Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Selections from H. Schmid


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."