CONCORDIA JOURNAL
Volume 33
April 2007
Number 2
CONTENTS
EDITORIALS
Editor’s Note ............................................................................. 110
Theological Observer ..................................................................112
ARTICLES
Why the Two Kinds of Righteousness?
Charles P. Arand and Joel Biermann .....................................116
The Two Kinds of Righteousness!: What’s a Preacher to Do?
Timothy Saleska .................................................................. 136
A Two-Dimensional Understanding of the Church for the
Twenty-First Century
Charles P. Arand .................................................................. 146
God and His Human Creatures in Luther’s Sermons on
Genesis: The Reformer’s Early Use of His Distinction of
Two Kinds of Righteousness
Robert Kolb .......................................................................... 166
HOMILETICAL HELPS .................................................................. 185
BOOK REVIEWS ............................................................................. 213
BOOKS RECEIVED ......................................................................... 240
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Editor’s Note
The proper distinction between Law and Gospel, which has its corollary in the two kinds of righteousness, has always been at the heart of
Lutheranism and has helped maintain a proper balance in the relationship
between believers and God, as well as with other human beings. These
distinctions and their ramifications for the church and for individual Christians remain vital for contemporary Christianity, which is in danger of
losing its theological underpinnings to various sociological trends. The
Lutheran Reformation helped remind the church of the correct, Biblical
understanding and relationship between faith and works. Contemporary
Christianity will be greatly benefitted by retaining these distinctions correctly understood. This issue of Concordia Journal offers four articles on
the two kinds of righteousness for the consideration and reflection of the
church and its members.
In the first article, “Why the Two Kinds of Righteousness?,” Drs. Charles
P. Arand and Joel Biermann treat issues related to the Lutheran distinction between justification and sanctification. Our sixteenth-century
Lutheran forebearers worked out the distinction by means of two kinds of
righteousness—the righteousness mankind received through creation and
redemption and the righteousness that finds expression in the way we live
in the world as justified and sanctified children of God. In a sense, Christians live in two worlds—one in the presence of God and the other in a
human community and in a non-human creation. “The passive righteousness of faith brings about our salvation by restoring our creaturely relationship with God. The active righteousness of works serves the well-being of creation by looking after our neighbor and God’s creation” (120).
Civil righteousness involves living in a “right [God-pleasing] relationship”
with other people in this world. A correct distinction between the two
kinds of righteousness helps us maintain the proper distinction between
Law and Gospel, with an awareness that we have citizenship in two different worlds and have responsibilities both to God and to our neighbor.
In his article, “The Two Kinds of Righteousness!: What’s a Preacher to
Do?,” Dr. Timothy Saleska addresses the questions of how to create a
tsaddik, a righteous person, one who lives in a correct relationship with
God and with society and a preacher’s role in helping establish those correct relationships. Since all righteousness begins with the righteousness
of God and the bringing of that righteousness to people through the redemptive work of Christ, a preacher must bring the good news of Christ
and His work to the people through Word and Sacrament. Once God has
re-created us in Christ for good works, a preacher’s task is to instruct
people in the moral law of God and in the ways in which God expects them
to live in relationship with other people. The pastor will hold before his
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people the two dimensions of the Law—both its accusatory and its instructional functions. One way is to lead them by way of expository preaching
on a Pauline epistle to experience the righteousness of Christ so that they
can live a life of good works in the world.
In his article, “A Two-Dimensional Understanding of the Church for
the Twenty-First Century,” Dr. Charles P. Arand reviews some of the contemporary trends in society and church and their implications for a correct ecclesiology and theology. He believes that a proper distinction between the two kinds of righteousness provides a framework for working
through various aspects of the church’s life and for thinking through the
divine and human roles in growing and extending the church in our world.
The church has, as it were, a twofold life—a life lived in the presence of
God and the life lived in the community of those who believe the Gospel.
God’s people have vertical responsibilities to God and horizontal responsibilities to the world and human society. The Lutheran Confessions are
instrumental in helping us keep the two dimensions of the church distinct
and properly oriented and aid the church in a correct understanding of the
true nature, mission, and unity of the church. Righteousness before God
keeps us properly oriented as individual Christians, and righteousness
before the world helps us live God-pleasing lives in the community of Christians.
Dr. Robert Kolb, in his article, “God and His Human Creatures in
Luther’s Sermons on Genesis: The Reformer’s Early Use of His Distinction of Two Kinds of Righteousness,” explores Luther’s Genesis sermons
to show how he “put to use his recently formulated definition of humanness as two dimensional, totally passive in relationship to God and at the
same time active in relationship to God’s world.” These postils, or “Bible
study sermons,” were later published as models for parish pastors and for
families to read as devotional exercises. Luther’s aim was to proclaim the
texts in the simplest and most uncomplicated way so that his hearers could
easily understand them and embed their meaning in their hearts. The
original righteousness with which God created us was lost in the Fall but
is being re-created through the justifying work of Christ that comes to us
through Word and Sacrament. The passive righteousness that God bestows upon the redeemed through the work of Christ constitutes the trust
and faith people have in God and finds expression in the active righteousness of obedience to God’s commands within the context of God’s redeemed
children living responsibly in human society.
Quentin F. Wesselschmidt
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Theological Observer
The SP as CEO, CFO, CPO, COO....
·
·
·
·
The Senior Pastor shall not subject the plant, grounds, and equipment to improper wear and tear or insufficient maintenance.
The Senior Pastor shall not make any purchases over $1000 without obtaining comparative prices and quality assessment.
The Senior Pastor shall not invest or hold operating capital in
insecure instruments, including uninsured checking accounts or
any bonds at any time, or in non-interest bearing accounts except
where [sic] necessary to facilitate ease in operational transactions.
The Senior Pastor shall not allow the investment of any financial
assets that deviates from the written Investment Policy.
Quite a list of commandments for the “chief executive,” isn’t it? This
Senior Pastor is one busy fellow. Possibly, he pastors a tiny flock and must
double (or triple) as treasurer, head trustee, and groundskeeper. But then
he would not be a “Senior” Pastor, would he? There are more commandments––even more than ten––closer to seventy-five (75).
·
The Senior Pastor shall not, without justification, allow compensation that deviates materially from the geographic or professional
market skills for the called or employed workers.
Could he be a second-career man with experience in corporate personnel positions?
·
The Senior Pastor shall not cause or allow a financial budget which
fails to include line items for the Governing Board to use for its
own prerogatives.
At least one other entity in the congregation handles fiscal matters.
·
The Executive Committee shall consistently advise the Senior
Pastor of his performance, shall conduct the Senior Pastor’s annual performance appraisal, and shall report to the Board when it
The “Theological Observer” serves as a forum for comment on, assessment
of, and reactions to developments and events in the church at large, as well
as in the world of theology generally. Since areas of expertise, interest, and
perceptions often vary, the views presented in this section will not always
reflect the opinion of the editorial committee.
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·
has been completed, seeking the Board’s reaction and approval.
Based on the performance appraisal process, the Executive Committee shall counsel the Senior Pastor and assist him in establishing a plan to enhance his performance.
Someone must keep an eye on that peripatetic SP who makes all the
important financial and personnel decisions. (And don’t we all know at
least one pastor who would benefit from performance enhancement?)
Had you concluded that the eight sample commandments derive from
the bylaws of a congregation comprised solely of lawyers and corporate
executives, you would not be far from the mark. They are, in reality, excerpts from a model draft entitled “Policy Based Governance.” There’s much
more, of course. Such documents are replete with verbiage, including limitless numbered sections and subsections: 2.12.b.; 4.6.a.i.; and, yes,
1.1.l.1.1.1.1.1.1. The concept of policy-based governance, championed by
John Carver, among others, is nothing new to the business world. In recent years, however, it has slowly made inroads into the church via a
model intended for non-profit organizations, ostensibly to assist congregations in keeping focused on their mission and their “strategic goals” and, it
would seem, to preclude any hint of spontaneous action or creativity in
carrying out that mission.
When it comes to Senior Pastor Limitations (the first six samples
above), the document really lays it on the line. As noted, depending on
how one counts, the SPLs number about. Seventy-five! It’s not just that
the SP has limitations (don’t we all?); if he violates one, he “shall give
immediate notice [confess the sin?] to the Chair of the Board once a Senior
Pastor Limitation has been recognized to have been exceeded.” (The faceless, passive verbosity of the document is not a healthy sign.) If the SP is
careless and doesn’t watch his SPLs and worse comes to worst, “after repeated recurrences of exceeding Senior Pastor Limitations, the Chair will
conduct: (1) a performance evaluation of the Senior Pastor and (2) a discussion with the full Board about the Senior Pastor’s performance.” Only reading the full list—“Exceeding Senior Pastor Limitation Policies”—can give
one the full flavor. There are also, to be sure, policies and safeguards to
protect the Senior Pastor, but “Limitations” are clearly in the forefront.
By and large, it is as if great chunks from the policy manual of the board of
directors of Procter and Gamble or General Motors were ingested whole
and regurgitated with minimum digestive activity into a completely foreign context.
Most, if not all, LCMS congregations have a constitution and bylaws to
assist in conducting the business of the congregation “decently and in order.” Such documents contain a variety of common sense guidelines for
efficient and effective organizational housekeeping. Policy Based Governance goes well beyond bylaws and lists of duties of boards and officers.
Applied to lay officers and employed staff who conduct the business affairs
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of the congregation, a PBG model might be of some use (if one is able to
plow through the voluminous verbiage before drowsiness leads to slumber—a subjective response, to be sure). Most troubling, however, in the
case of the PBG drafts quoted from above (real models used by LCMS
congregations) is the assumption that the Senior Pastor is the CEO, CFO,
etc., of the congregation, with duties, responsibilities, and expectations
heavily weighted to the business side of the operation, well outside the
office of the ministry. One might consider that several LCMS pastors in
the CEO mode in large congregations have, in recent decades, come to
ruin in one manner or another. Even in disavowing the post hoc, ergo
propter hoc fallacy, we may observe that where there is smoke, there is
often fire. Living up to so many expectations can be a heavy burden to
bear.
Defenders of PBG may claim that the method relates only to the smooth
running of the organization and to clarifying lines of authority and responsibility, not to the nature of the ministry. The activities ascribed to the
Senior Pastor in PBG, however, as well as the phraseology of many of the
“Limitations” related to him, indicate otherwise. It is disconcerting, for
example, that even such “Limitations” as “The Senior Pastor shall not fail
to conduct and present to the Board an annual long-range outlook study”
and “The Senior Pastor shall not develop a long-range outlook study that
fails to consider the Strategic Focus” are stated in negative terms.
Let’s put the best construction on it and assume that the “Strategic
Focus,” “Values,” “Mission,” “Vision,” and “Strategic Goals” of the congregation (customarily defined at the outset of a PBG manual) include the
Biblical understanding of the pastor and the congregation: feeding the flock
with the Word, administering the Sacraments properly, taking every opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, doing works of Christian
charity. Would not most (we would hope all) pastors find such a “Strategic
Focus” a joyful prospect? Would not pastoral responsibilities be stated in a
positive and affirmative way? The best that can be said of the negatively
phrased “Senior Pastor Limitations” is that they relate only to responsibilities that lie well outside the Office of the Pastoral Ministry. If the SP is
required to be a CEO/CFO (etc.), however, how can he focus his energies
on “making the main thing the main thing”?
As does any method or system of governance, PBG brings with it a
philosophy and a goodly number of pre-suppositions pertaining to how an
organization should govern itself and how personnel should relate to each
other. No policy intended to govern human relationships is free of intrinsic underlying assumptions and a guiding philosophy. A model originally
intended for the corporate business world, or even non-profit organizations, will not necessarily transfer well to a Lutheran congregation. For
example, does the model of the corporate organization with its chain of
executive command fit the congregation, i.e., every action, task, and person carefully and precisely delimited? Is the minister of the Gospel the
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CEO of the congregation? How do the “Limitations on the Senior Pastor”
quoted above relate to Biblical descriptions of a spiritual shepherd and his
flock, and how likely are they to affect the average parishioner’s view of
and relationship with his pastor?
In these latter days, we Lutherans are inclined to display a certain
hubris in thinking that means and methods developed in the business world
or by other church bodies can be, if necessary, stripped of their objectionable accouterments, i.e., “Lutheranized,” and practiced in pure and neutral ways in the parish. Unfortunately, means and ends are often inextricably interwoven. One may have to dig a bit, but the embedded assumptions are always there, affecting not only means but also ends. If the pastor is to be a shepherd, a source of spiritual sustenance to his people via
Word and Sacrament, a conveyor of spiritual comfort in times of trouble or
illness or death, the perception (one might say burden) that he carries
with him as the CEO of the congregation surely cannot enhance these
central roles. When on Monday the pastor fires a staff member and on
Friday must minister to that staff member’s mother in the hospital, one
can only wonder how he effects the metamorphosis from employer to shepherd. When the pastor spends his spiritual capital making decisions about
money, property, and other church business, he will find that he has traded
in his pastoral role as a caretaker of souls for a mess of corporate pottage.
If someone—an outside consultant, say, or even an officer of the congregation—proposes that Policy Based Governance be adopted as the polity of your congregation, read the literature. Become knowledgeable about
the methods and philosophy of PBG. Examine the details carefully. Ask
the hard questions, especially as they relate to the work and office of the
pastor. Does the method enhance or detract from the office of the ministry
and the relationship of pastor and parishioner? Does the proposed model
turn the shepherd of the flock into an executive—the leader of the corporation? Can a pastor who is ultimately responsible for financial and personnel decisions in the congregation relate effectively as pastor to parishioners in spiritual matters? The occasion might even offer an opportunity
for the congregation to search the Scriptures regarding the nature of the
pastoral office.
The Eleventh Commandment: When the temptation arises to apply
the “wisdom” of the world to the work of the congregation, follow the Word,
not the world.
David O. Berger
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Articles
Why the Two Kinds of Righteousness?
Charles P. Arand and Joel Biermann
Lutherans have long struggled with issues related to the distinction
between justification and sanctification. They have affirmed justification
as the teaching by which the church stands and falls. But when it comes to
issues related to sanctification or Christian living, the question has been
raised, “Do Lutherans shout justification but whisper sanctification?”1 Do
Lutherans turn to Lutheran theology for justification, but to the books
and broadcasting of Evangelical “experts” in Christian living for guidance
on the Christian life? The questions of justification and sanctification within
the Christian community are not unrelated to questions raised by the wider
human community, namely, what does it mean to be a human being? Who
am I? What is the purpose and design of human life? Who is a human
being? What is a person? What is it to be a human community? Since
ancient times, these questions typically have been relegated to the purview of ethics. Ultimately, though, these are theological questions, questions that bring to the foreground the interrelationship between the divine works of creation and redemption.
Lutherans have resources for addressing the particular redemptive
anthropological questions of justification and sanctification, as well as the
wider anthropological issues related to our creational life. In the sixteenth
century they accomplished this task by means of a theological matrix known
as the two kinds of [human] righteousness. This distinction is one of those
elements that can be described as the “nervous system” running through
the body of Christian teaching. With it they accomplished two tasks. On
the one hand, they stressed the dignity of the human person given by
God’s Word of creation and again through His Word of justification on
account of Christ, a Word received by faith alone. On the other hand, they
recovered the value of ordinary activities (and with it the proper role of
human ability) of daily life within our vocation as the sphere within which
we try to live as God intended.
1
Carter Lindberg, “Do Lutherans Shout Justification but Whisper Sanctification?”
Lutheran Quarterly 13 (1999): 1-20.
Dr. Charles P. Arand is Waldemar A. and June Schuette Chair in Systematic Theology and Chairman of of the Department of Systematic Theology
at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO. Dr. Joel Biermann is Assistant
Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
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So important was this framework that Luther refers to the two kinds
of righteousness as “our theology” in his famous Galatians Commentary
[1535]. This work, regarded by Luther as his “apology” of the Augsburg
Confession, represents the culmination of his thinking on the two kinds of
righteousness. Luther had first hinted at it in the Heidelberg Disputation
and then developed it in his Sermon on Three Kinds of Righteousness
(1518),2 his sermon on the Two Kinds of Righteousness (1519),3 his Sermon
on Monastic Vows,4 and his Genesis sermons (1523/1527).5 Similarly,
Melanchthon identified the two kinds of righteousness as lying at the heart
of the issue between him and his opponents in such a way that it shaped
the entire theological argument in his masterwork, the Apology of the
Augsburg Confession; although he had also been working with the presuppositions, it provided from as early as 1524.6
At Concordia Seminary a number of us believe that the distinction of
the two kinds of righteousness has been neglected in recent Lutheran
thought to the impoverishment of our lives as Lutherans today.7 Thus
faculty members have begun exploring the possibilities offered by the distinction to address a variety of issues today, from maintaining the Lutheran
emphasis on justification, to providing us with ways of thinking about Christian living, to thinking about church and ministry. Robert Kolb has led the
way with several writings on Luther’s thought. These include “Luther on
the Two Kinds of Righteousness: Reflections on His Two-Dimensional
Definition of Humanity at the Heart of His Theology,”8 “God Calling, ‘Take
Care of My People’: Luther’s Concept of Vocation in the Augsburg Confession and Its Apology,”9 and “Mensch-Sein in Zwei Dimensionen, die Zweierlei
Gerechtigkeit, und Luthers De votis monasticis Iudicium” (forthcoming).
Charles Arand has focused on Melanchthon with “Two Kinds of Righteousness as a Framework for Law and Gospel in the Apology”10 and has explored it more extensively and systematically in “Our Theology”: Luther’s
Definition of the Human Creature through “Two Kinds of Righteousness.”11
William W. Schumacher has expounded its value for our understanding of
2
WA 2:41-47.
WA 2:145:9-146:35; LW 31:297-299.
4
WA 8:573-669.
5
WA 24:1-710.
6
Timothy J. Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness: Philip
Melanchthon’s Exegetical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
7
Reasons for this neglect often stem from an attempt to use Law and Gospel as the
guiding paradigm for all of Lutheran theology. In recent years, the consequences (and
ultimate failure) of this effort has received increased attention by a variety of Lutheran
scholars including David Yeago, Robert Benne, Gilbert Meilaender, and Reinhard Hütter.
8
Lutheran Quarterly 13 (1999): 453 (entire article 449-466).
9
Concordia Journal 8 (1982): 4-11. See also David A. Lumpp, “Luther’s ‘Two Kinds
of Righteousness’: A Brief Historical Introduction,” Concordia Journal 23 (1993): 27-38.
10
Lutheran Quarterly 15 (2001): 417-439.
11
A book co-authored with Robert Kolb (forthcoming from Baker Books in January
2008).
3
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the two kingdoms in “Civic Participation by Churches and Pastors: An
Essay in Two Kinds of Righteousness.”12 Joel Biermann has brought it into
conversation with contemporary ethics in his dissertation, “Virtue Ethics
and the Place of Character Formation within Lutheran Theology.”13 Several dissertations are exploring the use of the two kinds of righteousness
in different areas of Lutheran thought.14 This essay sketches in broad
strokes the basic ideas of the two kinds of righteousness and how they
relate to the distinction of Law and Gospel and the teaching of the two
realms (more popularly known as the two kindoms).
The Contours of the Two Kinds of Righteousness
Before describing the two kinds of righteousness, a word must be said
about the definition of righteousness. Righteousness has to do with meeting God’s “design specifications” for being a human creature and fulfilling
the purpose for which God created us.15 It has to do with being fully human, that is, as God intended us to be when He created us. Integral to His
design, God created us as relational beings; and human relationships take
place within two fundamental realms or arenas: we live before God (coram
Deo), and before the world (coram mundo). These realms are inhabited
simultaneously; we live in God’s presence and at the same time in community with one another where we have responsibility for fellow creatures.
As Luther put it, we inhabit two worlds “as it were, one of them heavenly
and the other earthly.” These two worlds of human existence can be plotted on two axes: a vertical axis for life with God and a horizontal axis for
life with our fellow human creatures and the non-human creation. Righteousness, or being in a “right relationship,” within either realm is determined by the nature of the two respective relationships in which we find
ourselves. Another way to put it is to say that God designed these relationships to function in fundamentally different ways. “Into these [two worlds]
we place these two kinds of righteousness, which are distinct and separated from each other.”16 And so in these two relationships we encounter a
twofold definition of what it means to be the person God made us to be—
12
Concordia Journal 30 (2004): 165-177.
Joel Biermann, “Virtue Ethics and the Place of Character Formation within Lutheran
Theology” (Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2002).
14
Makito Masaki, “Luther’s Views on the Relationship between Clergy and Laity and
Their Practice in the Early Postils.” John Rhoads, “The Crux of Communio: Toward a
Common Ecclesiology Beyond the Crisis of Reception.” Guntis Kalme, “Words Written in
Golden Letters: A Lutheran Anthropological Reading of the Ecumenical Creeds—‘For Us’
as the Constitutive Factor of What It Means to Be Human” (Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2005).
15
It is attained by conforming to a standard or pattern of being and behaving that has
been approved by a superior, someone whose judgment is vital to us and has an important
impact upon our lives (Ap IV, Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 164 [henceforth K-W]).
16
Galatians Lectures, 1531-1535, LW 26:8; WA 40:1:46:19-30.
13
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hence two kinds of righteousness.17
On the one hand, human righteousness before God flows from God’s
activity toward us. Like human parents, God originally gave life to His
creation apart from any contribution or participation from His creatures.18
And so from the catechism, Lutheran believers have learned to confess
that God has created us “out of sheer fatherly divine goodness and mercy,
without any merit or worthiness in me.” As His handiwork, we are by
definition dependent and contingent beings who have been given life and
who continue to live only from the reception of His gifts. We depend on the
air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. Take these away,
and we die. We are receivers in the presence of God. This receptive stance
continues when God performs His work of redemption. When His human
creatures lay dead in sin, God restored them to the fullness of their humanity through the self-sacrificial death and resurrection of His Son. He
bestows the righteousness of Christ upon us as a gift, which alone consoles
the troubled sinner. Being born anew, this also took place without any
contribution or cooperative participation on our part. The Holy Spirit creates faith through the Gospel so that human beings can once again entrust
all of life into God’s care. In both instances, we can say that human beings
“suffered” the work of God. In creation, God formed Adam from dust and
breathed into him the breath of life. In redemption, the human creature
lay on a slab in the morgue until God’s miracle of revivification. Thus,
before God (coram Deo) we are entirely passive, and so our righteousness
is passive, not active.19
On the other hand, and at the same time, righteousness in the world
with our fellow creatures (coram mundo) depends on our carrying out our
God-entrusted tasks—tasks spelled out with sufficient specificity in the
Law both revealed and written on human hearts—within our walks of life
for the good of creation. God has created human beings as male and female to complement and complete one another. Together the first man
and woman formed human community, and together they were given responsibility for tending God’s creation. To guide them in their task, God
hardwired His Law into the creation itself. At the same time, God has
given human beings dominion in such a way that they have the freedom
and responsibility to figure out how best to tailor that Law to the specific
17
For this reason, when the Lutheran Confessions speak about righteousness, they
specify which relationship they are considering by speaking about righteousness “before
God” (coram Deo) or righteousness “before the world” (coram mundo/hominibus). The
reformers freely used a variety of specifying modifiers.
18
Robert Kolb, “God and His Human Creatures in Luther’s Sermons on Genesis: The
Reformer’s Early Use of His Distinction of Two Kinds of Righteousness,” in this issue.
19
“Heidelberg Disputation,” 1518, LW 31:41; WA 1:354,29-30. Thesis 25. Melanchthon
variously expresses this in the Apology as spiritual righteousness (iustitia spiritualis),
inner righteousness, eternal righteousness, the righteousness of faith (iustitia fidei),
the righteousness of the Gospel (iustitia evangelii); Christian righteousness (iustitia
christiana); righteousness of God (iustitia Dei), and the righteousness of the heart.
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challenges and questions of daily life. Here God’s gifts of human reason
and imagination play critical roles in mediating the Law into our daily
lives in such a way as to carry out God’s ongoing work of preserving and
promoting creaturely well-being. Human beings are created to carry out
their God-given tasks for the well-being of both the human and non-human creation. Within the web of mutually constitutive human relationships, there exists a rich variety of ways to demonstrate and implement
the human righteousness as designed by God. Within their relationships,
humans stand accountable both to God and to their fellow creatures for
how they carry out tasks for the well-being of life within the world. And so
in the eyes of the world (coram mundo) our righteousness is ever active,
never passive.20
Luther stressed that the two kinds of righteousness are not alternative forms of human existence. He did not see them as alternatives to one
another, as if we could be fully human by possessing only one kind of
righteousness, either the passive or the active. Luther did not compartmentalize the human being in such a way that one could be human by
partly possessing passive righteousness and partly possessing active righteousness. To be a human being as God created us to be, a perfect human
specimen, involves being totally passive—as a newborn child of God—and
totally active—as a responsible neighbor to other people and to the whole
of God’s world. People need both kinds of righteousness in order to be
completely and genuinely human. “We must be righteous before God and
man. Without one or the other we find our humanity diminished.”
The Relationship of the Two Kinds of Righteousness
The crux of the Lutheran Reformation rested on maintaining the distinction between the divine righteousness that is salvific before God and
the human righteousness that is good for the world. In the Lutheran view,
the medieval church failed to distinguish between these two kinds of righteousness. It had confused the two by giving human righteousness an ultimate significance before God that it does not and cannot possess. It disparaged faith as insufficient for salvation and for our relationship with God.
But the corrective to medieval teaching was not to disparage good works.
Luther insisted that to affirm both dimensions of human existence they
must be kept distinct. “This is our theology, by which we teach a precise
distinction between these two kinds of righteousness, the active and the
passive, so that morality and faith, works and grace, secular society and
religion may not be confused. Both are necessary, but both must be kept
20
Melanchthon variously describes this in the Apology as the righteousness of reason (iustitia rationis), the righteousness of the Law, civil righteousness (iustitia civilis),
one’s own righteousness (iustitia propria), carnal righteousness (iustitia carnis), righteousness of works (iustitia operum), and philosophical righteousness.
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within their limits.”21 Only keeping each in its proper sphere, to use the
words of Gerhard Ebeling, “truly lets creation be creation and redemption
be redemption.”22
The need to distinguish the two kind of righteousness necessitates
that our active righteousness dare never become the basis for our righteousness coram Deo. For any attempt to bring works into the presence of
God will lead to a rejection of the Creator-creature relationship whereby
we receive our identity and life as children of God as a sheer gift. And so
the Reformation teaching argued that standing before God in heaven, human beings must leave all works behind on earth and seek nothing but the
righteousness of Christ that is received by faith. When terrors of conscience result from the recognition of one’s inability to obtain salvation
(Rome) or inability to find assurance of salvation (Pietism), it becomes
dramatically obvious that active righteousness must remain on earth within
the realm of our relationships with our fellow human creatures. Among
Muslims the assurance of salvation is only found in martyrdom.
But if it [the Law] wants to ascend into the conscience and exert
its rule there, see to it that you are a good dialectician and make
the correct distinction. Give no more to the law than it has coming, and say to it: “Law, you want to ascend into the realm of conscience and rule there. You want to denounce its sin and take
away the joy of my heart, which I have through faith in Christ.
You want to plunge me into despair, in order that I may perish.
You are exceeding your jurisdiction.… You shall not touch my conscience. For I am baptized....”23
By confusing the two kinds of righteousness, or by collapsing one into the
other, the medieval church ultimately both undermined salvation and failed
the neighbor. It failed the neighbor because it required that I instrumentalize
or objectify my neighbor by using him in order to obtain my salvation.24
Unfortunately, this never works. When I wonder if I have done enough,
the Law gives only one answer, “When in doubt, try harder!” Thus, striving to fulfill the Law as a means to righteousness before God, the focus is
on us and not on Christ, and the neighbor is nothing more than a means to
a self-serving end. Before God, one must ignore the Law and cling only to
the Christ, who is delivered to us in the Word. Before God, the Law accom21
Galatians Lectures, 1531/1535, LW 26:7; WA 40:1:45, 24-27.
Gerhard Ebeling, “Das Problem des Natürlichen bei Luther” in Lutherstudien, vol.
I (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1971), 278f.
23
Galatians Lectures, 1531-1535, LW 26:11; WA 40:1; 50:25-51:14.
24
A more common way of instrumentalizing our neighbor today is to help others
(especially on mission trips) because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Gustaf Wingren
insisted that as Christ is enthroned as Lord in our relationship with God, it is the neighbor
who must be enthroned in our relationships in this life. Gustaf Wingren, “Justification by
Faith in Protestant Thought,” Scottish Journal of Theology, 9 (December 1956): 374-383.
22
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plishes its alien work and kills the sinner.
The danger posed by the Lutheran Reformation from the vantage point
of its opponents’ understanding of “faith alone” lay in a rejection of works
that could undermine the social order and lead to anarchy. In fact, some
placed responsibility for the Peasants’ Revolt of 1525 squarely at the doorstep of Luther’s Reformation with its emphasis on the freedom of the Christian person. In response, Luther argued that the righteousness of faith
does not draw us out of the world or render life in the world as an inferior
order of existence. Nor does it disparage the works of daily life as inadequate expressions of Christian living in favor of pursuing “spiritual” or socalled distinctively Christian forms of living. To the contrary, Luther
stressed that the passive righteousness of faith does not remain relevant
only for realities in heaven; it belongs also to earthly realities and contributes to the pursuit of active righteousness within the world. “When I have
this [passive] righteousness within me, I descend from heaven like the
rain that makes the earth fertile. That is, I come forth into another kingdom and I perform good works whenever the opportunity arises.”25 One
could even say that as faith grows it revitalizes—and, indeed finally establishes—our life in this world so that others may for the first time see how
God intended human beings to live for one another and in relation to the
environment. Our relation to God empowers and provides the basis for
our relation to creation. And so on earth, as we grow in faith we actively
pursue a life of works and virtues in accordance with God’s will for creation and His reclamation of creation in Christ.
Maintaining the distinction between the two kinds of righteousness
allows us to affirm both dimensions of our humanity. The passive righteousness of faith brings about our salvation by restoring our creaturely
relationship with God. The active righteousness of works serves the wellbeing of creation by looking after our neighbor and God’s creation. This is
not to say that a tension does not exist between affirming the Gospel of the
forgiveness of sins along with the new identity that it brings as a child of
God, while at the same time emphasizing the Creator’s expectations for
His restored creatures. This side of eternity, humans will always be tempted
to think only in terms of one kind of righteousness, whereby humans lose
what it means to be truly human. Maintaining a proper distinction between the two kinds of righteousness serves to preserve the proper relationship between them. Since there is nothing left to do coram Deo, the
passive righteousness of faith means freedom to focus all attention on
serving creation, leading us to appreciate earthly life as the sphere for our
labors. The reception of passive righteousness leads us to embrace the
world as the good creation of God.
25
122
Galatians Lectures, 1531-1535, LW 26:11-12; WA 40:1; 51:21-31.
Our Twofold Righteousness and Law-Gospel Distinction
The distinction between the two kinds of righteousness and the distinction between Law and Gospel arose about the same time in Luther’s
thought—around 1518-1519. It is, however, possible and quite helpful to
see that these two foundational concepts approach the theological task
from different perspectives. The distinction between Law and Gospel focuses on God’s words and works, answering the question: “What does God
say to me?” The distinction between the two kinds of righteousness focuses on the nature of the human being and the conformity of the human
response to God’s created (and re-created) design, answering the question:
“What does it mean to be human?” The two kinds of righteousness makes
explicit several, often unstated, assumptions upon which the proclamation
of Law and Gospel depends. For example, it makes clear that the Gospel is
completely and totally an unconditional gift. It also makes clear that the
Law is a universal and objective design, one that is hardwired into creation. When the Law accuses, then, it is not like a bolt of lightning coming
out of the clear, blue sky. In brief, the two kinds of righteousness address
the nature and purpose of human life as the context within which the
Lutheran Law-Gospel distinction carries out its work; Law and Gospel fit
within the paradigm of the two kinds of righteousness.
The Law and Gospel distinction can be considered in two different
ways: as verba dei and as opera dei. The former deals with the semantics
(grammar) of Law and Gospel, while the other deals with the pragmatics
(impact) of Law and Gospel.26 Of these two ways (words and works) Lutherans
have come to think of the Law-Gospel distinction primarily in terms of
God’s two works—for good reason. In the discussion of repentance (Ap XII,
53), Melanchthon stated, “These are the two chief works of God in human
beings, to terrify and to justify the terrified or make them alive.” God
terrifies “in order to make room for consolation and vivification” (Ap XII,
51). For this reason, properly distinguishing between the pragmatics of
Law and Gospel (their dual impact: crushing and comforting, killing and
making alive, accusing and acquitting) becomes a vital factor in pastoral
care. For C. F. W. Walther, the highest art of the pastoral ministry lay in
knowing the spiritual condition of people to determine whether to apply
the crushing work of the Law or the comforting work of the Gospel. Indeed, the distinction of Law and Gospel provides a framework for pastoral
theology in such a way that nearly all the articles of faith can be experienced as Law or Gospel. Consider the omniscience of God. On the one
hand, God knows about every skeleton hiding in the closets of our hearts.
On the other hand, Christ knows our weaknesses and needs and provides
for them. Or consider the omnipresence of God. Law: “You can run but you
can’t hide.” Or Gospel: “I am with you always.”
26
James W. Voelz, What Does This Mean?: Principles of Biblical Interpretation (St.
Louis: Concordia, 1995).
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For much of their history, Lutherans practiced the distinction of Law
and Gospel against the backdrop of various forms of legalism by which
human beings used the Law in an attempt to attain justification coram
Deo. Three moments in particular stand out. First, on the eve of the Reformation the medieval church worked with an Augustinian-Thomistic
framework of salvation in which grace-assisted human activities provided
the ultimate basis for a person’s justification before God. The theology of
Gabriel Biel went one step further when he maintained that even without
the grace of God, a person could do his best and God would reward his
effort with grace. Having merited grace, a person could now, with the assistance of that grace, perform further works that would be meritorious of
final beatification or justification. Against this theology Luther contended
that human beings are justified by faith apart from any works (whether
produced with or without grace). Second, among Lutherans influenced by
German and Scandinavian Pietism in the eighteenth century, the temptation arose to insist on certain forms of behavior as “evidence” of salvation.
They tended to make the spiritual experience of those who had been “sanctified” into a new law “that is then expected of all believers in order to
attest to the presence of true faith.”27 Such an emphasis resulted in an
“unintended legalism.” Against the backdrop of German Pietism, C. F. W.
Walther delivered his influential lectures on Law and Gospel,28 and against
the backdrop of Swedish Pietism, Bishop Bo Giertz wrote his famous Hammer of God.29 Similarly, many of Gerhard Forde’s writings must be understood as a reaction against Norwegian Pietism. Third, following the publication of Karl Barth’s Gospel and Law in 1935, Lutheran theologians in
Europe and America protested against any attempts to make the Gospel
subservient or secondary to the Law. Barth’s treatment of the third use of
the Law (its pedagogical function) implied that it superseded the Gospel.
In response, Lutheran thinkers maintained that on this side of eternity
the Law always accuses (lex semper accusat), because the Law always addresses human beings as sinners. Werner Elert, in particular, exercised
much influence on Lutheran thought in developing a stark distinction between Law and Gospel in opposition to the perceived threat of Calvinism.30
Perhaps as an overreaction to Barth, a number of Lutheran theologians transformed the Lutheran dictum lex semper accusat into lex sole
accusat. It was assumed and asserted that the Law cannot guide because it
only accuses.31 The distinction between Law and Gospel became an opposition in which the Gospel triumphs over not only the wrath of God but over
27
Kolden, “Earthly Vocation,” 286.
Law and Gospel, trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1981).
29
Bo Giertz, The Hammer of God, 2 ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005).
20
Law and Gospel, trans. Edward H. Schroeder (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967).
31
See Gerhard O. Forde, The Law-Gospel Debate and Its Historical Development
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1969) for the nineteenth-century roots of the discussion regarding the place of the Law as well as the contribution of the Luther renaissance.
28
124
the Law itself. It should be clear that in one’s relatonship coram Deo, the
Law can indeed do nothing else but crush and kill. It is when one fails to
take into account the position of the Law/Gospel distinction, within the
wider and more fundamental distinction between the two kinds of righteousness, that it is erroneously taught that the Law itself, in all of its
applications and functions, is overcome and made irrelevant for the new
man. When the law is removed from the life of believers (freed as they are
not only from the guilt and condemnation of the Law, but also from the
onerous burden of having to keep the Law), only the Gospel is left for the
work of shaping Christian behavior. This is inevitably the destination at
which one arrives once it is determined that the Law can only accuse.
Theologians with such convictions, by necessity, then, came to speak of
Gospel mandates, Gospel imperatives, Gospel invitations, and of a practical use of the Gospel (usus practicus evangelii).32 In addition, the distinction between Law and Gospel was enlisted as a framework not only for
pastoral theology but for systematic theology as well. Unfortunately, when
the Law/Gospel distinction is treated as a conceptual framework within
which the coherence of the Christian faith is understood and arranged,
then whatever does not fit under the category of Gospel is necessarily
regarded as part of the Law (which as God’s alien work can only be considered as purely negative and oppressive inasmuch as we remain sinners).
Even the doctrine of creation becomes Law for no other reason than that
it is not Gospel, when in fact the doctrine of creation affirms the lordship
of the Creator whose essence Luther defines as mercy.33
In some ways, Lutheran theologians in the twentieth century could
urge a radical polarizing view of Law and Gospel in which the Gospel conquers and annuls the Law’s claim on the creature because they still lived
in a society in which the moral framework of a Judeo-Christian ethic could
be taken for granted. The wider society provided the support structures
for moral training. Television shows like “Leave It to Beaver” and “Fathers Knows Best” mirrored the moral behavior of how one acts within
family and society in ways that were largely congruent with the Christian
tradition. The Ten Commandments were often found posted in courtrooms
and classrooms of the country. The church could count on the culture to
take care of the need for training in morality—a task that was more than
suspect anyway, tarred as it was by its close affiliation with the Law. In
addition, the remnants of Pietism were still clinging to the life of the
Lutheran church well into the twentieth century. By the century’s end,
however, those assumed structures in culture and church were rapidly
crumbling. Shaped by a Darwinistic narrative, we have all but lost a sense
32
See Scott R. Murray, Law, Life, and the Living God: The Third Use of the Law in
Modern American Lutheranism (St. Louis: Concordia, 2002), for an extensive overview
of this period of history.
33
As such, even creation and its structures (male-female, etc.) must be transcended
and overcome by the Gospel.
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of natural law (recall the Clarence Thomas hearings) or a universal common sense. People no longer know the larger creation-redemptive narrative of Scripture (as found in Psalm 136 and Nehemiah 9). And so it has
become increasingly difficult to speak of objective universal standards for
human behavior.34
Working within a Barthian understanding of revelation did not help
the situation. Barth could not speak of a natural law and hence an objective basis for the Law that was universally acceptable. Instead, he maintained an impassable gulf between God and human beings that is overcome only when God chooses to step out and reveal Himself. Thus, for
Barth, the proclamation of either Law or Gospel could be considered as
good news inasmuch as God has chosen to reveal His will to us. In the
twentieth century, Lutherans found Barth’s neo-orthodox position attractive by allowing, as it did, for theology to be carried out apart from the
prying eyes of naturalism. Yet it now became difficult, if not nearly impossible, to converse with the larger human community, or for the Law to
enjoy any sort of positive role in the life of the believer. Establishing an
antithesis between Law and Gospel with only a negative function for the
Law had left the Law disconnected from creation and confined to the sphere
of special revelation. Gustav Wingren was one of the first to see this and
argued that theology had become myopically preoccupied with questions
of epistemology. He contended that the first article came first in the creed
for a reason. It (and with it the Law) was ontologically prior to redemption
(Second Article) and prior to our epistemological recognition of it (Third
Article).35
Lutheranism in the twenty-first century finds itself in a unique situation. For the past five hundred years it has fought against conceiving of life
only in terms of one kind of righteousness whereby human performance
provided the basis for making the claim that God must accept us. But at
times in the twentieth century, Lutheranism itself fell into its own form of
one kind of righteousness whereby our passive righteousness before God
became all we needed. And so active righteousness in conformity with the
Law was left unstressed or was transformed into Gospel ways of talking.36
34
There is, though, some evidence that interest in natural law is on the rise. One
noteworthy example is the work of J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide
(Dallas: Spence, 2003) and Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997).
35
Creation and Law, trans. Ross Mackenzie (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1961).
36
In a sense, antinomian tendencies have been a danger for Lutheranism reaching
back into the sixteenth century. See Timothy J. Wengert, Law and Gospel: Philip
Melanchthon’s Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1997). The legacy of antinomianism has been helpfully explored by a number of
contemporary scholars. See especially, Reinhard Hütter’s “(Re-)Forming Freedom: Reflections ‘after Veritatas splendor’ on Freedom’s Fate in Modernity and Protestantism’s
Antinomian Captivity,” Modern Theology 17 (April 2001): 117-161, and David Yeago,
“Gnosticism, Antinomianism, and Reformation Theology: Reflections on the Costs of a
Construal,” Pro Ecclesia 2 (Winter 1993): 27-49.
126
One of the results of social Darwinism is that many define reality in such
a way that they would now argue that there are no kinds of righteousness.
There is no righteousness coram Deo (since there is no God) and no righteousness coram mundo (since there is no universal natural law). Instead
we live by a principle that affirms the survival of the fittest or act in altruistic ways only to ensure the survival of one’s gene pool, or because it
provides momentary positive feelings or public acclaim. Humans are now
left to construct their reality and the shape of their lives. And so anthropology has become a dominant topic of study. Christians must now deal not
only with questions of “Christian identity,” but of human identity. “Who
are we?” “What does it mean to be a human person?” “What is the purpose
for human life?”
In twenty-first-century post-modern America we thus find ourselves
living in an antinomian society. “We can no longer depend on a society at
least roughly Christian to socialize its members into anything approaching a Christian way of living.”37 The aftershocks of Kant have been felt by
all. Standards became values that were then relegated to the private realm
of the individual. Laws are nothing more than social constructions.
Churches themselves have “pandered” to the trend of thinking about religious life as an individual idiosyncratic quest—one’s “faith journey.” Evangelical churches increasingly avoid speech about what is right or wrong,
sin or not sin. When sin is addressed, it is considered in terms of vulnerabilities and weaknesses that have to do more with how sin affects the
individual rather than how it harms the neighbor, let alone how it offends
God. When the Law is no longer grounded in creation and is instead relegated to the realm of personal values that each person chose for himself
or herself, the Law can no longer accuse (its authority comes from its
congruence with creation). But because antinomianism is the only truly
impossible heresy (that is, humans simply cannot function without some
form or regulating Law), objective and universal standards for human life
have been replaced with politically correct ways of acting—the only “binding” law in the twenty-first century.
The distinction of the two kinds of righteousness provides the context
and basis for Law and Gospel to do their work coram Deo turning us away
from sin and turning us to Christ. Because the two kinds of righteousness
lay out what it means to be fully human as God created us, the paradigm
provides the context for the Law to show how far we have fallen short of
God’s created design with respect to our human identity coram Deo and
our human activities coram mundo. In the process, the two kinds of righteousness provide an expansive palette that takes into account the entire
creedal story of creation and redemption.
First, it places our relationship to God as our redeemer into the larger
context of our relationship to God as creator. The definition of our passive
37
Gilbert Meilaender, Human Nature: Faith and Faithfulness (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 8.
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righteousness coram Deo makes clear the complete, unconditional character of our justification. In other words, it affirms the sovereignty of the
Creator. The Creator is not dependent upon that which He creates, nor
does He owe it to us to create us. God justifies Himself by “delivering and
restoring us to the fullness of humanity through Christ’s self-sacrifice on
the cross.”38 Unlike Gnosticism, the Christian story of redemption does
not destroy creation or draw us out of creation. As a corollary, it affirms
that God created us as people who live from His gifts (that is, by faith),
something that the contemporary human being is loathe to admit in his
desire to be master of his life or escape the demands of life. The confession
of a creator announces our limitations and inabilities. Yet the Creatorcreature relationship is a relationship that the Gospel itself restores. This
is the point that Luther stresses in the Large Catechism where he introduces the Apostles’ Creed as that which “sets forth all that we must expect
and receive from God…given in order to help us to do what the Ten Commandments require of us.”39 The Gospel (Creed) returns us to our responsibilities within creation where the Law (Ten Commandments) provides
the needed specific direction.
Second, with reference to our human relationships, the two kinds of
righteousness stress an active righteousness that gives Lutherans permission to speak positively about the Law within the Christian life without compromising or in any way threatening the doctrine of justification.
It also expands our vision of Christian living in a way that includes all of
our human activity in relationship to other human beings and the nonhuman creation.40 It provides warrant for human beings to use their reason and imagination in order to mediate the Law of creation into the specific contexts of our lives. Thus the definition of active righteousness provides the necessary theological space for reflection on the place of the
social sciences, ethics, and moral theology for Christian living. It even
creates space for Christians to actively consider and address such secular
and mundane concerns as economics, environment, public policy, politics,
and justice: thus affirming a common “worldliness” between Christians
and non-Christians that is grounded in our creaturely existence. At the
same time, it recognizes that the Gospel’s work (coram Deo) will inform,
empower, and even transform our creaturely activities in the world (coram mundo).
Our Twofold Righteousness and the Two Realms
The two kinds of righteousness touch on countless facets of human
living including everything from marriage, parenting, and vocation, to civil
38
Robert Kolb, “Confessing the Creator to Those Who Do Not Believe There Is One,”
Missio Apostolica 10 (May 2002): 35.
39
LC II, 1; The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 431.
40
See Gilbert Meilaender, Human Nature: Faith and Faithfulness.
128
rights, higher education, and just war theory. The distinction, though, bears
an especially close relationship to another important framework, namely,
God’s two forms of governance, or, as more popularly known, as the two
kingdoms. A more detailed consideration of this particular application serves
as a helpful illustration of the practical usefulness of the two kinds of righteousness.
In the left-hand realm God rules through the Law; whereas, in the
right-hand realm He rules through the Gospel. Here we hear echoes of
the distinction between Law and Gospel. But whereas the distinction between Law and Gospel was made for the sake of repentance (contrition
and faith), the distinction of the two realms has in view something different. It stresses God’s work through the Law primarily in its first use (as a
curb) rather than in its theological use (as a mirror), that is, God uses the
Law to maintain peace and justice in the world for the sake of preserving
human life and furthering His creational intention. Following World War
II, Lutheran interpretations of the two forms of God’s governance have
been criticized for rendering German Christians acquiescent to governing
authorities and incapable of opposing governmental injustice.41 The two
kinds of righteousness provide ways to reappropriate the teaching on God’s
twofold governance within a democratic and post-Christian context.
For two hundred years the Enlightenment’s distinction between public affairs and private life set the agenda for a Lutheran interpretation of
God’s twofold governance. Within this context, interpretations of God’s
twofold governance slid easily into a secular-sacred distinction that served
(unintentionally) two different constituencies. Secularists argued for the
autonomy of the state by confining (while claiming legitimacy for) faith
and morals to the realm of the private and inner life of individuals. Confessional theologians thought that was well and good in as much as a concern
for the distinction of Law and Gospel called for a separation between the
two realms so that the Gospel was not transformed into an ideology of
social action. But as confessional theologians emphasized the ultimate
importance of salvation and righteousness before God, it had the effect of
disparaging the left-hand rule of God since it was considered secular and,
hence, profane.42 The motto became, “Heaven is my home; I am but a
stranger here.” This means that the focus of our attention is on the spiritual, or the world to come, and implies that we have little interest in the
old world that is passing away. In the meantime, Siemon-Netto commented,
“we place our rears as comfortably as we can into our secular reality, leaving it to others to dirty their hands in political filth.”43
The American distinction between church and state is related but not
41
See Uwe Siemon-Netto, The Fabricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of the Shirer
Myth (St. Louis: Concordia, 1995).
42
Luther understood weltliche as temporal and civil, not as secular and profane.
43
Uwe Siemon-Netto, “Called to govern,” Concordia Seminary Institute on Lay Vocation blogsite, December 2, 2005.
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identical with the secular-sacred distinction that was fostered by the Enlightenment.44 Originally, the American distinction was formulated in order to protect the church from interference by political authorities.45
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a close relationship
existed between Christianity and American culture. But by the twentieth
century legal scholars were speaking of a wall of separation between church
and state whereby the church-state distinction became a protection “against
religious meddling in politics and government.”46 In the first decade of
twenty-first century America, the uneasy, unofficial alliance between church
and culture (state) has come unglued and Christianity has begun to lose its
predominant influence within the larger society. In other words, we are
moving into a post-Constantinian age (really post-Theodosian age).47 How
shall Christians live in this transitional time?
Two options seem open to Christians: exile or conquest. Some have
argued that Christians need to think of themselves as Christians did prior
to the time of Constantine, namely, as exiles or “resident aliens.” Here
they pick up on the second-century epistle to Diognetus that said of Christians, “They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.”48
We live in a foreign land, but do not participate. Stanley Hauerwas, for
example, contends that Christians and the church need to be more distinct
from, and therefore less engaged with, the surrounding culture.49 Such an
approach is not alien to LCMS tradition. J. T. Mueller argued that, ideally,
Christians should create enclaves of Christian diaconia in the midst of a
secular and condemned world. Christians, he contended, must establish
their own institutions, both philanthropic and educational.50 The other ap44
Mary Jane Haemig, “The Confessional Basis of Lutheran Thinking on ChurchState Issues,” in Church and State: Lutheran Perspectives, ed. John R. Stumme and
Robert W. Tuttle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2003), 16. The church-state distinction is not
identical with Luther’s two forms of governance. In the American conception, the church
refers not to the hidden church (the one holy Christian church on earth) but to the
church as an empirical or sociological reality, the church as an institution. Similarly, the
state may be construed more narrowly as referring to the government alone and not to
a wider realm that includes the family, economy, voluntary organizations, and charitable
institutions. In Lutheran thought, both church (as an institution) and state belong in the
left-hand realm. The church as una sancta, the assembly of believers, belongs in the
right-hand realm.
45
Stephen J. Carter, God’s Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in
Politics (New York: Basic Books, 2000).
46
Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
47
It was Theodosius I who issued the edict in 380 that made acceptance of the Nicene
Creed a precondition for citizenship within the empire. With that, heresy and treason
became linked. To be a citizen of Rome one had to be a Christian.
48
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 26f.
49
See Joel Lehenbauer’s disseration The Christological and Ecclesial Pacifism of
Stanley Hauerwas: A Lutheran Analysis and Appraisal (St. Louis, Concordia Seminary,
2004).
50
See What Lutherans Are Thinking: A Symposium on Lutheran Faith and Life, ed.
by E. C. Fendt (Columbus, Ohio: Wartburg Press, 1947) for a retrospective look after
WWII.
130
proach would be a form of conquest or transformation. Here one might
appeal to Augustine. Although Augustine stressed a dual citizenship that
at first glance may look like the two kinds of righteousness, for him “there
is but one God, one righteousness, and therefore the earthly city must be
fashioned into a community of justice that is oriented toward faith in and
love for the true God.”51 In other words, the world needs the church’s
redemption, and the church should deliver this redemption by transforming the world into the kingdom of God. The point is to absorb or swallow
the world into the church. Mark Noll has noted the predilection of American Christians to confuse “the history of the United States with the history of salvation.” That is to say, Evangelicals seem pulled between the
notion that America is (or was, or at least ought to be) a Christian nation
and the sense of radical discontinuity between the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of this world.52 Either way, it is assumed that the world can only
be good when it is subservient to (or at least supportive of) the church.
Considered within the two kinds of righteousness, the two realms cannot be seen as alternative forms of existence (with one being inferior to
the other) in which we either live as citizens of this world or we live as
citizens of heaven. “As long as conscientious Lutheran Christians mistakenly identify the ‘public square’ (or civic life) exclusively with the arena of
state and government,” they concede the Enlightenment claim that faith
has nothing to say in the public realm and allow Christianity to be confined to a private religious ghetto with nothing to say on important public
questions.53 The Lutheran stress on active righteousness widens our vision regarding the left-hand realm and seeks to identify the common ground
for moral reflection between Christians and non-Christians. Historically,
when Christians were in league with the dominant culture they affirmed
it even as they critiqued it. Such an approach is still needed; voluntary
exile is not an option. Neither, however, is conquest. The conquest approach also confuses the two kinds of righteousness. In Augustine’s Platonic world Christianity transforms the world, thus turning the two kinds
of righteousness into one kind of righteousness. The same thing happens
with groups like the Christian Coalition (“Giving Christians a voice in government again”) that would see the United States as a Christian nation
and thus fight for a distinctively Christian culture. Here we urge a distinction. Church qua institution lives in the left-hand realm—which is still
God’s realm—and is concerned for the extension of law and justice within
that realm. A “Lutheran appreciation of the two kinds of righteousness
51
William W. Schumacher, “Civic Participation by Churches and Pastors: An Essay on
Two Kinds of Righteousness,” Concordia Journal 30 (July 2004): 170.
52
On this tension between church and society as it developed in early nineteenthcentury America, see Mark Y. Hanley, Beyond a Christian Commonwealth: The Protestant Quarrel with the American Republic, 1830-1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1994).
53
Schumacher, “Civic Participation,” 174.
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can help us reclaim what Robert Benne has called the ‘paradoxical vision’
of public theology in and for the society in which we live.”54
A related consequence to the secular-sacred distinction has to do with
how Christians live in the left-hand realm in relation to the governing
authorities. When the French Revolution spilled over into Germany with
its crusade for individual and human rights, the authority of the state
became a central issue. What is the relationship between the sovereignty
of the state and rights of individuals/citizens? What is the role of the state
and its uses of political authority? What is the proper sphere of conduct of
the individual, especially the believer, within the state? For many German
thinkers in the nineteenth century, the state was a structure of creation
for the purpose of maintaining order in the human community; whereas,
revolution brought disorder. The Christian’s calling to the political sphere,
unless called to rule, was not one of active participation, but one of submission. German immigrants to America came with views shaped in a
traditionally non-democratic society in which, as peasants, they had little
role to play within society. In accord with Romans 13 and the Fourth Commandment, the Christian submits to the various authorities (fathers, priests,
princes) under which he finds himself and renders the appropriate obedience due them. Thus the immigrants understood that their role over and
against both the state and the institutional church could be described as
“pray, pay, and obey.” They were accustomed to thinking of themselves as
subjects and not as citizens who participated in the shaping of government
policies.55
And so Lutheran immigrants in the nineteenth century arrived on the
shores of America with little understanding of or interest in their political
responsibility under the new conditions of a democracy. The idea of active
involvement in a participatory form of government—such as a democracy—
required a fresh appropriation of Luther’s thinking on the twofold rule of
God—something that rarely took place. Instead, German immigrants lived
within their own social enclaves and safely channeled their social concerns through the establishment of their own educational and charitable
54
Robert Benne, The Paradoxical Vision (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1995).
William Sihler expounds the two realms with the church-state distinction in such
a way that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world and that subjects are to render obedience.
To be sure, they should make certain such laws do not contradict that which God has
written on our hearts. But there is “a God-pleasing antithesis between those who command and those who obey, between those who rule and those who are ruled.” God is not
concerned about specific forms of government. They can rule like patriarchs or absolute
sovereigns. But “Christians acknowledge the governing authority even in its harshest
form, that of unlimited absolute rule, as a beneficial order of God against the coarser
outbursts of the corrupted human nature and against the increasing use of violence
against the weak and the poor on the part of the godless rich and powerful.” We subject
ourselves even if they are tyrants. Only when the domain of the private is invaded or the
conscience is at stake may the Christian say no. But then he must suffer the consequences. See Karl H. Hertz, ed., Two Kingdoms and One World: A Sourcebook in Christian Ethics (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976).
55
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institutions. Pietism showed the way through the support of private charities. Scandinavian Lutherans were a little more active due to the influence of Haugean Pietism that gave laity an active role within church and
society (with the resultant split from German Lutherans over issues involving slavery). In Scandinavian countries that were no longer major players on the world stage, the church worked closely with the state for the
betterment of society; whereas, in Germany people worked for the maintenance of the state’s place as a world power. And so during the past one
hundred and fifty years, many Lutherans in America have quietly and
contentedly raised families and contributed to the economy through their
labor. But when it came to the matter of larger social and political matters
(especially those requiring service within the government),56 American
Lutherans of German descent have often been invisible and their voice
unheard by the larger community. To be sure, a certain quietism and minding of one’s own affairs was reinforced during World War I when many
German immigrants carefully kept their heads down and did their duty by
buying war bonds.
When a separation of the two realms was combined with a view that
subjects had to render unquestioning obedience (as long as it did not intrude upon their consciences) to their rulers, as in twentieth-century Germany, the consequences were predictably disastrous. In response to the
Barmen Declaration that the one Word of God represents God’s total demand upon our entire life, the Ansbach Proposal, under the leadership of
Paul Althaus and Werner Elert, asserted otherwise. They argued for the
separation of the two realms. Again, Nazi Germany did an especially effective job in separating the two realms with its insistence that the government has responsibility for the external life of its citizens, while the church
is confined to looking after the spiritual welfare of its members. Thus,
where was the church’s voice during World War II in Germany aside from
the Confessing Church? Nazi Germany infiltrated the state church with
its German “Christians.”57
A renewed appropriation of the two kinds of righteousness can revitalize our thinking on God’s twofold rule so as to encourage Lutherans to be
more active participants in the civil realm. We seek both kinds of righteousness as distinct but interrelated spheres of human existence! The
distinction maintains that we do not simply relegate or relinquish the lefthand rule of God to impious non-Christians or to police forces. Christians
do not seek and desire only the passive righteousness of Christ before
56
Uwe Siemon-Netto has noted that in the current 109 th congress, the House of
Representatives and Senate have only twenty Lutheran members and of those only
three belong to the Missouri Synod. Even though the Missouri Synod is considerably
larger than the Episcopal Church, there are forty-four Episcopalians from that rapidly
shrinking branch of Anglicanism.
57
It should also be noted that soon after the Ansbach proposal, Althaus and Elert
came out against Naziism. See Lowell Green, Luther Against Hitler: The Untold Story
(St. Louis: Concordia, 2007).
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God. They also seek active righteousness for the good of the human community. Indeed, since the passive righteousness of God frees Christians
from needing to create or maintain a relationship with God, the believer’s
life may be completely devoted to the tasks of serving the rest of creation.
Thus Christians find themselves within a variety of human communities
in which they are called by God to cooperate and participate in His lefthand rule of the creation. In both realms, God works to accomplish His
will for creation: the passive righteousness of faith as well as the active
righteousness of human creatures by which He preserves the world. In
other words, the distinction between the two realms reveals the distinct
works of God within human life: God’s providential/sustaining work through
the Law and God’s redemptive/restorative work through the Gospel. The
first emphasizes God’s care for the fallen world with His left hand through
the rule of Law while the other emphasizes God’s preservation of the church
and consequent restoration of the whole creation (Rom. 8:18-23) with His
right hand through the proclamation of the Gospel. Lutherans, then, to be
faithful to God’s intention and call, must learn to embrace and argue for
natural law and not assume it a given. Far from quietism or indifference,
they are urged into active and aggressive work within the civil realm—
God’s left-hand realm—and so need to be equipped for such activity. Undoubtedly, the most critical tool for such living is competence (which can
be acquired and refined through careful training) in the art of moral reasoning.
Summary
Working within the matrix of the two kinds of righteousness, the reformers clarified the nature of the relationship between the Creator, who
bestows “passive righteousness” upon His creatures (first in creation and
then in redemption) through the creative and re-creative Word, and the
human creature who responds in faith and trust. The distinction between
the two kinds of righteousness allowed the reformers to extol the Gospel
without qualification by removing human activity as a basis for justification before God. At the same time, it clarified the relationship of the human creature to the world in which God had placed it to live a life of “active
righteousness” for the well-being of the human community and the preservation of the whole creation. The two kinds, however, are inseparable
from one another—finding their nexus, as they do, in the life of each Christian person. The passive righteousness of faith provides and continually
reaffirms the core identity of the believer, while the active righteousness
of love flows from and through this justified child of God in service to the
surrounding creation. This framework remains an indispensable tool for
dealing with the perennial temptation to consider human existence onedimensionally. Such occurs either when human works become the basis of
justification before God, or when “faith alone” appears to render human
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activity irrelevant and unimportant to the Christian life. Over and against
both tendencies, the two kinds of righteousness enable Lutherans to affirm fully and unreservedly two simultaneous, yet distinct and genuine
dimensions of human existence without one compromising the other.
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The Two Kinds of Righteousness!:
What’s a Preacher to Do?1
Timothy Saleska
Preaching and the Righteousness of Faith
How do you make someone into a tsaddik (a righteous man)? This was
a question Reb Saunders needed to answer. Reb Saunders was the spiritual leader of the Russian Hasidic Jewish community in Chaim Potok’s
bestseller, The Chosen.2 He was a man of wisdom and compassion who had
endured unimaginable suffering for his people during World War I. When
the war ended, the rabbi had moved his family and the Hasidic community
to America. Here he had a son, whom he named Daniel. As Reb Saunders’s
firstborn son, everyone in the community expected Daniel to succeed his
father as leader of the community. He was “the chosen one.”
One day, when Daniel was just four years old, he picked up a book and
read it. Then he repeated it from memory, word for word, back to his
father. On that day, Reb Saunders realized that God had given Daniel a
brilliant mind, “a mind like a jewel.” Daniel started devouring books like
they were food and water. But as proud as Reb Saunders was, he soon
realized something else about Daniel as well. He realized that even though
Daniel had been blessed with a great mind, God had not given him a heart.
And a heart was the most important thing for a tsaddik. Daniel had a
magnificent mind, but he did not have the heart of a tsaddik. What would
the father do? How could he raise Daniel to be a tsaddik? How could he
give Daniel a heart?
The father wrestled with the problem and finally came to a decision:
he would raise his son in silence. In other words, the father stopped talking to Daniel and rarely even looked directly at him. From age four until
Daniel graduated from college, the father never again had a normal conversation with his son. Through most of his youth, Daniel carried this
awful burden of a silent father.
What kind of way is that to raise a son? Near the end of the story, Reb
Saunders tries to explain it to Reuven Malter, Daniel’s closest friend. But
as Reb Saunders talks, Reuven realizes that he was not talking only to
him, but through him to his son, Daniel. At one point, Reb Saunders, full
1
The author would like to thank colleague Joel Biermann for his helpful critique of
this paper.
2
Potok, Chaim, The Chosen (New York: Ballantine Books, 1967).
Dr. Timothy Saleska is Associate Professor of Exegetical Theology and Acting Placement Counselor at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
136
of emotion, says, “One learns the pain of others by suffering one’s own
pain.... And it is important to know of pain.... It destroys our self-pride, our
arrogance, our indifference toward others. It makes us aware of how frail
and tiny we are and of how much we must depend upon the Master of the
Universe.”
The Father’s Problem
How do you make someone a tsaddik (a righteous person)? For the
Christian, a tzaddik is someone who is “right” with God, that is, someone
who is in a right relationship with Him. A tsaddik is also someone who
fulfills God’s plan for human life—someone who lives in the relationship
that God intended not only with the Creator Himself but also with His
creation.3 How do you make someone a tsaddik? That is the problem for
our heavenly Father as well. And our heavenly Father, for now, has chosen
silence as His way too. In an insightful observation, Reuven’s father says
to his son, “It is, perhaps, the only way to raise a tsaddik.”
And so we suffer the silence of the almighty God every day of our lives.
In our world it is evil that does all the talking. Disease and poverty and
violence and disaster bluster away. But God remains silent. He is supposed
to be in control, but He lets it all go by without a word. What are we to
think? One minute God plays the world’s tyrant, and the next minute its
benevolent king. He is kind to some and cruel to others. What are we to
think? God does not answer for any of it.
At critical moments in our lives—moments of anguish or grief—God’s
silence gets personal and painful. God keeps terribly silent when I want
answers!
“Why?” I wonder. What’s the point? Does this God even exist? And
what does He think about me? What is in His heart when He looks at me?
When I die, then what? Sooner or later I might meet up with this God.
What is He going to say? What if He knows my thoughts?
God’s silence becomes painful when it gets personal because unavoidably we interpret His silence in the face of our suffering as disapproval of
us—and agreement with the punishment. We all know that in the face of
an atrocity, if someone with the power to stop the insanity keeps silent,
such silence signals assent. If a king stands silent while soldiers beat his
servant, the king is an accomplice. Does God’s silence in the face of suffering signal His assent to it? Does it signal His wrath against our sin and His
immanent judgment? Moses had such fears, and so should we:
3
Kolb, Robert, “Luther on the Two Kinds of Righteousness: Reflections on His TwoDimensional Definition of Humanity at the Heart of His Theology,” Lutheran Quarterly
13 (1999): 450-452, 455-456; Charles Arand, “Two Kinds of Righteousness as a Framework for Law and Gospel in the Apology,” Lutheran Quarterly 15 (2001): 420-421.
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For all our days pass away under your wrath;
We bring our years to an end like a sigh.
Who considers the power of your anger,
And your wrath according to the fear of you? (Ps. 90:9, 11)
What can you do about a God who doesn’t speak? Job asked that question
as well (Job 23).
But at those times when the silence is most deafening, that is when
we must realize that the silence is not total. God is not completely silent.
Neither was Reb Saunders. Near the end of the book, in a startling revelation to Reuven, the great rabbi thanked him for the blessing he had been
to his son, Daniel. Then he said, “The Master of the Universe sent you to
my son. He sent you when my son was ready to rebel. He sent you to
listen to my son’s words. He sent you to be my closed eyes and my sealed
ears (italics added).”
In other words, Reb Saunders saw Reuven as an extension of himself.
He carried on the relationship that the father could not. And indeed,
throughout the book we learn how Reuven functioned as Daniel’s friend
against the background of that awful silence. He brought joy and hope to
Daniel, and so in concert with the silence of the father Reuven had a big
hand in giving Daniel the heart of a tsaddik.
But in a much more profound way (and here the analogy that I have
been making fails to fully capture the nature of the reality) God has sent
us a Friend, a final Word on the subject, “begotten of His Father before all
worlds, God of God, Light of Lights, Very God of Very God...who for us men
and for our salvation came down from heaven”.... A Word from God against
the background of that awful silence. It is in Christ alone that God Himself
speaks to us (John 1:1-14; Heb. 1:1). In Christ we see what is in God’s
heart and what his intentions are towards us: “No one has ever seen God;
the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John
1:18).
This Word is a gift from God to us across the silence. It is the gift of
righteousness. Jeremiah says it well: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch.... In his
days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the
name by which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness” (Jer. 23:56). In Christ, God speaks the word of reconciliation. He shows us His favor
and restores the relationship with Him that He intended us to have. God
solves the problem of our righteousness by giving us the righteousness He
wants us to have.4 In the person and work of Christ He has restored our
4
This is the “righteousness of faith” of which Melanchthon, for example, writes:
“Since we receive the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation on account of Christ by faith
alone, faith alone justifies. This is because those who are reconciled are regarded as
righteous and children of God, not on account of their own purity, but through mercy on
account of Christ, as long as they take hold of this mercy by faith” (Ap IV, 86). All quota138
identity as His children and given us peace with Him. This means that in
Christ we are the righteousness of God.5
The Preacher’s Task
The preacher is honored to serve Christ and His gift of righteousness
to the people who come to hear him. People who are having identity crises
come to hear the preacher. They may not be sure who they are anymore
or to whom they belong. They may have forgotten, or they may never
have known. They may be crushed by God’s silence towards the facts of
their lives, or they may be ready to rebel against it. In these cases, the
silence has done its work. People feel frail and tiny and are looking for a
voice, a word of hope, a Light in the darkness!
Others come feeling pretty self-confident. They have done well. They
live well. They are not particularly compassionate or interested in the
plight of others. They are not worried about themselves. And they are not
at all worried about God. So the preacher reminds them. He interprets the
silence and brings it to the forefront of their lives so that they begin to
think about God like Moses did—and Job and St. Paul and Martin Luther.
What is the preaching of the Law but a proper interpretation of the silent
God?
It confirms our suspicions that God is angry over our sin, that we do
not and cannot measure up, and that there is no escape from His clutches.
What does the Holy Spirit do as His alien work through the preaching of
the Law but terrify the heart so that it feels frail and tiny and dependent?
“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (Ps. 138:6; Is. 66:2;
James 5:6; 1 Pet. 5:5). Only then, because God wills it, can a person become a tsaddik.
A tsaddik! A righteous person! A person who is right with God and
whose relationship with the Creator is as the Creator intended. This is
what the preacher aims at. He is not so interested in talking about Christ
tions from the Confessions are taken from The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 2000).
5
Already here, then, the two dimensions of the Christian life are implied. First, the
righteousness of faith gives us our identity as God’s children. But also, if in Christ we
really are the righteousness of God as Jeremiah suggests, it is also our mission to embody
and manifest that righteousness in our lives—in the way that we serve those around us.
In a parallel way, Christ calls Himself the “light of the world” in fulfillment of the Servant
described in Isaiah 49:6. But Paul also asserts that he and fellow Christians fulfill that role
as they bring the Gospel to the nations (Acts 13:47; cf. Acts 1:8). In Christ we are “the
servant” who is the light to the nations. In Christ we are “the righteousness of God” who
reflect Christ’s righteousness in the world. So the Lord also says to us, “I am the Lord; I
have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you
as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to
bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Is.
42:6-7).
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or explaining “how things work,” but in giving the blessing of Christ, the
good Word of their righteousness, to people who feel the burden of a silent
Father. That is, in proclaiming the blessings of Christ, the preacher acts
on God’s behalf to bring His Word to people, giving them a new identity, a
new name: “the Lord is our Righteousness.”
Through the preacher’s proclamation of forgiveness, people are actually killed and raised up. The old is stripped away to make place for the
new. Hearts are strengthened and renewed! And the Word served by the
pastor does that killing and raising over and over again in the Christian
life, in the Absolution and in the Sacraments. Preaching the Word is a
joyous occasion like the birth of a baby, like a resurrection, because Christ
brings life in the midst of death. If preaching brings the resurrection of
dead hearts, how can you have too much resurrection going on? Against
the crushing silence of God, which screams anger and death, the preacher
brings a Word from the heart of God, which announces righteousness and
life to sinners living in God’s silence.
Because of this understanding about the function of the preached Word,
Luther describes preaching in sacramental terms. To preach the Word is
to do the same thing as the Sacraments—to give Christ and all His blessings.6 Luther had in mind that a sermon was “a manifestation of the incarnate Word from the written Word by the spoken word.”7 The preacher
bears witness to the Word as flesh in the word as written by the word as
spoken. Preaching is the Word of God in the same way as the word spoken
at creation.8
Preaching and the Righteousness of Works
From Identity to Practice
But this is not where all talk about being a tsaddik ends for a Christian! Christians are not invited to sit back and wait passively for the parousia.
Reb Saunders was not interested in that either. When Daniel finally told
his father that he was not going to take his father’s place as the leader of
the Hasidic community, Reb Saunders let him go. He knew that Daniel
had the heart of a tsaddik. It was his identity. But he still wondered if
Daniel would live as a tsaddik. Would his activities show others what he
was at heart? Daniel told his father that he would live as a tsaddik. And
Daniel knew how to do that because throughout his life his father had
instructed him in the teachings of the rabbis. In fact, the only time he did
6
G. Forde, “Preaching the Sacraments,” Lutheran Theological Seminary Bulletin 64
(1984): 3-4.
7
A quote by Bernard Lord Manning cited by David Steinmetz, “Luther, the Reformers, and the Bible,” in Living Traditions of the Bible, ed. James E. Bowley (St. Louis:
Chalice Press, 1998), 169.
8
Ibid., 169.
140
talk to Daniel was when they were studying the Talmud together, when
the father was teaching the son what it meant to live as a tsaddik.
As Christians—people who have been given righteous hearts—we also
live out our lives in this world, not separate from it. Christians fill various
roles in society, and we use our God-given reason, gifts, and abilities like
everyone else. In carrying out our tasks as human beings, are we going to
live as the righteous people we are? That is, are our works going to reflect
our identity? In the joy that Christians have over the gift of righteousness
that is ours in Christ, we do not forget about the other side of being a
tsaddik in this world—the life of righteousness lived for our neighbors and
the rest of humanity. The first kind of righteousness—the passive righteousness that is a free gift—does not abolish the second kind of righteousness—the good works we pursue in our daily lives.9
The two dimensions of righteousness are, of course, connected. They
together make up what it means to be a human creature as the Creator
intended. Robert Kolb well describes the Christian life in its two dimensions:
Human life is cruciform—eyes lifted to focus on God, feet firmly
planted on his earth, arms stretched out in mutual support of those
God has placed around us. Having the focus of our lives directed
toward Christ inevitably extends our arms to our neighbors. Human beings are truly human, that is, right or functioning properly
(according to the design for human righteousness that God made)
when their identity does express itself in the activities that flow
from that identity.10
As Luther described it, this active righteousness is the fruit and consequence of the first type (Gal. 5:16-26).11 God gives us a new name and
reconciles us to Himself. We actively respond to His gift of righteousness
by putting away the works of the flesh and actively producing the fruit of
the Spirit: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit,” Paul
writes (Gal. 5:25).
The Preacher’s Task
Faith sends Christians back out into the world to serve their neighbors. The apostle James stresses that this is an important aspect of our
Christian life:
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does
not have works? Can such faith save him? If a brother or sister is
9
Arand, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” 433.
Kolb, “Luther on Two Kinds of Righteousness,” 455-456.
11
Ibid., 458.
10
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poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to
them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them
the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by
itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:14-17).
Christians are responsible to live a life that reflects God’s love to other
humans and also to the rest of God’s creation. God also assumes that Christians are to serve God according to His will and not their own. Therefore,
Lutherans teach good works and how they are to be done. That means
that part of the preacher’s job is to instruct his people as to what the life of
a Christian tsaddik “looks like” and to exhort them to live as the righteous
people God has called them to be.
This task is as important as it has ever been because the culture in
which we live is also forming our thinking about morality and the lifestyle
choices that we make. What do our children learn everyday? The culture
instructs them at every turn that moral principle, the difference between
right and wrong, is not a given. It makes one lesson particularly clear: we
are all free to “make up our own minds” as we go along and as our feelings
dictate.
As Lesslie Newbigin explains, in our modern culture the world of beliefs and values, the world of “right and wrong” is a private world, a world
of personal choice. When it comes to morality—questions of right and
wrong—our culture teaches that we are free to follow our own preference.
Personal conduct and lifestyle, as long as we are not hurting anyone else,
ought not to be judged. There are no “right” or “wrong” styles of life.12
Because Christians still have sinful hearts, those who come to hear a
word from the preacher come, to one degree or another, with these assumptions in mind. They may be confused or unclear about certain issues.
They may be facing certain decisions and are relying only on their feelings
to guide them. They may have problems in their relationships but do not
know what they ought to do. They may have no clue about how to live as
a Christian, a tsaddik, in the morally ambiguous world. There is one thing
the preacher knows: his people are being shaped every day in ways that
negate the “way of the Lord,” that is, in ways that deny what it means to be
human as God intended.
The Christian faith has a very different view of what it means to be
truly human: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for
good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them”
(Eph. 2:10). At creation, God designed us with our nature to do the works
that He foreordained for us to do. He “hard-wired” us to know the difference between right and wrong. He gave His human creatures a “moral
compass” to guide them in their behavior and in the treatment of their
12
Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 19.
142
fellow humans. This is part of what it means to be a human being, to live
as a tsaddik in God’s creation.
Our sin, of course, has clouded our judgment and dulled our conscience.
Even though Christ has delivered us from sin and death, sin remains in
us, which keeps tempting us to think that we are our own gods and can
make our own lifestyle decisions as we see fit. In effect, our sinful nature
is always tempting us to deny our status as human creatures created by
God. As a result, we often do what we know we should not, what we know
is wrong (Rom. 7:7-25).13 To get rid of the guilt that comes from going
against what we are and what we know, we try denial or self-justification
or rationalization. Ultimately, every strategy fails.
Only the gift of the righteousness of Christ can take that guilt away.
Through that Word, the Holy Spirit comes to us and dwells in us. He
assures us that through Christ we are forgiven (Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 3:16; Eph.
5:18; John 14:17). Because of Him we are new creatures—a new creation.
Old guilt is gone; new freedom has come!
But as Paul says, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works! That
means that in Christ, God (re)creates us to be the creatures He originally
intended, and that is how He wants us to live in this world. We have put on
the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who
created Him (Col. 3:10).
This new reality, the reality of the Holy Spirit and Christ in us (Gal.
2:20), means that in our heart of hearts, as forgiven sinners, we also love
the will of God for our lives. Now the “real I” wants to obey God’s will even
while the sinful flesh wars against it and works disobedience (Rom. 7:725). God’s will for human life, the good works that He foreordained for us,
and the sense of morality which He built into us, are something that we
want to follow because our mind and heart have been transformed. We
have the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5). Therefore, while the Law continues to
accuse and threaten us because of our sinful conscience, the Law does not
only threaten and accuse our conscience. It is also a delight because it
shows us what God wants us to do, and it echoes the delight of our new
hearts!
The Law as we read it in the Bible is a reflection or elaboration of the
will of God for His creatures. It is in our hearts because God created us
that way and recreated us that way in Christ. In the Bible this includes the
Ten Commandments, which are a summary of God’s will for our lives, but
it also includes such material as Proverbs, which has the Ten Commandments as its foundation and builds upon them so that we learn how to live
wisely (as true tsaddikim). It also includes the paraenetic material in the
Epistles where Paul gives instruction in many areas of human life on the
basis of the moral teaching God has put in us all (Rom. 1-2, for example).
13
J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know (Dallas: Spence Publishing, 2003), 66-67.
For a succinct treatment of natural law see also C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man: How
Education Develops Man’s Sense of Morality (New York: McMillan, 1947).
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143
This is why the psalmist can say that God’s people love the Law that God
has given and meditate on it (Ps. 1). We meditate on it because we know
that it is the truth (Ps. 119:151)! It is good and praised by God who promises certain blessings to those who keep it.14
Therefore, the preacher not only delivers to people the righteousness
of Christ, so that by His Word they become tsaddikim, he also urges, beseeches, and instructs them in how to live as tsaddikim in this world.15
The preacher operates in both dimensions. People need and want to hear
how Christians are supposed to live. And because their sinful flesh still
wars inside of them, even though they have a new identity in Christ, they
need both negative and positive exhortation to do so.16 It is so easy to
forget, and people hear so much “advice” from other sources. They want
help with difficult decisions. Now more than ever Christians need to hear
what it means to have a Christian marriage, how a Christian husband and
wife are supposed to treat each other, and how they are not. They need
reminding of how Christians ought to conduct themselves in their places
of work and in their relationships with their neighbors, reminding of what
is actually “right and wrong,” “good and bad,” and the list goes on.
In this horizontal dimension—the righteousness of works—the pastor
must be aware that he is operating mainly within the sphere of “Law.” In
his speaking within this dimension, the Law will function to accuse (lex
semper accusat), but it will also instruct, urge, encourage, and so on, according to the condition of the hearer’s heart and the Spirit’s work. This is
what the Law does. This dimension has its place in the formation of a
tsaddik and in proper relationship to the vertical dimension. “[The two
dimensions] come into conflict only when the righteousness of works becomes the basis for our righteousness before God or when the righteousness of faith is used to eliminate the need to do good works.”17
14
“Morever, we willingly give this righteousness of reason the praises it deserves, for
our corrupt nature has no greater good than this, as Aristotle rightly said: ‘Neither the
evening star nor the morning star is more beautiful than righteousness.’ God even
honors it with temporal rewards. Still, it ought not be praised at Christ’s expense” (Ap IV,
24).
15
P. Raabe and J. Voelz, “Why Exhort a Good Tree?: Anthropology and Paraenesis in
Romans,” Concordia Journal 22 (1996), 160, write about Paul’s exhortation: “Fifth, it
should be noted that Paul’s intent in paraenesis is not to accuse the Romans as sinners.
He does that in chapters 1-3, where the tone is notably different. Paraenesis uses the
language of urging, appealing, and beseeching rather than that of harsh demanding and
condemning. Can Christians as sinners still hear paraenesis as accusatory? No doubt
they can. If the addressees were not paying taxes, presumably they would have felt
accused by 13:6-7. But there were probably other hearers in the church in Rome who saw
the rightness of Paul’s appeal and gladly embraced it.”
16
Many years ago, my father-in-law, who is a dedicated Christian businessman,
lamented to me about the lack of this kind of speaking from the pulpit. He said, “Every
once in a while I need to hear, ‘Don’t cheat on your taxes! That’s wrong! Don’t steal! Don’t
lie!’” and so on. Rightfully so, he sought that kind of guidance for daily living as a Christian.
17
Arand, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” 427.
144
When good works are kept in their proper relationship, a pastor will
recognize that he is speaking to the conscience as well as the reason and
intellect of his hearers to help them learn how God wants them to live. He
wants to give appropriate direction for their footsteps in life’s walk.
The pastor approaches this task, then, with the understanding that
the written Law is a reflection of the natural law, which God put in the
hearts of us all, and which is created anew in those in whom the Spirit
lives. The pastor, then, in his preaching in this dimension, elaborates in
various ways on the implications of God’s instruction for the Christian life.
He is interested in properly interpreting it and applying it in relevant and
practical ways to a Christian’s life. At times he will warn of the dangers of
neglecting God’s will for their lives. At other times he will positively encourage.18 He is interested in persuading his hearers to act in God-pleasing ways. For example, Paul talks about the roles of husbands and wives in
Ephesians 5 (cf. Col. 3:18-4:1; 1 Pet. 2:13-3:7). Here he deals with family
relationships, a topic that is the source of much confusion today, and also
great relevance. What does Paul say about the relationship between husband and wife? As he reflects on the God-given institution of marriage,
what guidance does he offer for families today? A pastor will seek out
others who have thought through what Paul is saying and what other
parts of Scripture say on this topic so that he can help his people to embody in their behavior what God intended for the male and female whom
He created to be in partnership with each other in the first place. What
does that “partnership” mean? What does it not mean? What should it look
like? The material in Paul’s epistle gives us the opportunity to approach
this topic in a God-pleasing way.
In fact, the Epistles in general are the obvious texts for this kind of
preaching. As others have pointed out, Paul bases his paraenesis on the
Gospel promises. He grounds his exhortations on the work of Christ and
on promises about the coming salvation that awaits God’s people.19 At that
time, the two kinds of righteousness will become “one” in our fully realized identity as God’s creatures. In the meantime, it is clear that Paul is
interested in both identity and performance.
Pastors might take advantage of this by leading their people through
an Epistle as a sermon series. Following Paul’s method, in this kind of
expository preaching, he would be able to proclaim to people “the righteousness of faith” and give them the comfort of the Gospel. He could also
speak of the implications of this for their lives, encouraging, warning, and
instructing them to live as the people that they have been called out of
darkness to be: God’s tsaddikim in identity and practice.
18
19
Raabe, Voelz, “Why Exhort a Good Tree?,” 159.
Ibid., 158.
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A Two-Dimensional Understanding of the
Church for the Twenty-First Century
Charles P. Arand
Questions related to matters of ecclesiology have always posed something of a challenge to Lutheran thinkers. This may be due to the fact that
Lutheran theology is rightly reticent about prescribing particular forms in
which church and ministry find expression. This tension became exacerbated when Lutherans emerged from their German cultural enclaves and
grappled with questions about how not only to survive, but to thrive in the
United States. The individualistic context, entrepreneurial spirit, and the
need to bring in new members more efficiently contributed to a new appropriation of Luther’s teaching on the priesthood of all believers. In addition, the great mobility of Americans (spurred on by their love for the
automobile and the construction of the interstate highway system), combined with a consumerist outlook that saw religion as a commodity, created a “church shopping” mentality that allowed them to hop from one
church to another in order to find the services that they sought.
These challenges highlight a shift in focus from the church as a theological reality to the church as a sociological entity. The “human side” of
the church became the subject of greater study and interest than at any
other time in church history. In part this is due to the rise in the influence
of the social sciences during the twentieth century. As a result, much attention has been given to the human factors of church and ministry, such
as the comfort of those who attend, the eye appeal of the building, and the
development of user-friendly services, etc. At times the sociological aspects of the church were stressed to such an extent that they overshadowed the theological character of the church. This is not to suggest that
the human factors that bring people into the church or turn them away
from the church are unimportant. Pastors with a heart for outreach and
mission find themselves dealing with an increasingly difficult task of reaching out to the unchurched. How does one gather them into the church?
How does one maximize resources for reaching out? The decline in denominational loyalty raises new questions about what it means to be church
or to be a member of the church. The emphasis on sociological factors of
healthy or growing churches raises the question about the relationship of
the divine and human roles within the church. Indeed, at times the sociological study of the church has outpaced theological reflection on the church.
Much of the theological reflection about the church within Protestant
Dr. Charles P. Arand is Waldemar A. and June Schuette Chair in Systematic Theology and Chairman of the Department of Systematic Theology at
Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
146
theology over the past several centuries has worked within the categories
of the “invisible” and “visible” church. Although the Lutheran Confessions
do not use these terms, they did serve to help define the parameters of the
church and identify membership within the church. Believers belonged to
the invisible church, and the baptized belonged to the visible church (which
was wider than the invisible church). Another way to address these issues
in a way that opens the door for reflection upon the questions raised in the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is to do so through the lens
of the two kinds of righteousness. The Lutheran teaching of the two kinds
of righteousness provides a framework for sorting out the various aspects
of the church’s life and for thinking through the relationship between the
divine and human roles in building up the church. Indeed, the Lutheran
confession of the church rests upon the presupposition that the believer
lives in two distinct but inseparable relationships. God’s Word of Gospel
establishes our relationship with God; God’s design for life regulates our
relationship with others. Church and ministry in Lutheran theology also
rest upon the nature of the Word since the church is a creature of the
Word, and the ministry of the church is given the task of delivering that
Word. In this essay we will consider the nature, mission, and unity of the
church.
The Nature of the Church
Just as the individual Christian lives in two dimensions, so the church
also lives in two inseparable yet distinct dimensions. The Apology of the
Augsburg Confession makes this very point when it asserts that the church
is “not only an association of outward rites and ties, but is primarily an
association of faith.”1 In one sphere the church lives in relation to God
under the Word, and in the other sphere the church lives in relation to
other human creatures as the Word flows into human affairs. The church
coram Deo lives from the Word of God, and it lives coram mundo to deliver
the Word of God to others. It lives in the presence of God as a creature and
recipient of His Word and in the midst of human society as an agent that
delivers life and salvation through preaching and absolution, through the
Sacraments, and through the mutual conversation and consolation of Christians with one another. At its core, the church is a spiritual reality, but a
reality that has a sociological/empirical expression in the world.2
The Church Coram Deo (“The Invisible Church”)
The Lutheran confessional writings draw a direct connection between
the justification of the sinner and the definition of the church. That which
1
Ap VII, 5, Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 174 (henceforth K-W).
2
See Charles P. Arand, “The Future of Church Fellowship: A Confessional Proposal,”
Concordia Journal 25 (July 1999): 239-252.
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defines justification also defines the church. The medieval church on the
eve of the Reformation did not draw a sharp line between the invisible and
visible church. The Roman Catholic Church contended that the church is
coextensive with the boundaries of the pope’s jurisdiction and encountered
concretely in the local presence of the bishops. The analogy could be made
to kings whose territory extended only as far as did their authority. Thus
one is a citizen of France if one lives under the jurisdiction of the king of
France. So one was a member of the church if one lived under the jurisdiction of the pope. Within that geographical boundary, the church delivered
the sacramental grace by which salvation was imparted. They also determined the laws for the people by which they might merit the grace that
assisted them in doing the works necessary for salvation.
The reformers argued that in its vertical dimension, the church lives
in the presence of God (coram Deo) as an assembly of believers, a gathering of those who believe the Gospel. Within this community, the believer
not only has a new identity as a child of God, but she acquires at the same
time a new identity as a sister of other believers. God neither created
human beings to be alone nor did He recreate them to be alone. To be
alone is downright inhuman. That community is now restored in Christ.
Like the believer who is righteous by faith in Christ, the church is also
holy and without blemish.3 Or, as Luther preferred to call it, it is a “holy
Christian people,” a “community of saints,” and a “holy community.”4 But
“all who would seek to merit holiness through their works rather than
through the Gospel and the forgiveness of sins have expelled and separated themselves from the church.”5 As that gathering ruled by Christ and
created by the Spirit, the church exists throughout the world and throughout all times (AC VII). Melanchthon describes it as a “people scattered
throughout the entire world who agree on the gospel andhave the same
Christ, the same Holy Spirit.”6 Luther uses similar language. “There is on
earth a holy little flock and community of pure saints under one head,
Christ.”7 As an assembly of believers, the church remains hidden to human eyes. Only God can see who belongs to the church because only He
can see the faith that exists in hearts.
At the same time, the church is not a “platonic republic”8 any more
than the believer’s righteousness in Christ is a “legal fiction.” That is to
say, the church is not simply some kind of an ideal in the human mind that
has no external reality within the world. The church truly exists, even as
the believer is truly righteousness, because it is a creature of the Word.
Just as the individual believer is a child of God on account of the Gospel
promise, so also the assembly of believers lives from the Word of God.
3
4
5
6
7
8
148
Ap VII, 7, K-W, 175.
LC, Creed, 48-49, K-W, 437.
LC, Creed, 56, K-W, 438.
Ap VII, 10, K-W, 175.
LC, Creed, 51, K-W, 437.
Ap VII, 20, K-W, 177.
Luther describes it in the Smalcald Articles simply as “sheep who hear the
shepherd’s voice.” He expresses it more fully in the Large Catechism: “Everything in this Christian community is so ordered that everyone may
daily obtain full forgiveness of sins through the Word and signs.”9 For this
reason, Lutheran ecclesiology is grounded in the Biblical teaching regarding God’s Word and how it works in the world. Although the dogmatics
textbooks of Lutheran history did not always place it immediately after
the topic “means of grace,” from the standpoint of the function of our dogma,
the doctrine of the church is a sub-chapter in the topic “on the Word of
God” in Lutheran thinking. The church is an article of faith. We believe
that it exists even though we cannot see it. We believe that it exists on
account of the Word.
The Church Coram Hominibus (“The Visible Church”)
When we turn to the horizontal dimension of the church as it is defined by human activity and action, Luther recognized two important but
unequal kinds of activities. First, there are those activities that are commanded by God (de iure divino) and are directly related to the nature of
the church coram Deo. Without these, the church coram Deo would not
exist. Second, there are those activities that have been devised by human
beings (de iure humano) for the purpose of carrying out those activities
that God has commanded and by which He builds His church. Luther and
his colleagues referred to these activities as human traditions, human
orders, and adiaphora. These humanly devised activities are not directly
related to the definition of the church coram Deo, but they do contribute to
the way in which the Word is delivered by human beings and the effectiveness in which God’s people carry out God’s will within the world. We can
distinguish between these two activities in that the former deals with the
“what” we are given to do by God; whereas, the latter deals with “how” we
carry them out.
Because the Word creates the church coram Deo, the Word simultaneously identifies where human beings can find church within the wider
human society (coram mundo). In other words, the Word identifies that
empirical community of people within which the assembly of believers
exists. The Word in all its forms (oral, written, sacramental) becomes the
divinely instituted marks that identify those who come into contact with
the Word and to whom are given the gift of salvation (even if it does not
identify those who actually receive that gift by faith). Because the Word
creates faith, Word and Sacrament are not only the primary marks of the
church (according to Ap VII, 7), they are the infallible marks of the church!
That is to say, where they are administered, we can be sure that there the
church exists because they are the agents by which God accomplishes what
9
LC, Creed, 55, K-W, 438.
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149
He says. Where they are being preached and administered the Holy Spirit
is at work bestowing divine righteousness upon God’s human creatures,
thereby building the fellowship of believers that are visible only to God
(coram Deo) within the midst of the world. The church (coram Deo or
coram mundo) is not church apart from these marks.
The church can be identified coram mundo in a secondary way by
those activities and structures that flow from that Word and are developed
to convey that Word.10 Thus the life of the church expresses itself in various forms of active righteousness that Luther is willing to recognize as
marks of the church in his work On the Councils and the Church.11 These
include, among other things: (1) the church’s public teaching and catechesis;
(2) the way it presents the narrative of God’s action from Scripture and out
of Christian experience throughout history; (3) its ritual in worship, both
formal liturgical and informal church usages; (4) its ethics and moral principles; (5) the development of programs and provision of services that serve
marriage and family; (6) its organization, whereby it takes on a name,
gathers in buildings constructed by human hands, and is incorporated under the laws of the country. While these human activities may help people
to find the church coram mundo, they do not infallibly identify the location
of the church coram Deo. Still, insofar as these activities deliver the Word,
they may be considered, by extension, marks of the church. But they are
secondary marks and, as such, are variable and subject to change. For this
reason the empirical gathering of people may be called church by synecdoche because within its midst is a group of believers gathered by the Spirit
through the Word.
These human orders are developed through the use of reason in service to the Word. The way in which a church structures itself will often
mirror the society of its day. For example, the ancient Roman Empire
provided the church with an episcopal form of church government that not
only reflected societal theories of organization but also fit into the missionary situation of the church where pastors or bishops were gathering
and raising “children” in the faith in their congregations. Geneva’s aristocratic social structure provided a presbyterian model that had the potential of putting the abilities of the rising middle class at the disposition of
the Gospel. Lutheran consistorial government reflected the early modern
reliance of German and Scandinavian rulers upon the new bourgeois bureaucratic form of secular government. In North America congregations
order themselves according to congregational assemblies or boards of directors. None of these forms of church government are in and of themselves inimical to the confession of the Gospel; none can guarantee the
preservation of the Gospel or the spread of the Gospel. In a rapidly changing culture, the church may need to be ready to jettison in twenty years
10
11
150
Ap VII, 5, K-W, 174.
“On the Councils and the Church,” 1539, LW 41:148-166, WA 50:628, 29-643, 5.
what appear to be the tried and true models of today. The church as an
assembly of believers created and gathered by the Word truly exists in
whatever institutional forms provide for the proclamation of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in all its purity.
Keeping the Two Dimensions of the Church Distinct
Because the church lives in two worlds, these worlds must remain
distinct. Otherwise, believers run the risk of substituting human institutions and activities for the Spirit’s work of creating a spiritual people. They
will confuse what they are doing with what God is undertaking. When that
happens, not only will the church be undermined; so will the Gospel proclamation itself, upon which the church is built. In the first half of the
Apology of the Augsburg Confession, article VII, where Melanchthon deals
with the definition of the church, he identifies two ways by which the two
dimensions of the church are confused or blurred, especially among his
opponents.12
The first confusion occurs when we identify anyone who partakes of
the Word and Sacraments as being de facto members of the church coram
Deo (one who actually receives the benefits of Word and Sacrament in
faith). Here Melanchthon takes up the charge of the Roman Catholic theologians who charged that the Augsburg Confession mingled together believers and unbelievers in its definition of the church. Melanchthon makes
it clear, however, that while unbelievers may partake of Word and Sacrament, they are not members of the true church inasmuch as they do not
receive those gifts by faith. They may be identified as members of the
church coram mundo because they are baptized, but they are not members of the true church coram Deo because they lack faith. Thus, coram
mundo, believers and unbelievers are comingled as they gather together
at the altar in order to receive the Sacrament. To regard the mixed assembly as the true church confuses the two dimensions of the church.
The second confusion equates the observance of human traditions as a
requirement for membership in the church coram Deo. Just as this was
the critical issue in justification, so it was the critical issue in defining the
church. Melanchthon complains that his opponents see the church as an
external monarchy throughout the world over which the pope rules through
the establishment of human observances.13 Melanchthon had little difficulty with speaking of church as an external organization, but he did not
see human traditions as an infallible mark of the church or a condition of
membership in the church. If they were, then faith would no longer define
membership in the church coram Deo; instead, the observance of the Law
or human traditions would be key for belonging to the people of God. If the
12
13
Ap VII, 5, K-W, 174.
Ap VII, 23, K-W, 178.
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151
observance of human traditions is not a necessary act of worship for obtaining righteousness coram Deo, then it is not a necessary act for being a
member of the body of Christ.14
Case Study 1: Church Membership
The question of what defines a member has become increasingly important in a culture where people like to attend church but do not necessarily want to become a “member” with its attendant commitments and
obligations. At one time, to become a member involved a fairly extensive
adult information course followed by signing the membership roster and
making arrangements for financial support of the congregation. So what
might constitute membership within the framework of the two kinds of
righteousness?
First, only faith in the heart makes one a member of Christ’s church
coram Deo. That which receives Christ’s salvation is that which makes
one a member of His body. So theologically, being justified by faith simultaneously makes one a member of the church. Here it must be remembered
that coram Deo we do not create faith in ourselves and do not join the
church. The Spirit gathers us into the church. Thus the question of membership is important. In bringing us to Christ the Spirit binds us to one
another. Even as God has created us for community, He has recreated us
for community. The church is not an association of individuals. As brothers and sisters, fellow believers are not simply strangers alongside us about
whom we have little concern. God knows those who belong to Him and
those who are our fellow redeemed.
But coram mundo how do we know that any particular person is a
member of the church coram Deo? Inasmuch as the Spirit gathers people
into the church by means of the Gospel, we can see those who receive the
Word and Sacraments and thus identify those who come into contact with
Christ’s gifts. The Augsburg Confession thus acknowledges that the Sacra14
See Apology VII, “On the Church,” where Melanchthon argues for the propositio
of the righteousness of faith and sets forth his entire case in an extended syllogism (§3137). The major premise states that the true unity of the church is a spiritual unity defined
by the righteousness of faith. Here there appeared to be some common ground between
the two sides, for the Confutation concurred that the church is an assembly of saints. The
disagreement arose with regard to the minor premise (what made a person a saint). The
minor premise contends that the observance of human traditions is not necessary for
righteousness before God. This is what Melanchthon as rhetorician labeled the krinomenon
(cf. his rhetorical textbook in CR 13:430), that is, “the point at issue in this controversy”
(Ap VII, 34, 37). The conclusion of the syllogism (or principle proposition) rests entirely
upon proving the krinomenon. Thus he calls the proof of the krinomenon the synechon,
because it integrates the whole syllogism. In other words, prove the krinomenon and the
conclusion follows as a matter of course. Melanchthon intends to prove it here, but also
plans to provide even more evidence for the krinomenon in Ap XV: “Moreover, the point
to be decided in this controversy must be raised a little later below, namely, whether
human traditions are necessary acts of worship for righteousness before God” (§37).
152
ments, alongside their primary function of forgiving sins, also serve to
identify the visible communion of the Sacraments. And so the church developed categories such as Baptized membership and communicant membership in order to identify those who have received those particular Sacraments along with the necessary instruction so that they might receive
by faith the gifts those Sacraments delivered.
Beyond identifying members by their contact with the divinely instituted means of grace, the church may develop other markers of membership. For example, many congregations have “voting members,” those who
are involved in making major decisions regarding the church’s life. In addition, it is not uncommon to speak about “good members” or “active members.” These are not only those who are in church every Sunday but those
who serve on various committees and assist with various programs of the
church. In each case, membership is defined by particular activities that
have been established by human authority and which do not determine
membership in the church coram Deo. They may, however, assist the ordering of the church’s life coram mundo for the purpose of taking the
Gospel into the community.
The Mission of the Church
One of the most influential religious movements of the last three decades upon congregations is the American-born “Church Growth” movement, most commonly associated with the School of Missions and the Institute of Church Growth of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena,
California. Growing out of the revivalistic tradition of Evangelicalism, it
has adapted the mission of the church to the American temperament. Along
the way, some of its proponents moved the sociological side of the church
to the forefront of ecclesiastical concerns by studying how churches grow
as institutions or organizations. Even though the discussion of Christian
witness has moved beyond this particular expression of evangelistic theory,
many of the insights it gleaned and methods it produced have contributed
to the ongoing examination of how the Christian faith may best be brought
to those outside the church. And so we have seen in recent decades the
rise of the “mega-church” as an organization that delivers a full range of
religious goods and services to the Baby Boomer generation. Going to church
on Sunday, they were entertained. In the last few years a reaction against
this mode of expressing the church has arisen among the children of Baby
Boomers: the emergent church movement that stresses the authenticity
and integrity of Christian existence while meeting in smaller communities throughout the week. No doubt, in later decades new modes of expressing the church’s life will emerge in order to carry out the church’s
mission.
Most Christians would not take issue with the thesis that (the Church)
exists for the sake of confessing the Gospel within the world. After all, it is
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for this reason that Christ gathered His disciples and gave them the Great
Commission in Matthew 28. In line with the New Testament, Luther describes the church in his Large Catechism as a unique community in the
world, “the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the
Word of God, which the Holy Spirit reveals and proclaims, through which
he illuminates and inflames hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling
to it, and persevere in it.”15 In other words, it is intrinsic to its very nature
that the church bears children through the Word. Yet while there is agreement that the church has a mission, there has certainly been some disagreement regarding the content (social issues versus personal salvation)
of that mission and how to carry it out (especially with regard to ways in
which the church’s success at carrying it out can be measured and how to
use the social sciences as tools for the mission of the church in general).
As a result, vigorous debates have arisen within American Lutheranism
between those who insist that the Word produces growth apart from human factors and those who insist that the hidden church cannot grow apart
from increasing the number of bodies in pews. Although the two kinds of
righteousness does not provide simple solutions to these difficult questions, it does provide a framework for organizing our thinking about them
in a way that is faithful to the Scriptures.
The Growth of the Church Coram Deo
In the economy of salvation, the Father sent the Son in order to accomplish the redemption of the world and to reclaim those who had rejected Him. Upon accomplishing that task and ascending to the right hand
of the Father, the Son in turn sent the Holy Spirit into the world in order
to deliver the gift of redemption and new life to God’s human creatures. In
this way the Spirit brings people under the reign of Christ (AC III) and
creates a new community, a new Israel. In this economy of salvation people
do not join the church as if it were another voluntary organization or
social club. Instead, according to Luther’s Small Catechism, the Spirit “gathers” them together as the church.16 Just as we receive the righteousness
of Christ passively, so a person is brought into the church passively. The
Spirit’s mission is as universal in scope as was Christ’s redemption and the
Father’s creation. As God created all and Christ died for all, so the Spirit
seeks to bring all into the church to receive the benefits of Christ’s reign.
The Book of Acts describes the Spirit’s work in terms of the growth of the
Word.
Because the Spirit brings people to faith through the Word, He brings
people into contact with the church where that Word is proclaimed. In
fact, no one comes to faith apart from contact with the church, that is to
15
16
154
LC, Creed, 42, K-W, 436.
SC, Creed, 6, K-W, 355.
say, apart from contact with other believers. Note the “even as” in the
Third Article of the Small Catechism: The Spirit calls us “by the Gospel,
enlightens us with his gifts…even as (gleichwie) he calls, gathers, and enlightens the entire Christian church on earth.” In other words, the Holy
Spirit brings people to faith today in the very same way that He has over
the course of the past two millennia—through other Christians. The church
lives in the presence of God as an agent of His Word, delivering life and
salvation through the preaching of the Gospel, absolution, the Sacraments,
and conversation of Christians. But while He has bound Himself to work
through the Word, we do not thereby control the Spirit by proclaiming
that Word. This is the point of the Fifth Article of the Augsburg Confession
when it affirms that the Holy Spirit creates faith “when and where he wills
in those who hear the gospel.”17 It affirms that the extension and expansion of the church is a gift and work of the Holy Spirit. While the Spirit
works through the Word as His instrument of regeneration, He determines when and where faith is born through that Word. This further means
that the growth of the church, like the nature of the church itself, is ultimately hidden from view to human eyes. We may see fewer or more people
gathering together, but we cannot see whether or not there are fewer or
more believers.
The Growth of the Church Coram Mundo
As the Spirit grows the church, He does so through the use of His
human creatures and partners. And so the growth of the church also has
its human side. Indeed, God has given two Great Commissions to His human creatures.18 In the first Great Commission, He gave His human creatures the responsibility for taking care of His creation. They were to tend
it and protect it. In the second Great Commission, He has given His human creatures the responsibility of ushering in the new creation through
the proclamation of the Gospel. That is clear from the final “commissions”
given the disciples as the foundation of the New Israel, the whole people of
God, at the end of each Gospel (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16’ Luke 24:4449; John 20:19-23). These make it clear that the church’s life is centered in
the proclamation and confession of God’s message for His human creatures. The Spirit works through the Word, but human creatures have the
responsibility to deliver that Word to one another. That is naturally God’s
way of doing things. The God who has revealed Himself to His human
creatures by coming among them as the Word made flesh wants His people
to carry His Word to Jew and Greek so that all may call upon the name of
17
18
AC, V, 3, K-W, 40.
An insight gained from our colleague Henry L. Rowold, veteran East Asia mission-
ary.
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the Lord (Rom. 10:12-13). Luther and Melanchthon defined the church
through a “confession” at Augsburg that reflected Luther’s understanding
of the power of the Word of God and the calling of believers to announce it
to the world.19 And so just as God made us His coworkers in creation, He
has given us the privilege of being His coworkers in the new creation.
How do the people of God deliver that Word? In order to bring people
into contact with the Word, the church has over the course of two millennia been attendant to the needs of the culture in which it finds itself.
Given their Biblical understanding of God’s creation, Lutherans believe
that the exercise of academic disciplines are part of the dominion God
gives His human creatures (Gen. 1:28), and, therefore, they use the insights gained from them (such as the social sciences) in order to study and
develop aspects of the horizontal realm of church life. One need only consider, for example, Melanchthon’s use of Ciceronian rhetoric for the proclamation and defense of the Gospel. Such disciplines help Christians see
how human needs in the spiritual and other parts of human life are expressed in particular social situations and structures—and thus how the
church can address those needs. The Christian church has always engaged
the surrounding culture in order to deliver the Word. To be sure, this
entails the risk that the culture will usurp and transform the church’s
message.
But the church has never shied away from that risk in order to insulate the Word from contamination. It has readily translated the Word into
the language of the culture in which it finds itself. It has been a hallmark
of the Christian church that it has not tried to protect its message from
contamination by insulating its language (Koine Greek) into a kind of “linguistic preserve” in the way that Islam has done with the eighth century
Arabic language of the Koran. Instead, “the church came to be in translation.”20 From the beginning, the Christian church has expressed an inherent openness to other forms of cultural expression and translated its message into the “Mother tongue” of various cultures.21 Such openness to the
culture has not been without risks. Languages embody specific cultural
assumptions and thought worlds. The language learned in the home and
on the street takes on its own connotations. “Recognizing these assumptions and dealing with them effectively is the task of the second level of
translation.”22 For this principle we turn to the catechisms as a notable
Lutheran example of contexualization in the sixteenth century for the
sake of evangelism, re-evangelism, and mission.
19
Robert Kolb, Confessing the Faith: Reformers Define the Church, 1530-1580 (St.
Louis: Concordia, 1991), 13-42.
20
James A. Nestingen, “Luther’s Cultural Translation of the Catechism,” Lutheran
Quarterly XV (Winter 2001): 440-452.
21
Lamen O. Sanneh, Translating the Message (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989).
22
Nestingen, “Luther’s Cultural Translation of the Catechism,” 441.
156
Keeping the Two Dimensions of the Church Distinct
An overemphasis on one dimension of the church at the expense of the
other not only results in a confusion of the two kinds of righteousness but
more often than not it also results in conflict and controversy within the
church. This has been particularly evident within North American denominations over the past three decades as they have struggled to address
their aging and declining membership by reaching out to younger and
very individualistic Americans. In the course of that debate, those involved
in the controversies have tended to fall into one of two dangers, each of
which confuse the two dimensions of the church’s growth.
The first way in which the two dimensions of the church are confused
occurs when we equate or regard the spiritual growth of the church (coram Deo) as co-extensive with the sociological growth of the church (coram mundo). In the last two decades of the twentieth century, North American Christians paid new attention to the sociological factors. In the eyes of
its critics, the emphasis on the sociological factors affecting the external
growth of a congregation frequently overshadowed the importance of the
Word, proper teaching, and the Sacraments as those means by which the
Holy Spirit expanded the church as an assembly of believers coram deo.
Indeed, it was pointed out that sociological factors alone were quite capable of gathering a group of people and increasing its numbers. Such can
be accomplished through the power of charismatic personalities, exceptional administrative skills, the utilization of all varieties of motivational
methods, and the promulgation of various programs regardless of the
group’s teaching. So the two dimensions of the church become blended
into one dimension when, intentionally or inadvertently, the growth of the
church as an organization coram mundo becomes equated with the growth
of the assembly of believers coram deo.
The second confusion occurs in the opposite direction and at times in
reaction to the emphasis on sociological factors at the expense of theological factors. Especially among many Lutherans who sought to uphold the
confession that the Spirit expands the church of Christ through the ministry of Word and Sacrament alone, there arose the tendency of discounting
the importance of sociological factors for bringing people into contact with
God’s Word. This propensity to discount the sociological factors ranged
from the tendency to view with suspicion the use of rhetoric in preaching
to the use of survey instruments in order to identify what people needed
and wanted from a church in the late twentieth century. For some, preaching in a monotone voice allowed the Spirit more freedom to carry out His
work. For others, being faithful in teaching fulfilled their obligations as a
minister of the Word. And so many critics of the focus on sociological factors failed to take seriously the idea that the Spirit may use human instruments and humanly developed methods not in order to make believers,
but in order to deliver the Word so that it would be heard. Just because
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sociological methods and human strategies do not grow the church as an
assembly of believers coram Deo, it does not mean that they are unimportant. They serve the purpose of expanding the proclamation of the Word
through which the Holy Spirit works. So in this particular case, the two
kinds of righteousness are blurred by regarding the church coram Deo as
the church’s only dimension and as disconnected from the church as an
empirical community within the world.
Case Study 2: Evaluating a Congregation’s “Health”
When people look at a congregation, it is not uncommon to evaluate it
in terms of what we perceive to be its vitality or health. Perennially conflicted congregations are not considered to be healthy congregations. Recognizing that the church lives in two worlds can also help us evaluate the
health of a congregation, namely, what is the health of the marks, or what
are key indicators of a congregation’s health? Note that in the coram mundo
realm, each of them has a de iure divino as well as a de iure humano
dimension. The former bears a direct and immediate relationship to the
nature of the church coram Deo, while the latter bears in indirect, though
important, relationship to the church coram deo. It pertains to the way in
which we carry out the de iure divino mandates.
The growth and health of the church as a Third Article creation of the
Spirit is difficult to assess because by definition it is hidden. It is visible
only to the eyes of God. The only indicators we have are the Third-Article
marks of the church, namely the means of grace. Here we must ask, “How
many ways are the means of grace getting out?” and “How purely are they
being proclaimed and administered?” With regard to the first question,
there would come to mind worship attendance (those who are encountered by the Word of God), Baptisms, Communion attendance, and even
Christian funerals. These assure us that there is a pulse. But one must
also ask about how purely, comprehensively, and are they deeply being
administered. How extensive and intensive is the catechesis of the congregation? Do Bible studies cover the entire counsel of God or only issues of
perceived practical relevance? Are the sermons textual and doctrinal? Are
people primarily spectators, or are they participants who are learning to
articulate the Gospel by having it placed upon their lips? A church may
have thirty Bible studies, but what is going on in those studies? The proper
use of God’s Word in its oral, written, and sacramental forms is the only
infallible mark of the church.
The growth and health of the church as an institution is another matter. With regard to the church as an empirical organization or visible community, a variety of sociological indicators might be taken into account.
These might include such things as the budget of the congregation (debt
and contributions), the outward appearance and condition of the physical
plant of the church, accessibility of its facilities, the number of programs
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operated by the congregation, the external growth of the congregation,
the number of caring and support groups within the congregation, friendliness and treatment of visitors, and similar issues. These First Article
indicators, good as they are for assessing the external conditions of the
church, are at best indirect and fallible indicators of a church’s true health
coram Deo. These First Article indicators in and of themselves could be
used for the evaluation of any organization, business, church, mosque, or
even synagogue that functions within the First Article of God’s world. Thus
by themselves such marks do not determine the health of the church as a
fellowship of faith as defined by the Third Article. But they do serve as
support structures for the Word even as the Word shapes their form.
The Unity of the Church
For many observers, the twentieth century was the great century of
ecumenism for the church. The World Council of Churches, the National
Council of Churches, the Second Vatican Council each in its own way
spurred the drive to bring about the visible unity of Christian churches. In
part, this was carried out in the conviction that the division of churches
raised major obstacles to the mission of the church. In part, it was carried
out from the conviction that Christ wanted His church to be united. As a
result, hundreds of national and international dialogues have taken place
producing almost as many documents and statements of growing agreement. Perhaps the most important of these documents was produced by
the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, entitled Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (BEM) in 1982.23 In any case, the
dialogues and their documents hoped to move the churches toward altar
and pulpit fellowship with each other or to lay the groundwork for an
organizational unity or merger between different bodies.
Lutherans have been active in these ecumenical endeavors. The first
half of the twentieth century witnessed a number of aggressive attempts
to produce Lutheran unity within the United States itself. The century
opened with several dozen Lutheran churches in the country and closed
with three numbering more than a half million members (the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and
the Wisconsin Synod) as a result of a series of mergers. In addition,
Lutherans have been in dialogue with Roman Catholics for more than
thirty years. The most notable result of these dialogues was the publication of the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” of 1999.24
Many Lutherans have also dialogued with other Protestant bodies, resulting in fellowship agreements with Anglicans (in Europe), the Episcopa23
Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982).
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, The Lutheran World Federation and The Roman Catholic Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
24
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lians (in the United States), and Presbyterians.
In some circles, theological reflection on questions of church unity and
ecumenism have revolved around the distinction between the unitas (inner unity) of the church and the concordia (outward agreement) of the
church. In other circles, reflection has centered on the extent and nature
of theological agreement that is necessary before church fellowship can be
established between two different church bodies. A variety of approaches
have been developed, from conciliarism, to selective fellowship, to reconciled diversity, in order to bring about the visible unity of the church. Once
again, the two kinds of righteousness provides a framework for thinking
through various issues regarding the unity of the church by insisting that
we not confuse the unity of the church coram Deo with the unity of the
church coram mundo even though there is a connection between them.
Coram Deo: Spiritual Unity (Unitas) of the Church
The unity of the church coram Deo is a gift and work of the Holy
Spirit. Thus the Small Catechism describes the Spirit as gathering the
church and “keep[ing] it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.”
In the Large Catechism Luther describes it as being “called together by
the Holy Spirit in one faith, mind, and understanding. It possesses a variety of gifts, and yet is united in love without sect or schism.”25 Following in
the train of these thoughts, the Seventh Article of the Augsburg Confession describes the true unity of the church as agreement “concerning the
teaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments.” It appends to the article the apostle Paul’s description, “One faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all....”26 When the Lutherans’ opponents at the diet
of Augsburg in 1530 insisted that the observance of universal rites was a
necessary precondition to the unity of the church, Melanchthon countered
by saying, “We are speaking about a true unity, that is, a spiritual unity,
without which there can be no faith in the heart nor righteousness in the
heart before God. For this unity we say that it is not necessary to have
similar human rites, whether universal or particular, because the righteousness of faith is not a righteousness tied to certain traditions, as the
righteousness of the law was tied to Mosaic ceremonies. For this righteousness of the heart is a matter that makes the heart alive.”27 In other
words, the opponents confused the two dimensions of the church by making the horizontal the basis for the vertical. This was the point of issue
(krinomenon) of Article Seven of the Apology, and for that matter, the entire Apology of the Augsburg Confession.
25
LC, Creed, 51, K-W, 437-438.
AC VII, 2-4, K-W, 43.
27
Ap, VII, 31, K-W, 179.
26
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As the Spirit creates the church through the Word, so the Spirit binds
it together in unity through the same Word. Thus when the Seventh Article of the Augsburg Confession states that it is sufficient to agree in the
preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, it should
probably be understood in terms of the Gospel “in the narrow sense.”28 The
only previous mention of these two terms is found in Article V, which deals
with the creation of justifying faith. These create faith that justifies and
that faith in Christ that justifies is what ties and binds us together in unity
under one head, Jesus Christ. Just as importantly, the Gospel and Sacraments that bring about this unity concern the Word that is actually preached
and Sacraments that are actually administered. They are not static formulas on a page, but the instruments that the Holy Spirit wields in bringing
people to Jesus Christ.
Coram Mundo: External Unity (Concordia) of the Church
As Word and Sacrament create the true unity of the church and as all
believers agree (consentire) on the Gospel and Sacraments (which means
to have them in common), we can extract two non-negotiable principles
with regard so church unity and fellowship. First, church fellowship is
always fellowship at the altar, that is, in the Sacrament, and in the pulpit,
that is, in the public teaching and preaching of God’s Word. This fellowship
takes place within the world (coram mundo). Second, altar and pulpit fellowship is always dependent upon agreement in the confession of the Word.
As the unity created by the Spirit is hidden from view to human eyes, we
know only that we have heard the same Word in common with one another to the extent that we confess it and test it against the Scriptures.
Thus church fellowship always flows out of unity in confession. But it is
doctrine put into practice, for no other doctrine creates the church coram
Deo than that doctrine which is actually proclaimed by preachers and heard
by people.
But where unity coram Deo is defined by agreement in the same Gospel, fellowship coram mundo is defined by agreement in all articles of faith
related to the Gospel (and without which the Gospel ceases to be Gospel).
Here we can draw upon the sixteenth century reformers’ reference to the
Book of Concord as a corpus doctrinae (“body of doctrine”). The concept
28
It must be noted that the language which Melanchthon employed regarding the
unity of the church being anchored in the proper proclamation of the Gospel and proper
administration of the Sacraments constituted an argument for the legality of Lutheran
reform and of the churches instituting that reform under the Theodosian Code. See
Robert C. Schultz, “An Analysis of the Augsburg Confession, Article VII, 2 in Its Historical
Context, May & June 1530,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 9 (1980): 25-35. The legal
definition of the church fit in with Melanchthon’s own theological understanding of how
God’s Word creates and sustains the church. North American theologians attempting to
solve modern problems with this sixteenth-century formulation have usually missed its
historical significance and thus twisted the Confession’s word out of context.
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borrows from the metaphor of the human body to illustrate the organic
unity of doctrine. In this body, justification is the head while the other
articles are the joints and members of the body. The loss of the head results in the death of the body in a way that that the loss of other members
may not. Nevertheless, the head by itself is not a fully functioning body.
Both points pertain to the two realms of the church. “Are you alive coram
Deo?” is a different question than, “How will you want to be coram mundo?”
The Lutheran Confessions do not deal with every topic with the same
energy or same amount of space. Just as we devote our attention to that
part of the body that is injured (say a broken hand), so the church devotes
its energy to those articles that are in jeopardy. Thus, for example, the
Formula of Concord devotes two articles to the topic of sin and free will,
but treats the doctrine of the Trinity only slightly in article twelve. Public
challenges to Biblical teaching on the Trinity occupied the consciousness
of the Lutheran churches of the time much less than disagreements over
God’s gracious action in conversion.
Beyond this, there are other ways—secondary ways—of expressing
that unity (in addition to altar-pulpit fellowship or apart from it). At an
institutional level, the church may express its unity through common church
structures and synods or other organizations. These may well include sharing the same institutional structures, observing the same human traditions or ties with Christians in the same territories or throughout the
world. In many church bodies a common hymnal and catechism frequently
have served as external expressions that were easily identifiable of a common unity. A person could visit any congregation of a denomination and
feel “at home” as if present in the home congregation. Architecture and
musical forms functioned the same way. Today, much of that external
uniformity no longer exists among Lutherans. It is possible to find congregations characterized by formal liturgical worship and those characterized
by the most radical contemporary forms. Today it is possible to find
Lutherans worshiping in buildings known for their Gothic architectural
style and Lutherans worshiping in converted auto dealerships, Target stores,
or warehouses. This in turn has raised questions about the role and importance of unity or uniformity in external forms in maintaining the unity
of a church body or denomination.
Keeping the Two Dimensions of the Church’s Life Distinct
When it came to seeking ways of finding rapprochement with Rome at
the Diet of Augsburg, Melanchthon would not compromise on the first
twenty-one doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession even as he was
willing to compromise on the final seven to the extent that they dealt with
matters of adiaphora (especially the observance of foods, voluntary vows,
and the authority of bishops). For Melanchthon, the infallible marks of the
church established by God included the teaching of the Gospel and the
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administration of the Sacraments (they bestow upon us the righteousness
acquired by Christ). These were not open for debate. As agreement in the
Word defines the unity of the church, so agreement in confession becomes
the sine qua non of the church. At the same time, he asserted, “In this
very assembly we have sufficiently shown that, for the sake of love, we are
willing to observe adiaphora with others, even if such things may be proven
to be somewhat burdensome. We judge that the greatest possible public
concord which can be maintained without offending consciences ought to
be preferred to all other interests.”29 They are secondary, fallible, changeable, and variable, adapted to human circumstances. These matters of
church practice, which cultivate a form of human righteousness, were open
for discussion and compromise.
But since the Confutation conceived of the church as the “supreme
external monarchy of the entire world” marked by a single, universal structure for human ordinances, Melanchthon contended that his opponents
placed human traditions on the same level as doctrine.30 Thus neither
church practice nor doctrine was open to debate according to the Confutation. For Melanchthon, confession was non-negotiable, but human observances were open for discussion. The Formula of Concord (1577), written
to resolve Lutheran divisions in the second half of the sixteenth century,
extended and applied the principle of the Seventh Article of the Augsburg
Confession to matters of external conflict: “Churches are not to condemn
one another because of differences in ceremonies...as long as these churches
are otherwise united in teaching and in all the articles of the faith as well
as in the proper use of the holy sacraments.”31 At the same time, organizational unity, can never serve as a substitute for confessional unity as the
former does not unite the church coram deo; only the confession and proclamation of God’s Word do.
2KR and Unity of Church Case Study
The Lutheran church faces new questions about how to determine
confessional unity and manifest that confessional fellowship. The church
is decentralizing as activities once performed by denominational structures are being undertaken by congregations. It may soon occur within
congregations themselves as the emerging church movement rejects the
mega-church structures of the baby boomers for the house church gatherings of small groups of people. In both situations, how shall we think about
and express the unity of the church?
Coram Deo, we speak of the church as the una sancta. People are
united in the church coram Deo not simply because they are believers.
29
Ap, XV, 52, K-W, 230.
Ap, VII, 23, K-W, 178. Cf. Wilhelm Maurer, Historical Commentary on the Augsburg
Confession, trans. H. George Anderson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 216.
31
FC, SD, X, 31, K-W, 640.
30
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The unity of the church does not simply consist of a people who believe
anything (but are sincere in their believing), but a unity of the faith. The
church is not only a community of faith (fides qua creditur) but a community of the faith (fides quae creditur). This is what binds us together and
gives us the raison d’etre of our existence. Nor does the unity of the church
consist of people who intellectually acknowledge a set of propositions; it
consists of people who embrace and treasure these truths that are grounded
in Him who is the Truth.
Coram mundo, de iure divino. Because the church’s unity is a unity in
the faith, it is expressed coram mundo by a common confession of the faith
lived out by receiving the same body and blood at the altar. Thus doctrinal
agreement (our common hearing of the Scriptures) is a sine qua non of
church fellowship. Unity in the faith binds us together more closely than
any other human activity or concern. Confession of the faith binds us more
closely to each other than any other activity we share in common. Common ethical activities are carried out on the basis of the common confession but do not constitute the church. The temptation today is to associate
with those who share common interests or tasks (large churches with
large churches, rural churches with rural churches) rather than with those
who share the same faith in spite of any other differences we may have.
That is to say, do not pastors in the same circuit who share the same
confession have more in common with one another (in spite of their size
disparity) than those who share sociological features but do not share a
common confession?
Coram mundo, de iure humano. How do congregations foster and assess a unity of the faith among those who are Baptized and kneel at the
Lord’s Table? Do they foster it through instruction in the Nicene Creed or
Small Catechism or even the Augsburg Confession? Do they identify it
through a confession and promise of people to abide by this faith even unto
death? How do congregations carry out their ecumenical responsibility of
fostering and identifying the unity of the faith with other congregations?
Do they do so through ecumenical conversations? What kind of doctrinal
discussions and agreement do they seek? Do they manifest it through practices such as close communion and joint services? Church bodies like denominations and synods were formed to manifest the unity of faith and
carry out activities together that could not be carried out alone. How do
denominations manifest the unity of the faith? Is it done through highlevel dialogues and formal declarations of church fellowship?
Conclusion
Using the two kinds of righteousness for thinking about the two kinds
of churches makes sense. The former deals with the individual Christian,
the latter with the gathered community of Christians. Luther did this natu-
164
rally in numerous writings throughout the 1520s.32 The proposal to think
about church within the framework of the two kinds of righteousness is
not to suggest that it will instantly resolve the various disagreements about
how best to carry out the church’s mission and to be the church within the
world today. But it does provide us with the helpful theological distinctions
to organize our thinking and the grammar and vocabulary to speak about
the various aspects of the church’s life. In particular, it helps us to think
through the relationship between the theological nature of the church and
matters related to the empirical expression of the church. It also provides
ways for speaking about the relationships and place of the de iure divino
and de iure humano expressions of the church coram mundo. The case
studies provided were merely illustrative of the potential that this framework holds for Lutheran theology. Certainly, many more examples need to
be explored. Although it may not solve all the problems that the church
faces today, recovering this neglected, yet important, distinction in Lutheran
thought gives us one more tool in our theological tool box.
32
Here John Rhoads’s forthcoming dissertation, “The Crux of Communio: Toward a
Common Ecclesiology Beyond the Crisis of Reception,” is essential reading as he convincingly lays out the data in Luther’s thought on this matter.
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God and His Human Creatures in Luther’s
Sermons on Genesis: The Reformer’s Early
Use of His Distinction of Two Kinds
of Righteousness
Robert Kolb
In March 1523 Martin Luther began preaching on the book of Genesis
in the town church in Wittenberg. Over the next year and a half he examined its text and applied it to his hearers’ lives in the Sunday afternoon
service. Some three years later, in 1527, the Wittenberg printer Georg
Rhau published versions of these sermons in both Latin and German, based
on notes taken by Luther’s student, friend, and later official amanuensis,
Georg Rörer, and edited by another former student, Caspar Cruciger, at
the time a school rector in Magdeburg.1 Often lost in the shadow of Luther’s
ten-year lectures on Genesis to his students in Wittenberg (1535-1545),
these sermons offer a view of how the reformer was formulating his thought
for a popular audience relatively early in the course of his call for public
reform. This essay explores how these sermons put to use his recently
formulated definition of humanness as two dimensional, totally passive in
relationship to God and at the same time active in relationship to God’s
world. This distinction of “two kinds of righteousness” provided the anthropological framework for preaching about God and the human creature
in his Genesis sermons.2
1
See the introduction to the printed edition in D. Martin Luthers Werke (Weimar:
Bohlau, 1883-1993 [henceforth WA]), 24:XIII-XLVII, and to the notes taken on the sermons as they were delivered, WA 14:92-96. The text of notes from Georg Rörer and
Stephan Roth are found in WA 14:97-488. See J. P. Boendermaker, “Heet eerste word
blijft gelden. Luthers preken over de vijf boeken van Mozes, 1523-1525 inleiding en
enkele teksten,” in Luther na 500 jaar, teksten, vertaald en beproken, ed. J. T. Bakker and
J. P. Boendermaker (Kempen: Kok, 1983), 99-123. Sabine Hiebsch, in her study of Luther’s
use of the interpretive method of “figura,” also treats this sermons series (Figura ecclesiae:
Lea und Rachel in Martin Luthers Genesispredigten [Münster: LIT, 2002]).
2
Robert Kolb, “Luther on the Two Kinds of Righteousness: Reflections on His TwoDimensional Definition of Humanity at the Heart of His Theology,” Lutheran Quarterly
13 (1999): 449-466; David Lumpp, “Luther’s ‘Two Kinds of Righteousness’: A Brief Historical Introduction,” Concordia Journal 23 (1997): 27-38. See also Charles P. Arand,
“Two Kinds of Righteousness as a Framework for Law and Gospel in the Apology,”
Lutheran Quarterly 15 (2001): 417-435.
Dr. Robert Kolb is Mission Professor of Systematic Theology and Director
of the Institute for Mission Studies at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis,
MO.
166
Luther’s Sermons on Genesis
Preaching on biblical texts served as an important instrument in the
fundamental task of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the
“recultivating” and “reforming” of the Christian faith among the common
people.3 This process intended to transform the religion of the faithful
from a popular piety based on ritual observance to a practice of the faith
which presumed that God engages His people in conversation through His
Word. Luther aided the reconstruction of public preaching through his
effective use of the printing press as well as his modeling of preaching
from the pulpits of Wittenberg. Luther put the form of the “sermon” to use
in several forms. Some of his earliest publications had claimed the title
homiliae or sermones, even though they were never actually preached to a
congregation and were topical rather than textual.4 By 1522 Luther had
begun to treat Biblical texts for homiletical use by pastors and lay people
as he took up composing his first postilla, the medieval book of sermons
generally containing expositions of the pericopal texts designated for each
Sunday and festival of the church year. These served as a kind of continuing education program for parish priests who wanted to learn the new
Wittenberg theology and who needed help in acquiring preaching skills.5
They needed to understand the framework of the Wittenberg way of thinking, and they needed to know how to proceed from the presuppositions of
that framework to interpret and apply Biblical texts for the benefit of their
congregations. Soon after the publication of his first postil, the reformer
began to preach “Bible study” sermons with a series of sermons on 2 Peter
and Jude in 1523.6 He had preached occasional sermons on Genesis in
1519-1521,7 but in 1523 he undertook an exposition of the entire book over
a longer period of time. Such series had little precedent in medieval preaching, which most often found its basis in the pericopes or the Legenda aurea;
relatively few examples of series of sermons on a Biblical book have survived. Humanists indeed began the practice in the years preceding Luther’s
preaching on Genesis.8 Like the postils, these Bible study sermons, such
as those on Genesis, were subsequently published also for parish pastors
to use as models and for families to read in devotional exercises. These
3
Scott H. Hendrix, Recultivating the Vineyard: The Reformation Agendas of
Christianization (Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox, 2004).
4
This is not true of all his uses of the term, but, for example, see “Ein Sermon von
Ablass und Gnade” 1517, WA 1:243-246; “Sermo de poenitentia,” 1518, WA 1:319-324, and
“Ein Sermon von der Bereitung zum Sterben,” 1519, WA 2:685-697.
5
A comprehensive study of Luther’s postils does not exist. The introductions to the
editions of the work in WA serve as the best orientation to it. See WA 7:458-462,10.1.2: IXLXXIX, 17.2:IX-XXVI, 21:IX-XXV, 22:XI-LXXXIX, 52:VII-XXXV.
6
WA 14:1-91.
7
WA 9:416,420,422-423,427,428,430,431,459-461,471-475,482-498,500,503-505,507512,535-537,540-544,547,551-554,558-562,575-581,583-587,593-597,601-606,612-616.
8
See Hans Rost, Die Bibel im Mittalalter (Augsburg: Seitz, 1939), 133-140.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2007
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sermons were designed to convey Biblical information and a method of
reading Scripture alongside their function as instruction in good preaching for these audiences.
Luther’s Hermeneutical and Homiletical Method in the
Genesis Sermons
In the Genesis sermons Luther operated with the framework his new
insights into God’s revelation in Scripture had created. To be sure, his
“evangelical breakthrough” was a gradual process, and his theological development never ceased. Throughout his entire life the Wittenberg professor continued to conduct experiments in order to find the most effective
ways of transmitting the Biblical message to hearers and readers. In these
sermons on Genesis, he was displaying the hermeneutical and homiletical
method that he and his Wittenberg colleagues were developing as one of
the expressions of their new teaching and one of the vehicles for the translation of this teaching to the level of the congregation and the people. His
sermons aimed to present the words of the text in their simplest, most
straightforward meaning, and he wanted his hearers “to comprehend the
words and the core of their meaning correctly and feel it in their hearts.”9
The habits of humanistic rhetorical analysis helped hearers and readers recognize what was going on in the text. For example, the preacher
identified the genre of chapter four as “narrative and example,” a reflection of life on this earth.10 Throughout these sermons the interpreter repeatedly had recourse to discussions of the original Hebrew, modeling the
ideal of Wittenberg humanistic education.11 In assessing what Luther proclaimed to the congregation in the town church, it must not be forgotten
that he had before him students from the university as well as the permanent denizens of the town. Luther’s philology and his theology were closely
coordinated. The preacher also aided his readers with literary analysis
when appropriate, observing that Moses employed repetitio as a rhetorical
9
WA 24:112,25-113,17. Cf. Robert Kolb, “God Kills to Make Alive: Romans 6 and
Luther’s Understanding of Justification (1535),” Lutheran Quarterly 12, 1 (1998): 33-56.
10
WA 24:121,21.
11
He informed readers that the Hebrew word for “wind” can also mean “spirit,” and
in Genesis 1:2 he preferred “wind” since he believed that the Holy Trinity presents
Himself in proper order in this chapter. That means that God the Father is present from
the beginning, God the Son appears as the Word in verse 3, and the Holy Spirit follows in
verse 4, as the divine “being well-pleased” in person, God taking His new creation under
His wings like a hen. Luther did not want to insist on his interpretation but made his
preference for it quite clear (WA 24:27.16-28). Luther expanded on this interpretation of
God’s seeing that His creation is good as the indication of the person of the Holy Spirit,
WA 24:30.20-29. He carefully differentiated the usual German understanding of “soul”
(as the spiritual part of the human being that temporarily is separated from the body at
death, he said) from the Hebrew meaning which used the term for “everything that
constitutes human life in the five senses” (WA 24:67,11-68,16).
168
device (in Gen. 2:4-6).12 Although the Wittenberg professor of Biblical studies had laid aside the “fourfold” method of allegorical interpretation as his
guiding principle for his exegesis, he was not above an allegorical homiletical touch. He used them throughout the sermons, often under the explicit label allegoria. For instance, he compared the birth of the church
from the side of Christ asleep in death to God’s drawing Eve from Adam’s
side (2:21-22).13 His extensive allegorization of Noah and the ark followed
medieval patterns with evangelical theological applications.14
More importantly, his evangelical hermeneutic was functioning as it
delivered the power of God’s Word into the lives of the congregation. He
was working at putting the people’s sinful identity to death through the
message of God’s wrath and bringing them to life as children of God through
the message of Christ’s death and resurrection. At several points the
preacher mentioned explicitly what he was consistently in fact practicing,
distinguishing Law and Gospel.15 Already in 1523 Luther could explicitly
employ his paraphrase of the distinction of Law and Gospel, for example,
by noting that the death God imposed as judgment upon sin turned into an
instrument of God’s grace, “indeed, the beginning of life.”16
Luther’s proclamation of God’s Word intended to carry on the re-creating conversation God wants to have with sinners. With the publication of
his Genesis sermons in 1527, and as he commented in his preface, Luther
hoped to use this first book of the Old Testament to show readers “how the
Scripture agrees at every point, and how all the examples and stories,
indeed the whole Scripture through and through, lends itself to the goal
that people know Christ.”17 For Scripture can be read in two ways. The
first, apart from faith, can grasp its literal meaning with human reason
and understanding, but the second is taught by the Holy Spirit and practiced by those to whom God gives “true understanding and experience in
the heart,” which lies beyond the grasp of reason alone.18 The “most lofty
article of faith” was not, in Luther’s view, the second article of the Creed,
as popular judgments about his theology often suggest. In preaching on
Genesis, at least, Luther was beginning at the beginning. His entire treatment of God’s intervention in behalf of sinners through the incarnation
presumed the person of God as almighty Creator and Lord. Therefore, the
most lofty article of the faith, he told the Wittenberg assembly, is “I believe
in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and the earth.” This was
not an abstract axiom, the preacher informed his hearers: whoever be-
12
WA 24:64,24-65,16.
WA 24:81,18-22. Cf. 24:116,34-35.
14
WA 24:176,20-180,9.
15
E.g., at 3:8-13 in the Latin, WA 24:93,6-7, 93,28-94,35. Cf. 24:106,18-26,288,611,693,13-14.
16
WA 24:112,25-113,17.
17
WA 24:17,11-12.
18
WA 24:17,29-18,25.
13
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lieves that God is Father almighty and Creator “dies to everything else...and
confesses from the heart, that he has no capability on the basis of his own
powers.”19
Luther could not define God without reference to His relationship to
His human creatures; the reformer could not define the human creature
without reference to the Creator. Human life centers on and is founded
upon trust in the Creator. God alone can bring it about that this kind of
believer recognizes that “it is not at all in his hand but only in God’s hand.
For just as I believe that he created the entire world out of nothing, and
that everything has come only from his word and command, so I have to
confess, that I am a part of the word and his creation. Therefore, it must
follow that in my power there is no ability to raise my hand, but God alone
does and effects everything in me.”20 Everything depends on “his gracious
will and fatherly love.”21 The Wittenberg exegete lay the foundation for his
entire theology on the presumption that God is a person who is almighty,
Creator, and Father. Corollary to this axiom is his definition of what it
means to be human as, first of all, to trust in God and be completely dependent on him.
With that, Luther had begun to prepare readers of the sermons for a
proper understanding of one dimension of their humanity. He went on in
subsequent passages to examine the other, the horizontal dimension of
being human. His examination of what it means to be human reflects his
revolutionary redefinition of the human creature that arose from his own
experience and his study of Scripture in the 1510s, as outlined in his treatises on two and three kinds of righteousness from 1518 to 1519. An investigation of how this new definition functioned as a presupposition reveals
something of how Luther went about the task of reconstructing the public
teaching of Biblical material. Even though he and his contemporaries did
not explicate their system of thinking in detail, they did operate with a
theory of how Biblical teaching is to function in the life of the church.
Luther’s application of his definition of humanity as two-dimensional illustrates this fact.
Two Kinds of Righteousness as a Nervous System of the
Wittenberg Body of Doctrine
Luther’s sermons on Genesis disclose how his method operated as it
guided the proclamation of what the reformer found in the book, and they
also unveil how his newly developed presuppositions shaped his treatment
of fundamental questions regarding the person and nature of God and what
it means to be human. Indeed, it is implicit in these sermons that for those
subject to Biblical revelation these two topics cannot be explored indepen19
20
21
170
Preface to the Genesis sermons, WA 24:18,26-33.
Preface to the Genesis sermons, WA 24:27-22.8; cf. On Gen. 1:1, WA 24:21,31-22,7.
On Gen. 1:1, WA 24:22,21-22.
dently of each other. For, Luther was certain, God does not reveal everything about His innermost being in Scripture. Some of the reaches of the
depth of God’s person belong to what he labeled in the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 the “Hidden God” (Deus absconditus).22 Scripture reveals instead how He relates to His human creatures, above all, in and through
His incarnation, as Jesus Christ (Deus revelatus).23 At the same time
Luther’s essential definition of what it means to be human, expressed in
his distinction of the two dimensions of humanity—what he labeled two
kinds of righteousness—centers on two persons. It posits, first, the personal, almighty Creator who bestows “passive righteousness” upon His
human creature (in the very act of creation and in subsequent redemption
from sin) through His creative and re-creative Word. Second, it posits the
human creature, fashioned by the Creator in His own image to respond to
His love in fear, love, and trust. God’s gift of human identity as a child of
God elicits and creates the trust that lies at the center of humanity. This
“passive righteousness” is, however, inseparable from the “active righteousness” that meets God’s expectation for human performance that properly
expresses that core identity. Luther believed that human creatures are so
fashioned in God’s image that they are fully responsible for carrying out
God’s plan and will for human living in such performance, but at the same
time God is completely responsible for everything in His creation as the
almighty Creator. Other Christian theologians have also struggled with
the question of the balance between God’s power and human power, and
many have tried to harmonize and homogenize these two Biblical claims
of God’s total responsibility and of human responsibility. Luther, in contrast, along with his Wittenberg colleagues and students, strove to hold
the two responsibilities in creative tension. This tension produced presuppositions for his entire theological enterprise, such as the distinction of
Law and Gospel, the distinction of the two dimensions of humanity, and
the distinction of two realms of God’s governance of His world.24
Luther would later, in 1535, dub the distinction of the two kinds of
human righteousness “our theology.”25 By that time he had refined and
enhanced the concept in its details, but even as he first gave utterance to
this Biblical axiom some four years before preaching on Genesis, it was
22
To be sure, Luther later insisted that nothing in this Hidden God contradicts what
He has revealed of Himself in the Revealed God; see his lecture on Genesis 26 a quarter
century later, WA 43:459,24-32; Luther’s Works ed., 5:45. Luther was most concerned to
assure the believer that God’s promise of salvation in Jesus Christ, delivered through the
means of grace, is absolutely trustworthy.
23
“Heidelberg Disputation, 1518,” WA 1:362,15-19. (Luther’s Works (Saint Louis and
Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1958-1986; henceforth LW)) 31:53. See Gerhard O.
Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 39-43, 69-102.
24
These ideas are more fully developed in Robert Kolb, Bound Will, Election, and
Wittenberg Theological Method from Martin Luther to the Formula of Concord (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).
25
WA 40,1:45,24-27; LW 26:7.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2007
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clear that he was laying down the foundation of his anthropology. His Sermon on Three Kinds of Righteousness bore this title because it distinguished the civil righteousness of the non-Christian from the faith-driven
but externally similar pious righteousness of the believer. This treatise
discussed these two forms of the “active righteousness” of human performance in the horizontal relationships with other creatures along with the
“passive righteousness” of the human relationship with God. After the fall
into sin, true human righteousness can be restored to sinners only on the
basis of what Christ has done to meet the Law’s claim for the death of the
sinner and to claim life for forgiven sinners through His resurrection. The
work of Christ refashions sinners into God’s children in the action of God’s
Word, parallel to His original creation in Genesis 1, as that word of forgiveness, life, and salvation comes in oral, written, and sacramental forms.
Luther defined the righteousness which Christ gives the sinner through
the forgiveness of sins as a righteousness as free and unconditional as the
humanity given to Adam and Eve at creation, before they had had a chance
to perform any deeds of love. This righteousness is comparable to the
identity that a person has because it has been bestowed by birth, a total
gift (natalis). It is a righteousness that is essential, that is, that determines the core identity of a person (essencialis). It is determined by the
person’s origin by the power of God’s re-creative Word, and therefore it
cannot be separated from who the person is (originalis). It comes as a gift
from someone else, from God, and thus it comes to the person from outside (aliena). This righteousness, Luther points out, comes from being born
of water and the Spirit (John 3:5). It is received by God’s power to make
sinners His children (John 1:12). Therefore, because God has given new
birth to believers, they are no longer identified as sinners (1 John 3:9)
because Christ has given them His righteousness (Rom. 5:18-19).26 This
righteousness of pure gift, of new birth, brings with it, however, divine
parental expectations. The gift of identity as creatures and children of God
issues naturally into the performance of what God created human creatures to do, into the good works that actively express the core identity of
human passive righteousness.27
This distinction of two kinds of righteousness functioned as a presupposition for all that Luther said about the human being and the human
relationship with God. As a presupposition rather than a dogmatic topic in
itself, it did not become a standard part of the list of teachings in Lutheran
26
Sermo de triplici iustitia, 1518, WA 2:44,32-38. Cf. the similar definition in the
Sermo de duplici iustitia, 1519, WA 2:145,9-146,35; LW 31:297-299. See J. T. Bakker, “De
tweevoudige gerechtigheid. Luthers ‘Sermo de duplici Iustitia’, 1518,” in Luther na 500
jaar, 30-57.
27
WA 2:46,1-4; cf. WA 2:146,36-147,23; LW 31:299-300. Luther uses the description of
Christ as both sacramentum (gift) and exemplum (example) to describe His relationship
to the creature’s two dimensions or kinds of righteousness. See Norman Nagel, “Sacramentum et exemplum in Luther’s Understanding of Christ,” Luther for an Ecumenical
Age, ed. Carl S. Meyer (St. Louis: Concordia, 1967), 172-199.
172
dogmatics because the form for presenting Biblical teaching that Philip
Melanchthon bequeathed his students did not have a place for the presentation of presuppositions. Using the best linguistic theories of their time,
those of the Biblical humanists) Melanchthon adapted rhetorical forms
from that movement, chief among them the organization of material to be
taught in categories or topics, called loci communes (commonplaces) in the
academic Latin of his day. In many details the Wittenberg theologians left
behind the model of Peter Lombard’s Sententiae, which had provided the
configuration for Western public rendering of the Biblical message since
the eleventh century (though Lombard’s outline of topics did shape
Melanchthon’s organization of his own topics to some extent).28 However,
Melanchthon’s second and third editions of the Loci did follow Lombard’s
model in simply beginning with the topic, “On God.” The communication
theory of the time did not recognize any need for laying down the conceptual framework of its way of thinking–although in at least one preface to
the work, Melanchthon did sketch the framework of distinguishing Law
and Gospel.
Nonetheless, within the Wittenberg practice of theology there is a
place for modern interpreters to make certain that its presuppositional
framework is made clear. The Wittenberg team sometimes called the whole
of Biblical teaching a corpus doctrinae, a “body of doctrine,” and the individual topics were members, or articuli, of that body.29 Even though the
Wittenberg theologians did not have a way to describe it, it is true that
presuppositions run like a nervous system or a circulatory system through
the entire body, shaping a number of the specific topics. Therefore, we can
recognize the critical role of the distinction of two kinds of righteousness—
the two dimensions of humanity—as a critical anthropological presupposition for the exposition and proclamation of a number of topics of Biblical
teaching even if this is not made explicitly clear in the tradition.
As a presupposition this concept is not dealt with in detail in most of
Luther’s works, but nonetheless, it surfaces as the clear framework for
his thinking, for instance, in his Genesis sermons of 1523 and 1527. This is
true in other works of the period following the publication of the sermons
on two kinds and three kinds of righteousness as well.30
God the Creator in Luther’s Genesis Sermons
Humanity in its vertical dimension, its relationship with its creator,
consists of God’s gift of life as the creature He shaped in Eden. He has
28
Robert Kolb, “The Ordering of the Loci Communes Theologici: The Structuring of
the Melanchthonian Dogmatic Tradition,” Concordia Journal 23 (1997): 317-337.
29
Irene Dingel, “Melanchthon und die Normierung des Bekenntnisses,” in Der
Theologe Melanchthon, Günter Frank, ed. (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2000), 195-211.
30
See also, for example, Robert Kolb, “Mensch-Sein in Zwei Dimensionen: die Zweierlei
Gerechtigkeit und Luthers De votis monasticis Iudicium,” forthcoming.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2007
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given dominion to that creature within the created order. When the Creator reclaims human life through Christ’s death and resurrection, He bestows a new or restored identity as His chosen child and the human response of trust in the God who gives this identity through Christ. This
definition of being human presumes the person of the Creator, who is
almighty and whose will it is to fashion for Himself human creatures. The
first two chapters of Genesis teach that and provide a natural basis for
conveying this idea to other Christians. Luther did just that in his sermons on the Genesis account of creation.
He identified God as the almighty Creator, the Lord, who is responsible for the origin of everything that exists and everything that happens
in the course of human history. That was clear, for instance, in the Flood.
God’s will determines everything, including His manner of caring for His
people.31 He both promises the goodness He wills for His people and has
the power and might, as well as the wisdom, to deliver His promises.32
Luther defined this Creator as a God of conversation and community.
He fashioned the world through His creative Word, and He designed human beings to be in community and conversation with Him and with each
other. This creative Word not only set God’s creation in place or in motion;
it continues to sustain all things that exist. God has made Himself responsible for the sustenance of His creation. From his Ockhamist instructors
Luther had learned that the Creator, who could do anything He pleased
according to His absolute power (potentia absoluta), had actually pledged
Himself to act in the ways His covenant promised. Thus, His interaction
with creatures, according to His “ordained” or “ordered” power (potentia
ordinata, His power as He had limited and prescribed it), was not arbitrary
but rather faithful to His covenantal promises.33 Reflecting on this instruction, the Wittenberg exegete proclaimed to his congregation that “Everything proceeds out of God’s order, and nothing has its own essence of itself;
nothing is in charge of its own existence. Rather, everything proceeds from
God’s hand, counsel, and will, so you should see God in all creatures if we
open our eyes or ears and then give him thanks.”34 The reformer commented on Genesis 22:16-18, “When God pronounces a blessing, speaking
and doing are one thing.”35
On the basis of God’s revelation of Himself in the cross of Christ, Luther
identified the essence of God as love and mercy, and the Creator has consistently displayed this disposition toward His creatures since creation, he
argued. “What a kind, fine God he is, nothing but sweetness and goodness
that he feeds us, preserves us, nourishes us.”36 The preacher reinforced
31
On Gen. 6:17-22, WA 24:180,29-34.
On Gen. 22:18, WA 24:397,18-30.
33
Heiko A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late
Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 30-47.
34
On Gen. 1:14-19, WA 24:42,22-25.
35
On Gen. 22:18-19, WA 24:398,13-14.
36
On Gen. 1:9-13, WA 24:39,23-25. Cf. 24:57,28.
32
174
his text with words from Christ: “My Father is at work until now, and I am
at work” (John 5:17).37 That fundamental divine disposition of mercy and
grace continued in His attitude and actions toward sinners. Adam had
deserved nothing from God after his fall (as was the case before the fall as
well), but God showed mercy, and His Gospel created a new faith and love
in Adam.38
Luther captured the Biblical presupposition that the almighty Creator
acts in His creation through His Word, in its various forms. “God created
[the essence of each individual created person or thing] through the Word
so that it grows without ceasing and we do not have any idea how....It is an
eternal Word, spoken from eternity, and it will be spoken always. As little
as God’s essence ceases, so little does his speaking cease.”39 Luther asserted that God has the whole world on His lips: “[T]he earth has its power
only from God’s Word,” for “you see soil on which nothing grows, it is still
soil and dry earth, empty, for God is not giving his word or command that
it bear and that something can grow. Therefore, the reason that not all
land bears fruit in the same way is due not to the ability of the land but to
God’s Word, for where it is, there is the power to be fruitful. The entire
world is full of the Word that drives all things and bestows and preserves
power.”40
Therefore, it is no wonder that Luther described sin in terms of Adam
and Eve being torn away from God’s Word.41 To be human is “to have God’s
Word and cling to it in faith.”42 Restoration of life with God comes to sinners by a creative act of God’s Word, just as Isaac was given to Abraham
and Sarah as a result of such an act of the Word. “The divine majesty pours
out the power with the Word. Therefore he is a child of the divine Word
even though produced by flesh and blood....Therefore, they are not God’s
children apart from being born through the Word.”43
Restoration to a proper, righteous relationship with God takes place
through the action of God in His Word, through its re-creative power. Already in 1523 Luther employed the Sacrament of Baptism as described by
Paul in Romans 6:3-11 and Colossians 2:11-15 as a model for God’s justifying activity. Sinners die when baptized into Christ, and the children of God
are brought to new life through the mystery of God’s working in this sac-
37
On Gen. 2:1-3, WA 24:61,21-29.
On Gen. 3:9, WA 24:111,23-112,8.
39
On Gen. 1:9-13, WA 24:37,12-14,23-25.
40
On Gen. 1:9-13, WA 24:38,11-18. This idea is repeated in detail at 24:44, 20-45.13.
41
On Gen. 3:1-6, WA 24:85,26.
42
On Gen. 3:1-6, WA 24:86,9-10.
43
On Gen. 17, WA 24: 322,34-323, 11. The study of Juhani Forsberg, Das Abrahambild
in der Theologie Luthers Pater Fidei Sanctissimus (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1984), helpful in
many ways, is marred by its presumption that “union with Christ” rather than the righteousness of faith granted by the word of absolution is Luther’s fundamental definition of
what justification produces.
38
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ramental form of the Word, Luther told the Wittenberg congregation.44
All depends on the gracious disposition of God, Luther asserted in treating the sins of the patriarchs in Genesis 34.
If works made us righteous in God’s sight, these patriarchs must
have been rejected, since only such terrible things are found in
the stories of them. Therefore, it must be that in God’s sight nothing has worth apart from pure grace and favor....Those are the
secret and wondrous works of God, that he wishes to make sinners holy, so that all our boasting of our own righteousness and
good works be destroyed. This is what it all means: as long as he
regards us as righteous, we are righteous. When he withdraws his
hand and lets us go our own way, we are desperate scoundrels.
Indeed, no one should despair, even if we fall. We should just not
lose God’s Word. For his Word and grace are greater and more
than all human sin.45
The sinner is completely dependent on the unconditional mercy of the
Creator.
The Passive Righteousness of the Human Creature in
Luther’s Genesis Sermons
Luther’s view of the human being is sometimes caricatured as an extremely negative opinion that focuses only on sin and rebellion against
God. In fact, Luther defined the human situation not only out of its sinfulness but also out of its creatureliness, and in that creatureliness he found
both a positive assessment of God-given human potential and an appreciative affirmation of human dependence upon a loving Creator. “Creatures
do not have their essence from themselves, and even when their essence
has been bestowed, they do not have any power of their own.”46 God built
Adam’s world before He made Adam. Adam earned nothing. He simply
inherited and received the beneficence of the heavenly Father. Human
beings can only receive what God gives in faith and trust, and from that
faith and trust they live.47
Luther went into some detail discussing what it means that human
beings are created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27) without arriving at a
44
On Gen. 23, WA 24:411, 18-35. On Luther’s use of Romans 6:3-11 in his formulation
of his doctrine of justification in the Galatians commentary of 1535, see Robert Kolb,
“God Kills to Make Alive.” Cf. Jonathon D. Trigg, Baptism in the Theology of Martin
Luther (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 92-99.
45
On Gen. 34, WA 24:593,21-34. Cf. On Gen. 38:1-7, WA 24:623,16-32, on the story of
Thamar, Genesis 38.
46
On Gen. 1:9-13, WA, 24:36,22-24.
47
On Gen. 1:29-30, WA, 24:58,8-59,9.
176
simple, definitive answer. He avoided the speculation involved in trying to
equate human memory, understanding, and will with the Trinity and instead posited with Paul that there is an “earthly” and a “heavenly” human
being on the basis of 1 Corinthians 15:48-49 and Ephesians 4:22-24. The
“earthly” is the sinner, that is, the human creature who in Adam has become blinded and perverted, living in unbelief, false faith, and doubt. That
is not the human being God created. The “heavenly” image is that of Christ:
“He was a human being full of love, mercy and grace, humility, patience,
wisdom, light, and everything good. His whole essence was dedicated to
serving everyone and harming no one. We must bear this image and conform to it. In this image belongs also his death and suffering and everything attached to it, his resurrection, life, grace, and power....”48 Christ
reveals not only who God is but also what it means to be human. Luther
believed that sinners had lost this image of God because it is centered in
true faith in God. Nonetheless, elements of the original humanity remained
in the ability to practice God’s will outwardly, for instance, in married
life.49 For without faith no one can understand God and His work; unbelief
deprives the descendents of Adam of their ability to enjoy life as God made
it.50
The account of the creation of Adam and Eve and the giving of the
command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen.
2:15-17) gave Luther the opportunity to spell out precisely what he meant
by “passive righteousness.” Adam did not earn God’s favor by keeping that
command. He already possessed God’s love and favor from the moment
God breathed into the dust the breath of life and created him.
God gave him this command as a sign,...for he had to know and
remember that he had a lord over him. He could not become upright through obeying the command, but he could become a sinner. This is an important proof that no law can make a person
upright, but rather it is given to him so that he can keep it and
prove that he is already upright and lives hearkening to God. The
law does not bestow uprightness but those who are already upright practice the law.51
Since the fall into sin, the law of God functions as an accusation and indi47
On Gen. 1:29-30, WA 24:58,8-59,9
On Gen. 1:24-27, WA 24:49,23-51.8. Luther continued by asserting that the human
creature is either in God’s image or the image of the devil; see also WA 24:153,15. Such
statements anticipate his later comments on Genesis in his lectures (1535-1545) and the
view of Matthias Flacius Illyricus. See Lauri Haikola, Gesetz und Evangelium bei Matthias
Flacius Illyricus. Eine Untersuchung zur lutherischen Theologie vor der
Konkordienformel (Lund: Gleerup, 1952), 97-192.
49
On Gen. 1:28, WA 24:52,12-53,15.
50
On Gen. 1:28, WA 24:57,18-19,28-35.
51
On Gen. 2:15-17, WA 24:72,15-23.
48
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cation of our sinfulness, but obedience to it, even before the fall, was always the result of God’s favor, not a cause of it.52 This remains true after
the fall, since God promised rescue and absolution immediately after Adam
and Eve’s sin.53
Sin consists in doubting God’s Word and therefore straying from God
and His plan for human life. Although some sinners take away from the
Word, Eve’s breakdown of trust led her to add to it. The story of sin is the
continuation of the doubt and denial engendered from the devil’s questioning of what God had said. “As Eve stood there wavering back and forth and
the devil had maintained that it was not against God, he had won already.
Faith was gone, it was suffocated. She had lost the Word.”54 The consequences of losing the Word of God and faith in Him are clear: “When faith
and God’s Word are gone, you cannot think that you can hold off the evil
lusts and loves. The passion is there and is nothing but sinful, evil inclinations.”55 Finally, Adam tried to turn God’s Word against God, the ultimate
mark of a blasphemer (Gen. 3:12).56 The restoration of faith through the
promise of redemption in Christ in Genesis 3:15 demonstrated for Luther
that in His goodness God called sinners out of their doubt and focused
their lives, that is, their trust, upon His Word once again.57 Forgiveness of
sins came for Adam’s and Eve’s sins only through the promise of the Seed
(Gen. 3:15). Faith blots out sin, for God does not accept recompense for sin
through works.”58
The righteousness which God bestows upon His chosen children constitutes itself in the human creature as trust in the Creator.59 Therefore,
the preacher told his hearers that it was not Abel’s sacrifice which pleased
God but rather his faith, whereas “Cain was not condemned because of his
works but because of his unbelief…God looks first at the person, the man,
and then at the works that he does, not vice versa.”60 Luther cited Hebrews 11:4 to affirm to his hearers that Abel was upright because of his
faith. For “the almighty God had given Adam his Word and promise and
has it proclaimed to us” that Christ would come to destroy the devil and
make his children his own.61 This faith is created by and demonstrates the
power of the Word of God. Luther’s imagination often flared when he contemplated the trials of the patriarchs, and he visualized for his hearers
52
On Gen. 2:15-17, WA 24:73,19-32.
On Gen. 2:25-17, WA 24:74,14-30.
54
On Gen. 3:1-6, WA 24:86,24-88,33.
55
On Gen. 3:1-6, WA 24:89,19-21.
56
On Gen. 3:11, WA 24:96,14-97,29.
57
On Gen. 3:14, WA 24:99,27-101,15.
58
On Gen. 5, WA 24:154,25-28.
59
On Gen. 9:18-29, WA 24:211,24-33.
60
On Gen. 4:3-5, WA 24:127,29-128,12. The Latin text ascribes to Abel the thought, “I
am not an acceptable person, but you, God, nevertheless accept what I offer by your
mercy since you owe nothing to me, WA 24:128,1-3.
61
On Gen. 4:3-5, WA 24:129,24-130,18.
53
178
how Noah and his family must have felt when God’s wrath descended upon
their world in the Flood. Tossed about in their little ship, they were dependent on God’s promise alone.
What a faith it must have been, to be able to remain upright in the
face of such dreadful wrath. For it was real battle between faith
and unfaith, and their hearts must have suffered many a strong
blow.... They had to cling to this mere word and fight against all
their senses and reason with faith. So you see what mighty power
the Word has when it is grasped by faith, as they had death unceasingly before their eyes for five months and were able to disregard all that.62
Luther followed Paul in seeing in Abraham the greatest example of
the righteousness of faith. The patriarch was a true example of both faith
and love because he held to God’s living Word.63 His life proves that “if
someone is converted and becomes upright, a Christian, we do not initiate
that. No prayer, no fasting helps. It has to come from heaven, from grace
alone, when God hits the heart through the promise of the Gospel so that
it feels this Word and has to say that it never before occurred to him or
came to his mind that such grace should fall upon him.”64 And so, the
preacher proclaimed, “Those who want to become righteous should just
not say, ‘I want to begin this matter and do good works, so that I can attain
grace,’ but rather, ‘I will wait until God wants to give me his grace and his
Spirit through his Word.’ ”65 “For Abraham lived from the naked Word of
God to which he clung and in which he remained.”66 “Everything depends
on God’s Word. If God speaks, even about a stalk of straw, his is nevertheless an eternal word, and the person who believes it will be righteous and
upright and has God and has enough for eternity.” So Luther affirmed,
“The gospel is an everlasting treasure.”67 For, as he commented in treating
chapter 17, “God is truthful, faithful, and almighty, and therefore I do not
ask whether it is impossible if I have his Word and promise. Nothing can
go amiss then even if everything else deceives. For the Gospel is a light
which leads us and lightens the darkness when reason is blind and becomes foolish. When according to nature it is impossible, but with God it is
possible.”68 Righteousness in God’s sight came to Abraham as an undeserved and unexpected gift through God’s activity in His Word, Luther
assured his hearers.
62
On Gen. 7:1, WA 24:183,17-27.
On Gen. 12:1-2, WA 24:243,23-26.
64
On Gen. 12:1-2, WA 24:244,21-26.
65
On Gen. 12: 1-2, WA 24:244,29-30.
66
On Gen. 12:4-6, WA 24:249,21-22.
67
On Gen. 12:7-9, WA 24:254,5-14.
68
On Gen. 17, WA 24:318,36-319,16.
63
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In preaching on Genesis 16, Luther contrasted the people of the promise—Isaac’s descendents—with the people who have not received the promise. The preacher pointed out that it is not said of “coarse, insolent people”
but of “the very best, most upright and wisest people on earth that none of
that has any worth before God unless at the same time they have been
born of the Holy Spirit and become a new human creature.”69
Always concerned about the smoldering wick and broken reed, Luther
used the example of Sarah in Genesis 18 to remind his hearers that even
when faith is weak, God remains faithful. Sarah doubted whether she would
receive the promised child (18:12). “Nevertheless, God did not reject her
because of that but treated her gently because of her earlier faith, and he
cherished her although her faith was not as strong as Abraham’s.”70
Therefore, the preacher could also make practical application of the
example of Noah’s faith as the tossing of the waves in the midst of the
Flood made life seem very fragile. In the midst of trials and temptations in
the throes of death, the believer is thrown into despair, saying,
“I am dying and do not know when I will depart and to which place.”
Luther answered, “Then you must close your eyes and shut off all
your senses and not want to know or hear anything but that which
God’s Word says. Don’t pay attention to what you feel, or try to
overcome those feelings yourself. May the Word grasp you and do
not let it be taken from you, so you can say, ‘Here I am in the
agony and anxiety of death, but I know that I am baptized and that
God has promised me this and that.’ However strong and intensively death may be attacking, throw the Word in its face.” For, the
preacher continued, it is not a matter of how much you have served
God and how many good works you have done. That is the devil’s
nonsense, designed to arouse despair. Instead of talking about
works, confess your sins, he told the congregation, and then confess, “But you are the kind of God that does not examine how pious
or how evil a person has been if that person looks only to your
goodness and trusts.”71
Such is the righteousness of faith. The presumption that works do not
belong in the most intimate of conversations of the believer with God reveals how the distinction of the two kinds of righteousness is designed to
work in the life of the Christian.
69
70
71
180
On Gen. 16:12, WA 24:315,27-31.
On Gen. 18, WA 24:34,29-335,34.
On Gen. 7:1, WA 24:184,10-29.
The Active Righteousness of the Human Creature in
Luther’s Genesis Sermons
This trust and its righteousness produce the active righteousness that
meets God’s expectations for the performance of those to whom He has
given a new identity as redeemed and restored children of God. Luther
understood that God has planned daily human living in relationship to the
rest to creation as obedience to God’s commands for individual human
actions. This obedience takes place within the context of God’s calling of
each person to specific roles and functions that are integral to the warp
and woof of society as the Creator designed it. Believers practice the virtues or works God commands within the framework of the vocations to
which He calls them. The example of Abraham demonstrates that “you
must not be idle but must perform works. But you do not create an inheritance for yourself through your works....We have it completely through
faith. But we do good works so that God’s kingdom expands. We preach
and bring other people to it through our words and works, so that our life
is dedicated to other people, to helping them.”72 “When God has restored a
human being, he does not let him be idle but brings him into continuing
practice” of new obedience even though the devil’s attacks do not end, and
the Christian life goes on in the midst of the struggle he imposes upon
God’s children.73
Luther posited it as a general rule in Moses’ writings that
every person should so conduct himself in his walk of life and produce appropriate works so that he is certain that they please God,
and thus live so that we are always prepared for death.... We do
not create certainty regarding this with works, but faith does so. It
makes people pleasing to God and gives the heart assurance that
everything pleases God, and that even if something is done that
does not please him, as often happens, he nevertheless regards
that person as good.74
For the Gospel does not alter the human nature that God created in the
first place. That means that in relationship to God, Christians live by faith,
but on earth they assume the responsibilities of loving one another. “God
does not want to tear our nature out of us through the Gospel, but he lets
remain what is natural, directing it, however, along the proper lines. It is
natural that a father love his child, that a wife love her husband, and is
happy when he prospers.”75 Therefore Christians act as true Christians
when they hearken to God in everything and show concern for other hu72
73
74
75
On
On
On
On
Gen. 17:5, WA 24:327,14-20.
Gen. 3:9, WA 24:110,36-111,22.
Gen. 8:15-19, WA 24:195,12-26.
Gen. 23, WA 24:409,22-410,9.
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man beings in need.
God’s commands and callings, on the one hand, and the welfare of
other human beings, on the other hand, constituted two poles between
which believers practice new obedience. In preaching on Abraham’s military rescue of his nephew Lot (Gen. 14:13-16), Luther answered the question of whether a Christian may raise the sword in violence against others. Not in his own behalf, the preacher instructed: “If God had not commanded this, he [Abraham] would under no circumstances have done this
nor undertaken to proceed against such mighty kings...But because God
commanded it, and precisely to rescue his brother, he did it and went forth
in faith.”76 What military action accomplished in behalf of Lot was balanced by Abraham’s prayers for the people of Sodom. “As an upright man,
Abraham was so disposed to have a heart full of love toward everyone as
he had toward God, and so he afterwards prayed so assiduously for the
Sodomites that he probably would have even died for them.”77 The story of
Abraham demonstrates, Luther concluded, that “Abram continued to love
his neighbor, but he submitted that love to God, for faith and love toward
God is to govern love for the neighbor since we do not love human beings
more than we love God.”78
From the pulpit Luther was concerned to cultivate good works. He
praised Abraham for living on the basis of his faith as one who demonstrated the love of God, for instance, through his hospitality in Genesis
18.79 The example of Esau and Jacob reminded the reformer of God’s ability to work such miracles of reconciliation as was reported in Genesis 33:417: “It is God’s essence and way of working that he can make the worst
enemies into friends.” 80 At the same time, Luther commended the humility and desire for peace that Jacob displayed to his hearers. The people of
Wittenberg received both the admonition to do good works and specific
instructions about which works were good and which were not from Luther’s
preaching. They also received encouragement to endure in times of trial,
for active righteousness included both obedience to God’s commands and
patient suffering in the face of evil. What Jacob and his family suffered at
the hands of his father-in-law Laban illustrated how faith is prepared to
show love and bear the cross of persecution and maltreatment.81 Luther
personally had experienced a wide range of spiritual and physical suffering, and so had his hearers. He met that part of their lives with the promise of God’s presence in the midst of tribulations.
Luther knew, like Paul in Romans 6:1-3, that the Gospel of passive
righteousness bestowed through the work of Christ can be misheard as an
76
77
78
79
80
81
182
On
On
On
On
On
On
Gen. 14, WA
Gen. 14, WA
Gen. 14, WA
Gen. 18, WA
Gen. 33, WA
Gen. 31, WA
24:273,6-35.
24:274,18-20.
24:275,19-23.
24:336,12-29.
24:585,27-587,31.
24:554,18-29,556,8-22.
invitation to licentiousness. So he reminded the Wittenberg listeners, “Why
are good works commanded if faith suffices? It is true that faith alone is
enough before God, so that we need to do no works. Nonetheless, a person
must do works to prove our faith before the world, so that God is praised
and my neighbor is aroused to faith. I may not do them in my own behalf
but in behalf of others, for the praise of God and the service of my neighbor
so that others come to us.”82 The distinction of active and passive righteousness correlated with the distinction of Law and Gospel. Luther registered his opposition to both the failure to perform active righteousness
and also to despair or arrogance regarding the believer’s relationship to
God.
Conclusion
This concern for both obedience to God’s commands and trust in God
as the center of human life reflected Luther’s fundamental perception of
the reality between God and His human creatures. This perception presumed that God acts through His Word which both bestows human identity as a child of God and sets forth God’s expectations for living as His
human creature. This distinction of Law and Gospel found its anthropological corollary in the distinction of two kinds of righteousness, the presupposition that shaped Luther’s understanding of what it meant to be
human as a creature of the almighty Father and Creator of all things. The
Wittenberg reformer defined the human creature on the basis of his belief
that God is that Creator, responsible for all things in His creation. At the
same time, Luther insisted that the Creator had so designed and fashioned His human creatures that they exercise total responsibility for all
that God has made them to be and to do. This mystery of the relationship
between God and human creatures reflects the fact that for Luther it is
not possible for God’s creatures to grasp fully who He is and to understand
completely who they are as the products of His creative imagination and
grace.
To explain and proclaim all that God says about Himself and His human creatures, Luther believed that, Christians must recognize that human life takes place in two dimensions or that what it means to be human
takes form in a completely different way in relationship to God than it
does in relationship to God’s creatures. Like human parents, God has given
life to His creation, and He restores life to those dead in sin through His
Word of absolution. It conveys the gift of new life in and through the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This aspect of Luther’s anthropology
provides unshakable comfort for the people of God, for the identity of believers as children of God rests solely on His gracious will and loving disposition toward them. No human effort or merit could possibly be respon82
On Gen. 17, WA 24:330,20-26.
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sible for the personal identity of Christ’s people. At the same time Luther’s
anthropology frames the daily life of believers in their living out of the
expectations of their Creator and Father in the performance of the love
which constitutes who they are in relationship to their neighbors. Bound
together in God’s creative and re-creative action, both the identity and the
performance of His human creatures, once lost through sin, have been
restored through the work of Jesus Christ. Although human performance,
under the mystery of the continuation of sin and evil in the lives of the
baptized, attains only imperfect restoration, the identity of the sinner as a
forgiven child of God is complete and unshakable because it rests alone on
God’s disposition and His Word.
The Grammarian’s Corner section will return in
July after a brief hiatus in this issue.
184
Homiletical Helps on LW Series C
—Old Testament
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 11:1-18
May 6, 2007
God’s Holiness Code
Preliminary considerations: We are familiar with the fact that during the Sundays of Easter, the vast majority of the lessons chosen for the first reading are from
the Book of Acts. All of them, by and large, are narratives focusing on themes that
depict the Gospel reaching beyond the traditional boundaries of Judaism and
Jewish Christianity out to Gentiles and their nations. “The Season of Easter” for
the Christian church, therefore, is a joyous celebration of the intentionality of the
gracious God whose undeserved love extends to the ends of the earth with the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. He “desires all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).
The reading from Revelation 21:1-7 is picturesque, with the heavenly city
Jerusalem, the holy city adorned as the bride of Christ, descending on earth, the
ultimate image of God making His residence with His people. St. John sees the
dwelling of God among human beings and God making everything new as His created new order. The glorious resurrection of our Lord has put an end to the grief we
now bear and replenishes us with the joy that is irrevocable because of Christ
(John 16:22). The Lord assures His disciples that their grief is short-lived, and it
shall cease when He shall return, ushering in the new creation in its final form.
Amidst the manifold struggles of this world clouded with the shadow of death, our
hearts are fixed on Jesus whose blood has washed us clean and on whose account
we are declared holy. That is the stronghold for the Christian believer.
Acts is the most historically documented story of the expansion of the Christian church from Jerusalem to Rome, a literal logbook on the effective implementation of the Great Commission during the early decades of the Christian epoch.
Peter had been an apostle, witnessing God’s redemptive work in Christ boldly
among his own people, the Jews and proselytes. On the one hand, God had been
preparing the apostle Paul with an immaculate Jewish upbringing as His chosen
vessel to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel
(Acts 9:15). On the other hand, by means of the incidents in Acts 10 and 11, God
expands Peter’s horizon to see how His salvific plan in Jesus Christ extends beyond the Jews to embrace all people. God prepared Peter for this mission by means
of a vision, leading Peter through an “immersion experience” to acknowledge that
God shows no favoritism, and no one can call impure any thing or person that God
has made clean.
Notes on the text: Our text, eighteen verses long, is an abridged version of the
expanded narrative in chapter ten. Two things happen almost simultaneously in
the tenth chapter. Some thirty miles north of Joppa, in Caesarea, God spoke to a
God-fearing Gentile centurion, Cornelius, during the mid-afternoon prayer time.
The angel of the Lord asked Cornelius to send for Peter in Joppa and bring him over
to his house. Cornelius obeyed.
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The next day about lunch hour, while Peter was on the terrace praying, he fell
into a trance. In a dream Peter saw a large sheet let down from heaven containing
non-kosher food, including all kinds of four-footed animals, birds, and reptiles.
Peter was commanded to get up, kill, and eat these animals. Following the Jewish
tradition that formed him, Peter considered all these to be unclean food. Leaning
on typical pharisaic legalism, Peter tried his hardest to resist any attempt to
tiptoe around the ceremonial laws to which he so proudly subscribed. The voice
from heaven commanded Peter three times. There was no way he could ignore this
voice any more. What is more, Cornelius’s emissaries were coming over to Peter to
invite him to Caesarea, as directed by the Spirit. Peter was bound to go.
The angel’s message is reminiscent of the message of the early Christians
(e.g., Acts 16:31): the exclusive claim of Jesus Christ as Savior of all people.
The angel assured Cornelius that he would hear a message explaining how he
and his household could be saved. For His mission, God prepares the hearts of
people who need to hear the Gospel. He also makes their hearts eager to listen to
His Word: “everything that the Lord has commanded you to tell us” (10:33). The
use of the Greek verb for listening in the aorist infinitive avkou/sai and the object
pa,ntej (omnia) makes the message of the Gospel full and complete and its target
audience inclusive of all people everywhere.
God is directly at work among the Gentiles to bring them into His kingdom.
The experience of the Gentiles in receiving the Gospel is the same as that of the
Jews who were gathered in the upper room. As one commentator put it, “There is
nothing second class about the Gentiles receiving the Gospel” (I. Howard Marshall,
The Acts of the Apostles, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1980], 197).
Consequently, the Gentile converts are full members of the church of Jesus
Christ. Circumcision and the keeping of the Law are not requisite for salvation.
Repenting and believing in the Gospel are. The call to repent is extended equally to
the Gentiles. The Christ who has fully obeyed the Law is indeed the end of the Law
and has put an end to the Jewish ceremonial law as well (Rom. 10:4).
In Christ the Jewish distinction between “clean” and “unclean” has become
obsolete. Believers in Christ are given a new identity as the people of God. As He
did among those who gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost that followed
the resurrection of our Lord, the Spirit manifested His presence among the Gentiles who gathered in a Gentile home. For the Gentiles, too, repentance was the way
to enter God’s kingdom of life.
God’s Holiness Code: This theme emerges out of the instruction Peter received,
so that he could break away from his comfort zone and reach out with the Gospel to
people who were not one kind with him in race, religion, and perhaps language. As
Peter ventured on his mission to Cornelius’s household, he built a bridge to them
with that divine instruction, “Do not call anything impure what God has made
clean.” This is God’s holiness code, established by the death and resurrection of
God’s Son, sealed with His innocent blood, and delivered in Baptism to those who,
in repentance and faith, embrace His promises. The Lord is no respecter of persons. He shows no partiality. He is Lord of all.
Victor A. Raj
186
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:8-15
May 13, 2007
Textual considerations: Every Christian could well wish that evangelism was
this easy and clear cut. First of all, Paul received a night vision, which Luke tells us
they concluded was a direct message from God telling them to preach the Gospel in
Macedonia. Secondly, they are begged to come to a specific place to preach the
Gospel. The fact that the man was standing and begging would suggest that this
was a cry of spiritual desperation. Unlike the reluctance of Job in the Old Testament, there is no hesitancy or even the slightest delay in Paul’s and Luke’s decision
to go to Macedonia to proclaim Jesus Christ in Europe for the first time. Thirdly,
the two apostles made a speedy journey, not delaying in any of the cities through
which they passed. There was a sense of urgency, as there always is in bringing the
Gospel to the unchurched. Fourthly, the Christian message was for all people.
Since Philippi was a Roman, multi-cultural colony, Paul’s audience could have
been Roman, Greek, and Jewish. On the Jewish Sabbath Paul and Luke went to a
place of prayer, usually considered a circumlocution for a synagogue. It was on a
river bank—Jews were accustomed to worship near water, which proved convenient for cleansing purposes and purification rites—in this circumstance convenient for Christian Baptism. Fifthly, God granted the apostles success. At the
synagogue Paul found an attentive and receptive audience. At least one individual
in the audience was already a worshiper of the true God. God made Lydia receptive
to Paul’s message about Christ, and she and her household were baptized. Paul
was warmly welcomed into their home. A personal relationship is established
between the evangelists and the hearers.
Homiletical considerations: This text provides an excellent opportunity for a
mission or evangelism sermon. However, not every mission effort is going to be this
easy, with a clear vision from God, an urgent invitation, a receptive and attentive
audience, immediate success, and the establishment of a warm, personal relationship between the evangelizing individual and the new convert. Yet there are some
beneficial lessons that this text can teach us. God may not give us a vision in the
night with specific details of where and to whom we are to bring the message of
salvation. Nevertheless, evangelism is not an option for Christians as the imperatives of Matthew 28:19 make very clear.
Today people may not be begging to hear the Gospel message, but the immoral
and irreligious conditions of our world demand that the Law be preached, followed
by the comforting words of the Gospel to those who repent. In our culture the
priority of spirituality has given way to the priority of materialism. God’s Law has
been jettisoned for universalism. Without a sense of spiritual deprivation that
comes from feeling the power and threat of the Law, no one will beg to hear the
Gospel—that is one of the main threats of antinomianism. Part of our mission
efforts is to create a sense of spiritual need in people through the proclamation of
the Law—in the text the man in Macedonia had already felt the burden of the Law
and now wanted the Gospel.
So often pastors, people, or congregations as a whole, do not have a sense of
urgency about inviting people to share their faith. Yet, that need exists today,
perhaps, more than ever. Today there are so many examples of people dying unexpectedly—terrorist attacks; fires in homes and apartment buildings; victims of
DWI; shooting sprees in schools and workplaces; deadly tornados, hurricanes, and
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tidal waves. What if some of these victims had been prospects on our list of evangelism calls but put off because of a lack of a sense of evangelistic urgency?
It is increasingly popular to target specific groups of people because most
people feel most comfortable in a congregation that is economically, racially, culturally, or socially homogeneous. There is no Biblical justification for that kind of
approach, which can be very exclusionary. Philip was sent to a specific individual,
the eunuch of Ethiopia. In the Old Testament Jonah was called to an entire city, not
just to a segment of it. In our text Paul and Luke are called to the region of Macedonia,
which was the stepping stone into all of Europe. In the Great Commission of
Matthew 28, the command is to go into all the world. There is a gradual expansiveness in terms of the work of evangelism. There are no examples of market-like
targeting of specific groups of people—in fact, Peter’s initial approach of reaching
out only to the Jewish people was corrected in the vision he had at the home of
Cornelius. Although Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, his policy was always to
preach in the Jewish synagogue first.
Last, but certainly not least, of the lessons of our text is the reminder that it is
God who gives success to our mission work. In some of my more recent involvement
in mission outreach, I was struck by a common principle that one needs the right
method or program in order for evangelistic efforts to succeed—it seems that the
power of God was overlooked or clearly not emphasized. While God wants us to
proclaim His Word as winsomely and effectively as possible, the power to convert
people to faith is in the efficaciousness of the Word itself. (It will be worthwhile to
review what F. Pieper or J. T. Mueller have to say in their dogmatic textbooks on the
efficaciousness of Scripture.) It is the Holy Spirit working in people’s hearts through
the power of the Word that leads them to faith, not some well-planned marketing
strategies.
Suggested outline:
Begging for the Gospel
I. There is a need and urgency for evangelistic outreach.
II. The Word of God is for all people.
III. The success of evangelism is dependent on the power inherent in God’s Word.
Quentin F. Wesselschmidt
Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts1:12 -26
May 20, 2007
Choosing Matthias
Preliminary considerations: The Seventh Sunday of Easter follows the celebration of the Ascension of our Lord (hardly commemorated in congregations these
days, as the festival falls on a Thursday), marking the threshold of the season of
Pentecost.
During this time of the ecclesiastical calendar, the church transitions from the
commemoration and celebration of various high points in our Lord’s earthly life to
the organization of her own life on earth as an ongoing witness in the world, ener188
gized by the Holy Spirit’s enabling and directing.
Aptly then, today’s appointed Gospel lesson (John 17) directs us to our Lord’s
prayer for oneness among all who believe in Him, and the reading from Revelation
22 reassures us of the promise of His second coming. During this interim the
church charters her course with faith and confidence in her Lord’s leading and
directing.
The method Peter and fellow believers in Christ adopted for choosing Matthias
“to receive a place of servanthood and apostleship” among them (v. 25) sets a clear
pattern for the Christian church to follow in selecting leaders and delegates for
God’s holy purposes. We read little about Matthias before he became God’s choice
to fill the place which Judas’s demise opened as the twelfth apostle. Little is
known about him afterwards. Tradition has claimed that Matthias preached the
Gospel in Judea and in Ethiopia, as the Ethiopian church proudly celebrates her
origin. Our church calendar has set apart February 24 for the commemoration of
Matthias, although since the last century the Roman Catholic Church has moved
this date to May 14. Coincidently, this change enables us to remember this day,
May 20, the Sunday before Pentecost, God’s choice of Matthias.
Textual considerations: More than three decades ago, Robert E. Coleman had
published a book, The Master Plan of Evangelism in which he outlined eight ideas
he had identified from our Lord’s preparation of His disciples for His mission. Four
of those apply directly to our text.
1. Selection. Following the ascension of our Lord, a full assembly of Christian
men and women, including the apostles, gathered in the upper room of a large
house in Jerusalem. Through them God selected Matthias to fill a position of
ministry and apostleship, a position Judas held until he became the Lord’s betrayer (vv. 12-20). Matthias matched the direct line of the other apostles, as he, like
them, was an eyewitness to our Lord’s entire public ministry (21-22).
In His church, the Lord in His wisdom chooses His servants to lead His people
and to be a witness to His mighty acts. God chooses His servants even from the
weak, the lowly and the despised to undo the mighty, the haughty, and the pretentious of this world so that His wisdom will prevail and triumph over all enemies of
the Gospel (1 Cor. 1:27-31). God chooses His people for accomplishing His purposes
through them in His way.
2. Association. Matthias was with the Lord the whole time He went around,
proclaiming the reign of heaven by word of mouth and demonstrating by miraculous signs God’s saving presence among people (v. 21). Our Lord’s death and rising
from the dead were no doubt the climactic events to which Matthias was an eyewitness. He qualified for apostleship by his association with the Lord and His followers.
There is no better way of training for a job than being in it and working at it.
The fact that Matthias was counted as one of the apostles shows that he was well
assimilated into the office of apostleship and found himself one in agreement with
the doctrine of the apostles (v. 26).
3. Impartation. Today’s Gospel reading, a selection from our Lord’s “high
priestly prayer” in John 17, begs that the world may know that God has sent Jesus
to the earth inasmuch as He loves the world with the same love with which He
loves the Son. The ministry of apostleship has primarily been one of proclaiming
the Gospel and making it known to the world through actions. An apostle therefore
imparts this kind of love to the world as our Lord did. As an eyewitness to everything Jesus said and did, Matthias fully qualifies for the apostolic ministry.
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4. Delegation. The ministry that the Lord delegated to His church, that of
witnessing the Gospel in word and deed, has continued through the centuries. Just
as He has from one man sent forth all human beings to inhabit all the earth, He
also wants all human beings to seek Him in repentance and find Him in the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Acts 17). That mission is ongoing by means of the
ministry of God’s people, people of good rapport and filled with the Spirit and
wisdom (Acts 6:3), just as our Lord, too, grew in wisdom and the favor of God and
men and was filled with the Spirit as He came to our world to redeem us. The
church’s ministry is indeed the Lord’s ministry delegated to her in accordance with
the divine counsel.
Choosing Matthias: Critical events in history steer the course of life for a person, family, or community. The loss of a family member, collapse of a marriage, or a
change in leadership in a company may be examples. Life transitions require us to
make wise choices, learning from the past and looking confidently into the future.
Matthias’s life was rooted in God’s Word. From the beginning, he had seen
Jesus with his eyes, and with his ears he had heard what the Lord spoke. He was
an eyewitness to God Incarnate and His mission on earth. He was God’s choice for
His church in His appointed time.
Not only in the church’s life are God’s directions mediated through His Word.
The community of believers that surrounds us enables us to make God-pleasing
decisions and move on with confidence. As a community of believers, the people of
God seek His will in all things.
Our life together as a church, in good times and in bad, is a testimony of our
faith in the one Lord who saved us by His death for eternity. Declaring that message with boldness is our mission. If Matthias’s faith journey took him to Judea
and to Ethiopia, we humbly make the Savior’s name known at home and abroad
following in the apostles’ footsteps.
Victor A. Raj
The Day of Pentecost
Genesis 11:1–9
May 27, 2007
Understanding the text as text: The text of the account of the Tower of Babylon
(Gen. 11:1–9) is well-established, with only two minor textual variants. The
Septuagint adds the phrase “to all of them” to the end of verse 1 (“...the same words
to all of them,” to add the phrase to the ESV’s translation). Both the Septuagint
and the Samaritan Pentateuch add the words “and the tower” to the end of verse 8
(...they left off building the city and the tower,” following the ESV’s translation).
The first of these is the sort of expansion that often happens in translation, and
probably represents the assimilation of the language of this verse to that of verse
6, where the added phrase does occur. The second likely reflects a genuine variant
that existed in some Hebrew manuscripts. While the second is slightly more likely
than the first to have been in the original text, neither variant should be adopted.
In particular, the second appears to have arisen from a failure to recognize that
this phrase is a hendiadys (see below). Neither variant significantly affects the
meaning of the passage.
The translation of the text is straightforward and presents few problems.
While the origin of the geographical term Shinar (v. 2) may be debated among
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scholars, the word is clearly used in Genesis to refer to the general area of southern
and middle Mesopotamia, the southeastern third of modern Iraq (cf. Gen. 10:10).
The two pairs of cognate accusatives in verse 3 (literally, “let us brick bricks and
burn burnings,” ESV “let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly”), together
with the reference to bitumen, gives us an interesting insight into construction
techniques in the period. The use of baked mud-bricks was quite common throughout the Ancient Near East, especially in places such as lower Mesopotamia where
there was little stone suitable for construction. Bitumen (naturally occurring pitch)
was not only commonly used in construction (and in medicine), it was also a valuable export item in various periods of Mesopotamian history. Excavations at
Babylon have found numerous examples of structures built of the kind of brick and
bitumen technique alluded to here.
The ESV’s translation of the phrase “a city and a tower” in verse 4 ignores the
widespread recognition that this phrase is a textbook example of what Hebrew
grammars call an hendiadys (the use of two words to communicate a single concept). The phrase does not refer to two things (a city and a tower), but to one thing
that has the characteristics of both items referred to (“a towering city”).
The highly anthropomorphic language of verse 5 should not be taken to suggest that God could not see what was going on from heaven. Rather it is characteristic of the way that the Old Testament describes God’s actions in terms that are
comprehensible to human experience.
The key speech of God in verse 6 contains one slightly problematic phrase. The
ESV’s “...this is only the beginning of what they will do,” captures the main idea of
a phrase that it difficult to put into English without expanding it in some way. It
treats the first of the two infinitive constructs as a gerund (beginning).
Verse 7 introduces the pun that will later (v. 9) be made upon the name of the
place. God decides to “confuse” (Hebrew llb
llb) their language. As verse 9 adds, they
would name the place “Bablyon” (Hebrew lbb
lbb), saying that it was so named because there God confused (Hebrew llb
llb) the language of the whole earth. This is
typical of the kind of popular etymology that is common in Genesis. The point is not
really so much to give the technical etymology of the name as it is to draw a lesson
from the events that occurred there and to make the lesson memorable by connecting it with the name of the place by way of a pun. The place name Babylon (Hebrew
lbb
bll
lbb) is not really from the verb “confuse” (bll
bll), but is rather a modification of the
Akkadian name of the place, comprised of a phrase of two words (babb l), meaning
“gate of [the] god”, most likely recalling the view that the sanctuary there was
thought to be a point of passage between the material realm and the realm of the
divine.
The “tower-as-gateway” concept serves as a reminder to us that such towers—
the technical term is ziggurat—were not tombs or funerary monuments like Egyptian pyramids, but rather were platforms upon which temples were built. The
temples were indeed conceived of as places where heaven and earth met. The
ziggurat of Babylon was rebuilt several times—baked mud-bricks tend to erode
over time and periodic repairs or reconstructions are required much more frequently than with stone structures. Remains of this particular ziggurat in Babylon,
called Etemenanki, suggest that, at later times at least, it was about 300 feet
square at the base. A re-construction by King Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 605-562) was
claimed to be 295 feet tall, though the original tower of Genesis was almost certainly smaller than this. By comparison the Great Pyramid of Cheops (built around
2600-2500 BC) in Egypt is about 756 feet square at the base and was originally
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about 481 feet tall.
Understanding the text as literature: This brief account is a transitional passage that helps to set the stage for the next major section of Genesis, beginning
with the account of Abram’s ancestry in 11:27. The first part of the book of Genesis
(1:1–11:26) is highly periodic. The pattern of this part of the book is that a major
event is followed by a short account that illustrates the effects of those developments upon the descendents of the central figure in the main account, and then by
a genealogical summary that serves to “fast forward” the narrative to the next
main event. Thus, the account of the creation and fall is followed by the short
account of Adam’s sons (Cain and Abel), and then by genealogical material of
Genesis 5. In the next section the flood narrative is followed by the short account of
the behavior of Noah’s sons, and then by the genealogical material of chapter 10.
The short block of 11:1–26, of which our text is a component, provides the transition from the first major section of Genesis to the second major section, the patriarchal narratives. This short block is comprised of two brief units, the account of
the confusion of man’s languages (our text) and the “Toledoth of Shem.” On the
literary level this material provides the transition between the first and second
main unit of the book. On the historical level it explains how mankind became
scattered after the flood and how they came to speak different languages (our
account) and also how Abram was related to the descendents of Noah (the “Toledoth
of Shem”). Both of these provide us with significant background information as we
make the transition to the accounts of how God was going to work in lives of the
patriarchs.
Our passage, sometimes characterized as an etiological tale since it explains
the origin of human languages, belongs to the broader genre of narrative. More
properly, it is a report of an event that focuses on both the human and divine
motivations. The twice-repeated human “come” (11:3, 4) is balanced by the divine
“behold” (11:6) and “come” (11:7). The men want to get a name so that they will not
be scattered (11:4), and in the end God’s judgment gives them a name (Babylon)
and they are scattered (11:9). The passage turns on the conflicting human and
divine wills, and God’s decision to impose limits upon the way that mankind exercises the dominion that He had given them over His creation (cf. Gen 1:26, 28).
Thus the central element (or climax) of the report is the statement of the determination of God to respond to and to restrict the unbounded ambition of mankind
(11:6).
Understanding the text as theology: Within its context in the book of Genesis,
the account of the tower of Babylon represents the last of a series of examples of
the extent of human depravity after the fall. In this sense it is the last of the series
that includes the accounts of Cain and Abel (4:1-17), the violence of Lamech (4:1726, esp. 23-34), the “Sons of God and the Daughters of Man” (6:1-6), and the mocking of Ham (9:18-27). Of these, it is most like the accounts of the “Sons of God and
the Daughters of Man” in that it goes beyond the faults of individuals to show that
the Fall has effected all humanity. And together with the mocking of Ham, our text
makes it clear that God’s recognition that the “wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” (6:5 ESV) was not solved by the judgment of God in the flood. One might, at
this point, expect God to inflict another even greater judgment upon sinful humanity by utterly obliterating a wickedness so great that it would recognize no bounds
(11:6). But God does not. He merely thwarts man’s overweening ambition by limiting his ability to communicate and by scattering them over the face of the earth. By
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limiting man’s ability to do evil rather than destroying him God keeps His promise
not to destroy mankind by another flood (9:11).
The fact that the narrative continues (after the genealogical interlude) with
the call of Abram and God’s promises that through Him all the nations of the earth
will be blessed (12:3) leads us to Christ and the Gospel, for it shows that God’s
ultimate response to human depravity is not to destroy, but to save. In this way, an
appreciation of the role of this text in the unfolding history of salvation should lead
us to a Gospel-centered and Christ-centered proclamation of the text.
This text is selected as a reading for the feast of Pentecost because the divinely given ability to understand the speech of different nations (Acts 2:1-11) is
seen as undoing the effects of the judgment of God in out text. Indeed it is, but only
insofar as it prefigures the eschatological age (Rev. 5:9; 7.9; 15:2-4; 21:22-26). For
at Pentecost God does not undo the judgment at the tower of Babylon; He does not
permanently undo the confusion of the languages. Rather this temporary rapprochement is given as a sign that all nations, gentiles as well as Jews, are to be
included in the kingdom of God in Christ, in whom the prophecy given to Abram
that “all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 2:3) is fulfilled and through
whom “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21).
Proclaiming the text: How may we use this text to proclaim Christ in our generation? In this case we may do so not merely on the basis of what the text says
directly, but by following the logic of the salvation history of which this text is a
part. As indicated above, the text points us to Christ as God’s ultimate response to
the overweening ambition of a mankind by using this account as the lead-in to the
call of Abram, and the promise to bless all nations through him.
Using this approach, one might begin my comparing the ambition of the
Babylonians to our ambitions. Their building of a towering city seems like a small
offense compared with such modern examples of human ambition as cloning people,
manipulating the human genetic code, traveling beyond the bounds of our planet,
taking apart the atom or scouring the heavens through ever more powerful telescopes in an attempt to unravel the secrets of creation. Like the Babylonians
before us, we attempt to justify all of these in terms of the potential good that they
have to offer us and others (cf. 11:4). The more religiously minded in society might
recall that, after all, God gave us control over His creation (Gen. 1:26, 28), so He
must have intended us to use it. But our “good” is not God’s “good.” And if God saw
the construction of a 300-foot-tall temple-tower in the city of Babylon as a symbol
of man’s overweening ambition and evidence that “nothing that they propose to do
will now be impossible for them” (Gen. 11:6), what must He think of what we have
done? And if God judged them by confusing their languages and scattering them
across the face of the earth, what judgment must He have in store for us?
God’s response is not what we might expect. His real response to the tower of
Babylon was to call Abram and through him set in motion the plan that led to the
birth of Christ. For God did not intend to punish the sins of the Babylonians, by
sending another flood to destroy mankind. Rather He intended to punish the sins
of the Babylonians and our sins by sending Christ to the cross. It is in the crucified
and resurrected Jesus Christ that God not only punishes the overweening ambition of a human wickedness so great that “every intention of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually,” (6:5 ESV), but through the outpouring of His Spirit
on Pentecost and the gathering of Abraham’s descendents from all the nations of
the earth by the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God is bringing together in His church what He had previously scattered to the ends of the earth so
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that all mankind may praise Him again in eternity with one tongue.
David L. Adams
The Holy Trinity
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
June 3, 2007
Chapters 1 through 9 of Proverbs are an extended discourse from a father to
his son(s)—children generally—to choose wisdom over folly in living life. Wisdom
and folly (or foolishness) are personified as two different women: Wisdom is, by
inference, an honorable woman, a suitable companion, even a “lady” (see, for example, Horace D. Hummel, The Word Becoming Flesh [St. Louis: Concordia, 1979],
VI ai , ESV: “forbidden woman”; or hIY rIkIn. , ESV:
455), while folly is a tramp (Heb. hnInIz hhV
“adulteress”; lit. “foreign (woman);” cf. Prov. 2:16 et al.). Chapter 7 reiterates the
exhortation to seek wisdom and to resist the “seductive speech” (7:21, ESV) of the
forbidden woman, whose words lead to destruction. (It is worth noting that the
Hebrew vocabulary, e.g., xq;l,, from root xql
xql, for learning or instruction can function
both positively and negatively—it depends on the source!)
The first segment of the appointed reading (vv. 1 through 4) reminds us that
while the forbidden woman calls attractively and seductively, wisdom calls too.
And it still does today. The voices of wisdom and folly compete for our affections, perhaps most prominently in advertising—I was entertained by some of the
commercials aired in conjunction with Super Bowl XLI, but wouldn’t be inclined to
buy what they were trying to sell. In a morning-after review of which ads were hot
and which were not, a commentator acknowledged that one automaker’s ads were
rather prosaic and wound up at the bottom of the list of people’s favorites—theirs
was the product, however, which I’d be most likely to buy.
The verses between the two segments (vv. 5 through 21) assert what wisdom
offers to those who seek her. In our “Information” Age, where the quest for data is
insatiable and information equals knowledge, it is worth being reminded by
wisdom’s testimony in these verses that not all information, not all knowledge is
equal.
I might be taking a chance—but I’ll do it anyway—by summarizing the second
segment of the text (vv. 22 through 31) this way: In the beginning was wisdom, and
wisdom was with God, and wisdom was God.
The English Standard Version translates the first half-line of verse 22 “The
LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work.” The root hnq tends to describe
ryxmb xql
economic action: get or acquire (BDB) or “take by price” (ryxmb
xql, Even-Shoshan).
But Even-Shoshan observes some synonymy between hnq and rcy (form) or arb
(create, as in Gen. 1:1), when God is the agent, e.g., Genesis 14:19, where “God Most
hnEqo] of heaven and earth”). The remainder of the half-line
High” is the “Possessor [hnE
in our text, wOKr>D: tyviarE, is translated regularly in English versions as “at the beginning of his work” (ESV et al.); some Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate manuscripts have
tyvarb
tyvarb, as in Genesis 1:1. The MT, as it stands, could be construed as appositional:
wisdom is the first (or head) of YHWH’s “work” (ESV) or “way” (NASB). The remainder of the verse, zaI me wywyllI[Ip.mi ~d<q,, parallels and reiterates the point: “first (or
foremost) of his acts from of old.” To be sure, the existence and presence of wisdom
are at the beginning, and yet the Hebrew construction seems to say more—that the
emission, so to speak, of wisdom from YHWH marks the onset of the creation “of
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heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” Wisdom is of God in a
way that “all things” are not. The succeeding verses are a kind of catechism on
wisdom’s existence: It is ~lIwO[me, varome, #r<aI-ymed>Q;mi–before everything else was, wisdom
is.
The root translated “brought forth” in verses 24 and 25 is lwx
lwx. Translation
values are contextual, but together they seem to involve movement like rotation or
spinning (including writhing in pain, especially in childbirth). Wisdom is “birthed,”
“spun out” by God before the foundation of the world. Maybe Plato is partly right,
sort of. And yet it is not the Ideas or Forms such as wisdom which subsist independently; that alone is God, who ideates and whose ideas (as well as His words) are
vI is translated in relation to the
performative. In verse 27 the terse phrase ynIa] ~~v
understood past-ness of creation, “when he established the heavens, I was there”
(ESV). And yet wisdom is more than an accompaniment to creation. “I [wisdom]
am there” as an identifiable and yet not separate participant in the process of
establishment, the activity of creating.
ESV follows the BHS layout and begins verse 30 with “then,” taking the preceding temporal clauses as dependent on the opening clause of verse 30. I’m not so
sure. I think the nominal clause “I am there” in verse 27 is the main clause on
which all of the temporal clauses (bb plus infinitives construct) in verses 27 through
29 depend. Verse 30 contains two assertions on the part of wisdom: that “she” was,
alongside [God], a master workman (ESV; see F. Delitzsch for an extensive discussion of !wOmaI); and that “she” was a/the delight day by day (“his” delight follows the
Greek and Syriac, which include the 3rd masculine singular pronominal suffix).
The final clause of verse 30 and the opening one of verse 31 are participial clauses
which describe “her” work in terms of delight and joy—work well designed and well
executed is rewarding—while the closing clause of verse 31 may express either
wisdom’s pleasure in working with the sons of Adam (cf. ESV) or the delight wisdom produces in the human creature. In short, our text lets us know that creation’s
design, rooted in wisdom, was “very good” (Gen. 1:31).
The First Article of the Creed is brief, excruciatingly so. Indeed, God the Father has created, ex nihilo, all things; and yet there is more to creation than matter.
Wisdom is not created, because wisdom is of God—it belongs to His own nature
and character. And yet wisdom informs and influences creation, because in creation God exercised (His) wisdom. Wisdom is, thus, not “natural,” and yet God has
conferred wisdom, in varying degrees, on what we call nature. Elsewhere in the
book of Proverbs, the father urges his son(s) to “get wisdom,” hmIk.xI hnoq., where “get”
is the same root hnq used to describe YHWH’s inherent possession of wisdom. But
wisdom is not a product arrived at by human exertion and ratiocination—it does
not come “by my own reason or strength.” It is, rather, a gift received by those in
whom “the fear of the LORD” dwells; wisdom accompanies being rightly related to
God.
That the Scripture says these things means that they couldn’t go without
saying. That is, wisdom, with all its attendant benefits, was God (the Father’s)
creation design for His human creatures. But something has interfered with our
proper appropriation and use of God’s wisdom gift: Adam and Eve’s transgression
in the garden did not increase knowledge (or wisdom); it diminished it. We actually
know less, understand less, because we do not, cannot know God.
And so God (the Father), in His wisdom, has sent God (the Son): Christ, the
wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). Our preaching often may employ the Gospel transformations of death-to-life, of sin-to-righteousness, and others; I wonder whether we
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remember and make use of the reality that we are, by ourselves, ignorant of God—
“Israel does not know, my people do not understand” (Is. 1:3)—and that it is only as
God makes Himself known—reveals Himself—that we can “come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1); in the
beginning was Wisdom, and the Wisdom of God is Jesus Christ and the Gospel,
which He is and has done. The fear of the LORD which is the beginning of knowledge and of wisdom is faith in Christ, the One who was begotten of the Father
before the foundation of the world, the One who, before Abraham was, is.
Wisdom Calls
I. What the world calls wisdom actually is seductive folly.
II. True wisdom subsists in God alone—He is not subject to some external standard of wisdom—it proceeds from Him, and is appropriated only by those who
are rightly related to Him.
III. Humanity’s reason and conscience are darkened because of sin; we cannot
restore our relationship to God, nor can we live our creaturely life wisely and
well.
IV. Jesus is the Wisdom of God, whose sacrifice atones for our rebellion and who,
by His Spirit, reveals the true nature and character of God and enlightens His
people through faith for living wisely—that is, in growing concert with God’s
will.
William W. Carr, Jr.
Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5)
1 Kings 17:17-24
June 10, 2007
Liturgical context: This Old Testament text coheres closely to the theme of the
appointed Gospel reading; no doubt the pericope was selected to parallel the account provided in Luke 7. In both lections a son of a widow is raised from the dead.
In the passage from 1 Kings 17, the prophet Elijah restores life to the son of the
widow at Zarephath. In Luke 7, Jesus intervenes at the funeral procession in Nain
and raises a widow’s son from death. Although this theme of life from death appears on this date because of the lectio continua of readings from Luke, it is an
appropriate theme for beginning the season of Pentecost, which celebrates the gift
of the Holy Spirit who is “the Lord and giver of life.”
Historical and narrative context: Chapter 17 of 1 Kings introduces Elijah, the
prototype of the classical prophets of Israel. Previously in 1 Kings are presented
the reign of Solomon (1:1-12:24) and the reigns of the kings of the divided kingdom
up to Ahab of Israel (12:25-16:34). Chapter 17 begins a new section describing the
ministries of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17:1-2 Kings 8:15). Elijah’s ministry
begins during the reign of Ahab (874-853 B.C.).
Immediately prior to the appointed text, Elijah announces to Ahab that
Yahweh’s judgment will befall the land in the form of a multi-year drought (17:1).
Due to the diabolical influence of his pagan wife Jezebel, Ahab fostered the cultivation of Baal worship in the northern kingdom of Israel (16:30-33). Since Baal was
regarded as the lord of the storm cloud and of rain, this suspension of precipitation
is a demonstration of the impotence of the Canaanite god and the futility of those
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who worship him. After delivering this message, Elijah withdraws in isolation
beside a Transjordan brook, where he is protected by Yahweh and sustained by
ravens (17:2-6). However, when the brook dries up as a result of the drought, Yahweh
directs Elijah to find sustenance in the home of a Phoenician widow living in the
coastal town of Zarepheth between Tyre and Sidon (17:7-9). God thus withdraws
His prophet from the land of Israel to Jezebel’s homeland and the seedbed of Baal
worship. Since Phoenicia also is suffering the effects of the drought, the widow and
her son face starvation. Remarkably, she agrees to provide Elijah with room and
board, granting his request to eat of her food supplies. Yet as Elijah promised,
Yahweh miraculously provides ongoing food to sustain her, her son, and the prophet
(17:10-16). This is the context in which the text’s narrative is found.
Thoughts on the text: This passage is a narrative, and so to expound it one must
understand the development and movement of the story. Similarly, in preaching
this text, one should not neglect its narrative force and the pathos of its characters.
To understand the behavior of the widow in the story it is important to note the
text’s preceding context. In the face of famine and starvation, the prophet Elijah
promises the widow at Zarephath that the God of Israel will deliver food to her and
her son as she provides lodging to Elijah (17:10-14). Although not explicitly stated,
the assumption is that God will sustain their lives.
Yet the text begins with the widow’s son becoming ill and dying (17:17). This
was not what was expected! It appears to her that Elijah’s presence has brought
not blessing but bane. The promise of life now appears to be hollow. This loss of her
only son is especially grievous because he was to become her sole provider; in this
ancient culture a son would be a widow’s only hope for future sustenance and
survival. One can hear bitterness and even a sense of being betrayed in the bereaved widow’s complaint to Elijah: “What do you have against me, man of God?
Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” (17:18). Perhaps even Elijah
is perplexed with God’s action of bringing death to this household, as reflected in
his lamentation to Yahweh (17:20).
Yet Elijah does not despair in the face of this death. He knows that Yahweh is
not only the God who controls the rain, but also the Lord over death itself and the
giver of life. The prophet is bold to make petition to the Lord: “O LORD my God, let
this boy’s life return to him!” (17:21). Elijah holds Yahweh to be trustworthy to His
Word of life.
The God who is able to raise the dead is also willing to do so; Yahweh restores
the boy’s life (17:22). He bestows deliverance from death to a non-Israelite whose
mother has aligned herself with God’s prophet—and thus with God Himself. The
covenant promise of life is given even to those not of the lineage of Jacob. Elijah
presents the formerly dead child to his mother, providing a wonderfully shocking
answer to her questions. This miracle—the first instance in history of someone
being raised from the dead—serves as a demonstration of Yahweh’s power and
faithfulness (17:23).
Finally, the gracious act of God works faith in God. The widow acclaims Yahweh
to be God and claims His Word as truth (17:24).
Notes on the text: Verse 17: The clause translated as “he stopped breathing,” or
more literally “until there was no breath left in him,” means that the boy had died.
The neshamah had departed from him. In the Old Testament, the presence of
neshamah indicates that the flesh is alive (Gen. 2:7), and its absence indicates
death (Job 34: 14-15). The intended meaning of the clause is not that the child was
merely inanimate yet alive not even near death; he has died. Accordingly, the
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widow accuses Elijah of killing her son (v. 18), and Elijah accuses Yahweh of causing the boy to die (v. 20). The testimony of these—both of whom are intimate to the
situation—is that they young man is dead.
Verse 18: The verb hazkiyr (zkr in the Hiphil) has the sense of causing something to be remembered. What is remembered or called attention to is the woman’s
sin. This Gentile unbeliever possesses a consciousness of guilt. She also associates
her misfortune with such guilt. Certainly this understanding is tainted by her
pagan worldview, yet even for pagans the reality of death can bring to bear the
accusing function of the Law written on the heart. She is especially conscious of
divine judgment because she recognizes that she is in the presence of a “man of
God” (ish ha ’elohim). However, as the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that this
disaster was not sent as a punishment for any particular sins, but to reveal the
power and mercy of the true God (cf. John 9:3).
Verse 21: Accompanying Elijah’s plea for the child’s life to return is the physical action of stretching himself out on the boy three time. The verb yithmoded (mdd
in the Hithpoel) literally means to measure oneself—Elijah measured himself out
upon the boy. Although a different verb is used in 2 Kings 4:34, where Elisha brings
back to the Shumanite’s dead son, the positioning of the prophet directly over the
corpse is similar. Most likely this gesture signifies the transference of the life force
from the servant of God to the deceased, not in a magical manner, but in an instrumental way (i.e., Elijah is the agent of Yahweh’s power to restore life, even as
pastors today are agents who mediate the Holy Spirit’s life-giving power).
Verse 21-23: The repetition of the theme of life in these three verses highlights
the central theme of the narrative—Yahweh is the Lord and giver of life. In verse 21
Elijah asks Yahweh to restore the nephesh to the lad. In verse 22 the nephesh is
restored, upon which the text states that the child “lived” (wayyechiy). In verse 23
the prophet announces to the mother that her son is alive (chay). The emphasis is
clear that this is no mere resuscitation; it is a revivificaiton!
Verse 23: Whereas in verse 18 the widow accuses the “man of God” (ish ha’
elohim) of bringing disaster upon her house, now she uses the same epithet to
acclaim Elijah as the spokesman of a merciful Yawheh whose word is the truth
(‘emeth). Her confession is one of faith in Elijah’s word (and thus in the word of
Yahweh), since her claim that this word is ‘emeth is an affirmation of its dependability and certainty.
Focus statement: The reason we are confident that we shall live beyond the
grave is because God has power over death and promises to raise us from the dead.
Goal: The hearers are confident that God gives life, even—and especially—in
the event of death.
Malady: The hearers doubt God’s promise of life and so despair when confronted with the reality of their own death and that of their loved ones.
Means: In Christ, God has conquered sin and death at the cross and empty
tomb. Now, as Lord over death, He gives eternal life to all who trust His power to
raise the dead.
Suggested outline:
Questions of Life and Death
Introduction: At the death of a loved one, or as we face death ourselves, we find
ourselves asking ponderous questions: “Why did God allow this death? Is God
angry with me? Is there life beyond the grave?” In our text from 1 Kings 17, a widow
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who has just lost her only son asks pain-filled questions of the prophet of God:
“What do you have against me? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my
son?” (v. 18). In our grief, we ask similar questions. Yet God provides an answer.
I. Our question: Why do we experience death when God has promised life?
A. The widow questions why the God who promised life brought death to her
household.
1. She had trusted that Elijah’s presence would sustain her life and
that of her son (1 Kings 17:14-16).
2. When her son dies, she assumes that God has brought this judgment
upon her because of her guilt (1 Kings 17:17-18).
3. Her questions to Elijah indicate despair over the promise that their
lives would be sustained (1 Kings 17:18).
B. When we experience the death of loved ones, or confront our own death, we
question God’s promise of life.
1. We recognize our sinfulness and fear God’s punishment of death.
2. We doubt God’s willingness to bring life out of death.
3. We despair of God’s promise of eternal life.
II. God’s answer: He restores life!
A. God answers our doubts by demonstrating His power over death.
1. God used Elijah to restore the life of the widow’s son (1 Kings 17:1923).
2. Jesus restored the life of another widow’s son (Luke 7:11-17).
3. God resurrected Jesus after His atoning death.
B. God answers our despair by promising to raise us from the dead.
1. Jesus has taken the cause of death—our sin—upon Himself so that
we are forgiven.
2. Jesus has taken the penalty of sin—our death—upon Himself so that
we do not die eternally.
3. Jesus shares His victory over death—His resurrection—with us so
that even though we die, yet shall we live (John 11:25).
III. Our response: We are confident in God’s promise of life.
A. The widow confessed her faith in the power and promise of God (1 Kings
17:24).
B. We trust God’s power over death and His promise of resurrection to us.
David Peter
Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6)
2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13, 14
June 17, 2007
Understanding the text as text: The text of the account in 2 Samuel 11–12 of the
aftermath of David’s affair with Bathsheba is reasonably well-established, with
only one really significant textual variant (in 12:14, see below). In 12:1, some
Hebrew manuscripts join the Septuagint in adding Nathan’s title the prophet
after his name. A few Greek manuscripts also add an introductory phrase to the
beginning of Nathan’s speech. Both of these are almost certainly secondary expansionist developments. One might be tempted to adopt the shortening of the beginCONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2007
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ning of verse 9 from “Why have you despised the word of the Lord...” to “Why have
you despised the Lord...” as preserved in the Lucianic rescension of the Septuagint
and Theodotion (especially since Theodotion often preserves forms closer to the
MT than other Greek translators) were it not for the Lucianic rescension’s general
unreliability in these passages. Given that Theodotion was probably a revision of
earlier Greek translations, the conjunction of these two sources may reflect
Theodotion’s dependence on a Lucianic-type text rather than a separate witness to
the abbreviated reading. The few other variants are a combination of orthographic
or stylistic variation among the scribes, and none are likely to be a part of the
original text. There is an odd Kethiv-Qere in verse 9. Curiously, every English
translation of which I am aware follows the third person suffix of the consonantal
text (his eyes) rather than the reading recommended by the Masoretes of the first
person suffix (my eyes). The context seems to suggest that the translators are right
and the Masoretes are wrong.
The only really significant variant is found in 12:14. There the MT (supported
by the Septuagint and the Vulgate) appears to read the problematic “...because you
have utterly scorned the enemies of the Lord by this deed...” where the context
leads us to expect that David would be accused of scorning the Lord rather than
scorning the Lord’s enemies. There are no true variants that are helpful in this
situation. The Dead Sea Scrolls variant cited by the ESV’s notes appears to be a
secondary attempt to get around the problem by substituting “word” for “enemies”
(“... scorned the word of the Lord...”). Lacking any obvious solution, modern translators take one of two positions. Some translations, including the ESV, generally
follow the lead of the RSV in simply omitting the phrase “the enemies of” and
translate, “...because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD...” (ESV).
Presumably this is on the assumption that the phrase was inserted into the text at
a later time to soften the judgment against the much-admired David. Other English translations follow the general lead of the KJV and attempt to take the verb
forms as causative, translating something like, “because by this deed you have
given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme...” (NKJV, see also
NIV and JPS that translate in a similar way). While appealing as a solution, the
text itself cannot support this translation. Of these alternatives the former seems
to fit the context better.
The translation itself presents few problems. Nathan’s parable (2 Sam. 12:1–
4) is lovely, evocative Hebrew, and one can almost feel the intensity in David’s
response (vv. 5–6). The contrast between the gentle evocativeness of the parable
and the terse language of Nathan’s accusation is impressive. The repeated “I”s of
Yahweh’s speech strike like hammer blows, and the vividness of the language
makes one almost wince with David at each new reminder of all that God has done
for him. The terse style of these verses make them slightly more challenging to
translate, but apart from a few obscure words none of the passage would qualify as
difficult Hebrew. The key question in 12:9 is not handled all that well by the ESV:
“Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight?” Here
the infinitive construct is used (as commonly) to indicate the action that is taken
as a way to accomplished something, and a better translation would be, “Why have
you despised the word of the Lord, by doing what is evil in his sight?” For comments
on the translation of 12:14, see above.
Understanding the text as literature: The passage before us is the climax of a
larger narrative that recounts the sin of David with Bathsheba and the narrative
of the arranged death of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah (2 Sam. 11:1-25). It continues
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after our account with the death of the child born to David and Bathsheba (2 Sam.
12:15-23). This climax contains the dramatic scene of the encounter between David
and God’s prophet Nathan. In the dialogue, David responds in anger to the situation described in Nathan’s parable, and is condemned out of his own mouth as a
result. There are few move vivid scenes of prophetic condemnation in the entire Old
Testament.
It is the general task of prophetic literature in the Old Testament to interpret
the work of God in and through history on the basis of the revelation of God given in
the Torah. Such a prophetic epic history is unique in the Ancient Near East. As a
result there is no direct parallel to this kind of literature outside the Bible with
which we may compare it. While this scene is a part of the larger succession narrative that establishes the legitimacy of the Davidic monarchy as the house chosen
by God to rule over Israel, it is noteworthy that the text never becomes a fawning
hagiography. Despite the fact that he is God’s anointed ruler, David is presented as
a flawed man, here and elsewhere in the narrative. This distinctive literary aspect
of the text has significant theological implications.
Understanding the text as theology: The willingness of the Old Testament to
show us the flaws of even the most “saintly’”Israelites illustrates an important
theological point. That Abraham tried to avoid trouble by passing his wife off as
his sister and had a child by his wife’s maidservant (whom he subsequently treated
very badly); that Moses is shown to be not only a killer but also one who is willing
to lie to Pharaoh about the Israelites’ intention to return to Egypt after worshipping God on the holy mountain for three days; that David is shown to be a polygamist, adulterer, and murderer; all of these failings on the part of those who might
be thought of as heroes of the faith serve to underscore the lesson that Israel
learned at the foot of Mt. Sinai after worshipping the golden calf (Ex. 32–34): Not
only did Israel become the people of God by the God’s choice and by God’s action
alone when He redeemed them from Egypt, but also Israel’s continuance as the
people of God depends not on Israel’s ability to keep the Torah, but upon the
gracious and compassionate character of God Himself (Ex. 34:5-7). Indeed, our
account of David’s sin and God’s judgment of it could almost serve as an object
lesson to illustrate how Exodus 34:5–7 works.
One of the differences between a Lutheran reading of the Old Testament and a
conservative Jewish reading of the Old Testament lies in the Lutheran understanding that we generally call the second use of the Law. Conservative Judaism
seems to assume that if God commanded something then it must be possible for us
to do it. Hence Judaism’s emphasis on the keeping of the Law as the basis for
man’s relationship with God. Many well-intentioned Christian preachers make
the same mistake. Their error expresses itself most directly in works-righteousness. The same error is at the heart of the more subtle error of reducing Christianity to a life-style, or a way of living, as well. When Christians reduce Christianity
to a morality they make the same mistake that Israel made, the mistake of thinking that they can keep God’s Law. Israel three times swears that it will keep all of
God’s commands (Ex. 19:8; 24:3, 7), and then immediately broke the first commandment in the most egregious way possible by worshipping a golden calf before
Moses was even finished receiving the instructions that Israel had sworn to obey.
Lutherans ought not to make the mistake of thinking that if God commanded
something we must be able to do it, but should understand that God’s commands,
like Nathan’s parable, drive us to a recognition that we cannot keep the Law of
God, and move us, like David, to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God who has
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revealed Himself to be “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...” (Ex. 34:6–7).
The recognition that not only does our salvation depend upon God’s grace
alone, but our ongoing relationship with God depends entirely on God’s forgiving
nature and not on our ability to keep His teaching perfectly may tempt some to
disregard the reality of the divine call to true repentance. Genuine saving faith
begins with repentance. Where there is no repentance there is only a self-serving
faith, a faith centered upon ourselves rather than upon Christ. That David was
truly penitent is reflected in his words in response to Nathan’s accusation, both in
our text and as recorded in Psalm 51. It is only when we have joined with David in
genuine repentance that we can share his joy in being truly forgiven.
Finally, we should recall the role of David as a type of the messiah who is to
come. As the adopted son of God, anointed to rule over Israel, David foreshadows
the one who would be the true Son of God, anointed to rule over not only the earthly
kingdom of Israel but the eschatological kingdom to which all those called from the
ends of the earth to worship the one true God are gathered eternally. The earthly
David is judged and condemned for his own sins; the eschatological Messiah-David,
though sinless, bears the divine judgment, condemnation, and punishment for the
sins of the whole world.
Proclaiming the text: How may we proclaim the Gospel in our generation on the
basis of this text? Two ways suggest themselves. First, and most directly, we might
follow the line of typological development from earthly David to the messianic
Davidic king. “You are the man,” Nathan says as he accuses David of sin (2 Sam.
12:7). “Behold the man,” Pilate says as he presents Jesus to be crucified (John
19:5). With these words two kings stand condemned, a human king condemned for
his own sins and the Son of God, the sinless King of all creation, who stands
condemned by God for the sins of the world.
A second approach focuses on the need for genuine repentance, especially in
the light of contemporary American Christianity’s advocacy of good-feeling and
motivational encouragement in the place of preaching true penitence as the basis
for Christian living. Following this approach one might note that one of the ways
that Christianity in America has changed over the last fifty years is that we have
seen a shift in the central metaphor for understanding what we do in church. The
classic Christian understanding might be characterized by the metaphor of churchas-hospital. There souls made sick by sin are healed by the grace of God at work in
the Word and the Sacraments. Modern American Christianity tends to exchange
the church-as-hospital metaphor for a different image, the church-as-pep-rally.
According to this understanding of church, the function of worship is to get believers excited about being faithful to God’s Word and His mission, and to send them
out charged-up for the week ahead. As psychologically satisfying and consistent
with our culture as this approach may be, it can never be the basis for genuine
Christian faith and growth in discipleship. Nathan calls David to repentance because without repentance there is no absolution, no forgiveness. Preachers and
churches that offer Christians “encouragement” in the form of an easy reconciliation with their immorality are faithless watchmen (Ezek. 33:1-9) who are building
churches on a foundation of sand and misleading the people of God.
Like Nathan, Luther understood the necessity of genuine repentance. Thus he
begins his Ninety-five Theses with the words, “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ,
when He said ‘Repent’, willed that the whole life of believers should be repen202
tance.” But even genuine repentance does not earn God’s favor. Rather it turns from
sin and humbly receives the grace that God freely gives, to David and, through
Christ Jesus, to us.
David L. Adams
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7)
Isaiah 65:1-9
June 24, 2007
This reading appears to be an answer to the question which closes Isaiah 64:
“Will you restrain yourself at these things, O LORD? Will you keep silent, and
afflict us so terribly?” (64:18, ESV). According to the MT, the pericope includes one
complete paragraph (vv. 1-7) and two verses of another which runs through verse
12. While one cannot be dogmatic about what is represented by the Masoretic
system of open and closed paragraphs—petuchoth, marked by a small midline p ,
indicate a new paragraph on a new line; and setumoth, marked by a small midline
s, indicate a new paragraph on the same line—there is some implication/inference
that the petuchoth indicate more “major” and the setumoth indicate more “minor”
sections of thought. If there is anything at all to this distinction, it is interesting to
note that the last occurrence of a petuchah was at the beginning of Isaiah 51
(“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,” 51:1, ESV). This suggests (neither
more nor less) the possibility that the Masoretes treated the entire section from
51:1 through 65:12 as one extended discourse.
It is neither an exilic phenomenon nor a post-exilic one, but a situation that
exists “at all times and in all places” in which those who seek righteousness—in
Isaiah the remnant, the faithful—are apprehensive whether they have exhausted
God’s mercy.
YHWH’s answer begins in His availability. The reflexive character of the Niphal
forms (vrd and acm) includes the notion of permission (see, e.g., Arnold and Choi, A
Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax [Cambridge, 2003], 40), thus the ESV rendering,
“I was ready to be sought…and found.” Humanity’s problem may be represented in
two ways: one, enunciated in Isaiah 55, is that people do not seek God where or
when He is to be found—looking for God in all the wrong places. The other, expressed here, is that people are not looking. He is present—the force of hNEh i (here
with the first common singular pronominal suffix) is to assert presence—and He
endeavors to present Himself, even when nobody is searching, even when people
are not calling on His name (cf. ESV text note). They are “following their own
devices” (65:2, ESV); the root bvx is the one used in Genesis 15:6—God’s reckoning
faith to Abraham as righteousness. People use their own reckonings or reason to
get the measure of God, and that just will not work—“I believe that I cannot by my
own reason or strength…” (SC).
The catalog of impieties (vv. 3b-5a) shows how diametrically opposed to God
stood the people of the prophet’s time. These impieties are couched generally in
terms appropriate to the culture of his time, but it requires rather little effort to
transpose those activities into our time and culture: our nation (and, probably,
even our churches) are not immune to false worship (3b), quests for alternative
“spiritualities” (4a), and distorted religious regulations (4b). We make ourselves
(our attitudes and understandings, even our values) the benchmark against which
we measure God: “Do not come near me, for I am too holy for you” (65:5a, ESV).
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Verses 6-7 assert the God who “will by no means clear the guilty” (Ex. 34:7b,
ESV). The condition of Isaiah’s people, of themselves, was such that YHWH would
be completely justified to “repay” (piel of ~lv
~lv, which here points to a complete
dealing without “restraint”; cf. 64:12) the people’s iniquities and to “measure” (qal
of ddm
ddm) their past deeds (ESV has “measure…payment for their deeds,” but that
strikes me as a dynamic equivalence that is not. If/when YHWH measures the
deeds of the people, it will be shown that they [the deeds] do not measure up; they
[the deeds] accordingly will be rejected).
These verses announce what God could do, and would be entirely justified to
do. Verses 8-9 are in a new paragraph (vv. 9-12, where 10-12 elaborate the basic
declaration of 8-9) and in them God announces what He will do according to the fact
that He is merciful and gracious… (Ex. 34:6-7a). These verses declare the great
“nevertheless.” He will not “destroy them all” (65:8, ESV). Repayment, in the form
of foreign invasion and, eventually, exile, will come rather indiscriminately against
the whole of the people. But YHWH will act for the sake of His servants to preserve
a remnant and restore/rebuild His people (Jacob, Judah).
In Isaiah’s time God remained forbearing; He restrained or withheld the fullness of His wrath. Even in the exile, more than a century after Isaiah, YHWH did
not exhibit the fullness of His judgment against iniquity. There would come a time,
however, when He no longer would restrain Himself. He inflicted the full measure
of sin and its consequences against His Son, His only Son, whom He loved, so that
we might be preserved and “possessors of [His] mountains” (in contrast to the
mountains and hills on which people have made unrighteous offerings, v. 7).
Who are God’s servants, His chosen? At many points in the book of Isaiah, how
to identify YHWH’s proper people is not (re)stated; and so it is here. But one of the
themes or thematic patterns of the book of Isaiah is the significance of knowing
(root [dy
[dy) God, understanding (root !yb
!yb) His nature and character, and trusting (root
xjb
xjb) Him. In the wickedness of the world and its consequent troubles, it becomes
difficult to perceive God and how He really is; even otherwise solid Christians find
it difficult not to wonder where God is, or whether He has gotten fed up with us, or
whether and how He will act to preserve those who seek Him. It is the lifted-up
Savior, Jesus Christ, who announces and demonstrates the true nature of God: “‘I,
I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and
proclaimed…, and you are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I am God’ ” (Is.
43:11-12, ESV).
William W. Carr, Jr.
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8)
1 Kings 19:9b-21
July 1, 2007
How Alone Is Alone with God?
Elijah’s sense of loneliness, deep and foreboding, far from unique in Scripture,
is shared by prophets from Moses to Isaiah to Jeremiah, as well as by psalmists,
by “the greatest of the sons of the east,” Job, and finally and most fully by our Lord
on the cross. So also with people today whose commitment to God (as “zealous” as
was Elijah) only deepens the pain of ridicule, rejection, and seeming failure.
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God’s multi-level response to Elijah is that he is not as alone and not as empty
as he was expressing.
1. God Himself is with Elijah, and to underline that, He “passes by” close
enough and clearly enough to move Elijah beyond doubt and fear. Interestingly, God
chooses not to reveal Himself in forms of power and force as He did elsewhere
(usually in judgment, but also at Sinai), but in that “still, small voice” (“low whisper–ESV, “gentle whisper”–NIV) that spoke comfort and strength to a deflated
Elijah. This “understated” form of God’s presence is consistent with the incarnate
(and easily rejected) Word and the common means of water and bread/wine. God
blows where and how He will, but in ways to comfort and to strengthen His servants.
2. There were seven thousand other Elijahs (v. 18) who were partnering in
God’s mission, but outside Elijah’s acquaintance. The means God uses in His royal
and salvific reign are many and varied. His grace is that He includes us among
those means, and the joy is in discovering partners and fellows in our common faith
and ministry.
3. God appoints a successor, Elisha, who leaves all and follows (zealously) no
less than did the disciples at the Lord’s call.
4. Underlying all responses is God’s implicit call that Elijah continues his
“zealous” service of God.
Suggested outline:
I. Service to God can lead to doubt, to a sense of loneliness, as well as fear of
failure before God. If left to fester, it can grow into a difficult form of unfaith.
II. God’s most fundamental promise to His servants has always been that of His
presence, Immanuel (God with us).
A. For Elijah that took the form of God’s “gentle whisper,” gentle not because
it did not leave his hair standing on end but because it left Elijah strengthened.
B. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son whom He Himself named
Immanuel. Through that Son came not just a whisper but a washing, a
cleansing of all spiritual grime, both gross and open sin as well as haunting doubt and despair. Indeed, when that Son spoke from the cross to one
of the thieves, He bestowed Immanuel, and so He promised to His disciples then and today (Matt. 28:20).
C. Consistent with that “gentle whisper” for Elijah is the gentle touch of
water and the gentle sustenance of bread and wine, unpretentious in form,
but filled with life, now and forever, with him, Immanuel.
III. With those gifts, God calls His servant (and His servants to this day) to continued service, encouraged by the wider corps of Gospel partners, that spans
time (like the 7,000) and space (like the successor Elisha), but all undergirded
by the gift and strength of Immanuel.
Henry Rowold
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Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9)
Isaiah 66:10-14
July 8, 2007
Submitted below is a manuscript of a sermon. The reader has permission to
utilize any useful aspects of this manuscript in crafting his own sermon based on this
text.
The Motherly Love of a Father God
God is presented as a father in the Scriptures. Indeed, that is His title as one
of the three persons of the holy Trinity—God the Father. Yet though the term
“Father” is His proper title, there are also a multitude of maternal or mother-like
characteristics with which He is described in the Bible. True, we do not go to an
unbiblical extreme and start praying in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Mother who art in
heaven.” Yet we must not miss those passages in Scripture where the Lord is
portrayed with the qualities of a loving mother. One of those passages is our text
from Isaiah 66.
In this passage God is figuratively portrayed as a mother who nourishes and
cares for her children. In a powerful way Isaiah 66 shows us how mothers model the
love and nurture of God. James Thackery once wrote that “mother” is the name for
God in the lips and hearts of little children. Indeed, God portrays Himself with
motherly qualities in this text. Here the prophet Isaiah depicts God with two
mother-like characteristics: a mother’s provision and her pardon.
First, a mother’s provision. A mother constantly provides for and cares for her
beloved children. God has created woman uniquely to serve in that nurturing role
by endowing her with the ability to nurse a baby. Verses 10 through 12 of Isaiah 66
reflect this. (Read these verses.)
Note that several times in these few verses Isaiah uses the imagery of a baby
nursing at his mother’s breast. Also observe that the one described as a mother in
these verses is the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the city where God dwelt among
His people in the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah is saying that it is in this
place, the place where God is, that people find nurture and life. And the imagery
that Isaiah uses is that of a mother nursing her babies.
This act of provision is an expression of sacrificial love. A mother gives of
herself sacrificially to her children. She cares for her helpless infant’s every need.
She nurses him, changes his diaper, gets up at night to feed him, carries him
wherever she goes. Moreover, that provision continues while the kids are growing
up. Mom prepares meals and then sacrificially chooses the smallest portion of food
so that her children are fed. She gives much of her time and all that she is to them
and for them. She gets tired—dead tired!—and yet she keeps giving.
It is that kind of sacrificial giving that reflects the never-failing provision of
God. In verse 12 of our text God promises, “I will extend…the wealth of nations like
a flooding stream.” God is our great provider by graciously giving us food to eat, air
to breathe, health, possessions, and all the necessities for our physical life. But
there is more! Through His church, which is the new city of God—the true Jerusalem—God nurtures and feeds us with His Word and Sacraments. He is our ultimate provider in giving us that spiritual milk to nurse upon, which is His lifegiving Word. In sending us Jesus Christ, and through Christ’s life, death, and
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resurrection, God has given us spiritual life as well—abundant and eternal life.
Our text puts it this way, “You will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing
abundance” (v. 11). Like helpless newborn infants, we would be lost without it. But
the motherly love of our Father God lavishes us through Jesus Christ with all we
need for this life—and for the life to come.
Secondly, not only do mothers model for us God’s provision, but also His pardon. In our text, the Lord addresses the rebellious and renegade children of Israel,
whom He will have to discipline by exiling them in Babylon. They had chosen to
disobey Him by pursuing other gods and dismissing His covenant. Similarly, the
Lord disciplines us for our sinfulness and rebellion against His will. He is not a
permissive parent who simply winks at the wrong-doing of His children. The final
statement of our text is that God’s “fury will be shown to his foes” (v. 14). To the
unrepentant and those who reject God, there is judgment and damnation from His
mighty hand. Because of our sin, we are deserving of God’s rejection and wrath both
now and forevermore.
Yet God extends pardon to His repentant children. In verse 13 God speaks
these words: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be
comforted over Jerusalem.” This word “comfort” is used frequently in the latter
half of the book of Isaiah to express God’s mercy and forgiveness to the people of
Judah chastened because of their sin. He extends absolution and hope to the people
who face exile for their rebellion. And He does so in words which portray a mother’s
pardon.
I am impressed when I watch televised interviews of mothers of convicted
criminals about how they speak of continued love for their children. Murderers,
arsonists, thieves, rapists—these are their children. Yet the mothers claim that
they could never forsake or forget these incarcerated sons and daughters. Closer to
home, we have all hurt our mothers in some way—through disobedience or defiance, anger or arrogance, neglect or failure. Still, they forgive us and pardon us,
taking us into their arms and comforting us.
It is this kind of motherly pardon that God extends to us as well. How comforting that forgiveness is to us, His disobedient children. As a mother will never
forsake her criminal child, so God promises never to forsake us, but to pardon our
darkest sins. As a tear-stained child is comforted in his mother’s lap, so we sinful
children of God are comforted in the warm embrace of His grace.
This pardon is all and only because the punishment for our rebellion has been
suffered by Christ, God’s only-begotten Son. Upon the cross He cried out, “My God,
my God! Why have you forsaken me?” Jesus bore our sin and its eternal punishment so that we would never be forsaken by the Father. Instead, we are pardoned
and embraced by God like a mother comforts her penitent child.
A mother’s provision and her pardon—these are gifts she gives to her children.
These are gifts we receive from the motherly love of our Father God.
David Peter
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10)
Leviticus (18:1-5) 19:9-18
July 15, 2007
Textual considerations: This text is part of a larger unit (chaps. 18-20) on moral
laws, believers’ responsibilities to their neighbors, which places it in the second
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table of the Law and in the realm of civil righteousness. Leviticus 18:1-5 is an
introduction to the prohibitions against Israel following in the incestuous and
sexual immoralities of the Egyptians and Canaanites discussed in the rest of
chapter 18 and a general introduction to keep all the laws and ordinances of Yahweh
itemized in chapters 19 and 20. The introduction ends with a promise in verse 5,
namely, that Israelites who live according to God’s ordinances will live lives blessed
by God. This chapter ends with an allusion to the consequences of disobedience (vv.
24-30); there are also frequent mentions of punishments for ungodly conduct in the
remainder of chapter 19 and in chapter 20. Concordia Self-Study Bible (St. Louis:
Concordia, 1986) says this about chapters 18-20: “Here God’s people are given
instructions concerning interpersonal relations and a morality reflecting God’s
holiness. Israel was thereby prepared for a life different from the Canaanites,
whose life-style was deplorably immoral. Chapter 18 contains prohibitions in the
moral sphere, chapter 19 expands the Ten Commandments to detail correct morality, and chapter 20 assesses the penalties for violating God’s standard or morality”
(168). In our text the phrase “I am the Lord” occurs eight times (forty-two times in
chaps. 18-26) as a constant reminder that God is the author of the moral law. The
required conduct of this text is summed up in the second table of the Law—“love
your neighbor as yourself” (18:11, which is quoted by Christ in the Synoptic Gospels).
The main text contains a catalogue of exhortations on godly conduct in relation
to other people, especially the poor, downtrodden, and distressed in society. The
conduct demanded falls within the area of civil righteousness (cf. the articles on
the two kinds of righteousness in this issue) or the second table of the Law. This
section begins with an admonition to provide sustenance for people by allowing the
needy to glean for the grain that had been left behind in the fields during harvest.
It proceeds then in the areas of deception, slander, injustice, and hatred.
Homiletical considerations: The laws listed in this text are not listed as requirements for salvation but as specifications on the kind of conduct God expects
from His people, those already redeemed. We have here a third use of the Law.
Rather than try to cover all the specific laws in this text the pastor may
concentrate on one or several related laws that are especially relevant to the contemporary or local context. The main thrust of the text is that the behavior of God’s
people is the opposite of the conduct acceptable to the world (Canaanites vs. the
Israelites; secular world vs. Christians). Then one might single out verse 11b and
c on lying and deception, which are not only done with abandon but also frequently
justified in our society. For background material one might check an article on lying
by American presidents in the January/February 2007 issue of The Atlantic, “Untruth and Consequences” (56-67), and some of the other sources referenced in the
article. Lying and deception have become increasingly worse in our society. Sissela
Bok wrote in the preface to a 1999 updated edition of her book Lying: Moral Choice
in Public and Private Life, “No matter how our own period comes to be judged…what
is already certain is that we are all on the receiving end of a great many more lies
than in the past” (quoted from The Atlantic issue mentioned above, 62). Lying at
the highest levels undermines the social fabric and whittles away at political
structures. A recent report on the results of educational reforms show an improvement in students’ grades but a decline in the amount and quality of the material
that was actually learned. Either the improved grades or the erosion of cumulative
learning is a lie; both cannot be true. If lying becomes endemic and acceptable in
religion, then the influence and authority of the pastor and church leaders are
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undercut or the doctrines proclaimed can no longer be trusted as absolute truth. On
this front there are a number of illustrations currently beleaguering contemporary
Christianity—in contradiction to the Fifth Commandment some churches sanction abortion, or over against clear Biblical mandates opposing homosexuality
some churches approve of the gay/lesbian lifestyle and same-sex marriages. One
view is the truth and the other is a lie—both cannot be true. Just as in government
and in public and personal life, such deception in the church undercuts the integrity
and trustworthiness of the church and its message.
Although this is basically a Law text, the Gospel can be brought in in several
ways. The text is addressed to the Israelites, those who are already God’s chosen
people. When we preach on this text, we are speaking largely to an assembly of
baptized people—people who already rejoice in the good news of the Gospel. The
degree to which we can keep these commandments is dependent on the Holy Spirit
working in our hearts—such sanctification can only follow justification. Also, such
behavior can be pleasing to God only if it is done in faith. The text speaks to the life
of sanctification, not to the process of justification, which depends solely upon
Christ and His salvific work.
Some Principles for Christian Living
I. The dangers of living by the world’s/society’s standards and the rewards of
living according to God’s expectations.
II. Social acceptance and prevalence cannot sanction immoral, God-forbidden
behavior.
III. The benefits of godly conduct include personal and ecclesial integrity, as well
as blessings that God bestows on His chosen people.
Quentin F. Wesselschmidt
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
St. Mary Magdalene (Proper 11)
Proverbs 31:10-31
July 22, 2007
Presuming that the decision is made to displace the Eighth Sunday after
Pentecost with the Festival of St. Mary Magdalene, a second-class feast [which
would not be the normal procedure historically], the Old Testament reading for
this festival day provides the opportunity to preach on vocation in light of the
Resurrection of our Lord. The Festival Day of St. Mary Magdalene celebrates her
role as the “apostle to the apostles,” as depicted in the Gospel reading from John
20, one whose vocation as the first witness to the resurrection should lead to
praising her “in the gates” (Prov. 31:31).
Textual comments: Proverbs 31:10-31 is an unabashed celebration of wifely,
domestic vocation, a poetic depiction of the ideal female living out her vocation. It
is a shame that this festival day does not fall closer to Mother’s Day because this
reading would be ideal for that secular observance. The reading adopts a perspective that is for the benefit of the husband, and extolling the ideal wife so as to
prevent her husband from breaking the Sixth Commandment. The ideal wife depicted here is a woman who manages her household in the fear of God. Her faithfulness in looking “well to the ways of her household” (v. 27) manifests the wisdom of
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God’s ordering of His creation. Through her attention to her vocational responsibilities she bears witness to her fear of the Lord and of His ways of managing His
creation. Her wisdom—seen in the labor of her hands, in her provision for her
household, and in the teaching that flows from her mouth—leads the heart of her
husband to trust in her (v. 11). Charles Bridges writes in the updating of his A
Modern Study of the Book of Proverbs: “Everything is so carefully and economically
managed; he is never tempted to dishonesty to fulfill his desires; no need to leave
his happy home. The love and loyalty of such a wife will endure throughout their
marriage—constant and consistent.” The divine economy of God the Father in
relation to His creatures through Christ is imaged in this relationship between
husband and wife.
Why, then, is this the appointed Old Testament reading for the Festival of St.
Mary Magdalene since Christian tradition does not provide us with conclusive
information on her marital status? Job 31 is an alphabetic acrostic poem, summarizing the ideal of the faithful wife/woman through the use of all the letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. This denotes that the wisdom of the wife depicted here is the
fulfillment and completion of wisdom in the ideal woman. It also functions as a
hymn calling for the praise of a woman who lives by the Wisdom of God. As a hymn
[parallels hymnic Psalms 111 and 112] to the superlatively capable woman, calling for and instigating praise of her, it extols the active good works of a woman in
the vocational realms of the family, community, and business. These good works
proceed out of true fear, love, and trust in the Lord. This is true, godly wisdom. In
her witness to the resurrection Mary Magdalene is the epitome of such wisdom as
she fears and trusts the word spoken to her by the resurrected Lord Jesus.
Liturgical and homiletical comments: As a Responsory for this day indicates—
“Mary, do not weep; the Lord is risen from the dead”—the festival of St. Mary
Magdalene, like the Sunday on which it is celebrated, is a little Easter in the midst
of the great season of Pentecost. As the first to see the risen Lord and the first to
bear witness to His appearing, Mary Magdalene epitomizes the response of faith
and witness for all those baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection: “ ‘I have
seen the Lord!’ And she told them that He had said these things to her” (John
20:17). Such a response of faith is encapsulated in the appointed Verse for the day
in LSB. In the encounter with the risen Lord is birthed her vocation as a witness to
His resurrected life as expressed in the Roman Catholic collect for the day: “Father,
your Son first entrusted to Mary Magdalene the joyful news of His resurrection...may
we proclaim Christ as our living Lord and one day see Him in glory.” The sight of her
living Lord, and the word of His mercy and grace toward her, brings life and salvation to Mary. From that new life He speaks His call to her to proclaim His Word to
the disciples. New life in the Word is the seed of her new vocation as a child of God.
In this encounter and in Mary herself passive and active righteousness are indivisible. Her identity has been radically changed by the One who was dead but is now
alive and has appeared to and greeted her in the embrace of His words. His new life
springs up inside of her and she can do no other than to keep His command and
proclaim His good news to the disciples. Her new identity through the risen Lord
grants a new way of living toward God and toward those around her.
As it is with Mary Magdalene, so it is with those who hear the joyful news of
the resurrection in the Word addressed to them in Baptism: “The Almighty God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…has given you the new birth of water and the
Spirit.” Like Mary, we are called, in the words of the LSB collect, to know the
Almighty God in the power of the Son’s unending life. As Mary heard the call of her
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Good Shepherd (Gradual), so all the sheep incline their ear and hear His voice.
Hearing His voice includes heeding His call to bear witness in word and deed to the
Word of God—the Wisdom of God—risen and ascended to the Father’s throne. A
life of witness is reflected in the Wife of Noble Character in Proverbs 31. A woman
who fears the Lord is one who lives in the Wisdom of the Lord. A life of Wisdom, at
least for those called to be wives and mothers, involves the opening of arms in
generosity and vigorous service to those in her household and all those in the
community (those who gather within the city gate, Prov. 31:31). The life of Wisdom
of Mary Magdalene and of all the baptized is envisioned in Paul’s words in 2
Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded
this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those
who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and
was raised” (ESV). No wonder finding an excellent wife (and husband) of noble
character is so difficult! She is far more precious than jewels because such a woman
can only be found where the almighty God’s work of resurrection and new life is
found: in the Word made flesh, proclaimed, and witnessed. Such a servant of God
can only be found where the Spirit is bestowing the life and salvation of Christ.
And that is exactly where Mary Magdalene is to be found!
Kent J. Burreson
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12)
Genesis 18: (17-19), 20-33
July 29, 2007
There are two lines (for our purposes) that run through Scripture from beginning to end, and this text is one of the many places where they touch.
One line is that of a world run amuck, beginning with Adam and Eve, who
succumbed to the temptation to decide for themselves what is good and evil. In
opting for “good” in separation from God, however, they ended up with evil—not
merely something that was not good, but something that spread with explosive,
insidious force to every part of life and every part of the world. Sodom and Gomorrah
in our text represent the epitome of that evil (cf. the sordid narrative in Gen. 19). As
we know well, pockmarks of that evil dot our world also: warfare, terror, pandemics,
starvation, oppression, ecological travesty. (These modern realities can be developed and interwoven in items I and III below.)
The second line is that of God’s outreach to His world, beginning also with
Adam and Eve. God’s first word to them, as they began their fateful journey away
from Him, bore an implicit invitation that they return to Him: “Where [else but
with Me] are you?” In the face of a world running increasingly amuck and not
responding to God’s invitation, God proactively selects servants to embody and
extend that invitation, and Abraham is the first to be drawn into God’s purpose/
mission, namely, to be blessed, to be/become a blessing, so that “in you [and in your
descendants] all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Abraham
(and his descendants) bears the touch of God’s blessing for the world gone amuck.
Today’s text (Gen. 18:17-19, 20-23) is one of the places where these lines intersect with sparks flying.
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For the Sake of Ten? No, for the Sake of One!
I. A world amuck, proud and self-content, faces inevitable judgment.
A. Self-proclaimed “freedom” is never freedom from God, merely freedom
from the grace of God:
1. Grace to live humane, joyous lives free from fear and strife.
2. Grace to live in the peace and love of God.
B. The Sodoms and Gomorrahs of the world who prefer to live without God
live in God’s judgment already, with eternal judgment still to come.
C. Abraham, too, understood the gravity of God’s pronouncement of judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.
II. Amazingly, Abraham intervenes and intercedes.
A. Abraham begins humbly, aware that he who is “but dust and ashes” (18:27)
is approaching the holy Lord.
B. However, Abraham is not being presumptuous because his intercession is
precisely the mission into which God called him, namely, that though him
“all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” even seemingly the families of Sodom and Gomorrah.
C. Further, Abraham appeals that God be faithful to His mercy, even at the
expense of His justice. Rather than “sweep away the righteous with the
wicked,” Abraham pleads that God save the cities for the sake of as few as
ten righteous people…but also for God’s own nature.
III. As fervent and faithful, even brash, as Abraham’s intercession is, however, he
could neither find nor make ten righteous. Imagine his shock and disappointment! And “the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace” (19:28).
IV. Abraham’s ministry of blessing for all the families of the world continues
through his offspring and takes new focus in that One whom Matthew terms
“the son of Abraham” (1:1).
A. In Jesus Christ, those primal lines intersect with clarity and power.
B. Abraham reduced the number to ten but came up empty. Jesus reduced
the number to one and Himself became that One. By bearing the judgment rained down on systemic evil, He brought the blessing God intended
through Abraham. Indeed, He provided the righteousness that none of us
could muster on our own.
V. Paul calls “those of faith” the children/offspring of Abraham (Gal. 3:7), which
would include us as well. We have the double joy of (1) being made righteous
through the sacrifice of “the son of Abraham” (buried and raised with Him–
Col. 2:6-15) and (2) being brought into God’s mission, that “in your offspring
all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 22:18; 26:4). As our Lord
calls on us in the Gospel lesson (Luke 11:1-13), we come boldly and confidently
with intercession and prayer into God’s presence, as did our father Abraham.
Henry Rowold
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“On the reading of many books...”
THEOLOGY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT: The Last Two Hundred Years. By Hans
Schwarz. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. 611 pages. Paper. $45.00.
In this informative publication, the author Hans Schwarz, professor of Protestant Theology at the University of Regensburg, Germany, and author of several
professional books, presents in a narrative style the theological landscape of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a global context, focusing mostly on Protestant and partly on Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Putting the massive information, facts, and personalities in a pictorial bird’s-eye view, one may imagine, could
be a complex and fascinating “web” of theology. This publication, however, can be
an excellent guide and helpful reference work for students of theology and “busy,”
theologically alert pastors who do not have enough time to go through the many
new theological works needed for knowledge and information. Prof. Schwarz treats
some 650 names (major ones in bold letters) with years in life and their representative major works dated and carefully indexed. Furthermore, approximately 350
relevant subjects are also indexed. More prominently reputed theologians occupy
several pages in the book, others a few pages or paragraphs; nevertheless, these
names are closely and meaningfully interrelated. Understandably, names like Kant,
Hegel, Schleiermacher, R. Ritschl, A. von Harnack, Barth, Tillich, Bonhoeffer, etc.,
are distinctly notable.
This large volume is so schematized in fifteen sections with a comprehensive
list, “For Further Reading,” in the primary sources to allow the theologians mentioned to speak with their own voice. Foreign words and titles are carefully translated into English. Each section presents an enlightening sub-landscape regarding
the author’s approach to the complex materials. The titles of the sections read:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Stemming the Tide of the Enlightenment
Hegel’s System and Its Branches
A New Kind of Orthodoxy
Reformation and the Pietistic Awakening
Cultural Protestantism
The Challenge of the Industrial Revolution
Stemming the Tide of Scientific Materialism
The Challenge of Religion
The Battle of Jesus
New-Reformation Theology
Relating God and the World in North America
Europe’s Emphasis on Relating Christ to the World
Theology is More than Protestant
The Emergence of New Voices
A Vigorous Dialogue
Each section is related to the others, either directly or indirectly. Indeed, the
book can be an illustration of a dexterous blending of biography, theology, and
history with clear time and the context of life, social, and cultural settings. Similar
entries on philosophy, literature, and even missiology can be likewise valuable.
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The author did not forget to mention how much impact and influence were
exerted by people like Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Alfred N. Whitehead, etc. Philosophy, the history of theology, and the “History of Religious School” (represented
by Ernst Troeltsch) are also dealt with. Prominent figures in the past are likewise
remembered, such as St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin,
and others, and their influence upon the nineteenth-and twentieth-century theologians and their ideas, is noted charting their relation to the past. The present can
be assessed rightly in light of the past. Indeed, history is important. Schwarz says,
“If we had no past [rootedness], we would simply drift on the waves of the
present...link both forward and backward [the product of the past]” (xvi).
Understandably, the book is Eurocentric on Europe and America. However, the
author pays thoughtful attention to the situations in the world and the theological
scenes that are so increasingly authentic and challenging today, namely, the “Emergence of New Voices” (section 14), relating Jesus Christ to newly arising issues.
Theology is necessarily contextual, not isolating itself on a specific continent and
in a certain spiritual milieu. True, Christian theology can no longer enjoy a privileged position, disregarding other disciplines of knowledge, nor can Christianity
likewise be without concern and attention to other world religions. The rapid advancement of communication media, transportation, and direct and easier human
contact force us to feel more and more the nearness of other disciples, traditions,
and various truth claims. This certainly calls for “dialogue” (section 15) and mutual understanding and respect in all walks of life today. Such new phenomena
consequently set a course and direction for an ecumenical theological perspective
in the years to come.
The concise comments and succinct evaluation of the author in an inviting
style with supportive footnotes can be very beneficial for the further study of individual theologians of the reader’s choice, their relations with earlier and later
thinkers’ controversial issues, and their major contribution to theology. This publication, in an encyclopedic nature, also provides condensed introductions that can
be an appetizer for entering into certain areas of theology and influential theologians.
A few random observations: The Lutheran World Federation is not included in
the subject index, while the World Council of Churches is prominently mentioned
in many references and the index. The “Lutheran Renaissance,” “contextualization,”
“indigenous theology” are also not mentioned, nor is a name like Karl Holl in the
index of names. Delores S. Williams (498) is without years. Johann A. (not H.)
Grabau is correct (95). The significant section of “New Voices” deals mostly with
the so-called liberal “ecumenical” theologians and a very few “evangelical” and
“confessional” convictions. None of these minor remarks, however, detract, from
the reviewer’s enthusiastic recommendation of this very enlightening account of
theology in the global context today.
Won Yong Ji
HOW ON EARTH DID JESUS BECOME A GOD?: Historical Questions about
Earliest Devotion to Jesus. By Larry W. Hurtado. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005. xii + 238 pages. Paper. $20.00.
In an earlier review (CJ 31, No. 3 [2005], 335-337) I alerted our readers to
Larry Hurtado’s important full-length study, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in
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Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, 2003). The present volume from Hurtado provides a readable and much briefer access to essentially the same topic. The provocative title is an intentional double entendre that raises the two major concerns
of this book: (1) the remarkable fact (“How on earth…?!”) that early Christians
offered worship to Jesus of Nazareth and regarded Him as divine; and (2) the
attempt to describe and explain historically (“How on earth...?”) the rise of this
central and widespread feature of earliest Christianity.
This volume is comprised of two parts, each presented in four chapters. Part
one, “Issues and Approaches,” had its genesis in public lectures given at BenGurion University in Israel in 2004. Part two, “Definitions and Defense,” consists
of four previously published articles. Inevitably, a single volume with such a mixed
genealogy will at times lack coherence and become redundant, and this is a noticeable feature of the present work. Nevertheless, for readers who cannot invest the
energy to tackle Hurtado’s Lord Jesus Christ (at almost seven hundred pages), this
is an excellent introduction to Hurtado’s important thesis.
Hurtado has worked for decades to describe the character and origins of what
he refers to as earliest Christian “Jesus-devotion.” Six specific practices common
in earliest Christianity make up this Jesus-devotion: “hymns sung in the gathered
worship setting both concerning Jesus and to him; prayer to Jesus and in his name;
ritual use of Jesus’ name in public cultic actions such a baptisms, exorcisms,
excommunications, and so on; participation in the corporate sacred meal as ‘the
Lord’s Supper’; ritual ‘confession’ (homologein) of Jesus in honorific terms; and
prophecy uttered in Jesus’ name and even as his spirit or voice” (198). Chapter one,
“How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?: Approaches to Jesus-devotion in Earliest Christianity,” provides the reader with a brief sketch of earlier scholarly attempts to relegate Jesus-devotion to a later period of the church’s development
and to explain it in “evolutionary” terms. Hurtado rejects these attempts as historically inaccurate. Moreover, these evolutionary explanations cannot explain the
rise of the practices of Jesus-devotion that are reflected in the various strata and
sources of the New Testament.
Chapter two, “Devotion to Jesus and Second Temple Jewish Monotheistic
Piety,” articulates an important point in the discussion, to wit, that the early
Christians (such as Paul) saw no contradiction between their Jesus-devotional
practices and their exclusive commitments to the God of Israel. Hurtado argues
that there simply is no analogy to this “innovation” in Second-Temple Jewish
monotheism. For, on the one hand, “one God is exclusively the rightful recipient of
worship and all else is distinguished as creation of this one God,” while, on the
other hand, worshippers also are eager and willing “to accommodate a second
figure in cultic devotional practice and to conceive of a second figure as somehow
sharing uniquely and genuinely in the attributes and exalted status of the one
God” (46).
Chapter three, “To Live or Die for Jesus: Social and Political Consequences of
Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity,” is an interesting essay, but it seems to
wander off the track set by the book’s stated purpose. Hurtado offers a competent
survey of the ways in which earliest Christians were willing to suffer from governments and in their social relations because of their devotion to Jesus. This topic, as
moving and important as it is in itself, neither describes the nature of Jesusdevotion nor explains its rise.
Chapter four, “A ‘Case Study’ in Early Christian Devotion to Jesus,” is a selective exegetical study of the Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:6-11. Generally a helpful
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piece, the punch of the chapter comes in the final sentence: “In short, this memorable articulation of Christian faith in Philippians 2:6-11 may preserve for us one
remarkable instance of earliest Christians discovering Jesus in the sacred scriptures of Second-Temple Judaism under the impact of powerful religious experiences of revelation and inspiration.” In other words, Philippians 2:6-11 shows us a
specific example of Christian worship of Jesus as divine, and One who shares in
the Divine Name.
Part two of the book, “Definitions and Defense,” offers several previously published essays from Hurtado. Chapter five, “First-Century Jewish Monotheism,”
argues that two factors—confession and worship—characterize first-century Judaism as “monotheistic.” The God of Israel alone was acknowledged as completely
sovereign and as unique in His being; no one is like He is. Moreover, although
remarkable statements about various exalted human or angelic figures occur in
the pertinent literature, none of these exalted figures are the objects of devotion or
worship. This is the monotheistic context in which Jesus-devotion arose among the
earliest Christians.
Chapter six, “Homage to the Historical Jesus and Early Christian Devotion,”
attempts to read the Gospels of the New Testament and their statements about
various figures “worshiping” Jesus during His earthly ministry as evidence of Jesusdevotion in the communities in which these Gospels arose. This chapter is the
least satisfying. Hurtado’s comparative treatment of Matthew’s use of proskuneo
was particularly unconvincing.
Chapter seven, “Early Jewish Opposition to Jesus-Devotion,” has an especially helpful focus on reasons why Saul of Tarsus found it necessary to persecute
the early Christians. Hurtado cautiously, but reasonably, suggests that it was the
Christians’ devotion to Jesus that Saul found too maddening and so worthy of
extermination.
In a way, Hurtado’s own answer to the question “How?” finally arrives in the
form of chapter eight, “Religious Experience and Religious Innovation.” He argues
that, contrary to the view of much modern Biblical scholarship, “religious experiences and revelations” do not always arise out of prior factors, nor can such experiences always be explained as natural developments from earlier thoughts or experiences. Citing scholarship from the social sciences, Hurtado cautiously suggests
that the major reason why a group of Second-Temple monotheistic Jews came to
offer cultic devotion to Jesus consists of the remarkable experience that they had of
the risen and living Christ. Hurtado does not ask his readers to accept such claims
as historical fact. He only asks for the judgment that in human affairs such experiences can function innovatively and creatively, leading groups of people in new
and unexpected ways.
Hurtado’s book is highly recommended. The careful reader gains insight into
the current state of affairs in New Testament studies. In this reviewer’s opinion,
Hurtado succeeds in showing that Jesus-devotion is not some later development in
the Christian movement. So far as it goes, Hurtado’s contention regarding the
innovative power of religious experience is a valid and thought-provoking one. I
might recommend, however, that Hurtado’s work be read in conjunction with N. T.
Wright’s massive defense for the historicity of Jesus’ bodily resurrection (The Resurrection of the Son of God [Fortress, 2002]). Wright argues that the resurrection
appearances of Jesus to His disciples (Hurtado’s “religious experiences”) must be
linked with the datum that the tomb in which the body of Jesus had been laid was
empty on the third day. Then both mind and heart will have an abundance on which
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to feast, and mind and heart will be lifted up to offer devotion in the name of the
risen Jesus to God the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Gibbs
THE EMERGING CHURCH: Vintage Christianity for New Generations. By Dan
Kimball. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003. 268 pages. Paper. $16.99.
EMERGING WORSHIP: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations. By Dan
Kimball. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004. 238 pages. Paper. $14.99.
Just about the time many Missouri Synod congregations have incorprated a
more “contemporary” service or a blended service into their traditional worship
schedules, something new is on the horizon. Actually, it is more than on the horizon;
it is a present reality offering a new option for many Christian congregations.
Instead of “going contemporary,” many Lutheran congregations may consider skipping over the contemporary issue and offering the emerging generation something
that Lutherans do best—the liturgy! Or, as Dan Kimball calls it, “vintage Christianity.”
Emerging culture, to use Kimball’s terminology for the post-modern context,
challenges both the “contemporary” and the “traditional” evangelical churches.
The first half of Emerging Church, particularly chapters three through six, describes this new culture, which is characterized as being pluralistic, wary of authority, accepting of conflicting truth-claims, reliant upon experience over information, yet global through the internet’s accelerated contacts and possibilities. Not
surprisingly, “community is valued over individualism, and thinking, learning, and
beliefs can be determined nonlinearly” (57-58). Often labeled as “post-Christian,”
the majority of the men and women who are emerging into leadership roles in our
society lack roots in Judeo-Christianity. Secularization and toleration are benchmarks for their multi-dimensional perspectives.
Dan Kimball began as a youth pastor but has become a new generation church
guru for post-modern Christianity. Moving beyond “seeker-sensitive” worship (chap.
9), he expresses a sincere missionary mindset for reaching this generation. We are
living in a transitional time or a secular reformation which will inevitably impact
the church as a kind of reversal of what occurred in the sixteenth century, “a major
cultural shift” (66) with eternal consequences.
In these two books published in consecutive years, Kimball provides an alternative to many “evangelical” Christians (I have placed this word in quotations
marks to differentiate it from the true Evangelicals—the Lutherans). This alternate approach is actually a return to traditional worship (as Lutherans know it) in
a less formal setting in order to address the perspectives of the post-modern emerging
society.
Dan Kimball’s first book is the most informative and helpful of the two and so
will be the main focus of this review. Kimball challenges the reader to reconsider
two vital areas that have been central to our own Lutheran identity—church and
ministry. Chapter 8, “What Is ‘Church?’” is subtitled, “The Second Most Important
Chapter in This Book.” Affirming that the church is people, he adds that “the
[obviously non-Lutheran] Reformers…defined the marks of a true church: a place
where the gospel is rightly preached, the sacraments are rightly administered, and
church discipline is exercised” (93). While not mentioning these often, sacramental
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elements will sound welcome to Lutheran ears in spite of the Calvinistic overtones
of discipline. Critiquing the consumer mindset of most evangelical ministries,
Kimball highlights the missional task of Christianity yet regretfully ignores the
promise-filled power of the Sacraments. The emerging generation is open to discussions of truth, he notes (76), leaving the reader to infer that Jesus is “the Truth”
which alone fills the need of all humanity.
In one of his more provocative chapters of Emerging Church, entitled “I Like
Jesus, I Just Don’t Like Christians,” Kimball raises a challenge for Christians in
the twenty-first century. Citing an article by a non-Christian young adult reporting
for a secular music and entertainment paper, Kimball presents a devastating
critique of many “Christian” youth gatherings. The article entitled, “Christapalooza:
20,000 Christians Convene at the Gorge: God Doesn’t Show,” illustrates how a
Christian subculture may cause non-Christians to stumble.
Adding to the dilemma of being Christians in a post-Christian culture which
lacks basic understandings of true Christianity, Kimball points out that the media
is teaching the emerging generations theology. “The angelology is being taught in
movies such as City of Angels, in which an angel can fall in love and become human…. The doctrine of the afterlife is taught in The Sixth Sense, in which departed
souls still wander around modern-day neighborhoods, and in What Dreams May
Come, in which we learn that we can make our way out of hell into a pluralistic type
of heaven.” (85). Such a phenomenon is vital, for Christian pastors and leaders to
understand in this new millennium. How difficult will it be to correct such erroneous teachings, especially when, as Kimball notes, “celebrities serve as our culture’s
prophets and religious philosophers” (86)?
Half of Emerging Church provides the contemporary cultural setting for Christianity. The book then moves to part 2, “Reconstructing Vintage Christianity in the
Emerging Church.” Catechesis (or as he calls it, “spiritual formation” in chapter
19) is a vital element for enabling non-Christians to “come and experience God and
learn about the practices and beliefs of Christians firsthand” (115). “Teaching
parents how to teach their children the ways of God and kingdom living” (151) is
another dimension of this catechesis. Noting that the early church had a liturgy (he
calls it “an order to what they did”), Kimball cites Justin Martyr’s “First Apology”
in which Justin provides the earliest record of a liturgical service, or in Kimball’s
vocabulary, a “worship gathering” (117).
Multisensory worship is a dimension which Lutheran congregations may more
readily recognize. He begins with an reference to incense in chapter 12, entitled
“Overcoming the Fear of Multisensory Worship and Teaching.” Using Biblical illustrations, Kimball points to the taste of bread and wine and the visual beauty of
worship buildings (unless they are built like auditoriums). Cathedral-like architecture along with the use of visual arts (chaps. 13 and 14) are key aspects of
vintage-Christianity. (He warns that “people really are not impressed anymore
with fancy PowerPoint special effects and videos” (151).) Music, similarly, takes on
a deeper significance as he notes young people appreciate the older hymns, so that
“scriptural truth, historical context, and right theology are woven into the worship
experience, making the songs all the more powerful and rich” (159).
Amazingly, Kimball seems to refer to closed communion even in his Calvinist
tradition, when he writes that they “very clearly explain that communion is for
believers” (163). After mentioning the practice of lectio divina (contemplative reading of Scripture) and corporate prayer, he concludes: “How ironic that returning to
a raw and ancient form of worship is now seen as new and even cutting edge. We are
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simply going back to a vintage form of worship which has been around for as long as
the church has been in existence”(169). All our Lutheran congregations should take
note! We’re at the cutting edge!
Storytelling of “the story of God and humans” is another element emphasized
by Kimball in the context of preaching. Strongly encouraging a thorough presentation of Jesus and His kingdom, he adds that the topic of hell should be addressed
more than ever “not with vengeance, anger, or manipulation, but through tears”
(182). Because preaching is not just about pompous monologues, he devotes a
whole chapter to “Preaching without Words,” encouraging the use of the arts—
visual and aural—recommending careful and even dramatic reading of Scripture
with passion and purpose.
Coupled with his focus on worship, Kimball returns to his passion of evangelism, observing that “evangelism to post-Christians is going to take a lot more
time, effort, trust-building, and prayer than ever before” (288). Criticizing the
popular bait-and-switch approach through entertainment, he asserts that people
are seeking spiritual meaning which only Jesus can provide. Congregations need to
show them and give them Jesus in all His fullness. Thus, the pastor is no longer the
CEO, but a spiritual guide (chap. 20) who provides the gathering with insights into
Jesus’ connection to their lives—both Law and Gospel.
How does this actually work? Having written most of this review about the
first book, I should mention the second briefly. Emerging Worship is somewhat
disappointing. It seems to have been done in greater haste and with less content—
often not moving beyond clever illustrations and examples of still-forming ideas.
Some helpful perspectives of the church as “community” and worship as a “gathering” are reiterated in greater detail. Illustrations of a variety of emerging worship
gatherings in various denominations fill over half the book. Chapter seven, “Common Values in Emerging Worship,” is the exception to the repetitive ramblings of
this second volume and on its own is worth the price of the book.
Knowing that these books were written for evangelical Protestants is helpful
since some of the assumptions of congregational life and worship practices are not
descriptive of Missouri Synod Lutheranism. However, we certainly can listen and
learn much from the conversation. There were frequent times when I wrote a note
in the margin of these books about how we as Lutherans have much of what modern evangelicals are seeking. We need to reach out and draw the emerging and
evangelical generations into the richness of our Lutheran liturgical heritage of
worship and solid, Biblical, Law-and-Gospel preaching.
Emerging worship in the emerging church in our emerging culture is arising
throughout the world. Beginning in England, the idea has swept across American
Christianity mainly through internet contacts (a resource tied to several chapters
of Kimball’s second book). These two volumes by Dan Kimball will stimulate worship leaders to reconsider their plans to throw out the liturgy and traditional
worship. Solid preaching of Christ in a context that is flexible yet shows the depth
of our Christian worship heritage will not only meet the deeper spiritual needs of
those who are outside of the church but also to those who have grown accustomed to
a contemporary worship style that is shallow. These books are worth discussing in
Bible classes, among church leaders, and in pastors’ meetings.
Timothy Maschke
Mequon, WI
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INTERPRETING BIBLICAL TEXTS: The Prophetic Literature. By Marvin Sweeney.
Nashville: Abingdon, 2005. 240 pages. Paper. $19.00.
The purpose of this series is to provide reliable guides into the textual world of
the Bible. Each volume seeks to address two questions: (1) What are the critical
issues of interpretation that have emerged in recent scholarship? and (2) How can
readers be kept aware of a text’s larger context? Authors in the series are more
concerned with guiding readers than engaging in debates with other scholars. Marvin
Sweeney achieves these goals of the series as current issues and synchronic insights will enlighten both the novice and the seasoned scholar. The strength of this
work is the author’s ability to blend literary and historical issues, as throughout
the book Sweeney deftly switches from synchronic to diachronic concerns. Employing this twofold approach, each of the latter prophets is outlined and then discussed in light of literary features and history of composition.
After an introduction to how this section of the Old Testament fits into Jewish
and Christian canons, in chapter two Sweeney discusses both the nature of prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern environment as well as the different genres employed within the prophetic corpus. In the Ancient Near East prophets appeared
as trained professionals who were schooled in rhetoric, poetry, musical expression,
and ritual action. They functioned within temples, palaces, and the like.
Sweeney is at his best when he reads texts synchronically. For example, in
interpreting Isaiah’s hymn in chapter 12, he notes that in the latter half of Isaiah
11 the prophet proclaims that a remnant will return (v. 11) while also employing
exodus terminology (e.g., “YHWH will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea”—v. 15a).
Seen in this light, Isaiah 12 is a concluding doxology to chapters 2-11 for it cites
exodus motifs from both chapter 11 and the song of the sea in Exodus 15 (cf. Is.
12:2b, 5a with Ex. 15:1b). Again, the apocalyptic nature of Ezekiel 38-39, far from
being disconnected with the rest of the book, functions as an integral part of Ezekiel
that portrays the purification of the land from the defilement of corpses in preparation for the restoration of the Temple in chapters 40-48.
Sweeney’s insights on Jeremiah and Ezekiel are enhanced by the dominant
role he gives to their priestly connections: the former as one of the priests from
Anathoth (Jer. 1:1) and the latter as a Zadokite priest (Ezek. 1:3). Regarding
Jeremiah, Sweeney writes: “Indeed, the Levitical theology of the Mosaic covenantal tradition, which bases Israel’s relationship with YHWH on the observance of
divine Torah, defines the basic theological outlook of the book of Jeremiah” (87).
Ezekiel’s priestly status explains, for example, why the prophet sits in silence for
seven days (3:15), for this reflects the seven-day period of seclusion when priests
are first ordained (Lev. 8:33). The prophet’s lack of mourning for his deceased wife
draws upon the prohibition for a priest not to lament for anyone except his blood
relatives (Lev. 21).
Sweeney often allows grammatical and syntactical similarities and differences to break with standard outlines and interpretations of prophetic books. For
example, he notes that Isaiah 32:1 begins with the particle hen (“behold”), rather
than hoy (“woe”), which begins chapters 28-31. This change, therefore, signals the
appearance of the righteous king and makes chapter 32 the climax of the first half
of Isaiah. Sweeney rejects the common outline of Hosea (1-3; 4-11; 12-14), when he
notes, “close attention to the Hebrew syntax and narrative perspective of the book
and the role of repentance in its presentation indicates a very different structure”
(174). He also offers a similar critique of the standard outline of Zechariah. Far
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from simply rehashing current ideas, Sweeney offers fresh and insightful analysis.
Sweeney occasionally makes further study impossible when he states something like, “Many maintain…” or “Many contend…,” but does not cite the referents
to the “many” (cf., e.g., 106, 107, 113, 151, 159, 177). And it is ironic that he writes
that Amos’s third vision (7:7-9) revolves around a “plumb line” while in his earlier
work (The Twelve Prophets, vol. 1 [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000]), he
suggests that the difficult Hebrew word anak probably refers to “plaster.” In this
case, the vision refers to a plastered wall, and YHWH is envisioned as standing
with plaster in his hand to represent the needed repair work. However, the main
concern I have with this book is that Sweeney functions with the expectation that
the original prophet of a given text had only one perspective, one motif, one emphasis, and one style. As a redaction critic, Sweeney assumes prophetic books in their
present form are the result of a lengthy process of development, with additions and
interpolations made along the way. He further posits that different schools or
circles of prophetic disciples preserved and edited these texts with their clearly
defined political/theological interests. The final assumption is that form criticism
correctly identified these editorial layers based upon their discontinuities, but
now the final redactional stage must be investigated and shown to contain a coherent theological message. These redactional criteria must be questioned in light of
the new research opened up in the areas of orality and rhetoric. These reservations
aside, Sweeney offers an overview of the Latter Prophets that is full of synchronic
insights and up-to-date analysis of current thoughts in prophetic scholarship.
Reed Lessing
FROM JOSHUA to CAIAPHAS: High Priests after the Exile. By James C.
VanderKam. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004. 548 Pages. Cloth. $35.00.
One of the chief institutions of ancient Israel was the priesthood. Yet the title
“high priest” does not appear before the Exile. Though Aaron, Eleasar, and Phinehas
are often considered to have been “high priests,” they are never called by any other
name than “the priest.” However, the title “high priest” is found eight times in
Haggai and Zechariah and refers in each case to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak.
Therefore, it is appropriate that VanderKam’s book of the “high priests” begins
with the Exile, and specifically starts with Joshua.
James C. VanderKam is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Hebrew Scriptures
at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of numerous works, including the
widely acclaimed encyclopedic book entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (1994). A
study of the priesthood of the Second Temple period is a complex subject that
requires unusual research and linguistic skills, skills that VanderKam possesses
and which he has used to produce the first complete history of the high priests after
the Exile. From Joshua to Caiaphas is marked by the same clarity of style and
thoroughness as his other works.
VanderKam does not purport to write a history of the priesthood; rather it is a
history of the Second Temple high priests. Therefore he does not go into such questions as the origins of the Aaronides, often considered to be the ancestors of the
later high priests. Neither does he try to present a history of the entire Second
Temple period. Though VanderKam has dealt thoroughly with the primary sources
regarding high priestly names, he also demonstrates that he has read widely and
carefully in the extensive secondary literature on the subject.
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In all, VanderKam counts fifty-one high priests from Joshua (ca. 520 B.C.) to
Phannias (ca. 68 A.D.). He lists them on a chart on pages 491-492. In order to
arrive at these fifty-one names, VanderKam had to piece together a large number
of sources spanning almost 600 years. VanderKam lists his “ancient sources” on
pages 528-548. The first name on the list, Joshua, is the easiest because he is
called “high priest” in both Zechariah and Haggai. Ezra 2:2 indicates that Joshua
is one of those who returned from the Babylonian Exile, and in 3:2 he is identified
as the son of Jozadak (Jehozadak) and as one who had “fellow priests.”
A list of priests in Nehemiah 12:2-7 provides a genealogy of Joshua, which
includes six names. Concerning the fifth name in this list, VanderKam argues that
“Jonathan in Nehemiah 12:11 is a copyist’s mistake for Johanan.” He also supports this with extrabiblical evidence from the Elephantine Papyri and Josephus.
VanderKam gives a thorough discussion of the hypothesis of Frank Moore
Cross that four names have been dropped from Nehemiah’s list of six high priests
of the Persian period. Cross bases his theory on the widespread practice of
papponymy (grandsons being named after their grandfathers) which, he says, caused
the elimination of four names. VanderKam ultimately concludes that the six-member list of Nehemiah 12:2-7 is original.
VanderKam uses Josephus and 1 and 2 Maccabees as sources for the high
priests of the Early Hellenistic Period (309-159 B.C.). He counts ten high priests in
this period, from Onias I to Alcimus. In the Hasmonean Age (152-37 B.C.)
VanderKam counts eight high priests, Jonathan to Antigonus. Here he also consults information about the high priests in the Dead Sea Scrolls. VanderKam
believes that Jonathan (152-142 B.C.) may have been he whom the Scrolls call the
“wicked priest.”
The high priests of the Herodean Age (37 B.C.-70 A.D.) number twenty-seven.
This includes Annas and Caiaphas, who are mentioned in the passion accounts of
the Gospels. Annas was the first member of his family to hold the high priesthood.
He was followed by five of his sons, plus his son-in-law, Caiaphas. VanderKam
points out that the tomb of Annas may have been located (423).
Joseph Caiaphas, called simply Caiaphas in John 18:13, served as high priest
from 18 to 36/37 A.D. Caiaphas is also mentioned by name in Matthew 26:3.
Caiaphas is the leader of the meeting of the Sanhedrin in which it was determined
that Jesus had “blasphemed” and therefore “deserves death.”
The final appearance of the name Caiaphas is in Acts 4, where once again he
is leading the Sanhedrin. Strangely, Acts 4:6 calls Annas the high priest.
All in all, this is a very impressive book. It will serve as the authoritative text
on the history of the post-exilic high priests for the foreseeable future.
Merlin D. Rehm
Scarsdale, NY
COMPENDIUM LOCORUM THEOLOGICORUM EX SCRIPTURIS SACRIS ET
LIBRO CONCORDIAE, LATEINISCH—DEUTSCH—ENGLISCH. By
Leonhart Hütter. Edited by Johann Anselm Steiger. 2 vols. Stuttgart-Bad
Canstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 2006. 1144 pages. Cloth. No price given.
Among the creative theologians who struggled with the task of passing on the
heritage of the Reformation to the Lutheran church of the seventeenth century,
Leonhart Hütter (1563-1616) ranks as one of the most significant. After studies in
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Strasburg, Leipzig, Heidelberg, and Jena, he joined the faculty of the University of
Wittenberg in 1596. His teaching and literary career shaped several generations of
Lutheran dogmatic formulation to come. The work presented here, expanded after
this death by posthumous editing of lectures and other materials he had prepared,
echoed through later dogmaticians’ works in a variety of ways. This work was
considered important enough in the midst of the nineteenth-century confessional
revival in the United States to be translated by Henry Eyster Jacobs and George
Frederick Spieker as the General Council was being organized (1868).
Hütter’s Compendium, first published in 1610, takes the topical form bequeathed Lutheran dogmatics by Melanchthon’s Loci communes. Following the
outline laid down by the “Preceptor Germaniae” three quarters of a century earlier,
Hütter’s work provides his student-readers with his guides to teaching Biblical
doctrine on thirty topics. Pedagogically designed to help budding theologians develop their storehouse of Biblical references on the chief topics of theology, the book
poses a series of questions under each topic, from “on Holy Scripture” to “on life
eternal,” and supplies the Bible passages with which the students could begin to
formulate answers for preaching, teaching, and pastoral care. Modern readers will
notice two things: how much of the reconstitution of Biblical argument accomplished by Luther, Melanchthon, and their students has remained as a natural
part of our use of Scripture for our own time, and how much of the list of favorite
passages no longer proves to be useful for our teaching. Hütter’s construction of his
form for teaching was taking place at the time at which metaphysics was beginning to return to Lutheran universities, and so his form of teaching did not take it
into consideration. This makes his book closer to Melanchthon’s and Chemnitz’s
practice of dogmatics than to the subsequent developments that Johann Gerhard
instituted with his integration of metaphysics with the formulation of doctrine.
In 1611, the year following its publication in Latin, the Compendium appeared in German. Interested lay people and country preachers whose Latin had
slipped needed to have the volume at hand as a reference for family devotional
study and for gleaning passages for sermons and meditation. Steiger facilitates
modern analysis and use by placing the Latin and German alongside each other for
easy comparison. The English translation follows in the second volume.
The editor, Johann Anselm Steiger of the University of Hamburg gives readers
an extensive apparatus for using the volume. One valuable part of that apparatus
is the assessment of the English translation and its context by Concordia Seminary professor Gerhard Bode, who provides contemporary users with helpful introductory material, as does Steiger himself. Although Steiger fails to make use of
some recent literature in German and English that could have enriched his exposition of the context and development of Hütter’s texts, his “Nachwort” and accompanying appendices do provide a wealth of information about the volume’s political and ecclesiastical context and theological background. Particularly fascinating
is his recital of how a work such as this was actually composed. Its origins lay in a
commission from the Saxon elector, Christian II, as part of his continuing campaign to secure his lands against Crypto-Calvinism. The draft of the Compendium
went through the test of criticism from colleagues, for the theological faculties of
the “Orthodox” period did not actually fall into some rigid form of correctness. They
continued the lively experiments in the proper formulation and expression of Biblical teaching as the intellectual, social, and ecclesiastical context in which their
students were teaching the faith changed. So Hütter collected suggestions from
many sides as he was bringing his work into final form.
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Important to note is Steiger’s nuancing of the judgment that Hütter utterly
rejected the Melanchthonian elements of the Wittenberg legacy. According to an
oft-repeated story, Hütter once ripped a picture of Melanchthon to shreds and
trampled on it during a formal disputation at the university; Steiger reminds
readers that the story has been shown to be false. He shows that in fact this heir of
the reformers had a strong, if at times critical, appreciation for what Melanchthon
had indeed contributed to the construction of Lutheran theology.
A fresh translation into English would have been preferred, but the presentation of even this rendering of a century and a half ago with the original Latin and
the seventeenth-century German offers English-speaking readers a gift that should
aid and support study of the history of Lutheran teaching at university and seminary levels. It gives scholars as well a valuable aid in working with this particular
text and with the period in general. Bode’s review of the circumstances of its translation demonstrates important aspects of the North American confessional revival and the importance of the circle gathered around Charles Porterfield Krauth
and his company, Henry Eyster Jacobs being one of the most prominent among its
scholars. He and his friend from seminary study, Spieker, undertook the translation project soon after seminary graduation as part of the broader effort to bring
“classical” Lutheran thinking to America. Bode places this effort within the context of those developments.
Beyond the assessments of Steiger and Bode, readers will find a bibliography
of printings of the work, illustrations, and indices, all of which contribute to the
volume’s usability.
In the past quarter century the study of the “forgotten” era of Lutheran “Orthodoxy” has begun to grow. Vital for all historical study is honest engagement with
the sources. This edition of Hütter’s Compendium makes this significant work
available as a useful tool for instruction that shows how Reformation-era formulation of Lutheran teaching was transformed for use in the new era after the turn of
the seventeenth century. It will serve as an important aid for further research and
study.
Robert Kolb
INSPIRATION AND INCARNATION: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old
Testament. By Peter Enns. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005. 197 pages.
Paper. $17.99.
Enns, an associate professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological
Seminary in Philadelphia, enters into a debate with those who believe that “the
contemporary state of Biblical scholarship makes an evangelical faith unviable”
(13). Enns launches into his apologetic for the OT by means of what he calls an
“incarnational analogy.” He believes that the best way to approach the problems
encountered when reading the OT is to address them using the relationship between the divinity and humanity of Jesus. “As Christ is both God and human, so is
the Bible” (17). With this paradigm Enns discusses three key issues in the interpretation of the OT: (1) the relationship between the OT and other literature in the
ancient Near East (ANE), (2) the theological diversity in the OT, and (3) the ways
New Testament authors apply OT texts. The first issue deals with the uniqueness
of the OT, the second addresses the integrity of the OT, while the third issue is
concerned with application of the OT.
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The first dilemma readers of the OT face is its relationship with other ANE
literature. Enns discusses, among other documents, the Enuma Elish, the flood
epics of Atrahasis and Gilgamesh, the Nuzi tablets, the Code of Hammurabi,
Hittite Suzerainty Treaties, the Mesha Inscription, and the Instruction of
Amenemope. These texts have much in common with the OT, so much so that the
OT appears to be just one more set of texts from another ancient people, this one
called “Israel.” The liberal response has been, “The OT is just like other ANE
writings; the more the OT looks like these texts the less inspired it is,” while the
conservative rejoinder has been, “No it’s not.” Based upon the incarnation of the
Son of God, Enns states that both extremes are to be avoided. That is to say, in
order for Biblical revelation to be true it does not need to be thoroughly distinct
from its surrounding culture, for Jesus remained both God and man at the same
time.
The OT needs to be read with this incarnational sensitivity. For example, “God
adopted Abraham as the forefather of a new people, and in doing so he also adopted
the mythic categories within which Abraham–and everyone else–thought” (53).
Yet Yahweh did not leave Abraham in his mythic world, but rather transformed the
ancient myths to proclaim Himself as the one and only God. To put it this way is
not to concede ground to liberalism, but to understand the fact that the OT had a
context within which it was first understood. Enns writes: “It is wholly incomprehensible to think that thousands of years ago God would have felt constrained to
speak in a way that would be meaningful only to Westerners several thousand
years later. To do so borders on modern, Western arrogance” (55). Rather, Yahweh
enters specific places at specific times to speak and act in ways that make sense to
particular people. The phrase “Word of God” does not imply disconnectedness, but
through the incarnation of Jesus it means the exact opposite. “We must resist the
notion that for God to acculturate himself is somehow beneath him. This is precisely how he shows his love to the world” (56).
In the second part of his book Enns takes up the problem of theological diversity in the OT. The irony is that both the liberal and conservative approach is to
state that “God’s word and diversity at the level of factual content and theological
message are incompatible” (73). Again, Enns points out his “third way” by means
of his incarnational model. In this case, the key to interpreting texts that are
diverse is sensitivity to context. The classic example is from Proverbs 26:4-5: “Do
not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Answer a
fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” So which is it? The book
of Ecclesiastes is famous for its internal inconsistencies (e.g., 7:3; 8:15). Prophets
speak in terms that appear to negate Levitical cultic sacrifices (e.g., Amos 5:21-27;
Micah 6:6-8; Is. 1:11-14; Jer. 7:22-23). But Enns points out that diversity does not
imply imperfection or error. “We must let all of Scripture have its say and be
willing to compose as diverse a portrait of God as the biblical data demand” (99).
In his third and final section the author addresses how the NT interprets the
OT. The problem here is that “apostolic hermeneutics” is often different from the
hermeneutics taught in the seminary with its focus upon the grammatical and
historical dimensions of texts. The expectation is that the NT writers will strictly
adhere to our historical/grammatical method. But just as Jesus was a Second
Temple citizen, so the NT writers interpreted the OT in Second Temple ways. NT
writers operated in their world, not ours. For example, when Matthew quotes from
Hosea 11:1 to describe the movement of Jesus out of Egypt, we are hard pressed to
argue that he is respecting the historical context of Hosea 11. Of course the Jews in
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Matthew’s day objected to this claim, but not because of the hermeneutic involved,
but rather because of Matthew’s conviction that Christ is the focus of the OT.
Again, in Galatians 3:16 and 29 Paul’s discussion on “Abraham’s seed” is built
upon a term that is grammatically ambiguous. But Paul employs Second Temple
hermeneutics to make his point, because whatever meaning the OT had, now has a
deeper meaning in light of Christ’s coming. Additional Second Temple interpretations are cited (e.g., Luke’s description of Moses’ education [Acts 7:21-22]; Paul’s
reference to a “moveable well” [1 Cor. 10:4]; Peter’s reference to Noah as “the
preacher of righteousness” [2 Pet. 2:5]; and Jude’s discussion of Michael’s dispute
with the devil over the body of Moses [Jude 9]). Rather than eschewing this method
of reading the OT, Enns encourages the employment of his incarnational model. In
order for the NT writers to communicate to their audience, they had to employ the
interpretive principles of their day. Enns advocates a “christotelic” and
“ecclesiotelic” hermeneutic of the OT which understands Christ and the church to
be the goal or end of Israel’s history and writings. What animated apostolic hermeneutics was not a set of principles but a person, Jesus the Christ.
Enns successfully tackles some of the age-old problems that conservative
Christians have with the OT. His incarnational paradigm provides a compelling
way to read the OT. This book should go a long way toward providing confessional
Lutherans with a paradigm that is faithful to OT texts, as well as to their fulfillment in Jesus.
Reed Lessing
THE LORD’S PRAYER: A Text in Tradition. By Kenneth W. Stevenson. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. 290 pages. Paper. $22.00.
How has the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13) been studied, believed, and prayed in
the Christian church throughout the centuries? If you would like to read an engaging overview that answers these questions, Kenneth Stevenson’s The Lord’s Prayer
will not disappoint you. The book walks at a brisk pace through the centuries,
attending to how the Our Father has been used in both the East as well as the
West. Extensive endnotes provide direction for further reading. (This reviewer,
however, wishes to lodge his ongoing protest against publishers who put such valuable material awkwardly at the end of the book rather than at the bottom of the
page where they belong!) The strength of Stevenson’s work, then, at times is its
chief weakness, namely, the rapidity with which he surveys such an astounding
breath of material. But that is the purpose of the book, and he cannot be faulted for
it.
After chapter one and its brief description of the “Scope and Method” of the
study, chapter two discusses how the Lord’s Prayer was understood and prayed
from the time of the New Testament through the third century. The next four chapters (3-7) survey “The Patristic East,” “The Patristic West,” “The Later East,” and
“The Medieval West.” Chapters 7 and 8 (“Renaissance and Reformation” and “Into
Modernity and Beyond”) complete the historical sweep, and a final ninth chapter
offers the author’s “Conclusion.”
For all today who desire to understand and pray the Lord’s Prayer, this study
will reveal that modern questions and struggles are not new ones. There is no
unanimity on the number of petitions in the Our Father. On the one hand, following
the lead of Augustine, the Western church since his time has tended to find seven
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petitions to the heavenly Father (80). The East, by contrast, has very often combined the sixth and seventh petition into one, and prayed the prayer in an introduction and six requests (62). Modern Biblical scholarship has tended toward the view
of the East.
The question of the Fourth Petition and the meaning and referent of “daily
bread” has occupied believers through the centuries. Christians have thought that
this request refers to everything from the simple needs of the body, to the Holy
Eucharist, to all the spiritual and material blessings needed to support one’s
relationship with God (94).
One interesting aspect of Stevenson’s survey highlights the ways that the
Lord’s Prayer has functioned liturgically throughout the centuries, both in private
and in corporate prayer. Beginning with chapter three (“The Patristic East”), each
chapter offers a summary of liturgical usage for the time period being investigated.
Since the author is the Bishop of Portsmouth, England, one is not surprised that
liturgical usage in the Anglican communion is a major emphasis in the later chapters of the book. But that is all for the better.
Many Christians, even at a young age, puzzle over the meaning of “Lead us not
into temptation.” The church pondered it at a young age, too. Already in the second
century Tertullian, uncomfortable that the petition implied that the heavenly Father might tempt his children to sin, suggested that we are really asking God not to
allow us to be led into temptation (31). This, of course, is not what the Sixth
Petition says. Stevenson suggests that the Sixth Petition continues to present the
biggest challenge of all even to believers today (225-226).
If you are looking for a study that will wrestle in exegetical depth with a
particular aspect of the Lord’s Prayer, or one that will display in some detail a
particular theologian’s views on the Our Father, this is not the book for you. It does
not intend to be that kind of book. But as an informative survey in a very readable
style, it comes highly recommended and performs a valuable service to all who
have wanted to take to heart the words of Jesus, “Therefore, you pray like this...”
(Matt. 6:9).
Jeffrey Gibbs
ISAIAH: God Saves Sinners. By Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr. and Kent Hughes, ed.
Wheaton: Crossway, 2005. 500 pages. Cloth. $27.99.
This volume written by Ray Ortlund, a Presbyterian Church in America pastor in Nashville, TN, marks the nineteenth in the series entitled Preaching the
Word, which distinguishes itself by its high view of Biblical authority and numerous practical applications. Ortlund’s first paragraph sets the theological theme for
his sermons. “God saves sinners. We don’t believe that. We bank our happiness on
other things. But God says to us, ‘I’m better than you think. You’re worse than you
think. Let’s get together.’” The hermeneutic employed throughout is stated in these
words: “So we should apply Isaiah’s vision today not to America or any other
political entity but, first and foremost, to the Christian church” (22). Ortlund embraces two parts to Isaiah (1-39 and 40-66), but one author. Helpful are these
comments: “He [Isaiah in chaps. 40-66] is being projected by the Holy Spirit out
into the future, like the Apostle John in the Revelation” (232). That is to say,
Isaiah’s experience in composing chapters 40-66 is similar to that of Micaiah ben
Imlah’s in 1 Kings 22:19-23 when this prophet describes being in the throne room
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of Yahweh in order to see the future.
Many of Ortlund’s sermons are prophetic in that they take aim at people who
exhibit “no repentance, no submission, no forsaking of self, no pursuit of Christ”
but cover this “over with a glaze of sentimental religion on Sunday mornings”
(371). Over and over again Ortlund exhorts his hearers to “accept the inconvenient,
disturbing, question-provoking, ego-humbling, prayer-stimulating, church-changing message of Isaiah” (433).
Examples of Orlund’s rhetoric are as follows. “The fact is, death watches us,
stalks us, takes aim, and shoots straight” (20). “God is not a sentimental Hallmark-card for the warm moments in life” (89). Ortland compares the SyroEphraimitic crisis in Isaiah 7 to “a mouse [Ahaz] attacked by two rats [Rezin and
Pekah], squeaking for the cat to come save him. The cat did [Assyria] but the
mouse [Ahaz] ended up as dessert” (91). In a sermon on Isaiah 9:1-7 he writes,
“Look at Jesus. As the Wonderful Counselor, he has the best ideas and strategies.
Let’s follow him. As the Mighty God, he defeats his enemies easily. Let’s hide
behind him. As the Everlasting Father, he loves us endlessly. Let’s enjoy him. As
the Prince of Peace, he reconciles us while we are still his enemies. Let’s welcome
his dominion” (99). In a sermon on Isaiah 36 he begins with these provocative
words, “Here is the Christian life in just six words: ‘Not knowing where’ (Heb. 11:8),
‘I know whom’ (2 Tim. 1:12)” (205). When preaching about courage in Is. 37 he
writes: “When your own ideal life scenario of perfect health and a perfect marriage
and perfect children and a perfect job and a perfect church and perfect control –
when that is no longer what you’re clinging to and demanding of life, when all you
want is the glory of God to be put on display through our existence, that’s when God
fills you with overcoming courage” (214). One more example: “The cross declares
that weakness is power and loss is gain and servanthood is greatness” (258).
Insights from the Hebrew text of Isaiah abound. One example will suffice. In a
sermon on Isaiah 30, Ortland zeroes in on a word in verse 1 translated “alliance,”
which also can mean “covering” (Is. 28:20) and “idolatrous image” (Is. 30:22). This
means that “Judah’s alliance with Egypt covered them like a warm blanket. It
made them feel comfortable against the storm of Assyria. But it was an idol”
(171).
Outlines accompany each sermon and are often very helpful. The sermon on
1:2-9 is outlined as follows: God’s broken heart (vv. 2-3), our broken strength (vv. 48), and God’s unbroken grace (v. 9). Ortlund employs numerous illustrations that
are indexed in the back of the book for easy reference. His favorite sources for
illustrations include Augustine, Luther, C. S. Lewis, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and
Jonathan Edwards.
Of course one’s theological background comes out in the pulpit (or at least it
should). Ortlund, a conservative Presbyterian, speaks much about the sovereignty
of God and His glory. For example, in a sermon on Isaiah 42 he writes: “God’s whole
purpose for human history is to establish his glory as our highest joy and deepest
resource” (269). Occasionally Ortlund preaches Gospel in a very legalistic manner.
For example, in a sermon on Isaiah 5:1-30 he writes, “The gospel says, ‘Do not be
deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap’ (Gal.
6:7).” Again he writes, “The banquet of God’s grace is free and abundant, but it’s
also conditional” (371).
Be that as it may, these sermons are not from a scholar in the study but from
a pastor in the pulpit. It is not a book of academic aloofness, but rather an offering
of down-to-earth meat for God’s people. Of course most readers of this journal will
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not use the book and its forty-eight sermons to preach verse-by-verse through
Isaiah. But the book will be an invaluable aid in any Bible Study on Isaiah and will
add much to sermons that use a text from this “Prince of the Prophets.” Isaiah is
widely considered to be the deepest, richest, and most theologically significant
book in the Old Testament. Ortlund’s sermons will enable many to grasp the width
and length and heighth and depth of Isaiah.
Reed Lessing
THE END OF WORDS: The Language of Reconciliation in a Culture of Violence. By
Richard Lischer. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. 192 pages. Cloth. $18.00.
The End of Words? What is this? Another doomsday prediction of the death of
language? Another obituary on the demise of words as a vehicle for communicating
the Gospel? I thought this dirge went out with the 60s and the 70s, when, you
remember, there was considerable fear (and some rejoicing) at the (alleged) failure
of words (especially words from the pulpit) to communicate God’s good news of
salvation and its meaning for human relationships. “What do you mean?”—customarily a request for further understanding—was in danger of becoming a cry of
despair. Has that passing fashion resurfaced early in this century?
Actually, it’s not a fad. Much worse, it’s a recurring platitude. The distrust of
words is as old as the hills. Some of us recall Jonathan Swift’s battle with the
notion in his century. The Laputans in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, distrusting the
accuracy of words to symbolize things, attempted to remedy the alleged problem
by substituting those things for words in everyday communication. As a consequence, people carried on their backs sacks containing a variety of objects and
when encountering one another would simply, in lieu of normal conversation, extricate objects from their respective sacks and display them to one another. It was all
show and no tell. However, the project fell through, according to Swift, for two
reasons: (1) a loquacious person was not equal to carrying the weight of a sack
containing the numerous objects he wished to “talk about”; (2) the Laputan ladies
objected—they preferred the old-fashioned mode of conversation. Swift’s superb
satire suggests that there is nothing new under the sun and that attempted cures
for supposed problems may turn out worse than the problems.
But the name of the author of The End of Words, Richard Lischer, immediately
banished all the apprehensions aroused by the title. I knew him to be a person so
mastered by God’s Word and too great a master of words himself to abandon faith
in the God-given medium of language that he has used so effectively in his teaching, preaching, and authoring. Admittedly, the word “end” in Lischer’s title does, to
an extent, carry the negative meaning described above. Lischer himself, of course,
is no prophet of doom. His use of the word “end” is not intended as an obituary or
death wish for language. But he is aware of contemporaries who are that pessimistic about language, and Lischer uses the word to describe their mind set. “How
ironic that poets and preachers, whose stock and trade is words and nothing else,
should respond to tragedy with a call to silence, that they, of all people, should feel
that the human race has come to the end of words” (6). Still Lischer himself does
use the word “end” negatively (but in a less than a death-knell sense) to betoken
his discerning recognition and his realistic assessment of the difficulties preachers encounter in their witness to the Good News in the present culture of violence.
Historically, the chief obstacle to the preaching of the Gospel has been the foolishCONCORDIA JOURNAL/APRIL 2007
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ness of the cross. Today it is more likely to be the foolishness of language. The word
“end” in Lischer’s title is not a word of surrender. But it is a wake-up call to
preachers to recognize—and overcome—the obstacles contemporary culture raises
to the language of their witness to the Gospel (e.g., the wrong expectations of
ministry [22], the divorce of values from the claims of Jesus Christ [17], the threat
of technology [27], etc.). Preachers need to understand that our culture is “suffering
a certain exhaustion with words” (ix). “What does one say after a televised beheading? The proclamation of God’s justice or God’s love meets a wall of resistance first
in the throat of the proclaimer, then in the ears of the hearer” (5). “Preaching has to
conjure with its own apparent irrelevance” (8). The preacher contends “with principalities and powers that envelop us and swim effortlessly beside us in the sea of
words. The average American is subjected to approximately six thousand messages per day. Why should one of them called ‘gospel’ stand out? What is one little
message among so many?” (13).
Actually, Dr. Lischer’s use of the word “end” in the book’s title is a pun. The
word carries not only the negative meaning of “demise” (or danger of demise) but,
above all, the positive meaning of “goal” or “purpose.” In good Lutheran fashion the
author accords the word “end” a sort of Law/Gospel treatment. The “end” of words,
that is, the goal of the preacher’s language, is the good news of the reconciliation
between God and people and between people and people brought about by the
incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. This message
of reconciliation Lischer even speaks of as “the true and eternal end of language
itself ” (ix). “I am seeking the true end of words.... The end of preaching is reconciliation” (132-133). “When you read [preach?] a text in such a way that it necessitates
Christ, then the purpose of Scripture is clarified” (58). Interestingly, the two meanings of “end” even permeate the chapter titles of Lischer’s book: “The Ultimate
Vocation,” “The Final Edition,” “One Last Story,” “To What End?” (my emphasis).
Among the suggestions Lischer offers preachers to help them achieve this end
or goal of reconciliation in their preaching are the following:
(1) Avoid “the fundamentalism that worships the book and the liberalism
that marginalizes it” (58).
(2) Read the Scriptural text “as if your life depended on it” —which it does (56).
(3) Eschew the practice of regarding all Scriptural texts as created equal (in
respect to their significance or helpfulness)—what the author calls “flat reading”
(63).
(4) Do not treat the Scriptures as a mere source of useful sermon ideas and
catchy themes—what the author calls “convenient reading” (64).
(5) Do not habitually emphasize the greatness of God, the inferiority of humankind, and the importance of the Bible at the expense of God’s saving grace—
what Lischer (somewhat unclearly) calls “the ironic reading of Scripture” (65).
(6) Avoid a consumerist approach to the Bible, gutting “the book the way one
cleans a fish.... If anything gets gutted in reading, it will be the interpreter, not the
text” (68).
(7) Avoid projecting your own personality from the pulpit and rather strive to
be the personality that the uniqueness of each Scriptural text requires (76-87)—a
goal that strikes me as challenging in that it may require considerable acting
experience.
To his credit, Dr. Lischer sees the solution in more than the mastery of technique. Ultimately, the solution lies in the preacher’s own reconciliation to God
through Jesus and the impact of that reconciliation on his own person. “It’s not
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better performances the church needs, but truer characters” (44). “I can think of no
greater source of freedom in the pulpit than the preacher’s own reconciliation with
the ultimate source of speech” (164).
Originally presented as the Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching at Yale
University, these essays, the author explains in the preface, have been expanded
and enriched to make them more accessible to the reading audience. The style is
delightful, clear (most of the time), and peppered with winsome accounts from the
author’s own pastoral and teaching ministry. It is a book so well done that it should
help prevent “the end of words” in the negative sense of that phrase. It has the
enduring quality of good poetry.
The so-called problem with language, as I see it, is not words per se. Rather the
problem is big words, dull words, abstract words, vague words, anemic words,
slovenly words, pompous words, faddish words numerous words. The only thing
that can replace language as a means of communication is better language. The
End of Words has contributed to that end.
Francis C. Rossow
INTERPRETING THE PSALMS: Issues and Approaches. Edited by David Firth
and Philip S. Johnston. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2005.
345 pages. Paper. $20.99.
Study of the Psalms is in the midst of a sea of change. As recently as fifteen
years ago the dominant tendency was to study psalms individually in relationship
to their literary form (Gattung or genre) and cultic setting (Sitz im Leben). These
approaches, championed by Hermann Gunkel and Sigmund Mowinckel, remain
part of the agenda, but now they are competing for attention alongside a growing
interest in the structure of the Psalter and its literary and canonical features. This
book, written by members and guests of the Tyndale Fellowship Old Testament
Study Group, focuses upon these new developments.
The publication in 1985 of Gerald Wilson’s Yale dissertation, The Editing of
the Hebrew Psalter, was a landmark volume and provided the framework in which
this macrostructural work on the Psalter could unfold in a systematic fashion.
Previously, it was assumed that psalms were contextless compositions—hermetically sealed literary units that did not communicate with the surrounding material. Wilson, who was heavily influenced by the canonical criticism made famous
by Brevard Childs, argues that the psalms are not ordered in an entirely random
manner. Rather, there are signs of deliberate ordering to reflect the theological
concerns of the book’s editors. Context, as exegetes are known to say, changes
almost everything.
Reading psalms in their context, Wilson speaks of “frames,” including a Royal
Covenantal Frame that consists of Psalms 2; 72; 89; and 144. He also speaks of a
Final Wisdom Frame that brought the entire book together sometime by the midfirst century B.C. This consists of Psalms 1; 73; 90; 107; and 145, which are the
first psalms of Books I, III, IV, and V, along with the final psalm of Book V proper.
Taken together, these royal and wisdom frames mean that the Psalter is a book of
wisdom containing Yahweh’s instruction for the faithful and emphasizing His kingship. Wilson and others assign a pivotal role to Psalm 73 which stands just across
the divide between Books II and III. If the final hallel is omitted (Ps. 146-150),
then Psalm 73 stands at the exact center of the remaining 145 psalm collection,
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suggesting that it serves as a paradigm that moves the reader, “from obedience to
praise, by way of protest, candor and communion” (238).
This kind of progress further means that form critical categories, championed
by Gunkel, “represent not so much moulds into which religious poetry had to be
squeezed, but rather basic formats which could be used and developed with great
ingenuity and variety” (83). It is now widely acknowledged that relatively few
individual psalms fit neatly within their genre categories without any influence
from other psalm types.
Other writers in this volume further study the Psalter’s monarchic thrust that
is signaled right from the start by the programmatic Psalm 2. While there are only
a handful of Royal Psalms, the Davidic King subtly dominates the book, and not
only because seventy-three psalms are attributed to David. John Eaton (following
the earlier work of Sigmund Mowinckel) proposes that the “default” position in
interpreting individual psalms should be to see them as royal. If this theory is
adopted, fifty-four more psalms are added to Gunkel’s original eleven, giving the
Psalter a decidedly more “royal” flavor. Moreover, Books I-III contain a narrative of
the rise and fall of the Davidic monarchy. Psalm 2 describes the inauguration of the
Davidic covenant, Psalm 72 reflects the transition of this covenant to successive
kings, and Psalm 89 laments Yahweh’s apparent rejection of the Davidic covenant.
The editors of the Psalter retained psalms that celebrated the monarchy when
after the exile it ceased to exist because they expected a Davidic king in the future.
This means that all of the messianic psalms seen in their canonical context, are
eschatological in nature.
Kingship is not only foundational and eschatological, it is also linked to Torah.
This is seen by the close connection between Psalms 1 and 2. The next royal psalms
(18; 20; and 21) revolve around Psalm 19, a Torah psalm. The third and last Torah
psalm, Psalm 119, is preceded by Psalm 118 which is a depiction of the king
leading his people in an act of antiphonal worship. These close links between the
monarchy and Torah become stronger in light of Deuteronomy 17:14-20, which
states that the king was to read a copy of the Torah “all the days of his life.” The
coming Davidic king, then, will be one who keeps Torah piety in an ultimate way (cf.
Heb. 4:15).
Jerome Creach’s chapter entitled “The Psalms and the Cult” notes that Numbers 10:35-36 depicts the ark moving from place to place with the words, “Arise, O
Yahweh…” and “Return, O Yahweh….” Hence, when psalmists pray “Arise, O God…”
(e.g., 68:1) or “Return, O Yahweh…” (e.g., 132:8), they should be heard as part of a
procession of the ark in celebration of the victory of God over His enemies (cf. esp.
Ps. 24:7-10). Along these same lines, Craig Broyle’s entry, “The Psalms and Cult
Symbolism: The Case of the Cherubim-Ark” posits the idea that even after the ark
of the covenant was installed in Solomon’s temple, it was still used in festival
processions at the temple. In Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles the ark goes by several different titles, e.g., “strength,” “cherubim,” “throne,” “footstool,” “splendor,”
“glory,” and “thick darkness.” When these words are employed in psalms, they
often make reference to the ark (cf., e.g., Ps. 68:24; 105:4; 132:8).
Michael LeFebvre writes a chapter called “Torah-Meditation and the Psalms:
The Invitation of Psalm 1.” Psalm 1 intends that all the psalms are to be read
through the prism of Torah obedience, and with the use of Torah in verse 2 the
entire collection is changed from human words to Yahweh to Yahweh’s gifts to
people. The life of faith is thus bounded by obedience (Ps. 1) and praise (Ps. 150).
LeFebvre points out that the Hebrew word hagah (v. 2) is often mistranslated as
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“to meditate,” yet it always denotes that something vocal is being expressed in a
wholehearted manner.
There are a total of fifteen articles in this book, which means this review has
just scratched the surface. There is much more. For those who treasure, love, and
pray the psalms, this book will be a sheer delight, and, if used in the classroom, it
will offer up so much for lay people that they will be propelled to increasingly say,
“Hallelujah!”
Reed Lessing
DOES THE BIBLE JUSTIFY VIOLENCE? Facets Series. By John J. Collins.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. 56 pages. Paper. $6.00.
Many Bible readers are put off by what they perceive is a justification of
violence and war. In past history, Crusaders, Puritans, and abolitionists have all
used the Bible to justify their use of violence. Since September 11, 2001, there have
been some Christians who have seen this disaster as God’s punishment on a “godless” America, while some Muslims believe that the Quran, as well as the Bible,
gave the terrorists the right to do what they did. John Collins, an Old Testament
professor at Yale University, sets out to examine the Biblical texts that deal with
violence to see whether they can ever be used to justify “the killing of others without benefit of judicial procedure.”
Collins first deals with the texts that call for “holy war” against the Canaanites
and other pagan neighbors of the ancient Israelites. He shows that the slaughter of
these pagans was considered to be a ban (Hebrew: herem) or sacrifice to protect
Israel from false worship. He cites Deuteronomy 7:1-6 as a foundational text for
this point of view. This passage, and others like it, takes as warrant for violence the
demand that Israel is to worship only one God, YHWH, and the claim that the land
was given by divine right to Israel alone. At the same time, it should be noted that
Deuteronomy is “one of the great repositories of humanistic values in the biblical
corpus,” which includes being compassionate to slaves and aliens.
Collins points out that the texts that seem to commend violence are not just a
description of primitive practice, but “programmatic ideological statements from
the late seventh century B.C. or later.” He sees the reform of King Josiah described
in 2 Kings 22-23 as supporting the view that Deuteronomy and Joshua were not so
much intended to incite violence against ethnic “outsiders,” but rather as directed
against Israelite “insiders” who posed as a threat to the cultic reforms of Josiah.
Collins relates how the story of Phinehas’s killing of Zimri and his Midianite
girlfriend in Numbers 25 and the violent action of Mattathias and his sons against
the Syrian Greeks as recorded in 1 Maccabees (holy scripture in Catholic Christianity) were later used as justification for a number of violent religious persecutions, e.g., Oliver Cromwell’s treatment of Catholics in Ireland, the Puritans against
Native American tribes, and the action of the Boers of South Africa.
Next, Collins points out a number of eschatological texts which portray God
Himself or His angels taking vengeance on His enemies. He cites Isaiah 63:3;
Daniel 12:1-3; the Book of Revelation, as well as apocryphal literature like 1 Enoch
and the War Scroll of Qumran. What is unique in this literature is a “quietistic
tendency” which, in agreement with Deuteronomy 32:35 and Romans 12:19-21,
urges the readers to “never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.”
Therefore, “eschatological violence is properly the prerogative of God.”
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In his final chapter, Collins discusses “violence and hermeneutics.” After citing Ecclesiastes 3:3, 8, “There is a time to kill and a time to heal,” Collins says:
“Not all violence is necessarily to be condemned.… Nonetheless, few will disagree
that violence is seldom a good option and that it can be justified only as a last
recourse.” He then goes on to survey some of the attempts that have been made in
interpreting these “violence texts,” going back through the church fathers to Philo
of Alexandria. His purpose is “to save the appearances of these texts,” that is, to
take them seriously on the one hand, but, on the other, to read them in the context
of the Scripture passages that urge us “to love our neighbor as ourselves.” In this
way, Collins suggests a strategy of noting the diversity of viewpoints in the Bible
and thereby to relativize the more problematic ones (i.e., the “violence texts”).
Nevertheless, violence as a model of behavior is not a peripheral feature in the
Bible, and therefore it cannot be glossed over. Ultimately, Collins says, “the power
of the Bible is largely that it gives an unvarnished picture of human nature and of
the dynamics of history, and also of religion and the things that people do in its
name.” That said, the Biblical interpreter has to be alert to the fact that in the
matter of war and peace, “appeal to the Bible is not determinative,” as Roland
Bainton put it, because too often people have seen certitude in the Bible where it
does not exist, e.g., when some people at the time of the Civil War thought that the
Bible justifies slavery. Collins concludes: “Perhaps the most constructive thing a
biblical critic can do toward lessening the contribution of the Bible to violence in
the world is to show that (many times) such certitude is an illusion.”
All in all, any reader can only profit from tracing Collins’s thought as he
struggles with this most difficult subject that touches us all and which, in the
present age of terror, is of the utmost relevance.
Merlin D. Rehm
Scarsdale, NY
OLD TESTAMENT TURNING POINTS: The Narratives That Shaped a Nation. By
Victor H. Matthews. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005. 208 pages. Paper.
$19.95.
Because of its plethora of details, readers of the Old Testament (hereafter OT)
often find it difficult to keep the “big picture” in mind. By means of a thorough
study of eight turning points in the OT, Victor Matthews (a professor of religious
studies at Missouri State University) offers a book that delivers the sorely needed
“big picture.” The eight points that frame his book are: Adam and Eve, Yahweh’s
covenant with Abra[ha]m, the Exodus, the Davidic monarchy, the division of the
kingdom, the destructions of Samaria (721) and Jerusalem (586), and the exilic
return to the Persian province of Yehud. Each of these points form individual chapters that summarize the narrative, examine the social and literary background of
the text, and then track textual and thematic “echoes” or “recontextualizations”
throughout the larger world of the ancient Near East, as well as the OT. Throughout the book Matthew successfully blends literary, sociological, rhetorical, theological, and canonical perspectives. Numerous sidebars offer summary statements,
ancient Near Eastern connections, and lists of similar OT texts.
I will offer several examples of his methodology from the book of Genesis. The
most explicit literary ripple effect of Genesis 2-3 is in Ezekiel 28 where the prophet
portrays Tyre’s king as a “primordial human” (v. 12) who was “in the garden of
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Eden, the garden of God” (v. 13) which was located on “the holy mountain of God” (v.
14). In another discussion, Matthews points out that there is a narrative gap
between Genesis 12:1-3 and verses 4ff. The reader is only told that Abram trusted
and traveled to Shechem. This narrative gap indicates that the author only wants
to emphasize one attribute—Abram’s faith. “In this way it can be said that the
founding figure of the nation set a precedent from the very beginning of obeying
God’s voice, a quality that is echoed in latter narratives and in prophetic speech”
(41). Finally, the events in Genesis 15:7-21 entail a sacrificial rite, a self-cursing
performance, and/or an aspect of making a covenant treaty. In this way, like the
first couple—Adam and Eve—Abram and Sarai are charged with becoming parents of many peoples.
If the accounts of Abraham’s life have a ripple effect throughout the rest of the
OT (cf., e.g., circumcision in Gen. 17 and Jer. 4:1-4; 9:25-26), then the events in the
book of Exodus may be compared to a tsunami upon the rest of Israel’s literature.
Each pericope in the Exodus narrative and each legal and religious text finds its
way into numerous subsequent Biblical books. For example, the background of
Ezekiel 16 (the prophet’s narrative of an infant’s rescue) echoes the survival of
Moses in Exodus 2. Likewise, Moses’ call narrative in Exodus 3-7 provides the
template for numerous prophets who would latter “follow in his train” (cf. Deut.
18:15). Matthews pays particular attention to the ways Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel are called after the manner of Moses.
These kinds of historical overviews saturate the book. In around 1,200 B.C.
the Sea Peoples invaded the Palestinian coastal areas. They destroyed Ugarit and
the Hittite kingdom. Egypt’s control of Canaan significantly weakened. The Philistines then settled along the coastal plain and in the Shephelah of southwestern
Canaan. For Israel to compete with these neighboring Philistines they would need
more than a war chief (i.e., Saul). Rather, they needed to employ the various accoutrements of government that would give them a national identity and make them
a people, not just a group of loosely affiliated tribes. In light of the Sea People’s
invasion, Israel would also need the visible symbols of that power in the form of
monumental architecture (e.g., palace, temple, city walls). The Davidic and
Solomonic reigns were able to offer many of these institutions that then offset the
advance of the Philistines.
Matthews also has a helpful section on how the OT often employs divine titles
and images from Ugarit in order to superimpose Yahweh’s supremacy over all
other gods (cf., e.g., Deut. 33:26-27; Ps. 18:13-15; 86:6-7). Also insightful is his
discussion on the Cyrus Cylinder and sections in Isaiah 44:28-45:13. Like other
sections in the book, Matthews systematically compares these two ancient Near
Eastern documents and then offers penetrating analysis.
Missing is any lengthy discussion on creation. One may argue that the first of
Matthews’ eight points should have been creation, yet the only discussions I found
on creation were on pages 17-24 and 69-70. And frankly these are very modest
engagements with a very important theological theme. Creation is much more of a
fundamental substratum of OT theological reflection than Matthews (as well as
most other scholars) imagines. The reasons for this marginalization of creation
are many and complex. Suffice it to say, however, that the first “turning point” (to
employ Matthews’s nomenclature) is creation. And so what is needed is a thorough
treatment of Israel’s history in light of its interrelationship with the entire created
cosmos.
This aside, nothing gives me more exegetical pleasure than rereading Biblical
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texts and discovering new insights. Beginning and advanced students of the OT
will find many such insights in Matthews’s book.
Reed Lessing
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TRUTH? Edited by Andreas Köstenberger. Wheaton:
Crossway, 2005. 173 pages. Paper. $15.99.
Whatever Happened to Truth? consists of four papers presented to the 56th
Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. One of the presenters,
Andreas Köstenberger, serves as general editor of the collection. All four essays
deal with the issue of truth from “the conviction that there is truth, and that truth
can be known, in God’s written word, the Bible, and in God’s incarnate Word, the
Lord Jesus Christ” (10; editor’s emphasis). Though stemming from the same conviction, the four essays explore the issue of truth from four different perspectives:
Biblical, cultural, philosophical, and hermeneutical.
Regardless of differing perspectives, all four essayists (undesignedly, it appears) identify the currently popular view of truth as subjective in origin as truth’s
greatest enemy. The editor says that truth nowadays “is conceived of as ‘your’ truth
or ‘my’ truth —that is, differing yet equally legitimate ways of perceiving reality”
(9). The second essayist, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., agrees: “Objective meaning has been
lost; whatever meaning and truth we find...is brought there by the viewer in a
subjective experience” (55). Mohler then proceeds to exemplify this trend in the
areas of cinema, law, and literary criticism: directors of cinema striving to tell their
truth as if it were something different than the truth; judges and lawyers viewing
truth as “a matter to be decided, not discovered” (55); literary critics declaring that
it is not the text nor the author of that text who establishes meaning but rather the
reader of the text (60). J. P. Moreland, the third essayist, insists that “people
discover truth, they do not create it” (80). Discussing hermeneutical relativism,
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, the final presenter, condemns the approach of embracing “the
interpreter within you,” a practice he compares to the period of Judges “where
everyone did whatever was right in their own eyes” (97).
Though unquestionably the enemy, subjectivity is not altogether villain,
Vanhoozer is careful to point out in his brilliant essay on truth from a hermeneutical perspective. He calls to mind Kierkegaard’s famous defense of subjectivity (a
different aspect of subjectivity, to be sure) in which the individual exposed to objective truth commits himself passionately to it rather than espousing relativism
(123). Vanhoozer even does his Danish mentor one better by encouraging a greater
degree of subjectivity in respect to truth when he commends the role of imagination
in response to objective truth: “Where reason analyzes, breaking things (and texts)
up into their constituent parts, imagination synthesizes, making connections between things that appear unrelated” (121). But note that both reason and imagination, subjective entities, are dealing with truth as a phenomenon still outside
themselves rather than as an entity self-originated.
Implied in this unified opposition to subjectivity as the source of truth is, of
course, the essayists’ conviction that truth is actually an objective reality. It exists
apart from our self. Though meant to be appropriated by us, it is “out there” to
begin with. But the four presenters are not content to communicate their conviction
merely through their implication or through reader inference. Repeatedly, they
express their belief explicitly. Perhaps Mohler’s statement will suffice: “[T]ruth,
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language, and ideas express something other than interiority and refer to something outside themselves” (61). Mohler adds that “it is very hard to get by without
propositions, despite the hostility directed toward them by postmodernists” (69).
But he is quick to point out, “Of course truth is more than propositional, but it can
never be less than propositional” (71). Ultimately, truth is a Person. That is the
unique contribution of Köstenberger’s lead-off essay on truth from a Biblical perspective. “Rather than merely connoting correspondence with reality, as in Greek
philosophy, or factual accuracy, as in Roman thought, truth...while also being propositional, is at the heart a personal, relational concept that has its roots and origin
in none other than God himself ” (21). In answer to the question of the book’s title,
“Whatever happened to truth?” Köstenberger responds: “In one sense, the answer
is, ‘The truth is fine, thank you.’ Jesus, the Word, continues to speak to those with
ears to hear in his word, the Scriptures” (131). On a later page he concludes that
truth is ultimately “theocentric and Christocentric, even crucicentric” (132).
(“Crucicentric”—a brilliant coinage indeed!)
Clearly styled and logically argued, the essays by Köstenberger, Mohler, and
Vanhoozer will serve to firm up their conservative base—be it religious, political,
or linguistic. (And “whipping up the troops” is a worthwhile outcome.) But whether
their cogent arguments for the objective nature of truth and its ultimately divine
origin will have an impact on the bulk of postmodern deconstructionists is doubtful—so entrenched are many of the latter in their bias that truth is in the eye of the
beholder, rather than a thing beheld.
This being the case may account for the inclusion of the third essay in the
volume, Moreland’s philosophical perspective on truth. Although his presentation
begins well and contains a few oases of clarity, I, frankly, had difficulty with it
(especially pages 85-90)—not its content (to the extent I understood its content)
but its style, sprinkled with ambiguity and jargon. Hamlet might call it “caviary to
the general.” There are, of course, two kinds of ambiguity in language: a good kind,
the ambiguity of richness and levels of meaning (such as can be found in a metaphysical poem); and a bad kind, the ambiguity of nonsense (such as can be found in
some contemporary literary criticism, in the burped-out poetry of budding undergraduates in “artsy” campus publications, and in the productions of many
postmodern deconstructionists). Jargon words such as “epistemic certainty,” “noetic structure,” “an object of intentionality,” “representational entities,” “self-presenting properties,” “non-doxastically grounded,” “beliefs that are defeasible” and
“sensations, such as being-appeared-to-redly” (!) surface in Moreland’s essay. Fairness demands that I quote these jargon words in context, but I don’t think my doing
so will prove any more helpful. (Even my spellcheck questioned most of them!) But
it is my hunch (and I’m being only faintly facetious) that this is the very essay that
may get the attention of those who insist that truth is subjective and relative. They
will recognize a person familiar with the incomprehensible language of their own
creation. Here is ambiguity of their ambiguity, jargon of their jargon, nonsense of
their nonsense! It is just possible that, given their attention, Moreland’s compelling philosophical defense of truth’s objectivity may seep through. There is a degree
of poetic justice in the possible outcome that those who obfuscate with jargon
should see their nonsense arguments perish by jargon. To quote Hamlet again, the
postmoderns will be “hoist with [their] own petar.”
Francis C. Rossow
DEAR DR. JANZOW: Australia’s Lutheran Churches and Refugees from Hitler’s
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Germany. By Peter Monteath. Unley, SA: Australian Humanities Press, 2005.
116 pages (with 15 illustrations). $30.00.
On November 18, 1938 a short notice was published in the London Times, that
the General President of the Australian Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELCA), Dr.
William Janzow, had announced that his church would be willing to support the
admission of Jewish refugees into his country. This was planned to happen in
cooperation with the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (UELCA).
Janzow, born in Lewiston, Minnesota, in 1875, attended Concordia Seminary in St.
Louis, Missouri, before moving to Australia in 1907. The effect of this newspaper
notice was that Janzow received seventy-three letters. Jews as well as Christians
of Jewish descent, asked for support and help. Three of these petitioners finally got
to Australia, but it is not discernible if this has anything to do with this attempt to
establish contact. So there is no proof that the initiative of the Australian Lutherans
has been successful. Nevertheless, these proceedings were very instructive, if analyzed carefully, as this publication is able to show.
Monteath has edited a collection of thirty-four of these letters, which are a
shocking testimony of the misery caused by the racial policy (61-106). He also
provides information on the lot of single correspondents, as far as this could be
reconstructed by intensive studies (107-114). As a result, the different courses of
life become perceptible—of those being killed, and of those having survived in their
home country or having fled to different countries all over the world. Before presenting the single persons and their fate, Monteath analyzes the historical setting.
First of all he, introduces the reader quickly and competently to the pressure of
Nazi Germany until World War II on German and foreign Jews as well as Christians and other people of (partial) Jewish origin. He also describes the attempts of
this group to organize emigration on its own (5-13). He then turns to the very
restrictive immigration policy of Australia, the efforts of the Jewish relief organization in Australia, and a committee trying to help so called “non-Aryan” Christians (15-32). The special situation of the Australian Lutherans, who had close
contacts to Germany, is focused as well (33-46). As outsiders in the Australian
society, they had been, on the one hand, predestinated to help; on the other hand,
the resources to help had been very limited. Monteath also describes the activities
of Nazi sympathizers in the German milieu (47-54). The Austrian Pastor Alfred
Freund-Zinnbauer, of half Jewish origin, is an instructive example to show, how the
complicated convulsion of clashing powers. Freund-Zinnbauer was pushing ahead
his emigration from the middle of 1937. One year later he contacted General President Stolz of the UELCA. Not earlier than on February 22, 1940, he reached Australia but was imprisoned already in June because he was German and stayed in
jail until February 1944 (44-60; 107-108).
This study collects many parts of a puzzle, including biographical details of
single persons as parts of political information, and puts them together in one
picture. Of course, this effort has to be incomplete. But the special value of this
study is not only that it remembers the victims of the racial policy but also that the
proceedings are shown from an Australian point of view. By that Lutheran churches
from abroad are focused, and it becomes clear that they have been not only spectators but they have been affected themselves. Monteath has been working carefully
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and gives a sensible judgment. His study is important for broadening one’s horizon
in dealing with the time of the Nazi regime.
Volker Stolle/Christoph Barnbrock
Mannheim, Germany/Verden, Germany
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Books Received
Das, A. Andrew. SOLVING THE ROMANS DEBATE. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007.
324 pages. Paper. $24.00.
Elowsky, Joel C., ed. ANCIENT CHRISTIAN COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE:
New Testament Iva, John 1-10. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2007. 421 pages.
Cloth. $40.00.
Fry, George C. and Joel R. Kurz, eds. LIVELY STONE: The Autobiography of Berthold
von Schenk. Delphi, NY: ALPB Books, 2006. 152 pages. Paper. $12.50 plus
shipping.
Gibbs, Jeffrey A. CONCORDIA COMMENTARY: Matthew 1:1-11:1. St. Louis:
Concordia, 2006. 548 pages. Cloth. $42.99.
Glockner, Matthias and Albrecht Döhnert. TRE: THEOLOGISCHE
REALENZYKLOPÄDIE: Gesamtregister Band I: Bibelstellen, Orte, Sachen.
Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006. 693 pages. Cloth. 213.08 (Euro).
Grudem, Wayne. COUNTERING THE CLAIMS OF EVANGELICAL FEMINISM:
Biblical Responses to the Key Questions. Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2006.
284 pages. Paper. $14.99.
Koester, Robert J. GOSPEL MOTIVATION: More Than “Jesus Died for My Sins.”
Milwaukee: Northwestern, 2006. 192 pages. Paper. $13.99.
O’Donnell, Kevin. INSIDE WORLD RELIGIONS. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,
2007. 192 pages. Cloth. $24.00.
Pless, John T. HANDLING THE WORD OF TRUTH: Law and Gospel in the Church
Today. St. Louis: Concordia, 2004. 128 pages. Paper. $12.99.
Ross, Allen P. RECALLING THE HOPE OF GLORY: Biblical Worship from the
Garden to the New Creation. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006. 592 pages. Cloth.
$35.99.
Steinbronn, Anthony J. WORLDVIEWS: A Christian Response to Religious Pluralism. St. Louis: Concordia, 2006. 272 pages. Paper. $16.99.
Thiselton, Anthony C. 1 CORINTHIANS: A Shorter Exegetical & Pastoral Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 336 pages. Cloth. $30.00.
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