Full Text for Confessions 1- Volume 47 - Does Melanchthon's distinction between two kinds of righteousness identify the basic flaw in the confutation's understanding of salvation? (Video)

ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONFESSIONS 1 CON1-Q047 JANUARY 2005 CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 LOMBARD, IL 60148 * * * * * This text is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communications Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. * * * * >> DAVID: Does Melanchthon's distinction between two kinds of righteousness provide him with the resources for diagnosing the fundamental flaw in the confutation's understanding of salvation? And if so, how? >> DR. CHARLES P. ARAND: Here is where I think a lot of the fun begins in the study of the Apology, that is to say, how does Melanchton go about critiquing or diagnosing the fundamental flaw in the position of his opponents? In brief, he diagnosis it by saying that the fundamental problem is a failure to distinguish between two kinds of righteousness. In other words, they operate as if there's only one kind, or a single kind of righteousness that avails both in the eyes of human beings as well as in the eyes of God. I think in Melanchthon's view you might say what his opponents have done is they have taken the active righteousness of works on a horizontal sphere and flipped it on its head, thereby turning it into a basis for our righteousness also before God. You might say, rather than thinking in terms of two axes, they think of righteousness only in terms of a single continuum by which we ascend from earth up to God in heaven. One might even think of it as an extension ladder. So in other words, what they have done then, is they have adopted the Aristotelian pattern for how we acquire virtue; namely, by practice and effort. They�ve taken that pattern which applies to our lives and our human relationships and made it the basis for acquiring righteous also in the eyes of God. You might say that what they have done is they've taken an Aristotelian chassis for acquiring righteousness and then powered it with a sacramental engine. Now what I mean by that is they've taken the pattern that we have to choose to do what is right. We have to practice it over and over again at a very high level and do it over a lifetime. But, they've notched it up a couple of degrees. In other words, when it comes to our works, and the laws and the standards by which we achieve righteousness, they have added to, you might say, the Ten Commandments, additional works that go above and beyond the Ten Commandments as necessary for acquiring perfection or acquiring righteousness before God. Again, if we can use the analogy of a vertical continuum, or an extension ladder from earth to heaven, you might say that at the bottom of this extension ladder lies the (inaudible), lies the profane world, the secular world. At the top of the continuum or at the top of the ladder lies the sacred world, the world of God. And the goal is then, to move from the bottom, from the profane, up to the sacred. Now, at the bottom, then, lie such works as are commanded by the Ten Commandments. These kind of works lie within the power and ability of every person or every Christian. And they take you so far up the ladder. If you want to go all the way to the top of the latter, there are additional works that were called evangelical councils. Most famously, these would include the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They might also include additional works established by the church as necessary for acquiring righteousness, whether they be pilgrimages, indulgences, or those kinds of works, observing different feasts and fasting and observing a distinction of foods and the like. So you end up with a distinction between two kinds of work. You end up with two levels of works, I might say. You have a level of works that sort of is available and possible for everyone, but then you have the higher level of works that you need to progress to if you want to achieve righteousness or perfection. Well, how does one do that? That requires one's total dedication and total effort and total concentration. And, therefore, they are best accomplished within certain spheres of life or walks of life or vocations, one might call them I suppose, such as monastic orders. By entering a monastic order, one can and devote oneself entirely toward the attaining of righteousness without the distractions of everyday life. This then meant that some walks of life, some human endeavors, became regarded as superior to others. You might say then, that fasting for God becomes more valuable than cooking for a family. In other words, you have to dedicate yourself entirely to God by entering a monastic order. Well, what does this do except create sort of a two level �- two levels of Christianity? You have your spiritual Christians, you might say, your perfect Christians, and then you have your more secular Christians or the profane. So they would distinguish, then, between two levels of Christianity, two levels of works, two levels of attaining righteousness, or I should say, two levels of walks of life. Well, to help one up the letter, if you will, is where the sacraments came into play. Not only with baptism but with the remaining six sacraments, each one of them provides you with a dose of grace, an infusion of grace, to enable one to love God more easily. What role does Christ play in this scheme? Well, in the opening paragraphs of Apology 4, you see that Melanchthon asks this very question. Melanchthon will end up answering this by saying, not a whole lot. Basically, Christ will play the role of acquiring that grace for us by which we then can seek to love God with undivided attention. In other words, the grace which assists our words, that's what Christ won for us upon the cross. Now this grace that He won for us upon the cross was simply the recovery of a grace originally given to Adam and Eve in creation. It was known as a stabilizing grace. We may talk about that a little bit later on. But for Melanchthon, that too radically limits the role of Christ. It's simply placing Christ and the sacraments into a particular scheme or slotting them, you might say, somewhere on this continuum of soft of giving us a lift up to God. So that's his diagnosis. One confuses the two kinds of righteousness or one conflates the two kinds of righteousness into only one kind of righteousness. I dare say that this remains a perpetual problem for Christians, even down to this day. I somehow can't help but wonder whether when you hear people talk about such things as, now that you have accepted Jesus as your savior, make Him Lord of your life. There�s a sort of two-stage progression to the Christian life. Now you're saved, but now you got to move on to become perfect or sanctified which brings you even closer to God. Or, perhaps, within the neo-Pentecostal movement, there tends to be a way of speaking that speaks about a water baptism for justification. Again, that gets you saved, but then you need a Spirit baptism for sanctification. Well, in my ears, that sounds very similar to this movement of sin to grace. Okay, you�ve moved from a state of sin, now you're in a state of grace, but now let's press on up the ladder, if you will, to a state of perfection or sanctification by what we do or what we accomplish. For that reason, Melanchthon is going to urge the distinction between the two kinds of righteousness as the key to both preserving the work of Christ in all its glory and, hence, providing sinners with complete and total comfort in Christ, as well as preserving the value of human activity in performance of works within our daily lives. And he'll do that, as we'll see, in a way that does not make one type of work or one type of law superior to another kind.