Daily Office 5.18-5.24

Sunday (Trinity Sunday):
AM Psalm 146, 147; PM Psalm 111, 112, 113
Job 38:1-11,42:1-5; Rev. 19:4-16; John 1:29-34

Monday:

AM Psalm 1, 2, 3; PM: Psalm 4, 7
Prov. 3:11-20; 1 John 3:18-4:6; Matt. 11:1-6

Dunstan of Canterbury:
Psalm 57:6-11 or 33:1-5,20-21
Ecclesiasticus 44:1-7; Matthew 24:42-47


Tuesday:

AM Psalm 5, 6; PM Psalm 10, 11
Prov. 4:1-27; 1 John 4:7-21; Matt. 11:7-15

Alcuin:
Psalm 37:3-6,32-33 or 112:1-9
Ecclesiasticus 39:1-9; Matthew 13:47-52


Wednesday:
AM Psalm 119:1-24; PM Psalm 12, 13, 14
Prov. 6:1-19; 1 John 5:1-12; Matt. 11:16-24

Thursday:
AM Psalm 18:1-20; PM Psalm 18:21-50
Prov. 7:1-27; 1 John 5:13-21; Matt. 11:25-30

Friday:

AM Psalm 16, 17; PM Psalm 22
Prov. 8:1-21; 2 John 1-13; Matt. 12:1-14

Saturday:

AM Psalm 20, 21:1-7(8-14); PM Psalm 110:1-5(6-7), 116, 117
Prov. 8:22-36; 3 John 1-15; Matt. 12:15-21

Jackson Kemper:
Psalm 67 or 96:1-7
1 Corinthians 3:8-11; Matthew 28:16-20

Lutheranism class five

Again, thank you all for a great class last night. So much for covering two sacraments in one night! We will try to cover baptism and penance next week, and then the rest of the sacraments the following week.

It's become a ten-week course, but that's okay! Depth is good.

If you have any more questions about the Eucharist, please don't hesitate to ask me in person or on this weblog.

Feel free to read up on the baptismal portion of the class material as prep for next week.

Theology of the Lutheran Churches in Theory and Practice
(Formerly Lutheranism for Dummies!)
Week 5
Sacramental Theology, pt. 1


Works on Sacramental Theology:

St. Augustine. On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed.
Martin Luther. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520.
Martin Luther. Against the Fanatics, 1526.
Martin Luther. Small and Large Catechisms, 1529.
Book of Concord: AC, Ap. of AC; Roman Confutation; articles IX, X, XXII.
Carl Braaten. Principles of Lutheran Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1983.
Frank Senn. Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1997.
Bernard Lohse. Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1999.

What is a sacrament?

Look at handout for the evolution of sacramental theology in the Western Christian Church. For Lutherans, a sacrament is a visible sign combined with God’s word. In Augustine’s words, the sign + word becomes a “visible word.” Sacraments are means of grace for God’s people.

How many are there?

Roman Catholics and Lutherans differ on the number of sacraments. RC count seven: baptism, communion, penance, extreme unction (anointing of the sick), marriage, confirmation, holy orders.

Lutherans have generally counted two: baptism and communion. However, in Luther’s Babylonian Captivity of the Church and Melancthon’s Apology of the AC, penance is retained as a sacrament with a number of changes. Tonight we will cover two: baptism and communion. Next week we will cover: penance, anointing, marriage, confirmation, and holy orders.

How did Lutheran sacramental understanding develop?

Luther wrote a critique of the misuse of the sacraments by the Roman Church in 1520 called The Babylonian Captivity of the Pope. In it he describes the “tyranny of the papacy” in their sacramental practice. “To begin with, I must deny that there are seven sacraments, and for the present maintain that there are three: baptism, penance, and the bread (communion). All three have been subjected to a miserable captivity by the Roman curia, and the church has been robbed of all her liberty.”

Luther writes about communion first. He describes three “captivities of the sacraments” by the Roman church.
1.The withholding of the cup from the laity.
2.Transubstantiation as an article of faith.
3.The mass as a good work that gives one merit before God.

Later, Luther would counter the theology of Ulrich Zwingli which maintained that the Lord’s Supper was merely symbolic.

So only the priests could drink the wine? Why?

For the first twelve centuries of the Christian church, the cup was offered to the laity, in both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Over time, however, the cup was gradually withdrawn from the laity in the Roman church. Part of this was the separation of first communion from baptism. At baptism, an infant would receive first communion in the form of wine. After the doctrine of transubstantiation took hold (more on this later), the hierarchy became more concerned about the administration of a liquid to the people – wine could easily spill, drip on the floor, etc. The doctrine of concomitance affirmed that either element contained the whole sacrament – the body contains the blood, and vice versa. Out of a wish to avoid “desecrating” the consecrated wine, concomitance was affirmed and the laity were given only the bread. This became a standard practice in 1281 at the Council of Lambeth. Communion was to be given in one kind only, and only after confirmation.

Luther and the Reformers attacked this practice. In Babylonian Captivity, Luther writes, “Now there are two passages that do bear very clearly upon this matter: the Gospel narratives of the Lord’s Supper and Paul in 1 Cor. 11. Let us examine these. Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22 agree that Christ gave the whole sacrament to all his disciples. That Paul delivered both kinds is so certain that no one has ever had the temerity to say otherwise. Add to that Matt. 26:27 reports that Christ did not say of the bread, ‘eat of it, all of you,’ but of the cup, ‘drink of it, all of you.’ Mark 14:23 likewise does not say, ‘they all ate of it,’ but ‘they all drank of it.’ Both attach the note of universality to the cup, not to the bread, as though the Spirit foresaw this schism, by which some would be forbidden to partake of the cup, which Christ desired should be common to all.” Luther also writes, “It follows, further, that if the church can withhold from the laity one kind, the wine, it can also withhold from them the other, the bread. It could therefore withhold the entire Sacrament of the Altar from the laity and completely annul Christ’s institution as far as they are concerned. By whose authority, I ask. If the church cannot withhold the bread, or both kinds, neither can it withhold the wine.”

The Reformers address this practice in Article XXII of the Augsburg Confession, in which they affirm the distribution of communion in both kinds.

Transubstanti-what?

Transubstantiation is the dogma which explains the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament for the RCC. It comes from the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, who in turn relied on Aristotle’s philosophical concepts of substance and accident Substance is that which makes something what it is – it is the underlying reality. It gives bread its “bread-ness” and wine its “wine-ness”. The accidents are that which are perceptible to the senses (taste, touch, smell, etc.)

Thomas wrote that substances of bread and wine are destroyed in their consecration and replaced by the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. Only the accidents of bread and wine remain. In other words, it looks like bread, feels like bread, smells like bread, and tastes like bread…but it’s not bread. It’s the Body and Blood of Christ, really and truly present.

Thomas twisted Aristotle a bit to make this system work. Aristotle wrote that a substance cannot exist without its accidents (which Luther pointed out in Babylonian Captivity). Thomas was trying to explain how the sacraments “worked” using Aristotelian logic. In 1215, transubstantiation was made an article of faith at the Fourth Lateran Council. “There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors.”

From the Wikipedia article on transubstantiation:
“The Roman Catholic Church considers the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is about what is changed, not about how the change occurs, the best defence against what it sees as the mutually opposed interpretations, on the one hand, a merely figurative understanding of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (it teaches that the change of the substance is real), and, on the other hand, an interpretation that would amount to cannibalistic eating of the flesh and corporal drinking of the blood of Christ (it teaches that the accidents that remain are real, not an illusion, and that Christ is "really, truly, and substantially present" in the Eucharist,[5] not physically present, as he was physically present in the Palestine of two millennia ago).”[6]

Luther attacked the dogma, believing that it should have remained an opinion and not a required article of faith. “I at last found rest for my conscience in the above view, namely that it is real bread and real wine, in which Christ’s real flesh and blood are present in no other way and to no less a degree than the others assert them to be under their accidents. I reached this conclusion because I saw that the opinions of the Thomists, whether approved by pope or council, remain only opinions, and would not become articles of faith…for what is asserted without the Scriptures or proven revelation may be held as an opinion, but need not be believed.” Luther often called the sacrament a “sacramental union”, like iron and fire. This is not to be identified with consubstantiation, because Luther preferred to speak of the sacrament without Aristotelian language of substance.

Read AC Article X. The Confutation actually approved of the Lutheran article about the Lord’s supper, provided that the language about “true presence” was interpreted in a “substantial” sense. Indeed, Melanchthon speaks about the “real presence” as “substantial presence” in the Apology.


Why was the mass considered a good work?

Votive masses were often said for one’s relatives or for the dead. You would pay a priest, and he would “offer the mass” on behalf of those persons. There was heavy use of sacrificial language, as if the priest was “re-sacrificing” Christ to God the Father for the benefit of humankind. Luther saw this as a terrible abuse of the mass. We receive from God in the mass; we don’t offer him anything except our prayers and ourselves. “Let us stand, therefore, as our first and infallible proposition – the mass or Sacrament of the Altar is Christ’s testament, which he left behind him at his death to be distributed among his believers….what we call the mass is a promise of the forgiveness of sins made by God, and such a promise as has been confirmed by the death of the Son of God.” Luther objected to offering the mass (or the “sacrifice of the mass”) to procure God’s favor apart from faith in the promises of God.1 It becomes a form of works-righteousness, a way to justify oneself before God rather than humbly receive from God.

In his liturgical reforms, Luther did away with all Eucharistic prayers except for the Words of Institution, in order to get back to the words of Scripture themselves.

In recent years, Lutherans have re-examined sacrificial language in the Eucharist. The “sacrifice of the mass,” acceptable from a Lutheran point of view, could be:
1.The sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving we offer to God.
2.The sacrifice of ourselves – from Romans 12. “Living sacrifice, reasonable and holy.”
3.Totus Christus. All of the Christ is present, therefore his one sacrifice made on the cross is also present. Therefore, the pastor is not “re-sacrificing Christ”, but “re-presenting” the one sacrifice of Christ.

Luther’s position is best summed up in the Small Catechism.

What is the Sacrament of the Altar? Answer:
It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and the wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and drink.
What is the benefit of such eating and drinking? Answer:
The words “given for you” and “shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” show us that forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation are given to us in the sacrament through these words, because where there is forgiveness of sin, there is also life and salvation.
How can bodily eating and drinking do such a great thing? Answer:
Eating and drinking certainly do not do it, but rather the words that are recorded: “given for you” and “shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” These words, when accompanied by the physical eating and drinking, are the essential thing in the sacrament, and whoever believes these very words has what they declare and state, namely, “forgiveness of sins”.

Where does the word “mass” come from?

It comes from the wording of the Latin Eucharist, “Ite, misse est.” “Go, you are dismissed.” The emphasis is on the “sending” nature of the service. Go out into the world, strengthened by the Body and Blood to do the will and work of God.

What was Luther’s view on baptism?

Luther believed that baptism had not suffered the same fate as communion or penance, as it had not been usurped by the hierarchy for financial gain or personal power. “Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to the riches of his mercy has preserved in his church this sacrament at least, untouched and untainted by the ordinances of men, and has made it free to all nations and classes of mankind, and has not permitted it to be oppressed by the filthy and godless monsters of greed and superstition.”

The problem with baptism in the Roman Church, as Luther saw it, was that it had been ignored. Instead of remembering and trying to live out one’s vows in baptism, many people (encouraged by the religious hierarchy) joined monastic orders and made other kinds of vows. Luther wrote, “But Satan, though he could not quench the power of baptism in little children, nevertheless succeeded in quenching it in all adults, so that now there are scarcely any who call to mind their own baptism, and still fewer who glory in it; so many other ways have been discovered for remitting sins and getting to heaven….This has given rise to those endless burdens of vows, religious orders, works, satisfactions, pilgrimages, indulgences, and monastic sects, and from them in turn has arisen that flood of books, questions, opinions, and man-made ordinances which the whole world cannot contain.”

Luther believed baptism to be a divine promise of salvation, first and foremost. He cited Mark 16:16, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” But to be effective, the promise must be combined with faith. “This promise must be far above all the glitter of works…for on it all our salvation depends. But we must consider it as to exercise our faith in it, and have no doubt whatever that, once we have been baptized, we are saved. For unless faith is present or is conferred in baptism, baptism, will profit us nothing….That kind of unbelief accuses God’s promise of being a lie, and is the greatest of all sins.” Luther believed that one should consider one’s baptism as coming from the hand of God directly – God does the baptizing through the minister, and speaks the words of promise through the minister’s mouth. “Ascribe both to God alone, and look upon the person administering it as simply the vicarious instrument of God, by which the Lord sitting in heaven thrusts you under the water with his own hands, and promises you forgiveness of your sins, speaking to you upon earth with a human voice by the mouth of his minister.”

For Luther, penance was no more than a return to one’s baptism (more on this next week). “It will be no small gain to a penitent to remember above all his baptism, and, confidently calling to mind the divine promise which he has forsaken, acknowledge that promise before his Lord….” The only mortal sin, for Luther, was a refusal to believe God’s promise in baptism. “Thus you see how rich a Christian is, that is, one who has been baptized! Even if he would, he could not lose his salvation, however much he sinned, unless he refused to believe. For no sin can condemn him except unbelief alone.” One should live out one’s baptism every day, “continually drowning the Old Adam/Eve anew”.

Luther placed such a high emphasis on faith that he believed one could be saved without baptism if he/she had faith. “Thus Christ says, ‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.’ He shows us in this word that faith is such a necessary part of the sacrament that it can even save without the sacrament, and for this reason he did not add: ‘He who does not believe and is not baptized.’”

Luther defended infant baptism. He believed that faith was necessary for a baptism to be valid, but that an infant could be baptized on the faith of the church. “Infants are aided by the faith of others, namely, those who bring them to baptism….So through the prayer of the believing church which presents it, a prayer to which all things are possible, the infant is changed, cleansed, and renewed by impoured faith.” Here we see Luther’s emphasis on the importance of the faith of the church; one does not have faith in isolation, but as part of the church community.

Luther’s position, again, can be best summed up in the Small Catechism. See handout.

See article IX of the AC. The Confutation approved this article as well.

Questions:
Do you believe baptism is necessary for salvation? Why or why not? If not, what does baptism do?

Is sacrificial language appropriate in a Communion service? Do we offer anything to God?

How does one “remember” one’s baptism if one was an infant?

Daily Office 5.11-5.17

Sunday (Pentecost):
AM Psalm 118, PM Psalm 145
Deut. 16:9-12 ; Acts 4:18-21,23-33; John 4:19-26

Monday:

AM Psalm 106:1-18; PM Psalm 106:19-48
Ezek. 33:1-11; 1 John 1:1-10; Matt. 9:27-34

First Book of Common Prayer:
Psalm 96:1-9 or 33:1-5, 20-21
Acts 2:38-42; John 4:21-24


Tuesday:

AM Psalm [120], 121, 122, 123; PM Psalm 124, 125, 126, [127]
Ezek. 33:21-33; 1 John 2:1-11; Matt. 9:35-10:4

Wednesday:
AM Psalm 119:145-176; PM Psalm 128, 129, 130
Ezek. 34:1-16; 1 John 2:12-17; Matt. 10:5-15

Thursday:
AM Psalm 131, 132, [133]; PM Psalm 134, 135
Ezek. 37:21b-28; 1 John 2:18-29; Matt. 10:16-23

Friday:

AM Psalm 140, 142; PM Psalm 141, 143:1-11(12)
Ezek. 39:21-29; 1 John 3:1-10; Matt. 10:24-33

[Martyrs of Sudan]
Psalms 109, 110, 111, 116:10-17
Wisdom 3:1-9; Hebrews 10:32-39; Matthew 24:9-14


Saturday:

AM Psalm 137:1-6(7-9), 144;
Ezek. 47:1-12; 1 John 3:11-18; Matt. 10:34-42

Eve of Trinity Sunday:
PM Psalm 104
Ecclus. 42:15-25; Eph. 3:14-21

The Gospels on the Law!

And here's what Jesus (and the Gospels) had to say about the law. Are they in conflict with Paul's letters? If so, how? Why or why not?

Matt. 5:17-20
Matt. 7:12
Matt. 12:1-14
Matt. 15:1-11
Matt. 19:16-22
Matt. 22:34-40
Matt. 23:23-24
Luke 10:25-37
Luke 11:37-52
Luke 16:16-17
Luke 23:44-49
John 1:17
John 8:2-11

Links to the readings to be posted soon!

Scripture passages: Law and Gospel

As you could probably tell from last night, most of the Scriptures used to support the distinction between Law and Gospel come from the Letters of Paul. Here are some links to those Scripture passages.

Rom. 3:19-28
Rom. 3:31; "We uphold the law."
Rom. 4:13-17; "Where there is no law, there is no violation."
Rom. 6:12-19; "Sin has no dominion since you are not under law but under grace."
Rom. 7:1-12; "...you have died to the law through the body of Christ..."
Rom. 8:1-8; "For God has done what the law, weakened by flesh, could not do..."
1 Cor. 6:12; "All things are lawful; not all things are beneficial."
Gal. 2:15-21; "I died to the law."
Gal. 3:10-14; "All who rely on works of the law are under a curse."
Gal. 3:23-29; "The law our disciplinarian."
Gal. 5:13-26; Vices and virtues
Eph. 2:10-20; "He abolished the law."
1 Tim. 1:8-9

Disaster in Myanmar

John Nunes, of Lutheran World Relief, has written this article about the cyclone in Myanmar, and those who have suffered from this catastrophe.

Please support LWF's efforts at disaster relief. You can click here for more information.

Lutheranism class four

Thank you all for a very lively class last night! I would be happy to continue the discussion on this blog, or with any of you in person sometime.

What is the "right use" of the law for the churches? Can it be used from the pulpit, calling to repentance and new life in Christ? When is the law abused in our churches? Can it be used as a "sure guide and means" to order one's life?

Here is the handout from last night. Please comment -- let's keep the discussion going!

Lutheranism for Dummies!
Week 4: Law and Gospel


Important works on Law and Gospel:

St. Augustine: On the Spirit and the Letter, 4th-5th c. AD.
Martin Luther: The Freedom of A Christian, 1521.
Martin Luther: The Small and Large Catechisms, “The Second Article: On Redemption” 1529-1530.
Martin Luther: Commentary on Galatians, 1531.
Martin Luther: The Smalcald Articles, III.2-3, “Concerning the Law” and “Concerning Repentance”. 1537.
Philipp Melanchthon et al. Augsburg Confession, articles IV, XI, XII, XX and Apology of AC, the same articles plus article XXIV. 1530-31.
Formula of Concord, “Solid Declaration” and “Epitome”. Articles V and VI, “Concerning Law and Gospel” and “Concerning the Third Use of the Law”. 1577.
Carl E. Braaten. Principles of Lutheran Theology, ch. 6, “The Law/Gospel Principle”. 1983.

Worship reflection:
What did you notice about this service? What was different from the services we’ve had so far? What do you think of Martin Luther’s hymn settings? Any other comments?

What’s all this fuss Lutherans make about “Law” and “Gospel”?

The Reformers believed that in order to properly teach and preach God’s Word as revealed in Scripture, one must distinguish between the Law -- that which God demands of us -- and the Gospel -- the good news of Jesus Christ which atones for our transgressions of the law. This doctrine is closely related to justification. Just as we do nothing to merit our justification, we also do nothing to merit the promises of the Gospel inherent in our justification.
What is the Law?

The Reformers believed that the commandments of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) summarized God’s law. The other 603 laws (613 total) they regarded as related to civics and ceremonies of the Israelites, and thus not applicable to Christians. They do serve as a foreshadowing of Christ and his sacrifice[1], but are not applicable to the Christian.

The 10 Commandments are mostly negative commands (“Don’t kill, don’t steal), but Luther understood them with a positive command attached. For example, in his explanation of the eighth commandment (“You are not to bear false witness against your neighbor”), Luther wrote, “We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations. Instead, we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.”[2]

What is the purpose of the Law?

Luther spoke of two uses of the law, with a third added later by Melanchthon and the other reformers. They are:

1. The political, civic use. Nation-states use the law in this way to enforce order, punish criminals, etc.
2. The theological use. This use of the law functions as a mirror, convicting us of sin. According to Luther, no one can avoid this law – “Even if you wanted to wipe out these letters – LEX – which can be easily erased, the word ‘unrighteous’ is still in our hearts, still condemns and torments us.”[3] The purpose of this use is to drive us to despair in our own ability to keep the commandments, and ultimately, to drive us to Christ.
3. The “sure guide” use. In the Formula of Concord and the Apology to the AC, the Reformers write that the law can serve as a means to orient the Christian life. FC, IV: “Third, after they have been reborn – since nevertheless the flesh still clings to them – that precisely because of the flesh they may have a sure guide, according to which they can orient and conduct their entire life.”

Later Reformers (Gnesio-Lutherans), after Melanchthon, disputed a third use of the law, claiming that the Christian is to live by faith in the Gospel alone, citing St. Paul who says we are “not under the law but under grace.” (Rom 7:23 and 8:1, 14.) The law only kills (2 Corinthians 3:26); it is the Gospel that gives life, justifies the sinner, and orders the new life.



So then, what is the Gospel?

Luther sums up the Gospel in his Small Catechism, explaining the second article of the Creed:

“I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also a true human being, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in eternal righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.”

The Gospel is the good news that Christ has rescued us from the power of sin, death, and the devil. We are also declared “not guilty” in our transgressions of the law for Christ’s sake. Christ removes the sting of the law.

In the Formula of Concord, the Reformers write about the multivalent meanings of the word “gospel”. It can mean:
1. The entire teaching of Jesus Christ.
2. The call to repentance and the forgiveness of sins
3. The proclamation of God’s grace.

As opposed to the law, which accuses and convicts, the gospel “in its strictest sense teaches what people should believe, namely, that they receive from God the forgiveness of sins; that is, the Son of God, our Lord Christ, has taken upon himself the curse of the law and borne it, atoned and paid for all our sins; that through him we are restored to God’s grace, obtain the forgiveness of sins through faith, and are delivered from death and all the punishments of our sins and are saved eternally.”[4]

The gospel has a very personal dimension for the Christian. Carl Braaten, former professor of Systematic Theology at LSTC, sums up what the Gospel meant to the Reformers.

1. The gospel is not another word for Scripture. The inner goal of the gospel is to be proclaimed in a living voice. An “acoustical affair.”
2. “The gospel is not a system of universal truths about divine subjects which one can deduce from Scripture and collect in a volume of dogmatics. Rather, it is the living Word of God to me. Until I have heard this Word in existential inwardness, I have heard nothing of the gospel. Until I can say, this is for me – God has created me and all that exists; that he has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature; he has called me through the gospel – I have not grasped the personal dimension of the gospel…it puts the spotlight on me as a regenerate rebel, sinner, and saint at the same time before God.”
3. Even though the Gospel is for me, it is not subjective. It is not grounded in me, but in Christ outside of me. The for me of the gospel is based on God’s act in Christ.[5]


Why did the Reformers feel that this distinction was necessary?

The medieval Roman church taught that you must “do what is within you” to merit grace before God, and prescribed good works in order to receive God’s grace. The church distinguished between “congruent” merit and “condign” merit.

Merit of congruity – Good works that merit a reward solely on the basis of God’s generosity. There is no intrinsic worth to the good work – it is simply because God is gracious, God rewards the deed. If you are in a state of sin, and you do a good work (“do what is within you”), God rewards that work with an infusion of grace.

Merit of condignity – Good works that merit a reward from God on the basis of their intrinsic worth. These good works are performed in a state of grace. These works merit eternal reward.

So, it goes like this:
You are in a state of sin.
You do a good work in which God grants an infusion of grace (congruent merit).
By that infusion of grace, you are in a state of grace.
You do a good work which counts towards one’s eternal reward (condign merit).

The reformers believed that these “merits” distorted the Gospel by attributing the gift of grace to human merit. They argued that grace granted through the Gospel is the action of God alone. Nothing human beings can do can merit grace. Melanchthon was rather sharp in his condemnation of this distinction of merit:

“But this entire matter was invented by idle people who have no idea how the forgiveness of sins takes place and how, confronted by the judgment of God and the terrors of the conscience, trust in works shakes us. Complacent hypocrites always think they perform everything deserving a merit of condignity…because people naturally trust in their own righteousness. But terrified consciences waver and doubt, and then immediately seek to accumulate other works in order to find rest. They never believe that they perform anything deserving a merit of condignity, and so they rush headlong into despair unless, beyond the teaching of the law, they hear the gospel concerning the gracious forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of faith.”[6]




This all seems rather bi-polar to me. Are the Law and Gospel that opposed to each other?

The Reformers taught that there was a genuine distinction between the law and the gospel, but that they were both God’s Word. Luther even taught that the law and gospel will be most intimately linked in eternity. The condemning character of the law will cease, but the law still retains its significance as fulfilled in Jesus Christ.[7]

Even so, until the end of time, the Reformers taught that the church must preserve this distinction between law and gospel. Both must be preached, but not mixed together. From the Formula of Concord: “Accordingly, the two teachings of law and gospel dare not be mingled with the other and mixed together, and the characteristics of one dare not be ascribed to the other. When that happens, the merit and benefits of Christ are easily obscured, and the gospel is turned back into a teaching of law, as took place under the papacy. This robs Christians of the true, proper comfort against the terror of the law that they have in the gospel and re-opens the door to the papacy.”[8]

What does any of this have to do with what I hear in church?

Sermons are usually crafted around the law/gospel principle. See the handout for more details.


Questions for discussion:

1. Do you think there is a “third use of the law”? Can it be used to order the Christian life? If not, how does one order the Christian life by the Gospel?
2. How can the law be appropriately preached in the church today? How can the gospel be appropriately communicated? What are people looking for in sermons?
3. What do you think about the “gospel for me” principle? Is it too individualistic? Does it speak to you? How can it be used within a church community?


[1] Ap. of AC.
[2] BC, SC, 353.
[3] Luther’s antinomian disputation
[4] BC, Solid Declaration V, 585.
[5] Carl Braaten, Principles of Lutheran Theology, 110.
[6] BC, Kolb and Wengert, ed. Ap. of AC, 124.
[7] Bernard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 275-276.
[8] BC, SD, Article V, 586.