Man cannot save himself, but he can destroy himself… The “I will” comes from God, the “I will not” from man’s own free choice. Acceptance is not earned through merit but is a gift; perdition is not the result of fate but of sin. In the final judgment, men are placed at the right hand of the Judge; they place themselves at His left.—Adolf Köberle,
Quest for Holiness, p. 143, 144.
What a great book this Quest is. I believe it was his doctoral thesis, after which he went into pastoral care. I wonder if some of the problems in the LCMS may in part derive from a deficit of emphasis in this area.
ReplyDeleteForget my earlier comment after the first sentence. Shows the danger of relying on my memory.
ReplyDeleteA hundred thousand YESes!
ReplyDeleteAlthough, Dr K, what do you make of his rejection of the “cooperation” language of the Formula (rather like Elert’s)?
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to get to this work. Dr. Biermann once told us in Systematics that that would be the book he would make mandatory for every seminarian if he could.
ReplyDeletePastor Ian Heinze