines), born in the course of nature, have this sin, is implied the falseness of the Romish figment, in regard to the sinlessness of the mother of our Lord. It rejects the idea of the immaculate conception of Mary, which has been established in our own time as a doctrine of the Romish Church. The doctrine of the immaculate conception, to wit: that the Virgin Mary zoas conceived and born without sin, had been for centuries maintained by the Franciscans, and denied by the Domlinicans, but was set forth authoritatively by Pius IX. in 1854, as a doctrine of the Catholic Church.* The birth of Mary was a human birth, and hence, hers was a nature with the taint of original sin. In this thesis, moreover, is implied the freedom of our Lord from original sin, for his birth was not in the course of nature. Ie was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Apostles' Creed, Art. II.); He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mlary (Nicene Creed, Art. III.); and his birth was divine and supernatural. And here, it is impossible not to be struck with the beautiful, Scripture-like reticence of our Confession, for while it nlost clearly either states or implies that original sin has been in the world since Adam's Fall; that without that Fall it would not have been; that our natural descent from himl actually is accompanied, in every case, by the inheritance of the moral nature, into which, so to speak, he fell, it does not define how;t THEOIETICALLY, the sin of Adam is related to us; does not touch the question of imputation at all. The Augsburg Confession sets forth the chief Articles of Faith, the Faith of the Church universal, that is of the true Catholic Church, but the doctrine of inmputation, AS A THEORY, belongs to scientific theology. The Augsburg Confession presents the whole question, only in its great practical elements, as these in some form or other are grasped by faith, and take part in the general belief of the Church. We cannot recall a single passage, in any of our Confessions, in which the imputation of Adam's sin is alluded to, even in passing, as an Article of Faith.
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The dominion of sin is as wide as the dominion of death, that is, it is universal. It shows that the operation is not limited to adults; and that there may be no mistake in regard to this, as if men might suppose that infants were regarded as exceptions, it says in verse 14, " death reigned... even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," i. e. over infants, who had not sinned by conscious acts of transgression, as Adam and Eve did; but, if infants come under it, a fortiori all others must. It adds in verse 15, "for if through the offence of one the many be dead," (Greek,) and in verse 18, " as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation," and in verse 19, "as by one man's disobedience, (the) many were made sinners." 2. In the specification of the classes embraced in this universal operation of original sin. Eph. ii. 3: " We all were by nature children of wrath, even as others." By "we all," is meant the Jewish Christians. "' We Jews'even as others,' " i. e. Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles embrace mankind, and if even the members of God's elect race are subject to this law, d fortiori the Gentiles would be, if there were any distinction. 3. In the Scriptural negation of any limitation of the universality of original sin. Job xiv. 4, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." 4. In the exceptional character of Jesus Christ, as alone free froii original, as well as actual sin, in which is implied that all but He are born in sin. "He knew no sin," 2 Cor. v. 21, was "without sin," Heb. iv. 15. " le was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," ib. vii. 26. In all this is implied more than our Saviour's freedom from acts of sin. To our Lord, and to Him alone belongs, among men, an untainted nature; to every other child of Adam pertains the curse of original sin. To the freedom of our Lord's nature from original sin, it was essential that his conception should be of the Holy Ghost, and his birth oit of the course of nature. They who are not thus conceived and born must have the taint of origiual sin, that is, as the Confession affirms: The whole race, whose conception and birth are in the sphere of nature, are conceived and born in sin. V. The next thesis of the Confession pertains to the MODE of perpetuation of original sin. It connects this with the natural extension of our race. Not od nly are human beings born with it, but it originates with their natural life, and before'their natural birth; and hence, with reference to each hunman being, it comes to be called "original sin." It is the sin which is so mysteriously original with man. Its origin, and our origin, are simultaneous. It is originated when man is originated, and because he is originated, and by his origination. Hence, the term original, which has been objected to in the statement of the doctrine, is more expressive and accurate than any that could be substituted for it. The great point in this thesis, is that sin passes into the life of the race, not by imitation, as the Pelagians contend, but by hereditary congenital transmission, and that this propagation is its natural source. Over against the doctrine of Calvin and other speculators, who maintain that: "the progeny of Adam do not derive their corruption naturally from him, but that corruption depends upon the ordination of God," (see Calvin, on Gen. iii. 6,) the Augsburg Confession distinctly connects original sin with the natural process of descent, "secundum naturam," i. e. with natural propagation, and natural birth; and such is the clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Ps. li. 5, "Behold! I was shapen in iniquity."
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the sole things which men have in common, are their human nature, and their common original inborn moral condition. In one of these must lie the spring of universal sinfulness; but it cannot lie in their nature as such; for nature as such is the work of God, and cannot therefore be sinful. Sin is the perversion of nature, the uncreating, as it were, of what God has created, a marring of His work. It must lie then in man's moral condition, as fallen and inheriting original sin. The great acknowledged facts in the case then are logically and necessarily connected with the theory of original sin which is maintained in the Confession. VII. The results or revelations of the workings of this original sin are, first, privative or negative, and second, positive. Seventh Thesis. i: Privative or negative showing itself in what we the results have lost; we are without fear, without trust, "'sine metu, sine fiducia." ii: Positive in what we have, "cum concupiscentia, with concupiscence." i: 1. Privatively or negatively original sin shows itself, first in this, that all human beings are born without the fear of God. Conf. "Sine metu Dei;" "Keine wahre Gottesfurcht haben." This means not only that an infant does not and cannot consciously fear God, but that there is in it a lack of anything which can potentially, or through any process of self-development or of natural education, exercise 'such a fear of' God as He demands of the creature. We can by nature have a false fear, or an instinctive fear of God, but not a true fear, hence the emphasis of the German of the Confession, "Keine wahre," "no true fear." 2. A second element of the privative result is, that they are born without trust in God, without faith in Him or love for HIim. In the fear of God there is a just contemplation of His natural attributes, and that reverential awe which inspires the spirit of obedience. In trust, faith, and love, there is a contemplation of His moral attributes, drawing the heart to Him. Neither our just fears, nor our just hopes toward God, are left untouched by original sin. Conf., "Sine fiducia erga Deuinm;" "I(einen wahren Glauben an Gott, keine wahre Gottesliebe."
There is innate in a child, before conscious exercise, a potential, true trust, faith, and love, toward its mother, and that trust unfolds itself out of the potential into the actual. Before a child's first act of love toward its mother, there must be a power of loving, and that power of loving must exercise itself: There must be something in a child that can love before it does love, and that something is born with the child. In other words, a child may be said, with reference to this innate power, to be born with trust toward its mother. But it lacks in its nature that which would enable it to exercise a true trust in God, such as He demands. Man may by nature have a false trust in God, or an intellectual and natural trust, but not that higher and true trust which is in perfect keeping with God's nature and His holy law. In order to this, grace must impart something with which we are not born. The Roman Catholic theologians, in their confutation of the Augsburg Confession, say that the statement in this article in regard to original sin is to be utterly rejected, since it is manifest to every Christian that to be without the fear of God, and without trust toward God, is rather the actual fault of the adult than the fault of a new-born infant, which is destitute of the use of reason, as the Lord says to Moses, Dent. i. 39,' "Your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil." Melanchthon, in the Apology, replied by referring to the German form of the Confession, which brings out more clearly than does the Latin, that it is not the act, but the power of fearing God and trusting in Him, which is referred to, or as Melanchthon expresses it, not the act only, but the gift and power of doing these things. The Apology is the best commentary on the disputed parts of the Augsburg Confession, as well as an able defence of them. ii. The positive result is that they are born with concupiscence, that is, that from their birth they are all full of evil desire and evil propensity. The Confession says, "Et cum concupiscentia." German:' Dass sie alle von Mutterleibe an voller biser Lust und Neigung sind." The term concupiscence is a New Test. term, Rom. vii. 7, 8, " I had not known lust (margin,' or concupiscence')" etc., " wrought in me all manner of concupiscence." So Col. iii. 5, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." 1. Thess. iv. 5, "Not in the lust of concupiscence." The Greek word which it translates, and which is used in a number of places where it is not translated concupiscence, has the general meaning of earnest and intense desire. Thus our Saviour, Luke xxii. 15, says, "'With desire (epithumia) I have desired (epithumeo) to eat this passover with you before I suffer." St. Paul says, (Phil. i. 23,) "Having a desire (epithumia) to depart;" 1 Thess. ii. 17, "Endeavoured with great desire." These are the only cases, three out of thirty-seven, in which the word epithumia is used without implying something inordinate and sinful. The natural epithumia of an unsanctified nature is always inordinate, carnal, sensual, impure: it is desire, lust, concupiscence. The word is also applied by metonymy to objects which kindle such desires. Every epithumia except that of our Lord, and of the natures conformed to His nature, is represented as sinful. In the passage in Romans vii. 7, 8, concupiscence is represented as the motive power in covetousness. In Col. iii. 5, it is distinguished from inordinate affection and covetousness, to which it is related as the root to the tree, or as the trunk to the branches. In 1 Thess. iv. 5, the "lust of concupiscence" is mentioned, that is, the lust or positive desire generated by the evil propensity inherent in our own nature; that is, the actual evil desire by the original evil desire, or concupiscence; sin by sin; sin the offspring by sin the parent, the actual sin of our charactr being related to the original sin of our nature, as child to mother.
The Pelagianizing Romanist says, Lust, or concupiscence, brings forth sin, therefore it cannot be sin, because the mother cannot be the child. We reply, Concupiscence brings forth sin, therefore it must be sin, because child and mother must have the same nature.
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Original sin is not only retrospective, looking back to the origin of our race, but it is prospective, covering the future as it covers the past, a pall upon the face of the nations. In the sphere of nature it renders our condition utterly hopeless. A man may by nature have a weak body, a feeble constitution, an imperfection of speech, but in nature he may find relief for them all. Strength may come by natural exercise, fluency by repeated efforts, but there is no power in man, in his reason or in his will, none in education, none in the whole store of the visible, or intellectual, or moral world, which can repair this fatal defect, and render him God's reverent, loving, and trusting child. There is no surf-beaten shore on which man may go forth and train himself amid its thunders and its whispers, to speak in true faith and love into the ear of God words which may remove His righteous disapproval of our sinful and sinning nature. In other words, in the sphere of nature, original sin leaves us in utter and hopeless ruin. Without faith it is impossible to please-God; without holiness no man shall see the Lord; and by nature we are destitute of faith and holiness potentially. In our conscious, moral life there can be no development of them actually. We neither have, nor can have them, unless something not of us, nor of nature, supervenes. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto Him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor. ii. 14. VIII.
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Thus Original Sin is a defilement and confusion of the parts of man, and God hates it, and on account of it is angered at the subject. In disease nothing has the sense of privation, inasmuch as the subject remains, and disease is a certain disturbance in the subject. The wounded man looks upon his wound sorrowfully, and knows that the wound is not nothing negatively, but that the parts are torn. Thus Paul grieved when he saw the crimes of Nero, for he knew that they were not nothing negatively, but the awful ruins of the work of God." *
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Death, even eternal death, as the endurance of suffering, is not essentially so fearful a thing as sin. It would be more in keeping with divine holiness to permit suffering in the highest degree than to permit sin in the least degree. Suffering is the removal of a lesser good than that which sin removes, and the bringing in of a lesser evil than that which sin brings in. Those, therefore, who admit that the natural consequence of Adam's sin was, that sin entered the world, and fixed itself there by God's permission, admit a far greater mystery even than would be involved in the doctrine that God would allow suffering to enter an unfallen world. It would not so sorely test our a priori anticipation in regard to God to know that He allowed suffering in an innocent world, as to know that He allows a race to lose its moral innocence. If we had been told that in one of the stars above us the people are innocent, but that suffering is there; and that in another, sin came in (by God's permission) to destroy the innocence of its people, the former statement would not shock our moral sense, or create the same difficulty of harmonizing the fact with God's spotless holiness and love of what is best as the latter would. But the case isevenstronger,vastly stronger, than this supposition would imply, for the difficulty that presses us is not that suffering exists apart from sin, but that God, having allowed sin to enter the world, allowed the penalty of death to follow that sin.”
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From Heinrich Bornkamm’s Luther’s World of Thought : “Luther’s profound earnestness and his deep mental anguish did not stem from excessive fearfulness but from the unyielding consistency with which he had practiced the precepts of the church and his monastic order. The church had directed him into monastic life on the supposition that it offered more and purer opportunities than the outside world to share in the sensation of divine love. Luther tried this, only to discover that one’s transports of love gave no convincing assurance and certainty.
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By about 1515 he had evolved the essential outlines of his theology. He termied it a ‘theology of the cross,’ for only at the cross of Christ do we experience God in a manner that stands the test of reality. God must send us into darkness and into trials and temptations to free us from ourselves and to prepare us for the reception of His grace, which faith, contrary to all expectations, finds solely at the cross. This he had experienced in the course of his own life, and he had become firmly convinced of it. In this way he freed hi;self from the church’s demand to find in her power, in her laws, in her hierarchy, and in her spiritual goods a pledge and guarantee of God’s reality on earth.
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The true world of God was divined by Luther also in nature, which is completely pervaded by God. But to recognize it amid all the flaws and defects of the real nature, it is necessary to have learned at the cross of Christ to peer through darkness and gloom into the very heart of God and there to behold the true, hidden reality of God. This is the alpha and omega of Luther’s thinking. From this his work has its life.
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In the first four of his theses, Luther directed his attack sharply and tellingly at this point. ‘Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying: Repent ye! intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence’ … The four statements introduce a world-historical revolution. They rend the tie between the Catholic sacrament of penance and Christ’s words on penitence. They deprive the sacrament of penance of any binding power, for it would be ridiculous for a Christian to pursue a mode of penance that does not conform to Christ’s demand. Luther reflect’s Jesus’ meaning when he speaks of the daily drowning of the old Adam and the daily renewal and rising of the new man. Simultaneously, he points out most clearly the real offense of the Catholic doctrine of penance. If penance is made a sacrament, it is torn asunder into many separate acts; the acts of confession become somewhat intermittent. Corresponding to this, God always issues His grace piecemeal, as it were. It must be granted anew from one confession to the next; for according to Catholic belief, the priest not only proclaims forgiveness, but he also remits sin in God’s stead. Furthermore, God does not grant complete forgiveness in the rite of absolution. No, the temporal penalties remain in force. For Luther, however, real penance is something complete and final. It is determinative for man daily and hourly; it is at the same time a penetrating searching of the heart and a proper conduct of life. When God grants man His forgiveness, He does not detract from it by means of ecclesiastical penalties or purgatory.
This is the simple basic thought underlying Luther’s criticism of the penitential system. His attack on indulgence is equally simple. What is the aim and purpose of indulgence? Relief from the temporal penalties for sin imposed by the church in the sacrament of penance, commutation into more convenient and less burdensome penalites. For Luther this represented a position far removed from true repentance. His opposition was expressed most simply and profoundly in the fortieth thesis: ‘True contrition seeks and loves punishment, while the leniency of indulgence remits it and causes men to hate it.’ This brings the entire religious antithesis to the fore. The Catholic sacrament of penance and indulgence bear man in mind and are intent on making things easy for him. Indulgence is supported by natural human love of self. Man wants to stand before God as righteous as possible—also because of purgatory, hell, and judgment—but at the same time he wants this to be as convenient as possible. Assurance of protection against God and deliverance from as much penalty as possible are the two aims of indulgence. Luther’s conception of penitence bears God in mind and demands that man submit completely to His will and service. True penitence, for Luther, implies a ready willingness to suffer for sins and an earnest attempt to make aments, albeit full amends can really never be made. The Catholic purchaser of indulgence has regard only for himself; the Lutheran penitent has regard only for God, without giving thought to the burdens he may bear in His service.
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In accordance with the true sense of Christ’s message, he converts penitence—which in the sacrament of confession consists of separate penitential steps—into a daily and complete confession. He delivers man from his self-love, which, through indulgences, would like to attain forgiveness with as little trouble as possible, to the loftier naturalness of true penitence, which no longer seeks its own comfort.
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The two greatest revolutionary changes of human history (viewed politically, culturally, and intellectually) emerged from two events that at first were altogether inconspicuous. When Jesus said, ‘Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’ the first of these two turning points was ushered in. Luther initiated the second with the first of his Ninety-five These: ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ, in saying: Repent ye! intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence.’
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It would be be appalling if our knowledge of God were confined to the realization that He is the power of life in everything that lives. For everything, the sublime and the beautiful as well as the vile and the ugly, owes its existence to this power. God’s omnipotence preserves the good and the evil; by the mere bestowal of life it permits the one to grow better and purer, the other to become always more vile. Both good and evil propagate themselves without end in this world. Even the ungodly owe their existence to God’s power. Why does He not withhold life from them? Why does He not put an end to suffering, war, and death, which could not endure without His omnipotent hand? Why does He not force all men on the right path if they themselves are unable to find it? Why does He permit them to stray hopelessly in gloom and despair? Questions and riddles without end!
Small wonder that Luther declared that this God, who dwells in everything that lives and whom he beheld there as clearly as ever poet and philosopher did, is a hidden God, a God to whom no path of our philosophical contemplation leads us. If we assume that we can comprehend Him in a discordant and contradictory life, in which He is indeed hidden, then our reflections must carry us into insoluble contradictions. Luther knew that to faith there is no alternative but imprecation and blasphemy. He was well aware that the human mind can snap because of this question and be driven into insanity. All profound thinkers who skirted the rim of this precipice have either known or experienced this (Goethe, Hölderlin, Nietzsche).
Only one, God Himself, can lead the way out of this maze of questions. This Luther knew positively. It is futile for reason to remonstrate and rebel. But does this mean that we should just lay our hands in our laps and patiently await enlightenment? By no means. We must learn to put the question concerning God correctly. This is imperative. Then the comprehension of the answer will be easier. The fact that our attempt to apprehend God in nature and in history as the totality of life leads us into a blind alley need not be fruitless. If this quest carried us adrift, then the mistake did not occur at the end but at the beginning. We must retrace our steps and seek a correct starting point. Did we actually look for God when we sought Him in the aggregate of life? Or were we not groping rather for a concept of the ultimate unity of the world? To find the coherent elements of the world is the never-ending task of the philosopher, but this is not the core of the question concerning God. To trace the living world to its ultimate cause and to deduce a philosophical system from this, and to believe in God, are two radically different matters. The former stems from our strong urge and thirst for knowledge and cognition. But the result of this philosophical investigation still has no bearing on my attitude and my conduct of life. One may have the most varying views on this primary unity in all life; one may speak about God or about a primal power, the universe, fate, primal substance, primal spirit—all this is immaterial to, and without any effect on, our heart, our conscience, and our conduct in daily life. On the other hand, everything in life does depend on the question whether I truly believe in God. A genuine faith in God must transform me into another man. The real question concerning God is not only a question asked by us but also one addressed to us. The one is a question of cognition; the other, a question of life. The two can become one only if I know both. Here true faith in God is greater than any power of human thinking. In faith an answer to the question about the ultimate cause and origin of the world is also included; but the philosophical concept of origin contains no answer for my conduct of life, no duties and obligations, no help, and no comfort. Therefore we must learn to formulate the question concerning God correctly. … (p.58).
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Luther often put and answered this question in a wonderfully informal, human, and undogmatic manner, particularly in his well-known explanation of the First Commandment (Large Catechism). ‘What does it mean to have a God, or what is God?’ Answer: ‘God is that to which I must look for all that is good and to whom I must flee in every need.’ … It is inconsequential whether I can make many profound statements about God. It is of the greatest importance, however, for me to know that He is my God, that He is at my side, a God on whom I can depend implicitly at all times. … The people who assume that God reveals Himself in nature and history are mistaken. He is present there, but He is concealed. We behold His mask there but not His countenance. We are aware of His might, but we do not learn His will. We feel His breath, but we do not look into His heart. Who is hidden behind this mask? Luther said fittingly: ‘Therefore we are skilled to distinguish between God and His mask. The world is not able to do this.’ Whoever supposes that he can grasp God in nature or in history with his hands, as it were, confuses God with His masks and does not differentiate between these. He gropes and reaches out into the dark. Here there is no room for reliance and confidence. I can rely only on him whose heart is known to me.
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In Luther’s faith the personality of God is incomparable and something free from all naive resemblance to humankind. When Luther speaks of the heavenly Father, the totality of life permeated by God always rings in his words. But just because God is concealed and not revealed in this life, faith is constrained, by reason of God’s intangible presence, to seek Him as a person, as a fatherly heart on which it relies for every good and where it seeks refuge in every need.
To seek—even the last step of which our reflection is capable will not carry us beyond this. After we have revised the incorrect question concerning God, the question about the ultimate cause, and have grasped the true question about God, the question regarding Him who is my God, then we have completed the preparation. We can do no more than put the question; someone else will have to give the answer.
He has already given it. The only thing a God-seeking person must still understand is this: that he need take not a single step further but that he has already arrived at the goal. He must merely open his eyes and turn to the source from which clarity and the presence of God have been promised him. To be sure, the question must remain correct and unimpaired. We must not ask for a concept of God equipped with all that appears to us necessary for, and suited to, God; we must not ask for proofs. There are none. We must not ask for a compelling categorical imperative, but we must ask only whether our herat can rely on this God, the God whom Jesus proclaimed and portrayed thus: ‘No one but the only God is good.’ ‘For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.’ ‘God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.’
Does Jesus know our heart? Can we evade Him? Or does He speak the truth? When we finally gaze into the face of Jesus, the lonely suppliant on the mount, the Son of Man who had come not to be served but to serve, who unmasks the Pharisees and hypocrites intrepidly and judges them irrefutably, who calls the little children unto Himself, who comforts the adulteress, who heals wounds and remits sin wherever He goes, who weeps over His people—when we hear the Man of Sorrows of Gethsemane and of Golgotha saying: ‘Not My will, but Thine…’ ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!’ did Luther then say too much when he called Him the mirror of the fatherly heart? No logical and clear proofs can be adduced for this certainty. But Jesus can bring an open and sincere heart under His spell and convince it of His truth more effectively with gentle force than with a thousand reasons. His only guarantee and pledge is His life itself, even to His dying on the cross. There He descended as a brother into all the woe and forsakenness man can experience, and by His death He bore witness to the truth that God is nigh amid pain and anguish of heart and can be found where our human mind is least inclined to seek Him. Where our blurred eyes behold nothing but darkness and tragedy in Jesus’ life, there the eyes of faith see an immeasurable light bursting upon the world. God is concealed from the blind, but to the seeing He is revealed. Because then Christians know for what purpose they must bear their own cross, just as they know Him who helps them bear it.
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To express the presence and the revelation of God in Christ, Luther was especially fond of calling Jesus ‘the Word of God.’ That is a metaphor taken from the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John. That, too, we must seek to understand anew. And the more firmly we fix our gaze on Christ and the more candidly and freely we search for His footprints in the Bible, the better will we understand this Book.
Luther was so fond of calling Christ ‘the Word of God’ because there is no more exact agency for self-communication than words. They reveal one’s spirit, one’s mind. Each of our words betrays us, intentionally or unintentionally, for they emanate from our innermost being. Even if we use words to conceal our thoughts, they reveal part of our character, namely, the ability to be untruthful. Word and character are inseparable; we even think in words. Our words are merely our character exposed to view. Luther wanted to express this most intimate communion between the heart of God and the spirit of Jesus Christ when he adopted the term ‘Word of God.’ At the same time he used the singular might of the unpretentious word as a metaphor for the wonderful might of Christ. A word is the weakest thing in the world, a mere breath of air, yet it is the mightiest. … As words not only reflecddt the mind but also contain it as their real substance, so Jesus’ words and His whole person are not only a doctrine concerning God; God’s grace is not merely proclaimed in them, but it is also imparted by them. In Him God is near us, clearly and definitely. He demands a decision, just as every word spoken by man demands a yes or a no. Thus Christ is not only the bearer of a message, He is also the personified question of God, the question that asks us whether we want to put our trust in Him and accept Him as our God. At the same time He is the personified pledge of God, the pledge that assures us that we may rely on Him for every good and flee to Him in every need.
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From Philip Cary, The Meaning of Protestant Theology: “The doctrine of the Trinity is the teaching about who God is that makes sense of the Gospel and what it tells us about Christ. It supports the outward turn toward this one person in whom we find the Truth and Goodness and Beauty that is God. It is therefore also the way to understand Christian spirituality as a relationship with God in person, someone who can be trusted as a friend and received as a Beloved. Christian faith is distinctively personal, not because it is experienced in the depth of the heart like every strong feeling—as if ‘personal’ simply meant ‘emotional’—but because it is about this one person, Jesus Christ.
Talking about God in person gets complicated in Christian theology, however, because in the doctrine of the Trinity it has become customary to speak of God as three persons. But it is not quite as complicated as it is sometimes made to look. The phrase ‘three persons’ does not designate the object of Christian faith—or rather, it designates it in a very abstract way that is not essential to Christian faith, but is useful for some purposes in Christian theology. Unlike the phrase ‘one God,’ the phrase ‘three persons’ is not part of the creed. It belongs to a theology whose aim is, in every case, to direct our attention to one object of Christian faith, not three. As a consequence, the word ‘God’ itself tends to be rather vague in Christian usage. It can refer to God the Father or God the Son or God the Holy Spirit, or to the one God who is nothing other than Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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In the Bible, God is portrayed as a person in both the dramatic and the grammatical senses of the term. He is someone who speaks to another one, a first person who speaks to a second person with words that can be heard by third persons. He is one who enters into relations of covenant and promise with other persons, one whose word is to be believed and obeyed, but also one to whom other persons may address words of appeal, complaint, thanks, and praise. And when the Son of God comes into the world, he also is a person who speaks in prayer and praise to God his Father, and who in turn is spoken to. ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased,’ says the first person to the second person, and many third persons—ourselves—learn what is said (Mark 1:11). Elsewhere in the drama, the Son tells his disciples he will ask the Father to send them another one—another unus, we could say—who will be their Comforer, the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). So God is found in three different persons in the biblical drama, which is to say, each one of these three persons is God.
To believe the Gospel of Christ is to find oneself in the same drama with these three persons: as those to whom the Son promises that the Father will send his Spirit (John 14:26), as those receiving the promised Spirit poured out by the Son sitting at the right hand of God (Acts 2:33), as those who are given eternal life with Christ, whom the Spirit declares to be the Son of God by the power of his resurrection (Rom. 1:4). We could say: in Christ, God has entered the drama of human history. But it might be more accurate to say that through Christ human history is caught up in the drama between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unfolding in the Gospel. For to receive Christ in faith is to participate in his story and share his life. By faith alone we abide in Christ as he abides in us (John 15:5), so that our life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), and when he appears we shall appear with him and be like him (1 John 3:2). Being incorporated into Christ’s body, we are brought into the drama that is the eternal life of the Trinity.
So the word ‘person,’ which describes the life of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in dramatic terms, has its uses in trinitarian theology. It assists the outward turn of the Gospel by directing our attention to persons outside ourselves, those in whose drama we participate. But it reveals no secrets about the being of God and invites no speculations about God’s inner experience. It has nothing to say about God’s ‘personality’ in the modern sense of the term, and indeed does not even imply that there is such a thing. The term is much more modest than that, as well as much more abstract. Knowing God does not mean understanding the concept of a divine person, as if we came to know God through metaphysical inquiry about the nature of personhood—still less through psychological inquiry into God’s personality traits. Rather, we know God by participating in the drama of Father, Son, and Spirit through faith in the Gospel. Philosophical inquiry has its place…But doesn’t give us knowledge of who God is. For that, we need to believe God’s own word, which is how we learn what God himself has to tell us about who he is.
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Augustine pointed out the limitations and inadequacy of the term persona, which Latin theology used to answer the question, ‘Three what?’ We use the term, Augustine warns us, not to say what kind of thing there are three of in the Trinity, but because it is better than having nothing to say.
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Rather than a classification or general category, ‘person’ is a term for anyone who can play a role in a drama, of whatever species or category. A talking dog, if there were such a thing, would be a person. Similarly, in science fiction today, we often imagine weirdly shaped extraterrestrial beings who are persons but not human. They are not members of the same biological species as we are…but they can play a role in the same drama as humans do, and that means that when we imagine them, we are imagining persons.
The fact that the phrase ‘three persons’ does not tell us what kind of thing the Father is, or the Son or the Spirit, is part of what makes it a handy grammatical placeholder for what is three in God, on the rare occasions when we want to do with the creed does not do, and count to three after talking about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we do that in Western theology, ‘person’ is the noun that goes with ‘three,’ as ‘God’ is the noun that goes with ‘one.’ And we can certainly say that God is three in one (it is perfectly orthodox to do so), but it does not tell us much at all about the Trinity. After all, this is the same vocabulary we use when we say there are three peas in a pod. So teaching the doctrine of the Trinity does not mean explaining how it is that God can be ‘three in one.’ That phrase, legitimate as it is, doe snot tell us much about the doctrine or what it is about.
It is not important to explain how God can be ‘three in one,’ but it is important to show how faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is faith in one God. Hence the important thing to say about God as three persons is that we cannot think of three divine persons the same way we think of three human persons. Three human persons make three humans, but three divine persons do not make three gods. This is because the doctrine of the Trinity has a logic that does not invite ordinary counting. We could say: in the Trinity, things don’t add up.
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The logic of the doctrine of the Trinity needs the whole drama of the Gospel to put flesh on its bones: the whole story of Jesus Christ, his coming from God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, his being promised by the prophets of Israel as the fulfillment of the covenant, his incarnation in the womb of Mary, his birth and life and deatha nd resurrection and ascension and coming again in glory, his being head over all things for the sake of the church, his Body. The bare bones summary serves a purpose like the list of names, the dramatis personae, on a playbill. It is no substitute for the drama itself, but it does help you keep track of who’s who and who’s doing what. And the mere label, ‘Trinity’—like the label dramatis personae—is far less informative than the names it introduces.
The reason we have a doctrine of the Trinity in the first place is to make sense of the Gospel and the persons in it. The doctrine of the Trinity does this mainly by helping us make sense of the doctrine of the incarnation, the teaching that one person, Jesus Christ, is the Son of God incarnate—which is to say that this one person is both God and man, a human being who has the same divine being as God the Father. To combine the doctrines of incarnation and Trinity in this way is to use one mystery to make sense of another; it should not be mistaken for an attempt to explain how it is all possible. But the two doctrines together do clarify some things, supporting key convictions of the Christian faith and excluding bad ideas and false teachings. And there are a lot of bad ideas to exclude when you start doing what Christians have always done, worshiping a man who sits on the throne of God. Is this idolatry, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator? No—the doctrine of the Trinity answers—for this one whom we worship is the Son of God, and the Son is God (statement 2). So are we saying that Jesus is no different from God the Father? No—the doctrine of the Trinity answers again—because the Father is not the Son (statement 4). Then are we saying they are two different Gods? No again, comes the answer, for there is only one God (statement 7). This is the logical structure embedded in Christian worship from the beginning, but it took centuries to make the logic explicit.
It was inevitable that difficult questions had to be answered about the logic of Christian worship. The question, “Is Jesus the same as God the Father?” had to be answered with a clear no but also a partial yes. For on the one hand, the Father is not the Son (statement 4), but on the other hand the Son is God (statement 2), and there is only one God (statement 7), so he is not a different God from the Father. The logical conclusion to draw is that in his divine attributes he is exactly the same as the Father: equally divine, equally eternal, equally omnipotent, and equally the Creator of heaven and earth.
As we saw in chapter 2, this is what the Council of Nicaea had in mind in AD 325 when it introduced the term “being” (ousia) into the doctrine of the Trinity by teaching that the Son is “of one being” (homoousios) with the Father. This key phrase reinforces the stark affirmation of statement 2: not only is it true that the Son is God (“true God from true God,” as the creed says), but the Son is God in exactly the same sense that the Father is God, having everything that belongs to the divine being of the Father. He is not a different God created by or subordinate to the Father. If he were, he would not deserve to be worshiped equally with the Father. And the bishops at the Council of Nicaea clearly saw that this would violate the fundamental logic of Christian faith and worship. Likewise, as we saw in chapter 2, about a century after Nicaea another difficult question arose: Can Mary be called the mother of God? In the end, the same basic logic prevailed: Mary’s baby is the Son of God, and (as statement 2 says) the Son is God. When she gave birth to him, therefore, she gave birth to God. So Mary is indeed the mother of God. But of course this does not mean she originates the divine being or ousia of the Son of God.
So here again there is a kind of yes and no, because what needs to be said about Jesus’ divine being is different from what needs to be said about his humanity. In his divine being he is God (statement 2), but his humanity makes it clear that he is not the Father (statement 4). In the standard formula, he is one person having two natures, both divine and human. But the Nicene Creed’s language is simpler and subtler than this later formula, with no need of the technical terms “person” and “nature.” The key point is made by a series of verbs in the second article of the creed that all have the same grammatical subject. The same one who is eternally begotten of the Father or (to translate more precisely) “born from the Father before all ages,” and who is therefore “true God from true God,” is also the same one (the same grammatical subject) who for our salvation “came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary and was made human.”19 The same one thus has two births, as Cyril of Alexandria emphasized. The church fathers at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 underlined this point by using the phrase “the same one” (ton auton) seven times in their brief statement on the doctrine of the incarnation.20 The repetition is so emphatic and obtrusive that English versions often fail to translate every occurrence of the phrase. But they should, for it makes the point clearer than abstractions like “person” and “nature.” We are talking about the same someone when we say “born of the Virgin Mary” as when we say “born from the Father before all ages.”
A century later, as we saw, the church tackled an even more difficult question: Was it God who suffered and died on the cross? Once again the logic of Christian worship ultimately prevailed. The Son of God whom we worship equally with the Father is no less truly God than the Father is, and he is the same person who suffered and died on the cross. As the Second Council of Constantinople put it in 553, “Our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God.”21 This is the same logic as the creed, as read by the Council of Chalcedon: the same someone who is “true God from true God” is the same one who “was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.” But again there is a “no” as well as a “yes.” The Father did not suffer and die on the cross, for the Father is not the same one as the Son (a very important consequence of statement 4). Hence the doctrine of the Trinity allows the church to affirm Deipassionism (that God suffered) but not Patripassionism (that the Father suffered). To speak of the suffering and death of God is to speak of the person of Christ, the same one who was both eternally begotten of the Father and born of the virgin Mary.
When God died on the cross, there was no loss of his divine nature or being, but rather the divine Son in all his unchangeable eternity—the same one who is eternally begotten of the Father—was the same one as that dead man, not a different person, so that for three days it was true to say, “that dead man is the eternal God,” just as it was true some thirty years earlier to say, “that baby in Mary’s womb is the eternal God.” This is where the great formula we learned from Gregory of Nazianzus in chapter 2 leads in the end: “What he was, he remained; what he was not, he assumed.”22 The Son of God, remaining true God from true God, immortal and eternal, assumed or took up our mortality and made it truly his own; hence even during the three days when he was dead, Jesus was still the immortal, eternal God. Our language reaches the borders of intelligibility here: a dead man is the immortal God. Yet here too the doctrine of the Trinity is not senseless but helps make sense of what Christians need to say about Christ: that the Son of God, who is not the same one as the Father, chose in his eternity to be the same one as this man in his life and death and resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of the Father. Just as Jesus’ human life is the life taken up and lived by this one person, the Son of God, so his death is the death that the Son of God took up and made truly his own.
Another formulation we encountered in chapter 2 points to something similar: Cyril of Alexandria’s description of the Son of God as one who “suffered impassibly,”23 a paradox that could also be described as his “impassible passion.” Since “passion” is related to “action” as passivity is to activity (or, in older English, as suffering is to doing), I suggest that what we have here is a unique combination of divine activity and human passivity. Augustine put it this way, emphasizing the point that the activity of the Trinity is always the activity of all three persons: “The Father of course did not suffer, but the suffering of the Son was the work of both the Father and the Son.”24 He could even go on to say that the suffering of the Son was “done by the Son” as well as “done by the Father.”25 The strange language here gets at the fact that the suffering of the Son of God was not, at root, something done to him (for nothing is done to the impassible God) but something done by him, something he actively did, as the one act of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together. What he did was choose from eternity (i.e., in his divine nature) that the Son would be none other than this one human sufferer, Jesus Christ. Hence the suffering of God is radically unlike ours in that, in the most fundamental sense, it is his own doing. He does not merely suffer it, enduring it passively as something done to him—which indeed does happen to him in his human nature when he is nailed to the cross—but also and more fundamentally, he actively takes up this human suffering and makes it his own,26 out of pure love for us, in a way that is possible only for the impassible God. So “impassible suffering” means that in God alone, his suffering is fully his own doing. Of all the human beings who have ever suffered, only the incarnate Son of God chose from the beginning to make suffering his own, just as only he, of all human beings who were ever born, chose to be born, to be human and mortal and vulnerable. The rest of us are in no position to make our suffering our own in this fundamental way, and thus our suffering is less truly ours than God’s suffering is his. In that sense God suffers more truly than anyone else. And it is this God who is given to us, in person, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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For Luther, true knowledge of God is not like an eye enjoying the light or a mind enjoying the vision of Truth. It does not have the immediacy of ‘seeing for yourself’ but the opacity of relying on what another person has to say to you. In Luther’s theology, we do not know God without believing his word, which means we must hear what this person, this Beloved, tells us about who he is. Luther’s theology thus relies on what I called, in the previous chapter, an epistemology of hearing, because it makes our knowledge dependent on ‘hearing the word,’ in the sense of learning what another person has to say, whether by reading or literally hearing.
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Knowledge of another person, according to this epistemology, is not an achievement of the knower so much as a gift of the known. We can only know persons if they give themselves to be known, because they have an authority to speak for themselves that we cannot ignore. It is not like a math class, where we begin by believing what our teacher tells us but then proceed to figure it out for ourselves. In mathematics, ‘faith seeking understanding’ would mean we are not content with secondhand knowledge but aim to see the point for ourselves. But knowing other persons is not that kind of seeing, for it is knowledge that cannot be cut loose from or soar beyond what the objects of knowledge have to say for themselves. Failing to respect their authority to speak for themselves is failing to respect them as persons, which means failing to know them as persons. Therefore, knowledge of other persons, as opposed to merely knowing something about them, depends on their freely choosing to give themselves to be known in their words. This kind of personal knowledge is the fundamental structure of Luther’s theology, where everything depends on God giving himself to be known in his word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Indeed, we can say that a proper account of how we know persons ought to model itself on Luther’s account of how we know God.
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The Nicene doctrine of the Trinity itself poses obstacles to the project of spiritual ascent, as Augustine realizes. Ascent needs hierarchy: a gradation of beings, some lower, some higher, which we may ascend like a ladder. Of course the higher beings are not literally above the lower in space but rather superior in being—better and more divine in some way. A hierarchy of divine beings is a pervasive feature of ancient Platonism, but it is precisely what the Council of Nicaea eliminated from the Christian view of God. The theology Nicaea rejected pictured the divine in a way that resembled the kind of ontological hierarchy found in ancient Platonism, which seems perfectly designed to support the mind’s ascent to God. For example, Plotinus’s theory of a gradation of three divine beings would have us turning our minds away from bodily things to contemplate the divine Soul of all things (rather like today’s reverence for Gaia, or life-force), then raising our mind’s eye to the vision of the divine Intellect, Mind, or Nous (the epitome of all understanding, as found in the intelligible world above Plato’s cave), and finally rising to union with what Plotinus calls the One, the supreme divinity that is the source of all being, unity, and goodness (also called the Good, as it is identified with the dazzling sun in Plato’s allegory of the cave). One can see the attraction of this kind of hierarchy for ancient Christian intellectuals, who could use it as a model for the mind’s ascent by the life-giving power of the Spirit through the mediation of the Son to arrive in the end at the divine Father that is the source of all. But Nicene theology decisively rejected this kind of hierarchy when it insisted that Father and Son are coequal, deserving of the same worship. There is no means of ascent here, no lower being leading upward to a higher and more fully divine being.
One of the crucial consequences of Nicaea is that the eternal Son of God is not the mediator between God and creation. The divine being of the Son is not between the divine being of the Father and our created being, as if the Son were lower than the Father and therefore closer to us, the way an intelligible Logos or divine Reason would be closer to us in being than is in the incomprehensible divine One in Plotinus. Augustine understands this consequence and draws the apt conclusion that Christ is the mediator between us and God not in his divinity but in his humanity. Logically speaking, Christ is not a tertium quid (a third thing) but a both/and. That is to say, his divinity is not a third kind of being between the being of God the Father and the being of things he has created. Rather, Christ is both Creator and creature. As God, he is Creator in the same sense as the Father is, because he has exactly the same being as the Father (which is what the homoousios clause says in the Nicene Creed). As man, he is a creature in exactly the same sense that we are, having the same kind of being as any created thing. The divinity of Christ (as the eternal Word or Logos) therefore cannot mediate between Creator and creature; it is not a rung on the ladder leading up to God the Father. That is why, in Augustine’s account, Christ as God is what we ascend to, and Christ’s humanity becomes the way to his divinity.
By the same token, however, Augustine thinks we will not arrive at Christ’s divinity by clinging stubbornly to his humanity. This is the deep difference between Augustine and Luther. When Augustine treats Christ’s humanity as the way, not the goal, this means, that ‘nothing should detain us on the way, since the Lord himself, insofar as he deigned to become our way, wanted not to detain us but for us to travel onward—not clinging in weakness to temporal things.’ The temporal things that must not detain us, Augustine explains, are precisely the things that he made his own in the incarnation, the human things which were ‘taken up by him and accomplished for our salvation.’ We are not to be detained by these things, because the Lord Jesus wasn’t. Rather, we should be ‘running through them eagerly so as to advance and deserve to arrive at himself, who has liberated our nature from temporal things and set it at the right hand of the Father.’ We want to arrive where Christ is with God, still human (for in his own person he has freed human nature from death, not abolished human nature) but no longer concerned with temporal and human matters such as birth, suffering, death, and resurrection from death.
Hence for Augustine, coming to Christ at God’s right hand requires an inward turn, away from external and temporal things, including everything having to do with Christ’s individual humanity. The Lord Jesus himself is our example here, for in his brief life on earth ‘he did not delay but ran, calling out by word and deed, death and life, descent and ascent—calling out that we should return to him.’ To find him in our hearts is to find him in his divinity rather than in his flesh. For the flesh of another person is external, not something we can find by turning to our hearts. Therefore in sharp contrast to Luther, for Augustine the external things in Christ’s human life, everything from his birth to his crucifixion and ascension, are not where we look to find God, but rather are signs admonishing us to turn back to the inwardness of the heart, where we will find Christ in his divinity.
Thus in Augustine’s theology the means by which we ascend to God is not a gradation of divine beings, but netiehr is it something external like the flesh of Christ. It is an inner ascent, requiring us to return to the heart and enter into the inner world of the soul. In the Confessions, Augustine dramatizes his search for God by asking, ‘Who is He that is above the topmost point of my soul?’ In answer, he resolves that ‘by that same soul I shall ascend to Him.’ The ladder to ascend is the hierarchy of powers in the soul, starting with the senses, which are oriented toward external things, but leaving them behind as we purify ourselves from attachment to sensible things and climb step by step to the highest cognitive power in us, the intellect, which must finally look above itself to see the unchanging intelligible Truth, which is God.
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But from a perspecdtive like Luther’s, …Augustine wants us to become wiser, better, and more like God by a movement inward and upward that involves turning away from all external things, including the Gospel and Christ incarnate—when in fact it is faith in Christ alone that inwardly renews the mind. The Gospel does not direct our attention inward, but outward to Christ in the flesh. And Christ came not to admonish us to purify and reform our minds by turning inward and looking upward, but to draw us out of ourselves in love for one another, precisely by the authority of an external word, the word of our incarnate Beloved, which comes to us from outside our own minds. At no stage from infancy to eternal life in Christ is our own being constituted by a love, understanding, or memory that is independent of what comes to us from outside ourselves. Our minds are closest to God, as they are also closest to our neighbors, our friends, sisters, and brothers, when they are turned away from themselves toward outward things. We do not get closer to God by purifying ourselves from all external attachments.
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The point of the doctrine of the Trinity is not to give us a goal for anagogy, reforming the inner triadic structure of the mind until it more closely resembles God in his triune being, but rather to show why calling on Jesus Christ in faith, prayer, and worship gives glory to none but the true God, the Lord, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth. An inward turn misses the point, insofar as it directs our attention away from this one man, without whom there is no living by the Spirit of God in the presence of God the Father. The doctrine of the Trinity supports an outward turn to faith in God in the flesh, as given to us in the external word of the Gospel.
Because of the doctrine of the Trinity, we can say that knowing God means believing a person who has chosen to be our Beloved in the flesh. He is a person, which means he can give himself to be known in his word. To know this person, the philosophical love of God as Truth is less important than biblical faith in the God who is true (Deus verax), who makes promises and keeps them. As Karl Barth puts it, the choice of God (in what theology calls the doctrine of election) is his decision to be the covenant partner of humanity by becoming incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. This decision to be for us in Christ is “the beginning of all the works and ways of God.”64 It is a free decision: God could have remained nothing other than the immanent Trinity, an eternal communion of love and knowledge between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, lacking nothing. Instead, he chose in the sheer goodness and generosity of love to open up the triune life for our participation, first by creating us, then by giving us Christ as covenant partner, redeeming us through his blood, and incorporating us into his body and thereby into the life of the Trinity. As Barth emphasizes, this is God’s eternal decision about how he shall be God: that he shall promise himself to creatures who are not God by becoming one of them in the incarnation and giving himself to them in his word. We could add that the election or eternal decision of God is his choice that the Gospel of Christ shall be the story of the world and that the Son of God shall be the central character in the story, leading the list of its dramatis personae.65
What Protestant theology proposes, from Luther to Barth, is that there is no knowledge of God that takes us beyond this choice of God: his decision to be for us in God incarnate, promised to us in the Gospel. There is no intellectual vision that sees deeper than this decision of God and no experience that gives us reliable access to God apart from this promise. It is like the way the bride and bridegroom in a good marriage do not try to know each other apart from their covenant with each other, because the promises of the covenant give them their identity as husband and wife. But it goes further: for this bridegroom has chosen to be our Beloved from before the foundation of the world, deciding to create us as those whom he calls to join him in this life-giving covenant, which forms both our identity and his. There is no God to know who is other than the God who made the promises of this covenant, just as there is no person of the Son of God who is other than the one who has chosen to be Christ incarnate. There are indeed some abstract truths about the metaphysics of God that the ancient pagan philosophers have grasped, which have a kind of metaphysical loveliness that we should not ignore, but there is no way of finding God in person apart from the promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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we need a word of God that supports an outward turn, so that we are free to direct our attention away from ourselves and cling to Christ in his word alone. This means we need a Gospel that is not a principle to apply to our lives but an external word addressed to us, in which God himself says “you” and means me. Precisely because the external word, unlike a universal principle, can address each of us in particular, we can learn to trust what God says about us rather than turn inward or look at ourselves to find out who we are and how we stand before God. We are not Christians because of our decision for Christ or our inward experience but because Christ has given himself to us, and we know he has given himself to us because that is what the Gospel promises. Thus we find ourselves in Christ, not in ourselves. We know who we really are by looking away from ourselves at our Beloved. We find ourselves in his story—the Gospel story—as those for whom he came, those to whom he gives himself in love, those for whom he gave up his life, those who will be raised up with him in eternal life in the presence of God the Father. We find ourselves in him rather than finding him in ourselves, which means we are not trapped in the dreary, anxious business of finding him in our experience, our hearts, or our lives. Precisely for that reason our experience, hearts, and lives are free to be about our neighbors and our God rather than ourselves. Once again, the outward turn means that love is free to be love. It also means that faith is free to be unreflective—not a faith that has to put faith in faith. We can put faith in the word alone and not in our success in believing it. The task of faith is to believe that our God is true to his word—that is hard enough—rather than to believe that we have true saving faith.
Sixth, we should accept Luther’s conception of the Gospel knowing that it can be separated from the need to possess the wrong kind of certainty, which proved to be so destructive in the history of Protestantism. The sacramental conception of the external word giving us Christ is not the modern conception of Scripture as a depository of inerrant propositions used to construct an infallible theology. Christian faith does not live by proving it has the only possible correct view of this or that passage of the Bible. Rather, faith takes hold of Christ by clinging to the Gospel even in the face of doubts and uncertainties, trusting that God will be true to his gracious word. By the same token, Christian faith is not dependent on academic biblical scholarship to secure in advance a foundational understanding of the Scripture and “what it meant,” and neither is Christian theology. Christian faith grows out of the hearing of the Gospel in Christian life, worship, liturgy, preaching, teaching, prayer, praise, song, and sacrament. Christian theology is not a science based on deduction from Scripture, but disciplined reflection on how and what believers should be taught in these settings, and in particular how Scripture should be taught, which takes account of what is learned in academic and other settings, but whose first obligation is faithfulness to the life of the church.
Seventh, the Gospel gives us a way of knowing God that depends on what God has to say for himself. Such knowledge fits an epistemology of hearing—that is, of heeding the word of the other, which is the appropriate way to account for how we know other persons. Thus the Gospel gives us an alternative to dependence on the philosophical spirituality of intellectual vision, which is in turn the basis of concepts of the immortality of the soul that have often usurped the place of resurrection of the body in Christian accounts of eternal life. Knowing God does not require an intellect that sees incorporeal truths, but a heart that hears the Gospel and trusts that God is true to his word (Deus verax). This is good news for all of us who think of the human mind differently from the Platonist concepts of soul and intellect that so impressed Augustine. It gives us a more appropriately critical form of the critical appropriation of classical philosophy. Finally, the Gospel ought always to be the fundamental criterion used by Christian thought in its critical appropriation of any other form of thought, from ancient Platonism to modern science. The crucial example to follow here is that of the church fathers, the early theologians who formulated the orthodox doctrines of Trinity and incarnation, which are the church’s great reckoning with ancient classical philosophy. These two doctrines are best understood as conceptual, indeed philosophical interpretations of the story of Christ, as told in Scripture and summarized in the Nicene Creed. Likewise, the doctrine of justification by faith alone should be understood as a conceptual, indeed philosophical interpretation of the effect the Gospel has on us when it says “you” and means me, giving to all who hear and believe it the Beloved whose story it tells” (Cary, Phillip. The Meaning of Protestant Theology. Baker Publishing Group. Édition du Kindle).
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From Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics:
What Constituted the Image of God
“Image of God in the Wider and in the Proper Sense
The Lutheran theologians are agreed that the image of God, which consists in the knowledge of God and holiness of the will, is lacking in man after the Fall, since Col. 3:10 and Eph. 4:24 distinctly state that it is being restored in the believer. They differ, however, on the question as to whether in Gen. 9:6 (“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man”) and James 3:9 (“With the tongue … curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God”) a divine image is still ascribed to man after the Fall. Some deny this and take the passages to describe man as the noble creature who once bore the image of God and in whom God would recreate this image through faith in Christ. Thus Luther (on Gen. 9:6, St. L. 1:600 f.), Philippi (Glaubenslehre, 3d ed., II, 371 f.), Gottfried Hoffman (Synopsis, p. 291). Others say that these passages describe man as he is after the Fall, a creature endowed with intellect and will, and contend that this constitutes a certain similitude with God. Thus Baier (II, 146), Quenstedt (Systema I, 876, 901 ff.), and others. The latter distinguish between the image of God in a wider sense, according to which man, in distinction from the animals, is still a rational being even after the Fall, and the divine image in the proper sense, consisting in true knowledge and service of God, which was lost through the Fall. It will be seen that these two interpretations do not differ materially, since Luther and those who agree with him do not deny that man after the Fall retains his intellect and will, and Baier and those who agree with him do not deny that man has through the Fall completely lost the sapientia and iustitia originalis. However, the interpretation of Luther is to be preferred.
It has been maintained that not a lost image of God, but only a still extant image could be a sound reason why we are not to shed man’s blood or curse him. But Luther and those who share his position see in these texts not only the lost image, but the image that is to be restored again in Christ. Luther (loc. cit.): “While it is true that man has lost this image through sin … yet it remains true that it can be again acquired through the Word of the Holy Ghost.” This interpretation presents a thought which is found throughout Scripture from Gen. 3:15 on. The only reason why God still concerns Himself with fallen mankind and preserves it — and for its sake also the world — is that, according to Scripture, He desires to renew fallen mankind to the image in which He originally created it (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24). This viewpoint is of great practical importance. The truth that God gave His Son to the world and would renew the world in Christ to the original image of God will shield us against the misanthropy which the deceitfulness and malice of men in the spiritual domain (in fighting against the Gospel) and in secular affairs (as in the World War) would create in us. — To call man the image of God because he possesses reason and will and leave out of consideration what he is to become in Christ is to stretch a point. Reason and will of fallen mankind is “an idling motor”; fallen man’s reason does not recognize salvation, but operates entirely in spiritual darkness (1 Cor. 2:14: “neither can he know them”), and his will does not cling to God, but is enmity toward God (Rom. 8:7: “The carnal mind is enmity against God”). 4
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The Relation of the Divine Image to the Nature of Man
The divine image, that is, the true knowledge of God and the conformity of the human will to the will of God, was not subsequently and externally added to man at the creation, as the Papists contend, who regard the divine image (holiness and righteousness) as a donum superadditum, a superadded gift.7 Rather was man created with the divine image, as Gen. 1:26 shows: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” The divine image was a donum concreatum, donum naturale, donum intrinsecum. It follows that now, after the Fall, the human nature is no longer perfect (natura integra or in puris naturalibus), as the Papists and modern theologians and philosophers teach, but thoroughly and in its innermost parts corrupt (natura corrupta, natura sauciata).8 It is true, the iustitia originalis did not constitute the nature of man. Even after the Fall, man is still (Rom. 5:12), inasmuch as the original righteousness was not the substance, but a non-essential attribute, an accident.9 But the iustitia originalis belonged to the nature of uncorrupted man, of man as he should be, as God created him, and as he is to become through Christ. According to Scripture it is certainly an abnormal thing that man, created for God and conscious of the existence of God (Rom. 1:19 ff.), does not and cannot serve God (Rom. 8:7: “The carnal mind … is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be”), but lives his life on earth as a practical atheist. Eph. 2:12 says of all heathen: “Having no god and without God () in the world.” And the worship of the heathen is described in the words: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20). The real seat of the divine image is not the body, but the soul of man, since the knowledge of God and holiness inhere in the soul. But, naturally, the divine image was manifested also in the body, since the body is the organ of the soul and an essential part of man. Apology: “Therefore original righteousness was to embrace … an even temperament of the bodily qualities [perfect health and, in all respects, pure blood, unimpaired powers of the body]” (Trigl. 109, 17). 5
Immediate Consequences of the Possession of the Divine Image
1. Man was immortal (able not to die). According to Scripture, death and its forerunners (illness, debility) entered into the world by sin. Gen. 2:17: “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die”; Rom. 5:12: “And death by sin”; Rom. 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.” It is a pagan opinion that death is bound up with the material substance of the body; some modern theologians share that opinion. (See the chapter “Temporal Death” in Vol. III.) 2. Man exercised dominion over the creatures. That was an immediate consequence of possessing the divine image, for we read: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion,” etc. (Gen. 1:26-28.) It was a real dominion; willingly all creatures rendered man service. After the Fall, man retained only a caricature of his original dominion; he must now employ cunning and force to assert some kind of mastery over the animals. With man’s innocence also the dominion over the creatures, as described Gen. 1:28, was lost. All that is left of this dominion, Luther calls a “mock sovereignty” (speciem dominii and nudum titulum dominii). It is true that man succeeds by cunning and coercion in subduing the creatures partially. But in spite of all the creature remains in revolt against its sinful master. The beasts harass, harm, kill, and eat their former lord; in the air he breaks his neck; the water drowns him; the earth becomes his tomb, etc. Such considerations, says Luther, serve a useful purpose. They teach us what an abomination before God sin must be, since it has so thoroughly deranged the relationship between man and the rest of the creatures.10 6
The Purpose of the Divine Image
Here, too, we do not have to resort to guessing. The nature of the divine image clearly shows its purpose. God created man in His own, in the divine image, in order that one of His creatures 1) would know Him, live in conformity with His will, and in communion with Him enjoy bliss, and 2) would rule over the other creatures as His representative. After this original purpose has been frustrated by the sin of man, God revives it again in Christ. For the sake of Christ’s substitutionary satisfaction He cancels the guilt of man and restores in believers in Christ the knowledge of God and the holiness of will (Col. 3:10; Eph.4:24). The knowledge of God which the saved sinner has after the Fall is thus changed as to its object, since now the object of his knowledge of God is primo loco the God who for Christ’s sake and through faith in Him, without the deeds of the Law, forgives sins. Luke 1:77: “To give knowledge of salvation … by the remission of their sins.” Whether, when, and how God would have effected a change in man’s status (his “paradisiacal state”) if he had not fallen, is altogether conjecture. But we know that the concept of salvation by redemption, , salus, does not apply to man in his original state, since the gained by Christ presupposes the Fall. Luke 19:10: “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
B. MAN AFTER THE FALL (De Statu Peccati) … According to Scripture, sin is not the exaltation of man which produced his happiness, but is the deepest degradation and the one great calamity that has come upon mankind; all other evils are solely the consequence of sin. And man’s experience confirms this truth. All this humanistic-pantheistic talk about sin as the necessary transitional stage leading to “moral freedom” and to the evolution of “true humanity” is disproved by the voice of man’s conscience. The human conscience has properly been called the invincible foe of pantheism and every other form of atheism. Man simply is unable to convince himself that sin was the passageway to “true humanity,” representing “advancements” and constituting “the most fortunate event in the history of mankind.” For, on account of his sin, man has an evil conscience before God; because of his sin he feels just as “happy” as Adam and Eve were when after the Fall they “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the Garden” (Gen. 3:8). But by the grace of God an exceedingly great and fortunate “event in the history of mankind” has come to pass for us fallen sinners — the incarnation of the Son of God, the purpose of which is to richly restore to us, by His substitutionary satisfaction, what we have lost through the devil’s seduction in the fall of our first parents. And in this divine restoration only he will share who will not permit Satan to deceive him again in the matter of the Fall and of sin, but who gains the right view of these things from God’s Word. The Christian doctrine therefore necessarily contains the locus de peccato. This doctrine will be treated under the three heads: a) de peccato in genere, b) de peccato originali, c) de peccatis actualibus. We shall have occasion to meet also the modern antitheses. a. ON SIN IN GENERAL (De Peccato in Genere) 1
Definition of Sin
According to Scripture, sin is nonconformity to the divine Law (), which is given to man as a norm; and this norm pertains both to man’s condition (status, habitus) and to his individual internal or external actions (actiones internae et externae), as Scripture states, 1 John 3:4: “Sin is the transgression of the Law,” [R. V.: “Sin is lawlessness”], (lawlessness) is, etymologically considered, a negative concept, expressing a lack of conformity to the divine Law (carentia conformitatis cum lege). But according to Scripture usage is also a positive concept and denotes opposition to the Law, a breaking and violating of the Law. Scripture clearly states that he that doeth sin “doeth also lawlessness,” 1 John 3:4 (R. V.), and: “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity” ().
That this lack of conformity to the divine Law is a positive evil is also evident from the following truths set down in Scripture: 1) Man as a moral being, endowed with intellect and will, is in duty bound to conform to the divine will in every moment of his life. The answer to the question as to the foremost commandment in the Law (Matt. 22:37-40) admits no restrictions or qualifications: “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind… . Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Where this full agreement with the divine Law is lacking, there is opposition to the Law, or wickedness. To use an analogy: The servant who fails to carry out the duties incumbent on him would be condemned by his own conscience if he pleaded that he had done no wrong, but simply had taken a neutral position over against his duties. 2) It is psychologically impossible for man, endowed with intellect and will, to remain neutral even for a moment. If his mind and will are not attached to God, they are attached to some creature, and that is apostasy from God, as Christ expressly states Matt. 6:24: “No man can serve two masters.” It is a grave error to say that only conscious and deliberate action against God’s will constitutes sin. According to Scripture, the evil condition in which man is born and which he cannot change is sin, as is clearly shown in Eph. 2:3: “And were by nature the children of wrath.” And Scripture further bears witness that this evil condition does not lose its sinful character even when the Christian detests it. The Apostle declares: “The evil which I would not, that I do… . O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:19, 24.)
Over against this prevalent error the Lutheran Church adheres strictly to Scripture. The Apology designates the teaching that consciousness, deliberation, voluntariness, belong to the essence of sin as a pagan error. “In the schools they transferred hither from philosophy notions entirely different, that, because of passions [inborn evil inclinations] we are neither good nor evil, we are neither deserving of praise or blame. Likewise, that nothing is sin, unless it be voluntary. (Inner desires and thoughts are not sins, if I do not altogether consent thereto.) These notions were expressed among philosophers with respect to civil righteousness, and not with respect to God’s judgment.” (Trigl. 117, 43.) These papistical views have been taken over by modern theologians like Hofmann, who says: “As long as the Ego is still in a stage of development, one cannot say in like manner as later that it is the subject committing the sin; it becomes such a subject in the measure in which it becomes a true Ego, beginning to determine itself consciously or rather permitting itself to be determined by the innate sin.”16. The Divine Law and Sin Since sin is (lawlessness), we must, if we would properly know the doctrine of sin, clearly see what the is, the transgression of which constitutes . The definition of the Law given by the Formula of Concord is Scriptural in every detail: “We unanimously believe, teach, and confess that the Law is properly a divine doctrine, in which the righteous, immutable will of God is revealed, what is to be the quality of man in his nature, thoughts, words, and works, in order that he may be pleasing and acceptable to God” (Trigl. 957, 17). It is pointed out here, in the first place, that the power to decree laws for men rests solely with God, with God’s will. That belongs to the dignity of man. Every man is subject to God’s Law. Laws enacted by men are a norm binding our consciences only when God sanctions them and thus makes them His precepts. God does that in the case of the laws of civil government (Rom. 13:1 ff.: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers”) and of the parents (Col. 3:20: “Children, obey your parents in all things”), and He sanctions here only such laws as do not contradict the divine Law (Acts 5:29: “We ought to obey God rather than men”). The so-called “laws of the Church” cannot bind our consciences. Christ has not given His Church any legislative power (potestas legislatoria); on the contrary, He has forbidden His Church to exercise any such power. Matt. 23:8: “One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.” What Christ has not commanded is regulated in the Church not by command, but by mutual agreement of the Christians themselves. Even the abuse of this liberty must not lead the Church to command things which God has not commanded.
In short, we must maintain from first to last that only God’s Law is the norm, the transgression of which constitutes a sin. “The Pope,” Luther declares, “has filled the world with satanic obedience. For the Pope does not command what God has enjoined, but what he himself invents; whence it has come about that his whole religion is not true, but is his own fabrication and choice, and, in short, pure hypocrisy.” (St. L. 1:765.) In the second place, God’s Law is authoritative not only in part, but in its every detail. God demands in His Law the purity of the human nature (therefore Eph. 2:3 says of the inborn corrupt state of nature: “And were by nature the children of wrath”) and consequently also the purity of all internal and external acts which belong to a righteous and pure nature. He demands purity of thoughts (Matt. 5:22: “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment,” and v. 28: “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart”); of words (Matt. 12:36: “But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment”); and of works (Eph. 5:5: “For this ye know that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God”).
There has always been opposition, public, and even more so, secret, to the truth that the divine Law pertains to all internal and external acts of men. People have been saying at all times: “God hath forgotten; He hideth His face; He will never see it” (Ps. 10:11). And in particular there always was and still is today a universal protest against declaring the inborn depravity of human nature to be truly sin and bearing the “character of guilt.” “Guiltless sin,” men say, is the proper term to be used here. (See the section De Peccato Originali.) But men cannot nullify God’s Law; the Lord will enforce it to its full extent. And no matter what attempts they make to remove guilt from sin, the Lord holds man accountable for every transgression of His Law. And — we say it again and again — man’s own conscience holds him accountable. The Formula of Concord correctly defines the Law as the righteous, immutable will of God as to “what is to be the quality of man in his nature, thoughts, words, and works, in order that he may be pleasing and acceptable to God.” The correctness of this definition is clearly confirmed by the fact that our Substitute, who in our stead assumed the obligation to fulfill the demands of the Law and bear its punishment, thus to make us “pleasing and acceptable to God,” had to be a most unique, miraculous person, namely, “holy, harmless, un-defiled, and separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26), one “who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). 3
How the Divine Law is Made Known to Man
Though the Gospel remains hidden to the natural heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”), man has a natural knowledge of the Law. Also after the Fall the conscience (, conscientia) of man still bears witness of the divine will, or Law. Man’s conscience functions in two ways: a) it reveals and demands (Rom. 2:15a: The heathen, who do not have the written Law, “show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness”); and b) it judges and condemns (Rom. 2:15b: “Their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another”).17 But since the Fall the conscience does not give a fully reliable testimony concerning the will of God. There is such a thing as an erring conscience (conscientia erronea). Fallen man regards certain things as permitted, yea, even commanded, which God has forbidden. He will commit idolatry (Gal. 4:8: “When ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods”), submit to the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:11: “that they should believe a lie”), murder Christians (John 16:2: “Whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service”). And fallen man regards as forbidden what God has permitted. He will, for instance, abstain from certain foods (Rom. 14:1 ff.).
Therefore since the Fall the knowledge of God’s immutable will is gained with certainty only from God’s revelation in the Word, namely, in Holy Scripture. While the real scope of the Scriptures is the Gospel (John 5:39; Acts 10:43; 1 Cor. 2:2), they nevertheless also contain a complete revelation of the immutable will of God. Matt. 5: 18-19: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments,” etc. Holy Scripture also determines exactly which laws applied only temporarily and locally, for instance, only to the Jews under the covenant of the Law, and are therefore not the divine norm for all men of all times. A great and harmful confusion of the consciences of men is, even to our day, caused by generalizing temporary and local laws. With reference, for instance, to the commandment given Ex. 31: 14-15: “Ye shall keep the Sabbath … everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death,” and Lev. 19:26: “Ye shall not eat anything with the blood,” and Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 (the catalog of clean and unclean beasts), the New Testament distinctly says: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days” (Col. 2:16). We get this result: Only that is divine Law for all men which is taught in Holy Writ as binding on all. Not even the Ten Commandments in the form in which they were given to the Jews (Exodus 20) are binding on all men, but only the Ten Commandments as set down in the New Testament, as we have them, e. g., in Luther’s Catechism.18 — Commandments given to individuals (mandata specialia), e.g., the commandment received by Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, do not obligate others. In general, the rule to be applied to the life and acts of the saints is, in the words of the Apology: “Examples ought to be interpreted according to the rule, i. e., according to certain and clear passages of Scripture, not contrary to the rule, that is, contrary to Scripture” (Trigl. 441, 60). 4
The Cause of Sin
There is in fallen man a strong tendency to make God or other creatures responsible for his sinfulness and thus to remove the blame for his sin, either in whole or in part, from his own person. We see Adam and Eve doing this after the Fall. Gen. 3:12-13: “The woman, whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat… . The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” This sort of excuse is typical of the entire fallen human race. In doctrinal discussions and in practical life we are repeatedly confronted with questions like the following: “Why did God create man with the ability to fall?” And: “Why does God today permit man to be tempted when according to His all-governing providence He could keep temptation away from men?” Such and similar questions tend to confuse the question as to the causa peccati. According to Scripture the cause of sin in man is a) the devil. He sinned first and then seduced man. And he is still the power impelling unbelievers to sin and tempting believers to sin. Christ tells the unbelieving Jews, John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil,” and those who are delivered from the power of darkness (Col. 1:13) Paul warns in 2 Cor. 11:3: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Because he seduced men to sin, the devil is called “a murderer from the beginning,” John 8:44 (, “manslayer”); and since he is the prima causa peccati, the inventor of sin, we call sin, with good reason, a work of the devil, even in the case of sins committed by believers. That such is the case is clearly indicated by Christ when He says to Peter, who sought to keep Christ from suffering and dying: “Get thee behind Me, Satan.” 19
The cause of sin in man is b) sinning man himself. Seduction by the devil does not do away with the fact that man perpetrates the sin; it does not relieve him of the responsibility for it. That is the clear teaching of Scripture. Though Adam and Eve were seduced by the devil, they are guilty and are punished by God (Gen. 3:16-18). According to 2 Thess. 2:9-12 those who are seduced by Satan and by Antichrist with all power and signs and lying wonders remain responsible to God and are judged by God. The same judgment is expressed in Matt. 18:7: “Woe unto the world because of offenses”; men are punished because they fall prey to the offenses. And man’s conscience bears testimony to the same effect: It reproves him after sinning. We see Adam and Eve hiding from God after they had sinned (Gen. 3:8). On the causa peccati the Augsburg Confession states: “Although God does create and preserve nature, yet the cause of sin is the will of the wicked, that is, of the devil and ungodly men” (Trigl. 53, Art. XIX).20 Hence man remains, as the dogmaticians express it, the subiectum quod peccati, active and responsible, even though he was originally seduced by Satan and is today (as long as he is without faith in Christ) wholly ruled by Satan (Col. 1:13) and cannot refrain from sinning (Rom. 8:7). The true seat of sin in man, the true seat (subiectum quo) of the , is man’s soul. In the soul the (the inscribed Law) had, and should still have, its seat. The body becomes a seat of sin inasmuch as it is the organ of the soul. The contrary opinion, that the body, and not the soul, is the seat of sin, the soul being the innocent captive, is a heathen concept. Christ clearly teaches Matt. 15:19: “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, etc.” The heart is the true seat of sin, the birthplace of all internal and external sinful acts. ” (Pieper, Francis. Christian Dogmatics: Volume 1 . Concordia Publishing House. Édition du Kindle).
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Gerhard Ebeling, from the appendix to The Nature of Faith :
“This subject raises many questions. We must stop short at the first words, and ask what ‘the Word of God’ means. Is this more than a form of words? Can the Word of God really encounter us? ‘Language’ is another matter. This does not seem to be a remote, obscure or dubious entity. But everyone has it, for man is the being who has language. Of course language can fail him: knowledge of language does not protect him from sudden speechlessness. Nor is the language of authority learned in a language course. So here, too, there are problems which lead far, even if one is ignorant of the present state of the discussion of the problem of language, in which all the questions about the world and man and history are increasingly concentrated. Is it possible that the two great complexes of questions contained in our theme stand in such a relation to one another that the question of the “Word of God” may help to elucidate the problems of language?
But the immediate problem is the reverse of this: not whether the Word of God can throw light on the vexatious problems of language, but the fact that the Word of God itself has clearly become a vexatious problem of language. It is at this point that the opposed views come into touch with one another, of those who expect nothing from the Word of God, and of those who expect the decisive thing.
The first group takes it as settled that the Word of God cannot enter language, and therefore that it means nothing. For what cannot enter language is not there, at any rate for us; it is no more than an alleged word, which cannot enter language. ‘The Word of God,’ it is said, is a mythical expression, which is over and done with. For how is one to imagine God as speaking? And if speaking, in what language? Has God a language of his own? If so, we could neither understand it nor say anything about it. But supposing we could learn something of it by means of some mysterious device of translation, would it be any more than an indirect and symbolic reflection, not the literal Word of God, but merely human words with the doubtful claim to be the Word of God? In earlier times men may have been able to take this concept seriously, and not to doubt that the Word of God could enter language. But today, so runs the argument, this cannot honestly be done. The nature of language prevents it. There is a wide range of views, both superficial and profound, both carefully thought out and merely emotional, both impious and pious, which are united in their agreement that the Word of God and language are mutually exclusive.
But there is another group who cannot rid themselves of the question of the Word of God. They are not to be confused with those who use the phrase thoughtlessly. For they know of the difficulty, the disturbance in the relation between the Word of God and language. But their starting-point is the certainty that the Word of God has entered language, and they live in the certain expectation that it desires to do so and will do so. They do not push the question aside, what the Word of God means, but their first concern is what has been handed down as the Word of God. By this they mean the Bible. And this is not just a book and no more, but the central point, from history to history, from experience to experience, from faith to faith. The Bible bears witness to a proclamation which has taken place and is the impulse to a proclamation which is to take place. And this event, which claims to be the Word of God, is not mere speech. But it sets something in motion, just as it itself was set in motion. It has to do with reality, which it changes.
This, then, is what is seen by those who cannot rid themselves of the question of the Word of God. It is knowledge, with something of their own experience attached to it. But they are also aware that this event of proclamation is not an event any more today, but largely just talk, in which the the claim of the Word of God is no longer heard; it is proclamation in a form of language which has become incomprehensible, it is a mere recitation of the traditional Word of God, in which the Word of God does not enter language in the present.
What is so deeply disturbing to man Christians today, when they consider the commission of the church and the nature of their faith, and what is so painfully confirmed by what they hear of preaching and teaching, has probably been better put by Dietrich Bonhoeffer than by anyone else. In 1944, less than a year before his execution, he wrote from prison: ‘We have been thrown back once more to the beginnings of understanding. The meaning of reconciliation and salvation, of rebirth and the Holy Spirit, of loving your enemy, of the cross and the resurrection, of life in Christ and discipleship, are all so remote and strange that we scarcely dare to speak of them any more. In the traditional words and actions we glimpse something new and revolutionary, without being able to grasp it and express it. This is our own fault.’
For a church whose goal is in itself is, according to Bonhoeffer, ‘incapable of being the bearer of the reconciling and saving word for men and for the world. That is why the old words fail and fall silent, and our Christian life consists only of prayer and doing the right thing among men.’ But this is just where there is hope that the Word of God may enter language once more. Bonhoeffer writes, ‘It is not for us to foretell the day, but the day will come when men will be called to utter the Word of God in such a way that the world is changed and renewed. There will be a new language, perhaps quite unreligious, but liberating and saving, like the language of Jesus, so that men are horrified at it, and yet conquered by its power: the language of a new righteousness and truth, the language which tells of the peace of God and the coming of his kingdom’ (cf. Letters and Papers from Prison Fontana edition, p. 160).
The effects of these two views are opposed. They are divided on the question of the future of the Word of God in relation to language. But hey are also in close touch with one another. They are both profoundly dissatisfied with present-day proclamation of the Word of God. Both groups say that the language spoken there does not correspond to the claim which is made. Both acknowledge that they find largely incomprehensible what is presented there with all the appearance of being a matter of course. That in spite of this the two groups reach such a very different judgment perhaps indicates that a conversation between them would not be amiss. The judgment of the first group, that the Word of God cannot really enter language, clearly rests upon quite different presuppositions and conceptions than the expectation of the second group that the Word of God, which has entered language, will do so anew. The first group rejects as mythological that which the second group by no means regards as such. And on the other hand, Bonhoeffer’s words about a new language, ‘perhaps quite unreligious, but liberating and saving,’ undoubtedly strikes a chord with those who thought that the question of the Word of God and language was over and done with.
It may be helpful to consider some points of view concerning the relation of word and language in general. By ‘word’ we do not mean the single word. This word, as a unit of language, is an abstraction over against the original conception of word as containing an encounter. By ‘word,’ then, we mean something with a totality of meaning. Further, it is likewise an abstraction to limit ‘word’ to its significant content. In the multitude of written and printed words we must not forget that it is the speaking of words which discloses their real nature, something that happens, by word of mouth. The basic model for this event is not a statement, irrespective of the situation of speaking. It would be better to describe the event of the word as a communication. For words take place between two partners, they make participation possible, they create communication. Certainly it matters what the content and significance of the communication is. Yet the same words can in different situations with different persons entirely change their meaning. Thus our usual understanding of communication is too narrow to grasp the even tin its entirety. The power of words as communication is by no means restricted to information and the increase of knowledge. The power of words as an event is that they can touch and change our very life, when one man tells another, and thus shares with another, something of his own life, his willing and loving and hoping, his joy and sorrow, but also his hardness and hates, his meanness and wickedness.
The extremes of the concrete word (what he calls the ‘tongue’) have been powerfully depicted in the Epistle of James: ‘With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing’ (James 3.9-10). But there is no thought of a balance here. The emphasis lies on horror at the demonic power of the word. ‘So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison’ (James 3.5-8).
The word clearly means man himself, who is able to be lord of the whole world, only not of himself. So Jesus asks, ‘How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matthew 12.34). So he emphasizes with surprising sharpness our responsibility for what we say: ‘I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned’ (Matthew 12.36f.).
So we do not get at the nature of words by asking what they contain, but by asking what they effect, what they set going, what future they disclose. How much words belong to man and, like human life, are historical, may be seen in the fact that the discussion of words becomes a discussion of their future, and thus of man’s future. The highest thing that words could achieve would be to disclose the true future. But where are such words to be found?
Let us now consider language and its relations to words. It is no accident that we at once think of the multiplicity of languages, of our native language and of foreign languages. A universal language can only be a bloodless and technical contrivance. Languages are highly complicated traditional structures which have grown over centuries and millennia, in which the many layers of historical life have been deposited and which—so far as living languages are concerned—continue their slow and steady change. He who wishes to speak must choose a language, or normally has a language chosen for him by birth and upbringing.
In that a language is spoken the problem of understanding at once arises. For language, which makes understanding possible for one man, prevents understanding for another. Language creates simultaneously understanding and incomprehension, it binds and it separates. Admittedly, language is not exactly like a completely sealed vessel. What goes on in a language is a human phenomenon which crosses the boundaries of language, and so can be translated. But this cannot be done in the way one pours water from one vessel to another. Translation is an art; but even when it is done in a masterly fashion, it is still a change. For what is spoken has been thought in terms of a specific language. To put it into another language means to think it through afresh.
Languages are differentiated from one another by their spirit. Different ways of meeting reality and of understanding it have found expression in them. … Language is much more than a system of words and grammatical rules. Moreover, differentiation of language extends much further than division into different national languages. There are connections which cut across such divisions. The language of science is not the language of love. And the language, say of Aristotle preserves its characteristic nature through every translation; similarly with the language of the Bible or with certain parts of it, such as the language of Jesus. Our dependence on linguistic tradition means far more than that we have to make use of some formal means of communication. But actually we live on the reality that is disclosed to us by language, and on the immense wealth that is handed down to us, and on which our speech draws. Language opens up the space to us in which the event of the word can take place. So we carry responsibility for language in what we say. And when the event of the word is an extraordinary one, it is creative of language, that is, it creates new possibilities of addressing and understanding the reality which approaches us, and becomes the source of light which can again and again lighten up the darkness of existence.
This is the direction indicated for us in God’s Word, ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path’ (Psalm 119.105). There is no problem here about how God’s Word can be encountered in human words. For God’s Word here means simply the Word—the pure and true Word, in which the real life and purpose of the Word is realized. This means the Word as man needs it—the good Word which he needs more than food and drink. So it is the Word which it concerns every man to utter and to answer. For this is the true and wholesome and real use of the Word. The Word is meant to illuminate, to disclose understanding, not only in its outward function, but most important of all in relation to the way which is to be gone. The Word is meant to open the future. Why then is it called God’s Word, when it is no strange and superhuman act, but such at truly human word?
Now it is undoubtedly appropriate to speak of the Word of God in the sharpest opposition to the words that are spoken among men. For this good, beneficent, saving, illuminating Word, which discloses the true future, is not normally to be encountered. Men owe it to one another, they fail to say it, and they experience in themselves how it is not said to them. And where that Word really does happen, men fail it, because it disappoints their expectations and contradicts their desires. For it is the pure Word in this sense, that it expects faith, that faith which relies on the promise alone.
On what promise? The promise of God. A promise means a pledge from one to another regarding the future. The Word as an event is always something said from one to another, as it were he carries his saying to the other, so that it is with him, or he is with the matter which is being spoken about. The Word which is concerned with God would then in this sense say God to us, so that God comes to the one addressed and is with him, and the one addressed is with God. All talk of God in which this does not happen would not be real talk of God.
The Word receives the most explicit character of a promise when the future of the one addressed is involved, and the speaker himself does not promise this or that, but himself, pledges himself and his own future for the future of the other, gives him his word in the full sense of giving a share in himself. And here is the reason for the ultimate failure of the Word among men. For what happens when one man promises himself to the other? For the most part the Word becomes the bearer and mediator of egotism, inner emptiness, or lies. Yet even at his best man cannot promise true future, that is, salvation, to the other. Only the Word by which God comes to man, and promises himself, is able to do this. That this Word has happened, and can therefore be spoken again and again, that a man can therefore promise God to another as the One who promises himself—this is the certainty of Christian faith. And this is the true and fulfilled event of the Word, when space is made among men for this promise, this Word of God.
When God speaks, the whole of reality as it concerns us enters language anew. God’s Word does not bring God into language in isolation. It is not a light which shines upon God, but a light which shines from him, illumining the sphere of our existence. If God’s countenance shines upon us, the world has for us another look. The world, as the reality which concerns us, in whatever language it has hitherto been expressed, is the call and question of God to us, even though we do not understand. Hence human words are, at their most profound, always answers. Man speaks because he is addressed. Language is the manifold echo to the question of God. So the even tof the Word of God is necessarily bound up with the entire life of language. For if the Word of God brings the whole of our reality into language anew, then the reality which is already in language is necessarily addressed anew.
This touches the root of the vexatious linguistic problem in the Word of God. The happening of the Word of God has created a linguistic tradition of its own, to be seen not only in many forms in the Bible, but also in great variety and indeed disharmony in the history of the church. And now the Word of God, with this tradition, wishes to aim at reality in present-day language, it wants to express it anew and so express itself anew. The difficulty is only apparently solved by the manipulation of language, by modernising words and making use of fashionable jargon. God’s Word is expressed anew only when it is heard anew, with tense attention to how the traditional Word manages to make itself understood in the real circumstances to which our lives are exposed. This listening combines two things in one: an upright perseverance in experience, and a patient waiting upon understanding. If the Word of God were heard anew in this way, it could also be spoken anew with the authority proper to it. And that would transform our linguistic problem; for though this seems to be a linguistic problem for the Word of God, it is in truth our own linguistic dilemma.”
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From David P. Scaer: Sanctification: By Grace Alone Scaer article :
“Luther placed justification, the doctrine of God's free grace in Jesus Christ, at the heart of his theology. Man is saved not by anything he does or could hope to do, but by what God has done once and for all in Jesus Christ. Since the Reformation, God's accepting the death of Christ in place of the sinner's death has been the hallmark of Protestantism and more specifically of Lutheran churches. Salvationis sola gratia and sola fide. God justifies the sinner purely out of His grace through faith without works. Just as no one raises himself from the dead, so no one makes himself a Christian. God, who brought Jesus back from the dead, alone brings believers to Christ and declares them righteous. Lutherans hold that justification is monergistic, a Greek derivative, which means that a thing has only one cause. God alone converts Christians. He alone justifies believers. This principle also applies to sanctification. He alone makes us holy. God is the cause and content of our sanctification.
Traditional Roman Catholicism shares with Lutheranism a monergistic view of the general plan of salvation. God alone sent His Son into the flesh (incarnation) and sacrificed Him for the world's sin (atonement); however, the certainty of individual salvation is made dependent on the level of believers' personal holiness. Sanctification requires cooperating with divine grace in doing good works. At the center of this system is a doctrine of sanctification which holds that man cooperates with God for the certainty of salvation. There is no place for the total justification of sinful humanity as God's completed activity in Christ. Man cooperates with God in becoming holy and so sanctification is defined in ethical terms, which can be measured.
A majority of other Protestant denominations agree with Luther's monergistic doctrine of justification, but like Roman Catholics they see sanctification, the working of the Holy Spirit in Christian lives, in synergistic terms, another Greek derivative, which means that a thing has two or more causes. Believers are required to play a part in developing their personal holiness by living lives disciplined by the Law and by special ethical regulations set down by the church. Christians can and must cooperate with God's grace to increase the level of personal sanctification. Cooperation, a Latin derivative, is a synonym of synergism, and also means two or more things or persons working together. As a rule most Protestants agree with Luther that God alone justifies sinners and initiates the work of sanctification, but many differ in holding that believers are responsible for completing it. They oppose the Roman Catholic view that pilgrimages, novenas, penance and masses as good works; however, they agree with Catholicism that man cooperates with God in his sanctification to attain personal holiness.
God alone justifies, but sanctification is a combined divine-human activity, which even though God begins, each believer is obligated to complete. In this system, the Gospel, which alone creates faith, is replaced by the Law which instructs in moral requirements and warns against immorality. Justification by grace is seen as a past event and the present focus is on man cooperating with God to reach a complete sanctification.
Lutherans recognize that Christians as sinners are never immune to the Law's moral demands and its threats against sin, but in the strictest sense these warnings do not belong to Christian sanctification, the life believers live in Christ and in which Christ lives in them. In Roman Catholic and some Protestant systems, the Gospel brings the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, but is replaced by the Law which sets down directives for Christian life and warns and threatens the Christian as Christian. Law, and not the Gospel, becomes God's last and real word for the believer. So Christianity deteriorates into an implicit and eventually coarse legalism and abject moralism. Jesus faced this understanding of an ethically determined concept of sanctification among the Pharisees. Holiness was defined in terms of fulfilling ritual requirements. Sixteen centuries later for similar reasons, Luther raised his protest against medieval Catholicism. At times, the New Testament uses the words sanctify and sanctification of God's entire activity of God in bringing about man's salvation. More specifically it refers to the work of the Holy Spirit to bring people to salvation, to keep them in the true faith and finally to raise them from the dead and give them eternal life (Small Catechism). All these works are also performed by the Father and the Son. Since God is not morally neutral and does not choose to be holy, but He is holy, all His works necessarily share in His holiness. The connection between the Holy Spirit and sanctification is seen in the Latin for the Third Person of the Trinity, Spiritus Sanctus. The Spirit who is holy in Himself makes believers holy, sanctifies them, by working faith in Christ in them and He becomes the sources of all their good works.
Sanctification means that the Spirit permeates everything the Christian thinks, says and does. The Christian's personal holiness is as much a monergistic activity of the Holy Spirit as is his justification and conversion. The Spirit who alone creates faith is no less active after conversion than He was before.
Our Augsburg Confession recognizes those things which keep society and government together as good works, but strictly speaking, they do not belong to a Christian's personal holiness and have no necessary relationship to justification. Unbelievers can do these works as can Christians. The works of sanctification are, strictly speaking, only those which Christians can do. They find their source, content and form in Christ's offering of Himself for others and are given to Christians by the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who is sent into the world by the Son. Sanctification is a Trinitarian act. God dwells in the believer in order to accomplish what He wants. The petition of the Lord's Prayer that "God's will be done" is a prayer for our own sanctification.
The Spirit who assisted Christ during the days of humiliation to do good to others and to offer Himself as a sacrifice to His Father is the same Spirit whom Christ by His death, resurrection and ascension gave to His Christians. Jesus, in requiring that we love God with our whole being and our neighbors more than ourselves, was not giving us an impossible goal to awaken in us a morbid sense of sinfulness. Nor was He speaking in exaggerated terms to make a point, but He was describing His own life and the life of His Christians who live their lives and die in Him. Like Christ, Christians trust only in God and sacrifice themselves for others. Sanctification not only defines the Christian life, but in the first and real sense it defines Christ's life. Jesus Himself loved God with everything which He was and had and made us His neighbors by loving us more than He loved His own life. Sanctification is first christological, that is, it is Christ's own life in God and then our life in Him. His life did not follow a system of codes, a pattern of regulations or list of moral demands and constraints and restraints.
Just as Christ's life had to do with self-giving, our sanctification has to do with presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. Our sanctification finds its closest point of contact in the earthly life of Jesus who gave Himself for us. Christ's giving of Himself is in turn an extension of Father's giving of His Son, "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." The sending of the Son as a sacrifice reflects the Father's eternal giving of Himself in begetting the Son, "begotten of His Father before all worlds." So the Christian doctrine of sanctification draws its substance from atonement, incarnation and even the mystery of the Holy Trinity itself. This self-giving of God and of Christ take form in the lives of believers and saints, especially those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel and martyred. On that account St. Paul sets himself and his companions in their sufferings as patterns of sanctification for those to whom they preached the Gospel.
As magnificently monergistic as our sanctification is, that is, God works in us to create and confirm faith and to do good to others, we Christians are plagued by sin. In actual practice our sanctification is only a weak reflection of Christ's life. Good motives often turn into evil desires. Good works come to be valued as our own ethical accomplishments. Moral self-admiration and ethical self-absorption soon replace total reliance on God. The sanctified life constantly needs to be fully and only informed by Christ's life and death or our personal holiness will soon deteriorate into a degenerate legalism and barren moralism. God allows us Christians to be plagued by sin and a sense of moral inadequacy to force us to see the impossibility of a self-generated holiness. Our only hope is to look to Christ in whom alone we have a perfect and complete sanctification. "He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30).”
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From C.F.W. Walther lecture:
“Thirty-eighth Evening Lecture.
(October 23, 1885.)
Many ministers, not all inefficient otherwise, imagine that they have accomplished much, in fact, that they have achieved their aim, when they have roused their hearers from their carnal security and reduced them to a state of mind where they despair of their being in a state of grace and of their salvation. It is, indeed, necessary that every person who is to be saved be brought out of his false security, false comfort, false peace, and false hopes. He must, indeed, be made to despair of salvation and of his present condition. But that is merely a preparatory stage through which he must pass; it is not the matter of chief importance nor the chief aim that is to be achieved with regard to him. The principal matter is that he attain to full assurance of his state of grace and his salvation, so that he may exult, as a pardoned sinner, with the godly poet Woltersdorf and sing: —
I know, yes, I know, and shall e’er be maintaining,
That, as sure as God’s hands in His Kingdom are reigning,
As sure as his sun does the heavens adorn,
His pardon for sinners to me has been borne.
That such is the principal aim of an evangelical minister there can be no doubt. For the minister must preach the Gospel to those entrusted to him; he must bring them to faith in Christ, baptize them, and administer absolution and the Lord’s Supper to them. However, preaching the Gospel means nothing else than telling men that they have been reconciled, perfectly reconciled, with God by Christ. Living, genuine faith of the heart means nothing else than the divine assurance that one has the forgiveness of sins and that the gates of heaven are open to him. Baptizing a person means nothing else than taking him out of the world of lost sinners, by the command and in the name and place of God, and giving him the solemn assurance that God is gracious to him, that God is his Father, and that he, the baptized person, is God’s child; that the Son of God is his Savior and the baptized his child and already saved; that the Holy Spirit is his comforter and the baptized an abode of the Holy Spirit. Administering absolution to a person means nothing else than saying to him by the command and in the name and place of Christ: “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Administering Holy Communion means nothing else than saying to him in the name of Jesus: “You, too, are to share in the great achievement of redemption. To confirm your claim on it, this precious pledge is given you, namely, the body and blood of Christ, the ransom with which He purchased the entire world.”
An examination of the Scriptures reveals the fact that the aim of all true ministers has been to train their hearers so that they could declare themselves children of God and heirs of salvation. When Christ said to His disciples: “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven,” Luke 10, 20, He evidently called upon them to rejoice in the certainty of their salvation. Paul writes to the Corinthians: ‘Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” I Cor 6, 11 Peter writes to the Christians living in the dispersion: “Ye were as sheep going astray; but ye are now returned unto the shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” I Pet 2, 25. John says to his spiritual children, including himself in the statement: “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” I John 3, 2. Nowhere in the Holy Scriptures do we find the apostles treating the members of the congregations as if they were uncertain regarding their standing with God; their treatment of them is always such that one can see they presuppose that their members, in spite of their weaknesses and blemishes, are dear, beloved children of God.
Conditions are different in our time. As a rule, even the best ministers are well satisfied if they have trained their people to come to them occasionally and complain that they have no assurance of their salvation, that they are afraid they would be lost if they were to die the next night. A complaint like this alarms a truly evangelical minister whose aim is to get his hearers to profess: “I know that my Redeemer lives. I know in whom I have believed.” But ministers who are not truly evangelical take this complaint as evidence that they have made good Christians out of their hearers.
What is the reason that so many in our day live in uncertainty about their being true Christians? The reason is that ministers, as a rule, confounding Law and Gospel and do not heed the apostolic adminition: “Study to show thyself a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.” 2 Tim 2, 15 For when the Gospel is preached with an admixture of law, it is impossible for a hearer to attain to faith in the forgiveness of his sins. On the other hand, when the Law is preached with an admixture of Gospel, it is impossible for a hearer to arrive at the knowledge that he is a poor sinner in need of the forgiveness of sins.
Thesis XXIV.
In the twentieth place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the unforgiven sin against the Holy Ghost is described in a manner as if it could not be forgiven because of its magnitude.
This current description of the unpardonable sin is a horrid confounding of Law and Gospel.
Only the Law condemns sin; the Gospel absolves the sinner from all sins without an exception. The prophet writes; “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white a snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Is 1, 18. The Apostle Paul writes, Rom 5, 20: “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Accordingly, Luther sings out in a glorious strain: —
Though great our sins and sore our woes,
His grace much more boundeth;
His helping love no limit knows,
Our utmost need it soundeth.
Now, then, what does Holy Scripture say regarding the sin against the Holy Ghost? Concerning this sin we have three parallel passages in the synoptic gospels, a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and one in the First Epistle of St. John. These passages are the real seat of doctrine for the sin against the Holy Ghost.
Matt. 12, 30–32: He that is not with Me is against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad. Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the basphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. This is the principal passage. It states, to begin with, that all blasphemy against the Father and the Son shall be forgiven; only the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven. Now, it is certain that the Holy Spirit is not a more glorious and exalted person than the Father and the Son, but He is coequal with them. Accordingly, the meaning of this passage cannot be that the unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the person of the Holy Spirit; for blasphemy against the Father and the Son is exactly the same sin. The blasphemy to which our text refers is directed against the office, or operation of the Holy Spirit; whoever spurns the office of the Holy Spirit, his sin cannot be forgiven. The office of the Holy Spirit is to call men to Christ and to keep them with Him.
The text mentions in particular, that the person committing this sin “speaketh against the Holy Ghost”. This shows that the sin in question is not committed by blasphemous thoughts that arise in the heart. Not infrequently dear Christians imagine they have committeed this sin when they are visited with horrid thoughts of which they cannot rid themselves. Our Lord Christ foresaw this, and for that reason He informed us that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost that is not forgiven must have been uttered by the mouth. The devil shoots his fiery darts into the hearts of the best Christians, causing them to revolve in their hearts the most horrible thoughts against their heavenly Father and against the Holy Spirit, however, against their will. Earnest Christans have complained that, while going to Communion, they have been harassed with the most horrible htoguhts against the Holy Ghost. Such thoughts are the devil’s filth. When I am sitting in a beautiful room with windows open and a bad boy throws dirt into the room, I am not responsible for this. In His wise providence God permits His dear children to be vexed day and night with such thoughts. The best preachers have met with such instances among the members of their congregations. But that is not the sin against the Holy Ghost, which consists in blasphemy that is pronounced orally.
I have had to treat spiritually a girl who even uttered thoughts of this kind, but at the same time fell on the ground, weeping and moaning tobe delivered from her affliction by God. She did not come to rest until she realized that it was not she that was uttering those thoughts. Satan had taken possession of her lips. of course, Modernists, who deny such power of the devil, call this explanation a superstitious notion.
Mark 3, 28–30: Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blasphemed; but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost has never forgivenenss, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. Here we have the record of an actual blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. When Christ, by the finger of God, cast out devils, the Pharisees, who had come down from Jerusalem, declared this operation of theholy Spirit a work of the devil. They were convinced in their hearts that it was a divine work, but since the Saviaor had rebuked them for their hypocrisy and mien of sanctimoniousness they conceivced a deadly hatred against Christ, and that incited them to blasphemy against the holy Ghost.
Accordingly we have here this explanation offered us: to declare a work of the Holy Ghost a work of the devil when one is convinced that it is a work of the Holy Ghost, that is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. This shows us what a serious matter this is. There are no Christians that do not occasionally resist the operations of divine grace and then try to persuade themselves that they were only chasing away gloomy thoughts. Does this mean anything but that such thoughts are of the devil? The doctrine now before us warns us that, if we wish to be saved, we must yield promptly to the operation of the Holy Spirit as soon as we feel it and not resist it. For in the next stage the person who resists may find himself saying: “This operation is not by the Holy Spirit.” The following stage will be that he begins to hate the way by which God wants to lead him to slavation, and ultimately he will blaspheme that way. Accordingly, let us be on our guard. Let us open the door to the Holy Spirit whenever He knocks and not take the view of wordly men who regard these sensations as symptom of melancholia.
This is not a jesting matter; for unless the Holy Spirit brings us to faith, we shall never attain it. Whoever rejects the Holy Spirit is beyond help, even by God. God wants the order maintained which he has ordained for our salvation. He brings no one into heaven by force. On the occasion to which our text refers Christ had just healed the man with the withered hand and had driven out a devil. Everybody saw that the power of God was making an inroad into the kingdom of Satan. But the reprobates who stood by said: “Ah! Beelzebub is in this Jesus; that is why He can cast out inferior devils.” The very action which they had witnessed, the works and the words of Christ, showed that He was arrayed against the devil and was destroying the devil’s kingdom. It was wholly out of reason to imagine that the devil would help Christ in that work.
Luke 12, 10: Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. Again we see that it is essential to the sin against the Holy Ghost that the blasphemy is uttered, and that, knowingly and purposely.
We have a very important statement regarding this sin in Heb 6, 4–8: For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. For the earth that drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. It is characteristic of the sin against the Holy Ghost that the person who has committed it cannot be restored to repentance. That is simply impossible. It is not God who puts man into this condition, but the sinner by his own fault produces this state of irretrievable impenitence. When this condition has reached a certain degree, God ceases to operate upon him, and there is no further possibility for the person to be saved. Why? Because he cannot be induced to repent. The soil of his heart has been finally blasted and is no longer fructified by the dew and rain of divine grace.
1 John 5, 16: If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. This passage contains important information for us, but we cannot act upon it. For we can say of no person before his death that he has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. Even when his mouth utters blasphemies, we do not know to what extent his heart is implicated, or whether the phenomenon is not perhaps an operation of the devil, or whether he is acting in great blindness, and whether he may not be renewed unto repentance. The Christians in the days of the apostles had the gift to discern the spirits. Accordingly, St. John here means to say: “When you see that God has ceased to be gracious to such or such an individual who has committed this sin, you are not to wish either that God should be gracious to him, and you are to cease praying for him.” Neither may we say to God: “Save those who have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost.”
This is a shocking statement, and yet it contains a great comfort. Some one may come to you and say: “I am a wretched man — I have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. I am quite certain of it.” The afflicted may tell you of the evil he has done, the evil he has spoken, and the evil he has thought. It may really look as if he had blasphemed against the Holy Ghost. Now remember the weapon which Heb 6 furnishes for attacking a case like this: “The person is not at all rejoicing over what he tells you; it is all so awfully horrid to him. This shows that God has at least begun to lead him to repentance; all that he need do is to lay hold of the promise of the Gospel. When you ask him whether he has been doing all those evil thing intentionally, he may affirm that involuntarily because Satan makes him affirm the question. When you ask him whether he wishes he had not done those evil things, he will answer: “Yes, indeed; these things are causing me to most awful worry.” That is a sure sign that God has begun the work of repentance in that person. A case like this is indeed not to be treated lightly; the sufferer must be shown that, since there is in him the beginning of repentance he has an indubitable proof that he has not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. In general, when preaching on this subject, the minister must aim at convincing his hearers that they have not committed this sin rather than warn them not to commit it. To a person who has really committed this sin preaching is of no benefit. Whoever is sorry for his sins and craves forgiveness should be told that he is a dear child of God, butis passing through a terrible tribulation.
Acts 7, 51 we read that Stephen said to his hearers: “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumscised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.” Had these people committed the sin against the Holy Ghost? No; for Stephen died praying for them: “Lord lay not this sin to their charge” V. 60. This shows that, although the Jews had committed wilful sins, they had not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost; otherwise the martyr would not have prayed for them. He was, when praying for them, thinking that an hour might come when they would no longer resist the Holy Ghost.
Let us now hear Luther’s comment on 1 John 5, 16. He writes (St. Louis Ed. IX, 1519): “By the term ‘sin unto death’ I understand heresy which these people set up in the place of the truth. If they do not repent after the first and second admonition (Titus 3, 10), their sin is a sin unto death. However, we may number with this class such as sin from stubbornness and indefiance, like Judas, who had been given ample warning, but because of his obstinate wickedness was beyond help; also Saul, who died in his sins because he would not trust in the Lord. But the highest degree of obstinancy is found in those who insist on maintaining and defending their known error.”
The sin is not unpardonable because of its magnitude, — for the apostle, as we heard, has distinctly declared: “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,“ — but because the person committing this sin rejects the only means by which he can be brought to repentance, fiath, and steadfastness in faith. Luther here refers to men whose sin consists in this, that they obstinately defend against their better knowledge and conscience an error which they have recognized as such.
Luther continues: “Of this kind is also the sin against the Holy Ghost, or hardening in wickedness, fighting against the known truth, and final impenitence.”
It is undoubtedly incorrect to regard impenitence unto the end as the sin against the Holy Ghost, as Luther does; for in that case most men would have committed this sin. However, final impenitence is a feature of this sin. The special peculiarity of this sin is that it opposes the office, the operation, of the Holy Ghost.
To return to Luther: “There is another kind of sin which is not unto death. Of this kind was the sin of paul, to which he refers in 1 Tim 1, 13, saying: ‘I was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.’” Paul had committed the awful sin of blaspheming and trying to force Christians to blaspheme; but he as acting in appalling blindness: he had no inkling that he was fighting against God. “Of this sin Christ speaks in Matt 12, 32, saying: ‘Whosever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him.’ Likewise, the sin of the men who crucified Christ was not unto death, for Peter says to them: ‘And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it.’ Acts 3, 17. And Paul says; ‘Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.’ 1 Cor. 2, 8. However, this sin is unto death when it is defended after having been sufficiently revealed and recognized as a sin, because it resists the grace of God, the means of grace, and the forgiveness of sin. Where there is no knowledge of sin, there is no forgiveness. For the forgiveness of sin preached to those who feel their sin and are seeking the grace of God. But these persons [who have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost] are not frightened by any scruples of conscience, nor do they recognize and feel their sin.”
Let every one beware of resisting the Holy Ghost. When a sin has been revealed to him and his own heart affirms that it is a sin, let not his mouth deny the fact. That may not yet be the sin against the Holy Ghost, but it may be a step in that direction. There are many people who admit that we all sin in many ways every day, but when they are reproved, they claim that they never harmed a child.
As regards people who are distressed because they think they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, they would not feel distressed if they really had committed that sin and were in that awful conditon of heart, but they would find their constant delight in blaspheming the Gospel. However, Christians in distress still have faith, and the Spirit of God is working in them; and if the Spirit of God is working in them, they have not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost.
An excellent exposition of this matter is found in Baier’s Latin Compend of Positive Theology. He says in Part II, Chap III §24: “The most grievous of all actual sins, which is called the sin against the Holy Ghost,a) consistsb) in a malicious renunciationd) and blasphemouse) and obstinatef) assaults upon the heavenly truth which had once upon a time been knownc) by the person committing this sin.
“a) The manner of denominating this sin thus is derived from its object, which is the Holy Ghost. The term ‘Holy Ghost’ in this place is understood metonymically; it stands for the office which the Hoy Ghost discharges in converting the souls of men by the ministry of the Word. This meaning of the term is also found in 2 Cor 3, 6. The sin against the holy Ghost, then, is a sin which is committed against the office and ministry of the Holy Ghost and against the heavenly truth which is revealed by that office and ministry. [To blaspheme the Holy Ghost means to baspheme His ministry, to declare the operations of the Holy Ghost operations of the devil, and to offer resistance to His office.] It is also called a sin unto death, this denomination being derived from the effect of this sin, because it leads quite definitely to eternal death, or damnation. I John 5, 16. [”Sin unto death” must not be confused with “mortal sin.”]
“b) The seat of doctrine for this sin is found in Matt 12, 30 ff; Mark 3, 28; Luke 12, 10.
“c) The doctrine of heavenly truth may either have been approved once upon a time with an assent of divine faith and by public profession, or it may have only been perceived so clearly that the heart of the individual was convinced and had no argument to set up against it. In the former manner the sin against the Holy Ghost is committed by those apostles who renounce and vilify the truth which they had once known and believed, such as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes in ‘chapter 6, 4 ff. In the later class belong the Pharisees and scribes, who never approved the doctrine of Christ by their profession, although they were convinced of its truth in their heart by the Scripture and the miracles of Christ, and had nothing but calumnies to set up against it. [There are Lutheran theologians who claim that only a truly regenerate person can commit the sin against the Holy Ghost. But that is going too far; for nobody will believe the Pharisees to whom the Lord speaks of this sin had ben truly converted at some previous time; they had simply grown up in their wickedness. It is true, however, that a person can commit this sin even after his regeneration, a fact that is to be maintained over against the Calvinists. It is probable the Judas had been a believer. One can scarcely believe that the Savior would have called him while he was under the wrath of God. Judas fell away later, and Satan took possession not only of his body, but also of his mind.]
“d) In other words, the renunciation of, and asaults upon, the heavenly doctirne must be made ἑκουσίως, ‘wilfully’. Heb 10, 26 in such a manner that the source of this renunciation and assault is pure, downright malice. However, those who renounce their faith from ignorance or fear of death are not on that account sinners against the Holy Ghost, but can obtain remission of their sin. See the examples of Paul in 1 Tim 1, 13, and of Peter in Matt 26, 70 ff. [When the Word of God has been clearly and plainly presented to a person and it is evident that he has been impressed by it, because he is abashed, he begins to tremble, and feels that God is appraching him, it is a shocking thing in such a case to hear the person saying: “No, I do not believe that! I do not believe that! You misinterpret Scripture!”] That may not be the sin against the Holy Ghost, but it is a step in that direction. I say, a step in that direction; for the person may reconsider this act and be saved. Peter had taken three steps towards the sin against the Holy Ghost; however, he acted not from hatred against Christ, but from fear. He expected to be put in prison if he were to admit that he was a disciple of Jesus. That fear of Peter gave the devil an opportunity to overthrow this great and solid pillar of the Church. But the Holy Spirit reentered the heart of Peter, and Peter repented of his sin.
“e) In the passages cited under b) this sin is called ‘speaking a word against the Holy Ghost.’ or ‘blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.’ Accordingly, the form which this sin takes is a reviling talk that is aimed against the office of the Holy Spirit, for instance, when His teaching and the wonderful works that were performed in support of it are ascribed to the power and operation of Satan, as was done by the Pharisees.
“f) Accordingly, it is in its very nature a sin of such a character that it cannot be forgiven, and never is forgiven to any one, according to the passages in Matthew and Mark, because by its very nature it blocks the way to repentance. The reason, however, why final impenitence is so closely connected with this sin is that the men who commit it directly and with full malice oppose the means for their conversion and that God therefore withdraaws His grace from them and gives them over to a reprobate mind.”
A person who has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost is condemned not so much on account of this sin as rather on account of his unbelief. Unbelief is the general cause (causa communis) and malicious and constant vilification of the truth the particular cause (causa singularis), of his damnation. It is not due to an absoute decree of reprobation, as the Calvinists teach, who maintain the really diabolical error that such men cannot be saved for the reason that Christ did not suffer and atone for their sins and did not redeem them.”
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“Luther’s Great Galatians Commentary (transcribed by his students from lectures delivered in 1531 and published in 1535) represents an extremely rich exposition of the Reformer’s mature understanding of the work of Christ. Beyond these virtues, the commentary possesses a quasi-confessional status since the Formula of Concord both recommended and endorses it as a full and correct exposition of the doctrine of justification.159 This judgment appears to follow from Luther’s own understanding of the work. The Reformer did not conceive of it as merely his private teaching or a series of personal opinions. Rather, he understood it as a response (paralleling the Apology to the Augsburg Confession) to the Papal Confutation.160 In his explanation of justification and the work of Christ, Luther’s starting point is the plight of humanity under sin, death, and wrath. God, as hidden in majesty and wrath, stands in conflict with human sin. God in Christ changes his relationship to the world by donating himself to humanity in order to do battle with divine judgment: “Thus the curse, which is divine wrath against the whole world, has the same conflict with the blessing, that is, with eternal grace and mercy of God in Christ. Therefore the curse clashes with the blessing and wants to damn it and annihilate it. But it cannot.” This paradoxical conflict takes place because, whereas God as active and incarnate in Christ donates himself in unbounded love to humanity, God as hidden in his majesty persists in his wrath. God’s law and judgment are manifested in his wrathful activities through the “masks” of his creatures.162
Kilcrease, Jack D.. The Doctrine of Atonement: From Luther to Forde . Wipf & Stock, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Édition du Kindle.
“As the embodiment of the promise of God’s unconditional grace, Christ bound himself totally to humanity, and has become its “Slave.”163 Christ must therefore bear all burdens and take upon himself the condemnation of the law.164 Again, we see the theme of the exchange of realities present in both the early Psalms commentaries and On the Freedom of a Christian. As Erich Seeberg rightly observes, Christ anticipates the fact that the believer is “at the same time saint and sinner,” in that he unites in himself both blessedness and the curse, sin and death with life and righteousness.165 In fact, I will go further than Seeberg and suggest that, for Luther in the Galatians commentary, Christ truly is “at the same time saint and sinner.” Nevertheless, Christ is both saint and sinner in the opposite way that the believer is: righteous in himself, yet imputed as sinful.166 In entering into the life of sinners, Christ had to take humanity’s sin upon himself and suffer the wrath of God. Luther writes: “all the prophets saw this, that Christ was to become the greatest thief, murder, adulterer, robber, desecrator, blasphemer, etc., there has ever been anywhere in the world. . . He is a sinner.”167 But if Christ was sinless in himself, how then could this take place? Luther explains that it was possible because of God’s imputation: Thus a magistrate regards someone as a criminal and punishes him if he catches him among thieves, even though the man has never committed anything evil or worthy of death. Christ was not found among sinners; but of His own free will and by the will of the Father He wanted to be an associate of sinners and thieves and those who were immersed in all sorts of sin. Therefore, when the Law found Him among thieves, it condemned and executed Him as a thief.168 The Finnish Luther scholar Tuomo Mannermaa notes that, for Luther, Christ becomes three things through identifying with humanity and its sin: he is the “greatest person,” “the greatest sinner,” and the “only sinner.”169 As Luther writes: “because in the same Person, who is the highest, the greatest, and the only sinner, there is also eternal and invincible righteousness, therefore two converge: the highest, greatest and only sin; and the highest, the greatest, and the only righteousness.”170 Therefore, Mannermaa correctly concludes that, according “to Luther . . . the Logos [the divine Son] did not take upon himself merely human nature, in a ‘neutral’ form, but precisely the concrete and actual human nature. This means that Christ really has and bears the sins of all human beings in the human nature he has assumed.”171 For God to judge human sin, it was necessary that Christ be imputed as a sinner: “He has and bears all sins of all men in His body—not in the sense that He has committed them but in the sense that He took these sins, committed by us, upon His body, in order to make satisfaction for them with His own blood.”172 Christ objectively took the sins of the whole human race upon himself and rendered satisfaction for them: “He [God the Father] sent His Son into the world . . .and said to Him . . . be the person of all men, the one who committed the sins of all men. And see to it that You pay and make satisfaction for them.”173 By describing Christ as the righteous one imputed with humanity’s sin, Luther appears to anticipate Flacius’ later designation of Christ’s “active” and “passive” righteousness.174 Much like Anselm, Luther considers redemption contingent on the payment of an infinite satisfaction for sin. Through his obedience to the Father, and his willing reception of the imputation of sin, Christ rendered an infinite satisfaction on behalf of sinners: In addition, it follows that our sins are so great, so infinite and invincible, that the whole world could not make satisfaction for even one of them. Certainly the greatness of the ransom—namely, the blood of the Son of God—makes it sufficiently clear that we can neither make satisfaction for our sin nor prevail over it . . . But we should note here the infinite greatness of the price paid for it. Then it will be evident that its power is so great that it could not be removed by any means except that the Son of God be given for it. Anyone who considers this carefully will understand the one word “sin” includes the eternal wrath of God and the entire kingdom of Satan, and that sin is no trifle.175 Luther here emphasizes the fact that satisfaction is rendered by Christ’s total divine-human person. This emphasis is consistent with Luther’s understanding of the exchange of properties between the divine and human natures developed elsewhere.176 For Luther, all activities of either nature are attributable to the total divine-human person (“God has suffered, the Man has created heaven and earth . . . the Servant [Christ] . . . is the Creator of all things”177). In fact, this teaching would also form the basis of the Formula of Concord and Lutheran scholasticism’s concept of atonement. By rendering infinite satisfaction and neutralizing the threat of the law, Christ is also victorious over the demonic forces of the old creation. All these forces are masks of God’s wrath, in that “the whole creation is a face or mask of God.”178 The powers of darkness enslave and define persons living apart from the grace of God. When the law is satisfied, the proclamation of the word of God first kills and then breathes new life into the person of faith: “I am crucified with Christ.” Paul adds this word because he wants to explain how the Law is devoured by the Law. . . When by this faith I am crucified and die to the Law, then the Law loses all its jurisdiction over me, as it lost it over Christ. Thus, just as Christ Himself was crucified to the Law, sin, death, and the Devil, so that they have no further jurisdiction over Him, so through faith I, having been crucified with Christ in spirit, am crucified and die to the Law, sin, etc., so that they have no further jurisdiction over me but are now crucified and dead to me.179 Through being united to Christ, the believer is victorious over the dark powers of the old creation. The old man is killed and resurrected in Christ. Therefore, the believer ceases to be subjected to the powers of the old order through the imputation of righteousness.180 Robert Bertram comments: Christ bears our sins in his body, not only because they are thereby destroyed, but because they are ours. There is no question in Luther’s mind that Christ could have vanquished the tyrants without submitting to the cross, by an outright exercise of his divine sovereignty. But such an alternative overlooks how intimately the victory was to be ours and how it was therefore to be achieved in “our sinful person.”181 By entering into humanity’s life under sin, death, the devil, and the law, Christ was able to destroy their power by bearing their attacks and thereby overcoming them.182 He is therefore capable of sharing his victory with believers. Faith is united with the new resurrected life through the gospel. Therefore, faith receives God’s self-donation by unity with Christ’s person.183 Just as Jesus once gave himself over to the imputation of sin, he now gives himself over to sinners through the imputation of righteousness as mediated by word and sacrament. The promise of Christ’s total self-giving affects the mystical union between Christ and the believer: But faith must be taught correctly, namely, that by it you are so cemented to Christ that He and you are as one person, which cannot be separated but remains attached to Him forever and declares “I am as Christ.” And Christ in turn says “I am as that sinner who is attached to Me, and I to him. For by faith we are joined together into one flesh and one bone.”184 Therefore, by faith the believer receives all that is Christ’s: “The one who has faith is a completely divine man, a son of God, the inheritor of the universe. He is victor over the world, sin, death, and the devil.”185 Although the word, and the saving faith which it creates, sanctifies the inner person, this does not exclude a person from remaining a sinner until temporal death. For this reason, “acceptance or imputation is extremely necessary, first because we are not yet purely righteous, but sin is still clinging to our flesh during this life.”186 Believers, considered in themselves apart from the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, remain worthy of judgment. Sin is “so great, so infinite and invincible, that the whole world could not make satisfaction for even one of them.”187 This simultaneity (“at the same time saint and sinner”) of Christian existence is evident in God’s address in the form of law and gospel. Law always addresses the believer as a sinner. Conversely, the gospel continuously addresses the believer as justified. The knowledge of one’s self as a sinner to whom Christ’s righteousness is given kills the old man and kindles faith, leading to good works: “truly good works, which flow from this faith and joy conceived in the heart because we have the forgiveness of sins freely through Christ.”188 Conclusion In conclusion, Luther’s teachings regarding atonement exhibits a fair amount of consistency over his life span. Christ, having entered human existence, identifies and exchanges his reality with that of humanity under the power of sin, death, and the devil. By fulfilling the law and rendering satisfaction, Christ neutralizes the wrath of God and disarms the dark powers of the old creation. This victory, which is manifested in his resurrection, is shared by believers through the imputation of righteousness received by faith, and subsequently through mystical union.”
Kilcrease, Jack D.. The Doctrine of Atonement: From Luther to Forde . Wipf & Stock, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Édition du Kindle.
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