Thursday Theology: Faith and Works in the Lutheran Confessional Heritage (Part Two)

Co-missioners, 

Today I follow on the heels of my new editorial colleague, Robin Lütjohann, with some introductory remarks about the second part of an important essay by Kurt Hendel.  

Kurt was one of my teachers fifty years ago at Christ Seminary—Seminex. Church history was his specialty. When Seminex disbanded, he moved on to a long career as a professor of Reformation history and confessional theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. A few months ago, I asked Kurt if he might favor Thursday Theology with a reflection on the views of Luther and his closest colleagues on the question of “agency” in the lives of Christians. To put it crassly, who gets the credit for the God-pleasing things we do—our “good works,” as the reformers liked to put it? For that matter, who bears the responsibility for identifying these things and making sure they get done?  

Last January’s Crossings conference featured a long and impassioned late-night discussion on precisely this topic. It wound up sparking the theme of the conference we invite you to this coming January. Robin mentioned this last week. Today’s gift from Kurt will give us plenty to chew on as we move in that direction; though even if you’re not going, you’ll want to read it anyway. After all, the issues Kurt addresses continue to be of urgent concern to thoughtful Lutherans everywhere, as Robin pointed out last week. 

Peace and Joy, 

Jerry Burce, Co-editor 
for the Crossings Community 

 

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Divine and Human Agency in Redemption, Justification, and the Ethical Life 

by Kurt K. Hendel 

In this second part of my essay on faith and works I will explore Reformation perspectives on divine and human agency. As in the essay’s first part, I will pay particular attention to the insights of Martin Luther and his colleague Johannes Bugenhagen. 

Lutheran confessional theology insists that there is no human agency in God’s redeeming work and, thus, in soteriology. The second Person of the Trinity, Jesus the Christ, is the sole Savior whose redemptive ministry has been fully accomplished and is universally efficacious. Lutheran evangelical theology therefore affirms the universal atonement of all human beings rather than the limited atonement that benefits only the elect or predestined. Humans cannot merit or participate in Christ’s redemptive work, but they are all beneficiaries of Christ’s salvific ministry. 

Lutheran theology also rejects any claim of human agency in God’s justifying work as it shares the radical good news that human beings are justified by grace, through faith, for the sake of Christ, apart from works. This series of prepositional phrases serves as a theologically defensible summary of the Lutheran doctrine of justification, and each phrase highlights an essential emphasis of the doctrine as it confesses that God alone justifies human beings who have all been alienated from God by sin. God does so because God is gracious. It is, therefore, consistent with God’s nature that God redeems God’s people and, consequently, grants them the gifts of Christ’s redemptive work by justifying them. When God justifies, God declares sinners to be righteous as God imputes Christ’s righteousness to them, pronounces them forgiven, and reconciles them with God and with each other and the rest of creation. God grants all these blessings through the gift of faith. Since there is no human agency in justification, human beings are blessed beneficiaries of God’s justifying work without merit or participation on their part.  

The rejection of human agency in the divine work of redemption and justification is not intended to denigrate humans. God clearly demonstrates how much God values human beings by redeeming and justifying them and restoring an intimate, loving, and life-giving relationship with them. Instead, the rejection of human agency is intended to be radical, comforting, and assuring good news to all of God’s people. The affirmation of human agency would compromise God’s gracious good news and the trustworthiness of God’s promises. If humanity’s redemption and justification were even minimally dependent on human cooperation and merit, the absolute necessity of Christ, the sufficiency of God’s work, the radical nature of God’s grace and love, and the significance of faith would be denied. As a result, the certainty of redemption and justification would be compromised, and humanity’s eternal destiny would be in doubt because both would be dependent on human contributions, which are inevitably uncertain because of humanity’s sinful nature. Human agency in matters of redemption and justification was, therefore, rejected by the sixteenth-century Lutheran theologians, both for God’s sake and for humanity’s sake. 

Can human agency be affirmed in the pursuit of the sanctified life or in the realm of ethics? Lutheran confessional theology allows for this. However, the nature of human agency and its potential accomplishments must be carefully defined. When one envisions the ethical life of believers, it is essential that the doctrines of redemption and justification are kept in mind. Redeemed and justified believers have been reconciled with God, and they have received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, of Christ’s righteousness, and of faith. The Holy Spirit is actively present in believers strengthening their faith and sanctifying their sinful nature. People of faith have the resources of Scripture and, thus, of God’s dialectical word and of the teachings and example of Christ. God has also called them to be God’s means of grace and love in the world and has promised that God will walk with them and strengthen them as God is at work in and through them. The free will of believers has been restored, and, as Luther reminds God’s people, they have been freed to be servants.  

Furthermore, all human beings, including believers, have the knowledge of natural law through their conscience. All these blessings are resources for believers as they strive to live a life that reflects their identity as God’s people, their relationship with God, their faith, and their servant vocation. People of faith can, therefore, desire, will, and do good works that serve God and the neighbor. They have been granted human agency in the ethical realm, and God expects them to use that agency faithfully and efficaciously for God’s sake, for the neighbor’s sake, and for their sake. Both Luther and Bugenhagen use the imagery of a good tree that naturally bears good fruit as an assurance to Christians that they, too, have been freed and enabled to manifest the fruits of faith. (LW 31:361; Bugenhagen, p. 251) 

At the same time, both Reformers insist that human agency is limited, contingent, and secondary, even in the ethical or sanctified life. They do so because they recognize that God’s people who are saints also continue to be sinners. Their sinful nature therefore continues to manifest itself in the tendency to be incurvatus in se (“curved in on oneself”), to fail even when they desire to be faithful. People of faith must, therefore, confess as St. Paul confessed: “I prioritize and pursue sinful inclinations rather than spiritual and ethical ones, and can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” (Rom 7:18:5 in my own rendering) … “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Rom. 7:20, NRSVUE) The continuing impact of sin thus curbs the believers’ agency as they strive to imitate Christ, to live the sanctified life, and to manifest their faith in loving service. People of faith are, therefore, always dependent on divine agency as they strive to live a life that is pleasing to God and beneficial to the neighbor. 

This divine agency is, indeed, a reality. The God of grace, mercy, and love does not ignore and abandon God’s people after redeeming and justifying them. The Holy Spirit continues to be their advocate, guide, and inspiration. Faith continues to be the enlivening and generative power within them. Their righteousness does not depend on the complete sanctification of their nature but on Christ’s righteousness that has been granted to them through faith.

God, who is the sole agent in their redemption and justification, is, therefore, also the primary agent in the sanctified, ethical life of believers. While believers are co-agents with God, by God’s grace they are not solely or even primarily dependent on their own agency as they seek to fulfill God’s expectations and their divine calling. The Holy Spirit, faith, and Christ’s righteousness are present and active in believers, and these divine agents accomplish their work in and through the believers. Thus, people of faith never pursue the sanctified, ethical life alone. They always have divine company in that pursuit. The divine agents remain distinct from, though an integral part of, the believers as they inspire, enable, and make possible the believers’ good works.  

Luther emphasizes these realities. For example, he describes faith as the “master workman” and the “motivating force” behind all good works. (LW 44:109) He also insists that “…faith remains the doer, and love remains the deed.” (WA 17,2:98,25) Since the creation and sustenance of faith are the Holy Spirit’s work, believers must confess that their good works are ultimately God’s work. These works of faith that God inspires and does in and through believers are inevitable because they are natural expressions of faith, and they are done freely (LW 44:36) and without hope of divine or human reward. (LW 44:27; LW 31:366-367) Indeed, no human works, even works that are done to fulfill the first table of the law or works that do, in fact, benefit the neighbor, are good works, that is, works that please God, unless they are done in and through faith. Bugenhagen cites the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14) in support of this assertion. The Pharisee did good works commanded by the law, but they were not pleasing to God, and they inspired pride in himself and his deeds and disdain for his neighbor, the Publican. (Bugenhagen, pp. 226-228)  

It is apparent, therefore, that Lutheran theology insists that the Holy Spirit, the righteousness of Christ, and faith are always the primary agents in the believers’ pursuit of their divine vocation, and the believers themselves remain contingent agents as they serve God and the neighbor with works of love. (LW 31:370-371) The believers’ agency in the realm of sanctification is, therefore, always a secondary and limited one, although it is necessary because it is the believers’ divine calling. 

The nature and relationship of faith and works and the distinction and cooperation between divine and human agency in the Christian life obviously deserve much more extensive exploration. However, I trust that even these limited and summary remarks illustrate the theological, spiritual, and ethical importance of these topics. I expect that these themes will be explored more intensively during the next Crossings Conference. 

Kurt Hendel is the Bernard, Fischer, Westberg Distinguished Ministry Professor Emeritus of Reformation History at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 

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Bibliography 

Bugenhagen, Johannes. 2015. Johannes Bugenhagen: Selected Writings, Volume I and Volume II. Edited by Kurt Hendel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. 

Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works, American Edition. 1955-2025. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (vols. 1-30), Helmut T. Lehmann (vols. 31-55), and Christopher Boyd Brown and Benjamin T.G. Mayes (vols. 56-79). St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia Publishing House and Fortress Press. 

Kolb, Robert, and Timothy J. Wengert. 2000. The Book of Concord (New Translation): The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.