Cyberstones-A Lutheran Blog

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Feurhan: On an important point which separated Luther from the Pietists, Martin Schmidt, a leading German scholar on Pietism, wrote the following:

They [the Pietists] liked to deal with regenerate man as a fixed quantity and therefore spoke of the fruits of regeneration. The Reformer [Luther] remained engaged in the struggle between the old and the new man. The (Pietist) problem of attainability he [Luther] deferred in favor of the state of affairs which he described strikingly with the word "temptation" [Anfechtung]. This state of affairs taught the "heeding of the word" (Isaiah 28:19) and the consolation of divine grace in the forgiveness of sins. Out of the liberating message that Jesus Christ had done everything for him, the new man came forth. Thus the Christian, who was always becoming, looked never to himself nor to the rank of his being a child of God. 'Flesh' and 'spirit,' as they are harshly contrasted to one another in the seventh and eighth chapter of Romans, remained for him irreconcilable opposites.... [ellipsis original] The believer did not progress beyond Anfechtung and Luther judged a condition without it to be of gravest danger. That is why a Christian never fixed his eyes upon himself, but upon his Lord and depended upon his Word... [ellipsis mine] The pietists sought to advance again the importance of Luther's teaching of a living faith. In so doing, however, they shifted the emphasis: the vivacity, which made itself recognizable in good works, was valued more by them than faith itself. Yet Luther understood faith to cling to the divine promise and to depend upon the promise itself, so that the believer was acceptable to God with his entire being... [ellipsis mine] The fruits of faith became more important for the pietists than their source, faith, on which everything was dependent for Luther.

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By its confusion of justification and sanctification, law and gospel, it threatens the Christian’s understanding and experience of the grace of God and robs him of the comfort of God’s promises. Such an error is damnable, literally, according to St. Paul (Galatians 1:8 & 9). We, however, are not to judge the faith of the Pietists (even though they often have sought to do that of fellow Christians). Rather we turn our attention once again to God’s promises for us and His church. We "are known by God" (Galatians 4:9) and placed into the family of the baptized. Baptism marks us as what we are, and that not of our own doing, our own "birth." We are fed the body and blood of His Christ, which forgives us and grants us life and salvation. The Word of our lives is His Word. Everything about our "lives" as Christians is His–His life, His doing, His justification, His holiness, His redemption–which He graciously gives to us. (1 Corinthians 1:30).