All posts by Michael O'Neil

About Michael O'Neil

Hi, thanks for stopping by! A couple of months ago a student gave me a cap embroidered with the words "Theology Matters." And so it does. I fervently believe that theology must not be an arcane academic pursuit reserved only for a few super-nerdy types. Rather, theology exists for the sake of the church and its mission. It exists to assist ordinary believers read and enact Scripture in authentic ways, together, and in their own locale, as a local body of faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. I love the way reading and studying Scripture and theology has deepened my faith, broadened my vision, enriched my ministry and changed my life. I hope that what you find here might help you along a similar path. A bit about me: I have been married to Monica for over thirty years now and we have served in various pastoral, teaching, missions and leadership roles for the whole of our lives together. We have three incredible adult children who with their partners, are the delight of our lives. For the last few years I have taught theology and overseen the research degrees programme at Vose Seminary in Perth, Western Australia. I also assist Monica in a new church planting endeavour in our city. In 2013 my first book was published: Church as Moral Community: Karl Barth’s Vision of Christian Life, 1915-1922 (Milton Keynes: Paternoster). I can say that without a doubt, it is the very best book I have ever written and well worth a read!

Theology as Discipleship 1

Books, , , ,

Keith Johnson’s Theology as Discipleship arose from his work in the classroom in which students sometimes asked concerning the value and relevance of theological study. His response is to “argue that the discipline of theology and a life of discipleship to Jesus Christ are integrally related because the practice of theology is one of the ways we participate in the life of the triune God” (12). His argument unfolds over seven chapters, beginning in the first with a historical narrative to explain how Christian theology became separated from Christian faith and the life of the church and discipleship; that is, it became subject to canons of thought and presuppositions alien to its own confession. In the early centuries of Christianity the context of theology was the church, and its practice was related to pastoral and devotional concerns, and faithful life in the world. The presupposed connection between theology and discipleship began slowly to change, however, during the medieval period when the discipline of theology became part of the university curriculum. This change accelerated in the modern era as the role of the university and what counted as academic learning evolved.

Theologians felt pressure to justify their conclusions according to the academic criteria that governed the university. This meant that rather than starting with faith—which might distort their ability to assess evidence rationally—they had to begin with universally accepted premises and employ the methods of critical reason. No longer could they appeal to the authority of the Bible or the church’s tradition to defend their claims (29).

This pressure intensified as modernity progressed, and Johnson notes a further shift that occurred with Schleiermacher, who argued that theologians should “demonstrate that the church’s practices are a ‘necessary element for the development of the human spirit,’” and that they should employ a genuinely deliberative character in their work (30, citing Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, 10-11, 97). Theologians must now be scholars in addition to saints, and their work was not simply for the church but for the welfare of the modern state, and so they were accountable not only to the church but also to the university. The best theologians had always engaged other disciplines, seeking to draw them into the intellectual framework of Christian faith. Now the direction of engagement shifted: “Theologians interacted with these same disciplines not in order to reframe them in light of their faith but to secure theology’s place in the academy alongside every other discipline” (31).

Formerly, theologians had pursued theological training in order to acquire knowledge, habits and skills that would shape them into the pattern of Jesus Christ for the sake of their service to the church. … Now, with the discipline of theology housed primarily in the university, the primary goal of theological education was to provide students with the technical skills they needed to perform responsible critical enquiry so that the church’s faith and practice could be brought in line with the standards of critical reason (31-32).

Thus Johnson proposes that theology begin with its own distinctive confession—the lordship of Jesus Christ according to Romans 10:9—and work itself out from there in accordance with its own rationality and in dialogue with other disciplines. In Johnson’s view theology must be both faithful and academic; to require a division between these is to misunderstand the nature and practice of theological inquiry. The remainder of the book is his attempt to view the discipline in this light.

Scripture on Sunday – 1 Samuel 8:1-5

Scripture, ,

Read 1 Samuel 8:1-5

Samuel is old, has been judge in Israel for many years, and has gained the respect and affection of the people. But now in his old age, it appears that Samuel makes a critical mistake: He appoints his two sons Joel and Abijah as judges in his place. Until now we have heard nothing of Samuel’s personal circumstances, and still know nothing really of his wife and family. But now, in addition to their names, we know something else about his sons: they “do not walk in his ways,” but seeking to enrich themselves, took bribes and perverted the course of justice (vv. 3, 5).

Why has Samuel done this? Why has he appointed and retained his sons as judges in his place, especially when they prove unworthy of the role? Having seen what happened with Eli and his sons, is Samuel now to repeat the same mistake? Was there no one else he could appoint? At least Eli reprimanded his sons; there is no indication in the text that Samuel did the same.

Several questions arise, the first concerning, once more, the responsibilities of parenthood, or more generally, human nature in general. We saw in chapter two that God held Eli responsible for the behaviour of his sons, perhaps due to his failure to step them down from their priestly duties, given their disqualifying behaviours. It may not be Eli as parent but Eli as leader that has failed. Here, too, however, Samuel’s sons walk awry, interested more in personal gain than in fair dealing, justice, and public service. We know that Samuel is seen as possessing utmost integrity; has he somehow failed to pass this on to his children, nurturing in them the qualities so evident in himself? Or is this simply another instance of the wayward nature of human being itself, that when, given the opportunity of personal gain at the expense of others, many will prove willing to act corruptly?

A second question concerns the nature of hereditary offices, and whether nepotism invariably leads to the kind of corruption portrayed here. There is, actually, no real sense in which this was an act of nepotism by Samuel. Murphy, in fact, rejects this idea, arguing instead that in the kind of pre-state, segmentary, tribal culture that characterised pre-monarchical Israel it was natural that sons be appointed to the positions occupied by their fathers. Further, she observes, the elders who come to Samuel do not complain that Samuel appointed his sons per se, but that the sons, “do not walk in your ways” (v. 5). It was not that Samuel made his sons judges, but rather that the sons have become the kinds of judges that they have (Murphy, 62). This important observation will help lift this text beyond the kind of moralism that arises when the question of parenting is emphasised. 1 Samuel, after all, is about how the decentralised tribal society seen in Judges became a nation around a centralised monarchy.

Even so, the question concerning hereditary offices does not go away. The elders who come to Samuel are asking for a king: another form of hereditary office, which again indicates that it was not the appointment of Samuel’s sons which was itself the issue. Nevertheless,

The attitude toward kingship seen throughout the somewhat inglorious history of the monarchy is one of unresolved tension, and that tension is reflected in the ambiguity here. On the one hand, particularly in the Psalms, the monarchy is viewed very positively; it was a God-given gift. The king was God’s representative on earth, able to lead the people in their service of God and reflect God to them, helping them to understand his character and purposes. On the other hand, Samuel and certain of the prophets saw the monarchy as a rejection of God and his kingly rule; the king stood between the people and God, drawing their allegiance to himself and away from God. In this view, the monarchy was neither necessary nor useful for the life of God’s covenant people (Evans, 57).

The Scripture itself, according to Evans, does not resolve the question of the hereditary office, but it does provide perspectives that help us think about the question, and about the nature of Christian leadership in general. To the extent that the king exercised his authority in a priestly manner, directing the people toward God and representing God’s character and purpose to the people, it is affirmed. To the extent, however, that the king aggrandises himself and pursues his own will to the detriment of God’s purposes both for himself and for the people, his leadership is rejected. Samuel’s sons did not “walk in his ways,” and on these grounds are rejected. Nor is the fault Samuel’s: they are responsible for their actions.

The Sinlessness of Jesus 4: Karl Barth

Theology, , ,

Karl Barth approaches this question not as an issue to be explored in and for itself, but as part of his discussion of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God. Specifically, his treatment comes in Church Dogmatics I/2, section 15.2 “The Mystery of Revelation: Very God and Very Man.” Barth’s exposition in this subsection is a meditation on John 1:14 “the Word became flesh,” and in this portion specifically (15.2.ii; pp. 147-159), Barth is considering what is meant when Scripture speaks of the divine word becoming flesh.

That the Word was made “flesh” means first and generally that He became man, true and real man, participating in the same human essence and existence, the same human nature and form, the same historicity that we have. God’s revelation to us takes place in such a way that everything ascribable to man, his creaturely existence as an individually unique unity of body and soul in the time between birth and death, can now be predicated of God’s eternal Son as well (147).

For Barth, the Johannine phrase means first and primarily that the Word became “participant in human nature and existence”; that is, in the humanitas by which humanity is distinguished as human as opposed to God, angel, or animal (149). Since, however, human “nature” cannot be real in an abstract sense but only in the concrete reality of an actual person, the Word became not simply “flesh” but an existing person, a single individual, the man Jesus Christ. “Thus the reality of Jesus Christ is that God Himself in person is actively present in the flesh. God Himself in person is the Subject of a real human being and acting” (151).

Barth goes further, however, to consider the nature or quality, as it were, of the “flesh” that the Word appropriated:

But what the New Testament calls σάρξ [sarx, “flesh”] includes not only the concept of man in general but also, assuming and including the general concept, the narrower concept of the man who is liable to the judgment and verdict of God, who having become incapable of knowing and loving God must incur the wrath of God, whose existence has become one exposed to death because he has sinned against God. Flesh is the concrete form of human nature marked by Adam’s fall … The Word is not only the eternal Word of God but “flesh” as well, i.e., all that we are and exactly like us even in our opposition to him. It is because of this that He makes contact with us and is accessible for us (151).

Here Barth argues at some length from both Scripture and the history of theology, that the Word became “fallen flesh,” that is, he partook of fallen human nature. “He was not a sinful man. But inwardly and outwardly His situation was that of a sinful man. He did nothing that Adam did. But He lived life in the form it must take on the basis and assumption of Adam’s act” (152). This is precisely what Donald Macleod cannot and will not say. For Barth, though, this is a key distinguishing feature between Christianity and other religions both ancient and modern, which also include instances and concepts of incarnation. In Christian faith, God did not merely become human, and did not come as a hero figure—something found in the other religions, but took the nature identical to ours in the light of the Fall (153).

But this is necessary not simply as an apologetic point. More important is the fact that if the Word has not come to us—actually come all the way to us—then we still reside in the darkness, untouched by the light which has come into the world and which, shining in the darkness, enlightens every person (John 1:5, 9), untouched by revelation and reconciliation. God’s Son has come all the way to us, not only assuming our nature but entering “the concrete form of our nature, under which we stand before God as men damned and lost” (153). Only thus can Christ be “like us” and so represent us before God.

True, the Word assumes our human existence, assumes flesh, i.e., He exists in the state and position, amid the conditions, under the curse and punishment of sinful man. He exists in the place where we are, in all the remoteness not merely of the creature from the creator, but of the sinful creature from the Holy Creator. Otherwise His action would not be a revealing, a reconciling action. He would always be for us an alien word. He would not find us or touch us. For we live in that remoteness. . . . Therefore in our state and condition He does not do what underlies and produces that state and condition, or what we in that state and condition continually do. Our unholy human existence, assume and adopted by the Word of God, is a hallowed and therefore a sinless human existence; in our unholy human existence the eternal Word draws near to us . . . supremely and helpfully near to us (155-156).

Thus although the Word came in sinful flesh, he did not do what we in the flesh do; he committed no sin. Again Barth turns to Scripture, this time to Romans 8:3, to argue that there

In the likeness of flesh (unholy flesh, marked by sin), there happens the unlike, the new and helpful thing, that sin is condemned by not being committed, by being omitted, by full obedience now being found in the very place where otherwise sin necessarily and irresistibly takes place. The meaning of the incarnation is that now in the flesh that is not done which all flesh does (156).

Jesus Christ did not sin, and it was impossible actually that he could for, as we have already noted above, in Christ “God Himself in person is the Subject of a real human being and acting” (151). God is the subject of this genuinely human life, something Barth will go on to explore and exposit in the following paragraphs.

Finally, Barth goes as far as to identify what constitutes Jesus’ sinlessness: standing where we stand in the state and position of fallen humanity Jesus bears the divine wrath which must fall upon sinful humanity.

He judged sin in the flesh by recognising the order of reconciliation, i.e., put in a sinner’s position He bowed to the divine verdict and commended Himself solely to the grace of God. That is His hallowing, His obedience, His sinlessness. Thus it does not consist in an ethical heroism, but precisely in a renunciation of any heroism, including the ethical. He is sinless not in spite of, but just because of His being the friend of publicans and sinners and His dying between the malefactors. . . . This is the revelation of God in Christ. For where man admits his lost state and lives entirely by God’s mercy—which no man did, but only the God-Man Jesus Christ has done—God Himself is manifest (157-158).

Several things are clear in Barth’s exposition. First, he adopts an Alexandrian christology in which the Word assumes human nature, though he goes beyond what the Fathers taught by insisting that it is a fallen human nature. Second, he understands Jesus’ sinlessness as the New Testament portrays it: the fact that Jesus did not sin, rather than in terms of an ontological sinlessness located in sinless flesh. Third, his exposition is shaped by his commitment to the priority of divine grace in salvation, and indeed his exposition serves the proclamation of the gospel of grace, for there is no place here for a Pelagian moral heroism, or for works-righteousness. Rather, the way of Christ as presented by Barth, is the way of salvation for all: a humbling acknowledgement and acceptance of the right of divine justice by which we are condemned as sinners—slain by the word of divine judgement, and yet marvellously and miraculously raised by the mercy of God into the newness of life.

Jesus did not run from the state and situation of fallen humanity, nor seek to bargain with God about the justice or otherwise of his situation, nor sought to improve his situation through his own attempts at moral goodness, but bowed under the divine judgement, and bore it “in solidarity with us to the uttermost,” so that there was done which we do not do: the will of God” (158).

Neo-Marxism & Christian Hope

Culture, , , ,

Matthew Rose’s “Our Secular Theodicy” over at First Things is well worth reading. It explores the message and legacy of Ernst Bloch, a German philosopher of hope often cited by Moltmann in his work. Here are a few citations:

Bloch is a guide into the concealed theology of contemporary liberalism, whose outlook remains profoundly, if paradoxically, biblical in one respect. Having rejected a Christian understanding of nature, it retains an intensely Christian understanding of history. It sees human history as goal-oriented and our advancement as a series of conversions and liberations, the outcome of which is the creation of a community that can redeem our fallen history…

Theodicy is the attempt to justify the goodness and providence of God in view of the reality of evil. Bloch is engaged in theodicy, too, but of a much different kind. His theodicy is humanistic. It is an attempt to make sense of humanity in view of its apparently senseless history. Only by creating a just community, Bloch posits, can we vindicate past and present injustices. Hope gives us the strength to undertake this massive, world-justifying responsibility. It refuses the limitations of the visibly possible and rebels with the conviction that a radically different way of life is attainable. Hope is therefore not the power to wait patiently for a home in eternity; it is the daring power to create a true and lasting home here on earth. Aquinas named this the vice of presumption, but for Bloch it is the one thing needful…

To my knowledge, Bloch is the only philosopher to have used Jesus to defend outright atheism. . . . According to Bloch, however, Jesus achieves a lasting victory in his error and defeat. Through his life and death, this ill-fated Spartacus becomes the savior of humanity—not by reconciling humanity to God, but by freeing humanity from God. Bloch arrived at this remarkable conclusion by interpreting the Bible as the story of the awakening of human autonomy and its rebellion against all forms of oppression…

Bloch saw Christianity as the most revolutionary movement in human history. It opened the way to political goals that could not otherwise be discovered, creating what Immanuel Kant called the “immanent expectation” of “the victory of good over evil.” The God of the Bible offered humanity the saving hope of liberation from captivity. In doing so, however, God gave us the keys to his holy kingdom. We learned that we are meant, in Bloch’s words, to “walk upright.” And this subversive imperative leads believers to take leave of God in the name of God.

A Prayer on Sunday

Spirituality
Girl at Prayer William Henry Hunt from Wikigallery.org

Creator Lord, who reconciled us to yourself by the death and resurrection of your Son, and made with us an eternal covenant; grant that we may show in our lives what we profess with our lips, to your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(An Australian Prayer Book, 60)

The Word & Work of God

Theology, ,

As Barth considers the eternal will of God in the election of Jesus Christ, he notes in passing that,

The very best of the older theologians have taught us that in the word which calls and justifies and sanctifies us, the word which forms the content of the biblical witness, we must recognise in all seriousness the Word of God. Beside and above and behind this Word there is none other. To this Word then we have good cause to hold fast both for time and eternity. This Word binds us to itself both for time and eternity, and in it all our confidence must be placed. This Word does not allow us to go beyond it. It allows us no other view of God or man than that which it reveals itself. It focusses all our thoughts upon this view and keeps them focussed there. It warns us against any distraction. This Word alone must satisfy all our questioning because it alone can do so. The work of God is revealed in this Word in its totality, being there revealed in such a way that there can be no depth of the knowledge of the divine work except in God’s Word, and the knowledge of the divine work cannot lead us to any depth which is not that of God’s Word (Church Dogmatics II/2, 150).

Barth is here arguing against speculative doctrines of divine election that begin elsewhere than with the revelation of God given in Jesus Christ. How can we truly understand the divine work if we turn from the place where God has made himself known: Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in holy scripture. When Barth says, “Word of God” we do well to keep in mind that he refers to both the Living and the Written Word in their mutual relation.

Of interest to me was the last sentence in the above citation, which provides a hermeneutical and methodological principle: The work of God is revealed in this Word in its totality, being there revealed in such a way that there can be no depth of the knowledge of the divine work except in God’s Word, and the knowledge of the divine work cannot lead us to any depth which is not that of God’s Word.

It is not uncommon to speak with Christians who adhere, for example, to the word of Jesus but who do so in a way at odds with the life and work of Jesus. Nor is it uncommon to speak with Christians who seek to follow in some aspect of the way and ethos of Jesus but do so in a way at odds with his teaching. For Barth, Jesus Christ is the criterion of all knowledge of God, but Jesus Christ as both the word and the work of God. No separation is permissible here, nor any division on the one side or the other. It may be that the emphasis falls now at this point, and then at another. It is likely that theological reflection leading to faith and work will alternate back and forth between the two, allowing both the Word of God and the work of God to mutually inform one another, but always with a precedence given to the Word which binds us to itself, and to and by which we also are bound.

Scripture on Sunday – 1 Samuel 7:3-17

Scripture, , ,

Read 1 Samuel 7:3-17

In verse three Samuel reappears in the narrative, having been out of the picture since chapter 4:1, and out of the picture for perhaps as long as twenty years. After their devastating loss to the Philistines Israel was indeed impoverished, and subject at least, to Philistine power. During this time Samuel continued to grow, not only in years but in his call, service, maturity, and reputation. Samuel was a prophet-judge, a circuit judge “bringing justice and encouraging worship” on an annual basis in the region where he served (Evans, 54). The four cities mentioned—Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah and Ramah—are all centrally located a little south of Shiloh.

But Samuel appears to have done more than become a localised prophet or judge. In verse three he is addressing “all the house of Israel,” with a call to repentance that includes a rejection of idolatry. In the pre-exilic period of Israel’s history idolatry was a perennial issue, a form of religious-cultural syncretism, in which Israel were not whole-hearted in their devotion to God. Samuel confronts this attitude head-on:

If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

To the modern western mind, the idea of idolatry is curious if not foolish, primitive and superstitious. But the ancient Israelites were simply adapting themselves to the surrounding cultures, adopting their mores and religious values, and the promise of security that they brought. Seen in this light, idolatry is not simply the worship of wood and stone statues, but seeking one’s security in and setting one’s heart on anything other than the one God. Samuel will have none of it. True repentance will be indicated by the sole devotion of their hearts toward God; there is no place here for a divided heart.

True repentance, and true religion, are matters of the heart. This is understood in the Old Testament as the defining and motivating centre of human personality. It is this centre, as representing the whole, which is to “return” to the Lord in full and sole devotion. “For human beings,” says Murphy, “monotheism is never just a theory, but a decision” (52). And if Israel will do this, Samuel promises, God will deliver them from the power of the Philistines.

Samuel, it seems, has managed unify Israel, or at least gathered them in unity to Mizpah. The prophet-judge is in this sense also a prophet-general, a military as well as juridical and religious leader, as was common with a number of earlier judges. The gathered people confess their sins and make an offering to the Lord.

What happens next is difficult to describe. There is both a military confrontation and a divine intervention. Or it may be that the divine intervention was through the military confrontation. Murphy suggests,

What happens in the story theologically is that ‘the Lord thunders’ against the Philistines and throws them into terrified flight; what happens humanly is that all the tribes act as one; and these two, the human and the theological, occur simultaneously (53).

All the focus of the narrative is on Samuel and his action. Samuel does not fight; he prays and sacrifices, and God hears and answers his prayer. Certainly Israel fights and pursues; certainly God superintends and gives deliverance. Yet it is Samuel’s leadership, his wholehearted and single-minded devotion to God which calls, inspires, and gathers Israel, and acts as a lightning rod of divine presence in the face of imminent threat and crisis.

There is no doubt that this was a significant military victory: the power of Philistia over the Israelites was decisively beaten for the whole period of Samuel’s life. More significantly, it was a crucial stage along the road of Israel’s national and religious development. Through the force of Samuel’s example, spirituality, and leadership Israel, emerging from a period of terrible defeat and oppression, was becoming unified as one people devoted to one God.

2018 Australian Theology Conferences

Theology

Two Australian theology conferences have released their Calls for Papers. The 2018 ANZATS Conference is scheduled for July 1-4 in Brisbane, and is themed “Sacrifice.” The Karl Barth Study Group will meet again at this Conference for our fourth time.

Shortly after that, the 2018 Theology Connect Conference is scheduled for July 13-14 in Sydney. Its theme is “Sin and Grace in Christian Theology.”

And then shortly after that, Vose Seminary is conducting a conference with Wisdom Literature specialist, Tremper Longman – details to follow shortly! But save the date: August 28-29, 2018.

Martin “Eleutherius” Luther

Theology, ,

I learnt a great deal while preparing my paper for the recent Luther@500 Conference at Vose Seminary. None of it was original, of course, but a harvesting of the fruits of others’ scholarship informing my own engagement with Luther’s writings. The point most significant for me was the dawning recognition that Martin Luther was not always Martin Luther. This is one of those “obvious” facts, that sits on the edge of awareness but then the penny drops.

I had known that young Martin was born to Hans and Margarete Luder. In biographies and other Reformation sources, the family name is always applied to Luther’s parents. Yet, somehow, I had never gone on to ask the question, How and when and why did Martin Luder become Martin Luther?

In my research it became clear that the change had already occurred by the time Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses, for the superscription for the Theses uses the name, although spelt Lutther. Whether this was intentional or a printer’s mistake in the facsimile I examined, I do not know. We know, too, that Luther sent a copy of his Theses to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz on October 31, 1517, in the name of “Luther” (see Wengert, ed., The Annotated Luther Volume 1:The Roots of Reform, 34, 47-55). Bernard Lohse suggests that this was the first time that Luder adopted and used this name (Martin Luther’s Theology, 101).

Historians note that it was not unusual for humanists to adopt a Greek form of their name to produce a scholarly pseudonym. For example, the brilliant young humanist Philip Schwarzerd, who entered the University of Heidelberg at the tender age of twelve, is better known by his Greek name: Philip Melanchthon (Evans, The Roots of the Reformation, 273).

Around this time Luther also began using a Greek name when he signed his letters: eleutherius – the free one. Heinz Schilling suggests that as Luder’s work took him out of the academy and into the world of the common folk among whom the Greek name would be meaningless, “he preserved a reminder of the freedom that was at the heart of reformed theology: the central th in the Greek form of his name was carried over into his family name. Martin Luder became Martin Luther” (Martin Luther: Rebel in an Age of Upheaval, 139).

It is possible that Luther wanted to change his name for other reasons. Marcus Wriedt suggests that “Luder” bore the connotation as such words as ‘dirt’ or ‘garbage’ (“Luther’s Theology,” in Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, 86). Whether in the sixteenth century the word had the colloquial connotations it does in the modern period—i.e. as a reference to a “common” woman considered an immoral “hussy”—I cannot say.

What is significant, I believe, is that Luther used his new name—indicative of a new identity?—in his first foray into the public sphere with the new theology that he had been developing and teaching at the Wittenberg University for several years. In his letter addressed to Albrecht, and in his Ninety-Five Theses, Luther was identifying as one freed by Christ and the gospel; freed from scholastic theology, freed from the fear of judgement, freed in order to help others find similar freedom.

Luther’s very name is itself testimony to the heart of his theological and pastoral vision: a theology of freedom issuing from the free grace of the free God who makes his people free. Scott Hendrix concurs: “From this point on [here, 1521], freedom for Luther meant living bound to Christ, and that freedom made him much more than a protester against indulgences or a critic of the pope. Now he was a man with a larger vision of what religion could be and a mission to realize that vision by making other people free” (Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer, 115).

Of course, Luther’s freedom is the paradoxical freedom of the one who has been found and bound in Christ. This is worlds away from libertarian concepts of personal and individual autonomy common today. It is the freedom of one so free they become free even from themselves, even from their own will to be free: they become servants of Christ and of others. This is the genius of Luther’s little tractate The Freedom of a Christian.