Lutherna View of Church and State

LESSON TWO

2007-2008

SANCTIFICATION

I. Last week

A. Discussed “Evangelicalism” today.

1. Inherited from Calvin tendency to place sanctification over justification as central thrust and end goal of the gospel.

2. “Christ’s action in me” held as more important than “Christ’s action for me.”

B. Not everyone within Evangelical camp agrees with approach.

C. Donald Bloesch endorses Lutheran position:

“Besides being the work of God for us in Jesus Christ, grace is also the work of God in us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet our trust should not be in our own inner renewal, in the presence of grace in our hearts, but only in Christ’s perfect work of redemption, the objective reconciliation effected by him.” (Essentials of Evangelical Thought, quoting John T. Mueller’s Christian Dogmatics, Vol. II, p. 276)

(quoted in Senkbeil, p. 113)

II. The proper balance

A. Is the scriptural relationship between justification and sanctification.

B. Avoids two equally dangerous extremes.

C. Whenever guilty consciences are directed to inner life for certainty of salvation, faith is immediately in jeopardy.

1. Spirit’s work in believer always hampered by sinful nature.

2. Sinful nature has not single inclination toward good. (Ro 7:18)

3. When faith held to have no connection with life and sanctifying power of the Spirit is denied, God’s gift of grace is robbed of its power. (Jas 2:26).

III. The Pietistic Pitfall (p. 27)

A. Pietists elevated importance of sanctified life to central place.

B. Danger has been uppermost in Lutheran thinking since “Age of Pietism”.

1. Jakob Spener (d. 1705).

2. Pastor in Frankfurt concerned about spiritual laxity among Lutheran clergy and laity.

3. Built congregation life around personal Bible study, prayer and mutual exhortation through small groups which met in his home (called “assemblies of the faithful”).

4. Groups were “little churches within the church”.

5. Focus not on external word of the gospel, but the internal workings of the sanctified heart.

C. Rampant subjectivism and emotionalism.

D. Exchanged the “alien righteousness” of Christ for inherent righteousness of believer as the basis of hope for everlasting life.

E. Christ for me replaced by dynamic work of Christ in me.

F. Invisible verdict of justification before God set aside for visible work of sanctification in this life of the Christian.

G. Where is the “victory”?

1. In the fruits?

2. In the judgment of God?

IV. Our Heritage from Luther. (p. 115)

A. Lutheranism generally has shown a consistent distrust of the subjective, or personal, aspect of faith.

B. Yet has consistently acknowledged the feelings of the renewed heart, e.g. Luther:

1. Discovered the gospel and that the scriptural term “righteousness of God” is a passive righteousness credited to sinner through faith for the sake of Christ.

2. Wrote “...I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” (LW, Vol 34,336f) (quoted p. 115)

3. Insisted faith must always be based on external Word, but also spoke of the reality and necessity of the inner life.

4. Senkbeil: “Paradoxically, for [Luther] it remained unshakably true that the more external the foundation of salvation, the more internal were its results.” (p. 116)

5. To degree objective promises of God in Christ stressed, so to that degree subjective fruits of the gospel increased in believer’s life.

V. Word, not feelings (p. 116)

A. We must clearly state the inherent instability of theology based on feeling.

B. Feelings:

1. Can’t be trusted.

2. Always undermine the message of the objective word Luther: “If you are not ready to believe that the Word is worth more than all you see or feel, then reason has blinded faith....So we must not be guided by our own feelings but by the Word.” (Luther, Sermon 1529) (quoted pp 116-117)

C. Lutherans can show how these feelings are the natural outcome of a faith based on the objective promises of God.

D. Real questions today: (p. 118)

1. Not Calvin’s view that man primarily concerned with obedience to a sovereign God.

2. People are asking “Where in the world is God?”

E. Alternative to Evangelical’s view.

1. They assert that renewed life provides demonstrable proof of the reality of God and His action in the world.

2. Bible directs us to find assurance in the historic events of God’s intervention in this world in the Person and life of His Son.

3. The basis of our knowledge about God and His living, vibrant reality is not in our experience, but in the experience of Jesus on the cross.

4. In His resurrection is the validation of His entire saving work.

F. Ro 1:16.