He brings the thought of the Person of Christ into the closest relation to our personal experience. It is not simply a doctrine—an intellectual something outside us. It is part of that blessed experience which is called Justification by Faith. It is inseparably connected with the recognition that we are not saved by means of the good deeds which we can do, but solely by the work of Christ. It is what makes us cease all work-righteousness and trust in God alone as He has revealed Himself in Christ. When we know and feel that it is God who is working for us, then we instinctively cease trying to think that we can work [pg 475] out our own salvation.[429] Hence the Person of Christ can never be a mere doctrine for the true Christian to be inquired about by the intellect. It is something which we carry about with us as part of our lives.
“To know Christ in the true way means to know that He died for us, that He piled our sins upon Himself, so that we hold all our own affairs as nothing and let them all go, and cling only to the faith that Christ has given Himself for us, and that His sufferings and piety and virtues are all mine. When I know this I must hold Him dear in return, for I must be loving to such a man.”
He insists on the human interest that the Man Jesus Christ has for us, and declares that we must take as much interest in His whole life on earth as in that of our closest friend.
Perhaps it ought to be added, although what has been said implies it, that Luther always approached the Person of Christ from his mediatorial work, and not from any previously thought out ideas of what Godhead must be, and what manhood must be, and how they can be united. He begins with the mediatorial and saving work of Christ as that is revealed in the blessed experience which faith, the gift of God, creates. He rises from, the office to the Person, and does not descend from the Person to the office. “Christ is not called Christ because He has the two Natures. What does that matter to me? He bears this glorious and comforting name because of His Office and Work which He has undertaken.”[430] It is in this way that He becomes the Saviour and the Redeemer.
It can scarcely be said that all the Reformers worked out the conception of the Person of Christ in the same way as Luther, although almost all these thoughts can be found in Calvin, but the overshadowing conception is always present to their mind—Christ fills the full sphere of God. That is the characteristic of Reformation thought and of Reformation piety, and appears everywhere in the writings of the Reformers and in the worship and rites of the [pg 476] Reformed Church. To go into the matter exhaustively would necessitate more space than can be given; but the following instances may be taken as indicating the universal thought.
1. The Reformers swept away every contemplation of intercessors who were supposed to share with our Lord the procuring of pardon and salvation, and they declared against all attempts to distinguish between various kinds of worship which could only lead pious souls astray from the one worship due to God in Christ. Such subtle distinctions, says Calvin, as latria, doulia, and hyperdoulia are neither known nor present to the minds of those who prostrate themselves before images until the world has become full of idolatry as crude and plain as that of the ancient Egyptians, which all the prophets continuously denounced: they can only mislead, and ought to be discarded. They actually suggest to worshippers to pass by Jesus Christ, the only Mediator, and betake themselves to some patron who has struck their fancy. They bring it about that the Divine Offices are distributed among the saints as if they had been appointed colleagues to our Lord Jesus Christ; and they are made to do His work, while He Himself is kept in the background like some ordinary person in a crowd. They are responsible for the fact that hymns are sung in public worship in which the saints are lauded with every blessing just as if they were colleagues of God.[431]
In conformity with these thoughts, the Confessions of the Reformation all agree in reprobating prayers to the saints. The Augsburg Confession says:
“The Scripture teacheth not to invoke saints, nor to ask the help of saints, because it propoundeth to us one Christ, the Mediator, Propitiatory, High Priest, and Intercessor. This Christ is to be invocated, and He hath promised that He will hear our prayers, and liketh this worship, to wit, that He be invocated in all afflictions. ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with God, Jesus Christ the righteous’(1 John ii. 1).”[432]
The Second Helvetic Confession, in its fifth chapter, entitled, Regarding the adoration, worship, and invocation of God through the One Mediator, Jesus Christ, lays down the rule that prayer is to be through Christ alone, and the saints and relics are not to be worshipped. And no prayer-book or liturgy in any branch of the Reformed Church contains prayers addressed to any of the saints or to the Blessed Virgin.
2. The Reformers insist on the necessity of Christ and of Christ alone for all believers. Their Confessions abound in expressions which are meant to magnify the Person and Work of Christ, and to show that He fills the whole field of believing thought and worship. The brief Netherlands Confession of 1566 has no less than three separate sections on Christ the only Mediator and Reconciler, on Christ the only Teacher, and on Christ the only High Priest and Sacrifice.[433] The Heidelberg or Palatine Catechism calls Christ my faithful Saviour, and says that we can call ourselves Christians “because by faith we are members of Jesus Christ and partakers of His anointing, so that we both confess His Holy Name and present ourselves unto Him a lively offering of thanksgiving, and in this life may with free conscience fight against sin and Satan, and afterwards possess with Christ an everlasting kingdom over all creatures.” The Scots Confession abounds in phrases intended to honour our Lord Jesus Christ. It calls Him Messiah, Eternal Wisdom, Emmanuel, our Head, Our Brother, our Pastor and great Bishop of our souls, the Author of Life, the Lamb of God, the Advocate and Mediator, and the Only High Priest. All the Confessions of the Churches of the Reformation contain the same or similar expressions. The liturgies of the Churches also abound in similar terms of adoration.