This continues from Part 1 (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a 3-part series presenting Prof. Fredrich Bente's second most important writing, Law and Gospel: Repentance and Good Works. This work draws heavily on the Formula of Concord, quoting it profusely. But this presents the glory of the Formula, even if opponents of Lutheranism vehemently oppose it.
In Bente's first paragraph, he outlines the basis for his thesis. I reproduce it here for the readers to assess the importance of this book (p. 3):
The fourth article of the Formula of Concord, “On Good Works,” is primarily directed against the assertion that good works are necessary for salvation—a statement that Melanchthon had presented in his Loci of 1535, but which he had deleted in subsequent editions of the Loci, only to renew it in the Leipzig Interim of 1548, whereupon it was zealously defended by Georg Major and others as a great and necessary truth. The fifth article, “On the Law and the Gospel,” is directed in particular against the teaching that the law should no longer be preached in the church, but only the gospel, from which alone repentance should be taught — an error that Agricola von Eisleben had first defended against Melanchthon in 1527 and against Luther in 1537. The sixth article, “On the Third Use of God's Law,” is also directed against the antinomians, as Agricola and his followers, among whom Andreas Poach in Erfurt and Anton Otto in Nordhausen were prominent, were called. “On the Third Use of God's Law,” which turns its point against the assertion that Christians, as they are here on earth, no longer need the preaching of the law, especially not to show them what works are pleasing to God.
So we see the basis for Bente's title. — We offer a few
Notable Quotes:
4: "what is often attacked in us as something specifically Missourian…is precisely what highlights and adequately expresses the essential and central tenets of Lutheranism.…what is peculiarly Lutheran proves to be essentially Christian."
7: "Those who have the doctrine of justification stand at the center of all truths"
10: "Judged spiritually, the present world war [World War I] also has its ultimate cause in the fact that the world and secularized Christianity have long been disgusted by the blessed doctrine that God is gracious and merciful only in Christ and for Christ's sake."
22: "The Gospel is a free ticket to paradise and at the same time the power that allows us to use this ticket and thus transports us into the kingdom of heaven itself"
22: "When the Apology says that the Gospel, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper “require” faith, this does not mean that faith is a human achievement, … but only that God earnestly wants us to accept the forgiveness offered and not spurn it through unbelief"
27: "The sermon on Christ's suffering and death leads the sinner even more deeply and thoroughly into the law than the law of Moses alone can do."
29: "The suffering and death of Christ was still preached in the Dark Ages. But the “for us” was omitted."
33: "In order to bring people to the realization that they are lost and damned sinners who cannot save themselves, Christ also preaches the law and interprets it spiritually, as in the Sermon on the Mount."
34: "If man himself wields the knife of the law, he either uses the blunt back side and becomes a Pharisee, or he cuts himself to death when his conscience awakens."
39: "The papist doctrine of the law, that we should overcome God's wrath through our love, is nothing other than a doctrine of despair"
47: "For the papists, repentance is from beginning to end a work of man, through which he earns forgiveness"
48: "The right sermon on repentance makes everyone a sinner, finds nothing good in them, compels them to confess all their sins, knows only of Christ's perfect satisfaction, and teaches repentance throughout life with constant struggle against the flesh."
57: "When Scripture says that the Holy Spirit will chastise the world, the world is to be understood as including the old Adam of Christians."
In the concluding Part 3, the finishing quotes on "repentance", then a full translation.
