Q!uutur~ta: m4ruingtral :!InutIJly Continuing LEHRE UND VVEHRE MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Vol. VII August, 1936 No.8 CONTENTS Page Die Bedeutung der Predigt bei Luther. P. E. Kretzmann ••• , 561 King Henry VIII Courts Luther. w. Dallmann .••••••••••• 568 The Greatness of Luther's Commentary on Galatians. R. T. Du Brau. • • • . •• 577 Ueber Buecherbesprechungen. L. Fuerbringer •••••••••.••.• 581 Der Schriftgrund fuer die Lehre von der satisfactio vicaria. P. E. Kretzmann • • • •• 584 Dispositionen ueber die erste von der Synodalkonferenz angenommene Evangelienreihe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 587 Miscellanea ........................................ 599 Theological Observer. - Kirchlich·Zeitgeschichtliches. . . .. 606 Book Review. - Literatur ........................... 629 Ein Prediger muss nicht allein weid .... also dasa er die Schafe unterweise. wie ale recbte Christen sollen seln, sondem auch daneben den Woelfen wehr.... dass 81e die Schafe nicht angreUen und mit falaeher Lehre verluehren und Irrtum ein· fuehren. - Luther. E. ist kein Ding, daB die Leute mehr bei der Kirche behaelt denn die gute Predigt. - Ap%gie. Art. 8 •. If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? 1 Oor. ~. 8. Published for the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo. I ARCHIV The Greatness of Luther's Commentary on Galatians. 577 faith/ulZ christen congregacion in England. London, Richard Charlton. The King's own printer published Tyndale's "Luther's New Testament in English." Lucy told Cromwell a priest declared, "Ember days were named after one Luther, a paramour of a certain bishop of Rome." When Jacob Schenk and Philip Moth were made Licentiates of Theology, on October 10, 1536, Luther presided at the disputation "On the Power of the Council," which Paul III on June 4 had called to Mantua for May 23, 1537. Dr. Barnes took part in the debate. Pm·haps it was for the "honorable guests" that the city council sent eight cans of Rhine wine for the banquet at the Blaek Cloister, Luther's house. Stephen Gardiner sent Henry Phillips and Gabriel Donne to arrest William Tyndale, the translator of the New Testament. In May, 1;")35, they had him in the great state prison of Vilvorde, near Brussels. With the King's consent Cromwell wrote Archbishop Carondelet and the marquis of Bergen. Thomas Poynts of the "English House" at Antwerp delivered the letters. Stephen Vaughan also made strenuous efforts to save the reformer. In vain. On October 6, 1536, he was strangled and burned - which he had long looked for. His last word was, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes!" WM. DALL}'fANN. 4 • I The Greatness of Luther's Commentary on Galatians. If some theologians and historians declare to have been dis- appointed with Luther's Galatians, it is because they looked for a commentary more learned and critical than popular.*) It was not intended to be a critical study in the present philological sense of the term. Nor does the work hold out the slightest shred of comfort to the :Modernist. During the stormy years that gave birth to this commentm·y Luther had too much practical work of prior importance on his hands to find leisure for comparative and critical exegesis. It still remains a marvel how he could pen a commentary so diffme and yet so simple. Its thought- and sermon-stimulating properties are immense. It is not so much a commentary which deals with every iota of the original- although sincere exposition is by no means neglected - as a course of lectures on the chief Chris- tian doctrine, justification by faith, and as set forth in St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. There lies the reason why the commentary *) Cp., e. g., Fife, Young Luther, pp. 214 if. 37 578 The Greatness of Luther's Commentary on Galatians. has become such a tremendous spiritual force to all who came into devout and studious contact with it. :Martin Bucer (1491-1551), although often unionistically in- clined and lacking that courage of conviction and confession which characterized Luther, was nevertheless a man of profound learning. Cranmer called him to England to further the cause of the Reforma- tion there. Enjoying the freer spirit of the British Isles, BuccI' stayed in England until his dying day, holding a professorship at Cam- bridge University. On receiving and reading a copy of Luther's Galatians, he jubilantly ·wrote to Spalatin: "Luther, by the divine lucubrations which he hath published, stands so high in my opinion that I look to him as an angelic guide in the interpretation of dif- ficult passages of Scripture. How, then, think you, did I rejoice when one of our brethren brought me his commentary on the Galatians! After only a very slight perusal of it I felt like dancing for joy." (As reported by Milner, History of the Oh1L1'ch, 1812.) It is well known that the commentary indelibly impressed its benign influence upon the immortal dreamer of Bedford j ail. Speak- ing of the conflicts of his soul, Bunyan writes:- "I did greatly long to see some ancient godly man's experience who had writ somc hundreds of years before I was born. \Ye11, after such longings in my mind, the God in whose hands are all our days and ways did cast into my hand one day a book of Martin Luther; it was his comment on the Galatians, ... the which when I had but a little way perused, I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled as if this book had been written out of my heart. This made me marvel; for, thus thought I, this man could not know anything of the state of Christians now, but must needs write and speak the experience of former days. Besides, he doeth most gravely in that book debate of the rise of these temptations, namely, blasphemy, desperation, and the like, showing that the Law of Moses as well as the devil, death, and hell hath a very great hand therein, the which at first was very strange to me; but con- sidering and watching, I found it so indeed. But of particulars here I intend nothing; only this methinks I must let fall before all men, I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon Galatians (excepting the Holy Bible) before all the books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience." Indeed, the author of Pilgrim's P7'ogr8ss read this book on Galatians well, and he certainly got the point. Like the poor, so wounded conscienees are always with us and always have been. Little wonder, then, that the book was read with so great an avidity im- mediately after its first publication and became so instrumental in promoting the glorious, soul-liberating cause of the Reformation. This gives Luther's monumental work a superior claim to the The Greatness of Luther's COll1mentary'on Galatians. 579 :attention of the historian. It became one of the most powerful means of reviving the light of Scripture in the sixteenth century. Further- more, it will in all ages be capable of doing the same, under the blessing of God, whenever men regard the oracles of divine truth and wheneyer souls shall be distressed with a sense of indwelling sin and guilt. Canon Hare (1795-1855), chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, in 1839 preached a remarkable series of sermons, "In Vindication of Luther." Then, now nearly a hundred years ago, he said: "K ot till the world's course has run out, will it be known to how many persons this commentary on the Galatians has been a blessed well-spring of spiritual light and consolation." Archbishop Richard Trench (1807-1886) of Dublin, dean of Westminster, professor of New Testament exegesis at Cambridge, poet and scholar, did not overstate when he claimed that "Luther has done more to bring out the innermost spirit of St. Paul's writings than all other critics put together." These are strong, but not too strong words of theologians out- side the Lutheran communion. It is doubtful whether Luther's com- mentary will be relished at all by any but serious, humble, and eontrite spirits. They are the only people in the world to whom the all-important article of justification will appeal' worthy of all ac- eeptation. The article of justification by faith we rightly hold to be that .article by which the Christian Church stands or falls. It is the acid test, the true criterion, and "the only solid rock," as Luther describes it in the preface to his commentary. Faith alone justifies. This divine truth gave direction to an of Luther's labors in the epistle of St. Paul's. Yet this master in the Scriptures warns that faith never excludes good works. Lest sinful man make his new-found Jiberty in Christ a cloak for maliciousness, Luther, following Paul meticulously, is very careful to explain that true faith is also infallibly connected with a spirit of true benevolence, the spirit of benevolence, or love, which regards the I"aw as a rule, but that the kingdom of God is attained not through the Law, or the works of the Law, but by faith. Everything is to be ascribed to faith, so that all our sufficiency is of God, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift. The points of doctrine "which ought to be explained to the people" Luther finds laid clown by the apostle in this order: Let a man first learn to despair of his own strength; let him heal' the word of evangelical faith; hearing, let him believe it; believing, let him call upon God; calling upon Him, let him find, as he will, that he is being heard; being heard of God, let him receive the spirit of love; l'eceiving this spirit, let him walk in the same and not fulfil 580 The Greatnells of Luther's Commentary on Galatians. the lusts of the flesh, but let him crucify them; lastly, being crucified with Christ, let him rise from the dead and possess the kingdom of heaven. This is the most masterful treatise on the difference and co- relation between works and faith ever set down. Here is a practical manual of faith and works, valuable to layman and theologian alike. For has not this apparent contradiction between faith and works always been a bone of contention and cause of confusion to men of finite minds? But his clear delineation of the rise and progress of Christian faith and life in this epistle obviously shows that Luther fully understood the apostle's meaning. As a matter of fact, Luther was the man of God to write such a commentary on such an epistle of faith as the Galatians. The great Reformer himself had plowed deep into the human heart. He well knew its native depravity. He had long labored to no purpose to gain peace of conscience by legal observances and moral works. He had counted himself among the "pious and just monks" and declared in 1533 that, if any son of the cloister could have earned salvation from the monastic profession, it would have been he. 'When his father feared that he might not be able to keep his vows, Luther shows himself "unprickerl by conscience for any failure of this kind." In the commentary itself he declares: "Outwardly I lived good, just, and poor and cared nothing for the world." But it was the God- directed discovery that the just shall live by his faith that relieved him from his "most pungent anxiety." It was appointed in the eternal and mysterious counsels of the Godhead that Luther should teach mankind this great evangelical tenet after upwards of a thou- sand years of public obscurity. The angel with the everlasting Gospel was on the way. Through the entire commentary the author proves from the inspired apostle that in justification before God all sorts of human works are excluded, moral as well as ceremoniaL Men are declared righteous before God not because of what they have done or can or will do, but because of what Christ has done for them. Luther in his masterly exposition restored to the Ohristian world the true forensic sense of the term "justification" and rescued it from an erroneous sense in which it had been used for many ages, as thoug'h meaning "habits of virtue poured into the Ohristian (gratia infusa)," thus confounding justification with sanctification. Luther, the incomparablo theologian, once for all times here settled the true bonds and limits of the Law and the Gospel and clearly distinguished between being accepted by God and personal holiness. He is a doctor of the Scriptures indeed. To be accepted with God, he shows, is a free gift received through Christ alone by faith in the heart of the humbled sinner, whose pardon and reconciliation with iiDet j8udJerbefiJred)ungen. 581 God is complete by His Son. Personal holiness remains imperfect in this life and perfection is sincerely pressed after, and such press- ing after is delighted in. By this doctrine a new light breaks on the mind, and Christianity appears singularly distinct not only from popery, but also from all other religions. Thus, throughout the commentary the observant reader will note Luther's clear-cut progress of thought by his running comments on each chapter and verse of this Pauline epistle. He begins with the basis of proper exposition and at the outset lays down what con- stitutes sound principles of interpretation. Then he launches full force into the theme of the book: justification by faith alone. This sola fide he carries out by numerous instances and examples, always most closely following his divinely inspired preceptor Paul. Then at the end of the book he beholds the new creature. Properly, and Scripturally, sanctification follows upon justification; the new man follows the new birth. After a careful and continued study of Luther's commentary on Galatians of 1535 anyone who at all ruefully realizes his need of a Savior will most heartily concur with Dr. Staupitz when he said to Friar Martin before the Reformation had actually begun:- "I like the doctrine you preach exceedingly. It gives the glory and everything else to God alone and nothing to man. Now it is clearer than the day that it is impossible to ascribe too much glory, goodness, and mercy to God." Fort McArthur, Cal. R. T. Du BRAD . . . ~ fiber ~iidJerbefvredjuugeu+ ~ebe 9hnnmcr unfetet .(leitfd)tift ent~iilt ad)t EieHen j8ud)etbefiJted)ungen, unb mandJmal geben mit nod) alvei Eieiten au. ~s bUtfte unfern £efern nid)t unliell fein, menn mit einmal ein Wort Uber bie Illlliicf)t unb ben ~uilC1l fold)cr )Sud)eraI13eigen fagen. 9lad) llnferer -ftberaellgung ~aben biefe ffie3enfionen einm breifad)en .(lmecf. @inmal mo(fctt iie unfere \lefel' einigrrmaBen auf bem lallfen~ bm cl'~artm batiibet, lUas in bet t~eologifcl)en ®elt ~lmetifas unb @utopas bot fid) ge~t, unb mie fid) bies in ben neuetfcl)einenben j8iid)etn ,eigt. .(lUt t~eologi~ fd)en lilleitetatbeit bes ~fattets ge~iitt eben aud) bies, baB et otientiett ift unt bleibt Ubet ben t~eologifC£)en j8ettieu [einer .(lett, aud) menn ex feins bet ange~ 3eigten j8ud)et laufen Doer lefen fann. Sl)es~alb tft ein ,meiter .(lroecf foId)et ~iid)etan3ei\len, nid)t Moll einClt, menn aud) noc~ io fnaiJiJen, @inblicf in ben :;'lnf]alt bes betteffenben ~ucl)s au gemii~ten, fonbetn 3u91eid) in metbinbung mit bet ~eiiJted)ung bies obet jenes oUt EiiJtad)e au btingen, mas bit eft bet (l;tmei~ tetun\l bet t~eologifcf)en .lrenntniffe bient. ~ine ffiqcnjion, mie mit iie aUffaffen, ift 3ugleid) ein ~agef, an ben man nod) etllJas anbetes ~iingen fann unb foU, bamH aud)1 bie Illn3eige eines bieUeid)t biiUig ab3ule~nenben lffierfes bod) ftucl)t~ btingenb fei. Sl)es~alb ~aben mit ~in unb miebet ,aud)' ein liebeutenbell Wed, bas uns nid)t 3U ffieaenfions3roecren 3ugin9, gefauft, entmeber 3um boUen obct