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Mark Seifrid has an important article contrasting Luther and Melanchthon on justification in the Husbands and Treier volume on the subject. He examines a private discussion between the two Reformers that took place in the home of Johannes Bugenhagen in 1536. A number of differences emerge, in their assessment of Augustine (neither is a pure Augustinian on justification), imputation, works and faith. Seifrid ends by noting that, despite their differences, Luther and Melanchthon did not part ways over the issue, and suggests that this is a lesson for recent debates (he\u2019s thinking mainly of the furor caused by Robert Gundry\u2019s work on imputation). <\/p>\n
The most revealing portion of Seifrid\u2019s discussion follows a quotation from Luther\u2019s 1535 Galatians commentary, where Luther argues that \u201cfaith, Christ, and acceptance or imputation\u201d must be joined. He goes on, \u201cFaith takes hold of Christ and has him present, enclosing him as the ring encloses the gem. And whoever is found having this faith in the Christ who is grasped in the heart, him God accounts as righteous. This is the means and the merit by which we obtain the forgiveness of sins and righteousness. \u2018Because you believe in me,\u2019 God says, \u2018and your faith akes hold of Christ, whom I have freely given to you as your Justifier and Savior, therefore be righteous.\u2019 Thus God accepts you or accounts you righteous only on account of Christ, in whom you believe.\u201d <\/p>\n
As Seifrid comments, for Luther, saying that we are righteous because of the present Christ and saying that we are righteous because of faith are two ways of stating the same reality: \u201cLuther happily alternates between speaking of righteousness imputed because of the Christ who is present and because of faith. He understans faith simply as the work of God through the Gospel. It is the new creation, the present Christ, and not a quality or virtue in the human being. Luther does not define faith simple as a \u2018means and instrument\u2019 as do the later Formula of Concord and Westminster Confession. He is thus free to develop his powerful reading of the first commandment as a call to faith. Christ\u2019s role in justification is likewise different for Luther [ie, different from Melanchthon]. While Luther thinks in terms of union with the crucified and risen Lord, Melanchthon thinks primarily of the cross, and that as a past transaction, the benefits of which are mediated to the present by faith. The later Protestant formulatic description of justification as \u2018the imputation of Christ\u2019s righteousness\u2019 was a development of the Melanchthonian view. Althought this sort of language appears occasionally with both Luther and Melanchthon, it appears to come into prominence only after Luther\u2019s death, in the Osiandrian controversy (1550-1551), when it served as a means of Protestant self-definition over against Osiander\u2019s claim that only the indwelling, divine presence of Christ justifies. It was apparently also Osiander, the \u2018heterodox father of Protestant orthodoxy\u2019 who first assigned Christ\u2019s active obedience and passive obedience different roles in justification. None of these developments, although they had their legitimate ends, can be made to fit into Luther\u2019s understanding of justification . . . . he speaks of the imputation of righteousness. In many other contexts he speaks of the non-imputation of sin. But he does not speak of the imputation of Christ\u2019s righteousness \u2014 or does so only rarely \u2014 because he regards Christ himself as present in faith. \u2018Imputation\u2019 functions somewhat differently in Luther\u2019s thought from the way it does in Melanchthon\u2019s. For the latter, \u2018imputation\u2019 is necessary in order to mediate Christ\u2019s cross-work to the believer. But for Luther, Christ\u2019s saving benefits are already mediated in the union of faith, the \u2018blessed exchange\u2019 between the sinner and the justifying Savior. \u2018Imputation\u2019 therefore appears in Luther\u2019s usage as the divine approbation of the crucified and risen Christ, and of the faith that grasps him (and in which he is present) . . . . for Luther \u2018imputation\u2019 remains \u2018exceedingly necessary,\u2019 since our own righteousness is only incipient, and sin remains with us. Yet for him it is not merely the initial act by which God imparts salvation, but rather the continuing way in which God governs and purifies the life of the justified.\u201d <\/p>\n
Seifrid draws a few consequences from Luther\u2019s \u201cdynamic\u201d understanding of justification. First, \u2018to insist that one define justification in terms of \u2018the imputation of Christ\u2019s righteousness,\u2019 is to adopt a late-Reformational, Protestant understanding. As we have seen, it is impossible to force Luther into this paradigm. Melanchthon tried and failed. Shall we then declare Luther outside the Reformation? Shall we say that the great Reformational insight came in the 1535 Loci <\/i> and not in the summer of 1518?\u201d Second, in Luther\u2019s view, justification is not \u201cconstrued as a pronouncement upon a human quality,\u201d since the faith that justifies is created by God and since faith grasps and clings to the Righteous Christ for justification. It appears that Luther\u2019s emphasis on faith as something awakened and created by the word of promise might help rebut the charge that faith is simply a \u201clesser work,\u201d that justification by faith is simply justification by Law, lite. Finally, he notes that Luther\u2019s understanding maintains the necessary connection between mercy and judgment: \u201cGod\u2019s mercy is granted only in judgment.\u201d Maintaining this insight helps to avoid the instabilities that have plagued some Protestant soteriology: \u201cIn that God\u2019s saving righteousness includes his wrath and his love, simultaneously and without diminution of either, this understanding of justification guards us from playing one off against the other. God\u2019s ultimate wrath is found nowhere but in his ultimate love, and vice versa. By construing divine justice within the framework of bare legal conceptions, Protestant thought separated love from justice, and quite contrary to its own intent, arguably prepared the way for the totalization of love in modern theology.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mark Seifrid has an important article contrasting Luther and Melanchthon on justification in the Husbands and Treier volume on the subject. He examines a private discussion between the two Reformers that took place in the home of Johannes Bugenhagen in 1536. A number of differences emerge, in their assessment of Augustine (neither is a pure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology-soteriology"],"yoast_head":"\n