The Means of Grace and Prayer.
The Scriptural doctrine of prayer was presented in its main points in the doctrine of sanctification and good works.893) Here we still go into the question of whether prayer should be placed alongside Word and Sacrament as a means of grace. This occurs, for example, in Hodge when he says:894) "The means of grace, according to the standards of our Church, are the Word, Sacraments, and prayer." Shedd quotes from the Larger Catechism, Qu. 154: "The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to His Church the benefits of His mediation are all His
891) Rom. 4:11. Baier (III, 426): Finis cuius sacramenti circumcisionis proximus isque principalis erat gratiae foederatis de remissione peccatorum collatio. Gen. 17, 7 promittit Deus, se fore Deum Abrahami circumcidendi et seminis eius circumcidendi, quod imprimis de … adoptione in foedus gratiae exponi debet. [Google]
892) Opp. v. a. V, 62: Error est sacramenta novae legis differre a sacramentis veteris legis penes efficaciam significationis. … Nostra et patrum signa seu sacramenta habent annexum verbum promissionis, quod fidem exigit et nullo opere alio impleri potest, ideo sunt signa et sacramenta iustificationis. [Google] Cf. St. L. XIX, 62 f.
893) p. 94 ff.<w:t xml:space="preserve">894) Systematic Theol, III, 466; cf. p. 708.
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ordinances, especially the Word, Sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation."895) The Methodists refer to "their special means of grace" as the "love feasts and class meetings." As means of grace prescribed by God they mention "prayer, searching the Holy Scriptures, the Lord's Supper, fasting, Christian entertainment."896) In contrast, Meusel states under "Means of Grace":897) "It is confusing and to be rejected when newer ones, following the procedures of Schleiermacher … still include prayer in the name of Jesus among the means of grace. Objective and subjective, divine and human action must not be coordinated and confounded in this way." This objection is justified. If we also reckon, as the expression "sacrament," so also the expression "means of grace" among the church termini in the use of which freedom must be allowed,898) it is certainly not a recommendable modus docendi to place prayer alongside Word and sacrament as means of grace, because disparate things are thereby coordinated. Word and sacrament are the means by which God deals with us men, namely, offering to men the forgiveness of sins purchased by Christ, and by such offering producing in them faith.and strengthening it. Word and sacrament are, as Luther used to address it, God's work for us. Through prayer, on the other hand, believers act with God. Prayer is an activity of the faith of Christians. If prayer is placed next to word and sacrament as a means of grace, then prayer is easily understood as a supplement to God's grace, namely as if God were only completely reconciled through prayer and made willing to forgive man's sin. The widespread error is encouraged, as if God had not already completely reconciled the world to Himself through Christ,
895) Dogmntic Theology, II, 561
896) The detailed quotations in Günther, Symbolik 4, p. 272 [Popular Symbolics p. 285].
897) Handlexicon III, 5.
898) Cf. Apology 204, 16. 17 [Trigl, 311, Apol, XIII, 16-17 🔗] and Hollaz's distinction between means of grace in the narrower and wider sense: Media stricte dieta ex parte Dei δοτικά seu salutem exhibentia sunt Verbum Dei et sacramenta; ex parte nostri medium ληπτικόν seu oblatam salutem apprehendens est fides merito Christi innixa. Media salutis late dicta sunt εισαγωγικά sive executiva et in regnum gloriae introducentia, scii, mors, resurrectio mortuorum, extremum iudicium et consummatio seculi. [Google] (Examen, De mediis salutis in genere, qu. 2.)
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and as if, on the part of mankind, in order to be reconciled to God, more is needed than faith in the reconciliation brought about by Christ. The coordination of prayer with the means of grace can easily be made serviceable to the soul-destroying practice of referring terrified souls struck by God's law to prayer for grace instead of to Word and Sacrament, thus creating the idea that through prayer, as through a work done by man, forgiveness of sins is obtained. — It has been objected that in the Scriptures the attainment of the forgiveness of sins through prayer is clearly taught. Not only is it said in general, "Ask, and it shall be given you," but it is also said, especially with regard to the attainment of the forgiveness of sins in the fifth petition, "Forgive us our trespasses," by which Christ not only means to ask for forgiveness of sins, but also at the same time promises that through such petition forgiveness of sins will be granted to us. To this it must be said: Of course, through prayer we also obtain forgiveness of sins, but not insofar as prayer is a work done by man, but insofar as in the petition "Forgive us our trespasses" there is a willingness of God's grace in Christ worked by the Holy Spirit, a velle remissionem peccatorum, that is, faith in the Gospel. Thus it also stands with the fifth petition that man without works is justified by faith alone. Furthermore, it has been found strange that, according to Scripture, on the one hand, prayer is the basis of confidence in God's grace ("Our Father"), while on the other hand, the forgiveness of sins is still requested or desired in prayer. The apparent contradiction is resolved when we look at the actual condition of a Christian. Because Christians still sin, and just as sin still registers in their conscience as guilt, the faith that is still present in the heart reacts by fleeing into the promise of grace of the Gospel. — It should be noted how faith, in so far as it asks for the forgiveness of sins, places itself with the reconciliation that has taken place through Christ and with the means of grace. It does not place itself alongside Christ's work of reconciliation. Nor does he place himself beside the means of grace, nor does he place himself in the place of the means of grace, but on the contrary, he bases himself on Christ's perfect merit and the means of grace. He asks that God would forgive him for Christ's sake and according to his promise of grace in the
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Word. As soon as prayer ignores the perfect acquisition of grace by Christ and its presentation through the promise of the gospel, it acquires the following unchristian characteristics: it is no longer a prayer in the name of Jesus, but against the name of Jesus; it is not an activity of faith, but of unbelief toward the gospel; it becomes eo ipso a work by which man thinks he can acquire God's grace, and thus an abomination before God. The more zealous the prayer, ignoring the full grace acquired from Christ and its presentation in the word of the gospel, the greater the abomination. Christ characterizes such a nature of prayer in the words, "When ye pray, babble not much, as the heathen do: for they think they shall be heard if they speak much."899) Chemnitz writes: "The Augsburg Confession firmly rebukes (serio improbat) those who either seek or teach to seek reconciliation with God and forgiveness of sins outside the ministry of the Word and sacraments." 900) — That Calvinists, like Hodge, name prayer as a means of grace apart from word and sacrament is not accidental. In rejecting common grace and accepting the immediate communication of grace and the action of the Spirit, they cannot refer to the promise of grace in the objective Word of God, but must refer sinners stricken by God's law, in their inquiring after grace, as to other human activities, so also to prayer, in order to evoke by these activities inner moods and feelings, which at most, namely, as long as there is no real knowledge of sin, can be taken for characteristics of sonship with God. Likewise, it is understandable when synergists, whether they call themselves Reformed or Lutheran or otherwise, show a tendency to call or use prayer as a means of grace because, according to their doctrinal position, they think that the bestowal of divine grace is also dependent on human activity, scil., personal self-determination, right conduct, etc. It is well known that the majority of revival preachers from the Reformed sects point the souls inquiring about grace to prayer for grace instead of word and sacrament. Lutheran pietists, even
899) Matt. 6:7 900) Examen, De poenitentia, p. 370.
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also a Fresenius, have done the same.901) Underlying this practice, consciously or unconsciously, is always the denial of the general perfect reconciliation of the whole world of sinners through Christ’s
901) Cf. Walther's account of his own sad experiences based on Fresenius' "Confession and Communion Book" in "The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel" (39 Evening Lectures, edited from Walther's estate; 1897, p. 118 ff.). [Ed. — See here, 15th Evening Lecture beginning with "Let me illustrate this by the example of Dr. John Philip Pastor Fresenius..."; Law & Gospel: p. 156 ff]. Fresenius' first rule to a "thorough" conversion "in a short time" is also, "Pray for grace!" "There one goes into his closet, as the Savior addresses the counsel Matt. 6:6, or where else he can talk with God alone, bows his knees before Him, and cries out with all his might for grace, and not only for grace that God may forgive sins, but also for grace that He may truly change the heart and destroy the love of sin in it." "This prayer one does not do once or twice, but one continues daily groaning, praying, calling out, and crying out, until one obtains the grace of being assured by one's own experience of the true change of heart." To this Walther counters the thesis: "God's Word is not rightly shared when sinners, stricken and terrified by the law, instead of being directed to Word and Sacrament, are instructed to gain the object by praying and struggling, namely, to pray and struggle so long." Walther first takes three examples from apostolic practice to show that terrified sinners were pointed to the word of the gospel and baptism, Acts 2:16, 22. Then he shows that three errors underlie the contrary practice of the Reformed sects and the Reformed-practicing Lutherans: 1. They do not believe and teach a real, complete reconciliation of man to God through Christ's substitutionary satisfaction. 2. they teach falsely of the doctrines of the gospel. They do not take the gospel to be a proclamation of the forgiveness of sins, but a guide to human endeavors to acquire God's grace. Individual sect preachers are a partial exception because they are Lutheran-influenced. 3. The sects teach false doctrines of faith. They regard faith, by which men are justified and saved, as a quality in man. "The doctrine of infused grace is the whole secret of the papacy and the sects." Walther, however, does not fail to point out that even such Lutherans as profess the right doctrine all too often practice Romanism and enthusiasm, because every man, according to his natural nature, "does not want to place his redemption in anything apart from, but in himself alone." (The Lutheran Lehre von der Rechtfertigung. Ein Referat etc., p. 64.; [Ed.- p. 64 must be in 1859 edition, in 1880 edition it is page 81; in 1859 Western District "Referat" it is pages 56-57]) Concerning the nature of the newer theology Walther says a. a. O., p. 69 [Ed.- p. p. 69 must be in 1859 edition, in 1880 edition it is page 87; in 1859 Western District "Referat" it is page 60]: "The whole of the newer Christianity does not want to believe God on His mere Word — wants to believe only when one feels the grace in oneself and thinks to be able to be certain of it through oneself. (Foundation of faith on the reborn I, the Christian consciousness). In fact, this means nothing other than suffering shipwreck in faith..... One wants to search for Christ only in oneself and not be satisfied until one supposedly finds him there. One is wont to ask: Do you have Christ in your heart? Do you feel him working in it?' If the answer is: "Yes," then there should be comfort and hope, then one wants to believe. But what one takes for faith in this way is not faith, but a pure deception or, in the best case, a fruit of faith.
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satisfactio vicaria and the denial of the truth that Word and Sacrament are the divinely ordained means by which God both offers the forgiveness of sins already present through Christ and produces and strengthens faith. — We should also add a few words here about modern "experiential theology." The "experience theologians", like their whole theology, want to base prayer on "experience". W. Herrmann says quite correctly902) that the right prayer must not be a "cry of distress penetrating into the unknown", but a "real address to God'". He further says quite correctly that man can only address the God who has revealed himself to him. But now it stands in question what kind of revelation must be made that actually produces in man the confidence to "address" God for forgiveness of sins. It is not enough, as Herrmann thinks, that we recall an experience through which God perceptibly intervened in our lives and thus sensitively presented Himself to us as "present." Every man already has the revelation of God's presence in his inner being, in nature and in history.903) But this revelation gives man so little courage to ask God for forgiveness of sins that it rather suggests to him to flee from God, because man is oppressed by his feeling of guilt before God. This feeling of guilt, however, does not give way to any human activity, whether this activity consists in the "tension of one's own spiritual power" or in humanly conceived services and sacrifices. For the prayer for remission of guilt, therefore, the memory of an intervention in our life is not sufficient, but here the memory of the great event in the life of Christ is necessary, which concerns the whole world and therefore also every human individual, namely the memory of the event that God was in Christ and reconciled the world to Himself, and that God has established among us the Word of reconciliation, so that we may believe it. Any appeal to God for remission of sins that sets aside Christi satisfactorio vicaria and the means of grace is not a prayer in the sense of the fifth petition, but is based on self-deception. If there is a real recognition of sin, then the self-deception is also recognized as such.
Woe to him who trusts in it! For to do so is to make a false Christ for oneself, and to reject the Christ who hung on the cross and gives Himself to us in the Gospel.
902) RE. 3 VI, 386 ff. Cf. by the same author "Intercourse of Christians with God".
903) Acts 17:24-28.
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