{"id":40126,"date":"2019-02-28T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=40126"},"modified":"2019-02-26T17:47:01","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T22:47:01","slug":"two-kinds-of-righteousness-and-vocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2019\/02\/two-kinds-of-righteousness-and-vocation\/","title":{"rendered":"“Two Kinds of Righteousness” and Vocation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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I\u2019m in a reading group that just finished discussing Luther\u2019s Two Kinds of Righteousness.<\/a>\u00a0 Friends, you have got to read this brief tract based on one of Luther\u2019s sermons from 1519.\u00a0 It\u2019s from the early days of the Reformation, two years after the 95 Theses and two years before the showdown with the emperor at the Diet of Worms.\u00a0 This is Luther at his very best.<\/p>\n

Setting aside polemics, despite the tumultuous controversies of the time\u2013this was also the year of the Leipzig disputation with Johann Eck over indulgences and the authority of the pope\u2013this work is pure pastoral care.\u00a0 It is one of the clearest, most penetrating, most profound, and most beautiful expositions of the Gospel\u2013with stunning applications of Scripture\u2013that I have ever come across.<\/p>\n

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And it is helpful in explaining something that we often overlook, that the \u201calien righteousness\u201d we have in Christ is a real righteousness, delivering us from the \u201calien\u201d sinfulness that we have in Adam.\u00a0 When we are united to Christ by faith\u2013as a result of His grace and the Holy Spirit\u2019s work through Word and Sacrament\u2013we are saved by His<\/em> good works, which become ours, since we are members of His body.<\/p>\n

Therefore a man can with confidence boast in Christ and say:\u00a0 \u201cMine are Christ\u2019s living, doing, and speaking, his suffering and dying, mine as much as if I had lived, done, spoken, suffered, and died as he did.\u201d\u00a0 Just as a bridegroom possesses all that is his bride\u2019s and she all that is his\u2014for the two have all things in common because they are one flesh [Gen. 2:24]\u2014so Christ and the church are one spirit [Eph. 5:29-32].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Furthermore, Luther explains the connection of this \u201calien righteousness\u201d that we did not accomplish with our \u201cproper righteousness\u201d; that is, the good works that are the fruit and consequence of Christ\u2019s righteousness in us.<\/p>\n

Luther relates all of this to vocation.\u00a0 That is, to the Christian life as we each, in our various capacities and walks of life, love and serve our neighbors.<\/p>\n

Luther\u2019s text for this message is Philipians 2:5-6:\u00a0 \u201chave this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.\u201d\u00a0 He focuses not just on what this passage teaches about Christ but also on what this passage means when it says \u201chave this mind among yourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was struck by this passage, which specifies how we are to have the \u201cmind\u201d of Christ in our different vocations in the way we ought to empty ourselves\u2013as Christ did\u2013in love and service to our neighbors:<\/p>\n

Whenever we, on the ground of our righteousness, wisdom, or power, are haughty or angry with those who are unrighteous, foolish, or less powerful than we\u2014and this is the greatest perversion\u2014righteousness works against righteousness, wisdom against wisdom, power against power.\u00a0 For you are powerful, not that you may make the weak weaker by oppression, but that you may make them powerful by raising them up and defending them.\u00a0 You are wise, not in order to laugh at the foolish and thereby make them more foolish, but that you may undertake to teach them as you yourself would wish to be taught.\u00a0 You are righteous that you may vindicate and pardon the unrighteous, not that you may only condemn, disparage, judge, and punish.\u00a0 For this is Christ\u2019s example for us, as he says, \u201cFor God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him\u201d (John 3:17).\u00a0 He further says in Luke 9:55-56, \u201cYou do not know what manner of spirit you are of; for the Son of man came not to destroy men\u2019s lives but to save them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When \u201crighteousness works against righteousness\u201d!\u00a0 Using our very righteousness to mistreat people and thus to be unrighteous!\u00a0 \u00a0This is an example of the subtlety and precision of this work.<\/p>\n

So read the\u00a0Two Kinds of Righteousness.<\/a>\u00a0free at the link (or buy it here<\/a>\u00a0or look it up in\u00a0Luther\u2019s Works<\/em>, Vol. 32, pp. 297-306).\u00a0 It\u2019s exceedingly short, only 20 brief paragraphs!\u00a0 So you probably have time to read it right now.\u00a0 You will be glad you did.<\/p>\n

Illustration by John Warner Barber, \u201cChristian Similitudes\u201d (1866), p. 103, via Flickr, Public Domain.<\/em><\/p>\n

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