= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
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.
Luther's struggle against the enthusiasts (Schwärmer) at the time of the Reformation was nothing less than a struggle for the foundation of the Christian faith. Under the illusion and pretence that they must warn Christianity against an externalization of the Christian faith and stand up for the glory of the great, majestic God threatened by Luther's clinging to the external means of grace, the enthusiasts most emphatically taught a separation of both the divine revelation of grace and the divine effect of grace from the means of grace.
 |
| The Reformed |
They all agree on that: Carlstadt, Zwingli and comrades. This subheading covers Zwingli's well-known assertion that the Holy Spirit does not need a vehicle (vehiculum) to come down to us men. 62) Calvin teaches the same separation of the Holy Spirit from the means of grace when he says that the sacraments do not bring about (advehunt) the Holy Spirit to all without distinction, but only to “his” ones, and that the “inner grace” of the Spirit should be considered and thought of as segregated (seorsum), as distinct (distincta) from the external administration of the means of grace. 63) The same separation of the action of the Holy Spirit from the means of grace is taught almost more decisively by our American “Orthodox” Calvinist dogmatists. Charles Hodge: 64)
“The influence of the Spirit acts immediately on the soul. — Efficacious grace acts immediately. — In the work of regeneration all second causes are excluded. — Nothing intervenes between the volition of the Spirit and the regeneration of the soul. — There is here no place for the use of means any more than in the act of creation or in working a miracle.” [page 132]
--------------
63) Inst. IV, 14, 17.
—The outer Word of the Gospel may be present or current, but rebirth or faith is not effected through the Word of the Gospel: “Truth [in the case of adults] attends the work of regeneration, but is not the means by which it is effected.” William Shedd: 65) “The influence of the Holy Spirit is directly upon the human spirit and is independent even of the Word.” Likewise modern theologians, because they deny the satisfactio vicaria and do not want to “identify” the Holy Scripture and God's Word—from Adolf Harnack to the positive circles [to today’s LC-MS]—have entered with full sails into the port of the Reformed enthusiasts.
Adolf Harnack criticizes Luther as follows: “The Christian, as Luther himself knew best (!), does not live by the means of grace; he lives through the personal union with God, which he experiences in Christ”. 66) Harnack means that if a person wants to experience the “personal union” with God in Christ, i.e. to become inwardly and truly pious, he must above all reject the means of grace in the sense that grace is given through them. Through his insistence on the means of grace, Luther had misdirected the Reformation and thus “retreated into the deserted narrow circles of the Middle Ages”.
But also Ihmels has expressed himself to the effect that 67) the faith of the first disciples in Christ was not enlisted by the individual sayings of Christ about his person, and adds: “Rather it [faith] grew out of the impression of reality 68) under which the disciples stood daily. Also today is only the real faith in Christ, which is imposed on 68) man by his appearance himself 68). It cannot be said seriously enough that if Jesus really is what the Church confesses Him to be, He Himself must also be able, through His reality, 68) to convict of that reality.” A strange contrast between the impression of Christ's “reality” and Christ's Word!
 |
| The true “reality of Christ” |
Christ rejects this opposition when he says: “If ye continue in my word, (ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τῷ ἐμῷ), then are ye my disciples indeed and ye shall know the truth” (John 8:31-32) And again: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life”. (John 6:63) With this assumption of a contrast between the “reality of Christ”, the “historical Christ”, etc., and the Word of Christ, modern theology joins the class of enthusiasts. All discourses of a “personal union with God”, an “experience of the personal Christ”, “the reality of Christ”, etc., apart from the Word of Christ, are based on self-deception and imply a falling away from the foundation of Christian faith.
--------------
68) Our [Pieper’s] emphasis.
= = = = = = = = = = continued in Part 12 = = = = = = = = = =Both of the Nafzgers, Dr. Samuel and Prof. Peter, especially Peter, although ostensibly defending against the Reformed, e.g. Carl F. H. Henry, actually end up in their camp as “enthusiasts” by denying the reading of the written Word as a means of grace. Samuel Nafzger is less crass in doing so, yet Samuel recommends his son Peter’s book "These Are Written": Toward a Cruciform Theology of Scripture, thereby partaking in his error.
 |
| Dr. Eric G. Phillips, Reformed scholar turns Lutheran, by the Word. |
But just when I wonder that all true teaching seems dead in the LCMS, then I find an essay by a new contributor to Concordia Theological Quarterly, Dr. Eric G. Phillips. In a masterful, scholarly essay, he unmasks the misunderstanding and misuse by erring Lutheran theologians of the phrases "theology of glory" and "theology of the cross" from Luther's Heidelberg Disputation of 1518. But to my great joy, I read the following report about Pastor Phillips (Concordia Luth. Church, Nashville, TN, 🔗):
“He is a convert to Lutheranism (it started with 1 Peter 3:21: 'Baptism now saves you')”
Phillips is like Wallace McLaughlin who came out of the Reformed. And McLaughlin, in his journey to orthodoxy, used Pieper's Das Fundament to counsel his congregation! — In the next Part 12…
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments only accepted when directly related to the post.