9. The Doctrine of Justification and the Distinction Between Law and Gospel.
The Christian doctrine of justification coincides factually with the separation of Law and Gospel. In Christian doctrine, we teach about justification only when we teach it only from the Gospel and exclude the law from obtaining justification. This exclusion of the law from justification is demanded by Scripture. Righteousness before God, the dtkatoavn YEov, is "without law," yopic vouov, revealed as a righteousness "through faith in Jesus Christ" in the New Testament and testified to in the Old Testament (131, 133 ff. [Trigl. 193, Art. III, 133 ff.]) on the scriptural passages which, because they deal with works, were invoked by the Papists against justification by faith. Here it is also explained that James [James] "speaks of works which follow faith". James "scolded a number of lazy Christians who had become all too sure, thinking they had faith when they were without faith. (p. 129, 123 ff. [Zrigl. 189, Apol., Art. III, 123])
this way, that faith is sometimes taken without works, sometimes with works. For just as a craftsman speaks of his material in various ways, and the gardener speaks of a tree, sometimes as the same is without fruit (nuda), sometimes as it bears fruit, so too the Holy Spirit speaks in Scripture of faith in various ways, sometimes (if I say so) by faith in and for oneself or without relation to other things (de fide abstracta vel absoluta), sometimes by faith as it appears, connected with other things or made flesh (de fide concreta, composita seu incarnata). Faith is in and for itself or without reference to other things, when Scripture speaks in and for itself (absolute) of justification or of the righteous, as can be seen in the Epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians... But when Scripture speaks of rewards and works, it speaks of faith as it is connected with other things, appearing or becoming flesh. We will cite several examples of this faith as Gal. 5:6: ‘Faith which worketh by love.’ In these and similar passages, where the act is mentioned, Scripture always speaks of the act of faith.... Everything that is added to the works is added to faith. (Rom. 3:21-22). And so it also takes place in every single case in which a person is justified before God at all, "without works of the law", ywpic épywv vouov, through faith (Rom. 3:28). A person either becomes righteous before God without the law, or he does not become righteous at all. It is true that justification is preceded by the effect of the law. Through the law comes the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20), the terrores conscientiae, which are a necessary preparation (praeparatio) for the effect of the gospel. This must be held against Antinomianism. But the forgiveness of sins or justification comes only from the gospel, and therefore can only be taught from the gospel. And the exclusion of the law must be a "pure" or complete one. Nor should a minimum of legal requirement be mixed into justification. Gal. 5:9: "A little leaven (tukpé Cbun) leaventeh the whole lump." 4) We are reminded here again of the word of Luther when he says that the forgiveness of sins must not be made dependent on one Our Father (Lord’s Prayer) either. This would mean that the forgiveness of sins would be transferred to the realm of the law and would become completely uncertain, because no Christian can pray a completely faithful Lord's Prayer because of the flesh still attached to him. *) The Apology, in expounding the doctrine of justification, points out from the outset that the Christian character of this doctrine rests on the sharp distinction of law and gospel, and that the "adversarii" (the Papists) therefore do it so crudely in the chief article of the Christian religion, reviling Christ's perfect
Cf. Luther z. St., St. L. IX, 642 ff.
Bernard, who had tried such things and complained to a friend that he was so angry about praying right, and one Our Father could not be prayed without strange thoughts. This took away his great wonder, he thought that it was not art or work. St. Bernard wagered a stallion that he could not do it. The friend took the bet, confident of success, and began to pray: "Our Father", etc. But before he comes over the first petition, he remembers where he got the horse, whether he would need a saddle and bridle for it. In short, he comes so far with thoughts that he soon has to give up and let St. Bernard win. Summa, if you can say one Our Father without some other thoughts, I will take you for a master. I cannot; yes, I will be glad if thoughts come to my mind that they fall back to the way they came. merit and corrupting consciences in desolation, because they teach justification from the law instead of from the gospel or promise alone. The Council of Trent pronounces the curse on all who do not put the law into the Gospel. 6 The interference of the law in justification takes many forms. It occurs in the following cases: 1. if probitas naturalis or anything that natural man is capable of doing is made the cause or contributory cause or "explanatory reason" for the attainment of grace;!>*>) 2. if justifying faith is either itself understood as virtue, moral act, self- determination, right conduct, etc.,® or justification is attributed to it, inasmuch as it is the beginning, the seed, the source of sanctification and good works;!** 3. if faith in justification is understood as a work required by the law, such as love, obedience, chastity, etc.!°4°) 4. the law, as Luther reminds us,
Art. IIT, 38]; 119, 62 [Trigl. 173, Art. I, 62]; 120, 67 (173, ibid., 67]; 126, 108— p. 119, 62 it says of the distinction between law and gospel that it is the foundation of the Christian doctrine of the establishment of righteousness and at the same time the means to easily refute those who oppose it. pp. 126, 108 [Zrig/. 182, Art. III, 108. German text.]: "The adversaries therefore teach of love, that they reconcile us to God, for they know nothing of the Gospel, but look only at the Law, wanting to have a merciful God for their own holiness, not out of mercy for Christ. So are found among them only teachers of the law and not teachers of the Gospel.
sit nuda et absoluta promissio vitae aeternae sine conditione observationis mandatorum: anathema sit. [as if the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life without the condition of observing the commandments, let him be anathema
what is good in him, God certainly gives him his grace. So all Pelagians, Semipelagians, Synergists. Man can decide for or against heaven according to the freedom left to him by grace. Dieckhoff.
Concord. 612, 12. [Formula of Concord, Trig/. 919, Sol. Decl., I, 12].
initialiter vel partialiter vel principaliter et novitatem vel caritatem nostram iustificare etiam coram Deoam vel completive, vel minus principaliter. In more detail, this view of faith is rejected in Justification Apol. 99, 71 [Trigl. 141, Art. IV TI], 71].
faith could be allowed to pass in the justification that is the view of Sadoletus, Luther replies that Sadoletus does not understand the whole thing. E. A. 58, 353 f.: Imaginatio Sadoleti fortassis haec est, quod fides sit opus also includes all warnings against self-deception and carnal security, 1 Cor. 10:12: "He who thinks he stands may well see that he does not fall"; 2 Cor. 13:5: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Such warnings are also to be reproached to Christians, inasmuch as they are surely in the flesh. But they do not belong in justification, when a frightened sinner, such as the jailer of Philippi (Acts 16:30), has to answer the question: "What must I do to be saved? Here the answer is to be given from the Gospel alone: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" and the Law is not to be mentioned, because justification is completely independent of the Law.
hidden under the saying that justification is conditioned by faith. We must not forget that the word "condition" is ambiguous. There are, as Luther reminds us, legal and evangelical conditions which are equal in form, but totally opposed in content. We used to say: "In describing God's will of the law by saying, If you keep the law, you will be saved’, this expresses 'if' as an achievement; but in describing God's will of grace by saying, 'If you believe the Gospel, you will be saved’, 'if' refers only to the way or means of acquiring grace, never to an achievement on the part of man, because the Scriptures do not support faith in the acquisition of grace. (Rom. 3:28; Gal. 2:16, °° All synergists invert the evangelical conditional clauses into legal conditional clauses. exactum lege divina, sicut et caritas, obedientia, castitas etc. Ergo qui credit, implevit unam vel primam partem legis et sic habet principium iustificationis seu iustitiae. Sed principio habito requiruntur et alia praecepta opera post fidem. Hic vides, Sadoletum nihil intelligere de ista causa.... At nos dicimus fidem esse opus promissionis seu donum Spiritus Sancti, quod quidem ad legem faciendam necessarium est. Sed per legem et opera non impetratur. [Google
("si vis fidelis esse oportet ut opereris") dicitur contra fucatam fidem. [Those legal phrases do not apply here... But this ("if you want to be faithful you must work") is said against false faith.]
God's will of grace" and footnotes 96, 97 the quotations from Luther, Heerbrand, Seb. Schmidt, Gerhard. The latter explains the ambiguity of the conditional clauses. 10. The Certainty of Justification. Because justification is carried out by faith in the gospel, namely by the faith that God himself works through the gospel,!°> believers are also certain of their justification. Faith itself is this certainty, because faith and doubt are mutually exclusive opposites.!°>?) That the faithful are certain of their justification is, according to Scripture, a matter of course. Scripture testifies both that this certainty is intended by the peculiar divine method of justification,!°>*) and that this certainty is actually found among the faithful. '554) The doubts that still continually arise in Christians do not contradict the certainty, because these doubts originate in the flesh of Christians
wavering) Tr amtotia, GAA' évedvvapaSn ty aiotEL... TAnpo@oproete (fully convinced) dt1 6 émjyyeAtat, Svvatds Eotwv Kat Zoujoat. Doubt belongs in the territory of amtotia and is the opposite of miotic. Cf. Luther's classical description of faith on the side of certainty in his interpretation of the last words of David, 2 Sam. 23:1, St. L. I, 1886, following the words apa [HEBREW] and vadotaotc: "Faith is and should also be a steadfast of heart, which does not waver, wobble, tremble, falter, nor doubt, but stands firm and is certain of its cause" etc. (Apol. 95, 48.) Chemnitz, Loci, L. de iustif., about the quality of the justifying faith, p. m... 275.
Rom. 8:31-39. v. 33: Tic éyKaAéoet katd exrEKtov YEeov; Yedc 6 Sikar@v. Chemnitz on v. 38. 39 (németopiat) against Pighius (Paul is talking here only for his own person) and against Andradius (Paul is talking here only about probability), Examen, De fide, p. 169: Variis artificiis locum Rom. 8 ludificare conantur Pontificii. Pighius dicit, Paulum ibi tantum de suae salutis certitudine, quam ex peculiari revelatione habuerit, loqui, non vero affirmare, omnem Christi fidelem eiusmodi certitudinem habere. Sed hoc manifeste falsum est. Paulus enim in tota illa sententia in plurali loquitur et fundamenta illius certitudinis ponit: Christus mortuus est, imo sedet ad dextram Dei interpellans pro nobis. Andradius igitur videns, has'ludificationes non posse consistere, dicit, verbum néneiopar significare non certain fiduciam, sed verisimilem existimationem.... Illud vero totus contextus non clamat: Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos? Quomodo non omnia cum Filio nobis donaret? Quis accusabit, quis condemnabit? Deus iustificat, Christus mortuus est.... Et post haec sequitur verbum néneiopat. Manifestum autem est, eum cum ratione, quod dicitur, insanire, qui totam illam orationem de dubitatione conaretur explicare. [Google and therefore, like all the business of the flesh, are not to be praised as virtues, but to be fought and punished as sins. '°°>) Also the admonitions of Scripture not to be proud but to be afraid,!>° are not directed against the certainty of faith that trusts in God's promise of grace, but against the security of the flesh. '*°’) — Rome, in the interest of its doctrine of works and its dominion over souls,'*®) declares the certainty of justification impossible,'*>) puts the curse on it,!°° and Rome's theologians incidentally engage in sophistry to cover up the doctrine of doubt with the word "certainty".!°° The Lutheran Church teaches with the greatest determination the certainty of grace and salvation °°, exposing the fundamental errors
He gave us life in His Son), yebotnv nmexoinkevavtov. [He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar.] Chemnitz, Examen, De fide, p. 168: Hanc dubitationem numerant (the Papists) non inter infirmitates et maculas camis, sed inter virtutes fidei, ut nisi dubitatio adsit, ornet et commendet fidem, sit inanis haereticorum fiducia, non fides justificans. — Apology 113, 28 [Trigl. 163, Art. III, 28]: Si quis dubitat, utrum remittantur sibi peccata, contumelia afficit Christum, cum peccatum suum iudicat maius aut efficacius esse quam mortem et promissionem Christi, quum Paulus dicat Rom. 5, gratiam exuberare supra peccatum, hoc est, misericordiam ampliorem esse quaip peccatum. [Google]
huc. [This is said against a sham faith. These legal phrases do not belong here.’] Footnote 1549.
pro hoc dogmate (dubitationis), quia totam nundinationem negotiationis Pontificiae vident hoc fundamento niti. Conscientia enim quaerens certam consolationem, quando audit ipsam fidem, quando Christum in promissione apprehendit, debere dubitare, cumulat sine fine quaecunque opera.... Hinc peregrinationes, invocationes sanctorum, opera supererogationis, nundinatio Missarum, indulgentiae.... Et cum in agone in illis omnibus conscientia non inveniat firmam consolationem, excogitatum est purgatorium et proposita sunt suffragia post mortem. [Google]
Against him Quenstedt II, 823. The dispute at the Council of Trent over certainty naturally ended with a victory of uncertainty. Cf. Quenstedt II, 818. dispute between Dominic de Soto and Catharinus RE. 2 XIV, 448; Gieseler III, 1, p. 514.
Luther's characteristic of the enormity of the Roman assertion that a Christian cannot and should not be certain of the grace of God (monstrum incertitudinis), Footnote 1128, that underlie the doctrine of doubt. These errors are: 1. the denial of the objective reconciliation, that is, of the perfect reconciling sacrifice of Christ, whereby the whole human world is already completely reconciled with God;
Supper), whereby the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ is offered for appropriation by faith; °° 3. the reinterpretation of faith into human self- determination, self-setting, self-decision, right conduct, etc, instead of letting it be the word of consent to the gospel (Apol. 108, 113 [Zrigl. 155, Apol., Art. IV [II], 113]) worked by God in the heart. Consequently, all so-called Protestants, who deny the satisfactio vicaria, accept the spiritual effects or effects of "the person of Christ" outside and beside the means of grace, and present semi-pelagianism and synergism with regard to the origin of faith, teach doubt instead of certainty. °°) Endangered
not look at God who makes the promise, not at Christ the high priest, but at our works and merits. Doubt and despair follow by necessity." Chemnitz, Examen, De iustif., p. 146: Qui vult remissionem peccatorum accipere, debet iuxta Concilii Trid. sententiam interponere peccata sua et offensam Dei, non satisfactionem Christi, sed inhaerentem suam caritatem. [He who wishes to receive the remission of sins, must, according to the Council Trent place between his sins and the offense against God, not the satisfaction of Christ, but his inherent charity or love.] Apology 107, 110 [Trigl. 155, 110]: "If faith obtains forgiveness of sin for love's sake, the forgiveness of sin will always be uncertain. For we never love God as fully as we should."
us not to look at ourselves, but to base ourselves on what is outside us (extra nos), that we not build on our powers, conscience, feeling, person and works, but to rely on what is outside us, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot be lacking. XI, 1735 f.: "In ancient times many heretics and many other erroneous spirits thought that God should do something special with them and act with each of them through a special light and secret revelation within their hearts.... Therefore we are to know that God has so ordered that no one should come to the knowledge of Christ, nor receive forgiveness through him, nor receive the Holy Spirit without external public means, but has put such treasure into the oral word and preaching. Si. L. XIII, 2438: "You must be certain that your sins are truly and surely forgiven through the outward word; for your baptism and the word will not lie to you.
certainty based on it. is the certainty of grace also made possible by the erroneous distinction between bonum iustificum and iustificatio ipsa, from which it follows that it is not the forgiveness of sins, in so far as it is acquired by Christ and offered for acceptance in the means of grace, but faith itself that is made the object of faith. °° Also with the question about the certainty of justification the simultaneity of faith and justification must again be remembered: Faith reconciles and justifies before God the moment we apprehend the promise by faith.!°° Objective justification precedes faith, because it is the object of faith and generates faith through its proclamation (Rom 10:17). On the other hand, it is quite clear that subjective justification is neither earlier nor later in time than faith. The assumption of a temporal prius or postrius would cancel this "by faith" (ziotet) and thus also the certainty of justification.
Tsagoge, p. 208 sq. note. 1531; further Christian Chemnitz, Brevis instructio futuri ministri ecclesiae, 1660, p. 286 sqq., against Paul Tarnov, who would have absolution pronounced only conditionally: "So it is obvious that Tarnov's opinion, according to which he teaches that the form and manner of absolution must always be conditional, cannot be endorsed, but that it must be categorical or at least a fundamental one. For otherwise: 1. baptism and the Lord's Supper would also have to be granted conditionally to adults; 2. this would jeopardize to some extent the certainty of absolution and forgiveness of sins, which does not depend both on the contrition and faith of the recipient or confessor and on the promised and offering God. (Quoted in L. u. W. 1876, p. 195 ff.) Because Andreas Osiander had the same error as Tarnov, Luther, in his letter to Link (Oct. 8, 1533; St. L. XXIb, 1853 f.) on Osiander, judged: "I would not have believed that that man was so far removed from our pure teaching. Hence Luther's warning in the Large Catechism, 494, 56, not to make faith the foundation of faith. Calov, Rom. 4:16: Promissa sunt causa fidei, quae est ex auditu et annunciatione verbi, non vero fides est causa promissionum divinarum. [The promises are the cause of faith, which is from the hearing and proclamation of the word, but faith is not the cause of the divine promises.]
ibid., 8]. Baier also says III, 246 still correctly: Posita tide statim iustificatur homo, ita ut tempore simul sint actus, quo homini confertur tides, et actus, quo homo iustificatur. The Papal Church and the doctrine of justification. Other fellowships also deny the Christian teaching on justification. This is done by all Unitarian associations because they deny the divinity of Christ and the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. This is also true of all Protestant fellowships, which add moral renewal and works to justification., and its entire ecclesiastical machinery is set up to set and maintain the course of pagan works in place of the Christian doctrine of justification.!°°®) This fact, together with the further fact that the Papal Church conducts its business under the outward. While the Apostle Paul, through whom Christ speaks, °° speaks the curse on all teachers who falsify the Gospel of Christ through the doctrine of works, the Papal Church, in its official confession, curses all teachers who do not put works into justification. °7) Because it is now certain that the
p. 647, where we add some curse decrees of the Council of Trent after the translation by Smets. Sess. 6, canon 9: "If anyone says that the wicked man is justified by faith alone, so that he wishes to make it understood that nothing else is required to obtain the grace of justification... he is under a spell." Canon 11: "If any man says that men shall be justified only by the righteousness of Christ, or by the forgiveness of sins only, to the exclusion of the grace and love which is poured out in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and is in them, or that the grace by which we are justified is but a favour of God, he is under a spell". Canon 12: "If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing but a trust in the divine mercy which for Christ's sake diminishes sins, or that this trust alone is what justifies us, he is under a spell. Canon 20 condemns that "the Gospel is but a mere and unconditional promise of eternal life, without the condition of keeping the commandments of God".
sola imputatione iustitiae Christi, vel sola peccatorum remissione, exclusa gra- Christian church has life and existence solely from the Christian doctrine of the establishment of law and through it,'. Christians are officially excluded from the Papal Church. That there are nevertheless Christians under the Papacy comes from the fact that souls struck by the law somehow become acquainted with the Gospel and, despite the Pope's prohibition and curse, through the action of the Holy Spirit, trust in Christ as the only one who is free from sin. °° Luther writes (XII, 495 f.) about the contrast between the Papal Church and the Christian Church: From this you can see how the whole Papacy with all its adherents is now raging and storming, and how they are to be regarded who will not hear and endure this article (of the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ without the works of the law), which St. Peter here preaches and establishes with the testimony of all Prophets and the whole Scripture, and who do not cease to persecute on that account pious, innocent persons, pretending that they are the Church and flaunting this name to the utmost against us, while they bear witness against them- selves with their doctrine, faith, and work, believing and teaching contrary to the witness of all Prophets and therefore of the whole Church. They certainly cannot be the Church of Christ, since they so boldly and impudently contradict St. Peter and all Scripture, yea, tread Christ Himself, the Head, under foot in His Word. No, they are the accursed band of the wicked devil and the worst enemies of the Christian Church, worse and more harmful than any heathen and Turks. To judge the Papal Church in so far as it curses the Christian doctrine of justification and seeks to banish it from the Church and the world, we used to say:'°) "There can be no greater enemy of the Church of God than the Papacy. The Church lives in and through the doctrine of justification. This is the spiritual lust for life that Christians breathe: ‘My God is merciful to me, a poor sinner, and makes me saved not on account of my tia et cmitate, quae m cordibus eorum per Spiritum Sanctum diffundatur at que illis inhaeret, aut gratiam, qua iustificamur, esse tantum favorem Dei, anathema sit. [If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins]
works or my own worthiness, but for the sake of His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, my Savior.’ So that this teaching could be preached, the Son of God came down from heaven and shed the blood of God on the cross. And this doctrine, which is the actual lust for life of Christians, and in which the fruit of the death of the Son of God is expressed - this is the doctrine that the pope not only constantly seeks to tear out of the hearts of Christians in every possible way, by leading them through his false worship to their own works and to the works of the saints, but the pope also expressly curses this doctrine. Yes, the Pope curses all those who think that they will become righteous and saved for Christ's sake by grace alone. And although the Pope, through his entire ecclesiastical system and even through terrible curses, deprives Christians of the only means by which they can be saved, he in turn binds the consciences of people to himself through lying powers, signs and wonders and through the assertion that no one can be saved who is not subject to the Pope. Tell me yourself, can there be a greater enemy of the Church than the Pope? What worse thing can happen to the Church than that the doctrine of justification is taken away from her, whereby she alone lives and exists? If someone takes away my bodily life, he can no longer do me any greater harm in earthly things afterwards. In this way, the Pope takes away the life of the Church, the spiritual life, by officially taking away the doctrine of justification. — How foolish it is, therefore, if in more recent times in Napoleon III one has wanted to see the Antichrist, and some have for some years now even wanted to see Boulanger as Antichrist. It is also true that the apparently unbelievers are furious enemies of the Church. But what Christians have to think of the outspoken unbelievers, they know. They are not deceived by them. — Why this strange and sad fact that almost all modern 'believing' theologians are searching for the Antichrist, while the same one is doing great and powerful work in the Church before their eyes?. [must confess from my own experience that I only became vividly convinced in my conscience that the Pope was the Antichrist when I realized, on the one hand, what the doctrine of justification is and what significance this doctrine has for the Church, and, on the other hand, that the Papacy has its true nature in the denial and cursing of the doctrine of justification, and that it binds consciences in itself by the appearance of piety and by the claim to be the alone saving Church. Modern Protestant theology and the doctrine of justification. Already Dollinger in his lectures on the reunification of the Christian church expressed the perception that the majority of modern Protestant theologians had placed themselves on the Roman platform in the doctrine of justification. '°>) More recently, Joseph Pohle writes: 1°’. To the extent indicated by Pohle, the Christian doctrine of justification has not vanished from the world. The so-called Missourians are not only in the state of Missouri and in Saxony, but in all states of the Union, in Canada and South America, and in all parts of the world except Africa. Furthermore, justification by faith without the works of Law is still preached by many outside the Missouri Synod and the Saxon Free Church. This doctrine is believed by all Christians throughout the world, including those who are imprisoned in the outer confederation of the Papal Church.!° But it is true
621. that the more recent Protestant theology, and now wants to determine Christian doctrine from "experience" and other subjective standards, has broken with the Christian doctrine of justification. We have seen that the doctrine of justification presupposes and understands in itself:; 3. the origin of faith in the Word of the Gospel through the action of the Holy Spirit in the Word without human involvement, 4. the appropriation of the forgiveness of sins pronounced in the word of the Gospel sola fide, without interference of the "transformation of humanity" or of faith as an "ethical act" or "seed of good works". Thus certainly modern theology, not only the negative but also the positive, denies all these factors, namely, the satisfactio vicaria as too legalistic and juridical, the presentation of salvation not only by the word of the Gospel, but is mediated by the appearance of the "historical Christ", teaches synergistically in relation to the emergence of faith ("self-decision", "self-setting"), and grasps faith in justification as a moral act or as a seed of renewal or as a means of implantation in the new humanity: so surely it (modern Protestant theology) has passed over into the Roman and enthusiast camp. °7®) It also manifests this
doctrine of justification p. 429 ff., on the effect of synergism on the doctrine of justification p. 591 ff. Walther, L. uw. W. 1872, p. 352:"A theology that makes faith the very act of man and seeks the reason why certain people become saved while others are lost, in their free personal decision, in their behavior, in their participation, differs from the Roman doctrine of justification only in its terminology". — That Ritschl could evoke the idea that he was presenting the Christian doctrine of justification in whole or in part can only be explained by. What Ritschl presents in three volumes on "Justification and Reconciliation" can be briefly summarized in two statements: 1. Ritschl invites man to imagine that God is merciful to sinners without the vicarious satisfaction; 2. Ritschl invites man to "religious functions" (faith in divine providence, trust in all circumstances, by repeating the suspicions of the Christian doctrine of justification that belong to this camp, namely the slander that this doctrine, because it is too "juridical" and "intellectualistic", harms sanctification and good works. — Here too we point out again that the representatives of modern theology do not always put into practice their theories, which however deny Christianity, but in their dealings with God and especially in the distress of death they forget their "ethical" conception of justification, find their only consolation in Rom. 3:28; Jn. 3:16; Jn. 1:29; 1 Jn. 1:7 etc. and thus actually refute themselves.!°) But this does not negate the duty to combat their foundering theories with all seriousness as a dangerous poison for the Christian Church. 18° humility, patience, prayer) in order to "experience" in this way "the personal certainty of reconciliation." The whole thing is a play with non-entia, because God's grace "without consolation" (Luther) is a non-ens. — Ihmels also takes a vacillating position with respect to justification. In Zentralfragen (p. 119) he seems to admit an objective justification, but in RE. 9 XVI, 506 he firmly denies it, not wanting to give up "the content" to faith: Deum placatum esse [God is appeased’], quoting from Corp. Ref. VI, 580 the words attributed to Melanchthon: Horribilis impietas est dicere, omnibus hominibus, etiam non credentibus, remissa esse peccata. [It is a horrible impiety to say that the sins of all men, also of the unbelievers, are forgiven’] First of all this sentence directly contradicts Scripture (2 Cor. 5:19: pn AoyiGopevoc avtoic TA MAPATTHLATA avTmv), and secondly it destroys any possibility of teaching justification through faith. By the way, it is uncertain whether the document from which this sentence is taken was written by Melanchthon. Cf. the editor's preliminary remark (1. c., p. 579) and the postscript to the signature "Haec subscriptio non legitur in codice [p. 587: This signature is not readable in the manuscript. — Google Translate]. I do not consider Melanchthon to be the author, because the Latin style is simpler, more definite and less rhetorical than Melanchthon's. However, the denial of consistent with Melanchthon's position, insofar as his theological thought was dominated by synergism. Therefore, in 1530 and 1536 he was inclined to sacrifice the sola fide, which then actually happened in the Leipzig Interim. (G. Plitt, RE. 2 VI, 777.) Synergism implies the denial of objective reconciliation and sola fide.
Stephan, Dogmatik, p. 682 ff; Inmels, RE.3 XVI, 482 ff; Luthardt, Dogm., p. 314 ff; Luthardt, Glaubenslehre, p. 458 ff; Holtzmann, Neutest. Theol. Il, 131 ff; Hoenecke, Dogmatik, IW, 355 ff; G. Schulze-Walsleben, Lehre u. Wehre 1893, p. 80 ff; H. Schmidt, RE. 2 XII, 576 f.