Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Excerpts from Burnell F. Eckardt, Jr., Anselm and Luther on the Atonement: Was it “Necessary?” (1992)

  

Abbreviations Used:

 

AE = American edition of Luther’s Works

 

AP = Sermons of Martin Luther. (American Postil)

 

StL = Martin Luthers sämmtliche Schriften

 

WA = D. Martin Luthers Werke

 

 

Luther’s rejection of works, merits, and the idea of righteousness arising from obedience to the law is due to his conviction that only Christ’s works, merits and righteousness avail before God.

 

What a fine, constructive, and inoffensive doctrine that would be, if people were taught that they could be saved by works, as well as faith! That would be as much as to say that it is not Christ’s death alone that takes away our sins, but that our works too have something to do with it (AE 35, 197; WA 30/II, 642:30-34).

 

This conviction leads Luther in his 1535 Galatians commentary to say, “Our sins are not removed by any other means than by the Son of God given into death,” and this is because of the very fact that “He was given for them” (emphasis Luther’s). On the basis of this revealed truth Luther can say that “we cannot remove [our sins] by works of our own.” Following this assertion comes another, sounding very much like Anselm’s nondum considerasti, quanti ponderis sit peccatum:

 

From this it follows that our sins are so great, so infinite and invincible, that the whole world could not make satisfaction for even one of them. Certainly the greatness of the ransom—namely, the blood of the Son of God—makes it sufficiently clear that we can neither make satisfaction or our own sin nor prevail over it. (AE 26:32f: WA 40, 83).

 

Luther’s references to the gross insufficiency of our merits, together with his stress upon the greatness of Christ’s merit and ransom, which for him is a clear demonstration of our inability to make our own satisfaction, certainly find him speaking in terms agreeable to Anselm’s insistence that the requirements of divine justice must be met. (Burnell F. Eckardt, Jr., Anselm and Luther on the Atonement: Was it “Necessary?” [San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992], 28-29)

 

Luther bears an implicit agreement with Anselm’s insistence that atonement be sufficient according to justice, as is perhaps best seen in his frequent references to the righteousness of faith. By this he means the righteousness which Christ has earned. Faith per se is not really sufficient alone; its sufficiency is derived entirely from the sufficiency of Christ in whom it trusts . . . In his 1518 sermon on “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” Luther declares that the “alien righteousness” of Christ is bestowed upon the sinner “from without,” and this is “the righteousness of Christ by which he justifies through faith.” It is not the believing which in itself constitutes righteousness before God, but rather the Christ in whom one believes, for faith is nothing other than receiving and trusting him.

 

Through faith in Christ, therefore, Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; rather, he himself becomes ours. . . . This is an infinite righteousness, and one that swallows up all sins in a moment [Augenblick], for it is impossible that sin should exist in Christ” (AE 31, 298; StL 10, 1265f)

 

Luther’s placement of so much stress on the fact that this righteousness of Christ is that by which sin is cancelled points to a tacit agreement in principle with Anselm’s refusal to skirt the justice of God. To say that Christ’s righteousness swallows up sin, and that this righteousness becomes ours through faith is to imply that sin cannot be dealt with except by means of this righteousness. (Burnell F. Eckardt, Jr., Anselm and Luther on the Atonement: Was it “Necessary?” [San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992], 30-31)

 

If the exchange happens both ways, then it cannot be called an infused exchange of sin for righteousness, for the notion that sin is infused mystically into Christ is clearly absurd. Rather, it is imputed forensically to him; and thus the reverse exchange must also be seen as one of imputation. For Luther, then, the fröhliche Wechsel [“happy exchange”] occurs only by imputation; it may in fact be termed Luther’s version of the vicarious satisfaction.

 

Indications of this can be found in great abundance throughout Luther. His 1535 Galatians commentary is rife with such references. There he declares that sin is not imputed to the Christian, because “His righteousness is yours; your sins is His” (AE 26, 233; WA 40/I, 369:25). Christ is wrapped up in your sins (WA 40/I, 434:26-28; AE 26, 278), sin was imposed upon him (WA 40/I, 569:15-16; E 26, 279), indeed he clothed himself in our person—induere personam nostrum—and laid our sin upon his shoulders—imponere in humeros suos peccata—and said, I have committed the sin which all men have committed—et dicere: Ego commisi peccata quae omnes homines commiserunt (WA 40/I, 442:31-443:14; AE 26, 283f). Thus Christ became guilty of all laws, curses, sin, etc., because he “stepped in between—venit medius” (AE 26, 290; WA 40/I, 452:14). (Burnell F. Eckardt, Jr., Anselm and Luther on the Atonement: Was it “Necessary?” [San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992], 45-46)

 

Luther’s use of extra-Biblical sermon illustrations, moreover, is generally limited to short phrases, employing similes or metaphors, and these are generally not used to illustrate a major point. Luther certainly would have had no use for a preaching manual filed with ideas for sermon illustrations; he generally found his illustrations amply provided by the Sacred Scriptures. Here too, as in the case of his choice of order, Luther prefers to employ the text. This is particularly so, of course, when treating the Gospels. For instance, the Gospel for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, on the wedding at Cana, becomes for Luther fertile ground for illustrating the confidence of faith, using the requests of Jesus’ mother as an example. First, she feels the need for wine at the wedding, and comes to him “in a humble and polite request,” not demanding that he answer in her way, but merely expressing the need.

 

Thus she merely touches his kindness, of which she is fully assured. As though she would say: He is so good and gracious, there is no need of my asking, I will only tell him what is lacking, an he will of his own accord do more than one could ask. (AP 2, 61f; StL 11, 469f).

 

Then Jesus responds in what appears a most unkindly manner, which Luther sees as an opportunity of faith’s testing. “Now observe the nature of faith. What has it to rely on? Absolutely nothing, all is darkness.” Thus Luther turns the story to the hearers and declares that this was not only so on this occasion at the wedding of Cana (John 2.1-11), but in the case of every Christian: “Thus is where faith stands in the heat of battle.” So he continues, employing the response of Jesus’ mother as an example, who

 

here becomes our teacher. However harsh his words sound, however unkind he appears, she does not in her heart interpret this as anger, or as the opposite of kindness but adheres firmly to the conviction that he is kind, refusing to give up this opinion because of the thrust she received, and unwilling to dishonor him in her heart by thinking him to be otherwise than kind and gracious. (AP 2, 62; StL 11, 470)

 

Luther’s sermon on the Gospel for the Second Sunday in Lent, on the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15.21-28) similarly takes the response of the woman to Jesus’ rough treatment of her as an example for Christian faith, and the woman herself becomes an illustration. After her pleas are repeatedly spurned by Jesus, she, rather than despairing, becomes more earnest.

 

Now, what does the poor woman do? She turns her eyes from all this unfriendly treatment of Christ; all this does not lead her astray, neither does she take it to heart, but she continues immediately and firmly to cling in her confidence to the good news she had heard and embraced concerning him, and never gives up. We must also do the same and learn firmly to cling to the Word, even though God with all his creatures appears different than his Word teaches. But, oh, how painful it is to nature and reason, that this woman should strip herself of self and forsake all that she experienced, and cling alone to God’s bare Word, until she experienced the contrary. May God help us in time of need and of death to possess like courage and faith! (AP 2, 150; StL 11, 547)

 

Thus Luther employs the example of the woman’s faith to exhort his hearers to a like faith.

 

Luther’s sermon on the Gospel for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, on the widow of Nain (Luke 7.11-17), similarly makes the text into his illustration of faith. The widow loses her son and is left with nothing; then Jesus comes and raises him, returning to her more than she ever had. This, then, becomes the point of departure for faith.

 

As now this wife was fully convinced that there was no hope for her son, that it was impossible for he to receive him back alive again . . . Behold, there comes God before she looks around, and does what she never dared to ask of him, as it is impossible, and he restores her son alive to her again.

 

But why does God do this? Her permits man to fall so deeply into danger and anxiety, until no help or advice is within reach, and still he desires that we should not doubt, but trust in him who out of an impossible thing can make something possible, and make something out of nothing.

 

So it is that Luther’s illustrations for his sermonic message are taken from the text, and the story thus becomes a sermon.

 

The samples of sermonic material I have employed all treat Gospels in which is the story of a woman and the response of her faith. But it is also no coincidence that Luther’s use of the women of the texts is generally to illustrate their faith. Luther’s exposition of the “spiritual” or allegorical meanings of the texts on which he preaches is internally very consistent. One example of this internal consistency is his allegorical interpretation of men and women in his texts. Allegorically, the men are often preachers, or representative of God, and the women are often the faithful, or representative of the church. May is the Christian church, Joseph, the servants of the Church (StL 11, 152; AP 1, 169); Simeon is one speaking with “all the prophets (StL 11, 250; AP 1, 274), but Anna is “the holy Synagogue, the people of Israel, whose life and history are recorded in the Bible” (StL 11, 259; AP 1, 283); Herod is a false Christ (StL 11, 341; AP 1, 368); at the feeding of the five thousand (John 6), Philip’s and Andrew’s doubtings signify, respectively, the teachers with confused consciences or who confuse God’s grace and his laws (StL 11, 565f; AP 2, 171); the soldiers who crucified Christ are bishops and teachers who suppress the Gospel (StL 11, 134; AP 1, 150). (Burnell F. Eckardt, Jr., Anselm and Luther on the Atonement: Was it “Necessary?” [San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992], 152-55)

 

 

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