A Thinking Reed

Roots and Fruits

Written by

Lee M.

in

This post on heresy generated some very good comments, so I thought I would just throw one last thing into the mix. Lutheran theologian Ed Schroeder (whose Thursday Theology column has become a must-read for me) discusses here how “good fruits” must be rooted in the Gospel:

The object of Christian faith, the reality that faith trusts, what Christian faith is “in”–is never a doctrine. Not even a “true” doctrine. Faith’s object is the promised forgiveness offered us in the crucified and risen Messiah. And that object, the promise, is what’s to be proclaimed. Not JBGTF [justification by grace through faith]. When folks do indeed trust that promise, the CONSEQUENCE is “JBGTF.” […]

…Promise-preaching aims to bring sinners to confident trust in Christ–and keep them there. There is no “getting beyond” that. Or if there is, what is “beyond” confident trust in Christ? What is “real growth” that goes beyond this? What is the “solid food” that supercedes this “milk” of the gospel? Placing add-ons onto the Gospel is the Lutheran definition of heresy. Gospel-plus is what the Galatian legalists were promoting. Paul called it an “other” Gospel. […]

That raises the same question that confronted the Lutherans at Augsburg. Their critics hollered at them: “Where are the good works in your version of the gospel? We go to God’s law to fill out the package and get folks to attend to ethics. What we hear you saying all the time is faith, and faith ALONE. When to you ever get around to sanctification?” […]

To get “fruits of faith” happening again, you need to get faith happening again, and there’s only one way to get faith to happen. Offer the Gospel-promise –milky or not. To commend good works, proclaim the promise. Use it or lose it. […]

Needed is to re-root the tree so that it “naturally” bears fruit. “Roots of faith” produce “fruits of faith.” So says Jesus. And no surprise, that’s the apostolic axiom too. That’s what Paul does to/for the Galatians [“you’ve gotten hooked into an OTHER Gospel, so I’ve got to go back to square one and proclaim the REAL GOSPEL, the promise, again so that maybe you’ll trust it this time–at least for a while. And then the ‘fruits of the Spirit’ (chapter 5) will come. Nothing else will produce them.”]

Comments

4 responses to “Roots and Fruits”

  1. Camassia

    The other problem with fruits-testing is that if the church had always strictly followed it, it would no longer exist. “Dang, the current strategy is just getting people killed! Would it really be that bad to pretend to worship the emperor, if it meant we could stay alive to help poor people?”

    Yoder made the point nicely that faith is about trusting God’s means as well as his ends.

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  2. Joshie

    A lot of people in the early church actually took that option,and then came back once the heat died down, hence the _lapsi_ contraversy in which Cyprian of Carthage was involved. It was a very interesting debate, imho anyway.

    Schroeder does a good job of talking about the gospel as opposed to one particular doctrine. When one doctrine is stressed at the expense of the gospel, Christianity becomes gnosticism, where special knowledge brings you salvation as opposed to faith in the promise.

    While reading some of John Wesley’s sermon’s last fall I was surprised at how many of them are just straight up JBGTF, evangelistic sermons, to the point of becoming tedious. The Wesleyan (and biblical I might add) doctrine of sanctification is rooted in justification. It is not an add-on, it is what happens when God’s grace, through the Holy Spirit, continues to work through faith to bear fruit.

    Just to be a crumudgen, I would take issue with his analysis of Paul’s opponents in Galatians as “legalists”. They almost seem to be a sort of syncretistic sect combining pagan and Jewish elements; see Paul’s mention of “elemental spirits in 4.3 & 9 juxtaposed with the discussion of circumcision in the rest of the chapter. Luther’s interpretation of “elemental spirits” to refer to the Jewish law is rather unconvincing.
    Its hard for us Protestants to read Romans and Galatians without reading Paul=Luther, Paul’s Opponants= Luther’s Opponants.

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  3. Lee

    Josh – Is that related to the Donatist controversy where the Donatists maintained that the sacraments administered by a priest who had renounced the faith under persecution were invalid?

    Anyway, I don’t know jack about Wesleyan theology, except for that line in “A River Runs Through It” where the Presbyterian minister says: “Methodists are just Baptists who can read.” 😉

    Any reading you’d recommend w/r/t Wesleyanism?

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  4. Joshie

    The Lapsi contraversy was basically an earlier incarnation of the Donatist contraversy only it occurred before Donatus was born, and it came out of an earlier pesecution.

    Cyrian took the position that the lapsi could be welcomed back to the church but only after doing penace.

    As far as Methodist Theology goes, as good a place as any to start might be John Welsley’s pamphlet A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. Wesley was not a systematic theologian, so the book is kind of all over the place but one can get a good grip on his theology from it.
    Another place I would suggest would be a Methodist hymnal. John and his brother charles were prolific hymn writers and much of their best material is in hymn form.
    I haven’t read these books but there is an anthology of J.W.’s sermons edited by Outler and Heitzenrater and a broader introduction to the thought of the Wesleys by Paul W. Chilcote called Recapturing the Wesleys’ Vision that both come highly reccomended on Amazon. Hope that was helpful!

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