In us and for us

Listening to: Mozart: Don Giovanni

[In] the Lutheran tradition [...] any emphasis on the work of the Spirit "in us" is seen to be in latent competition with the work of Christ "for us", to the point that it sometimes seems that the believer magnifies the freeness of God's grace more as a forgiven but unchanged sinner, than as a man in whom the crucified Saviour has worked his regenerating and renewing change. Lutherans are afraid that if anything happens within us, that happening rather than Christ's work will be seen as the basis of our standing with God.

(p. 26, Thomas A. Smail, The Forgotten Father)

I think that criticism is fair. Two quick observations on the two emphases:

• One is marked by an over-realised eschatology (i.e. high-expectations and dreamy optimism), and the other an under-realised eschatology (i.e. low-expectations and realistic pessimism).
• One is marked by joy and the other by seriousness.

It's not balance that we need, but a church aware of both where its citizenship is, but also where it is sojourning in at the moment.