LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 417

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ADDITIONAL THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS—OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 417

The Structure of the Joint Declaration

The Declaration consists of 44 paragraphs subdivided into five
sections. Under “A Preamble” are found paragraphs |-7. The first
major section, “I. Biblical Message of Justification,” is subdivided
into paragraphs 8-12. The entire second major section, “2. The
Doctrine of Justification as Ecumenical Problem,” is contained in
paragraph 13. There follows section “3. The Common Understand-
ing of Justification” in paragraphs 14-18. This “common under-
standing” is then unfolded in the longest section “4. Explicating the
Common Understanding of Justification” with paragraphs 19-39.
Section 4, paragraphs 19-39, is further divided into seven aspects
of the doctrine over which the churches were divided. Each of the
seven parts is constructed so that Lutherans and Roman Catholics
set forth their common agreement and then each sets out its own
particular emphases. The final section, “5. The Significance and
Scope of the Consensus Reached,” encompasses paragraphs 40-44
and resolves the quandry section, “2. The Doctrine of Justification
as Ecumenical Problem.” On the basis of this consensus, the mutual
condemnations are lifted (paragraph 41). Paragraph 44 concludes
with gratitude for “this decisive step forward” and a prayer to be
led “further toward that visible unity which is Christ's will.” Ref-
erences to supporting documents are included in an “Appendix.”

Some Illuminating Textual History

From a Lutheran perspective, the Declaration is not entirely
without merit. Paragraph 31 expresses Lutheran-Roman Catholic
consensus on the Law and the Gospel: ‘We contess together that
persons are justified by faith in the Gospel ‘apart from works pre-
scribed by the Law’ (Rom. 3:28). Christ has fulfilled the Law and
by his death and resurrection has overcome it as a way to salva-
tion...” This comes closest to an explicit profession of sola fide,
which is found in the Declaration only in paragraph 26, prepared by
the Lutherans.’ Paragraph 32 is also unmistakenly Lutheran. This is
contradicted by the next paragraph (33), which is unmistakably
Roman Catholic: the statement that “Christ is not a lawgiver in the
manner of Moses” allows the traditional Roman evasion that the
ceremonial but not the moral law is excluded from justification.
The scholastic view that the Gospel is the “New Law” is left in
place. To this the Lutheran response has always been Rom. 7:7: “I
should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said,
“You shall not covet.’” St. Paul meant to exclude precisely the
moral law from justification. In the view of six ELCA theologians
(from Luther Seminary, St. Paul), the good Lutheran statements
above were likely “a Jast-minute insertion by some of the German
Lutheran representatives who were worried about the tilt of the
whole document toward individual internal transformation through
grace rather than newly righted relationships through God’s Word
of Law and Gospel.’* They point out that since the necessary theo-
logical presuppositions are nowhere developed in the document,
the good paragraphs 31-32 “connect with nothing.”

Justification as Criterion?

Even more telling is the history behind the amendment of para-
graph 18, regarding justification as “criterion”’—we rely here on
Eberhard Jiingel’s critique, “Um Gottes willen—Klarheit!” [For
God’s sake—clarity!].'° After intense discussions, the German
LWF contingent proposed that the article of justification be recog-
nized “as criterion” which “constantly serves to orientate all the
teaching and practice of our churches to Christ.” This change was
officially accepted into the June [996 version of the Joint Declara-
tion, but then was vetoed by the Roman Sacred Congregation for
Doctrine of the Faith. As Jiingel puts it: “Cardinal Ratzinger cor-
rected Cardinal Cassidy to the effect that the Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity may concede only that ‘.. . the doctrine
of justification is an indispensable criterion.’” By the addition of
the indefinite article “an,” justification was demoted from its posi-

tion of unique, overarching criterion to one among others. Roman
Catholics added that they ‘see themselves as bound by several cri-
teria.” This intervention by Ratzinger’s Sacred Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith may signal that the Vatican is actually
planning to grant its long-delayed official approval to the final text,
though some Lutherans remain unconvinced.

Finnish Additions

Finnish theologians may have been even more influential than
the Germans. This is evident from a comparison of the 1995 ver-
sion of the Joint Declaration, the Jan. 30, 1996, submission by the
Council for International Relations of the Evangelical! Lutheran
Church of Finland, and the final version of the Declaration. De-
spite some muddles, which can be discussed below, the theologi-
cally forceful language of the Finnish response found its way into
the final text, including the addition of a whole new paragraph (8)
on the rich Old Testament background of section “2. Biblical Mes-
sage of Justification.” Another improvement was the inclusion of
explicit Trinitarian-Christological language at various points, es-
pecially in a completely re-worked paragraph 15, which previously
lacked substance.

Failures of the Declaration:
A Confessional Lutheran Perspective

1. Justification: Forensic or Transformational?

The foremost defect of the document is that it does not come
clean on the most glaring conflict between Augsburg and Trent.
For Lutherans, justification is essentially forensic, that is, God de-
clares the sinner righteous on account of and in Christ. Roman
Catholics define justification as an internal transformation of the
believer, a “process.” which Lutherans place in the area of sancti-
fication, about which too there are different understandings. Roman
Catholics have understood grace as if it were almost a substance,
gratia infusa, which is poured into the soul initially by Baptism.!!
Lutherans, with Paul, see justifying grace as the favor Dei, God’s
gracious attitude whereby He accepts sinners. The title of para-
graph 4.2, “Justification as Forgiveness of Sins and Making Right-
eous,” to be sure, could be understood in a Lutheran way. The fa-
mous paragraph 72 of Apology IV makes it clear that faith “being
made righteous” in justification means only receiving “the forgive-
ness of sins.”'? Clearly this is not what is meant in the Joint Decla-
ration. However, the Formula of Concord expressly rejects the
view that justifying righteousness “consists of two pieces or parts,
namely, the gracious forgiveness of sins and, as a second element,
renewal or sanctification” (SD, II], 48). We are not alone in our
concerns. So also the six ELCA theologians:

The fundamental problem with JDDJ is that it seems to subsume the
Lutheran understanding of justification under a Roman Catholic under-
standing of justification as a process whereby the soul is progressively
transformed through “grace.”. . . The document presents an under-
standing of justification in terms of the soul’s progressive internal trans-
formation by infused grace, and never refers in a vital or critical way
to the Lutheran insistence on justification by faith alone (sola fide) in
God’s Word of promise, no doubt because such insistence would un-
dermine the entire structure of the doctrine of justification proposed by
JDDJ (emphases in original).

This objection does come a bit late! For years the ELCA com-
promised itself in various ecumenical dialogues. Lutheran accep-
tance of the Roman Catholic position on justification should come
as no surprise. H. George Anderson, now Presiding Bishop of the
ELCA, co-chaired the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue on
Justification by Faith. which concluded: “156 (5)... . By justifica-
tion we are both declared and made righteous . . . 158... . [God's
saving work] can be expressed in the imagery of God as judge who
pronounces sinners innocent and righteous, . . . and also in a trans-
tormist view, which emphasizes the change wrought in sinners by
infused grace.”'’ On this point the Lutherans completely surren-

2001 Convention Workbook