THE LUTHERAN FAITH: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

Martin Luther is one of those historical figures well-educated people have strong opinions but don’t necessarily know anything about. He often serves as either an angel or devil depending on one’s enthusiasms or antagonisms; and Luther is credited with championing beliefs he actually spoke strongly against.

The significance of Martin Luther for Lutherans is also widely misunderstood. While Lutherans revere Luther and closely identify with his personal story as mirroring their own spiritual journey, very few regard him as a “saint”. Indeed, any attempt to put Luther on a high moral pedestal misses the point. Luther’s value derives precisely in part in the fact that he was an ill-tempered and intemperate man who was given to dark moods, made grave mistakes, and fell far short of what we expect from “saints”.

“Lutheranism” suffers from similar misconceptions. For many Lutheranism is a “generic” Protestantism from which all other Protestant Churches improvise and elaborate their own theologies. As a matter of academic theology and history, this is patently false. Lutherans are “Protestants”; but most other denominations left the Catholic Church or dissented from other Protestant bodies at different times for much different reasons. Many Protestants view Lutheranism as the “next thing” to Catholicism. This is close to the truth and many Lutherans view themselves as a reforming movement within the Catholic Church--although most Catholics would be bewildered by such a depiction.

The central doctrine by which the Lutheran Church “stands or falls” is “justification by Grace through faith alone”. By “central’, it is meant that all other doctrine and theology are subservient and guided by it. If this doctrine is “false”, then the whole Lutheran movement is mistaken.

Most other Protestants claim the same doctrine as their own as well; but they are positively allergic to what it actually means. Modern Catholicism accepts “justification by Grace through faith alone” as doctrine; but elaborates that it is one doctrine among many and so must be harmonized by “the rule of faith”. Thus both “Protestants” and “Catholics” approach “justification by Grace alone” in ways totally antithetical to its authentic meaning. This is complicated by the fact that some Lutherans in the pews themselves misunderstand it.

Many Lutherans tell personal stories of laboring for years under mistaken understandings of the Gospel and then having sudden epiphanies or “Luther experiences” to what “God’s Grace” means as if hearing it for the first time after years of worship and instruction. This has lead some to remark that Lutheranism is actually a special form of Christian mysticism. But Lutherans reject any suggestion that it is like the perennial heresy of Gnosticism in which salvation requires a special, esoteric knowledge. Instead, they assign human resistance to God’s message of “justification” to the deviousness of man’s heart. Moreover, Lutherans are quick to assert, God’s saving accomplishment does not depend on human understanding.

Another signpost to understanding Lutheranism is that it is “Christo-centric”. What is meant by this is that the secret of life is not a special wisdom, a set of ethics or a mysterious knowledge. The secret of life is a person and that person is Jesus Christ—God Himself. All man and women do not naturally want to believe this. To the extent we take Jesus seriously, we want to believe that Jesus was pointing to “something” beyond himself and He came to reconcile mankind to “that”. All the descriptions of Jesus being a “teacher” and “example” are true but misleading by themselves apart from the certainty that Jesus is the purpose of life. More astonishingly, Lutherans claim that everything we really know about God was revealed to us on the Cross.

Where Lutherans separate themselves most from both Evangelicals and Catholics is in the area of salvation. Lutherans hold that Christ is the One who saves—in no measure does the individual save himself. One cannot “choose” to follow Jesus because one cannot and will not do any such thing. Instead, it is God who breaks in and pulls the person to Himself. Similarly, with Heaven’s demand “be ye perfect as your Father is perfect”, men and women are incapable be fulfilling this requirement. As a means of salvation, “right living” is doomed before we begin because by committing the single smallest sin one commits all sins for all time. The hope of the Christian lies in standing before the throne of God clothed in Christ’s own righteousness. This means that Christ’s righteousness is credited or imputed to the believer. Thus to the enormous question “how do know you are saved?” the response is not “because I lived a good life”, “because I did many good things for others” or “because I have great faith”. The answer is “I know I am saved because God Himself said so.”

Lutherans do stress becoming more like Christ and doing acts of love in His name. But this comes under the subject of “sanctification” which Lutherans hold to be totally apart from “justification”. As important as it is to perform charitable acts and become more like Christ, these things are not a means of salvation. Salvation is solely the work of God.

All the above is a lot to digest in such a short space. The life of the Christian consists of continually hearing God’s word and being reminded of His saving work again and again. Because the desire to save ourselves on our own terms never goes away, we must be confronted with the Gospel often and every day. The Christian lives his whole life finding out what all this means. Yet whether one is the simplest child or the wisest sage, a moral exemplar or “the worst of sinners”, one’s hope and certainty is Christ Jesus.

“When Christ calls a man, He is calling him to die.” If not today, may you someday greet these words with joy.