Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

by F. Bente

In 1563 a collateral controversy concerning the obedience of Christ was raised by Parsimonius (George Karg). He was born 1512; studied under Luther in Wittenberg; 1547 he became pastor in Schwabach, and 1556 superintendent in Ansbach; 1563 he was deposed because of erroneous theses published in that year; he was opposed by Hesshusius and Ketzmann in Ansbach; 1570, having discussed his difference with the theologians in Wittenberg, Karg retracted and was restored to his office; he died 1576. In his theses on justification Parsimonius deviated from the Lutheran doctrine by teaching that Christ redeemed us by His passive obedience only, and by denying that His active obedience had any vicarious merit, since as man He Himself owed such obedience to the Law of God,—a view afterwards defended also by such Reformed divines as John Piscator, John Camero, and perhaps Ursinus. (Schaff 1, 274.)

Over against this error the Formula of Concord explains and declares: "Therefore the righteousness which is imputed to faith or to the believer out of pure grace is the obedience suffering, and resurrection of Christ, since He has made satisfaction for us to the Law, and paid for our sins. For since Christ is not man alone, but God and man in one undivided person, He was as little subject to the Law (because He is the Lord of the Law) as He had to suffer and die as far as His person is concerned. For this reason, then, His obedience, not only in suffering and dying, but also in this, that He in our stead was voluntarily made under the Law and fulfilled it by this obedience, is imputed to us for righteousness, so that, on account of this complete obedience which He rendered His heavenly Father for us, by doing and suffering, in living and dying, God forgives our sins, regards us as godly and righteous, and eternally saves us." (919, 16.)—

In their zealous opposition to the doctrine of Osiander according to which the indwelling essential holiness of the divine nature of Christ is our righteousness before God, also the Hamburg ministers went a step too far in the opposite direction. They denied, or at any rate seemed to deny, the indwelling of the Holy Trinity as such in believers. In their Response (Responsio) of 1552 they declared: "God is said to dwell where He is present by His grace and benevolence, where He gives the Word of His grace, and reveals His promises concerning His mercy and the remission of sins, where He works by His Spirit, etc." (Frank 2, 107.) Again: "That His indwelling pertains to His efficacy and operation appears from many passages which describe without a figure the efficacy and operation of Christ and of the Holy Spirit dwelling in believers." "The dwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers signifies that they are led by the Spirit of God." "But it cannot be proved by the Scripture that the fulness of God dwells bodily in us as it dwells in Christ Jesus. The inhabitation of God in us is a matter of grace, not of nature; of gift, not of property." (107.)

In 1551 Melanchthon had written: "It must be admitted that God dwells in our hearts, not only in such a manner that He there is efficacious, though not present with His own essence, but that He is both present and efficacious. A personal union, however, does not take place in us, but God is present in us in a separable manner as in a separable domicile." (C. R. 7, 781.) This was the view of the Lutheran theologians generally. Article III of the Formula of Concord, too, is emphatic in disavowing a personal union of the deity and humanity in believers, as well as in asserting that God Himself, not merely His gifts, dwell in Christians. (935, 54; 937, 65.) In addition to the aberrations enumerated, Article III rejects also some of the Roman and the Romanizing errors concerning justification in the Leipzig Interim, and some views entertained by Majorists which are extensively and ex professo dealt with in Article IV. (CONC. TRIGL. 917, 5.)

XVII. The Antinomistic Controversy.

183. Distinction between Law and Gospel of Paramount Import.

Zwingli, who was a moralist and a Humanist rather than a truly evangelical reformer, taught: "In itself the Law is nothing else than a Gospel; that is, a good, certain message from God by means of which He instructs us concerning His will." (Frank 2, 312.) While Zwingli thus practically identified Law and Gospel, Luther, throughout his life, held that the difference between both is as great as that between life and death or the merits of Christ and our own sinful works; and that no one can be a true minister of the Christian Church who is unable properly to distinguish and apply them. For, according to Luther, a commingling of the Law and the Gospel necessarily leads to a corruption of the doctrine of justification, the very heart of Christianity. And as both must be carefully distinguished, so both must also be upheld and preached in the Church; for the Gospel presupposes the Law and is rendered meaningless without it. Wherever the Law is despised, disparaged, and corrupted, the Gospel, too, cannot be kept intact. Whenever the Law is assailed, even if this be done in the name of the Gospel, the latter is, in reality, hit harder than the former. The cocoon of antinomianism always bursts into antigospelism.

Majorism, the mingling of sanctification and justification, and synergism, the mingling of nature and grace, were but veiled efforts to open once more the doors of the Lutheran Church to the Roman work-righteousness, which Luther had expelled. The same is true of antinomianism in all its forms. It amounts to nothing less than apostasy from true Evangelicalism and a return to Romanism. When Luther opposed Agricola, the father of the Antinomians in the days of the Reformation, he did so with the clear knowledge that the Gospel of Jesus Christ with its doctrine of justification by grace and faith alone was at stake and in need of defense. "By these spirits," said he, "the devil does not intend to rob us of the Law, but of Christ, who fulfilled the Law." (St. L. 20, 1614; Pieper, Dogm. 3, 279; Frank 2, 268. 325.)

With the same interest in view, to save the Gospel from corruption, the Formula of Concord opposes antinomianism and urges that the distinction between the Law and the Gospel be carefully preserved. The opening paragraph of Article V, "Of the Law and the Gospel," reads: "As the distinction between the Law and Gospel is a special brilliant light which serves to the end that God's Word may be rightly divided, and the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles may be properly explained and understood, we must guard it with especial care, in order that these two doctrines may not be mingled with one another, or a Law be made out of the Gospel, whereby the merit of Christ is obscured and troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort, which they otherwise have in the holy Gospel when it is preached genuinely and in its purity, and by which they can support themselves in their most grievous trials against the terrors of the Law." (951, 1.) The concluding paragraph of this article declares that the proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel must be preserved, "in order that both doctrines, that of the Law and that of the Gospel, be not mingled and confounded with one another, and what belongs to the one may not be ascribed to the other, whereby the merit and benefits of Christ are easily obscured and the Gospel is again turned into a doctrine of the Law, as has occurred in the Papacy, and thus Christians are deprived of the true comfort which they have in the Gospel against the terrors of the Law, and the door is again opened in the Church of God to the Papacy." (961, 27.) The blessed Gospel, our only comfort and consolation against the terrors of the Law, will be corrupted wherever the Law and the Gospel are not properly distinguished,—such, then, was the view also of the Formula of Concord.

Articles V and VI of the Formula treat and dispose of the issues raised by the Antinomians. In both Luther's doctrine is maintained and reaffirmed. Article V, "Of the Law and Gospel," teaches that, in the proper sense of the term, everything is Law that reveals and rebukes sin, the sin of unbelief in Christ and the Gospel included; that Gospel, in the proper and narrow sense, is nothing but a proclamation and preaching of grace and forgiveness of sin, that, accordingly, the Law as well as the Gospel are needed and must be retained and preached in the Church. This was precisely what Luther had taught. In one of his theses against Agricola he says: "Whatever discloses sin, wrath, or death exercises the office of the Law; Law and the disclosing of sin or the revelation of wrath are convertible terms. Quidquid ostendit peccatum, iram seu mortem, id exercet officium legis; lex et ostensio peccati seu revelatio irae sunt termini convertibiles." Article VI "Of the Third Use of the Law," teaches that although Christians, in as far as they are regenerate, do the will of God spontaneously, the Law must nevertheless be preached to them on account of their Old Adam, not only as a mirror revealing their sins and as a check on the lusts of the flesh, but also as a rule of their lives. This, too, is precisely what Luther had maintained against Agricola: "The Law," said he, "must be retained [in the Church], that the saints may know which are the works God requires." (Drews, Disputationen Dr. Martin Luthers, 418; Herzog R. I, 588; Frank 2, 272; Tschackert, 482.)