The means-of-grace doctrine of all deniers of satisfactio vicaria.
According to the Scriptures, the Word of God and the sacraments are means of grace only in that they promise the forgiveness of sins present with God (in God's heart, in foro divino) through Christ's satisfactio vicaria, without any moral requirement, and thereby awaken and strengthen faith. This has been demonstrated both in relation to the word of the Gospel and in relation to the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.568) Therefore, it is natural that all deniers of the satisfactio vicaria deny the means of grace in the sense of Scripture. If they still address the means of grace, it is only an accommodation to the language of the church. They then understand by means of grace means of stimulation for such moral endeavors by which the satisfactio vicaria of Christ is to be replaced or at least completed. This is applied first of all to the outspoken Unitarians of old and new times, who, because they deny the essential divinity of Christ, also reject the satisfactio vicaria and place the essence of Christianity in human morality stimulated by Christ's doctrines and example.569) The endeavor to lead a "godly life" or to "keep the commandments of God" (trying to keep the commandments) out of the intellectual, psychological and moral stimulation emanating from Christ's person (moral influence theory) takes the place of the means of grace, and thus the means of grace are completely dismissed as media remissionis peccatorum sive iustificationis.570) But this is also true with respect to all the more recent theologians,571) , who
567, St. L. IX. 236 f.<w:t>568) p. 123 ff.
569) RE.3 Harnack, Wesen des Christentums 3, p. 92.
570) The Racau Catechism therefore explicitly denies (question 337, 338) that through the Lord's Supper sin is forgiven and faith is strengthened. The Lord's Supper is not to receive something, but to do God a service.
571) Cf. II. 429 ff., the section "More detailed description of modern theories of reconciliation".
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supposedly only want to "deepen" the early church "concept of satisfaction," namely, by including the transformation or reshaping of mankind, that is, sanctification and good works, in the reconciliation of men with God.. If it really stands as Kirn thinks: " We find it imperative to include the transformation of humanity in the concept of the reconciling work [of Christ],"572) then the means of grace are no longer means for the forgiveness of sins, but they become means of stimulation for the "transformation of humanity." This becomes even clearer when the satisfactio vicaria is explicitly replaced by the guarantee or surety theory. According to this whimsical theory, the atoning work of Christ consists in the fact that Christ "vouchsafed" or promised the Father that men would practice morality (lead a "godly life") "in a congregation of the reign of God" to be founded by Him. In other words, Christ reconciled men to God by issuing a bill of exchange payable by men themselves. The advocates of the theory of surety, therefore, do not understand the means of grace as signs and testimonies of the God who is gracious through Christ, or as testimony to the fact that God no longer has anything against men for Christ's sake, but as a means of collecting a bill of exchange due, as a reminder and demand addressed to men to pay, or at least to pay in arrears, what Christ has not yet paid. It is evident that means of grace thus constituted are not capable of "awakening and strengthening" the Christian faith, namely, the faith in the forgiveness of sins which Christ has purchased, but rather belong to the Roman pagan aberration which Scripture characterizes by the words, "Ye have lost Christ, who would be justified by the law, and have fallen from grace." 573) This is true of every theory of reconciliation by which the satisfactio vicaria is touched. Also of Hofmann's theory. Hofmann wanted to make the substitution of a new humanity in the person of Christ stand for Christ's substitutionary doing and suffering and the resulting forgiveness of sins. But by the fact that in Christ there was a new holy humanity and shall continue to become a new holy humanity until the Last Day,
572) RE.3 XX, 574.<w:t>573) Gal. 5:4.
150 > The Means of Grace. [English ed. ~ 127-128]
Christian faith does not come into being. Christian faith wants to have for its object the forgiveness of sins acquired through Christ and offered in the gospel, Eph. 1:7: ev φ [Χρίστω] εχομεν την άπολύτρωοιν διά τον αίματος αυτόν, την αφεσιν των παραπτωμάτων.574)