Luther's doctrine of the means of grace in its relationship to the medieval and Reformed doctrines of the means of grace.

Luther's doctrine of the means of grace in its relationship to the medieval and Reformed doctrines of the means of grace.

One has also wanted to find medieval kinship in Luther's doctrine of the means of grace. We already recalled Adolf Harnack's judgment. "By singling out certain actions as 'means of grace,' he [Luther] stepped back into the abandoned narrow circles of the Middle Ages."787) On the other hand, the real fact is this, that any relationship between Luther's and the medieval doctrine of the means of grace is a thing of impossibility, and this because Luther and the medieval theologians have completely opposite concepts of saving grace. According to medieval doctrines, saving grace is a good quality instilled in man, gratia infusa, and the means of grace have the purpose of instilling in man so much "grace" that by cooperating with this "grace" de congruo and also de condigno, man can earn forgiveness of sins and salvation. According to Luther's doctrine, saving grace is not something that attaches to or is in the man, but God's gracious disposition for Christ's sake, favor Dei propter Christ, or the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake, and the means of grace have the purpose of offering the forgiveness of sins that is available through Christ, and by this presentation to work faith and, if it is already worked, to strengthen it. Luther was also very clearly aware of this contrast. In contrast to the scholastic conception of "grace," he writes against Latomus: "God's grace is an

or do them harm personally“, 1997. 1996 Cf. XX, 1826 Luther's letter of December 10, 1537, to "Josel, Juden zu Roßheim, warum er ihm schriftliche Fürbitte versagen". The letter begins, "To the prudent Josel, Jew of Roßheim, my good friend."

787) Grundriß der Dogmengesch., p. 431.

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external good, God's gracious disposition, the opposite of God's wrath. … I take grace in the proper sense for God's gracious disposition, as befits it, not for a condition of the [human] spirit, as our moderns the scholastics have taught."788 Melanchthon, too, had early grasped the opposition to the medieval concept of grace. He expresses this when he says in the first edition of his Loci: "We rightly bring suit against the scholastics who have so shamefully misused the sacred word 'grace' by taking it for a quality in the spirit of the saints, most grossly of all the Thomists. … Away with the Aristotelian delusion of qualities [in the soul of man)! … The word grace does not denote a quality in us, but rather God's will itself or God's benevolence (benevolentiam) toward us." 789) In the Mass Luther was aware of the opposition to the medieval concept of grace that he repeated in one form or another the dictum: "From this doctrine consists the whole Papacy: grace is poured into man by a secret effect."790) In the difference of the concept of grace is then founded the further difference that according to medieval doctrine the sacraments ex opere operato communicate grace, while Luther calls this an ungodly opinion and in every case demands faith on the part of man for the salutary use of the sacraments. "For if the sacrament gives me grace because I receive it, in truth I obtain grace from my work and not from faith. … You see clearly how the sacraments have not been understood at all by the writers of the Sentences, because they did not care at all about faith and the promise of the sacraments. … Therefore, as I have said, they have not only taken the sacraments in fetters (captivaverunt), but

788) Opp. v. a. V, 489: Gratia Dei est externum bonum, favor Dei, opposita irae [Dei]. … Gratiam accipio hic proprie pro favore Dei, sicut debet, non pro qualitate animi, ut nostri Recentiores docuerunt. [Google] In the Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, "Grace properly means God's favor or favor which He bears to us with Himself." (St. L. XIV, 98.) Cf. the detailed treatise on the concept of grace II, 12 ff.

789) Loci, ed. Kolde 1890, p. 168 sq. Cf. Kolde on the concept of grace in Thomas, p. 168, note 1. Thomas teaches of grace: "It is poured into man, and because of it he is a homo gratus with God, is loved by God."

790) St. L. XIII, 917.

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completely, as much as has been in them, abolished them (aboleverunt)."791) Therefore, it really stands that between Luther's and the medieval doctrine of the means of grace no relationship is possible, but here the sharpest contrast prevails. Correct is Seeberg: Through Luther "fell the medieval semipelagianism, the doctrine of grace, the whole doctrine of sacraments, hierarchism, and its doctrine of works and merit. But likewise the fanatic ideas of an unmediated spiritual effect fell under the force of the Reformatoral basic thought".792)

Seeberg's latter remark leads to the question, also raised, whether there is a relationship between Luther's and the Reformed doctrine of the means of grace. Here, too, one has wanted to state not only similarities, but even complete agreement. Thus Böhl.793) One thinks to be able to find a proof for the

791) Opp. v. u. V, 64 sq.: St. L. XIX, 62 ff. Rightly, Luther does not make any distinction among the scholastics on this point. Luther occasionally praises the scholastics as "good heads". But they "fantasized" and taught "monstrosities" because they did not know the case of Adam and did not know that the law was spiritual. So they had no right understanding of the gospel, grace and faith. By saving grace they understood a quality in the heart to which man contributes. Cf. IV, 1836. 633; XVIII, 840; XXII, 1402; V, 574. Well compiled material on medieval theology and especially on the doctrine of the sacraments is found in Schmid-Hauck, Dogmengesch., p. 275 ff.

792) Dogmengesch. II, 284.

793) Dogmatik, p. 440 f. See also Macpherson, (Christian Dogmatics, p. 4224 sq.). Among newer Reformed Christians, there is often the assertion that the Reformed Church differs in the doctrine of the means of grace with the later Lutheran theologians, but not with Luther. Böhl says: "On the one side stands the Lutheran Church, which in the later dogmatic development assumed a vis conversiva et regenetrix Scripturae inhaerens. … This was quite different from Luther's saying that everything that is taken for spirit without a word is purely diabolical. Here he was quite in the right, and in this the Reformed Church also followed him." Böhl attributes a deviation from Luther to the later Lutheran theologians, "especially since the dispute with Rathmann." But he adds somewhat cautiously, "Although already the Formula of Concord 601, 55 [Trigl. 903, Sol. Decl., II, 55 🔗] makes an approach to tying the Holy Spirit to the Bible letter." When Lutheran theologians, in combating Rathmann, used the expression that God's Word also had divine power extra usum, the expression was opposed to the enthusiastic error according to which the Word of Scripture should gain life-giving power only through faithful use (which amounts to immediate illumination). But the expression belongs to those which do not recommend themselves to the general acceptance, because they, in order to be understood, still require closer explanations.

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agreement in Luther's statements, where Luther distinguishes between the "outer word" and the effect of the Holy Spirit "inwardly in the heart". This distinction, however, is familiar to Luther throughout. But Luther rejects as clearly and decisively as possible any detachment of the Spirit's work from the "outward word" and teaches that the Holy Spirit does not direct his work "inwardly in the heart" in any other way than through the outward word. Luther says in his writing "Wider die himmlischen Propheten" (Against the Heavenly Prophets): "If God has sent forth his holy gospel, he acts with us in two ways: once outwardly, the other time inwardly. Outwardly he deals with us through the oral word of the Gospel and through the bodily signs, such as baptism and sacrament. Inwardly, he deals with us through the Holy Spirit and faith, along with other gifts. But all this in measure and order, that the outward matters should and must come first, and the inward matters afterwards, and by the outward matters; so that he hath determined to give no man the inward matters without the outward matters; for he will give no man the Spirit, nor faith without the outward word and sign."794) Concerning Ex. 15:16 Luther remarks: "God has said: When the word of Christ is preached, then I am in your mouth, and I go with the word through your ears into the heart";'795) and concerning Joh. 6:63: "God has ordained His Holy Spirit to come ordinarily through the word. Christ himself speaks such things in this place. … He will not suffer thee to flutter now and then, to seek a spirit, and to dream that one may speak: I have it by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. … Christ does not want to have such an intercession, he binds only to the word; he does not want to have the spirit separated from his word. Therefore, if you hear anyone boast that he has something from inspiration or inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and it is without the Word of God, whatever it may be, say that it is the wretched devil."796) Luther expresses himself even more crudely in the following words: "Do you see there the devil, the enemy of divine order? How he opens your mouth with the words 'spirit, spirit, spirit', and yet, at the same time, he outlines both bridges, footbridge and path, ladder and everything, through which the spirit is to come to you, namely through the outward orders of

794) St. L. XX, 202<w:t xml:space="preserve">795) III, 925<w:t xml:space="preserve">796) VII, 2389, 2388

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God in bodily baptism, signs and oral Word of God, and will teach you, not how the Spirit should come to you, but how you should come to the Spirit, that you should learn to ride on the clouds and ride on the wind."'797) Seeberg says of Luther's doctrine of the Word and the action of the Holy Spirit: "Luther distinguishes the purely human action of the Word from the action of the Spirit 'in', 'with and through', 'with and under', but in such a way that the latter takes place only by virtue of the former."798) In short, the factual situation is this: As certainly as Zwingli and Calvin and more recent Reformers such as Böhl, Hodge and Shedd (Efficacious grace acts immediately) teach an immediate effect of the Spirit, and Luther, on the other hand, rejects any immediate effect of the Spirit as self-deception and a devil's bargain, so certainly can we state not a correspondence but only a complete contrast between Luther's and the Reformed doctrine of the means of grace.799) But connected with this difference is another one,

797) XX, 203.<w:t xml:space="preserve">798) op. cit. II, 267.

799) We add a statement by Luther in which he shows the causal relationship between the "outward word" and "faith in the heart". Luther says to the words Joh. 17:20 ("But I do not pray for them alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word"): "Christ lifts up and praises the apostles' sermon, so that through it we must come to Him (Christ) and believe. Against this there is now a devil's scourge running through his fanatical spirits, who despise the outward word and pretend that the Spirit must do it all alone; outward things, signs and oral doctrines are of no use for faith in the heart; the inward man must have an inward word. To the same lying spirits write only this text: Ask them whether the word "believe" belongs to the inner or outer man, or whether the apostles preached the outer or the inner word. So they cannot deny that this word 'believe', which is only of the heart and inward man, and 'by their word' belong together and make an inward man. Faith is the most intimate reason of the heart. Since then Christ says that they should believe, that is, become inward or spiritual men by the apostle's word, it follows irrefutably that such a word does not serve the outward but the inward man, and it is ever nothing that they slander that oral word or sermon is nothing useful without an outward testimony or confession of the inward man. But if they say: If the outward word could do this, all who hear it would be faithful and saved. Answer: They must give thanks. For this is already half known, that they cannot deny that nevertheless some believe. For so we also say, Though all believe not, yet are they many that believe. Neither saith Christ, that they shall all believe. What then is it that they want to follow

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the difference regarding the concept of grace. The Reformed often correctly define saving grace as God's grace, God's gracious disposition, etc. However, when asked to whom this gracious disposition of God applies, they come up with a "but". The gracious disposition and the spiritual effect flowing from it are to apply only to those who are directly enlightened or born again. Thus the older and newer Reformed doctrines. Böhl, too, carefully inculcates: "Only to these made alive by the Holy Spirit do those assurances of Jesus apply, that the Word cleanses them." 800) Thus, on the part of the Reformed, we have the consensus with Rome that the forgiveness of sins is indeed granted only to those who have an "infused grace" to show in themselves. On the other hand, the objection that the Papists allow grace to be infused with human cooperation, while the Reformed allow it to be infused without any human cooperation, directly, does not apply. Since the immediate effect of the Spirit exists only in the imagination, the Reformed, too, are in fact dependent only on their own activity. Therefore Luther's judgment is correct in its entire scope, that the enthusiasts, because they teach an immediate effect of the Spirit, fall into Roman works doctrine and "lose Christ, the cornerstone," because they do not want to come to God by faith in the forgiveness of sins acquired from Christ and offered in the means of grace, but by an infused or indwelling grace. Hence the further contrast between Luther and the Reformed in practice. While the Reformed warn against hanging on to the external means of grace and are always afraid that people might confuse the means of grace and the persons who administer the means of grace

and conclude: They do not all believe, therefore faith does not come through the word? So I also wanted to infer and to make believe: They are not all obedient rulers, overlords or parents, therefore no authority, rulers nor parents would be useful or necessary and God's commandment would be in vain. Therefore we turn it back and say thus: We know that some believe who hear the word, and can prove it by many sayings and examples of Scripture, therefore we conclude that the word is useful and necessary, not to the ears alone, but also to the heart or inner man. But the fact that some do not believe, even though they hear the word, does not take anything away from the word, but nevertheless remains true that it is the means by which faith comes into the heart, and without it no one can believe". (St. L. VIII, 829 f.)

800)Dogmatics, p. 445 f.

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with God Himself,801) Luther cannot do enough on the one hand with the instruction that in the means of grace and in the persons who administer the means of grace God Himself deals with us, and on the other hand with the warning that we do not think differently of God than we hear and see in the means of grace.802) This is the point at which every Christian can and should examine himself whether he has the Christian doctrine of the means of grace and lives in it. It stands like this: We foolishly live in remoteness from God instead of in closeness to God graciously granted to us, if it is not thus said in our hearts: God speaks to me in His Word which goes from mouth to mouth among men, and which I hear from the mouth of men; God speaks to me in His Word which I read; Christ Himself absolves in the Word which He has besouled men; Christ Himself baptizes; Christ Himself forgives sin only by the presentation of His body and blood in the Lord's Supper. This is Luther's "way of faith resting directly on Word and sacrament," as E. F. Karl Müller has expressed it,803) and in which this Reformed theologian recognizes a difference that separates Luther from Calvinism. The same is to be said of the entire Lutheran Church, insofar as it holds fast to the doctrine of the means of grace taught by Luther and the Lutheran Confession. Only in extreme necessity do Lutherans and Reformed come to a practical agreement regarding the means of grace doctrine. Because in the distress of conscience and death the gratia particularis and the immediate effect of the Spirit fail, in this case the Reformed themselves point to the general promises of God and thus to the objective means of grace. Thus, in this case, unification comes about by practice driving the Reformed to the Lutheran position, as Schneckenburger has expressed it.804) Luther has been suspected of the harsh language he uses against the "enthusiasts." Luther himself is aware of this harsh language, and he therefore in a way asks for apology by explaining,805) that he does not mean both human persons and the

801) Cf. E.g. Consensus Tigurinus XI, XII, XIII, XV: Niemeyer, p. 194. In addition Calvin's Expositio, p. 208. Here is no factual difference between them and Carlstadt, who also claimed: "This is a mean and abominable pity that our Christians seek forgiveness of sins in the sacrament." Cf. Carlstadt's writing "Von dem widerchristlichen Mißbrauch," etc. St. L. XX. 94.

802) St. L. XIII. 2458 ff. <w:t>803) RE. 3 XV, 599.

804) Comparative account I, 261 f. 805) St. L. XX. 204 f. 201 f.

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arch-enemy of the Christian church, the devil, who by pretending to an immediate spiritual effect wants to pull Christians down from the rock of the objective word of God and thus actually deprive them of the gospel that had been brought back to light by the Reformation. Every man deceives himself with regard to his personal fellowship with God, unless he bases his state of grace with God on the forgiveness of sins promised in the external Word of God.