Luther Taught Justification Through the Means of Grace
Confusion and error about the efficacy of the Word have allowed a Halle University Pietist to trump the Bible and the Book of Concord with his strange concoction of double-justification, grace without the Means of Grace, forgiveness without the Word, without faith. A general understanding of the unity of Christian doctrine is necessary to discern the truth revealed in the Scriptures as distinguished from the manifest errors of the Enthusiasts. Justification takes place only through faith, only through the Means of Grace, as Krauth and Pieplow wrote.
The Holy Spirit works through the Word and the Sacraments, which only, in the proper sense, are means of grace. Both the Word and the Sacraments bring a positive grace, which is offered to all who receive them outwardly, and which is actually imparted to all who have faith to embrace it.[1]
The Lutheran Church faces the world by clinging to the Means of Grace. The doctrine of the means of grace is truly a most timely subject. For just in these last times, according to divine revelation, there will be at work many spiritual brigands who will perpetrate the grossest kind of deception.[2]
This knowledge is a great comfort for all believers, especially those once led into confusion by Enthusiasm.
Martin Luther is known both for his prolific writing and also for his consistency. He taught the same theology throughout life. Historians are not met with confusion caused by Calvin, who was also prolific. The Swiss Reformer contradicted himself throughout his writings, so the Calvinists continue to debate his doctrine and lack a unified, harmonious confession.
The Lutherans Reformers were anxious to avoid splitting the Christian faith into many doctrines, as if they are individual concepts, a modular religion to be put together and taken apart in units. Luther grasped and taught the entire Bible as a unified truth, the Bible as the Book of the Holy Spirit. The Concordists likewise sought a harmonious witness to the truth, not one that bartered and swapped individual pieces.
When UOJ advocates cry out, “You have denied Universal Objective Justification!” they emphasize their error, because they isolate one item and defend it by quoting other errorists, without ever connecting their concept to Biblical, Lutheran doctrine.
Lutheran doctrine is not the result of a franchise being established. Lutheran doctrine is not synodical, regional, or bound by a nation’s borders. The Book of Concord confesses, and Lutherans allegedly agree – that the unified truth proclaimed in its pages is the historic Christian faith. Therefore, the Book of Concord begins with the Ecumenical Creeds:
- The Apostles Creed, so ancient that no one knows its origin.
- The Nicene Creed, fashioned to combat errors about Christ.
- The Athanasian Creed, “the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever poured forth by the genius of man.” (D’Israeli).
Thus, any debate among Lutherans or with those of another confession should be considered as an argument about the truth of historic Christianity. We used to say “the Catholic faith,” when it meant the universal and orthodox faith revealed in the Scriptures. But so many Lutheran pastors have sinuflected to Rome that they have tainted the term Catholic.
The Concordists considered themselves theologians of the 1530 Augsburg Confession, as Luther did. The Augsburg Confession and the additional writings of the early Reformation established the difference between the historic truth of the Scriptures as opposed to Roman errors, all in the context of the faithful witnesses of the past.
The Formula of Concord, 1580, dealt especially with conflicts among the Lutherans and errors among the non-Lutheran Protestants. Doctrinal discussions must always reflect this miracle of harmony. If not the participants engage in the sectarian conceit of people belonging to “the church of the open Bible,” as if the Confessions were irrelevant, boring, and impractical. That attitude reveals a marked anti-Lutheran and anti-Biblical attitude, one which generally decays into Unitarianism or worse, unless awakened from its torpor of ignorance, synod-worship, and sloth.
Convention and conference essays have no authority over the Book of Concord. The Brief Confession of 1932 has no more credibility than a seminarian’s essay in doctrine class. Some parts seem good, but the justification section is dangerously false, rendering the rest of the Brief Confession toxic. Moreover, the Brief Confession contradicts other confessional efforts and catechisms by the Missouri Synod, where UOJ was never mentioned. The 1987 Theses are just as ridiculous as the 1932 Brief Confession, because they try to blend UOJ with justification by faith.
Robert Preus was wrong when he promoted UOJ in the 1980s, but he corrected himself in his Justification and Rome, even though his UOJ-loyal sons Rolf and Daniel edited it posthumously. That change of heart and misplaced filial loyalty should remind everyone not to make a man or a recent publication the last word on a topic, but to seek truth in ruling norm of the Scriptures and the ruled norm of the Book of Concord.
Some have asked how the Missouri Synod got this so wrong when the Muhlenberg tradition (LCA) and Lenski grasped the basic truth. The General Synod/General Council split took place because of anti-Confessional practices involving revivals, unionism with the Reformed, even the formation of union Lutheran-Reformed congregations.[3] The Henkels influenced the Tennessee Synod and others to take the Book of Concord seriously again. Thus the doctrinal division in the General Synod served to move many toward a Biblical understand of the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace.
These basics are beyond debate and remain absolutely at war with the Pietistic fad of UOJ.
Efficacy of the Word
God has bound His Holy Spirit to His Word and never works apart from that Word. Any person who claims otherwise is an Enthusiast, a false teacher participating in the foundational evil of all doctrinal error. The Holy Spirit works through the Law to convict us of our sin, but the primary emphasis in this section is justification through the Means of Grace.
The Word of God has been described as:
- Invisible in teaching and preaching,
- Visible in the sacraments.
The Gospel conveys Christ to us in both forms, and grace only comes from these appointed Means or Instruments of Grace.
Forgiveness through God’s grace is the issue in justification, which is God’s declaration of forgiveness. The Gospel’s divine power creates and sustains faith in each individual, but UOJ Pietists avoid the terms and the application of the Means of Grace, disparaging faith in the Gospel as if that were a sign of orthodoxy.
The Preaching Office
Luther observed in a sermon that the shepherds and Wise Men must have wondered at God directing them past the marvelous Jerusalem Temple to find the Savior in a manger. God has chosen foolishness to shame the wisdom of the wise. How bizarre to find Lutheran church leaders rejecting the spiritual wisdom of the Word to embrace the alleged wisdom of statistical analysis, marketing, and entertainment.
Nothing seems more foolish to the world than preaching and teaching the Gospel. Nevertheless, God Himself has chosen this instrument as the primary channel for His grace. The Enthusiasts of Luther’s day wanted to extol the Inner Word, as if someone could sit alone in a room and wait until the Holy Spirit came to him with inspiration. Quakerism is based upon this notion. In contrast, Luther followed the Biblical example of the External Word, the Holy Spirit always united with the Word. No better example can be found than that of the Savior. In each and every case Jesus converted people to faith through the Word, His teaching confirmed by miracles.
The Old Testament leaders preached, not just as the Law, as some might imagine. The prophecies and blessings are all Gospel. The Old Testament has more Gospel content than the New Testament, due to its size, about three times that of the New Testament. Jesus and the apostles preached the Gospel, His way prepared by the preaching of John the Baptist. The illegal, persecuted Church in the Roman Empire had no mass media methods to ease its way into the world. Instead, they relied on preaching and teaching until Rome itself was converted and Constantinople became the center of a Christian empire for eleven centuries.[4]
The Pietists preach about the carnal sins of the world, which is exactly what the Church of Rome did to scare people into paying for indulgences. Jesus, in His farewell message to the disciples, emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit in preaching, but placed an emphasis on sin that is almost always lacking today.
The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, “because they have not believed on Me.” The problem—or opportunity—of carnal sin preaching stems from its ineffectiveness. The Law condemns the problem without providing a solution. Threats and punishment can stop the outward sin while inflaming the inward rebellion. Thus, one church may say, “Gambling is a terrible sin, so you must not gamble.” Another one says, “Drinking is a terrible sin, so you must not ever drink alcohol.” They apply more Law, which is no solution, and continue the cycle.
Jesus did not say, “Ye gamblers and ye drunks!” but “O ye of little faith.” Faith in Christ is forgiveness of sin, justification by faith, God’s proclamation of absolution through the Word. The foundational sin is not trusting in the atoning death of Christ. The Gospel message is simply Christ crucified for the sins of the world. This message of grace reveals to the unbeliever that the price has been paid. The proclamation means, “Not only for the world did He die, for also for my sins.” The Promises of God create faith, which receives the benefits of forgiveness. Although our sinful, selfish nature continues, the Gospel helps us in resisting temptation and following God out of love rather than fear.
The Sacraments
Preaching the Gospel offends the world, and the sacraments offend most Protestants. Most Protestants call the sacraments ordinances, to say that these instruments of God do not offer what they promise – forgiveness of sin. These Protestants are sarcastic about the Real Presence, although Jesus said, “This is My Body.” They deny the effect of Holy Communion, neglecting the meaning of “given for the forgiveness of sin.” They stumble at the variety of the Means of Grace, asking “Why does God need so many?” as if forgiveness is God’s necessity and not man’s. J. T. Mueller addressed the question by quoting the Book of Concord.
If the question is put, “Why did God ordain so many means of grace when one suffices to confer upon the sinner His grace and forgiveness?” we quote the reply of Luther who writes (Smalcald Articles, IV: “The Gospel not merely in one way gives us counsel and aid against sin, for God is superabundantly rich in His grace. First through the spoken Word, by which the forgiveness of sins is preached in the whole world, which is the peculiar office of the Gospel. Secondly through Baptism. Thirdly through the holy Sacrament of the Altar. Fourthly through the power of the keys and also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren, Matthew 18:20.”[5]
The question of need applies to man, not to God, and we should not question His abundance of mercy.
These Enthusiasts are just as antagonistic about Holy Baptism. Baptists and Pentecostals wonder, “How can a baby believe?” and call baptismal regeneration a Roman heresy. These opponents of infant baptism dedicate their newborns, reading the Scriptures, but do not allow water to be used. Many others baptize infants but still call it an ordinance, an empty symbol that does not accomplish what God has promised in the Word. Still others oppose infant baptism but will offer it in the name of increased membership and diversity of doctrine.
Lutherans occasionally try to persuade others that their prejudice against the sacraments is wrong. Whether they start from Holy Communion or Holy Baptism, the debate is thwarted by a vast but often overlooked gulf. Confessional Lutherans should believe in the efficacy of the Word alone. The sacraments are visible expressions of that effective Word.
Holy Baptism and Justification
Infant baptism is always discussed in the context of justification by faith, in the Scriptures and the Confessions. Luther captured the power of Holy Baptism in this Large Catechism passage, which we confess:
Comprehend the difference, then, that Baptism is quite another thing than all other water; not on account of the natural quality, but because something more noble is here added; for God Himself stakes His honor, His power and might on it. Therefore it is not only natural water, but a divine, heavenly, holy, and blessed water, and in whatever other terms we can praise it,—all on account of the Word, which is a heavenly, holy Word, that no one can sufficiently extol, for it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do [since it has all the virtue and power of God comprised in it]. Hence also it derives its essence as a Sacrament, as St. Augustine also taught: Accedat verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum. That is, when the Word is joined to the element or natural substance, it becomes a Sacrament, that is, a holy and divine matter and sign.[6]
The continuous value of Holy Baptism should be clear to all believers:
Thus it appears what a great, excellent thing Baptism is, which delivers us from the jaws of the devil and makes us God's own, suppresses and takes away sin, and then daily strengthens the new man; and is and remains ever efficacious until we pass from this estate of misery to eternal glory.[7]
This sacrament has so much power and effectiveness because it is the work of God upon us, not man’s witness to others.
David Chytraeus is often forgotten as an editor of the Book of Concord. His statement about infant baptism is a fine summary of justification through this sacrament.
The purest and best part of the human race, the special nursery and flower of God's Church, is tender youth. Youth retains the gift of the Holy Spirit which it received in Baptism; it learns eagerly the true doctrine about God and our Redeemer, Jesus Christ; it calls Him God with a chaste mind and with a simple, pure faith; it thanks Him with a quick and joyful heart for the blessings received from Him; in its studies and the other parts of life, it carries out the duties commanded it; and it obeys God and parents reverently. Particularly God-pleasing, therefore, are the studies of one's earliest age: prayer, obedience and praises which honor God, regardless of how weak and stammering its voice may be.[8]
Luther’s reflections on infant baptism are equally sublime:
I still maintain, as I have maintained in the Postil (SL 11, 496f.) that the surest Baptism is infant baptism. For an old person may deceive, may come to Christ as a Judas and permit himself to be baptized. But a child cannot deceive. It comes to Christ in Baptism as John came to Him and as the little children were brought to Him, that His Word and work may come over them, touch them, and thus make them holy. For His Word and work cannot pass by without effect; and in Baptism they are directed at the child alone. If they were to fail of success here, they would have to be entire failures and useless means, which is impossible.[9]
How strange to have conservative Lutheran leaders claim they want to evangelize the world, while hanging out with Enthusiasts who condemn infant baptism, reject the sacraments, and prefer their own glittery gimmicks to the efficacy of the Word![10]
The Word Conveys Forgiveness in Holy Communion
Nothing communicates shame in the Gospel’s effectiveness more than hiding and avoiding Holy Communion, with the excuses that it takes time and offends the non-members.
And just as the Word has been given in order to excite this faith, so the Sacrament has been instituted in order that the outward appearance meeting the eyes might move the heart to believe [and strengthen faith]. For through these, namely, through Word and Sacrament, the Holy Ghost works.[11]
In an era where people are endlessly confused about forgiveness, the perversion of this sacrament is disgraceful, no matter how much the false teachers want to promote their version of God’s grace. As Luther wrote, they talk about Jesus all the time, but they destroy the bridge to the Savior, rejecting the Means of Grace, divinely commanded to serve that purpose.
Taking Holy Communion away from the regular and special services of worship is no less than removing the greatest spiritual help from our daily lives. The Lutheran Pietists argued that the sacrament was too special to be offered all the time, but their actual agenda was sponsoring lay-led cell groups to serve as the real church, their Enthusiasm endorsing prayer as their Means of Grace and anything-goes doctrine as their guide. The strange notions of Lutheran Pietism are easily corrected by the Book of Concord. Luther wrote about the value of Holy Communion and its efficacy in forgiveness in this passage from the Large Catechism.
On this account it is indeed called a food of souls, which nourishes and strengthens the new man. For by Baptism we are first born anew; but (as we said before) there still remains, besides, the old vicious nature of flesh and blood in man, and there are so many hindrances and temptations of the devil and of the world that we often become weary and faint, and sometimes also stumble. Therefore it is given for a daily pasture and sustenance, that faith may refresh and strengthen itself so as not to fall back in such a battle, but become ever stronger and stronger. For the new life must be so regulated that it continually increase and progress; but it must suffer much opposition. For the devil is such a furious enemy that when he sees that we oppose him and attack the old man, and that he cannot topple us over by force, he prowls and moves about on all sides, tries all devices, and does not desist, until he finally wearies us, so that we either renounce our faith or yield hands and feet and become listless or impatient. Now to this end the consolation is here given when the heart feels that the burden is becoming too heavy, that it may here obtain new power and refreshment.[12]
Given the nature of the Confessions as a proper interpretation of the Scriptures, written Luther himself, how can any pastor—who calls himself Lutheran—keep the efficacious Body and Blood of Christ from his own members? Not surprisingly, the pastors who do not want to be known as Lutheran are also the leaders who cannot bring themselves to ruin their entertainment evangelism with this medicine for souls.
[1] Charles P. Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication House, 1871, p. 127.
[2] Edwin E. Pieplow, "The Means of Grace," The Abiding Word, 3 vols., ed., Theodore Laetsch, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1946, II, p. 322.
[3] One union congregation was St. Paul, German Village, in Columbus, Ohio, which eventually joined the Wisconsin Synod. Another was historic St. John’s in Milwaukee, which became a leading church for the Wisconsin Synod and was eventually kicked out of the synod due to the spitefulness of the liberal, unionistic WELS leaders.
[4] Ancient Rome still loved their pagan rituals and gave them up with great reluctance. Constantine moved noble families to his new capital, old Byzantium, and styled himself Equal to the Apostles, replaced a pagan capital with a Christian one. Nevertheless, the Byzantine Empire is the least known among historians and believers.
[5] John Theodore Mueller, Christian Dogmatics, A Handbook of Doctrinal Theology, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934, p. 447. SA, IV, Concordia Triglotta, p. 491.
[6] The Large Catechism, Part Fourth, Of Baptism. #17-18. Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 735f. Tappert, p. 438. Heiser, p. 206.
[7] The Large Catechism, Part Fourth, Of Baptism. #83. Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 751. Tappert, p. 446. Heiser, p. 209.
[8] David Chytraeus, A Summary of the Christian Faith (1568), trans., Richard Dinda, Decatur: Repristination Press, 1994. p. 9.
[9] What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, I, p. 50. Letter to two ministers, 1528.
[10] At one point both the LCMS and WELS had contracted to pay Baptist Ed Stetzer to teach them about evangelism. The WELS Church and Change contract was canceled only after repeated admonitions from Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed (blog) and the WELS Conference of Presidents.
[11] Apology Augsburg Confession, XXIV (XII), #70. The Mass. Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 409. Tappert, p. 262. Heiser, p. 123.
[12] The Large Catechism, Sacrament of the Altar. #23-27. Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 759. Tappert, p. 449. Heiser, p. 211.
