Lutheran Quote of the Day: Forell on Unbelief and Sin

"Man's predicament is that he who was created by the love of God to trust in God lives in unbelief and distrust. Pride in relationship to God is unbelief: we do not even believe that he is God. We live as if there were no God. And yet somehow we know that we are not really alone, that we are not merely whistling in the dark. Somehow we know that we are not really the Atlas that carries the universe. Somehow we know that we are not the masters of our fate or the captains of our soul. God is all about us. In him we live and move and have our being--and yet we do not believe. Theologically speaking, unbelief is the basic sin, the ultimate sin: unbelief in the love of God in the very face of this love; unbelief in death in the very face of death; and unbelief in the judgment of God in the very face of his judgment.

"Man looked at from the point of view of revelation looks far different from the man we discussed philosophically and religiously so far. In the light of revelation, man is incurably ill. His disease is sin, the "sickness unto death." It is a disease which he has contracted voluntarily but which he cannot get rid of voluntarily. It is a disease that affects and corrupts everything he does but above all a disease that separates him from his Creator and condemns him to meaninglessness and hopelessness. The disease creates many outward signs. We could mention the tradition capital vices as examples--pride, envy, anger, covetousness, sloth, gluttony, and lust. But theologically speaking, we must say all these characteristics of the disease are expressions of one basic trouble--the chief sin from which all others descend is unbelief. It is because man does not believe in God that he cannot live a meaningful life. As long as unbelief rule men's hearts the Christian life is impossible. It is unbelief which separates man from God, unbelief which brings him into judgment, unbelief that dooms him for all eternity. Man created in God's image becomes through unbelief a caricature. Created to reveal God's love, he chooses to reveal God's wrath and judgment."

--

-George W. Forell, Ethics of Decision (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955), 78-79.

Faith, Fellowship, and Command

The basis of Adam and Eve's fellowship with God and the role of the command not to eat from the tree raises interesting questions for us as believers. Just what, exactly, establishes our fellowship with God? To observe the command not to eat from the tree, and to observe the result that occurred from the eating from that tree, one might come to believe that the status of man's relationship with God has an ethical basis.

The result of such musings has corrupted a true understanding of what it means to receive life from God. We begin to talk about Adam and Eve's moral capabilities; we say: "posse non peccare et posse peccare," that is, they had the ability not to sin and the ability to sin. We begin to talk of their powers. We begin to talk of a donum superadditum, a superadded grace that gave Adam and Eve certain moral capabilities. All of this points, even if it is denied, to an understanding that life in pristine communion with God is established on an ethical basis. It is to talk of what Adam and Eve could or could not do to remain in their relationship with God, thus making man, not God, the source of the communion between them.

Many problems arise from this understanding. First of all, it makes moral capability into a substance and power that man has in himself. This raises a troubling question: If Adam and Eve's ability to remain in a proper relationship with God was determined by their nature, something they had in themselves, why didn't God make their natures stronger so that they could resist the temptations of Satan? And, if God had done this, what implications does this have for free will? I first puzzled over this, oddly enough, when reading Milton's Paradise Lost.

One of two conclusions become clear, 1) this is an inadequate understanding of fellowship with God and another must be looked for, or 2) we chalk it up to a divine mystery.

The answer, I believe, is sitting right under our noses, and that is, God's grace through faith. Specifically, the Lutheran understanding of faith. Faith is the only way we can uphold that 1) Fellowship with God is completely a gift from God, 2) uphold that Adam and Eve had free will, and 3) It was not Adam and Eve's nature that determined if they continued to have fellowship with God.

If this were otherwise, a few Lutheran teachings would be compromised. One thing this would mean is that sanctification would have to be, whether we like it or not, to whatever extent, a matter of a gratia infusa, an infused grace. It would be a grace that would be instilled in us that would correct and heal our natures and make them strong enough at a certain point so that we could return to the pristine fellowship with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed. It would be a grace that we, as we grew in moral capacities, would be weaned off of so that we could stand on our own two feet before the face of God. This would also mean that, as man's nature is healed, he would begin to be able to believe in God by his own power; faith would, at a certain point, no longer remain monergistic. These things would not only be true of the consummation of our restoration with God, it would also be true of the sanctification process this side of the grave.

1:

Paul Althaus writes:

"Human ethics can never play the role of securing or preserving man's position before God. This position is something given to him by God's love; it is not earned, nor can it be earned. And this is true not only at the outset, but always; God's saving grace is always prevenient grace. Ethical righteousness as a pathway to salvation is not only an impassible, but also a forbidden, pathway. For to follow this pathway would be to surrender the relationship of childlike trust."

Althaus tells us that to make our thinking and action the determining factor of our status before God is to fall into the same sin of Adam and Eve; he writes: "It is an expression of his sin, indeed of the basal sin by which he fell and continually falls away from trusting faith in God's love."

If fellowship with God is a gift, then, according to a Lutheran understanding, it can only be received with the open hands of faith; it cannot be enacted and/or preserved through our action. If fellowship with God was enacted and/or preserved through our action, it would cease to be a gift from God. Therefore, fellowship with God is a matter of faith, not of ethics.

Written into this gift of fellowship with God is the shape of the divine life before God, man, and the rest of creation. This is not a condition placed on top of fellowship with God (e.g. Yes, you have fellowship with God, but you must also do. . . if you desire to remain in this fellowship), rather, it is an expression of what it means to live in meaningful and self-giving relationships, reflective of God's own self-giving. It is not even a give and take situation; the life of self-giving is an outflowing of God's own love towards us. There is no disjunction here; God's love toward us is the same love that is expressed through us back towards God, neighbor, and in faithful stewardship of God's creation. In the pristine state of fellowship with God, there is no distinction between indicative and imperative. The gebot (command), as Althaus states, "is present as the reverse side of the offer [Augebot] with which the eternal love of God originally encounters man. Love's offer says: God wants to be for me; he wants to be my God. He has created me as man, and this means, for personal fellowship with him--for participation in his life in the partnership of love. Just as he, my God, freely gives himself to me, so he calls me also, in his offer, to free self-giving. Thereby he calls me to be his image. Such is his love."

In man's pristine state, there is no distinction between what God wills and accomplishes towards us (indicative), and what he wills and desires from us (imperative); all is wrapped up in the single and undivided will of God towards us, that is, the gift of divine fellowship with him and the rest of creation. As David Scaer writes:

"The law in its earliest expression is a positive statement of God's relationship to the world and the world's relationship to God. In this form the law is more indicative than imperative. It is more description than it is requirement. To say it better, in this form the law's imperative nature and the indicative of God's and man's relationship to each other are perfectly harmonized. . . The distinction between indicative and imperative is theologically unjustifiable for saints as saints." (“Sanctification in Lutheran Theology,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 49, no.
2-3 (1985), 186.)

In his pristine state, man's recognition of God's love towards him in creation, his promise to sustain and provide for his life, and the promise of fellowship with himself and with fellow man is no different than man's recognition that God, in his commands for us, desires only our blessing and benefit. Althaus writes: "Thus the command promises life; it is a commandment eis zoen (Rom. 7:10). It calls me into life with God; that is, into freedom. . . and into love, which is true life." Therefore, to question and reject God's commandment not to eat from the tree is to question and reject the life God offered them. David Scaer writes:

"He was prohibited from stepping out of this positive relationship with God. But this prohibition is not arbitrarily superimposed on man to test him, but was simply the explanation or description of what would happen to man if he stepped outside of the relationship with God in which he was created. The indicative was its own imperative. . . By stepping outside of the created order, man brought calamity upon himself. The act provided its own consequences. In attempting to become like God he placed himself outside a positive relationship with God, so that now God was seen as the enemy placing unjust demands upon him." ("The Law and the Gospel in Lutheran Theology," Logia 3, no. 1 (1994), 30.)

Consequently, to reject God's command is to reject God himself, to question whether God has the best intentions for us. It is fundamentally an expression of a lack of faith, a lack of trust in God's love and care for us. The fall of man is not a reflection of a default in the nature of man, and thus in God's ability to create, but rather affirms the fact that as beings that are created free, we have a question that is ever before of us: whether we will have faith in God's gracious favor and will towards us (both indicative and imperative), or whether we will reject God's favor and will.

2:

Piotr Malysz writes:

"Humans are created to love God, their fellow man, and God’s gift of creation. By definition, they are social and vocational beings, relating to others in such a way as to further their good through God appointed means. In so doing, they surrender their being in all its individualism only to gain it back, in, with and through the being of another. Only by receiving and giving can they realize their humanity. Only thus can they be human beings.

"It has already been indicated that love consists in self-giving. Naturally there can be no love under coercion. Thus with its origin in the divine love, human existence is one of freedom. God did not create automatons but beings that were beautiful, interesting and worthwhile for their own sake—individuals with the capacity, of their own free will, to reflect the love received. A loving relationship by nature implies an option for un-love. Love as self-giving implies the possibility of rejection. It is in this context of what love is that the presence in the garden of the tree of knowledge of good and evil finds its purpose. To Adam and Eve was entrusted all that God had created with the exception of one tree, of which they were expressly forbidden to eat. In negative terms, the tree presents itself as an alternative to God's love; it makes the possibility of choosing un-love, or self-love, a real one. In positive terms, it underscores the free and self-giving character of the divine-human relationship, pointing to the centrality of love in the constitution of man. From man's perspective, it makes love possible. Finally, it points to the fundamental significance of trust as an inseparable aspect of love. Adam and Eve knew their creator intimately in his self-sharing. All they were and all that they had came from him. It would seem there surely was a significant basis for trust. And yet, incomprehensibly but in how familiar a way, they gave credence to the serpent's deceitful promise." ("Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall," Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 13.)

He writes: "There can be no love under coercion." As beings that are created free, there must always be the possibility to reject God's offer of the divine life. This is not ethically determined but rather reflects the necessity of freedom to mark relationships of self-giving love. For this reason the imperative must always remain. Althaus writes:

"The command is grounded wholly in the offer; it is wholly borne by God's gift to us. It is this gift that stands at the beginning: God's wanting to be for us. The offer, not the command, is primary. But precisely because this is an offer made in love--love that seeks me as a person--this offer, this gift, necessarily (with the necessity of God's love) becomes also a summons. God cannot be my God in a saving way unless I let him be my God. Otherwise the nature of the personal relationship, as God himself intends it, would be contradicted. He calls me to trust him above all things."

The option for un-love must always remain a real one; we cannot be and remain truly human, living in a meaningful relationship with God if, for whatever reason, we are not able to reject God and his love. This is what separates us from the rest of God's creation, it is what makes our expressions of love toward God and neighbor meaningful.

It might be objected, here, that this means nothing else than that fellowship with God is ultimately determined by man's decision to accept God in faith or reject him, thus making fellowship ethically determined. This objection, though, is a misunderstanding of faith, and how it is created and sustained.

3:

If Adam and Eve's power and ability to remain in fellowship with God is something that was written into man himself, into his nature (posse non peccare), the posse peccare would be either a deficiency of that nature or would be its own (negative) power and ability. To say such is to misunderstand what nature is. It is true that man has a heart, mind, and will whose intentionality determines whether we are slaves to sin or are sons of God, the question is where does the quality of heart, mind, and will come from? Was the quality of Adam and Eve's heart, mind, and will, something that they had located in themselves, written into their very natures at creation? If so, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the fall was a product of a qualitative deficiency in Adam and Eve's nature, and thus a deficiency in creation itself.

All of this is to misunderstand the character of the life Adam and Eve received from God. If fellowship with God is determined by a qualitative nature inherent in Adam and Eve, it can only be continually realized by Adam and Eve's autonomous moral exertion. Creation and fellowship with God can no longer be a gift that is received. Even if fellowship was originally a gift, through creation, its continued realization would be determined by man alone.

Roman Catholic theology has avoided an implication that there was something deficient in the nature of man by making a distinction between the image of God and the likeness of God. The image of God is seen as the faculties identified with man's rational capacities. The likeness of God was a donum superadditum, a super added gift given to man up and above his nature that made him capable of remaining in his pristine relationship with God. Saint Augustine writes: "Man was, therefore, made upright, and in such a fashion that he could either continue in that uprightness—though not without divine aid—or become perverted by his own choice." Even this, though, implies that something was lacking in man's creation. It paints a type of synergistic understanding of fellowship with God--partly man's naturally given abilities, partly God's divine gift. On the other hand, what this avoids is an understanding that man was not given enough "stuff" to remain in pristine bliss; what this upholds is that man alone is at fault for the fall of mankind.

It is this author's opinion that pristine fellowship with God never devolves from being pure gift into being continually realized only through autonomous moral action. And as gift, as with all of God's divine giving, it can only be received with the open hands of faith. Emil Brunner writes:

"Human existence was originally disposed for the reception of this gift, not for meeting an obligation by means of our own efforts. It is thus that we come to understand ourselves once more--our being according to the Imago Dei-- in the light of the New Testament, since we are renewed unto this image, through the Word that gives, through the self-sacrificing love of God, through a purely receptive faith." (Emil Brunner, Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology, trans. Olive Wyon (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2002), 104.)

What we call man's "nature" in pristine bliss is not something that is self-realized as something he has in himself, rather, it is only realized through relation to God's continual self-giving love. Brunner writes:

"Man ought not to understand himself in the light of his own nature, nor should he regard himself as due to 'something,' but that he must understand himself in light of the Eternal Word, which precedes man's existence, and yet imparts Himself to him. Man possesses--and this is his nature-- One who stands 'over-against' him, One whose will and thought are directed to him, One who loves him, One who calls him, in and from and for: love. And this One who confronts man, and imparts Himself to him, is the ground of man's being and nature." (77)

We mentioned earlier man's heart, mind and will. It is true that in paradise our parents' heart, mind, and wills were directed toward and were in complete harmony with God's will. It is also true that man's heart, mind, and will, in his fallen state, is directed toward sin and is in complete contradiction to God's will. We agree, therefore, that both man in pristine bliss and man in his fallen state has a heart, mind and will. What is the distinction between these things? Is it a matter of moral energies? Was it a matter of Adam and Eve's heart, mind, and will being more powerful than a fallen heart, mind, and will? It is a matter of determining if these "moral energies" were something that man had in himself, in his nature, or if they were the continual gift of God's grace working through the Word, accepted through faith.

The Reformed theologian, G. C. Berkouwer, writes against this understanding of a self-enclosed nature, without relation to God's work:

"Every view of man which sees him as an isolated unity is incorrect. There have frequently been attempts to draw a picture of man through an elaborate and detailed analysis of man an sich, in himself, whereby man's relation to God was necessarily thought of as something added to man's self-enclosed nature, a donum superadditum, a "plus factor." But the light of revelation, when dealing with man's nature, is not concerned with information about such a self-enclosed nature; it is concerned with a nature which is not self-enclosed, and which can never be understood outside of its relation to God, since such a self-enclosed nature, an isolated nature, is nothing but an abstraction. The relation of man's nature to God is not something which is added to an already complete, self-enclosed, isolated nature; it is essential and constitutive for man's nature, and man cannot be understood apart from this relation." (G.C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, trans. Dirk Jellema (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1984), 22-23.)

As such, God grace does not add to nature, nor does it discredit nature (two things a donum superadditum admits), rather, God's grace constitutes true nature as it was intended. The correct understanding of man's heart, mind, and will in pristine bliss tells us that their qualitative nature was not found as existing in man himself, but as coming through God's gracious will towards us, received through faith.

This is no less true of faith itself. The gift of faith does not add to nature, nor does it discredit nature, rather, true nature can only be received through this same gift of faith:

"Faith is not a gift in the sense of a donum superadditum added to human nature as a new organ. This would mean that an unbeliever is less of a human than a believer. Such a notion is the result of cutting off faith from total concreteness of human life. It may seem to honor the miracle of this gift the more, but actually it does injustice to the gift itself. Faith is neither a newly created human organ nor a new substance which is infused into the level of human existence. If it were, it would be scarcely distinguishable from the Roman donum superadditum. We cannot get at grace by compiling a studied list of anthropological data. The whole man beginning at his heart. . .is embraced by this immutable and miraculous divine grace. This is the miracle of the Spirit that remains indescribable although the attempts to describe and define it are legion. Istead of calling faith a new organ or a donum superadditum, the work of the Holy Spirit has been described as the great change of course from the way of apostacy to the way of the true God." (G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification, trans. Lewis Smedes (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979), 191.)

This is what distinguishes fellowship with God that is based on ethics and fellowship which is based on grace received through faith. Far from being a matter of ethical powers inherent in man, the issue becomes a matter of whether man is directed toward, and thus receives his life from, God in faith, or whether he turns away from God due to mistrust and lack of faith. The former is the gift and fruit of God's grace alone, the latter is the fruit of man's mistrust and misunderstanding of God's nature as love.

The latter is not a fault in nature, rather, it is the rejection of nature, the life Adam and Eve received right from the mouth of God. Emil Brunner writes:

"Man's being as man is both in one, nature and grace. The fact that man is determined by God is the original real nature of man; and what we now know in man as his 'nature' is de-natured nature, it is only a meagre relic of his original human nature. Through sin man has lost not a 'super-nature' but his God-given nature, and has become unnatural, inhuman. To begin the understanding of man with a neutral natural concept--animal rationale-- means a hopeless misunderstanding of the being of man from the very outset. Man is not a 'two-storey' creature, but--even if now corrupted-- a unity. His relation to God is not something which is added to his human nature; it is the core and ground of his humanitas. That was Luther's revolutionary discovery." (94)

Growth in sanctification that will be consumated in heaven is a growth in grace; it is not a growth of human nature so that, eventually, man no longer needs God's grace. The closer we grow towards God, the more we forsake "our own" powers and rely more and more on God's grace. Brunner writes: "The maximum of [man's] dependence on God is at the same time the maximum of his freedom, and his freedom decreases with his degree of distance from the place of his origin, from God." (263) We hear from William Lazareth: "Our growth is by way of God’s grace and not by our works; we grow theonomously more and more (and not autonomously less and less) in our total dependence on God’s unmerited favor." And again: "The more we grow, the more dependent we become on the gifts granted by the ethical governance of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who always accompanies the church’s holy Word and blessed sacraments." (Christians in Society: Luther, the Bible, and Social Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 201; 211.)

This is the only way that fellowship with God can remain gratia purum, pure gift. Once fellowship with God is turned into something that is determined by something man has in himself, with his own action and thinking, fellowship no longer remains gift. Just like Adam and Eve, it would be a matter of saying: Now that you are saved (created, for Adam and Eve) by grace, now retain this restored fellowship with God by works. On the other hand, as a gift, the option for its rejection remains a real one. To reject the gift is to turn away from God's will--whether indicative or imperative. To reject and break God's commandment was to reject God himself and his will for Adam and Eve's lives in fellowship with him. In breaking the commandment, Adam and Eve express their lack of trust that God's will for them has their best interests in mind. It is a turning away from childlike trust in God's promises, and a placing of their faith in the "serpent's deceitful promise." This is the only way to understand God's will for mankind; it is either accepted in childlike faith that it seeks only my life, or it is treated with suspicion and must be explained away through theological schemes and formulas.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on the Incarnation

"God's continued self-giving reached its apex and most perfect manifestation in his offering of himself to man in the most intimate of ways--by becoming man and sharing in the humanity of his children (Heb2:14).

"The incarnation is fundamentally consistent with God's preservation of the whole creation and thus with his very being. It is an extension of his loving presence. What is of significance is that God the Son was "made like his brothers in every way. . .yet was without sin" (Heb 2:17; 4:15). He became a man perfect in his humanity, with the fullness of its God-given relational potential, only to take upon himself our isolation and enslavement. He thus conquered sin by trustingly offering himself both to God and fellow men, even to the point of death. In the midst of life's ambivalence, he exposed with utmost clarity the deceptive nature of sin, based as it is on a fundamental denial of God's nature as love. Thus in Christ, the despairing sinner again perceives the astounding faithfulness and the life-bestowing love of God--not merely for himself but for all of creation."

-

-Piotr Malysz, “Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall,” Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 17.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on the Primal Nature of the Command

"What is significant about Adam is that he alone becomes the locus of God's self-sharing. In Adam God reveals himself as self-giving, as love. Through creation, he who already perfectly and sufficiently affirms otherness within himself--as Father, Son and Holy Spirit-- freely reaches out to another. On other words, man is the only creature willed by God for its own sake. Such is the nature of love. It affirms another not because of a vested interest, but freely and disinterestedly, for the other's sake. It finds the other beautiful and interesting.

"God's love, as it finds beauty and a source of interest in the other, truly creates the other to be beautiful and interesting. Thus, surveying his creative work, God was able to conclude approvingly that "it was very good" (Gn 1:31). The divine self-sharing manifests itself, in the first place, in the act of creation itself. But it goes much further. Man receives God's blessing, as he it told to "be fruitful and increase in number." All that God has created is now entrusted to him to rule over and to subdue (Gn 1:28). What this means is that creation is God's gift to be used in a meaningful and responsible way. Finally, God shares with man his own being. The latter not only has a direct and personal experience of his Creator, but is himself created to reflect the being of God.

"Man is created with a capacity to love and to reciprocate love. Like God he has the ability to go beyond himself. In the same way that God affirms otherness within himself, man, too, is made to affirm another, so that the two "will become one flesh" (Gn 2:24). Further he is endowed with the capacity to affirm creation--it finds its meaning in his responsible and God-like stewardship. As one commentator put it, "while [man] is not divine, his very existence bears witness to the activity of God in the life of the world." In other words, just as God finds Adam and Eve worthwhile and interesting in and of themselves, humans, likewise, are to find God's gift of creation worthwhile in and of itself. Creation is not to be abused. Humans are created to love God, their fellow man, and God’s gift of creation. By definition, they are social and vocational beings, relating to others in such a way as to further their good through God appointed means. In so doing, they surrender their being in all its individualism only to gain it back, in, with and through the being of another. Only by receiving and giving can they realize their humanity. Only thus can they be human beings.

"It has already been indicated that love consists in self-giving. Naturally there can be no love under coercion. Thus with its origin in the divine love, human existence is one of freedom. God did not create automatons but beings that were beautiful, interesting and worthwhile for their own sake—individuals with the capacity, of their own free will, to reflect the love received. A loving relationship by nature implies an option for un-love. Love as self-giving implies the possibility of rejection. It is in this context of what love is that the presence in the garden of the tree of knowledge of good and evil finds its purpose. To Adam and Eve was entrusted all that God had created with the exception of one tree, of which they were expressly forbidden to eat. In negative terms, the tree presents itself as an alternative to God's love; it makes the possibility of choosing un-love, or self-love, a real one. In positive terms, it underscores the free and self-giving character of the divine-human relationship, pointing to the centrality of love in the constitution of man. From man's perspective, it makes love possible. Finally, it points to the fundamental significance of trust as an inseparable aspect of love. Adam and Eve knew their creator intimately in his self-sharing. All they were and all that they had came from him. It would seem there surely was a significant basis for trust. And yet, incomprehensibly but in how familiar a way, they gave credence to the serpent's deceitful promise.

"The fall is often portrayed as a transgression of what seemed to be an otherwise arbitrary command. We have already demonstrated that the command was far from arbitrary. Neither was it meant to stress the importance of divinely established order, as if God's self-giving were a mere show. The command was not there to put man in place and show him who really was in charge. On the contrary, it was there to complete his humanness in its capacity for love and freedom."

-Piotr Malysz, “Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall,” Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 13.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: David Scaer on the Law

This is an extended quote from an older article by David Scaer. I think it expresses well some of my own thoughts on the topic. Namely is the topic of the spirit and the flesh, new man and old man. Forde does not address this issue at all, but this is really how the Christian's interaction with the law is presented in Scripture, especially in Paul (Cf. Rom. 7). The fact that the Christian, at one and the same time, both delights in and hates the law does not mean that man himself is the arbiter of how he reacts to the law. This is what Forde was most concerned about, that is, that man would put himself above the law, and thus dispose of it with either his thinking or actions; it would be a premature translation into the eschaton. An understanding of flesh and spirit, and with this the third use of the law, does not imply that man's positive disposition to the law is something that is determined by something "inside" of man, rather the disposition of the spirit, and the third use is clearly depicted as the work of God. If anything, Paul's depiction of the spirit and the flesh in Romans 7 shows how little he himself had over his interaction with the law, but at the same time, Paul also acknowledges that the Christian is critically engaged in and personally aware of how the Spirit is working himself out in our spirit. With Forde's desire to make it clear that man had no role in translating himself into the new age, he also disposed of man himself and the dynamic and very personal experience of what it means to be a Christian and to be confronted with God's Word. His interpretation of the third use of the law is telling in this regard. Gerhard Forde's most vocal complaint against the third use is the idea that the Christian can somehow use the law in a third way. This, though, is clearly a misunderstanding of the third use of the law. Article VI, of the Formula of Concord makes it clear that it is not man who uses the law in a third way, but rather the Holy Spirit (SD VI, 3; 12). It is the Holy Spirit that leads and instructs and guides. All other mention of teaching and instruction in Article VI is clearly shown as not pertaining to the third use of the law (SD VI, 9; 20; 21; 24. See my post on The Third Use of the Law).

III.

"The Formula, in presenting the Lutheran position on the Third Use of the Law, uses Biblical references which refer to the Scriptures in their totality and not only those passages speaking specifically about the Law. Both Psalm 1 (SD VI, 4) and 2 Timothy 3:15-17 (SD VI, 14) are used to demonstrate the Law's validity in the life of the Christian, though both passages refer to the Scriptures in their totality, not simply to the written Law. Psalm 1 speaks about the man who delights in the Books of Moses and the 2 Timothy 3:15-17 passages speaks about the total inspiration of the Scripture and not just the Gospel. Just as Lutherans see the entire Scripture as inspired, so they see the entire Scriptural message, both Law and Gospel, as applicable to the life of the Christian. The Formula sees in 2 Timothy 3:15-17 a direct Biblical command to apply the Law in the life of the Christian (SD V I, 14). Underlying the concept that the Law is made applicable in the life of the Christian through the Scriptures is the Lutheran understanding that the Scriptures in all its parts, both Law and Gospel, are inspired and that these Scriptures are directed to man in the state of sin. The Scriptures are God's written word, necessitated by the fall into sin and directed to man in this fallen condition. Natural Law, sin, and Scriptural inspiration are related to each other.

"Man by the fall into sin was no longer capable of properly comprehending the Law as it originally was part of creation. He followed after that Law, but he fulfilled its requirements only inadequately at best and in every case the Law became his accuser. As a religiously created being, man is compelled by his inherent religious nature to search after God, but these searches are doomed to failure (Apol. IV, 22-25, 40). God through His mercy sent the prophets and later the apostles to proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ. But before the proclamation of salvation could be made, the Law as first found in nature had to be restated in such a way that man in his perverted state could fully comprehend what God had always been setting forth in the natural Law. Both the prophets and the apostles redirected the Law specifically against man's unregenerate nature. They came first to proclaim the Law as a mirror of man's sins, i.e., its second use. Though God condemns through the Law, His proclamation of the Law through His prophets and apostles belongs to God's overall plan of mercy since man by the Law is properly prepared for the Gospel. The Spirit's inspiration of the prophets and apostles embraces not only the words of the .Gospel but also of the Law. The Formula makes no qualitative difference between the Spirit's origination of the Gospel and that of the Law. Both the Law and the Gospel proceed from the Spirit's inner being. Both are His products.

"The person who claims the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit and rejects the Law as revealed in the prophets and the apostles is, in fact, rejecting the Holy Spirit by rejecting His work. Whoever claims a working of the Spirit for his life apart from the prophets and apostles is a fanatic (SD XII, 30). The Holy Spirit has given both the Law and the Gospel and He is responsible for their inscripturation. The Law is valid in the life of the Christian if for no other reason than that it originates with the Spirit and He has caused it to be written in the Holy Scriptures. There are, of course, other reasons for the Law's validity in the life of the Christian. Nevertheless, the Lutherans saw the Law as part and parcel of the special divine revelation. Those who rejected the Law did not only have a faulty concept of the Law itself but of divine revelation and of the Scriptures themselves. Also connected with the concept of the Third Use of the Law was the Lutheran anthropology, the doctrine of man.

IV.

"The Formula reflected the Lutheran view of man as living under the Law in four different conditions: the original created state of moral innocence, the fallen state of sin, the state of regeneration, and the final state of resurrection. The Law in its third function is directed to man in the state of regeneration. Seeing man in these four different phases is essential for a fuller understanding of the Lutheran view of the Law and particularly its Third Use. The Lutheran view dismisses the idea that the Law undergoes any change as it is the expression of God's immutable will (FC SD VI, 15). The four different situations are accounted for by man's differing relationships to God and thus also to the Law. Man, as he is a sinner. can only envisage the Law with prohibitions and penalties as a negative intrusion into his life. It is difficult for man to imagine the original state of moral innocence in which he found positive direction for his life in the Law. In this original condition he needed neither prophet nor Scripture since man's communion with God's creation was itself participation in God's revelation. In the sinless condition man viewed nature and God's revelation as one entity. No special revelation beyond nature was needed. Man in moral innocence needed no Law as a curb for the gross manifestations of evil or for a reflection of his own sin. He needed no special direction of the Law as nature provided a constant, regular communication of the Law. Only in the fallen state is the original positive function of the Law replaced by negative prohibition. Law, understood originally as a description of man's positive relationships to God, to his fellow men, and to his environment becomes with the entrance of sin a negative description of man's broken relationships to God, his fellow men, and his environment. In the first condition, the indicative was merged with the imperative. The Law served as a description of what man was and what he was to do and what he, indeed, could do. There was no tension between what man did and what man could, must, and should do. Now in the state of sin what man must do and should do is not what he can do and does do. The Law becomes a compelling and restraining force against man's rebellious nature. What man once did naturally he is now forced to do against his will. The unregenerate man hates the performance of the Law with an intensity comparable to the first man's love for its performance. The sinner cannot remain morally neutral to the Law. He performs the Law which he hates and he knows that failure to perform its requirements brings penalties. Where he fulfills the Law, he is goaded by the promise of rewards and threats of its punishments. The Law makes the sinner's life miserable (SD VI, 19).

"When the sinner becomes a Christian, the Law begins to take on a new, different character for him. His new condition as a Christian means a new relationship with God and His Law. The Law in this Third Use is addressed to the sinner who has become a Christian but still remains in part under the control of sin (SD VI, 9). Understanding the Law in this Third Use is predicated on understanding the Lutheran view of the regenerate Christian.

"Essential to Lutheran anthropology is the internal strife within the Christian. He is tom between that part of him which wants to obey God's will and the part that feels more comfortable with the older ways of sin. Though this internal struggle is never over in this life, the promise of victory is assured in the resurrection. Several terms express these two opposing forces within the Christian. The part belonging to God is designated as the inner man, the Spirit's temple, and the regenerated man, the man who has been born again (FC SD VI, 5). The part which resists God is designated as the old Adam, the flesh, and in other Lutheran writings the old man. The Law of God remains one and immutable, but as it approaches the Christian, its positive directions apply to the converted part and its negative prohibitions with the threats of punishments are directed to the unregenerated condition.

"The Christian only so far as he is regenerated is free from the threats and curses of the Law (SD VI, 23) and he recognizes this Law as God's will for his life (SD VI, 12). The Formula uses picturesque language in describing the Christian's response to the Law. In this renewed condition he "does everything from a free and merry spirit" (SD VI, 17). Such good works are motivated by the Holy Spirit and flow from faith, but they are all in accordance with the Law, which is also the Spirit's product (SD VI, 12). Works flow from faith as water comes from a spring, but these works flow down channels established by the Law. This positive direction of the Law without prohibition or fear of punishment is what is essentially meant by the Third Use of the Law.

"Law as a positive direction in the life of the Christian is both a restatement of the original paradisical condition and a preview of the future state of glorification. In Paradise man knew the Law of God perfectly and rejoiced in it. Also in the final state of glorification man will not need or hear the negative aspects of the Law. So even now the regenerate man hears the Law of God, rejoices in it with his inner being, and performs it without thought. of reward. His only motivation is that he wants to please God.

"Law understood in this Third Sense as positive direction and guidance in the life of the Christian presupposes the Gospel. In each of its uses the Law is both didactic and imperative. It is not constructed to change man from a sinner to a saint and cannot effect regeneration. The Spirit's working through the Gospel is the cause of regeneration. But the Gospel presupposes the Law. just as the Law in the life of the Christian presupposes the Gospel. The Gospel is the proclamation that Jesus has fulfilled the Law's demands and suffered its penalties in man's stead. This message alone effects regeneration. The Law is the skeleton on which the life and death of Jesus is sketched out. The skeleton of the Law as it is framed in the Gospel message comes to the sinner having its structures completely filled out by Jesus. The Law's negative demands have been satisfied in Jesus so that its force becomes positive in the life of a person who has faith in Jesus. The Law's unfilled requirements have been fulfilled in Jesus. Christ has divested the Law of its negative requirements and He presents it to Christians as positive direction.

"But the Law which comes as positive direction to the regenerate part of the Christian also comes with its negative prohibition to the Old Adam (FC SD VI, 17, 18, 19). Part of the Christian is never converted. He resists believing that God has fulfilled the Law in Jesus Christ. The old man left unchecked would eventually bring man to final ruin and destruction According to Lutheran theology the unregenerate self must be forced and coerced with threats of the Law. The unregenerate part of a Christian is on the same level as the unconverted who "are driven and coerced into obedience by the threats of the law" (FC SD VI, 19). Not only does he fight against fulfilling God's Law, but when he does finally comply with the divine prohibitions in an external sense he becomes a hypocrite as he thinks he has fulfilled God's requirements and earned for himself salvation (FC SD VI, 21). To keep the unregenerate part of man under control, the Christian pastor must preach the negative aspects of the Law. Such works coerced by the preaching of the Law to unregenerated man, even if he is a Christian, have no validity before God for salvation. But the Christian, so far as he is regenerate, performs works from faith which are acceptable to God. These conform to the Law and God finds these acceptable. Though such works are always imperfect, they are acceptable to God because they me performed from faith which is centered in Christ Jesus and not from threats of the Law (FC SD VI, 23).

"It is the preaching of the Law and not the Gospel which alerts the Christian to the tension within himself. The same Law which is an expression of God's will in the life of the Christian remains a severe condemnation on his unregenerate nature. This tension, a dualism within the Christian, finds its real cause not in the Law but within the Christian himself. The work of the new man committed to Christ is countered by the old man who only gives up the struggle at death. Underlying the Lutheran concept of the old man is the Lutheran doctrine of original sin. The man who is totally unregenerate is brought struggling and kicking to faith. When a new life has been created, he continues to struggle, kick, and fight against God. The old man is not to be handled in a gentle and kindly way and then treated to the good news of salvation, but he is to be forced and threatened by the Law. The Formula puts it strongly (SD VI, 24):

For the Old Adam, like an unmanageable and recalcitrant donkey, is still a part of them and must be coerced into the obedience of Christ, not only with the instruction, admonition, urging and threatening of the law, but frequently also with the club of punishment and miseries, until the flesh of sin is put off entirely and man is completely renewed in the resurrection.

"In this life there is no hope for an end to the conflict. The Christian can revert to hypocrisy by believing that he is by himself fulfilling the Law perfectly or he can abandon the Law and become a libertine. But then he is no Christian. The hope for fulfillment in the Christian is not in this life but in the resurrection. Then he will need the preaching of neither the Law nor the Gospel, for he will be in God's presence. In heaven, the Third Use of the Law will be perfectly realized. There Christians "will do His will spontaneously without coercion, unhindered, perfectly, completely, and with sheer joy, and will rejoice therein forever" (FC SD VI, 25). Even in the final condition, it is not the nature of the Law that has changed but rather that man has become totally regenerated."

- David Scaer, “Formula of Concord Article VI. The Third Use of the Law,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 42, no. 2 (1978), 149-154.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on Dependence and Independence

In preparing for my next series of posts on the law (It will start with Gerhard Forde, but... be patient; tomorrow would be the soonest), I came across this quote from Piotr Malysz. I don't remember if it figured into my first (literally) post on dependence and independence, but its thesis is strikingly similar. See my previous posts: Dependence and Independence and Self-Generation; Dependence and Independence Cont.. I find the paradox of being dependent on the created order to show superiority over that created order to be intriguing. We all do it (to a certain extent or another) without recognizing the absurdity of it. It reminds me of Jonathan Swift's "Yahoos." As such we fight over, and strive for power (over God's creation), prestige (from God's creation), popularity (from God's creation), love (from God's creation), acknowledgement (from God's creation); we strive to subdue (God's creation), create (from God's creation), bring under control (God's creation); we use our bodies and minds (that are created) to set ourselves apart from the rest of mankind (God's creation). We do this, much like the Yahoos, without realizing that (without God) we are just animals rolling around in the mud.

"Sin is also enslavement to imperium-- control and, if need be, violence-- as a means of preserving one's integrity. Adam and Eve destroyed their relationships not only by fearing a violation of their trust on another's part but also by chronic suspiciousness of another's, that is, God's self-giving. They saw in God's giving an attempt to confine them into reciprocation, thereby exerting control over their independence. Human life has thus become a struggle for control as a means of survival. This, in turn, has brought about the enslavement of man to creation. Man has abandoned his God-appointed role of creation's steward and endeavours to place himself above the created order as God's equal. But as a creature he can only claim equality with and independence from God by violently lording it over creation, not merely because this is the way he now understands God's being, but also because he recognizes his dependence on creation, which is God's work, and thus on God himself. Exploitation of God's things gives an allusion of power. In this way, creation is necessary for man as a means of self-assertion. The continued increase of his control over the created realm, including other human beings, creates the impression of approximating divinity. Put differently, in order to preserve his integrity, man must enslave. He is both enslaved and enslaver. Paradoxically this only deepens human dependence on the now-hostile creation.

"The isolation and enslavement of sin underscore that-- at bottom- it is a debilitating inability to love and trust, which "like spiritual leprosy, has thoroughly and entirely poisoned and corrupted human nature" (FC SD I, 6). As such, sin undermines everything that human nature was created to represent. Instead of allowing oneself to receive another in his self-giving, and thus to gain oneself, the sinner attempts his self-realization by going in the opposite direction, to the inside. Sin, to use Luther's dictum, makes man into a homo incurvitas in se ipsum. This turning in on oneself is the inevitable price of the trust-destructive misinterpretation of God's being, and thus also of failing to acknowledge one's humanity in its relational richness. In other words, the price of the knowledge of good and evil is the recognition of oneself as evil. Man cannot know evil without at the same time seeing it in himself, in his lovelessness and distrust.

"The tree that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from was not, contrary to their expectations, a vehicle of secret wisdom. The knowledge originated within man together with the deed, with his choice of un-love, with his rejection of God's self-giving. It came on the heels of man's attempt to be like God, in which the former isolated himself from his Creator and other human beings, abandoning his unique position within the created realm as the recipient of God's love and blessing. It came with man turning in on himself and the resultant collapse of his being. It is now with great difficulty that man preserves his integrity. He can do so only by a violent, self-centered and self-enslaving exercise of supremacy. Therefore, in so doing, he not only knows evil in himself but also actively propagates it.

"Consider the dreadful ambiguity that underlies all human desire to be creative. Ethically speaking, even the best of human works are tainted by vested interests, resentment, or distrust. Moreover from the scientific perspective, man's harnessing of creation's resources exposes his potential for self-destruction and thirst for more power, as much as it shows ingenuity. Finally, much as he may wish to avoid and ignore it, man meets with disintegration throughout his life only to be confronted by it conclusively at the point of death. The all-consuming presence of death reveals that creation without its steward has gone wild-- it dies both from lack of proper care and from the abuses it suffers at the hand of man. It has become the devil's playground. Man himself-- having separated himself from the life-giving love of God-- faces the same destiny as the creation he was so hasty to abandon in pursuit of self-realization. In isolation from God he is dust and to dust he must return (Gn 3:19). In a word, life without love and trust is deadly. It not only kills the isolated and enslaved human being but also spreads death around in spite and because of human attempts to avoid the inevitable. "Whoever tries to keeps his life will lose it" (Lk 17:33)."

-Piotr Malysz, “Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall,” Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 14-15.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Yeago on Luther on Genesis, all in Hütter

This is from a wonderful essay by (the now defected) Reinhard Hütter called, "The Twofold Center of Lutheran Ethics: Christian Freedom and God's Commandments." I thought this would be a good intro into my upcoming section on the different Lutheran positions on the continued relevance and place for the law in the lives of believers. Both what Luther says and what Yeago says in response, I agree with. I would only offer a slight tweak in emphasis: While the interpretation of the tree is a good one, it is not the only "historical form" (as Yeago would say) by which God ordered Adam's life. Adam was put in the garden to "work it" and "keep it" (Gen. 2:15); God "commands" him concerning the tree (2:15); Adam was in charge of the animals (2:19-20); God created Eve to help Adam (and logically thus, Adam helped Eve), and they were to serve each other as man and wife (2:20-25). From all this I would argue that man was created to live in a communion of self-giving; in worshipping God in service and faithfulness, and in serving each other and God's creation. The command concerning the tree does, though, have a type of arbitrariness to it (in the good sense). That is, by not eating from it, Adam does not benefit creation, nor neighbor, nor God (in that we can never "benefit" God). In keeping the commandment concerning the tree, Adam and Eve, rather, give God the only thing we can ever offer him: loving faithfulness to his Word.

"In interpreting Genesis 2, Luther states:

"And so when Adam had been created in such a way that he was, as it were, intoxicated with rejoicing toward God and was delighted also with all the other creatures, there is now created a new tree for the distinguishing of good and evil, so that Adam might have a definite way to express his worship and reverence toward God. After everything had been entrusted to him to make use of it according to his will, whether he wished to do so for necessity or for pleasure, God finally demands from Adam that at this tree of knowledge of good and evil he demonstrate his reverence and obedience toward God and that he maintain this practice, as it were, of worshipping God by not eating anything from it. [From LW 1:9]

"David Yeago rightly draws the following consequence:

"The commandment is not given to Adam that he might become a lover of God by keeping it; Adam already is a lover of God, "drunk with joy towards God," by virtue of his creation in the image of God, by the grace of original righteousness. The commandment is given, rather, in order to allow Adam's love for God to take form in a historically concrete way of life. Through the commandment, Adam's joy takes form in history as cultus Dei, the concrete social practice of worship... The importance of this cannot be overstated, particularly in view of conventional Lutheran assumptions: here Luther is describing a function of divine law, divine commandment, which is neither correlative with sin nor antithetical to grace; indeed, it presupposes the presence of grace and not sin. This function of divine commandment is, moreover, its original and proper function. The fundamental significance of the law is thus neither to enable human beings to attain righteousness nor to accuse their sin, but to give concrete, historical form to the "divine life" of the human creature deified by grace... The commandment is given originally to a subject deified by the grace of original righteousness, a subject living as the image of God; it calls for specific behaviors as the concrete historical realization of the spiritual life of the deified, God-drunken human being. What happens after sin comes on the scene is simply that this subject presupposed by the commandment is no longer there,; the commandment no longer finds an Adam living an "entirely divine life," "drunk with joy towards God," but rather an Adam who has withdrawn from God who believes the devil's lies about God and therefore flees and avoids God. It is precisely the anomaly of this situation that causes the commandment to become, in Luther's terms, "a different law" (alia lex). [David Yeago, "Martin Luther on Grace, Law, and Moral Life: Prolegomena to an Ecumenical Discussion of Veritas Splendor," in The Thomist, 62 (1998), 176-178.]"

-

-Reinhard Hütter, "The Twofold Center of Lutheran Ethics: Christian Freedom and God's Commandments," In The Promise of Lutheran Ethics, ed. Karen L. Bloomquist and John R. Stumme, 31-54 (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 1998), 42-43.

Gustaf Wingren, Creation, Vocation, and Law

I see Gustaf Wingren's position as the logical conclusion of connecting God's temporal rule of law with the spatial understanding of the kingdom of the world, creation. Part of the problem stems from how we are to interpret God's commands on man within the garden before his fall. It is an inability of separating what the law is and what the law does when it confronts man.

Wingren's position is very reminiscent of Werner Elert's view of the law, with his continual refrain: "The law is always a law of retribution." David Scaer depicts the theological implications of this position very adequately when he writes:

"In Helmut Gollwitz's opinion, "Elert starts from the false presupposition that wrath, judgement, and punishment have an eternal Law of retribution as their basis to have any validity. This would mean that God is wrathful because He is a God of Law, and if this is followed to its logical conclusion it would have to mean that Law of retribution is the fundamental standard by which man's relationship is regulated, and that it was given before and not after the fall as the original form of man's relationship between God and man which was not one of love, therefore that the Gospel could not be the reestablishment of the original relationship." Gollwitz is right! In Lutheran theology the Law's prime purpose is revealing man's wretched condition (SA III.ii.4), but this purpose is defined by man's present condition. The tension exists in man and not in God, whose nature is love. Making Law, wrath, and vengeance part of God's essence before the fall contradicts His love, but also might make it hard to distinguish Elert's position from Calvin's, where hate and love exist side by side in God." (“Third Use of the Law: Resolving the Tension” [A paper delivered at the 28th Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions, Concordia Theological Seminary, January, 2005])

Wingren avoids this representation of God by making it clear that law is not a reflection of who God is but as being inextricably connected with the creation of the world. For Wingren the reality of law on earth is only justifiable, concerning God, by its being overcome through Christ. Therefore human history under the law is only meaningful as the precursor for its being conquered by Christ, but this only exists as an eschatological reality. For Wingren, Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection makes no substantial difference in how we live in the world and before our neighbor; for Wingren, as long as there is earth, there the civil use of the law reigns supreme. Christ's coming frees us from false faith, but not from the law. This only occurs at the eschaton.

"The work of Christ is victory over the law in any form: good works lead to salvation by neither one route nor the other. The conscience alone, through faith in the work of Christ, is freed from false faith. Christ frees neither the hand from its work nor the body from its office. The hand, the body, and their vocation belong to earth. There is no redemption in that, but that is not the idea. The purpose is that one's neighbor be served. Conscience rests in faith in God, and does nothing that contributes to salvation; but the hands serve the vocation which is God's downward-reaching work, for the well-being of men. From the viewpoint of faith, vocation has no relevance. As soon as any outward quality of life claims a place in conscience or in heaven, claiming to be a condition for God's forgiveness, the immateriality of vocation must be emphasized." (Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation, trans. Carl C. Rasmussen (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press,
1957), 11.)

For Wingren, the whole purpose of creation is service to neighbor, as we read before, "To stress the doctrine of the first use of the Law means not only to affirm that the world belongs to God, but to reject any other religious interpretation of the world." (Creation and Law, trans. Ross Mackenzie (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1961), 160.) But even this is really only a reflection of the character of our life in creation not its purpose. Wingren saw the whole sphere of creation as the realm that man learns to die to himself through the law and to rise with Christ, in time through faith, and eternally in the victory of the gospel. Wingren inverts Luther's view of Baptism. Luther saw the life of Baptism as dying through contrition and repentance, and then the rising of the new man who is reintroduced to the world and creation. Luther writes:

"It signifies that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts, and, again, a new man daily come forth and arise; who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

"Where is this written?--Answer.
St. Paul says Romans, chapter 6: We are buried with Christ by Baptism into death, that, like as He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

In contrast to this Wingren will write: "The Christian is crucified by the law in his vocation, under the earthly government; and he arises through the gospel, in the church under the spiritual government." (Vocation, 30) We see how different this is from Luther's position. For Luther, the gospel reintroduces us to and renews God's original will for creation; For Wingren, the gospel is what frees us from the rule of the law inherent in creation. Wingren did not see the mortification that occurs under the law as an accident of the law due to the sinful condition of man, but as inherent in the very fact that it legislates.

"The fact that the Law "puts to death" is sometimes interpreted as a by-product of its primary function, which is to legislate concerning right behavior in society, or to protect and preserve life. But the Law "puts to death" precisely when it demands the required behavior in society and protects life."

The kingdom of the world, for Wingren, is the most fundamental form of the law gospel dialectic. Unlike Elert who saw the law as primarily a "law of retribution" (2nd use of the law), Wingren saw the civil use of the law as the primary use of the law. Wingren saw it as our cross that prepares us for the gospel. "God has ordained many different orders, in which man is to discipline himself and learn to suffer and die." (Vocation, 29)

Therefore legislation and gospel are completely contradictory, "The content of the Law cannot therefore be derived from the Gospel, which by its very nature is always opposed to the Law and judgment, just as Christ’s Resurrection reverses his death." (Creation and Law, 128) For this reason, Wingren saw the kingdom of heaven as a realm where no law exists, no vocation, and no service: "In the heavenly kingdom Christ is king, and there gospel alone rules: no law, and therefore no works." (Vocation, 10) There can be no: "That I may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness." (Small Catechism, The Creed, Second Article) Wingren talks so little of the problem of sin as our alienation from God, and talks so much of the civil use of the law that it seems almost as if Christ came more to free us from the law than to free us from our bondage to sin and to restore our original relationship with the triune God and the rest of humanity and creation. In fact, these relationships seem to completely leave off, for, which Wingren most certainly knew, to live in relationship is to give of self, but for Wingren giving of self is a reflection of law not of gospel, therefore the necessity of the end of all relationships:

"In heaven man has neither wife nor children, for all offices leave off, and human beings are all alike, since the rule of the law is put away. The realm of vocation is temporary. It is only in the present, short life that we are concerned with the endowments and responsibilities of office. The transitoriness of vocation can be called another aspect of the fact, already stated, that vocation has nothing to do with salvation. The gospel, as the promise of salvation, is also the promise of eternity, of a kingdom which will never pass away. On earth we receive from God gifts which we are transitory; but in the heavenly kingdom we receive God himself, who never passes away." (Vocation, 19)

This, of course, excepting God's giving of self; heaven becomes a state that man just sits around and receives from God his eternal gifts, anything above this is a reinstatement of the law.

What needs to be analyzed is the essential character of what we have come to know as "law." It boils down to whether the law is seen as something that always coerces and condemns, or whether it has a reality beyond this. Wingren sees the law only as to its negative aspects, thus the need for him to deny a lex aeterna and to envision a heaven completely devoid of man's service. David Scaer has done a wonderful job of explaining the character of the law as it is in its essence. Let's hear from him:

"God does not set arbitrary moral standards for good and evil, but good works are an extension of who or what he is and revive what is already inherent in creation and corrupted by sin. Defined in this way the Law does not stand in an antagonistic relation with the Gospel. This is not simply a return to paradise to what the Law was then, but a republication of the Law in Christ." (Scaer, "Resolving the Tension")

For Wingren, the law's connection with creation is in a way arbitrary. It is not inherent in it but rather is inseparably connected to it because of God's purpose of revealing the gospel through it. Scaer makes it clear that the law's connection with creation, while it can be said to be "inherent" to it, is not so much due to the fact of creation, but to the fact that, in creation, we are set into a relationship before God and before fellow man. To be created for Scaer means to be set into relation. The divine will in these inter-personal relations is to give of self, if this were otherwise, we would not live in relation. This self-giving, under Christ, can at one and the same time be called law, but behind this essentially, love. This is where Wingren's view of the law completely falls apart. Christ's declaration that all the law is wrapped up in love of God and love of neighbor breaks down all arguments that the law is essentially God's way of "putting to death," or that the law is only a "law of retribution" (Elert). Sin gives the law its characteristically negative function: "The commandment which was to life, this was found to be death to me" (Rom. 7:10) But essentially, as we see from Christ and Paul, it was a commandment unto life.

"Jesus identified love of God and neighbor not only as the Law's greatest commandments, but also as the ones into which all the Law is assumed. Law in all its functions determines relationships between men with God and with each other. By assuming the entire Law into love, Jesus showed that the Law in its first and final form has no negatives. Love as the content of the Law (Scriptures) is not a matter of arbitrary divine choice, but reflects what God really is. In requiring love of us, God only asks us to become like him." (Scaer, "Resolving the Tension")

Compare this statement from Scaer--"By assuming the entire Law into love, Jesus showed that the Law in its first and final form has no negatives."-- with this statement from Wingren: "But when it summarizes the Law as love of one’s neighbor, it is stating something about the power of the Law to compel all men to act on their neighbour’s behalf." (Creation, 151) We see how Wingren's view of the law negatively affects his view of love. Love takes on an almost unrecognizable character; love becomes boiled down to a mere outward act.

Therefore we must separate law, as it exists in its essence as love, from God's rule of law (regimente); that is, we must separate space from time. God's law is inherent in being created in relation to God and man, in the world (reiche); God's rule of law (regimente) is an accident of man's fall into sin, its bondage to Satan, and its fate under judgment.

With this understood we can affirm that God's rule through the gospel (regimente) is not antithetical with our existence on the earth (reiche). With this understood, the gospel becomes more than a "word-event" and more than an eschatological hope; the gospel becomes a very present reality that enters our hearts and connects us with Christ and recreates and renews us in the divine will of Christ our King. Only in this way can a real understanding of sanctification be affirmed. It is not an accident that the very term cannot be found (at all!) in either Wingren's Creation and Law, or Luther on Vocation. (How can you write a book on vocation and never bring up sanctification?) When the two kinds of righteousness--civil and imputed-- and the two kingdoms--inseparably connecting God's rule of law with creation-- are set forth, no real understanding of sanctification can exist. Listen to how Wingren talks: "What is effected through these orders of society is not due to an inner transformation of the human heart. The corruption of the heart is amended in heaven, through the gospel of Christ." (Vocation, 6)

"The gospel is thus an eschatological message, in the sense that it promises something that belongs to the future, life after death. This is evident in Luther's way of differentiating between iustitia civilis (civil righteousness) and iustitia christiana (righteousness in Christ). Civil righteousness is promoted by the law and is relevant in courts, in general, before man, as an adequate righteousness. Righteousness in Christ is a given righteousness, and can be said to consist of the forgiveness of sins." (Vocation, 20)

Wingren sets creation, the kingdom of the world, and salvation, the kingdom of God, in an antithetical relationship where the law is conquered by the gospel. A correct understanding, rather, tells us that salvation is an affirmation of God's original will in creation, that he desires for us to live before him, and before our neighbor and the rest of creation in relationships defined by self-giving love. God's will in creation was not a "lesser good" until the "greater good" through the gospel could be revealed; God's will in creation was "very good" and salvation is a restoration of that good that is envisioned in God's perfect will. It is our bondage and guilt under sin that is the problem with creation, not creation itself. Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection that we receive in his Word is the perfect love letter that tells us that God loves us and desires to live with us in eternity. In the same way, creation tells us the same thing, it tells us that it was God's utmost desire for us to live in relation to him and the rest of creation, that our creation was "very good."

Lutheran Quote of the Day: "Every Action of the Triune God is a Promise that Gives and a Gift that Promises"

"In the particular divine service, we can hear, taste, and see, through the word, that what holds the world together in its inmost essence is the categorical gift rather than the categorical imperative (contra Kant). The particular divine service does not cultivate its own separate religious sphere, but it discloses the world as creation. In the light of his Reformation discovery that the Words of Institution spoken over the Lord's Supper are fundamentally performative words that give what they say, Luther developed his characteristic understanding of creation as God's gift. Luther has these gift-giving words of the Lord's Supper in his ears, before his eyes, and in his heart when he confesses that every action of the triune God is a promise that gives and a gift that promises.

"The universal character of the categorical gift finds its counterpart in the universality of the response, for which we are empowered by the gift and promise: "For all of this I am bound to thank and praise, serve and obey him." An ethos of giving and love is included in the response. It is included but not identical to it. Thus, it is a mistake to conclude from Romans 12:1-2 that "the doctrines of worship and Christian 'ethics' coincide." It is even less possible to understand this Magna Carta of the new obedience (Rom. 12:1f.) in the sense of the Roman Catholic idea of the sacrifice of the faithful together with Christ in the Eucharist. This proposal is no better than the claim that worship coincides with ethics. Neither proposal has any place for the indispensable distinction between faith as God's service to us, and love as the service of the faithful to their fellow creatures. This distinction is so necessary for salvation that we cannot do without it.

"In the overall context of the letter, the "sacrifice" and the "worship" that Paul speaks of in Romans 12:1-2 explain the significance of Baptism, which Paul sums up as living a new life (Rom. 6:4). This not only has ethical implications but it goes beyond ethics and includes the whole physical perception of the world which needs to be worked out in a comprehensive aesthetics that looks at how our senses, emotions, memory, and imagination are all involved in our experience of reality. We can only view creation properly through that judgment and "death" which is enacted in Baptism; otherwise all talk about creation is idle chatter."

-Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way, trans. Jeffrey Silcock and Mark Mattes (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007), 86-87.

Gerhard Ebeling on the Two Kinds of Righteousness

This post will mainly be from the words of Gerhard Ebeling. I will use this as a transition from the concept of the two kinds of righteousness into the two kingdoms, which is so closely related to Luther's two kinds of righteousness. We see in this quote an unnatural distinction between faith and works, God's activity and our own, and The kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. What I will be posting on in future posts is the confusion between a spatial understanding and a temporal understanding of the two kingdoms. What I see is often purported is a purely spatial understanding of the kingdom of the world and then a purely temporal understanding of the kingdom of God. This plays out in determining our life in the word purely spatially, that is, where we are, and then determining our life in the kingdom of God in a purely temporal way in which we only participate in it through faith in the Word of God; that is, the kingdom of the world is a place, and the kingdom of God is a transcendent event which is ultimately directed eschatologically. As Ebeling writes, "The regnum Christi as the event of the iustitia Dei is and remains a word-event and therefore a faith-event. For that reason, however, until the final presence of the kingdom of God we are left with a distinction between the two kingdoms as a distinction between two modes of iustitia." ("The Necessity of the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms" in Word and Faith, trans. James W. Leitch, 386-406 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), 401.) Ebeling does make a distinction between the regnum mundo as it temporally exists before the "final presence of the kingdom of God" when he says that it is a sphere of self-contradiction, and as it is, ideally understood, as a spatial distinction, though this still means its spatial character is the ultimate determining factor. He sees the sphere of the regnum mundo, written into its very creation, as a sphere that is the field of the iustitia civilis; that is, despite the temporal state of the regnum mundo of self-contradiction, the regnum mundo without this self-contradiction is still ideally a realm of the iustitia civilis. Ideally, and this is only understood in faith, he argues, the two kingdoms demands a strict separation of activity letting God be God and the world be world, that is, the realm of the iustitia civilis.

I don't think this takes into account a proper understanding of the judgement of God. God's judgement of Adam and Eve in the garden and our future judgement at death or at the second coming is not a judgement on our civil righteousness, our external fulfillment of the law, but a judgement as to the full extent of the law with the bar set at perfection. Civil righteousness, if properly understood in its historic Lutheran context, is not concerned with perfection but with external obedience; righteousness that avails before God is a righteousness that is in full conformance to the Law of God, both external fulfillment and internal disposition. While this side of the grave we can only stand before God with the righteousness of Christ, this does not mean that God does not still demand perfection from us, in fact it proves that he does still demand this of us. A proper understanding of the Atonement is not that Christ fulfilled the requirements of civil righteousness for us but that he fulfilled the righteous requirement that alone can avail before God, that can stand in his court and be declared blameless. The judgement of Adam and Eve show perfectly well that civil righteousness was not what the world was created for, but original righteousness, a righteousness that can stand before God blameless, and live in fellowship with him.

This problem between only considering civil righteousness and a proper understanding of God's judgement is brought up by our Confessions. They write:

"These notions were expressed among philosophers with respect to civil righteousness, and not with respect to God's judgment. [For there it is true, as the jurists say, L. cogitationis, thoughts are exempt from custom and punishment. But God searches the hearts; in God's court and judgment it is different.]...these notions are read in the works of scholastics, who inappropriately mingle philosophy or civil doctrine concerning ethics with the Gospel. Nor were these matters only disputed in the schools, but, as is usually the case, were carried from the schools to the people. And these persuasions [godless, erroneous, dangerous, harmful teachings] prevailed, and nourished confidence in human strength, and suppressed the knowledge of Christ's grace. Therefore, Luther wishing to declare the magnitude of original sin and of human infirmity [what a grievous mortal guilt original sin is in the sight of God], taught that these remnants of original sin [after Baptism] are not, by their own nature, adiaphora in man, but that, for their non-imputation, they need the grace of Christ and, likewise for their mortification, the Holy Ghost." (Apology Art. II, Par. 43-45)

A strict separation of a kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world is shown as fallacious when the account of creation and life in the garden is read. We read that man not only lived in fellowship with his neighbor and creation, but also in fellowship with God (Gen. 3:8). This shows that a purely spatial understanding, determined by the act of creation, of the two kingdoms cannot be upheld. The kingdom of the world, temporally understood, is the unfortunate result of man's fall into sin. In this way, the kingdom of the world may more properly be deemed the regnum diaboli, the kingdom of the devil. This is how the Scriptures untilize kingdom language. The temporal understanding of the two kingdoms tells us of an apocalyptic battle between the reign of sin, death, and the devil, Luther's "unholy trinity," and man's redemption from these through the blood of Christ and the restoration of man into his orginal pristine state of living righteously before neighbor, creation, and God.

While I won't closely evaluate what Ebeling writes, we can see how some of these issues are confused. Namely is an implication that, because we live in the world, that we stand coram mundo, we somehow don't stand coram Deo at the same time or in the same way. It is implied that we are only expected to fulfill the requirements of civil righteousness, to let the world be world, and that if we attempt to live righteously up and above this we are essentially not letting God be God. As Ebeling writes: "By works we can do justice only to the world, not to God." The problem with this is that it, again, ignores the judgement of God, that God judges us to the full extent of the righteous requirement of the law. The fact is, we are asked to do justice to God, and it is for this very reason that the Atonement of Christ is so important. And this same justice before God was demanded of Adam and Eve, thus their judgement for their lack of justice. Much like Arand's definition of civil righteousness being "ever active, never passive," Ebeling likewise makes a strong distinction between "what God does and what man does," saying that faith does not empower works but simply corrects our understanding of the proper place works are to take on earth. All of this, though maybe a little over simplified, implies this attitude: "We are down here, God is up there; We are expected to do what is expected of us down here through our own power and strength because God's kingdom is only participated in in faith, which does not communicate power; God does not expect us to do anything other than try our best to do the right things, though our hearts may be corrupt; This is the proper understanding of the world, to say otherwise is presumptuous dreams of storming heaven by works righteousness; The "presence" of God's kingdom has no other effect than as an object hoped for."

Gerhard Ebeling writes:

"But this distinction is valid only in virtue of the closest association. For who can let the world be world in such a sober, matter-of-fact way? The freedom to do so comes of letting God be God. For we cannot truly let the world be world unless we let God be God. For that reason the iustitia Christiana as iustitia coram Deo, and indeed as iustitia fidei, opens the way to, and so makes possible, the iustitia civilis in its character of iustitia coram mundo, and indeed as iustitia operum. Yet this fundamental insight must at once be shielded against misunderstandings in three directions.

"Firstly, it is usual to regard the relation between faith and works-- and for that we can say, between what God does and what man does-- in the first instance as a relationship between power and performance. Faith is supposed to give the power for works. This way of speaking requires to be very critically examined. The basic relation of faith and works is not the communication of power for works, but the communication of freedom for them-- that is, freedom to do the works in their limitedness as works and therefore also in the limitedness of the powers that are at our disposal for them. Just as faith too does not, though it is easy to misunderstand it so, primarily receive the revelation of what is to be done; but faith gives the freedom to perceive the right, because faith assigns works their due place.

"A second misunderstanding is to suppose that faith does indeed make room for the iustitia civilis by inciting to it, yet also produces over and above it much higher works which far surpass the iustitia civilis. This misunderstanding is partly caused by the ineradicable tendency to adopt a working attitude even before God and therefore to set about special works coram Deo, and partly by the disastrously one-sided practice of letting the iustitia coram mundo take its cue from the political sphere and therefore from what can be compelled if necessary by force. That is certainly the standpoint which is highly significant for the worldliness of the world. But if we grasp the basic theological sense of iustitia civilis, then we must ascribe to the iustitia civilis all works which can sensibly be done and are therefore right works. Even the man who is so unworldly as to give all his goods to the poor or to surrender his life in martyrdom remains, if it is rightly done (and that means if the man in question knows in faith what he is doing), within the sphere of the iustitia civilis, the iustitia coram mundo; i.e. he submits to the test of how far he is doing justice to the world by these works. For by works we can do justice only to the world, not to God. For that reason the criterion of works, precisely from the standpoint of the iusitia civilis, is love. In the realm of works there is no higher iustitia than the iustitia civilis! Yet for that very reason we should not imagine that with mere law-abidingness and bourgeois good conduct we have already done justice to the world and fulfilled all iustitia civilis in the basic sense.

"A third misunderstanding is to suppose that without faith there is no iustitia civilis at all. Christian circles indeed are repeatedly haunted by the idea that an atheist is an immoral man and that if Christian colours do not justify an undertaking, then at least they certainly recommend it a priori as inspiring confidence. It is true that faith is the presupposition of the iustitia civilis in so far as it communicates the freedom to let the iustitia civilis be really only the iusitia civilis and not to seek to derive somehow from the works the justification of the person. But in spite of such misuse of the iustitia civilis, it can still materialiter very well be iustitia civilis. Where the iustitia civilis is concerned there is cause enough for believers to be shamed by non-believers, both as to discretion and as to readiness to make sacrifices. Over and above that, however, the freedom to matter-of-factness which is communicated in faith is a thing the world has to thank faith for, even without an immediate awareness of the connexion. That the idea of iustitia civilis has attained an isolated independence (which is admittedly wide open to falsification), is of course a major factor in the modern world. As Christians we do have ground for taking care that that is rightly understood, but hardly for seeking in principle to set it aside again. On the contrary, there are many reasons for the church to let the children of the world, who are often wiser in this respect also, remind it of the true meaning of the iustitia civilis." (404-405)