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There is an amazing post entitled “Luther on Law” over at our good friend Tullian Tchividjian’s blog which is written by another good friend of Mockingbird, Jono Linebaugh. As many of you know, there has been an ongoing discussion about the relationship between law and gospel over at the Gospel Coalition. Recently Jono was asked to give some insight into how Luther understood the relationship, and he nails it. Fundamentally–following the blessed Gerhard Forde– whatever “lutheranism” has become, it can most generally be understood as a way of understanding the role of the law and gospel with respect to preaching, i.e., where people actually live. This is why “lutherans” can exist in every church–even Anglican!—because anyone who believes that the law is not merely transformed, but actually ends by faith in Christ alone will, as was said of the early “lutherans,” i.e., the Apostle Paul, never tire of speaking of Jesus and his death for sinners. In any discussion of the law, understood theologically, there are (at least) four major areas that one has to take into consideration if one wants to begin to come to grips with the fullness of the concept theologically (meaning simply, biblical;-), and Jono lays them all out brilliantly.
1) The Law, understood theologically, is God’s law. As Jono says:
Two important implications follow from this theological definition of Law. First, because Law is a way of identifying God’s action with words, talk about “uses” of the Law cannot be human uses of the Law but God’s use of his Law. In other words, God is the acting subject; he wields the words of death and life and the theological term Law is a way of pointing to God’s accusing, condemning, and killing speech. Second, because Law is defined in terms of its function and effect rather than simply its content, it is not, as noted above, reducible to a moral codex or a grammatical pattern. This means that the common assumption that “imperative = Law” is far too static an equation. There seems to be some persistent confusion on this last point, so it is worth teasing out Luther’s perspective a little more.
2) The Law must always be understood in is powerless relationship to the life-giving Gospel.
For this reason, Luther would insist that the Law only applies to the second question of Christian living: what shall we do? It helps to answer the “what” question, the question about the content of good works. The Law, however, does not answer the more basic question, the question far too few people ask: How do good works occur? What fuels works of love? While the Law demands and directs, what delivers and drives? For Luther, the answer to this question always follows the pattern of 1 John 4.19: “We love because he first loved us.” Works of love flow from prior belovedness. Thus, as Lutheran theologian Oswald Bayer has said, the essential question of theological ethics is this: “What has been given?” The answer: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5.8).
3) The end of the Law is the beginning of freedom.
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The end of the Law (Rom 10.4), understood by Luther as Christ kicking the Law out of the conscience and rejecting its role as the regulator of the divine-human relationship, is thus the end of the “ifs” that interpose themselves between God and his creatures. In place of the “ifs” Christ has uttered a final cry: “It is finished.” These three words are the unconditional guarantee of the three words God speaks to sinners in the Gospel: “I love you.” In this unconditional context the justified person is freed from the inhuman quest to secure a standing before God and freed for the human task of serving one’s neighbor. In Luther’s memorable words: “A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all” (Freedom of a Christian 1520)
4) Despite our best intentions, the heart knows what it hears, so be gentle:)
A word of caution from Luther by way of conclusion: it is one thing to affirm that the gospel creates a secure space within which a command can be heard without a condition; it is another thing altogether to issue a command that is not heard as a condition. This is why Luther was always saying that “as far as the words are concerned…everyone can easily understand the distinction between the Law and grace, but so far as practice, life, and application are concerned, it is the most difficult thing there is” (Galatians 1535). In other words, there will always be a temptation to preach or teach what could or should be – that is, a context in which a command is not a condition – without attending to the way such a command is still heard as Law – as an “if” and thus as judgment – by the sinful, doubting human.
These are just some excerpts. I hope you read the entire piece. Were it as easy as designating law and gospel with different grammatical or even theological markers, well, that would be one thing, but we’re all in the business of seeking to “properly distinguish” the two, and with this article from Jono, we’re all one step closer!
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15 responses to “Beyond Imperatives: A Must Read on the Law”
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I’m waiting for evangelicals to find CFW Walther, who was simply awesome on Law and Gospel.
It’s all here free: http://www.lutherantheology.com/uploads/works/walther/LG/
Or here in a nice edition. http://www.cph.org/p-8987-law-and-gospel-how-to-read-and-apply-the-bible.aspx?SearchTerm=law and gospel walther
You’re in for a long wait.
I was given a copy from a friend who’s Lutheran. So at least there is one of us out there.
Also, the easiest way to teach the distinction between Law and Gospel, I’ve found, is through showing the importance of passive righteousness. In our relationship with God, we can only be passive, since we are dead in sin. We bring nothing to the table for God. When we do try to bring something to it, other than gratitude, we can only bring sin and destroy the relationship.
This essential passiveness is why so many protestants fail to understand Lutherans’ view of the sacraments. Infants are the epitome of passive receivers of grace in baptism. Christians kneeling with their mouths open to receive his body and blood are passive receives of grace in communion, which by its nature, forces the Christian to remember what that body and blood were for, forgiveness. Even Lutherans’ understanding of the Word. It is God’s very voice, piercing the soul and making faith. The Christian takes no credit for even believing the Word, because the Word put the belief there. Our action is in relationships with our neighbor, and loving them., but that is driven by faith, which comes only by being 100% passive in our relationship with God.
http://media.ctsfw.edu/850
Walther is pretty good.
Except for that “3rd use” stuff.
I like Forde better.
But Walther is good.
“Compare this to a couple examples of New Testament imperatives. First, consider Galatians 5.1. After four chapters of passionate insistence that justification is by faith apart from works of the Law, Paul issues a couple of strong imperatives: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore stand firm (imperative) and do not be subject (imperative) again to the yoke of slavery.” Are these imperatives instances of God’s accusing and killing words? Are these commandments with conditions? Is Galatians 5.1 an example of Law? No! The command here is precisely to not return to the Law; it is an imperative to stand firm in freedom from the Law. Or take another example, John 8.11. Once the accusers of the adulterous women left, Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Depart. From now on, sin no more.” Does this final imperative disqualify the words of mercy? Is this a commandment with a condition? Is this Law following the Gospel? No! This would be Law: “if you go and sin no more, then neither will I condemn you.” But Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” The command is not a condition. “Neither do I condemn you” is categorical and unconditional, it comes with no strings attached. “Neither do I condemn you” creates an unconditional context within which “go and sin no more” is not an “if.” The only “if” the Gospel knows is this: “if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous” (1 John 2.1).
“For Luther, it is within this unconditional context created by the gospel, the reality he called “living by faith,” that the Law understood as God’s good commands can be returned to its proper place. Freed from the burden and bondage of attempting to use the Law to establish our righteousness before God, Christians are free to look to commandments, not as conditions, but as descriptions and directions as they seek to serve their neighbor.”
This is the most helpful thing I have ever read concerning New Testament imperatives. This is why we don’t read, or at least if we understand the gospel, should not read, New Testament imperatives as condemnation. Thanks Jady!
Thanks for this. I did read it, and my reaction was the same as it often is when reading about “Law and Gospel”: it often seems a really tortuous configuration. I can hardly follow what’s being said sometimes – particularly when we get to things like “third use of the Law,” and “unconditional context[s] within which ‘go and sin no more’ is not an ‘if.'”
I just don’t understand what these things mean. Perhaps it’s me, and I’m not constitutionally able to grasp these ideas. But I don’t get it.
I do agree, though, that the whole “Law and Gospel” approach is much more subtle than it appears at first – which is what Luther is I think hinting at here. And I completely agree that arguing the reality of Original Sin (for lack of a better term; I just mean the fact that people inevitably screw everything up completely) is a terrific preaching tactic.
I get lost, though, in the part about “difference between whether God’s verbal encounter with the human effects condemnation and death or works faith, forgiveness, and freedom.” Wouldn’t it be just as well to let silence argue the case? I mean, pointing out the hideousness of – for instance – the 20th Century in terms of the death-and-torture toll ought to be enough, shouldn’t it? Why would any “listeners” take that particularly personally, or as “condemnation”? It’s just a fact, like any other. (Anyway, many people will simply find in it another way to justify their own particular point of view, whatever it is – at least on the instant!)
But in the longer run: isn’t it better to let the facts of the world argue the case by themselves? Isn’t it better to say: “You’ll feel a lot better if you just let go of your need to be constantly right and ‘in control.’ I know I did.”? (i.e., “…unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven….”)
It seems as if the Reformed idea tries too much to become an equation – to tie everything up into a neat package as “the answer.” To eliminate whatever “loose ends” there seem to be, and harmonize its various sources. But in the effort, it becomes unintelligible – well, at least it does, quite often, to me. And I’m sort of an onlooker-fan! 😉
I will have to read Luther’s thing about “the monster of self-righteousness.” That sounds great! And that, more than anything else, is I think the source of most human problems. Certainly more people today are afflicted by this than by “feeling condemned by God.” No?
Or maybe the article is speaking to people on the diametric-opposite end of the scale from me – people who’ve been raised in a damaging sort of religious faith? If that’s it, and this would make sense to them, then that’s a good thing. I guess I’ll just try to talk to the people I understand in my own way, and accept that this stuff is just never going to make any sense to me….
Great to have you both back! Michael, I’m glad you liked it.
BLS,
I must say that I am generally sympathetic to what you’ve written because I too think that many attempts to systematize theology are in hopes of tying all loose ends up, but this tendency can be seen in various attempts to postulate everything as the outworking of god’s love (cf. Leibinitz) as much as it can in Reformed systematics.
When you write, “Thanks for this. I did read it, and my reaction was the same as it often is when reading about “Law and Gospel”: it often seems a really tortuous configuration.” I think that this is due more to the aforementioned misplaced desire to explain that the construct “Law & Gospel.” Admittedly, the Apostle Paul and Jesus’ teaching on the issue is difficult, so we have some excuse for the extended treatment, but ironically (or tragically:), for Luther (at least) the construction was initially utilized to help cut thorough the scholastic fog and clearly distinguish between what was the Gospel and what was not.
I think that you are close to the Angels when you’ve written about “letting things speak for themselves,” because this seems to be the key pastoral/hermeneutical insight of the distinction. For Luther, one of the main problems was that people–in his case the Pope–were flaunting the 3rd commandment by taking God’s name in vain for all manner of things that he had not, in fact said about things. In this case, the distinction between law and gospel helps clarify the two. For instance, all of the “thou shalts” in the Old and New are not to be confused with the Gospel. Period. However one wants to understand the Christian life, that is all emanation from a prior statement about what God has done for sinful humans in Christ. When we confess this Gospel to be true, i.e., “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” we are simultaneously accepting the judgment on ourselves–that we are sinners–and our helplessness–that we need saving.
One of the real blindspots in all of these discussions is a lack of appreciation for how, per the Apostle Paul, the “law was added 430 years after the promise to Abraham.” This means that the Law, while connected to morality, is not synonymous. You’ve grasped this in your statement, “more than anything else, is I think the source of most human problems. Certainly more people today are afflicted by this than by “feeling condemned by God.” No?
For Luther, if I may, this IS life “under the law,” and, by extension, under God’s wrath, cf. Gal 3:10-14. The “curse of the law,” is not to live life either immorally, or self-righteously, but as those, a’ la Sartre, “condemned to freedom.” Autopoiesis–or self creation–is the primal tempation since the garden to “be like God,” and is only overcome by faith.
Religious faith is no more or less “damaging” to the extent that it does not posit Christ as the end of the law. If not, then the “point” of Christianity will either be to follow the law of the Father, i.e., conserve the status quo, or the Spirit, i.e., baptize Levinas’ concept of Alterity. Both ways confuse law and gospel in that they saddle the believer with a “you should be,” rather than “it was already done.”
Que sera sera and postmodern detachment are symptoms of “life under the law,” just as much as internal struggle and feelings of self-condemnation. The Gospel, on the other hand, does not call or proscribe or instruct in any way, it creates life from death, and death, in this respect, was understood as a life of captivity to “those things that by their very nature are not Gods” (Rom. 1).
Anyway, I’ve probably just made things more confusing, but it wasn’t for lack of trying!
Not at all. I appreciate it – even though I don’t completely understand it sometimes! I think maybe part of the problem is that I’m missing quite a bit of background that you guys all take for given and granted, so I will read “The Monster of Self-Righteousness” (or, rather, “Galatians 1535” – but what a great horror-genre title that would have been instead!) to try to get going on that.
My particular problem, maybe (as I’ve said here before), is that I am very lacking in “faith” myself – so that “justification by faith alone” seems as much Law to me as anything else. But somehow, even in my faithlessness, I do not feel abandoned. So I question even that as a requirement or precursor. It doesn’t really seem to be. As my favorite little A.A. pamphlet says: “To alcoholics swamped with guilt and shame, the words ‘I found I had a disease, and I found a way to arrest it’ constitute immediate absolution for many, and for others at least a ray of hope they might one day earn absolution.” Nothing about “faith” in that, anyway; rather, it seems more about “surrender.” I certainly agree with you about “postmodern detachment,” though.
Anyway sometimes I think that perhaps I am meant to speak to others without faith – so I’m always thinking about how to do this. I will have to leave the speaking with people of faith to others, I think; I think that’s the thing that’s not making sense to me. But I am living proof that people without faith are granted freedom undeservedly, too….
I do appreciate your taking the time to lay all that out! Very interesting, and a lot to think about. It’s interesting, actually, that what at first seems to be so stark and plain and violent – the crucifixion – can be so subtle and hard to grasp in its actual working-out in the world. You wouldn’t ever think so, would you?
Luther considered the proper distinction between Law & Gospel to be the highest theological art, and the one who achieved the mark deserved a Doctorate in theology. He knew that our natural human theology is one governed by law and that we will continually gravitate back to it. We learn it as children; good boys and girls are rewarded and bad boys and girls are punished. In other words, “we get what we deserve.”
When this theology creeps into the church L&G are mixed together and neither is properly understood. When L&G are mixed forgiveness is used like a carrot on a stick, to motivate us to do “good things” or avoid “bad things”. When L&G are mixed assurance is erased because I will never know if I have done enough to deserve forgiveness. But, when L&G are properly distinguished I am see myself for who I am (a wretched sinner without hope – Romans 7:24) and then I am pointed once again to the One who provides hope (Jesus Christ – Romans 7:25). When L&G are properly distinguished assurance is conveyed because it is not about what I have done but what Jesus did and has given to me. Grace is double blessing. Not only do I not get what I deserve (punishment), but I am given what I do not deserve (the righteousness of Jesus). Luther called this the Great Exchange.
Now to this “3rd use of the Law” thing; once I have heard the Law (conviction) and believed the Gospel (faith/assurance), I can now respond (worship) not out of fear but out of joy. Because my Father loves me and forgives me I want to do His will. The Gospel Imperative is a joyful response to grace. I will not do it perfectly so the Law will continue to have a convicting work in my life until the day I die. But I also know that grace covers all of my sin, so there is no more need to fear judgment (1 John 4:17-18), no more need to try to earn grace.
The first name for Luther’s protesting church was “Evangelical” (Luther never wanted his church to be named after him). There are many Lutherans out here who are still evangelical and are not theologically liberal. Most of us would like to take back our name from those who have abandoned scripture or who have closed themselves off from the greater Christian community. I am happy to see many people rediscover Luther. His critique of the church and the theology of his day needs to be heard again by the church today.
Pastor Ed, thanks for the explanation about “third use of the Law.” That’s helpful. I just read a little bit more about this elsewhere, too; 3rd Use seems a good antidote to Marcionism, too, if I understand it right.
I think “the Great Exchange” is a central problem, though, actually. It’s a psychological one: talking about having “the righteousness of Jesus” may be a way to describe “how God sees us via atonement” – but how can mere human beings make such a distinction on a day-to-day basis? How can we claim “the righteousness of Jesus” without becoming self-righteous ourselves? It doesn’t seem possible, to me – and BTW take a look at the church over the past 400 years for some empirical data on the topic.
I think Luther was wrong in this instance. I think there is no “exchange.” I think forgiveness (i.e. “atonement”) itself is given as a free gift, and that God already understands and forgives our brokenness and sinfulness. I think the “free gift” is the whole point, actually – and that it’s the only way to healing of spirit and thus some sort of (however meager) relationship with God, another free gift.
Anything else would be – well, Law, wouldn’t it? We have – always have had – literally nothing to offer. That’s the whole point, isn’t it – that we come empty-handed to the relationship with God? That we let go of trying to control how God views us, and accept Reality?
From what I know of him, I admire Luther – I actually quite identify with him in many ways – but I think he was wrong here. The idea is to free people to live lives “hid with Christ in God” – and I don’t see that happening under this configuration. Human beings aren’t able to deal with labels like “possessing the righteousness of Jesus.” We’re a mess, generally speaking, and can and will screw up almost anything. We’re particularly prone to errors of grandiosity, I’d say….. 😉
Thanks again.
I don’t see the great exchange as the central problem, but as the central paradox. As you get to know Luther you will discover his love of paradox. The problem that I think you’re describing is that we are both saint and sinner at the same time. The Reformation phrase is “simul justus et peccator”. I am a sinner through and through, corrupt and suffering from the effects of my own corruption, and at the same time I am perfect clean, perfectly free and perfectly loved by God through faith in Jesus Christ. Living in this paradox is the biblical cure for self righteousness! It leaves no room for me to become spiritually proud of myself (see Romans 3:19-27). So even though I know I am an inward spiritual mess (no matter how well I manage to cover that up with a thin viel of morality and civility), I know that Jesus has has claimed me and called me His own and has given me the righteousness that He earned.
This is why the Law/Gosple paradigm is always at work for the believer as well as the unbeliever. Even though I may be “saved”, I continually need to be convicted of my sin, brought to repentance and reminded of what Jesus has done for me.
The exchange itself started at the cross when Jesus became sin in our place. So the first part of this exchange has already occured for all of us, believer and unbeliever alike. Now the reception of this gift righteousness comes through faith. The psychological problem is that we struggle to believe that the gift is really unconditionally ours, which makes the blending of L&G so dangerous because it feeds doubt and undermines assurance.
Grace & Peace and thanks for the blog!
I forgot to put down to reference 2 Cor 5:17 in regards to the “exchange” that happened on the cross. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Hi again Pastor Ed: I was just looking at some commentaries about the verse you mention (I think you mean 2 Cor 5:21), and found that N.T. Wright has written something pretty extensive and IMO very interesting on it. You can read it via this PDF file: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Becoming_Righteousness.pdf at his website.
He disagrees with Luther, too…. 😉
Thanks again for the conversation!
I like the article, however as a Confessional Lutheran pastor, I would caution reading Gerhard Forde, because his writings tend to drift away from conservative confessional Lutheranism.