Justification
and
Freedom
Celebrating 500 Years
of the Reformation in 2017
A Foundational Text from the Council of the
Evangelical Church in Germany
Justification and Freedom
Celebrating 500 Years of the
Reformation in 2017
A Foundational Text
from the Council of the Evangelical
Church in Germany
Published by
Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD)
Herrenhäuser Straße 12 · D-30419 Hannover
Phone: 0049 (0)511 2796-0 · Fax: 0049 (0)511 2796-707
April 2015
www.ekd.de
Download: www.ekd.de/english/justification_and_freedom.html
Translation: Dr. Stephen Buckwalter
Title of the original German edition:
Rechtfertigung und Freiheit. 500 Jahre Reformation 2017.
© 2014 Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh,
in der Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH, München
Download German edition:
www.ekd.de/EKD-Texte/rechtfertigung_und_freiheit.html
Contents
Foreword to the fourth German edition
Foreword to the first German edition
5
7
1
Introduction: the Reformation then and now
9
1.1 The core issue of the Reformation then and now: justification
16
1.2 The Reformation — an open-ended “learning history”
22
2
The core issues of Reformation theology
28
2.1 The concept of justification — the key to the Reformation 28
2.2 Solus Christus — Christ alone
2.2.1 Theological keynote — we are no longer separated from God
2.2.2 Where is God found unambiguously? — in Christ alone
2.2.3 In whom should a person believe? — in Christ alone
2.2.4 Current challenges
2.2.4.1 Challenges from within the church — to proclaim Christ
2.2.4.2 Challenges from society — to encounter one another honestly
31
31
33
34
35
35
36
2.3 Sola gratia — by grace alone
2.3.1 Theological keynote — God bends down to be near to us
2.3.2 Grace as the distinguishing mark of all of God’s actions
2.3.3 Not through human works
2.3.4 Current challenges
2.3.4.1 Challenges from within the church — essentially a sinner
2.3.4.2 Challenges from society — the critique of all too human values
37
37
38
39
2.4 Solo verbo — through the word alone
2.4.1 Theological keynote — the proclaimed Word of God
2.4.2 Justification as a judgment pronounced by God
2.4.3 Justification must be expressed in words and communicated to us
2.4.4 Current challenges
2.4.4.1 Challenges from within the church — preaching with heart and mind
2.4.4.2 Challenges from society — a time to speak
43
43
44
44
45
41
41
45
46
2.5 Sola scriptura — on the basis of Scripture alone
2.5.1 Theological keynote
2.5.2 Word of God, not tradition
2.5.3 Living with Scripture
2.5.4 Current challenges
2.5.4.1 Challenges from within the church — truth for life
2.5.4.2 Challenges from society — approaches to holy texts 46
46
47
49
51
51
52
2.6 Sola fide — by faith alone
2.6.1 Theological keynote — no heavenly puppet play
2.6.2 Faith is not a human work, but is effected by God
2.6.3 The priesthood of all believers
2.6.4 Current challenges
2.6.4.1 Challenges from within the church — all Christians
are to proclaim the gospel
2.6.4.2 Challenges from society — to not stand by idly
53
53
54
54
56
56
56
3
How can we celebrate?
57
3.1 Jubilees and memory cultures
57
3.2 The Reformation and the history of freedom — an example
59
3.3 The different dimensions of celebration —
from exodus to a new beginning
63
4
Conclusion
65
Introductory Literature in German
Links
Members of the ad-hoc commission
67
70
71
Foreword to the fourth German edition
The foundational text Justification and Freedom presented by the Evangelical
Church in Germany (EKD) elicited an astonishingly wide response, much of it
favorable, some of it quite critical. Theology finds itself once again at the center
of a debate — a debate that, in the light of the forthcoming Reformation anniversary, focuses on a core issue of Reformation theology. If Protestant selfunderstanding finds distinct expression in the course of this discussion, this
should not be misunderstood as a deliberate attempt to isolate oneself from other
denominations. The purpose is, rather, to explain in simple terms to interested
(Protestant) Christians, on the eve of this jubilee, the occasion for celebrating this
feast to which all are invited.
Justification and Freedom makes only succinct reference to ecumenical dialogue
and does not explicitly mention the individual documents which issued from this
dialogue. For this reason — and thus responding to the criticism which has ensued
in the meantime — it is important to make express mention here of From Conflict
to Communion, the report of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity,
which was published in 2013 and engages in this ecumenical dialogue thoroughly. This report interprets the central concerns of the Reformation against
the backdrop of ecumenical exchange. Common to both the Lutheran-Catholic
report and the foundational text at hand is the fact that they presuppose the
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification signed in 1999 by representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. Already
at that time, a fundamental consensus on the understanding of the doctrine of
justification was formulated and the affirmation was made that existing differences are no longer such that they preclude church unity.
Conscious of tradition, Justification and Freedom begins its account of the core
issues of Reformation theology with the doctrine of justification, making use of
the group of four soli (from Latin: solus, “alone”) first assembled in the nineteenth
century: “Christ alone”, “by grace alone”, “through Scripture alone”, “by faith
alone”. This set of four exclusive particles is expanded to include a fifth one.
“Through the word alone” points to God’s word which imparts forgiveness and
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Justification and Freedom
grace and is present in the word of the Bible spoken to us. Insights from the 1934
Barmen Theological Declaration and the Second Vatican Council come to fruition
here.
It has also become clear that a highly encouraging ecumenical consensus rests
on how the fundamental concerns of Reformation theology are to be described
as well as on the insight that they are of lasting theological significance. The
“alone” formulas have lost their original controversial theological sting and
remind all Christian churches today of their joint responsibility to proclaim God’s
word. Criticism of Justification and Freedom, much of it overdrawn, has overlooked these facts, but it also shows that from the perspective of ecumenical
co-operation, much clearer reference should have been made to those dialogues.
Differences remain and can be named. But they cannot and should not constitute
an obstacle to sisterly and brotherly ecumenical fellowship. I am therefore glad
that the initial waves of discord have died down in the meantime. May our discussions be the point of departure and the incentive to listen to one another more
thoughtfully and attentively so that we can, in ecumenical fellowship, celebrate
the year 2017 as a major feast with Christ indeed at its center. It is to precisely
such a joint celebration that Justification and Freedom wishes to invite us.
Hanover, January 2015
Regional Bishop Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm
Chairperson of the Council
of the Evangelical Church in Germany
6
Foreword to the first German edition
Reformation Day — October 31 — is a date laden with historical symbolism. It
commemorates Martin Luther’s posting of his theses. When we celebrate five
hundred years of the Reformation on this day in 2017, we will be doing more
than just remembering this date: we will also be acknowledging the diversity and
breadth of the Reformation in its various theological and regional manifestations.
The Reformation was an event that encompassed all of Europe, indeed — if we
take its historical impact into account — the entire world. In 2017, the celebration
of this jubilee will, for the first time, be jointly prepared by all churches in Germany that stand in the tradition of the Reformation. This is possible in the wake
of the Leuenberg Agreement, which in 1973 succeeded in breaking down the
barriers that until then had separated Protestant churches from one another
while respecting the different confessional traditions that resulted from the
­Reformation.
This foundational text “Justification and Freedom: Celebrating 500 Years of the
Reformation in 2017” represents the fruit of inner-Protestant understanding, but
it also contributes to a further deepening of this understanding. The text expounds
fundamental theological insights of the Reformation era within the context of
the present.
The Reformers’ original purpose was not to shake off the “yoke of Papacy”; and
the schism of Western Christendom was something they intended even less. Their
wish was to reform the entire church in its head and members, echoing a demand
made long before them by many others. Five hundred years later, we should not
lose sight of this concern. It would therefore be wrong to reduce the observance
of this anniversary to the mere remembrance of lost unity. We wish, rather, to
rejoice in the spiritual fruits of the Reformation and therefore celebrate this
jubilee in ecumenical breadth.
As an event of global significance, the Reformation brought changes not only to
the church and to theology, but also to all aspects of private and public life,
reshaping them in ways that can be felt to the present. It gave an impetus to
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Justification and Freedom
education, it contributed to the development of the modern basic rights of freedom of religion and of conscience, it changed the relationship between church
and state, it had a share in forming the modern concept of freedom and the
modern understanding of democracy, just to mention a few examples.
As an open-ended learning process, the Reformation must be given new shape
by every generation. Today, this means wrestling with the meaning of the Reformation’s doctrine of justification and its experience of freedom in an era of
growing social upheaval. We evoke both of these in a keen awareness of our
tradition within the context of ecumenical challenges and increasing de-Christianization, but also in the framework of a pluralistic society. It is our wish to call
attention to and recount the events and insights of the Reformation, celebrating
them and drawing strength from them. At the same time, we do not want to close
our eyes to the darker sides of our own history.
We cordially thank the commission, headed by Prof. Dr. Dres. h. c. Christoph Markschies, for drafting the following foundational text with great conviction and
inspiration. Bearing the title “Justification and Freedom”, this text addresses
theologically concerned women and men, presbyters, members of church councils, pastors and theologians, but also a broader public curious about the significance of the 2017 Reformation jubilee.
The Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) wishes for this text to
be read and discussed intensely, not only in Germany, but also in the worldwide
ecumenical community. It hopes that this foundational text encourages people
to participate in the 2017 Reformation jubilee and inspires them to celebrate it
as a feast that overcomes confessional and national boundaries by affecting
people and bringing them together.
Hanover, May 2014
Nikolaus Schneider
Chairperson of the Council of
the Evangelical Church in Germany
8
1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
Five hundred years of the Reformation — there are many good reasons for celebrating this anniversary and remembering this event. The Reformation, after all,
“is an event of global significance.”1 It had far-reaching cultural, social, and
political effects which were not only felt in its places of origin in central Germany and Switzerland, but also spread quite rapidly beyond these regions and
even beyond the boundaries of Europe.
The Reformation centered on the issue of the relationship between God and his
people. In its essence, the Reformation was a religious event, for the men and
women who championed the Reformation expected God himself to awaken true
faith and thus renew the relationship between God and believer. It was not until
later that it became customary to apply the concept of “Reformation” not as much
to this renewal, which was expected to be carried out by God, as to the reform “in
head and members” of church and theology associated with this expectation.
From the eighteenth century onwards, this specific sixteenth-century reform was
given the name “Reformation” to distinguish it from other reforms. It was one in
a series of late medieval reform movements. It defused the tension between
certain pairs of opposing concepts in medieval theology (such as the distinction
between clergy and laity), yet sharpened the dichotomy in others (such as the
dialectic of law and gospel). In this respect, both a classical Protestant interpretation of the Reformation as the breakthrough of the truth of the gospel after
centuries of “medieval darkness”, as well as the opposing traditional RomanCatholic appraisal of it as the mere culmination of medieval reform efforts, fail
to properly understand the Reformation.
The questions which Reformers like Heinrich Bullinger, John Calvin, Martin Luther,
Philip Melanchthon or Ulrich Zwingli and women such as Katharina Zell or
Argula von Grumbach raised in their letters, sermons and tracts, addressed issues
1Perspektiven für das Reformationsjubiläum 2017 [Theses of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Luther
Decade], These 1. (retrievable under http://www.luther2017.de/sites/default/files/downloads/perspektivenlutherdekade.pdf).
9
Justification and Freedom
with which the men and women of their time were also wrestling quite intensely. One question in particular — whether human beings measured up to God’s
expectations in their relationship to him — was one which people had often posed
themselves throughout the history of Christianity prior to the Reformation. In
the late Middle Ages, the struggle to come to terms with this question found
expression in the creation of countless institutions and the construction of architectural jewels that are as amazing today as ever: churches were endowed in
towns and villages, people devoted themselves assiduously to frequent worship
services of intercessory prayer, and theology thrived as an academic discipline in
universities.
Celebrating a Reformation jubilee at the beginning of the twenty-first century
requires explaining to what extent the religious insights of the Reformation also
provide an answer to the questions asked by men and women today, many of
whom, after all, are not concerned in the slightest about their individual relationship to God. In the following, we will interpret the Reformation theses regarding
the relationship between God and his people with a view to the relevance of these
tenets for the present. Besides, we will discuss both the contribution of the Reformation to the history of freedom in Europe as well as the differences between
the Reformation understanding of “freedom” and the ways in which freedom is
experienced today.
The theological assertions made by the Reformers centered on the teaching that
God is the sole author of the reconciled relationship between God and his people; this reconciled relationship is not the result of self-reflection or of any other
cultural, political or religious effort. The Reformers did not invent this so-called
doctrine of justification. Drawing on the beginnings of Christianity shared by all
churches, they reformulated it in ways that were novel in comparison with
medieval theology, and gave it a new emphasis. The men and women who
adhered to the movement that we today call “the Reformation” sought to
articulate the gospel of Jesus Christ anew; we only commemorate them properly if we also try to articulate the gospel once again in such a way that it
“consoles and frees” people (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) and does not merely remain a
“fairy tale” of bygone days, as Martin Luther frequently warned. Justification
must remain deeply interwoven with the experience of liberation of both individuals and entire communities if our referral to the doctrine of justification is
not to appear as frivolous, dallying with an antiquated concept detached from
real life.
10
1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
Supporters of the Reformation in the sixteenth century argued from philosophical and theological premises different from those that people hold to or implicitly follow today; they lived in another society and under different religious and
political circumstances. We would be ill advised to skip over all too blithely this
“broad and nasty ditch” (Lessing) that separates the truth of the gospel from its
historically contingent witness. On the other hand, this should not lead us to
conclude that the Reformation doctrine of justification was an important insight
for that era, but irrelevant for modern men and women, since people today, unlike
those in the past, no longer pose themselves the question as to “whether God is
merciful or not.” The following text will indeed seek to reveal the doctrine of
justification as the heart of Evangelical theology and piety and therefore as the
answer to the questions with which people continue to wrestle today.
Why will a bundle of theological insights, which in the sixteenth century led to
a reshaping, first, of church and theology, and then of society, culture and politics,
and which is known under the name of “Reformation”, be celebrated, on October 31, 2017, of all days, following a celebratory decade which culminates on this
date? It was only slowly and gradually that this date developed into the proposed
finale of a jubilee celebration. When Luther made his ninety-five indulgence
theses public in the context of All Saints’ Day in 1517, he was not aware that
these statements concerning the implementation of the church’s sacraments (or
to be more precise: concerning the implementation of an appendage to the sacrament of penance) would end up bringing about fundamental changes in theology, church and society. The classic image, indelibly engraved in our collective
memory, of a vigorous man resolutely nailing a sheet of theses onto the door of
a church with powerful blows of the hammer on the eve of this festivity, i.e., on
October 31, 1517, is certainly not historically accurate. This date has nevertheless
become accepted as marking the beginning of the Reformation movement in the
German territories. It is certain that in the course of those days Luther sent the
mentioned theses to his local bishop, among other people. There is probably also
some truth to the memory that on this day he posted these theses — or had them
posted — on the academic “bulletin board” of the university, i.e. the door of the
castle church which one entered when approaching from the city. More importantly: with these theses, Luther presented himself as a reform Catholic who was
merely denouncing a practice of his church. In many issues, Luther continued to
share in the theological views and the devotional practices of most of his contemporaries, e.g., he believed that people could profit from the meritorious effects
of the pious acts that the saints had carried out in the course of their lives.
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Justification and Freedom
But it was Luther’s much more sweeping — and in modern hindsight rather ambivalent — symbolic action of burning the papal bull threatening him with excommunication at the Elster Gate in Wittenberg on December 10, 1520, that first
clearly revealed the chasm which separated the majority church of the time from
the Reformation movement represented by Luther. His famous appearance before
the Diet of Worms in the year 1521, when he was permitted, against all contemporary precedents, to speak before emperor and empire and refused to recant,
made this evident before a wider public. Since Luther and other theologians at the
time not only criticized the church’s dispensation of the sacraments (indulgences
and the refusal of the cup to the laity!) — a criticism already common in the late
Middle Ages — but turned this into a much more fundamental criticism of the
theology of the sacraments and radicalized it even more by identifying the Pope
as the Antichrist, the rift between the two sides soon became irreconcilable.
Martin Luther soon became the symbolic figure epitomizing this development,
since historically he had also been one of its key initiators. But the image of
Luther posting his theses on the door of the Wittenberg castle church did not
become the memorial image seared into collective cultural consciousness until
1617, when Protestants in all of Germany (incidentally, not only in the Lutheran,
but also in the Reformed territories) celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the
Reformation on a large scale. The 1817 and 1917 jubilees made of Luther a
national hero, at least in Germany, with the festivities at the beginning of the
nineteenth century influenced by the victory over Napoleon, and those a century later overshadowed by the First World War. Much of what was said and
staged at that time fills us with shame today. However, we should not reduce the
history of Reformation jubilees to a grand narrative of deterioration of an originally pure and unadulterated idea. The 1817 anniversary celebration did bring
with it a rapprochement between the two big confessional wings of the Reformation, the Lutherans and the Reformed, which in the sixteenth century had parted
ways in the midst of bitter disputes. This rapprochement led to the creation of
different forms of united churches (e. g. in Prussia).
It is clear that every commemoration of the Reformation is necessarily eraspecific, for it must present Reformation theology as a response relevant to the
problems of its time. Therefore, more than four hundred years later, it continues
to be appropriate to focus on an action by which a theology professor in a small
town in central Germany made his theological theses known. Indeed, October 31,
2017, is a symbolic date referring us to a mass movement and a watershed
12
1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
moment in early modern history, which wrought vast changes on the medieval
world that had existed up to that point. The posting of the theses was one of the
harbingers of modernity — the same modernity with which we wrestle today.
While in the twenty-first century, Martin Luther is no longer celebrated as a
“German hero”, he continues to be a powerful symbolic figure who, like many
outstanding persons of history, on the one hand invites contradiction, but on the
other inspires identification with his tenacity, boldness and persuasiveness.
The powerful eloquence and, at the same time, sensitivity with which Luther
translated biblical texts, conducted pastoral care in his letters, and clothed the
good news of the gospel in pithy words that spoke directly to people’s hearts,
remain remarkable. He was not alone, of course, as a Reformer, but was in good
company, as can be seen from the title illustration of the present text: Philipp
Melanchthon (1497–1560) crucially influenced the development of educational
institutions in Germany and beyond. Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) wedded the
Reformation movement to the idea of freedom, giving both a concrete shape in
the civic reality of Zurich. John Calvin (1509–1564) bestowed an international
character upon the Reformation by incorporating French and other European
traditions into it. Already early on, an awareness of the intrinsic unity of the
movement, including its theological dimensions, became apparent, e. g. in a pamphlet printed in Zurich in 1521 with Zwingli’s involvement:
The Divine Mill (Zurich 1521)
The image depicts Christ as a miller
pouring the grain of the four Evangelists
and of Paul into the funnel of the mill,
Erasmus filling the flour into sacks,
Luther kneading the dough and, finally,
the (Swiss) peasant Karsthans using a
threshing flail to fend off a dragon who
is screaming “ban! ban!”
© akg-images, Berlin
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Justification and Freedom
The Reformation movement would not have grown so swiftly if imperial territorial princes such as Frederick the Wise and Philip of Hesse and the citizenry of
cities such as Zurich, Hamburg and Geneva had not actively supported it. It must
be pointed out, however, that it was not just these rulers and theologians, but
entire networks of men and women joining ranks who made the Reformation
possible, leaving their mark on this period. The nineteenth century crystallized
this insight into colossal memorials, such as the largest monument in the world
to commemorate the Reformation, in Worms, which depicts not only the classical Reformers and the aforementioned territorial princes, but also so-called preReformers such as Jan Hus (ca. 1369 –1415).
© akg-images, Berlin
Ernst Rietschel (1804 –1861), Luther Memorial in Worms (1868)
In the sixteenth century, a number of different confessional churches emerged
from what had hitherto been a single Western Church. None of these churches,
not even the Roman-Catholic confessional church (the so-called “Old Faith”), was
left untouched by the Reformation. In 1986, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope
emeritus Benedict XVI, wrote in a letter: “Was it not in many ways good for the
Catholic Church in Germany and elsewhere that Protestantism — with its liberality, its piety, its inner conflicts, and its intellectual sophistication — existed next
to it? To be sure, in times of religious conflict this schism could only mean mutual rejection; but later, many positive things for the faith on both sides sprouted
14
1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
forth from this opposition, helping us understand something of what St. Paul
meant with his intriguing ‘must’2 …”3 The universal church which Luther had
hoped for and which Rome proclaimed, proved not to be a viable concept. The
confessional diversity characterizing our present age is a consequence of the
Reformation era. In the twenty-first century, however, it is no longer possible to
commemorate the Reformation movement and its accompanying events strictly
within the horizon of the Evangelical Church and the confines of the German
language. The 2017 Reformation jubilee must be celebrated against an intellectual backdrop which acknowledges that the Reformation resulted in the pluralization of Western Christendom. It would be one-sided and inadmissible to perceive this event only pessimistically as the occasion of a “church schism”, but it
would be just as one-sided to see it as having paved the way for an individualism
regarded exclusively as positive. The jubilee should, therefore, be celebrated
together with Roman-Catholic Christendom and with a view to the worldwide
impact of the Reformation.4
Furthermore, the significance of the Reformation for the history of freedom in
Europe should encourage us to celebrate the Reformation jubilee not only with
those sectors of the society of the Federal Republic of Germany that define
themselves as Christian. It is also important to remind ourselves that it was
precisely in the heartland of the Reformation that Jews were almost entirely
exterminated seventy years ago, with very few Christians putting up active resistance out of Christian motives. This must lead us, in the course of the 2017 Reformation jubilee, to pay critical attention to the statements which the sixteenth
century uttered regarding Jews and Judaism and to correct them self-critically
in the light of current insights on the renewal of the relationship between both
sister religions. Early modern statements on Islam, which became the object of
attention particularly in connection with the perceived “Turkish menace” at the
borders of the Holy Roman Empire and out of fear for the survival of Western
Christendom, should also be given critical review, without negatively affecting
the special relationship between Judaism and Christianity. This critical re-examination of Reformation views with regard to both these subjects is absolutely
2 “there must be factions among you” (1 Corinthians 11: 19).
3Joseph Ratzinger, Zum Fortgang der Ökumene, Theologische Quartalschrift 166 (1986), pp. 243 – 248,
quotation: p. 246.
4For a detailed discussion, see: Christoph Schwöbel, “Unterschiedliche Konstruktionsprinzipien” – Problem und
Lösungsansatz im ökumenischen Dialog, in: Reformation erinnern. Eine theologische Vertiefung im Horizont
der Ökumene, ed. by Martin Heimbucher on behalf of UEK; Neukirchen-Vluyn: 2013, pp. 108 –135.
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Justification and Freedom
necessary before not only those in the churches, but also those beyond and
outside of them can celebrate the jubilee as the commemoration of an event that
crucially enabled the development of freedom in Europe.
As much as the Reformation jubilee to be celebrated in 2017 must seek to contextualize its message in the present, we should not forget that we only remember the Reformation properly if, when celebrating this event, we have in mind a
church that constantly opens itself to God’s reformation (“ecclesia semper reformanda”). Ideally, this means that current efforts to reform the organizational
structure of the Evangelical Churches in Germany could, by bearing the sixteenth
century Reformation in mind, not only gain in theological depth, but also be
increasingly bold in their readiness to revamp institutions. In midst of its current
reform process, the Evangelical Church can only become a “church of freedom in
the twenty-first century” if it firmly roots its understanding of “freedom” as the
“promise of the project of modernity” within its biblical matrix and interprets
it — as did the Reformation — as freedom bestowed by God: a freedom that frees
from self-centeredness, commits us to our fellow human beings, and liberates
the common polity (Wolfgang Huber).
1.1 The core issue of the Reformation then and now: justification
How can the core issue of the Reformation, the doctrine of justification, be
articulated in a way that is readily comprehensible today? In a later personal
testimony quoted many times, Luther himself described his theological insights
as the response to an existential question, the famous struggle for “a merciful
God”.5 This point of view showes us a very specific real life situation between the
late Middle Ages and the early modern period. The context in which this question
belongs is that of a world comprehensively shaped by the institutions, theology
and piety of a pre-Reformation church, a world in which God sovereignly passed
judgment on the life of men and women, punishing their sins and guilt. The
questions faced were: what can human beings ever give in order to compensate
for their sins and repay the debt incurred before God? How can they live in such
5Drawing on retrospective statements by Luther (see e.g.: Von der heiligen Taufe, Predigten 1535, Weimarer
Ausgabe [WA] 37, p. 661,23 f.), it is possible to describe his theological insights as the answer to an existential
question: the well-known quest for “a merciful God”. To be sure, the subsumption of Luther’s development
under this one question is, more than anything, a product of Pietism (see Martin Schmidt, Der Pietismus und
das moderne Denken, in: Pietismus und moderne Welt, ed. by Kurt Aland, Witten 1974, [pp. 9 – 74] p. 9).
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1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
a way that they escape the punishment for unpaid debt and unatoned sin? Hell
and purgatory — the place of temporary punishment — were practically ubiquitous in the sermons and in the artistic decoration of churches, vividly described
in the graphic language of the Middle Ages. Of course, it would be wrong to claim
that all medieval Christians lived in existential anguish caused by fear of hell. But
the notion that God would bring everyone to account motivated even those who,
while joyfully living out their lives as Christians, made it a point, for example, to
endow candles in a church.
In retrospective musings, most of which he wrote down many years later, Martin
Luther interpreted his own life as being firmly embedded in a society driven by
religious performance, a society in which particularly intense religious achievements entitled one to a merciful judgment by God at the Last Judgment. From
his correspondence with his confessor, Johann von Staupitz (1465 –1524), we
know that Luther, while a monk in Erfurt, tried to detect so many sins in himself
and confess them that he became a burden to this father confessor, who started
doubting whether these “sins” were actually sins. Today, experiences of this kind
are familiar only to people in certain religious milieus; it is not behavior typical
for the current piety of the majority of Christians. The image of God as a stern
judge ruling sovereignly like an absolute monarch, a notion adhered to exaggeratedly during the Middle Ages and not entirely left behind by the Reformation
movement, is also one which has become deeply questionable for us today. This
one-sided image corresponds neither with what Jesus of Nazareth taught about
his Father nor with what many passages of the Old Testament proclaim about
the God of Israel.
Of continuing relevance for today, however, are the self-critical remarks which
Martin Luther made when contemplating his own life path and realizing that his
struggle for salvation had been marked by pure self-centeredness. He became
keenly aware that what mattered to him ultimately when he was confessing was
not God, but rather himself and his personal salvation. And he also realized that
his notion that he was capable of presenting an acceptable religious achievement
before God’s judgment throne, implied the presumption that he was equal to
God — as if two parties with co­-equal status would negotiate with one another
before an imaginary third party, discussing mutual demands upon each other. Yet
as a monk rooted in the tradition of Augustine of Hippo, the church father of late
Antiquity, Luther knew that human beings preferred being like God, rather than
acknowledge that they stumble their way through flawed lives. Therefore, it soon
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Justification and Freedom
became clear to him that he would never be able to lead a life of perfection and
could not avoid infringing God’s commandments in thoughts, words or works. In
the preface to the Latin edition of his complete works of 1545, Luther, while not
necessarily giving us an accurate autobiographical report on the development of
his personal faith, did bequeath us an impressive reflection on what was theologically uppermost in his mind at the time. According to his account, once he
became conscious of the fact that he had been vainly chasing after satisfactory
religious achievement, he was overcome by existential despair. But reading the
Bible, especially the epistles of Paul, opened him a way out of this dead end. One
verse from Paul’s letter to the Romans assumed particular importance for him:
“The righteousness of God is revealed therein” (i. e. in the gospel) (Romans 1: 17).
In his preface, Luther describes how he discovered that human effort does not
earn men and women an entitlement to salvation before God. Rather, God
approaches sinners out of grace: “For we hold that a person is justified by faith
apart from works prescribed by the law” (Romans 3: 28).
We can still understand what this means today if we consider the expression
“mercy before justice”. A person who is due to be condemned according to the
law can hope for clemency or a pardon. This is the case, for example, in Germany,
when the Federal President or those with analogous authority in the federal
states exercise their right to grant pardons and remit punishments before these
are consummated. We are thus very well acquainted even today with forms of
forgiveness “by grace alone and apart from works prescribed by the law”, even if
they might seem like anachronisms in our legal system. The key insight for Martin Luther was that this grace is offered through Jesus Christ to all who believe
in him. It is precisely when humans acknowledge that they are incapable in
themselves of leading a life of perfection in accordance with God’s commandments that they can place their trust completely in Jesus Christ. Luther calls this
experience “justification by faith alone”. The good news, or gospel, resides in the
fact that a person trusting in Jesus Christ is already justified. Luther describes
this phenomenon over and over again as a comforting, heartening and joyful
experience of being liberated from the fear of purgatory and hell. And empowered
by this freedom, men and women will make every possible effort to live as God
commands them out of their free accord, always keeping in mind that they will
never quite succeed in this endeavor.
This theological insight is not the only one in which Luther described what it was
that turned him into a “Reformer”. But all these personal testimonies have one
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1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
thing in common: in all of them — as in those given by Augustine, the patron of
Luther’s monastic order — biblical texts save from deep existential despair and
give certainty over the gift of God’s grace which “transforms our entire minds”.
What can this mean for people of the twenty-first century, who fear not so much
a hell after death as the hell on earth which human beings represent to one
another all too often (Jean-Paul Sartre)? In order that people within the churches can experience justification as something freshly plausible, it is worth
approaching the meaning of Luther’s doctrine of justification with the help of
four concepts commonly used today: the concepts of “love”, “recognition and
appreciation”, “forgiveness” and “freedom”.
Love is the first of these concepts. To be loved is a thrilling experience. When
things go well, we are loved by others in spite of our shortcomings and despite
making mistakes. To feel the radiance of this love shining upon us, apparently
undeservedly, yet unfailingly and reliably, puts a smile on the face of all who
experience this. We do not necessarily understand it, but it carries us and buoys
us up. Children experience something quite similar. The German author Martin
Brussig, overwhelmed by the affection he felt for his small son, once said his love
was so great that he would love him even if his son should one day become a
dangerous criminal. Perhaps we should bear this in mind when Christians call
themselves “children of God”. The love of a mother or a father may be capable of
withstanding the souring of relationships or the hurt caused by serious wrongdoing on the part of the child, yet God’s love for human beings is all the more
stronger and enduring. If we ponder the fact that God loves human beings passionately despite our being fraught with so many flaws and failings, this elicits
more than a fleeting smile. This realization results in love of life, in happiness,
and in an attitude of gratitude. We can praise and thank God for this, and we can
share this joy with other people — this is why people gather to worship God, in
order to join in presenting him with praise and thanksgiving.
Two further concepts capable of translating Luther’s experience are recognition
and appreciation: each and every one of us is in existential need of being recognized and respected as a person. People, however, rarely experience recognition
in their interpersonal relationships, although they do not have to do anything for
it and can receive it unmeritedly — perhaps it is seldom precisely for this reason.
Where it nevertheless occurs, a deep relationship ensues. When someone is
accepted and recognized by God, and this is made known to him or her, this
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Justification and Freedom
realization can be existentially moving: “I have been accepted, even though I
didn’t deserve it.” Just like that. A gift! Put theologically: by grace. “Because God
regards you, you are a highly regarded person” — this play on words is occasionally used to describe the effect of justification. A person’s response to this acceptance and recognition is to place their trust in God, to believe in him. This second
attempt to translate Luther’s experience of justification may also be pursued with
the help of the concept of appreciation. “Appreciation” and “recognition” are two
concepts with by and large the same content, but which are often distinguished
in day-to-day speech and are used in different contexts. “Nobody appreciates the
effort I put into my work!”: this sentence describes an everyday experience. But
the opposite can also be true for the daily experience of many people: “In appreciation of your merits we hereby confer upon you …” To be appreciated means
that respect is bestowed upon a person by other persons. Among human beings,
appreciation is usually not shown if there is not a prior action meriting it. When
Gott appreciates human beings undeservedly and without preconditions, he
shows in this way his attitude towards his creatures. An expression of this appreciation (Würdigung) by God is the inviolability of human dignity (Würde) that we
also find affirmed in the first article of the constitution of the ideologically neutral German state. This dignity is affirmed in full awareness that it is flouted again
and again in actual practice, be it through violence, neglect, deception, discrimination or injustice. God’s promise, on the other hand, remains unswerving.
A third possible way of approaching the classical concept of justification with a
concept commonly used today is with the word forgiveness. When two people
have a quarrel, they’ll often make up with a vow to “forgive and forget”. This
expression from everyday speech makes it evident that their relationship had
been burdened by guilt and that this guilt no longer exists or at least is no
longer a dividing factor between the two. The use of the word “forgiveness” in
everyday speech shows that even people whose vocabulary does not include the
word “guilt” nevertheless have an awareness of the phenomenon of guilt. Many
experience an existential need for forgiveness, even if they do not verbalize it.
Especially the generation that witnessed the Second World War knows from its
own painful experience that there is a guilt which human beings are hardly
capable of forgiving or may not be able to forgive at all. God forgives guilt which
surpasses our human capacity or willingness to forgive. He does not forgive by
forgetting and getting back to business as usual, as if nothing had happened. He
forgives by bestowing his love upon men and women who put awareness of their
guilt into words, and he loves them as fallen human beings whom he wants to
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1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
be close to. Forgiveness means that the guilt separating people from one another and separating human beings from God is, so to speak, removed and put aside,
but not forgotten. It is forgiven guilt.
A fourth attempt to translate the experience of justification into the present has
its roots in texts as old as the Reformation itself: because justification liberates
people, it can be explained with the keyword freedom. At a time when political
freedom is taken practically for granted, at least in our country, many people
nevertheless feel a burning desire for greater freedom from economic and social
constraints. At the same time, men and women in many other regions of the
world are fighting to obtain the fundamental political freedoms which Germany
was able to attain, with great hardship, through the revolutions and upheavals
of 1848, 1918, 1945 and 1989. Men and women everywhere wish to be free, but
most of them must face disappointment in this endeavor and run into painful,
unsurmountable obstacles. This makes instances in which freedom is experienced
as a gift all the more precious, e.g. when a generous person gives us freedom
from an obligation, freedom from a financial debt, or even freedom from our own
limitations. When freedom is given to us in this way, an entirely different, new
life suddenly becomes possible. Justification means comprehensive freedom — a
freedom that redeems us from our self-centeredness. We no longer are obsessed
with ourselves, but are free for our free for our “neighbor” and for the community. This understanding of freedom as having a direct bearing upon the relationship to our neighbor cannot be harmonized with the generally accepted misunderstanding of freedom as ending all obligations, but it is not radically different
from the modern secular understanding of freedom. This fourth concept, just like
the other three studied previously, makes it also possible to articulate aspects of
the doctrine of justification in a way that makes it relevant for people who have
a distant relationship to Christianity.
There is one more thing all four of these approaches to Luther’s doctrine of
justification have in common: in them, people are not measured according to
how they appear to the outside word or represent themselves personally, but are
loved, accepted, and appreciated by God quite regardless of their education,
income, social background or societal prestige. It is this recognition and appreciation by God that makes human beings truly free. They are no longer burdened
with guilt. Not that this guilt has been simply forgotten, but — having been confessed — it is now forgiven, and thus overcome. These fundamental insights can
also be conveyed to people who do not have a Christian background, since they
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Justification and Freedom
are insights of immediate social, cultural and political import. From the beginning,
God turns to turns to people and devotes his attention to them regardless of
what they do or think. This devotion makes it possible for a society to deal with
guilt honestly and for all its people to live together in a way that is worthy of
men and women.
1.2 The Reformation — an open-ended “learning history”
In the present world, so pervaded by economic rationalism, Luther’s liberating
experience can also be described with a vocabulary of economics curiously familiar to us, and at the same time already present in late medieval theology: even
though human beings inevitably end up “operating in the red” again and again,
God does not demand that they manage, through their own efforts, to “end their
balance in the black”. Nothing which people do, think or plan of their own accord
can succeed in “balancing the books” of an entire life, for even the best of their
efforts are carried out or intended ultimately for egotistical reasons or primarily
out of self-interest. The “overall balance”, however, can show a “surplus” because
believers by virtue of their baptism find themselves implanted, as children of God,
within the sphere of God’s blessing and his loving attention, and can “no longer
fall out” of its caring grasp (Augustine). The believer’s response to this liberating
experience is faith. But this response of the believer is also a gift of the Holy
Spirit.
The Reformation is not an event long since completed and closed, but a process
of renewal that continues to this very day. Indeed, a profusion of theological
insights and institutional forms conceived in the spirit of the Reformation have
emerged since the sixteenth century. This is known as the “learning history” of
the Reformation. It was and continues to be possible to gain ever new insights
into the Reformation teachings of the past, because individual Reformers put
enormous emphasis on what we today call “education”: Philipp Melanchthon not
only passionately loved teaching, he also dedicated himself to the task of reforming universities and schools, thus earning the title “teacher of Germany”. Ulrich
Zwingli not only learned Greek, intent on reading the New Testament in Erasmus
of Rotterdam’s new edition of the original text; he also owned a private library
of over a hundred books — an impressive number by the standards of his
time — and in 1510 he founded a Latin school in his Glarus parish. Especially the
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1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
Reformed confessional wing of the churches that issued from the Reformation
created a wide range of institutions devoted to education at a congregational
and a church-wide level, such as the Zurich Prophezey or the College of Geneva.
Because the message of the Reformation is so profoundly intertwined with people’s existential experiences and concerns, education in the Reformation tradition
was never reduced to merely acquainting young people with biblical texts and
with their Reformation interpretation. Instead, it meant — and continues to
mean — interpreting the Reformation with a view to the present. This is how the
new insights emerged which, from the sixteenth century onwards, constitute the
“learning history” of the Reformation, and this is also how new insights continue to emerge. This means, therefore, that a church shaped by the Reformation
will always assign education a privileged place, without this necessarily implying
that we need to structure church events like university seminars. Furthermore,
churches standing in the tradition of the Reformation will always champion
education in the societies in which they live.
Education and a “thinking faith” (Carl Heinz Ratschow) encouraged by education
are and will remain a key Reformation priority; fundamentalism of any kind is
profoundly inimical to this objective concern. The Roman poet Horace’s imperative
sapere aude, “dare to know”, much repeated in the Königsberg Enlightenment of
the eighteenth century, describes a genuinely Protestant concern: the Reformation
wants to lead to an educated faith. It intends a faith that wishes to understand
and is allowed to ask critical questions. This also applies to the charter of the
Christian faith, the Bible. Because of this, the modern tendency to strengthen the
rights of the individual has also, through the contribution of the Reformation,
found a home in the church. The Reformation thus forms part of the history of
modern freedom.
This is illustrated by the way in which the scriptural principle of the Reformation
underwent transformation in the modern period: Whereas from the very beginning of the movement, one and the same passage of Scripture elicited slightly
differing interpretations from exegetes within the single network of Reformation
theologians, today we have a pluralism of exegetical methods that leads to an
incomparably greater diversity of interpretations of individual biblical passages
and, accordingly, assigns greater significance to the individual interpreter of the
Bible: whoever sets out to interpret biblical texts today can fall back on a legiti-
23
Justification and Freedom
mate variety of exegetical methods and is no longer bound by the constraints
imposed by the specific form of historical philology which emerged in the early
modern period and ripened in the course of the nineteenth century.
The accusation occasionally levelled that the churches and the theology which
emerged from the Reformation are in their entirety the products of an essentially flawed modern tendency towards ever greater individualism is not true:
even though, according to Reformation theology, the church cannot be a mediator of salvation, Christianity remains inconceivable without community. Key
theological decisions in the Evangelical church are not made by adding up individuals in a purely mathematical manner, but rather by virtue of the so-called
great consensus (magnus consensus), trusting on the basis of the scriptural principle of the Reformation that God through his Holy Spirit will inspire the church
with the correct interpretation of his biblical words — and that he will consequently lead the church to a harmonious unity of its discordant voices and not
to a disharmonious polyphony of individuals.
The “learning history” of the Reformation can be illustrated by the following four
examples, which also make evident that in many cases it is still unfinished:
■■ The churches and the theology that emerged from the Reformation have
learned to overcome the challenges posed by the division into differing confessions and have learned to think ecumenically: The Reformation movement
split into different confessional churches. At the same time, the institutional
unity of the Western Church, already quite diverse, fell apart irreparably; responsibility for this break-up cannot be attributed to just one of the conflict
parties. Historical reflection on the wars of confession, which left such deep
scars on the face of early modern Europe, demonstrates that reconciliation
between differing religious viewpoints is not only necessary, but also possible.
The sixteenth century is, unfortunately, well acquainted with instances of failure: during the 1529 Marburg Colloquy, a final understanding could not be
reached between the representatives of the Swiss Reformation — Zwingli and
his entourage — and those of the Central German Reformation — Luther and
his followers — on the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, although both
sides officially confirmed they had much in common in other issues. Later on,
Luther’s and Calvin’s heirs also were apparently unable to come to a complete
concord capable of preserving church unity, although their views were closer
to each other than those of Zwingli and Luther. It was not until 1973 that the
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1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
European churches standing in the tradition of the Reformation declared in
the “Leuenberg Agreement” on the basis of their common understanding of
the gospel that they recognize one another as churches and can also celebrate
the Lord’s Supper with one another, even if differences in theological interpretation remain. Notwithstanding this concord, those committed to the tradition of the Reformation must continue to assume the task of overcoming
divisions. Such divisions persist in particular with regard to the Roman-Catholic Church. While it was possible to engage in a common formulation of the
doctrine of justification with this church, differences on the church ministry
and the sacraments continue to exist which preclude church unity. Divisions
persist as well with regard to the Mennonites, the spiritual heirs of the Anabaptists, who were persecuted in word and deed by the churches of the Reformation; in July of 2010, a worship service of repentance was celebrated
jointly with this church. Of course, ecumenical dialogue with the Anglican and
Orthodox churches also forms part of this larger task.
■■ The churches and the theology that emerged from the Reformation still need
to continue learning how to deal, in the spirit of the Reformation, with the
challenges posed by de-Christianization and atheism: For quite some time,
the world has been caught in the throes of an unprecedented wave of deChristianization that would have surpassed the Reformers’ wildest dreams — a
phenomenon, also known as “secularization”, that has ensued in spite of a
simultaneous upsurge in new and more intensive forms of religiosity. Many
men and women live without having God as a point of reference and do not
seem to be regretting his absence. All of seven percent of the inhabitants of
Luther’s hometown, Eisleben in Thuringia, are members of a church. In a situation like this, the church cannot simply sit and wait for a multitude of people
to show up for worship at 10: 00 a.m. on Sunday morning. Everything about
worship has become foreign to many — its ritual, the songs sung, the prayers
prayed, the Bible readings read. In this case, given the continuing importance
of tradition, innovation is called for. What does it mean at times like this to be
eloquent in matters of faith like Luther was? What structures should a church
assume if it wants to bring the liberating gospel to people? A whole series of
answers to these questions have been formulated and tested in the past years.
For example, worship services “in plain language” are being held, and in other
instances, an overall structure, in which the church expects people “to come
to church” is being replaced with a structure in which the church “goes out”
to where the people are. Particularly in eastern Germany, numerous new Evan25
Justification and Freedom
gelical day-care centers and schools of different types have been founded
since German reunification; the new media are also being used as natural
means for the spread of the gospel. To be sure, we must keep in mind clearly
in the midst of all of this that the Spirit operates where it chooses, and — as
Luther put it so pithily and pointedly — as unexpectedly as a “wandering cloudburst”. Structures alone do not guarantee anything.
■■ The churches and the theology that emerged from the Reformation still need
to continue learning that gender justice is genuinely attune with the gospel
and that gender hierarchies must therefore be resolutely dismantled: Historically, the point of departure for this development was a renewed reflection on
the office of church ministry and on the question whether women could be
ordained as pastors. An understanding of the office of the ministry that is
rooted in the Reformation clearly needs to heed Luther’s insight: “Whoever
comes out of the water of baptism can boast that he is already a consecrated
priest, bishop, and pope.”6 Luther realized that in the church, there cannot be
a consecrated priesthood endowed with an indelible sacramental character
which sets the priests apart from the laypeople in order that they may presumably represent Christ before the congregation. This realization must be interpreted against the backdrop of Paul’s theology: “There is no longer Jew or
Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for
all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3: 28). But it was not until centuries later, after the lessons learned in the twentieth century and its emancipation movements, that this led to the insight that women are also entitled to
assume all church offices. Further late achievements made possible by the
insights of the Reformation are also the ordination of women and the fellowship on equal footing of ordained and non-ordained Christians at all levels of
church leadership.
■■ The churches and the theology that emerged from the Reformation must still
learn that dialogue between religions is an unfinished task to which Reformation theology genuinely calls us: The ghastly crime of the destruction of European Jews in the twentieth century led to a belated reconsideration of Christianity’s relationship to Judaism, now understood as the root that enduringly
sustains the church’s relation to God. Today, the church is called to carry out
6 Martin Luther, “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation” (1520), Luther’s Works, vol. 44, p. 129
(= WA 6, p. 408,11 f.).
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1 Introduction: the Reformation then and now
religious dialogue with Islam in particular, which at the time of the Reformation was identified with the Turks who were threatening the borders of the
Holy Roman Empire and were thus perceived in a way that was anything but
nuanced. Bringing the classical Reformation principle of solus Christus, “Christ
alone”, to bear in such a way that peaceful co-existence is not jeopardized,
remains a controversial issue. The special significance of Judaism (see p. 15
above) in the general dialogue of religions may under no circumstances be
brushed aside.
These four examples clearly show that the Reformation is a continuing event,
and not a closed chapter. As a movement initiated by God and communicated
through biblical texts, it ultimately eludes our capacity to dispose of it and control it. Because of this, a thorough knowledge of the concrete issues upon which
the sixteenth–century Reformation focused is just as indispensable for any process of church renewal as is the continual consultation of Scripture.
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2 The core issues of Reformation theology
In the following, we shall once again take a careful look at the core issues of
Reformation theology, subjecting them to a detailed theological analysis on the
basis of five classical formulations, which in their Latin versions all begin with
the particle solus, “alone”. We will begin by examining more closely the doctrine
of justification as the key tenet of the Reformation, a doctrine which in the
previous section was paraphrased with four concepts from day-to-day speech
(love, recognition and appreciation, forgiveness, and freedom).
2.1 The concept of justification — the key to the Reformation
“Justification” is a concept which we still use today. We say things like: “This
verdict was justified” or “he can justify his behavior”. We say this in order to
express the fact that something — in spite of any misgivings or questions — is in
order, that it is right. As far as our own behavior is concerned, we try to justify
why we did something or refrained from doing it. But we can also seek to justify what others did or did not do. The issue at stake is always the justification
of somebody before an authority that is exercising judgment, e.g. before a court,
before another person, or before ourselves. The notion of justification indicates
that we have to account for our action or non-action.
But we ourselves also pass judgment: we say “that’s unjustified!” or “your behavior is unjustifiable.” By this we mean that there are not enough reasons for a
disputed issue to be deemed as right. Thus, in our day-to-day world, the process
of justification has only achieved its goal when people succeed in demonstrating
that their actions were appropriate and right, or if one can recognize by some
other means that they were in the right with their action or non-action.
The Reformation doctrine of justification undercuts the logic according to which
only those who are in the right are justified. The justification doctrine proceeds
on the assumption that in one central respect human beings are incapable of
justifying themselves and do not need to justify themselves: before God they
cannot and need not justify themselves. Nevertheless, they are indeed “justified”
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2 The core issues of Reformation theology
by God, not because they in themselves are in the right, but because they are
justified by grace. “Justified by grace” means: I am loved in spite of everything
about me that is not lovable; I am accepted, in spite of being unacceptable. The
concepts “loved”, “accepted” bring home the message: this is not a seal of approval which God bestows upon believers through justification. It is about an entirely new relationship created by God and sustained faithfully by him. God wants
to have fellowship with every human being, regardless of how this person has
behaved towards God, towards other people, and towards himself. And the words
“in spite of” and “regardless” clearly indicate: through justification God does not
confirm something that is already the case; he does not recognize human beings
because they deserve recognition. God’s love towards human beings and his
acceptance of them is not a reaction to what is lovable and acceptable about
them. It goes much deeper, addressing the entire person, even in his brokenness
and self-centeredness. It is what the Reformers meant when they said: God
justifies the sinner.
The Reformers’ doctrine of justification took on its specific contours by wrestling
with the texts of the Bible, especially with the theology of Paul. The verse from
the Epistle to the Romans “For we hold that a person is justified apart from works
prescribed by the law, alone by faith”7 (Romans 3: 28) became for them the key,
enabling them to understand the meaning of justification from a Christian perspective.
The Reformers were convinced that being “justified” by God can fundamentally
alter every single person’s perspective on life. “Justification” by God is thus not
an extra-ordinary theological hypothesis, but provides the bedrock for a life comforted, healed, and borne by God. Therefor, the issue of justification is “the main
hinge on which our worship of God turns — reason enough to devote the greatest attention and care to it!”8
The extent to which our justification by God is something which tangibly affects
and helps our lives will be illustrated in the following pages. For this purpose, it
is recommendable that we orient ourselves by the so-called “exclusive particles”:
7This rendering of Rom 3: 28 is based on Luther’s German formulation: “So halten wir nun dafür, dass der
Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben.”
8Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion III,11,1. Translation based on: John Calvin: Institutes of Christian
Religion, ed. by John T. McNeill, transl. by Ford Lewis Battles, Louisville, KY/London 22006, vol. 1, p. 726.
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solus Christus — “Christ alone”, sola gratia — “by grace alone”, solo verbo — “through
the word alone”, sola scriptura — “through Scripture alone”, sola fide — “by faith
alone”. All five concepts aim towards soli Deo gloria — to God alone be the glory.
In terms of their content, they describe core elements of the doctrine of justification. The word “alone” emphasizes each key element in a exclusive way. The
expression “by / through (something) alone” thus here always implies “not
by / through (something else) …” Through their exclusivity, these particles express
the evangelical understanding of justification in a nutshell.
These key statements, which in their Latin versions begin with the particle solus
and in English conclude with “alone”, did not emerge in this elaborate four- and
five-part form until the nineteenth century. Yet, they are based on texts of the
sixteenth century.9 A scholarly analysis of how the three-part summaries of Reformation theology from the sixteenth century relate exactly to the later forms,
consisting of four or five parts, has yet to be carried out. One should remember,
however, that these, at any rate, are structural models not created by the first
generation of Reformation theologians. Therefore, their exact chronology is not
of significance for us at this point. In the following, we shall present the theology of the Reformation by way of five core issues, thus emphasizing, as the
Reformers did, the significance of the orally preached word of the Bible.
In terms of their content, all of these formulas of exclusion deal with the relationship between God and human beings. They define this relationship more precisely by making statements about God, about people, and about the relationship
between God and people. They state what God has already done for this relationship. And they point out what the people, for their part, have to do and what they
merely have to allow to occur. Taken as a whole, they reveal clearly that the
relationship between God and believers rests fundamentally upon God’s love
toward human beings. It is not human beings who must undertake the effort to
approach God. God has already approached them. We can rely on this.
9
Formula Concordiae. Solida Declaratio III, in: Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche
(BSLK), herausgegeben im Gedenkjahr der Augsburger Konfession 1930, Göttingen 111992, p. 927, 26 – 30:
ex mera gratia, propter solum Christi meritum, … et sola fide … A formulation preceding this Concord can be
found in: Tilemann Heshusius (1527 –1588), Explicatio Prioris Epistolae Pauli ad Corinthios, Jena 1573,
135v–136r: Sola enim gratia Dei, solum meritum Iesu Christi, & sola fides necessaria est ad salutem.
(retrievable under http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11116437_00005.html
[January 7, 2014].) — Information provided by Johann Anselm Steiger, Hamburg.
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2 The core issues of Reformation theology
2.2 Solus Christus — Christ alone
2.2.1 Theological keynote — we are no longer separated from God
Belief in Jesus Christ has been a defining characteristic of Christianity from its
very beginnings. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ is a Christian. In the meaning
it ascribed to this confession of faith, the Reformation was no different from any
other period of Christian history. Yet what is the specific meaning of Christ for
Christianity?
Christianity began two thousand years ago with faith in Jesus Christ. The men
and women who became disciples of Jesus lived with him and heard from him
that God was near to them. In fact, Jesus told them that in his own person, God
was present in a special way. By encountering Jesus, people were able to experience that God, the healer, was there.
Jesus’ death, his wretched end on the cross, seemed to call into question the
assumption that in him God was close to human beings. Someone who died on
the cross, thus suffering a form of death which, in ancient times, was considered
particularly humiliating, could not be a man of God; on the contrary, he had to
be someone forsaken by God. Jesus’ death on the cross brought to an end his
disciples’ confidence that God was close to them in his person. By all appearances, Jesus had been wrong with his message.
But then, something unexpected happened. The texts of the New Testament
describe the experience that Jesus’ disciples went through: “The man whom we
knew to be dead — is alive! And we encounter him personally even now, not just
in his ideas about God or in our memories of him. We encounter him in a living,
direct way.” The men and women who followed Jesus described these encounters
as encounters with the risen Christ. They started telling others: “He was dead, but
God has raised him from the dead.” And this also meant: his message that God
was present in his person in a special way had not been wrong after all. He had
not unjustly evoked God, but rather, God confirmed Jesus’ claims by raising him
from the dead. Through Jesus, God had indeed come near to people in a special
way. Jesus was and is the Christ, the promised messiah. He was right in calling
God his Father; he is indeed the Son of God.
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Justification and Freedom
Their encounters with the risen Christ led Jesus’ disciples to see the cross in a
new light. It was evidently not a place that exemplified God’s remoteness, as had
appeared originally, but rather one which embodied God’s proximity to his people
in a special way. If God is particularly near to us in this person, then he is also
close to us in this person’s suffering and dying, and in his death. Suffering, dying,
and death must now be understood as places in which God refuses to part from
us. It thus became clear that in Jesus Christ, God threw in his lot with us so
unconditionally that he removed everything which separated us from himself.
Early Christians interpreted human sin particularly in terms of how far people
had strayed from God, they saw it as a disrupted relationship with God, and they
thought of death as a place of permanent separation from God. Because of this,
they proclaimed: in Christ, God has acted for the salvation of humanity; he has
removed sin and death — which had separated us from God — once and for all.
The texts of the New Testament testify to the conviction that God’s salvific action
in Jesus Christ is intended for all human beings. One need not belong to the
People of God of the Old Testament, neither does one need to be circumcised or
keep the food laws. When acting in Jesus Christ, God sought to benefit all people.
With the formula solus Christus, the Reformers wished to remind us of Jesus
Christ’s unique significance and his exclusiveness. It is because God acted comprehensively in Jesus Christ and had all human beings in mind when doing so
that we say “Christ alone”. Luther emphasizes: Jesus Christ alone is the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world. Calvin confesses: “Our whole salvation
and all its parts are comprehended in Christ alone.”10 And the first question of
the Heidelberg Catechism reads: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?
That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong
to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”11
Yet is there not something presumptuous about this exclusivity of Jesus Christ?
Can we make such claims publicly and thus dispute alternative religious grounds
for seeking a life of salvation? Today, in a situation of religious pluralism, a position like this one appears arrogant and excluding of others. Before we examine
10Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II,16,19. Translation based on: John Calvin: Institutes of Christian
Religion, ed. by John T. McNeill, transl. by Ford Lewis Battles, Louisville, KY/ London 22006, vol. 1, p. 527.
11The Heidelberg Catechism, Modern English Version (2011), Reformed Church in the United States (retrievable
under: http://rcus.org/rcuswp/heidelberg-catechism-2011/).
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2 The core issues of Reformation theology
this crucial question more carefully, we shall first expound more exactly to which
questions and conflicts the formula solus Christus responded at the time of the
Reformers.
2.2.2 Where is God found unambiguously? — in Christ alone
Human beings inquire after God. They inquire after the foundation and purpose
of their existence. They seek something that gives them a sense of being held, a
feeling of orientation. The Reformers were convinced that human beings were
incapable of knowing God on their own. “Furthermore, we know just as little what
God is from ourselves than a beetle knows what a human being is.”12 But how
can human beings then know something about God?
The Reformers assumed that merely contemplating this world already gave us
knowledge of the existence of God. They were convinced that deep down, every
person had some inkling of God. But the Reformers were also aware that the
course of world affairs was ambiguous. Some of the things that happen in the
world make it easy for one to believe in a loving, good God. If one, upon getting
up in the morning, can look forward to the day ahead, then it’s easy to have a
faith of this kind. Other things, however — such as natural disasters and the
cruelties which human beings inflict upon one another — make it unbearably
difficult, even impossible to believe in a good and loving God. When such things
happen, some people think that God is punishing them or has turned his back on
them. God appears to remain silent, perhaps not even to exist. At the time of the
Reformation, what tested people’s confidence in the future were diseases and
wars that seemed to be auguring the end times. Where can people find an indication of how God stands with regard to them? The Reformers had an answer to
this question: in Jesus Christ. By looking at Jesus Christ, people can see into God’s
heart; he is the “mirror of the paternal heart”13. In Jesus’ interactions with his
contemporaries and in his self-surrender on the cross, God was turning to
humankind and bestowing his loving attention upon them. In Christ we recognize
that God loves every person and will never abandon them.
12Ulrich Zwingli, De vera et falsa religione commentarius (“Commentary on True and False Religion”),
in: Zwingli: Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Emil Egli, Georg Finsler, Walther Köhler, Vol. III, Leipzig 1914, p. 643,1 f.
13Martin Luther, “The Large Catechism”: The Apostles’ Creed, Article III (= Der große Katechismus, in; BSLK,
p. 660,42) (I quoted from the online English version: http://bookofconcord.org/lc-4-creed.php).
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Justification and Freedom
The relationship between God and his people is thus constituted anew in Jesus
Christ. The Reformers describe this by saying that in the process of justification
the sinner is imputed with Christ’s righteousness. This implies, first of all, the
assessment that human beings do not and cannot meet God’s standards of righteousness; in fact, they contravene them constantly in the way they behave
towards God and their fellow human beings. But God’s righteousness does not
consist of punishing us for this, but rather of crediting us with the righteousness
that Jesus lived up to in his life and death. God’s righteousness consists of imputing human beings with Christ’s righteousness and of beholding believers solely
from the perspective of the Christ event. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness
means the forgiveness of sins.
In order for people to realize this, they must hear about Jesus Christ. The church
cannot busy itself with trifling matters, but must recount the story of the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the reason for which the church
exists. Every person should be able to hear the Christ story. The church, however,
should not succumb to the illusion that it is capable of administering and supervising Christ’s work of salvation: “Any true Christian, whether living or dead,
participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him
by God, even without indulgence letters.”14
2.2.3 In whom should a person believe? — in Christ alone
One of the key targets of Reformation criticism was the late medieval veneration
of the saints and the Virgin Mary. For every kind of hardship there was a specific saint to whom one prayed; Mary’s help was urgently sought after as well,
for it was easier to entrust one’s worries to her motherly care than to a distant
God. It was assumed that the saints’ and Mary’s merits and intercession would
help people become partakers of God’s grace. The veneration of Christ and God
assumed a comparatively less important role: “In the same way, a few centuries
ago the saints who had departed this life were elevated into copartnership with
God, to be honored, and also to be invoked and praised in his stead.”15
14Thesis 37 from “Ninety-Five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”,
Luther’s Works, vol. 31, p. 25 (= Martin Luther, Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum /
Disputation zur Klärung der Kraft der Ablässe [95 Thesen], WA 1, p. 235, 9 –11).
15Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I,12,1. Translation based on: John Calvin: Institutes of
Christian Religion, ed. by John T. McNeill, transl. by Ford Lewis Battles, Louisville, KY/London 22006,
vol. 1, p. 118.
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2 The core issues of Reformation theology
The Reformers criticized this invocation of other mediators between believers and
God. Since salvation had been attained sufficiently through Christ alone, any
other mediators of salvation were expressly ruled out. The Reformers also rejected the notion, common at the time, of a “treasure of the church”, a repository
collecting the merits of Christ and the saints, and out of which the church could
grant dispensations to sinners, which were imputed to them in the form of good
works or penitence — this lay at the heart of the system of indulgences, the critique of which marked the beginning of the Reformation. “The true treasure of
the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.”16 Not a single
human being, not even one of those whom we call saints, is capable of sufficiently fulfilling God’s commandments. They are just as much sinners as everybody else. Therefore, one may not pray to them or entreat their aid. We can place
our faith only in God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ: “One cannot
prove through Scripture, however, that one should invoke the saints or seek help
from them. ‘For there is one only reconciler and mediator between God and man,
Jesus Christ’, who is the sole Savior, the only High Priest, Mercy Seat and Intercessor before God … And the highest worship according to the Scripture is to seek
and call on this Jesus Christ from the heart in every necessity and affliction.”17
2.2.4 Current challenges
2.2.4.1 Challenges from within the church — to proclaim Christ
Jesus Christ stands at the center of the Christian faith. Jesus of Nazareth is not
a theological concept, but a historical person in whom Christians believe in a
special way — in fact, as the Christ. Belief in this person must be communicated.
One can only believe in Christ if one has heard of him. However, it is only in the
Christian church that one will hear about him in detail. The church preserves the
memory of, and faith in Jesus Christ; it passes on the story of his life and death.
The church is there to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people by word
and deed. They cannot, after all, make it known to themselves.
In this case, the church faces the following challenge from within: how can the
church be shaped in such a way that Jesus is actually spoken of as the Christ
16Thesis 62 from “Ninety-Five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”,
Luther’s Works, vol. 31, p. 31 (= Martin Luther, Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum/
Martin Luther, Disputation zur Klärung der Kraft der Ablässe [95 Thesen], WA 1, p. 236, 20 f.).
17Translation based on the German version of Art. 21 of the Augsburg Confession in: BSLK, p. 83 b – 83 c.
See also: Philip Schaff (ed.), The Creeds of Christendom, New York 61919, vol. 3, p. 26 as well as
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iii.ii.html.
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Justification and Freedom
within its walls, i.e. as the one in whose person, word and ministry God is present
as nowhere else? This does not mean that Jesus Christ needs to be mentioned in
every sentence of a sermon or in every church event. But if the church does not
refer to, and take its bearings from Jesus Christ as the place in which God, as
Christians understand it, revealed himself in a special way, it will not endure.
2.2.4.2 Challenges from society — to encounter one another honestly
Given the secularization of our society, it might not seem very helpful for the
church to focus on Jesus Christ. Should it not be enough for people to believe in
something, such as some higher power or some sort of “God”? If the church
preaches Jesus Christ, does it not risk obliterating existing faith by demanding a
theological focus? To be sure, a faith that truly provides sustenance for our lives
always assumes a specific form. A vague faith in “some higher power” only helps
vaguely. The church should not feel ashamed of expressing its specific faith. It is
precisely in doing so that it can help people develop a faith of their own that is
so concrete that it can help and provide sustenance in concrete situations.
In a multireligious society in which interfaith understanding is an obvious necessity, the orientation of the Christian faith toward Jesus Christ appears to be an
obstacle to interreligious dialogue. Christ, after all, does not have the same crucial importance for other religions that he has for Christianity. Some people ask
themselves: might it not be better to refrain from speaking about Christ when
involved in interreligious dialogue, seeking religious common ground instead?
But interreligious dialogue cannot function if one side hides its idiosyncrasies
and does not reveal itself as what it actually is. It is only when the dialogue
partners encounter one another authentically and honestly that interreligious
dialogue can take place: “Just as I hold my convictions to be true, my counterpart
has the right to hold his convictions to be true — and vice versa.” The challenge
resides in speaking about Christ in such a way that one does not denigrate somebody else’s faith or disqualify it as false. Just as Christians draw their only comfort in life and in death from belonging to Christ, in the same way the followers
of other religions draw sustenance from their own specific faith. Both sides of a
dialogue should be willing to acknowledge this.
36
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
2.3 Sola gratia — by grace alone
2.3.1 Theological keynote — God bends down to be near to us
The foundational insight of the Reformers was that God turns towards human
beings in Jesus Christ out of grace alone. Historically, the word “grace” in the
English language also included the meanings of “clemency”, “pardon” or “forgiveness.” For example, if a prisoner obtained a monarch’s “grace”, he was freed, even
though he could not undo the wrong he had committed. Whoever asked for
“grace” was hoping that the authorities would not mete out the punishment he
deserved.18
In emphasizing grace, the Reformers followed the church father Augustine, who
had been the first to develop a detailed doctrine of grace. His key tenet was: grace
is only “grace” when God does not owe it to us in response to our merits, but
rather bestows it upon us undeservingly. For us human beings this means: we
cannot by way of any special deeds or any specific behavior, be it towards God
or our fellow human beings, make God devote his attention to us and confer his
forgiveness upon us. We cannot force God to grant us eternal life. The Heidelberg
Catechism responds to question 21 “what is true faith?” entirely along these lines:
“True faith is not only a sure knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has
revealed to us in his word, but also a hearty trust (Rom. 4: 16 –18; 5:1) which the
Holy Spirit works in me by the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also,
forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by
God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.”19
The German word for “grace”, Gnade, has etymological roots in a verb meaning
“to lean”, “to bend down”, “to incline oneself”. When we say that God bestows his
grace on human beings, we are in a sense saying that he is “bending down”
toward us human beings. He is turning towards and inclining himself to human
beings out of freedom and love. This love is entirely rooted in God himself. And
the object of this love is our entire person, not just those parts of us that elicit
love. This, according to the Reformers, is the difference between God’s love and
human love. Whereas human, natural love is kindled by what we find likeable and
18See Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. Grace I.5 (with accompanying examples). The connection between “grace”
and “pardon” is more evident in modern German, as the noun Gnade (grace) and the verb begnadigen
(to pardon) resemble each other.
19The Heidelberg Catechism, Modern English Version (2011), Reformed Church in the United States
(retrievable under: http://rcus.org/rcuswp/heidelberg-catechism-2011/).
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Justification and Freedom
lovable, God focuses his love upon what is unlovable and turns it into something
which only through his intervention becomes lovable in his eyes: “The love of
God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes
into being through that which is pleasing to it.”20 Calvin writes along a similar
vein: “For Scripture everywhere proclaims that God finds nothing in man to
arouse him to do good to him, but that he comes first to man in his free
generosity.”21
2.3.2 Grace as the distinguishing mark of all of God’s actions
For the Reformers, grace was what characterized God’s actions in their entirety.
They even saw the creation of the world as an act of grace. “I believe in God the
Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. What does this mean? Answer: I
believe that God has made me and all creatures; that he has given me my body
and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses, and still
preserves them without any merit or worthiness in me”22; “without any merit or
worthiness in me” means nothing other than “by grace”. The old philosophical
question: “Why does anything exist in the first place, instead of there not being
anything?” is thus answered by Christian faith in the following way: this world
exists, because God willed it out of freedom and love. He created the world,
because he benevolently wishes hat there be life beside him. There is, in fact,
nothing on the part of the creature that could have prompted the creator to
create him. God brought forth his creatures out of the desire to communicate
his love. That this world exists is solely due to the grace of God.
Life after death, for which Christians hope, is also a gift of God’s grace. As in the
act of justification, every person is also entirely dependent upon God’s grace in
death. When we are dead, we can no longer maintain our relationship to God or
to others. At death, every person forfeits all their relationships. Yet, out of love, God
continues to hold on this people. Out of love, he grants us renewed, eternal life.
If grace is the hallmark of all of God’s actions, the Christ event and in particular
Christ’s suffering and death should not be misunderstood in the sense that Christ
earned merit before God, thus obliging God to accept us, or as meaning that
20Thesis 28 from Luther’s “Heidelberg Disputation” (1518), Luther’s Works, vol. 31, p. 41 (= WA 1, p. 354, 35 f.).
21Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III,14,5. Translation based on: John Calvin: Institutes of Christian
Religion, ed. by John T. McNeill, transl. by Ford Lewis Battles, Louisville, KY/ London 22006, vol. 1, p. 771.
22Martin Luther, “The Small Catechism” (= Der kleine Katechismus, in: BSLK, pp. 510,29 – 511,5)
(quoted from the online English version: http://bookofconcord.org/smallcatechism.php#creed).
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2 The core issues of Reformation theology
Christ first had to win God’s grace. The fact that God justifies us by grace alone
means that God’s grace itself is the catalyst for justification by Christ. Christ’s
life and death did not bring about a change of heart in God, as if he would have
needed to be propitiated through some kind of a sacrifice of Christ. It was God
himself who was taking action in Christ on the cross. He himself wanted to
display his grace to his people. For this reason, he stooped down in Christ to join
us in the experience of life, suffering, and death. He freed us all from death and
guilt.
2.3.3 Not through human works
In proclaiming “by faith alone”, the Reformers criticized what they perceived to
be “works righteousness” in their time, i. e. any attempt by their contemporaries
to obtain acceptance by God through their own actions. If a person is justified
by faith alone, then his or her works cannot play even the smallest role. “But if
it is by grace, it is no longer on the merit of works; otherwise grace would no
longer be grace” (Romans 11: 6). With this extensive concept of grace, the Reformers dissociated themselves from the medieval understanding of grace as merely
one step within the larger process of justification.
By emphasizing this antithesis, they attacked a notion current at the time, namely the assumption that certain people, in particular members of the clergy, i.e.
priests, nuns and monks, obtained special merit before God because of their
special way of life and their observance of vows. In the view of the Reformers,
what was problematic about the clerical estate of the period was its notion that
one could earn salvation: “Because these monastic orders, foundations, and sects
have been maintained and perpetuated with the idea that by these ways and
works men may seek and win salvation, they are all a notorious, abominable
blasphemy and denial of the unique aid and grace of our only savior and mediator, Jesus Christ.”23
The Reformation’s criticism of the practice, common at the time, of selling indulgences was also a consequence of “sola gratia”. To be sure, the church taught at
the time that by receiving the sacrament of penance and asking for forgiveness
of sins, one escaped eternal punishment for one’s sins, i. e. condemnation to hell.
However, one still had to endure temporary punishments for one’s sins, punish23Martin Luther, “Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper” (1528), in: Luther’s Works, vol. 37, pp. 363 f.
(= WA 26, p. 504,4 – 8).
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Justification and Freedom
ments decreed by God, such as war, illness, or purgatory. Only by bearing these
penalties could God’s justice be satisfied. In other words, when the faithful performed the religious works imposed on them by the priest after confession, they
could minimize temporary punishments for their sins. The system of indulgences was geared precisely to these temporary penalties. It included the promise by
the church that temporary punishments would be remitted for those who did
penance and bought indulgence. The Reformers, by contrast, argued: God’s grace
suffices, God forgives us, we will no longer be punished.
The exclusion of works from the process of justification has an even more basic
point of departure. It expresses the fundamental anthropological insight that it
is impossible for human beings to justify themselves before God by their actions.
This is due to our basic structure: at the very core of everything we do there is
self-centered anxiety. Everything we humans do in order to be justified by God
remains entangled in this self-referential basic structure and cannot free us from
our self-centeredness. Our efforts to meet God’s requirements are constantly
contaminated by our selfish interest in our own salvation. According to the
Reformers, even morally good acts were carried out within the moral framework
of a fundamentally self-centered attitude: “Human nature inwardly and necessarily glories and takes pride in every work which is apparently and outwardly
good.”24 This essentially selfish matrix impairs and destroys the relationships in
which people are bound up: their relationships to others, to the world surrounding them, but also their relationship to God.
This logic can only be undercut by perceiving God’s grace alone — and nothing
on our part — to be the reason why God accepts us human beings. This wholesome message continues to heal today. In an achievement-oriented society like
our own, such a message interrupts the bustle of our busy daily lives in a wholesome way by telling us: we don’t have to achieve anything; we don’t have to
prove anything to ourselves or to other people. We can come to rest.
In this way we are set free, free from the struggle to secure our own significance
and identity, and free to be available for others, who are worth our attention for
their own sake. This Christian freedom is quite different from a certain understanding of freedom currently widespread, for it is not the freedom to choose
24Thesis 37 in Luther’s “Disputation against Scholastic Theology” (1517); translation based on:
Luther’s Works, vol. 31, p. 11 (= WA 1, p. 226,3 f.).
40
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
according to our own whims without outside interference, but rather a freedom
for the benefit of others.
2.3.4 Current challenges
2.3.4.1 Challenges from within the church — essentially a sinner
We achievement-oriented human beings have a tough time accepting the Reformation notion of being justified alone by faith. Of course we don’t mind having
our flaws overlooked or ignored, but we want the good things about us to be
acknowledged. We don’t want God to reject us on account of our weaknesses,
but we definitely wish for him to appreciate us for our strengths. The Reformers,
however, were convinced that human beings were sinners to such an essential
degree that any distinctions along these lines were inappropriate before God.
Theologically, the challenge doubtlessly resides in continuing to speak of “sin”. It
is the sinner who is pardoned, not the righteous one. But “sin” is not something
we like to talk about today. We either trivialize it (“The piece of chocolate tempted me and I sinned”) or we see it in a very narrow, moral sense and wag our
fingers at others for their sinful behavior. It’s always the others who sin.
The whole point behind the Reformation understandings of sin and of sola gratia is that all human beings are equally sinners and all are equally in need of
grace. In their preaching, the churches face the challenge of speaking of “sin” in
such a way that it sheds light on the fundamental structure of our human condition: i. e., when we do not allow ourselves to be loved, we inevitably end up
pivoting blindly around ourselves. We become someone who is “bent in on himself” (incurvatus in se ipsum)25.
2.3.4.2 Challenges from society — the critique of all too human values
The Reformation “saw the identity and worth of a person entirely in his being
recognized by God without reference to natural appurtenances (gender), social
status (class), individual wealth or competency (success), and religious achievement (merit).”26 This placing all human beings on equal footing before God also
bears in it the potential to transform modern societies. To be sure, the laws of
25 Martin Luther, Scholion zu Römer 5,4, WA 56, p. 304,25 – 29.
26Perspectives for the Reformation Jubilee 2017 [statements of the Academic Advisory Board of the Luther
Decade], statement 8 (available online under http://www.luther2017.de/en/1301/perspectives-reformationjubilee-2017?contid=7369 [7. 1. 2014]).
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Justification and Freedom
modern societies no longer discriminate according to religion or gender, but we
continue to use these categories to classify and appraise people. Social background and success are also doubtlessly categories by which we judge others.
The Reformation’s sola gratia sidelines these distinctions which otherwise define
how we perceive and assess other people and ourselves. The Reformation’s sola
gratia challenges us to call these distinctions into question. These distinctions do
play a role at some points in our lives. But they should not influence the way we
relate to one another. People should interact with one another in a way that
ultimately gives no consideration to these distinctions. Others are not defined by
their success or achievement, but by the fact that God, out of love, wanted them
to live and still wants them to live.
In recent years, our society, so heavily influenced by mass media and a rationale
of profitability, has become increasingly harsh in the way it judges and condemns
other people. Especially those who have a public persona are identified with what
they do or refrain from doing. We no longer criticize specific instances of misconduct, but rather feel contempt for the person as such and, in fact, almost
relish this contempt. Sola gratia teaches us to make a distinction. A person is not
to be identified with what he or she has achieved or not achieved. God’s grace
distinguishes between person and actions. God’s grace teaches us to also make
this distinction and thus be merciful.
The fact that God is merciful does not mean that a person’s wrongdoings or moral
transgressions have become irrelevant. The Christian notion of a Last Judgment
testifies quite emphatically to the contrary. All human beings will have to answer
for their acts of commission and omission. They will then become aware of what
they inflicted on others and, in some cases, on themselves. But fortunately it is
not we who will judge, but rather Jesus Christ. This implies the hope that we will
ultimately encounter God’s grace and mercy in this judgment. The Heidelberger
Catechism describes this beautifully: “What comfort is it to you that Christ shall
come to judge the living and the dead? That in all my sorrows and persecutions,
I, with uplifted head, look for the very one who offered himself for me to the
judgment of God, and removed all curse from me, to come as judge from heaven,
who shall cast all his and my enemies into everlasting condemnation, but shall
take me with all his chosen ones to Himself into heavenly joy and glory.”27
27Question 52 from the Heidelberg Catechism, Modern English Version (2011), Reformed Church in the United
States (quoted from the online version: http://rcus.org/rcuswp/heidelberg-catechism-2011/).
42
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
2.4 Solo verbo — through the word alone
2.4.1 Theological keynote — the proclaimed Word of God
The Reformers invested the word with central importance. By this they initially
meant the Word of God. God created the world through his word: “And God said,
‘Let there be light’; and there was light’” (Genesis 1: 3). And God sustains creation
through his word. For the Reformers, however, Jesus Christ, being God’s selfrevelation, is the decisive Word of God. In Christ, God speaks of himself. In him,
he reveals himself. And in him, he speaks to us human beings. In the person of
Jesus Christ, God calls people to faith. The faithful, in return, recount this word.
They proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. They preach about the stories of what
people experienced with Jesus. The Reformers were convinced: “When this Word
of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe
that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful.”28
Why is the word so crucially important? Because the word awakens faith. When
people hear the word, faith emerges within them. People hear a word and they
sense and realize: “This word is true, I can trust this word.” By means of the word,
God addresses us people as thinking, responsible beings. The word allows them
to understand what God, what they, what the world is all about. It allows them
to understand the meaning of Jesus Christ. People are capable of comprehending
this word with their minds, but they can only grasp it with their hearts when the
Holy Spirit discloses it within them in such a way that they realize: “It’s me who
is meant here.” This is why we can profess our faith in the form of a confession
that expresses what we believe. The word is addressed to us as beings equipped
with senses. This attentiveness to the senses is even more palpable in the sacraments. In them, we can even taste and feel God’s promise with our bodies. The
sacraments are a verbum visibile, a visible word.
The Reformers distinguished between two modes in which the Word of God
functions: law and gospel. Both modes can be found in Scripture, but we also
encounter them in a sermon or in the liturgy. Furthermore, human beings sense
law and gospel in their consciences when they allow these to be shaped by
Scripture. The law reveals to people what they are called to do. But the law also
28
Confessio Helvetica Posterior (Zweites helvetische Bekenntnis) I, 1, Reformierte Bekenntnisschriften Vol. 2/2
1562 – 1569, bearb. v. Mihály Bucsay†, Emidio Campi u. a., Neukirchen-Vluyn 2009, 273,28 – 274,1 =
Reformierte Bekenntnisschriften, a.a.O., p. 192 (translation based on the online English version: http://www.
ccel.org/creeds/helvetic.htm).
43
Justification and Freedom
makes them realize that they will always, regardless of all efforts, come up against
the limit of what they are capable of doing. When trying to do their best, people
forget their dependence upon God. For this reason, the Reformers said that the
law convicted a person of their sins. The gospel, on the other hand, tells a person
what God has done for them and still wishes to do for them. It shows them that
God forgives their sins.
2.4.2 Justification as a judgment pronounced by God
Justification takes place solo verbo, through the word alone. This means that
justification is a judgment which God pronounces upon a person. Since Christ’s
righteousness is adjudicated to the person, they no longer stand accused by the
law for their sins, but are acquitted by God. They are imputed with an “alien
righteousness”, that is, with Christ’s righteousness. “Moreover, in this passage, to
justify signifies, according to forensic usage, to acquit a guilty one and declare
him righteous, but on account of the righteousness of another (aliena justitia),
namely, of Christ, which righteousness of another is communicated to us by
faith.”29 If human beings are forgiven by God for their sins and, as a consequence,
are judged by him to be righteous, then they are indeed righteous before God. It
is the same as what happens between two people when one of them says to the
other: “I forgive you.” Forgiveness already becomes a reality when the statement
is uttered.
This theological figure underscores once again that justification is something
which is bestowed on a person from outside. And it remains this way for their
entire lives. Every person remains permanently dependent upon being accepted,
loved, and justified by God.
2.4.3 Justification must be expressed in words and communicated to us
On the human side, the formulation solo verbo points to the fact that people need
to have the gospel of justification spoken to them. It is only by means of the word
that people can hear about God’s grace. People will not discover it within themselves. That God has drawn near to me unconditionally, that he accepts me without condition, which means that he wants to have fellowship with me just as I
am — this is not something we discover in ourselves as a maxim of worldly wis-
29Philipp Melanchthon, Apologia Confessionis Augustanae, BSLK, p. 219,43 – 45 (quoted from the online
English translation: The Apology of the Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon,
translated by F. Bente and W. H. T. Dau: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6744/pg6744.html).
44
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
dom, but is rather something which someone else has to tell me. What we do find
within ourselves instead is self-doubt: we question whether we are good enough
for God, whether God can bear having fellowship with us just as we are, whether there might not be others whom God finds much more adequate. And what
about all the failings in my life or the wrongs I have inflicted on others? Within
myself I find no reason or courage to assume that these faults can be forgiven
and that I can, in spite of them, live in fellowship with God. No person can grant
forgiveness to him- or herself. Forgiveness must be granted to us from outside.
Our dependence upon the word spoken to us shows that the church is vital, as
it is the “the assembly of all believers in which the gospel is purely preached and
the sacraments administered according to the gospel.”30 The church for its part
lives on this word: “Which is Christ’s church? That which listens to his word.”31
2.4.4 Current challenges
2.4.4.1 Challenges from within the church — preaching with heart and mind
Evangelical worship allocates a central role to the word, particularly in the form
of the sermon. The emphasis placed on the sermon is evidence that understanding God, the world, and ourselves is crucial to the Christian faith. A faith that
understands itself and can describe what it believes and why it does so — that is
what characterizes a spirituality that stands in the tradition of the Reformation.
The diversity of educational opportunities offered by our congregations, such as
courses on the Christian faith, serves this purpose. Being able to speak in such a
way that people can understand the Christian faith is a challenge we face anew
every day. We must find a language that is intellectually nuanced and at the same
time accessible to people of different social backgrounds. The same holds true
for pastoral care and church education.
Yet the fact that the word plays such a crucial role in evangelical spirituality does
not mean that faith is reduced to merely understanding something intellectu-
30Translation based on the German version of Art. 7 of the Augsburg Confession in: BSLK, p. 61,4 – 7.
See also: Philip Schaff (ed.), The Creeds of Christendom, New York 61919, vol. 3, p. 11f. as well as
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iii.ii.html.
31Ulrich Zwingli, Christliche Antwort Burgermeisters und Rats zu Zürich an Bischof Hugo,
in: Zwingli: Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Emil Egli, Georg Finsler, Walther Köhler, Vol. III, Leipzig 1914, p. 223,6 f.
(quotation translated in: Gottfried Locher, Zwingli’s Thought: New Perspectives, Leiden 1981, p. 154).
45
Justification and Freedom
ally. Being affected by a word which is spoken to us creates a certainty of the
heart with which the mind must first catch up.
2.4.4.2 Challenges from society — a time to speak
For a society predominately influenced by images, indeed, awash in images, the
Protestant focus on the word seems far from reality. Can this focus on the word
be maintained at a time of almost compulsive visualization? At a time when one
glance is supposedly enough to comprehend something in its totality and no
product can be advertised without attractive, quickly accessible images? Can this
focus on the word be maintained if the gospel is to reach people in their day-today experience?
To begin with, the focus on the word does not mean that the churches which
emerged from the Reformation negate the other senses. Their worship services
are also occasions to see and to taste something, and their music offers something to be heard — often without words. Many exaggerations of the past, by
which the church neglected everything except “the Word”, considering them to
be distractions foreign to Evangelical tradition, have been overcome in the meantime.
At the same time, the Evangelical Church’s focus on the word should also be seen
as a special opportunity for the present. Listening to words requires time. One
does not comprehend spoken words at a glance; the least we are forced to do is
wait for the whole sentence to be spoken. There cannot be speaking and listening
if there is not also a keeping of silence. By focusing on the word, the Evangelical
Church can become a place which affords people time and makes it possible for
them to focus their concentration. There is “a time to keep silence and a time to
speak” (Ecclesiastes 3: 7).
2.5 Sola scriptura — on the basis of Scripture alone
2.5.1 Theological keynote
Each of the three exclusive particles we have studied so far sought with its
specific emphasis to exclude something different from the process of justification. Each stood in opposition to abuses and aberrations common on the eve of
the Reformation and called for reform. This critical perspective made it necessary
to come up with unequivocal guidelines for theological statements and church
46
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
practice. But from where were the principles that constitute Christian theology
to be derived? What was to be the source of Christian beliefs?
Seeking to recover the original message of Christianity purified of all later doctrinal additions by the church, the Reformers turned to the oldest documents — to
the Bible itself. They affirmed the books of the Old and New Testament to be the
norm or standard (Greek kanon) for their thought. “In issues of faith, neither the
Popes nor the councils nor the universal church have the right to change or
decree anything, but the articles of faith must be judged simply in accordance
with the canon of Holy Scripture.”32 In doing this, they were following the humanistic impulse of their age to return to the intellectual sources (in Latin: ad fontes).
Theology followed suit with other university disciplines in inquiring after the
most ancient texts and reading these in the original languages, in order to get as
close as possible to the very beginnings. The work of humanist scholars such as
Erasmus of Rotterdam, who printed a new edition of the New Testament in the
Greek original in 1516, gave their endeavor an indispensable foundation.
The Reformers had not only philological and historical reasons for returning to
the biblical texts, but also a theological one. At the center of the Christian faith
stands the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ, however, can only be found in Scripture.
The New Testament pivots around texts that report on his life, death and resurrection and texts which reflect over these. And the texts of the Old Testament,
thus was the conviction of the Reformers, contain the promises which were
fulfilled in Christ.
2.5.2 Word of God, not tradition
Pre-Reformation theology also gave biblical texts a great deal of attention. However, theologians read them through the lenses of oral tradition, the opinions of
church fathers, and the decrees of church councils, all of which were assumed
to be authorities in their own right. “Tradition” thus participated in the formulation of theological statements. For most thinkers of the Middle Ages, harmony
between tradition and Holy Scripture was taken for granted. Only occasionally
did it flash through the minds of debating theologians that this assumption
32Philipp Melanchthon, Loci communes: De humanis legibus (1521), Corpus Reformatorum, vol. 21, p.131,15-19
= Melanchthons Werke im Auswahl, vol. II/1, p. 72,1-4. Translation based on: Loci communes theologici,
translated by Lowell J. Satre, with revisions by Wilhelm Pauck, in: Melanchthon and Bucer, ed. by Wilhelm
Pauck, Philadelphia 1969, p. 63.
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Justification and Freedom
might be wrong. The Reformers, having undergone training in humanism, were
the first to address critically the difference between Scripture and tradition.
By enthroning Scripture as the sole norm and standard of church doctrine and
thus rejecting any tradition that might be incompatible with it, they sought to
liberate the Christian faith from the influence of man-made theological doctrines
and traditions of religious practice. The principle of sola scriptura therefore stood
in direct opposition to the competing claim to authority raised by the church.
The Reformers therefore rejected all church doctrines deemed incompatible with
biblical texts, such as the notion of a church treasure comprising a “surplus” of
merits that had accumulated through the good works of Christ and the saints.
They also refused to attribute ultimate authority to the method, common at the
time, of buttressing one’s position in a theological argument by referring to the
church fathers. All that counted now was whether or not a statement conformed
to Scripture. Scripture thus became a critical counterpart to the church. Church
doctrine and praxis were always to be measured against the norm of Scripture
time an.
The Reformers called the Bible “the Word of God”. But already back in the sixteenth century, this was not taken to mean that these texts had not been written
by human beings. It was understood that in them people wrote down what “God
had made known through oracles and visions or by the work and ministry of
human beings.” In this process, “that firm certainty of doctrine was engraved in
their hearts, so that they were convinced and understood that what they had
learned proceeded from God.”33
The Reformers were accused of contradicting themselves at this point, for had
not the church instituted the authority of Scripture? Did we not read the Bible
precisely because the church held it in high esteem? They responded by affirming
that the church attributed great authority to Scripture only because it had experienced this authority. When we read these biblical texts we go through something similar to what the writers experienced in their own time. We feel spoken
to as individuals in such a way that we can affirm: “we encounter truth here.”
The truth of Scripture proves itself on its own. “Scripture exhibits fully as clear
33Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I,6,2. Translation based on: John Calvin: Institutes of Christian
Religion, ed. by John T. McNeill, transl. by Ford Lewis Battles, Louisville, KY/London 22006, vol. 1, p. 71.
48
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color or sweet and
bitter things do of their taste.”34
2.5.3 Living with Scripture
From the point of view of the Reformers, there was no need for a church authority to vouch for the right interpretation of Scripture. Every Christian is capable
of understanding the biblical texts. That is the meaning of the oft-quoted sentence: “Holy Scripture interprets itself.”35 In it human beings find the words they
need in order to live. Therefore, every Christian should live with the Bible, read in
it, and crawl into it like a rabbit seeks refuge in the hole in which it lives: “press
into [these divine words] and remain in them like a hare in a rocky crevice.”36
In order to make it possible for every Christian to read the Bible in his or her own
language, the Reformers translated the biblical texts into their mother tongues.
Martin Luther was not the first to translate the Bible into German, but his translation was unique in terms of its far-reaching impact. One reason for this was
that he employed a language that could be understood throughout Germany.
Furthermore, he went to great pains to render the biblical text vividly and graphically, so that ordinary people could also understand his translation. Luther’s
guiding principle was: “We must ask the mother in the home, the children on the
street, the common man in the marketplace about this. We must be guided by
their language, the way they speak, and do our translating accordingly. That way
they will understand it and recognize that we are speaking German to them.”37
As a consequence, his translation of the Bible soon proved widely popular.
Luther’s linguistic creativity and the wide dissemination of his Bible translation
by way of printing made it possible for the language form he used to become a
linguistic consensus throughout the German empire. Luther can be seen as a
pioneer of Modern High German.
It is important we not misunderstand the Reformation principle of sola scriptura as intending a biblicism which belabors specific verses and considers them
34Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I,7,2. Translation based on: ibid., p. 76.
35Martin Luther, Assertio omnium articulorum Martini Lutheri per Bullam Leonis X. novissimam damnatorum
(1520), WA 7, p. 97,23 (Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres).
36Martin Luther’s Postil, translated by John Nikolas Lenker, vol. 1, 2012, p. 79
(= Kirchenpostille 1522, in: WA 10/I/1, p. 193,13).
37Martin Luther, “On Translating: An Open Letter” (1530);
translation based on: Luther’s Works, vol. 35, p. 189 (= WA 30/II, p. 637,19 – 22).
49
Justification and Freedom
to have been literally dictated by God. One may not “pick out one word and keep
repeating it. One must consider the meaning of the whole text in its context.”38
We must inquire after the meaning and the thrust of the texts.
Like a few medieval thinkers before him and particularly like the humanists,
Luther could assume a critical approach to the Bible. Texts which did not promote
faith in Christ, but rather hindered it, were to be reproached. Scripture had to be
understood from its thematic center. Because of this, Luther felt it was necessary
to criticize the Epistle to James, which in his mind obscured the doctrine of
justification by faith. He was also skeptical about the book of Revelation; he could
not sense that this text had been “established by the Holy Spirit.”39
Since it was now assumed that every Christian, through his or her independent
reading of the Bible, could judge whether or not what the church said conformed
to the gospel, new church structures emerged with the Reformation. The preaching office, exercised by the individual minister, assumed a central role, replacing
hierarchical church structures. The administration of externals was taken care of
in different ways. Within Lutheranism, consistorial constitutions were created by
falling back on existing state administration structures. The Reformed churches
in the Netherlands and France, which developed in the midst of conflict with
Catholic authorities, could not go down this path. They established independent
synods in which non-theologians were also represented. After 1918, synods with
high lay participation and invested with decision-making powers became the
norm in all other German territorial churches.
The Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura was also directed against certain spiritualistic currents of the time according to which one could receive inspiration
directly from the Holy Spirit, without being bound to the word of the Bible. This,
of course, opened the floodgates to an entirely individualistic, arbitrary interpretation of the Bible and no longer ensured exclusive alignment to Christ. For this
reason, the Reformers were vehement in admonishing: “we must firmly hold that
God grants his Spirit or grace to no one, except through or with the preceding
outward word, in order that we may [thus] be protected against the enthusiasts,
i.e., spirits who boast that they have the Spirit without and before the Word, and
38 Martin Luther, “Against the Heavenly Prophets”, Luther’s Works, vol. 40, p. 86 (= WA 18, p. 69,9 – 11).
39 Martin Luther, Vorrede zur Deutschen Bibel, WA.DB 7, p. 404,13 f.
50
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
accordingly judge Scripture or the spoken Word, and explain and stretch it at
their pleasure.”40
2.5.4 Current challenges
2.5.4.1 Challenges from within the church — truth for life
The principle of sola scriptura can no longer be understood today in the same
way it was at the time of the Reformation. Unlike the Reformers, we know today
that the development of the different books of the Bible and of the biblical canon
was itself a process of “tradition”. The old contraposition of “Scripture alone”
versus “Scripture and tradition”, which seemed so self-evident during the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, no longer works as it did in the sixteenth
century. Yet the following still holds true: “In the Protestant view traditions must
always be oriented on the original witness of Scripture and its center; from here
they must be critically evaluated and appropriated ever anew.”41
The texts of the Bible have been subjected to historical-critical scrutiny ever since
the seventeenth century. Because of this, it is no longer possible to understand
them as the “Word of God” in the same way as they were at the time of the
Reformation. The Reformers, after all, started from the fundamental premise that
the texts of the Bible were truly God-given. But in the light of discrepancies
between different versions of a passage and the discovery of multiple narrative
layers, this notion has become untenable. This presents us with the question as
to whether sola scriptura still holds true today; if it does, how and why is this the
case?
Our reflections up to this point sought to make it clear that the thrust of the
Reformation’s sola scriptura was not that only those take Scripture seriously who
affirm that every single word of the Bible is God-given. But if this is not the case,
how are we to think of Scripture as God’s word today? Why does the Bible still
play a central role in our present church life? To begin with, because its text
teaches us about the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus Christ. It is for this
reason that biblical texts are read in Christian worship services and explained in
sermons. For many evangelical Christians, reading the Bible regularly, be it at
40Martin Luther, Schmalkaldische Artikel, in: BSLK, p. 453,17 – 454,3 (quoted from the online English
translation: http://www.bookofconcord.org/smalcald.php).
41
Schrift – Bekenntnis – Kirche. Ergebnis eines Lehrgesprächs der Gemeinschaft Evangelischer Kirchen in Europa/
Scripture – Confession – Church. Result of a Doctrinal Discussion in the Community of Protestant Churches in
Europe, ed. by Michael Bünker, Leuenberger Texte 14, Leipzig 2013, p. 68.
51
Justification and Freedom
home privately or together with others, constitutes an important part of their
faith. This is evidently the case because people realize again and again that these
texts speak to them in a special way. Human experience with God has become so
highly condensed in the Bible, that other people can discover themselves and
their own experiences in it. “The reason why these writings are more for us than
historical documents about the religious convictions of Israel, Second Temple
Judaism, or a small group of people who appealed in the first century to a crucified wandering Jewish preacher by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, lies in the fact
that we, like the Christians before us, hear in their words that ever new, effective,
and perpetually living voice of God.”42 To put it another way: to this very day,
people are spoken to and are touched in their innermost selves in, with, and under
these texts — precisely in the way described by Reformation theology as being
unique to the Word of God. In this sense, these texts can continue to be seen as
the “Word of God” today. This is not an abstract judgment, but a description of
experiences people have had with these texts. When people read or hear these
texts today, they also sense — not necessarily automatically, yet again and
again — that they contain truth, truth about themselves, the world, and God, a
truth which helps them live. This is why these texts still constitute the canon of
the church.
2.5.4.2 Challenges from society — approaches to holy texts
The fact that they take their bearings from ancient texts exposes all scripturebased religions in our modern age to the suspicion of being mere ideologies.
Instead of making an autonomous decision regarding the right faith and the right
way to live, people take their cues from an ancient canonical text.
In the course of the past centuries, the Christian church has developed a carefully reflected, scholarly approach to its Holy Scriptures, which in terms of its
commitment to reason and its standards of textual interpretation is in no way
less sophisticated than any other scholarly discipline. In fact, in many cases it has
been a catalyst for these other disciplines. At the same time, biblical texts are
sources of faith and life. The how and why behind this must be explained hermeneutically again and again.
42 Schrift – Bekenntnis – Kirche / Scripture – Confession – Church, ibid., p. 57.
52
2 The core issues of Reformation theology
The Christian church can bring this expertise to bear upon its dialogue with other
scripture-based religions, particularly with Islam in Europe. In doing so, the
church can show that an historical and critical approach to holy texts need not
lead to the destruction of faith. Furthermore, by the way the church takes the
Bible as its point of reference in current social debates; it can demonstrate
impressively how one can preserve cultural traditions and bring them to bear
upon the present.
2.6 Sola fide — by faith alone
2.6.1 Theological keynote — no heavenly puppet play
If God has already done so much in justification, how are we human beings to
be included in this process? Sola fide — by faith alone. The appropriate response
to God’s action in Christ alone, out of grace alone, and with the word alone, is
faith on the part of us people. After all, justification is not the result of a heavenly puppet-master pulling our strings. It isn’t something that simply happens.
It does not become a reality for us until it takes root in our lives. And this occurs
through faith. Faith is a new existential stance towards God and towards oneself.
Through faith, believers allow God to justify them and they see themselves from
the new vantage point of this justification. Faith means saying ‘yes’ to the fact
that we cannot contribute anything to God’s grace towards us. Faith means
saying yes to God’s love. In faith, believers accept that God has accepted them in
spite of everything.
By faith alone means precisely “not by works.” Believers must acquiesce to God’s
grace; they must put up with the fact that they cannot contribute anything to
their own justification.
God speaks to people in his word. Faith comes into being through this word.
Believers count on this word and allow it to give them a new understanding of
themselves.
When we believe God, and acquiesce to God’s grace and kindness, it is then that
we let God be God. God wills good things for us. He wants to shower us with his
gifts. Through faith, we permit this to happen.
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2.6.2 Faith is not a human work, but is effected by God
It is hard for us to stand by and do nothing in order to be accepted by God. It
would thus seem natural to see at least faith as something we are capable of
“doing.” In that case, we would apparently be accepted by God because of our
faith, justified before God on account of our faith. However, faith may not inadvertently turned into a work that we human beings bring to bear upon our relationship to God. Because of this, the Reformers rejected the notion that people
are capable of deciding freely to believe. If they had accepted this notion, then
our free decision could be considered to be the work which must be accomplished
by us in order to be justified. For this reason, the Reformers insisted that human
beings are incapable of bringing forth faith on their own. Instead, they affirmed
that faith is created by God or by the Holy Spirit. It is because of God’s grace that
a human being can believe. They meant the same thing when they spoke of faith
being brought forth by the word. When we hear the “Word of God, this very word
proves its own authenticity to us human beings: “The word itself must be enough
for the heart, it must include and lay hold of human beings, so that they, as if
taken captive, feel how true and right it is, even if the world, all the angels, all
the princes of the world said differently.”43
Faith is therefore not a human accomplishment. We human beings do not need
to force ourselves to believe in a certain way. We can trust that God will help us
believe. At the same time, however, faith is always an active faith. Through the
Holy Spirit it wishes “willingly and happily to do good to everyone, serve everyone,
suffer everything”, without being forced.44 Good works result, so to speak, entirely naturally, indeed almost automatically, from faith.
2.6.3 The priesthood of all believers
The only thing that we can do with regard to justification is that we believe.
However, while our faith is dependent on God’s work in us, it clearly does not
depend on education or social status. The gift of faith can be bestowed just as
much upon a so-called layperson as upon trained theologians or leading clergypersons. The Reformers thus considered all Christians to be equal. They saw no
fundamental differences between Christians. “It is pure invention that pope,
43Translation based on: Martin Luther’s Postil, translated by John Nikolas Lenker, vol. 1, 2012, p. 105
(= Martin Luther, Kirchenpostille, in: WA 10/I/1, p. 130,14 – 18).
44Martin Luther, Vorrede auf den Römerbrief (1522), WA.DB 7, p. 10,19 f.
(translation based on online English version: http://www.ccel.org/l/luther/romans/pref_romans.html).
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2 The core issues of Reformation theology
bishop, priests and monks are called the spiritual estate while princes, lords,
artisans and farmers are called the temporal estate. This is indeed a piece of deceit
and hypocrisy. Yet no one need be intimidated by it, and for this reason: all
Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among
them … This is because we all have one baptism, one gospel, one faith, and are
all Christian alike; for baptism, gospel and faith alone makes us spiritual and a
Christian people … As far as that goes, we are all consecrated priests through
baptism.”45 Because of this, all Christians are members of a “holy estate” and there
is a “priesthood of all believers”. This means, as already indicated above, that in
churches which emerged from the Reformation there is no class of ordained
priests constituted through a sacrament of their own, but rather that the right
to proclaim the Word of God publicly and administer the sacraments can be
entrusted to certain persons with the intercessory participation of the entire
congregation and according to a procedure laid out by church law. For this reason, Evangelical pastors are not consecrated, but ordained.
This insight led to a complete restructuring of the church as an institution — indeed, it led to the transformation of society by the Reformation. Every
Christian can appear directly before God as a priest. There is no need for any other
intermediary between the individual Christian and God. Every Christian can judge
for him- or herself what is right or wrong doctrine. Every Christian can forgive
sins and proclaim the gospel. This task is not reserved for a special group of
people. And in principle, every Christian can administer the sacraments, i. e.,
impart baptism and dispense the Lord’s Supper. It is only for the sake of order
that these tasks, which are common to all Christians, have been entrusted to
ministers, who perform them in a special way, i. e., they have received qualifying
training and have been publicly commissioned to assume these duties. This office
is conferred upon them by the congregation in order to safeguard the adequacy
and continuity of the proclamation of the gospel and the dispensation of the
sacraments. Ministers do not possess any special spiritual qualities, but they do
have a special calling. Nevertheless, speaking about the gospel remains a task
which all Christians share.
45Martin Luther, “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation” (1520), Luther’s Works, vol. 44, p. 127
(= WA 6, p. 407,10 – 23.)
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Justification and Freedom
2.6.4 Current challenges
2.6.4.1 Challenges from within the church — all Christians
are to proclaim the gospel
The priesthood of all believers has, time and again, been a source of ever new
powerful impulses in evangelical Christendom. At the same time, though, the
church “office” has continued to be indispensable. In the light of their theological and practical training, ministers bear professional responsibility to preach,
offer pastoral care, and devote their working hours to the church. There is a
danger, of course, that congregations simply sit back and let the full-time specialists provide for their spiritual needs. It is all too easily forgotten that all Christians
are called to proclaim the gospel and to be there for one another.
Whether or not and how someone believes is hidden from our eyes. The degree
of a person’s involvement or lack of involvement in the church says little about
that person’s faith. God alone sees this faith. Socially inclusive church structures
take this fact into account theologically. They make it possible for people to
participate in the church in a variety of forms and with differing degrees of
intensity without passing judgment on them as to whether or not they have
enough faith to belong to the church. All efforts to encourage the active participation of members in congregational life should not mislead us to consider
only those heavily involved as being true Christians. Faith alone is enough for
being a Christian. And only God has knowledge of human faith.
2.6.4.2 Challenges from society — to not stand by idly
Faith is at the center of Christianity. It is only through faith, and not by way of works,
that a person has a part in justification. But faith does not stand by idly. In fact, the
Reformers said that faith can never remain idle. It is out of gratitude and love,
therefore, that believers act for the benefit of others, sharing with them the goodness they themselves had received. Faith brings forth good works almost automatically. For this reason, charitable action and social involvement are integral to
the Christian faith. Precisely at a time when society is particularly critical of religion,
the church should demonstrate visibly and palpably the power of faith to shape life,
for instance by sponsoring church schools as well as charity and relief organizations
that treat all people in the light of the dignity God has bestowed upon them.
Life as an Evangelical Christian is a life justified by faith alone, without works.
This faith lets God be God. And it expresses itself through formative action in the
world, through “good works” to the glory of God: Soli Deo gloria.
56
3 How can we celebrate?
In a nutshell: we can celebrate by finding the proper balance between tradition
and innovation, without smoothing out the abrasive edges of past events, which
may strike us as strange today, but also without ignoring their far-reaching
significance for the present. In the following, we will begin by pondering in a
broader sense the function of jubilees in the commemorative cultures of church
and society, before we draw specific consequences for the 2017 jubilee on the
basis of typical examples, and conclude by casting a glance at the program of
celebrations.
3.1 Jubilees and memory cultures
To begin with, we must be cognizant of the fact that jubilee celebrations amount
to more than merely conveying to the public the latest results of scholarly
research on the historical events being remembered. Accordingly, historical
research can only ever attempt to draw an adequate picture of the events at the
focus of remembrance, and will, even in the best of cases, never achieve a perfect
likeness. Jubilee celebrations are in fact inextricably linked to the memory cultures
of a society46, as was asserted in relation to the 2009 Calvin jubilee, but with a
much broader intention in mind: “By harking back to the past, they [i. e., the
jubilees] are supposed to compensate the loss of familiarity [with this past] and
thus confer a renewed cultural identity. With the creation of the jubilee, however, a new culture of memory emerged which was clearly distinct from traditional historiography, and in which a cluster of past events was constantly reenacted in order to offer people identity options. Whereas historiography selects
critically on the basis of the methods of historical-critical text interpretation,
which, among other things, serve to dispel myths, a memory culture, on the other
hand, at least tends to be keen on constructing myths that create a sense of
46Aleida Assmann, Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik,
München 2006.
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Justification and Freedom
identity.”47 If we take a look at past Reformation jubilees under this perspective,
we end up with a result that should hardly amaze us: “Luther was celebrated
differently every time”,48 as Hartmut Lehmann concluded from his detailed study
of Luther commemorations.
Those who “celebrated Luther, always celebrated first and foremost themselves.”49
It is thus hardly surprising that the Reformation was contemporized: e. g., it is
understandable that in the very first jubilee in the year 1617 the self-assertion
of the new confession was given special emphasis and Luther’s posting of the
theses was recounted as an historical feat. Neither should it surprise us that the
1817 jubilee was celebrated as a feast of national unification which assigned
Luther a prominent place as the first great German. Just how problematic such
contemporizing narratives can be is demonstrated by the 1917 jubilee, which was
celebrated in the midst of the First World War. This anniversary was put to dubious use by religiously exalting the people’s willingness to make sacrifices and to
persevere.
Sobered by these insights drawn from the past, we shall be wary of glibly claiming that in 2017, we will, for the first time, succeed in distilling and celebrating
the timeless truth of the Reformation. Our goal instead should be of bringing our
theological memory of the doctrine of justification fruitfully to bear upon people’s current experiences and expectations, both within and beyond church
boundaries. The same holds true when seeking to remember in the historically
most accurate way possible the impulses which the Reformation provided for the
renewal of church and society. We must convey the effects which they had upon
society as a whole in such a palpable way that they stimulate us to engage further
in reshaping the church and the world.
Jubilees do not merely reconstruct what once was, but they integrate it into
general narratives that claim relevance for the present. Memory cultures are such
narratives. This implies two things: connecting to the store of tradition which
one is commemorating, but also putting it into relationship with the present: on
the one hand, tradition, on the other, innovation. The memory cultures of a
47Johannes Hund, Erinnern und feiern. Das Calvin-Jubiläum im Kontext moderner Erinnerungskultur,
in: Kirchengeschichte. Calvin-Jubiläum 2009, hg. v. Heinrich Assel, Verkündigung und Forschung 57, 2012,
(p. 4 – 17) p. 4f.
48Hartmut Lehmann, Luthergedächtnis 1817 bis 2017, Refo500. Academic Studies 8, Göttingen 2012, p. 10.
49Lehmann, Luthergedächtnis 1817 bis 2017, ibid., p. 11.
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3 How can we celebrate?
society do more than merely re-narrate bodies of knowledge or enact the current
results of historical research. Jubilees must always adhere to the latest state of
historical reflection and not permit themselves to revive earlier myths. The categorial difference, both historical and existential, between people of the sixteenth
century and those of the twenty-first, cannot simply be glossed over. But on
occasions like this, one should also have the courage to insert the things of the
past into entirely new contexts. Only in this way can the narrative at hand assume
existential meaning for every single individual. In this case, the mentioned categorial difference is not being ignored or glossed over, but rather bridged in a
hermeneutically wise fashion.
3.2 The Reformation and the history of freedom — an example
As already suggested above several times, a concept to which this methodology
could be applied successfully is that of freedom. We have pointed out that this
concept lends itself very well to the expression of concerns central to the Reformation doctrine of justification. The concept of freedom is useful for demonstrating both the historical distance separating us from, as well as the existential
proximity connecting us to the doctrines and events of the sixteenth century. To
be sure, when Luther in his 1520 freedom treatise describes the process of justification by speaking, in a double proposition, of the Christian as a perfectly free
lord of all and a perfectly dutiful servant of all50, he is putting forth a notion of
Christian freedom which by no means is identical with the modern understanding of freedom. And yet Luther’s concept is bound up with the history of freedom
in Europe.
It was in Holy Scripture, especially in the writings of the Apostle Paul, that the
Reformers encountered this spirit of freedom and the new mindset that results
from it. Paul writes, for example: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”
(2 Corinthians 3:17). They placed this biblical spirit of freedom once again at the
center of their preaching and at the heart of their Reformation message, which
also reached the common man in the street and the humble maidservant on the
farm. The Reformation did not invent anything new under God’s sun, but rather
re-affirmed the message of the freedom of God’s children. This required neither
50Martin Luther, “On the Freedom of a Christian”, Luther’s Works, vol. 31, p. 344
(= Martin Luther, Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, WA 7, p. 21,1 – 4).
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Justification and Freedom
the emergence of a new “church of freedom” nor the fragmentation of the
­Reformation movement into factions and groups. What was at stake was the
renewal of the one church of Christ.
Of course, whoever places freedom at the center should not be surprised if diversity results: the canon of the New Testament, for example, constitutes the foundation for the unity of the churches, but — on account of the theological diversity of its contents — it is also at the basis of the diversity between churches and
confessions. That which characterized the history of Christianity prior to the
Reformation also defined its post-Reformation history — a legitimate variety of
churches and confessions, which particularly in the past century, in the course
of the ecumenical movement, began rediscovering their unity. The churches that
issued from the Reformation embody the dynamics of this phenomenon in a
two-fold sense: they are part of the pluralization of Christian churches — which
is quite legitimate, as it stems from Scripture itself — but they are also part of the
movement — also founded in Scripture — towards achieving the full visible unity
of the one church in the diversity of its confessions.
What matters in Reformation jubilees and other celebrations of this kind are not
concepts and abstract insights, but rather the embodiment of these concepts and
insights in condensed narratives. What should be at the center is not so much
“freedom” as an abstract concept, but rather the expression of the Reformation
understanding of freedom through moving, powerfully-told narratives. Furthermore, particularly significant jubilees are not shaped by a single narrative, but by
several ones. Past Reformation jubilees never restricted themselves to the mere
remembrance of the 1517 posting of the theses, but commemorated the Reformation in its entirety by means of gripping stories narrated from a variety of
contemporary perspectives. When memory is condensed into narrative in this
way, its existential relevance becomes particularly evident. To be sure, even historical scholarship is forced to walk a thin line “between historiography and
artistic fiction … between realism and fantasy”; accordingly, memory cultures
must be even more wary of the danger of lapsing into “the kitschification of
memory, the sentimentalization of narratives, the demonization of one side while
embellishing and sugarcoating the other.”51
51Michael Baum, Wem gehört die Geschichte? Erinnerungskultur in Literatur und Film, Münster 2012, 21;
vgl. auch Paul Münch, Einleitung. Geschichte und Erinnerung, in: Jubiläum, Jubiläum ... Zur Geschichte
öffentlicher und privater Erinnerung, hg. v. Paul Münch, Essen 2005, (p. 7 – 25) p. 10.
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3 How can we celebrate?
A typical example for this can be found in the account, already mentioned above,
of Luther’s appearance before emperor and empire on April 18, 1521, during the
Diet of Worms. This event has always lent itself particularly well to commemorating the Reformation’s contribution to the development of modern freedom, and
this kind of commemoration has a long tradition behind it. For a long time, German memory cultures were informed by a tradition which, although attested
quite early, is historically secondary, and which claims that Luther concluded his
speech with the words: “I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me,
Amen.”52 Past cultures of memory tended to place great emphasis on the Reformer’s behavior as an example of Protestant steadfastness in the face of authoritarian demands. By now, however, it is widely accepted that Luther in all likelihood
concluded his Worms speech differently — if this speech is even remembered in
the first place. If we, on the occasion of the 2017 jubilee, make it a point of commemorating the authentic conclusion of Luther’s speech, this should not be
misunderstood as historical pedantry. On the contrary, it shows that Luther in
1521 for the first time conspicuously asserted the individual’s freedom of conscience in the face of institutional coercion — an issue of enormous significance
for European modernity. At that time, Luther proclaimed: “Because of this I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against
conscience. May God help me, Amen.”53
Luther’s 1521 speech was not a solemn declaration of freedom of conscience in
the modern sense of a universal human right. He believed his conscience to be
“captive to the Word of God”, as he declared shortly before ending his speech
with the passage quoted above. Yet his words expressed the firm conviction that
it was precisely this conscience which was beyond the reach of secular
power — this very conscience through which he knew he was answerable directly to God. The historically correct commemoration of Luther’s appeareance in
Worms enables us, in the context of a Reformation jubilee, to draw the attention
of people in church and society to the connection between a bold public action
in the sixteenth century and values central to the twenty-first century: Luther’s
public appearance in Worms is an integral part of the history of modern freedom,
52
Luther’s Works, vol. 32, p. 113. See also: Karl Müller, Luthers Schlußworte in Worms, Philothesia, P. Kleinert
zum LXX. Geburtstag, dargebracht von Adolf Harnack u.a., Berlin 1907, 269 – 289 sowie jetzt Heinz Schilling,
Martin Luther. Rebell in einer Zeit des Umbruchs, München 2012, p. 222 f.
53
Luther’s Works, vol. 32, pp. 112 f. and note 8. See also: Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V.,
Jüngere Reihe, vol. 2: Der Reichstag zu Worms 1521, ed. by Adolf Wrede, Göttingen 1962 (= Gotha 1896),
Nr. 79f., pp. 581 f. as well as WA 7, p. 838,3 – 8.
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which led to the emergence of the fundamental value of universal freedom of
conscience and to the creation of institutions capable of safeguarding this freedom. Put another way, Luther’s core theological conviction corresponds with the
constitutional framework of a democratic state based on the rule of law; this
conviction lives on in the recognition that the conscience of a human being,
irrespective of its specific content, cannot and must not be regulated by other
human beings.
In their vast majority, the most gripping narratives about the Reformation recount
unprecedented experiences of freedom: Luther’s posting of his theses, his courageous response before emperor and empire in Worms, and his decision to marry
Katharina von Bora, but also Melanchthon’s assertion that every human being is
capable of receiving an education, Zwingli’s presence at a controversial eating of
sausages during the Lenten season, Calvin’s determination to change society — to
mention only a few. These highly condensed Reformation narratives, which have
enthralled hearers throughout the ages, are stories of courage, of new beginnings, of self-confidence. In addition, countless Reformation hymns and psalminspired songs still found in Protestant hymnals today reflect this cheerful assurance in the face of fear.
Of course, evoking a few condensed narratives, hymns, psalm-inspired songs, as
well as the eloquent pictorial propaganda of the period cannot be the only way
to call attention to the current significance of the Reformation. For this reason,
the ten years leading up to the 2017 jubilee were declared to be a Reformation
decade for the sake of preparing this event, and many institutions joined in
organizing its practical details. This decade is placing its focus on a variety of
theme clusters, such as education and music, tolerance and politics, or images
and the Bible. In other words, unlike past jubilees, the 2017 commemoration
wishes to cover the entire spectrum of Reformation-related themes. This means
affording attention not only to classical condensed narratives (such as the posting of the theses or Luther’s appearance in Worms), but also to many other
similar compact accounts of daring public actions. Through the use of the means
of mass communication available today, such accounts can also serve to acquaint
unchurched people with key issues of the Reformation.
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3 How can we celebrate?
3.3 The different dimensions of celebration —
from exodus to a new beginning
Luther travelled to Worms in 1521, tormented by excruciating abdominal pains
and deep existential anxiety. Yet he vanquished his fear and stood his ground
before emperor and empire. This paradigmatic story so firmly embedded in traditional memory cultures is characteristic of Protestantism: by using such model
stories, the core narrative of the Reformation can be retold to the twenty-first
century as an exodus from fear made possible by having been liberated through
God in the power of the Holy Spirit, enabling a new beginning by which we set
out responsibly into the world. By making recourse to experiences from daily life
such as love, acceptance, appreciation, forgiveness, and freedom, all of which are
universal, these three steps epitomize once again the current relevance of the
memories of the Reformation. In this way, even people who are distant from
Christianity can comprehend at least a few dimensions of the Reformation experience of freedom and maybe even gain an existential appreciation of the Reformation. Christians remain convinced, however, that without a relationship to the
God who manifests his mercy to us in Jesus Christ, something decisive is missing
and a true liberation from the manifold anxieties that beset the human condition
will not succeed. In this respect, the Reformation jubilee, if celebrated as a feast
with Christ at its center, will by all means provide missionary opportunities to
Christians who stand in the tradition of the Reformation.
At the same time, we need to constantly remind ourselves that significant portions of the freedom narrative of the Reformation have acquired a self-evidence
of their own outside church walls in the course of the past five hundred years.
The Reformation made a specific contribution to the history of modern freedom,
as the examples provided above illustrate. This contribution is an undeniable fact,
even if the Reformation in some specific instances had absolutely no part in the
history of freedom. This link between the Reformation and the history of modern
freedom constitutes the fundamental reason why this jubilee should not only be
celebrated by the churches, but also by all of society and the secular state.
Whereas the churches that issued from the Reformation can best commemorate
the religious insights and consequences of this historical event, the state and
civil society are best called to focus on the broader impulses that the Reformation
brought forth and which are still felt today.
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When Luther drafted his theses against indulgences in 1517, he was quite aware
he was addressing a problem that affected not only an academic public of professional theologians. In fact, the entire then-known world soon felt challenged to
join in the debate. Of course, history does not repeat itself. But it just might be
that these jubilee celebrations five hundred years later succeed not only in
unleashing unexpected and vigorous actions, but also in triggering an intense
and substantive debate over the key issues of the Reformation. In any case, a
closer look at the historical occurrences which are the direct object of our 2017
commemoration should re-assure us that there is no reason to dread a widely
visible “event” or to be wary of an “eventification” (in a positive sense) of this
jubilee. Furthermore, unlike jubilees celebrated in previous centuries, this one will
also focus its attention on the globalized world, thus underscoring international
dimensions in a fully unprecedented way, in order to do at least reasonable
justice to an historical event of this magnitude.
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4 Conclusion
At the core of the Reformation stood the relationship between God and people — it thus revolved around the ever topical question as to how people should
see themselves. Of course, it never intended a merely intellectual change in this
relationship, as is evident in the following statement by Ulrich Zwingli: “Under
‘religion’ I understand Christian piety in its entirety, that is, faith, lifestyle, the
commandments, forms of worship, the sacraments.”54 By centering on Christ
(solus Christus), rediscovering the merciful God (sola gratia), the fundamental
importance of a faith received from God as a gift (sola fide), conveyed solely by
means of the spoken word (solo verbo), and by concentrating on Scripture (sola
scriptura), a far-reaching paradigm shift was put in motion which soon extended well beyond the confines of theology and church. This change in the paradigms of a theological elite unleashed a change in the mindset of broad sections
of the population, changes which have left a profound mark on the constitutional order and the everyday reality of our society and of many other societies
to this day.
This perspective sets the 2017 Reformation jubilee in the context of fundamental
convictions shared almost unanimously by our society. We need to remind ourselves of these fundamental convictions over and over again in order to ensure
that peace, human dignity, and mutual respect for each other prevail in a pluralistic and increasingly multireligious state. A Reformation jubilee can indeed also
serve such civil religious purposes. But a commemoration of the Reformation
must, of course, aim for more than this. With the Reformation jubilee, the churches that emerged from the Reformation can make the following contribution to
current debates: to remind us all that the freedom upon which our pluralistic,
democractic, constitutional state is founded does not have its ultimate ground
in the people themselves. For when human beings seek within themselves the
foundation for their own dignity and the freedom based on it, they fail to recognize that dignity can only be conferred upon them from the outside — i. e., human
54Ulrich Zwingli, De vera et falsa religione commentarius (“Commentary on True and False Religion”),
in: Zwingli: Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Emil Egli, Georg Finsler, Walther Köhler, Vol. III, Leipzig 1914,
p. 639,15 – 18.
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Justification and Freedom
dignity presupposes the external conferral of dignity. The message of freedom in
and through God also delivers us from all strenuous efforts to obtain recognition
and dignity through our own labors, our social status, and our achievements.
Dignity and recognition cannot be based on such efforts of our own. For even in
daily life, dignity and recognition depend upon love, over which we have no
command. Wherever love is experienced, it can always only be a gift.
Understood in this way, the celebrations and events in honour of the 2017 Reformation jubilee can remind us of fundamental insights concerning freedom in
the church and in society, it can keep these insights alive, maybe even intensify
and renew them. But the message of Christian freedom grounded in justification
by faith alone can also be celebrated in 2017 as a Christ-centered feast by evangelical Christians in the entire world. They can do this together with their RomanCatholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters in the faith, united in the certainty
gained in the course of long ecumenical conversations that they can join in
recognizing and affirming the gospel of Jesus Christ as their common foundation
irrespective of any conflicts or schisms. And evangelical Christians do this in
sympathetic dialogue and cordial agreement with the modern secular constitutional state and its citizens of different religions and worldviews — they do so in
the joyful awareness that the Reformation’s message of freedom contributed to
the emergence of precisely this constitutional state.
66
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Käßmann, Margot, ed. Schlag nach bei Luther. Texte für den Alltag. Frankfurt am
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Leppin, Volker. Die Reformation. Darmstadt, 2013.
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Introductory Literature in German
Pesch, Otto Hermann. Hinführung zu Luther. Mainz, 32004.
Rublack, Ulinka. Die Reformation in Europa. Frankfurt am Main, 2003 (Engl. translation: Reformation Europe. Cambridge and New York, 2005).
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Wendebourg, Dorothea. “Die Reformationsjubliäen des 19. Jahrhunderts.”
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Links
www.luther2017.de
www.impuls-reformation.de
www.denkwege-zu-luther.de
www.ekd.de
www.r2017.org
70
Members of the ad-hoc commission
Dr. Dorothea Deneke-Stoll, Ingolstadt
Tabea Dölker, Holzgerlingen
Bischöfin Kirsten Fehrs, Hamburg/Lübeck
Dr. Jens Gundlach, Hannover
Vicepresident Dr. Thies Gundlach, Hannover
(managing director beginning July 2013)
Dr. Martin Hauger, Hannover
(managing director beginning January 2014)
Dr. Martin Hirzel, Bern
(beginning March 2013)
Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Margot Käßmann, Berlin
PD Dr. Anne Käfer, Berlin
(managing director until July 2013)
Pfarrer Ulrich Kasparick, Uckermark
Präses Annette Kurschus, Bielefeld
Prof. Dr. Rochus Leonhardt, Leipzig
Prof. Dr. Volker Leppin, Tübingen
Dr. Gottfried W. Locher, Bern
(until March 2013)
Prof. Dr. Dres. h. c. Christoph Markschies, Berlin
(President)
Uwe Michelsen, Hamburg
OKR Christoph Seele, Dresden
Prof. Dr. Christiane Tietz, Zürich
Prof. Dr. Johannes Weiß, Erfurt
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