Luther and the Finnish School Mystical Union With Christ: An Alternative To Blood Transfusions And Legal Fictions

By Paul Louis Metzger

[Paul Metzger is Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Theology of Culture, Multnomah Biblical Seminary, Portland, Ore., and director of its Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins.]

I. Mired in the Mundane, Longing for Something More

Increasingly, Westerners are looking eastward in search of a satisfying spirituality. Many of them, more at home in the Christian tradition, are turning to Eastern Orthodoxy. Others are looking farther afield to the religions of the East. One of the causes of this migration is what Loren Wilkinson calls “a subtle deism. .. latent in much Western theology.”[1] Wilkinson, an Evangelical, finds Eastern Orthodox thought forms appealing, noting parallels between Eastern Orthodoxy and Celtic Christianity, which he also appreciates.[2] Another Westerner, Marcus Borg, a liberal Protestant and leading voice for the Jesus Seminar, also finds deistic tendencies latent in traditional Western theology. Borg, to whom we will return at the close of this essay, draws from a host of sources, including Eastern religions, in propounding a panentheistic model of the God-world relation in the attempt to overcome the distance.[3]

Such distance between God and the world, including the believer, can also be found in Western debates on union with Christ. On the one hand, the Roman Catholic doctrine of infused righteousness, the spiritual equivalent of a blood transfusion, gives rise to the charge of autonomy from God.[4] Here the believer possesses God’s grace as a property or quality, that is, as created grace. The implication is that the person exists somewhat independently from God. On the other hand, the Protestant conception of imputation, which its critics call a “legal fiction,” when left in isolation or given primacy in discussions of justification, gives rise to the charge of autonomy from the grace of God.[5] Here the believer depends wholly on the will of God. But is God’s grace truly present to me? Are there no sources in the Western tradition to which one could turn to overcome the deistic divide and erase the dreary-eyed look of those mired in the mundane, who are longing for something more?

In the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, J. I. Packer hailed the book, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, edited by Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, as an important work on the theme of salvation.[6] Central to the discussion of union is the claim that Luther emphasizes mystical and ontological categories more than forensic ones. Interestingly, the study emerged out of ecumenical dialogues between Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox theologians. By turning eastward, the Finnish Lutheran interpretation has highlighted significant aspects of Luther’s doctrine of righteousness long neglected in the West. To the extent that Evangelicals look to Luther’s doctrine of faith and salvation as the basis for their own, embracing a moderate form of mystical union with Christ, far from pushing the boundaries, they will actually return Evangelical orthodoxy to its Reformation center.[7]

II. Marital Union with Christ

In Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, Heiko Oberman writes, “The year 1520 saw the publication of Luther’s treatise The Freedom of a Christian, in which he presented his doctrine of justification in the form that was to make history.”[8] Tuomo Mannermaa, the leading figure of the Finnish school, notes that Luther claims it to be “the compendium,” or, better, what Mannermaa calls the “theological summation,” of his theology.[9] In The Freedom of a Christian, Luther speaks of justifying freedom in Jesus Christ through the “joyful exchange” that occurs at the marriage of the believer to Christ. How is it that we enter into freedom from guilt for a relationship with God through Jesus Christ?

Luther argues that through faith alone in God’s goodness and grace, we become free (Rom 10:10; Rom 4:3).[10] According to Luther, we enter into freedom with God through faith, through believing the promise of God’s goodness and love toward us.[11] Luther appeals to the Apostle Paul who writes, “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Rom 10:10). Through our faith in Christ who gave His life for us, God looks upon us as those who now are free—simply because we trust in God and not in ourselves. We do not achieve this freedom. It is the gift of God. Luther writes, “When. .. God sees that we consider him truthful and by the faith of our heart pay him the great honor which is due him, he does us that great honor of considering us truthful and righteous for the sake of our faith.”[12] Here Luther points to the example of the Old Testament character Abraham. Abraham believed God’s promise. He believed in the goodness of God, who made the promise to be his God and to bless him. “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3). Abraham became God’s son, entering into God’s family, not because of any obligation he could fulfill to measure up, but because he trusted in the measureless overflow of God’s gracious character in loving kindness toward him.

For Luther, union with Christ does not come about through our acts of love, as medieval Catholicism claims.[13] Nor does it result from an act of faith in God, as Protestant scholasticism with its bilateral orientation maintains.14 Rather, union with Christ occurs through faith in God’s act of love toward us, a love that is poured out into our hearts through the Spirit, ushering forth in a response of love toward God and others. Regarding this response, Luther writes:

Therefore, if we recognize the great and precious things which are given us, as Paul says [Rom 5:5], our hearts will be filled by the Holy Spirit with the love which makes us free, joyful, almighty workers and conquerors over all tribulations, servants of our neighbors, and yet lords of all.. . .[15]

Along similar lines, Ashley Null speaks of the Reformation teaching of Luther’s comrade Melanchthon: “For confidence in God’s gracious goodwill towards them reoriented the affections of the justified, calming their turbulent hearts and inflaming in them a grateful love in return. This new Spirit-inspired love for God empowered believers to serve God” from the heart.[16] Such “Spirit- inspired” service to God from the heart bears upon believers’ service to one another. Again, as Luther claims, a Christian does not live

in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor. Yet he always remains in God and in his love.. . .[17]

Bound up with the preceding discussion, Luther maintains that real transformation occurs in justification, as will be shown. For through faith alone, we actually become one flesh with Christ (Eph 5:26–27, 31–32).[18] It is worth noting in passing here Mannermaa’s main contention, namely, that Christ is really present in faith, basing his view on a literal rendering of Luther’s phrase, “in ipsa fide Christus adest.” This he believes to be the central thrust of Luther’s theology, in contrast to a predominantly forensic reading.[19]

It is necessary to pause at this point so as to draw attention to Stephen Strehle’s claim that the concept of imputation “was never accentuated in the theology of such pillars of the movement as Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin,” but emerged in Melanchthon’s Römerbrief - Kommentar of 1532 under the exegetical influence of the Catholic Erasmus and theological inspiration of Nominalism.[20] According to Strehle, Melanchthon valued imputation or “acceptation” as a “legal fiction.”[21] Strehle later argues that, “Luther and his theology cannot be considered its primary inspiration, even if the doctrine comes to be interpreted within his thought.”[22] Strehle dismisses Alister McGrath’s contention in Iustitia Dei, 3.24, that Luther provided the basis for Melanchthon’s teaching and that this formulation is characteristic of all of Protestant theology, even though one can find certain themes in Luther’s thought and then “proceed into further directions.” He goes on to say, “Inferences, however, only draw certain conclusions from ideas and do not always represent the tensions in which the original premise subsists. Any finite thought can become an aberration if it is taken too seriously and carried to an extreme.”[23] Strehle also notes that Luther saw a connection between imputation and Nominalism and deemed it unsatisfactory to emphasize the doctrine to such a degree that it turns God’s salvific action “into ‘nothing but shadow-boxing and a devilish trick.’”[24]

Now to return to Luther’s employment of marital language referred to above, the Bible teaches that the ultimate form of relationship is that of the mysterious union of a husband and a wife, for no greater intimacy can be found than that which is found here, for the two persons have become one flesh. Through faith in Jesus Christ, Jesus takes us to Himself as His bride, removing from us our rags of whoredom and prostitution and exchanging them with spotless and sparkling wedding clothes of righteousness. For as Luther says, “If he gives her his body and very self” in life and in death, “how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?”[25] This happens through faith in the Word (Eph 5:26–27). For Luther, “No good work can rely upon the Word of God or live in the soul, for faith alone and the Word of God rule in the soul. Just as the heated iron glows like fire because of the union of fire with it, so the Word imparts its qualities to the soul.”[26] Through “the wedding ring of faith,” Christ marries the believer. He marries the beloved “in faith, steadfast love, and in mercies, righteousness, and justice, as Hos. 2[:19–20] says.”[27]

Note here the talk of impartation and the allusion to the marital language of the Song of Solomon. The Bible teaches that through faith in the loving promises of God for eternal life, we become married to Christ. The two have become one flesh through faith. As Luther writes,

Who then can fully appreciate what this royal marriage means? Who can understand the riches of the glory of this grace? Here this rich and divine bridegroom Christ marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him. And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, “If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his,” as the bride in the Song of Solomon (2:16) says, “My beloved is mine and I am his.”[28]

Those who believe in Jesus have become one flesh with Him, experiencing the joyful exchange of which Luther writes. This reality of which Luther speaks is more than a declaration. Although righteousness is credited to the one who believes in Jesus Christ, such righteousness is more than a certificate. My marriage with my wife goes far beyond a certificate of marriage! So, too, does the union of Christ and those who trust in Him, for the two have become one flesh (Eph 5:31–32)! As Paul says, this is a profound mystery, namely, the depths of intimacy Christ shares with His believing people—His bride (Eph 5:32)—which, according to Scripture, occurs through the bond of the Holy Spirit.[29]

In commenting on this text, Calvin, whom we understand to be of similar mind to Luther in advocating a doctrine of moderate mystical union with Christ, speaks of Paul’s own “astonishment at the spiritual union between Christ and the church.” He later adds, “For my own part, I am overwhelmed by the depth of this mystery, and am not ashamed to join Paul in acknowledging at once my ignorance and my admiration.” Here Calvin seeks to avoid following the impulse of the flesh by attempting to delve into dissecting “the manner and character of this union” or “undervaluing what Paul declares to be a deep mystery!” In place of these problematic outlooks, Calvin proposes, “Reason itself teaches how we ought to act in such matters; for whatever is supernatural is clearly beyond our own comprehension. Let us therefore labour more to feel Christ living in us, than to discover the nature of that intercourse.”[30] Although Calvin will elsewhere address the subject of the meaning of our union, it is important to note here his felt awareness of mystical intercourse between Christ and His Church. For Luther and Calvin, though, this “mystical” orientation is Pauline in origin, that is, biblical or cataphatic—revealed mystery—rather than Dionysian or apophatic.

In the biblical world, the certificate of marriage is simply an indication of what we already are. We are not one flesh with Christ because we are declared righteous. Rather, we are declared righteous because we are one flesh with Christ.[31] One should not take this to imply a denial of imputed righteousness, for imputed or alien righteousness conveys the essential truth that we are not righteous on our own, that is, by nature. We are only righteous in relation to Christ, that is, by the personal grace of God revealed in Christ through the Spirit in our lives.

Having said this, the doctrine of imputed righteousness does not address adequately the real transformation that occurs at justification, where, according to Mannermaa’s reading of Luther, Christ is truly present in faith. What then is transformed at justification? Is it one’s essence or legal standing? The transformation is not one of essence, that is, a change of substance. Along these lines, it is interesting to note that although Mannermaa maintains that Luther puts forth a doctrine of theosis, he claims that for Luther “theosis” signifies a “community of being,” not “a change of substance.”[32] Furthermore, in view of Mannermaa’s references to texts of Luther’s which, at face value, favor a doctrine of deification,[33] perhaps it is the case that Luther’s lack of significant regard for theosis elsewhere pertains solely to the eros-oriented focus of Dionysian mysticism in the medieval period where the believer strives to ascend to God in search of union.[34]

Even if the preceding qualifications are true, and while important, it would nonetheless be necessary to part company with Luther by qualifying further our partaking of the divine nature. Such partaking occurs indirectly through the divine communion of Persons with our persons (not natures), most particularly, the indwelling presence of the Spirit in our hearts. Moreover, it is better to speak of humanization rather than divinization. Taken together, these qualifications safeguard the doctrine of union more adequately from the encroachment of one such as Hegel, or Feuerbach, who considered themselves to be faithful followers of Luther’s version of the communicatio idiomatum.[35]

As argued above, the transformation is not one of substance, nor is it simply or primarily a matter of a changed legal standing. Rather, we are ultimately speaking of the transformation of our affections toward God through the indwelling presence of the Spirit, who unites us to Christ. Although there is radical discontinuity between the old and new lives of the justified, there is also symmetry in terms of opposing pairs, and not simply by way of legal standing. For although we were once declared guilty whereas we are now declared righteous (Rom 5:16–18), the declaration of guilt revolves around the problem of concupiscence (contra Mark 12:30–31) and the declaration of grace revolves around a heart captured by the selfless love of God in Christ poured out into our spirits through the indwelling presence of the Spirit (Rom 5:5).

In the same vein, in his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, Luther himself maintains that every act of fallen nature is “an act of concupiscence against God,” whereas every righteous act is due to the love of God being poured out into our hearts through the Spirit.[36] The solution to the problem that “every act of concupiscence against God is evil and a fornication of the spirit” is the divine love that the Holy Spirit pours out into our hearts (Rom 5:5). As Luther states, “the good law and that in which one lives is the love of God, spread abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”[37]

Developing further the importance of this theme, the whole discussion of justification set forth in Rom 5 needs to be viewed within the framework of v. 5 and Rom 8:31–39, which together function as an inclusio, signifying that all that goes between them must be viewed in light of the love of God, which believers have come to experience. Note also the emphasis given to union and marital imagery in Rom 6 and 7 as well as the opening of Rom 8, which proclaims that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1). The negation of condemnation pertains not to sanctification but to justification. Such justification occurs not by way of a legal act so much as through the sovereign indwelling love of the Spirit of life, who now creates and quickens a desire for Christ within us (Rom 8:2ff.).[38] Such personal union with Christ by faith through the Spirit is what justifies, giving rise to the declaration of Christ’s righteousness being ours, not by nature, nor by a legal act as such, but again, by the Spirit. There should be no division of union with Christ into objective and subjective components, that is, justification (pertaining to Christ’s act) and regeneration (pertaining to the Spirit’s work), as is commonly done,[39] but which is foreign to Paul’s way of thinking. Instead, such union is a dynamic of inclusion and personal participation in the life of the Trinity through the personal mediation of the Spirit who unites our hearts in faith to Christ.

From the preceding discussion, it should be clear that we are not speaking only or even ultimately of a changed legal standing. Nor are we speaking at all of disabled and enabled wills or various forms of behavior, but the “affection versus affection” orientation argued by Melanchthon.[40] Thus, the heart of the matter in justification is the heart—relational trust in God’s affection/love for one’s person over against fear of God’s wrath. For while fear casts out imperfect love, perfect love casts out fear. It is trust in God’s loving goodness toward believers that justifies, signifying the personal bond of communion, which the Spirit creates in uniting us to Christ. Through faith in God’s love for us in Christ, we become one flesh with Christ. And so our affections, not simply our legal standing, are transformed as the Spirit enters our lives, justifying us in this “joyful exchange.” Thus, though construed differently from Mannermaa’s rendition of Luther,[41] Christ truly is present in faith, that is, through the Spirit.

Without wishing to take away from the Christocentric focus of Mannermaa’s discussion of the relation of “forgiveness (favor) justification and the real presence of God (donum) in faith,”[42] is not the Spirit really the missing link between justification and presence, safeguarding against the danger of their separation “by the one-sidedly forensic doctrine of justification adopted by the Formula of Concord and by subsequent Lutheranism?”[43] Although the role of the Spirit is taken up and discussed in Simo Peura’s essays in the same volume as Mannermaa’s essay, albeit briefly,[44] it is missing from Mannermaa’s accounts. I would go so far as to say that reflection on the Spirit’s role is essential to any discussion of this kind, for justification does not occur apart from the Spirit—according to the writings of the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther, as has been argued. At the very least, treatment of the Spirit’s work needs to be incorporated into a proper account of Luther’s doctrine of union in view of his devout allegiance to the Augustinian heritage, to which consideration will now be given.[45]

We have already drawn attention to Luther’s Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, to which Robert Jenson also refers in his assessment of Luther’s alignment with Augustine on the personal presence of the Spirit in the believer’s life in his Systematic Theology.[46] There Jenson quotes Augustine as saying, “The Holy Spirit’s gift is nothing other than the Holy Spirit,”[47] following in the tradition of earlier fathers of the Church such as Basil the Great.[48] For Augustine (and Peter Lombard after him), the Holy Spirit is “ ‘the mutual. .. love by which the Father and the Son love one another,’ and it is this very love with which the Spirit fills also us.”[49] Jenson continues with his quotation from Augustine’s “audacious doctrine”[50] : “ ‘Therefore the love which is of God and which is God is specifically the Holy Spirit; by him God’s love is diffused in our hearts, and by this love the whole Trinity indwells us.’”[51] Jenson adds that this audacious doctrine was “too audacious for subsequent theology.”[52] He elaborates by saying,

The doctrine that the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son remained the chief axiom of subsequent Western pneumatology. But later theology did not generally follow Lombard and teach that this same bond is also that which binds us to God and one another—although there have always been rebels against the standard position, notably including Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards.[53]

The Finnish School’s rightful rebellion against the overly forensic interpretation of Luther’s doctrine of justification must give greater account to this Augustinian emphasis on pneumatology and the love with which the Spirit joins us to God in Christ if it is to reflect accurately the Reformer’s thought and truly awaken Protestantism to how “existentially relevant” Luther is for the present hour when so many Protestants are mired in the mundane, longing for something more.[54]

III. A Minnesota Landscape and Jacob’s Ladder: Their Existential Relevance

At the outset of this essay, mention was made of Marcus Borg and his appeal to Eastern religions in developing a model of God’s relation to the world. In a recent interview, Borg speaks of the indelible impression a mystical encounter on a Minnesota landscape made on him years ago.[55] Although it is doubtlessly true that one can find more of God in nature than in many church services,[56] there is also no doubt in asserting that one will find all the more of God in mystical encounter with Christ than anywhere else, as Paul claims in his attack on the Proto-Gnostics in his letter to the church in Colosse![57] For “all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ” (Col 2:9–10; italics added). And yet, Western culture and the Church are increasingly turning to the East in search of greater spiritual depth and meaning, not finding solace for the soul in textbook doctrines of union dominated by forensic notions of the righteousness of Christ. That is why Protestant orthodoxy must return to its orthodox, Reformation roots—roots that find parallels with Eastern Orthodoxy.

The present discussion should not be viewed as insignificant or a matter of abstract speculation, nor should salvation be left to such accounts. As the Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky states, the whole of the early Church’s formulations regarding Christ were intended to preserve “the possibility of attaining to the fullness of the mystical union” with God in Christ. For if He be not fully divine and fully human, mystical union with God is lost. Lossky goes so far as to say that all of Eastern theology has as its end consideration and attainment of union with God.[58] As Mannermaa has shown Luther to claim with the Eastern Fathers, Jesus became what we are so that we might become what He is.[59]

Luther himself, wary of abstract speculation and theologians bound up in sterile formulations divorced from the dialectic of human experience,[60] championed the concept of joyful exchange illustrated so provocatively in his allusion to “Jacob’s ladder”: “Christ descends from Heaven, and the Christian ascends to be united with God.”[61] The Christian experiences simultaneously rapture and groaning, the peace of Christ and the cruelty of the Devil’s power.[62] Luther’s “joyful exchange” and “Jacob’s ladder” “originate from the living experience of faith in a life between God and the Devil.”[63] To quote Mannermaa, Luther’s doctrine of union with Christ is indeed “existentially relevant.”[64]

Which is more “existentially relevant”—a blood transfusion, a legal fiction, a vague felt awareness of a God who is everywhere, yet nowhere, greater than all, yet in all, or the intensification of God’s presence through the personal mediation of Christ with whom we become one flesh through the Spirit? As was argued at the outset of the paper, infusion and imputation (when left on its own or given primacy in discussions of justification) give rise to autonomy from God and autonomy from the grace of God, respectively. In the case of the latter, undue emphasis on a forensic conception promotes abstraction, and to quote Luther, “shadow-boxing and a devilish trick.”[65] At the end of the day, given current trends toward the East in view of these and other Western tendencies toward autonomy and abstraction, there are only two real options available: the Minnesota landscape and Jacob’s ladder. Which will it be? Which should it be? Not just God, but the God-Man; not just the Spirit or “spirit person,”[66] but the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who indwells Christ and makes us one flesh with Him. If God did not become human, then how can we become one with God? If God did not become what we are, then how can we become what He is? If Jesus is but a man,[67] then we may still have union with other men, but no mediator between God and man. And if God does not assume our weaknesses, we cannot be healed, for the unassumed is the unhealed. The choice between the two options—the Minnesota landscape and Jacob’s ladder—is simple, but the difference between them is nothing but profound.

Notes

1. Loren Wilkinson, "Saving Celtic Christianity," Christianity Today, 24 April 2000, 84.
2. Ibid.
3. See Marcus J. Borg, "Thinking About God: Why Panentheism?" in The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith (San Francisco: Harper, 1997), 32–54.
4. In his work, Spiritual Theology, Simon Chan addresses this theme. "In Reformed theology the relational dimension of grace leaves no room for a concept of infused righteousness." He draws attention to G. C. Berkouwer’s concern, namely, "that any idea of infused grace might turn human beings into independent objects of interest." According to Chan, "Berkouwer sees regeneration in terms that are relational, not substantive. Grace refers to the restoration of interrupted fellowship with God. Following Kuyper, he argues that it is not the substance of human life that is changed but the direction." Chan then adds how a model that relies on such metaphors as "seeds growing, rebirth, and transformation of creation can be conceived of in purely relational terms is unclear." Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 79. Chan’s analysis of Berkouwer stems from G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 86–88, 90.
5. In discussing the relationship of grace and works and justification and sanctification, Chan (Spiritual Theology, 79–80) comments, "As any Christians have learned (more often sooner than later), the changed relationship that justification brings about does not automatically translate into a changed life. Thus imputed righteousness could easily turn into legal fiction." Note also William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam’s discussion of imputation and legal fiction in their work, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (5th ed.; ICC 32; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 36; and Vincent Taylor’s criticism of imputation along such lines in Forgiveness and Reconciliation (London: Macmillan, 1960), 57.
6. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).
7. The term "moderate" is used above to guard against the pantheistic connotations often associated with mystical union. For those of the Christian West who discount completely the mystical dimension of Christian faith and theology, they should think again of their position in light of their own heritage. In his monumental study of the history of Western Christian mysticism, Bernard McGinn points out that St. Augustine (the father of Western theology) "gave considerable attention to the mystical element in Christianity" in his writings. Moreover, "almost all later Western mystics appealed" to him. He goes on to say that "it is in this sense that we can justify calling him not only a mystic, but ‘the Prince of Mystics’. .. or ‘the Father of Christian Mysticism.’. . ." See Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (vol. 1 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism; New York: Crossroads, 1992), 231. Although Heiko Oberman does not seek to prove that Luther was a mystic in his essay, "Luther and Mysticism" in The Dawn of the Reformation, he does make a strong connection between Luther and medieval mystical theology and its impact on the development of Luther’s theology. Heiko A. Oberman, "SIMUL GEMITUS ET RAPTUS: Luther and Mysticism," in The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986), 126–54.
8. Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil (New York: Image Books, 1992), 183.
9. Tuomo Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating? Modern Finnish Luther Research," in Union with Christ, 18–19. Mannermaa goes so far as to say that, "Clearly, Luther’s understanding of the relation between faith and love is grounded on his concept of participation and/or theosis. And such a notion is the fundamental idea that gives the underlying structure to his work De libertate christiana" (18).
10. See Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (ed. Timothy F. Lull; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 599–603, 609, 611, 613–15, 619.
11. Stephen Strehle makes an important qualification: "Faith in Luther did not so much speak of its subject, i.e., our faith and our right, but of the object of its hope, i.e., the faithfulness and righteousness of God" (The Catholic Roots of the Protestant Gospel: Encounter Between the Middle Ages and the Reformation [Leiden: Brill, 1995], 61).
12. Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, 603.
13. The Medievals spoke of three forms of love: uncreated love—the Holy Spirit, who is the reciprocal love of the Father and Son; created love—sacramental grace; and acts of love—meritorious acts. See Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform, 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 242. "‘Our becoming like God [similitudo]’ wrote Gerson, ‘is the cause of our union with him’" (Ozment, Age of Reform, 242). And since love was that which bound together the Persons of the Trinity, God and the human soul, and man with man, love was considered to be the basis of the union. For the principle of likeness was deemed the principle of union. For the Medievals, was it not the case that through partaking of the sacraments and "through rigorous physical and intellectual exercises" likeness to deity could be attained, and with it, union? For likeness was the key to saving knowledge and a saving relationship with God (see Ozment, Age of Reform, 242).
14. Along these lines, see David A. Weir’s discussion of Federal Theology in the introduction to The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 1–50.
15. Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, 619.
16. Ashley Null, Thomas Cranmer’s Doctrine of Repentance: Renewing the Power to Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 101. The quote is taken from Null’s sub-section entitled, "The Lure of Lutheranism." According to Null’s reading of Melanchthon, "the new godly affections" in the believer must ever wage war against "the ever-present concupiscence of the flesh" (101). Thus, the believer is continually immersed in an interior struggle between two opposing forces. It is worth noting Luther’s own assessment of Melanchthon’s Loci Communes to show the close harmony of their thought at this stage of the Reformation. In "On the Bondage of the Will," Luther exclaims to Erasmus that Melanchthon’s work, Loci Communes, "deserves not only to be immortalized but even canonized." Martin Luther, "On the Bondage of theWill," in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (ed. E. Gordon Rupp and Philip S. Watson; Library of Christian Classics; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 102. Unfortunately, though, a shift would occur in Melanchthon’s theology concerning the affections. His Loci Communes would undergo transformation, departing from the revolutionary insights of the 1521 edition. Moreover, his view of justification became much more forensic in orientation. Along such lines, Strehle argues that the source for the Protestant doctrine of imputation is Melanchthon’s 1532 Römerbrief. See Strehle, Catholic Roots, 66–73.
17. Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, 623.
18. See ibid., 603–4.
19. See "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?" in Union with Christ, viii, 4, and 20. Is this not the basis for theosis/participation for Mannermaa? See p. 10 along these lines.
20. Strehle, Catholic Roots, 66.
21. Ibid., 68.
22. Ibid., 70.
23. Ibid., 70-71 n. 20.
24. Martin Luther, WA 10/1.1; quoted in Strehle, Catholic Roots, 71.
25. Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, 603.
26. Ibid., 601 (italics added).
27. Ibid., 604.
28. Ibid.
29. See, for example, John 14:15–25; Rom 5:5; 8:9; Eph 1:13–14; and Rev 22:17.
30. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians (trans. William Pringle; 22 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 21:324–25 (italics added).
31. I make basically the same point in my review of Bruce Marshall’s essay, "Justification as Declaration and Deification" (International Journal of Systematic Theology 4 [2002]: 3-28), in the Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 44 (2002): 354-55. Marshall claims that there is an inherent tension in Luther’s writings between transformation and imputation. Marshall offers two possible solutions: first, "a distinctive concept of union with Christ extra nos by faith can join the two"; second, the Trinitarian frame of reference which takes into account "the Father’s eternal verdict on the work of his incarnate Son joins them in a different way" ("Justification as Declaration and Deification," 27). In response, I would argue that any such tension in Luther’s thought can be resolved through attention to Luther’s emphasis on marital union with Christ. In The Dawn of the Reformation, Oberman makes clear that while there is a forensic thread running through Luther’s account of marital union, it is secondary to the emphasis Luther gives to the vital union between Christ and the believer. See Heiko Oberman, "‘IUSTITIA CHRISTI’AND‘IUSTITIA DEI’: Luther and the Scholastic Doctrines of Justification," in The Dawn of the Reformation, 120–25. To reiterate my own claim above, we are not one flesh with Christ because we are declared righteous, but rather, we are declared righteous because we are truly one flesh with Christ, and that, through the Spirit.
32. Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?" in Union with Christ, 11.
33. See Mannermaa, "Justification and Theosis," in Union with Christ, 25–41.
34. Note Luther’s rejection of the mystical theology of Dionysius in Table Talks (Luther’s Works; ed. Theodore G. Tappert; 55 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 54:112. See also Ozment’s discussion of Luther and Vergöttung in Age of Reform, 241.
35. Karl Barth voices concern over the Lutheran application of the communicatio idiomatum, noting Hegel’s and Feuerbach’s employment or extension of this teaching for their respective doctrines of divinization. See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/2: The Doctrine of Reconciliation (ed. G.W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 83. See also Barth’s treatment of these two philosophers and the Lutheran doctrine of the "genus majestaticum" in his article, "Ludwig Feuerbach," in Theology and Church: Shorter Writings, 1920–1928 (trans. Louise Pettibone Smith; New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 230–31.
36. See Martin Luther, "Disputation Against Scholastic Theology," in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (ed. Timothy F. Lull; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 14, 19. These points are made in no. 21 and no. 84 respectively. It is worth noting in this regard that Luther aligns himself with Augustine at the outset of the piece, no. 1 on p. 13. Augustine stands as the fountainhead of affective theology in the Western tradition.
37. Luther, "Disputation Against Scholastic Theology," 14, no. 22 and 19, no. 84.
38. For exegetical support of this view, see the following works: the 1521 edition of Philipp Melanchthon’s text, Loci Communes Theologici, in Melanchthon and Bucer (ed. Wilhelm Pauck; Library of Christian Classics; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969); and Jonathan Edwards’s study, Treatise on Grace, in Treatise on Grace and Other Posthumously Published Writings (ed. Paul Helm; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1971). Both works speak of the desire for God in Christ created by the Spirit distinguishing the believer from the non-Christian.
39. In typical Protestant parlance, justification belongs to the objective work of God at the beginning of the Christian life while regeneration belongs to the subjective work of God at the beginning of the Christian life. See Millard Erickson, Christian Theology (2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), chs. 45 and 46. While acknowledging the overarching significance of union with Christ in Scripture, namely, "the oneness of Christ and the believer" (961), Erickson portrays justification in objective terms. Drawing from Ziesler, he writes, "Justification is a forensic act imputing the righteousness of Christ to the believer; it is not an actual infusing of holiness into the individual. It is a matter of declaring the person righteous, as a judge does in acquitting the accused. It is not a matter of making the person righteous or altering his or her actual spiritual condition" (969). Erickson limits the discussion of union with Christ in justification to the transfer of assets that results when two companies merge or two individuals come together in marriage by way of a legal transaction (971). He does not take into account the real union that occurs above and beyond that found in a legal model when analyzing justification. Although Erickson speaks of our bond with Christ through the Spirit when discussing union proper (965–66), he fails to treat it when talking about justification. What is at issue here are two ways of viewing marriage and justification, one emphasizing primarily the legal exchange (Erickson) and the other participation in the very life of Christ through the bond of the Spirit (i.e., Luther). It is my understanding that Luther never spoke of regeneration. There was no need to given that his doctrine of justification includes the concept, avoiding the objective-subjective line of demarcation, which is so prevalent in Protestant circles today.
40. This is argued by Melanchthon in the 1521 edition of Loci Communes, esp. pp. 22-49. Mannermaa speaks of the "affect-orientation" that "has been common in Luther research, at least in Germany" ("Justification and Theosis," 27). However, here he is talking about an external causality or effecting where "God himself remains outside the person and is only acting upon him" (27). This stands in marked contrast to what is being advocated in Luther and Melanchthon as presented in this paper, namely, that the anthropology spoken of here is one conceived by the Spirit where the Spirit imparts a new affection to the soul wherein He Himself dwells. See Luther’s Disputation Against Scholastic Theology discussed above and Edwards’s Treatise on Grace.
41. See Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?" 4, 20.
42. Mannermaa, "Justification and Theosis," 28.
43. Ibid.
44. See Simo Peura, "Christ as Favor and Gift:The Challenge of Luther’s Understanding of Justification," and "What God Gives Man Receives: Luther on Salvation," in Union with Christ, esp. 48–49, 87–88, and 90–91.
45. Further to n. 36, it is important to emphasize that Luther opens his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology by affirming Augustine’s theological orientation in no uncertain terms. Like Augustine in his debate with the Pelagians in The Spirit and the Letter, 5.108 [56 (32)], Luther speaks of the Spirit through whom the love of God is poured forth into our hearts (Disputation, 19). I am thankful to my colleague Ronald Frost for drawing my attention to this text in Augustine and for our numerous conversations, which serve as the backdrop to this paper. See the close connection between Luther and Augustine he makes in, Ronald N. Frost, "Aristotle’s Ethics: the Real Reason for Luther’s Reformation?" TJ NS 18 (1997): 223-41. Note especially page 230.
46. Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology (2 vols.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1:149 n. 20.
47. Augustine, De trinitate, 15.36; quoted in Jenson, Systematic Theology, 1:148.
48. See Jenson, Systematic Theology, 1:148 n. 15.
49. Augustine, De trinitate, 15.27; quoted in Jenson, Systematic Theology, 1:148.
50. Jenson, Systematic Theology, 1:148.
51. Augustine, De trinitate, 15.32; quoted in Jenson, Systematic Theology, 1:148.
52. Jenson, Systematic Theology, 1:148.
53. Ibid., 1:149. See also Peura’s account of the relation of Martin Luther to Peter Lombard in "Christ as Favor and Gift," 48.
54. The phrase "existentially relevant" is taken from Mannermaa’s discussion of Luther on p. 20 of "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?"
55. Chris Turek, "Bible Scholar Satisfies the Spiritually Disenchanted," The Voice (Portland) (November 2000): 2.
56. Paul Tournier writes, "Nature is the place given by God, the place where he is found. There are many who feel this keenly, and find it easier to meet God in Nature than in a church." Tournier goes on to qualify, "But here again we must beware of putting asunder what God has joined together. The desert was not sufficient in itself for the Desert Fathers, the anchorites and hermits: they built chapels there." See Paul Tournier, A Place for You: Psychology and Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 207.
57. In his interview with Turek noted above ("Bible Scholar Satisfies the Spiritually Disenchanted," 2), Borg compares his mystical experiences to those found in the mystical religions, whose concept of God he defines in the following manner: "Not ‘God’ as something out there, but as an encompassing spirit—a nonmaterial reality that is all around us and in us."
58. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 9–10.
59. Note Lossky’s own rendition of this claim in The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 10. On Luther, see Mannermaa’s, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?" 11.
60. See Oberman, Luther, 185. It is worthy of note that for Luther, the image of "joyful exchange," which occurs at justification, and the accompanying picture of "Jacob’s ladder" are according to Oberman, "totally devoid of any trace of abstract academic sterility. They express life in process and not a static condition; they originate from the living experience of faith in a life between God and the Devil, not from theological theory" (Oberman, Luther, 185). For the life of which Luther speaks, his own, is a life lived in tension. According to Oberman, however, Luther never fully rested in the joyful exchange of which he spoke in The Freedom of a Christian, unlike his spiritual mentor, Staupitz, for whom "the faithful will now find perceptible peace" (184). For Luther was constantly bombarded by the belief that the Devil, being "challenged by the Gospel of the joyful exchange, directs his attacks at the faithful" (184). On account of the Devil, "there is no rest, no peace, and no visible success" (184). Due to the fact that "self- love and inner resistance against God remain unconquered," one is still a "sinner." Yet, due to the fact that one "has been given the righteousness of Christ," one is "just" (184). Thus, one is simultaneously sinful and righteous: "simul peccator et iustus." For Luther, the believer simultaneously experiences groaning over the onslaught of the devil and rapture over the joyful exchange between the believer and Christ: "simul gemitus et raptus" (184). The title of Oberman’s study of Luther (Luther: Man Between God and the Devil ) expresses well the contents of the book and the life and teaching of the great Reformer. The work portrays Luther as a complex thinker with an equally complex personality and personal history. As already suggested, Luther is a man torn by tension, caught in a whole series of infinite contradictions: pulled by two powers—God and the Devil, dangling from heaven over the depths of hell; a bridge between medieval and modern times; struggling in two spheres—piety and politics, divided between doctrines of law and gospel; and pained by warring passions of dread and delight. The study shows that Luther was not a hero of mythic proportions, but a very human and honest, frail and fearful man. He was so often insecure. Yet he was never shaken of the conviction that God had chosen him to battle it out with the Devil on center stage of the divine tragedy. Luther was borne along by the conviction that the earthly powers of the prince of darkness grim (empire and ecclesia) pale in comparison to the prowess of God and His gracious presence in Luther’s life.
61. Oberman, Luther, 184 (Oberman’s words).
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid., 185.
64. Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?" 20.
65. Luther, WA 10/1.1; quoted in Strehle, Catholic Roots, 71.
66. Borg claims that Jesus "was a ‘spirit person,’ a ‘mediator of the sacred,’ one of those persons in human history to whom the Spirit was an experiential reality." See Marcus J. Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus & the Heart of Contemporary Faith (New York: HarperSan-Francisco, 1995), 32.
67. Borg claims that Jesus’ "own self-understanding did not include thinking and speaking of himself as the Son of God. . ." (Meeting Jesus Again, 119).