Nathan Rinne has begun a series addressing the steady creep (sprint?) of the Forde-ian paradigm in Lutheran circles, contra the reformer himself. Be sure to follow this as it promises to be replete with arrows for the quiver of him who stands in opposition to the growth of this paradigm within the house of God.
Confused about what Radical Lutheranism espouses? I’m still becoming familiar with the ins-and-outs (and Nathan’s archives are helpful in this regard), but so far I’ve honed in on one area of particular concern. Earlier this week, Pastor Mark Surburg pointed out to me that there has been a movement since WWII which sees the Law of God itself as the enemy Christ defeated on the cross, rather than seeing mankind’s sins against the Law as the issue, per se.
This distinction is crucial, and failing to make it is one point of genesis for the New Antinomian paradigm that has come into vogue as a result (the other point being a failure to distinguish between righteousness coram mundo and coram deo). You can see a list of the language, beliefs, and behavior that this misunderstanding causes people to adopt here. I must say: what you will see is that this is all perfectly logical if you start with the false premise that the Law is the enemy of the Christian, rather than sin.
Contra this error, Paul in his letter to the Colossians makes it clear that man’s sin against the Law is what Christ came to deal with, not the Law itself.
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Colossians 2:13-14
I.e. it is the prosecution’s list of (completely legit) charges against us as to where we have flaunted the legal code that was nailed to the cross in Christ, not the legal code itself.
We’ve been declared “not guilty” because our names were crossed off of the charging document; Christ’s name was written in, then he was convicted and the punishment was carried out. We got off scot-free not because the Law was abrogated, but because the sentence was applied to Christ in our stead.
Anyway, big thanks to Nathan and Pastor Surburg (and Pastor Wilken) for their work in identifying and dissecting these issues. They really aren’t small, and the theological (and pragmatic) errors that arise from the consistent application of them are significant and damaging.
Not least because, on the surface, they sound so good.
This bears careful watching.
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