LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

72 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW IX
One word of God is all the words of God; one article is all the articles
and all are one, and when one article is lost, then by the loss of that one
all are lost eventually. For all the articles belong together in one common
chain. 63
In these statements, Luther is asserting that to speak of Christ is to
speak of the whole Gospel: all the doctrines of Scripture. To attack any
doctrine is to attack Christ. From these statements, it is clear that, for Luther,
was Christum treibt “what inculcates Christ”, the solus Christus “Christ
alone” principle, is not only the central point of Christian doctrine but the
whole of Christian doctrine. Accordingly, Robert Preus approves, 64 as in
keeping with Luther’s theology, David Scaer’s assertion that Christology is
not simply the most important part of theology, but its only part:
Any attempt to make Christology preliminary to theology or even only
its most important part, but not its only part, is a denial of Luther’s
doctrine and effectively destroys the Gospel as a message of completed
atonement. 65
15. SCRIPTURE AND THE WORD OF GOD
The “Gospel-Reductionist” interpretation of Luther insists upon
identifying all his references to “the Word of God” as references to the
Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. This is accompanied by the denial, in the
relevant passages at least, that “Word of God” in Luther denotes Scripture.
Their whole case depends upon being free to make a distinction between
that in Scripture which is the Word of God, on the one hand, and that in
Scripture which is not the Word of God, on the other hand. They also insist
that Luther draws this distinction.
Now it is true that Luther sometimes makes a graphic identification of
the written Word with the Incarnate Word. By “Word of God”, Luther
frequently means the Gospel, or the whole of Christian doctrine. 66
However, there are also many occasions on which Luther identifies
Scripture with the Word of God. For example, above we cited the fact that
W. Bodamer found over one thousand citations from Luther clearly
asserting that the Bible is the Word of God. 67
63 AE 27:38. See also Preus, “Luther: Word, Doctrine and Confession” 39.
64 Preus, “Luther: Word, Doctrine and Confession” 41.
65 David P. Scaer, “Sanctification in Lutheran Theology”, Concordia Theological
Monthly 49.2&3 (April-July 1985): 181-97.
66 Preus, “Luther: Word, Doctrine and Confession” 18.
67 See n. 1 above.