25 July 2022
Luther
The meaning of this word is a blessed dying unto sin and a rising in the grace of God, so that the old man conceived and born in sin is drowned, and a new man emerges or rises, born of grace. Thus sin is drowned in baptism and justification emerges.—Sermon on the Holy and Venerable Sacrament of Baptism, 1519
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No doubt a true and edifying saying. The problem is that in the Small Catechism, Luther claims that this happens daily. "It signifies that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts, and, again, a new man daily come forth and arise; who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever." This has bothered me for a long time, because I can find no Scriptural support for it.
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
No scriptural support for the notion that we are to die daily?
1 Corinthians 15:31 (KJV) I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
And hence he calls on us: Colossians 3:5 (KJV)
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
My members are still upon the earth, and so they call for a daily mortification!
And I am still learning to do what Romans 6 exhorts:
Romans 6:11-13 (ESV) 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
This is what it is to arise with Christ: to consider myself dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus. Not to let sin have the upper hand and make me do what it demands. Instead to present my body to God.
Dear Will, I write this with trepidation, because I do not want you to think of me as arrogant, or engaging in idle disputes about words. At the same time, please be assured that I hold you in even higher esteem now than I did when I visited you.
My brother told me that Robert Preuss (I may be wrong about which Preuss it was) believed that any untrue teaching is eventually reflected in the Doctrine of Justification. Inasmuch as the Doctrine of Justification is part of the Gospel, it is therefore true that the teaching of the pure Gospel is affected by untrue teaching. That is my concern, and has been for most of my life.
Now to the Romans passage. It is from the same chapter, of which Luther used verse 4 to justify his teaching. Neither in that verse, or the ones you quoted, does St. Paul speak of “dying daily.” He clearly speaks of the one-time consequences of Baptism; nowhere does he say that we undergo this, or a similar experience every day. Besides, what does it mean that “the Old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts…”? The Old Adam is not some alien creature in us that afflicts us. It is us. I we kill him, we kill ourselves. As St. Paul writes in the very next chapter, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” He goes on, 7:1, “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” If the Old Adam drowns and dies, how can he have dominion over us as long as we live? And how is it, he comes to life after being dead and drowned? St. Paul ends with, 7:25, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Nothing about killing the Old Adam daily.
Do I really have to mention the Colossians passage? Does it say a word about dying, or daily? Never in my wildest dreams would I assert that we are not sinful, or that we do not need to struggle with sin.
Now to 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” What precedes these words? 1 Corinthians 15:30, “And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?” If he is dying daily, it is from the dangers to which he is exposed, not from struggling with sin. But, is he really dying every day, or is this hyperbolic speech, as in Galatians 2:20, when he writes, “I am crucified with Christ…” I think the answer is obvious.
I began with my concern about the purity of the Gospel. I have now lived just about 31,000 days. In none of them did I rise on any morning, “… a new man … who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever." In Baptism I was made a child of God, who will continue to sin until the last day of my life, after which I will receive my inheritance, perfection and eternal life. That is not my own doing, but God’s grace.
Can you imagine someone thinking that, if I cannot do what Luther says I should do, that means I am not a true Christian, and therefore not a child of God? That is my concern.
Peace and Joy!
George
Dear George, I hope you might pardon a reply that’s merely a reference to an earlier posting. I think this addresses some of those concerns?
https://weedon.blogspot.com/2007/09/progression-in-sanctification.html
There is healing that transpires in our human nature as we move toward that final joyous day of resurrection. And it’s not the healing of the Old Adam, for there’s more to George than the corruption that sin has wrought in his nature. There is also the George that is the creation of God Himself. Pax!
Thank you, Will. It took me a while to digest that posting and comments. Of the latter, I was touched deeply by the comments of “Past Elder.” I thank God for the encouragement such faith gives to me and to others.
The whole argument is summed up in this sentence, “Dr. Hein correctly points out that the Old Adam does not need renovation but execution.”
The expression, “The Old Adam” is not used in Scripture. According to, Geflügelte Worte: der Citatenschatz des deutschen Volkes, by Georg Büchmann, it is an expression first used by Martin Luther. He cites the explanation of Baptism in the Small Catechism, and 5 different sermons.
The author claims that the expression was developed from Romans 5:14ff and 1 Corinthians 15:45 in which the First Adam as author of sin and death is contrasted with the Second Adam, the author of life and immortality.
If that can somehow be construed to mean that “the Old Adam” is an alien intruder into man, who can be separated from man in this world, then indeed “the Old Adam” should be executed. However, all of Scripture testifies that all people are sinful from when they are born until they die. We confess that “we are by nature sinful and unclean,” and in 1 John 1, we read, “8If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.”
If we are able to execute “the Old Adam”, or, as Luther says, “drown him”, then we become sinless. However, Scripture claims that we are inseparable from our human nature until we receive our inheritance, perfection and eternal life from our Lord in Paradise.
For this reason, I have to reject the idea of killing “the Old Adam” as being unscriptural and contrary to the Gospel.
The second sentence from Dr. Hein’s sentence really puzzles me, “Similarly, the new self does not need progress because it possesses in Christ perfection.” It seemed to me that Luther and you were so eager to make progress in sanctification, but this sentence contradicts that.
I believe Scripture says that we inherit perfection when we die, as a result of our Lord’s perfection and sacrifice. Until that time, we are only considered perfect because God forgives our sins, not because we possess some kind of perfection. Jeremiah 31:34, “For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.” I specifically reject the notion that God does not see our sins because He sees His Son’s atoning death on the cross instead. God does not play games with reality. He sees every one of our sins, but He forgives them as soon as they are committed.
Without doubt, Scripture urges all of us to fight the sin in our nature. In Baptism, He has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in us, and among other things, helps us in this never-ending struggle with sin. This indwelling of the Holy Spirit is unique to the New Covenant. It is only said of a few individuals in the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit dwells in them.
However, I reject the idea that the struggle with sin is the main purpose of our lives. When our Lord said, John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another,” He made that the main purpose of our lives. If we follow that commandment, we will find that there is hardly any time left to worry about our own sins. As St. Paul writes, Romans 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
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