Part 14

Faith

If the doctrine of justification is to remain pure, then, finally, the doctrine

of Faith

must also be taught correctly. It has already been necessary to discuss this point repeatedly in the preceding sections. Here, therefore, we may limit ourselves to highlighting a few principal points.

Walther reminds us that ignorance of what justifying faith is, or in what respect faith justifies, is widespread in outward Christendom. He says: “However much all Christian parties talk about faith, very few have a correct understanding of faith and of how it justifies.”¹ On this point there is, indeed, a “truly Babylonian confusion.”² “There is so much talk of faith alone justifying and saving, yet when the matter is put to the test, people will have none of it.” For closer examination reveals that works are repeatedly being mixed into the article of justification. Even when works are excluded from justification in wording and sola fide is professed, all this is taken back in substance: the fundamental article of the Christian religion is thoroughly falsified by making faith itself a work. People still want to find some place for human activity by which a man distinguishes himself from others. They locate this activity now in his repentance, now in his conversion, now in his sanctification, now in faith itself.

Walther therefore seeks to prevent faith itself, through which justification takes place, from being turned back into a work in any way, or from being mixed with man’s own works, worthiness, activity, etc. Walther repeatedly explains: “When God demands faith of us, He is not saying: My Son has indeed made satisfaction for you and redeemed the world, but now you too must do something. On the contrary, faith is necessary precisely because we have nothing whatever left to do for our salvation.” “The reason why faith justifies, and nothing else, either in its place or alongside it, is that on man’s part there is nothing more to be done: Christ has fully acquired righteousness and salvation for all men, and these are offered as a gift in Word and Sacrament.” Or: faith justifies and saves because man is justified and saved not through his own activity in any way, but freely, by grace. In justification, faith is regarded as the opposite of all works and all merit. “If righteousness were not by grace, then, of course, something else would be required to obtain it; but since it is by grace, faith is enough, for it simply accepts.” Faith justifies insofar as it accepts the righteousness and salvation already present through Christ’s merit and offered in the promise. Faith comprises knowledge, assent, and confidence; but it is not “because it is knowledge, assent, and confidence (and thus a certain quality in man) that it justifies, but insofar as it is the medium through which the righteousness already present is accepted.” Man is not first to make himself worthy of righteousness and salvation in any way through faith itself. Thus faith does not justify insofar as it is itself an act or obedientia [obedience], nor insofar as it effects an inward change in man and is followed by blessed feelings, good works, etc. To express sharply that faith is not to be understood as a supplement to the grace of God and the merit of Christ, Walther says: “Even if the word ‘faith’ never occurred in Scripture, by teaching salvation by grace for Christ’s sake, Scripture would still teach salvation through faith.” Elsewhere Walther explains: If I had nothing but faith, and not Christ (which is, of course, impossible), I would be damned together with my faith. For it is not the act of believing that makes me acceptable to God, but Christ and His righteousness, which I grasp with the hand of faith.³ In this connection Walther liked to cite Calov’s statement that faith itself, insofar as it is an instrument, is rightly set in opposition not only to all works of obedience and godliness, but also to faith itself, insofar as it is our work and act.^{4, 5}

This careful distinction between faith and every human act or quality is absolutely necessary. First, so that Christ may retain His honor as Savior. Second, because every false notion of faith confuses consciences. “How many,” says Walther, “do not dare to believe because faith is falsely presented to them (namely, as their own act, as a good quality, as fides formata [faith formed by love], as a feeling, etc.).”

What Walther explained on this point in opposition to old and new errors can only be outlined briefly here.

The papists err gravely in the doctrine of faith, since they expressly say that faith justifies insofar as it is a good quality, a virtue in the hearts of men that contains and produces love and all good works.

Also in error here are those who, following the enthusiasts, understand justifying faith as a change in the heart of man. Certainly, faith, and faith alone, produces a change in the heart of man. But this transforming, sanctifying power is not the reason why faith justifies. If justification is ascribed to faith in this respect, then justification is once again grounded not on Christ, but on man himself, namely, on the new nature that has begun in man.

Likewise, the enthusiasts’ conception of justifying faith as wrestling and struggling for grace must be rejected. It is indeed true that faith wrestles and struggles. “Those are greatly mistaken,” says Walther, “who think that we are opposed to earnest godliness, that we reject struggling, praying, and wrestling, sighing and weeping. No indeed! Many of us may spend more time on our knees than those who seek to earn grace in this way. We oppose only the notion that we must obtain grace by praying, sighing, and wrestling.” Faith justifies not insofar as it wrestles and struggles, but insofar as it rests in the promise of the Gospel, as the heart’s confidence that takes as its own the promise of grace contained in the audible Gospel (the Word of God) and the visible Gospel (the Sacrament).⁶ If someone says that faith justifies insofar as it wrestles and struggles for grace, then “all honor would once again be taken from God, and a heathen justification draped in a few Christian rags would be set up in its place.”⁷

Nor should faith be understood, as it is by the enthusiasts and the modern theologians, as a condition of justification, if the word condition is taken in its proper and ordinary sense. Walther insists on this point often and emphatically. He does grant that this expression may be used when speaking of the necessity of faith, or when emphasizing that there is no justification without faith. But, he says, one must then carefully guard against every misunderstanding, for the word condition, as commonly used, implies an achievement on the part of the recipient. In justification, however, faith is regarded not as an achievement, but as the opposite of all human achievement. Faith is therefore not the condition under which we are justified, but the manner in which we become partakers of the righteousness that God has long since given us (in Christ’s resurrection) and offers in the Word of the Gospel. To be sure, Scripture says: “If one believes from the heart, one is justified.”⁸ But the particle “if” has a twofold sense. It is used either as stating the ground (etiologically) or as indicating the manner (syllogistically). In the preaching of the Law, “If you do this, you shall live,” the “if” states the ground, since obedience is the cause on account of which eternal life is given to those who keep the Law. But in the Gospel promises, “If you believe, you shall be saved,” the “if” is syllogistic, for it designates the manner of appropriation that God has appointed.

To be sure, the modern Lutheran theologians are fond of saying that man is justified on the condition of faith. But this is because modern Lutheran theology is synergistic through and through. It calls faith “an act of our own self,” a lofty “moral act of the will that appropriates salvation.” This in fact abandons the doctrine of justification through faith, even though one still says that man is justified through faith alone. The word “faith,” and with it the expressions “through faith” and “through faith alone,” have taken on an entirely different sense. All synergists must also falsify the doctrine of justification, because they also make faith a human act. Therefore Walther says with reference to the latest doctrinal controversy:

Now too (in the controversy over the doctrine of conversion and the election of grace) the article at issue is none other than that of justification. The question now is: Is man really justified and saved by grace alone? Does Christ alone accomplish this, or does the ground of a man’s salvation lie in man himself? Does faith justify because Christ has already done everything and we therefore have only to appropriate it? Or is faith what man must do on his part; is faith necessary because something must still be done on man’s part as well?

Accordingly, Walther repeatedly described the preservation of the pure doctrine of justification within our church fellowship as the chief fruit of the latest doctrinal controversy.

Footnotes

1. Westl. Ber. 1875 [Proceedings of the Western District], p. 35.
2. Ber. der ersten Vers. der Synodalconf. [Proceedings of the First Convention of the Synodical Conference], p. 29.
3. Ibid., p. 35.
4. Baieri Comp. ed. Walther III. p. 270.
5. In the well-known “Luther Hours,” Walther also repeatedly explained that faith justifies “not as a work, but as an instrument.” The following observation may be added here. Walther shows that faith does not justify merely by holding something to be true, but insofar as it believes the Gospel, that God is gracious to men through Christ. Walther said on September 14, 1877: “When unbelievers hear that in the Christian religion God’s grace and favor and eternal salvation are ascribed to faith, they usually think that this is simply the way of all religions that claim to have been supernaturally revealed by God: they demand of their adherents above all faith in their mysteries, which contradict reason, and promise heaven in return to those who believe them. Mohammed, they think, demanded faith above all from his adherents; the founder of the Mormon sect demanded faith above all; Moses demanded faith above all; and so too did Christ. But, the unbelievers think, what could it matter to God (if indeed there is a God) whether one believes something that contradicts reason or not? How is a man any better for trampling his reason underfoot, and why should he be more worthy of heaven (if indeed there is a heaven) than one who uses it? — From all these judgments it is clear that unbelievers have no idea what faith actually is, to which the Christian religion ascribes God’s grace and eternal salvation. According to our holy Christian religion, merely holding what the Bible says to be true is so far from being the faith that justifies and saves that the Bible itself says: ‘You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble.’ James 2:19. … According to Scripture itself, then, merely holding what Holy Scripture says to be true is something even the devil can do, and therefore does not save. The faith to which the Christian religion ascribes salvation is accordingly something altogether different. It is, in a word, as Scripture itself says, ‘a sure confidence,’ a ‘receiving and accepting.’ (Heb. 11:1. John 1:12.)^* For God has accomplished the great wonder of His eternal love: He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to become man. Through Him, God Himself paid the debt of sin owed by all men and thus regained for all men the heaven forfeited by sin and the salvation lost through it. Finally, He offers and gives all this through Word and Sacrament. What, then, is man to do? Nothing, nothing at all. Rather, he is to give God the glory and accept the gift; and that, and nothing else, is faith. Merely holding something to be true does not include accepting the gift; for that very reason, true faith is lacking. But if a man truly accepts the grace and salvation offered in Word and Sacrament to all men and to him also, and truly places his confidence in it, then he has true saving faith. Whoever takes offense at this doctrine of faith is therefore really taking offense only at the greatness of divine grace, at the blessed counsel of redemption, at Christ, the Savior of the world. Would to God that only unbelievers rejected the right doctrine of faith! Yet, sadly, entire large church bodies do so.” — On the same subject Walther said in another “Luther Hour”: “The Christian religion also demands faith in its divinity and truth. But it is by no means this faith to which the Christian religion ascribes salvation. When Christ says, ‘He that believes shall be saved,’ that does not mean: whoever holds everything I teach to be true shall be saved. Rather, it means this: Through sin you have fallen away from God and into an eternal debt that you cannot pay. But be of good cheer: I, the Son of God, have paid your debt and thereby regained for you God’s grace and eternal salvation, and I offer you all this as a free gift. Come, then, accept this gift, and you will have the help you need. And this acceptance is precisely the faith of which Christianity speaks.”
   
   * [Tr.] Heb. 11:1 is rendered here from Luther’s German, on which Walther’s point turns: Luther has eine gewisse Zuversicht, “a sure confidence,” expressing faith as sure confidence or trust. The KJV reads: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The second phrase, “a receiving and accepting” (ein Auf- und Annehmen), is Walther’s own gloss drawing on John 1:12, “as many as received him.”
6. Westl. Ber. 1875, p. 22.
7. Ibid.
8. [Tr.] Rom. 10:10, rendered from Luther’s German (So man von Herzen glaubt, so wird man gerecht), since the argument that follows turns on the conditional particle. The KJV reads: “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” The two Law and Gospel sayings that follow are quoted as Walther gives them; cf. Luke 10:28 and Mark 16:16.