By their fruit...

Those who insist that it is unfair to link the fruit of a professedly Christian life with the theology that life hews to should examine Scripture more closely. Our Lord and Saviour said, "By their fruit ye shall know them."

Moreover, modern claimants to Luther's mantle would do well to read his writings more closely if they fail to understand that indictment of doctrine in light of the fruit it produces is also an essentially Lutheran form of argument. Time after time Luther links the corrupt fruit of Roman lives to the poverty of Roman doctrine. He is not gentle, nor does he mince words in attacking the sins of his opponents.

This is true Lutheranism, friends, to insist on linkage between what is believed and fruit in the believer's life. Those who are offended that I would question LCMS doctrine on the basis of the fruit it produces in LCMS lives fail to understand that this is precisely the method of discernment our Lord urges upon us in Matthew's Gospel and precisely the method of discernment between true and false faith Luther urges upon his followers:

"Insist on it, then, that inwardly, in the spirit, before God, man is justified through faith alone, without all work but outwardly and publicly, before the people and himself, he is justified through works, that is, he thereby becomes known and certain himself that he honestly believes and is pious. Therefore you may call the one a public justification, and the other an inward justification, but in this sense that the public justification is only a fruit, a result, and a proof of the justification in the heart. Accordingly, man is not justified by it before God but must previously be justified before Him. Just so you may call the fruits of the tree the obvious goodness of the tree, which follows and proves its inner, natural goodness.

"This is what St. James means in his Epistle when he says (2:26): 'Faith without works is dead,' that is, the fact that works do not follow is a certain sign that there is no faith, but a dead thought and dream, which people falsely call faith." --What Luther Says, vol.3, pp.1231, 1232.

I'm afraid I stand by my previous post, despite the pain it has caused some. The LCMS law-gospel antithesis may make for brilliant scholastic expositions, but it does not tend practically toward that holiness in believers without which they will not see God.

I make this observation on the basis of Lutheran teaching and practice in regard to the first table of the law buttressed by my observations of Lutheran practice in regard to the second table of the law. Yes, anecdotal in regard to the second table of the law, but true nonetheless ...

http://www.lilbl.org/php/teams.php?team_id=2
http://www.trinityhicksville.org/bballcal.htm
http://www.lilbl.org/php/schedule.php
http://web.csp.edu/bulletin/042004/04282004.html