Luther and Imputation

Scott Clark presented a paper arguing that imputation was inherent in Luther’s mature understanding of justification, challenging various alternative readings of Luther, particularly those arising from the Finnish Lutherans. He offered a number of helpful points: He gave a quick but helpful overview of the development of Luther studies since Ritshl; he argued that a number of later texts have been ignored by the revisionist Luther scholars, and suggested that these later texts should have a sort of hermeneutical priority because they represent Luther’s mature reflections on the issues.

Several aspects of his talk were less than satisfying, however. First, he equated (or seemed to) a “forensic” understanding of justification with one that formulates imputation as a transfer of Christ’s alien righteousness to us. But I would think that these are distinct, though historically related, issues. One can imagine a thoroughly forensic understanding of justification that ignores imputation altogether – say, justification is God’s legal judgment that we are in fact righteous based on the finding that we are in fact righteous. That would not be a biblical view of justification, but it shows that forensic justification and imputation are distinct issues. More plausibly, one might emphasize that justification is forensic while reading Rom 4/Gen 15 as a statement that God reckoned Adam’s faith as righteousness. In this view, justification is fully forensic, but imputation is not understood as reckoning Christ’s righteousness as mine. I’m not defending either of these versions of justification; I’m suggesting that the issues are not clarified when the “forensicism” of justification is held to turn on a particular understanding of imputation.

Second, Clark characterized the Finnish view that Christ’s righteousness is His own indwelling presence as implying that justifying righteousness is “intrinsic.” In defending this characterization, he made the point that for the Finns Christ’s indwelling presence involves a kind of theosis. Thus, the righteousness becomes intrinsic. That may work with the Finns. But I wonder if that the idea that justifying righteousness is Christ’s indwelling presence necessarily involves an “intrinsic” understanding of righteousness. If Christ dwells in me by faith, then He dwells in me with all His benefits and blessings. One of those blessings is righteousness. It is “intrinsic” in the sense that it is “located” within me; but it is not intrinsic in the sense that it originates from me. In the latter sense, it is wholly alien. This seems close to what Luther says, and perhaps the Finns have confused things in their passion to bring theosis into play.

Third, Clark made the important point that Luther’s understanding of justification was under development throughout the teens and twenties of the sixteenth century, and thus we should look to the later treatises, commentaries, and disputations for evidence of Luther’s mature an final view. Even conceding that, some of Luther’s “immature” language is found in treatises written after he had decidedly broken with the medieval system. What interests me is in what sense he had broken from that system during the time he used less than “fully Protestant” language. Had he really broken with the medieval soteriology in 1517? 1520? Or had he broken from it without entirely figuring out how to express his opposition? Or – and this is the really intriguing possibility to me – had he broken with the system, but in ways that don’t fit with our usual ways of describing that break (e.g., infusion v. imputation). Maybe Luther had decisively broken with the system of medieval theology before he came to a clear notion of imputation – and if so, what exactly is the nature of that break?

Finally, in response to a question about Luther’s marital analogies for justification, he suggested that they all assume that the legal dimension is foundational: No husband and wife in Luther’s day would share their bodies and goods without the legal determination that they are husband and wife. Hence, even in this marital context, Luther is assuming an essentially forensic view of justification. This is a good and clever point, but again not entirely satisfying with regard to the use that Luther makes of the marital analogy. When Luther uses the marital analogy in Freedom of the Christian Man, the righteousness that justifies is not the foundation on which the marriage rests, but one of the gifts of Jesus to His bride. The whole point of the analogy is to explain the great transfer – the bride’s sins to her husband and the husband’s righteousness and life and power to his bride. Here’s Luther:

“In this is displayed the delightful sight, not only of communion, but of a prosperous warfare, of victory, salvation, and redemption. For since Christ is God and man, and is such a person as neither has sinned, nor dies, nor is condemned,—nay, cannot sin, die, or be condemned; and since his righteousness, life, and salvation are invincible, eternal, and almighty; when, I say, such a person, by the wedding-ring of faith, takes a share in the sins, death, and hell of his wife, nay, makes them his own, and deals with them no otherwise than as if they were his, and as if he himself had sinned; and when he suffers, dies, and descends to hell, that he may overcome all things, since sin, death, and hell cannot swallow him up, they must needs be swallowed up by him in stupendous conflict. For his righteousness rises above the sins of all men; his life is more powerful than all death; his salvation is more unconquerable than all hell.

“Thus the believing soul, by the pledge of its faith in Christ, becomes free from all sin, fearless of death, safe from hell, and endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of its husband Christ. Thus he presents to himself a glorious bride, without spot or wrinkle, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word; that is, by faith in the word of life, righteousness, and salvation. Thus he betrothes her unto himself ‘in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies’ (Hosea ii. 19, 20.).”