In this month’s newsletter we will continue to assess Luther’s theology following the
pattern laid out by Gonzalez, this time looking at Luther’s understanding of law and gospel.
Gonzalez asserts that for Luther the law-gospel theme is the focal point of Luther’s
theology. Here the law is defined as the will of God and has two primary functions:
As civil law, it restrains the wicked and provides the order necessary both for social
life and for the proclamation of the gospel; as “theological” law, it bares before us the
enormity of our sin. (Gonzalez, 53)
Thus Gonzalez characterizes Luther as having chiefly two “uses” of the law. In a footnote,
Gonzalez also asserts that Luther did believe in a “third use of the law [a guide]” although Luther
never used the term “third use.” By relegating this information to a footnote Gonzalez thus
downplays a positive guiding role of the law in Luther’s thought so that the law is basically
God’s “no” to the sinful human condition, a no that can only be reversed by the gospel, God’s
“yes” to humanity. But if this is so there seems to be little place left for guiding the Christian in
good works.
Many of my professors at both of our LCMS seminaries have expressed some concern
over such a characterization of Luther’s understanding of law-gospel. Following the lead of
especially Dr. Robert Kolb at the St. Louis seminary, many at both seminaries say that lawgospel is not the chief category in Luther’s theology; rather “two kinds of righteousness” is.
There is no doubt that Luther certainly made two kinds of righteousness (i.e. two ways of having
“right” relations with others) a central part of his theology. Two kinds of righteousness refers to
an anthropology where human beings have both a passive or vertical righteousness before God
and an active or horizontal righteousness in relation to their fellow human beings. This model
critiques the law-gospel model for minimizing Christian love to the neighbor. In other words,
law-gospel as Gonzalez sees it in Luther’s conception neglects our relation with our neighbor
and only seems to emphasize our direct relationship with God. Hence for those following Kolb
“active righteousness” must be added to have a more comprehensive theology and a fuller
picture of Luther.
But there can be problems with this two kinds of righteousness model as well, as a few
professors at especially the Fort Wayne seminary recognize. The danger with two kinds of
righteousness is a sort of Calvinism where God cannot work through physical means. Strictly
speaking, if vertical righteousness is truly vertical, God cannot use any created means to relate
with human beings since if a thing is created it is necessarily also horizontal to us. By
emphasizing God’s vertical dealing with us in our lives, Lutheran theologians try to safeguard
that our salvation is by grace and not by any worthiness on our part—a laudable intention indeed.
But, strictly speaking, this would rule out the sacraments and even our Lord Jesus Christ from
being vehicles for God to deal with us since these are necessarily also horizontal to us. Thus a
potential danger of the two kinds of righteousness model is that vertical righteousness will have
little relation to horizontal righteousness. For example, the two kinds of righteousness model
instructs in good works, but it is unclear what good they actually do our neighbor. The danger is
Calvin’s dictum: the finite is incapable of the infinite.
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While acknowledging the potential helpfulness of the law-gospel model and the two
kinds of righteousness model these models must be understood rightly. Whichever model one
uses, he or she must emphasize that God deals with in a rigorously incarnational and sacramental
way. Jesus Christ was God’s chief sacrament to the world; in him the vertical became accessible
to us in what is horizontal to us, namely his own flesh. Similarly, God continues to work in
sacramental ways in our lives today. This occurs chiefly in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But
even beyond these, God works in the lives of others through the loving works of the saints.
These works always remain subordinate to the sacraments and in a different category but their
connection to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper must always be maintained. God introduces Christ
to others through the witness of his saints. This witness does not justify the one witnessing, but it
can help bring grace to the one being witnessed to. In other words, our works do not save us, but
they can help witness to others and bring them to Christ who does save them. Without
acknowledging this, good works become pointless, a sheer obedience to God of no value to
anyone else. Remember that it was Luther who said that our good works are not really needed by
God but rather by our neighbor. Welcome to the world of Luther studies. There are about as
many interpretations of Luther as there are interpreters. Again we are reminded that we must be
critical in our appropriation of Luther, learning from his great insights but careful not to veer off
from the biblical message.
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