Luther Archives - Jack Kilcrease

March 22, 2025March 12, 2025

Male – Female Relationality

The most primal relationship mirroring the relationality of divine life is the male/female relationship. This is a point highlighted in the theology of Karl Barth¹ and Hans Urs von Balthasar.² In Genesis 2 we are told that God sees that it is not good that man is alone and seeks to make him a counterpart as a “helpmeet.” As helpmeet, the woman is created to share in man’s creational/vocational tasks as a partner. This is what St. Paul means when he states that “man [was not] created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor. 11:9). He does not mean that woman was created as man’s plaything, or a slave to be dominated. Rather, man was first created and given certain creational tasks which woman was created to share in.

In Genesis 2, woman is derived from man, but not because she is inferior to man. As we may recall, the idea that realities which are derivative are inherently inferior is an aspect of the metaphysics of tragedy. The Bible works on the basis of a metaphysic of comedy, in that movement and generation do not lead to degeneracy but go from the good (the man alone) to the better (man and woman together in relationship). In support of this, Genesis 1 makes both the male and female equal image-bearers of God. This is confirmed in that when seeing the woman in Genesis 2 the man cries out that she is precisely what he is: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23). In an analogical sense, the man is homoousios with the woman.

March 16, 2025March 23, 2025

The Imago Dei and Righteous Relationality

Genesis 1:26-27 speaks of humans as made in the image and likeness of God. The meaning of this phrase has been hotly contested in the history of Christian thought. However, we can immediately reject is the interpretation first proposed by St. Irenaeus that “likeness” and “image” are distinct realities.

Early Interpretations of the Image of God

According to Irenaeus, the former refers to natural human faculties, whereas the latter refers to a special grace God gave to pre-lapsarian humans. This grace allowed humans to eventually participate in the divine life (i.e., a precursor of the later concept of theosis). As a result of the Fall, humans retain the image, but have lost the likeness.¹ Modern biblical scholarship has shown that the use of the terms “image” and “likeness” in tandem with each other is simply an example of the literary poetical parallelism common to the Old Testament and much of ANE western Semitic literature. Therefore, “image” and “likeness” possess an identical meaning.²

We can also easily reject St. Augustine’s³ and St. Thomas Aquinas’s⁴ claim that the mental faculties of memory, intellect, and will reflect the Trinity. Not only is there no exegetical basis for this claim, but the Bible knows nothing of Greek faculty psychology.⁵

November 3, 2024November 3, 2024

God’s Humbling Hiddenness and Revelation by Faith

Luther will guide our biblical explication of the God of the Gospel as both hidden and revealed. As we observed in an earlier section, both the pre-modern Greek and Latin theological traditions relied on a dialectic of “negation” (apophatic theology, via negativa) and affirmation (kataphatic theology, via positiva). Lowell Green has noted that Luther in his doctrine of God also relies on a form of affirmation and negation, albeit a radically different one.¹ Luther’s affirmation is God hidden (negation) and God revealed (affirmation). As we will also see, one could also add God’s appearance under the law as negation, and gospel as affirmation.

It should be recognized that Luther’s concept of divine hiddenness is not just a matter of affirming that God is incomprehensible. Of course, all orthodox Christian theologians have claimed this one way or another. Rather, following the biblical data (Isa. 45:15), Luther is clear that God actively hides from his people.² Why and how this is the case is something we will explore below.

Luther on Divine Hiddenness

How Luther talks about divine hiddenness is quite complicated because he applies the principle differently in different contexts. The British historian of Christian doctrine B.A. Gerrish has thematized these disparate statements of Luther into two kinds of hiddenness: Hiddenness 1, where God is hidden in his revelation, notably in Christ. Hiddenness 2, where God is hidden above and apart from revelation.³

September 19, 2024September 20, 2024

The Royal Priesthood and the Authority of the Church

The justification of believers within the Church through the means of grace effects a happy exchange between Christ and believers. Christ possesses all things and shares them with believers through the union brought about by forensic justification and faith. This means that believers share in Christ’s offices of king, priest, and prophet (Dn. 7:27, Rom. 8:17, 8:32, Eph. 2:6, 1 Pt. 2:9, Rev. 1:6, 5:10). Being conformed to Christ’s image begins the restoration of the image of God in humans. This restored image enables believers to assume the protological roles of king, priest, and prophet that find their ultimate fulfillment in the eschaton.

As we have previously seen, Luther develops this point strongly in Freedom of a Christian (1520). As kings, believers are no longer subject to the law coram Deo because the law has been fulfilled in them through reception of justification and sanctification in Christ. Coram mundo, believers become priests because possessing all things in Christ. As priests, they sacrifice themselves for one another through their individual vocations.¹ Scripture also teaches that believers are now Spirit-anointed prophets empowered to proclaim the Word of God to all nations (Acts 2:16-21). As prophet, believers also test all teachers by the standard of harmony with the biblical witness centered in Christ (1 Thess. 5:21, 1 Cor. 2:15, 1 Jn. 4:1-6).

September 11, 2024September 11, 2024

The Word and Revelation of the Triune God

In the primal state and through the history of salvation, God’s Word created different channels and masks as mediums of law and grace. God reveals to his creatures the actions he will take through a given created medium. In so doing, he bids humans to flee by faith from his masks of wrath to his masks of grace. In Eden, God established the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil through his word of command and promise. Here, the new humans found his judgment, hiddenness, and wrath (Gen. 2:17). By contrast, God attached his promise of grace to the Tree of Life and all the other trees in the garden (Gen. 2:16).

Later in the history of salvation, God designated Mt. Sinai as the location of judgment. From Sinai, God spoke forth his law and barred his people from ascending the mountain lest they be destroyed by his wrath (Exod. 19-20). Nevertheless, God established first the Tabernacle and then the Temple as the places where Israel could receive the grace of atonement and participate in divine holiness (Lev. 16-17).

Finally, in the era of the New Testament, Jesus designated the Temple and its old law as a place of divine judgment that would soon be destroyed (Mk. 13, Mt. 24, Lk 21). Now, his own cross is the new site of grace and atonement. On Easter Sunday, the women fled from the empty tomb, which seemed merely a place of death. Yet the atonement given via the cross and justification given via the tomb became the font of grace. The angels instructed the women to tell the disciples what they had experienced. This is significant, because the apostles’ Word and Sacrament ministry became the medium of the presence of the risen Jesus (Mt. 18:20, 28:20).