Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Gerhard on preaching the moral law

A couple months ago I finished my edit of Gerhard's Theological Commonplaces' locus on sin and bound choice, and now I get to work on his locus concerning the Gospel. The first section has been responding to his customary opponent, Robert Bellarmine, SJ.

We respond. (1) These [arguments from Bellarmine about the nature of Law and Gospel] are correctly published and urged against the Antinomians; but they do not harm our case at all, for who of us denies that Christ and the apostles explain, repeat, and urge the moral law in the New Testament and that, as a result, ministers of the New Testament must also explain, repeat, and urge it?

+HRC

17 comments:

  1. Excellent!

    We just don't preach the law to make one right with God. But to expose our unrighteousness.

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    1. And to encourage holy living among Christians. All three uses of the Law are intended to be, well....*used*.

      +HRC

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  2. I hate it when people spoil the ending of a book.

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    1. Ha! Oh, no - I'm only on the 2nd of 18 or so installments!

      +HRC

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  3. The evidence continues to mount - the aversion to the third use of the law among some Lutherans is a modern development and is not Lutheran.

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    1. The evidence is already in: "Modern" Lutheranism is Fake Lutheranism, something completely foreign to the historic, biblical, confessional faith of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod.

      The rejection of the Law's third use is just the tip of the iceberg. Along with it go the rejection of the eternal law and natural law, and the denial of biblical inerrancy and the substitutionary atonement.

      How long, O Lord, must we deal with Fake Lutheranism?

      Return to Orthodoxy!

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  4. Sorry....but the battle over the "3rd use" was from the start (of Lutheranism).

    Even if it were not, "Christ is the end of the law for all those who have faith."

    Is He not?
    __

    Besides, the "guide" is already present in the first two uses. It's overkill and lets the fox back into the henhouse.

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    1. My only reply to that is: have a read of the Formula of Concord.

      +HRC

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  5. The Formula of Concord is great. But it certainly is NOT Holy Scripture.

    "Christ is the end of the law for all those who have faith".

    I do believe that ought to be the final word on the matter. But many just can't give it up.

    Read Luther's Heidelberg Disputation if you want an ear full of what the law can do for you.

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    1. I like this. Dismiss the Formula of Concord, because it's not scripture, but then recommend the Heidelberg Disputation if you still don't understand.

      Sigh.

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    2. Well said, Caleb. I would add the following:

      (1.) Christ is the TELOS of the law. TELOS, of course, does not just mean "termination" but also (and more customarily) "goal." Paul's point in Romans 10:4 is that the knuckle-headed Israelites had had a zeal for God and had longed to established their own righteousness, but didn't seem to grasp that the whole point of the law had been to lead people not to their own righteousness but to the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus.

      (2.) There is a big difference between "lex semper accusat" and "lex solum accusat"--between "the law always accuses" and "the law only accuses." The former is taught in our confessions; the latter is not.

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  6. "I like this..."...and yet you do not understand this.

    "When they use the Scriptures (or the Formula) against Christ...we will use Christ against the Scriptures." - Luther (I added the parenthetical).

    You guys love to let that door crack open for legalism, don't you.

    Either Christ is the end of the law for those of faith...or He is not.

    I do believe I know where you stand. All mixed up.

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    1. No, we are not all mixed up. The distinction between law and gospel is particularly bright for us. We know how to use the law lawfully (as Paul admonishes us to do) and with him we acknowledge that the correct preaching of the gospel does not set aside or nullify the law but rather confirms it (Romans 3:31) and proclaims it to be good (Romans 7:14).

      1. The law is something good, holy, and perfect. It shows the way that the universe is designed by God to operate. It is therefore part of the eternal will of God. My inability to keep the law--whether before or after my conversion--does not mean that the law is bad or undesirable. In fact, the darker I see my sinfulness to be, the brighter the law shines. And thus even as the law accuses, it shows itself to be a wise and holy guide. I find my deeds and my very self all the more damnable because I see that the law is only telling me good, just, and helpful things.

      2. The law cannot save. Not in the least. It does a great job pointing out the problem, but it doesn't lift a finger to solve it. Even when it tells Christians (who are already saved by the gospel) what would be right and wrong to do, it has no power in the least to inspire Christians to do the good actions and avoid the evil ones. Thus, it has no power in the least to bring about sanctification any more than it has the power to bring about justification.

      3. The righteousness of justification and sanctification is not an abstraction, but is a righteousness measured by the law. Christ came to fulfill the law's righteousness (Matthew 5:17) and to be accursed in our place with the curse mandated by the law for disobedience (Galatians 3:13). Thus, Christ's righteousness as proclaimed in the gospel is measured by the standard of the law and is found acceptable on that basis. That is why Paul notes that the gospel confirms the law even as salvation does not and cannot come from the law. Now the standard of righteousness that Christians are to grow in can be summarized by the one word "love" (Romans 13:9), which can further be fleshed out by the two great commandments (Matthew 22:37-39), but both "Reader's Digest versions" are explicitly called a summary of the law, not a summary of something else.

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    2. 4. What do we lose if we don't teach the third use of the law? The first use of the law deals only with coarse behavior. The state doesn't care that you lied to your mom; it cares that you lied to the judge in court. Thus, the first use of the law is a very superficial use and deals only with big sins--crimes, actually. It naturally breeds hypocrites, although hypocrites who behave well in civil society are better to deal with than outlaws. The second use of the law is to demonstrate our sinfulness. It is not to instruct so much in what true godliness consists of (although it does that incidentally), but to show our sinfulness. And thus it is useful to say that the law can be studied beneficially as a standard, and that more than in the superficial way of the first use of the law.

      5. Those who reject the idea that there can be a third use of the law are not all of one mind concerning the role of the law in a Christian's life. Some may include the third use in the second use and thus the debate may be a mere logomachy. (The Scriptures do not enumerate the uses of the law, and one could come up with plenty more than a mere three--and medieval theologians did and even Luther did.) But others (and they constitute the majority) say that the law has been abolished once one becomes a Christian. They may substitute "Gebot" as a tertium quid (as Althaus did) or they may turn the gospel into a law, where the gospel is turned into a norm of Christian behavior. This "second use of the gospel," as I like to call it, usually ends up destroying the first (i.e., the real) use of the gospel. Yes, practitioners of the third use of the law can lapse into legalism, but there is no legalism like the sort of legalism that stems from the "second use of the gospel," which is particularly rampant in more liberal Lutheran circles.

      6. I'd recommend that you read some more on this topic. A good place to start is Edward A. Engelbrecht's "Friends of the Law," in which he demonstrates that Luther has been misunderstood on this point. Luther was an exegete, who tended to deal with the text at hand rather than outline an abstract and exhaustive system. Thus,he usually does not enumerate uses of the law (whether two or three) or treat all the uses of the law that may exist (but may just mention one or two that is relevant to the text), but he clearly teaches what we would call the third use of the law--not just in the Antinomian disputes (as you would expect) but also in such works as his 1535 Galatians commentary. Or just sit down and read Luther's explanation of the Ten Commandments in the Large Catechism, where he clearly employs the law in all three uses.

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  7. “That is why the law must be limited to its two proper uses. Although the argument is more subtle and complicated that we can do justice to now, one should be able to see why it is perilous to accommodate Luther’s view with a so-called “third use of the law” as a friendly guide for the reborn Christian. There is no way yet into a state where the Christian can use the law in a third way. Such a view rests on presumptions entirely different from those of Luther and, for that matter, Paul. It makes too many pious assumptions. It assumes, apparently, that the law can really be domesticated so it can be used by us like a friendly pet. Does the law actually work that way? It assumes that we are the users of the law. We do not use the law. The Spirit does. And we really have no control over it. Who knows when it is going to rise up and attack in all its fury?

    Luther knew full well, of course, that in spite of all his piety he could not bring the law to heel. Indeed, even as a Christian one needs to hear and heed the law – and the law will attack a Christian just as it attacks the non-Christian. One does not have the key to some third use.

    We do not live in an eschatological vestibule. Christians need the law in the same way non-Christians do. The idea of a third use assumes the law story simply continues after grace. Grace is just a blip, an episode, on the basic continuum of the law. Luther’s contention is that the law story is subordinate to the Jesus story. The law is for Luther, as it was for Paul, an episode in a larger, not vice versa. It is only grace that can bring the law to heel.”

    - Gerhard Forde

    "The law was a tutor until Christ came." St. paul

    Do we really believe that...or not?

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    1. 1. I would hardly like to rely on Gerhard Forde on this matter (despite his many good contributions to theology), since his view of the atonement (and hence law and gospel) does not match up with Luther's or the confessions or Lutheran Orthodoxy. While he is one of the few people who is pretty good about not making the gospel into the law (what I described earlier as "the second use of the gospel"), his eschatological view of the cross is both helpful and not. See Scott Murray's critique in "Law, Life, and the Living God."

      2. One can believe in the third use of the law without believing that we control its uses. (In fact, that is the position of the confessions; see Jonathan Lange's article in Logia somewhere around 1998.) I also agree with Forde that the law cannot be domesticated. The law always accuses. Orthodox Lutherans argue that it can also inform, but even when it informs it also accuses. Thus, there is a vast difference between the Calvinistic third use and the Lutheran third use. Calvinists see the third use as primary and believe the law never does anything more than pinch. Lutherans see the second use as primary and believe the law slays, even when trying to inform the Christian.

      3. I agree with Forde that there is something wrong with telling the story about Jesus as if grace is a blip in an otherwise all law story. As I stated before, the gospel is the power for sanctification as well as justification. We do not turn to the law for any help in effecting the Christian life.

      4. The real question (the status controversiae) is this: does the law remain the standard for ethical conduct for the Christian after conversion? Starting with some of the Erlangen theologians and continuing at Valparaiso and beyond, the answer has been, "No." The gospel abolishes all standards. In the ensuing reductionism, everything (including the Scriptures and articles of faith) gets relegated to non-gospel and hence is deemed non-normative or even antithetical to the faith. But as Jack Kilcrease has insightfully argued (http://jackkilcrease.blogspot.com/2013/02/legalism-is-antinomianism-just-as.html), antinomianism eventually turns into legalism. What makes this form of legalism worse is that it pats itself on the back for not being legalistic and yet it invents new works not in conformity with God's standard. Legalism of any sort is bad enough, but there is no legalism like an upside down legalism.

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