Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Luther Paper
Phoenix Seminary
Phoenix, Arizona
In Partial Fulfillment
By
Justin G. W. Bellars
anti-Semitism, as well as his severe distain for Papists and Anabaptists and a propensity
to both conflate and project his hostility for all three groups squarely onto Paul’s Galatian
opponents. In short, Luther “imputes” his own insecurities to the mind of Paul. The New
participationist justification in order to produce his thoughts on union with Christ. Yet
the area of a believer’s identity in Christ. The primary strength of Luther’s view of
justification is the idea of Union with Christ. Each of these will be investigated further.
It seems that Luther’s anti-Semitic bias may have stemmed, in part, because he
source for his prejudice, as discussed in class, is the postulation that Luther was enslaved
to the same racism that was rampant all over Europe in his day, such as the contemporary
attitude which led to the expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492). I believe this had a
Luther’s anti-Semitism was a weakness, because his bestowal of hate for Papists
and Anabaptists on the Galatian Pharisees (even Pharisees who believed in Jesus)
distorted the historical, contextual facts. In our class, it was suggested that Paul’s
hermeneutic began first with Jesus and then followed the trajectory of whatever was left
of his Pharisaism, whereas the Galatian opponents were following a reverse sequence that
attempted to dovetail Jesus onto the full corpus of Pharisaism. The use of “Iudazein”
distracts Luther (and others) from realizing that Paul is attacking Pharisaical teaching, not
Judaism (since what we contemporarily categorize by that moniker did not exist for
another 145 years). For Luther to conflate personal prejudices with a disregard for
Iudaismos is to violate the commandments of Jesus in loving others and does the
Apostle’s message a disservice. This makes Luther and any concepts developed by way
of his prejudicial and hateful hermeneutic to be dangerous and subject to further scrutiny.
Luther’s concept of forensic justification suggests that the righteousness that Jesus
has is imputed to us, such that when the Father looks at us, He sees the righteousness of
His Son, Jesus, in our stead. The argument from the New Perspective, particularly
Wright, is that this does not compute in the typical courtroom metaphor. A righteous
judge does not impute His own righteousness to the defendants of serious crimes ever,
and the notion that a righteous judge would ever engage in such an endeavor is seen as a
mockery of justice. Hence, the New Perspective of Paul would categorize this as a
weakness as well.
weakness in His view of justification. Luther argues that justification comes about from
the alien righteousness of Christ being imputed to believers in response to their faith in
Him. The controversy surrounding alien righteousness is that it is a framework that needs
to be added to the text. It gives the impression of a more eisegetical imposition than the
Biblical text affords. It is an argument from silence, since the mechanics of the process
are not clearly indicated by Paul’s writings or the rest of Scripture. N.T. Wright may have
Unfortunately, Wright also goes a step beyond and reintegrates this into his covenant
Although I know Luther does it with good intentions, I believe his attempt to
demonize the Law overstates his case and could be considered a liability. Paul has both
positive and negative things to say about the Law. He speaks of it as a schoolmaster,
making it sound instructive, but then Luther appeals to the fact that seldom does a student
endear himself to the schoolmaster due to the schoolmaster’s harsh treatment of him.
Luther suggests that the Law inspires hatred of God, saying that sin is not only revealed
by the Law, but sin is actually “increased and magnified by the Law”. This is not
surprising, as I have noted that Luther seemed to put a lot of words in Paul’s mouth in his
quoting direct speech or the “thoughts” of Paul, makes me suspicious of the conclusions
Luther draws.
Union with Christ was seen as too mystical for many Protestants, but seems much
more in keeping with the collective nature of Israel than the more individualistic ideas
that emerge from the Western (overwhelmingly Gentile) church. Union with Christ
assumed entering and maintaining unity with Christ and those whom He called to be
Apostles. Paul’s concept of union was predicated on faith. This is a concept which I
believe Luther develops in a convincing way in his commentary on Galatians. The idea is
that Abraham had faith in God which was credited to him as righteousness, likewise so
did many other Biblical characters, such as Daniel; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego;
Mary of Bethany; and Cornelius. The faith that they had to believe in God positioned
them to receive God’s word and thereby enter into union with Him. For Cornelius, as for
us, the missing component to bringing those of us who have faith to believe in God into
union with Christ is simply the Gospel. As I reflect on growing up in an agnostic family,
this seems to make sense of how it was not until I came into contact with someone who
was able to articulate the Gospel and dialog about any doubts or questions I had, that I
Regardless of its “mystical” nature, I believe this is helpful, and thus a strength to
Luther’s view of justification, in that it suggests that Christ is present in the faith itself.
This implies that union with Christ forms out of the bond between the faith in which
Christ is ontologically present and those who share that faith. If our faith bonds us with
someone who is eternally justified and an intrinsic “part” or “substance” in our faith, then
it would make sense that we are justified in that faith. The confusing aspect is that this
seems to hint back to “alien” righteousness, which again is mystical speculation at best.
Aside from the permutations of thought that can follow from holding to a potentially
mystical component of faith like this, it does hold in line with the concept of “oneness”
that Jesus espouses in John 15, that He shares with the Father and likewise shares with
His disciples. The proposition that faith unites us to Christ is clearly a strength of the
degree. Despite the progress he did make in this area, what appears to have been lacking
was some attention to the believer’s identity in Christ. The believer is not offered an
accurate representation of how he is truly viewed in the eyes of God. The metaphor that
was so aptly applied in class, was that Luther leaves a Christian with the impression that
he is something like skubalon “with whip cream on top.” This is a deficiency that was not
In conclusion, there are aspects of Luther’s model of justification that reveal their
deficiencies under scrutiny, such as his anti-Semitic outrage, his notion of forensic
depiction of a Christian’s identity in Christ, while his ideas about Union with Christ seem
to be helpful and consistent in drawing from the “oneness” language proffered by Jesus in
the Gospels. Luther was noted in class to be “a really horrible exegete who happened to
stumble across some truth.” I see every reason to believe this after reading the first three
I see that there is need to review what has been commonly accepted. There is
reason to challenge tradition in a similar vain to what Luther attempted to do. Semper
reformatae may be helpful in revisiting material that may have been handled without
exegetical precision, but at the same time, I do not think that reducing Paul to a
sociological model (as the NPP does) is any more a sign of balance than an anti-Semitic
hermeneutic (as Luther did). If our justification stems from our Union with Christ, then
all of the deficiencies seem to become inconsequential. I would like to see this aspect
explored in greater depth. Perhaps that will be the next step after completing my reading
of Luther’s commentary on Galatians. In the meantime, this is all I can offer on the
subject.