Therefore when I see that a man is sufficiently contrite, oppressed by the Law, terrified by sin, and thirsting for comfort, then it is time for me to take the Law and active righteousness from his sight and to set forth before him, through the Gospel, the passive righteousness which excludes Moses and the Law and shows the promise of Christ, who came for the afflicted and for sinners. Here a man is raised up again and gains hope. Nor is he any longer under the Law; he is under grace, as the apostle says (Rom. 6:14): “You are not under law but under grace.”
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 26: Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 1-4, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 7.
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Tony Phelps
Tony grew up in Rhode Island. He was educated at University of Rhode Island (BA) and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He worked in the insurance industry for ten years. He planted a PCA church in Wakefield, RI where he served for eleven years. He has pastored Covenant Reformed Church (URCNA) in Colorado Springs (2015–18), and Living Hope Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Allentown PA (2019–25). He is currently pastor of Christ Our Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Charlestown, RI. Tony is married to Donna and together they have three children.
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I understand the need for Law to do its pedagogical work of making one despair of his own righteousness and thus see the need of the free grace of God in Christ. But how do we guard against “preparationism” in light of this — especially taking it the way Luther here describes it. He seems to say precisely what Calvin (Inst. 3.3-4) and the Marrow brethren were militating against when they insisted that the free offer of the gospel should be generally given to all, and that one cannot repent of sins (as Calvin puts it) unless one is first persuaded that God is graciously disposed to him in Christ, which one will never be persuaded of except by the gift of true faith. Calvin points out that this faith is never without repentance chronologically, but that genuine contrition for sin and repentance can only flow out of a true and lively faith. I may be misreading this, but isolated as it is this quote sounds as if Luther is saying one must be genuinely repentant in heart, truly contrite for sins, BEFORE one can come to Christ in the gospel through faith. Could you clarify?
Garret,
There’s a distinction to be made, is there not, between learning the greatness of your sin and misery (HC 2) and preparationism. The latter is an extended period of misery that must be completed before, in a sense, one is allowed (as it were) to come to faith. Preparationism is something, typically, that we do. It’s a luxuriating, if you will, in the ecstasy of agony.
Luther’s not teaching that.
The Reformers believed in the free offer. The people who wrote the Heidelberg Catechism also believed in the free offer. The sinner must know three things. 1st the greatness of his sin and misery, 2nd how is redeemed from all his sin and misery (sola gratia, sola fide), 3rd how he is to thankful for such redemption. That’s the theology of the Marrow.
The Marrow men were saying what Luther was saying. No one had a greater affect on the Marrowmen than Luther.
This question is ironic since Luther is frequently and falsely accused of being antinomian.
Dr. Clark, thank you for that clarification. The distinction between preparationism and coming to a knowledge of one’s sin and misery (and hence a knowledge of one’s need for salvation by grace alone and sort from one’s own works) is very helpful. I thought I might be looking too narrowly at what Luther said here. I affirm all that the HC teaches on this (and all the six forms of unity as you call them), but in isolation here this quote seemed to suggest something to me that I see now it wasn’t truly saying. Many thanks for the help!
*apart* from one’s own works, I meant (not “sort” from)
ironic indeed