Random quotes

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SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Ole Hallesby:

From Why I am a Christian by Ole Hallesby: “Experience alone can lead our souls from doubt to certainty. The doubters to whom I venture to proffer my help are in distress because of their doubt. They are tired of painful uncertainty. They long for the peaceful rest which calm and impregnable assurance affords. But every time they think they have found solid ground upon which to stand, they sink back agian into the bottomless sea of doubt. … It is to these sincere, seeking, but distressed doubters that I venture to offer my assistance. I too have passed through the various stages of doubt. I have felt its anguish. But I also know a way out of doubt and into faith, a way which is open to all doubters. And this way does not do violence to any of our human faculties, not even to our reasoning powers.

This way was pointed out by Jesus over 1900 years ago. He put it in these words: 'If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself.’ (John 7:17). Here He promises to give personal assurance on the basis of experience. He names only one condition: if any man willeth to do God’s will.

In these words Jesus tells us something very important about doubt and the cause of doubt. Many are of the opinion that the cause of their doubt is their great knowledge or the keenness of their intellects. Others are more modest and think that their doubt is due to the fact that they lack knowledge and do not have a sufficiently keen intellect.

It is due to none of these. The cause of your doubt is something entirely different. You lack certain experiences. That is why you find yourself in doubt and uncertainty.

In offering you my help to overcome doubt, I shall not meet your doubts with logical arguments. I shall rather, as well as I can, point out the experiences through which you must pass in order to cope successfully with doubt. At the same time I shall try to indicate the course you must pursue in order to gain these experiences.

If you will follow this course and thus gain these experiences, you will find that your experiences themselves will dispel your doubts. Life itself will do it in its own simple way.

My first bit of advice is this: Read the New Testament. … I presuppose that you doubt the supernatural origin of Scripture and likewise that you doubt most, perhaps all, of the miraculous accounts in the New Testament. Nevertheless, I ask you to read the New Testament. Jesus never required His listeners to accept and beforehand approve of a greater or lesser number of dogmas about Himself. He urged them rather to come to Him, hear His voice, and follow Him.

What happened? All who honestly did so, experienced Jesus and soon became personally convinced of the truth of what He said about Himself. When they later gave expression to that which they had experienced and of which they had become personally assured, the result was the New Testament Scriptures.

Jesus has always, now as nineteen hundred years ago, named only one condition upon which He will help us to gain personal assurance. And that one condition is this: ‘If any man willeth to do God’s will…’

Now take your New Testament and read it for the purpose of ascertaining the ‘will of God.’ But, you say, it is so difficult for me to read the New Testament. All the accounts of miracles and many other questionable thoughts and expressions distract and even offend me and make it difficult for me to read with a calm and open mind.

My friend, I remember this well from the time when I was a doubter. My advice to you is that you omit reading, for the time being, everything which is too offensive to your intellect. Read the remainder. It is fully sufficient to help you out of doubt and into personal assurance with respect to the Chrsit and the whole Scriptural testimony concerning Him (p 21).”

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P.T. Forsyth:

“The Way of Life, 1897 A sermon preached especially to students, and more particularly to the freshmen (and women),at Emmanuel Congregational Church, Cambridge,on October 18, 1896. “The wicked have waited for me to destroy me: but I will consider Thy testimonies. I have seen an end of all perfection: but Thy commandment is exceeding broad.” —Psalm 119:95, 96 What the psalmist means is this: all earthly perfection is limited; but God’s law is limitless. It is set in the heavens. It is rooted in the earth. It is higher than the sphere of the sky; beyond the solid dome of the firmament. It is deeper than the depths of earth; none can dig through and pass beyond it. It is deeper even than Sheol which is under the earth—“If I make my bed in hell, Thou art there.”309 It is broader than the sea; beyond the horizon the reign of this law goes. The whole passage is like a piece from a modern scientific poem, glorifying the universality of law, or the majesty of cosmic order and stability. Beyond all the forms of power that we see there is a world of power unseen, inexhaustible—a realm of law complete and infinite, embracing all the finite and partial laws which seem to us to clash and break. No sooner does a thing come to perfection than it begins to succumb to decay and death. No sooner do we reach one goal than another range rises on our sight. But there is a perfection that does not wither, and a law that succumbs to no other law. It is the perfection of the Eternal, who is above all change and embraces it. It is the law of the Almighty, which limits all law and itself is limited by none and cut short by none. That is a great inspiration of the psalmist. What is the inference he draws from it? That which lay in his heart next to the law of God was Israel. He writes anxiously, though inspiredly, faithfully. Israel was in peril. “I am Thine, save me.”310 “The wicked have waited for me to destroy me.” That was Israel speaking in him. He was speaking for Israel. He was thinking, hoping for Israel! And the inference he drew from his inspiration was this: Would the law, the order of God, be so infinitely perfect if He allowed Israel to be destroyed, the Israel who honoured and prized that law in their worship and in all their national hopes and dreams? Well, we have the history behind us and clear, which for the psalmist was still future and dark. We read centuries of national doom, and centuries of scientific progress. We know from the science and thought that the law and order of God are vaster than the psalmist dreamed, more stable and more broad. And we also know that Israel fell, and fell by its very worship of that law which the psalmist trusted for its endless security. He thought it linked Israel with all the stabilities of nature, conscience, and soul. I. Inspiration and Inference I beg you to notice, then, as the first suggestion from the text, the difference there may be in the Bible itself between inspiration and inference. It is an important thing when we come to interpret the Bible. The psalmist’s inspiration was right. The law, order, plan, and purpose of God is infinitely broad. And because infinitely broad it is eternally stable. Being so broad, it includes under its control every power which could possibly rise up against it. And being master of every hostile power, of course it is eternally stable and sure. It was the spirit and law of God that taught the psalmist this certainty about itself. The inspiration of the Almighty gave him understanding. But when it came to inference he was on different ground. His inference was that Israel’s law and Israel’s constitution were for ever indispensable to the vast designs and infinite purposes of God. He thought, like any Anglican or Roman Judaist, that his Church, his ritual, his priesthood was for ever bound up with the well-being and continuance of the world, material and spiritual. That is an inference which history has upset. Not only does the world get on very well without Judaism, but Judaism has to be destroyed that the world may get on, that the law of God may be made truly spiritual and infinite, and the soul redeemed to feel its greatness and its eternity. Do not forget that in the Bible we have a mixture of inspiration and inference. And it is the great task laid on us in its study today to distinguish and separate these two. The great contribution which God has demanded from our age to the Bible is that we save its inspiration from its inferences. And the great contribution which He is making to our age by the Bible is to save us from its inferences by its inspiration. For instance, the writers of the Bible believed that God made the world in six days. It was inspiration to believe with their power and glory that God made the world. It was inference (poetic inference if you like) to believe that the world was made in six days without any evolution at all. We have learned on the strength of the inspiration to discard the inference. God has taught us in redeeming the world that He made it. He has taught us that He is Creator by the New Testament in a way that Genesis could not. But He has also taught us by a newer testament still how exceeding broad His making of the world was. It was a limited idea of perfection that supposed it to be done by six successive sweeps of creative power in as many successive days. God’s way with the world was larger. His commanding word was broader. His time and patience with the world were longer. His method was deeper. But His power was no less. There was profound inspiration in the great vision of these six creative words. The idea of a vast creative word is grander than the idea of a great wave of creative power. For a word is the act of a will, and a wave may be but the movement of a force. So the inspiration of Genesis is right. And we hold to it. And it saves us from being much troubled when the inference of Genesis is upset, and evolving ages of creative will take the place of six sudden steps crowded into a week. So in other parts of the Bible. Remember always the difference between passing inference and permanent inspiration, between the spirit of the age and the Spirit of Christ, between local and temporary belief and eternal, ageless faith. II. The Inadequacy of Perfection There is another point I ask you to notice, coming now to the ninety-sixth verse alone. It is an experimental verse. It expresses something the man had found out for himself—the inadequacy of perfection. He had observed, and experienced. He had observed in the course of his life that all visible perfection came to an end, that it was outgrown and left behind, that prosperity had its meridian and then its decline, that there was in all visible perfection some law which was its death sentence. But he had experienced the reality of a law which was final, perfect in itself, not to be outgrown, a complete, eternal, changeless whole, embracing all change, and inspiring all change. It was a law so perfect, that it could not be expressed in any earthly form or any human life. The forms of beauty burst or withered. The loveliest lives were checkered or brief. The finest health was not adequate to the whole power and destiny of the soul within. But the law of God was both perfect and eternal, broad beyond all the finished products of time, stable beyond all the chances of life, adequate to itself always. The loveliest, most perfect flower, statue, woman, or man was at the mercy of a brute with a hammer. But there was a perfection which could make that brute an angel and more. Earth’s perfection first blossoms, then dies. God’s perfection first dies, then blossoms and saves. The psalmist did not see the cross, but the cross was in what the psalmist saw. That was his experience. Now the same result has been borne home to the great human experience in history. There is a kind of perfection that soon perishes, and there is a kind so vast that it hardly seems perfection; but it saves from perishing for ever. There is the perfection of form, which soon reaches its limits and becomes inadequate. And there is the perfection of soul, which every form breaks down more or less in the effort to express. And I say we have this written large in the long experience called history. As soon as the real power and infinitude of God’s Spirit entered history in Jesus Christ all the existing ideals and forms of perfection became inadequate and imperfect. The soul broke through all possible forms of earthly expression, and triumphed in their very wreck, as it had always done in their perfection. If ever you think scholars are wrecking the Bible, recall this Christian relation of body and soul. And for illustration take two things. Take a Greek statue and a Christian picture. Take the Apollo Belvidere or the Venus of Milo. You have nothing in the world more perfect in form. They express the height of earthly perfection. Art in that way could no farther go. The spirit of Greece uttered itself perfectly in such finished things. Place either of them by the side of one of the great Italian pictures—a Christ, a crucifixion, a saint, a resurrection, a paradise—by one of the great religious masters. You have in the picture a volume of meaning and power which makes the correcter statue seem even poor. You have a wealth of spirit and suggestion which makes the expression on the face of the statue insipid. Perfect as the form of Greece was, it became imperfect when you reached the face. There is no expression there. Greece had no soul, no heart, to express. In the light of the broad new perfection of God’s Spirit the exquisiteness of human perfection soon came to an end. And the statue was too poverty stricken, with all its perfectness, too icily regular, too splendidly null, to express the vast spiritual wealth and infinite value of the human soul enriched with immortality by the Redeemer. These statues and philosophies, so finished, so imperishable! Growth came when, looking our last on them all, We turned our eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start—What if we so small Be greater and grander the while than they? Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature? In both, of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature; For time, theirs—ours, for eternity. To-day’s brief passion limits their range; It seethes with the morrow for us and more. They are perfect—how else? they shall never change: We are faulty—why not? we have time in store. The Artificer’s hand is not arrested With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished: They stand for our copy, and, once invested With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. And these Christian painters, even when they painted broken saints with faulty drawing, Made new hopes shine through the flesh they fray, New fears aggrandise the rags and tatters: To bring the invisible full into play! Let the visible go to the dogs—what matters?311 These words are from a poem of Browning’s, “Old Pictures in Florence.” Take it down and try to make something of it. It is not simple. But it is not the simple things that make the soul. The greatest powers are those that break through language and escape. I cannot put into a sermon all I want to say on this text. But Browning has it. His reach mostly exceeds his grasp. And that is why he was so sure of heaven. Only think of the lordly Plato and the Lord-led Paul—the leisurely Plato and the passionate Paul—the splendid poet-thinker and the broken, tender, persecuted, mighty apostle. Which of them represents the true perfection of God, the final, real, universal perfection of the soul, the perfect action of the spirit in history? The perfection of Greece broke down. It broke from within. It was broken from without. So did the perfection of Judæa. The elaboration of law killed the soul. But the new law of faith and love triumphed. The infinite perfection, the unutterable love, of the miserable cross was the only thing capable of saving man and setting him on a new and nobler career. Modern history stands on the broad, deep law of Christ. “I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts.” You are in this university, many of you, to learn the best pagan idea of perfection. You ought to know it and often pursue it. But you are here, in this and every church, to learn how limited, how worldly it is, how inadequate to the real greatness of the soul, how imperfect before the perfectness of Christ. You must learn how much more perfect is good heart than good form, and how much broader is the glory of the crucified Christ than the gleam of the radiant Apollo. Our perfection is not our inward harmony, our personal harmony; it is not in the exquisite relation of our parts to each other as in a statue. It is not a character in perfect taste. It is not a balanced nature; it is not self-contained. Art, even ethical art, is not perfection. Nor is it our social harmony. It is not in our kindly relations to each other; it is not in readjustment of conditions; it is not brotherly love and social peace. Socialism is not perfection. But our perfection is in our relation, our attitude to the Father. It is the harmony of reconciliation in Jesus Christ. It is faith. The man of faith with many faults and some shames is more perfect than the flawless man, the perfect gentleman, who has no relations with the unseen, no dealings with its God, no trust in its love, no sense of the unspeakableness of heavenly things by earth’s finest forms, chords, colours, or tongues. III. The Broad and the Narrow Lastly, I would speak of the final clause in the passage, “Thy commandment is exceeding broad.” And first as to the word “broad,” and next as to the word “commandment.” 1. The present time is one to which the word “broad,” appeals. Many people are escaping from narrow and rigid laws of religious truth. God is leading them out of Egypt. A new study of the Bible has made us feel in what a large, free world its writers moved. It is a world of imagination, of soul, of infinite spiritual range and power. Then science has opened to us world on world of the vast and the small. The universe has become an infinite thing. Politics have taken the note of freedom and enlargement in all parties. Society is undergoing a new emancipation. Two great hosts—women and workmen—have become conscious of new possibilities, a new career. The awakening of these two sections alone has made a vast change and will make a greater still. Even the young are infected with the like spirit. They are interested in many things they did not care for before. They form societies to discuss them. They are not content to take the traditional lines. They have their intelligence roused. They begin to feel that they were meant for better things than athletics and singsongs. They dimly perceive a new, great world breaking into view around them. They have more access than ever before to the world of knowledge and action. They are full of confidence, which it is easy to snub, but better to guide. It chiefly needs to be tempered by a deeper acquaintance with their world and with themselves. They are full of sympathy for things broad, free, genial. You come up here some of you, men and women of you, and you pass into a new world which is larger than you have yet known. You have lived at home, perhaps, up to now. It has been a dear world, but a smaller than you enter here. Perhaps it has even been a world of narrow interests, parochial interests, and you come into one of the great intellectual centres of the world. The religion in which you have been reared, though very genuine and very deep, has perhaps been of a narrow and timid kind. You have had no real preparation for the stir of new, vivid, and wide ideas which may meet you here. You cannot learn to fly in a hencoop. For you soon, if not already, the word “broad” will have a fascination. You will meet people, and make friends of people, perhaps, who may tempt you to despise and revolt from the circle of things and thoughts you have grown up in. The old creeds may seem antiquated in the light of new science. The old faith may seem perhaps good enough for those you leave behind, but not for you. The Bible of the apostles and prophets will suffer by comparison with the broad new science, and the broad new literature, and the broad new thoughts of the age. The society of your native place may seem a poor, narrow clique compared with the freedom offered by the advanced society of the modern woman and the modern man. The Church you were reared in, converted in perhaps, may come to seem to you a little sect which you want to leave behind when you hear from your new companions of their no Church, or their old Church, their high Church, their broad Church. You may be invited to consider your Nonconformity a narrow affair compared with the imposing constitution and ritual of the Church most influential here and elsewhere. You may even be led to think (for there is no limit to their audacity) that there is more devotion in the services of the Established Church than in the worship of your own. You will forget that that rests with you. And, unlike many a simple great one gone, you will not “abide among your own people.” I sympathise with you greatly. I know the spell of things broad, great, boundless, free. It is a spell you ought to feel. Your education here will not do what it should for you if you do not feel that. Religion has suffered unspeakably from narrow notions and infinitely from narrow hearts. But it suffers so much because it is in its nature free. It is the eagle that suffers from captivity, and the lark; it is not the mole. In faith’s name let us be broad. It is God’s commandment. But remember this. Do not mistake breadth of view for breadth of soul. Faith is not a thing of views nor a thing of feelings. It is a thing of soul. It is greatness of soul that is the glorious liberty of the sons of God. There is a breadth which is very shallow. I have found it very common among people who were always talking of breadth of view. God is exceeding broad. The soul of Christ is broader than all the world and the great souls in it. But remember the breadth of God is deep and high. The ideal city was foursquare every way, equal in height, breadth, and depth. You gain little if you gain in breadth only to lose in depth, if you are broad and low, if you grow just as shallow as you grow wide. There is a breadth which is mere indifference. And a man may have very wide and free notions about life because he has no real notion of God or his soul at all. The breadth of God is deep, and it is intense. There is no religious narrowness more narrow than the breadth which outgrows all depth, intensity, reality of faith, all trust of the heart, all positive belief about things unseen or a world to come. To see broad is not to be broad. And the real broadening forces are not those that extend our vision, but those that enlarge ourselves, our souls, our manhood, womanhood, our faith. There is a saving narrowness. All the breadth of the world present and to come entered by a narrow way. It is narrowed down to Christ; narrowed down, down to the cross of Christ, to the soul, greatness and glory there. And if ever you grow cold to that, if ever you lose the sense of infinite greatness in that brief life and obscure death, you are growing into the narrowest narrowness of all—the smallness of the thin, shallow person whose ambition and whose speech aim at being thought broad, liberal, emancipated, advanced, rational before anything else. 2. So I come to the word “commandment.” The breadth of God is in His commandment. It is a focused breadth. It is moored, concentrated, a breadth gathered in intense centres and positive lines. It follows the lines of positive truth and positive law. It is a matter, first of all, of conscience and heart. It is not the vague freedom of the winds, but the rooted and grounded freedom of an established soul. Yes, that is what we want—not an established Church, but an established soul; not free thought at first, but a free soul. And a free soul is a good soul, a redeemed soul, vowed to the moral law of God, acquainted with repentance, full of faith, given up to the law of love in Jesus Christ. Let no broad notions lead you to think that you can trifle with God’s law in your conscience, or ignore His wide love concentrated for the world in the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is a mere speck in the tract of time, but it is the living centre of broad and full eternity. The depth, intensity, height, and breadth of all spiritual being is there. The whole freedom of the soul is there. The largeness and hope of all the future are there. The obligation of the cross is the first commandment and the last. This is the one broad commandment, that we believe in Christ, live in Christ. This is the real condition of moral freedom, of soul freedom, of heart release and largeness, of human greatness and spiritual range. This plants us in infinity, breaks the one narrowing power of sin, brings life and immortality to light, unites us, redeemed, with God, who is the eternal amplitude of all we can be or know. You find all great things, broad, free, kindling things, thus. Christ is the Lord of them all and the Giver of them all. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor height, nor depth, nor length, nor breadth, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”312 309. Ps 139:8. 310. Ps 119:94. 311. From Robert Browning’s poem, “Old Pictures in Florence” (1855). 312. Rom 8:38–39.”

Forsyth, P. T.; Goroncy, Jason. Descending on Humanity and Intervening in History: Notes from the Pulpit Ministry of P. T. Forsyth (pp. 169-177). Pickwick Publications - An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Édition du Kindle.

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« It is not the moral philosopher, nor the poetic Stoic, like Emerson, with his lucid but limited moral insight; it is not the man of mere insight or genius at all, however fine or holy, who is in possession of the fundamental moral experience, and the ultimate certainty of the soul. It is the man who really experiences the redemption of his conscience from guilt. The true foundation of modern ethics, and especially of the ethics of the future, was laid in the restoration of evangelical Christianity at the Reformation, and then faith became a new power and fashion of life, and the grace-renewed will displaced the illuminated mind as the highest thing in man. »

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« Let us pursue Luther’s principles in more detail. How did he work out that new idea of faith and the perfect godly life? Especially, how did this idea of faith affect the Church? He had two things—a foundation which was God’s Word, and a power which was man’s faith. 1. He believed that it was the Word of God that founded the Church. The Church was not based on tradition, nor upon bishops and popes. These were too variable, too unsure. Yet it did rest on something fixed, something objective, something given to man and not contributed by him. It rested upon no invention, but on a revelation; not on an achievement, but on a gift. The act of Christ which founded the Church was, in its very nature, above all a gift of God to man. Christ’s work was much more a gift of God to reconcile man than a gift of man to reconcile God. The Church rested on this gift of God—upon something which had always been there, though obscured and perverted—always there as the true reality of the Church. It was now open to all, to the simplest, to every Christian as Christian, in virtue of his faith. It was not to be opened by pope, or bishop, or council, or saint; nor could they close it, and shut men out of faith. The foundation of the Church was there in the Bible, when interpreted in its actual, original, spiritual sense, apart from allegory and from any outside authority. In a word, the foundation of the Church was the Gospel, and the Church is the fellowship of the faithful, to whom the Gospel is Gospel indeed. It is easy to see how the Independent idea of gathered Churches, as distinct from territorial, flows from this. The Gospel is thrust into mankind as a magnet into a heap of iron dust and sand; and the Church is composed of the particles that cling, organized by the movements of the magnetic force.

2.This gospel was the true Word of God on which the Church was based. The Word of God, at the base of His Church, was not any phrase spoken by Christ founding a Church, nor an instruction or commission to the apostles. HE is the Church’s one foundation; it is no edict or commission of His. Christ did very little (some say nothing) in the way of founding a Church; but He was everything. The Church proceeded from His work and person, not from words He said. It stood on what He was and is, and not upon what He devised. It stood and stands on the Gospel. And by the Gospel is meant, not a book, or a system, or a scheme, but the very act, deed, and revelation of God in Christ. The Gospel is not truth about God’s reconciliation; it is God Himself reconciling in Christ. The Gospel is God in Christ, God in His Cross, God in Redemption. The permanent Gospel is the base of the permanent Church, and the permanent Gospel is the eternal Christ in the heaven of redeemed experience. This Gospel creates its own answer, and that answer is faith, and so we come to Luther’s power—faith. The Word of God has been conceived at various times to be the letter of the Bible, or the Bible as a whole, or the doctrines running through it, or the promises scattered in it. For Luther it was the vital principle of the Bible, the long act of revelation and Redemption which the Bible records—the Bible’s heart and power; in a word, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The testimony of Christ is the spirit of Scripture. No statement can save, no precept, no doctrine, no law; not the sweetest, comfortablest doctrine can save as doctrine, as mere truth; only the truth as Jesus. Only a person can save a person. A Church cannot, for it is a system, an institution. And no institution has saving power. It can serve salvation but it cannot either save or damn. What the soul needs is Gospel, and an institution is law. To grasp the distinction between law and gospel, to grasp that with true insight, is to grasp the real core of religion and the clear nature of faith. It is because Christian people do not grasp this difference, and do not therefore realize the true nature of faith, that the empirical Church is the formidable thing it is today. A Church is more of the Law than of the Gospel, and the more powerful it grows the more it is a menace to faith. What must control the Church, in actual practice and not mere theory, is the Word of God as the Gospel coming to the soul through faith, with the Church as a mere herald and medium and agent. Rob faith of its place and power, and the Church becomes not a medium but a mediator, its minister becomes a priest, and its policy is not service but power. Faith is fatal to such a place for the Church. It is direct dealing of the soul with Christ. Christ is the object of faith, not a book, or a Church. Faith is taking Christ’s forgiveness seriously and heartily. The devils or the wicked could believe in the Church (for Churchmen have been both); but the one thing they cannot believe in is the forgiveness of sin (else they would cease to be devil or damned); and, therefore, this is faith’s distinction from the world and hell. The true authority over the soul and conscience is given through this faith. That authority is not the Church, but it is the effectual Word of God in the preaching of the cross, to which the conscience owes its life. And doctrine is just the best account we can give of this living faith in its living community. »

(https://cruciality.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/rome-reform-and-reaction.pdf )

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“The solitude of the prison provides the means for proper prayer; the prisoner who falls silent has learned that it is not by his speech that he recommends himself to God; he has also learned not to dwell on the wrongs done to him. Philosophy speaks, but the prisoner does not. Their voices are not united. Whatever is in his mind is his alone, whether prayer or thought or silence. We do not hear the prisoner’s prayer; it is not submitted to or made for our approval; it is directed to the Father who sees it in secret” (Joel Relihan, on the wisdom of Boethius in The Prisoner’s Philosophy).

“This, then, is our reply to those who would throw riddles at us … that they may be led to see that they are not wise in every respect, nor invincible in those superfluous arguments which empty out the Gospel. For when we give first place to what is attainable by reason alone, and let go of faith, and destroy by our investigations what the Spirit makes credible, and when then our argument is overwhelmed by the sheer size of the subject (and surely it must be overwhelmed, since it starts off from the weak instrument of our own reason), what is the result? The weakness of the argument seems to be a weakness in the Mystery, and so elegance in reasoning ‘makes void the cross,’ as Paul also thought (1 Cor. 1:17). For faith is that which brings our own human reasoning to its fulfillment” (Gregory of Nazianzus).

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P.T. Forsyth:

“Now in connection with the work of Christ the great expositor in the Bible is St. Paul. And Paul has a word of his own to describe Christ’s work the word “reconciliation.” But he thinks of reconciliation not as a doctrine but as an act of God because he was not a theologian but an experience preacher. To view it so produces an immense change in your whole way of thinking. It secures for you all that is worth having in theology, and it delivers you from the danger of obsession by theology in a one-sided way. Remember, then, that the truth we are dealing with is precious not as a mere truth but as the means of expressing the eternal act of God. The most important thing in all the world, in the Bible or out of it, is something that God has done for ever finally done. And it is this reconciliation; which is only secondarily a doctrine; it is only secondarily even a manner of life. Primarily it is an act of God. That is to say, it is a salvation before it is a religion. For Christianity as a religion stands upon salvation. Religion which does not grow out of salvation is not Christian religion; it may be spiritual, poetic, mystic; but the essence of Christianity is not just to be spiritual; it is to answer God’s manner of spirituality, which you find in Jesus Christ and in Him crucified. Reconciliation is salvation before it is religion. And it is religion before it is theology. All our theology in this matter rests upon the certain experience of the fact of God’s salvation. It is salvation upon divine principles. It is salvation by a holy God. It is bound of course, to be theological in its very nature. Its statement is a theology. The moment you begin to talk about the holiness of God you are theologians. And you cannot talk about Christ and His death in any thorough way without talking about the holiness of God.

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To come back to this work of Christ described by Paul as reconciliation. On this interpretation of the work of Christ the whole Church rests. If you move faith from that centre you have driven the nail into the Church’s coffin. The Church is then doomed to death, and it is only a matter of time when she shall expire. The Apostle, I say, described the work of Christ as above all things reconciliation. And Paul was the founder of the Church, historically speaking. I do not like to speak of Christ as the Founder of the Church. It seems remote, detached, journalistic. It would be far more true to say that He is the foundation of the Church. “The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.” The founder of the Church, historically speaking, was Paul. It was founded by and through him on this reconciling principle nay, I go deeper than that, on this mighty act of God’s reconciliation. For this great act the interpretation was given to Paul by the Holy Spirit. In this connection read that great word in 1 Corinthians 2 that is the most valuable word in the New Testament about the nature of apostolic inspiration. What, then, did Paul mean by this reconciliation which is the backbone of the Church? He meant the total result of Christ’s life-work in permanently changing the relation between collective man and God. By reconciliation Paul meant the total result of Christ’s life-work in the fundamental, permanent, final changing of the relation between man and God, altering it from a relation of hostility to one of confidence and peace. Remember, I am speaking as Paul spoke, about man, and not about individual men or groups of men. There are two principal Greek words connected with the idea of reconciliation, one of them being always translated by it, the other sometimes. They are katallassein, and hilaskesthai reconciliation and atonement. Atonement is an Old Testament phrase, where the idea is that of the covering of sin from God’s sight. But by whom? Who was that great benefactor of the human race that succeeded in covering up our sin from God’s sight? Who was skilful enough to hoodwink the Almighty? Who covered the sin? The all-seeing God alone. There can therefore be no talk of hoodwinking. Atonement means the covering of sin by something which God Himself had provided, and therefore the covering of sin by God Himself. It was of course not the blinding of Himself to it, but something very different. How could the Judge of all the earth make His judgment blind? It was the covering of sin by something which makes it lose the power of deranging the covenant relation between God and man and founds the new Humanity. That is the meaning of it. If you think I am talking theology, you must blame the New Testament. I am simply expounding to you the New Testament. Of course, you need not take it unless you please. It is quite open to you to throw the New Testament overboard (so long as you are frank about it), and start what you may loosely call Christianity on other floating lines. But if you take the New Testament you are bound to try to understand the New Testament. If you understand the New Testament you are bound to recognise that this is what the New Testament says. It is a subsequent question whether the New Testament is right in saying so. Let us first find out what the Bible really says, and then discuss whether the Bible is right or wrong. The idea of atonement is the covering of sin by something which God provided, and by the use of which sin loses its accusing power, and its power to derange that grand covenant and relationship between man and God which founds the New Humanity. The word katallassein (reconcile) is peculiar to Paul. He uses both words; but the other word, “atonement,” you also find in other New Testament writings. Reconciliation is Paul’s great characteristic word and thought. The great passages are those I have mentioned at the head of this lecture. I cannot take time to expound them here. That would mean a long course. Read those passages carefully and check me in anything I say particularly, for instance, 2 Corinthians 5: 14-6:2. Out of it we gather this whole result. First, Christ’s work is something described as reconciliation. And second, reconciliation rests upon atonement as its ground. Do not stop at “God was in Christ reconciling the world.” You can easily water that down. You may begin the process by saying that God was in Christ just in the same way in which He was in the old prophets. That is the first dilution. Then you go on with the homeopathic treatment, and you say, “Oh yes, all He did by Christ was to affect the world, and impress it by showing it how much He loved it.” Now, would that reconcile anybody really in need of it? When your child has flown into a violent temper with you, and still worse, a sulky temper, and glooms for a whole day, is it any use your sending to that child and saying, “Really, this cannot go on. Come back. I love you very much. Say you are sorry.” Not a bit of use. For God simply to have told or shown the evil world how much He loved it would have been a most ineffectual thing. Something had to be done judging or saving. Revelation alone is inadequate. Reconciliation must rest on atonement. For, as I say, you must not stop at “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself,” but go on “not reckoning unto them their trespasses.” “He made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” That involves atonement. You cannot blot out that phrase. And the third thing involved in the idea is that this reconciliation, this atonement, means change of relation between God and man, mind you, not two or three men, not several groups of men, but man, the human race as one whole. And it is a change of relation from alienation to communion not simply to our peace and confidence, but to reciprocal communion. The grand end of reconciliation is communion. I am pressing that hard. I am pressing it hard here by saying that it is not enough that we should worship God. It is not enough that we should worship a personal God. It is not enough that we should worship and pay our homage to a loving God. That does not satisfy the love of God. Nothing short of living, loving, holy, habitual communion between His holy soul and ours can realise at last the end which God achieved in Jesus Christ. In this connection let me offer you two cautions. First, take care that the direct fact of reconciliation is not hidden up by the indispensable means namely, atonement. There have been ages in the Church when the attention has been so exclusively centred upon atonement that reconciliation was lost sight of. You found theologians flying at each other’s throats in the interest of particular theories of atonement. That is to say, atonement had obscured reconciliation. In the same way, after the Reformation period, they dwelt upon justification until they lost sight of sanctification altogether. Then the great pietistic movement had to arise in order to redress the balance. Take care that the end, reconciliation, is not hidden up by the means, atonement. Justification, sanctification, reconciliation and atonement are all equally inseparable from the one central and compendious work of Christ. Various ages need various aspects of it turned outward. Let us give them all their true value and perspective. If we do not we shall make that fatal severance which orthodoxy has so often made between doctrine and life. The second caution is this. Beware of reading atonement out of reconciliation altogether. Beware of cultivating a reconciliation which is not based upon justification. The apostle’s phrases are often treated like that. They are emptied of the specific Christian meaning. There are a great many Christian people, spiritual people of a sort, to-day, who are perpetrating that injustice upon the New Testament. They are taking mighty old words and giving them only a subjective, arbitrary meaning, emptying out of them the essential, objective, positive content. They are preoccupied with what takes place within their own experience, or imagination, or thought; and they are oblivious of that which is declared to have taken place within the experience of God and of Christ. They are oblivious and negligent of the essential things that Christ did, and God in Christ. That is not fair treatment of New Testament terms to empty them of positive Christian meaning and water them down to make something that might suit a philosophic or mystic or subjective or individualist spirituality. There is a whole system of philosophy that has attempted this dilution at the present day. It is associated with a name that has now become very well known, the name of the greatest philosopher the world ever saw, Hegel…”

Forsyth, P.T. . The Work of Christ . Walking Through the Word. Édition du Kindle.

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Gilbert Meilander:

“The true limit to the Church’s ability authoritatively to form the lives of its members grows out of a fact I noted earlier—that the Church, too, is addressed by the Word of God. It truly is Christ’s Body, but, at the same time, Christ stands over against it exercising his Lordship. It must listen in obedience and only then speak in the name of its Lord.

That the Church’s power to form and shape us is limited is, therefore, a truth never to be forgotten. But we would be badly mistaken to say no more than that. What sort of creatures would we be if the Church’s structures and disciplines were no more than a moral resource, if they had no power to shape our lives in God-pleasing ways? We would be angels, entirely free spirits—bodiless beings not located in any particular time and place, immune to the influence of other people or institutions.

That cannot be right. We do not, in fact, move toward God or form our hearts to obey only as single individuals. If, as Bonhoeffer says, it is through the call of Christ that we become individuals, it is equally true—as he also says—that the One who calls us is “the founder of a new fellowship.”

It is almost always a mistake, therefore, to begin by setting ourselves—as purportedly free and autonomous individuals—over against an authoritative Church. The freedom we have to follow Christ is one that has been nurtured in us by the Church. Our powers of judgment, our capacity to discern what is the will of God, our ability to understand the counsel of God—all this has been formed in us as members of the Church. The inner spirit with which we freely offer our obedience to God is the spirit of a human being, one who is located in space and time, one for whom the body is the place of personal presence—one whose free obedience, therefore, can and must be taught, nurtured, and shaped by the Church.

But also—and here I return at last to the question I left dangling earlier—one whose faith and obedience are shaped by the Church’s Lord. The Church is addressed by its Lord. It shapes its members in accord with that address, but each believer is also addressed singly. That is, each believer is addressed not only by the Body of Christ but also by the Head of that Body, the Lord himself. No matter how closely shared our lives are, no matter how true it is that we have been baptized into a new fellowship, we cannot finally confess or repent or believe for each other. Before God, each of us is that “single individual” with whom Kierkegaard was so obsessed, and it is not even wrong to say that we are obligated—or, if you prefer, freed—to assess the Church’s teaching and instruction for ourselves, listening prayerfully to the Word of God revealed in Jesus and testified to in the Scriptures.

Indeed, it is necessary that individual Christians have such freedom. Because the Church is not mystically fused with Christ, any particular claim to ecclesiastical authority may be mistaken or inauthentic. To be sure, there can never come a time when the world is abandoned by the risen Christ and his authentic voice is not heard in and through the Church, but that does not relieve us of the need to judge for ourselves whether churchly claims to speak for God are the voice of the Master who has also addressed us singly. This is, as Oliver O’Donovan has noted, the true sense in which the Church can be said to be invisible; and it may be that “the believer must, in the logic of discipleship, behave ‘as though’ he or she were alone, as though all the rest had fled as they fled from Christ in Gethsemane.”

We should make this point only with great care, not forgetting that even the individual who must do his own judging has learned what that means and its importance within the community of the Church. There is a kind of “hyper-Protestantism”—more exactly, I suspect, a form of Enlightenment rationality—that turns first rather than last to this notion of the single individual.

“I cannot accept,” writes a Methodist theologian, “the conflation of genuine obedience to the gospel with ‘submission’ to authority. In fact, in the name of ­Christian freedom and the priesthood of all believers Protestants must oppose the enterprise of concentrating power in the hands of elites to whom everyone else is to submit. Truth—especially hermeneutic truth—is not a subset of authority; authority, for a Protestant, must be based on truth.” Which is to say, of course, that there is no genuine authority other than the aesthetic power of the genius.

Even if we avoid that mistaken understanding of the priesthood of all believers, however, there is a sense in which, as Kierkegaard puts it, “eternity . . . never counts.” Never lumps individuals together into a sum. Before God each of us is equal—and equally, that ­single individual. What am I to do, then, if—even after patient conversation and reflection—the Church’s teaching makes no sense to me? Or seems to ask of me more than it ought? Or, even, seems to destroy the person I am rather than renew and complete me?

If the Church is really a body, if it truly takes up space in the world, then it must be free to hear the Word of God and shape its life in accordance with what it hears. If I, though, am also, even as that single individual, free to hear the Word of God, what shall we say when my freedom to listen to God and the Church’s freedom to order its life in the manner it considers faithful seem to clash? I cannot and should not claim—whether on the basis of some notion of the priesthood of all believers or simply on the basis of a rejection of heteronomy—that the Church cannot speak authoritatively to me, even if only to determine that I do not faithfully represent its teaching.

The Church must be free to do that if it is to order its common life with integrity and faithfulness. And if I am simultaneously free to live immediately before God, I may have to step out from under the visible Church’s authority and apart from its common life—even if I understand that as my way of bearing witness to what I think the Church ought to be. What I cannot claim, in so doing, is the authority of the Church’s apostle. I may, if I wish, think myself a genius, but I can only speak “without authority”—to borrow for my own purposes a formula Kierkegaard used in somewhat different ways.

And then we must pray—pray that, when one day we see the full meaning of the truth that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, the clash between these conflicting claims about the Word of God to us will be healed; and our hearts, all our hearts as one, will be freely and joyfully set to obey God’s commandments.”

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/11/conscience-and-authority

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In The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that:

“…there is no appropriate category in Catholic thought for the phenomenon of Protestantism today (one could say the same of the relationship to the separated churches of the East). It is obvious that the old category of ‘heresy’ is no longer of any value. Heresy, for Scripture and the early Church, includes the idea of a personal decision against the unity of the Church, and heresy’s characteristic is pertinacia, the obstinacy of him who persists in his own private way. This, however, cannot be regarded as an appropriate description of the spiritual situation of the Protestant Christian. In the course of a now centuries-old history, Protestantism has made an important contribution to the realization of Christian faith, fulfilling a positive function in the development of the Christian message and, above all, often giving rise to a sincere and profound faith in the individual non-Catholic Christian, whose separation from the Catholic affirmation has nothing to do with the pertinacia characteristic of heresy. Perhaps we may here invert a saying of St. Augustine’s: that an old schism becomes a heresy. The very passage of time alters the character of a division, so that an old division is something essentially different from a new one. Something that was once rightly condemned as heresy cannot later simply become true, but it can gradually develop its own positive ecclesial nature, with which the individual is presented as his church and in which he lives as a believer, not as a heretic. This organization of one group, however, ultimately has an effect on the whole. The conclusion is inescapable, then: Protestantism today is something different from heresy in the traditional sense, a phenomenon whose true theological place has not yet been determined.[7”

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Emil Brunner on the nature of the Church: "The Misunderstanding of the Church"

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Kathleen Ferrier - Come to me soothing sleep

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkgsD6zNX2o&lc=UgyFYUHGlSFLQ5jZyeN4AaABAg.9NKlRLA5OCu9NKzAYsdh3g

1. Akin failed to convince me that he can claim both that there is growth in the righteousness (and that we can call that our "justification" before God) and that such righteousness is also perfect, as he says here, at every point, because it is Christ's work in us. A perfect thing has no room to grow in perfection. If Christ’s perfect righteousness as meritorious cause must be “infused”, then there’s the real legal fiction—unless Christ’s perfect righteousness is imputed to our account while we are still sinners—because it would as such be imperfect and growing as we grow into God’s life. Akin wants a perfect righteousness in us for the sake of which God declares us “just”; yet he wants that to have really made us perfectly righteous because presumably it would otherwise be a legal fiction. But it’s impossible for this same righteousness to grow, as it’s already perfect. Akin says, "We are declared legally righteous because of what Christ did...part of what Christ did was to take away our sins and he's given us charity in our hearts and consequently God can legally declare us righteous". So, in other words, God makes us good and then declares us justified, judging his own perfect work in us as perfect. Whom does God declare "just" in "initial justification"? I often hear about a supposed "legal fiction" from popular apologists against protestant teaching. To my mind, declaring someone just implies their actual righteousness, not their potential righteousness made actual by the very declaration. But that's not the end of the story. For Akin, if that righteousness is to be ours and not only Christ’s, then it can't be imputed but must be infused--and that means our cooperation. Akin agrees that absolutely perfect righteousness is necessary for justification, yet he asserts that our righteousness is a thing that grows. Now, if the work God does in us is perfect but must be cooperated with by us in order to make us perfect, then (a) the only imperfect element that must be improved in order for there to be growth (because perfection can't build upon itself) is man's cooperation with that grace and (b) that growth must be to perfection or else we lose the principle already agreed upon that perfect justification (used interchangeably with “righteousness” in Roman Catholic parlance) is the only acceptable justification for salvation. Salvation by justification therefore depends upon man's cooperation as a necessary piece that isn't guaranteed; yet Akin says that we can have some moral certainty or assurance? Assurance that what--that we will uphold our end? Bonne chance.

2. Akin failed to account for justification as is used in context as an either "up or down" declaration by Paul. He quickly adds that, though that may be what Paul meant in the passage concerned, we must go outside of the Bible to find other ways of shaping our explanation of justification such that they cohere with our philosophical-theological system. That's not...good. I may come back to explain why but my gosh I can't spend all day here, can I?

3. The entire discussion could have (and should have, imo) revolved around the simul iustus et peccator teaching. That is the crux. That is the source of peace and growth in Christ because it is the source of peace in pure passitivity, pure receptivity rather than anxious grasping at rungs of a ladder to heaven.

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Authors quoted below are CFW Walther, GH Geberding

Gerberding, G. H. (George Henry). The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church :

CHAPTER XX. CONVERSION—HUMAN AGENCY IN What part and responsibility pertain to the human will in this matter? Before we leave the subject of conversion, it is important that we consider and understand this question also. For on this point also grievous and dangerous views and practices prevail. Human nature tends to extremes. Here too, there is a tendency to go too far, either in the one direction or the other. There are those, on the one hand, who virtually and practically make this change of heart and of nature a human work. They practically deny the agency of the Holy Spirit, or His means of Grace. On the other hand, there are those whose ideas and teachings would rid man of all responsibility in the matter, and make of him a mere machine, that is irresistibly moved and controlled from above. Is either of the above views the correct and scriptural one? If not, what is the Bible doctrine on this subject? What has the human will—i.e., the choosing and determining faculty of the mind—to do with conversion? What, if any part of the work, is to be ascribed to it? Is it a factor in the process? If so, in what respect, and to what extent? Where does its activity begin or end? In how far is the human will responsible for the accomplishment or non-accomplishment of this change? These questions we shall endeavor briefly and plainly to answer. We must necessarily return to man as he is before his conversion, while still in his natural, sinful, unrenewed state. In this state of sin, the will shares, in common with all the other parts of his being, the ruin and corruption resulting from the fall. The natural man has the "understanding darkened;" "is alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in him, because of the blindness of his heart." He "receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ... neither can he know them." He is "in darkness," "dead in trespasses and sins." Thus is the whole man in darkness, blindness, ignorance, slavery to Satan, and at enmity with God. He is in a state of spiritual death. The will is equally affected by this total depravity. If the natural man cannot even see, discern, or know the things of the Spirit, how much less can he will to do them! Before his conversion, man is utterly impotent "to will or to do" anything towards his renewal. The strong words of Luther, as quoted in the Form of Concord, are strictly scriptural: "In spiritual and divine things which pertain to the salvation of the soul, man is like a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife, yea, like a log and a stone, like a lifeless statue, which uses neither eyes nor mouth, neither senses nor heart." (Matt. iii. 9.) But that same God who could, out of the very stones, raise up spiritual children to Abraham, can also change the stony heart of man, and put life into those who were dead in trespasses and sins. The first movement, however, must always be from God to the sinner, and not from the sinner to God. God does, indeed, in His great mercy, come first to us. This He does through His own means of Grace. In holy baptism He meets us even on the threshold of existence, takes us into His loving arms, places His hands in blessing upon our heads, breathes into us a new life, and adopts us into His own family. If the sinner afterwards fall from this baptismal Grace, goes back into the ways of sin, and breaks his side of the covenant, God is still faithful and comes to him again by His Holy Spirit through His Word; strives with him and endeavors to turn or convert him again from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. We should notice here a distinction between those, who have at some time been under divine influence, as by virtue of the sacramental Word in baptism, or the written or preached Word, and those who have never been touched by a breath from above. When the Spirit of God comes to the former, He finds something still to appeal to. There is more or less receptivity to receive the Grace of God, as there is more or less life still in the germ formerly implanted. When He comes to the latter class there is nothing to work on. The foundations must be laid. A receptivity must be brought about, a new life must be inbreathed. In other words, in the conversion of the latter the Holy Spirit must do what He has already done in the former. The one is the conversion of a once regenerate but now lapsed one. The other is the regeneration and conversion of one heretofore always dead in sin. But in every case, God comes first to the sinner; whether it be in the sacramental, or the written and preached Word. It is always through that Word, as we have already shown, that the Spirit of God operates on the sinful heart, enkindling penitence and begetting faith in Christ. Now, what part does the will perform in this great work? Is it entirely passive, merely wrought upon, as the stone by the sculptor? At first, the will is doubtless entirely passive. The first movements, the first desires, the first serious thoughts, are beyond question produced by the Spirit, through the Word. These are the advance signals and heralds of Grace. They are the preparatory steps, and hence these first approaches of divine influence are called by theologians Prevenient Grace, that is the divine influence of Grace which precedes or goes before all other movements in the return of the soul to God. This preparatory Grace comes to the sinner unsought, and is so far unavoidable. It is purely and entirely the work of the Holy Spirit upon the sinner. The human will has nothing whatever to do with the first beginnings of conversion. Of this our Confessions testify: "God must first come to us." "Man's will hath no power to work the righteousness of God, or a spiritual righteousness, without the spirit of God." Of this the Prophet speaks when he says, Zech. iv. 6, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Also, 1 Cor. xii. 3, "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." After prevenient Grace, however, begins to make itself felt, then the will begins to take part. It must now assume an attitude, and meet the question: Shall I yield to these holy influences or not? One or the other of two courses must be pursued. There must be a yielding to the heavenly strivings, or a resistance. To resist at this point requires a positive act of the will. This act man can put forth by his own strength. On the other hand, with the help of that Grace, already at work in his heart, he can refuse to put forth that act, of his will, and thus remain non-resistant. If man, thus influenced from above, now deliberately uses his will power, and resists the gracious influences of prevenient Grace, he quenches the Holy Spirit of God, whereby he is sealed to the day of redemption. He has hardened his heart. His last state is worse than the first. He remains unconverted, and on himself alone is the responsibility. If, on the other hand, he even with the assistance of prevenient Grace, permits it to do its work, the process goes on. His will is being renewed. It experiences the pulsations of a new life. It realizes the possession of new powers. There is an infusion from God's will into his will, and now prevenient Grace is changed into operating Grace. The Word has free course. It runs and is glorified. He "works out his own salvation with fear and trembling," while it is all the time "God that worketh in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Such a person is a new creature in Christ Jesus. Operative Grace goes out into coöperating Grace. He becomes a worker with God, and as he grows in Grace and in knowledge, his will becomes more and more free as it comes more and more into harmony with God's will. Again we ask, What has the human will to do with this great change? We answer, Two things. First, man can and will to go to church where the means of Grace are, or he can will to remain away. If he deliberately wills to absent himself from where their influence is exerted, he remains unconverted, and on himself is the responsibility. If, on the other hand, he wills to go where God speaks to man in His ordinary way, he does so much towards permitting God to convert him. Secondly, when the means of Grace do carry renewing power, and he is made to realize their efficacy—though it be at first only in an uneasiness, dissatisfaction with self, and an undefined longing after something better—he can, as we have seen, permit the work to go on. Thus he may be said, negatively, to help towards his conversion. On the other hand, he can shake off the good impressions, tear away from the holy influences, resist the Spirit, and remain unconverted. Clearly, on himself is all the responsibility if he perish. God desired to convert him. He "rejected the counsel of God against himself." Luke vii. 30. And thus our Lutheran doctrine of Grace through the means of Grace, clears away all difficulties and avoids all contradictions. It gives God all the glory, and throws on man all the responsibility. Sailing thus under the colors of scriptural doctrine, we steer clear of the Scylla of Calvinism on the one hand, and also escape the Charybdis of Arminianism on the other. We give to Sovereign Grace all the glory of our salvation just as much as the Calvinists do. And yet we make salvation as free as the boldest Arminian does. Whatever is excellent in both systems we retain. Whatever is false in both we reject. We refuse to make of man a machine, who is irresistibly brought into the kingdom of God, and forced indeed to accept of Sovereign Grace. On the other hand, we utterly repudiate the idea that man is himself able to "get religion," to "get through," to "grasp the blessing," or to "save himself." To such self-exaltation we give no place—no, not for a moment! With Luther we confess, "I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him. But that the Holy Spirit hath called me by His Gospel, enlightened me by His gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith; in like manner as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the true faith. In which Christian Church He daily forgives me abundantly all my sins and the sins of all believers, and will raise up me and all the dead at the last day, and will grant everlasting life to me and to all who believe in Christ. This is most certainly true." "Grace first contrived the way

To save rebellious man;

And all the steps that Grace display

Which drew the wondrous plan.

"Grace taught my roving feet

To tread the heavenly road;

And new supplies each hour I meet,

While pressing on to God.

"Grace all the work shall crown

Through everlasting days;

It lays in heaven the topmost stone,

And well deserves the praise."

CHAPTER XXI. JUSTIFICATION. Among all the doctrines of our holy Christian faith, the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, stands most prominent. Luther calls it: "The doctrine of a standing or a falling church," i.e., as a church holds fast and appropriates this doctrine she remains pure and firm, and as she departs from it, she becomes corrupt and falls. This doctrine was the turning point of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. It was the experience of its necessity and efficacy that made Luther what he was, and equipped him for a Reformer. Naturally, therefore, it occupies the chief place in all our Confessions, and is prominent in all the history of our Church. In these chapters on the "Way of Salvation," it has been implied throughout. There is indeed no doctrine of salvation that is not more or less connected with or dependent on this one. Some time ago we noticed a statement of a certain bishop in a large Protestant Church, declaring that "not Justification, but the Divinity of Christ, is the great fundamental doctrine that conditions the standing or falling of a church." At first sight this seems plausible. But when we come to reflect, we cannot but see that the true doctrine concerning the Person of Christ is not only implied, but embraced in the doctrine of Justification by Faith. A man might be sound on the Divinity of Christ, and yet not know aright the Way of Salvation. But a man cannot be sound on Justification without being sound, not only on the Person of Christ, but also on His work and the Way of Salvation through Him. So much has been written and preached in our Church on this subject, that it is not necessary for us to enter upon a full discussion here. We will endeavor, therefore, merely in outline, to call attention to a few of its most prominent and practical features. We inquire briefly into its meaning and nature. Justification is an act of God, by which He accounts or adjudges a person righteous in His sight. It is not a change in the person's nature, but it is a change in his standing in the sight of God. Before justification he stands in the sight of God, guilty and condemned. Through justification, he stands before God free from guilt and condemnation; he is acquitted, released, regarded and treated as if he had never been guilty or condemned. The justified person stands in the sight of God, as if he really had never committed a sin and were perfectly innocent. Thus it is clear that justification treats of and has regard to the sinner's relation to God. It has nothing to do with his change of nature. It is of the utmost importance that this be kept constantly in mind. It is by applying justification to the change in the sinner's nature that so many become confused, and fall into grievous and dangerous errors. The original source, or moving cause of justification, is God's love. Had God not "loved the world" there would have been no divine planning or counseling for man's justification. Truly it required a divine mind to originate a scheme by which God "could be just and yet justify the ungodly." All the wisdom of the world could never have answered the question: "How can mortal man be just with God?" Man stood, in the sight of God, as a rebel against His divine authority, a transgressor of divine law, guilty, condemned, and wholly unable to justify himself, or to answer for one in a thousand offences. God had given His word that, because of guilt, there must be punishment and suffering. This word was given before sin was committed, and was repeated a thousand times afterwards. There must then be obedience to an infinite law, or infinite punishment for transgression. How could this gulf be bridged, and man saved? There was only one way. "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." That Son, "the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His person," "in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily," came into our world. He came to take the sinner's place—to be his substitute. Though Lord and giver of the law, He put Himself under the law. He fulfilled it in every jot and tittle. He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Thus He worked out a complete and perfect righteousness. He did not need this righteousness for Himself, for He had a righteousness far above the righteousness of the law. He wrought it out not for Himself, but for man, that He might make it over and impute it to the transgressor. Thus then while man had no obedience of his own, he could have the obedience of another set down to his account, as though it were his own. But this was not enough. Man had sinned and was still constantly sinning, his very nature being a sinful one. As already noted, the divine Word was pledged that there must be punishment for sin. The Son, who came to be a substitute, said: Put me in the sinner's place; let me be the guilty one; let the blows fall upon me. And thus, He "who knew no sin was made sin (or a sin-offering) for us." He "was made a curse," "bore our sins" and "the iniquity of us all." He, the God-man, was regarded as the guilty one, treated as the guilty one, suffered as the guilty one. He suffered as God, as well as man. For the Divine and human were inseparably united in one person. Divinity by itself cannot suffer and die. But thus mysteriously connected with the humanity it could and really did participate in the suffering and dying. And who will calculate what Immanuel can suffer? What must it have been when it crushed Him to earth, made Him cry out so plaintively, and at last took His life! Our old theologians loved to say, that what the sufferings of Christ lacked in extensiveness or duration, they made up in intensiveness. Thus there was a perfect atonement. All the punishment had been endured. A perfect righteousness had been wrought out, and the Father set His seal to it in the resurrection and ascension of His dear Son. Here, then, was real substitution, and this is the ground for our justification. It has been asked, on this point, if Christ by His perfect life wrought out a complete righteousness, which He needed not for Himself, but intended for the sinner, why was not this sufficient? Why was His death necessary? On the other hand, if His death is a perfect atonement for all sin, why does the sinner, in addition to a full and free forgiveness, procured by the death of Christ, need also the application of the righteousness of the life of Christ? In a word, why are both the life and death necessary to justify the sinner? We answer: By His death or suffering obedience He wrought out a negative righteousness, the forgiveness of sins. By His life, or active obedience, He wrought out a positive righteousness. The former releases from punishment. The latter confers character, standing and honor in the kingdom of God. To illustrate. Two persons have broken the laws of their land, are guilty, condemned, and suffer the penalty in prison. To one comes a message of pardon from the king. The prison doors are opened and he goes forth a free man. The law cannot again seize him and condemn him for the crimes of which he is pardoned. But as he goes forth among his fellow-men he realizes that though released from punishment, and negatively righteous, he has no standing, no character, no positive righteousness, unless he earn and merit it for himself. To the other criminal also comes a message of pardon from his king. In addition to pardon, or release from punishment, he is assured that his king has adopted him as his son, will take him into his family and endow him with his name and all the privileges of his house. Now this pardoned one has a double righteousness; Negatively, pardon and release from punishment; positively, a name, standing, character, honor, and the richest endowments of the kingdom. Even thus has the Son of God wrought out for us a two-fold righteousness, viz.: Negatively, by His sufferings and death, the forgiveness of sin and release from punishment; and positively, by His life of obedience, the appropriation of a perfect righteousness, a name and a place in His kingdom, with all its honors and blessings. In the procuring of this double righteousness, Christ wrought out first the positive and then the negative. In the conferring of it He gives first the negative and then the positive. And therefore the two-fold message of consolation. Is. xl. 1, 2: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to—(i.e., speak ye to the heart of)—Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." This justification has been purchased and paid for. But it is not yet applied. The sinner has not yet appropriated it and made it his own. How is this to be done? We answer: BY FAITH. Faith is the eye that looks to Christ. It sees His perfect atonement and His spotless righteousness. It is, at the same time, the hand that reaches out and lays hold of Christ, and clings to him as the only help and the only hope. This faith, springing from a penitent heart, that realizes its own unworthiness and guiltiness, renouncing all claim to merit or self-righteousness, casts itself on the divine Saviour, trusts implicitly in Him, and rests there. This faith justifies. Not because it is an act that merits or earns justification. No! In no sense. Christ has earned it. Faith only lays hold of and appropriates what is already purchased and paid for. There certainly can be no merit in our faith, because it is itself a "gift of God," as the Scriptures declare. He that has the faith is justified, acquitted, forgiven. The appropriation or application, is when we believe with all the heart on the Son of God. Such, in brief, is the Lutheran doctrine of "Justification by Faith." We have not thought it necessary to quote from the Augsburg Confession or the Formula of Concord for proof. Neither is it necessary or desirable that we lengthen out this chapter with quotations from standard theologians. Any one desiring further proof or amplification can find abundance of it in all our Confessions, and in all recognized writers in the Church. Nor have we taken up the space with Scripture quotations. To quote all that the Bible says on the subject would be to transcribe a large proportion of its passages. It would necessitate especially a writing out of a large part of the writings of Paul, who makes it the great theme of several of his epistles. Every devout reader of Paul's letters will find this great doctrine shining forth in every chapter, so much so that the Romish Bishop who was driven by Luther to a study of the New Testament threw down his book and said: "Paul also has become a Lutheran!" In conclusion, we desire to impress one thought. The doctrine of Justification is so highly prized by the believer, not so much because of the grand and matchless scheme it brings to light, as because of the peace and comfort it has brought into his heart. He who truly embraces this doctrine, realizes its efficacy and power. It is precious to him, above all things, as a matter of personal experience. This experience is not the doctrine, but the result of receiving it. He has realized the blessedness of having his own sins forgiven, his transgressions covered. Being justified by faith, he has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This blessed experience was the root and spring of Luther's courage and strength. Without this heart-experience, all theorizing about the doctrine is vain. Such a scriptural experience never develops a Pharisee. It never runs into self-exaltation. It constantly exalts and magnifies Christ. It habitually humbles self. It lays self low at the foot of the cross, and remains there. Not that it is a gloomy or despondent spirit. For while it constantly mourns over the imperfections and sins of self, it, at the same time, constantly rejoices in the full and perfect salvation of Christ. While it never ceases in this life to shed the tears of penitence, it also never ceases to sing the joyful song of deliverance. It develops a Christian after the type of Paul and Luther, and Gerhard and Francke. Blessed is he who understands and experiences justification by faith. Doubly sad the state of him who has the doctrine, without its experience and peace and glory. "Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress;

Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,

With joy shall I lift up my head.

"Bold shall I stand in that great day,

For who aught to my charge shall lay?

Fully through these absolved I am

From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

"This spotless robe the same appears,

When ruined nature sinks in years:

No age can change its constant hue;

Thy Blood preserves it ever new.

"Oh let the dead now hear Thy voice;

Now bid Thy banished ones rejoice!

Their beauty this, their glorious dress,

Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness."

CHAPTER XXII. SANCTIFICATION. In the last chapter we showed that the doctrine of justification deals with the sinner's change of relation, or change of state. We also learned that faith is the instrumental or applying cause of justification. In another place we showed that true faith presupposes penitence, and this again presupposes a sense and knowledge of sin. Again we showed that penitence and faith are the two essential elements of conversion; that where these elements are found there is a change of heart, and the beginning of a new life. This new life is, however, only in its germ. These are the beginnings of new views, new affections, new actions, a new life. They are of a germinal or seed character. Now it belongs to the very nature of life to develop, increase, and make progress. And it is this development or growth of the new life that we wish now to consider. It is called sanctification, or growth of the soul into the image of a holy God. It is closely related to justification, and yet clearly distinct from it. In justification, God imputes or counts over to the sinner the righteousness of Christ. In sanctification, God imparts the righteousness of the new life. Justification is what God does for the believer; sanctification is what His Spirit does in him. Justification being purely an act of God, is instantaneous and complete; sanctification being a work in which man has a share, is progressive. Justification takes away the guilt of sin; sanctification gradually takes away its power. Sanctification begins with justification. So soon as the sinner believes he is justified; but just so soon as he believes, he also has the beginnings of a new life. In time, therefore, the two come together; but in thought they are distinct. And it is of the greatest importance that these distinctions be understood and kept in mind. It is by confounding justification with sanctification, and vice versa, that all the flagrant, soul-destroying errors concerning the so-called "higher life," "sinless perfection," etc., are promulgated and believed. It is by quoting Scripture passages that speak of justification, and applying them to sanctification, that this delusion is strengthened. How often have we not heard that precious passage, 1 John i. 7, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin," quoted to prove entire sanctification. Now, if we understand the Scriptures at all, that passage speaks of the forgiveness of sin through the efficacy of Christ's blood, and not of overcoming sin in the believer, or eradicating its very fibres and impulses. But this, perhaps, is a digression. Let us understand clearly what we mean by sanctification. The English word comes from a Latin word that means sacred, consecrated, devoted to holy purposes. The Greek word translated sanctify in our English Bible also means to separate from common and set apart for holy purposes. The same word that is translated sanctify, is in many places translated consecrate, or make holy. The English word saint comes from the same Latin root, and is translated from the same Greek root, as sanctify. It means a sanctified one, or one who is being sanctified. Thus we find believers called saints, or sanctified ones. We find, indeed, that the apostles call all the members of their churches saints. Thus they speak of "the saints which are at Jerusalem," "The saints which are at Achaia," "To all that be in Rome ... called to be saints," "As in all the churches of the saints." So in many other passages. In harmony with the apostolic usage, we confess in the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in the Holy Christian Church (which is) the communion—or community—of saints." If then saints means sanctified ones, or holy persons, do not the Bible and the Apostles' Creed demand perfect sinlessness? By no means. Christians are indeed to strive to constantly become more and more free from sin. They are "called to be saints," are constantly being sanctified or made holy. But their sanctity or holiness is only relative. They have indeed "come out from the world," to "be separate." They are "a peculiar people." They hate sin, repent of it, flee from it, strive against it, and overcome it more and more. They "mortify the deeds of the body," "keep it under," "crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts," "present—(or consecrate)—their bodies, as living sacrifices to God." They have pledged themselves at Christ's altar to "renounce the devil and all his works and ways, the vanities of the world and the sinful desires of the flesh, and to live up to the doctrines and precepts of Christ." In so far, they are separated from the world, set apart to become holy, consecrated to Christ. Not that their sanctification or saintship is complete. If that were the case, the apostles would not have written epistles to the saints. For perfect beings need no Bibles, no Churches, no means of Grace. The angels need none of these things. There is indeed not one sinless person mentioned in the Bible, except that divine One, "who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." If there were one Scripture character who, if such a thing were possible, would have attained to sinless perfection, that one would certainly have been the greatest of all the apostles, Paul. He labored more than they all; he suffered more than they all; he went deeper into the mysteries of redemption than they all. He was not only permitted to look into heaven, as the beloved John, but he "was caught up into the third heaven, and heard words that it was not lawful for him to utter" on this sinful earth. Oh, what purifying through suffering! What visions and revelations! What experience of Grace! And yet this burnished vessel never professed sinless perfection. Indeed, he never ceased to mourn and lament the sinfulness and imperfection of his own heart, and called himself the chief of sinners. He does indeed speak of perfection. Hear what he says, Phil. iii. 12, 13, 14: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forward unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The saints on earth, then, are not sinless ones. 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. In harmony with all this Paul calls those who have but lately become believers, "babes in Christ." He tells them they must be "fed with milk as babes," etc. Therefore, it is quite natural that we find so many exhortations to grow in Grace and in knowledge. How directly contrary to all this is the unscriptural idea, not only of entire sanctification, but of instantaneous sanctification. Surely, in this fast age, many have run far ahead of prophets, apostles, martyrs, reformers and the most eminent saints of all ages. As we read the lives and words of these heroes of faith, we find that the more Christ-like and consecrated they were, the more did they deplore their slow progress and their remaining sin. While, therefore, we have no Scripture warrant to expect sinlessness here, while we must "die daily," "mortify our members," and "fight the good fight of faith," between the old Adam, whose remnants cleave to us, and the new man in Christ Jesus, we can still do much to promote our sanctification, and make it more and more complete. We can use the powers that God has given us to carry on the warfare with sin. We can increase these powers, or rather permit divine Grace to increase them, by a diligent use of the means of Grace. In the chapter on the Word of God as a means of Grace, we showed that the Holy Spirit sanctifies through the Word. In the chapters on baptism and the baptismal covenant, we showed how that holy sacrament is a means of Grace, whose efficacy is not confined to the time of its administration, but that it is intended to be a perennial fountain of Grace, from which we can drink and be refreshed while life lasts. In the chapters on the Lord's Supper, we learned that it also was ordained and instituted to sustain and strengthen our spiritual life. We have, therefore, all the means necessary for our sanctification. Do we prayerfully use them? Might we not be much further on in the work of holiness than we are? Do we use the truth as we should, that we maybe "sanctified through the truth?" Do we "desire the sincere milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby?" Does it "dwell richly among us?" Know we not, or have we forgotten it, that "as many of us as have been baptized into Christ, were baptized into His death?" Do we say, with those early Christians, "henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus?" And when we go to our Lord's Table do we realize that His "flesh is meat indeed, and His blood is drink indeed?" Do we go in the strength of that heavenly nourishment many days? Might we not, by making a more sincere, hearty and diligent use of all these means of Grace, live nearer to Christ, lean more confidingly on Him and do more effectually all things through Him who strengthened us? Yes, doubtless, we must all confess that it is our own fault that we are not sanctified more fully than we are; that if, in the strength derived from a proper use of the means of Grace, we would watch more over self, pray more, meditate more on divine things and thus surround ourselves more with a spiritual atmosphere, we would be more spiritual. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." "And what am I? My soul, awake,

And an impartial survey take.

Does no dark sign, no ground of fear

In practice or in heart appear?

"What image does my spirit bear?

Is Jesus formed and living there?

Ah, do His lineaments divine

In thought and word and action shine?

"Searcher of hearts, O search me still;

The secrets of my soul reveal;

My fears remove; let me appear

To God and my own conscience clear."

Gerberding, G. H. (George Henry). The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church (pp. 71-83). Édition du Kindle.

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Walther, C.F.W.. The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel :

Thesis X

In the sixth place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the preacher describes faith in a manner as if the mere inert acceptance of truths, even while a person is living in mortal sins, renders that person righteous in the sight of God and saves him; or as if faith makes a person righteous and saves him for the reason that it produces in him love and reformation of his mode of living. This evening we shall consider the first part of this thesis, which refers to a mingling of Law and Gospel that occurs chiefly in the Roman Church and which is the principal reason why that Church declines Luther and his doctrine. Luther, you know, taught that good works do not save a person, but only faith, without good works. From this rejection of good work, papists draw the inference that Luther must have been a wicked man because he taught that to get to heaven, man should only believe and need not do any good works. However, that is by no means Luther’s doctrine. Luther taught the exact contrary. True, he did not say that, to be saved, a person must have faith and, in addition to that, good works, or love; but he did teach that those who would be saved must have a faith that produces love spontaneously and is fruitful in good works. That does not mean that faith saves on account of love which springs from it, but that the faith which the Holy Spirit creates and which cannot but do good works justifies because it clings to the gracious promises of Christ and because it lays hold of Christ. It is active in good works because it is genuine faith. The believer need not at all be exhorted to do good works; his faith does them automatically. The believer engages in good works, not from a sense of duty, in return for the forgiveness of his sins, but chiefly because he cannot help doing them. It is altogether impossible that genuine faith should not break forth from the believer’s heart in works of love. But this is a matter of which papists have no inkling. They imagine a person may have true faith and yet live in mortal sin. Therefore they sneer at the teaching that faith saves and call it a “fine religion,” meaning that it is the worst and most wicked religion that has ever been invented. However, it never entered Luther’s mind to teach a faith that believes what the Church believes, as the papists do. For they connect with the notion of faith the idea that it is a conviction that the teaching of their Church is right. Hence in their view any one who has that conviction has the true faith, although they add that such a person does not immediately enter heaven at his death. Among their members, people may be fornicators, adulterers, drunkards, thieves, and yet be good Christians. Gal. 5, 6 we read: In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. The inefficiency of a faith that fails to work by love is not due to a lack of love, but to the fact that it is not real, honest faith. Love must not be added to faith but grow out of it. A fruitful tree does not produce fruit by somebody’s order, but because, while there is vitality in it and it is not dried up, it must produce fruit spontaneously. Faith is such a tree; it proves its vitality by bearing fruit. It is withered when it fails to bring forth fruit. The sun, likewise, need not be told to shine, it will continue shining till Judgment Day without any one’s issuing orders to do it. Faith is such a sun. Acts 15, 9 records an effect of the mission-work of the early Church thus: [God] made no distinction between us [the Jews] and them [the Gentiles], having cleansed their hearts by faith. A person who claims to have a firm faith which he will never abandon, but who still has an impure heart, must be told that he is in great darkness; for he has no faith at all. You may regard all the doctrines that are preached in the Lutheran Church as true, but if your heart is still in its old condition, filled with the love of sin, if you still act contrary to your conscience, your whole faith is mere sham. Yours is not the faith of which the Holy Spirit speaks when He uses the word “faith” in the Scriptures; for that faith — the genuine article — purifies the heart. Christ says, John 5, 44: How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? An awful verdict is pronounced in these words by the Savior on those who seek honor from men: they have no faith. It is one of the fruits of faith that from the moment it begins to grow up in the heart it gives all honor to God alone. When the believer does receive honors from men, he is inwardly convinced that he has not merited them and says to God: — Whate’er of good this life of mine

Has shown, is altogether Thine, thus returning to God any honor bestowed upon him. A person without faith, on finding himself lowered or despised, at once becomes depressed and morose because he is not getting what he seeks. There are preachers of this sort who enter their pulpit under the dominant influence of an ambitious passion and feel tickled when people who may be altogether unqualified to appraise them admire the wonderful delivery of such a young preacher and predict a great future for him. He likes that better than when one slips him a ten-dollar bill, although he will accept that too. But jesting aside! We are all haughty, proud, and ambitious, and this noxious vice can be driven from our hearts only by the Holy Ghost. But we never become rid of it entirely; an evil root remains in the heart. A believer, when noticing this thing in himself, abominates it, reprobates himself, feels ashamed of himself, and asks God to deliver him from these abominable notions of pride. The truth of this statement is beyond question; for the Savior’s words are in the form of a rhetorical question and signify: You cannot believe; for these two, seeking honor of men and believing, are simply incompatible. The entrance of faith into the heart has the effect of making the believer humble in the presence of God and men. Lest we despair when listening in occasionally on our own heart, we must not forget that a poison-root of vanity remains in our heart; but as soon as it begins to stir up vain thoughts in us, we must fight it. A person who does not fight his vanity has no faith and is not a Christian. We read in 1 John 5, 4: Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. Accordingly, a person in his old nature and not born of God, a person who still loves the world and seeks his heart’s satisfaction in its folly and vanity, has no faith; for faith overcomes the world. Jas. 2, 1 the apostle says: My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. Preferring the rich, because of their wealth, to the poor means respecting people’s person, and that is something which faith will not tolerate. The tendency to do this leaves the heart with the entrance of faith; for the believer views every one, not as far as his personality is concerned, but in his relation to God. To him a poor beggar, having been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, is worth as much as a king or an emperor. Such are the miracles which faith works in our hearts. Now, to represent justifying and saving faith as the inert mental act of regarding certain matters as true, which can coexist with mortal sin, means to treat faith as a work which man can produce in himself and preserve in himself even while sinning. True faith is a treasure which only the Holy Spirit can bestow. The Council of Trent, you know, was convened a few months before Luther’s death for the purpose of healing the wounds which the Reformation had dealt the Papacy. The Council put its seal on all errors which in the course of time had been adopted by the Roman Church, but presented them in a subtler manner than had been done by most of the theologians of that age. The Roman theologian Smets reproduces the following decree which the Council of Trent passed in its sixth session: “In defense of the divine Law, which excommunicates not only unbelievers, but also believers, namely, such as are fornicators, adulterers, pederasts, drunkards, robbers, and all who commit mortal sin, it must be firmly maintained that the Gospel, grace, righteousness, and the forgiveness of sin may be lost, not only by unbelief, by which faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin, although faith is not lost by such sin.” The Council admits that a person who turns unbeliever loses faith. An egregious truth, indeed! It is inserted for the purpose of blinding and misleading men. It teaches that salvation may be forfeited while faith is not lost; which is quite correct when applied to the religion of papists; for the most depraved Catholic can be the best member of the Catholic Church. According to the religion of Rome there can be believing thieves, believing fornicators, believing adulterers and pederasts, believing misers, drunkards, blasphemers, and robbers. Observe that these unfortunate people have no conception of what faith is. If they had an inkling of it, they would see that wicked men cannot truly believe, cannot have a genuine faith. At the same time they would see that the Lutheran Church does not believe what they think it believes. Far from placing good works in the background, the doctrine of the Lutheran Church points to the true source from which good works must spring. For a person who by the Holy Spirit and the grace of God has obtained a living confidence in Christ cannot abide in sin. His faith changes and purifies his heart. It is scarcely believable that from another angle the Calvinists have fallen into the same error. We read in the Decrees of the Synod of Dort, chap. V, 3–8: “Because of the remnants of sin dwelling in them, moreover, because of the temptations of the world and Satan, the converted cannot abide in grace when left to their own natural resources. But God is faithful and mercifully confirms them in the grace bestowed on them and keeps them in the same until the end. However, although the power of God which confirms and keeps true believers in grace is too great to be overcome by their flesh, nevertheless the converted are not always urged and moved by God in such a manner that in certain, particular acts they do not depart from the guidance of grace nor are seduced by the lusts of the flesh to obey them. For this reason they must continually watch and pray lest they be led into temptation. If they fail to do this, they may not only by the flesh, the world, and Satan be hurried into grievous and awful sins, but occasionally they are hurried into such sins by a just permissive providence of God. Instances of this kind are the deplorable fall of David, Peter, and other saints, which are recorded in Scripture. However, by such heinous sins they greatly offend against God, incur mortal guilt, grieve the Holy Spirit, interrupt the exercise of faith [mark: only the exercise of faith, not faith itself], grossly violate their conscience, and occasionally lose the consciousness of their faith for a season; until they return to the right way by earnest repentance and God again makes His fatherly countenance to shine upon them. For because of His unalterable decree of predestination, God, who is rich in mercy, does not entirely take His Holy Spirit away from His own in such deplorable instances, nor does He permit them to lapse to a point where they would fall from the grace of the adoption to sonship and from the state of being justified. — For, in the first place, He preserves in them that imperishable seed of His out of which they were born again, so that it cannot be lost or driven out from them. Furthermore, He renews them certainly and effectually unto repentance by the Word and His Spirit, in order that in conformity with God they may heartily grieve over the sins they committed (by His permission), may with contrite heart pray for, and obtain by their faith, forgiveness in the blood of the Mediator, recover the feeling of the grace of God reconciled with them, worship His mercy by faith, and thereafter manifest greater zeal in working out their salvation with fear and trembling. Thus they obtain, not by their own merit and strength, but through the gracious compassion of God, this boon, that they do not entirely fall from faith and grace nor remain in their fall till the end and be lost.” The first proof cited for this view is taken from 1 John 3, 9: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.” This does not mean that the converted cannot lose the seed. It means that, while the seed is in them, it has this effect that it keeps them from living in mortal sin. The Calvinists, then, claim that, when David became an adulterer and even committed murder, he did not lose either his faith or the grace of God, but his faith merely withdrew somewhat, so that he could not exercise it. That was all. He did not fall from grace or lose his faith, they claim, so that he would have gone to perdition if he had died in that condition. This is an awful doctrine. Men who believe it will not worry about repenting when they have committed such crimes as adultery and murder. When Cromwell, the miscreant, who sentenced his liege, the king, to death and instituted murderous and bloody trials throughout England, was at the point of death, he became alarmed. Summoning his chaplain, he asked him whether a person who had once been a believer could lose his faith, which the miserable chaplain negatived. Cromwell thereupon concluded that all was well with him, because he knew that once upon a time he had been a believer. Remembering the profound impressions which the Word of God had made upon him at certain times in his life, he relied on the abominable comfort which his chaplain offered him, viz., that, since he had had faith once, he still had it. This instance shows the awful effect of this doctrine of the Calvinists. Let me now present a testimony from our own Confessions, namely, from the Smalcald Articles, Part III, Art. III, §§ 42–45 (Mueller, p. 324; Trigl. Conc., p. 491): “On the other hand, if certain sectarists would arise, some of whom are perhaps already extant and in the time of the insurrection [of the peasants] came to my own view, holding that 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, and [hence] crying thus: ‘Do whatever you please; if you believe, it all amounts to nothing; faith blots out all sins,’ etc., — they say, besides, that if any one sins after he has received faith and the Spirit, he never truly had the Spirit and faith: I have had before me many such insane men, and I fear that in some such a devil is still lurking. [Mark Luther says this view issues from the devil.] “It is, accordingly, necessary to know and to teach that, when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins [that is, sins which do not remain hidden in the heart], as David into adultery, murder and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them [they cast out faith and the Holy Ghost]. For the Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand, so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it, so that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are certainly not present. For St. John says, 1 Ep. 3, 9: ‘No one born of God makes a practice of sinning … and he cannot keep on sinning.’ And yet it is also the truth when the same St. John says, 1 Ep. 1, 8: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’ “ David had ceased to be a prophet enlightened by the Holy Spirit and a child of God when he fell into sin. Had he died in those days, he would have gone to perdition. Yea, that could have happened to him during the entire year before Nathan came to preach repentance to him; for David had pronounced the man who had committed the crime narrated by Nathan a doomed man, when Nathan told him, “You are the man,” and showed him that he had uttered his own sentence: if he did not turn from his iniquity, he would go to hell and be damned. The light of faith can be extinguished not only by gross sins, but by any wilful, intentional sin. Accordingly, defection from faith occurs far oftener than we imagine. Faith ceases not only in those who lead a life of shame, but also in such as permit themselves to be led astray against their better knowledge and the warning of their conscience. They plan to do a certain thing and carry out their purpose, although they know that it is contrary to God’s Word. In such instances faith becomes extinct; however, the person caught in this snare promptly recovers his faith if he promptly arrests himself in his wrong-doing, as the instance of Peter shows. Peter did not harden himself. When the glance of Jesus met his eyes, he went out and wept bitterly. That glance made him repent of his sin, causing him to realize the enormity of his offense and the unspeakable greatness of his Lord’s mercy. It seemed to say, “Poor Peter, repent!” and pierced his heart like a dagger. Happy the man who, after falling, rises at once, immediately, and does not delay his repentance, lest he arrive at a stage where his heart is hardened. In conclusion I shall submit a testimony from Luther’s writings. In 1536 a certain minister sent a commentary which he had written on the First Epistle of John to the faculty at Wittenberg with the request that it be examined as to its fitness for publication. The commentary contained the error that the elect do not lose the Holy Spirit even when they lapse into conscious sinning and gross vices. Luther declared himself opposed to the publication of the commentary and wrote a theological opinion on the point under review, which was signed by the other members of the faculty. It is found in his works, (St. L. Ed. X, 1706 ff.) Luther says: “When a person sins against his conscience, that is, when he knowingly and intentionally acts contrary to God, as, for instance, an adulterer or any other criminal, who knowingly does wrong, he is, while consciously persisting in his intention, without repentance and faith and does not please God. For example, while a person keeps the wife of another man, it is manifest that he is void of repentance, faith, and holiness. For the faith by which we are made righteous must be associated with a good conscience. It is absolutely impossible for these two things to coexist in a person, viz., faith that trusts in God and a wicked purpose, or, as it is also called, an evil conscience. Faith and the worship of God are delicate affairs; a very slight wound inflicted on the conscience may drive out faith and prayer. Every tried Christian frequently is put through this experience. “Accordingly, Paul joins two requisites of a Christian in 1 Tim. 1, 5, saying: ‘The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith’; again, in v. 19: ‘Holding faith and a good conscience’; again, chap. 3, 9 ‘Holding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience,’ etc. These and kindred passages, to be cited anon, serve notice that where there is not a good conscience, there is no faith and no holiness. “Therefore, while only faith in our Savior Jesus Christ obtains the grace of justification, i.e., while he who believes has forgiveness of his sins and is accepted with God, still he must drop his former evil intentions, so that there is in him the beginning of a good conscience. Now, where there is faith and a good conscience, there certainly is the Holy Spirit; and yet the justified do not rest their confidence on their own worthiness or good conscience, but on Christ. Hence we conclude from Christ’s promise that we have been received into grace for His sake and may offer our prayers to God acceptably, as John says, 1 Ep. 3, 20 ff.: ‘Whenever our heart condemns us, … we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him.’ Although there remains in the saints sin, inborn depravity, evil propensities; although they do not with full earnestness fear God and trust in Him, — which are indeed great sins and must not be regarded as trifling defects, — still these weaknesses are to be distinguished and placed far away from conscious and intentional sinning and wicked purposes, which make the conscience unclean. These latter sins do not coexist with holiness. In this connection we must not discuss predestination, but the wrath of God which is revealed in His Word, and then seek grace after our fall. “The sins into which the elect fall take away their holiness and drive the Holy Spirit from them. This is quite evident, first, in Adam and Eve, who were elect, but miserably lost their holiness and the Holy Spirit nevertheless, so that by the discomfiture of these first men all their descendants have become feeble and sinful by nature. Had they not been raised up again, they would have remained damned forever. In the mean time they were verily under the wrath of God. These happenings are not sham events; for in clear terms St. Paul says, Rom. 5, 12: ‘Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin.’ Death plainly signifies damnation, and what that is everybody knows. Likewise, when David had slept with the wife of Uriah and had caused her godly husband to be slain, etc., he was under the wrath of God and had lost his holiness and the Holy Spirit until he was converted again. Many similar instances might be rehearsed. “The truth of what I have stated is clearly established from the following passages: 1 John 3, 7 f.: ‘Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil.’ For instance, when David permitted his heart to be set on fire with the flames of inordinate desire and lost his stability, he was urged on by the devil, who, after conquering him through the first sin, drove him to still greater sins, murder, etc. That the Holy Spirit had been driven out of David’s heart is evident from the words of Paul in 1 Cor. 6, 9 f.: ‘Adulterers shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’ He is speaking of adultery that is still continuing; while an adulterer persists in his purpose, he is not an heir of the kingdom of Christ. Consequently, he is not righteous and holy, nor has he the Holy Spirit. ‘Because of these things,’ says Paul in Eph. 5, 6, ‘the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.’ In Rom. 8, 13 Paul introduces a distinction that must be made among sins; he says: ‘If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.’ Now, it is manifest that Paul in this passage preaches for saints and teaches them how they may remain holy, namely, by resisting their evil inclinations. On the other hand, he says: ‘If you live according to the flesh you will die’; that is, If you yield to your evil inclinations, you are again under the wrath of God; for that is what he means by dying. In Ezek. 33, 13 ff. we read, in effect: Whenever the righteous does evil, his righteousness shall not be remembered; and whenever the wicked turns and does good, his sins shall be forgotten. This is a clear text; it proves that the righteous, when falling into sin knowingly and intentionally, is no longer righteous. In Rev. 2, 14 the Holy Spirit reproves the church at Pergamos for tolerating false doctrine and fornication, of which things He says: ‘I hate them.’ Now, when God is angry with some one, that person is not holy and accepted with Him, etc. And among those who were rebuked at Pergamos there were, without doubt, elect and non-elect.” “On the ground of these and many other testimonies the Church has always taught with unanimity that, when a saint knowingly and purposely acts contrary to God’s command, he is no longer a saint, but has lost the true faith and cast away the Holy Spirit. But if he turns again, God will keep the gracious oath which He has sworn, saying: ‘As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’ Accordingly, for Christ’s sake God takes those people who turn to Him back into His grace and rekindles in their hearts the true faith through the Gospel and His Holy Spirit. He has not commanded us to inquire first whether we have been predestinated, but it is sufficient for us to know that whosoever perseveres unto the end in repentance and faith is certainly elect and will be saved, as Christ says: ‘The one who endures to the end will be saved!” How dare a person come before God with an evil conscience and praise Him in fulsome strains for the forgiveness of his sins? God will reject him together with his prayer. Such a person cares not for God, because he purposes to continue in his sin; how, then, can he engage in intimate converse with God? It is impossible. Suppose some one were to come to you and acknowledge that he has treated you shamefully. But he wants to continue treating you that way; and yet he desires that you forgive him. Would you do it? Of course not. We would consider a person insane who would talk like this: “I want to be forgiven, but I want to continue doing for what I am asking forgiveness. As often as I meet you, I shall insult you; but I want you to forgive me.” Now, that is just the way God is treated by men who want to take comfort in His mercy while continuing in sin. Luther speaks of the impossibility of joining faith with an evil conscience. Conscience is a damaging witness, which makes us shut our mouth when we start to explain any intentional wrong-doing. We are all indeed poor sinners; but when we undertake to sin purposely, our conscience warns us that we are enemies of God and intend to remain such. It tells us when we start to call upon God that we do not mean to come to God at all. Faith is, in this respect, a very tender thing, which is easily wounded. It is not the manifest enormity of their sin that casts such people out of their state of grace and puts out the heavenly light of their faith, but the attitude of their heart towards their sin. When I am suddenly overtaken by sin, God forgives me; He is not angry with me and does not charge that sin against me. Such acts do not extinguish faith. Or it may be that I am rushed into sin by my temperament. I do not want to sin, but I have been irritated to such an extent that, before I know it, I have sinned. That is not a mortal sin, which would take me out of the state of grace. But when a person persists in his sin against his conscience, though he knows it to be a sin, and continues sinning purposely for a long time, he no longer has faith and cannot truly pray to God; the Holy Spirit leaves his heart, for another spirit, the evil spirit, rules in it, whom the sinner has admitted into his heart. To him the Holy Spirit yields His place and departs. A Christian can notice that, when he yields to sin in the very least, his trust in God is promptly diminished. He also feels that, if he does not turn back on the spot, sin will rule him and he will be unfit to believe. In such moments the Christian goes down on his knees and calls upon God with tears, — though that is not an essential part of repentance, — saying: “Thou knowest, Oh God, that I do not want to sin,” as Peter declared to Christ: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” John 21, 17. Peter could call upon the Lord as his witness. Having a good conscience, be could say to Christ: “Thou canst look into my heart; is it not so? Why, then, dost Thou ask me?” That is the language every Christian must be able to use when speaking to God: “My God, Thou knowest that I do not want to sin, and yet I am sinning. Thou knowest that I have become an enemy to sin.” Hence the second requisite which Paul wants to see in every Christian is true love, love that proceeds from faith unfeigned. Faith unfeigned is not a painted, but a real, living, genuine faith of the heart. Faith and good conscience must be companions. A person that has no good conscience certainly is without faith. Of such people the apostle says that they have “made shipwreck of their faith,” 1 Tim. 1, 19; they have cast the precious treasure of faith overboard. Even after our conversion we lack the true fear of God, and all our sins are great sins. Even the so-called sins of weakness of which the righteous cannot rid themselves must not be regarded as a paltry matter. Although they do not extinguish faith, they are no jest. Luther’s rejection of the sinner’s appeal to predestination is meant as a warning to us not to reason ourselves into a state of security on the ground that we simply shall have to go to heaven because we are predestinated. The major of the syllogism is true: Whoever is predestinated will certainly go to heaven. But there is no evidence for the minor, viz., whether the party indulging in the above reasoning is predestinated. If a person lives in sin and continues that kind of life, this is a sign that he is not predestinated. Not as though God did not want to have him on any account, but because He foresaw that His grace would be misapplied by this or that wicked person. Nobody can question that Adam and Eve were elect, and yet they fell, lost the image of God, the Holy Spirit, their holiness, in short, everything. But they repented and were thus restored to a state of grace. As soon as faith is lost through some mortal sin, the grace of God is also lost, and such a person becomes a child of death and damnation. He may return to faith and ultimately be saved, but in the interval he was not a blessed, but an utterly miserable, lost creature. A person with whom God is angry or whom He hates is not accepted with Him. There may have been elect persons in the congregation at Pergamos. But God hated also these elect persons and was angry with them because, for the time being, they had driven His grace, faith, and the Holy Spirit out of their hearts. TWENTY-FIRST EVENING LECTURE (March 6, 1885) My Friends: — The world of unbelievers regards the tenet of the Christian religion that for salvation everything depends on a person’s faith as an impossibility and discredits it. It seems to them a manifest folly, yea, a proof that even the Christian religion, like all the other religions that have originated from so-called supernatural revelations, is bent on deluding people. They claim that the Christian religion, which purports to be supernaturally revealed, by making faith the chief requisite for salvation, is not superior to Brahmanism, which requires faith in the Vedas, the sacred books of the Hindus, or Mohammedanism, which requires chiefly faith in the Koran of Mohammed, the acknowledged prophet of lies, as containing the true religion of salvation. Their argument is that it is a matter of no moment to the Father in heaven what a person believes or disbelieves, since true religion cannot consist in anything else than an upright life, the exercise of virtue and good works. What sin, they say, can there be in a person’s failure to believe, something that is utterly contrary to his God-given reason? If there is a God and a future judgment, men, they claim, will on that day not be asked what they have believed, but how they have conducted themselves during their present life. Others, endeavoring to enter more deeply into the matter, assert that, if the Father in heaven is especially pleased with a person’s faith, because it is such a glorious work and such a beautiful virtue, they can see no reason whatever why He should not be equally well pleased, for instance, with a person’s charity, patience, fortitude, justice, impartiality, truthfulness, and similar qualities. What is the source from which these objections to the Christian doctrine concerning faith spring? Gross ignorance is, without question, the primary source. People simply do not know what faith is according to the Holy Scriptures. Far from regarding justifying and saving faith as nothing else than holding fast stubbornly and strictly to certain religious teachings, as the Hindus and Mohammedans view faith, the Christian doctrine rather declares this to be entirely useless, yea, as leading people straightway to perdition. It tells men that, if they have no better reliance, they are building on sand. Moreover, far from assigning to faith such a prominent position on the assumption that faith is a glorious work and a precious virtue, Christianity teaches, on the contrary, that faith does not justify and save a person because it is such a good work, but on account of the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ, which faith apprehends. This reflection takes us back once more to our tenth thesis. A week ago we were told that faith is not a dead, inert affair, but something that transforms and renews the heart, regenerates a person, and brings the Holy Spirit into his soul. Tonight we shall be occupied chiefly with the second part of the tenth thesis, which states that the Word of God, the Law and the Gospel, is not rightly divided, but commingled, when the preacher describes faith in a manner as if it makes a person righteous and saves him for the reason that it produces in him love and a reformation of his mode of living. The Holy Scriptures emphatically testify that there can be no genuine faith without love, without a renewal of heart, without sanctification, without an abundance of good works. But it testifies at the same time that the renewal of heart, love, and the good works which faith produces, are not the justifying and saving element in a person’s faith. Innumerable passages of Scripture could be cited in proof of this statement; we shall dwell only on the principal passages. Rom. 4, 16 says: That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring. Paul here declares that the very reason why we teach righteousness by faith is because we teach that a person is justified in the sight of God and saved by grace. Now, if faith were to make us righteous because of some good quality inherent in us, it would be a wrong conclusion to teach a person’s justification by faith, since he is justified and saved by grace. Justification is by grace, through faith; however, not because of good qualities inherent in faith. In justification that is not at all taken into consideration, but merely the fact that Jesus Christ has long ago redeemed the entire world, that He has done and suffered all that men ought to have done and suffered, and that men are merely to accept His work as their own. Hence the way to salvation is this: We are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, towards our salvation, but Christ has already done everything for us, and we must merely cling to what He has done, draw consolation from His finished work of redemption, and trust in it for our salvation. This passage in Romans is a precious text, a text that deserves to be remembered. If something that we must do belonged to the justifying quality of faith, the apostle would in this text be drawing a false conclusion. In that case he should have said: “by faith, in so far as it aids us to accomplish something good.” But that is not the reason why faith justifies; it justifies because it accepts the merit of Christ. Faith is only the hand with which we grasp what God offers. Phil. 3, 8. 9 the same apostle states: I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Another precious passage, a veritable sun, shedding bright light on the real essence of faith. The apostle declares that he is indeed righteous; however, the righteousness which he has obtained by faith is not at all his own righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ. Accordingly, when we become righteous by faith, we are made righteous by an alien righteousness. God beholds in us absolutely nothing that He could count as righteousness to our credit. It is Another’s righteousness which we have by faith. We have not acquired it or contributed anything towards it. Had we contributed love towards it, and were God to justify us on that account, our righteousness would not be an alien righteousness, or it would at least be only half alien, to supplement our own imperfect righteousness. The apostle declares: “I have no righteousness of my own, but only the righteousness which God credits to faith.” Rom. 4, 5 the apostle states: And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. When a person is justified, he has been previously a godless, not a godly person made godly by faith and on that account godly. Any one possessing genuine faith acknowledges that he has been godless, meriting hell and damnation, lost, contaminated with sin from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet, and that a divine miracle of grace was performed on him when God said to him the moment he believed in his Savior: “Thou art counted as righteous: I behold in thee no righteousness of thine own, but I cover thee with the righteousness of My Son and henceforth behold in thee nothing but righteousness.” Whoever does not come to Christ as an ungodly person does not come to Him at all. Eph. 2, 8. 9 we read: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. This sounds as if the apostle felt that he was not saying enough to keep men from being led astray into self-righteousness. First he says: “By grace you have been saved”; next, he adds: “through faith.” Lest some one think he had achieved this feat by his faith, the apostle continues: “and this is not your own doing.” Whence, then, is it? “It is the gift of God”; and to head off any thought of a person’s own merit, he adds: “not a result of works,” such as a person’s love, or charity, would be. He winds up with the statement: “So that no one may boast.” Now, a person who claims that faith justifies on account of love which follows it could say: “I have been justified by faith, but that was because I loved at the same time, because I had performed good works at the same time, because I had become a different person. That is why God regards me as righteous.” This thought the apostle rules out of order by his concluding remarks. Whoever imagines that there is a little aureole, a little glory, that he may claim as his own is still without the faith that justifies, is still blind, and is not walking in the way of salvation, but is headed straight for perdition. Rom. 11, 6 the apostle writes: If by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. [NKJV] The apostle tries to make the element of grace quite plain. He invites his readers to reflect that, when they admit that their salvation is “by grace,” it cannot be by merit, for that would destroy the idea of grace. Adding merit to grace renders grace void. In that case all talk of grace is miserable bosh. On the other hand, if salvation is by the merit of works, grace does not count, or merit would not be merit. Nothing remains, then, for a person but to believe firmly that he has been made righteous out of God’s pure, everlasting mercy, by faith. Even when his faith bears good fruits, these follow later, after he has received all that is necessary for his salvation. First a person is saved, then he becomes godly. First he must be made an heir of heaven, then he becomes a different person. Here we have the wonderful quality of the Christian religion. If a person wants to do everything himself to get to heaven, he is lost. No; he must first be made an heir of heaven and be saved; after that he begins to live a life filled with gratitude to God. That is why Luther says that the Christian religion is, in a word, a religion of gratitude. All the good that Christians do is not done to merit something. We would not know what to take up for the purpose of acquiring merit. Everything has been given us: righteousness, our everlasting heritage, our salvation. All that remains for us to do is to thank God. And then there is this, that out of great kindness God proposes to give to those who are specially faithful in this life a peculiar glory in addition to their salvation. That is no paltry affair in the life to come. For God bestows extraordinary gifts when He gives those gifts of glory. There will be a great difference among Christians in the life to come. For even the least plus which one of the saints receives above that which his fellow-saints get in heaven is no trifle: Why? Because it is an ever-enduring gift. For that reason we must be truly grateful to God, after having received eternal life, for all that we are and possess. Only works proceeding from gratitude are genuinely good works. Even in our secular relations, when a person is very willing to render services to another because he hopes for a reward, we denounce him as a miserable cheat who pretended love to us while he speculated on financial gain and simulated disinterested service for pay. Such a person nauseates us: he figures on getting more from us than he does for us and becomes malicious and hostile to us when his hopes are frustrated. The real good works, therefore, are works to which gratitude toward God prompts us. Whoever has true faith never thinks of meriting something good for himself by his service. He cannot help expressing his gratitude by love and good works. His heart has been changed: it has been softened by the richness of God’s love which he has experienced. Over and above this God is so gracious that He rewards even the good works which He accomplishes in us. For the good works done by Christians are God’s works. The objection is raised against us that in sanctification a person is surely doing something himself. But a person never begins any good work of his own accord. God must prompt him and work in him even to will, to desire to do, the good work that he is to perform. Accordingly, whenever Christians seem to do something good, it is by the power and operation of God in them that they do it. The papists occasionally say that a person is justified and saved by faith, but they add: “provided love is added to faith.” They do not mean to say merely this, that the person who has no love has no faith. That is what we also teach, in accordance with Scripture. What they mean is this: A person may have the true faith, wrought in him by the Holy Spirit, but if love is not added to it, faith is absolutely worthless. That is why they call love the forma of faith. In theological terminology, you know, forma is that which makes a matter what it is (= essential quality). The papists declare that, if love is not added to faith, faith may be genuine, but it is not justifying faith, because love is the forma of faith, which makes justifying faith what the name indicates. Such faith they call fides formata, faith that has received the proper form. If love has not been added, they call that faith fides informis, faith without its proper form. The Council of Trent, in its sixth session, adopted chap. VII, canon 28, which reads: “Faith, when love is not added to it, neither forms a vital union with Christ, nor does it make a person a living member of the body of Christ. Catechumens acquire the faith which confers eternal life, which faith without love cannot confer. For this reason they are told immediately the word of Christ: ‘If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’ ” The papists do not speak of “faith from which love springs.” That would be correct; for if faith does not produce love, it is a mere sham. What they mean is this: You may have a good faith, but it does not justify you if love is not added to it. Love is not to flow from faith; that is something altogether impossible according to their teaching, because they understand by faith the mere inert mental perception of the doctrines of the Church. Love, they say, must be added to faith, then faith will justify you. Well, if that is the case, what, then, is it that justifies? Only love, or a person’s good works. They do not say this in plain terms, but any person who reflects but a little on what they say is compelled to get this meaning out of their remarks: If faith does not justify in the first place, then it must be that alone which is added to faith which does the justifying. By catechumens the papists mean those who want to join their Church. These are told that without love faith does not confer everlasting life, and the words of Christ in Matt. 19, 17 are cited to them for proof. Here we have the papists’ faith: Faith, though admittedly necessary, does not obtain everlasting life. They say: If a person does not keep the commandments, faith is of no help to him. After he has complied with the command of Christ to believe, he must comply with the other command, to keep the commandments. The rich young man in Matt. 19 had asked the Lord: “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” His question had not been: “What must I do?” but: “What good thing shall I do?” Accordingly, Christ had to tell him: “You must keep the commandments.” That did not mean that the rich young man could really keep them; the Lord was simply answering the question of this person who was head over heels merged in self-righteousness. When the Lord failed to cure him of his awful blindness by telling him that he must love God above all things and his neighbor as himself, He gave him an additional lesson by telling him to sell all that he had and give it to the poor. That lesson sent the young man away with a sad heart. The sting had without question been driven home to him; he knew now that he did not love God above all things. He had to acknowledge that Jesus had judged him rightly. But he was not seriously concerned about his salvation, otherwise he would have admitted that he was unable to do what the Lord commanded and would be lost if that was the only way to obtain everlasting life. Had he admitted that, the Lord would have told him: “Here is One who can save you. Believe in Me, and though you were an abominable man and had wantonly transgressed the commandments, you wilt be saved.” But he went away. Without doubt, if he had become a believer, Scripture would have recorded that fact. Some one might think that possibly the papists, after all, meant only this, that a dead lip-faith does not justify a person — exactly what we teach ourselves. But no; they mean to say: No matter how good a person’s faith is, it does not save him unless love is added to it. That is about as wise a statement as if I would say: An apple-tree may be ever so good; but unless you add fruit to it, it is not an apple-tree. Why, the reverse is true. Apples do not make an apple-tree, but the apple-tree produces apples. However, the papists have expressed themselves quite plainly on this matter. In the aforementioned chapter and canon the Council of Trent decreed: “If any one says that faith is lost at the same time when grace is lost by sin, or that the faith which remains in the sinner is not genuine faith, although it may not be a living faith, or that the person who has faith without love is not a Christian, let him be accursed.” They assert, then, that a person falling into mortal sin does not lose faith. We would say that a person living in mortal sin may possess a perfect historical faith; however, we add that such faith is not genuine, but a mere sham. The papists, however, declare it to be genuine faith. They speak of faith as something apart from love. Love must join faith in their view in order to make faith good. They regard faith as a beautiful receptacle that serves no other purpose than to store something away in it. The treasure that is to be placed in this vessel is love. When placed in the vessel, it makes the vessel much more precious than the vessel previously was. Thus the papists hold that faith is made precious through the addition of love. Or they may put it this way: Faith justifies, however, with the understanding that it has love. In the days of John Gerhard the theologians of Cologne, at that time the best-reputed theologians of Rome, published the Censura Coloniensis. In this treatise they state: “The fact that the just lives by his faith is not due solely to Christ or His work; yea, its justifying forma, or power, it does not derive from Christ, whom it apprehends and possesses, but from its own love.” This statement declares, not only that love must be added to faith, but that in justifying faith love is the only reason why it justifies. Let us now hear a few testimonies from Luther on the so-called fides formata as contrasted with the fides informis, or faith that has the true essence as placed over against that faith which, according to the papists’ view, is indeed true faith, but does not justify. In his Commentary on Galatians (St. L. Ed. IX, 357 f.) Luther says: “The Sophists [he means, the papistic theologians], ready to pervert the Scriptures, add these acute glosses to this passage [Gal. 3, 11]: ‘The righteous shall live by faith’; however, by the faith that is efficacious, operates, or has obtained its proper form by love (formata caritate). If faith lacks this form (informis), it does not justify. This gloss they have spun out of their own brain; they are doing violence to the prophet’s [Habakkuk’s] words.” (Luther means they have twisted and perverted this precious, comforting passage. Indeed, they say, the Apostle Paul as well as the prophet Habakkuk have stated: The just lives by his faith. But what faith does he mean? Why, an active faith that does good works, that has love, and that has renewed the person. That, that alone, is the faith which he meant, and it is only for this reason that man lives by faith.) Luther proceeds: “I would not be displeased with their gloss if by faith properly formed they understood the genuine faith, of which we speak in theology, or, as Paul calls it, ‘faith unfeigned.’ For in that case faith would not be set up as something distinct over against love, but it would be in opposition to a vain opinion which man may have of faith. We, too, distinguish between spurious and genuine faith. A spurious or fictitious faith exists in a person who has heard about God, Christ, and all the mysteries of incarnation and redemption, who has perceived these matters mentally, and knows how to talk about them beautifully, yet all remains vain imagination. His hearing of these matters has merely left an echo of the Gospel in his heart, concerning which he babbles. But it is not in reality faith; for it does not renew and transform the heart, does not produce a new man, but leaves the person in his former opinion and conduct. Such faith is actually baneful; it would be better for such a person not to have it. A moral philosopher of this world is better than a hypocrite who has this faith.” Mark well: Luther admits the phrase fides formata if it is to signify nothing else than genuine faith of the heart. He knew that a faith which does not purify the heart does not justify, but keeps its possessor in sin. The papists have at all times represented the Lutherans as teaching that faith alone justifies and that therefore the believer must do no good works. That is a shameful doctrine, calculated to repel people from the practise of good works. It would amount to telling the people to quit doing good works and only to believe, and heaven would immediately be their heritage. The better-informed papists, of course, know that this is not Lutheran doctrine. However, there are ever so many papists, even among the priesthood, who actually regard the Lutheran Church as a noxious sect, which teaches that the mere mental perception of certain tenets justifies and saves men and lands them in heaven, no matter what kind of life they lead. In opposition to this view, Luther declares that if fides formata signifies the faith wrought by the Holy Spirit, this faith is a fruitful source of all good works; and if it is said that this faith justifies, he is in full harmony with the papists. Only they must not add: Faith saves because it has the aforementioned beautiful form; for faith first justifies and saves a person, and after that it is also productive of good works. Luther continues: “Accordingly, if they [the papists] were to distinguish faith properly formed (fidem formatam) from false or fictitious faith, their distinction would not be offensive to me. But they are speaking of faith that receives its proper form from love, and they establish two kinds of faith: faith unformed and faith properly formed (informem et formatam). This altogether noxious and diabolical gloss I am forced to repudiate in the strongest terms. For they say: Even where there is infused faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and, in addition, acquired faith, which we produce ourselves by many acts of believing, still, both these kinds are unformed; they receive their proper form by love.” Let us remember that a host of people have been snared by the Jesuits, and when reproved by Lutherans that they do not teach justification by faith at all, they reply: “Your Lutheran preacher has told you that. We do not teach that doctrine. We are teaching a better doctrine than yours. You say: Only believe, and you will go to heaven. We say: A person is justified by faith, namely, by faith which worketh by love, as the Apostle Paul teaches.” Now, a person not knowing that all this is a piece of knavery imagines that he has been wrongly informed about the doctrine of the Catholic Church. However let no one permit himself to be deceived. The Jesuits do not speak of faith as a source of love, but of a faith that has love existing alongside of it. Hence it is a lie when they say in any sense that a person is justified by faith. When they add the term formata to fides, they really mean works; for they say that a person is justified by faith if he has works in addition to faith. Their faith is worth no more than the imitation money used in a business college or the toy money of children, which looks like real money, but has no purchasing power. The Roman doctrine of justification is nothing else than a complete denial, annihilation, and condemnation of the Gospel. Any sect is incomparably better than the Papacy, the Roman Church. The sects worry ever so much over their works of piety, their wrestling for grace, and their prayers, but they still hold fast the teaching that faith in the Lord Jesus alone justifies and saves a person. When a poor Methodist or Baptist is in his final agony, he realizes that faith alone saves, and he dies saved when he takes refuge in the Lord Christ. But the dying papist has to think of purgatory and how long he may have to be confined in it because he lacks charity and good works. He has to consider himself lost. That was the devil’s aim when he founded the Papacy — he wanted to destroy the redemption of Christ by the abominable doctrine that faith does not justify and save except when there is another element added to it which acquires salvation. In conclusion Luther writes: “According to their fancy, faith without love is like a painting or anything beautiful to behold that is placed in the dark and cannot be seen until light is let into the place, that is, until love is added to it. By this view, love is made the essence of faith and faith the material on which love works. That means that love is placed above faith, and a person’s righteousness is ascribed not to his faith, but to his love. For whatever gives a certain quality to something possesses that quality in a higher degree. Therefore the Romanists are really ascribing nothing at all to faith, because they ascribe righteousness to faith only on account of love. Moreover, these perverters of the Gospel of Christ say that infused faith, which has not been obtained by preaching or some other operation, but is wrought in man by the Holy Spirit, can exist in a person who is guilty of a mortal sin and can be found in the worst scoundrels. For this reason they declare it an inert and useless thing when it is alone, even if it were to be of the wonder-working kind. Thus they rob faith entirely of its function and ascribe it to love, by declaring faith utterly worthless, unless that which gives faith its proper form, namely, love, is added to it.” In his Commentary on Galatians (on chap. 2, 19), Luther writes (St. L. Ed. IX, 218): “When I have thus apprehended Christ by faith, have become dead to the Law, justified from sin, and liberated from death, the devil, and hell by Christ, I begin to do good works, to love God, to show Him gratitude, and to practise love towards my fellow-man. But my love, or the works that follow after faith, neither give the proper form to my faith nor do they adorn it, but my faith gives love its proper form and adorns it.” Caritas non est forma fidei, sed fides est forma caritatis — this axiom of Luther shows up still more plainly the hideousness of the papists’ teaching regarding faith. For, mark you, they do not say that faith does not save when a person has formed faith by his own effort, but even when it is genuine faith, produced in a person’s heart by the Holy Spirit. Even this true faith, they hold, can exist in a person who lives in mortal sin, as the Council of Trent has declared, and it does not justify a person unless love is added to it. The very opposite, Luther says, is true: It is faith that gives love its real essence and makes it genuine and good, not vice versa. The papists regard Gal. 5, 6 as a valuable proof-text for their doctrine; but they totally misinterpret the text. Commenting on this text, Luther says (St. L. Ed. IX, 632 ff.): “The Sophists force this text to support their view that we must be justified by our love and good works. For, not to say anything of faith which a person has obtained by his own effort (de fide acquisita), they declare that even faith infused into a person by God does not justify unless it is given its proper form by love, because they call love that grace which makes a person acceptable in the sight of God (gratiam gratum facientem) what we, speaking in the words of Paul, would call justifying grace. Moreover, they say that love is obtained by our merit, which God is in justice bound to reward (nostro merito congrui), etc. Yea, they even maintain that infused faith can exist in a person living in mortal sin. Thus they remove justification entirely from faith and attribute it to love alone; and they want to establish this doctrine of theirs by what Paul says in this passage, when he speaks of ‘faith working through love.’ Just as if Paul had meant to say: See, faith does not justify; it amounts to nothing, unless work-producing love is added to it, which gives faith its proper form.” “However, all these strange, horrible ideas have been fabricated by unspiritual men. Could any one tolerate the doctrine that faith, the gift of God which is poured into men’s hearts by the Holy Ghost, can exist alongside of mortal sin? One could tolerate such teaching if they were referring to faith which a person acquires by his own effort or to historical faith, that opinion which a person, by using his natural reason, forms from a study of historical faith. Their teaching would apply correctly to the latter kind of faith. But since they speak of imparted faith, they plainly reveal that they have no true understanding whatever of faith. Besides, they read this passage of Paul through a colored glass, as we say; they pervert the text and twist it so as to make it favor their fancy. For Paul does not say: faith which justifieth by love or faith which makes a person acceptable by love. A sense of that kind they have imagined and foisted upon this text by violence. Much less does the text say: Love makes a person acceptable. No; this is what the apostle says: ‘faith working through love.’ He states that works are performed by faith through love, not that man is justified by love.” The papists, in their antichristian error of work-righteousness, mistake the scope of Gal. 5, 6. That text does not state what faith effects before God, but what it does viewed by itself: it is active through love, after it has obtained for the believer righteousness before God and everlasting salvation. With the papists this error is fundamental, and within the Protestant churches there is also in most instances faulty teaching on this point. After declaring that salvation is altogether by grace, through faith, many Protestants add: “Of course, faith must produce also good works,” because they are afraid the above statement might offend people if it were not qualified. But by adding the qualification, they have perverted and upset their whole preaching; for with that qualification all their preaching about grace and faith is futile and a wasted effort. For what they say with that qualification sounds as if faith were not sufficient for justification and had to be reinforced by love. When you preach on this subject, this is how you must speak: Of course, a person that has not love, let him understand that he has not faith either; hence he cannot be righteous in God’s sight. That is the proper way to speak, not because love justifies a person in God’s sight, but because only that is genuine faith, wrought by God through the Holy Spirit, which flows forth in love of God and our fellow-men. TWENTY-SECOND EVENING LECTURE (March 13, 1885) It is an undeniable fact, my friends, that at the present time there is a greater number of believing theologians than when I was young, fifty years ago. In those days hardly any others than vulgar rationalists occupied not only the ecclesiastical offices created by the government, but also almost all the pulpits. The small number of believing theologians were tolerated, provided they behaved by keeping quiet, made no serious attempt to confess their faith, and, above all, did not zealously oppose the forces of unbelief. What a change has taken place since then within the so-called Protestant Church! Vulgar rationalists, who turn the Bible into a code of ethics and declare the specifically Christian doctrines to be Oriental myths and fantasies, valuable only as far as moral lessons may be drawn from them, — these men have done acting their part and have gone into bankruptcy. Persons laying claim to intelligence nowadays refuse to be classified as vulgar rationalists. True, the so-called Society of Protestants has made an attempt to reintroduce and rehabilitate vulgar rationalism, but without success. Even the spokesmen of the society declare that vulgar rationalism is antiquated. In order to be regarded as a person of brains, it is nowadays absolutely necessary for one to acknowledge that the Christian religion is a religion supernaturally revealed and the Bible in a sense the Word of God, namely, in as far as it contains God’s Word. By what process did these up-to-date “believers” attain to their “faith”? Was it by a living knowledge of their misery under sin? or by a keen perception of their damnable condition and their need of redemption? Alas! there is pitifully little evidence that such has been the case. A careful observer can hardly get any other impression but that they arrived at their faith by rationalistic speculation. That is the reason why nearly all of them reject the verbal inspiration of the Bible and subject all books of the Bible to criticism such as only enemies of the Bible would engage in. Of course, they are not conscious of being enemies of the Bible. They have turned the Christian religion into a religious philosophy. Modern theology, as to its essential qualities, is something entirely and absolutely different from the theology of former times. It does not pretend to be a system of faith, but wants to be a system of science. Modern theologians propose that, starting out from the principles of human knowledge, they are able to prove as absolute truth what the common people merely believe. Accordingly, there is not in modern theologians that fear which animated David when he said: “My flesh trembles for fear of you.” Ps. 119, 120. Such reverence in the presence of Holy Writ is found hardly anywhere. The Bible is nearly everywhere treated like the fables of Aesop. I am telling you the truth when I say this. When you begin later to compare the old with the modern theologians, you will see that I have not exaggerated. Science has been placed on the throne, and theology is made to sit at its feet and await the orders of philosophy. Accordingly, as soon as some one has become prominent in a domain of science that had not been cultivated by any one previously, he is promptly created a doctor of theology, as if science or learning were identical with theology. Oh, my dear friends, unless you keep the light of the pure Gospel shining in this land of the setting sun, which has been visited last by God, it is not possible that the Day of Judgment be delayed. Our time is down to the dregs of the cup. The end is at hand. While the world stands, may God help us, at least in this part of it, which was reached last by the Gospel voice, to remain true to it! Do not forget, my dear friends, that there is but one way to arrive at true faith. God did not construct two or several ways, one for learned, the other for simple folk. God is not a respecter of persons; if the learned scholar wants to become a believer and be saved, he must come down from his height and sit with poor sinners, just like the cowherd and other simple folk. There is no other way to faith than that which leads through a person’s knowledge of his sin and damnable condition, through the inward crushing of his heart in contrition and sorrow. A person that has not come to faith by this way is not a believing Christian, much less a theologian. However, I hope that I shall not be misunderstood when I call the aforementioned matters the only preparation for faith. If this statement is not understood correctly, it may result in an abominable confounding of Law and Gospel. This reflection leads us to the consideration of

Walther, C.F.W.. The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (ESV) (pp. 235-260). Édition du Kindle.

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Thesis XIV In the tenth place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when faith is required as a condition of justification and salvation, as if a person were righteous in the sight of God and saved, not only by faith, but also on account of his faith, for the sake of his faith, and in view of his faith. There are not a few people who imagine that a minister who constantly preaches that man is made righteous in the sight of God and saved by faith is manifestly a genuine evangelical preacher. For what else is to be required of him when everybody knows that salvation by faith is the marrow and essence of the Gospel and the entire Word of God? That is true. A minister who preaches that doctrine is certainly a genuine evangelical preacher. But that fact is not established merely from his use of these words: “Man is made righteous in the sight of God and saved by faith alone,” but from the proper sense that must be connected with these words. The preacher must mean by faith what Scripture means when it employs that term. But here is where many preachers are at fault. By faith they understand something different from what the prophets, the apostles, and our Lord and Savior understood by faith. I pass by the rationalists, who used to preach that man is indeed saved by faith; but by faith in Jesus Christ they understand nothing else than the acceptance of the excellent moral teachings which Christ proclaimed. By accepting these moral teachings, they held, a person becomes a true disciple of the Lord and is made righteous and saved. Take up any rationalistic book of the radical type that was published in the age of Rationalism, and you will see that such was the preaching of vulgar Rationalism. Nor are the papists averse to saying that faith makes a person righteous in the sight of God and saves him. In an emergency they will even say that faith alone makes a person righteous and saves him. But by faith they understand fides formata, faith that is joined with love. Accordingly, they manage to say many excellent things about faith; but by faith they always mean something different from what Scripture teaches concerning faith. Moreover, in the postils and devotional writings of all modern theologians you may find the doctrine that man is made righteous in the sight of God and saved by faith. But by faith they understand nothing but what man himself achieves and produces. Their faith is a product of human energy and resolution. Such teaching, however, subverts the entire Gospel. What God’s Word really means when it says that man is justified and saved by faith alone is nothing else than this: Man is not saved by his own acts, but solely by the doing and dying of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the whole world. Over against this teaching modern theologians assert that in the salvation of man two kinds of activity must be noted: in the first place, there is something that God must do. His part is the most difficult, for He must accomplish the task of redeeming men. But in the second place, something is required that man must do. For it will not do to admit persons to heaven, after they have been redeemed, without further parley. Man must do something really great — he has to believe. This teaching overthrows the Gospel completely. It is a pity that many beautiful sermons of modern theologians ultimately reveal the fact that they mean something entirely different from the plain and clear teaching of Scripture that man is saved, not by what he himself does or achieves, but by what God does and achieves. Hear, for instance, a statement from Luthardt, in his Compend of Theology, p. 202: “On the other hand, repentance and faith are required of man as that part which he is to render: μετανοεῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε — at every stage of the history of salvation. The requirement of repentance can be met immediately by the person who is called by grace, Ps. 95, 7; Heb. 4, 7 ff., while faith is a free act of obedience which man renders.” Note the term “renders”; it refers to the fulfilment of a duty for which a person expects a reward. But faith is not an achievement of man. If it were, it would meet a condition which God had proposed to man; as if God had said: “I have done My share; now you must do yours. I do not ask much of you, but I do require that you repent and believe.” Now, can you consider anything a present that is handed you on condition that you do something for it? No; it ceases to be a present when the donor stipulates one condition or another which the grantee must meet. Here in our country many donations are not valid; accordingly, to make a legally valid donation of something quite valuable, the donor will state that he has received one dollar for it. This is done in bills of sale by which property worth millions of dollars is conveyed. It is a circumvention of the law, which plainly shows the essential difference between giving and selling. Believing the Gospel would be, in truth, an immeasurably great and difficult task for us if God were not to accomplish it in us. But suppose it were not so exceedingly great and difficult; even if it were an easy condition that God had proposed to us for our salvation, our salvation would not be a gift; God would not have given us His Son, but merely offered Him to us with a certain stipulation. That has not been God’s way. The Apostle Paul says: “Justified by his grace as a gift (δωρεάν), through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 3, 24. We are justified δωρεάν, that is gratuitously, without anything, even the least thing, being required of us. Accordingly, we poor sinners praise God for the place of refuge He has prepared for us, where we can flee even when we have to come to Him as utterly lost, insolvent beggars, who have not the least ability to offer to God something that they have achieved. All that we can offer Him is our sins, nothing else. But for that very reason Jesus regards us as His proper clients. We honor Him as our faithful Savior by making His Gospel our refuge; but we deny Him if we come to Him offering Him something for what He gives us. In view of the statement of Peter: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved,” Acts 4, 12, you must regard it as an awful perversion of the Gospel to treat the command to believe as a condition of man’s justification and salvation. Suppose you say to a beggar who approaches you asking alms that you will give him something on one condition, and on his asking you what the condition is, you would tell him the condition is that he accept your gift. Would he not consider your condition a hoax and say, laughing: “Why, most gladly I shall meet your condition, and the more you give, the greater will become my joy in taking it”? True, if a person refuses to believe, nobody can help him. But he must not say that grace was offered with a condition attached to it which he could not meet. God attaches no condition to His grace when He proffers it to a sinner and asks him to accept it. It would be no gift if He were to attach a condition, just as little as it is a gift when I ask a tramp to work in my garden if he wants me to give him something to eat. Such a person I treat in accordance with 2 Thess. 3, 10: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat,” and thus keep him from vagrancy. You see, then, what a perversion of the Gospel it is to treat faith as a condition of salvation. Our recent predestinarian controversy shows how easy it is to err in this matter. Our adversaries stumble at our doctrine that God has not foreseen anything in the elect that could have prompted Him to elect them, but that His election is one of unconstrained mercy. They are shocked because, in accordance with the Formula of Concord, we teach that there are only two causes of salvation, namely, the mercy of God and the merit of Christ. They imagine that God is partial, saying He elects some and neglects others, reprobating them. This is an inference which they draw, and it is one for which they deserve no commendation. Instead of trying to save God from the charge of partiality by assuming a difference in the person whom He elects when compared with the others, they should consider that man is justified and saved by faith, not on account of faith. Our old theologians have said that people who charge God with being partial deserve to be whipped. The German theologians come out more boldly with their opinion, while our adversaries here in America are more wary. The latter adhere to the formula intuitu fidei of the old dogmaticians and say that God elected men “in view of their faith.” They seek shelter behind the old dogmaticians; but their stratagem is futile, because they use the formula in a sense different from that in which the old dogmaticians employed it. Our adversaries state plainly that God has decreed to elect certain men in view of their conduct, or they use similar terms. Turn and twist as much as they will, they declare that something which man does is the cause of his salvation. If John Gerhard and Egidius Hunnius were to rise from the dead and see that our adversaries in the present controversy on predestination appeal to them as their authorities, they would be amazed; for it can be plainly shown that they have rejected and abominated the doctrine of our adversaries. John Gerhard, in his Chapters in Theology, writes (Locus de Evang., § 26): “We hold that the Law differs from the Gospel, in the third place, as regards the promises. Those of the Law are conditioned, for they stipulate perfect obedience and demand perfect obedience as the condition of their realization… . Lev. 18, 5: ‘You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them.” But the promises of the Gospel are gratuitous and are offered as gifts (donative). Accordingly, the Gospel is called the word of God’s grace, and Rom. 4, 16 states: ‘That is why it [righteousness] depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace.’ ” This citation shows the reason why this thesis was embodied in the present series. A person teaching that “faith is a condition which the Gospel stipulates” makes the promises of the Gospel conditioned promises like those of the Law and removes the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. The Law promises no good thing except on condition that a person comply perfectly with its demands, while the Gospel promises everything unconditionally as a free gift. In short, the promises of grace demand nothing of man. When the Lord says, “Believe,” He does not utter a demand, but issues an urgent invitation to man to take, to apprehend, to appropriate what He is giving, without asking anything in return for it. The gift must, of course, be accepted. Non-acceptance forfeits the gift, but not because there was a condition attached to it. Again, Gerhard says: “Faith is not placed in opposition to grace, even as the beggar’s act of accepting a gift is not placed in opposition to the free bounty of the giver.” A beggar would be insane if he were to say to the donor: “What? I am still to do the accepting?” and would be told to be gone with his silliness. Gerhard continues: “The term ‘if’ is either etiological or syllogistic; that is, it signifies either a cause or a consequence. In the preaching of the Law the statement: ‘If you do this, you shall live,’ the term is etiological; it signifies the cause, or reason; for obedience is the reason why eternal life is given to those who keep the Law. But in evangelical promises the term ‘if’ is syllogistic; it signifies a consequence; for it relates to the mode of application which God has appointed for these promises, and that is faith alone.” If faith is called an achievement of man, the demand for it makes faith a condition that man must meet by his own effort. That is the reason why the aforementioned error of Luthardt is so great; it vitiates his entire theology. Adam Osiander, in his Collegium Theologicum, tom. V, 140, writes: “Faith does not justify in so far as it is obedience in compliance with a command, — for thus viewed, it is an action, a work, and something required by Law, — but only in so far as it receives and is attached to justification after the manner of a passive instrument.” This citation shows again that our thesis belongs in this series on the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. If faith is obedience, it is a work of the Law, and the Apostle Paul was altogether wrong when he declared that a person is justified without the deeds of the Law, by faith alone. However, it is not he that is wrong, but the modern theologians. Faith is merely a passive instrument, like a hand into which some one places a dollar. The person receives the dollar provided he does not withdraw his hand; beyond that he does not have to do anything. The donor is doing the essential part by putting the gift into the hand, not the other party, by holding out the hand. Let a beggar approach a miser and see what his holding out of the hand to him will help him; the miser may set his dogs upon him if he annoys him too much. To cite Gerhard once more, he writes (Loc. de justific., § 179): “It is one thing to be justified on account of faith and another to be justified by faith. In the former view, faith is the meritorious, in the latter, the instrumental cause. [There must be an organ by which I come into the possession and enjoyment of what some one offers me.] We are not justified on account of faith as a merit, but by faith which lays hold of the merit of Christ.” It is not my own merit that saves me, but the merit of Christ. However, as regards the simile that has been adduced, the old axiom must be noted: Omne simile est dissimile (In every simile there is some element of dissimilarity). Otherwise it would not be a simile, but identity. When I hold out my hand, I make a motion. This point must not be pressed in the case of man’s faith. For it is God who prompts the holding out of the hand after He has prepared a sinner for the Gospel by means of the Law. Of course, God cannot prompt a person who continues, and is determined to continue, in his sinful life and makes a mockery of God’s Word. John Olearius, who completed that splendid treatise of Carpzov, Isagoge in Libros Symbolicos (Introduction to the Symbolical Books), says (p. 1361): “In relation to salvation, faith is not our work, but it belongs to the order of salvation which God has laid down, and for this reason it is not by any means a condition in the proper sense of the term, depending on man, but it is a blessing from our Father in heaven, or a requisite which is furnished to a person who merely suffers it to be furnished him, or an instrument which lays hold of salvation. It is in no way the active cause that proceeds from man and has an influence, after the manner of a cause properly so called, in bringing about a person’s salvation.” Remember this well: In a certain sense it might be said that faith is man’s work, because it is not God that believes, but man. However, this is liable to be misunderstood, and therefore we should not speak thus. Faith is not an achievement of ours, but is wrought in us by God without our contributing anything towards that end. The old dogmaticians built up their dogmatic treatises by the causal method, considering everything from the viewpoint of a cause. It was a dangerous method. When they came to the element of faith, they were perplexed about what kind of cause to call it and hit upon the term causa instrumentalis, instrumental, or organic, cause. Now, you may run through the whole Bible, and you will not find a single passage which states that man is justified on account of his faith. Wherever the relation of faith to justification is spoken of, terms are used which declare faith a means, not a cause. That is evidence sufficient to show what the Bible doctrine on this point is. You will either have to put the Bible aside and choose a different calling, or if you must enter the ministry because God constrains you, this is what you will have to teach concerning faith in strict accordance with God’s Word. The excellent Wurttemberg theologian Heerbrand wrote a compend of theology that was even translated into Greek and sent to the Patriarch of Constantinople. He says: “Faith is not a condition, nor is it, properly speaking, required as a condition, because justification is not promised and offered on account of the worth or meritoriousness of faith or in as far as faith is a work. For faith, too, is imperfect; however, it is a mode of receiving the blessing offered men through and on account of Christ.” Now, it would be silly to call faith a condition nevertheless; for, says Heerbrand, “the hand is not called the condition, but the organ and instrument, for receiving alms.” To conclude, Calov, in his Biblia Illustrata, commenting on Rom. 5, 10, says: “We have not been redeemed and reconciled, nor have our sins been atoned for, under a condition, but we have been absolutely redeemed in the most perfect and complete manner, as far as merit and efficacy of the act are concerned; although, as regards the actual enjoyment and appropriation of salvation, faith is necessary, which is nothing else than the appropriation of the atonement, satisfaction, and reconciliation of Christ; for, in the judgment of God, if One died for all, it is the same as if all had died. 2 Cor. 5, 14. This is a golden text, which shines with the radiance of the sun even in the luminous Scriptures. Since the death which Christ died for all is a death for the purpose of reconciliation, it is the same as if all had suffered death for this purpose. It follows, then, that, without entertaining the least doubt, I can say with perfect assurance: I am redeemed; I am reconciled; salvation has been acquired for me.” TWENTY-SIXTH EVENING LECTURE (May 1, 1885) In order to be a true Christian genuine faith is an indispensable requisite. However, in order to be a true minister, genuine faith is not sufficient, but there must be, in addition to faith, the ability to express in proper terms the things that must be believed. Accordingly, the holy Apostle Paul enjoins upon his assistant Timothy with great earnestness this duty: “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” 2 Tim. 1, 13. It is indeed indispensable for a minister to have genuine faith in his heart and to guard well this mystery of faith in his heart; however, it is equally indispensable that he present the true faith in “sound words,” as the apostle expresses it, that is, in clear, plain, unmistakable, and adequate terms. This is a warning to be heeded particularly by those young theologians who were not reared in the sound words of faith as Timothy was, according to the report of the Apostle Paul; who did not from a child hear the true doctrine, but, instead, heard the teaching of rationalistic preachers or of believing preachers of the modern type. Some erroneous expression that is fundamentally wrong may have stuck in their memory, and they will probably make use of it in their sermons to the great injury of their hearers. You know that rationalistic preachers refer to repentance and conversion by calling it amending, or reforming, one’s life; to sanctification, by calling it walking in the path of virtue; to the anger of God, by calling it the serious purpose of God; to the predestination of God, by calling it men’s fate; to the Gospel, by calling it the teaching of Jesus. Any one who has heard these phrases since his childhood days may easily adopt this dangerous rationalistic terminology in his sermons, even if he does not do it because he harbors a wrong belief. However, even believing theologians of the modern type are frequently too timid to use technical terms that are fully warranted by Biblical and ecclesiastical usage, because they are afraid that these terms might prove offensive to their audience. They are averse to speaking of hereditary sin in their sermons or of the wrath of God against sinners, of the blindness of natural man, of spiritual death, in which all men are merged by nature. They do not like to speak of the devil going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, because that would make them unpopular with their hearers. They are disinclined to speak of the everlasting fire of hell, of eternal torment and damnation; they prefer to speak of these matters to their hearers in terms that do not seem so strange, faulty, and offensive to them, employing phrases that are more in harmony with “the religious sentiment of an enlightened people.” Now, there is no doubt that these men wish to convert people by using such false terms. They believe that they can convert men by concealing things from them or by presenting matters in a manner that is pleasing to men as they are by nature. They are like sorry physicians who do not like to prescribe a bitter medicine to delicate patients, or if they do prescribe it, they add so much sugar to it that the patient does not taste the bitter medicine, with the result that the effect is spoiled. Accordingly, preachers who do not clearly and plainly proclaim the Gospel, which is offensive to the world, are not faithful in the discharge of their ministry and inflict great injury on men’s souls. Instead of advancing Christians in the knowledge of the pure doctrine, they allow them to grope in the dark, nurse false imaginations in them, and speed them on in their false and dangerous path. The history of the Church shows how dangerous it is when theologians, otherwise reputed as orthodox, use wrong terms, which can easily be misunderstood. As a result, the most abominable heretics, to cover up their errors with a halo of sanctity, have appealed to phrases which men admittedly orthodox have used. These heretics have deprecated being denounced for the use of terms which were accepted without question from men regarded as orthodox. True, the faulty expressions which orthodox teachers used in a right sense are used by these heretics to hide their error. Nevertheless, those who first used these expressions and believed that they were using them in the right sense are not altogether without blame. In the manner aforestated Arius, Nestorius, all the scholastics, etc., appealed to men whose orthodoxy was acknowledged and thus created the impression that they were continuing to teach the doctrine of the old Church and that their opponents must be false teachers. Bear this in mind, my dear friends, and consider that as ministers of the Gospel it is your duty not only to believe as the Church believes, but also to speak in harmony with the Christian Church. Accordingly, before you commit your sermons to memory and deliver them to your congregations, you must subject your manuscript to a severe critique, to ascertain not only whether your sermons are according to the analogy of faith, but also whether you have throughout chosen proper terms, lest against your own intention you destroy where you want to build up. This is of the utmost importance. That is the reason why our Church from the very beginning declared that it requires its preachers “not to depart an inch” from its confessions, not to turn aside from the doctrines laid down in them, non tantum in rebus, sed etiam in phrasibus, that is, both as regards the matter offered in their sermons and the manner of their teaching. This is indeed a great task, requiring hard study. However, in three years you can accomplish a great deal. At the close of your theological triennium those of you who have faithfully applied themselves will know — some more, some less — not only what the true doctrine is, but also how it must be presented. The task will be somewhat more difficult to those of you in particular who have had to listen to perverse teachers nearly throughout their youth. They will reveal in their sermons that they have not been brought up in the sound words of faith. Proper terms must be employed, for the Apostle Paul beseeches the entire congregation at Corinth to “speak the same thing.” 1 Cor. 1, 10. [NKJV] They are not to use divergent terms when expounding the same doctrine. The apostle adds another important remark: “that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” Teaching the same doctrine is of no avail if it is not done in the same mind and in the same judgment. The United (unierte) Church affords a pertinent illustration. Its teachers may speak as we do, but they do not connect the same sense and meaning with the words that we do. These two things, then, are required of you: the same doctrine in the same terms and the same mind and judgment. In our fifteenth thesis we are taking up the study of an instance which shows the injury that may be wrought by a faulty expression.

Walther, C.F.W.. The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (ESV) (pp. 295-305). Édition du Kindle.