Luther on the marks of the church

Luther argues that the church is best understood by the words "holy Christian people" (p.335-336). They are people who "truly believe in Christ" and "have the Holy Spirit against sin" (p.336). The Holy Spirit "sanctifies them daily, not only through the forgiveness of sin acquired by Christ (as the Antinomians foolishly believe), but also through the abolition, and purging, and the mortification of sins, on the basis of which they are called a holy people" (p.335-336 [surprised to read that by Luther?]).

The church is a people "in whom Christ lives, works and rules" and in whom the Holy Spirit "gives people faith in Christ and thus sanctifies them" (p. 336-337). This sanctification is the renewal of the whole person, soul and body, by the inscription of both tables of "the commandments of God not on table of stone, but in hearts of flesh" (p.337).

Luther criticises the Antinomians for making much of the first table and their knowledge of God by preaching "much about the grace of Christ", but displaying that they don't really understand Christ or the Holy Spirit by not not "practic[ing] the works of the Holy Spirit in the second table" (p.339). The Catholics he criticises for doing many holy works "of an external, bodily, transitory nature" but living "without faith, fear of God, hope, love and whatever the Holy Spirit, according to the first table, effects" (although actually he doesn't even think they teach the second table correctly, p.339).

Luther believes that Christians should be marked by the Holy Spirit sanctifying them (note the continuous tense) in both tables of the law, coram Deo and coram mundo, soul and body. Schaeffer was right that the position of the Reformation was that "God made the whole man and he is interested in the whole man" (p. 38, Escape from Reason).

We can recognize the church then by their possession of certain "external signs" through which the work of sanctification is performed by the Holy Spirit. There should be external signs of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit according to both tables of the law. However as we cannot see the hearts of people and many non-Christians practice works from the second table "and indeed at times appears holier than Christians", so it is not as "reliable" to look for the external signs of the Spirit's work according to the second table (p.359). Therefore the principal signs relate to the first table, although the signs relating to the second table have a secondary role.

Luther identifies "seven principal parts of the great holy possession whereby the Holy Spirit effects in us a daily sanctification and vivification in Christ, according to the first table of Moses" (pp. 357-358):

1. the "possession of the holy word of God" (p.340);
2. "the holy sacrament of baptism, wherever it is taught, believed, and administered correctly according to Christ's ordinance" (p.343);
3. "the holy sacrament of the altar, wherever it is rightly administered, believed, and received according to Christ's institution" (p.344);
4. "the office of the keys exercised publicly... where you see sins forgiven or reproved in some persons" (p.345);
5. men consecrated, called or having offices to "administer, and use the aforementioned four things or holy possessions in behalf of and in the name of the church, or rather by reason of their institution by Christ" (p. 346);
6. "prayer, public praise, and thanksgiving to God" (p. 356);
7. "the holy possession of the sacred cross [of enduring] misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the flesh [...] in order to become like their head, Christ" (p.356).

None of these things are in the first instance things we have done, or possess intrinsically, but all are gifts by which we are sanctified not the fruit of our sanctification (although sanctification always leads to the desire to be further sanctified and so more searching for the means by which that comes).

[Quotations from "On the Councils and the Church, 1539" in ed. Theodore G. Tappert, Selected Writings of Martin Luther, Vol.4]