God Ordained Means by Which He Gives…
God ordained the means by which He gives men the infallible assurance of His gracious will toward them; in other words, He both confers on men the remission of sins merited by Christ and works faith in the proffered remission or, where faith already exists, strengthens it. The Church has appropriately called these divine ordinances the means of grace. They are the Word of the Gospel, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. According to Scripture, a twofold power inheres in these means: First, an exhibiting and conferring, or imparting, power, and, second, as a result of this, an efficacious, or operative, power. The conferring, or imparting, power consists in this, that these means offer men the forgiveness of sins supplied through Christ’s work of reconciliation, hence God’s grace. In other words, through the means of grace God reveals and declares to men that He is fully reconciled through Christ, that because of Christ’s work He loves them and would have them believe it. The efficacious, or operative, power of the means of grace consists in this, that through them the Holy Spirit works and strengthens faith, faith in the very forgiveness, God’s love and grace, which these means declare and reveal.
When the means of grace are rejected or impaired, human works regularly take the place of Christ’s substitutionary satisfaction as the basis of salvation. Seeberg: “The doctrinal understanding of the means of grace begins with the relation of these means to the work of Christ.” The starting point in presenting the doctrine of the means of grace must be the universal objective reconciliation or justification. The reconciliation which Christ brought about is history, a finished event lying the past that pertains to all mankind and is of an entirely objective character. For it does not consist in a change of mind or “moral transformation” on the part of man, but in a change in God; God in His heart is not imputing their trespasses unto men, but forgiving them (2Cor5:19).
To the report of the finished universal objective reconciliation the Apostle immediately adds that God has committed unto us the Word or news of this complete reconciliation in order that men may share in the finished reconciliation. Hence the first means of grace is “the Word of Reconciliation,” the Word of the Gospel. The Law of God, which is also contained in Scripture, must be excluded from the concept “means of grace,” because the Law does not assure those who have transgressed it – and all men have transgressed it – of the remission of their sins, or God’s grace, but on the contrary proclaims God’s wrath and damnation. For this reason the Law is expressly called, “the ministration of condemnation,” whereas the Gospel is “the ministration of righteousness” (2 Cor 3:9).
Two things must be kept in mind. The Gospel is means of grace not only in the sense that it tells of a readiness on the part of God to forgive, but in the sense that whenever we hear the Gospel, we hear God pronouncing absolution upon us, forgiving our sins. Furthermore, the Gospel is such a means of grace in every form in which it reaches men, whether it be preached (Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:47), or printed (John 20:31; 1John 1:3-4), or expressed as a formal absolution (John 20:23), or pictured in symbols or types (John 3:14-15), or pondered in the heart (Rom 10:8), and so forth. Scripture equates the read and the preached Word of Good as it pertains to the conferring of grace and the working of faith. The Formula of Concord: “And by this means, and in no other way, namely, through His holy Word, when men hear it preached, or read it, and the holy Sacraments, when they are used according to His Word, God desires to call men to eternal salvation, draw them to Himself, and convert, regenerate, and sanctify them” (Trigl 901).
Furthermore God has attached the promise of the forgiveness of sins to certain external acts which He has ordained, namely, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Scripture says expressly that Baptism takes place “for the remission of sins,” or “to wash away sins” (Acts 2:38; 22:16). In the Lord’s Supper Christ likewise bestows His body as given and His blood as shed “for the remission of sins” (Luke 22:19-20; Matt 26:26-28). For this reason also Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are means of grace. Because the actions with which the forgiveness of sins is connected are visible, these rites, in distinction from the mere Word of the Gospel, have been called “verbum visibile” (visible word). Apology: “But just as the Word enters the ear in order to strike our heart, so the rite itself strikes our eye in order to move the heart. The effect of the Word and the rite is the same, as it has been well said by Augustine that a Sacrament is a visible Word, because the rite is received by the eye and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, signifying the same thing as the Word. Therefore the effect of both is the same.” (Trigl 309)
All means of grace have the same purpose and the same effect, namely, the conferring of the forgiveness of sins and the resultant engendering and strengthening of faith. Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation, with the full measure of divine gifts. Luther: “The remembrance of Christ rather consists in teaching and believing the power and the fruit of His suffering; accordingly, that our works and merit are worthless, that the free will is dead and lost, that, on the contrary, we are absolved from our sin and become righteous solely through Christ’s suffering and death; hence that the remembrance consists in teaching or recalling the grace of God in Christ and not in a work done by us.”
from Franz Pieper, “Church Dogmatics, vol. 3″
