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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 [ ] are mine.
The Foundation of the Christian Faith.
But then there could be no Christian faith among the Reformed enthusiasts and the like-minded followers of modern theology! However, no Christian faith can be found among them if they are consistent, that is, if they themselves practice what they speak with their mouths and claim in their writings to be the only correct claim. Sacred Scripture describes the faith, that obtains the forgiveness of sins and saves, as faith in the outer Word of the Gospel that Christ commanded his Church to teach.
This external Word is the object and thus the foundation of the faith on which it is based. “Repent and believe in the gospel”, πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ. (Mark. 1:15) This outer Word, as it is preached and heard, is also the means by which faith arises. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”, ἡ πίστις πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς. (Rom. 10:17) Indeed, Scripture expressly rejects faith that does not have Christ's Word as its object and has not arisen from this Word alone. It describes such wordless faith as a human imagination. “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, … he is proud, knowing nothing.” (1 Tim. 6:3-4) That we have Christ's Word in the Word of his Apostles, Christ Himself tells us in high priestly prayer: “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me”. (John 17:8) At the same time Christ himself tells us, (Joh. 17:20) that all people until the Last Day who come to believe in Him will attain this faith through the Word of the apostles (διὰ τοῦ λόγου αὐτῶν) [John 17:20- ‘through the word of them’]. Hence the specific explanation regarding the foundation on which the whole Christian Church stands with its faith: “Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets”. (Eph. 2:20) Whoever thinks he has faith besides and in addition to the Word of the Apostles and Prophets deceives himself. His faith is not the Christian faith.
But even here a “happy inconsistency” is possible. Those who officially so decidedly not only deny the Scriptural Lutheran doctrine of the means of grace, but also fight it as rude against the great God and as a dead Christianity, become inconsistent in their own practice. If they remained consistent, they would have to remain completely silent about the Gospel in word and writings in order not to disturb the alleged immediate effectiveness of the Holy Spirit. But instead of remaining silent, they are very active in word and writing. And if they let the Gospel of Christ be heard, the Gospel of the Christ who by his vicarious satisfaction has reconciled men to God, they give the Holy Spirit the opportunity, through the Gospel they teach [page 134] to work and maintain faith in Christ.
This inconsistency on the part of the Reformed enthusiasts in his time is also referred to by Luther in the Smalcald Articles with the words:
“Just as also our enthusiasts [at the present day] condemn the outward Word, and nevertheless they themselves are not silent, but they fill the world with their chatterings and writings, as though, indeed, the Spirit could not come through the writings and spoken word of the Apostles, but [first] through their writings and words he must come.” (M. 322, 6. [Trigl. 494-496, § 6; BoC here])
And if they receive so much from God's Word in their “chattering” and writings that the hearers or readers can recognize themselves as both damnable sinners, and sinners reconciled with God through Christ's blood, the Holy Spirit is so faithful that He accepts His own Word and through it works the knowledge of sin and grace in the hearts in spite of the disturbance that comes against Him in the mixed human word of the enthusiasts. Here we have the same situation as with the question of the possibility of Christian faith in the papist and synergistic camp. No Christian faith could be found there, if all really believed the officially accepted doctrine of works, because the Christian faith “builds on pure grace”. 78) But fear of conscience and death make them despondent in all their works and in all their good conduct, and flee to sola gratia. In the same circumstances, many in enthusiastic circles base their faith in the forgiveness of sins on the outer, objective, established Word of the Gospel as opposed to the error surrounding it, which warns them against trust in the outer Word of the Gospel and points them to an immediate [i.e. Enthusiastic] revelation and effect of grace. F.P.
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= = = = = = = = = = continued in Part 13 = = = = = = = = = =This blog's mission in part is to show where the LCMS teachers are erring so that they may return to the old paths. (Jer. 6:16) Pieper above teaches the true Lutheran doctrine:
"Whoever thinks he has faith besides and in addition to the Word of the Apostles and Prophets deceives himself. His faith is not the Christian faith."
“The gospel has a power … independent of the Scriptures”.
This is essentially unvarnished enthusiasm. Luther correctly translated the last phrase of John 1:1 – "and God was the Word". So where does Nafzger think the "gospel power" is… if it is not in the external Word? Nafzger's teaching is essentially what Pieper identifies as false teaching. Separating Christ from the Scriptures goes against His Word, and Dr. Nafzger not only “deceives himself”, but would deceive his whole Synod. Nafzger's textbook is the official textbook to replace Pieper's Christian Dogmatics. Dear reader: may you or I never turn a "happy inconsistency" into an unhappy consequence! — In the next Part 13…
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