Luther and the 95 theses?
Last
time we saw how Martin Luther taught that self-knowledge is essential to the
proper worship of God. He then went on to show that we need to know about God’s
‘character’ in order to sustain the life of faith.
I
would also point out not only how these things are true…..but also how godly, reverent
and necessary it is to know them. For where they are not known, there can be no
faith, nor any worship of God. To lack this knowledge is really to be ignorant
of God – and salvation is notoriously
incompatible with such ignorance. For if you hesitate to believe, or are too
proud to acknowledge, that God foreknows and wills all things, not
contingently, but necessarily and immutably, how can you believe, trust and
rely on His promises? When He makes promises, you ought be out of doubt that He
knows, and can and will perform what He promises; otherwise, you will be accounting
Him neither true nor faithful, which is unbelief, and the height of
irreverence, and a denial of the most high God! And how can you be thus sure
and certain, unless you know that certainly, infallibly, immutably and
necessarily, He knows, wills and will perform what he promises? Not only should
we be sure that God wills, and will execute His will, necessarily and immutably
; we should glory in the fact, as Paul does in Romans 3 – ‘Let God be true, but
every man a liar (v.4) and again, Not that the word of God has failed (Rom.
9.6), and in another place, ‘The
foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that
are his’. (2 Tim.2.19) In Tit.1 he says: ‘Which God, that cannot lie, promised
before the world began’ (v.2) And Heb.
11 says ‘He that cometh, must believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of
them that hope in him (v.6). (83-4)
We may knowing that knowing God is having the sort of relationship with him that we may have with some other people. We know some people who, perhaps, we would prefer not to know. Is God like this? Or is he a projection of our fantasies, like something out of Tolkein or J.K.Rowling? Luther is telling us that the character of God is fixed, and that this character should control our worship, our hopes and fears and our obedience. Fundamental to our religion is not whether we know God but whether this God knows us. And whether or not we enjoy the fruits of his promises of grace and salvation.
We are often told
that God’s love is unconditional, but what Luther tells us means that we should
be careful on that point. If we are not careful the attractions of
unconditionality will sweep us away. If no conditions, anything goes. You can
see that unconditionality appeals to the temper of the ages. Unconditionality, no responsibility? If anything goes,
then anything goes with regard to God. But knowledge inevitably conditions. Luther insists that our relationship with God is
shot through with conditions. There are conditions in our relationship with
him. For example, if we are ignorant of who God is and what he does and has
done then our condition will be that we shall not begin to know how to approach him.
The doctrine of
God is often rubbished as being abstract and ‘theological’ (as it is, naturally.)
Whereas our knowing him is personal and intimate. Well, we must be careful. His
omniscience or his immutability are not to be thought of as abstractions, the
playthings of theologians, but as divine
powers or perfections. Of course he has these powers necessarily or
essentially. If he lacked any of them he would not be God. It is to be hoped
that it is this God we know when we affirm that we know God.
And so we ask the
same question as in the earlier post. Do our preachers tell us such things? .
Or are all sorts of other things more ‘relevant’? To neglect such things is not
to teach them or to take them for granted. It is to bless our ignorance.
Luther again…….
If,
then, we are taught and believe that we ought to be ignorant of the necessary
foreknowledge of God and the necessity of events, Christian faith is utterly
destroyed, and the promises of God and the whole gospel fall to the ground completely;
for the Christian’s chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing
that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His
will cannot be resisted, altered or impeded.
(84)
Heard any sermons
on these themes, on the object of Christian faith, and how that who God is the solution of many of the setbacks we have as a Christian? Heard one
sermon in 2018 on such a theme? Without the knowledge of God our heads will be filled with the character and goals of our culture, and be
filled with fear and stress?
‘Whoever draws
near to God must believe that he exists, and that he rewards those who seek
him’ (Heb. 11.6)
