Performance based theories of salvation continue to plague the evangelical Protestant landscapes. Whether that be funded by a Reformed background (inclusive of Reformed proper, and Arminianism et al.), or Lutheran (either orthodox, and/or mainstream). When people are offered a notion of God wherein He is understood as a juridical God, one who relates to the world through a covenant of works/grace, or other like frameworks, at which point law-keeping sublimates grace into its image, those under this specter live a life of deep angst, always wondering if they are going to finally measure up (or persevere) unto the final reward: eternal life. What a sad state of affairs; this is not what Martin Luther was aiming toward when he protested against the scholastic theology of his Roman day. Luther internalized, unlike many, in fact, the requirements of a preparationist soteriology, wherein he was in a constant state of pilgrimage, striving towards the final merit of salvation; that is through deep introspection, and flagellation of his physical body. He believed God, under the conditions set forth by an Aristotelian-ly conceived notion of God (actus purus), hated him. He thought this because he felt the deep ditch between his own sinfulness up against the Holy God. And within this frame his only hope was to cooperate with God, through the means of grace dispensed by the Holy Roman Catholic church, to the point that he might finally assuage God’s judgment by somehow achieving the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The problem with Luther’s system though, and that of the late medieval/scholastic church, is that there was never a time where this type of assurance of achievement could ever be reached. And so, Luther tormentuously labored under this great weight of despondency and failed effort before the God who hated him (or that’s how Luther felt).
So, when Luther was encouraged by his father in the faith, Johann von Staupitz, to read the New Testament for himself in Greek, Luther was introduced to the strange new world of the Bible/NT (to borrow a phrase from Barth). Here he came to understand that the Christian could only be found righteous before the living God as that person was in participation with, in union with the risen Christ. Luther came to understand that he could do absolutely nothing to achieve this righteousness; that his good works, and self-flagellation could never bring him any closer to eternal life. Because of the breath of Holy Scripture, Luther, over against the scholastic theology of his Augustinianism, came to realize that he could only rest in the grace of God alone, that was stood in by faith alone in Christ alone. Once he was struck with this lightning bolt of revelation, as it were, his fears and anxieties melted away, only to be replaced with a boldness before the living God, the church, and the world; to the point that Luther would stare down the barrel of the Holy Roman gun of the papacy itself.
From a materially theological point of view Luther came to understand that he had to stand up against the Thomist/Aristotelian anthropology and soteriology that had led him, and so many others in the society, into the dregs of the belief that God was angry and hated him and them. Simeon Zahl writes the following with reference to this Luther[an] theological milieu:
More specifically, from Luther onwards Protestants have argued that one of the chief problems with the sort of model articulated in neo-Thomist soteriology is that it is fundamentally overoptimistic about Christian ethical transformation. The Protestant argument against a soteriology focused on the ontological infusion in the Christian of sanctifying grace is that, for all its intellectual elegance and coherence, it simply does not work very well in practice, and certainly not well enough to function as the core dynamic through which salvation comes about. Protestant spirituality is traditionally focused very substantially, especially where salvation is concerned, on what we might call the “rhetoric of passivity.” What I mean by this is the sense that much of the force of the Christian message is precisely its efficacious protest, in and through the work of Christ, against the natural human tendency to freight our day-to-day actions and feelings with soteriological or crypto-soteriological significance. It is just this freighting, basic to the neo-Thomist vision, that Martin Luther found punishing and terrifying rather than inspiring or transformative or productive of meaning.[1]
Precisely because of the retrieval movement underway within, mostly, evangelical Reformed theology, many Christians in the churches, unbeknownst to them, are being hampered by the recovery of the very theological themes that Luther et al. was attempting to thwart with reference to thinking God under the conditions set forth by Thomas Aquinas, and his reception among Post Reformed orthodox theologies.
All the aforementioned to state: the original Protestant, Martin Luther, had no intention of starting a reformation that would ultimately stillbirth, by collapsing back into the very Thomistic/Aristotelian themes he felt so burdened and tortured by. Luther desired that all would finally be set free from the stringencies provided for by thinking of God in terms of the Big Brain in the Sky, who also happened to be the Great-Law-Giver in the sky, with no grace or mercy for the fallen and bruised reeds of the world. Luther attempted to perform for his salvation, just as the Pharisee, who became an Apostle, Paul was attempting to do under his own distorted understanding of appeasing God through law-keeping (even if the conditions between Luther’s theological times and Paul’s were not exactly parallel).
Christian, if you are feeling like a Luther, beat down by false doctrines of God, undone by performance and law-based understandings of salvation; take heart! The Christ has come to not only declare, but to in fact be the Good News of great joy, of great peace, for the whole world. His is a life of absolute and immediate grace that brings the wayfarers into the heavenly throne room, where the burden is light. Jesus, as Luther came to understand, has already performed God’s salvation for us. The call, in light of this reality, is to simply rest in the finished work and person of God in Jesus Christ; for He is indeed, God’s salvation for you, for me, for the world-wide. When you’re tempted to look inward, know that Christ went inward for us, that we might finally look upward to the very being of our life in God’s being in becoming for us in the concrete humanity of Jesus Christ. Throw off every hindrance that would seek to bog you down in the liable of the devil; and finish, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit who has become for you, through the vicarious humanity of Christ, God’s guarantee of salvation come, and coming again.
[1] Simeon Zahl, The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 116 kindle ed.