06046.2 - Formula of Concord - 5

§46.2. The Form of Concord, Concluded - Part 2. AN IMPARTIAL ESTIMATE. The Formula of Concord is, next to the Augsburg Confession, the most important theological standard of the Lutheran Church, but differs from it as the sectarian symbol of Lutheranism, while the other is its catholic symbol. Hence its authority is confined to that communion, and is recognized only by a section of it. It is both conclusive and exclusive, a Formula of Concord and a Formula of Discord, the end of controversy and the beginning of controversy. It completed the separation of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, it contracted the territory and the theology of Lutheranism, and sowed in it the seed of discord by endeavoring to settle too much, and yet leaving unsettled some of the most characteristic dogmas. It is invaluable as a theological document, but a partial failure as a symbol, just because it contains too much theology and too little charity. It closes the productive period of the Lutheran reformation and opens the era of scholastic formalism. The Formula is the fullest embodiment of genuine Lutheran orthodoxy, as distinct from other denominations. It represents one of the leading doctrinal types of Christendom. It is for the Lutheran system what the Decrees of Trent are for the Roman Catholic, the Canons of Dort for the Calvinistic. It sums up the results of the theological controversies of a whole generation with great learning, ability, discrimination, acumen, and, we may add, with comparative moderation. It is quite probable that Luther himself would have heartily indorsed it, with the exception, perhaps, of a part of the eleventh article. The Formula itself claims to be merely a repetition and explication of the genuine sense of the Augsburg Confession, and disclaims originality in the substance of doctrine. [SeeNote #688] But there were two diverging tendencies proceeding from the same source. The author of the Confession himself understood and explained it differently, and the Formula added new dogmas which he never entertained. It excludes, indeed, certain extravagances of the Flacian wing of Lutheranism, but, upon the whole, it is a condemnation of Philippism and a triumph of exclusive Lutheranism. [SeeNote #689] The spirit of Melanchthon could be silenced, but not destroyed, for it meant theological progress and Christian union. It revived from time to time in various forms, in Calixtus, Spener, Zinzendorf, Neander, and other great and good men, who blessed the Lutheran Church by protesting against bigotry and the overestimate of intellectual orthodoxy, by insisting on personal, practical piety, by widening the horizon of truth, and extending the hand of fellowship to other sections of Christ’s kingdom. The minority which at first refused the Formula became a vast majority, and even the recent reaction of Lutheran confessionalism against rationalism, latitudinarianism, and unionism will be unable to undo the work of history, and to restore the Lutheran scholasticism and exclusivism of the seventeenth century. The Lutheran Church is greater and wider than Luther and Melanchthon, and, by its own principle of the absolute supremacy of the Bible as a rule of faith, it is bound to follow the onward march of Biblical learning. The great length of this section may be justified by the intrinsic importance of the Formula Concordiæ, and the scarcity of reliable information in English works. [SeeNote #690]

Note #617

’Die einige Regel und Richtschnur (unica regula et norma ), nach welcher alle Lehren and Lehrer gerichtet und geurtheilt werden sollen. ’ Comp. Psalms 119:15; Galatians 1:8. The extent of the Canon, however, is not defined, as in several Reformed Confessions, and the question of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament is left open.

Note #618

’Die erste ungeänderte Augsb.Confession’ (Augustanam illam primam et non mutatam Confessionem ). The Preface (pp. 13, 14) rejects the Altered Augsburg Confession (of 1540), if it be understood as teaching another doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.

Note #619

These are called the ’Laienbibel ’ (laicorum biblia, the layman’s Bible), ’darin alles begriffen, was in heiliger Schrift weitläuftig gehandelt, und einem Christenmenschen zu wissen vonnöthen ist. ’

Note #620

Sol.Decl.Art. VIII. p. 678 (ed. Müller): ’Die gotteslästerliche allæosis Zwinglii ,’ which Dr. Luther condemned ’als des Teufels Larve, bis in den Abgrund der Höllen. ’

Note #621

Solida Declaratio , Art. II. §24 (p. 662 ed. Rech., p. 534 ed. Müller):’Autequam homo per Spiritum Sanctum illuminatur, convertitur, regeneratur et trahitur . . . ad conversionem aut regenerationem suam nihil inchoare, operari, aut coöperari potest, nec plus quam lapis, truncus, aut limus (so wenig als ein Stein oder Block oder Thon )’. Thomasius und Stahl disapprove of these expressions, and Luthardt (Lehre 5. freien Willen , p. 272) admits, at least, that they are unfortunately chosen (unglücklich gewählt ).Fr. H. R. Frank defends them.

Note #622

Ibid. Art. II. §7 (p. 656 ed. Rech., p. 589 ed. Müller): . . .’homo ad bonum prorsus corruptus et mortuus sit, ita ut in hominis natura post lapsum ante regenerationem ne scintillula quidem spiritualium virium (nicht ein Fünklein der geistlichen Kräfte ) reliqua manserit aut restet, quibus ille ex se ad gratiam Dei præparare se aut oblatam gratiam apprehendere, aut eius gratiæ (ex sese et per se ) capax esse possit, aut se ad gratiam applicare aut accommodare, aut viribus suis propriis aliquid ad conversionem suam vel ex toto vel ex dimidia vel ex minima parte conferre, agere, operari aut coöperari (ex se ipso tanquam ex semet ipso ) possit (oder aus seinen eigenen Kräften etwas zu seiner Bekehrung, weder zum ganzen noch zum halben oder zu einigem dem wenigsten oder geringsten Theil, helfen, thun, wirken oder mitwirken vermöge, von ihm selbst, als von ihm selbst ). . . . Inde adeo naturale tiberum arbitrium, ratione corruptarum virium et naturæ suæ depravatæ, duntaxat ad ea, quæ Deo displicent et adversantur, activum et efficax est. ’This and similar statements are followed by quotations from Dr. Luther, where he compares the natural man to ’a column of salt, Lot’s wife, a clod and stone, a dead statue without eyes or mouth.’ All he said against Erasmus, and later, in his Commentary on Genesis, about free will, is indorsed. Flacius inferred from the same teacher his Manichæan error, which the Formula condemns in Art. 1.

Note #623

See these passages in Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 486, note 24; Heppe, Der Text der Bergischen Concordienformel verglichen, etc.; Luthardt, Lehre vom freien Willen, pp. 262 sqq. Comp. also the remarks of Planck, Vol. VI. pp. 718 sqq.

Note #624 As Thomasius, Stahl, Harless, Hoffmann, Luthardt, Kahnis. See Luthardt,Die Lehre vom freien Willen,pp. 378 sqq.

Note #625 Well says Goethe- ’Wär’ nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, Wie könnte en das Licht erblicken!

Lebt’ nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft, Wie könnt’ uns Göttliches entzücken? ’

Note #626

’Nihil habet rationem sacramenti extra usum, seu actionem divinitus institutam ’ (Sol. Decl. p. 663). Gerhard and the later Lutheran theologians describe the presence as sacramentalis, vera et realis, substantialis, mystica, supernaturalis et incomprehensibilis, and distinguish it from the præsentia gloriosa (in heaven), hypostatica (of the logosin the human nature), spiritualis (operativa, or virtualis ), figurativa (imaginativa, symbolica ). It is a parousia, not an apousia(absence), nor enousia(inexistence), nor sunousia(co-existence in the sense of coalescence), nor metousia(transubstantiation). They reject the term consubstantiation in the sense of impanation or incorporation into bread, or physical coalescence and fusion. The Formula itself does not use the term.

Note #627 And yet Dr. Luther himself unequivocally taught the literal mastication of Christ’s body. He gave it as the sum of his belief, to which he ’would adhere though the world should collapse,’ that Christ’s body was ’ausgetheilt, gegessen und mit den Zähnen zerbissen ’ (Briefe, ed. by De Witte, Vol. IV. p. 572, comp. p. 569). He instructed Melanchthon to insist on this in the conference he had with Bucer in Cassel, Dec. 1534; but Melanchthon, though not emancipated from Luther’s view at that time, declined to shoulder it as his own, and began to change his ground on the eucharistic question. Corp. Ref. Vol. II. p. 822. Comp. Schmidt, Mel. p. 319; Ebrard, Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 375 sqq.

Note #628

Planck (Vol. VI. pp. 732 sqq.) charges the Formula with willful misrepresentation of Calvin’s view, which he had so clearly, distinctly, and repeatedly set forth, especially in his tracts against Westphal, and which had since been embodied in the Confessions of the Reformed churches. Thomasius, Stahl, and other orthodox Lutherans, freely admit the material difference between Calvin and Zwingli in the theory of the eucharist.

Note #629 My friend, Dr. Krauth, goes so far as to say (1.c. p. 316): ’The doctrine of the person of Christ presented in the Formula rests upon the sublimest series of inductions in the history of Christian doctrine. In all confessional history there is nothing to be compared with it in the combination of exact exegesis, of dogmatic skill, and of fidelity to historical development. Fifteen centuries of Christian thought culminate in it.’ But in his lengthy exposition he does not even mention the important difference between the Swabian and Saxon schools, nor the various forms of the communicatio idiomatum, and evades the real difficulty by resolving, apparently (p. 318), the communication of divine properties into an efficacious manifestation of the Godhead in and through the assumed humanity of Christ-which has never been disputed by Reformed divines.

Note #630

Even Luthardt admits at least the artificial construction of the Christology of the Formula, and its inconsistency with the historical realness of the picture of Christ in the Gospels (Compend. der Dogmatik, p. 144; comp. also Kahnis, Luth. Dogmatik, Vol. III. p. 338 sq.). The modern Lutheran Kenoticists, Thomasius, Hofmann (Luthardt inclines to them, p. 155)-not to speak of the extreme form to which Gess carried the kenôsis-virtually depart from the Formula of Concord, which pronounces it a ’blasphemous perversion’ to explain Matthew 28:18(’all power is given to me,’ etc.) in the sense that Christ had ever laid aside or abandoned his almighty power in the state of humiliation (Epit., at the close of Art. VIII.).

Note #631

We anticipate, for the sake of clearness, from the later orthodox writers the names of the three genera . The substance is already in the Formula, and in the treatise of Chemnitz, De duabus naturis in Christo, 1580. For a fuller exposition, with ample quotations from Chemnitz, John Gerhard, Hafenreffer, Hutter, Calov, Quenstedt, König, Baier, Hollaz, see Heinrich Schmid’s Dogmatik der evang. lutherischen Kirche (2d ed. 1847), pp. 252 sqq.; comp. also Luthardt, pp. 144 sqq., and Kahnis, Vol. II. pp. 335 sqq.

Note #632 This genus was subsequently subdivided into three species, corresponding to the concretum of the divine nature, the concretum of the human nature, and the concretum of both natures, of which the idiomata are predicated, viz., (a ) idiopoiçsis,or oikeisis,i.e., ’appropriatio, quando idiomata humana de concreto divinæ naturæ enuntiantur ,’ Acts 3:15; Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 2:8; Galatians 2:20; Psalms 45:8. (b ) Koinônia tôn theiôn,’divinorum idiomatum, quando de persona verbi incarnati, ab humana natura denominata, idiomata divina ob unionem personalem enuntiantur ,’ John 6:62; John 8:58; 1 Corinthians 15:47. (c ) Antidosis,or sunamphoterismos,’alternatio s. reciprocatio, qua tam divina quam humana idiomata de concreto personæ sive de Christo, ab utraque natura denominato, prædicantur ,’ Hebrews 13:8; Romans 9:5; 2 Corinthians 13:4; 1 Peter 3:18. See Schmid, p. 258.

Note #633

’The expression is borrowed from John of Damascus. apotelesmameans properly completion of the work (consummatio operis ), effect, result ; but it is here used for each action in the threefold office of Christ.

Note #634 From auchçma,gloria.This genus is also calledbeltiôsis, huperupsôsis, metadosis, theôsis, apotheosia, theopoiçsis,unctio.

Note #635 Sol. Decl.Art. VIII. p. 685 (ed. Müller).

Note #636

P. 689.

Note #637

Sol. Decl.p. 684:’Was die göttliche Natur in Christo anlanget, weil bei Gott keine Veränderung ist (Jac. 1,17), ist seiner göttlichen Natur durch die Menschwerdung an ihrem Wesen und Eigenschaften nichts ab-oder zugegangen, ist in oder für sich dadurch weder gemindert noch gemehret. ’ This raises the question how far the unchangeableness of God is affected by the incarnation, about which Dr. Dorner has written some profound articles in the Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie , 1856 and 1858.

Note #638 As Thomasius and Kahnis (Vol. III. p. 339) admit.

Note #639

’Weil Gottheit und Menschheit, ’ he says (Vol. XXX. p. 204, Erl. ed.), ’Eine Person ist, so giebt die Schrift um solcher persönlichen Einigkeit willen auch alles, was der Menschheit widerfährt, der Gottheit, und wiederum. Und ist auch also in der Wahrheit. Denn da musst du ja sagen: Die Person leidet, stirbt; nun ist die Person wahrhaftiger Gott: durum ist’s recht geredet: Gottes Sohn leidet. ’

Note #640 See above, pp. 290-294.

Note #641

Epit. VIII. (p. 545, ed. Müller): ’Wir gläuben, lehren und bekennen, dass die göttliche und menschliche Natur nicht in ein Wesen vermenget, keine in die andere verwandelt, sondern ein jede ihre wesentliche Eigenschaften behalte,Welche der andern Natur Eigenschaften Nimmermehr Werden.Die Eigenschaften göttlicher Natur sind: allmächtig, ewig,etc.,sein, welche der menschlichen Natur Eigenschaften nimmermehr werden. Die Eigenschaften menschlicher Natur sind: ein leiblich Geschöpf oder Creatur sein,etc.,welche der göttlichen Natur Eigenschaften nimmermehr werden.’ Comp. theSol. Decl.Art. VIII.

Note #642

Epit. VIII. (p. 545): ’Sondern hie ist die höchste Gemeinschaft, welche Gott mit dem Menschen wahrhaftig hat, aus welcher persönlichen Vereinigung und der daraus erfolgenden höchsten und unaussprechlichen Gemeinschaft alles herfleusst, was menschlich von Gott, und göttlich vom Menschen Christo gesaget und gegläubet wird; wie solche Vereinigung und Gemeinschaft der Naturen die alten Kirchenlehrer durch die Gleichniss eines feurigen Eisens, wie auch der Vereinigung Leibes und der Seelen im Menschen erkläret haben. ’ TheSol. Decl.repeats the same at greater length.

Note #643 The words ’ dass Christus auch nach und mit seiner assumirten Menschheit gegenwärtig sein könne und auch sei, wo er will, ’ clearly express the multivolipræsentia of Chemnitz and the Saxons. Nevertheless, Chemnitz, to his own regret, could not prevent the wholesale indorsement and quotation of Luther’s views-that wherever Christ’s divinity is, there is also his humanity; that he may be and is in all places wherever God is; that the ascension is figurative; that the right hand of God is every where, etc. Hence it is scarcely correct when Kahnis says (Vol. II. p. 581) that the compromise of the Formula leans to the side of Chemnitz. Compare the thorough discussion of Dorner, Entwicklungsgeschichte, Vol. II. pp. 710 sqq., who clearly shows that Chemnitz made several fatal concessions to the Swabian Christology. Hence the opposition of Heshusius and the Helmstädt Lutherans (see p. 293).

Note #644

Dorner, Vol. II. p. 771, ’Die Vermittlungsversuche des 1.Andreæ und Chemnitz erreichten in Betreff des eigentlichen Gegensatzes zwischen den Schwaben und Niederdeutschen keine innere Einigung, sondern nur eine Vereinigung van disharmonischen Sätzen von beiden Seiten her in einem Buch. Die Folge war daher nicht Eintracht, sondern vielseitige Zwietracht.’

Note #645 The Formula teaches the ktçsiswith a partial kenôsis chrçseôs,and so far seems to favor the later Giessen view, although the issue was not yet fairly before the authors. Sol. Decl. Art. VIII. (p. 767 ed. Rech., p. 680 ed. Müller): ’Eam vero majestatem statim in sua conceptione etiam in utero matris habuit, sed ut apostolus loquitur (Php 2:7), se ipsum exinanivit, eamque, ut D. Lutherus docet, in statu suæ humiliationis secreto habuit, neque eam semper, sed quoties ipsi visum fuit, usurpavit. ’ An occasional use of the divine attributes during the state of humiliation was expressly conceded by the Giessen divines; they only denied the constant and full (though secret) use contended for by the Tübingen school. See above, p. 295. The Lutheran scholastics were more on the side of the Giessen divines.

Note #646 This is admitted, in part at least, by Dr. Stahl, one of the ablest and most clear-headed modern champions of orthodox Lutheranism, when he says: ’Die Lehre von der Allgegenwart des Leibes Christi ist, abgesehen von der Anwendung auf das Abendmahl, von gar keinem religiösen Interesse ’ (Die lutherische Kirche und die Union, Berlin, 1859, p. 185).

Note #647

It is objected that omnipotence could not be given to the divine person of Christ, who had it from eternity essentially and of necessity, but only to his human nature. But this reasoning implies a virtual denial of the kenôsis,or laying aside of the pre-existent glory which Christ had as God, and was going to take possession of again as God-man at his exaltation, John 17:5(doxason me . . . tç doxç ç eichon pro tou ton kosmon einai para soi).

Note #648

According to the Romish liturgy, the elements are literally changed or transubstantiated into the very body and blood of Christ by the consecration of the priest when he repeats the words of institution, Hoc est corpus meum ; and hence the priest is blasphemously said to create the body of Christ. But, according to the Oriental and Greek liturgies, the presence of the body and blood of Christ is effected by the Benediction or Invocation of the Holy Ghost, which follows the recital of the words of institution. Calvin and the Reformed liturgies likewise bring in the agency of the Holy Ghost, but simply for conveying the energy or the power and effect of the body and blood of Christ in heaven to the believing communicant.

Note #649 The Roman Catholic Bellarmin (see below) and Reformed polemics (also Steitz on Ubiquity, in Herzog’s Encykl. ) argue that the ubiquity dogma destroys the Lutheran corporeal presence, and logically ends in the Calvinistic theory of the spiritual real presence. But we would rather say that it ends in a crypto-panchristism, which is quite foreign to Calvin. The doctrine of ubiquity was, before Luther, always connected with a leaning to Gnosticism and Pantheism, as in Origen and Scotus Erigena.

Note #650 The Lutherans exclude all ideas of local extension or expansion from the body of Christ, and describe it just as the scholastics and the ancient philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Philo) describe the presence of incorporeal substances, and especially of the Deity itself, which is ’unextended,’ ’indistant,’ ’devoid of magnitude,’ not part of it here and part of it there, but whole and undivided every where and nowhere. See Cudworth’s Intellectual System of the Universe, Harrison’s ed. (Lond. 1845), Vol. III. p. 248.

Note #651

Including such unbiased philological commentators as De Wette and Meyer. See especially Meyer on Matthew 26:26 (pp. 548 sqq. of the 5th ed.), and my annotations to Lange on Matthew, Am. ed., pp. 470-474. Kahnis, who formerly wrote an elaborate historical work in defense of the Lutheran doctrine (Die Lehre vom Abendmahl, Lipz. 1851), has more recently (1861) arrived at the conclusion that ’the Lutheran interpretation of the words of institution must be given up,’ though he thinks that this affects only the Lutheran theology, not the Lutheran faith.

Note #652

I have briefly expressed my own view in Com. on Matthew, p. 471: . . . ’But we firmly believe that the Lutheran and Reformed views can be essentially reconciled, if subordinate differences and scholastic subtleties are yielded. The chief elements of reconciliation are at hand in the Melanchthonian-Calvinistic theory. The Lord’s Supper is: (1.) A commemorative ordinance, a memorial of Christ’s atoning death, and a renewed application of the virtue of his broken body and shed blood. (This is the truth of the Zwinglian view, which no one can deny in the face of the words of the Saviour: ’Do this in remembrance of me. ’) (2.) A feast of living union of believers with the ever-living, exalted Saviour, whereby we truly, though spiritually, receive Christ with all his benefits, and are nourished by his life unto life eternal. (This was the substance for which Luther contended against Zwingli, and which Calvin retained, though in a different scientific form, and in a sense rightly confined to believers.) (3.) A communion of believers with one another as members of the same mystical body of Christ. . . . It is a sad reflection that the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper-this feast of the unio mystica and communio sanctorum, which should bind all pious hearts to Christ and each other, and fill them with the holiest and tenderest affections-has been the innocent occasion of the bitterest and most violent passions and the most uncharitable abuse. The eucharistic controversies are among the most unrefreshing and apparently fruitless in church history. Theologians will have much to answer for at the judgment-day for having perverted the sacred feast of divine love into an apple of discord. No wonder that Melanchthon’s last wish and prayer was to be delivered from the rabies theologorum . Fortunately, the blessing of the holy communion does not depend upon the scientific interpretation and understanding of the words of institution, but upon the promise of the Lord, and upon childlike faith which receives it, though it may not fully understand the mystery of the ordinance. Christians celebrated it with most devotion and profit before they contended about the true meaning of those words, and obscured their vision by all sorts of scholastic theories and speculations. Fortunately, even now Christians of different denominations and holding different opinions can unite around the table of their common Lord and Saviour, and feel one with him and in him who died for them all, and feeds them with his life once sacrificed on the cross, but now living forever. Let them hold fast to what they agree in, and charitably judge of their differences; looking hopefully forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb in the kingdom of glory, when we shall understand and adore, in perfect harmony, the infinite mystery of the love of God in his Son our Saviour.’

Note #653

See, especially, Meyer (who ably defends the patristic and Reformed exegesis against the objections of De Wette and Philippi), and Braune on Php 2:6 sqq. (Am. ed. of Lange). The latter says: ’hosof has for its antecedent Christô Içsou,and points to his ante-mundane state, as verses 7 and 8 refer to his earthly existence, and verses 9-11 (Php 2:8-11) refer to his subsequent glorified condition. The subject is the Ego of the Lord, which is active in all the three modes of existence. It is the entire summary of the history of Jesus, including his ante-human state.’ Among the dogmatic theologians of the Lutheran Church, Liebner, Thomasius, Kahnis, Gess, and others, give up the old Lutheran exegesis of the passage. Kahnis (in the third volume of his Luth. Dogmatik, 1868, p. 341) makes, as the result of his earnest investigation, the following clear and honest statement: ’(a) Dass Paulus in der Offenbarungsgeschichte Jesu Christi drei Stadien unterscheidet: das Stadium der Gottesgestalt, da der Logos beim Vater war; das Stadium der Knechtsgestalt, das mit der Selbstverleugnung Christi in der Menschwerdung begann und zur Erniedrigung am Kreuze fortging; das Stadium der Erhöhung, da im Namen Christi sich alle Knie beugen und ihn als Herrn bekennen. (b) Dass das Subjekt der Erniedrigung derlogos asarkosist, wie schon die alte Kirche in ihren namhaftesten Lehrern sah, die reformirten Theologen richtig erkannten und auch die bedeutendsten neueren Ausleqer aller Confessionen zugestehen, das Subjekt der Erhöhung aber derlogos ensarkos.(c) Dass die Entäusserung (eauton ekeuôse) darin besteht, dass der Logos sich der Gottesgestalt (morphç theou) d. h. des Herrlichkeitsstandes beim Vater begab, um Knechtsgestalt (morphç doulou) anzunehmen, d.h. ein Mensch wie wir zu werden, ja als Mensch sich zum Kreuzestode zu erniedrigen (etapeinôsen eauton): Entäusserung also gleich Menschwerdung ist. Darnach fordert dieses Lehrstück eine andere Fassung, als die alte [Luther. ] Dogmatik ihm gab. ’

Note #654

See above, p. 314. Comp. also Dorner,Gesch. der Prot. Theol.pp.366 sqq. Planck (Vol. VI. p. 814) charges this article with a confusion not found in the other parts of the Formula, and Gieseler (Vol. IV. p. 488) with putting together contradictory positions; while, on the other hand, Thomasius (Das Bekenntniss der ev. luth. Kirche,etc. p. 222) sees here only supplementary truths to be reconciled by theological science, and Guericke (in hisKirchengeschichte,Vol. III. p. 419) calls the logical inconsistency of the Formula ’divinely necessitated’ (eine göttlich nothwendige Verstandes-Inconsequenz).

Note #655 Loc.Theol.Tom. IV. pp. 189 sqq. (de Electione et Reprob. §7; de Universalitate Vocationis , §135