Luther on Law and Grace

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am by Peter Leithart

Luther on Law and Grace 2017-09-07T00:10:55+06:00 Peter Leithart

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David Yeago offers a stimulating discussion of Luther?s views on gospel and law in a 1998 article in The Thomist . Yeago challenges modern Luther interpreters who suggest that Luther, in antinomian fashion, separated grace from moral order, arguing instead that Luther completely integrates the two: ?The morality that grace terminates, the law that the gospel overcomes, is precisely and specifically a moral order alienated from grace, a morality which is therefore alienated from the true end of human existence and can only issue in the twin evils of presumption and despair. Far from being indifferent to good and evil, order and disorder, the bestowal of God?s grace through the gospel is for Luther the only true formation of the human heart, that which alone sets the heart truly in order.?E Several of Yeago?s main arguments are summarized below:

1) Yeago begins with a discussion of Adam?s state prior to sin. He cites Luther?s description of the imago Dei from his Commentary on Genesis: ?I understand the image of God in this way: that Adam had it in his substance that he now only knew God and believed him to be good, but that he also lived a life that was entirely divine [ vitam vixerit plane divinam ], that is, he was without fear of death and all dangers, content with the grace of God.?E From this, Yeago draws two conclusions: First, that Luther explains the image of God in terms of theosis. Yeago argues that this is characteristic of Luther?s teaching; in Luther?s words, the restoration of the image in Christ involves being ?reborn by faith to eternal life, or rather to the hope of eternal life, that we may live in God and with God, and be one with him, as Christ says.?E

Second, Yeago questions a common interpretation of Luther?s idea that spiritual life was in the ?substance?Eof Adam. For many, loss of original righteousness means the ?transformation of the original created humanness into something else, in which what it means to be human has come to be defined by sin.?E Yeago argues that both defenders and opponents of this supposed view of Luther fail to see that he is defining ?nature?Ein terms of finality. Luther uses the illustration of a damaged eye: ?if you render an eye defective by the infliction of a wound, you would rightly say that its nature has been damaged, so after the human being has fallen from righteousness into sin, it is rightly and truly said that the nature is not whole [ integra ] but corrupted by sin.?E Yeago interprets this as follows: ?The act of seeing is the finality proper to the eye, and in that sense its ?nature?E in the same way, the acts of knowing, trusting and fearing God constitute the finality proper to the human mind and will, and in this sense original righteousness was ?Adam?s nature.?? Elsewhere, Luther writes that apart from Scripture our knowledge is confined to ?material and formal?Ecauses, but Scripture reveals to us ?the efficient and final cause,?Etruth ?about the origin and goal of all things: who has created us and to what end he has created. Without the knowledge of these two causes, our wisdom is not much different from that of animals, who also make use of their eyes and ears, but are entirely ignorant of their origin and goal.?E But this illustration ?only makes sense if the formal principles of human nature remain unchanged: one would not say that an eye was ?damaged?Eby blindness if it was so transformed that it was no longer an organ intended to receive light.?E So also, Luther can say that ?the nature remains, to be sure, but it is corrupted in man ways.?E Man has both lost and not lost his ?nature?Ein the fall: He is incapable of reaching his destiny, serving the purpose for which he was created, but he nonetheless remains a creature created to enjoy oneness with God.

Luther thus was a strong opponent of the late medieval notion of original righteousness as a ?Ei> donum superadditum ?Eextrinsic to the ?nature?Eof Adam: ?The Scholastics argue that original righteousness was not connatural, but a sort of ornament added to the human being as a gift, as though someone placed a wreath on a pretty girl. The wreath is certainly not part of the nature of the maiden, but something separate from her nature, which accrued from without and can be taken away again without damage to her nature. Thus they argue concerning human beings and demons that even if they have lost original righteousness, still the things that pertain to nature have remained pure, as they were constituted in the beginning. But this view, because it mitigates original sin, should be avoided like poison.?E Luther, against this, argues (in Yeago?s words) that ?human nature ?as originally constituted in the beginning?Ehas and can have no other fulfillment, no other finality, than communion with God. Losing grace, therefore, we do not simply lose an adventitious and artificial ornamentation, like a girl losing a wrath; we lose precisely the normal and ?natural?Eactualization of our human capacities, and are condemned to a life of futility.?E Yeago interestingly compares Luther?s polemic to de Lubac?s twentieth-century efforts to rescue Aquinas from Cajetan.

2) Yeago goes on to discuss the role of the law in Luther. For Luther, distinguishing between the prelapsarian and the postlapsarian functions of the law is crucial. In his original state of innocence, Adam received the law as a man ?drunk with joy towards God?Eand the law is given ?in order to allow Adam?s love for God to take form in an historically concrete way of life. Through the commandment, Adam?s joy takes form in history as cultus Dei , the concrete social practice of worship.?E In Luther?s own words, ?when Adam had been created in such a way that he was, so to speak, drunk with joy towards God, and rejoiced also in all other creatures, then there was created a new tree for the distinction of good and evil, so that Adam might have a definite sign of worship and reverence toward God.?E This is the ?original and proper function?Eof law, ?to give concrete, historical form to the ?divine life?Eof the human creature deified by grace.?E

After the fall, the function and meaning of the law changes because Adam changes. The subject presupposed by the original commandment in the garden ?Ethe subject that is drunk with joy towards God ?Eis no longer there, and in his place is a man ?who has withdrawn from God, who believes the devil?s lies about God and therefore flees and avoids God.?E

3) Luther sees two possible outcomes when the law confronts the man who is hiding from God. On the one hand, he can ?separate the commandments of God from their larger context in God?s gracious purpose,?Eand treat them instead as a mere ?letter,?Ean external code. Thus, instead of the commandment being ?gospel and law?Eas it was to Adam (this is Luther?s phrase), it is received as an external demand that inhibits rather than forms our freedom. Further, the law in this form loses its depth; sinners are capable of obeying the law as an external code of rules, but this way of obedience undermined the original purpose of the law ?because it ignores the relationship of the law to the perfection of nature by grace.?E Finally, the man hiding from God attempts to turn the external code into a means of self-justification.
Alternatively, the law might be understood ?spiritually,?Eand this is the proper way of receiving the law in the postlapsarian context: ?one who understands the law spiritually remembers that all God?s commandments presuppose a subject deified by grace, a human being who is drunk with joy towards God and rejoices in all God?s creatures.?E All commandments, in short, must be referred to the first, the demand to have no other gods before God. For Luther ?it is in a certain sense a misunderstanding of the divine commands to say that they demand particular behaviors; it is more accurate to say
that they demand a heart that fears, loves, and trusts God, and that they offer such a heart the concrete form of life appropriate to it.?E This does not make the concrete demands of the commandments optional, for one cannot truly love and fear God and ignore the specifics of His word. But ?every commandment implicitly but also intrinsically calls for a particular sort of person, a particular mode of human existence within which the specific behaviors also called for can play their proper role.?E The law is not fulfilled apart from the commitment of the heart: ?his law also called for the ground of the heart and cannot be satisfied with works.?E

When understood spiritually, the law actually accuses, and accuses in depth. The law as a mere external code does not powerfully accuse, since it does not demand the heart. Further, ?the reason we cannot enter of ourselves, by our own strength, into the mode of being which the law calls for is that the law calls for a person who lives and is deified by God?s grace.?E Dependence on God?s grace is not some ?second-best?Eoption, instituted because we are incapable of self-righteousness; for Luther righteousness simply means ?dependent on God?s grace?Esince it includes ?friendship and communion with God.?E Righteousness includes the moral dimension, but cannot be reduced to moral behavior; keeping the law ?must be integrated into the larger context of human nature?s elevation and fulfillment by God?s grace.?E Finally, the concrete meaning of the law is that it calls for Jesus. The law ?calls for more than we are capable of, and it wants to have another person than we are, who can keep it.?E This means, Luther says, that ?it calls for Christ, and presses us towards him, so that we first become different people through his grace in faith, and become like him, and then do genuine good works.?E The law announces, ?You must have Christ and the Spirit,?Ewhich means, Yeago argues, that ?the law calls for faith, since faith is precisely the New Testament name for the bonding of our lives with Christ and the Spirit.?E

4) Finally, briefly, Yeago suggests that this bond of faith with Christ and the Spirit is what Luther means by ?justification?E ?For Luther, the forensic relationship is secondary to a relationship of union, the union of the believer to the person of Christ as a living member of Christ?s body, the church.?E Thus, justification ?is just this utter joining-together of Christ and the believer, by virtue of which we live in heaven and Christ is, lives, and works in us. The righteousness by which we are saved is Christ himself, living in us,?Eand the forensic declaration is ?dependent on this primary relation of union.?E Justification by faith involves a death and resurrection, as the old self-reliant self, the old self alienated from Christ, dies and a new self is born, a self shaped by the form of Christ.

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