The means of grace in general.
It has been correctly remarked, "The dogmatic understanding of the means of grace takes its starting point from the relation they have to the work of Christ." 488) But, unfortunately, little is said with the expression "work of Christ," inasmuch as this expression was formerly and is now used in very different meanings. Some do not allow the work of Christ to be extensively perfect,
and works in our hearts (vere efficax, est et operatur)." Augustana, Art. V: "To obtain such faith [which is counted for righteousness], God has instituted the ministry, given the gospel and sacraments, by which he gives as by means (tamquam per instrumenta) the Holy Spirit, who works (efficit) faith where and when he wills in those who hear the gospel."
485) Fidei Ratio, p. 24 (Niemeyer).
486) About the Roman seven sacraments later.
487) On the chalice denial in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper.
488) R. Seeberg in RE. 3 VI, 726.
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applying it only to a part of humanity.480) The others give Christ's work of reconciliation a relation to all men, but they deny its intensive perfection. They maintain that Christ's work is not sufficient for salvation, but that aliquid in homine — a human achievement, a goodness inherent in man, faith as a moral achievement, self-determination, faith as the germ of good works, the new life and good works themselves, etc. — must be added if Christ's work or the grace acquired by it is to be of use to man for salvation. With these strange understandings of the "work of Christ" everything else comes out, except the scriptural concept of the means of grace. The means of grace are no longer means of grace, but means of stimulation for human efforts of virtue under different names and in different degrees.
In expounding the doctrine of the means of grace, the general objective reconciliation or justification is to be assumed. This is how we find it in Scripture. Scripture binds what it teaches of the divine communication of the grace acquired by Christ directly to the fact of the objective reconciliation or justification of the whole world of sinners. It is necessary to repeat here, and to elaborate in the individual parts, what has already been said in the summary exposition of the acquisition of salvation. The atonement effected by Christ is a historically perfected, backward fact (ϑεός ήν εν Χριστώ κόσμον χαταλλάσσων έαντω), which relates to the whole human world and is thoroughly objective in character. It consists, in fact, not in a change of mind or "moral transformation" on the part of men, but in the fact that God, with Himself, in His heart, did not impute to the world of men their sins, but forgave them.490) With this report of the general objective reconciliation that has taken place, the apostle immediately binds the further instruction that God has raised up among us the word of reconciliation that has taken place, καί ϑέμενος εν ήμιν τον λόγον τής καταλλαγής [“hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation”], so that men may become partakers of the reconciliation that has taken place.
Therefore, the means of grace is first of all the word of reconciliation or the word of the gospel. To be excluded from
489) Thus, all Calvinist Reformed.
490) 2 Cor. 5:19: μή λογιζόμενος αντοΐς τα παραπτώματα αυτών. {“ not imputing their trespasses unto them “]
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the term "means of grace" the law of God, which is also contained in Scripture, because the law does not promise forgiveness of sins or grace to men who have transgressed it — and this is the case with all men — but, on the contrary, proclaims God's wrath and condemnation. The law, therefore, is expressly called ή διακονία τής κατακρίσεως [“ministration of condemnation”],491) while, in contrast, the gospel is the διακονία τής δικαιοσύνης [“ministration of righteousness”].492) Here it is still necessary to remember a double thing. First of all, the Gospel is a means of grace not only in the sense that it teaches us about the forgiveness of sins, but also in the sense that every time the Gospel comes to us men, the act of absolving sins takes place on the part of God on the individual or individuals. Luther's words belong here: "The gospel itself is a general absolution; for it is a promise, which all and each one in particular are to accept from God's command.493) Secondly: The Gospel is such a means of grace in all forms of testimony: as preached,494) written and read,495) spoken in the form of absolution,496) expressed in signs,497) in the heart
491) Luther: "the ministry that preaches condemnation"; Meyer: "the ministry that conveys condemnation."
492) 2 Cor. 3:9. Luther: "the ministry that preaches righteousness"; Meyer: "the ministry that imparts righteousness". That δικαιοσύνη is to be taken juridically here as forgiveness of sins or justification is evident from the contrast κατάκρισις. Meyer on this passage: "Note the contrast of and δικαιοσύνη! The former is an actus forensis, so the latter is also based on imputation. This against Hofmann, Schriftbeweis I, 627 f."
493) St. L. XXI b, 1849.
494) Mark 16:15-16: Κηρύξατε τό εύαγγέλιον — δ πιστεύσας— σωϑήσεται. Luke 24:47: εδει κηρνχϑήναι — αφεσιν αμαρτιών.
495) Joh. 20:31: Ταντα γέγραπται, ινα πιστεύαητε δτι 'Ιησούς έστίν ο Χριστός. [“these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ”].. 1 John 1:3-4: "What we have seen and heard we declare to you...and these things we write to you, και ταντα γράφομεν νμϊν, that your joy may be complete."
496) Joh. 20:23: Av τινων άψητε τάς αμαρτίας άφεωνται αύτοϊς. The expression, "Whose soever sins ye remit," indicates that the Gospel is here thought of in its application to certain persons, that is, in the form of individual absolution.
497) E.g. by a crucifix or another image, Joh. 3:14-15. Luther often reminds us that in the Papacy many dying people were reminded of Christ's vicarious satisfaction by a crucifix held up in front of them and thus died saved. St. L. XIII, 2575: "So I also believe that our dear God.
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moved498) etc. Even more recent Lutheran theologians, in the interest of combating the inspiration of Holy Scriptures, have expressed and advocated the peculiar opinion that not the word read, but only the word preached is the means of grace.499) As far as the presentation of grace and the effect of faith are concerned, Scripture places the Word of God that is read and the Word of God that is preached on an equal footing, as is already evident from the scriptural passages cited earlier. Against the calling to Rom. 10:17 Gerhard already said what was necessary: "When Rom. 10:17 says: When it is said in Rom. 10:17 that 'faith comes from the sermon,' this is not to be understood exclusively, so that the hearing of the preached word is opposed to the reading of the written word, but inclusively, so that God is not only active through the heard word, but also through the read word for faith and salvation, because it is
has preserved many of our ancestors in the great darkness of the papacy. For in the same blindness and darkness it nevertheless remained that the crucifix was held up to the dying, and that some laymen said to him: Look at Jesus, who died for you on the cross. In this way many a dying man has turned back to Christ, even if he had believed the false miraculous signs before and had adhered to idolatry." Similarly St. L. VIII, 183; XI, 528; XXII, 471.
498) Rom. 10:8: "Close to you is the word, in your mouth and in your heart." In this passage the word of the gospel is addressed in contrast to the word of the law (v. 5-7). He who moves a word of the gospel in his heart has divine absolution from all his sins in the word with which he thus occupies himself (cf. II, 613 ff.), and it is only necessary to appropriate the absolution by faith. The Word moved in the heart as a means of grace is also pointed to by the Formula of Concord (601, 54 [Trigl. 903, Sol. Decl., II, 54 🔗]): Per annuntiationem ac meditationem evangelii de gratuita et clementissima peccatorum remissione in Christo scintillula fidei in corde ipsius [hominis] accenditur, quae remissionem peccatorum propter Christ amplectitur et sese promissione evangelii consolatur et hoc modo Spiritus Sanctus, qui haec omnia operatur, in cor mittitur. [Google]
499) Thus especially the Dorpat theologians at the beginning of the eighties of the last century. Volck, "Die Bibel als Kanon," p. 14: "What is it, then, that brings the individual to faith in Christ and thus makes him a Christian? Is it the reading of the Bible? No! but the testimony of the church about Christ, which comes to him in this or that form. Faith comes from the sermon," says Paul. If it were awakened by reading the Bible, the task of mission would be a simple one. It would then be allowed to send Bibles in their language only to the various pagan peoples, provided they were literate." Several Baltic pastors wrote against the Dorpat professors. Thus F. Nerling, The Bible as a Revelation of Salvation. Reval 1886.
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and remains one and the same Word, whether it is preached and heard or written and read. Therefore John characteristically says of the written evangelical history and therefore of the whole Scripture Old and New Testament: "These are written that you may believe," John 20:31, and: 'These things we write unto you, that your joy may be made perfect,' 1 John 1:4. Hence also from the written Word of God, when it is put into use by reading and meditating upon it, faith and spiritual joy, and consequently salvation, may be drawn." 500) —. If the opinion has been expressed;501) "The Word of Scripture reproduced by printing acquires toward baptized persons and yet toward thousands the character of an effect at a distance (actio in distans), both in space and in time," this is not the fault of the Word of Scripture, but of the readers who do not consider the Word of Scripture to be the Word of God, and especially also the fault of the theological professors who spread such erroneous thoughts about Scripture among the people. But he who takes the Scriptures for God's own Word, as they themselves demand,502) does not think, when he reads the Scriptures, of an "effect at a distance, both in space and in time," but he conceives the situation to be that, as often as he reads the Bible, God Himself speaks to him, who by the Word of the Law convicts him of his sin and worthiness of damnation, and by the Word of the Gospel promises him the forgiveness of sins and salvation, and makes him believe this Word of the Gospel. As Christ is called to recognize the requirement of the law from the written law: "How stands in the law written? How do you read?"503) and teaches to recognize himself as Savior from the written gospel: "Search the Scriptures, for you think that you have eternal life in them; and it is they that testify of me"504) and: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote of me",505) so also the Formula of Concord puts the word of the gospel, heard and read, on the same level as a means of grace, when it says:
500) L. de Scriptura s., § 365.
501) Thus A. von Öttingen, Luth Dogmatik IIII , p. 335.
502) 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21 (the προφητεία γραφής is addressed); 1 Cor. 15:37 etc.
503) Luke 10:26-28; Matt. 22:35-40.
504) Joh. 5:39.<w:t>505) Joh. 5:46.
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"God wills “by this means, and in no other way, namely, through His holy Word, when men hear it preached or read it, and the holy Sacraments when they are used according to His Word, God desires to call men to eternal salvation, draw them to Himself, and convert, regenerate, and sanctify them." 506)
However, God has also bound the promise of the forgiveness of sins to certain outward acts ordered by Him507) , namely Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Scripture explicitly says that Baptism is "for the forgiveness of sins" or for the "washing away of sins."508) Likewise, in the Lord's Supper, Christ gives His body as given away (διδόμενον) and His blood as shed "for the remission of sins."509) Therefore, baptism and the Lord's Supper are also among the means of grace. They have been called "verbum visibile"" and "sacraments" because of the visibility of the actions to which the promise of the forgiveness of sins is attached, as distinguished from the mere word of the Gospel.510)