LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 430

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430 ADDITIONAL THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS—OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

doctrine understands substantially under the one word, ‘faith,’ what
Catholic doctrine (following 1 Cor. 13:13) sums up in the triad of
‘faith, hope, and love’” [LV:E 52].

“We emphasize that faith in the sense of the first commandment
always means love to God and hope in him and is expressed in the
love to the neighbour” [VELKD 89, 8-11].

“Catholics . .. teach as do Lutherans, that nothing prior to the
free gift of faith merits justification and that all of God’s saving
gifts come through Christ alone” [USA, no. 105].

“The Reformers . . . understood faith as the forgiveness and fel-
lowship with Christ effected by the Word of promise itself. This is
the ground for the new being, through which the flesh is dead to
sin and the new man or woman in Christ has life (sola fide per
Christum). But even if this faith necessarily makes the human
being new, the Christian builds his confidence, not on his own new
life, but solely on God’s gracious promise. Acceptance in Christ is
sufficient, if ‘faith’ is understood as ‘trust in the promise’ (fides
promissionis)” [LV:E 50].

Cf. The Council of Trent, Session 6, Chap. 7: “Consequently, in
the process of justification, together with the forgiveness of sins a
person receives, through Jesus Christ into whom he is grafted, all
these infused at the same time: faith, hope and charity” [Decrees
of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2, London/Washington, D.C.,
1990, 673].

“According to Protestant interpretation, the faith that clings un-
conditionally to God’s promise in Word and Sacrament is suffi-
cient for righteousness before God, so that the renewal of the
human being, without which there can be no faith, does not in itself
make any contribution to justification” [LV:E 52].

“As Lutherans, we maintain the distinction between justifica-
tion and sanctification, of faith and works, which, however, implies
no separation” [VELKD 839, 6-8].

“Catholic doctrine knows itself to be at one with the Protestant
concern in emphasizing that the renewal of the human being does
not ‘contribute’ to justification, and is certainly not a contribution
to which he could make any appeal before God. Nevertheless, it
feels compelled to stress the renewal of the human being through
justifying grace, for the sake of acknowledging God’s newly creat-
ing power; although this renewal in faith, hope, and love is certainly
nothing but a response to God’s unfathomable grace” [LV:E 52f].

“Insofar as the Catholic doctrine stresses that ‘the personal
character of grace, and its link with the Word’, this renewal . . . is
certainly nothing but a response effected by God’s Word itself and
that ‘the renewal of the human being does not contribute to justifi-
cation, and is certainly not a contribution to which a person could
make any appeal before God’ our objection no longer applies”
[VELKD 89, 12-21].

To [part] 4.4: The Justified as Sinners (paragraphs 28-31)
[USA, nos. 102ff.; LV:E 44ff.; VELKD 81ff.}:

“For however just and holy, they fall from time to time into the
sins that are those of daily existence. What is more, the Spirit’s action
does not exempt believers from the lifelong struggle against sinful
tendencies. Concupiscence and other effects of original and personal
sin, according to Catholic doctrine, remain in the justified, who,
therefore, must pray daily to God for forgiveness” [USA, no. 102].

“The doctrines laid down at Trent and by the Reformers are at
one in maintaining that original sin, and also the concupiscence that
remains, are in contradiction to God . . . object of the lifelong strug-
gle against sin... After Baptism, concupiscence in the person jus-
tified no longer cuts that person off from God; in Tridentine lan-
guage, it is ‘no longer sin in the real sense’; in Lutheran
phraseology, it is peccatum regnatum, ‘controlled sin’” [LV:E 46].

“The question is how to speak of sin with regard to the justified
without limiting the reality of salvation. While Lutherans express
this tension with the term, ‘controlled sin,’ (peccatum regnatum),
which expresses the teaching of the Christian as ‘being justified

2001 Convention Workbook

and sinner at the same time’ (simul iustus et peccator), Roman
Catholics think the reality of salvation can only be maintained by
denying the sinful character of concupiscence. With regard to this
question, a considerable rapprochement is reached, if LV:E calls
the concupiscence that remains in the justified a ‘contradiction to
God’ and thus qualifies it as sin” [VELKD 82, 29-39].

To [part] 4.5: Law and Gospel (paragraphs 32-34):

According to Pauline teaching, it refers to the Jewish Law as
means of salvation. This was fulfilled and overcome in Christ. This
statement and the consequences from it have thus to be understood.

With reference to Canons 19f. of the Council of Trent the
VELKD (89, 28-36) says as follows: “The ten commandments, of
course, apply to Christians as stated in many places of the confes-
sions. If Canon 20 stresses that a ‘person . . . is bound to keep the
commandments of God,’ this does not apply to us; if, however,
Canon 20 affirms that faith has salvific power only on condition of
keeping the commandments, this applies to us. Concerning the ref-
erence of the Canon regarding the commandments of the church,
there is no difference between us, if these commandments are only
expressions of the commandments of God; otherwise it would
apply to us.”

The last paragraph is related factually to [part] 4.3, but empha-
sizes the ‘convicting function’ of the Law, which is important to
Lutheran thinking.

To [part] 4.6: Assurance of Salvation (paragraphs 3S—37) [LV:E
53-56, VELKD 90ff.]:

“The question is: How can, and how may, human beings live
before God in spite of their weakness, and with that weakness?”
[LV:E 53].

“The foundation and the point of departure (of the Reformers) .
. . are: the reliability and sufficiency of God’s promise, and the
power of Christ’s death and resurrection; human weakness, and the
threat to faith and salvation, which that involves” [LV:E 56].

The Council of Trent also emphasizes that “it is necessary to
believe that sins are not forgiven, nor have they ever been forgiven,
save freely by the divine mercy on account of Christ;” and that we
must not doubt “the mercy of God, the merit of Christ, and the
power and efficacy of the sacraments; so it is possible for anyone,
while he regards himself and his own weakness and lack of dispo-
sitions, to be anxious and fearful about his own state of grace”
[Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 9, 674].

“Luther and his followers go a step farther: They urge that the
uncertainty should not merely be endured. We should avert our
eyes from it and take seriously, practically, and personally the ob-
jective efficacy of the absolution pronounced in the sacrament of
penance, which comes ‘from outside.’ .. . Since Jesus said, ‘What-
ever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ (Matt. 16: 1 9),
the believer . .. would declare Christ to be a liar .. . , if he did not
rely with a rock-like assurance on the forgiveness of God uttered in
the absolution . . . that this reliance can itself be subjectively uncer-
tain—that the assurance of forgiveness is not a security of forgive-
ness (securitas), but, this must not be turned into yet another prob-
lem, so to speak: the believer should turn his eyes away from it, and
should look only to Christ’s Word of forgiveness” [LV:E 54f.].

“Today Catholics can appreciate the Reformer'’s efforts to
ground faith in the objective reality of Christ’s promise, ‘whatso-
ever you loose on earth .. .” and to focus believers on the specific
word of absolution from sins. . . . Luther’s origina] concern to teach
people to look away from their experience, and to rely on Christ
alone and his word of forgiveness [is not to be condemned]”
[PCPCU 24].

A mutual condemnation regarding the understanding of the as-
surance of salvation “can even less provide grounds for mutual ob-
jection today—particularly, if we start from the foundation of a bib-
lically renewed concept of faith. For a person can certainly lose or
renounce faith, and self-commitment to God and his Word of