God Works Through Means

(Article V.)

(#6) in the series:
What implications or applications may be drawn

from a quia subscription to the Book of Concord?

The faith that saves is obtained through the ways and means that God employs. The ways and means that God employs for mankind's salvation is "the Gospel and the Sacraments". The Holy Spirit is imparted through the Gospel and the Sacraments, to work faith where and when He pleases in those who hear the Gospel, the teaching that "through the merits of Christ, and not through our own merits, we have a merciful God, if we believe these things".

All of this is to say that God works to save us through His Word. The merits of the suffering and death of Jesus are applied in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Speaking of "the Gospel and the Sacraments" is to speak twice of the same thing, because the Sacraments are nothing less than the Gospel in an elemental form. For example, Holy Baptism is the Gospel made watery and applied to men. It wets the baptized, not simply as an outward washing, but as a watery, heavenly flood of salvation and regeneration - because God's powerful Word is attached to that water in Baptism. God's Word makes the water of Baptism powerful, so that those who are baptized in it receive the benefits of what Christ merited upon the cross - the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from death and the power of the devil. This is how God works through His Holy Spirit for our salvation.

The contrary position condemned (censured) in this article is the teaching that the Holy Spirit is received by means (as a result) of "our own preparation, our thoughts and works, without the external word of the Gospel".

Implications and Applications?

Considered with the preceding articles, this article talks about how we receive faith and the mercy of God. In consequence of original sin, we are unable to make ourselves right before God (being filled with "evil desires and propensities", having "no true fear of God, no true faith in God"). The good and righteous works which men are able to do by nature (works of charity for the welfare of others, for example) are only such in the eyes of men; these works do not avail for righteousness before God (see Article XVIII.).

Those who subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions have such a view of fallen humanity, that among them, it should be considered futile to try to persuade fallen people to "make a decision to follow Jesus" or to "accept Jesus into their hearts" (who by nature are unable to do these things anyway). Instead, such Lutherans look for the Holy Spirit to work through the preaching of repentance and remission of sins to convert people to fear of God and faith in God; this preaching of the Gospel speaks about and delivers the mercy that God shows us for the sake of the suffering and death of His Son. The Sacraments do the same thing, putting the old flesh to death and raising souls and bodies to new life in Christ. This is where the working of the Holy Spirit for conversion and salvation is to be sought: in the "means" of grace, the Gospel and the Sacraments.