Friday, July 05, 2013

critical doctrine



I know it is summer time, but here is a quiz. It’s only one question and it’s fill in the blank. Ready? Christology is by nature bound up with the doctrine of _________ ?

This sentence comes from lectures given by Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the University of Berlin in 1932. After that year, the Nazis would rise to power in Germany. Bonhoeffer would lose his license to teach and eventually become the director of one of five underground seminaries to serve the Confessing Church—a church that rose up against the German Lutheran Church, which had embraced and endorsed the Nazi party.

Now back to the quiz. Here’s Bonhoeffer’s answer: “Christology is by nature bound up with the doctrine of justification.” This sentence comes from his lectures on twentieth-century systematic theology. He began the last lecture, which he entitled, “Preaching,” with a simple but urgent and ultimate question, “What should we preach?” We must preach Christ, he declares. Preaching Christ means nothing other than preaching the gospel. Preaching the gospel means, and only can mean, preaching the doctrine of justification.

Pulling a page from Luther’s playbook, Bonhoeffer speaks of how the cross is God’s “No” to humanity and to any attempt to achieve salvation, to attain righteousness. The cross slams the door on any and all attempts to merit salvation, to merit God’s grace. The cross is also simultaneously God’s “Yes” to us. Through his active and passive obedience, Christ has achieved for us what we could not. Christ died for the penalty of sin, enduring God’s wrath. Christ fully kept the law as the perfectly obedient Son. At the cross, Christ both undid what Adam had done and did what Adam could not do. “This is the reason,” Bonhoeffer says, “for the cross.” We have no hope without it.

In his discussion of justification, Bonhoeffer goes on to address the “alien righteousness” of Christ. This is one of the key concepts of the Reformers and of their protest against Rome. We are passive; God acts upon us. Even our act of faith is, in the words of Bonhoeffer, “the expression of the most profound human passivity.” We are justified, declared righteous before God, because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. It is outside of us, alien from us. The Latin expression is extra nos.

Why is Bonhoeffer stressing justification, imputation, and alien righteousness in his lectures? Because, while it was so central to Luther in the sixteenth century, the Lutheran church of the twentieth century had let the doctrine go by the wayside. The church had sold its birthright. We should not wonder at this. The doctrine of alien righteousness is offensive to human nature. It tells us we are unable to do something, that we lack capacity and ability. It tells us more. It tells us we are sinful and deserving of nothing but God’s wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). That was not a popular message in twentieth-century Germany.

It’s not a popular message today, either. Even those who profess to be evangelicals have expressed an unease with historic formulations of the doctrine of justification. Some have outright rejected it.

At the end of Bonhoeffer’s lectures he left his students with one last statement:

Who will show us Luther!

We can put the same question to the twenty-first century evangelical church. Luther saw justification as the centerpiece to the whole Reformation enterprise. It is the doctrine the church can’t live without.

10 comments:

dle said...

And yet if man is that passive, then how can it be said that "God is no respecter of persons"? Because if man's passivity is total, then God is simply picking which of us He chooses to save, while ignoring others. These two concepts can't be reconciled.

ricki said...

I see no conflict requiring reconciliation ...

dle said...

A dozen people are in the water after a shipwreck. As a rescuer, I am not to show favoritism, nor be a respecter of persons.

But if I show up at the wreck and decide I like that cute blonde and rescue her before any others, I'm a respecter of persons.

If I save the important politician because he has power I might find useful in the future, I'm a respecter of persons.

If I decide after saving those two that my rescue is complete, and the others drown as a result, I'm a respecter of persons.

In the end, it doesn't matter what my motives are, if I don't make an attempt to save all those people passively drowning in the sea after the shipwreck, then I am a respecter of persons for only making an effort for those two.

ricki said...

nice story but i think you've misapplied your possible motives to a god who isn't motivated as you are ...

dle said...

It's not a case of motives. Motive doesn't matter. It's that in being selective, I was a respecter of persons. Something drove that selectivity. That it was there negates the impartiality that supposedly marks not being a respecter of persons.

ricki said...

I think you cannot say choosing one over another equates to being a respecter of persons. Choosing one over another because of something about them would be. God does not do that. He chooses one over another because of something about Him. That is not a respecter of persons. So in my understanding, it is a case of motives and that is the differentiating factor between God and our fallen state. As we are sanctified however we become more motivated by what glorifies Him than anything else. We become less a respecter of persons.

dle said...

It depends on your perspective. Consider the perspective of the one passed over. Saying that "it's really not about you," changes nothing. Since eternal damnation is at stake here, it's not a perspective that can be blown off that easily.

ricki said...

Right, but it's also not a perspective that will change unless they are regenerate ... so it's true that's the perspective, it's also true that it's incorrect.

dle said...

But it's not a perspective that CAN change, since some would say that God is choosing not to change it in some people, while choosing to change it in others.

ricki said...

we agree ... but i have no problem with that ...

reftagger