6. Christianity as an absolute religion.
The Christian religion is, however, the "absolute", that is, absolutely perfect, religion, which neither needs nor is capable of a supplement or improvement and therefore cannot be surpassed. But this predicate of absoluteness does not come to the Christian religion, insofar as it forms a "logically perfect whole". The logically perfect whole in the sense of human cognition is rejected by the apostle Paul when he expressly calls the religious cognition proper to Christians, the high apostle included, in this life a fragmentary one, άρτι γινώοκω έκ μέρους.129) Furthermore, the Christian religion should not be called absolute insofar as it teaches the "most perfect morality." To be sure, the Christian religion teaches the most perfect morality. Christian morality cannot possibly be surpassed because it has the content, "Thou shalt love God thy Lord with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," and, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."130) But this perfect morality is only a consequence and effect of the Christian religion. Both love of God and love of neighbor is a daughter of faith, "that God hath loved us, and hath sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."131) Paul grounds his exhortation to a Christian moral life thus: "I exhort you by the mercy of God [which appeared in Christ], that ye present your bodies a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable unto God."132)
127) Jn. 17:11, 12, 15. 20, 21; Ps. 86:11 etc.
128) E.g., in the Church Agenda of the Missouri Synod, pp. 44 f. 58 f. S. Walther, Pastoral Theology, note 1, pp. 389 f. [Pastoral Theology, p. 461-462.]
129) 1 Cor. 13:12. For more on this, see the section "Theology and System”.
130) Matt. 22:37-40.<w:t>131) 1 John 4:9-21.
132) Rom. 12:1. This is also recalled by Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 147: " The first defect of the (ethical) Kantian version is also inherent in all those interpretations which believe that the perfection of the Christian religion is already sufficiently indicated by the
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The Christian religion is "absolute" or absolutely and unsurpassable for a twofold reason.
First of all, because it does not require man's own works or virtue for reconciliation with God, as do all non-Christian religions; on the contrary, it is faith in the perfect and unsurpassable reconciliation that came about because God was in Christ and reconciled the world to Himself.133) To put it still differently, the Christian religion is therefore perfect absolutely, because it is not a moral instruction as to how men can acquire forgiveness of sins for themselves, but on the contrary faith in the forgiveness of sins acquired through Christ's vicarious fulfillment of the law and vicarious suffering of punishment, and which is now offered to faith for appropriation in the promise of the gospel.135) In this fact, that through Christ's satisfactio vicaria the reconciliation or forgiveness of sins is present and proclaimed in the gospel, it is justified that a man at the same moment, in which he comes to believe the gospel through the effect of the gospel136) , through this faith — without the work of the law,χωρίς έργων νόμου — becomes justified before God137) or, what is the same thing, becomes perfect (πεπληρωμένος, τέλειος) before God.138) For God thus holds it
determination that it is the religion of love (directed towards God and man). It is true that in no other religion the unlimited duty of love is placed in the center as in Christianity. But mere duties do not constitute a religion; and the love which the Christian shows has, according to the Christian faith, not only as its correlative, but also as its presupposition and as its reason for possibility, the love previously experienced on the part of God in the redemption and forgiveness of sins." Ihmels, "Zentralfragen”, p. 51, also says correctly, "that for an evaluation of a moral overall appearance, the individual external features cannot be the decisive factor, but only the motives from which the moral action originates".
133) 2 Cor. 5:18. 19.<w:t>134) Gal. 4:4. 5; 3:13.
135) Acts 26:18; Luke 24:46. 47.<w:t xml:space="preserve">136) Rom. 10:17; 1 Cor. 2:4. 5.
137) Rom. 3:28: Λογιζόμεθα ονν πίστει δικαιονσθαι άνθρωπον χωρίς έργων νόμον. Rom. 5:1: Δικαιωθέντες ονν έκ πίστεως κτλ.
138) Col. 2:10: "You are perfect in Him", namely in Christ, έστε έν αντφ πεπληρωμένοι... This statement does not refer to "specially promoted" Christians, but to all who have accepted Christ by faith, vv. 5-7; that is, to all Christians. And Christians should not let this perfection be disputed by the pretensions of philosophy, v. 8. For philosophy, which asserts itself in the area of religion, can nevertheless
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that to him who is ungodly in himself (ασεβής) his faith is counted for righteousness,139) or what again is the same, that Christ's perfect righteousness covers the sinner's own unrighteousness.140) To preserve the absolute character of the Christian religion, therefore, we must fully adhere to the satisfactio Christi vicaria. If we wanted to demand with Rome for the attainment of reconciliation with God also "the infused grace", the keeping of
be estimated only as an empty fraud, κενή απάτη, because it is human doctrine (κβτά τήν παράδοσιν τών ανθρώπων), meager knowledge of the world (κατά τα στοιχεία τοϋ κόσμον), namely law (so correctly by recent also Cremer in the dictionary sub στοιχεϊον). Christians, on the other hand, have their "doctrinal normative" (Meyer) in Christo (κατά Χρίστον), and that they are thereby perfect, the apostle justifies by a reference to the high person of Christ and to the possession which has become theirs through Christ. According to His person, Christ is not a mere man, but He in whom the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, who is also exalted above the angelic world, so that Christians have no higher perfection to expect from this side (from the angelic world), as the false teachers asserted, v. 16. As to the possession of Christians, which has become theirs in Christ, they have passed from the death of sin to spiritual life through "the circumcision of Christ," baptism, because Christ forgave them all their sins, which forgiveness of sins has its ground in Christ's satisfactio vicaria, namely, in the fact that Christ blotted out the debt (χειρόγραφον) incurred by the law by his death on the cross. Meyer: "The objective act of atonement by the death of Christ had preceded and is described v. 14." Also in 1 Cor. 2:6: "But wisdom we speak among the perfect," σοφίαν δε λαλονμεν έν τοΐς τελείοις, the "perfect," τέλειοι, are not the Christians "matured," "penetrated into the higher sphere of thorough and comprehensive insight," especially into "the future relations of the Messiah's kingdom" (Meyer etc.), but, according to the preceding and following context, all who, through the action of the Holy Spirit, believe the gospel of Christ crucified, which has been hidden from the world, including its rulers, that is, all Christians (Luther, Olshausen, etc.). Cf. the enumeration and review of the various expositions in Wolf, Curae, z. St., with the result: Mihi quidem cum beato Luthero nostro et plerisque aliis interpretibus prior placet sententia, ut scilicet per τελείους intelligantur credentes, quos cap. 1:24 appellaverat κλητούς, i. e., tales, qui factae vocationi obtemperassent. The whole context does not address "future relationships of the Messiah's kingdom" (a conception in which chiliastic ideas play into it), nor specifically the future salvation of Christians, as v. 9 is occasionally applied, but what Christians have at present through faith in the gospel of Christ crucified.
139) Rom. 4:5.
140) 1 John 2:1, 2: Whether anyone sins, παράκλητον έχομεν προς τον πατέρα, Ίησονν Χριστόν δίκαιον.
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the commandments of God and of the church 141) or with the newer Protestants, who let "the transformation of human life into its divine form" (i.e. sanctification and good works) be "co-establishing" for the value of the redemptive work of Christ before God, 142) we would deprive the Christian religion of its specific character, that is, we would lower it to the level of the religions of the law and thus substitute the monstrum incertitudinis for the certainty of grace and sonship to God. If, on the other hand, we hold on to Christ's satisfactio vicaria and thus also to Rom. 3:28 and 5:1 ff, then Christianity is for us eo ipso the absolute religion, beyond which there can be no development and no higher. We theological teachers of our time have the duty to warn students with great seriousness against all the newer "theories of atonement" which partly expressly reject Christ's satisfactio vicaria as too "juridical" and "external," and partly nevertheless call it in need of improvement."143)
The Christian religion, on the other hand, is perfect and unsurpassable because it has as its only source and norm not the word of man but God's own Word, which is above all human criticism. For the Church of our time, this is the written Word of God, the Holy Scriptures (sola Scriptura). With regard to the Holy Scriptures, however, following the normative example of Christ and his apostles144) , we must hold that, although written by men, it is nevertheless not a mixture of the Word of man and the Word of God, but God's own and therefore unbreakable Word, as will be explained in more detail under the section on the inspiration of Scripture. If we were to consider the Holy Scriptures not as God's own unbreakable Word, but as a mixture of the Word of God and the Word of man, they would necessarily become the object of human criticism, and the absolute nature of the Christian religion would be finished. Human criticism outbids itself in the course of time, so that after twenty-five years, or even sooner, it rejects what it still wants to hold on to today as belonging to the essence of the Christian religion.
141) Tridentinum, Sess. VI, can. 11, 12, 20.
142) Thus, e.g., Kirn, Grundriß 3, p. 118. Hereby, the "surety theory" is substituted for the satisfactio Christi vicaria.
143) Cf. II, 429 ff. the section "More detailed description of modern theories of reconciliation".
144) Jn 10:35; 2 Tim 3:16, 17; 1 Pet 1:10-12; Eph 2:20.
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Adolf Harnack, who wants to distinguish between the essential and the non-essential in the Christian religion on the way of the allegedly "historical" criticism, says quite rightly from his point of view: "I think that after a few hundred years one will discover a lot of contradictory things even in the thought-forms we have left behind and will be strange that we have calmed down. One will still find many hard and brittle shells in what we considered to be the core of things; one will not understand that we could be so short-sighted and not be able to grasp and separate out the essentials in a pure way.”145) Not all recent theologians stand negatively toward the divine authority of Holy Scriptures to the same degree as Harnack. But even those theologians who are classified as positive, but who have also abandoned the inspiration and thus the infallible divine authority of Scripture, are mistaken, even if they think that in their critical position toward Scripture they can hold Christianity as an absolute religion. By wanting to draw the Christian religion from the "Christian ego" or the "Christian consciousness of faith" or the "religious experience," etc., instead of from its divine source, the Scriptures, they relegate the Christian religion to the realm of subjective human opinion, and in place of the "absolute" Christian religion there is admittedly substituted, as we have already heard, "an almost endless abundance of diversities" of religious conception. Therefore, the theological teachers of our time have the duty to warn students with great seriousness against all modern theologians who do not accept the Holy Scriptures as the infallible Word of God. In short, whoever wishes to hold Christianity as the absolute religion must hold both Christ's vicarious satisfaction and the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God.
It may be pointed out here also to the fact that according to the doctrines of the Scriptures the Christian religion has appeared as "absolute" from the very beginning. The objection that the Christian religion belongs to the series of historical phenomena, and, like all history, cannot have absolute but only relative qualities, is not valid. The objection includes a petitio principii in itself. It takes for granted
145) Essence of Christianity 3, p. 35
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that the omnipotent God who governs history could not or would not intervene in the "history of mankind" in such a way that He revealed Christ as the Savior from sin and death immediately after the Fall of mankind. But such an intervention of God in the history of mankind is indeed present, as Scripture reports very clearly and emphatically. If immediately after the Fall the divine promise is that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent, thus putting away the works of the devil, the guilt of sin and death, among men, it is already stated that no other and nothing else will save the human race from the guilt of sin and death than the trust in the work of the seed of the woman. This absoluteness of the Christian religion is taught throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, as Peter Acts 10:43 assures us that all prophets testify of Christ, that through his name all who believe in him shall receive forgiveness of sins. Likewise, Christ Himself says that all the Scriptures of the Old Testament testify to Him (Christ) as the giver of eternal life, and that Abraham in particular already believed in Him.146) What the Scriptures say about covenant change and the coming of age (παλαιοϋσθαι) of a covenant,147) does not refer to the gospel of Christ, but to the intervening law covenant of Sinai.148) In short, according to the Scriptures it is certain that the Christian religion entered the history of mankind from the very beginning, not as coordinated with other religions, nor as excluding other religions within itself and supplementing them, but as the absolute religion in the sharply pronounced sense that it represents the Seed of the woman in his work of redemption as the only deliverer from the guilt of sin and death for all mankind, and thus declares all other religions, whatever their name and form, to be aberrations and not entitled to exist. Therefore, we should not speak of the Christian religion as the "highest", "most perfect" religion, as the "climax" of religions, etc., because by such expressions the idea is awakened as if there were only a gradual difference between Christianity and the non-Christian religions, whereas the difference is a specific one according to the origin (God-made, man-made)
146) Jn. 5:46, 39; 8:56.<w:t>147) Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:6-13.
148) Gal. 3:17 ff.
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according to the essence (gospel, law) and therefore according to the result for man (hopelessness, certainty of blessedness). Christianity does not relate to all non-Christian religions like light to semi-darkness, but like light to darkness,149) not like worship to at least a small beginning of worship, but like worship to demon worship,150) not like life and a beginning of life, but like life and death.151 Christianity does not merely offer the "highest satisfaction", but the only satisfaction.152)
Against the absolute character of Christianity, the difference between the Old and New Testaments has been pointed out. This difference is a fact, but only with regard to the clarity and fullness of the revelation, not with regard to the content of the divine revelation, that only faith in Christ without the works of the law is the only way of life for mankind. Christ calls out to the Jews, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins."153) But at the same time he rejects the idea that he is teaching a novelty. He declares himself to be the very content of the Old Testament Scriptures.154) In the same way Paul rejects the erroneous opinion that he teaches a new way of righteousness before God with his doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ to the exclusion of the law; for the way χωρίς νόμον is attested by the law and the prophets155) and is the only correct historical view of the religion taught in the Old Testament.156)