11. Teachings on justification by faith. The general teachings of the volume are as follows.

(a) Through the Word and the sacraments the Holy Spirit is given, who produces faith where and when he wills in those who hear the gospel.

(b) Contrition, justification by faith, renewal, and good works follow each other in sequence. It is of great importance to differentiate between them, however. Contrition and good works contribute nothing to our salvation; faith alone saves.

(c) Justification by faith alone is the forgiving of our sins, absolution from damnation, reconciliation with the Father, and adoption as his children. This is accomplished through the assignment to us of the merit or righteousness of Christ.

(d) Therefore faith is the righteousness itself by which we are considered to be just before God. Faith is confidence and trust in grace.

(e) Our renewal, which follows our justification, is our being brought to life, regenerated, and sanctified.

(f) Good works follow this renewal. They are the fruits of faith, and are actually works of the Spirit.

(g) We lose this faith if we commit serious evils.

The following are general teachings concerning the law and the gospel:

(h) It is important to differentiate between the law and the gospel, and between the works of the law and the works of the Spirit, which are the fruits of faith.

(i) The law is the teaching that shows us we have sins and are therefore in a state of damnation and under the wrath of God; this terrifies us. The gospel is the teaching about how we are ritually purged from sin and damnation by Christ; it is the teaching that comforts us.

(j) The law has three functions: to restrain the ungodly; to lead people to recognize their sins; and to teach the reborn the rules of life.

(k) The reborn live and walk in the law, but they are not under the law; they are under grace.

(l) The reborn should practice following what the law teaches, because as long as they are still living in this world, they are urged by their flesh to sin; after death, however, they become pure and perfect.

(m) Even the reborn struggle with the Holy Spirit and resist it in various ways. Nevertheless, they willingly obey the law and therefore live in the law as children of God.

(n) In those who are not reborn, the veil of Moses remains in front of the eyes and the old Adam is dominant. In those who are reborn, the veil of Moses is taken away and the old Adam is repeatedly put to death.

61. Brief Analysis

Surely everyone knows that God is compassion and mercy itself. He is absolute love and absolute goodness. These qualities constitute his underlying reality or essence. Surely, then, everyone sees the contradiction in saying that compassion itself or absolute goodness could look at the human race with anger, become our enemy, turn away from us, and lock us all into damnation and nevertheless continue to be his own divine essence, to be God. Attitudes and actions of that kind belong to a wicked person, not a virtuous one. They belong to an angel of hell, not an angel of heaven. It is horrendous to attribute them to God.

The fact that things like this have been taught is clear from direct statements made by many of the founders, the councils, and the churches as a whole, from the first centuries of Christianity right up to the present day.

It is also clear from indirect evidence. There are derivative teachings that must have come from thoughts like these as their source, the way effects come from a cause or bodily actions from a brain. For instance, the notion that God needed to be reconciled to us; that he was in fact reconciled through his love for his Son and through the Son’s intercession and mediation; that God needed to be appeased by seeing his Son’s final wretched suffering, and that this brought him back and more or less forced him to adopt a merciful attitude; that God went from being our enemy to being our friend and adopted us (children of wrath that we are) as children of grace.

(For the point that it would be merely human behavior for God to assign the justice and rewards of his Son to unjust people who begged him for it on the basis on their faith alone, see the last analytical section in this little work [§112].)