ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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That He certainly did. Men are not robots, we can choose to believe or deny. Jesus did not indicate, in any of scripture, that all would be saved.
Which is why Lutherans admit under the Crux Theologorum that the reason men are damned is because men damn themselves.
The Lutheran Confessions very explicitly teach that God is not like some military commander picking and choosing who does or doesn't get saved.
"Nor is this eternal election or ordination of God to eternal life to be considered in God’s secret, inscrutable counsel in such a bare manner as though it comprised nothing further, or as though nothing more belonged to it, and nothing more were to be considered in it, than that God foresaw who and how many were to be saved, who and how many were to be damned, or that He only held a [sort of military] muster, thus: 'This one shall be saved, that one shall be damned; this one shall remain steadfast [in faith to the end], that one shall not remain steadfast.'" - Solid Declaration of Concord, IX, 9
In this paragraph three ideas are rejected:
1) The first thing rejected is the idea that election is part of God's secret, inscrutable counsel; as according to Lutheranism our election is found in the revealed means of grace, e.g. Baptism. The baptized Christian is the elect of God, and their election is revealed in their baptism.
2) The second thing being rejected is the idea that God's election and predestining of the elect consists merely in having foreknowledge of how many in the end would be saved and how many will be damned. On the contrary, Predestination is indeed efficient cause of our salvation--God choosing us is not mere foreknowledge, but actual choice made by God out of His grace and love toward sinners in Jesus Christ.
3) The third being rejected is the idea that God picks and chooses who will or who will not be saved, the idea often called "Double Predestination", a position linked with Calvinism/Reformed theology.
What God wills and who will are two different things.
I believe that we must cooperate with God in our lives of faith and good works as Jesus' followers, what the Apostle describes as "working out your salvation with fear and trembling".
But I'm not the one responsible for having faith, God is. God is the giver of faith to faithless sinners. Which is why St. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8 that our salvation is by grace through faith, and this is not of ourselves, but is the gift of God. This faith comes from outside of ourselves, as gift; it cannot be attributed to ourselves. And this isn't mere "Protestant" opinion; this is also the opinion of the ancient and holy fathers, including both St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom: Faith itself is a gift that we receive from God, from outside of ourselves, so that we cannot even boast in our having faith.
"And lest men should arrogate to themselves the merit of their own faith at least, not understanding that this too is the gift of God, this same apostle, who says in another place that he had 'obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful,' here also adds, 'and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.' And lest it should be thought that good works will be wanting in those who believe, he adds further: 'For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.' We shall be made truly free, then, when God fashions us, that is, forms and creates us anew, not as men--for He has done that already--but as good men, which His grace is now doing, that we may be a new creation in Christ Jesus, according as it is said: 'Create in me a clean heart O God.'" - St. Augustine, The Enchiridion, Ch. 31
The holy doctor also saying in the preceding chapter of the same,
"But this part of the human race to which God has promised pardon and a share in His eternal kingdom, can they be restored through the merit of their own works? God forbid. For what good work can a lost man perform, except so far as he has been delivered from perdition? Can they do anything by the free determination of their own will? Again I say, God forbid. For it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live, and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost. 'For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.' This is the judgment of the Apostle Peter. And as it is certainly true, what kind of liberty, I ask, can the bond-slave possess, except when it pleases him to sin? For he is freely in bondage who does with pleasure the will of his master. Accordingly, he who is the servant of sin is free to sin. And hence he will not be free to do right, until, being freed from sin, he shall begin to be the servant of righteousness. And this is true liberty, for he has pleasure in the righteous deed; and it is at the same time a holy bondage, for he is obedient to the will of God. But whence comes this liberty to do right to the man who is in bondage and sold under sin, except he be redeemed by Him who has said, 'If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed?' And before this redemption is wrought in a man, when he is not yet free to do what is right, how can he talk of the freedom of his will and his good works, except he be inflated by that foolish pride of boasting which the apostle restrains when he says, 'By grace are ye saved, through faith.'" - ibid. Ch. 30
It is by the freedom of the will by grace that the renewed heart, clean conscience, and redeemed will can cooperate with God in good works.
God has willed to save me, that by His grace and power He might give me a will to love Him through good works and obedience: To love my neighbor as my self according to His Divine and Royal Command. And in this way take up my cross and follow Him.
-CryptoLutheran
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