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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
In a previous article Luther's doctrine of Justification as ex-pounded in his Lectures on Romans has been subjected to analysis. We now proceed to examine his teaching on Sanctification. But here a caveat must be entered. Luther is often seriously misinterpreted on this point. He is unjustly accused of severing Justification from Sanctification. He failed, it is said, to link faith with love. This alleged dissociation is classed as one of the two radical errors of Protestantism in the recent Anglican report entitled “Catholicity” (p. 25). Such a misconception arises, no doubt, from an unduly subjective approach to Luther's doctrine of Sanctification and a corresponding neglect of the objective emphasis necessarily implied in his major theocentric concern.
Page 113 note 1 The Quest for Holiness, p. 250.Google Scholar
Page 114 note 1 Cf. Sanday, W. and Headlam, A. C., Romans, p. 25Google Scholar: “The righteousness of which the Apostle is speaking not only proceeds from God but is the righteousness of God Himself: it is this, however, not as inherent in the Divine Essence but as going forth and embracing the personalities of men. It is righteousness active and energising; the righteousness of the Divine Will as it were projected and enclosing and gathering into itself human wills.”
The references in brackets are to the page in Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar) (W.A.) Bd. LVI, from which all quotations have been translated.
Page 114 note 2 Cf. Schmidt, F. W., Der Gottesgedanke in Luthers Römerbriefvorlesung (in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, Lutherana III), pp. 119–20, 159 ff., 212 ff.Google Scholar
Page 114 note 3 Sabatier, A., L'Apôtre Paul, p. 259.Google Scholar
Page 115 note 1 Luther und Luthertum, pp. 860 ff.Google Scholar
Page 116 note 1 Luther and the Reformation, Vol. I, p. 200.Google Scholar
Page 117 note 1 Luthers Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, Introduction, p. Ixxvii.Google Scholar
Page 117 note 2 op. cit., pp. 221 ff.
Page 117 note 3 Le Développement de la Pensée Religieuse de Luther jusqu'en 1517, pp. 182 ff.Google Scholar
Page 118 note 1 Watson, P. S., Let God be God! p. 151Google Scholar: “When Luther speaks of the Word of God, therefore, he means, on the one hand, the Law as interpreted by Christ, and on the other, the Gospel as constituted by Christ, who is Himself the Word.”
Page 120 note 1 De Spiritu et Lutera, cap. 19. “Lex ergo data est, ut gratia quaereretur: gratia data est, ut lex impleretur.”
Page 121 note 1 Epistola, 385.Google Scholar “Ubi incipis nolle fieri melior, desinis esse bonus.”
Page 122 note 1 Similar expressions recur in Luther: cf. “Semper peccator, semper penitens, semper iustus” (442); “simul peccator et iustus” (272); “.… iustus semper in peccato … et in gratia” (W.A. I.42).
Page 122 note 2 Barth, K., Romans, p. 270.Google Scholar
Page 122 note 3 Cf. Contra duos epistolas Pelagianorum, I.10 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, XLIV, 318).Google Scholar
Page 123 note 1 Cf. Lindström, H., Wesley and Sanctification, p. 136Google Scholar, for a statement of Luther's view of perfection as it differs from that of Wesley.
Page 124 note 1 Agape and Eros, Vol. II, Part II, p. 502.Google Scholar
Page 124 note 2 In his recent survey of Swedish Luther research, The Reinterpretation of Luther, Dr Edgar M. Carlson questions Nygren's assertion that Luther's view of love “is wholly determined by the Christian agape motif. We look in vain here for any single feature of eros” (Nygren, op. cit., p. 521). He claims that there is a line of thought in Luther not easily included under the idea of agape. And, according to Dr Carlson, it is in the Lectures on Romans that this contrary strain is found. “Alongside of the emphasis upon the movement from God to man there is an unutterable yearning from the side of man toward God” (p. 188). Dr Carlson admits that in Luther's view this upward movement of the human spirit has its source in God's own loving activity, but he inclines to see in it the cloven hoof of eros rather than the purity of agape. “It is humanity's prayer for fulfilment, egocentrically conceived by man as a sinner, theocentrically conceived by man as a believer. In the latter case its character is radically changed but it still represents a responsive movement from man to God” (p. 189). But even if Dr Carlson's corrective be accepted the fundamental importance of Luther's theocentric principle is not invalidated. Dr Carlson is only anxious to leave room for man's yearning for God and his joyful response to the Divine love. He concludes: “It may be that there is some tension-filled unity even between these apparently conflicting motifs. Aulén's dynamic synthesis suggests a fruitful approach also here. Perhaps it is just in the meeting between God's unmotivated search for man and man's bungling search for God that vital religion is to be found” (p. 190).
Page 125 note 1 Der Teufel bei Martin Luther, p. 30.Google Scholar Quoted in Watson, P. S., op. cit., p. 101.Google Scholar
Page 125 note 2 L'Épanouissement de la Pensée Religieuse de Luther, p. 62.Google Scholar
Page 126 note 1 ibid. For a fuller discussion of this subject, cf. F. Huck, Die Entwicklung der Christologie Luthers von der Psalmen- zur Römervorlesung (in Studien und Kritiken, Lutherana VI), pp. 61–142.Google Scholar
Page 126 note 2 W. A. Bd. I, p. 362. Heidelberg Thesis XX.
Page 126 note 3 Road to Reformation, p. 136.Google Scholar