Luther on prayer and the Holy Spirit (2)

John H Friday 9th May, AD 2008

In my previous post, we saw how the Holy Spirit helps us pray, not by overruling our prayers, but by fashioning true prayers out of the rough material of our innermost desires. As David Scaer continues (see previous posts 1 | 2), in doing so “The Spirit gives a new and larger dimension to our prayers”.

It is not that we pray for “foolish and harmful things” (this would not even qualify as true prayer, “because it would not flow out of a converted will”). Rather, it is that we pray for too little. As Luther observes, St Paul describes the Spirit as helping us in our weakness, not our “iniquity”. It is not that we ask for the wrong things, “rather that we do not ask for enough”:

Luther writes, “Therefore in heeding our prayers and coming to grant our requests God destroys our weak thinking and our still too humble ideas, and He gives us what the Spirit demands for us. It is as if a son wrote a letter to his father asking for silver and the father disregarded the letter and prepared to give the son gold. Since the son did not receive the silver which he requested, he was concerned that the father had disregarded the letter.

The Holy Spirit prays with us not because we are getting stronger in the Christian life, but because we are still weak (contrary to those who might present being “Spirit-filled” as a more exalted state of spirituality):

Our weakness prevents us from receiving the good which God intends for us. We would continue to flee from the good which God wants to give us if the Spirit did not prevent us.

Luther on prayer and the Holy Spirit (1)

John H Thursday 8th May, AD 2008

David Scaer’s article, “Luther on Prayer” (PDF) (see previous post), provides an opportunity to return to the theme of the work of the Holy Spirit as we approach Pentecost. In section V of his essay, “Prayer and the Holy Spirit”, Scaer looks at two aspects of the Spirit’s involvement in our prayers, both of derive from St Paul’s words in Romans 8:26,27:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

What does it mean to say that the Spirit “intercedes” for us? For Luther, Scaer argues, the Spirit looks at us like “an artist looking at rough material from which he will eventually shape his work of art”:

God is the artist who sees in us things which even we do not recognize. God takes our innermost feelings and desires and shapes us according to His design. Prayer for Luther involves the Christian’s putting himself at the disposal of God for His purposes. The Holy Spirit refashions the Christian and his prayer.

However, this does not mean that the Spirit overrules our personalities, as if he were “the great leveller” who mass-produced prayers so as to make all individual prayers “conform to one sort of heavenly model”.

By using the illustration of the rough material to be fashioned into a work of art, Luther recognizes that not only that the individual remains important to God, but also that the individual in the depths of his being actually provides (in a passive way, of course) the rough material from which the Holy Spirit’s prayers are made.

As Scaer continues:

The prayers of the Holy Spirit are not some kind of creatio nova or creatio ex nihilo so that the prayers have little or nothing to do with what we really are, what we really think, or what we really want. Quite to the contrary, the prayers prayed for us by the Holy Spirit are the kind of prayers we would pray if we were not burdened by the limitations of our human existence.

Prayer vs manipulation

John H Thursday 8th May, AD 2008

David Scaer’s 1983 essay, “Luther on Prayer” (PDF) is essential reading for anyone concerned about issues such as unanswered prayer, “unworthy” prayer, the relationship between formal and spontaneous prayer, motivations to pray and the role of the Holy Spirit in our praying. Check out the passages posted by Chris Williams the other day for some great quotes on unanswered prayer and prayer in the face of God’s apparent “disfavour”.

One section that had particular resonance for me at the moment was the section on “unworthy” or “manipulative” prayer. Here is a problem that regularly surfaces in my own prayer life, mainly when praying for “daily bread” (of which “house, home, land” are particularly pertinent examples at the moment!): the fear that I am trying to manipulate God by finding the right form of words that will prise out of his hand the things for which I am asking.

The desire not to manipulate God in this way - because if he realises that’s what I’m trying to do, he might not give me what I want - then becomes part of my prayer, as I expressly disclaim all desire to engage in such manipulation, or tack “…but your will be done” onto the end of my petitions. However, I am then immediately aware that the reason I am doing this is the hope that, by denouncing my own manipulation, I might persuade God to give me what I want. “Wretched man that I am!”

While this isn’t exactly the same as Luther’s experience of Anfechtungen (spiritual terror and despair), I still found Luther’s perspective on “unworthy” prayer, as described by Scaer, very helpful. First, the fear that our prayers might actually prove counterproductive owing to the ungodly state of our hearts and the selfishness of our requests:

Right during the act of praying Luther himself was afflicted by sin, Satan, and his own conscience. … As he prayed, Luther was afflicted with the thought that God was not hearing his prayer and that God was becoming angry with him. He asked himself during prayer why God should hear his prayers in distress if God Himself had sent that distress into his life. So troubled was Luther with the thought of his own sinfulness and his lack of worthiness to pray that all he could do was cry out, “Help, dear Lord.” By bringing the Christian to the point where he can only cry out to God for help, God was accomplishing his purpose of saving the Christian.

As for the question of “manipulating” God, our fear of this should not prevent us from continuing to pray anyway:

Luther would never understand prayer as an instrument in the hand of the Christian to manipulate God. Nevertheless, the Christian has to learn that God is near in the hour of need and that in answer to prayer He helps. … If prayer became permissible only when a person was pious, then no one would ever be permitted to pray. … The sense of our unworthiness does not make us ineligible to ask for God’s mercy.

“If prayer became permissible only when a person was pious, then no one would ever be permitted to pray”: what a liberating statement!

And as we disappear down the vortex described above, of a growing sense of the unworthiness of ourselves and our prayers - of the inescapability of our sin and of our desire to manipulate God as we pray - this is where the Holy Spirit’s work becomes vital:

At that moment the Holy Spirit enters in with His help and in our stead offers up to God an acceptable prayer. This assistance provided by the Holy Spirit is above and beyond human comprehension.

In the end, fearing to pray because one fears to manipulate God or pray “unworthily” (as if one could pray “worthily”!) will only increase our disinclination to pray. As Scaer points out later in his essay, Luther provides a response to such disinclination that is both bracingly direct in its refusal to pander to our spiritual sloth and also deeply encouraging and pastoral in providing a way for us to deal with such feelings:

Luther is forever the practical theologian and lays down a procedure for the Christian who has no interest in prayer. First he should pray the Lord’s Prayer and then he should be prepared to throw every possible slander against Satan.

You don’t feel like praying? Well, there’s something to pray about right there, so get on with it!

Creation is complete, but not closed

John H Monday 5th May, AD 2008

A few days ago, Adam Omelianchuk on the BHT posted a query he’d read about how miracles can be distinguished from natural phenomena we are not yet able to explain. As the person Adam quoted put it:

The problem with miracles is that you can’t ever really conclude that they are ’supernatural’. All you can conclude from them is that “we don’t understand how that happened… yet.”

It is notoriously difficult to come up with a definition of what a “miracle” is. An intervention by God into the workings of nature? Yes, but God is at work in “natural” phenomena as much as “supernatural” ones. Often, our understanding of miracles (and the language we use to describe them, of “interventions” or “interference”) betray a semi-Deistic perspective in which God has, by and large, left the universe to get on with its existence, but intervenes occasionally to nudge the universe in the direction he has in mind for it.

In contrast to this, I find Ken Miller’s distinction between a “complete” and “incomplete” universe helpful. As Miller writes (in an excerpt from his book Finding Darwin’s God):

As more than one scientist has said, the truly remarkable thing about the world is that it actually does make sense. The parts fit, the molecules interact, the darn thing works. To people of faith, what evolution says is that nature is complete. Their God fashioned a material world in which truly free and independent beings could evolve. He got it right the very first time.

By contrast, Miller argues:

[C]reationists need a science that shows nature to be incomplete; they need a history of life whose events can only be explained as the result of supernatural processes. Put bluntly, the creationists are committed to finding permanent, intractable mystery in nature. To such minds, even the most perfect being we can imagine would not have been perfect enough to fashion a creation in which life would originate and evolve on its own. Nature must be flawed, static, and forever inadequate.

Now, even if you disagree with Miller’s characterisation of creationism and his conclusions regarding evolution, I do think his emphasis on God having made a creation that is complete is a helpful one.

We have good, biblical grounds for expecting the universe to be complete, and so it should come as no surprise to us that modern science and its “methodological naturalism” should have proven so successful in describing creation’s workings with ever-increasing accuracy and detail. Nor should we have any reason to insist that there must, in the end, be significant gaps in our scientific knowledge for which we are forced to invoke “miraculous” explanations. On the contrary: as our scientific knowledge increases, it only underlines and confirms our confidence in the completeness of creation and the competence of its Creator.

However, just because the universe is complete (thus vindicating “methodological naturalism” as a basis for science), doesn’t mean we should lurch to the opposite error, the error of “philosophical naturalism”, and insist that the universe must also be closed. Science may describe the usual way in which God orders things, but that does not restrict God’s freedom to act in other ways.

Rubbing elbows with “the other lot”

John H Sunday 4th May, AD 2008

Interior of St Luke's Lutheran Church, LeedsWe’ve come up to Leeds for the weekend to stay with my parents, and this morning I paid a visit to St Luke’s Lutheran Church for their morning service.

St Luke’s is a congregation in the Lutheran Church in Great Britain (the UK’s LWF-affiliated Lutheran synod), and it was interesting to see the similarities and contrasts with the ELCE. It turns out that “the other lot” share the odd Lutheran predilection for sitting down for hymns, and the Lutheran Book of Worship is so similar to Lutheran Worship that it’s almost eerie (though not surprising given that the two books emerged from the same process of liturgical revision). It was a non-communion service, which helped avoid any awkward moments about intercommunion…

It was also good to meet blogging ordinand Doorman-Priest, who was leading the worship, in the flesh. Though I stupidly forgot to ask what his name was when we spoke afterwards: D-P, if you’re reading this, any chance you could email me with the secret of your mild-mannered alter ego? ;-)

The main reason for this post though is to share the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Pastor Mark’s sermon. The sermon text was John 17:1-11, and the sermon emphasised Jesus’ words about unity as relating to the need for mutual love and community among Christians in the face of the world’s hostility and persecution (rather than (mis)interpreting Jesus’ “that they may be one” in institutional terms). As the pastor put it, we need to “rub elbows” with one another, and he quoted the following passage from Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together:

God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.

He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.”

It’s so important that the gospel, the Word of God, should come to us principally as a living, spoken Word. Reading the Bible is good and beneficial for us, but it is secondary to hearing the Word, hearing the promises of God declared audibly to us. It is that living Word which both requires and creates community, the community of the church, of those who proclaim and hear the gospel together.

Without that constant renewal by the spoken Word, our faith (or “the Christ in our own heart”) inevitably grows weak, because Christ has not willed or promised that we should be able to keep our faith in him strong in the absence of the Word proclaimed among our fellow Christians.

The Holy Spirit in the Lutheran Confessions (2): how

John H Friday 2nd May, AD 2008

In my previous post, we looked at what the Holy Spirit does in our lives as Christians and as a church: calling, enlightening, sanctifying and keeping us, forgiving our sins, raising us on the last day. But how does he carry out this work?

For an answer to this, let’s look at our old friend, Article V of the Augsburg Confession, “Concerning Ministry in the Church”:

So that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the gospel and administering the sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and the sacraments as through instruments the Holy Spirit is given, who effects faith where and when it pleases God in those who hear the Gospel, that is to say, in those who believe that God, not on account of our own merits but on account of Christ, justifies those who believe that we are received into grace on account of Christ. Galatians 3:14b: “So that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Spirit comes to human beings without the Word through their own preparations.

This article is often used (quite rightly) to emphasise the Lutheran belief in the efficacy of the Word and sacraments in creating faith in us (as in my post here). However, the point I want to stress in this post is that it is not the Word and sacraments in themselves that effect faith in us. Rather, it is that they are “instruments” by which the Holy Spirit is given to us, and it is the Holy Spirit who “effects faith where and when it pleases God in those who hear the Gospel”.

We should be careful not to elevate the instruments over the one who uses them. What makes the preaching of the gospel, the promise of absolution, baptism and the Lord’s Supper effective in calling, enlightening and sanctifying us and keeping us in the true faith is the Holy Spirit’s using them to effect faith in us.

And this cannot be taken for granted: it is perfectly possible to hear the Word and even to undergo baptism and receive the Lord’s Supper without faith, because faith is not the automatic result of using those means, but is effected by the Spirit “where and when it pleases God”. (That said, we should be clear that this is not a matter of introspection - “Has the Holy Spirit worked faith in me?” - or of making the promises of the gospel conditional upon the Spirit’s working faith in those who hear them. Rather, it is a matter of simple observation that where the gospel is proclaimed, some believe and some don’t - and it is the Holy Spirit who makes the difference. And some of those who don’t believe this week, may well believe next week, again according to the Spirit’s work in them by means of the gospel that they hear preached.)

And what we receive, along with faith and justification, is “the promise of the Spirit”. Indeed, the Spirit’s presence in us and with us is inseparable from justification. To those who have faith, God both justifies them and gives them the gift of the Spirit.

Finally, the little sting in the tail at the end of this article: “They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Spirit comes to human beings without the Word through their own preparations.” Many today tend to oppose the Spirit and the Word, and look for the Spirit’s work principally in direct, unmediated and often non-rational experiences.

However, Article V is clear that the usual way in which we should expect the Spirit to work in our lives is through his use of the Word and sacraments to effect faith in us. That’s not to say the Spirit is restricted to those means - but those are the only means he has promised to use, and we must not neglect or downplay those means if we want to know the Spirit’s work in our lives.

And more positively, the Spirit has promised that he will use the means of the Word and sacraments to carry out his work of calling, enlightening, sanctifying, keeping and forgiving us. The search for “direct” experiences of the Spirit’s work can be a frustrating and uncertain one (I speak from experience), but in the Word and sacraments we can come with confidence, knowing that the Spirit is present to bless us, forgive us and keep us believing in Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit in the Lutheran Confessions (1): who and what

John H Friday 2nd May, AD 2008

The period between Ascension and Pentecost is a period of preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit, and so I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a look at what the Lutheran confessions in the Book of Concord say about the Holy Spirit.

Lutherans are often accused of neglecting the Holy Spirit, and there’s probably more than a grain of truth in that. You’re much more likely to hear Lutherans talking about the Word and sacraments than about the Spirit. But if Lutherans do neglect the Spirit and his work, then our confessions give us no excuse to do so. As Robert Preus puts it in his book, Getting Into The Theology Of Concord:

[N]ot only do our Lutheran Confessions proclaim the Spirit-breathed theology of Scripture, not only do they reveal the Spirit-filled life and testimony of their authors, but they emphasize throughout in a remarkable manner the saving and comforting work of the Spirit in the life of every believer and throughout the church. (p.52)

The classic statement of Lutheran belief in the Spirit and his work is found in Luther’s exposition of the third article of the Creed, in the Small Catechism:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

What does this mean?
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.

On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ.

This is most certainly true.

As Revd Mark Anderson points out in an excellent sermon on the third article, this is a remarkable statement of one of the most radical and offensive (to human ears) of all Reformation doctrines. What Luther is saying here is that our confession has to be this: “I believe that I cannot believe”.

“I believe that I cannot believe”; so why is that I do believe? Because of the work of the Holy Spirit in my life: the Spirit who has called, enlightened and sanctified me and kept me in the true faith.

Crucially, though, this work of the Spirit cannot be separated from the life of the whole church. It is not that the Holy Spirit works in one way in my life as an individual, and in another way in the life of the church as a whole. No: he calls, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps the church “in the same way” as he calls, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps me.

How he does this will be the topic of the next post, though a key aspect of this is found in the next statement: “In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.” There is the link - the “in the same way” - between the Spirit’s work in us as individuals and his work in the church: it is “in this Christian church” that the Spirit “daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers”. (It seems to me that it is rare in today’s church for the forgiveness of sins to be spoken of as a particular work of the Spirit.)

And the final part of the Spirit’s work as described in this article is another that is (as N.T. Wright, among others, has pointed out) neglected and misunderstood in the church today: “On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ.”

A reminder that the Christian hope is not “going to heaven when we die”, but the resurrection from the dead. And it is the Holy Spirit who will raise us from the dead, and the same Spirit who will give us eternal life with Christ (see Romans 8:11).

As Luther concludes: “This is most certainly true”. And it is not true merely in some dry, factual sense, as a doctrine that we keep “up on the shelf” and only take down when we want to remind ourselves why we’re not Pentecostals. This short exposition of the doctrine of the Spirit is rich and dense, repays careful thought and meditation, and puts the Spirit right at the heart of our lives as Christians and as a church, and at the heart of our hope for the future.

Music for Ascension

John H Wednesday 30th April, AD 2008

Anyone looking for some music to listen to for the Feast of the Ascension tomorrow should wander over to eMusic and check out a couple of interesting Ascension-related musical offerings:

First, Oliver Messiaen’s L’Ascension. An extraordinary piece of music - one to listen to in a darkened room after the children have gone to sleep. Back in the day I learnt to play (after a fashion) the first and third movements, and once regaled the evening congregation at our previous church with the opening movement, “Majeste du Christ demandant sa gloire a son Pere” (”Phew! Great title!”). To their complete bewilderment, it has to be said. :-)

Second, J.S. Bach’s Ascension Oratorio, conducted by Masaaki Suzuki. Haven’t listened to this one yet, either, but I enjoyed the Easter Oratorio from the same album.

Significant differences

John H Wednesday 30th April, AD 2008

Very interesting essay by Phillip Cary on Eucharistic Presence in Calvin, explaining the difference between the Calvinist and Lutheran understanding of the Lord’s Supper.

Part of the question revolves around whether Christ’s body is “objectively present” in the sacrament. As Dr Cary observes, “objective” is a “slippery and ambiguous word”, but more explicit definition helps make the question clearer:

For suppose we define “objectively present” as meaning “present independent of anyone’s state of mind,” where “state of mind” includes things like belief. Then Christ’s body is not objectively present in the sacrament in Calvin’s view but is objectively present in the Lutheran and Roman Catholic views.

For Lutherans (and Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox), “Christ’s body is objectively present in the mouth of all who partake in the sacrament, whether they believe it or not”. Calvin “explicitly and repeatedly denies” this, and indeed identifies it as “the key point on which he differs from the Lutherans”.

What I found particularly illuminating in Dr Cary’s essay was his use of the Augustinian distinction between the signum (i.e. the “outward and visible sign”) and the res (the thing signified, i.e. the “inward and invisible grace”). Lutherans, Calvinists and others are agreed that all who partake in the Supper receive the signum, the sign, but only those who eat and drink in faith receive the res, the thing signified.

This is where the difference then lies. For Calvin, the signum in the Lord’s Supper is the bread and wine, and the res is the body and blood of Christ. Hence all who partake in the Supper receive the bread and wine, but only those who eat and drink in faith receive the body and blood of Christ.

However, Cary continues, “Luther thinks of the body of Christ as the sacramental sign, not just the thing signified”. In other words, for Lutherans, the signum in the Lord’s Supper is the body and blood of Christ (in, with and under the bread and wine), and the res is the spiritual benefit of the Supper (”forgiveness, life and salvation” as Luther summarises this in the Small Catechism). Hence all who partake in the Supper receive Christ’s body and blood, but only those who eat and drink in faith receive forgiveness, life and salvation.

This explains why the difference between Lutherans and Calvinists on the Supper is one of those differences between us which, as Cary has put it elsewhere, “can be described as narrow but deep, like a small crack that goes a long way down”. It’s not just that we disagree as to what the benefits of the Supper are or the precise mechanism by which we receive them, as if we agreed on what the Supper is but simply disagreed as to its meaning. We don’t even agree on what the Supper is at its most basic level: its outward and visible sign.

The still centre

John H Monday 28th April, AD 2008

You’ll notice this site has new strapline, prompted by The Scylding’s comment on the BHT today:

I’ve found that of late, my theological questioning has died down a lot. I’ve virtually stopped asking why? – now I go to church, accept forgiveness, partake of His body & blood, and pray and work through stuff daily, without tormenting myself about the big (theological) picture. I can’t say why this has happened – but there is little angst and introspection regarding theological matters. Not that I have the answers, or have found solutions. I’ve had plenty of other problems to deal with – but in the past, problems let me to question theology.

As I said in reply, I can identify with what The Scylding is saying here:

For all that I may engage in more theological discussion than is probably healthy, I really don’t have any major angst about theological issues any more. Basically, if it’s not in the Small Catechism then as far as I’m concerned it really doesn’t matter all that much.

If it is in the Small Catechism, though, then you can take it from me when you prise it out of my cold, dead hands.

As I’ve said before, I believe the Small Catechism is a statement, not of “Lutheranism”, but of “mere Christianity”. It’s even more basic than “Augsburg evangelicalism”. The Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism, Absolution, the Lord’s Supper and daily prayer: that’s Christianity for you, right there.

But, you may ask, does this mean that those who disagree with the Small Catechism (e.g. as regards baptism or the Lord’s Supper) are “defective” Christians or in some way outside the “true church”? How can the Small Catechism represent “mere Christianity” when so many Christians disagree with significant parts of it?

Well, to return to a theme from one of my earlier posts back in 2004, this is a matter of “centred sets” rather than “bounded sets”. In other words, I am not concerned here with defining a boundary, within which are “true Christians” and outside of which are “heretics” or “defective Christians”. Rather, it is a case of defining Christianity it terms of its “centre” rather than its “boundaries”. Of course, the true centre is Christ, but we encounter Christ in the life of the church, a life delineated by the Word, the sacraments and prayer, as expressed in the Catechism.

Some reading this may consider that the Small Catechism is in fact some way “off-centre”. Well, we’ll have to agree to differ on that (at least until you admit you’re wrong ;-) ). But I’d still suggest that a “centred-set” way of thinking about these issues is more fruitful than a “bounded set” approach or seeking an irreducible “lowest common denominator” of teachings supposedly agreed upon by all Christians (which is really just defining a bounded set, but with a somewhat wider boundary!).

And here’s where I think the centre lies. “Here I stand”, and all that…

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