1. The Necessity of Grace.
Scripture teaches that all men have become sinners through Adam's fall and are under the judgment of damnation according to the divine justice expressed in the law. Scripture also teaches that people cannot change this situation by means of the law (&€ épywv vopov), that is, cannot change the judgment of damnation into a judgment of justification. 7) Those who try to do so by law gain the curse instead of justification, because they are not subject to the demands of the law, which are based on complete (criminal) mic 6 KOopocG TH Ose. According to the context, the judgment applies to the entire human world, including Gentiles and Jews. In addition, the Smalc. Art. This, then, is the thunderbolt of God by which He strikes in a heap [hurls to the ground] both manifest sinners and false saints [hypocrites], and suffers no one to be in the right [declares no one righteous], but drives them altogether to terror and despair. (312, 2 [Triglotta, 479, III, 2]) Likewise Gal. 2:16. The future tense ducaaoSjoetat (logical future) expresses: in no case, where it is a question of justification, will a man become righteous through the law. denotes the origin and then the nature, like Joh. 18:36: €k tod KOoLOv TovTODV, from the world, worldly, carrying the nature of the world itself; Rom. 2:8: or the self- willed, and often. Oi €€ Epywv vouov = from the works of the law, the workmen whose characteristic feature is that they want to be justified before God through their own actions. According to Scripture, these workers "are all under the curse, so that there is no thought of them being blessed". (Meyer.) Calov: Tantum abest, ut per legem vitam consequantur ulla ratione, ut etiam vi legis sub maledictione concludantur. fulfillment.*) But people can and should become saved on the way of grace (yaprtt, Katé yapw). >) This way of grace is revealed to people in the Gospel of Christ, which is therefore called 10 evayyéAtov tic Yapitoc Tod Weod, Acts 20:24 The gospel of Christ has the wonderful content that God respects people without law, that is, without works on their part (yapic vonov, yopic EPYOV VOLOV, SM@pEtv), out of grace for Christ's sake, respects them justly through faith and makes them saved. © This way of grace is the characteristic of the Christian religion, that is, what distinguishes the Christian religion from all other religions. In fact, all other religions, because the Gospel of Christ is unknown to them. Making the works of man the reason for salvation, according to the Christian religion, which has become known through God's revelation in the Word, the grace of God in Christ, to the exclusion of all works of man, is the cause of the salvation of man. The one who is saved by man will be saved without law and works by the grace of God in Christ. So it is decided by God Tf yapiti — ovk €& Epyov, tva Ly TIc Kavynontat, Eph. 2:8-9. This difference between pagan and Christian religion should be clearly recognized by the teachers within Christianity. ® yeypappéevoic év TH BiBAim Tod vopLov Tod norjou adté. Alford: They s& épy@v voov cannot be sharers in the blessing, for they are accursed, it being understood that they do not and cannot éupévew ev maov, etc." TOVTO EK TIOTEWGS, TVA KATE YOptV. dtkatoovvy 4& OEod die zioteMs Inood Xprotod — suca1ovpevot d@pEcy TH adtod YAPITL OLA Tijg ANOAVTPWOEMG Tic EV XptotH Inood — AoyiCopeSa ow mioteEr dikalovadat dvopamov dv8pamov ywpic Epywv VOLLOV. avOpanov ovK évéByn. According to the context, we are not specifically talking about eternal life here, but about the gospel in general, in so far as the gospel is completely outside the area to which human knowledge and human research reaches. Of course, when Scripture describes the way in which people are to be saved, it mentions other and more things than the grace of God in Christ. It also says of. (F. Pieper, Wesen des Christentums 1903, p. 5.) [also 1902 Missouri Synod convention essay; English translation: What Is Christianity? 1933, p. 6 ff.] The essence of paganism is not atheism, for no people ever has been so reprobate as not to institute and observe some divine worship (Lrg. Cat. 388:17; also Cicero, Tusc. 1:13), but rather doctrine, that is, the attempt to reconcile God through their own actions. Apology (122, 85 [Trig/. 177, Art. III, 85] Semper in mundo haesit impia opinio de operibus. Gentes habebant sacrificia... sentiebant opera illa propitiationem et pretium essense, propter quod Deus reconciliaretur ipsis. [Google] The essence of Christianity, however, is not the doctrine of works or "morality", as recently again energetically asserted (Harnack), but the faith in the forgiveness of sins for the sake of the mediator of Christ, without regard to one's own morality or immorality. The. One therefore enters pagan territory within external Christianity as soon as one classifies works, "morality" etc. under the causae gratiae et salutis. Luthardt was also correct in theory: "In the later Judaism of the Pharisaic rule of the law everything was set on the fulfillment of the law, that is, on human performance and divine counter- performance; in other words, the ground of pagan view and religiosity was entered. For that is the characteristic of paganism, that here everything is regarded as being so meritorious, that is, according to the aspect of labor activity. (Glaubenslehre 1898, p. 467.) Luther is tireless in his argument that the path of works characterizes paganism and the path of grace characterizes Christianity. (Cf. Introduction to the explanation of the Epistle to the Galatians, LX, 17 ff.) Luther judges here by all those who do not recognize the righteousness of Christ as justitia christiana, excluding all their own works: Sunt vel Judaei vel Turcae vel Papistae vel haertetici, quia inter has duas justitias, activam legis et passivam Christi, non est medium. [They are either Jews or Turks or Papists or heretics, because there is no middle ground between these two righteousnesses, the active of the law and the passive of Christ.] The fact that Luther so often lists papists and enthusiasts in the same line as pagans, Jews, Turks, etc., is not to be put down to the "exaggerated polemics of the sixteenth century but is based on the correct recognition that papists and enthusiasts, in so far as they base grace and salvation on the justitia infusa [infused grace], actually teach paganism. The Apology also says of anyone who wanted to earn forgiveness of sins before God through works: judaice et gentiliter sensit. Nam et ethnici habuerunt Gospel and of Baptism that they bring salvation,) as well as of faith. ' But with this, Scripture does not limit the term "grace", but only mentions the means which serve the appropriation of grace which is already perfectly present. The use of the means of grace on the part of man is not to be understood as a human achievement, whereby man acquires at least a partial right to grace. Neither does faith, whereby man is made partakers of grace, constitute in any sense a human achievement. Rather, the Scriptures place both the means of grace, as a means of giving on the part of God, and faith, as a means of receiving on the part of man, in contrast to the way of works. According to Scripture, to be saved through the Word and the Sacraments is as much about being saved by grace for the sake of Christ as it is about being saved by grace for the sake of Christ without one's own works.!!) Likewise, to be saved by faith is as much as to be saved without works by the grace of God alone for Christ's sake. The way of grace is the way of faith and the way of faith is the way of grace.!) quasdam expiationes delictorum, per quas fingebant se reconciliari Deo. (187, 17 [Trigl. 285, Art. VI, 17]) [He holds to the faith of a Jew and a heathen. For also the heathen had certain expiation for offenses through which they imagined to be reconciled to God. The modern "religion-historical" consideration of Christianity is extremely anxious to abolish the difference between Christianity and paganism by very unhistorically excluding from Christianity the faith in the redemption by Christ's sacrifice as unessential and using for it the "moral issue" of human self-sacrifice in the service of mankind. So Pfleiderer (Religion und Religionen 1906, p. 215 ff.). So quite recently also again Frank B. Jevons: Christianity alone of the religions of the world teaches that self-sacrifice is the way to life eternal. (An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion, 1908, p. 69 — See on the difference between Christianity and paganism L. u. W. 37, 21 ff. F. Pieper, Die Lehre von der Rechtf. 1889, p. 3 ff.) [1916 printed edition]. the power of God unto salvation.] 1 Petr. 3:21: 6 (scil, bé@p) Kai Duds avtitvTOV vov oa Cet Bantiopa. [Baptism doth also now save us]
YPNOTOTIs Kai 7 PUaVvOparia ExeMavy Tod Lotipos Hu@®v OEod ovk && Epyov tov Ev diKaLOODVY & EOIMOapLEV NLEic GAAG KATH TO ADTOD EAEOG EoWOEV NLS Se ovtpod maAwysveotac. [But after that the kindness and love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration.] Luther in the Large Cat. Thus you see plainly that there is here (in Baptism) no work done by us, but a treasure which He gives us, and which faith apprehends; just as the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross is not a work, but a treasure comprehended in the Word and offered to us and received by faith. (490, 37 [Trigl. 741, De Baptismo, 37])
EATE OEAWOLEVOL 1G Tc TiotEewcs — OvK EG Epyov. Baier. Gratiae Dei et merito Christi fides non opponitur, sed subordinatur, (Il, 278.) When we speak of a necessity of grace, of course, we do not mean a necessity on the part of God, but a necessity for man, if sinful man is to attain salvation. The theory held by speculative theologians and philosophers that the salvation of the world through Christianity is a necessary unfolding of the divine being is pagan (pantheistic) speculation about the nature of God. According to the Scriptures God in Christ turns to the world in free mercy, Joh. 3:16; Luke 1:78 etc. The dogmatists express this by saying that God is a causa libera of our salvation.!*)