Throwback Post
The divine power and sacramentality of the word of justification raises the issue of predestination. We will discuss this question in greater detail on the basis of Luther’s answer in The Bondage of the Will (1525) in a future chapter. Here it is important briefly to note how Luther deals with the issue in light of his doctrine of the sacramentality of the gospel.
Although Luther comments on predestination somewhat infrequently, he does have a clear doctrine of predestination derived from engagement with St. Paul and St. Augustine of Hippo.1 Nevertheless, unlike Augustine, Luther describes election as executed by God in and through the preaching of the promise in Christ. In a passage in “A Sermon on Preparing for Dying” (1519) Luther writes:
Therefore fix your eyes upon the heavenly picture of Christ, who for your sake went to hell and was rejected by God as one damned to the eternal perdition, as He cried on the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” Behold, in that picture your hell is overcome and your election assured, so that if you but take care and believe that it happened for you, you will certainly be saved in that faith.2
Just as the word of absolution sacramentally contains within itself God’s justification of sinner, so too God’s eternal judgment of predestination supervenes on the word of the cross. Unlike in Augustine, there is no gap between God’s eternal, hidden, predestinating will, and the word of the preacher. God has attached a word of promise to Christ’s death and resurrection. Apprehending the word by faith gives the believer assurance of eternal election.
In 1531, Luther offered similar counsel to Barbara Lisskirchen (formerly Weller). Lisskirchen wrote the Reformer due to her deep anxiety over whether she was predestined to heaven or not. Luther wrote in response:
[T]he highest of all God’s commands is this, that hold up before our eyes the image of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Every day he should be our excellent mirror of how much God loves us and how well, in his infinite goodness, he has cared for us in that he gave his dear son for us. In this way I say, and in no other, does one learn to properly deal with the question of predestination. It will be manifest to you that you believe in Christ. If you believe then you are called. And if you are called you are most certainly predestinated. Do not let this mirror and throne of grace be torn away from your eyes. If such thoughts still come and bite like fiery serpents, pay no attention to the thoughts or serpents. Turn away from these notions and contemplate the brazen serpent, that is, Christ given for us.3
The key point to notice in this passage is not only that God’s eternal election is embodied in crucified Christ and received by faith in him. Additionally, the faith that apprehends Christ is what Philip Cary calls “unreflective faith,”4 which is a faith that does not worry about its own authenticity. Likewise, as Randall Zachman helpful summarizes, “[For Luther] faith means believing with certainty that God’s Word is true even when the whole world, the heart of the believer, and even God himself contradict the truth that is revealed in the word, particularly the word of promise.”5 Faith therefore looks outside of itself (extra nos) to Christ himself and his word of promise.
Again, looking away from Christ constitutes returning to self-trust and self-incurvature, which is the very definition of sin. Throughout the letter, Luther emphasizes that ultimately satanic temptations is the source of all rumination on one’s election and justification. Faith accepts God’s trustworthiness in his word as absolute reality and rejects the unreality of unbelief.
“It is plain therefore, that the beginning of our salvation is a faith which clings to the word of the promising God, who, without any effort on our part, in free and unmerited mercy takes the initiative and offers us the word of his promise” (AE 36:39).
- See: Fredrik Brosché, Luther on Predestination: The Antinomy and the Unity Between Love and Wrath in Luther’s Concept of God (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell international, 1978). ↩︎
- LW 42:105-6. Emphasis added. ↩︎
- Martin Luther, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, trans. Theodore Tappert (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Press, 2003), 116. Emphasis added. See lengthier argument in Luther’s Genesis commentary along the same lines: LW 5:43-50. ↩︎
- Philip Cary, “Why Luther is Not Quite Protestant: The Logic of Faith in a Sacramental Promise,” Pro Ecclesia 14, no. 4 (2005): 450-55. ↩︎
- Randall Zachman, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2005), 9. ↩︎
From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word: Restoring Sola Fide (Lexham Press, 2022), chap. 4.
Cover image from Bryan Wolfmueller, “Troubled by the doctrine of predestination? Martin Luther’s pastoral advice,” YouTube, 2021, accessed July 26, 2024, https://youtu.be/X7ficZ_JIlI?si=QHKrrPmJA6zuxKLL. Other image: Martin Luther quotation meme, Institute of Lutheran Theology, accessed July 18, 2024, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/it-is-plain-therefore-that-the-beginning-of-our-salvation-is-a-faith-which-clings-to-the-word-of-the-promising-god-w–421086633906137002/.