Why Lutherans Keep Getting it Wrong

by Donavon Riley

At the height of the Osiandrian controversy during the 1530s a contention arose among Lutherans over the proper understanding of justification. This dispute would become a pivotal event for Lutherans in determining the distinctions and similarities between Luther and Lutheran Orthodoxy to the present. 

Andreas Osiander, claiming to possess the true teaching of Luther on justification – even claiming at one point of having ‘out-Luthered’ Luther regarding the proper understanding of law and Gospel – taught that the divine essence of Jesus worked the effective forgiveness of sins. Philip Melanchthon, on the other hand, claimed Jesus’ bodily, historical death for the forgiveness of sins was reckoned to us. These two poles gave rise to an ongoing dispute among Lutherans about the proper distinction of law and Gospel and created a theological wishbone in Martin Luther’s teaching about justification.  Both Osiander and Melanchthon claimed Scripture, Augustine, and Luther for their position but neither actually had the Scriptural argument tuned up. The influence of humanism was undeniable in both their arguments. Appeals to Augustine suffered from too much re-interpretation and they split Luther’s “simul” at all the wrong stops. 

Luther believed the proclamation, “Christ Jesus died for your sins and was raised for your justification,” did exactly what it said. Wherever God gives his Word he is giving Christ, and where Christ is there is life and salvation, that is, the forgiveness of sins. Osiander’s gaffe was that there was no need for a real death and a really resurrected body.  Because the Gospel does something, the proclamation is presently effective apart from any historical event. Melanchthon’s gaffe was that he did not believe words did anything. Words were just signs, it is the law, and how Christians ought to act, that effects a change.  But, according to Luther, the Word does something when it is preached. Coming to you from outside of you in the preaching of the preacher, the Word does what it says in fact: killing sinners and raising a new Christ in their place. 

What Osiander and Phillip ultimately failed to hear in Luther’s teaching about justification is the same thing that continues to go unheard. The forgiveness of your sins for Christ Jesus’ sake is the act of being handed over, literally, from death to the only one who has life.  The forgiveness of sins – what Lutherans used to refer to as justification - kills you the old sinner and simultaneously creates a new Christ.  The Word of God establishes and continues to create over and against you a new kingdom, a new time, and a new rule.  In relationship to yourself and others, you are old, you are still in your sins, and you are dead and under the power of death and the rule of the devil.  In relationship to Christ Jesus, you are a new creation.  Osiander could not believe this, nor could Phillip, because they were both tenaciously committed to the old way of thinking ad modem Aristotilae, plugging away in the same old legal synthesis. They wanted to stimulate their hearers to ever greater heights of self-improvement, participating in some way with Christ, whether inwardly or outwardly, in the forgiveness of their sins and being made new creatures. Osiander and Melanchthon were confused about the Son of God. They split him up into a divine Jesus and a human Jesus, creating what Luther referred to as “the damned alleosis.” Osiander made the Docetic move and Phillip made the historical move and never the twain would meet again. 

Phillip and Osiander split Christ.  That was their fundamental error.  If they had truly been appealing to Luther, and more importantly seeing through Augustine to the witness of Scripture, they would have noted that it is not we who split Christ Jesus, but he who splits us!  By the simple declaration, “you are forgiven your sins,” law and promise are distinguished, like Paul does in Galatians 2:20: “Nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” 

So, Luther writes, as though he had foreseen this betrayal by his colleagues and those whose Christian confession bears his name,

 “Paul has said above: ‘I have died, etc.’ Here a wicked person could easily complain and say: ‘what are you saying, Paul? Are you dead? Then how is it you are speaking and writing?’ Likewise, a weak person might also be easily offended and say: ‘Who are you anyway? Do I not see you alive and doing things? Paul replies: ‘I do indeed live; and yet not I live, but Christ lives in me.’ There is a double life; my own, which is natural or animate; and an alien life, that of Christ in me.  So far as my animate life is concerned, I am dead and am now living an alien life.  I am not living as Paul now, for Paul is dead.  ‘Who then, is living?’  ‘The Christian.’  Paul, living in himself, is utterly dead through the Law but living in Christ, or rather with Christ living in him, he lives an alien life.’  Christ is speaking, acting, and living in him; these belong not to the Paul-life, but to the Christ-life.  You wicked person, do not slander me for saying that I am dead.  And you weak person, do not be offended, but make the proper distinction.  There is a double life, my life and an alien life.  By my own life I am not living; for if I were, the Law would have dominion over me and would hold me captive.  To keep it from holding me, I am dead to it by another Law.  And this death acquires an alien life for me, namely, the life of Christ, which is not inborn in me but is granted to me in faith through Christ.” (LW 26, 169-170)

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a double exchange.  Christ takes on the sinner’s struggle with sin, death, and the devil – Lutherans call this the ‘somber exchange’ or, the Cross!  On the other hand, sinners receive Christ’s victory, life and salvation. – Lutherans call this ‘the happy exchange!’  The Christian art now, as Luther understood it, is learning to get used to it – learning not only that you have sins but where to put your sins. 

Many have and will try to go outside themselves or behind themselves to gather meaning from the horror of Golgotha; or into themselves, to witness the work of God as he makes them into mystical beings.  But no free will can get outside itself or do a belly flop into itself.  Where Lutherans continuously get Luther wrong is misinterpreting what it means to be justified – that you will die and the old you will be put to death because there is no escape route in any direction. All hope you might have thereafter will hang on Christ’s work alone. You have no say in the matter. In fact, the only choice sinners can make is to reject his work in total. This is why we must die and he must do the killing. We simply refuse to accept his Word: we refuse to accept God as he would be known – in sufferings and the Cross. Instead, we play word games, thinking that by interpreting what the Cross and forgiveness means for us we are doing something, cooperating with God in our salvation, being justified and justifying others. But in the end, the dead cannot raise the dead to life. Apart from Christ all we are left with is a string of clichés, ambiguities and freedom to choose. 

But do Lutherans have to keep getting it wrong?

No. From time to time Lutherans rediscover that justification is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. It is a thin tradition but some are converted. Some are brought to the belief that the Word of God establishes and continues to create over and against them a new kingdom, a new time, and a new rule, not in theory but in fact. In this kingdom the forgiveness of sins which Christ alone can effect kills you the old sinner and simultaneously creates a new Christ.  

Only in this way, being made nothing so Christ can do something with us, can Lutherans get it right!