Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

...

If Luther can speak, as he does, of the word's being "added" to something else -- eelse—e.g., the cross (cf. Bultmann, NTM: 40) -- he —he can also speak, conversely, of something else's being "added" to the word. This he does, e.g., when he says, "[l]t is not baptism that justifies anyone, but it is faith in that word of promise to which baptism is added" (LW, 36: 66).

But, then, allowing, as Luther himself allows in the same text, that, if he were to speak "according to the usage of the scriptures [1 Tim 3:16]," he should have"only one single sacrament, but with three sacramental signs" (18; cf. 93: "Christ himself is called a 'sacrament'"), one could say, mutatis mutandis, "It is not Christ that justifies or benefits anyone, but it is faith in that word of promise to which Christ is added" -- "Christ" here being understood, of course, as a proper name for Jesus or Jesus Christ.

...