5. Faith Is Merely Instrumental in Justification and Salvation.
salvation. Because faith, in so far as it justifies and makes saved, has the gospel as its object, it is always to be understood as justifying and making saved only instrumental, that is, merely as a means of receiving (medium hymt1kOdv) the grace of God or forgiveness of sins promised in the gospel. This function of faith '?!°) appropriation of God's grace had to be pointed out continuously in the above characterization of faith. But the right conception and as exact as possible formulation of the instrumentality of faith is theologically so important in view of the manifold errors, that we will follow a special section on this point. If there is any point in Christian doctrine the clear waters have been clouded, it is here. The biblical terms "through faith", "out of faith" etc. have been filled with a completely unbiblical content. By the mere instrumentality of faith this means that no value of its own apart from the grace of God may be ascribed to faith in Christ. That this is scriptural doctrine is made irrefutably clear by the fact that in justification faith is opposed to all works and every good constitution of man: ziotet — yapic épyov vopov, Rom. 3:28; to pn épyaCopéva, miotevovtt de Eni TOV dukatowTta tov aceby, AoyiCetat H miotic avtois Ec SuKatoobvnv Rom. 4:5. The Lutheran Confessions, in order to preserve but in deliberate approach, as the eagle approaches the food. One reads Chemnitz" (actus Siaotikdc, non violentia iniusta, sed sollicito raptu, ut aquila fertur in escam — videndus D, Chemnitius).
Ul, 38]. the mere instrumentality of faith, repeatedly states: "Faith justifies and makes saved not because it is a worthy work in itself, but only because it accepts the promised mercy.!2°) The same is also what the dogmatists want with the axioms: "Faith justifies not in the category of quality but in the category of relationship", "Faith justifies not as an act in itself but by the object it grasps", "Faith justifies not as a work in itself but as an instrument", etc. 72) Gass occasionally hints,!? that it is difficult to capture the merely organic relationship of faith in justification. In characterizing Gerhard's polemic against Bellarmin, he remarks: "How difficult it was to grasp the faith instrumentally in such a way that its subjective meaning, according to which it must somehow express a Christian habitus and carry the germ of the nascent improvement in itself, remained completely out of play! It must be said: "The difficulty is great, even insurmountable, whenever one attempts to establish the concept and function of faith in justification without its correlate, objective reconciliation and the Gospel. But if one starts from the correlative of faith, that is, the full reconciliation of the world that has taken place through Christ, and from the Gospel as the divine proclamation of the reconciliation that has taken place, it is difficult, even impossible, to conceive of faith in justification other than as an instrument: All thoughts that the faith itself must be of good quality, a good work, a "moral act", or that love, resp. the "becoming human betterment" supplies it with the justifying power (fides iustificans qua operibus formata) — all such thoughts do not fit into the situation created by Christ 1900 [now 2000] years ago. Because it is forgotten again and again, it must be said usque ad nauseam that the divine forgiveness of sins is a fact which has been established by Christ's representative work and is completely independent of any human quality and improvement (un Aoy1Co-
13. [Trigl. 919, F. C., Sol. Decl., IIT, 13]
p. 793; furthermore the note to $éa1c XI, P. 743 sq.
LEvosc avtdic TA TAPATTOLATA avTaV, 2 Cor. 5:19), which is made known by God to men through the gospel (kai Tépevoc ev Huiv tov Adyov T1)¢ KatoAAayns). that it may be believed by men. The necessary space for the thought that faith itself must now again be quality ("moral deed") or create attributes in its function as a means of appropriation is only then available when the perfection of salvation through Christ and the Gospel as a message of grace is denied or forgotten. Admittedly, a part of the later Lutheran dogmatists were perplexed with the merely instrumental version of faith. These are namely the theologians, who, like the Helmstedt theologians and the school of Musaeans, give faith in its function as a means of appropriation a "less driving force main cause" of justification, causa impulsiva externa minus principalis, and thus attribute to faith, already in its expression, its own value apart from Christ's merit as the causa impulsiva externa principalis. °° It came to the same conclusion when Musaeus called Christ's merit an imperfect (incompleta) driving cause, which only through faith becomes a causa impulsiva completa. Whereas Calov rightly notes: "It must be said that Christ's merit is the only driving cause, even though faith is subordinated to it by the taking of Christ's merit".!??>) The matter is to be noted: The merciful forgiveness of sins and the bestowal of salvation is not distributed in 3 ways: 1. to God's grace in Christ, 2. to the gospel or the means of grace, 3. to faith, so that one third would come to the grace acquired from Christ,
UJ, 265 sq.). Calov fights him (1. c., p. 270). The detailed treatise by Calov, Loci X, 623 sqq. Likewise, the quality of faith that justifies is attributed to it, in addition to God's grace, by the expression of the people of Helmstedt (Calixt) that faith, although justification is beyond its own power, is elevated to it by God's grace and order (elevari). There is no need for such "elevation", since complete justification is offered in the promise of the Gospel, and mere acceptance of it by faith is necessary. The "exaltation" or exaltation of the power of faith has only meaning in the assumption that faith must add something to the justifying and saving power of the Gospel. This is why the dogmatists say against Calixt: Fides elevata deprimenda [‘‘Faith is elevated to be lowered). (Baier-Walther III, 274.)
a second third to the means of grace, the third third to faith, nor in such a way that God's grace would account for 99 percent, and the other factors 1/2 percent each, but it is in such a way that the whole is allotted to each of the factors, but in a different relationship. This is how Scripture speaks of the matter. Only the grace in Christ makes you saved,!*® Only the Gospel or the means of grace make you saved,! Only faith makes you saved. '8) Thus also the Formula of Concord (529, 10 [Trigl. 795, F. C., Epit, IIT, 10]) says: "By grace, without merit, without law... which words all mean at the same time (omnia hoc ipsum dicunt) as: By faith alone we shall be justified and saved. The sharpest version of the mere instrumentality of faith is found in Luther. While Calov, for example, still asserts for the mere instrumental function of faith the fact that faith is not our work, but a pure gift of God,!??) Pere (donum Spiritus Sancti), but simply in so far as it has a relationship to Christ (qguatenus habet se correlative ad Christum). For here it is not primarily a question of where or what kind of work faith is, or how it surpasses other works, because faith does not justify in itself or by any virtue inherent in it (non per se aut virtute aligua intrinseca). ‘°° Of course, it is so: whoever denies faith as donum Dei and teaches synergistically with regard to the origin of faith cannot rightly teach of saving faith, because he conceives of faith as a partial work of man and thus teaches justification from works under the name and title of faith. But not everyone who teaches faith as donum Dei teaches rightly on justifying faith. He could still think of faith, not in so far as it correlative ad Christum se habet, grasps Christ, wants, desires, but in so far as faith receives gifts of grace in man or conveys effects of grace, thus in so far as faith is the
Yapitt ovKETL ES Epyov.
Bartiopa.
faith is the source of sanctification. Is there then so much in the purely instrumental version of faith, thus also in the elimination of any quality of it, in justification? However, if the quality of faith is taken into account in the appropriation of the forgiveness of sins, the whole business is immediately shifted back to the field of law and works. Luther says: "To detach myself from looking at the law and works". "I tend to imagine that there is no quality in my heart called faith or love at all, but in its place I put Christ himself and say: ‘He is my Righteousness’.!73 Against the mere instrumentality of faith it has been argued that in the Scriptures it is also brought under the term "commandment of God" (Bvtoan, 1 Joh. 3:23) and obedience is mentioned (jzaKon tictewc, Rom. 1:5; VINKOVOV TH Tiotel, Acts 6:7). In this connection, faith alone can only be understood as a moral achievement or as a work in the sense of the law, if it is separated from its object, the gospel, and the concept of the gospel is falsified. If we leave the Gospel as the message of the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake, the expressions "commandment", "obedience" of faith, etc., express that God not only allows us to consider him merciful for Christ's sake, but that he even commands us to do so. Those expressions have therefore been called ‘concentrated gospel’.!7°) — It has also been pointed out that faith can also be called a "work" or "doing" of man, and was so called by Luther and the old Lutheran theologians, precisely in so far as faith takes hold of the grace of God
challenged in his conscience by the expression "obedience of faith" (Rom. 1:5), because he turned this evangelical expression into a legal one by interpreting it: "God demands from me at least the performance of faith"; thus the promise of the forgiveness of sins is not merely a promise of grace. The temptation was overcome and the doubt was replaced by certainty and joy when he was reproached: The expression "obedience of faith" belongs in the Gospel and says: God not only allows you to consider him merciful, but he even commands you to do so. and is distinguished from the works and virtues which it works in the justified. This is true. Luther says on Gen. 15:6: "Now say clearly what faith alone does, not what virtues it is associated with. Faith alone grasps the promise, believes God in his promise, and by offering him something, God reaches out and accepts it. Such a work belongs to faith alone as peculiar to it (hoc proprium solius fidei opus). Love, hope and patience deal with other things.!?°9) And on Jn 6:28.29 Luther says: Christ "speaks of the work that we are to do, which is to believe. For faith is a work that must be done by a human being."!?* But Luther immediately adds: "But where faith comes from, for no one has faith from himself, Christ will teach us that afterwards, since he says v. 44: No one comes to me, but that the Father draws him’; item v. 65: 'No one believes in me, for it is given to him by my Father’. From this it is clear in what sense Luther calls faith a "work" that man does, in the sense that the faith that seizes Christianity or the Gospel is an activity in the mind and will that makes man the subject and Christianity or the Gospel the object. The dogmatists formulate it thus: faith can be called a work if
nothing else than the gospel of Christ and by the 'doing' of the word nothing else than the faith in it. Do not think, however, that this is a forced explanation, for it is not uncommon in Scripture for faith to be called an action of the will of God and a work. Among other things, the Lord himself speaks: ‘If any man will do the will of him that sent me, he shall know whether this doctrine is of God, or whether I speak of myself,’ Jn 7:17, "But this is the will of him that sent me, that whosoever shall stand and believe in the Son shall have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the Last Day," Jn 6:40. And when the Jews once asked the Lord "What shall we do that we may do the works of God?" He answered: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent", Joh. 6:28-29. So when James says in our text ‘Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, that ye may deceive yourselves,’ he does not mean anything else but this: He who listens, reads and contemplates the Gospel diligently, but does not let it become a deed in himself, that is to say, does not believe in it with all his heart, is deceiving himself only by listening, reading and contemplating it. (Epistelpostille, p. 246.) the word is not used in the specific sense (siétka@c) of a moral work of law, but in a general and wider sense, according to which it designates only a movement, an activity (actio) in the mind and will of man, which has man as its subject. It is not the Holy Spirit, but man who believes by the action of the Holy Spirit. 13> In their polemic against the Lutherans, the Romans finally asserted that according to Scripture, faith achieves forgiveness of sins through invocation, for example through the fifth petition: "Forgive us our trespasses". But praying for the forgiveness of sins was a work, and therefore faith could be considered a work for the forgiveness of sins. Gerhard replies that faith, however, achieves the forgiveness of sins through invocation and in invocation, but not through the work of invocation, but in and through this invocation is faith which is attached to God's promise of grace and relies on it, promissioni inhaeret — illi confidit. '°° Finally, we recall that there is a general protest against the purely instrumental version of faith in justification. Both the representatives of Rome and the Protestant synergists claim that in the purely instrumental version of faith, faith is reduced to a meaningless shadowy being, and even completely eliminated from the order of salvation. From the Lutheran axiom: Fides iustificat non propter se, ut est in homine qualitas [Faith justifies not for its own sake, as it is a quality in man’], Bellarmin draws the conclusion that the Lutherans "do not ascribe anything to faith, but despise and destroy it completely".!?3 One argues so: If faith does not distinguish one person from another, or, to put it another way, if faith, in so far as it brings about the forgiveness of sins and blessedness, does not contain any human goodness of its own,
YEVIKOG, pro quacunque actione, sive relata, sive absoluta, non vero e101ka@c, pro tali opere bono morali, quod in lege praeceptum, hoc enim modo acceptum opus in actu iustificationis semper fidei opponitur. Est fides opus nulla ratione nostrum nisi subiective propter solam receptionem et exercitium, quo fit, ut spiritus sanctus non dicatur credere, sed homo. [Google
then the people who become righteous and blessed through faith would be no better for their person than those who are lost because of their unbelief, and God would be acting "arbitrarily" when he accepts the believers and rejects the unbelievers. God could then also save himself the detour "through faith" or "out of faith" altogether, and simply make all men saved out of his mercy in Christ without faith. The need is great! In order to remedy the need, the Romans have put into faith a meritum congrui, "a merit according to equity," but the Protestants, who cannot speak well of a meritum congrui, have called faith a "moral act," "right conduct," "self-determination for grace," etc., in order to lift up the need. In this way it is clear that the good people will be saved and the bad people will be lost. The Apology already knew this train of thought. It says there (p. 143 [Zrig/. 213, Art. III]): "But here they will say: If we are to be saved out of pure mercy, what is the difference between those who are saved and those who are not? If there is no merit, there is no difference between good and evil, and it follows that they shall be saved. The argument moved the scholastics that they had invented the meritum condigni; for there must be a difference between those who are saved and those who are condemned. We add: the same argument has moved Protestants since Fea en SERIE to invent synergism, namely the teaching that faith is not merely donum Dei, but that it comes from man's right attitude towards grace. To this we must say: 1) According to Scripture, faith is necessary for the attainment of justification and salvation. He who believes will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. Apology: "The same faith makes the difference between those who are saved and those who are condemned [Tvig/. 213, Art. II]. 2. According to Scripture, this faith that makes the difference is not only donum Dei (Eph 1:19-20), but also purely instrumental in the attainment of justification and salvation, without any intrinsic goodness and virtue, because Scripture sets this faith in opposition to every human goodness and virtue (Rom 3:28; Eph 2:8). Whoever puts his own goodness and virtue into faith plays va banque [go to the bank’’]. Because in this version of faith grace is eliminated, because grace, wow next to which human goodness and virtue is placed, is no longer grace (Rom. 11:6). On the other hand, the faith itself is also eliminated, because faith has a way of building on grace once and for all (Rom. 11:22, 35). If we want to hold on to the scriptural concept, of saving grace, and the scriptural concept of saving faith, we have no choice but to keep our thoughts within the bounds (limites) that the Formula of Concord points out (716, 61-63 [Trigl. 1083, F. C., Sol. Decl., XI, 61—63, from the German]): "Israel, that you should perish, the iniquity is yours; but that you should be helped, that is my grace. According to the limited level of knowledge inherent in this life, there is no rational mediation between the two established truths, namely the salvation by grace through faith and the loss through one's own fault for the sake of unbelief. This point must be taken up again in the Doctrine of Conversion and in the Doctrine of the Election of Grace.