Theology of the Cross

Luther's Heidelberg Disputation & Reflections on Its 28 Theses

Caleb Keith, Caleb Keith, Kelsi Klembara

• Publisher: 1517 Publishing
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781948969062
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The Theology of the Cross is one of the core elements of Martin Luther's theology. The development of this doctrine through the Heidelberg Disputation has been considered an essential element of Luther's breakthrough on justification, and crucial to his theological reforms and future split with the Roman Catholic Church.

These statements by Luther, originally penned to be defended in debate, are counter-intuitive, contrary, offensive, and thrilling paradoxes, starting with the first and most astounding of them all: "The Law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life cannot advance humans on their way to righteousness, but rather hinders them." We hope the collection of interpretations that follow the theses in this book will help you to understand their impact.

Theses 1 & 2

The Truth That the Law Is Good

Caleb Keith

(1) The Law of God, which is the most beneficial doctrine of life, is not able to advance man toward righteousness but rather stands against him. (2) Much less could the work of men, that is to say even works which are done over and over again with the help of natural law, move someone toward righteousness.

The first thing to note about the Heidelberg Disputation is that the theses do not stand alone, but rather work together in pairs or groups to drive home a particular point. In this way, Theses 1 and 2 function as a unit describing the goodness of God’s Law while simultaneously explaining how sinners misuse this good gift. Luther holds nothing back in the introductory article of this Disputation. In part, this is because he is defending the principles which led him to post the 95 Theses. You can imagine that Luther has been under a lot of criticism for the six months between these two disputations. Now, he is taking the opportunity to approach fellow friars and clergy from the Augustinian Order with a clear presentation of the doctrine which he saw revealed in Scripture.

The first thesis lays the foundation for his entire disputation with the reality that God’s Law is powerful, efficacious, and works to our utmost benefit. This is something to which all late medieval theologians would have ascribed. Yet while opening up with a point of agreement, Luther also indicates where the doctrine of the Law has been misused. Luther sees that the Law has been turned into a checklist of saving works. But Scripture tells a different story: the Law is perfectly beneficial, but its benefit is not the ability to save sinners. In fact, it is the exact opposite. The Law is the greatest good in this life because it relentlessly accuses the sinner even when his actions seem naturally or civilly good. Luther’s accusation removes the works of the sinner from the salvation equation, leaving room for Christ alone.

In Thesis 2, Luther recognizes that most people appear to do good regularly in their lives. Most of us could claim to be “good people” perhaps giving back to charity or offering a kind word here or there to our neighbor. However, following the Law is not simply about external actions but about human nature, the will, and the heart. In reality, this apparent good is void of true righteousness. It is not only our works which are wicked but our hearts and our minds, something Luther will address more thoroughly later in the Disputation.

Luther has often been accused of turning the Law into something bad which ought to be avoided. This is because Luther emphasizes the accusing and killing power the Law has over sinners. However, this accusation is simply untrue: the Law is praised and highly regarded by both Luther and later Lutheran teaching. The Law is part of God’s redemptive plan yet it is not the redeemer. Luther clearly and consistently distinguishes the attributes of the Law—that which is good, perfect and holy—with the purpose of the Law. The Law, he asserts, was not meant to save but rather to turn the sinner away from relying on himself for salvation and towards the works of God. This contrast between the good works of God and the wickedness of men is at the core of every thesis. The Law is a warrior sent to strike down proud sinners; it paves the way for Christ who by His death and resurrection brings life to those who have been struck dead by the Law on account of their sin.

The Theology of the Cross begins with the Law because this doctrine was thoroughly misunderstood by the semi-Pelagian teaching of Luther’s time. The Law reveals the depths of our sin and thus, our great need for a mediator in the presence of the Almighty. The Law simultaneously elevates the goodness of God as it unmasks the wickedness of man, even when we think we are at our best. In light of these truths, our only hope for salvation is Jesus Christ who suffered the consequences of sin and death that we might be freed and have eternal life. Theses 1 and 2 of the Heidelberg Disputation start the journey toward a Cross-centered approach to Christian doctrine.

Theses 3 & 4

The Inverted Way of Jesus

Dan van Voorhis

(3) Even though the works of man always seem to be beautiful and good, they are nevertheless demonstrably deadly sins. (4) The works of God, thus always seem ugly and wicked, nevertheless, they are truly eternal gain.

Greeks seek wisdom, Jews seek a sign, and modern Christians seem to like big monuments and buildings. Our folly in doing so has caught the attention of everyone since Babel to the present day, always with a predictable ending. Consider Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous 19th-century ode to the great king Ozymandias. It is unlikely that Shelley was familiar with Luther’s theology of the cross, but his poem uses the same irony and inverted logic. “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and Despair!” reads the inscription on the great monument to the once feared king. However, we soon learn that this king is long since dead, and this inscription we read remains on only a fragment of the monument, destroyed and in rubble. The once great Ozymandias and his monument are now all but forgotten. Luther similarly “praises” the works of man as mighty, only to then flip the tables in order to magnify the grace of God.

In the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther presents the Gospel which crushes the mighty and proud and elevates the humble and lowly. The message in Theses 3 and 4 of the Heidelberg Disputation is this: Be careful praising the accomplishments of man while missing the hidden, and sometimes despised, works of God. Even the best of our works that we call beautiful and good pale in comparison to the mighty works of God. Luther further suggests that boasting in these works is deadly. Yet each of us continues to build and worship idols.

Take for instance the monuments we have built for our earthly gods. The great pyramid alone has over two million stones weighing as much as fifteen tons each. Many more millions of slaves were told that god’s only plan for their life was to lug stones for a foreign king and then die. Sometimes our man-made, impressive gods end up acting like tyrants. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon exalted themselves over nature as a man-made oasis in a desert, built with the express intent of establishing hierarchy and lording it over the people. The Washington Monument took over twenty years, a civil war, and the weight of a nation, to finally hoist the world’s tallest obelisk in the beltway skyline. In the very top of the monument is an inscription praising God, but certainly, at some point, visions of Babel crossed their minds. The God of the Bible is not easily impressed with monuments. Yahweh is not into looks (despite the curiously well-coifed, sun-kissed tan Jesus of some Bibles). In fact, if we want to know anything about the appearance of Jesus, consider this description given by the prophet Isaiah:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and forsaken of men

A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

And like one from whom men hide their face

He was despised and we did not esteem him (Is. 53:2–3)

This deformed yet divine servant will be God’s mouthpiece. And as all advertisers know, if you don’t have a pretty product, you had better have a really good product. The theology of the cross, a Jesus-centered religion, put all its weight in the message. Our God is not like a Marvel superhero, but rather like one who after finding a treasure hidden in a field, goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field. Our God looks forsaken, foolish, and even irresponsible.

The theology of the cross inverts our obelisks reaching to heaven and sends heaven down to earth, albeit, not in the kind of package you probably expected. We want our works to matter, and so we make them bigger. The irony is that as we are building these bigger and more attractive, God inverts the way of the world in Jesus. St. Paul famously highlights this in a great early exploration of the theology of the cross:

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:6–11)

It is this emptying and humbling that turns the wisdom of this world on its head. God has become man and victory comes through His death. It was the message, of a logic-of-the-world, turned upside down, summarized in the Heidelberg Disputation. From Paul to Luther, we are taught to let all the other gods, and theologies, and spiritual narratives impress with their size and stature. Greeks seek wisdom, Jews seek a sign, but despite all the magnificent buildings, and burial places and monuments, our God still prefers to be found in the green wood of the manger and the old, splintered wood of the Roman cross.

Theses 5 & 6

The Deadly Sin in All of Us

Kelsi Klembara

(5) Those works of man which are crimes are not part of the category of deadly sins. When speaking about deadly sins, I am talking about those which appear outwardly good and beneficial. (6) The works of God, in particular, those which are done through men, are not done apart from sin.

I am the queen of “good works.” I grew up doing my chores early so I could find extra to-do’s around the house. I never missed curfew. I received straight As. I volunteered more during my first two years of college than I took credited hours of classes. My first job out of college was with a nonprofit (which also meant I had to work two other jobs to support myself). I curse only on occasion, and to my mother’s delight, I have no tattoos. You get the idea. I am just the type of self-righteous person who finds it easy to put my trust in the bounty of my perceived goodness, and therefore, I am just the type of person Luther addresses in Theses 5 and 6 of his Heidelberg Disputation.

Luther has already laid out the beginnings of his argument in the preceding theses: the Law of God does not have the power to get you where you want to be, virtuous works done in repetitious fashion have no innate bearing on righteousness, and furthermore, such works are deadly. So we dress our achievements up in beautiful adornments to hide their fatality, and at the same time, we fling God’s works aside as if they were disgusting garbage. Before moving on too quickly, Luther takes a little aside in Thesis 5 and 6 to make sure He is extremely clear on one thing: none of us, not the good works queens and kings, the righteous and redeemed, nor the theologically savvy reading this right now, none of us can avoid deadly sin in this life.

Obvious crimes are not what Luther’s after. Adultery, theft, murder, and lies: these sins do not betray the sinful conscience, but instead, they expose it. A murderer knows he is culpable, the adulteress has no qualms about her purity, and everyone knows you should not steal what is not yours to take. Any sane person understands there is nothing good about a crime. Yet what can we say about the sins we refuse to admit, all of which trace back to a lack of faith in Christ? Luther levels the playing field by making this seemingly obvious point: No longer can the righteous put herself on a pedestal above the criminal. In fact, the sins of the criminal don’t even fit the same definition as hers—all of which appear beautiful and picturesque yet are killing her from the inside.

Our lives are inundated with the beautiful and picturesque. “Live longer, happier lives through health, wealth, and a dose of thoughtful charity,” is our zeitgeist. And the longer we live, the less we think about death. Death is such a dreary topic, anyway, it’s always certain to dampen the mood! So we push for more comfort, less suffering, and convince ourselves that no one deserves pain and hardship. No one deserves to die, and if no one deserves death, then no one is sinful.

This is why what appears to be good is the most deadly. Our smallish and constant attempts to save ourselves and the world around us trick us into thinking we are capable of eternal salvation. And thus, our works keep us from trusting in the only One who can indeed deliver eternal life. Any sin, no matter how inconsequential, cuts us off from our Creator and our true savior. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Is. 59:2). The small sins of our good works: pride, self-righteousness, “godliness,” and charity are the sins we least expect to have lasting consequences; in fact, we rarely view them as sins at all! Yet generation after generation, here is where we continue to find ourselves most deceived, and most cut off from the God of the universe. These little sins expose the very nature of sin: the constant battle we fight with God to try and save ourselves rather than let Him save us.

Not only are these sins the most deadly, but they are the sins we all have. We cannot escape them, we cannot deny them, even when, as Thesis 6 states, God works through us despite them. Here, Luther drives home the point that no matter how and when God chooses to use us, praise and honor goes solely to Him. We can’t take the credit: He is the master craftsman, and we are the rusty ax, He is the artist, and we are the old and dirty paintbrush. Don’t doubt that good can be done through you, but do doubt your ability to contribute anything other than sin and resistance.

Our sin is not just that thin layer of dust plaguing your furniture—it is much more pervasive. We assume the harder we work to appear good, the less sinful we will become. Scrub hard enough and often enough and that veneer of dust will hardly be noticeable. The good will outweigh the bad, the good works queens of the world will finally triumph.

Unfortunately, neither Scripture nor experience shows this to be the case. On our own, in our pervasive sin, we are separated from God and wholly unrighteous. No amount of chores, exercise, or studying can change our ontology. Seeking to observe and quantify our goodness based on works is a fatal task because not even the jagged good done by God through us is free from sin. In this fallen and broken world, the righteous remain simul iustus et peccator, simultaneously fully righteous and fully sinner. Luther bases his proof of Thesis 6 on Ecclesiastes 7:20, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” Can you imagine the panic in the room as Luther read these words? How then is one made righteous? Just as the minds of those Augustinian friars began to attempt to count up their goodness and reason themselves out of the category of sinners described by Luther, the piercing truth of God’s law breaks in again. Be wary, righteous one, good works queen, self-sacrifi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• A Brief Translator’s Preface
• An Introduction to the Heidelberg Disputation
• Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation: 28 Theses and Proofs
• Reflection on Theses 1 and 2
• Reflection on Theses 3 and 4
• Reflection on Theses 5 and 6
• Reflection on Theses 7 and 8
• Reflection on Theses 9 and 10
• Reflection on Theses 11 and 12
• Reflection on Theses 13, 14, and 15
• Reflection on Theses 16, 17, and 18
• Reflection on Theses 19 and 20
• Reflection on Thesis 21
• Reflection on Theses 22, 23, and 24
• Reflection on Theses 25 and 26
• Reflection on Theses 27 and 28
• Meet the Authors