(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Luther Writes Obituary of His Own Church
Rev. William G. Most
"If this article stands, the church stands; if it collapses, the church
collapses." Luther said that in his "Exposition of Psalm 130.4." He was talking
about justification by faith.
He thought he made a great discovery, justification by faith, in St. Paul's
Epistles to Galatians and Romans. To Luther it meant everything personally as
well as being the article on which his church would stand or fall. This happened
because of his fears. An important statement, made in 1985, by a joint
commission of Lutheran and Catholic theologians admitted (in "Justification by
Faith, Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII," ed. H. G. Anderson, T. A.
Murphy, J. A. Burgess, Augsburg Publ. House, 1985, PP 24, 29): "In their
situation [that of Luther and associates] the major function of justification by
faith was rather to console anxious consciences, terrified by the inability to
do enough to earn or merit salvation.... The starting point for Luther was his
inability to find peace with God....terrified in his own conscience."
Any experienced confessor will recognize from what the poor man suffered: he was
scrupulous. A scrupulous man has a generalized anxiety, which expresses itself
by latching onto first one thing, then onto another. The person fears he is
constantly in mortal sin.
Luther solved this problem for himself by his "discovery" of justification by
faith, which for him meant that it made no difference if he did sin mortally all
the time. If he would just take Christ as his personal Savior, then the merits
of Christ would be thrown over him like a white cloak, and he could not be lost,
he was infallibly saved, saved no matter how much he might sin. So he wrote to
his great associate, Melanchthon ("Epistle" 501): "Pecca fortiter, sed crede
fortius"--which means: "Sin greatly, but believe still more greatly - or, "Even
if you sin greatly, believe still more greatly." As a certain bumper sticker
puts it: "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven." In other words, Christians
can sin as much as they want--they will get away with it. Others, for the same
sins, go to hell.
Within his own framework, Luther was surely right in saying that his church
would stand or fall with his idea of justification by faith. So we ask: Is it
standing or falling? It has fallen, for a double reason, according to his own
calculations.
There are two key words in the expression "justification by faith."
First, "justification": Luther thought that a sinner who is forgiven is still
totally corrupt, unable to get away from sinning constantly. Did St. Paul mean
that? Not really. He spoke of Christians as a "new creation" (2 Cor 5:17; Gal
6:15). They are made over from scratch - not at all the same as the same old
total corruption! And he says more than once that we are the Temple of the Holy
Spirit, who lives in us as in a temple (1 Cor 3:17; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16). Can we
imagine the Holy Spirit living in a temple that is total corruption?
Even more telling, if possible, is the idea St. Paul has of "faith." Luther did
not even make a good try at finding out what St. Paul meant by that word. He
just assumed what appealed to his scrupulous fears and said faith meant
confidence the merits of Christ apply to me. But there is an obvious way to find
out what St. Paul really meant by faith--read every place where Paul uses the
word faith, and related words--we can use a Concordance to locate them - keep
notes, and add them up. If we do that here is what we get: "If God speaks a
truth, faith requires that we believe it in our minds (cf. 1 Thess 2:13; 2 Cor
5:7). If God makes a promise, faith requires that we be confident He will keep
it (cf. Gal 5:5; Rom 5:1). If God tells us to do something, we must obey (cf.
Rom 1:5; 6:16). All this is to be done in love (Gal 5:6).(Obeying does not earn
salvation, but we must be members of Christ and like Him, obedient unto death:
Rom 5:19).
How does that compare with just being confident the merits of Christ apply to
you? Quite a difference. So, by his own standard, Luther's church has fallen.
What he thought was a great discovery was just a great mistake. And yet his
whole system stands or falls on his error, as he himself said.
There is a large standard Protestant reference work, "Interpreter's Dictionary
of the Bible." It first appeared in four very large volumes, with alphabetical
articles on everything pertaining to the Bible. In 1976 there appeared a
Supplement volume, which contained some new articles, and some older articles
revised. This latest volume does have a new article on faith, on p. 333. We look
for the subsection on St. Paul--for St. James uses the word faith very
differently. What do we find? Precisely the same as what we explained above.
Faith is a complex of belief, confidence, obedience, love. The article even
explains Paul's words in Romans 1:5: "the obedience of faith" to mean, "the
obedience which faith is." Luther thought we do not have to obey any commandment
at all if we have faith - but he did not see that faith itself includes
obedience to God's commands!
How sadly wrong could he be? By his own standard, the article on which his
church would rise or fall has fallen.
We could add: another pillar of his church was "Scripture alone." But that left
him with a problem he could not solve: Which books are inspired and so are part
of Scripture? For in the first centuries there were in circulation many books
that were called Gospels, with the names of Apostles on them. How could he know
which ones were inspired? He thought that if a book preaches justification by
faith strongly, it is inspired - otherwise not. But Luther never proved that
that was the test. And it could not be: he or I could write a book to preach
justification by faith, and it would not be inspired.
At a national Baptist convention in 1910, Professor Gerald Birney Smith gave a
paper on this very problem (It was published in the next year in "The Biblical
World" 37, pp. 19-29). The Professor reviewed every way he could think of to
determine which books are part of the Bible. He found all attempts insufficient.
He said there was only one way that could work - if we had a divinely protected
teaching authority to assure us. Smith believed we had no such thing. Therefore,
he was, sadly, left with no way to know which books are part of the Bible!
Really, to be logical, he should stop quoting the Bible, because he did not know
what works were part of the Bible. Professor Smith examined and rejected
Luther's attempt, among others.
What a tragic fall - both columns have fallen on which Luther depended -
justification by faith (with his mistaken notion of the two key words in that
phrase), and Scripture alone. So Luther had no right to quote Scripture at all.
And even if he had had such a right, Scripture shows he was seriously wrong as
to what St. Paul means by faith.
Infallible salvation? Imagine a ledger for me, credit and debit pages. According
to Luther, if one once takes Christ as His Savior, he enters infinity on the
credit page - then no matter how much he has sinned, is sinning, will sin, the
infinity of Christ outbalances it. So he is infallibly saved. Some add: He
cannot lose that security. [Compare Protestant charges that indulgences are a
permission to sin!. Here it is, in the big time!]
St. Paul himself did not think he had infallible salvation. In 1 Cor 9:24-27,
Paul compares Christian life to the great games at Corinth. Anyone who hoped for
the prize had to go into athletic training, and so deny himself a lot. Only one
could get the prize. But Christians can all get it, and their prize is eternal
life, not just a crown of leaves. Some Protestants say Paul is just urging them
to gain something extra. But no, in context, Paul has been urging them for some
time to avoid scandalizing another by eating meat offered to idols which the
other thinks is forbidden. In 1 Cor 8:11-13 Paul pleads that "the weak one will
perish [eternally] because of your knowledge, a brother because of whom Christ
died."
Paul himself, even with his heroic work for Christ, does not think he has
infallible salvation. Rather, in 1 Cor 9:26-27 he says [literal version]: "I hit
my body under the eyes and lead it around like a slave, so that after preaching
to others, I may not be disqualified [in the race]." He alludes to Greek boxing
- no padded gloves - a blow under the eyes would usually knock a man out. The
victor put a rope around the neck of the loser, and led him around the stadium
like a slave. Not sportsmanlike!. But we get the point.
Again, right after this, in chapter 10, Paul gives many instances of the first
People of God. They did not have it infallibly made. Rather, many were struck
dead by God. So in 10:12: "He who thinks he is standing, let him watch out so he
does not fall." No infallible salvation in sight here!
Born again: This means taking Christ as your Savior, and making a profession of
faith, with an emotional experience. Only those who do this are Christians, so
all others are damned even if they never had a chance to hear of Christ. But
this is to make God a monster. Such a God could not exist at all. Further, this
process is merely a small embellishment on taking Christ as your Savior in
faith. It adds emotion and a profession of faith. Scripture has not one word on
such emotion, though it does want a profession of faith (Rom 10:9 - where
"saved" means enter the Church by such a profession), nor did Luther know what
faith was in the basic sense
anyway.
About that emotional experience, some object by appealing to Romans 8:16 (NRSV):
"When we cry 'Abba, Father' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our
spirit that we are children of God." Reply: Whatever we may take as the meaning
of the text, it should be clear at the outset that we must not suppose that
Baptism by itself is insufficient to make us sons of God: Rom 6:3ff; Mt 28:19;
Acts 2:38; 1 Cor 6:11; To really get the sense, we look at the context: In the
verse before it said "we did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into
fear." Instead, as Rom 5:2 says, we have, "this grace in which we stand, and we
boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God." We do this because Christ has
given us divine adoption, so, we need no longer be in mortal fear of God. He
does that through Baptism. In other words, by Baptism itself we are moved from a
state in which we had reason to fear God, into one in which we have confidence,
being His children, taught by Jesus Himself to call God 'Father." We get this
confidence based on this Sacrament itself, and on the teaching of Christ Himself
that God is our Father, not on an emotional feeling. If we say the Sacrament is
not enough, and that the feeling must be added, otherwise someone is not even a
Christian, we deny Baptism its real power, and are weak in faith. "Whenever
anyone baptizes, it is Christ Himself who baptizes" wrote St. Augustine (On John
6.1.7). The reason is that the power comes from Him, not from the human agent.
Now a baptism could not be insufficient if it is Christ Himself who baptizes.
Further this whole notion builds on top of justification by faith - we have seen
that Luther did not know what St. Paul meant by faith. Andit would wind up in
complete subjectivism, searching for feelings.
Also, the text does not say that the Spirit testifies to our spirit, but that it
testifies along with our spirit. There is place for twofold testimony because of
Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15 which prescribes that everything to be proved needs two
or three witnesses.
Appendix
Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 5.4-5: "When you make a vow to God, do not delay
fulfilling it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill what you vow. It is
better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfill it."
Luther broke all his vows.