 By: Rick Serina This is the next in a monthly series of articles requested by the New Jersey District President commemorating anniversaries of particular writings or events in the life of Martin Luther. They are intended to introduce the historical background and theological content and implications of those writings or events, as well as raise questions about how they might pertain to consciously Lutheran parish ministry in twenty-first century America. The purpose is not to provide answers to these difficult questions, but to provoke reflection, personally or jointly, on how Luther’s life and thought relate to the challenges facing us.
For Lutheran pastors, one of the greatest opportunities to expose people to Lutheran theology comes in adult instruction—a new members’ class. We take a few months to walk through the principal doctrines of Lutheranism with them in a way that will give them a clearer understanding of what Lutheran churches believe, teach, and confess. Yet, rather than the Small Catechism, which has traditionally been the touchstone for Lutheran catechesis, we often begin with some differently categorized course materials. Quite often, those course materials begin not with the things Lutherans have in common, say, with other Lutherans, but rather with what makes us distinct from them. The list is familiar: the distinction between law and gospel, the two kinds of righteousness, the two realms or kingdoms, the doctrine of vocation, and, as much as any, the theology of cross versus the theology of glory. We seem intent on trying to point out how we as Lutherans are different so that we can convince the Roman Catholic, Baptist, or Methodist to join our congregation, as if theology were little more than a sales pitch for recruitment of new members. The so-called theology of the cross gives us a perfect example of how we can turn such a theological idea into a definitive Lutheran concept without understanding exactly how it relates to our core theological identity. The notion of a theology of the cross over against a theology of glory emerged from Luther’s theses presented for an April 1518 debate in Heidelberg. It is worth noting that very little attention was paid to this debate or to its argument prior to the twentieth century, and it was only with the late ELCA theologian Gerhard Forde that its popularity grew among American Lutherans. Forde, without any substantial reference to the history or interpretation of the Heidelberg Theses, laid out the theology of the cross as a method for doing theology, focusing primarily on theses 19-24, where Luther contrasts theologians of the cross with theologians of glory. For Forde, this approach became a new way of making sense of the world through the lens of the cross and suffering rather than, say, science or philosophy or our self-help culture or even dogmatic theology (think Pieper’s dogmatics). He used it to show how the cross shook up all of our neat, tidy views of creation and humanity, of life and faith and doctrine. While there is much to say for the cross unsettling our categories, is that what Luther intended at Heidelberg? What do we actually know about Heidelberg and Luther’s notion of a theology of the cross? Relatively little, in fact. First, because he had already been cited for his errors in Rome, Luther was ordered by his superiors in his religious order not to debate publicly over indulgences. Second, Luther drafted two sets of theses for debate—one theological, one philosophical, each with its own set of “proofs,” which were essentially supporting materials such as Scripture references or citations of church fathers. Third, Luther composed the theses for an Augustinian student, Leonhard Beier, who was to defend them publicly. We don’t know, however, whether Luther spoke in defense of them or whether they were intended to reflect his own theology or even whether Beier agreed with them or not. All that to say this: when we talk about the theology of the cross, and when we refer back to the Heidelberg Theses as basis for that, our knowledge of the argument and scope of the theses is limited to the 28 basic theses we have in print, and those have to do almost exclusively with the way in which the theology of the day had frequently strayed from Christ’s suffering and death as a basis for our salvation. Theologians had put increasing emphasis upon the human ability to please God through works, such as obedience to the law, rather than what Christ had done. That’s the gist of Luther’s very first thesis (which caught the attention of then-Dominican student and later Reformed theologian, Martin Bucer): “The law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life, cannot advance man on his way to righteousness, but rather hinders him.” This was the argument Luther had begun making in his lectures on Romans (1515-1516), Galatians (1516-1517), and Hebrews (1517-1518). The law could not save, and when we depend upon the law for salvation, we detract from faith in the Christ who does save. But it is thesis sixteen that reveals the target of his criticism: “The person who believes that he can obtain grace by doing what is in him adds sin to sin so that he becomes doubly guilty.” The phrase “obtain grace by doing what is in him” refers to a common late medieval argument Luther himself had learned during theological study in Erfurt. Theologians said that “to those who do what is in them God will not deny grace” (Facientibus quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam). The point was that God had endowed our human wills with the capacity to obey him through good works, and when we did “the best we could” he would give us grace to complete the job—we could obey him until we merit eternal life. You can see the fundamental problem here. The opposing view flies directly in the face of the Pauline understanding of justification Luther was learning, most especially from Romans and Galatians, where righteousness is something we receive from God on account of Christ, not something we attain by obedience to God’s law through the exercise of our free will. It was in this context, and only in this context, that Luther cautions in theses 19 and 20 against clinging to human will, reason, or strength rather than what has been revealed in Scripture about Jesus’s suffering and death: “That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened…He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.” As thesis 21 confirms, a theologian of the cross who looks at the Christian life through the lens of Christ’s suffering and death sees that human virtues cannot save and that dependence upon those works rather than upon Christ is fundamentally evil—yes, evil. And that’s why, as he brings his argument to a conclusion in theses 25-26, Luther puts an exclamation mark upon our access to salvation through faith rather than through works: “He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ. The law says, ‘do this’, and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this’, and everything is already done.” When we understand Luther’s theses in their theological and historical context, it should be clear that he isn’t advocating a new way of doing theology. Instead, he is targeting the same exact foe he had begun targeting several years earlier and which would come more sharply into focus in the succeeding years: any attempt to explain our righteousness in terms of moral effort or human ability apart from Christ’s suffering and death. That’s your theology of glory. What Luther articulates is something quite different: the proclamation of righteousness on the basis of Christ’s suffering and death, which offers us salvation from our sin. That’s your theology of the cross. It is simply another of talking about justification—justification by grace through faith alone apart from works for Christ’s sake, as Augsburg 4 says. That’s what we as Lutherans are about. If we have a Lutheran theology of the cross, it isn’t some clever way to sanctify someone’s suffering or a different method for doing theology. Rather, it is clinging to the cross of Christ, to his suffering, death, and resurrection, as the sole basis and means for our justification. No, that isn’t terribly sexy or trendy, it won’t make a book cover look better or the book sell more, and it may seem old hat to Lutherans who have heard about it their entire lives. Yet it is exactly what Lutherans have always taught and believed, what Luther’s Smalcald Articles refer to as the “chief article” (Hauptartikel) and what Lutherans have since called the “article upon which the church stands or falls” (Articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae). Simply put, if the theology of the cross as expressed in the Heidelberg Theses is of any use to us, it is so simply as another way to talk about the Gospel as Lutherans understand it. If we in fact do understand justification rightly, as Luther learned it from the writings of St. Paul, again in Romans and Galatians, then this is what we must hold out for our people. When we understand justification rightly, it has a domino effect on so many other doctrines: the church, baptism, confession and absolution, the Sacrament of the Altar, the pastoral ministry, free will, good works, and just about anything else we consider a fundamental biblical teaching. Its tentacles reach every corner of our faith and life. But it is not easy. The path of least resistance is to be clever, trendy, creative. The harder part is the routine labor of teaching justification and how it must shape and reshape the way we understand our entire Christian lives. This brings us back to our approach to the adult instruction class. Are we using ideas like the theology of the cross, distinction between law and gospel, two kinds of righteousness, two kingdoms, vocation, etc., as a way to make ourselves different or compelling? And if so, why do we feel the need to promote ourselves in this way? How can we talk about justification to people who have known it all their lives, especially in a heavily Roman Catholic region like New Jersey, since it seems like a broadside against Catholic theology? How can we explain clearly, yet persuasively that justification can and should and must have some corresponding impact on all areas of our theology, our Christian faith and how we lead our lives? That’s how Luther viewed it, that’s how the confessions viewed it, and that’s how the greater preponderance of Lutherans historically have viewed it.
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 by: Rick Serina This is the next in a monthly series of articles requested by the New Jersey District President commemorating anniversaries of particular writings or events in the life of Martin Luther. They are intended to introduce the historical background and theological content and implications of those writings or events, as well as raise questions about how they might pertain to consciously Lutheran parish ministry in twenty-first century America. The purpose is not to provide answers to these difficult questions, but to provoke reflection, personally or jointly, on how Luther’s life and thought relate to the challenges facing us.
If Lutheran pastors had to identify the biblical passages that cause them the most difficulty when preparing a sermon, Sermon on the Mount would probably lead the way. These words of Jesus have left many interpreters scratching their heads, and there may be as many approaches to preaching those chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel as there are pericopes to preach in them. For Lutheran clergy, what keeps us awake at night is figuring out how to preach the morality of the Sermon on the Mount without detracting from the doctrine justification. Does Jesus just use these moral commands as a way to reveal our sin? Or does he expect us to obey them now? By preaching these imperatives, am I misleading the faithful into works-righteousness, where they believe they can justify themselves? How can I urge the people to lead godly lives without making them placing confidence in their morality rather than Christ? Is the law winning over the gospel? It’s not just the Sermon on the Mount, but nearly all passages of moral exhortation (paraenesis) in the New Testament cause us the same difficulty. Preaching morality is not easy. It has never been easy for Lutherans, who have long had to cautiously distinguish between faith in Christ that justifies and the obedience to God’s Word that should shape our lives, but can never save us. Yet it is as necessary now as ever. It is precisely this challenge that the distinction between two kinds of righteousness addresses. The distinction, simply put, seeks to preserve the preaching of morality without confusing it with the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith. We make a grave mistake, however, if we think of it as a novel idea or a recent discovery. On the contrary, it is simply one way of explaining the doctrine of justification by faith, in particular by applying justification to how we view the Christian life after baptism and viewing sanctification as a consequence of the forgiveness we have in Christ. It is a different way of showing how Christians should pursue a life of virtue in accordance with the paraenesis of the New Testament, only not in such a way that their confidence rests upon their works. Our salvation ultimately depends upon what Christ has done for us, and that means Christ’s righteousness imputed to us and received by faith. At the same time, we are called to lead a life of personal righteousness by obeying God’s Word and living according to it, and that righteousness of ours is a benefit to both us and to our neighbor. This is what Luther communicates in an undated sermon on the topic, presumably based on Philippians 2:5-6. In the short sermon, Luther makes a distinction between alien righteousness and proper righteousness. Alien righteousness, from the Latin alius (or “other”), belongs to Christ. He confers it upon us and we receive it. It does not belong to us. It comes from outside of us. Alien righteousness is synonymous with justification by faith. Most scholars believe Luther drafts this sermon sometime in 1519, right about the time that his understanding of justification by faith begins to crystallize. In fact, this may be the first explicit definition of justification by faith—far more direct than the 1519 treatises on the sacraments we have already discussed and well earlier than the 1520 Freedom of a Christian. At this early stage, though, Luther also feels the need to clarify this doctrine of justification by presenting another kind of righteousness different from the alien, external righteousness one we receive through faith: the other is proper righteousness, from the Latin proprium (or “one’s own”). Unlike alien righteousness, proper righteousness belongs to us. It is what we do. It is our obedience to God’s commands. Luther lists three things that proper righteousness entails: good works, love toward our neighbor, and the fear of God. He could have defined this in any number of ways, mind you. He uses this aspect of the distinction to show that all of our works—those which count as our proper righteousness—follow from faith and do not make us acceptable to God apart from faith in Christ. In this sermon and its distinction between alien righteousness and proper righteousness, Luther underscores alien righteousness, which is based upon justification by faith. At the same time, he wants to maintain the necessity of proper righteousness on our part. He does not dismiss that component, whether you describe it as proper righteousness, sanctification, the Christian life, or simply good works. The distinction Luther makes between the two kinds of righteousness in this early sermon may be different from other ways you have heard them taught. For instance, most have probably learned of the distinction between passive righteousness and active righteousness, which Luther uses to explain the same basic concept in his 1531 lectures on Galatians. Passive righteousness refers to the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received as a gift by faith, while active righteousness has to do with our works in the sight of others. Philipp Melanchthon made a slightly different distinction in the 1530 Augsburg Confession, where he contrasted civil righteousness with spiritual righteousness (AC 18). Civil righteousness refers to those things subject to human reason and arising from our human nature, such as our good works as citizens, spouses, parents, and workers. Spiritual righteousness, on the other hand, is the righteousness of God granted us by the Holy Spirit, chiefly those things which pertain to salvation, such as faith. The Formula of Concord parses this even differently in numerous articles, speaking of the righteousness of faith, which justifies the sinner before God on account of Christ (FC SD III), and external righteousness, or humanity’s outward works (FC SD II). No matter how you define this distinction or slice it up, the purpose is the same: we must not confuse the gift of salvation we have in Christ with the works we do as Christians. In short, we should never obscure the doctrine of justification with sanctification. For most modern Lutherans, though, the doctrine of justification isn’t a problem. Within our theological circles, we have more than a century worth of using C.F.W. Walther’s The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel to make that point clear. There is little misunderstanding or marginalization of the doctrine of justification by faith among us. The challenge for us is figuring out how to talk rightly about sanctification. How should we urge our people to good works without detracting from Christ’s work? How should we talk about the law without being legalistic? How should we emphasize the Christian life without minimizing the doctrine of justification? This is not a new problem, though; it has been a perennial problem within Lutheranism. There is a reason the Formula of Concord, just a generation removed from Luther, has no fewer than four articles addressing it: “Righteousness of Faith” (FC III), “Good Works” (FC IV), “Law and Gospel” (FC V), and “Third Use of the Law” (FC V). There is a reason Walther had to devote his series of lectures to the topic, and why those lectures have resonated since then. There is a reason two of the three controversial items (gospel reductionism and rejection of the third use of the law) related to the seminary walkout and our denominational fragmentation in the 1970s had to do with it. There is a reason that the topic continues to come up at our seminary symposia, in theological publications, and on social media. We all agree about justification, but we struggle to find an adequate balance between preserving that doctrine of justification and urging people toward obedience to the moral commands of Holy Scripture. The distinction between the two kinds of righteousness is one way to help us think through it. It preserves the doctrine of justification by insisting that our salvation depends solely upon the work of Christ and its benefits for us, received in Word and sacrament by faith. Yet it also maintains the absolute necessity of living out obedience to God by doing what he commands, with the sole proviso that we do not trust in our works for salvation. Of course, we can talk about it in a host of other ways. There are innumerable biblical metaphors we could use (law-gospel, death-resurrection, baptism-new life, etc.). However we talk about it, though, what matters is that we talk about it. We are in no cultural or denominational position to leave the absolutely imperative commands for the new life in Christ out of our preaching. Scripture teaches them, the confessions affirm them, and our people need them, especially if we are to distinguish ourselves from a culture taking very different moral cues than we do. We have to preach sanctification. We want people to live as Christians. The New Testament repeatedly urges us to obey God and his commands, to live differently than the world around us, to change our lives in accordance with our faith in Christ. This is no time to diminish those exhortations. The only caveat we must make is that we obey Scripture not in order to be rendered acceptable to God, but because we he has made us acceptable to him on account of Christ. We dare never detract from Christ’s glory and what he has done. But we must teach what Scripture says so that the people may benefit from those imperatives, so that we might live together as Christ’s body in coordination with all of his members moving in the same direction (1 Cor. 12:12-27), so that we can distinguish ourselves from the godless morality increasingly more prevalent around us. Preaching morality is never easy or straightforward; if it were, there would have been no need for the Lutheran Reformation, for those articles in the Formula of Concord, or for Walther’s theses. Faithfulness to God’s Word and our responsibility to his people is worth the effort.  By: Rick Serina This is the next in a monthly series of articles requested by the New Jersey District President commemorating anniversaries of particular writings or events in the life of Martin Luther. They are intended to introduce the historical background and theological content and implications of those writings or events, as well as raise questions about how they might pertain to consciously Lutheran parish ministry in twenty-first century America. The purpose is not to provide answers to these difficult questions, but to provoke reflection, personally or jointly, on how Luther’s life and thought relate to the challenges facing us.
Death has taken on a different dimension in modern culture. St. Paul said that death is the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26), but science treats it more like the final frontier, which the medical and scientific industries will ultimately get around to eliminating. After all, in the United States current life expectancy is 79 compared with 20-30 in the Roman Empire of the New Testament, or 47 in the year 1900, or 59 in 1950. Some estimates have it growing as high as 86 for men and 94 for women by 2025. Yet, as Christians, we understand a simple fact of the Scriptures: the wages of sin are death (Rom. 6:23), and since all have sinned, humanity has a mortality rate of one-hundred percent. Every human will die because every human has sinned, whatever their age. If that is the case, then care for the dying is part and parcel of our vocation as pastors and plays a significant role in our regular pastoral responsibilities. In Martin Luther’s day, the imminence of death was more pronounced. There were no antibiotics or well visits or organ replacements. There was no false hope for a permanent medical remedy. There was only sin, which led to death, and therefore it was incumbent upon pastors to provide care for those at life’s end. The dense macabre, or “Dance of Death,” art pictured all humans ultimately succumbing to death. The Christian ars moriendi, or “Art of Dying,” literature provided instruction on how to die “well,” because if all were going to die, it would be better to do so as Christians who understand what is happening and why. There was also a tradition of the quattor novissima, or “Four Last Things” (death, judgement, heaven, and hell), where preachers would instruct the faithful in death and its consequents. Medieval Christians lived with this reality, the church produced literature and rites to help them understand it, and clergy used those to instruct and console the faithful as death drew near. We should understand Luther’s 1520 Fourteen Consolations for Those Who Labor and Are Heavy-Laden as part of this tradition. He shared the same assumptions regarding the imminence and reality of death that the modern world simply reduces to an obstacle for science to overcome. Luther saw the need to prepare his people for that imminent reality and to do so using the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith he had come to learn in the preceding years. The occasion for this writing was an illness to Luther’s patron, Frederick the Wise of Electoral Saxony (to whom it is dedicated). He composed the treatise in fall 1519 and published it in February 1520. The first seven consolations deal with the evils threatening all Christians: the evil within, the evil of the future, the evil of the past, the evil of hell, the evil of our enemies (“left hand”), the evil of our friends (“right hand”), and the evil above in the heavens—Jesus! What Luther means by the evil above has to do with the sufferings that Jesus endured for our sake, for if he was willing to suffer so unjustly, then we should not turn away from sufferings, but embrace them as a way of clinging to Jesus himself. Of course, it is worth mentioning that in late 1519, Luther was in turmoil and contemplating suffering. He knew he would be excommunicated and expected to be executed, as the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus had been, since many believed Luther had made the same errors as Hus. The Wittenberg professor saw in Christ an example and encouragement in the face of his own potential suffering. In the second half of the treatise, Luther offers seven blessings one may recount when facing death. These roughly parallel the evils. God has given us the blessing of our body, the blessing of hope as circumstances change for the better (this includes the end of pain at death), the blessing of the past that has sustained us, the blessing of hell (which leads us to give thanks that this is not our fate), the blessing of adversaries (whose desire to harm us only serves to increase our faith), the blessing of friends within the communion of saints, and the eternal blessing of heaven. Two things stand out about Luther’s approach. First, in a manner similar to the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-12), or the Lukan account of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Lk.16:19-31), all the blessings of death reverse the evils incurred in this life. The Christian looks at the evils of this life and sees in them not problems to be corrected, but the promise of Christ to overcome them—a promise that he begins to fulfill in the death of the saints. Second, the consolations are filled with biblical references, in particular references to the Psalms. That may be the case because the Psalter provides so many expressions of lament in the face of danger or death, but it also because Luther was knee-deep in his second lectures on the Psalms (1519-1521), providing him a wealth of biblical resources from which to draw. This produced a highly devotional treatment of death rather than a strict scholastic treatise explaining the biblical basis for death, heaven, or hell, let alone a polemical attack on superstitions regarding saints or purgatory. How might we appropriate Luther’s devotional approach to death in this day and age—a day and age when people don’t expect to die, and most certainly not before collecting government entitlements or synodical pensions? Death is no longer the ever-present reality experienced by Christians across the globe and in every era. Its meaning has changed, so we must in turn redefine it as Christians. First, it would behoove us to define death theologically. The world around us describes it medically and scientifically, as the natural cycle of any biological organism. But we aren’t free to do so. The Scriptures bind us to speak theologically about death, as a completely and wholly unnatural corruption of God’s creation, as the consequence of Adam and Eve defying the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden, as the consequence we all face because of the sin we have inherited from our first parents and have committed since. But, secondly, we must learn to speak about it Christologically. For Luther, the blessings that await us overturn the evils that surround us, and they do so precisely because Jesus Christ has given new meaning to death. No longer is death the insuperable opponent that has a claim on our lives. In Christ, that enemy is overcome, he has been defeated, and just as Christ was raised from the dead so too will he raise us to share in that final victory. We mortal humans do not overcome death. Science and medicine and technology do not overcome death. Fitness and diet and pharmaceuticals do not overcome death. Jesus overcomes death, and if he has overcome it, then the confidence of the Christian is not placed in the fleeting hopes of new scientific discoveries or treatments, but in the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord who will return on the Last Day to open the graves of his saints, raise their mortal bodies, knit them back together—bones, joints, and flesh, and grant them immorality and incorruptibility by the same power that enabled him to rise again from the dead.  By: Rick Serina This is the latest in a monthly series of articles requested by the New Jersey District President commemorating anniversaries of particular writings or events in the life of Martin Luther. They are intended to introduce the historical background and theological content and implications of those writings or events, as well as raise questions about how they might pertain to consciously Lutheran parish ministry in twenty-first century America. The purpose is not to provide answers to these difficult questions, but to provoke reflection, personally or jointly, on how Luther’s life and thought relate to the challenges facing us.
We’ve heard it said more than once that Luther did not set out to start a new church, but to reform the one he had. That is true—to a degree. It must also be said that Luther never set out with the intent to reform the church, either. If we want to call the controversy over the Ninety-Five Theses the start of the Protestant Reformation, then it was little more than at attempt to address one very limited, specific teaching on the basis of his authority as a university professor of theology. But things didn’t stop there. They continued to evolve. It wasn’t just indulgences, but soon penance, the sacraments, justification, church authority, among other doctrines, and that in turn meant Luther had an obligation to spell out how those teachings should be understood and what they should mean for the believer. At this point, university theology quickly turned into parish catechesis, into instruction for the faithful, so that the people might bring the debates of the Wittenberg curriculum into their churches and homes. This transition is what elicits a writing like January 1520’s A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord’s Prayer. For the modern Lutheran reader, this treatise appears to be an intermediate version of what becomes the first three chief parts of his later Catechism. In a sense, it is an important signpost pointing in that direction. That Luther would write a short summary of the Decalogue, Apostles Creed, and Our Father is not terribly surprising. Beginning in the fourteenth century, concerted efforts were made to instruct the laity in church teaching, including these three significant elements of the biblical faith. There were vernacular catechetical sermons, short catechisms, confessional manuals for confessors that included instruction in the faith, as well as resources for prayer, examination of communicants, art and architecture, even dramatic creedal plays. Yet the combination of illiteracy among the people and the increasingly academic orientation of scholastic theology meant a broadening gap between what the people knew and what the church taught. That is at least part of the reason why Luther writes not only treatises about more complex theological topics like the sacraments or penance, but also others on biblical and devotional topics like the ones in this treatise. The first of these three that Luther addressed was the Ten Commandments in 1518, then the Lord’s Prayer in 1519. A year later, he added to those a freshly drafted commentary on the Apostles Creed, and then in 1522, and all three were incorporated into Luther’s Prayer Book, or Betbüchlein. His instruction is more detailed and robust than the later Small Catechism, but more concise and less polemical than the Large Catechism. He specifically breaks the Ten Commandments down into the first and second tables, then lists a series of transgressions (Ubertretung) against them and a series of ways to fulfill (erfullunge) them. In the section on the Creed, he frames it largely in personal, almost devotional terms according to the persons of the Trinity, not the articles of the Creed. There is no theoretical discussion of the essence and persons of the Holy Trinity, but a series of personal confessions, normally beginning “I believe” (Ich glaube) in the pattern of the Creed itself. He also includes specific renunciation of all demonic and black magic in the First Commandment. Finally, he expands even more upon the Lord’s Prayer, providing numerous templates of prayers based upon each petition. You can see in each of these three parts a preliminary form of what will become the later catechisms, from the format to the topics addressed, even the language used. While this treatise is hardly revolutionary, and mostly provides a source history of Luther’s important catechisms, its composition should give us pause. The Brief Explanation is part devotional treatise, part doctrinal explanation, and part catechetical resource for pastoral and family use. It is theological without being abstract, biblical without being exegetical, devotional without being contrived or overly sentimental, practical without lacking serious doctrinal content. Simply put, Luther’s form of devotional, theological catechesis does not fit easily within what has become an increasingly fragmented approach to the Christian faith in America. We routinely argue over distinctions between doctrine and practice, theology and relevance, head and heart. We cite St. Paul’s contrast in 1 Corinthians 8 between a “knowledge that puffs up” and a “love that builds up” as if it were an opposition rather than a contrast. We often treat the theology learned in seminary or debated at synodical conventions as if it had nothing to do with the ministry in our congregations or the needs of our people. Yet Luther could not have envisioned such a dilemma. For him, the simple fact that Scripture teaches something or that this or that theological argument is sound doctrinally implies that it must be useful for the faithful. Sound doctrine makes for good catechesis and will inform a healthy Christian piety. If it doesn’t lead to a healthy piety, then by definition it isn’t good catechesis or sound doctrine. One may be able to find an exception to the rule here or there, but the Luther of 1520, let alone 1529, has no place for a fragmented Christian worldview that sidelines theology in favor of devotion, or devotion in favor of theology, and faithful, responsible catechesis for him is the essential link between these two. Of course, we don’t live in sixteenth-century Germany, we aren’t heirs to a medieval world saturated in the supernatural, and we don’t have entire parishes, towns, and countries sharing the same fundamental beliefs about God and Christianity as Luther largely had. We fight uphill battles in shrinking congregations situated in secular communities with little patience for Christianity, and sometimes downright hostile opposition to it. Our parishes are struggling for their fiscal lives, our confirmation classes are shadows of what they used to be, and our opportunities to instruct in the faith are more infrequent they used to be. How are we supposed to create a healthy environment for catechesis given these conditions? There are several pressing obstacles complicating our attempts. First, the lack of instruction in the home. This was a problem Luther himself faced and saw fit to address by drafting his own catechisms. If we can’t impress upon our congregations the absolute necessity of instruction in the home, in the form of Scripture reading, prayer, even catechetical formation, then our opportunities for catechesis are stillborn by the time children arrive in our classes. Relatedly, biblical literacy remains a massive absence in the lives of American Christians. Recent Barna surveys show that less than a quarter of Americans read the bible once a week or more. Irregular attendance in worship services has exacerbated the problem—if the heads of the household aren’t attending worship or reading the Scriptures themselves, how can they possibly be expected to implement catechesis in the home? So, what are we to do? There is no magic formula, no catechetical program, no new 40-day project of Scripture reading to reverse this tide easily. It will require patient, painstaking, relatively “unsuccessful” (at least if judged by current ministry metrics) long-term efforts at changing these inherited practices and attitudes. It will require pastors that insure what Christians believe theologically is front and center in the worship and administration of the church, in their pastoral care and counseling and interactions. It will require pastors that address theology not as a form of intellectual violence against those with whom we disagree, but thoughtfully and attentively for the purpose of persuading the faithful of what is biblical and Lutheran and most beneficial for their faith and their piety. It will require pastors that continue immersing themselves and their families in the Scriptures and confessions and piety of the church, not as an occupation, but as a lifestyle we seek to model for the people entrusted to our care. It will above all require us to dispense with these problematic disjunctions between a theology we study, a catechesis we teach, and a faith we practice. For Lutherans, as for Luther, they are one and the same.  By: Rick Serina This is the latest in a monthly series of articles requested by the New Jersey District President commemorating anniversaries of particular writings or events in the life of Martin Luther. They are intended to introduce the historical background and theological content and implications of those writings or events, as well as raise questions about how they might pertain to consciously Lutheran parish ministry in twenty-first century America. The purpose is not to provide answers to these difficult questions, but to provoke reflection, personally or jointly, on how Luther’s life and thought relate to the challenges facing us.
Much like his November 1519 treatise on baptism, when Luther writes about the Sacrament of the Altar just one month later, he could never imagine someone arguing against the bodily presence of Christ in the sacrament. With precious few exceptions, no one had made that argument in the centuries preceding and it would not be until 1523 that Luther’s colleague at Wittenberg, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, would be the first of the Reformation to raise this objection to the traditional doctrine. In December 1519, however, Karlstadt is still in line with Luther, objections to the bodily presence of Christ at the table are nowhere to be found, and the medieval Latin mass is still relatively uncontroversial. When Luther drafts this treatise on the sacrament, he treads rather cautiously on altogether different ground: what the sacrament creates among the communion of saints gathered around the altar. Luther describes the sacrament in this treatise using the same categories of sign and thing signified, which he had drawn from Augustine, as in the earlier treatise on baptism, though he adds an important third feature reflecting the direction he wants to go with his discussion. The sign in the sacrament is the bread and wine. The one relatively controversial comment he makes in this connection is that the full sign—the wine along with the bread—was not being given to the laity as Christ instituted it and deserves correction. He even suggests a council might reinstitute the full sacrament by decreeing that both elements should be received. This would instigate a modest conflict since to many ears Luther was appealing to the position of the Hussites, a fifteenth-century Bohemian sect that demanded—and, at least according to a contested agreement with the Council of Basel in 1433, were given—the right to receive the sacrament in both kinds. The decision to prohibit the administration of both kinds has rather unclear origins. It owes as much to the unwillingness of the laity to receive as it does to the priests withholding the cup. Nevertheless, the medieval scholastic doctrine of concomitance was used to defend the practice: since Christ’s body and blood were present in both elements, rather than merely the blood in the wine and the body in the bread, then it was permissible for the laity to receive only the host, for it contained the true flesh of Jesus—both body and blood. Yet, despite his encouragement to receive both elements, Luther did not spend much time advocating for that practice, nor did he broach questions about how the body and blood of Christ were present. In fact, when describing what the sign of bread and wine signifies, he does not even point to the body and blood of Christ; rather, he points to the fellowship of the saints. Again, Luther assumes the bodily presence of Christ and in no way seeks to debate that point. However, he has a more practical point in mind: the sacrament incorporates the recipient into the communion of the faithful. To make the case, Luther uses a traditional image, drawn from 1 Corinthians 10 and found throughout the ancient and medieval tradition, including Augustine: “For just as the bread is made out of many grains ground and mixed together, and out of the bodies of many grains there comes the body of one bread, in which each grain loses its form and body and takes upon itself the common body of the bread; and just as the drops of wine, in losing their own form, become the body of one common wine and drink—so it should be with us, if we use the sacrament properly” (AE 35:58). The sacrament of Holy Communion should inculcate something in the lives of those receiving it. They should be moved to unity with one another and toward changed lives spiritually on account of the sacrament. It is not simply an individual reception according to one’s individual views. On the contrary, the sacrament makes those receiving it into a holy communion, a fellowship of saints. In addition to the sign of bread and wine and the fellowship of saints that it signifies, Luther also talks about the faith which one needs to receive the sacrament rightly. Again, much to our surprise, he does not speak of acknowledging the bodily presence of Christ since that was assumed. Instead, he talks about the necessity of a faith that realizes what Christ is doing through the sacrament. He has not simply given his body and blood, but has brought the believer into a fellowship and offered all of his gifts there. The reason Luther insists upon the necessity of faith—apart from the fact that Augustine himself said the right “use” of the sacrament requires faith on the part of the recipient—is to counteract the medieval notion of the sacraments working ex opere operato (“by the work which is worked”). Luther had specifically raised this concern with the medieval sacrament of penance, which allowed for the purchase of an indulgence for the remission of sins of those in purgatory, even if they had no personal repentance or faith. Luther argues to the contrary that faith is necessary to receive that which the sacraments offer, as Augustine had long before him. In the case of the Sacrament of the Altar, one must receive in faith the signs and what they signify in order to truly realize that the communicant now shares in the fellowship of the saints at that altar. This is why Luther takes time at the end of the treatise to attack the so-called brotherhoods (confraternities or guilds), mostly lay by Luther’s day, which would endow private masses, hold social gatherings, and practice devotion to a variety of saints or relics. While their sectarian approach to fellowship draws attention away from the church to their own private and social practices, Luther believes the sacrament should create just the opposite: a communion of people committed to one another and being formed in love toward Christ and one another. In all of this, what remains the most surprising about Luther’s treatise is the absence of any detailed affirmation or description of Christ’s presence at the table. But he didn’t need to precisely because no one had questioned it. That dynamic has reversed entirely in our day. While the earliest reformers could not have imagined an argument against the presence of Christ in the sacrament, we find ourselves now having to defend how Christ can be present to those who reject the notion. Never mind that it is only in the wake of Karlstadt and the Sacramentarians like Ulrich Zwingli and Johannes Oecolampadius that this issue was raised, the burden of proof has now shifted to us. It is worth remembering that Christians at no point in time prior to the Reformation doubted that Christ was present in the sacrament. There was a host of disagreements about how Christ was present. Some Alexandrian Greeks, influenced so heavily by Platonism, had a view much closer to the metonymical thought of Calvin, where our spirits were lifted to Christ’s in heaven (a “metonymy” in the sense that he believes Christ is present for the believer, just not with the bread and wine of the sacrament). The medieval debates of the eleventh century, centering around Berenger of Tours, also affirmed the presence of Christ while only questioning how he was present. The “how” will make its way into Luther’s rejection of transubstantiation in his 1520 Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Nevertheless, with the Sacramentarians of the sixteenth century, we have the first movement to deny the presence of Christ in the sacrament, no matter what term one uses to describe it: local, real, true, bodily, spiritual, or metonymical. This is why Luther will accuse Zwingli of being of another Geist, or spirit. Yet sadly American Protestantism has adopted a view that Christians nearly categorically prior to the Reformation would have rejected. What was once an extreme outlier has now become the norm, and we find ourselves having to defend not only that Christ is present, but also how he can be present, in order for our converts—or even members—to understand. This is a shift Luther could not have anticipated when writing in 1519. At the same time, we face another challenge Luther does address in this treatise: how we view the solidarity of those communing at the table. In American Lutheranism, that has ordinarily resulted in a debate about table fellowship, in particular who is eligible to commune at our altars. Luther obviously did not deal with this problem in Electoral Saxony in 1519. All his people were Catholic—like him! What he has in mind here is the pastoral responsibility to ensure the communicant understands what is being received in the sacrament and to what end it is being received. This is why Luther’s exhortations to communicants will shift over time from strictly emphasizing what the sacrament means to why one should want to receive it. This will also lead to the Lutheran reformers carrying over the practice of absolution and examination prior to receiving the sacrament, as Augsburg Confession 25 clearly states. The point remains just as crucial for us today in executing our pastoral responsibilities at the altar faithfully, all the more when we live in a world with permeable religious boundaries and loose religious affiliations, where we can’t possibly know whether or not a visitor has any instruction in the Christian faith whatsoever, let alone what that visitor actually believes. It really is not a question of denomination titles or catholicity or being hospitable or kind; it is a matter of clearly communicating to the faithful what Christ offers at the table, what it should create in their lives, and how, to the best of our ability, we can ensure the people communing at the altar understand and seek to live out those things. Simple printed communion statements or the fact that someone was once confirmed in a Missouri Synod parish cannot possibly replace the interaction between pastor and communicant. For Luther, it is a question of the pastor’s responsibility to care for the faithful at his table so that they might receive the sacrament with a right understanding and for the benefit of their common life and growth together. The reasons seem no different for us now, even if the context and challenges have changed.  By: Rick Serina This is the next in a monthly series of articles requested by the New Jersey District President commemorating anniversaries of particular writings or events in the life of Martin Luther. They are intended to introduce the historical background and theological content and implications of those writings or events, as well as raise questions about how they might pertain to consciously Lutheran parish ministry in twenty-first century America. The purpose is not to provide answers to these difficult questions, but to provoke reflection, personally or jointly, on how Luther’s life and thought relate to the challenges facing us.
When it comes to our place within the American religious landscape, maybe no Lutheran doctrine raises as many questions as baptism. Where does Scripture command the baptism of infants? How can an infant be saved at baptism? How do you reconcile justification by faith with infant baptismal regeneration? How can an infant believe? We answer these questions in every adult instruction class, every confirmation class, even many bible classes. Yet, for whatever controversy exists about these matters today, there was relatively little over it in the early years of the Reformation, when Luther penned his “On the Sacrament of Holy Baptism” in November 1519. The view he articulated there was remarkably consistent with much of what had been said throughout church history. The greatest criticism to this view of baptism would come not from Luther’s Roman opponents, but from his reforming friends. In this November 1519 writing, however, Luther said very little that could cause controversy. He divided the sacrament of Holy Baptism into three distinct categories: the sign (signa), the thing (res) that it signifies, and how it signifies what it signifies. These distinctions go back to St. Augustine and his De doctrina christiana, where the archbishop of Hippo divided Christian doctrine (and, in particular, the sacraments) into the external words or signs used, the reality to which they point, and how they do so. For the sacraments, that means the element is the sign, the meaning of the sacrament that to which it points, and the signification how the sign represents that thing. In the specific case of the Lord’s Supper, the bread and wine are the sign, the body and blood of Christ is the thing signified, and how the bread and wine symbolize Christ’s crucified flesh the signification. Luther uses this exact framework to describe Holy Baptism. The baptismal water is the sign. The thing signified is the dying to sin and rising to new, eternal life, as St. Paul says in Romans 6. The way the baptismal waters signify this dying to sin and rising to new is through the physical act of baptism—especially, Luther suggests, immersion!—whereby the meaning of the sacrament plays itself out in real time. (This lays the foundation for how Luther will explain baptism later in the Small Catechism.) Where Luther begins to say something that will eventually cause controversy is by incorporating his newfound understanding of justification by faith into the sacrament of Holy Baptism. For Luther, what baptism signifies is inextricably bound to God’s covenantal promise of forgiveness: it isn’t just that baptism forgives sins committed prior to receiving it, but it stands as constant promise of forgiveness for the one who has faith in what baptism declares. The believer is never without sin, and since the believer is never without sin he always needs the promise of forgiveness in order to believe that the forgiveness of sin did not just apply to those sins “back there,” but to the sins “here and now.” This, of course, provides us the connection between confession and baptism with which we are familiar. The promise of forgiveness declared at the font is received anew in confession and absolution, through the process of “daily contrition and repentance.” Now, this doesn’t mean that saving faith and mortal sin (however one defines that) can coexist, as the Lutheran confessions make manifestly clear [e.g., AC IV.64, 115, 144; SA III.3.43-45; FC SD II.29]. On the contrary, it assumes a life of contrition and repentance that continually returns to the promise of baptism by acknowledging those sins in confession and seeking to do better, as it says in the Brief Form of Confession appended to the Small Catechism: “For all this I am sorry, and pray for grace; I want to do better.” Nevertheless, sin remains, the effects of sin remain, and therefore the promise of forgiveness must also remain so that the one who has been baptized, repents, and believes might know that forgiveness still stands. There was nothing controversial about Luther’s intent, nor is there anything in his words remarkably new or strange to our ears. But, by the end of the 1520s, that would change. Rome hardly spared print on the matter. Instead, a new group of opponents arose against Luther in the Spiritualists, Sacramentarians, and Anabaptists. The Spiritualists argued that God did not need to mediate his revelation or his grace through Word or Sacraments. The Sacramentarians applied this criticism to the Lord’s Supper. But it was the Anabaptists who pushed this debate to its logical conclusion: if justification comes through faith, and if faith involves believing in the gospel, then infants should not be baptized for their justification because they can’t believe in the gospel. In this event, infant baptism remains a slavish repetition of “Catholic” sacramental theology and should be abandoned, with all those baptized as infants by Roman priests being rebaptized once they come to the conscious intellectual embrace of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith. In 1528, Luther responds to this with his treatise “Concerning Rebaptism,” where he makes the claim that baptism does not depend upon our faith, but God’s Word. If faith is lacking, we don’t need to correct the baptism, which is perfectly valid where those waters are blessed according to Christ’s command; we must correct the faith, that is, by teaching and believing what the Scriptures say about justification by grace through faith apart from works for Christ’s sake. The deeper issue here is how we as Lutherans understand faith. It is not a conscious, intellectual assent to particular doctrines; it is rather a passive gift received through the Holy Spirit at work in Word and Sacrament—and, in the case of infants, through the waters of Holy Baptism. The infant is capable of faith (what historically was called fides infantium) because faith is not an intellectual concept, but a spiritual reception of God’s promise spoken through Christ in the sacrament. Justifying faith is not a matter of understanding, but of receiving the Word of Christ, and that is a reception only possible through the Holy Spirit—and that work of the Holy Spirit is the same in the 80-year-old with dementia, the 60-year-old physician, the 40-year-old pastor, the 20-year-old with Down’s Syndrome, and, yes, even the newborn infant. To use Luther’s famous comparison, if a six-month in utero John the Baptist could respond to recently-conceived Christ speaking through the voice of Mary, how much more can a newborn infant respond to the voice of Christ speaking his Word through the priest administering baptism? Furthermore, as the Luther scholar Heiko Obermann once wrote, there may be no better example of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith than infant baptism: “Infant baptism revealed the meaning of baptism. From Luther's standpoint one could not genuinely preserve baptism while repudiating infant baptism, for it was in the child to be baptized that the meaning of the Evangelical faith became visible: trusting only in the ‘alien’ justification granted by God.” (Luther: Man between God and Devil, 230). How should we make sense of what Luther says about Holy Baptism in our context, then? On this score, we face two very different fronts. First, the great majority of Protestant churches in America do not baptize infants, and none of those who do believe the baptism of infants actually provides them justifying faith and thus regenerates them from sin. We have all no doubt experienced this when introducing evangelical converts to Lutheranism. I might add that for the evangelical this will always be the most profound obstacle to embracing Lutheranism. To them, we must make vitally clear that faith is not an idea to be understood (at least not at first!), but a work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and that in turn nothing represents our doctrine of justification by faith better than the infant—incapable of doing good works, understanding doctrine, or making a decision—passively receiving the justification Jesus offers through the Word he speaks at the font. The obstacle for the evangelical is never infant baptism per se, but the very nature of justification by faith itself. But the greater challenge we face, especially here in the secularized northeast and its hereditary, largely non-practicing Roman Catholicism, is what to do with the baptism of infants to families with no involvement in a church and no express intention to raise their children in the faith. The typical argument has been that we must “err on the side of grace.” Yet it is interesting that the early church, facing a similarly antagonistic, religiously pluralistic culture, never did such a thing. They delayed baptism of new adult converts for anywhere from one to three years in order to catechize them, and that in turn meant the delayal of baptism for their infants. What might we do in our day to address this problem? What sort of catechesis can we do with families—members or not—prior to baptism so that they understand not only what we believe about the sacrament, but also the implication of ongoing participation in the church for the sustaining of faith? After all, Lutherans categorically repudiate “eternal security,” or the notion that one cannot lose justifying faith [AC XII.7]. And since justifying faith depends upon the Spirit working through Word and Sacrament to fortify it against the flesh, the world, and the devil, baptizing without any intention of future church participation is the equivalent of taking the first dose of antibiotics without any intention of completing the cycle. It also seems terribly strange that we require six weeks, three months, six months of adult instruction for someone to become a member of our church, let alone up to two years of confirmation instruction before one receives the sacrament, yet settle for a meeting or two with non-practicing Christian parents prior to the baptism of their child. What can we do differently by way of policy, catechesis, and counsel to insure baptized infants have what they need to retain their faith: the work of the Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament, strengthening, sustaining, fortifying their faith against the attacks of the flesh, the world, and the devil? By: Rick Serina  This is the second in a monthly series of articles requested by the New Jersey District President which commemorate anniversaries of particular writings or events in the life of Martin Luther. They are intended to introduce the historical background and theological content and implications of those writings or events, as well as raise questions about how they might pertain to consciously Lutheran parish ministry in twenty-first-century America. The purpose is not to provide answers to these difficult questions, but to provoke reflection, personally or jointly, on how Luther’s life and thought relates to the challenges facing us.
If there were a “white-hot” center to Martin Luther’s Reformation, it would have to be his understanding of penance. The famous Ninety-Five Theses began with a statement about penance: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” He then followed it by distinguishing between the sacrament of penance—what we call confession and absolution—and the internal repentance by which we acknowledge ourselves to be sinners. St. Jerome’s translation of repentance in Latin was poenitentiam agite (to “make” or “do” penance) and this gave rise to the notion that repentance meant going through a procession of penance. Luther, though, took the Greek word metanoia to mean a literal, internal conversion, where the sinner reflected upon his sins and turned to God in faith, seeking salvation. The entire medieval penitential system Luther opposed in October 1517, including the sale of indulgences, derived from this understanding of penance as a process one “did” rather than as a repentance from sin that led to the embrace of the gospel in faith. When he published his theses in 1517, however, Luther hadn’t quite developed the clear understanding of justification by faith we have come to expect from him. That can be seen more clearly in his August 1519 sermon “On the Sacrament of Penance.” These sermons were not necessarily preached (though they may have been prior to publication), but they were “circular” sermons printed and distributed widely in the vernacular German for people with lesser theological knowledge to read and understand—not to mention those who didn’t know Latin. In this particular sermon, Luther took aim at the medieval understanding of the sacrament of penance, which was divided into three distinct parts: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Contrition was the motivation for going to confession, and that could either be legitimate contrition (a legitimate sorrow for one’s sin out of love for God) or attrition (driven only to confess out of fear of punishment). Confession proper was the act of auricular confession, mandated once a year by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and requiring the precise enumeration of all sins committed that required forgiveness. Satisfaction then entailed specific acts prescribed by the confessor to the penitent, upon completion of which those sins enumerated in confession were absolved. The entire structure of the penitential system raised one obvious question: How do I know my sins are forgiven? One could go through all the steps, yet still wonder whether there was true contrition or simply attrition, whether all sins needing absolution were accurately enumerated, and whether acts of satisfaction had been completed sufficiently. Many scholars—even Luther himself—have argued that this created a torture of consciences, but this may be a little overstated. Records show that medieval confessors tried their best to care for penitents and took great pains to provide them pastoral direction, and that resources were published for the training of confessors and for their use in the sacrament of penance. Nevertheless, there remained a degree of uncertainty, and that uncertainty owed to a misunderstanding of justification by faith and how absolution should provide the forgiveness one receives in faith. In response to this, Luther’s sermon delineated three different parts of penance (not the two we are accustomed to from later confessional writings). The first was the Word of absolution, where the priest speaks the word of forgiveness to the penitent confessing his sins: Ego te absolvo—“I forgive you.” The second part related to the faith of the penitent receiving the absolution. We are most familiar with this from the Lutheran confessions, but it was something medieval penance simply did not include because medieval theologians operated with a different functional definition of faith, more like cognitive assent than genuine trust in the promises of Christ, as Luther taught it according to St. Paul. The peace and forgiveness that followed faith in the absolution rounded out the three parts of penance for Luther. This means just what it sounds like: rather than a sense of uncertainty, the penitent believer walks away from the sacrament of penance confident that his sins are forgiven because of Christ and that peace with God has been restored. The famous Tübingen Luther scholar Oswald Bayer has made the well-accepted point that with this new 1519 understanding, Luther had come to his “Reformation breakthrough”: he realized that salvation could not be attained through works of the law, but solely by faith in the Word proclaimed, and he came to this realization nowhere more clearly than in the sacrament of penance. When the priest pronounced absolution, the penitent could receive it in certainty and confidence, knowing that what is spoken there on earth is reflected in heaven before God. But this argument doesn’t necessarily address the problem we face today. We aren’t reforming a misleading view of penance, absolution, and faith; we are dealing with a more daunting challenge: What happens to absolution when the people receiving absolution don’t believe they need it? To put it differently, how do we communicate the need for and benefits of absolution in a culture that doesn’t legitimately believe in personal sin? In the Middle Ages and in the days of the early Reformation, even if the case is overstated, the people genuinely feared death, punishment for sin, and an eternal hell as the fate that awaited them apart from the mercy of Christ. But what does it make of our absolutions when, in fact, those conditions no longer exist? Nothing in our culture, nothing in American Christianity, nothing in the daily lives of our parishioners speaks of sin as it was traditionally understood. At most, we hear of sin as social ills (and which social ills all depends upon whether you vote red or blue). But personal culpability for sins one has committed, by commission or omission, by things we have done or not done? That is a tough sell. It also leaves us with a pastoral predicament as Lutherans: How should we catechize our people in sin so that they might understand and embrace the absolution offered in response to their confessions? While penance provided Luther an opportunity to teach about justification by faith, it now requires us to address a different topic altogether: the nature, consequence, and need for forgiveness of sins. How we do that may be one of the most pressing issues of our pastoral ministries. By: Rick Serina  Lutherans can trace the principle of Sola Scriptura back to a fateful debate in the summer of 1519 between Martin Luther and the Ingolstadt theologian, John Eck (as well as Luther’s colleague at Wittenberg, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt). The controversy over the Ninety-Five Theses had decreased considerably due to larger political concerns in the Holy Roman Empire, chiefly the selection of a new emperor. Luther had stopped publishing on the more hotly-contested aspects of his theology, but when he stepped to the podium on July 4, 1519, to debate Eck on the questions of indulgences, penance, purgatory, and the papacy, a new fissure in the Reformation opened: the priority of Scripture over all other sources of authority, whether that was pope, council, canon law, medieval doctor, or early church father.
The debate over the papacy at Leipzig had to do with whether the bishop of Rome had primacy over the other Christian bishops by human right (de iure humano) or divine right (de iure divino), that is, by practical convention or by Scriptural mandate. Luther argued that it was by human right, and thus as a human the pope had no prerogative to condemn those who denied papal authority, like the Greek Church or the Bohemian Church associated with the fifteenth-century reformer Jan Hus of Prague. Hus had been condemned and executed at the Council of Constance in 1415, and Luther argued that this was a mistake because Hus said many things that were “most Christian and evangelical.” John Eck accused Luther of opposing the authority of councils, which Luther had no intention of doing. Luther nonetheless defended his position by saying that councils, like popes, were human authorities and therefore could err. A council was merely a “creature of the Word” and was subject to Scripture. Only Scripture itself is infallible. Luther’s claim left a mark. John Eck called him “a heathen and a publican” who did not deserve to continue the debate. Duke George of Saxony, the patron of the Leipzig Debate, cried out, “the pest [“the plague”] take the man!” After reports of the debate circulated, many new advocates came to Luther’s side, while others withdrew their support. Philipp Melanchthon defended Luther’s position after Leipzig and formulated the first explicit thesis regarding Sola Scriptura in September 1519. The case against Luther resumed in Rome and, spearhead by none other than Eck himself, led to the bull (Exsurge Domine) declaring Luther a heretic. What made Luther’s stand at Leipzig so divisive? Many had questioned popes, councils, canon law, medieval doctors, and early church fathers before him. But Luther’s statement that Scripture alone is infallible and thus the only proper judge of, and authority for, doctrine became a turning point in the Reformation that separated Protestants from Roman Catholics, and has continued to challenge Lutherans as we seek to make decisions about doctrine and practice. Sixty years after Leipzig, the Formula of Concord followed Luther in clearly stipulating that Scripture is the sole source and norm (the norma normans, or “norm that norms”) of all doctrine. But it has also raised as many questions as it has given answers. For instance, what does it imply if the confessions—a source of fallible human authority—declare that Scripture is authoritative? Why would the sixteenth-century Lutherans need to formulate something so self-evident to us? If Scripture is the sole infallible authority, does that mean we are permitted to disagree with or ignore the confessions? Does the authority of Scripture mean all other human authorities (say synodical resolutions, traditional teachings of the Missouri Synod, the creeds and confession of the church) are subject to our interpretation of Scripture? Or is it more accurate to say that Sola Scriptura—in the ablative, mind you, not the nominative—means we don’t simply believe in Scripture alone, but rather judge doctrine by Scripture? Might it even be better to describe Scriptural authority as Scriptura Prima—that is, Scripture “first”—than Scripture alone? These are the questions opened up by the Leipzig Debate, these are the questions Lutherans have been wrestling with for five centuries now, and these are the questions we must face as we charitably discuss and debate the faith within our corner of the Lutheran world. |