God Gets it Right

I have been reading through the Historical Introductions to the Lutheran Confessions by F. Bente. You can find these gems in the Concordia Triglotta, but if you don't own a Triglotta you can find Bente's introductions on the web at the Book of Concord Online (http://bookofconcord.org).

As I mentioned I have been reading through these introductions and with a good amount of interest. It is certainly true that there is nothing new under the sun. Indeed, Lutheranism has been plagued with the same issues since its inception. Read the following take from Bente's aforementioned work,

“Melanchthon lacked the simple faith in, and the firm adherence and implicit submission to, the Word of God which made Luther the undaunted and invincible hero of the Reformation. Standing four-square on the Bible and deriving from this source of divine power alone all his theological thoughts and convictions, Luther was a rock, firm and immovable.With him every theological question was decided and settled conclusively by quoting a clear passage from the Holy Scriptures, while Melanchthon, devoid of Luther's single- minded and whole-hearted devotion to the Word of God, endeavored to satisfy his reason as well. Consequently he lacked assurance and firm conviction, wavered and vacillated, and was never fully satisfied that the position he occupied was really the only correct one, while, on the other hand, he endeavored to present his views concerning some of the disputed doctrines in ambiguous and indefinite terms."We have twenty-eight large volumes of Melanchthon's writings," says C. P. Krauth, "and, at this hour, impartial and learned men are not agreed as to what were his views on some of the profoundest questions of church doctrine, on which Melanchthon was writing all his life!"(Conservative Ref., 291; Schmauk, 748.) This indefinite and wavering attitude towards divine truth, the natural consequence of the humanistic bent of his mind, produced in Melanchthon a general tendency and proneness to surrender or compromise doctrinal matters in the interest of policy, and to barter away eternal truth for temporal peace. It made him an indifferentist and a unionist, always ready to strike a bargain also in matters pertaining to Christian faith, and to cover doctrinal differences with ambiguous formulas.While Luther's lifelong attitude on matters of Christian doctrine is characterized by the famous words spoken by him at Worms in 1521: "Ich kann nicht anders, I cannot do otherwise," Melanchthon, treating even questions of faith as matters of expediency rather than of conscience, was the man who, as a rule, could also do otherwise, and who was great in manufacturing "Polish boots," as the ambiguous phrases by which he endeavored to unite opposing parties were called by the Lutherans in Reuss.

In order to preserve peace with the Romanists at Augsburg in 1530, he did not hesitate to sacrifice Lutheran truths and to receive into the bargain a number of what he considered minor papal errors. In his subsequent overtures to the Reformed he was more than willing to make similar concessions. The spirit of Melanchthon was the spirit of religious indifference and of unionism, which, though thoroughly eliminated by the Formula of Concord, was from time to time revived within the Lutheran Church by such men as Calixtus, Spener, Zinzendorf, Neander, and, in our own country, by S. S. Schmucker.

The unionistic tendencies and doctrinal corruptions which Melanchthon injected into Lutheranism were all the more dangerous to our Church because they derived special weight and prestige from the fact that Luther had unstintingly praised his gifts, his books, and the services he had rendered the Church (St. L. 18, 1671; 23, 1152), that he was now generally regarded as Luther's successor with regard to theological leadership of the Church; and that he was gratefully admired as the Praeceptor Germaniae by a host of loyal pupils, who made it a point also to cultivate just those theological peculiarities of Master Philip, as they called him, in which he differed from Luther." (source)

I consistently "run into" this Melanchthon-esque ambivalence towards a staunch adherence to the truth. Typically such ambivalence manifests itself in a false humility such as characterized by the words, "We are all sinners, our thinking isn't perfect, so our doctrine must contain imperfection, or errors." Of course, the conclusion from such erroneous thinking is that there is no such thing as absolute truth, or pure doctrine.

It certainly is true that we sinners aren't at all perfect and we definitely have a rational capability corrupted by sin. However, the idea that we can't know the truth of God's Holy Word because of our own sinfulness is a slap at God's ability to preserve for Himself a people (the Church) who do "get it right" only because of God. 

The fact of the matter is, if we were talking about our own doctrine, then yes, it would be full of error. But the doctrine given to us by God is His. It is pure. He gives us the truth of His Word which does not err. He preserves His truth for His people. The truth is God's work freely given to us. Yes, we don't "get it right" but God does!

Something for those who defend the idea that we can't know pure doctrine, or truth, to think about is this... is your assertion about our inability to know doctrine and truth, true? Hmm...