This is a surprisingly fine presentation of what Lutheranism really is. This avoids the simplifications or implications of compromise that make us Lutherans so upset with non-Lutheran Protestants, sectaries, and Romish Catholics.
I think, in simplifying the issue of predestination it is more accurate to say that it's a question of "who chooses first," rather than "who moves first."
Firstly I find most of your treatement of Luther and Lutheranism quite fair. However, your treatment that Luther was anti-semitic as a racists is not accurate. Luther was anti-Judaica. You see, Luther knew what was in the Talmud. He was an OT scholar and he read what was in the Talmud. That was the source of his anger. So he was an anti-follower-of- the-Talmud. I hope you, sir, look into this angle.
Dr. Reeves, I love your videos. Thank you so much for your efforts! I have one objection though. The term 'anti-semitism' has to do with race. Luthers issue with the Jews was not racial. It was religious. He was certainly anti-jewish, but not anti-Semitic. Now, some might say, potato (american english accent) potato (queen's english accent.)...but the fact of the matter is that, for Luther, if a jew converts to Christianity, he is no longer jewish. There are historical examples of this. Also, Luther was a product of his time. There were countless other Reformers who were hostile towards Jews and never get any mention. Of course that doesn't make things better by any means...Luthers anti-judaism was a big problem, but nineteenth and twentieth century Germans misused his works for racist propaganda. Luther was just furious because of the fact that they didn't accept Christ. For someone like Hitler for example, a jew is a jew - racially - whether he believes in Christ or not.
To be blunt then .... grace is "a license to sin”. And indeed according to Luther, an incentive "to sin boldly”. Even, to “find some really good sin to give the devil a toss”. The alternative view would be that grace was intended to empower true believers to conquer sin. That the impossible standards (so much above the law) that Jesus Himself laid down in Matthew 5, are not optional extras, but to be attempted as if perfection were attainable (by the grace of God) in this life. vs 48. We must all “take our pick”. The choice could not be more stark.
It still is not entirely clear to me whether, according to Luther, any choice or choices on my part are necessary for my salvation. So if predestination means God chooses first, then I might choose to reject Him nonetheless and be damned? Now if one is tempted by sin to reject God's grace, does it not become then a work to overcome that temptation and thereby receive the grace? You say Luther says we should give up trying to do good works to get saving grace, and that giving up this attempt to do good works entails in effect hard work, since we are so inclined to want to earn salvation. So it seems to me that Luther does not show me the way out of the Anfechtungen he apparently got out of. I am still left with the impression that I can fumble and lose my salvation if I am not in some way good enough. Or have I got this all wrong?
I find it utterly astounding that 21st century Christians completely miss what God wants from us concerning the Law. I have heard law-keeping by the apostles was due to some confusion on the part of the Apostles. They had a hard time separating themselves from their old practices or from Jewish customs. No, that is not it. They kept Torah because Jesus said to keep it until Heaven and Earth pass away (Mt 5). They knew that they were not under the Law. The Law does not justify us. We keep it because we are told to. That is what Paul is saying in Galatians and elsewhere. He never says, "Don't keep the Law." He does however rebuke them for looking to the Law for Justification or to gain favor with God.
I think that Luther's antisemitism is very much a case, where, like his writings against the peasants during their revolt. A sad instance where Luther utterly fails to reach beyond his time.
Soren Kierkegaard liked to call the Christian God's co-worker. He wrote this about choice in his 1847 book Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits A choice, not between red and green, not between silver and gold-no, a choice between God and the world. Do you know anything greater to place together for a choice! Do you know any more overwhelming and humbling manifestation of God’s complaisance and indulgence toward human beings than that in a sense he places himself on the straight line of choice with the world just in order that the human being can choose; that God, if language may be used this way proposes to the weak human being, that he, the eternally strong one, after all, always proposes to the weaker one. Compared with this choice between God and the world, how insignificant is even a girl’s choice between suitors! - A choice, or is it perhaps an imperfection in the choice under discussion here that a human being not only can choose but he must choose? Would it not be to a young girl’s advantage if she had an earnest father who said, “My dear girl, you have your freedom, you yourself may choose, but you must choose”; would it better that she had the choice but coyly picked and picked and never really did choose! No, a person must choose, for in this way God holds himself in honor while he also has fatherly solicitude for humankind. If God has lowered himself to being that which can be chosen, then a person indeed must choose-God is not mocked. Thus it is truly the case that if a person avoids choosing, this is the same as the blasphemy of choosing the world. p. 206-207
I don't think he did stand up for the Gospel. For these Reformation figures, no one could correct them. There isn't a consistent humility. There isn't a corrective magisterium, tradition, mind of Christ. The mind of the Church is for them what they believe the Holy Spirit tells them. If someone else has a different conclusion, thinking he has inspiration, they separate. This isn't a mind of Christ. The Gospel includes "you are Peter...the keys to the kingdom of heaven...whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.". These Reformation figures appear to develop ideologies which they direct & to which they are committed. The Church had more severe issues such as in the Avignon papacy with corruption... and we had real reforming figures & movements (Franciscans, etc.) They could easily have left as Luther, etc. did. The Waldenses were such a group. Something else accounts for the mass leaving & setting up of ecclesial assemblies under a reformer's dominion, but it's not reform.
This is a surprisingly fine presentation of what Lutheranism really is. This avoids the simplifications or implications of compromise that make us Lutherans so upset with non-Lutheran Protestants, sectaries, and Romish Catholics.
I think, in simplifying the issue of predestination it is more accurate to say that it's a question of "who chooses first," rather than "who moves first."
+greg harvey // Yeah I can go with that. That's essentially the point I want to make. Thanks!
Firstly I find most of your treatement of Luther and Lutheranism quite fair. However, your treatment that Luther was anti-semitic as a racists is not accurate. Luther was anti-Judaica. You see, Luther knew what was in the Talmud. He was an OT scholar and he read what was in the Talmud. That was the source of his anger. So he was an anti-follower-of- the-Talmud. I hope you, sir, look into this angle.
Dr. Reeves, I love your videos. Thank you so much for your efforts!
I have one objection though. The term 'anti-semitism' has to do with race. Luthers issue with the Jews was not racial. It was religious. He was certainly anti-jewish, but not anti-Semitic. Now, some might say, potato (american english accent) potato (queen's english accent.)...but the fact of the matter is that, for Luther, if a jew converts to Christianity, he is no longer jewish. There are historical examples of this. Also, Luther was a product of his time. There were countless other Reformers who were hostile towards Jews and never get any mention. Of course that doesn't make things better by any means...Luthers anti-judaism was a big problem, but nineteenth and twentieth century Germans misused his works for racist propaganda. Luther was just furious because of the fact that they didn't accept Christ. For someone like Hitler for example, a jew is a jew - racially - whether he believes in Christ or not.
To be blunt then .... grace is "a license to sin”. And indeed according to Luther, an incentive "to sin boldly”. Even, to “find some really good sin to give the devil a toss”. The alternative view would be that grace was intended to empower true believers to conquer sin. That the impossible standards (so much above the law) that Jesus Himself laid down in Matthew 5, are not optional extras, but to be attempted as if perfection were attainable (by the grace of God) in this life. vs 48. We must all “take our pick”. The choice could not be more stark.
It still is not entirely clear to me whether, according to Luther, any choice or choices on my part are necessary for my salvation. So if predestination means God chooses first, then I might choose to reject Him nonetheless and be damned? Now if one is tempted by sin to reject God's grace, does it not become then a work to overcome that temptation and thereby receive the grace? You say Luther says we should give up trying to do good works to get saving grace, and that giving up this attempt to do good works entails in effect hard work, since we are so inclined to want to earn salvation. So it seems to me that Luther does not show me the way out of the Anfechtungen he apparently got out of. I am still left with the impression that I can fumble and lose my salvation if I am not in some way good enough.
Or have I got this all wrong?
I find it utterly astounding that 21st century Christians completely miss what God wants from us concerning the Law. I have heard law-keeping by the apostles was due to some confusion on the part of the Apostles. They had a hard time separating themselves from their old practices or from Jewish customs. No, that is not it. They kept Torah because Jesus said to keep it until Heaven and Earth pass away (Mt 5). They knew that they were not under the Law. The Law does not justify us. We keep it because we are told to. That is what Paul is saying in Galatians and elsewhere. He never says, "Don't keep the Law." He does however rebuke them for looking to the Law for Justification or to gain favor with God.
I think that Luther's antisemitism is very much a case, where, like his writings against the peasants during their revolt. A sad instance where Luther utterly fails to reach beyond his time.
synergim is a word much bandied about today. ive never heard a definition of it before
Soren Kierkegaard liked to call the Christian God's co-worker. He wrote this about choice in his 1847 book Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits
A choice, not between red and green, not between silver and gold-no, a choice between God and the world. Do you know anything greater to place together for a choice! Do you know any more overwhelming and humbling manifestation of God’s complaisance and indulgence toward human beings than that in a sense he places himself on the straight line of choice with the world just in order that the human being can choose; that God, if language may be used this way proposes to the weak human being, that he, the eternally strong one, after all, always proposes to the weaker one. Compared with this choice between God and the world, how insignificant is even a girl’s choice between suitors! -
A choice, or is it perhaps an imperfection in the choice under discussion here that a human being not only can choose but he must choose? Would it not be to a young girl’s advantage if she had an earnest father who said, “My dear girl, you have your freedom, you yourself may choose, but you must choose”; would it better that she had the choice but coyly picked and picked and never really did choose! No, a person must choose, for in this way God holds himself in honor while he also has fatherly solicitude for humankind. If God has lowered himself to being that which can be chosen, then a person indeed must choose-God is not mocked. Thus it is truly the case that if a person avoids choosing, this is the same as the blasphemy of choosing the world. p. 206-207
It's very refreshing to hear a protestant admits to the Lutheran flaws of antisemitism.
One person can read about Peter cutting off an ear and go and do likewise and another will read the same thing and not do likewise.
Luther was a Catholic. He was against reformation. Sorry.
I don't think he did stand up for the Gospel. For these Reformation figures, no one could correct them. There isn't a consistent humility. There isn't a corrective magisterium, tradition, mind of Christ. The mind of the Church is for them what they believe the Holy Spirit tells them. If someone else has a different conclusion, thinking he has inspiration, they separate. This isn't a mind of Christ. The Gospel includes "you are Peter...the keys to the kingdom of heaven...whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.". These Reformation figures appear to develop ideologies which they direct & to which they are committed. The Church had more severe issues such as in the Avignon papacy with corruption... and we had real reforming figures & movements (Franciscans, etc.) They could easily have left as Luther, etc. did. The Waldenses were such a group. Something else accounts for the mass leaving & setting up of ecclesial assemblies under a reformer's dominion, but it's not reform.