There is something of an urban legend about Martin Luther. It is said that he was tormented by the Devil who one night was badgering him to list all of his sins. Whenever Luther stopped, the Devil told him to keep going. From shame to rage, Luther flung his inkwell at the Devil, and the inkspot still lingers on the wall. True or not, this little vignette illustrates a key turn in theology from the Catholic powers at the time. Accounting for all of our sins is quite impossible and will only lead to shame and self-condemnation. Something like the sale of indulgences to raise funds as a trade off for forgiveness of this unending list was inherently evil to Luther. No wonder he would be angry at such pestering from the Devil.
The idea that forgiveness of sin comes not from out physical and mental output, but only from God was a statement that was not only a theological turn, but a strong political statement as well. The papacy no longer could wield the power it could by holding down the people with the fear of torture, death, and hell. The pope had no more say in the forgiveness of sins than your local town peasant. That kind of pronouncement has one judge and that is God.
Are we all that comfortable with this notion? It truly is a political statement that calls into question any vehicle of judgment on human behavior that we see in any social setting. Looked at in the right way, it means that judgment of sin has one source which is still a mysterious one – the Triune God as revealed preeminently in Christ. The message ought to be, don't worry as much about what you are screwing up as much as developing those areas in you life that lead to communion with God and with each other. However, in what I perceive to be the dominant strain of modern evangelicalism, this is not quite the case in practice.
In my discussion with many evangelicals the mere mention of doing good works gets a massive hammer of the bible to smash it to bits. It usually comes to this bit from Isaiah 64:6:
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Typically, as I have heard many times, the material around where I have bolded is excluded as if that one statement is so pure that it should govern the one thing that gets God's approval: God choosing you to be saved through a confession of "Christ is Lord" to make it effective. The problem here is that after we tidy up what makes God happy, and it is not us or what we do but only God in Christ, we are nonetheless expected to do all of the works of the Law in order to confirm our confession is true!
So what is going on here? It seems that something disingenuous is happening if the moral code of a religion says, "No works, but indeed, here is a list of works now that you have made your confession." Remember this was a sticky issue for Paul and he could not figure it out. For him the works of the Law were a source of condemnation. For Paul, God required perfect obedience. This was a "catch 22" since no one could be perfectly obedient (see Rom 3:20; 8:3; Gal 2:15-16; 2:21; 3:10-11; 3:21). The Law is there to, in effect, reveal that the place of the entire ontological status of the cosmos is utter contingency and dependence on God alone. It is this realization that prevents one from idolatry. The Law is there to prevent one from being anything more than utterly contingent and dependent on grace alone – the grace that recognizes human perfection to be impossible.
early church fathers and mothers Looking back to the who did assert the freedom of the will, this notion is clear. Utter dependence on God in the process of the free will operating is the foundation for the ethical life. It's something that Kierkegaard picks up as well. But it is not a dependence rooted in guilt and shame for not following the rules. It is a dependence that recognizes God is a mystery that inhabits us. The Triune God is a reality in which we participate by being selfless and compassionate in response to Jesus' self-emptying of his divinity to render the human will utterly dependent on God. The foundation of grace and freedom isn't shame or guilt, but self-emptying that the life of Christ to which the Spirit bears witness may live in us (Gal. 2:20).
The evangelical source of grace is "getting yourself right with God" through particular behaviors, or else. The earlier traditions of the faith stress the death of the self to become something different. The former is ego-centric. The latter de-centers the ego to be transformed "by the renewing of the mind" (Rom. 12:1). This does not mean to "do whatever you want" since the notion of self-emptying that the Spirit of Christ may live in you requires discipline. the outcome is the fruits of the Spirit as Paul notes in more than one place, but especially in Galatians 5:22-26 as contrasted with the works of "the flesh" listed just prior:
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.
Perhaps this is the problem. Evangelicalism and traditions that are also rooted in pietism and holiness have had a tendency to focus so much Paul's works of the flesh as a means to get to the fruits of the Spirit. It seems that we have to kill off these behaviors as if Paul was giving a complete list in order for the fruits of the Spirit to work in us.
It's backwards! Just as Luther and Paul struggled with sin after sin before understanding the nature of grace, perhaps we need a re-boot to focus on how we can cultivate the fruits of the Spirit before we freak out and hurt people for the sake of condemning the works of the flesh. Perhaps these traditions simply have it all backwards and need to work towards cultivating the fruits of the Spirit rather than establishing extensive behavioral prohibitions that only focus people on the flesh. It's like idolatry in reverse, and while it looks good on paper to some, doesn't work on the ground where sin is simply inescapable.
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I like what you've done by contrasting a focus on holiness via focusing on the flesh and holiness by focusing on the fruit of the Spirit.
My gut feeling is that the irony is that a focus on bringing about the works and fruit of the Spirit may indeed be the best way to curtail the works of the flesh. That is if I am to focus on not doing something, it will inevitably make that thing I'm attempting to not do that much more attractive, but to focus on the positive not only brings about positive action but also diverts energy from those things which we view as negative.
Great food for thought Drew!