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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.
The Foundation of the Christian Faith.
What, we ask once again, becomes of the foundation of the Christian faith with synergism? Through synergism in every degree, no matter whether it transfers much or little or very little to man for the attainment of salvation, the foundation of the Christian faith is not only partially, but completely abandoned. God's saving grace in Christ is not a divisible greatness. “Gratia non est gratia ullo modo, si non gratis datur omni modo.” And there is no Christian faith that does not rely entirely, but only partly, on God's grace. “Whenever the Scripture speaks of faith, it means faith built on grace.” 43) In particular, the foundation of the Christian faith is completely abandoned even if someone ascribes a different behavior and a lesser guilt to himself in a comparison with other people. He places himself eo ipso in the class of the Pharisees and thus occupies a position that lies outside the kingdom of grace. [page 103]
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The Pharisee, who thinks he is better than the tax collector before God, goes down to his house unjustified. (Luke 18:9-14) Luther well expressed this most powerfully when he said: 45) Christ “forbids you to rise above any whore though you were equal to Abraham, David, Peter or Paul”. Whoever nevertheless does it is on the way to becoming a last from a first. A Christian may well have thoughts of self-exaltation as a result of the evil flesh still living in him, but he “spits them out like devil's garbage,” as Walther used to express himself roughly. The disaster is quite horrible if someone cancels the “There is no difference” (Romans 3:24) and thinks he is better than others before God. This was the national sin of carnal Israel, whereby it rose above the Gentiles and excluded itself from the kingdom of God. (Matt. 8:11-12) The same sin stirred up among the Gentile Christians, when they themselves also showed a tendency to rise above the Jews, and said: “The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.” (Rom. 11:19) But Paul warned and said to the Gentile Christians, “Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” [Rom. 11:20-22]
Luther calls the thoughts according to which someone seems better or less guilty before God in comparison with others “the sorrowful, secret trick” through which even “great saints” have fallen. “Behold how Saul fell! How he dropped David! How Peter had to fall! How many disciples fell upon Pauli!”
“Did not the Pope have the same fate, since he did not mean otherwise with his own, for he was the governor of God and the neighbor of all, did he also talk the world into it? But in the same he became governor of the devils, and of the farthest places of God, that no man under the sun should have raged and ravaged against God and his Word. And yet he saw not the abominable treachery: for he was sure, and was not afraid of this subtle, sharp, high, excellent judgment: 'The first are the last. For it is the very deepest in the heart that hits, the spiritual arrogance of one's own, which also considers itself the first in poverty, dishonour, misfortune, yes, then most of all.”
And what Luther warns others, he also says to himself and to his own. He adds: “Therefore it is also necessary to preach this Gospel [on Sunday Septuagesima] in our times to those who now know the gospel, to me [page 104]
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and my kind, who can teach and master the whole world and pay attention to it, we who are nearest and have eaten the Spirit of God clean with feathers and bones.” 49) According to this, the harmfulness of synergism is to be assessed. Because it has made its slogan to be betterment and lesser guilt in comparison with others, it thus withdraws the foundation of the Christian faith, which “builds on pure grace”. Synergism in any form is mistaken in a primary fundamental article.
But then there can be no Christians among the synergists! And we would also have to, for example, deny the Christian faith to the later Melanchthon. The possibility that those whom we have to classify as synergists nevertheless stand in the Christian faith lies in the fact that they do not believe in their heart and before God that which their mouth speaks and their hand writes. There are such cases. We call this “the happy inconsistency” according to common usage. Thus the newer theologian Frank (Erlangen) judges with reference to the later Melanchthon that he himself had not believed for his person what he taught from the lectern and wrote publicly. 50) We agree with this judgment of Frank. Luther also assumes a “happy inconsistency”. On the one hand Luther teaches very firmly that synergism in every form and to every degree prevents the emergence of the Christian faith and, if it later creeps in, brings with it the falling out of faith. On the other hand, Luther also points out that practice can well be better than theory.
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Dr. Erwin J. Kolb was the LC-MS Executive Secretary of the Board for Evangelism, 1972-1989. (I don't know if he was related to Dr. Robert Kolb.) He provided an essay for the July 1977 issue of Concordia Journal, “Save Us From Synergism”, in which he related the following (p. 154).
“For the first ten years of my ministry [1949-1959] I believed and taught in addition to the Gospel a form of synergism without realizing it.…Often I was asked the question, “But I have to believe, don’t I? I can say ‘no,’ or I can say ‘yes,’ and that is my decision. It depends on me.” I would answer with this illustration:…… What’s wrong with [my] illustrations which describe man in a position of saying “yes” or “no”? Man by nature is more than lost or sick. The Bible teaches that man is dead. He has no power to assent to the operation or to follow the guide out of the woods.”I was glad to discover this article and Dr. Kolb's surprisingly candid admission of being confused on subtle synergism. I was also glad that he, at least partially, cleared up this confusion in his essay. However, he should have been more forceful in the true Lutheran teaching, as Walther was (bolding mine):
“Accordingly, none of them can say: ‘How can the minister know the condition of my heart? What is absolution to profit me when I am impenitent?’ Answer: ‘Indeed, in that case it is of no benefit, but it is of benefit when it is believed. However, this is certain that you have been absolved.’” (The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, page 376.)”The sentence in bold is what I would call "Walther's Last Word", that the absolution pronounced is still true even if the subject is impenitent and does not believe it. Upon reflection, Kolb's article exposed a troubling situation in his LC-MS, that his LC-MS seminary training did not use the teaching of Franz Pieper or the Formula of Concord, or Martin Luther, or at least did not emphasize them. Pieper's teaching was death on synergism. He hammered this home to his students, his readers, his Synod, his congregation… over and over, ad nauseam. — Pieper is not done yet with the poison of Synergism – in the next Part 9…
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