Author: Andrea Schultz

Dr. Roland F. Ziegler, The Robert D. Preus Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Confessional Lutheran Studies; CTSFW Chairman of Systematic Theology

It is worth looking at our brothers in other denominations, for those points upon which we agree and can be allies. For this paper, Dr. Ziegler looked at the theology of Pope Benedict XVI (born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, who served from 2005 until 2013) in regards to atonement.

The paper went deep into the details of his theology, quoting many of Ratzinger’s theological writings, particularly since Ratzinger was a part of the Roman Catholic renewal towards a theology that was more biblical. So are there parts of Roman Catholic theology upon which we can be allies?

Ratzinger teaches that real sacrifice is total surrender to God. Sacrifice consists, then, as a process of transformation, of conforming man to God. Since there is evil, the way to unity and love is the way of purification, which takes the form of the cross. Passes through death and resurrection and meets the mediator, who draws all to himself and thus exalts us. Ratzinger sees Genesis 22 as proof for his view that the Old Testament sacrifices shows that sacrifice is about self-giving not destruction (as the ram replaced man as sacrifice).

Christ’s death as the sacrifice of the covenant thus binds God and world together. What fallen man is incapable to do, Christ does. All ritual theories of sacrifice become obsolete and the new covenant has also been concluded by a new sacrifice. Jesus the man who lays down his life is the true worship and glorification of God. The self-offering of Christ should not be understood in terms of sacrifice but in martyrdom and the complete giving of his person. Man cannot give himself and cannot replace himself, and so this seems hopeless. But then Christ substitutes himself for us. The Last Supper is the sacrifice that we keep with thanksgiving.

From Ratzinger: “The blood of animals could neither ‘atone’ for sin nor bring God and men together. It could only be a sign of hope, anticipating a greater obedience that would be truly redemptive. In Jesus’ words over the chalice, all this is summed up and fulfilled: he gives us the ‘new covenant in his blood.’ ‘His blood’ –that is, the total gift of himself, in which he suffers to end all human sinfulness and repairs every breach of fidelity by his unconditional fidelity. This is the new worship, which he establishes at the Last Supper, drawing mankind into his vicarious obedience.”

In another quote: “In Jesus’ Passion, all the filth of the world touches the infinitely pure one, the soul of Jesus Christ and, hence, the Son of God himself. While it is usually the case that anything unclean touching something clean renders it unclean, here it is the other way around: when the world, with all the injustice and cruelty that make it unclean, comes into contact with the infinitely pure one—then he, the pure one, is the stronger. Through this contact, the filth of the world is truly absorbed, wiped out, and transformed in the pain of infinite love. Because infinite good is now at hand in the man Jesus, the counterweight to all wickedness is present and active within world history, and the good is always infinitely greater than the vast mass of evil, however terrible it may be.”

This falls in line with the Roman Catholic teaching about atonement: that the death of Christ extends only to original sin.

So what do we Lutherans say to all that? Per Article 3 of the Augsburg Confession:

“Likewise we teach that the Word, that is, the Son of God, took upon himself human nature in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary. Therefore, he has two natures, one divine and the other human. They are united in one person and cannot be separated. Thus there is only one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the virgin Mary. He truly suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried. He went through all this so that he could restore us to peace with the Father and be a sacrifice, not just for original sin, but also for all other sins.”

When you look at Ratzinger’s theology, it is impressive in his depth and breadth. But in regard to the atonement, there is a whole dimension he’s lacking. The scandal of the cross is mitigated, no longer of both God’s love and wrath. Reconciliation is through the judgment of sin, the punishment of death. Ratzinger doesn’t have any notion of God’s judgment over sin nor God’s wrath. There is no talk of God’s wrath. Compare that with Article 5 of the Book of Concord: “Indeed, what would be a more sobering and terrifying proclamation of the wrath of God than the suffering and death of Christ, His Son.”

Ratzinger’s theological understanding of the atonement also has consequence for other doctrines. Roman Catholic theologians do not like the idea that our sin is imputed to Christ because, if our sins can be imputed to Christ, then His righteousness can be imputed to us. (Then you have a forensic understanding of justification.) Rather, salvation is through the self-offering of Christ into which man is brought and thus man is saved as the one who offers himself, of course enabled by Christ’s self-offering. There is grace, but grace enables you to do what you ought to do, through the transformation of the sinner, not by the forgiveness of sins.

Ratzinger’s understanding of the atonement in the Lord’s Supper is then not about the receiving of forgiveness of sins, but at its center is an act of thanksgiving. It is Christ’s thanksgiving and self-giving and it becomes then man’s thanksgiving self-offering through Christ. So, though Ratzinger is certainly not merely a rehash of earlier theology, there remains a fundamental difference between his theology and the theology of the Book of Concord. Therefore, in understanding Christ’s death as punishment for sins, Ratzinger is not a resource that can help us.

So is the pope [Roman] Catholic? Of course.

Dr. David P. Scaer, The David P. Scaer Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology

Justification is the starting point of doing theology. In current popular theological proposals, justification has taken center stage and this is not without reason in the Lutheran context. Justification has been considered the key to the confessions. It is the doctrine by which the Church stands or falls. This [justification] could better be said: the resurrection of Jesus.

For some, Gospel has come to mean little more than telling people their sins are forgiven, now popularly paraphrased as ‘good news,’ an umbrella phrase that can embrace most any felicitious report like “I have good news for you. You got a raise.” In the New Testament, Gospel has to do with the oral or written proclamation of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Faith is created by proclamation but its substance is derived in the historical event of the cross on which it focuses. Sub Pontio Pilato directs the faith to the historical event of crucifixion, and through it to the atonement where God through Christ is recociled to the world. When Paul showed up in Corinth, he preached a composite message that Christ died for sins, was buried, was raised on the third day (1 Cor. 15:1-7). These things were foundational for his apostleship, the message he preached to the Church.

The heart of the Gospel is Christ’s propitiation for sin and not its justifying effections. Current views put the weight of justification on the relational aspects of what the justifying Word does for the believer. For John the apostle, atonement is the cause and justification its effect (1 John 2:2). The order dare not be reversed, so the tail wags the dog.

We locate atonement and justification in God Himself as Trinity. If incarnation is the greatest mystery of all, how much more so is this true of the Trinity? In justifying us, God proves He is righteous because Christ has assumed the penalty we deserve. In loving us, He does not set aside His righteousness but confirms it. His justifying sinners does not compromise, offend, set aside, or ignore his righteousness, but affirms it by sacrificing His Son as atonement.

By absolving the sinner without payment, God would be unrighteous in exempting Himself from rules He imposes on us. If God forgave without atonement (payment), Satan would have reason to accuse God of unrighteousness. But he has no reason. Through the blood of the Lamb, the accuser has been thrown down (Rev. 6:10; 12:10). Since in making atonement, God shows us he is righteous in Himself, His promised to deliver His saints can be trusted.

God responds to Jesus’ cry of dereliction (that God had deserted Him) by raising Him from the dead and so proved He was righteous, as was Jesus. Since justification is commonly understood as the declaration that sin is forgiven, it might be off-putting to speak of God justifying Jesus, but that’s what Paul says: Jesus was justified in the Spirit, that is, God showed that Jesus was righteous in raising Him from the dead, who was wrongly put to death for crimes he did not commit (1 Ti 3:16). He is not acting contrary but in accord with who He is. Any word of justification or forgiveness spoken without atonement is a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. Forgiveness without atonement, even if done by God, would be an act of unrighteousness.

God’s justification of the sinner originates from within His Trinitarian existence. The Son is the personification of the Father’s love. In begetting the Son, the Father gives entirely of Himself so that the Son possesses everything that Father is and has. The divine giver shows himself to be eternally the father and the divine receiver to be eternally the son.

The God who gives Himself in begetting the Son, gives of Himself again in the atonement and justification. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:19). Reconciliation between God and the sinner is accomplished within God’s Trinitarian existence in which God shows Himself to be righteous by satisfying His wrath over sin by the sacrifice of His Son. Our being reconciled happens through faith created by the Word that depends and is extension of the greater mysteries of the atonement and the Trinity. God does not ignore but affirms His righteousness in forgiving sins. In Law and Gospel, God does not speak against himself.

From love, the Father spoke the Word by which the world was created, and this love was extended again by sacrificing His Son as a propitiation for the sin of the world. By the Spirit who aided Christ in His propitiatory death, God creates faith and thus the old creation is replaced by the new one.

This is quoted from only the first half of the paper Dr. David Scaer presented. He went on to speak of and focus on the third use of the Law. To watch in full, purchase a livestream ticket at www.ctsfw.edu/symposia-live.

From his last slide, on the third use of the law:

Law and gospel is the most existential and necessary of doctrines for sinners. Everyone stands coram deo as a sinner for accusation and a believer for justification. No one is exempt. In contrast to law as accusation, the third use lasts forever. “Law is in its third use is proleptic of that time when the second use will pass away and sanctification will replace it as the determinative reality between God and man. Paul said as much, ‘So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of this is love’ (1 Cor 13:7). We will see what we believed in and receive for what we hoped and so [faith and hope] will have outlived their purpose. Then the love by which we now love God and neighbor will reach its perfect and intended goal in the resurrection.”

The third use of the law is preview or the trailer of the life to come when like an old car the third use will no longer slip gears into the second. At that time the law gospel paradigm will give way to the triumph of the third use of the law as the overarching reality in which the redeemed will live under God. Put it like this, “we know that when he appears we shall be like him,” (1 Jn 3:2). That’s the third use of the law.

Tertius usus legis manet in aeternum.
[The third use of the law remains.]

A coworker pointed out his favorite line in the section on the third use of the law, so I’ll share it here: “[The commandments] were not prohibitions but descriptions of the lives of the godly who lives their lives before God.” The law is far, far deeper than a list of rules. The law is the description of who we are as God’s people.

Dr. Werner Klän, Professor Emeritus of Lutherische Theologische Hochschule, Oberursel, Germany

The Word creates the faith that is necessary to receive the Gospel. In Luther’s confession of 1528, Luther’s eschatological concepts were both a personal testimony and a true exposition of the faith of all Christendom; what all true Christians believe and Scripture teaches.

The question that has always been asked was: what is the pastoral relevance of the controversial issues and theological minutia on the discussion? What solution in addition to its conformity to Scripture is helpful and comforting? The confession both formulates the precise rejection of extreme positions both on the left and on the right, but also extends beyond that as a guideline for personal care. Therefore it is both meaningful and helpful in asserting our Lutheran identify, and the answers that can be found in the condensed documents of the 16th century can offer at the very least guidance for communicating faith today as well. It has significance for our contemporaries.

If we inquire after the Lutheran church, if it’s not an idea but a reality, it is not mute. It speaks.

I do not see God promising us that the Church will be a force of secular influence and moral authority in the world. No, we are the Lord’s little flock, but we do have this promise: the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Living as I do in a post-Christian environment, I see this. That old seductive dream belongs to another era. It’s hard to leave behind. We will be marginalized, mocked, neglected. But we speak. Our task continually recalls the words of the Old and New Testaments. Our confession must be repeatedly called to mind as it reflects God’s Word. In this way, by reconsidering over again the Scripture and the confessions, we are taken into a movement that connects being called and being sent. We’re not standing at the margins, we’re standing at the center.

Concerning the task that lies ahead in postmodern times: formation and education in other emerging church bodies. It is a matter of prayer and patience, that the Lord will show us what he has in store for us. We must pass on the doctrine that is tied to the Scriptures to the emerging southern churches, that was once granted to us. As long as we have churches bound to the Scriptures and the Lutheran confessions, the effectiveness is not ours. It is effective through God’s work and Sacraments. It is Him that will do the work. His name be praised forever.

Apologies for the much shorter summary than usual. The trade-off is that we have Epiphany Evening Prayer, featuring the Kantorei (plus Kantorei alumni, who will be joining their brethren in one of tonight’s pieces), beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern Time—i.e. in about half an hour. We will be livestreaming this service here on our Facebook page and at www.ctsfw.edu/dailychapel. 

Rev. Todd Peperkorn, Pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Rocklin, CA

The religious scene in 1950 America: America is on the top of the world, everyone has children, and everything is looking up for American religion. The good guys won. The ecumenical movement is in full swing. Billy Graham is a study in American evangelicalism.

Formation of several synods in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Controversies began and continued on, with issues ramping up and stacking one on the other. In truth, this was another lecture that involved telling historical stories, which makes summarizing and sharing difficult. Very compelling to listen to, but because of its dependence on details that lead one into the other, difficult to capture quickly by writing (particularly if you also want to be accurate).

And how did our American context shape the creation and the outcome of the three particular splits Rev. Peperkorn talked about? Once we have a sense of the history (you’ll have to watch the lecture to get this sense at www.ctsfw.edu/symposia-live), we then step back and gain some perspective:

The split in the 1950s was a result of the pick yourself up by your bootstraps individualism mentality while the 60s and 70s was the hippy freedom of the 60s and 70s. But what they had in common, whether they were moderates or conservatives: it was a question of autonomy. In each of these three groups, they held up the congregation as the only true expression of the church. Anything beyond it is advisory at best and intrusive at worst. All of these express an individuality that was getting lost as the LCMS was becoming larger. Saw the growth coming at the expense of right doctrine and practice. They wanted freedom to express or not express as they saw fit. Basically: “I do what I want and if I don’t what you do then I will take my things and go my way.”

This insistence on autonomy explains the impulse to split into different synods. Highlighted the American impulse to resent authority and trust local, individual governance. Here is the problem: on the one hand you have the clarion call for disciplinary action against pastors, teachers, etc. but at the very same time is the claim that only the local congregation is, properly speaking, “Church.” Only the local congregation could reproach.

There are three different approaches when dealing with controversies in the church: admit that the culture is changing and we have to change with it (typified by AELC); run everything by vote (essentially the politicization in the Missouri Synod: candidates, elections, with winners and losers; if you don’t like what happens, ignore it or work to win the vote next time); or separation, in which the only choice is to leave and form your own church or join one of the existing (OLC, LCR, and FAL).

These approaches beg different questions: Can there be such a thing as good politics in the Church? Is there any way to do it? Is leaving the church good or divisiveness? All three of these approaches are distinctly American and reflect our history and culture.

Indeed, every era of the church there are people who profess the Gospel in their specific circumstances. It’s impossible to answer how you would have lived and responded in a certain era without sounding a little like Peter in Matthew 26:33 in the same chapter in which he would deny Jesus three times: “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”

The Church thrives under many different systems; even in tyrannical governments the Church survives. Christ our Lord calls us to be faithful in who and what we confess, urging us to be one just as He is one with the Father. At the same time, the only way we exist as a Church is living in forgiveness under the Gospel. The Church cannot survive unless we overlook and pardon many things. So we ask ourselves this question: How will we live under the Gospel together, calling each other to faithfulness in all things, while at the same time learning to overlook and pardon many things? Only time will tell.

The 43rd Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions on the theme of “Ecclesiology: Locating Confessional Boundaries” opened with LCMS President, Dr. Matthew Harrison, on the topic of “Hermann Sasse: A Stand Alone Lutheran.”

Hermann Sasse was a theologian. He served in WWI as a chaplain, after which he served and worked in Berlin. He first publicly criticized the Nazi party in 1932. He was harassed, punished financially, but survived the party.

WWI was a turning point for Sasse for several reasons: for the great losses he had seen and suffered in the war, and for the Lutheran renaissance that was taking place around the same time. He wrote: “We who had been students of Holl suddenly began to realize that the Lutheran Reformation meant something also for modern mankind. ‘ Man is nothing, and nothing is left to us but to despair of ourselves and hope in Christ.’ This word of Luther’s became important to our generation.”

Following WWI, he served in Berlin in desperate circumstances. He also studied in America, where he saw the downfall of American Christianity was the secularization of the church. “Worship has been, as we say, developed. There must always be something new and everything must be affected.” Music had to be affecting, light had to, liturgy had to. American churches aimed to meet their business goals. They acted as societies. In this secular mish-mash or protestant America, Sasse entered into the ecumenical movement (worldwide Christian unity/cooperation). But how different churches answer the questions of Church order and where authority comes from had practical consequences.

Christ is not an intermediate being but very God. Where is Christ, there’s the Church. “First our mouths are dumb, then he [the Lord] speaks. If we with our wisdom and our power are at an end, then he speaks his great Word to us: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age!” [Matthew 28] With these words he once sent his apostles into the world, to tasks which humanly speaking were impossible, to destinations, which they knew not. And they joyously went the unknown way. They knew that his forgiveness, his peace, his power were with them. “Behold, I am with always”—this is the mystery of the church. For upon what does the church rest?”

Where do we find Christ? Sasse saw that a concrete, classical, Christology is the only remedy for theologies that saw in the New Testament only pietism and useful ethics. Sasse saw several attempts to Christianize the world, which goes against the Word of God (what we recognize as the doctrine of the two kingdoms). That, per Article 16, “the gospel should not enthrone or remove kings, nor do away with secular obedience, or prescribe laws for secular power and secular affairs. As Christ said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’”

Attempts to Christianize the world will only secularize the Church.

The question of the ecclesiastical office (relating to the church/its clergy/hierarchy) has practical consequences depending on how you answer it. Sasse asserts that Lutheran doctrine says something useful, though it’s only a beginning. That:

1. The priesthood was first introduced in connection with the doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass (1 Peter 2:9 and Revelation 1:6).

2. The office can never be derived from the general priesthood of believers, but only from the apostolate.

3. “Apostle” appears in the NT with a double meaning: a.) messenger, and b.) the strictly theological usage in Acts and Paul regarding his office.

4. The essence of prophecy is the struggle between error and truth. In the NT, prophecy has become a discreet church office, the apostolic office now superior to prophecy. In the NT there are binding rules for the church’s present constitution. The office which keeps doctrine pure is maintained.

5. The Church of Christ appears in the congregation sanctorum; in the ministry docendi evangelii et porrigendi sacramenta (note here: forgive my misspellings; corrections that commenters post will be incorporated). The office is a divine institution. The apostles never conferred this Christ-given authority to a congregation but from person to person.

How is the Lutheran view of the office distinguished from other views? The proclamation of the Gospel belongs to the essence of the Church. The Law is completely subordinate to the Gospel. The office is established as the gift of God to humanity and this office has nothing to give beyond the Gospel (office of the keys).

This is only a summarized part of the first half of Dr. Harrison’s lecture. You can watch the full lecture (and all the rest) online by purchasing livestream access for $20 at www.ctsfw.edu/symposia-livestream.

Prof. Adam Koontz, CTSFW Assistant Professor of Exegetical Theology

Substitutionary atonement’s importance is obvious throughout the Old Testament and New Testament, as well as to the Church’s theological battles following. Indeed, penal substitutionary atonement comes naturally to Christians. Every biblical doctrine is related to every other doctrine (generally) as the truth of God’s Word is all interconnected. The atonement and the forgiveness of sins are respectively cause and effect to the penitent. Without Jesus’ sacrifice, there is no forgiveness.

The biblical doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is undergirded by the doctrine and nature of divine wrath. When this doctrine is properly understood, so is atonement understood. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). Throughout Romans, Paul speaks of unrighteousness as so manifest that it is practiced both openly and secretly.

There are both open and secret idolaters. Neither class of ungodly men shall escape the judgment of God. There is no inheritance for the sexually immoral or unclean. There is a present tense reality of divine wrath upon sin that will be revealed. “Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:3-4). Even here, the purpose is made clear: not to harden men’s hearts further, but to bring man to repentance.

The righteousness of divine wrath, so obvious to Paul in Romans 2:2 and 3:5, asks this question: “But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)”

No! Or, per verse 6: “By no means!” This mystery is revealed through His grace, for He judges the secrets of mankind according to His grace, “when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Romans 2:16). Even outwardly being a Jew will be insufficient; our present justification is only possible in His blood. Our salvation from divine wrath at the second coming of Jesus is also according to His grace because present realities of and reconciliation through the death of Jesus are the seals of God’s mercy toward believers. We are saved from God’s wrath, saved by Christ’s death.

The nature of God’s utterly kind and gracious nature is put forth in Christ’s blood. Wrath will not be absent from the second coming, but believers look forward to safe shelter from His wrath; it is Jesus who saves us from the coming wrath. “But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day [of the Lord] to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness…For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5, 9). He has also “endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy” (Romans 9:23, 24).

The connection of wrath, the second coming, and grace are all solely dependent on God’s determination. Judgment on sin and salvation for His people will occur at the time of His own choosing. This is simultaneously so basic as to go unmentioned in our sermons but so profound as to be the basis of the salvation we preach. Yet it is incomprehensible without the knowledge that wrath is coming for sin. Everyone will appear before God’s judgment seat, and will have to give an account for his own doings, not his brother’s.

This also explains and clarifies the purpose of excommunication, as in the case of the man in 1 Corinthians 5 who was sleeping with his mother-in-law. The purpose isn’t to be judgmental for judgment’s sake, but as an act of discipline. Excommunication is intended to discipline the man’s flesh so that his spirit might be saved in the Day of the Lord, in view of Christ’s coming. It’s a practice that aims toward repentance. If the man had not been excommunicated, the congregation would have confessed that sexual immorality was not actually a sin and/or that they did not care enough about the man’s sin to discipline his flesh. When denied, the discipline of the flesh that is temporary becomes unending away from the face of the Lord; discipline of the flesh is meant to save someone from the certain and unending ruin under the wrath of God apart from Christ. “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17).

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”

Philippians 1:27-30

This was the last lecture of the Exegetical Symposium, which concludes with a panel discussion that is going on right now. The 43rd Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions will then begin this afternoon at 1:15 p.m. (Eastern Time). Today’s lineup includes topics from both LCMS President Matthew Harrison and CTSFW President Lawrence Rast Jr.