I'll Do Better Next Time

I recently finished reading Edward Welch's book Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave: Finding Hope in the Power of the Gospel (P & R, 2001).  I found it to be a really helpful guide to the fact that addictions--whatever biological and sociological components may be at play--are ultimately a worship disorder: We worship our own desires and cravings so much that they become our masters and enslave us.  Which, of course, means that there is hope for addicts of all kinds--not in AA, nor rehab, nor medicine, nor counseling, but in Jesus Christ, who died for us to break the power of sin over us, so that we would no longer be its slaves (see Romans 6:1-23).  Jesus sets us free to know and worship the true God.

Anyway, on page 282 amid some practical tips for remembering and applying the work of Christ to our daily battles, Welch paraphrases Martin Luther in offering this tough admonition:

Is Christ always in view when you talk about sin?  Commenting on Galatians 5:4, Luther asks, "What do you do when you are caught in some sin?  If your answer is, 'I'll do better next time,' then you have no need of Christ."  Luther then offers this alternative: "that you despair of your own righteousness and you trust boldly in Christ."

Costly Marriage

Our pastor has been preaching through the Old Testament book of Ruth, a beautifully-spun narrative about how the light of God's active providence and steadfast love dawned upon the darkness of two insignificant widows. In chapter 4, the story comes to a head as the young Moabite widow Ruth finds a husband who is willing to marry her despite the financial burden it will bring upon him in losing part of his inheritance to Ruth's children. (Under Jewish law, a kinsman was to marry his relative's widowed wife and produce children for her. However, the children would be reckoned as belonging to the deceased husband, and they would be required to receive a separate inheritance.) Boaz, Ruth's redeemer and a "man of great wealth" (2:1 NASB), acted out a love that was not only perhaps romantic, but also sought out her good even at his own cost. In binding himself to Ruth all his gain would become hers, her offspring's, and her mother-in-law's--the cure to their poverty--but he would also take on her baggage. He'd lose part of his inheritance. He'd have to deal with the emotional pain of a widowed bride who probably often longed for her previous husband, even if only in memories. As a Moabite, he would have to train her in the faith of Yahweh. He was taking on a lot by binding himself to her and her to himself. Martin Luther reminds us that our Boaz--our redeeming husband--is Jesus Christ, who, "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). At the cost of his own humiliation, scourging, mockery, and agonizing crucifixion he bought us for himself, to make his people, the church, his radiant bride (see Eph. 5:25-32; Rev.19:6-10). (Please bear with this; though lengthy, it's some of Luther's best.)

The . . . incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom [1]. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph. 5:31-32]. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage--indeed the most perfect of all marriages, since human marriages are but poor examples of this one true marriage--it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Let us compare these and we shall see the inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?

Here we have a most pleasing vision not only of communion but of a blessed struggle and victory and salvation and redemption. Christ is God and man in one person. He has neither sinned nor died, and is not condemned, and he cannot sin, die, or be condemned; his righteousness, life, and salvation are unconquerable, eternal, omnipotent. By the wedding ring of faith he shares in the sins, death, and pains of hell which are his bride's. As a matter of fact, he makes them his own and acts as if he himself had sinned; he suffered, died, and descended into hell that he might overcome them all. Now since it was such a one who did all this, and death and hell could not swallow him up, these were necessarily swallowed up by him in a mighty duel; for his righteousness is greater than the sins of all men, his life stronger than death, his salvation more invincible than hell [2]. Thus the believing soul by means of the pledge of its faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against death and hell, and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of Christ its bridegroom. So he takes to himself a glorious bride, "without spot or wrinkle, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word" [cf. Eph. 5:26-27] of life, that is, by faith in the Word of life, righteousness, and salvation. In this way he marries her in faithfulness, steadfast love, and in mercies, righteousness, and justice, as Hos. 2[:19-20] says.

Who then can fully appreciate what this royal marriage means? Who can understand the riches of the glory of this grace? Here this rich and divine bridegroom marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him. And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, "If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his," as the bride in the Song of Solomon [2:16] says, "My beloved is mine and I am his." This is what Paul means when he says in 1 Cor. 15[:57], "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," that is, the victory over sin and death, as he also says there, "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law" [1 Cor. 15:56].

-- On Christian Liberty (Augsburg Fortress, 2003), pp. 18-22

____________________ 1. It appears that Luther is using "soul" here as a sort of generic, gender-neutral pronoun. He was no gnostic who saw sin only on a spiritual plane. 2. Notice how Luther relies on the Christus Victor model of Athanasius, Chrysostom, and other church fathers (that by virtue of the Incarnation, Jesus' God-life destroyed and overcame all that afflicted mankind, to whom his deity was united). But he employs this model as part of the way Jesus bore our sins to carry out on a vicarious, substitutionary atonement that bore the condeming wrath of God due to sinners. They are not mutually exclusive perspectives on the atonement.

Happy Reformation Day!

It's finally here: this year's annual Reformation Day post! (You can all exhale now.) In case you haven't been reading this blog for years, every October 31st I celebrate the nailing of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses to the cathedral door in Wittenberg on All Souls' Eve in 1517, ultimately spurring many within the church to return to Scripture and to celebrate Jesus Christ alone as our All in All. This year's quote comes from a sermon of Dietrich Bonhoeffer titled "Justification as the Last Word" (c. 1940).* It's a bit lengthy, but well worth the patience.




All Christian living has its origin and existnece in one single happening which the Reformation called "justification by grace alone." It is not what the individual is in himself or herself, but what he or she has become by this happening which defines a Christian life. Here we have the length and breadth of human life in a nutshell, gathered together at one point; the whole of life is contained in this event. What happens here? An ultimate act of suffering which cannot be grasped by any human being. The darkness, which from within and without takes human life into the abyss of hopelessness is bound, conquered, and destroyed by the power of the Word of God; in the light of this deliverance, we see God and our neighbor for the first time. The bewildering labyrinth of the life we have lived so far is shattered. We are free for God and our neighbor. We begin to know in our heart that there is a God who loves us, accepts us, and that by our side is a brother or sister, whom God loves as he loves us. Also, we know now that there is a future with the triune God, who is present among his people. Now, the human being has faith, love, and hope. Past and future become as one in the presence of God. The whole of the past is gathered up in the word "forgiveness"; the whole of the future is in the safekeeping of the true God. The sins of the past are sunk into the abyss of the love of God in Christ Jesus and overcome. The future will be a life with God, without sin (see 1 John 3:9). Life, then, is revealed as detached from teh temporal and held fast by the eternal, choosing the way of eternal salvation ratherthan the ways of the termporal world, as a member of a community and of creation, which sings praises to the triune God. All this happens with theencounter of Christ with the human soul. All this is truth and reality in Christ. Because it is no dream, it is a dtruly human life, which is lived in the presence of Christ. From now on, it is no longer a lost life, but a justified life, justified by grace alone.



But not only "by grace alone," also "by faith alone." That is what both the Scriptures and the Reformation teach. Not love nor hope, but only faith justifies a life. Faith alone, indeed, sets life upon a new foundation and it is this new foundation alone that justifies it, so that I can live before God. The foundation, however, is the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without this foundation a life cannot be justified before God. It is left to the mercy of death and damnation. Only by living a life by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ can we be justified before God. But faith means finding and standing firm upon this foundation, to be anchored in it and thereby to be held firm by it. Faith means establishing one's life upon a foundation outside one's own self, upon and eternal and holy foundation, which is Christ. Faith means to be captivated by the glance of Jesus Christ, to see nothing other than him, to be torn out of imprisonment in one's own ego, to be set free by Jesus Christ. Faith is letting this action take place, which is an action in itself, but these two are not enough to explain the mystery. Only faith is certain, all else is doubt. Jesus Christ himself is the certainly of faith. I believe that my life is justified in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way to the justification of my life than by faith alone. . . .

______________________

*Bonhoeffer, Werke, Vol. 15, pp. 492-98; as found in Edwin Robertson, ed., tr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), pp. 160-162.

Whose orthodoxy is it?

A recent issue of Christianity Today magazine examined the rise of Calvinism in an article titled, "Young, Restless, and Reformed." Rallying around the likes of John Piper and John MacArthur (at least as much as they can be considered confessionally Reformed), the theology of "Calvinism" has been growing in evangelical circles. But not everyone is pleased by this. Scot McKnight says this about the so-called "Neo-Reformed" in a few recent posts at the BeliefNet blog (part 1; part 2):

They think the only legitimate and the only faithful evangelicals are Reformed. Really Reformed. In other words, they are "confessing" evangelicals. The only true evangelical is a Reformed evangelical. They are more than happy to call into question the legitimacy and fidelity of any evangelical who doesn't believein classic Reformed doctrines, like double predestination.

Whether or not Reformed Protestants actually believe about "double predestination" what everyone else thinks they do--a gross caricature in my estimate--I find McKnight's criticisms a sharp rebuke to folks like me. You see, I would consider my theological understandings most in conformity with the Reformed tradition. What I think McKnight labels as "Reformed theology" is really the mislabeled "five points of Calvinism," better known as the "doctrines of grace." Granted, this has little to do with the meat of real Reformed theology, which is that all of God's dealings with humanity are subsumed under one of two overarching covenants: a covenant of works and a covenant of grace.

In trying to defend the gospel, though, do we really need the "doctrines of grace"? Are they themselves essential to the gospel--so much so that if someone doesn't adhere to them he has bastardized the message of Christ and is not a true "evangelical"?

In short--yes and no. For starters, it was Lutherans during the 16th-century Reformation who were first called "evangelical," coming from the Latin evangel, or "gospel." Oops. (Granted, Reformed theology during the 16th and 17th centuries looked a whole lot more like Lutheranism than it does now.) Without being too minimalist or vague, here is what I consider essential to the gospel. (I hope you will see that, unlike some versions that are merely propositions or "points," the gospel is really a story in history.)

1. God created the world "very good" and man--Adam and Eve--in his image, for the goal of wholehearted fellowship with and enjoyment of God himself.


2. Through the deceptive agency of Satan, Adam exercised distrust and rebellion and brought God's curse of death--both physical and spiritual--upon all his progeny, that is, all of mankind. All of humanity is covenantally represented "in Adam" and are therefore under sin's guilt, shame, and power. Though God still requires all persons to fully obey God's moral law, they cannot do so and under just condemnation.


3. God graciously promised to provide a Redeemer in whom man would be rescued from sin, and through whom God would reign in righteousness to bring blessing and life to a world dead in sin. (*Addition: These blessings were originally pledged in Eden and then to Abraham and his offspring, later to be given to all persons who shared in Abraham's faith.)


4. Because of man's inability to effect his own restoration through works, God himself lovingly and mercifully took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to achieve the obedience he required from man and to become an unblemished substitute to bear in his own death God's holy and just punishment for man's sin. This loving sacrifice reconciled sinful man to God.


5. Christ's was vindicated by God at his resurrection, and he now reigns from heaven to give his Spirit to all who would repent of their works, futility, and pride, and turn to him for salvation. Such persons are now, by the Spirit, given new birth "in" or "into Christ," are forgiven and declared righteous in him, and receive as a free gift the life Christ himself earned by his obedience.


6. Spiritual fellowship with Christ now transforms believers into a truer image of God.


7. Christ will return physically and visibly before the sight of all the world, and all persons will be raised bodily. Christ will condemn unbelievers to eternal torment and to welcome believers into eternal bliss in the kingdom of God--a new world which is again "very good" where we will honor and enjoy God unendingly.

The Reformed "doctrines of grace" do help to clarify these points and add depth and meaning. But this gospel goes a long way even without such beneficial clarifications. This message is our center. What I think the Heidelberg Catechism or Westminster Confession or Canons of Dordrecht do for us (and why they're ultimately necessary) is that they teach us to place saving agency--and thus all boasting and thanksgiving and honor and praise--squarely with God himself and God alone. They unpack more fully the message that "God saves sinners." We still have much the same gospel. It's just that without the Reformed lens on Scripture we wouldn't know how much praise and credit to really ascribe to God for the salvation we now have. We wouldn't know as well the security with which we lie in God's love and power.

In one sense, the Reformation's theology could be summed up as "Salvation belongs to the Lord; damnation belongs to man." It's a story of two cities, two mediators, two destinies, two ways to be human. So what the church really needs right now is not so much explicit, confessional Reformed orthodoxy, but finely tuned Law-Gospel sensors. We need pastors who are able to rightly able to expose how futile is our merit and how great and continual is our need for justification and life. And such pastors will also be able to lead us to the One in whom this justification and life is freely given.

Celebrating the "Righteousness of Faith" since 1517

I have been meaning to continue on with my posts on sola scriptura, though in a sense I'm not really diverting from that path: October 31 is Reformation Day, the day on which confessing evangelicals celebrate the nailing of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses to the cathedral door in Wittenberg on All Hallows' Eve 1517, thus sparking the Protestant Reformation. His Theses were basically a series of remonstrances against the papacy for allowing the sale of indulgences. The years of 1517-1521 then saw a flurry of study and writing which furthered the work of Jan Hus and William Tyndale in bringing the gospel to light and freeing the church from its "Bablyonian captivity." When Luther was brought to trial as a heretic at the Diet of Worms in April 1521, he said boldly,

Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason--I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other--my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.* God help me. Amen.

Luther was therefore a framer of sola scriptura, for he stood on the authority of the Bible alone.


I think this t-shirt is awesome. It highlights Luther's theology of justification: simul iustus et peccator, "at the same time justified and a sinner."







There is something I love about celebrating Reformation Day. Maybe it's simply because I was raised in the Lutheran Church and come from German ethnic heritage. Maybe. But more than that, it's really because the message of God's free love and mercy upon sinners on account of Jesus' obedient life, ransoming death, and victorious resurrection alone--received through faith alone--is the best news there is. It puts vigor in a man's enfeebled steps. It pumps blood through closed veins. The news that sin doesn't win and that God needs no man's help to kick Satan's ass and free men from the grip of death is awesome stuff.

In celebration of the truth, here is Article 22 from the Belgic Confession, an awesome summary of Luther's (and the Reformation's) insight into the gospel, that we fully possess Jesus Christ by faith alone apart from our deeds.


Article 22: The Righteousness of Faith

We believe that for us to acquire the true knowledge of this great mystery the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith that embraces Jesus Christ, with all his merits, and makes him its own, and no longer looks for anything apart from him.

For it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ or, if all is in him, then he who has Christ by faith has his salvation entirely.

Therefore, to say that Christ is not enough but that something else is needed as well is a most enormous blasphemy against God-- for it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior. And therefore we justly say with Paul that we are justified "by faith alone" or by faith "apart from works."^53

However, we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us-- for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness.

But Jesus Christ is our righteousness in making available to us all his merits and all the holy works he has done for us and in our place. And faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with him and with all his benefits.

When those benefits are made ours they are more than enough to absolve us of our sins.

^53 Rom. 3:28

Previous posts: 2007, 2006, 2005.
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* Some records add at this point, "Here I stand; I can do no other."

Happy Reformation Day!

In celebration of Reformation Day (October 31, 1517, was when Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses to the cathedral door in Wittenberg), I thought a few quotes celebrating the greatness of justification by faith alone apart from works would be apropos.

Now when a man has learned through the commandments to recognize his helplessness and is distressed about how he might satisfy the law—since the law must be fulfilled so that not a jot or tittle shall be lost, otherwise man will be condemned without hope—then, being truly humbled and reduced to nothing in his own eyes, he finds in himself nothing whereby he may be justified or saved. Here the second part of Scripture comes to our aid, namely, the promises of God which declare the glory of God, saying, “If you wish to fulfill the law and not covet, as the law commands, come, believe in Christ in whom grace, righteousness, peace, liberty, and all things are promised you. If you believe, you shall have all things; if you do not believe, you shall lack all things.” That which is impossible for you to accomplish by trying to fulfill all the works of the law—many and useless as they all are—you will accomplish quickly and easily through faith.

– Martin Luther, On Christian Liberty

It is clear that the justification which is unto eternal life Paul regards as consisting in our being constituted righteous, in receiving righteousness as a free gift, and this righteousness is none other than the righteousness of the one man Jesus Christ; it is the righteousness of his obedience. . . . Justification is thereby a constitutive act whereby the righteousness of Christ is imputed to our account and we are accordingly accepted as righteous in God’s sight.

– John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied

The specific quality of faith is that it receives and rests upon another, in this case Christ and his righteousness.

– Murray, Ibid.