Book Update Archives - Page 4 of 14

August 1, 2024August 3, 2024

Christ’s Offices and the Foundational Nature of Substitutionary Atonement

Christ’s work of atonement and reconciliation is threefold because His offices of king, priest, and prophet are threefold. In his work Christus Victor, Swedish Lutheran theologian Gustaf Aulén famously outlined three major atonement motifs: Conquest, Substitution, and Moral Influence.¹ The conquest, or Christus Victor, motif deals with Christ’s conquest of demonic forces (sin, death, and the Devil).² The substitution motif deals with Christ’s payment for sins (whatever form that may take) in the place of fallen humanity.³ Finally, moral influence theories of the atonement deal with Christ being a good example or making a transformative existential gesture to humanity.⁴

Throughout the history of Christian thought, theologians have often chosen one motif and excluded the others. Therefore, we should recognize that all three motifs have a valid basis in the New Testament. Moreover, each motif corresponds to an office of Christ: as king, Christ wages the Father’s apocalyptic war; as priest, Christ atones for sin; as prophet, Christ reveals the testament of the gospel to humanity, and gives humanity the Spirit. The Spirit, in turn, helps believers follow the moral example of faith and self-sacrificial love Jesus revealed on the cross.

July 20, 2024July 18, 2024

Marriage and Sexuality: The Estate of the Family

In his Genesis Commentary, Martin Luther recognizes that there are three great estates: the family, the Church, and the state.¹ God established each of these estates to channel creational goods to his creatures. Luther terms these primal and universal institutions of human life the “three estates” (status, ordines, regimina, stände). Later Lutherans, following the early-nineteenth century theologian Adolf von Harless, began calling them the “Orders of Creation” (schöpfungsordnung).² Other modern theologians, however, divided the estates somewhat differently. When economic production split from the home during the industrial revolution, many Lutherans (including Dietrich Bonhoeffer) designated the “economy” as its own separate order.³

For Luther, the most primal Order of Creation is the Church, since it began when God gave Adam the Word before he had created Eve.⁴ This being said, it could be argued that there is no real estate of the Church until Adam could preach to Eve. For this reason, we will begin with the Order of the Family.⁵ The discussion below will provide an opportunity to flesh out many of the issues regarding the theology of gender as well as marriage and the family.

The Purpose of Marriage

In Eden, God established marriage for the propagation of the human race in order to fulfill the mandate of creation. Bearing and raising children was part of primal humans’ priestly calling. As John Walton notes, the first couple would be able to cultivate more and more land as they had more children. Eventually, the first family could have expanded the Garden until the garden-temple enveloped the whole of creation.⁶

July 13, 2024July 15, 2024

God Reconciles All People Objectively and Universally

Christ’s work reconciles God and humanity. This occurs both objectively and subjectively. Moreover, since each person of the Trinity is involved, reconciliation takes on a threefold movement. This threefold movement can be summarized in the distinctive realities of atonement, justification (both objective and subjective), and election.¹ The New Testament distinguishes each aspect of reconciliation from the others, although theologians have often confused them throughout Church history.

The event of atonement constitutes the first movement of reconciliation, or redemption, as already examined in the last section. The movement of atonement proceeds from the Son to the Father. Having received all things from the Father, the Son is capable of returning himself to the Father in the power of the Spirit….

Universal Objective Justification

The second movement of reconciliation is universal and objective justification.² Universal objective justification is the Father’s response to the Son’s payment for the sin of the whole world. The Father declares the whole world forgiven on the basis of the Son’s objective atoning work. Objective atonement and objective justification are therefore distinct and should not be confused with one another: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Rom. 5:18, emphasis added). And “. . . in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them [i.e., justification]” (2 Cor. 5:19, emphasis added).

July 10, 2024July 10, 2024

Gender Wars and the Threat of Subordinationalism

In the second century, biblical teaching about the Trinity very quickly degenerated into the heresy of Subordinationism. The Subordinationist heresy held that the Son and the Spirit are inferior to the Father. Ante-Nicene Fathers held this view partially due to their over reliance on contemporary Platonic metaphysics. Middle Platonists believed that held that any act of self-communication entailed tragic degeneracy. In Middle Platonism, the world of sense was an inferior copy of the forms in the eternal divine mind. Not surprisingly, Christians influenced by Middle Platonism began claiming the Son was an inferior copy of the Father.

Confusing the Economic and Immanent Trinity

Catherine LaCugna suggests that the failure of Ante-Nicene theologians to make a clear distinction between the economic and immanent Trinity might also have contributed to the rise of Subordinationism.¹ For those unfamiliar, the “immanent Trinity” refers to God in himself apart from his missions of creation and redemption. The “economic Trinity” refers to the Trinity as God acts in time in order to redeem humanity in the economy of salvation.² In the immanent Trinity, all persons are co-equal and co-eternal. There is no subordination whatsoever. Each person fully and co-equally embodies the divine substance (Jn. 1:1, Philip. 2:6, Heb. 1:2-3).

Nevertheless, in time, the Son and the Spirit voluntarily take on missions to accomplish the Father’s bidding. Jesus speaks throughout the Gospels of his obedience to the Father and his subordination to the Father (Lk. 22:42, Jn. 4:34, 8:29, 14:31). In time, the Son and the Father also send the Spirit (Lk 24:49, Jn. 14:16).³

July 8, 2024July 9, 2024

The Eucharist as Embodied Gospel

No passage of Scripture ever describes the Lord’s Supper itself as a sacrifice. Neither does the New Testament speak of ministers as priests re-presenting Christ’s work… Moreover, from an evangelical perspective, a sacrificial concept of the Mass problematically makes it into a work, albeit one enabled by grace….

The Lord’s Supper as Sacrifice

Although the Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice in itself, this does not mean it has no connection with the sacrificial work of Christ. As American Lutheran theologian Charles Porterfield Krauth notes:

The idea of sacrifice under the Old Dispensation sheds light upon the nature of the Lord’s Supper. . . Sacrifice through the portion burnt, is received of God by the element of fire; the portion reserved is partaken of by men, is communicated to them, and received by them. The eating of the portion of the sacrifice, by the offerer, is as real apart of the whole sacred act as the burning of the other part is. Man offers to God; this is sacrifice. God gives back to man; this is sacrament. The oblation, or the thing offered, supplies both sacrifice and sacrament, but with the difference, that under the Old Dispensation God received part and man received part; but under the New, God receives all and gives back all: Jesus Christ, in His own divine person, makes that complete which was narrowed under the Old Covenant by the necessary limitations of mere matter.¹

David Scaer adds that the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice from God’s perspective, but a sacrament and testament from the perspective of believers. In other words, in the Lord’s Supper, Christ, as part of his priestly ministry, holds up his previously sacrificed Body and Blood to the Father. This intercessory act reminds the Father of the forgiveness of sins won on the cross. God then delivers forgiveness through the testament of the Lord’s Supper to believers.

However, there remain substantial differences between Roman Catholic teaching regarding the sacrifice of the mass and Lutheran doctrine. A key difference is that for Lutherans Christ himself is the active agent of the Lord’s Supper, rather than a priest acting in persona Christi. Moreover, according to Lutheran teaching, communicants passively receive the promise in the Lord’s Supper. Reception directly into the mouth clearly confesses this belief. In post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, however, communicants actively enter into and participate in Christ’s self-offering to the Father. Instead, Lutherans, with Scripture, affirm the Lord’s Supper as a visible word of promise received by passive faith and not a grace-enabled work.