Theology of the Cross

Speaking of Forde, his little book on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation (1518), entitled On Being a Theologian of the Cross includes a number of insights worth pondering.

1) Theological Thesis 15 of the Disputation states that free will could not “remain in a state of innocence, much less do good, in an active capacity, but only in its passive capacity” (pp. 57-58). Forde explains, “even before the fall Adam and Eve were upheld in the state of innocence not by their own power but from without. They remained strictly creatures who lived by faith and trusted their creator and not their own power.” Too bad Luther didn’t have a chance to read Meredith Kline, else he would not have undermined the gospel so radically by denying the covenant of works.

2) Luther continuously stresses that the theologian of the cross, in contrast to the theologian of glory, calls things by their proper names. In particular, he calls suffering by the proper name – i.e., “good.” Forde wonders if a theology of glory is at the root of modern protest atheism. The whole problem of evil is premised on the notion that suffering is not good, and that a good God could not permit or cause it. But not all suffering is evil or caused by evil: “Love can cause suffering. Beauty can be the occasion for suffering. Children with their demands and impetuous cries can cause suffering. Just the toil and trouble of daily life can cause suffering, and so on. Yet these are surely not to be termed evil” (p. 84). If we start with the theology of the cross, and its affirmation that suffering, and particularly the suffering that God inflicts, is good, then the protest dries up.

3) The suffering that Luther describes as good is “first and foremost . . . the result of God’s operation on the sinner . . . . The suffering Luther has in mind is something God inflicts on us just by virtue of the fact that he moves against the presumption of our works. He is out to do it all. We suffer this unilateral action of God. We suffer because we don’t like it. We don’t like to be put out of control. It means that we are rendered totally passive by the divine operation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.” Human efforts to take up an active position over against God are the root of all sin, and also the cause why it hurts when God puts us into a passive position (pp. 86-87).

4) Luther explains Thesis 27, which claims that Christ is the “operative power” and that our work is the resulting “operation” as follows: “Since Christ lives in us through faith, so he moves us to do good works through that living faith in his work, for the works that he does are the fulfillment of the commands of God given us through faith. If we look at them, we are moved to imitate them.” Forde expounds the passage as follows: “Notable is the fact that it says not one work about law. The impetus to good works comes entirely from being moved, aroused, and motivated by the completed work of the Christ, who dwells in the believer through faith. Christ’s work is the complete fulfillment of the commands of God and as such moves the faithful to works.” Forde notes the references to the Song of Songs later in the highlight the fact that love serves as the motivator for good works: “One is ‘drawn,’ ‘attracted’ by the very action and saving works of Christ.” He also points out that Luther employs sacramental terminology throughout the thesis ( opus operans , operatum , operis operantis ). He comments, “Luther is no doubt thinking of the Augustinian insistence that Christ must first be a sacrament for us before he can be an example. So Christ is operans , the one doing the operating, and believers who receive his work sacramentally as sheer gift are operatum , worked upon. Their work in turn pleases God, not in and of itself, but gratia operis operantis , strictly because of the grace of Christ’s operation. That is how it all works” (pp. 110-112).