Now, as a Lutheran, I can truly say "O how love I Thy Law!" Now I can
truly say God's commandments are not burdensome, because I am completely
free and passive in my status before God in Christ my Savior. He
continually is gracious to me and continually forgives me, and meets my
weak faith with His gracious Sacraments to comfort me. He gives me His
minister to declare gracious Words to me, that I am forgiven. And when I
don't feel it, my pastor and priest declares it to me again.
No more looking inside. The Gospel is delivered outside of me, where Jesus promises to be. In His Word and in His Sacraments.
Not in striving.
Not in emotions or feelings.
Not in creation.
Not in experiences.
This is true freedom.
My sins are forgiven.
Constantly.
No more looking inside. The Gospel is delivered outside of me, where Jesus promises to be. In His Word and in His Sacraments.
Not in striving.
Not in emotions or feelings.
Not in creation.
Not in experiences.
This is true freedom.
My sins are forgiven.
Constantly.
Did you ever get angry at God, because of guilt and despair?
ReplyDeleteSometimes, although I was more afraid of God most of the time. I am so thankful that now the first thing I think of when I think of God is Christ on the Cross, for me.
ReplyDeleteI fell away from Lutheranism into evangelicalism and I'm struggling with that. Trying to find "faith" in myself so I can be at peace. I need to come back. I found before when I trusted the promises of Baptism faith took care of itself; but when I try to "believe" so as to assure myself that I am saved and forgiven, my heart seems to harden and I get caught in unbelief.
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what I experienced for 20 years. When one separates the Spirit from the Sacraments, and in particular their Holy Baptism, it becomes a whole different kind of faith. One that you correctly mentioned is introspective and ends up inevitably causing a person to question whether or not they have "true faith." We will never match up to such "faith." Faith rests on God's promises. It is not based on how we feel. God died for the world in Christ. God delivers that Good News in His Word and in His Sacraments, because that is where He has promised to be as for us. Well-said, that faith takes care of itself when we simply rest in the promises of God in our Holy Baptism.
ReplyDeleteHowdy,
ReplyDeleteI'm a recent convert to Lutgeranism and still struggle with the feeling that I'm somehow not good enough because of the sins I struggke,with. I know I have been justified and forgiven but deel that God is still displeased with me in my daily living because I fall so far,short in obeying His law. Perhaps this is just a hangover from evangelicalism...or perhaps it's my OCD, which I recently found out I have. Any suggestions for me? Thanks for thus post!
Joe
Hi Joe, thank you for your comment. The beauty of the pure Gospel found in Lutheranism is that everything is outside of you. Our righteousness before God is completely passive and not based on anything we do--**even in sanctification!** Our sanctification is about our relation to mankind, *not* to God. Our justification is about our relation to God. This wonderful truth of the Two Kinds of Righteousness is great news, and is pure freedom! We always fall short, because we never love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, nor do we ever love our neighbor as ourselves. But *Christ* did this in our place. When God looks at you, He sees Christ. We experience our sinfulness, but God is still just as pleased with you as He is with His Dear Son. Now go and live in the freedom of this wonderfully Good News!
ReplyDeleteThanks Josh. What are we to do with those passages of Scripture, then, that talk about the possibility of our being displeasing to God, and making it our ambition to be pleasing to Him by how we conduct ourselves? If God is,already wholly pleased with us in Christ, how does it make sense to make it our ambition to please Him? Don't we already have that? Thanks again,
ReplyDeleteJoe
To put it simply; finding faith "in myself" or "the" faith in myself, or to find certitude/assurance in that I find that I have faith even "in Christ" is enthusiasm as Luther said "original sin". The devil tears us away from the Word.
ReplyDeleteThis is what Luther was getting at when he denied Zwingli saying that 'even if I preached Zwingli's doctrine about Christ being crucified with great fervor and sweated blood it would be to no avail and all law". This is in reality, the law and works, the Calvinist "gospel" and it is in fact another gospel.
When we say "faith in Christ" it means extra nos, out side of us. Most miss the real import of what that is saying. It is not, also, saying faith "here inside me" that is drawn from Christ over there or faith I have IN me that is INVESTED in Christ over there. This is what the enthusiast like Calvinism is blind too. Rather "faith in Christ" means it reside literally IN Christ. Like the water is not "in me" but "in the pool over there". That is faith IN Christ. This is what it means to be connected to the Vine. It is why Word and Sacrament are quite literally the presence of Christ incarnate.
What the enthusiast like the Calvinist and Arminians alike do not grasp is that their "supper" is connected to their view (and heresy) of the two natures. Luther makes this point in the often not read "On the Church and Councils" pointing out the similar error of Nestorius and Eutyches of which Calvinism is the modern version. Luther's point was that both come a priori to the scriptures with who God can be, its not the details of what appears to be opposite heresies (this is to see it wrong). Rather they both make the same error from opposite ends. Both affirm the two natures and one person. One just cannot stand for "this man created all things" and the other cannot stand "God suckling, walking and dying". Their error and hence heresy was to come a priori to the scripture and not Christ alone to reveal God. Luther came to the scriptures this way, "I know nothing whatsoever of God, let it tell me what and Who He is, even if it offends reason."
Luther points out that even affirming the two natures without the communication of attributes, this way in accurate words even become a "mere manner of speaking" and not the faith itself.
Luther points out the communication of attributes is not some doctrine distilled from among others, but is the very essence of the incarnation itself and thereby the essence of the Gospel. This is why he says of the sacrament of the altar, "this sacrament IS the Gospel". Without it, even highly precise and accurate statements of doctrine become only an empty "mere manner of speaking".
Thus Calvinism and all its distillations and apparent opposites like Arminianism are cut from the same heretical cloth. They affirm for example as did Nestorius and Eutychyes the two natures in the one person, but its all merely a "mere manner of speaking". the communication of attributes, and why they deny his actual crucified body and blood in the mouth.
All doctrines, true and false, are connected ultimately. Justification by faith alone, true justification by faith alone IS connected to the sacraments.