The Foolishness of God

Martin Luther's Theology of Resurrection

(avg. read time: 9–17 mins.)

This one might not be as extensive as you might expect based on my posts on the Apostolic Fathers who have left considerably fewer writings pertinent to the subject of resurrection than Martin Luther has (see here for these posts and others on the subject). There are three reasons for this. One, this is based on a paper I wrote years ago for a summer class, and I had to work with restrictions on word count that many of my more recent writings do not abide by. Two, similarly because of its timing and restrictions, I have not tried to expand its scope here with a more comprehensive survey like I have tried to do for early Christian writings in preparation for more expanded work for books. Three, I have no plans to include Martin Luther’s works in any capacity beyond referring to his biblical commentaries and lectures in any of the books I have planned to write about resurrection. If ever my wish to write the seven-volume series on the NT is fulfilled, I would like to see if I could extend the investigation further in two volumes on the early Christians and on medieval Christianity, if possible. But that will be the furthest I would be able to go in such a project as I would like to work on. For all my interest in the Reformation era and beyond, it will simply be too much to do such an analysis for such a broad range of primary literature and ever-burgeoning secondary literature. With all that said, let us turn our attention to the subject at hand.

Though Paul originally applied the phrase translated as “the foolishness of God” to the crucifixion of Jesus (1 Cor 1:25), the phrase also encapsulates how Martin Luther often spoke of the intertwined articles of faith of the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead on the Last Day. When Luther referred to the doctrine of resurrection, it seems he usually meant the specific resurrection of Jesus, but sometimes he also included the resurrection of the faithful ones in the referent. This ambiguity is actually essential to Luther’s resurrection theology because even though the two resurrections are distinct, they are not strictly separate. By virtue of faith, believers share in the seeming foolishness of God. Hope in the midst of circumstances completely to the contrary—as resurrection hope is—would seem to be quintessential foolishness. According to Luther, this impression captures the essence of Christian faith regarded from a worldly standpoint. In order to obtain a brief introductory glimpse of how Luther understood this essential element of the Christian faith, this analysis considers the contextual background in which Luther made his proclamations of resurrection, the themes of his resurrection theology, and the significance it has for contemporary Christians.

Background

It is important to have some understanding of the background in which Luther proclaimed the hope of resurrection. Medical and agricultural crises were common before and during the sixteenth century as food shortages and plagues such as the bubonic plague and syphilis (not to mention the everyday medical problems) combined to make death an ever-present reality and ever-present threat.¹ In Luther’s lifetime, one noteworthy case of the pressing threat of death (besides the threat posed by Catholic persecutors) was a plague hitting the town of Wittenburg in July 1535 as he was commencing his lectures on Genesis (which may have contributed to Luther making his several references to the resurrection in the course of these lectures).² In this context, the Church often addressed the subject of death and being prepared for it because there was a keen sense of immediacy to the concern that one could be dead the next morning. As but a few examples, Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, Dietrich Kolde’s Mirror for Christians, and John Tetzel’s preaching each, in their different ways, treated the subject of being prepared for death. Death represented the day of accounting before God and since it could come at any time, it was important to communicate that today is the day of salvation and one should have one’s life in such an order that the prospect of judgment holds at least less fear.

One particularly significant aspect of this situation (which Tetzel especially utilizes in his preaching) was the development of the doctrine of purgatory. In the event that one was not prepared well enough for the day of accounting—and it seemed that the majority of people were not—but was not sinful enough to be sent to hell, purgatory would be that person’s abode until such time as he/she had been purged of his/her sinfulness, carrying out the process of sanctification to the other side of death.³ With this development, the resurrection of the dead was not generally rejected—there was still an expectation that the souls of the dead would be reunited with their bodies at the resurrection—but it was de-emphasized so that purgatory, the more immediate concern for a sanctification-driven soteriology, came to the forefront.⁴

While initially Luther only confronted the extension of the doctrine of purgatory that was the selling of indulgences, he eventually rejected the doctrine as a whole.⁵ For Luther, purgatory was tied to the framework of works righteousness and having the believer depend on his/her works rather than on the promises of God. His focus in terms of post-mortem reality and the hope of the believer was thus the resurrection of the dead through the resurrection of Christ. The believer only needed to accept the promises of resurrection by faith. Luther’s commitment to proclaiming the articles of the resurrection of Christ and of the rest of the dead crystallized Luther’s paradigm of salvation by grace alone through faith alone.⁶

Themes in Luther’s Resurrection Theology

In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 15, Luther writes of Paul that he “is able to speak about this article at such length because his heart is filled with it and he is so convinced of it that he regards all else as nothing by comparison.”⁷ One could also speak of Luther in this way. Because he made so many references to resurrection throughout his tenure, several themes developed in his resurrection theology.

First, as the title of this study indicates, he spoke on multiple occasions of the idea of resurrection as being utter foolishness to the world.⁸ It is contrary to worldly reason in the sense of violating induction by collective human experience.⁹ There have been stories of temporary resurrections that some have seen or heard of, only some in a certain time saw the risen Jesus, but the world as a whole has seen death constantly and knows that whatever is dead tends to stay dead. Of course, Christian belief in resurrection accepts this observation as an axiom, otherwise it would not be necessary for God to step in and overcome death. But, according to Luther, this step of faith was too much for many in his day.¹⁰ At the same time, it is interesting to note in his Schmalkald Articles (1537) that he cites the resurrection of Christ and the dead as grounds of agreement between Protestants and Catholics.¹¹

When Luther claimed that resurrection was against worldly reason, he did so as a way of upholding the foolishness of God, putting the wisdom of the world to shame. Whoever would come to God could not ultimately come by reason (which, on the subject of death, gives death the last word), but must have faith in his Word that transcends reason.¹² It is, after all, the same Word which declared Jesus alive while he was yet in the grave.¹³ One cannot claim to have faith in the Word of God without also believing in the resurrection. Similarly, the same God was at work in creation transforming a clod of dirt and a bone into the masterpieces of Adam and Eve.¹⁴ One cannot claim to believe God is the Creator without believing he can (and will) also resurrect the dead.

These points lead into a second prominent theme of the link between resurrection and the Word of God. Because both groups have accepted the testimony of the Word of God, Old and New Testament believers share a common hope.¹⁵ The promises of the Word of God always pointed forward to Jesus, his resurrection, and the resurrection of his faithful ones; the New Testament believers simply have greater clarity that such is the case. In his commentary on 1 Cor 15, particularly the first eleven verses, it is noteworthy that while Paul’s emphasis is on the gospel message he brought to Corinth and the witnesses to it (namely, the resurrection), Luther focuses on the fact of the Word’s testimony to the resurrection (vv. 3–4) being central to Paul’s message here. Along with other reasons for his “Logo-centrism,” Luther makes preaching the Word of God central to his understanding of the mission of the Church because preaching this Word is the means of transmitting both faith and hope through its content. To preach the Word of God and to carry on the tradition of the apostles in doing so necessarily means preaching the resurrection of Christ, the basis of the Christian’s own resurrection.¹⁶ Belief in resurrection is tied to belief in the total Word of God and not a particular historical event per se (though Luther, of course, believes the resurrection is a historical event).¹⁷ He thus takes God’s revelation as a totality in that one cannot believe in the resurrection without believing in the Word and vice versa. Given the citation of witnesses in 1 Cor 15, Luther states that the doctrine of the resurrection must be believed based on both reliable experience (namely, the apostolic experience) and reliable Scripture.¹⁸ It should be clear, however, on which leg Luther puts the most weight.

Third, Luther is keen to emphasize that the doctrine of resurrection is the chief doctrine of the Christian faith, its sine qua non. He most succinctly states this point in his commentary on 1 Cor 15: “If my belief is not correct, the Word, too, must be false. If the Word is incorrect, the preacher, too, must be incorrect. Therefore God, too, who sends the preachers, must be a false god. But if He is false, He is not God.”¹⁹ At other times, though, that title belongs to justification by grace alone through faith alone.²⁰ David Scaer explains this dialectic in stating that the resurrection is the chief doctrine “so far as the truth content and value of Christianity is concerned; justification, so far as the personal appropriation and assurance of salvation is concerned.”²¹

There are reasons why resurrection and justification are interchangeable at this foundational level. Christ arose from the dead in order to overcome death, rescue his faithful ones from death, and enable them to have eternal life with him.²² Reconciliation occurs through Jesus’s death and resurrection, and the latter also provides assurance that the reconciliation did in fact take place.²³ In some texts, Luther simply states that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is for justification by faith (Rom 4:25).²⁴ This relationship is embodied in the sacrament of baptism as Luther stated, “There are two things which baptism signifies, namely, death and resurrection, i.e., the fulfilling and completion of justification.”²⁵ Similarly, the fruit of justification—sanctification—is also brought to completion in the resurrection as the believer is made perfectly “spiritual” (i.e., perfectly aligned to and conformed by the work of the Spirit).²⁶ At that time, believers will truly live by the breath of life given to them at creation as what they lost in the Fall is restored and yet more is given to them as they live with God forevermore.²⁷ In these ways and others, one can see how the resurrection of Christ (and consequently of believers) is the foundation on which the Christian faith rests. As Luther would say, thanks be to God then that the Word of the One who cannot lie testifies to the truth of the resurrection, for in this testimony the Christian faith has a sure foundation.

From this sure footing, Luther finds a platform on which to articulate his fourth theme: addressing suffering unto death and having hope in the midst of it all. Since death was an ever-present threat, there was a tendency towards the fear of death (especially since it held the prospect of having to give an account before God of one’s life). During his lectures on Hebrews—around the time he was beginning his critique of the sale of indulgences—Luther insists that there is nothing to fear in death for the Christian and that one who does fear is not a Christian in the fullest sense, because that person does not have sufficient faith in the resurrection.²⁸ Furthermore, the fear of an evil death—a death in which one faced the wrong side of God’s judgment—means one does not have enough faith in the sacrifice of Christ. Later in his career, Luther would change his tone somewhat as he focused more on the comfort the believer can find in Christ’s paradigm of cross and resurrection.

In this world filled with suffering and death, it is much easier to see the crucified Christ than the resurrected Christ. Indeed, because of sin, humans are infected with death from birth so that this life is a prolonged death.²⁹ But this problem makes it all the more important to remember that the crucified Christ became the resurrected Christ.³⁰ Affliction must always precede comfort and the empty cross must precede the empty tomb.³¹ In the same way, the promises of life and salvation with the forgiveness of sins (i.e., resurrection) proceed from the cross. Suffering and enduring in faithfulness until the end are appropriations of the reality of the resurrection and the ways through which resurrection will come to fruition for the believer. The believer can expect to be assailed to the uttermost, especially by the Anfechtungen. These powerful temptations are an attack on the Christian’s spirit, giving them “the fear of eternal death, of becoming partners of the devil in the abyss of hell” by instilling the worry that the believer is not pious enough in the end.³² The only cure to this existential anxiety—and the sin and death which ultimately cause it—is the resurrection and its appropriation in the believer by faith.³³ In the meantime, the believer can take comfort in the fact that the resurrection is more than half-over since Christ, the Head of the body of the Church, has risen already so that the last vestige of death is only a deep sleep removed by the awakening of resurrection.³⁴

In light of this sustaining hope, Luther adduces his fifth theme of the implications of the resurrection for how one should live. In view of the eschatological reality of glorified bodies in the resurrection, believers should be inspired to live into those bodies in the bodies they have now.³⁵ What this overarching image means is determined by the fact that the glorified body will be the body in which the believer is fully conformed to the image of Christ. The nature of resurrection hope in the future and its anticipation in the present is participation in Christ.³⁶ This framework gives all other sub-themes their proper setting.

One aspect of this theme involves a profound change of perspective and of the dynamics of one’s relationship to the world. Luther used the language of Christus Victor to describe Jesus’s encounter with the powers of the world (especially death), the same powers who try to sow the seeds of the Anfechtungen in believers in the present time.³⁷ This victory over the powers occurs in each believer in that they appropriate the victory of Christ through faith.³⁸ These enemies are not really the Christian’s enemies; they are Christ’s and the Christians’ simply by virtue of being in him.³⁹ While Christians do not yet reign over these powers in the same way as Christ, they are given the grace to participate in his rule in the present era.⁴⁰

Another aspect of this theme is the sacramental appropriation of the resurrection. Baptism derives its entire purpose from the resurrection.⁴¹ In this same vein, baptism encapsulates the life of the believer; one lives into it as he/she matures. Though there is a distinct event of baptism, what was more important for Luther is understanding the Christian life as a daily baptism, begun by a resurrection, identified with resurrection in the present through re-enactment, and fulfilled with resurrection in the eschatological future.⁴² There is a constant death of the old person and the renewal of a new one in the life of each believer.⁴³

Similarly, Luther’s resurrection theology impacts his understanding of the Eucharist. Here he cited Irenaeus (Haer. 4.5.1) to articulate the relationship between Eucharist and resurrection.⁴⁴ That God will save the body of the believer through resurrection is demonstrated by the pledge of the Eucharist in giving the believer the body and blood of Jesus for consumption. The reception of the sacrament, which has both heavenly and earthly dimensions, is essential to transmitting the power of the resurrected Christ and making the earthly body of the believer become infused with heavenly incorruptibility.

The Significance of Luther’s Resurrection Theology for the Contemporary Church

What then are some significant ways in which the contemporary Church can learn from Luther’s treatment of the foundational doctrine of resurrection? First, the ways in which the doctrine of the resurrection is the most essential article of Christian faith need expression. Much of the contemporary Church has often settled for preaching about the importance of the resurrection on Easter but then undermining that importance by referencing it only in an offhanded fashion—if at all—the rest of the year. Luther does well explaining some of the important aspects of resurrection theology, such as in tying it to justification and to the hope of full participation in Christ. Yet, the Church would also do well to go beyond Luther in exploring its importance.

Second, the contemporary Church can learn as much from Luther’s context as from Luther himself on how to have frank, helpful, and open discussions about death in the community at large. Due to more advanced medicine and agricultural technology, it has become easier to increase the average lifespan and seemingly forestall death for longer periods of time. Death has, at least in appearance, tended to lose its immediacy of threat for many people. Counsels along the lines of “live each day as if it were your last” have often lost the meaning they had for someone like Thomas à Kempis and have come to mean to live recklessly, hedonistically, and self-pleasingly. In the preaching of the Church, if death is talked about at all outside of funeral services, it is often exploited in the context of hell-fire preaching (“you might leave here tonight and be hit by a bus” or “if you died today, do you know where you’re going?”) or simply referred to off-handedly as a rite of passage into heaven. Being able to have a good discussion about death and its significance can (and should) lead into discussing the hope of resurrection.

Third, in a context where suffering for one’s faith has been significantly mitigated, the crucified Christ has remained a symbol of substitutionary punishment but has often lost the character of a paradigm. In the same way, the resurrected Christ has become less meaningful as a paradigm. The Church can learn from Luther how to recover these paradigms as well as the crucial narrative of participation in Christ flowing out from them and how to proclaim them frequently. One way of recovering them could be through giving voice to Luther’s notion of Anfechtungen, though a more general engagement of suffering and the hope resurrection offers within it is necessary in any case (also see here).

Fourth, while purgatory has become a less popular subject—even in the Roman Catholic tradition—there is still an analogous obstacle to direct engagement with the hope of resurrection today. Many believers have been taken in by an almost Gnostic narrative of the Christian hope in which that hope is to leave this world and go to heaven to reside for eternity, leaving the body behind while the true self—the soul or spirit—lives on. In this kind of narrative, the resurrection is lost and, if haphazardly added back in as an afterthought, can become simply nonsensical, if not utterly redefined. The preaching, teaching, and action of the Church needs to communicate the scriptural hope of resurrection and hearing the calls of those like Luther can help in this regard.

1. R. Ward Holder, Crisis and Renewal: The Era of the Reformations (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 19.

2. Paul T. McCain, “Luther on the Resurrection: Genesis Lectures, 1535-1546,” Logia 13.4 (October 2004): 35.

3. Holder, Crisis and Renewal, 20.

4. Gerhard Sauter, “Luther on the Resurrection: The Proclamation of the Risen One as the Promise of Our Everlasting Life with God,” trans. Austra Reinis, Lutheran Quarterly 15 (2001): 198.

5. For what he put in place of purgatory, see Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 410–17; Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis Chapters 21-25, Luther's Works 4, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen, trans. Paul D. Pahl (St. Louis: Concordia, 1964), 313.

6. Sauter, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 198–99.

7. Martin Luther, “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15,” 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 15, Lectures on 1 Timothy, Luther’s Works 28, ed. Hilton C. Oswald (St. Louis: Concordia, 1973), 202.

8. Ibid., 59–60; Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, vol. 3, ed. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), 1216–18; Sauter, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 197.

9. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 117–18; David Scaer, “Luther’s Concept of the Resurrection in His Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 47 (1983): 210.

10. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 168 notes that many had resorted to claiming that the resurrection did not involve the body but was simply a “resurrection” of the soul. Luther believed this re-description of death was clearly incompatible with what Scripture actually proclaimed about resurrection. Other examples are the “Epicureans” in Strasbourg and Pietro Pomponazzi, who had argued that the soul perishes when the body does. On these examples, see Richard Marius, Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death (Cambridge: Belknap, 1999), 63, 495.

11. Martin Luther, The Schmalkald Articles, trans. William R. Russell (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 5.

12. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 69, 72.

13. Ibid., 72–73.

14. Ibid., 194–95.

15. Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis Chapters 38-44, Luther's Works 7, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen, trans. Paul D. Pahl (St. Louis: Concordia, 1965), 116; McCain, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 37.

16. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 62, 82; Luther, “1 Peter,” The Catholic Epistles, Luther's Works 30, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen, trans. Martin H. Bertram (St. Louis: Concordia, 1967), 12-13; Sauter, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 197.

17. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 76, 97; Scaer, “Luther’s Concept of the Resurrection,” 213, 216.

18. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 81.

19. Ibid., 95–96.

20. For some references to each, see Ibid., 60, 81; Luther, “1 Peter,” 12–13; Luther, Schmalkald Articles, 5–6; McCain, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 36.

21. Scaer, “Luther’s Concept of the Resurrection,” 214.

22. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 95, 146; Luther, “1 Peter,” 13.

23. Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 211.

24. Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans: Glosses and Scholia, Luther's Works 25, ed. Hilton C. Oswald, trans. Jacob A. O. Preus (St. Louis: Concordia, 1972), 284; Luther, Schmalkald Articles, 5; Luther, What Luther Says, 1218.

25. Martin Luther, “The Pagan Servitude of the Church,” Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 301.

26. Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 67; Luther, “Sermons on the Catechism,” Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 213.

27. McCain, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 35. As Hans-Martin Barth, The Theology of Martin Luther, 392 notes, there is some ambiguity in what Luther expects for the rest of creation as he describes new creation as a renewal but then turns about and describes a new creation ex nihilo.

28. Martin Luther, “Hebrews,” Lectures on Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews, Luther's Works 29, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen, trans. Walter A. Hansen (St. Louis: Concordia, 1968), 137.

29. Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis Chapters 1-5, Luther's Works 1, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, trans. George V. Schick (St. Louis: Concordia, 1958), 191, 196.

30. For more on this interrelationship, see Barth, Theology of Martin Luther, 91–92; McCain, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 40.

31. Luther, “1 Peter,” 11; McCain, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 38.

32. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 103. Also see ibid., 104–5; Sauter, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 201–2.

33. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 206, 208.

34. Ibid., 110.

35. Ibid., 124–26, 171–82, 189–90, 192; Luther Genesis 1-5, 100.

36. Marius, Martin Luther, 112; Sauter, “Luther on the Resurrection,” 203–4.

37. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 134.

38. Althaus, Theology of Martin Luther, 215–16.

39. Luther, “1 Corinthians 15,” 136–37.

40. Ibid., 71, 137–40.

41. Ibid., 148.

42. Althaus, Theology of Martin Luther, 354–59.

43. Ibid., 244–45; Luther, “Pagan Servitude,” 302. For a comparison between Paul and Luther in their emphases on baptism, see Althaus, Theology of Martin Luther, 357–58.

44. Martin Luther, “That These Words of Christ, ‘This is My Body,’ etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics,” Word and Sacrament III, Luther's Works 37, ed. Robert H. Fischer and Helmut T. Lehmann, trans. Robert H. Fischer (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1961), 115–16. Also see Althaus, Theology of Martin Luther, 402; Marius, Martin Luther, 106, 255.