The Stroke of Grace
Thesis 24. Yet that wisdom is not of itself evil, nor is the law to be evaded; but without the theology of the cross man misuses the best in the worst manner.
The negative assessment of the wisdom of law in theses 22 and 23, indeed, throughout the entire Disputation, is likely to make believers nervous. Is that wisdom evil in itself? As St. Paul could put it, “Is the law sin?” These questions flow finally into thesis 24, the last of those making up the keystone of the great arch. The “wisdom” of the law is not in itself evil. The theologian of the cross is not antinomian,. Indeed, the theologian of the cross knows that only the crucified and risen Christ is the end of the law. The problem is in the fact that the theologian of glory misuses the wisdom of the law. What this thesis offers finally is the reason why wisdom and law have been given such a negative evaluation throughout. In themselves wisdom and law are entirely good, as are all of God’s gifts. However, without the theology of the cross these gifts will simply be misused. Without the theology of the cross the sinner is of necessity bound to take credit for works and wisdom and therefore not to receive them as God’s gifts.
It is rather the burden of this thesis that without the theology of the cross we misuse the best in the worst manner. That is, unless we see everything through suffering and the cross and are led thereby to speak the truth, unless we are “brought low, reduced to nothing through the cross and suffering,” we cannot but misuse and defile the gift of God in the worst way. Without the theology of the cross we will of necessity take credit for works ourselves and place trust in them. Luther’s proof puts the matter in no uncertain terms: “Whoever has been emptied through suffering no longer regards himself as the worker but rather God, who works and does all things in him.” [LW 31.55] Indeed, so removed is the theologian of the cross from worry about works, there is a kind of shocking indifference to the question as such:
For this reason, whether God works or not is all the same to him. He neither boasts if he does works, nor is he disturbed if God does not work through him. He knows it is sufficient if he suffers and is brought low by the cross in order to be annihilated all the more.
The point here is that the obsession for works as the basis for self-reliance is to be extinguished (thesis 22). God can even go the whole way. He can bring on the ultimate suffering of doing no works through believers in order to bring them lower still!
The last sentences of this proof represent the great turning to the concluding section of the Disputation. They indicate the final farewell to all that has gone before–the ineptitude of the law, the failure of the will, the blindness of sight, the false speaking, the misuse of wisdom–and open the way to the true righteousness worked by God’s creative love. The final farewell is given in the words of John 3:7 spoken to Nicodemus who came seeking wisdom: “You must be born anew.” We have arrived at that point now. No repairs, no improvements, no optimistic encouragements are possible. Just straight talk: “You must be born anew.” But like Nicodemus we ask how that can be. Now all possibility is truly cut off. The theologian of glory, of course, will suggest one last stratagem: turn even that into something to do–perhaps crawling back into the womb to come out again. But therewith the insistence on doing something has at last turned into a cynical reductio ad absurdum. The theologian of glory has at last come up against something that can’t be done! So Luther’s proof executes the final coup de grace (literally: the stroke of grace!). “To be bron anew, one must consequently first die and then be raised up with the Son of Man. To die, I want to emphasize, means to feel the very presence of death.”
One must first die and then be raised up with the Son of Man. This is the gateway to the righteousness that avails before God.
