H. Schmid, Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
Chapter III
OF THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION.
[1] QUEN. (III, 461) defends the arrangement thus: "The Triune God is very desirous of our salvation, and all the three persons of the Godhead are actively engaged in securing our eternal salvation. God the Father appointed everlasting happiness and the peace of heaven for us, of His own most gracious will and in His eternal counsel; Christ, the Son of man and of God, purchased for us the appointed salvation by His blood-bought redemption, and the Holy Spirit offers and applies the purchased salvation and spiritual blessings through the Word and Sacraments. As we have hitherto considered the grace of the Father's commiseration and love, and the grace of the fraternal redemption, it remains for us to treat of the applying grace of the Spirit, which is completed in several distinct acts." (HOLL. (791): "The applying grace of the Holy Spirit is the source of those divine acts by which the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God and the Sacraments, dispenses, offers to us, bestows and seals the spiritual and eternal favors designed for man by the great mercy of God the Father, and procured by the fraternal redemption of Jesus Christ.")
CHMN. (Loc. c. Th., II, 270): 1. "The Scripture calls faith knowledge [21] (gnosis), Luke 1:77; Col. 2:3; Eph. 3:19. To faith must be presented, and upon it enforced, from the Word of God, the decree and history of redemption, the gratuitous and universal promise that God, on account of that victim, desires to receive sinners who betake themselves by faith to the Mediators. 2. Because many who hear these things and understand and know them, either neglect, or doubt, or resist, turn away from and oppose, it is necessary that assent should be united to this knowledge: not merely a general assent, but that by which each one determines with firm persuasion, which Paul calls assurance (plerophoria, Heb. 10:22), that the universal promise belongs privately, individually, and specifically to him, and that he also is included in the general promise. 3. Then, after this knowledge and assent (which are in the mind), the heart or the will, under the Spirit's influence, experiences such an inward groaning or desire, that, because it feels grievously the burden of its sins and of the anger of God, it wills, seeks, and asks that those blessings which are offered in the promise of the Gospel may be granted . . . . 4. When, in this way, thou turnest thyself, with mind, will and heart, from the contemplation of sin, and the consciousness of the wrath of God, and lookest unto the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, i.e., when, from the sentence of damnation, which is denounced against thee by the Law, thou fleest to the throne of grace and to the propitiation which our Heavenly Father offered in the blood of Christ, it is necessary to superadd confidence, which, with full assurance, determines from the Word of God, that God then gives, communicates, and applies to thee the benefits of the promise of grace, and that thou thus truly apprehendest and receivest, unto justification, salvation, and eternal life, those things which the gratuitous promise of the Gospel offers."
[4] QUEN (IV, 283): "The second act of faith, (viz., assent) is more distinctive than the first (viz., knowledge), for even heretics may have knowledge and yet not yield assent to the Word known. But this assent is not superficial, doubting, vacillating, but should be decided and strong, on which account it is called the evidence of things not seen, Heb. 11:1. This act of faith does not depend upon the evidence of things, or upon the knowledge of causes and properties, but upon the infallible authority of God's Word."
QUEN. (IV, 281): "God is the principal efficient cause of saving faith. John 6:29; Phil. 1:29. Hence faith is called the gift of God, Eph. 2:8, and it is said to be of the operation of God, Col. 2:12. This shows that faith proceeds from God, who regenerates, and is not the product of our own will; it is not meritorious. It has its origin in grace, not in nature; it is adventitious, not hereditary; supernatural, not natural. That which, in respect to its commencement, its increase, and its completion, is from God, cannot depend upon our will and powers of nature. But faith is of God in its commencement, Phil. 2:13; 1:6; in its increase, Mark 9:24; Luke 17:5; and in its completion, Phil. 1:6; 2 Thess. 1:11. Therefore, etc." Br. (721): "The moving internal cause is the goodness of God, or His mercy and gratuitous favor (Phil. 1:29); the external is the merit of Christ."
[14] AP. CONF., II, 73: "We do not exclude the Word or the Sacraments. We have said above that faith is conceived from the Word, and we honor the ministry of the Word in the highest degree."
FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., IV, 10): "As Luther writes in the introduction to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: Faith is a divine work in us which changes us, divinely regenerates, mortifies the old Adam, makes of us altogether different men (in heart, soul, and in all our powers), and confers the Holy Spirit upon us. Oh, it is a living, efficacious, energetic power that we have in faith, so that it cannot exist without always producing good works! It does not inquire whether good works are to be performed, but, before any such inquiry, has already performed many, and is always busy in the performance of them." BR. (518): "Confidence is always attended with love. For, when our will has respect to Christ as a present good, and to God as appeased for Christ's sake and rendered propitious to us, it renders to Him a love not only of complacency, but likewise of benevolence; its impulses are good will to Him, a desire to perform what will be good and grateful to Him."
[17] AP. CONF. (II, 56): "Faith does not justify or save because it is a meritorious work, but only because it accepts the proffered mercy." Ibid. (74): "Love, also, and good works ought to follow faith; wherefore, they are not so excluded that they should not follow it, but confidence in the meritoriousness of love or works is excluded in justification." FORM. CONC. (Sol. Dec., III, 41): "That which Luther has well said remains true, Faith and works agree well and are inseparably connected, but it is faith alone which receives the blessing without works, and yet it is never alone.'" 42. "In regard to the question, how faith justifies, this is Paul's doctrine on this point, that faith alone without works justifies, inasmuch as it applies and communicates to us the merit of Christ. But when it is asked how and by what indication a Christian man can recognize and distinguish either in himself or in other men a true and living faith, and likewise a feigned and dead faith, since, in place of faith, many torpid and secure Christians indulge in a vain opinion without having true faith, the APOL. answers: James calls that a dead faith which is not followed by good works of every description and the fruits of the Spirit.'" The distinction of HOLL. (1172) is very striking: "The power and energy of faith are twofold, receptive, or apprehensive, and operative. The former is that by which faith passively receives Christ and everything obtained by His merit (John 1:12; 17:8; Col. 2:6; 1 Tim. 1:15; Rom. 5:17; Acts 10:43; James 1:12; Gal. 3:14). The latter is that by which faith manifests itself actively by works of love and practice of other virtues. Gal. 5:6. Note: The epithet, working by love (in Gal. 5:6), is an attribute of a faith which has justified, not of one which will in the future justify, much less the form or essence of justifying faith so far as it justifies. For the Apostle does not describe the office of justifying faith, so far as it justifies, but another office, to wit, its operation by love;" and the passage from Brentz (Apology of Wuert. Conf.): "Faith, so to speak, has two hands. One, which it extends upwards to embrace Christ with all His benefits, and by this we are justified; the other, which it reaches downwards to perform the works of love and of the other virtues, and by this we prove the reality of faith, but are not thereby justified."
