The Holy Spirit and the Church

Ecumenical Reflections with a Pastoral Perspective

Thomas Hughson, Thomas Hughson

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317028628
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Théologie et religion
• Categoria: Théologie chrétienne

Advancing strong, scholarly discussion on the Holy Spirit and the church in the context of the ecumenical movement, six theologians in five different churches offer new theological and pastoral insights into the work of the Holy Spirit in the churches of Christianity, in ecumenism, and in witness. With The Church: Towards a Common Vision (World Council of Churches) document serving as a common point of reference, a pastoral perspective is distinctive throughout. Relating theology to non-theological knowledge of the contemporary cultural context, as well as application to pastoral practice, this book draws from, and is applicable to, clergy formation, preaching, lay discipleship, church-world relations, social mission, congregational life, grass-roots ecumenical cooperation, and witness to Christ and the gospel by racial minorities.

Part I

The Holy Spirit and Ministry

1 The Holy Spirit and the Church in Lutheran Preaching

Cheryl M. Peterson

Introduction

Luther once said that the church is a “mouth house,” not a “pen house.”¹ The central event in Lutheran worship is the proclamation of the Word of God, specifically the kerygma, the good news of God’s justifying grace in Jesus Christ. Proclamation of the gospel happens through the sermon, but also in the Eucharist, a “visible word” through which the same promise is given and experienced. In Lutheran theology, the sacrament is “bread and wine set within God’s Word and bound to it,” in which we receive “a great treasure, through and in which we obtain the forgiveness of sins.”² In fact, Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde claims that the best paradigm for proclamation is the announcement of the forgiveness of sins “for you” in the triune name during the absolution and in the promise “given for you” in the Lord’s Supper, which in the practice of the Lutheran church is repeated to each communicant coming to receive the wine and bread.³

The event of proclamation is foundational for how Lutherans understand ecclesiology, especially the concept of the church as “creature of the Word,” but does not exhaust its meaning. The church is a creature of the Spirit as well as the Word.⁴ For Luther, what is created by Word and Spirit is a nothing less than a holy or spiritual community, through which the Spirit speaks and works in order to grant forgiveness of sins and gather God’s people.⁵ In other words, the church is a spiritual community or koinonia that is united and built up by the Holy Spirit through the gift of the forgiveness of sins, the same Spirit who calls the church into mission, and who equips and empowers it for that mission.⁶

What I propose to do in this chapter is to bring the Lutheran focus on the Word into dialogue with the theological paradigms of koinonia/communion and mission in both Lutheran theology and the recent World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order document, The Church: Towards a Common Vision, to further enrich the dialogue about the “common vision” of the church we all seek to have.⁷ By focusing on the role of the Holy Spirit in each of these paradigms – and in particular the Spirit’s work to make holy through the forgiveness of sins as the thread that connects them – I offer a missional ecclesiology of communion with a distinctive Lutheran character. While Lutherans have focused less on the Spirit’s work in building up the community or koinonia, and equipping it for mission, these themes are not unknown in the Lutheran tradition historically. Before exploring these connections, I will first discuss in more detail the role of the Holy Spirit in preaching from a Lutheran theological perspective and the idea of the church as a “creature of the gospel.”

The Holy Spirit and Preaching in Lutheran Theology

There is a story told about Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), who upon attending a Sunday morning service, met the pastor at the back of the church afterwards and told him that he had a book at home with every word he had preached that morning. The minister assured him that the sermon was an original. Clement firmly held his position. The pastor insisted on seeing this book, so Clement promised he would sent it to him in the morning. When the preacher unwrapped the package, he found a dictionary, and on the front page he read: “Words, just words, just words.”⁸

A sermon without the Holy Spirit is “just words.” For Luther, the point of the sermon is not to deliver “words” to the people, but the Word, that is, the living, proclaimed gospel that actualizes the promise of salvation given in Jesus Christ in the event of proclaiming and hearing: God’s dynamic address to human beings that frees them from the bondage to sin and the law. For Luther, the Word of God is first and foremost not the written Word, but the eternal Word or Logos of God, Jesus Christ, and the good news of his life, death, and resurrection.⁹ The Scriptures are acknowledged as the written Word of God because they contain this promise, or using Luther’s famous image, they are the manger that holds the Christ child.

The promise of the gospel comes to the believer through the Holy Spirit, who enables both the proclaiming and the hearing of this good news. Many scholars credit Luther with reclaiming the centrality of the sermon in the worship service, but Reformation historian Heiko Oberman has shown that what really changed for Luther was the role of the sermon in worship. According to Luther, the purpose of the sermon was no longer to dispose the faithful to receive an infusion of grace through the eucharist; rather, the sermon itself was a means of grace, through which Christ encountered the sinner, offering her the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection: life, salvation, and the forgiveness of sins.

Oberman claims that for Luther, the sermon was an “apocalyptic event” in which the risen Christ who is our future and who promises to make all things new, breaks into our present through the speaking and hearing of the gospel.¹⁰ This encounter is made possible by the Holy Spirit, leading Oberman to posit that the chief rediscovery of the Reformation was the “understanding of the Holy Spirit as the dynamic presence of God,” and not the recovery of Scripture’s authority or of the sole efficacy of grace.¹¹ The Holy Spirit works to enable the voice of the preacher to speak the gospel and the ears and hearts of the listeners to hear the promise of the forgiveness of sins. In his treatise “Against the Heavenly Prophets,” Luther writes, “If I now seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the cross, for I will not find it given there. Nor must I hold to the suffering of Christ as Dr. Karlstadt trifles, in knowledge or remembrance, for I will not find it there either. But I will find in the sacrament or the gospel the word which distributes, presents, offers, and gives to me that forgiveness which was won on the cross.”¹²

Luther’s sermons themselves are often overlooked as a resource for his understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in the preaching event. In a sermon on the Feast of the Pentecost (Acts 2:1–13), he lifts up several key points regarding the “office” or work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life.¹³ Luther first draws a distinction between the literal law and the spiritual law, a central theme elsewhere in his writings that is developed into the better-known law–gospel hermeneutic. The literal law is that which is commanded by God and is composed of written words, and which is “wholly dead” without the work of the Holy Spirit. On its own, the written Law of Moses can make no one righteous; it can only accuse and convict the sinner. Only the Holy Spirit writing on the heart is able to justify the sinner.

Luther treats the distinction between spirit and letter in 2 Corinthians 3:6 at some length in his debate with Jerome Emser.¹⁴ Medieval theologians understood the spirit–letter distinction in terms of different meanings of the text, literal versus allegorical; however, interpretation at all levels, even the deepest allegorical level, still only results in the letter and not the Spirit. Luther understands Paul’s distinction not to refer to two levels of meaning in the text, but to two kinds of preaching or preaching office. Armed with this insight, Luther is able to offer a new hermeneutical approach, away from allegory, as Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde puts it, “toward an understanding of the Word as active, as doing something to us.”¹⁵ The Spirit is not some inner level of meaning that is reached by the interpreter, but the Spirit of God itself, who as Forde states “comes precisely in and through the letter, the text, the proclamation of it, to kill and to make alive.”¹⁶

This distinction provides the basis for the better-known law–gospel hermeneutic that guides Lutheran preaching and theology. As Forde writes, “The pulpit is not a story-telling forum, nor is it the place for scolding the congregation; it is the place for the proclamation of the Word of God as law and as gospel.”¹⁷ The distinction between law and gospel is primarily a difference in how God’s word is preached (and heard): the law speaks of Christ in the imperative; the gospel speaks in the declarative mood, and in doing to, gives what the text speaks about. It is a new way of speaking, by which the living, life-giving Word is given to the sinner.¹⁸

In his Pentecost sermon, Luther highlights the role of the Spirit in both the speaking of God’s Word and its hearing. He writes, the Spirit “renders [the disciples’] tongues fiery and cloven, and inflames them with love unto boldness in preaching Christ – unto free and fearless utterance.”¹⁹ The Spirit is the power by which the preacher’s words become gospel, and also the power by which the hearer is able to grasp this good news in faith. Luther writes, “Therefore God sends the Holy Spirit to impress the preaching upon the heart – to make it inhere and live therein.”²⁰

The primary role of the Holy Spirit in traditional Lutheran theology is understood in terms of applying the benefits of Christ to the believer, that is, life, salvation, and the forgiveness of sins, “because where there is forgiveness of sins,” Luther wrote, “there is also life and salvation.”²¹ Salvation is given in life, death, and resurrection of Christ, but this good news must be communicated to believers and the Holy Spirit must enable them to trust that this is good news. The Holy’s Spirit’s “mission” is to present to believers “the priceless Christ and all his benefits; to reveal them to us through the gospel and to apply them to the heart, making them ours.”²²

This is the aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work most typically emphasized by Lutherans: the Spirit’s role in enabling believers to come to faith to receive the promise of Christ, through the proclamation of the gospel. The gift of faith is only the beginning of the Christian life, however. As Luther says in his Pentecost sermon, the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to create new hearts, giving believers not only the faith by which they believe, but also new life, filling them with such love and joy that they serve God willingly. Luther explains the Pentecost event this way: “The Spirit came pouring into their hearts, making them different beings, making them creatures who loved and willingly obeyed God. This change was simply the manifestation of the Holy Spirit himself, his work in their hearts.”²³ The work of the Holy Spirit described here is not only a forensic declaration of one’s righteousness, but involves regeneration as well. Neither Luther nor Melanchthon distinguishes as sharply as later Lutherans do between forensic justification and regeneration; these happen simultaneously by the power of the Holy Spirit who is at work in the believer to produce new life.²⁴

While cautioning against any notion of perfection in this life, Luther states that there is in believers “continual groaning after holiness,” a groaning, according to St. Paul, too deep for words, but for which Christians have a “blessed listener,” that is the Holy Spirit. Although the Christian will struggle with sin and imperfection in this life, the Spirit will bring divine comfort to the Christian who strives for purity. This divine comfort includes the presence of the Holy Spirit but also the Spirit’s effecting of “holiness” through the daily forgiveness of sins, which believers obtain through Word and sacrament. Luther stresses that forgiveness is needed continually, because believers are never without sin in this life.²⁵ Luther likens this struggle to a sick person in the hands of a physician who is working to make him well.²⁶ It is only in the heart’s recognition of its wretchedness and inability to be free from temptations that the way opens for the Holy Spirit to “come to the rescue.”²⁷

The Holy Spirit and Preaching: The Church as Creature of the Gospel

Lutherans do not define their ecclesiology by polity or structure, but by the same gospel that justifies sinners and brings them to new life. Preaching creates individual faith and, as we saw above, obedience. Yet Luther’s is not a ‘sum of all parts’ ecclesiology, in the sense that the church is simply made up of those hearts united by faith, which comes through the preaching of the gospel. Christoph Schwöbel helpfully notes, “In trying to determine the nature of the Church one has to talk about what makes the Church possible, i.e., the Word of God, and what is made possible in the Church, i.e., true faith.”²⁸ The church exists where there is faith; faith is a result of the Word being preached, but faith does not create the church.

While justification is individually appropriated, believers are also incorporated into a holy community as they receive the Holy Spirit. As Luther writes in “The Large Catechism,” the Holy Spirit not only calls believers to faith through the Word, but also creates, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies a “spiritual community” with both spiritual fruit and gifts, including the gift of “the full forgiveness of sins” as both the foundation of the new holy community’s life together and the center of its proclamation to a broken world. However, later Lutheran theology largely muted this role of the Holy Spirit. As I will discuss in more detail in the following section, Luther explicitly connects the Word, the Spirit, and the church in his image of the church as a “creature of the gospel.” This very image implies the reception and movement of the Holy Spirit in creating this body.

To call the church a “creature of the gospel” means a number of things for Luther. First, it means that the gospel is both the source of the church’s life and being and its ongoing sustenance. George Forell points out that already in his early lectures on the Psalms, Luther “had emphasized that the Word of God is the food which sustains the...