Fundament 10: Means of Grace 1: Deniers of the Means; Nafzgers' folly

[2019-10-27: added Appendix in red at bottom]
      This continues from Part 9 (Table of Contents in Part 1), a translation of Franz Pieper's essay on the foundation of the Christian faith ("Das Fundament des christlichen Glaubens"). —  Pieper now begins his very extensive coverage of the doctrine of the Means of Grace. Surprisingly this is by far the largest topic in Pieper's essay – I have split it up into 9 sections. A previous blog post covered this subject as Pieper wrote about it in his later Christian Dogmatics.
      There is much talk of the "means of grace" in today's LC-MS, but Franz Pieper's defense is on a firmer foundation.  How so?  Because he stated elsewhere (LuW January 1890):

“All praise of Christ, of grace, and of the means of grace, without the right doctrine of justification,… is nothing.”

Yes, there is a stark contrast between Pieper's defense and that of today's LC-MS. One glaring example is given after Pieper's essay below.

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Text preparation and translation by BackToLuther using DeepL, Google Translate, Microsoft Translate, Yandex Translate. All bold text is Pieper's emphasis. All highlighting, red text, and most text in square brackets [ ] is mine.

Das Fundament des christlichen Glaubens.

The Foundation of the Christian Faith.

[by President Franz Pieper, Concordia Seminary; continued from Part 9 - page 129]

The Deniers of the Means of Grace and the Foundation of the Christian Faith.

The primary fundamental [or foundational] teachings also include the teaching of the means of grace. According to Scripture, God has taken everything into his own divine hand as far as the attainment of man’s salvation is concerned. It was only through the vicarious satisfaction of his Incarnate Son that He had the forgiveness of sins and thus the salvation acquired for mankind, which was under the curse of His Law. Then He—God himself—also determined the means by which he appropriated the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ and thus the salvation of mankind. 

They are external means in the human sense, namely the Word of the Gospel in its manifold forms of testimony, as a Word heard, read, moved in the heart, spoken as absolution, also expressed in signs. In every form, the Gospel is the divine proclamation of the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ. In the Gospel, in whatever form and when and where it comes to us, God calls out to each one of us: “Peace be with you”. The apostle Paul summarizes both the acquisition and the manifestation of the forgiveness of sins as follows: “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” [2 Cor. 5:18] For a more detailed explanation, the apostle adds: “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” [2 Cor. 5:19], that is, of the reconciliation which took place 1900 years ago [now 2000 years] and was directed by Christ. Baptism is also part of God's Gospel, by which he distributes the forgiveness of sins to men, because according to Scripture it also happens “for the forgiveness of sins”, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (Acts 2:38). [page 130] When the converts on the first feast of Pentecost asked: “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter replied: “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins”. [Acts 2:37-38] The Holy Communion also serves the same purpose, namely the distribution of the forgiveness of sins. Christ gives us in the Holy Communion, under bread and wine, the wonderful gift of his body and blood for the continuing remembrance of the fact that through his body given for us and through his blood shed for us we have a reconciled God, that is, the divine forgiveness of sins. “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins”, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (Luke 22:19; Matt. 26:28)  It is according to Scripture when we confess in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (Apology M. 202, 3ff. [Trigl. 398-399, § 3-5; BoC]) that the oral word of the Gospel and the “external signs”, that is, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, have the same purpose and the same effect. “Idem est effectus Verbi et ritus.” “The outward signs [the sacraments] have been established for this purpose, that by them the hearts may be moved, namely by the Word and outward signs at the same time, that when we are baptized, when we receive the body of the Lord, they may believe that God truly will have mercy on us through Christ.” [after German text; BoC here, §4-5] In the Latin text, “Certe debent statuere corda, quum baptizamur, quum vescimur corpore Domini, . . . quod vere ignoscat nobis Deus propter Christum.” God promises us in many ways the forgiveness of sins, because He wants it that we sinners believe the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ. From the forgiveness of sins flow all other spiritual gifts and goods. Hence the multiple forms of his means of grace. 

To these means ordered by God we men are bound in this life. After we have come to the knowledge of sins through the law, let us ask: “Where do I find God’s own explanation and promise to forgive me my sin for Christ's sake”. The answer is: In the external means ordered by him for the forgiveness of sins, in the Word of the Gospel and in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. And let us further ask: “How do I come to believe in the offered forgiveness of sins, and how is my faith, when it is shaken, awakened again and again, strengthened and preserved?” This is the answer: God does this by the same external means by which he offers us the forgiveness of sins and promises it to us. Dogmatists express this in such a way that the means of grace have not only a vis exhibitiva or dativa [effective or giving power], but also a vis effectiva or operativa [working power]. It's like this: Where the divine presentation of forgiveness [page 131] 

of sins, there is also always the Holy Spirit with his effectiveness for the generation and preservation of faith in the offered forgiveness of sins. According to Scripture, it is, so to speak, the “real business” of the Holy Spirit until the Last Day to work faith in men. This is what Christ teaches us when he says in the promise of the mission of the Holy Spirit: “He shall glorify me.” (John 16:14)  Glorifying Christ in the hearts of men (δοξάσειν) [John 13:32 – doxasei, glorify], is but nothing else than working in the hearts the faith that they recognize Christ as the only mediator between God and man, who gave Himself a ransom for all (ἀντίλυτρον) [1 Tim. 2:6 – ransom], that is, by whose vicarious satisfaction they have the forgiveness of their sins. But this is also the reason why all those who deny the means by which God distributes to men the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ, thereby also abandon the foundation of the Christian faith.

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Is the reading of Holy Scripture a “Means of Grace”… or not?

Prof. Peter Nafzger,
Concordia Seminary

      LC-MS teachers today do not promote the reading of the Word of God as a “means of grace”. Although Prof. Peter Nafzger of Concordia Seminary admits  (Towards a Cruciform Theology of Scripture, p. 111) that: “…Luther would also refer to Scripture as a ‘means-of-grace-word.’”, he immediately follows this with the comment: “But this was not his normal way of speaking. He usually emphasized the need for the oral proclamation [over reading?] of the Word, as well as Paul’s comment that faith comes through ‘hearing’".  What Peter Nafzger is clearly asserting with his "cruciform" theology is to eliminate the reading of the written Holy Scriptures as a "means of grace".  An analogy to this is when the Roman Catholic Church denied one of the elements of Holy Communion, a means of grace, to its members in Luther's day.  A refreshing antidote to this is Prof. Steven P. Mueller's book Called to Believe, Teach & Confess, where he states (p. 46): “… one should rather journey more confidently into the Scriptures as a means of grace, where the power of God for salvation rests for all who believe.”  Mueller does not hint at excluding the reading of Scripture in this statement. — But the best defenders of Holy Scripture in all its forms were Martin Luther, the Lutheran Church, and Old Missouri… as Pieper writes.  And of course Holy Scripture itself counsels us to “Give attendance to reading…” 1 Tim. 4:13.

The Nafzgers’ dangerous path

Dr. Samuel H. Nafzger
Confessing the Gospel books

      The clear assertion by Prof. Peter Nafzger, his "cruciform" theology, to demote the reading of Holy Scripture as a Means of Grace, is against God's own Word.  It is against Martin Luther, as even he admits.  It denies one of God's means of grace. And Franz Pieper gives the clearest warning that to deny any of the Means of Grace is essentially an abandonment of the foundation of the Christian faith.  Prof. Peter, by his direct assertions, and his father, Dr. Samuel H. Nafzger, by his recommendation of his son Peter's book (in Confessing the Gospel, p. 741), are on a very dangerous path indeed. Dr. Samuel Nafzger's textbook, far from "updating" Pieper, is destroying Pieper's work of pure Lutheran teaching. — In the next Part 11…

2019-10-27: Appendix- on reading the Scriptures:
Jesus condemned the unbelief of the Pharisees with the words: “Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner” (Matt. 21:42). He denounced the Sadducees: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. … But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?” (Matt. 22:29, 31). Again Jesus challenged the Jews: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39)
The Formula of Concord also speaks on the reading of Scripture (Solid Declaration, 45):

“We are certainly in duty bound …with simple faith and due obedience to receive the words as they read, in their proper and plain sense.”