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| "He is not here. He is risen." That is the Spirit at work in the Word, filling their hearts with faith, replacing dread and sorrow with courage and hope. Jesus repeatedly berated His disciples for their little-faith, but we are supposed to think the world is absolved with no faith. |
Justification Before and Without Faith
KJV 1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was
- manifest in the flesh,
- justified in the Spirit, εδικαιωθη εν πνευματι
- seen of angels,
- preached unto the Gentiles,
- believed on in the world,
- received up into glory.
"What they [ELDONA] deny is that God the Father, as a consequence of his Son's death and resurrection for the whole world, absolved and justified his Son on the whole world's behalf, and in and through that vicarious absolution and justification of Christ, absolved and justified the whole world for which he had died."
(Jay Webber, Facebook, WELS Discussions)
Gentle reader, I ask you, "Does the second point in 1 Timothy 3:16 say anything like Webber's claim?"
No, instead, he has imposed the Rambach Halle formula (not much different from Samuel Huber's) upon the resurrection of Christ - that it caused God to absolve the unbelieving world of all sin.
What does Chemnitz - taught by Luther and Melanchthon - write about this verse?
This is the forensic or legal meaning of this word. But just as is the case in all languages, words are transferred from the specific to the general. Thus “justify” is sometimes used to approve, testify to, recognize, acknowledge, confess, and celebrate the fact that someone is righteous—granting, conferring, and attributing praise to his righteousness. Luke 7:29: “The people and the publicans justified God, but the Pharisees spurned the counsel of God.” Luke 16:15: “You justify yourselves before men.” Luke 10:29: “The scribe, wanting to justify himself …” Jer. 3:11 and Ezek. 16:51: “You have justified your sisters.” 1 Tim. 3:16: “He was manifested in the flesh and justified in the Spirit,” that is, the humility of His flesh offended many, and He was crucified as a misleader and a seditious man; but because of His divine works and the sending of the Spirit, He was declared and approved as the Son of God and the Messiah. (Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, p.478). Cited here.
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GJ - Starting with the plain meaning of the verse, the resurrection of Christ was and remains the clearest proof of the divinity and righteousness of Christ. As Lenski points out in Mark's account, the enormous stone lid of the tomb was thrown down by the angels to show the world the tomb was already empty. Moreover, the slab was so heavy that the tomb had to remain open for everyone to see.
The Father did not "forgive the Son and therefore absolve the unbelieving world." The opponents of the Chief Article seem to imagine that Jesus was burdened with the sins of the world and had to be absolved by the Father. Thus they find Jesus unburdened and the world absolved at the same moment. How ridiculous. Jesus is the Righteous One.
Isaiah 53:11 - He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My Righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.
The Son was and remains without sin, but this resurrection declared that truth to the world. That is the Spirit/Word combination so often ignored by our Calvin-saturated modern world, where the Spirit is "sovereign" and may or may not accompany the Word and Sacraments. Calvin liked to play with the Scriptures, his own little sandbox, and that attitude came into play with Pietism and rationalism, both debtors to the Geneva prophet.
The resurrection accounts in the Four Gospels and St. Paul are the Spirit declaring Jesus the risen Son of God. They are not the Savior absolved of sin but approved as the victor, the Hero - as Luther often wrote.
