Evangelical Words
Via Hans Iwand, The Righteousness of Faith according to Luther
Andrea Mantegna, "The Resurrection" (1457-59)
We are today in a similar situation: grace, compassion, love, and mercy are words that we like to hear. They are “evangelical words.” But doesn’t “righteousness” belong to the law and in the Old Testament? Doesn’t righteousness mean that God gives each person what he earns? Don’t we really hope for God’s righteousness and continue to hope for it when it means every “iustitia distributiva” (distributive justice) in which God rewards the good and the pious, but punishes the godless and the wicked?” Would it not be just as incomprehensible for us as it was for the theologian Luther where, in Romans 1:17, it says: “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel… For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’” Couldn’t we understand Luther better if he expected an entirely different Word in which God’s mercy, love, forgiveness, and compassion were revealed to him? But here it is: righteousness. If righteousness is the essence of the new revelation in Christ Jesus, then are not all other things contained in it: love, forgiveness, mercy, and compassion? Haven’t we already understood what the Gospel is or what righteousness is? After all, they are two pillars upon which the righteousness of men before God rests. However, not until both the Gospel and God’s righteousness come together–not until we seek them both in the gospel–and not until God’s righteousness for us the content of the Good News that calls us to faith will we have understood he whole gospel. So it was with Luther when this long hated, often elusive, detestable Word broke in upon him and he knew that it was not a stone, but rather the bread of life.
