Tag: Luther

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Luther on the Return to Baptism and Justification

Through the perpetual return to baptism the Christian is able to enter the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection, although this event is historically distant.  Thus, a key implication of Luther and the historic Lutheran tradition’s teaching on communicatio idiomatum is that Christ’s humanity is not confined by time and therefore he can make himself available through the promise of the gospel in any era.  Herein we again encounter in Luther implicit appropriation of Scripture’s distinction between chronological time and kairological time.[1]  Even though Scripture does describe the history of salvation as an orderly development, there is a perichoresis of the ages.  God’s kairological time has manifested itself at specific points in chronological history.  Nevertheless, the Lord is not bound to the chronological order of history in manifesting his kairological salvation.  Hence, the risen Jesus who transcends time makes the eschaton present to the believer at the appointed time of his redemption in baptism in order to actualize God’s electing and justifying purposes.  Christ thereby makes it possible to incorporate the believer into eschatological redemption in the present through a return to the kairological event of his baptism, just as baptism is a return to the kairological event of his death and resurrection. 

As Oswald Bayer observes: “Luther’s apocalyptic understanding of creation and history opposes modern concepts of progress.  For Luther, the only progress is return to one’s baptism, the biographical point of rupture between the old and new worlds. Creation, Fall, redemption, and completion of the world are not sequential advance, one after the other, but perceived in an intertwining of the times.”[2]

In emphasizing the possibility of returning to one’s baptism, Luther responds to the issues that gave rise to the problem of post-baptism sin. This problem in turn generated the Latin doctrines of penance, purgatory, and indulgences which he combated in his early Reformation theology.  Like the New Testament and the ante-Nicene Church,[3] Luther saw baptism as the apocalyptic rupture between the old person and new person in Christ.[4]

[1] Elert, The Christian Ethos, 286-9; Paul Tillich, The Interpretation of History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936).

[2] Oswald Bayer, “Martin Luther,” in The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Modern Period, ed. Carter Lindberg (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 51-2.

[3] See: Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009).

[4] Trigg, Baptism in the Theology of Martin Luther, 92-8.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Enthusiasm and the External Word

Due to the simul of Christian existence (that is, Christians are “at the same time saint and sinner,” simul justus et peccator),[1] the temptation of returning to the self-incurvature of reflective faith is ever present.  That is to say, because even true believers now possess a sinful nature, they are subject to the temptation trusting in their own works or the quality of their faith over what the external Word tells them.  Such a temptation connects with not only the root sin of unbelief, but what Luther called “Enthusiasm.”[2]  Enthusiasm means “God withinism.”[3]  An enthusiast looks inward to his interior thoughts and feeling so as to discover God’s will for him, rather than the external Word of God.  This tendency can undermine biblical authority, but it is also the source of human doubt in the promise of the gospel. 

Because of fallen humanity’s orientation toward unbelief and enthusiasm (incurvatus in se) temptation to doubt one’s own proper reception of the word will invariably arise.  When temptation arises, faith in the Word must inevitably seek a secondary support in refocusing the believer on the objectivity of grace rather than the subjectivity of their own disposition.  Such a secondary support should inculcate the objectivity of grace to the individual believer in a tangible manner and break the focus of the believer on their own inner reception of the external word.  This secondary support for faith can be found in the sacraments of the new testament. 

Disappointingly, most forms of Protestantism have failed to maintain the focus believer on Christ and the Word because of their rejection of sacramental realism.  Indeed, most (though not all) Protestants rejected sacramental realism in favor of sacramental symbolicism or spiritualism.[4]  Since both sacramental symbolicism and spiritualism disconnect the res from the signum in the sacraments, much of the Protestant tradition has denied believers the tangible secondary assurance of God’s grace that sacramental realism provides.  Believers who reject sacramental realism therefore have had to seek secondary assurance apart from the sacraments in moral athleticism or spiritual experience, thereby exacerbating the problem of unbelief and self-incurvature.  Only if the sacraments objectively contain grace can they function as antidote to religious subjectivism.  They perform this task by shifting the focus away from the interior and spiritual reception of grace, to grace’s tangible external embodiment in a physical medium. 

[1] See: Wilhelm Christe, Gerechte Sünder: eine Untersuchung zu Martin Luthers “Simul iustus et peccator” (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2014). 

[2] SA III.8; Concordia Triglotta, 497.

[3] Steven Paulson, Luther’s Outlaw God: Hidden in the Cross, vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019), 350.

[4] See discussion in: James F. White, The Sacraments in Protestant Practice and Faith (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999).

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Melanchthon Falls Into the Augustinian Dilemma

The older Melanchthon took Luther’s doctrine of the sacramentality of the word and reinterpreted it along the lines of the typical sacramentalist trajectory of the Augustinian Dilemma.  The Word of God is genuinely sacramental for Melanchthon in that it contains the coming of the Holy Spirit who works faith.  Nevertheless, in Melanchthon’s teaching it is at minimum a very strongly implied that the Holy Spirit’s work is dependent on the human will’s consent to cooperate.  Hence, in Melanchthon’s later work, grace can be construed as ultimately a possibility that is actualized by human decision.  Such a human decision can be called in question regarding its sincerity, thereby returning the sinner to the authenticity of his works (in this case, not external works, but rather a psychological event of conversion).  Therefore, the logical implication of the older Melanchthon’s theology of justification is that Luther’s unreflective faith is denied in favor an extremely reflective faith.  As we will see, the psychologizing of faith and the implicit call for self-examination as the sincerity of one’s conversion would become a standard feature in many strands of the later Protestant tradition.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Luther vs. Calvin on Justification and Election

Ultimately, those who embrace Luther’s theology find Calvin’s theology of election and justification so problematic because it fails to see that God is present and active in his Word in precisely the manner that he promises to be.  Calvin envisions human salvation and reprobation from the perspective of a comprehensive plan in eternity operating above and beyond the external Word.  The harmony of this plan can be discerned by looking past God’s words and coverings in order to see the whole of God’s hidden providence.[1]  Since some are saved and others not, God must not mean what he says when he wills the salvation of all who encounter him in the Word.  As a result, in Calvin’s theology the external Word may or may not do what it promises.  Only those who receive the inner call are truly elect and can see through the external word to God’s unified plan of grace for them as an individual.[2] 

By contrast, Luther sees God as exercising his rule through his Word manifest in and through his created masks.  Contrary to the claim of many Calvinists, Luther and the Lutheran tradition do not ultimately make God’s grace ineffective.  On the contrary, God’s Word always does precisely what it speaks.  However, God’s exercise of his reign is divided between a realm of law and a realm of grace. Those places where God has promised to work death and condemnation inexorably work death and condemnation.  By contrast, those who look for God in in the Word and sacraments will infallibly find a grace there that performs what it speaks.

Seen from the perspective of the sacramentality of the Word, the question of the perseverance of the saints is solved not on the basis of a special spiritual gift given to the elect (as in Augustine[3] and Calvin[4]), but on the basis on the efficacy of the means of grace external to the believer.[5]  God is always faithful to his Word regarding the means of grace.  The grace of the Word and the sacraments will inexorably move one toward the kingdom of heaven, just as a person who gets on a raft in the Mississippi River in Minnesota will inexorably move toward the Gulf of Mexico.[6] 

It could of course be objected that since Luther and the subsequent Lutheran tradition believe that apostasy is possible, one can never be genuinely certain that the divine Word will carry one along to their eschatological destiny.  In response, Lutherans have historically observed that God’s promise of grace is objectively true whether or not one believes in it.[7]  As we saw in Luther’s pronouncement regarding objective justification in an earlier chapter,[8] God’s promise of grace in Christ is more real than one’s refusal to believe it, and therefore remains a valid promise even if one chooses to actively reject it.[9]  Hence, to doubt the Word of the gospel is not to invalidate it, but rather to place one’s self outside of the realm of grace where the Word is operative and effective (i.e., the  sphere of the Church and its ministry), and into the realm of wrath and law which inexorably leads to eternal death (Rom. 3:20).  Hence, as long as one looks away from one’s present or possible future works and to God’s promise present in sphere of grace, one can always have infallible certainty that the living and active Word of the gospel will perform precisely what it speaks.    

[1] See the outline of this approach in the clearest terms in: John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J.K.S. Reid (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997).

[2] ICR, 3.24.8; Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., trans. and ed. John T. McNeill and Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 2:974-5.

[3] Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance; NPNFa, 5:.

[4] ICR, 3.24.7; Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., trans. and ed. John T. McNeill and Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 2:973-4.

[5] See the Lutheran view and critique of the alternatives in: Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951-1953), 3:89-103.

[6] Paulson, Luther’s Outlaw God: Hiddenness, Evil, and Predestination, vol. 1, 57-158.

[7] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics,2:321, 2:347-8, 2:508-12, 2:543.

[8] LW 22:382. 

[9] Tom G. A. Hardt, “Justification and Easter: A Study in Subjective and Objective Justification in Lutheran Theology,” in A Lively Legacy: Essays in Honor of Robert Preus, ed. Kurt E. Marquart, John R. Stephenson, Bjarne W. Teigen (Ft. Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary, 1985), 52-78; Eduard Preuss, The Justification of the Sinner before God, trans. J.A. Friedrich (Ft. Wayne, IN: Lutheran Legacy, 2011), 29-61; Robert Preus, “Objective Justification,” in Doctrine is Life: Robert D. Preus Essays on Justification and the Lutheran Confessions, ed. Klemet Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Luther on Predestination

Although Luther comments on predestination somewhat infrequently, there is a clear doctrine of predestination in Luther derived from his engagement with Paul and Augustine.[1]  Nevertheless, unlike Augustine, election is described as being something that God executes 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]

Here it should be noted that much like the word of absolution sacramentally contains within itself the coming of 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 not gap between God’s eternal, hidden, predestinating will, and the word of the preacher.  To apprehend in faith the word of promise that God has attached to Christ’s death and resurrection is to be assured of God’s eternal election of the believer.

In 1531, Luther offered similar counsel to Barbara Lisskirchen (formerly Weller), a woman who wrote the Reformer due to her deep anxiety about the question of her predestination.  Luther writes in a response letter:

“[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 Christ crucified and received by faith in him, but that the faith that apprehends Christ is what Philip Cary calls “unreflective faith,”[4] that 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, to look away from Christ would be to return to self-trust and self-incurvature, the very definition of sin.  Throughout the letter, Luther emphasizes that all questioning of one’s election and justification are satanic temptations.  Faith accepts God’s trustworthiness in his word as absolute reality and rejects the unreality of unbelief. 

[1] 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).

[2] LW 42:105-6.  Emphasis added.

[3] 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.

[4] Philip Cary, “Why Luther is Not Quite Protestant: The Logic of Faith in a Sacramental Promise,” Pro Ecclesia 14, no. 4 (2005): 450-55.

[5] 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 (Lexham Press, forthcoming).