Lutheran Theology “Doing Theology” introduces the major Christian traditions and their way of theological reflection. The volumes focus on the origins of a particular theological tradition, its foundations, key concepts, eminent thinkers and historical development. The series is aimed at readers who want to learn more about their own the- ological heritage and identity: theology undergraduates, students in ministerial training and church study groups. Titles in the series: Catholic Theology – Matthew Levering Anglican Theology – Mark Chapman Reformed Theology – Michael Allen Methodist Theology – Kenneth Wilson Baptist Theology – Stephen Holmes Lutheran Theology Steven D. Paulson Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Copyright © Steven D. Paulson, 2011 Steven D. Paulson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN13: 978-0-567-48272-3 (Hardback) ISBN13: 978-0-567-55000-2 (Paperback) Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents Introduction 1 The Assault 1 The Legal Scheme 2 The Great Misunderstood 5 Four Exegetical Episodes of Lutheran History 11 Paul’s Letter to the Romans 13 1 The Preacher 18 The Bombshell 18 Preached God and Not-preached God: ‘‘Paul, slave . Apostle . .’’ (Romans 1:1a) 23 Apostolic Preaching 26 Lutheran Method 28 2 The Sermon 35 That One Word: Iustitia Dei 35 Contemptum Dei and Odium Sui 40 The End of the Legal Context 43 God’s Justice is by Faith (Habakkuk’s Oracle) 45 Sola fide, gratis, passiva 50 Deum Justificare (David’s Psalm 51) 54 Penance and Forgiveness 57 Protestant Failure 59 3 Life Without a Preacher 61 The Foolishness of Preaching 61 Teaching God’s Wrath 62 Fear of God 67 Paul’s Prosecution of the Ungodly 70 We Did Not Want Him There: Idolatry 74 The Second Accusation: The Judge is Also Judged 79 Third Accusation: This Repugnant Thought 82 v Contents 4 God Preached 87 There is a Rhubarb 87 Christ the Preacher and the Preached 89 Christ the Mercy Seat 93 Communicatio Idiomatum: Christ Deep in the Flesh 96 Christ Became Sin 101 The Astonishing Duel 110 5 Faith and Promise 114 Christ’s Benefits and Their Distribution 114 Faith 117 The Promise is Not Like the Law 119 Reckoning or Imputation 121 Grace is God’s Favor 127 Faith’s Certainty 131 The Proper Application of the Pronoun 136 6 Freedom from Wrath 138 Access 138 On Being a Theologian of the Cross 140 God’s Love vs. Human Love 146 Original Sin 149 7 Baptism’s Freedom from Sin 153 Death and the Two Aeons 153 Death is Freedom from Sin 157 Union with Christ’s Death 158 Baptism and Resurrection 160 Preaching Baptism 162 Faith Needs Something to Believe 164 8 Freedom from Law 170 Pugnat Fides 170 Law Attacks Baptism’s Promise 172 The Simul: Freedom from Law 176 If the Law Killed Me, Is the Law Sin? 180 Antinomians 184 Wretched Man That I Am 189 vi Contents 9 Freedom from Death 193 The Declaration of Independence 193 Spiritus Exstinctor et Creator 194 Favor Dei: Grace and Law, Not Grace and Nature 199 Prayer: Defiance of Death 203 10 The State of the Promise 208 Using the Promise: Confession and Lament 208 The Modern Escape from Justification 213 Israel: Elected and Elector 215 Predestination as Pastoral Care (Romans 8:29–30) 218 Christ the End of the Law 222 Faith Comes by What is Heard (Romans 10:17) 225 11 The Fruit of Faith 228 Faith Active in Love 228 Paul’s Appeal 230 Non-cultic Sacrifice 231 Good Works and the Cross 234 Faith and Love 235 The Church 237 Fanaticism and Ecclesiastical Authority 240 12 Temporal Authority and Its Limits 244 Christ is a Gemellus: Two Kingdoms 244 The One God’s Two Ways of Ruling 247 Domination, Withdrawal, or Participation 252 Participation by Resistance 255 Romans 14: Faith, Love, and Adiaphora 261 13 The Preacher’s Sacrifice 265 Doctrine and History 265 Christ’s Mission and Paul’s 269 The New, and Last, Testament 270 Notes 274 Index 285 vii This page intentionally left blank Introduction The Assault Lutheran theology begins perversely by advocating the destruction of all that is good, right, and beautiful in human life. It attacks the lowest and the highest goals of life, especially morality, no matter how sincere are its practitioners. Luther said the ‘‘sum and sub- stance,’’ of Paul’s letter to the Romans ‘‘is to pull down, to pluck up, and to destroy all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh.’’1 By the end neither grace nor love is spared this destruction. Take no refuge in thinking that this is mere cynicism regarding nomos (law) in the form of custom, like the Greek Cynic Diogenes of Sinope who dropped his robe and defecated in the middle of the Olympic games to prove—what? That the laws of Athens were conventions? That one ought to live according to a higher law in harmony with nature? That he was free? In any case the destruc- tion of the righteousness of the flesh in Luther or Paul is not the search for a higher law that occasionally awakens a desire to shock convention. Nor is this radical attack merely a warning like Socrates’ not to practice morality to impress others, but to adhere to virtue and wisdom with a true feeling of the heart come what may—even unjust death by legal means. Lutheran theology begins not as an attack on our lack of knowledge of the good, it is attack- ing the good itself along with the hearts of righteous people who “proving themselves to be wise, became fools” (Rom 1:22). The first task of theology is to witness to sin and make it great, so great that it kills. This is no less than the task given to the prophet Jeremiah, picked out by a strange act of divine election from the multitude of people of earth and told to ‘pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow’ (Jeremiah 1:10a). Paul extended this to the whole world, magnifying sin until it was revealed in the very hearts of the righteous. 1 Lutheran Theology The second task of theology is to make way for the declaration of a completely foreign, new righteousness that has no law in it at all—“we must be taught a righteousness that comes completely from the outside and is foreign. And therefore our own righteous- ness that is born in us must first be plucked up.’’2 God’s call to Jeremiah concluded, ‘‘to build and to plant’’ ( Jeremiah 1:10:b). Luther concurred, ‘‘Everything that is in us’’ must be destroyed, and ‘‘everything that is outside us’’ must be planted and built. What is outside us? Is it not life’s goals that have not been reached? Is it not the great principles of morality and the very laws that order nature? Is not my striving toward the good the very best thing about me? No. The one thing outside that must be planted is Jesus Christ, the God who is a man. No righteousness that comes from us, from our doings or our heart will endure before God. Only Christ’s righteousness lives in the future, ‘‘this right- eousness which is utterly external and foreign to us.’’ We must become other, foreign to ourselves in the one person of the Jew, Jesus, who was crucified. This is already no ordinary philosophy about life, nor is it ordi- nary Christian religion. For thousands of years Christians routinely described life using an allegory of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt. They said life in general, and Christians in particular, were on an exodus out of vice and into virtue. They were on a journey away from badness toward goodness. But Luther bluntly said faith is not a transition from vice to virtue, it is ‘‘the way from virtue to the grace of Christ.’’3 The Legal Scheme Lutheran theology starts where all others end. Virtue is not the goal of life, virtue is our problem. Religion is not given for moral- ity; it is there to end it. The picture of progress upward to happiness is toppled, and in its stead is the apocalyptic end of righteousness in this world so that only Christ remains, who alone is righteous in the eyes of God. Of course this description of religion is a problem for those caught up in the legal scheme of life. That legal scheme assumes there is a law to life (even if no God to give it) and the law must be kept. The legal scheme refers to that 2 Introduction teleological picture of life as a ladder on which life is a type of motion from earth’s lowest level to the highest heaven by means of the exercise of the free will that either refuses the law and fails to reach its proper goal or accepts the law and fulfills it in order to arrive at the life of glory. Thus the legal scheme has four basic components: (1) God who gives the law, (2) the law which is bestowed as a guide for the journey of life, (3) the free will in the form of human desires which fuels the movement in life by accepting or denying God’s guidance, (4) and a judgment by which one either fulfills the law and lives or fails and dies.