Catholics and Lutherans on Grace

I'm not linking back to this former Lutheran pastor's name until I check with him that it's OK. If it's not, I'll remove the post. He's now a Catholic.

"Catholics and Lutherans both agree grace is undeserved and entirely all God’s doing. How God does it is where the wheels spin off the rails. Catholics held to a”infusion” of grace, Lutherans to an “imputation.” Either way, the same source, God.

Infusion of grace enables sinners to cooperatively “grow” toward God through lives transformed in Christ. Imputation of grace declares you’re never going to be any more righteous than you are at the moment Christ declares you his. Nonetheless, both Catholics and Lutherans hold to the doctrine of sanctification, growth in holiness.

In a sense, Catholics conflate justification and sanctification. For Lutherans, sanctification rises as one gains greater awareness of being justified. Now, for the life of me I can’t tell a whole lot of difference one from the other – justification is through Christ by faith that we may ever become who we are, children of God. But in the rarefied airs of theology-talk, Lutherans accused Roman Catholics of believing that humans can earn salvation, and Roman Catholics accused Lutherans of believing that Christians do not need to have their lives transformed. Neither, examined attentively, is what the other actually taught.

A Waffle House waitress explained it to me when I once – and never since – tried to order grits. Grits are like grace, you know. “Honey, you don’t order grits, they just comes.” Now, does it matter how I eat them when they arrive, mixed with my scrambled eggs, or take them straight from the bowl?""

Measuring the microwave

My daughter stopped by the other evening and asked for a tape measure to check the distance of my microwave oven from the stove top. She has plans to buy one for under a wall cabinet to free up space on her kitchen counter. She has some gift cards from Christmas designated for this and is anticipating additional gift cards from her staff (they haven't had their Christmas party yet) to pay for it.

It struck me that anticipating something additional to help pay for it is the way some Christians (Roman Catholics, anabaptists, Methodists, pentecostals, etc.) think of grace. Yes, "Jesus died on the cross for my sins," and yes I'm acceptable in God's eyes, and yes it is a gift, but I just need to add a little bit here and there (with the help of the Holy Spirit, or more Bible Study, or more prayer, or a second blessing, or more visiting the sick or aiding the poor, or more helping migrants) and then I'll be truly righteous and acceptable. I can't rest with "just" this gift, hand me a tape measure so I can see how I'm doing. In other words, the hardest thing for a Christian--particularly Americans--to do is abandon self-mastery or seeking or thinking or doing, and just let Jesus Christ stand in the gap and be our righteousness before God.

From an eternal perspective (or even my own perspective) we Christians look pretty silly. We're holding a perfect gift in one hand and a tape measure in the other, and missing the point that it is complete, all the while looking beyond the wonderful gift we already have for another gift, another renewal, another revival, another-something to make us more worthy in God's eyes. More worthy than Jesus?

Article 4 of the Augsburg Confession:

Our churches also teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works but are freely justified for Christ's sake through faith when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven on account of Christ, who by his death made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in his sight (Romans 3:4).

Friday, January 18, 2008