Friends of the Cross

Thesis 28. The love of God does not first discover but creates what is pleading to is. The love of man comes into being through attraction to what pleases it.

Now we have arrived at the opposite side of the great arch described by the Disputation. All else has been shorn away, put to death. What remains is simply the creative love of God. The innermost nature of the operation of the previous thesis is now announced. It is love, the love of God that creates out of nothing, calls into being that which is from that which is not.

The proof for this thesis Luther finds simply in the fact that the love of God flows forth to the unlovely:

The first part is clear because the love of God that lives in man loves sinners, evil persons, fools, and weaklings in order to make them righteous, good, wise, and strong. Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good. Therefore sinners are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive. For this reason the love of man avoids sinners and evil persons. Thus Christ says: “For I came not to call the righteous but sinners” [Matthew 9:13]. [LW 31:57]

All of this flows forth strictly from the cross. It is the outcome of the theologia crucis:

This is the love of the cross, born of the cross, which turns in the direction where it does not find good that it may enjoy, but where it may confer good upon the bad and needy person. “It is more blessed to give than to receive” [Acts 20:35], says the Apostle. [LW 31:57]

Here we have reached the other side. God is not, as in the theology of glory, one who waits to approve those who have improved themselves, made themselves acceptable, or merited approval, but one who bestows good on the bad and needy. The great reversal is complete. Indeed, the final sentences of the proof touch in interesting fashion on a reversal in the very question of being itself:

Hence Ps. 41[:1] states, “Blessed is he who considers the poor,” for the intellect cannot by nature comprehend an object that does not exist, that is, the poor and needy person, but only a thing that does exist, that is, the true and good. Therefore it judges according to appearances, is a respecter of persons, and judges according to that which can be seen, etc. [LW 31:57-8]

Here at last the existential situation of the fallen creature, the sinfulness and need for salvation, is equated with the very question of being itself. Whereas the theologian of glory tries to see through the needy, the poor, the lowly, and the “nonexistent,” the theologian of the cross knows that the love of God creates precisely out of nothing. Therefore the sinner must be reduced to nothing in order to be saved. The presupposition of the entire Disputation is laid bare. It is the hope of the resurrection. God brings life out of death. He calls into being that which is from that which is not. In order that there be a resurrection, the sinner must die. All presumption must be ended. The truth must be seen. Only the “friends of the cross” who have been reduced to nothing are properly prepared to receive the justifying grace poured out by the creative love of God. All other roads are closed. The theologian of the cross is thus one who finally is turned about to see “the way things are.”