Winter 1984 - 1985 - Quarterly Review

NEW TESTAMENT RECONSIDERED
also extremely valuable in interpreting Paul. Members of the clergy
will find that they more than repay being studied. Also, they deal with
aspects of Paul not treated in this short essay. 16
CONCLUSION
Scholars are now candid about Luther's vulgar writings against the
Jews. 17
In On the fetus and Their Lies (1543), Luther actually advised
Christians to burn synagogues, destroy the homes of Jews, and forcibly
remove Talmuds and Prayer Books from Jewish possession; finally, he
advocated the expulsion of all Jews from Saxony. And, in fact, they
were ousted from Saxony in 1543 as a result of Luther's writing and
preaching. All the more striking, then, is his earlier (1520) statement
which reflects the very core of Luther's theology:
it is not enough or in any sense Christian to preach the works, life, and
words of Christ as historical facts, as if the knowledge of these would
suffice for the conduct of life; yet this is the fashion among those who
must today be regarded as our best preachers. Far less is it sufficient or
Christian to say nothing at all about Christ and to teach instead the
laws of men and the decrees of the fathers. Now there are not a few
who preach Christ and read about him that they may move men's
affections to sympathy with Christ, to anger against the Jews, and
such childish and effeminate nonsense. Rather ought Christ to be
preached to the end that faith in him may be established that he may
not only be Christ, but be Christ for you and me, and that what is said
of him and is denoted in his name may be effectual in us. 18
What Luther is saying here is that the business of Christian preaching
and teaching is to preach and teach the gospel, nothing else. Certainly
we are not to arouse anger against Jews in the name of Christ nor so to
tell the Christian story that our way of telling it will either invite such
anger or convey, subliminally or otherwise, the supposition that it is
Christian to tolerate it.
More fundamentally, we need to take much more radically the insight
of Paul and Luther that justification is by grace. The justification of
Gentile Christians is by the sheer grace of God and not by some
spurious "work" of overcoming Judaism. It is in the nefarious notion of
Christian negation and supersession of Judaism that works-righteousness
achieves its final and most deadly triumph. Let us, instead, preach
Christ, to the end that faith in him may be established and that he may
be Christ for each of us.
49