Footnotes

1. It is impossible to arrive at the view of sin which is in accordance with Christianity, before arriving at the knowledge of what Christianity regards as good. Therefore it is a peculiarly inconsiderate demand, that one shall recognize his own and universal sin in their full extent, in order from this first to derive a longing for a redemption such as is promised in Christianity. ↩

2. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, i.e., that the original inclination to evil transmitted in generation is for every one both personal guilt and subject to the divine sentence of eternal punishment, is not confirmed by any New Testament author. Paul draws from his scholastic exegesis of the account of the fall only the conviction, that the universal decree of death for man was the consequence of the sin of the first human beings, and the conclusion that their descendants have sinned since that fate was theirs also (Rom. v. 12-19). Neither Jesus nor any of the New Testament writers either indicate or presuppose that sin is universal merely through natural generation. The expressions in the Old Testament which approach this view (Ps. li. 5; Job xiv. 4; xv. 14) are not dogmatic in character and not suited to determine the Christian conception. ↩

3. Gen. viii. 21; Matt. v. 28; Gal. v. 16-21; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10; Tit. iii. 3;—1 Thess. iv. 3-8; Luke xv. 21; 1 Cor. vi. 18-20; viii. 12;—1 John iii. 4. ↩

4. Conf. Aug. I. 2. “ Post lapsum Adae omnes homines secundum naturam propagati nascuntur cum peccato, hoc est sine metu dei, sine fiducia erga deum et cum concupiscentia.” ↩

5. Therefore the sinlessness of Jesus (§ 21, 2) does not contradict His human nature. ↩

6. This gradation is indicated in 1 John v. 16, 17. It is also signified when Jesus represents sin or the world, now as an object of redemption (Mark ii. 17; Luke xiii. 2-5; xv. 7, 10, 24, 32; xviii. 13), now as incapable of salvation (Mark viii. 38; Matt. viii. 22; xii. 39-45; xiii. 49). In the same way with reference to Num. xv. 27-31, a distinction is made between sins arising from ignorance or mistake and therefore receiving forgiveness (1 Pet. i. 14; Eph. iv. 17-19; Acts xvii. 30; 1 Tim. i. 13; Jas. v. 19, 20), and those which are committed freely or with final deter- mination, and which bring destruction in their train (Col. iii. 5, 6; Eph. v. 5, 6; Rev. xxi. 8). ↩

7. Jas. i. 14, 15; Mark ix. 43-47, represent individual impulses and their bodily organs as causes of temptation to sin, in so far as the impulses are directed to worldly good and the organs are the means of the attraction. Along with this the power of social custom, and the authority as well as the example of others furnish seductive occasion to sin (Mark iv. 17; ix. 42; 1 Cor. viii. 13; Rom. xiv. 13, 21; Rev. ii. 14). But also the suffering of the good, when not understood, works in the same way (Mark xiv. 27, 29; 1 Cor. i. 23; 1 Pet. ii. 8). ↩

8. Jas. iv. 4; 1 John ii. 15-17. The expression “ the kingdom of sin ” is, it is true, not directly biblical, but yet it is indicated in the representation of the devil as the prince of this world (1 John v. 18, 19; John xii. 31; xvi. 11). Of course this union of evil is unlike the kingdom of God, in that it is controlled by no positive purpose. ↩

9. Rom. iii. 9; v. 20, 21; vi. 12-23. ↩

10. The absolute inability to good which the Reformers find expressed in the sinfulness of every individual, is not asserted in the New Testament, and is limited even by the Reformers themselves by the recognition of “justitia civilis” as the work of sinners. ↩

11. The manifestation of conscience in involuntary self-condemnation for a deed done, is to be understood as a proof of freedom, i.e., of self-determination to good, but this of course takes place only on the presupposition that one is brought up in a moral fellowship. An evil conscience is a positive manifestation, a so-called good conscience the absence of the same. In the New Testament the former is referred to in Heb. x. 2, 22; and the latter in Acts xxiii. 1; 2 Cor. i. 12; Heb. xiii. 18; 1 Pet. iii. 16; and both together in Rom. ii. 15. That a good conscience has only a relative value in proving a mode of action to be right is shown in 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4. As to the conception of the positive law-giving conscience compare § 66, 1. ↩

12. John ix. 1-3; Luke xiii. 1-5; compare § 18, 5. ↩

13. This tenderness of feeling Luther, for instance, did not exercise when he declared Zwingli’s tragic end a divine punishment for his heresies (Briefe IV. 332, 352). ↩

14. Rom. v. 12. ↩

15. Rom. xiv. 7, 8; Phil. i. 21-24; Rom. viii. 35-39. ↩

16. The liberation of the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage into an independent national life, and the establishment of their own true religion (Ex. xv. 13; xx. 2), is the type by which all similar expectations of the prophets are governed, in each recurring subjugation of the people to foreign nations (Ps. cxi. 9; Is. xxxv. 10; xlv. 17; li. 11). The conversion or the spiritual renewing of the people is, to be sure, included also in this conception (Is. x. 21; xxxii. 15-18; Ezek. xxxvi. 24-30; Ps. cxxx. 8). ↩

17. This is not even the definite sense of such passages as Rom. xi. 26, 27; 1 Pet. i. 18, 19; ii. 24; they depend rather upon being made clear by the line of thought which follows. ↩

18. Redemption is now forgiveness of sins (Col. i. 14; Eph. i. 7; Heb. ix. 15; x. 16-18), and now justification or acquittal (Rom. iii. 24-26); this latter again is also forgiveness of sins (Rom. iv. 5-8). The figure of the forgetting or covering of sins by God, does not mean that God commits an intentional self-deception as to the existence of human sin, but it has the meaning expressed in the conception of pardon, that the result of transgression, namely, the interruption of intercourse between the guilty individual and the representative of moral authority, is purposely brought to an end by the latter. This meaning follows from the comparison of the divine forgiveness with the human (Luke xi. 4; Mark xi. 25). ↩

19. It is utterly purposeless to compare the Catholic and the Evangelical conceptions of justification [Rechtfertigung], since they stand in relations which are completely indifferent to one another. That is to say, the Catholic conception of justification [Gerechtmachung] through the imparting of love to the will, is intended to explain how sinners are made capable of good works. This thought has therefore a different purpose from that of the Evangelical formula referred to above; in themselves considered both might be at the same time true and in force side by side without conflicting with one another. Yet the Catholic formula sets forth a spiritual occurrence in a mechanical and materialistic way, and is out of relation to the authoritative biblical conception. For the conception of δικαιοῦν adopted by Paul (Rom. iii. 26, 30) follows the meaning of a Hebrew verbal form (hizdik), which denotes the pronouncing of one as righteous by the sentence of a judge (Rom. iv. 11). ↩

20. The justification established by God’s gracious judg- ment (δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ) is conditioned on faith (Rom. i. 17; iii. 22, 26; ix. 30; Phil. iii. 9). ↩

21. 2 Cor. v. 18, 19; Rom. v. 10; Col. i. 21. ↩

22. Matt. xvii. 26; 1 John iii. 1; Gal. iv. 4-7; Rom. viii. 14-17. Luther’s Catechism, third main division: “God will lead us to believe that He is our real Father, and we His real children, to the end that we, in all boldness and confidence, may ask of Him as dear children of a dear Father.” ↩

23. Since the Christian life is only complete in the fulfilment of both these conditions,—assurance of reconciliation (or adoption [Gotteskindschaft]), and the seeking of the kingdom of God and its righteousness,—these two lines serve as a mutual proof of their rightness and genuineness, or mutually condition one another. This appears in the following propositions: 1. Assurance of reconciliation is not justified when the life is either directly sinful, or is marred by a predominating form of self-seeking. 2. A life directed by a constant good purpose fails of its end when the assurance of reconciliation is marred by a predominating self-righteousness. 3. In so far as the moral life must be judged incomplete in general, and also because of special sin, this lack finds its rectification not alone in the assurance of divine forgiveness, but also in the purpose to make greater effort and improvement, and in the carrying out of this purpose. The commonly received idea opposed to this rests upon the error that in Christianity forgiveness of sins is a substitute for what is assumed to be the original arrangement, by which one might attain to the right relation to God by a mechanical fulfilling of the law. Compare § 38. ↩

24. This is evident from the fact that Christ, in the establishment of the Lord’s Supper (Mark xiv. 24), refers back to Jeremiah’s prophecy (xxxi. 31-34) of the New Covenant, whose foundation is the forgiveness of sins. As the prophet refers to this covenant as made with the whole unit of the people of Israel as the existing community of the true God, so Christ in consonance with this thinks of the community as existing in the Twelve, for whom He makes the covenant of forgiveness efficacious by the sacrifice of His life.—Compare Luther, Smaller Catechism, second division, third article, “in which Christian church God daily forgives me and all believers freely all sins.” Catechismus major, II. 40-42: “Credo spiritus sancti opera me sanctificari. Qua autem re illud facit? Per christianorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem et vitam aeternam. Primum enim singularem in mundo communionem obtinet; haec mater est, haec quemlibet christianum parturit ac alit per verbum.” These sentences are essentially the same as Conf. Aug. I. 5: “Per verbum et sacramenta tanquam per instrumenta donatur spiritus sanctus, qui fidem efficit … in iis qui audiunt evangelium, scilicet quod deus propter Christum justificet hos qui credunt, se propter Christum in gratiam recipi.” For, as the “Tractatus de potestate et primatu papae, 24” testifies: “tribuit deus principaliter claves (i.e., the word of God, the gospel) ecclesiae et immediate.” ↩

25. In the Catholic system the idea of forgiveness of sins is made clearly efficacious only in the ceremony of the priestly absolution of the individual in the sacrament of confession. A similar procedure is maintained in the Lu- theran confessional, without there being any reference in their liturgy to the specific principle of the Reformation, namely, that in consequence of the redemption mediated through Christ we belong to the community founded upon the forgiveness of sins, and accordingly do not make confession of past sins, in the sense that we have lost the state of grace, and therefore forgiveness must be received as something new. This confessional practice rather furthers the fateful error (§ 37, 3) that churchly forgiveness of sins is a substitute for a defective striving after the good. ↩

26. Although the love of God has been occasionally construed as the ground of a reasonable lenity on God’s part toward the weakness of men, yet it does not furnish the datum for a so-called natural religion, which indeed does not exist. But even were it otherwise, lenity toward the imperfections of human conduct is an entirely different thing from Christian forgiveness of sins. Such lenity accepted as a divine substitute for human weakness would sacrifice the seriousness of moral obligation, and would utterly fail to assure a fellowship of men with God, in which the task of the kingdom of God calls forth the constant effort of the will. ↩

27. The direction to pray for the forgiveness of sins (Luke xi. 4) and the command to exercise a forgiving spirit (Mark xi. 25) apply to the community as existing already in the twelve disciples, and express the thought that in this community one cannot appropriate to himself the forgiveness of sins without at the same time giving proof by the forgiving spirit, or the love of one’s enemies, that one is engaged in the ethical work of the kingdom of God (§ 37, 3). ↩

28. Mark xiv. 24 refers to the sacrifice of the covenant (Ex. xxiv. 3-8). Since the Israelites entered by this act upon their vocation as the possession of God and as a kingdom of priests (Ex. xix. 5, 6), compare Acts xx. 28; Rev. i. 5, 6; Tit. ii. 14. Rom. iii. 25, 26, Heb. ix. 11-14, refer to the type of the universal yearly sin-offering (Lev. xvi.); 1 Pet. i. 18, 19, to the passover, which belongs to the redemption out of Egypt; Eph. v. 2, makes no distinction between these various kinds of sacrifice. ↩

29. The sacrifices prescribed in the Mosaic law, as well as the sacrifice of the covenant, signify that by these acts the covenant-community approaches its God, and they rest therefore upon the certainty of His covenant grace. This is also true of the sin-offering which has reference only to such transgressions as do not involve a breach of the covenant (Num. xv. 27-31). ↩

30. John x. 17, 18; xiv. 31; xv. 13, 14; xvii. 19; Rom. v. 19; Phil. ii. 8; Eph. v. 2; Heb. v. 8, 9; compare § 25, 2. ↩

31. The combination in the epistle to the Hebrews, especially in ii. 17; iv. 14-16; vi. 20; ix. 11, 24-26. ↩

32. It is remarkable that the epistles have so few reminiscences of the life of Christ. Hence it appears as if the emphasizing of His death as the act of redemption counted upon an interpretation of this act which is in complete contrast to the thought of His life. Yet it is plain that the apostles understood the divinely purposed death of Christ to be a sacrifice only as it was connected with His obedience to His life-calling. This highest proof of the obedience of Christ serves thus as a redemptive sacrifice, because it can be understood as summing up in itself the value of His life given in the service of God and of the community to be established. Mark x. 45, “For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” ↩

33. John xv. 10; x. 17, 18; compare § 22, 3. ↩

34. John xvii. 20-26. ↩

35. The view that Christ, by the vicarious endurance of the punishment deserved by sinful men, propitiated the justice or wrath of God, and thus made possible the grace of God, is not founded on any clear and distinct passage in the New Testament. It rests rather on a presupposition of natural theology, clearly of Pharisaic and Hellenic origin. This presupposition is that the fundamental re- lation between God and man, to which religion is subordinate, is that of justice. And along with this a principle is accepted which is contrary to every judicial system, namely, that on the whole justice is equally maintained by vicarious punishment and by the regular course of law. But these two ideas cannot be co-ordinated. For the object of justice is the universal well-being of a people or a company of men, and punishment is comprehensible only as a subordinate means to this end (§ 18). Now all law is binding only because the law-giver shows himself a benefactor, a maintainer of the public weal. Thus the goodness of such an one is the motive for the recognition of his law by the society he founds. Applied to God, this principle shows that the experience of God’s goodness or grace is precedent to all law which gives expression to mutual rights between God and man. Therefore the “foedus operum” cannot be regarded as the fundamental relation between the two, and hence the “foedus operum” cannot rationally be transformed into the “foedus gratiae” by Christ’s fulfilling the conditions of the former and so doing away with it. ↩

36. 1 Pet. iii. 18; compare Eph. ii. 16-18; Heb. vii. 19; x. 19-22. The same thought is expressed in saying that the community is sanctified by the sacrifice of Christ (John xvii. 19; Heb. x. 14), for “to sanctify,” “to make his possession” and “to cause to come near” all mean the same thing (Num. xvi. 5). ↩

37. The symbolism of all animal sacrifice in the Old Testament has the following content: The ministering priest, who is authorized, in the place of the people or of the individual Israelites, to bring their gifts (corban, that which is brought near) into God’s presence, fulfils this purpose in sprinkling the blood, in which is the life of the animal, upon the altar where God meets with the people (Ex. xx. 24), and in burning the animal, or certain parts of it, in the fire, which signifies God’s presence (Lev. ix. 24). By these actions, which present the gift to God, the priest “shields” the people or the individuals from God there present. This is according to the presupposition that no living being can come uncalled into the presence of God without being destroyed. But the gift, brought according to the divine order, is the covering or protection under which those in covenant with God are in thought brought into His presence. In the sin-offering there is no rite prescribed which would signify any different conception from that of the burnt-offering and the peace-offering. In the yearly sin-offering the blood of the goat is sprinkled on the cover of the ark of testimony (ark of the covenant), because this is a higher symbol of the gracious presence of God than the altar of sacrifice. When God thus suffers the national community, who are conscious of sin, to draw near Him in prescribed ways, in these acts the separation from Him resulting from sin is done away with. This bringing near to a gracious God, thus accomplished, is the ground of the fact that sins are forgiven, i.e., that they no longer separate from God. ↩

38. Heb. iii. 1; ix. 15; xii. 24. ↩

39. Thus the idea of Athanasius, that the positive result of redemption through Christ is the deification of the human race, is untenable. ↩

40. Mark viii. 29; Jas. ii. 1; 1 Pet. i. 7, 8; 1 John v. 1; Heb. ii. 3; Rom. iii. 21, 22; Acts iv. 10-12. ↩

41. John x. 15-18. ↩

42. Mark ix. 23; xi. 23;—Rom. iv. 13; viii. 31-39; 1 Cor. iii. 21-23; Jas. i. 9;—1 John ii. 25; iv. 9; Rom. v. 1, 2, 17; 1 Cor. iv. 8. ↩

43. John viii. 36; Gal. v. 1. Luther “De libertate christiana”: “Quemadmodum Christus has duas dignitates (regis et sacerdotis) obtinuit, ita impartit et communes easdem facit cuilibet suo fideli. Hinc omnes in Christo ↩