Posted on 10/31/2001 8:11:42 AM PST by AnalogReigns
There is no such thing as merit;What Was Wrong with Luther?
but all who are justified
are justified for nothing (gratis),
and this is credited to no one
but to the grace of God. . . .For Christ alone it is proper
to help and save others
with His merits and works.Martin Luther
Justification is conferred in baptism,
the sacrament of faith.
It conforms us to the righteousness of God,
who makes us inwardly just
by the power of his mercy.The New Catechism (of the Roman Catholic Church)
I have found that my beliefs are essentially the same as those of orthodox Roman Catholics.Billy Graham
Was Martin Luther Wrong?Since the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, “by faith alone” (sola fide) has been the defining doctrine of evangelical Christianity — and the way of justification the defining difference between Roman Catholics and evangelicals. But in recent years these differences seem to be increasingly ignored by evangelical leaders such as Billy Graham, Charles Colson, Bill Bright and others. A noticeable trend has been developing.
Most so-called “Christian booksellers” carry books from both evangelical and Roman Catholic publishing houses, with little differentiation. A leading evangelical recording artist, Michael Card, recently recorded and toured with Roman Catholic monk/musician John Michael Talbot. Evangelicals and Catholics are found praying together, worshipping together, and studying the Bible together. While these things have not gone without criticism, their widespread acceptance has led a number of evangelicals to ask:
Whatever happened to the Reformation?
Was Martin Luther wrong, after all?
Or does it really matter?Today marks the 484th anniversary of Luther's famous posting of 95 Theses on the church door at Wittenburg — a move seen as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It seems fitting, therefore, to ask this crucial question as we commemorate his revolutionary act. After all, to Luther it was the Gospel itself that was at stake... no less so today as then.
The gospel according to Rome is the "good news" that a sinner may be justified if he or she receives the sacraments, has faith, and cooperates with grace to the point of becoming inherently righteous. That justification is effective as long as the believer refrains from mortal sin. If the person loses justification by mortal sin, he or she may be restored to justification by the sacrament of penance. If the person dies not in mortal sin but with impurities, he or she can get to heaven after being cleansed in purgatory.
Was Luther wrong in standing against this "gospel"? If not, shouldn't the fact that so many evangelicals are acquiescing to Roman Catholicism disturb us?
Using the Bible as your guide — setting your emotions and prejudices aside, while engaging the mind — you be the judge...
Rob Schläpfer : Editor
editor@antithesis.com
What was the matter with Martin Luther? some might ask. The matter with Luther was a matter of the greatest possible urgency.
The matter with Luther was that sin matters.
The matter with Luther was that salvation matters,
ultimately and eternally.
Luther felt the weight of these matters to a degree few people, if any, have felt them in human history. These issues mattered enough to Luther to compel him to stand against the authority of church and state in a lonely and often bitter contest that made him Luther contra mundum. [=against the world]
Following the ancient Aristotelian form-matter schema, historians have pinpointed the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide) as the material cause of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It was the chief matter under dispute. Luther considered it "the article upon which the church stands or falls." At a personal level he understood that it was the article upon which he himself stood or fell.
Thus, since the Reformation the doctrine of sola fide has been the defining doctrine of evangelical Christianity. It has functioned as a normative doctrine because it has been understood as essential to the Gospel itself. Without sola fide one does not have the Gospel; and without the Gospel one does not have the Christian faith. When an ecclesiastical communion rejects sola fide, as Rome did at the Council of Trent, it ceases being a true church, no matter how orthodox it may be in other matters, because it has condemned an essential of the faith. Whereas at Worms Luther stood, at Trent Rome fell and remains fallen to this day.
The Character of God
The dilemma Luther experienced in the anguish of his soul was related in the first instance to his correct understanding of the character of God. One of the essential attributes of God (essential in that without it God would not be God) is his justice. The Scriptures clearly reveal that the God of heaven and earth is just. This means far more than that the judgment he renders is equitable. It is not only that God does what is just, but that he does what is just because he is just. His righteous actions flow out of his righteous character.
That God is eternally and immutably just posed for Luther (as it should also pose for us) the ultimate dilemma, because we are not just. We are sinners lacking the perfect justness of God. Our sin violates the supreme standard of righteousness found in God's character. This is the burden Luther felt so keenly, but which we tend to treat lightly. We are inclined to think that God is so merciful that his mercy will annul or cancel out his justice. We assume that God will grade us on a curve and that he is quite willing to negotiate his own righteousness.
As sinners with recalcitrant hearts, human beings have no fear of the justice of God, in part because they are ignorant of his law and additionally because, when they are aware of it, they hold it in contempt. We have all become, as Jeremiah said of Israel, like a harlot who has lost the capacity to blush (Jer. 6:15; 8: 12). We assume that our works are good enough to pass the scrutiny of God at the final tribunal. And we do this despite the apostolic warning that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified (Rom. 3:20).
People who consider themselves just enough in their own goodness do not tremble before the law and feel no need for the Gospel. For such, the matter of justification is not of great importance. It is merely a "doctrine," and to the contemporary church few things are deemed less important than doctrine. "Doctrine divides," we are told. "What matters is that we have a personal relationship with Jesus. The doctrine of justification doesn't save us; it is Christ who saves us."
Doctrines Unite
Certainly doctrines do divide. Certainly doctrines do not in themselves save us. Certainly we are called to have a personal relationship with Christ. However, doctrine also unites. It unites those who share one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And though doctrines do not save us, they correctly inform us of how we are saved.
It must be added, too, that having a personal relationship with Jesus does not save us unless it is a saving relationship. Everyone has a personal relationship with Jesus. Even the devil has a personal relationship with Christ, but it is a relationship of estrangement, of hostility to him. We are all related to Christ, but we are not all united to Christ, which union comes by faith and faith alone.
Luther understood what David understood when he asked the rhetorical question,
If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O LORD, who could stand? (Ps. 130:3)
The question is rhetorical because no explicit answer is given. The answer is nevertheless obvious:
No one.
No one by himself can stand before a God who takes note of our iniquities, for we are all sinners. The problem is that the Lord does mark iniquities and promises to bring every one of them into judgment. Moreover, as long as we remain outside of Christ we are continually heaping up judgment against the day of wrath.
The only way an unjust person can escape the day of God's wrath is to be justified. Only the justified will stand in that day That is why the matter of justification is so vital. It is not a mere theological abstraction or a petty doctrine. The struggle of the Reformation was not a contest of shadowboxing, nor was it a tempest in a teapot. It is perilous to think it was much ado about nothing or simply a misunderstanding among theologians and clerics. To be sure there were issues that were confused and obscured in the heat of the debate. But it was crystal-clear that the core issue was the way of justification, and the two sides took not only differing positions but mutually exclusive and irreconcilable positions in the debate.
What Is Justification?
Justification refers to a legal action by God by which he declares a person just in his sight. The Protestant view is often described as "forensic justification," meaning that justification is a "legal declaration" made by God.
What is often overlooked in discussions about justification is that the Roman Catholic communion also has its version of forensic justification. That is, Catholics agree that justification occurs when God declares a person just. However, when evangelicals speak of forensic justification, the phrase is used as a kind of theological shorthand for sola fide, and what is tacit is the assumption that God declares people to be just who in themselves are not just. Rome teaches that God declares people just only when they are in fact just. They are declared to be just only if and when justness inheres within them. Both sides see justification as a divine declaration, but the ground for such a declaration differs radically.
Rome saw justification as meaning "making just," based on the Latin roots for the word justificare (Justus and facio, facere), which in Roman jurisprudence meant "to make righteous." For Rome, God only declares to be just those who have first been made just...
***
The differences between these two "gospels" is in grave danger of being lost in our day. Efforts to heal the breach between Rome and the Reformation have yielded confusion among many. The issue cannot be resolved by studied ambiguities or different meanings attached to the same words. The crucial issue of infusion versus imputation remains the irreconcilable issue. We are either justified by a righteousness that is in us or by a righteousness that is apart from us. There is no third way.
R. C. Sproul
If this is what passes for Roman Catholic argument, no wonder Luther was so sucessful...
Why would you want to join a faith that believes you can be saved by having water sprinkled on your head when you are a baby? Are you crazy!?
I would never even consider marrying a woman that doesn't believe what the bible really says.
Catholics claim to follow the bible, but in reality follow a man made version of the bible.
Yeah, sure! < /sarcasm >
Don't the Baptist calim the "once saved, always saved" garbage?
With all respect, if you are a Christian, you do not believe those bliefs of "orthodox Roman Catholicism" -- nor does Dr. Graham -- about the RC church.
The real issue in the Reformation was certainly not predestination or free will, but whether or not the organization then known as 'the church' controlled 'the means of grace', i.e. whether people went to heaven or hell depending on their relationship to the church. Luther and the other reformers said loudly -- and properly -- that only one's relationship with Christ counts and that comes through faith and not through or because of affiliation with some wholly human organization.
Unfortunately, the RCC retreated every more harshly to defend its perogatives -- and not those of Christ -- in the counter reformation. And so, even today, if you look at some portions of some stated doctrines of the RCC -- and you ignore the operative ones -- Christians can find commonality with the RCC. [That, by the way, is why you can find some Christians in the RCC -- they simply ignore large portions of RCC 'teaching'.]
But the fatal evil which Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the others so clearly saw is still there and clearly taught and reinforced to this day by the RCC. They are fearful that if they don't continue to claim 'control' of who goes to Heaven and Hell, people won't pay any attention to them. They would certainly be better off -- and come closer to a Christian message -- if they jetisoned that nonsense. But I doubt they will at this late date.
BTW, Luther saddled his church -- the Lutheran Church -- with a lot of bizarre doctrines ('consubstantiation'-- a halfway point between the manmade RCC doctrine and the Biblical view, peculiar substantive effects of infant baptism, etc) in a futile attempt to hold out an 'olive branch' to the RCC to see if it would or could reform itself. It would not.
And it still won't.
IMO, that would be a good thing.
Evangelicals and Roman Catholics may want to battle over whether it is Sola Fide or whether works are an essential part of our salvation. I'm not sure Jesus would be proud of either one because both miss the essential point of the Gospel - it is a "Gospel of the Kingdom of G-d," not a "Gospel of Fire Insurance for those who will die some day." It is a Gospel of Life, not a Gospel of Death.
D. James Kennedy teaches us to ask, "Are you saved?" If they ask what that means we are to respond, "If you were to die tonight, would you go to Heaven?" This makes Christianity a religion of the dead. But Jesus told us "I came that they might have life."
What did Jesus do? Did He make a way for us to be forgiven of our sins? Yes! Did He make a way for us to have eternal life? Yes! Did He make a way for us to live like Hell and still go to Heaven? See Romans 6 and answer that for yourself.
To really understand the depth of our Salvation look at the theme that runs through Scripture:
In Genesis 1 and 2 G-d and man lived together in the Garden. Adam and G-d spoke 'face to face.' But when Adam sinned he was turned out of the Garden as we are told in Genesis 3:23. Adam could no longer dwell with G-d.
In Exodus 19 G-d attempts to join with His people, making them a nation of priests. But in Exodus 20:19 the people recognized that they were not holy enough to stand before G-d so they asked Moses to seperate the people from G-d for their safety. G-d created the Tabernacle and the Aaronic priesthood after this.
Hosea gave us the most clear picture of the relationship G-d wanted with his people. G-d saw us as his bride. We were wayward but He was willing to pay any price to redeem us to Himself.
In Jesus He paid the price. The veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple was torn in half. The Way was made.
Romans 5:1 says that because we have been justified by faith we have peace with G-d.
This is the key to our salvation. We have peace with G-d. We are no longer at war with Him. We can live in His presence. It is a Gospel of Life. Life with G-d. We don't have to wait until after we die, although it will be more complete when we are no longer in this broken world. Jesus told us in Luke 11:20 that the Kingdom of G-d had broken out among us. It is advancing forcefully and we are to take hold of it as told in Matthew 11:12.
If only we would quit arguing among ourselves regarding faith and works. Salvation is so much more than a token that lets you get into Heaven. It is your freedom from Sin so that you may enter into a relationship with G-d. You can do that today. Not after you die! TODAY!
Given that, why would you want to wait? That would be like a newleywed waiting until after death to consummate the marriage. You can start living for G-d today! If that isn't an act of faith, I don't know what is. If that doesn't produce works, I don't know what will.
Shalom.
Why is it so hard to give credit to the Reformation for making Baptists possible?
There are lots of Bible believeing Christians who disagree on believer baptism too--that is excluding children from the church...both then and now.
I think the key was the peasant wars going on in Germany at the time. The peasants could see Lutheranism as a way to take a stand against the Church's support of the nobility. That might be the only reason there was a separation instead of a clensing. Politics always corrupts what G-d tries to do well.
Shalom.
Sola Fide! Sola Gracia! Sola Scriptura! Sola Christos!
Praise God for a faithful servant.! Thanks AR..awesome memorial for the man that nailed the truth to the door!
The Catholic idea of evangelicalism is to return everyone to the RC Church.One need only look at Mother Teresa and the fact she is quoted as saying all religions are equal,to see where anything but a completely Christ centered evangelicalism is not of God.It soon compromises
I will now say the same thing of Billy Grakam !
Shame on them! I pray they change their error lest they go to hell. Which does not mean they will go to hell necessarily, as many of us are sinners without being able of knowing of it, for some sins we commit we cannot even comprehend with the science that is given to us.
Indeed one does not give a present or make special treatment for a child that is polite. Because then the child would be extorting us for behavior that is expected for sheer survival and communication purposes. Hence merit, as in extra care for good behavior, does not exist. The only reason one would be kept alive after death is because one would have proven capable of serving God and continuing service to God eternaly. It’s not a graduation present, it is graduation itself.
There are many categories of sins. There are sins of behavior that we can understand with our science as they make practical sense. Christians have been punished by not following basic hygiene and food health law during the Middle Ages which made the bubonic plague worse, all the while Jewish ghettos were not affected because of Kosher habits. There are sins that are more difficult to grasp though, such as the question of freedom and inalienable rights. Those are not rules we can prove, they are axioms to the rules that derive from them, and they are co-axioms to other axioms that we may or may never discover later, built upon the former axioms - kind of like Relativity built on top of narrower Gallilean dynamics. (Gallilean dynamics is not wrong, it is a particular of Relativity).
So those axioms require faith as all ideologies require faith. But, frankly, which ideology is right, which is wrong? While the Constitution was made under God, it is still possible to embrace the constitution without God, as atheists want to do. However that would be sinful and wrong for reasons we do not know. One important clue though is that a constitution built without God would be in violation of the separation of church and state. Indeed, not putting God above the constitution would mean putting Him under, which would mean that the state would manage how God would be spoken, which would mean violation of separation of church and state. Worse, it would mean that the state would at time be speaking in the name of God, a blasphemer. How ironic!
There are also sins we commit and we do not know about. We at times become enemies of God unwittingly. Take the declared enemity of a person with a deadly contagious disease. That person may be your loved one, yet that loved one becomes your enemy, capable of killing you and the rest of the tribe. The communists and the nazies knew that people could be made sinful despite all good intentions. Hence they were torturing children or drugging them to turn them into mad people and impassionate killing machines. Those enemies, those great sinners, who have been druged in the womb by their own mothers, need to be confined and punished, even though they were not “responsible” for their madness.
Another sin is when we do not make room for God and His needs when He visits us. Jews were killed by making strange fires that were repulsive to God. Even homosexuality was considered sinful because God merely did not like the sight of it as He had not designed us so (contrary to what potemkin victims and potemkin genetic homosexuals tend to want us to believe).
When He finaly hid His face from us in disgust at our behaviours, He proved it that we did it ourselves when He sent His Son and no one (or very few) came to defend Him after His betrayal. As a result controverse new laws and advocacy of His Son were enacted to cope with this new situation, this new additional contract. Spreading the word and consecrating were some of the new duties. Those duties of expressing God, His memory and the prayers to Him – whose avoidance is tentamount to sin - were to be done at the risk of failing, at the risk of mismanaging or usurping the effort, at the risk of losing faith, at the risk of being shamed, at the risk of being humiliated, at the risk of getting killed, raped, enslaved or even converted to another religion (by force or by seduction). Countless martyrs and Saints were ignored still with the consequences of many more others to be killed.
We now stand at a cross road again. Frankly the difficulty of mutual recognition between the works of the Christians and the works of the Jews is one sin that is killing us still today. I think that ultimately helping Jews fulfill their contract of constructing a Temple should be coupled with Jews helping Christians consecrate the world. For what is a Temple for God when the world is not consecrated, and what is a consecrated world that still does not help fulfillment of service at Temple Mount, but sheer absurdities?
The only thing we merit is harsh punishment if we fail. If some are to be saved nevertheless, then it is not out of merit, but out of sheer mercy. And if some of us do go to heaven because of good works, it is not out of merit, but out of expectation that we out to do good work and hence we are worthy to keep working for God in Heaven.
Believing in Heavenly merit is disbelieving in God’s mercy, a terrible insult to God that is punishable. Worse, it even avoids the issue that God was angry about His own difficulties with respect to consecrating us, so angry He let Himself get crucified, sharing the error He never committed. How many more unjustice are we going to commit? Probably not many if the time to destroy us comes soon.
Some -- though far from all -- Baptists hold to one of the five points of Calvinism -- the last one which Calvin called "perserverance of the saints." There are a few Baptist churches -very, very few -- which are 'hard-shell' Calvinists and hold to all five ('total depravity', 'unconditional election', 'limited atonement', irresistible grace' and 'perserverance').
Essentially, Luther and Calvin, in rebutting the abuses of the Roman Catholic church (RCC)(in purporting to appropriate to itself the power to 'dispense' the 'means of grace' -- "buy it here at a good price"), held that man played no role whatever in his salvation or damnation. They taught that God had decided it all before the foundation of the world -- some specific individuals went to Heaven and most went to Hell. (If it were true that man could play no part in finding salvation, it would make some sense that he could likewise play no role in subsequently rebelling either.)
Unfortunately, while hard-shell Calvinism is a neat little intellectual construct (and it certainly does defeat the RCC error), it is a vicious doctrine (sentencing hapless infants to Hell) which bears no resemblance to the central message of the Gospel as revealed in the New Testament, i.e. that Christ offers salvation to 'whosoever will' respond to His offer of it.
The vast, vast majority of Baptist groups believe in the offer of salvation revealed in the NT, but some believe that man loses his will once he accepts Christ and thereafter is a Calvinist automaton who cannot rebel. In their view, this avoids some of the obvious non-biblical viciousness of the first four points of Calvinism and it avoids the question of why a person would ever want to leave the fold of Christ -- once having known Him -- for sin.
However, because of its inherent inconsistency (why would God give men the opportunity to choose Christ and Life Eternal and then take it away at the point of salvation?), this view has little historical traction and is losing out in evangelical circles to the full Biblical view of free will.
So, the answer to your question is very few do continue to hold to the last point of Calvinism.
If you want to know Christ, forget manmade constructs such as Calvinism -- and forget organizations which claim they can save you -- and read the New Testament for yourself. Start with one of Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John) and meet the Master for yourself.
Jim I came out of the RC church,instead of joining your family you need to be praying them OUT of there.They are in serious error and at risk of eternal damnation.
5 of my 7 children have left the church and taken their once Catholic spouses with them (kids too of course)3 Baptist families,2 Wesleyan families.My other daughter is close,and my husband now comes to services with me as well as his own church.
The problem with the churches of the reformation are mainly found in the mainstream churches..look for a community church or a Baptist church that will appeal to your wife..go and invite them to join you (if you are faithful in time they will)....pray for them and then let God be God!
I will add your family to my prayer list!
Martin Luther made vows of celibacy within a human organization which had declared him eternally dead. Death has always been seen as freeing one from such vows.
More importantly, his Augustinian prior, von Staupitz, had formally released him from his monastic vows...within Staupitz's power, even assuming the legitimacy of the Roman Church.
This was at a time when Cardinals and Popes routinely had multiple concubines...
Luther was a faithful husband and pastor...a model for chaste behaviour, which even his worst enemies couldn't condemn.
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