04-2 Hermeneutics.pdf

REVIEWS 53freedom in regard to the law, gives him the authority to forgive sinand to set men free from the demands of the law. In this powerover the law, Jesus makes himself equal to God and claims that he isthe Son of God. These claims of Jesus were acknowledged by Godwhen he raised him from the dead.The death of Jesus was for his disciples the end of theirfaith in him as the Son of God. It was first the resurrectionas God’s action that overcame the ‘crisis’ of theirfaith. Through the resurrection the disciples recognizedthat God himself was at work in that which was done toJesus Christ, and that God let it be done. The destiny ofJesus first became recognizable through the resurrection.In it, God confirmed the claim of Jesus that he was God’sSon (p. 158).Elert acknowledged the importance of Anselm’s contributionto the doctrine of the atonement:It was the merit of Anselm that he placed the criticalimportance of the death of Christ in the center of thedoctrine of the atonement. ‘His basic thought is that thehonor of God, injured by rebellious people, demandedsatisfaction, and that satisfaction was provided in thedeath of the God-Man.’ The doctrine of the atonementwas described by Anselm with the help of legal termswhich, Elert held, were adequate for presenting the NewTestament doctrine of God as judge, and the related judicatureof the law, as well as the nature of justification as ajudgmental act (p. 165).Elert was critical of the doctrine of the threefold office ofChrist under concepts taken from the Old Testament: Christ as“prophet, priest, and king.” He showed that this construction wentback to the Arian church historian Eusebius, that it was introducedby Calvin, and that it was first handled as a discrete doctrine inLutheran dogmatics by Johann Gerhard in the seventeenth century.Elert offered the following criticisms of this doctrine: First,these Old Testament concepts do not do justice to the multiplicityof Christological attributes in the New Testament, but they lead toan unacceptable reductionism, since they have no place for suchterms as “Savior” or “Redeemer.” Second, this reductionism leadsto the attempt to understand Jesus Christ in Old Testament terms.The New Testament should be understood from Christ rather thanfrom the Old Testament, and the Old Testament must be interpretedin the light of the New Testament instead (p. 162).Eyjólfsson summarizes the meaning of the law in theatonement:The comprehensive meaning of the Christ-event isrevealed in Jesus’ relation to the law. What is decisive forus is that Jesus took on the law in its totality, embracingevery earthly relationship as creational, legislative, andjudgmental (als Seins-, Soll-und Qualitätsgefüge). Onlyin taking on the law could his destiny receive a cosmicor universal significance, because the law has preciselythis significance.And he cites Elert’s dogmatics (p. 341): “The death of Christaccording to this is not a simple ending but rather the true completionof his life” (p. 167).Elert emphasized the use of legal or forensic terms in the NewTestament teaching on justification (p. 186). Even if a person couldfulfill the law, God would remain the subject and not the object ofjustification. Elert showed that in Luther’s day, “justification” didnot mean that a sin was overlooked, but that a sin was judged andpunished (pp. 187–189). In his forensic view, Luther avoided trivializingjustification by moralizing or else by excusing the sinner (p.189). In that sense, Elert rejected the position of Karl Holl and builtupon Anselm’s doctrine of the atonement (pp. 189–190).Elert rejected the Young Luther’s concept of faith as a salutarydesperation: “Faith can find nothing in itself, nor can it deriveGod’s judgment as liberation from itself” (p. 193). In his typicalpithy style, Elert writes:God does not cast a person into the misery of guiltinessin order to destroy every thought of merit and to let hisown grace appear as a pure gift. God does not need themisery of people in order to be gracious. In such anevent, the guiltiness of a person and his despair anddeep humiliation toward God’s judgment would be thepresupposition for grace. In both cases, the grace ofGod would no longer be conceived as his free action(pp. 193–194).Elert wrote that the adhortative or direct address ofthe gospel calls the individual to make the decision offaith. Faith is a decision that the individual cannot makewithout the Holy Spirit, but it is important that the individualreally make a commitment. In his attempt to provideindividual responsibility while avoiding synergism,Elert spoke of the person under two separate contexts: the[unconverted] person who is still “in the middle” and hasonly das empirische Ich, an earthly and non-spiritual ego,and das transzendentale Ich, the totally emptied ego thatremains as a receiving ego within the regenerate or spiritualperson. The transcendental ego, which is solely thework of God, is the consciousness of the person who hasfaith; therefore, faith is the work of God in the individual.Only the transcendental ego, which has been effected byGod himself, has the power to make the decision of faith(pp. 180–181).The later Elert was not completely satisfied with the mannerin which he had balanced faith as decision and faith as the work ofGod in his earlier works. Therefore, in his later dogmatics hereplaced the word Entscheidung (“decision”) with the word Betroffenwerden(“having been met by”): faith means that I know thatGod means me with the word of forgiveness and reconciliation.The answer to Betroffenwerden is faith, which is the ratification ofthe adhortative (p. 183).The transcendental ego is the recipient of justification. Justificationitself is fully anchored in the cross of Christ.An atoning significance can be ascribed only to thedeath of Christ on the cross. Before God, Christ bore