The end purpose of the Gospel.
The end purpose of the Gospel.
§ 50. The end purpose [finis] of the Gospel is twofold: ultimately and principally it is the glory of God; immediately and secondarily it is the salvation of believers. The first we demonstrate in this way. In the Gospel there is revealed: (1) “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10); “the hidden wisdom of God” (Ps. 51:[6])—that out of His limitless wisdom He knew how to find a remedy for the human race, which had fallen into sin and death. Anselm (Cur Deus homo, bk. 2, ch. 18) says it very beautifully: “The debt” (of the first man) “was so great that, though only man should pay it, only God could, so that He who was God became man also. Consequently, it was necessary for God to take man into the unity of His person, so that he who ought to have paid in his nature but could not was in the person of Him who could pay.”
Leo (Sermones in natalem Domini, sermo 8) treats of this miraculous wisdom of God shining in the Gospel in detail:
In the common disaster of the entire human race, there was only one remedy in the hidden place of divine wisdom that could lift up the fallen, that is, if someone of the sons of Adam would be born a stranger to original sin and innocent of it, who would be advantageous to the rest with his example and merit. But because the natural did not allow this and because there could be no offspring from the sinful root without seed from it, David’s Lord became the Son of David, and from the fruit of the promised stock arose an offspring without fault: one person with twin natures coming together, so that from the same conception and birth was born our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom was the true divinity to perform miraculous works and the true humanity to endure sufferings.
(2) In the Gospel, the limitless and ineffable mercy of God, “the riches of His grace,” as the apostle says (Eph. 1:7), is also revealed. “The knowledge of salvation in the forgiveness of sins is given us through the tender mercy of God” (Luke 1:77–78). For what greater love could there be than that God gave His only Son into death for the least grateful and most lost slaves? “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16). “God shows His love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). A physician comes to the sick, a redeemer to captives, life to the dead, salvation to the damned. What greater mercy of God could there be?
(3) In the Gospel, divine justice is revealed. “The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith” (Rom. 1:17). “The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law, though it is approved by the testimony of the Law and the Prophets” (Rom. 3:21). The infinite Good had been offended and the decree of divine justice violated through man’s sin. Yet it was impossible for the decree to be weakened or destroyed. Thus what the infinite Good had established had to be satisfied, and the infinite wrath of God had to be placated, so that in this way the price of God’s infinite justice might be paid through an equivalent. And this is the marvelous balancing [temperamentum] of divine justice and mercy that is revealed to us in the Gospel. Man had sinned; thus man ought to have made satisfaction but was unable to do so. God could have made satisfaction, but He should not have done so. Therefore God became man, that the satisfaction might be complete and sufficient because, as far as God was concerned, this satisfaction was salutary to man because it had come from man.
(4) In addition, in the Gospel divine virtue and power are revealed. “We preach Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). “Who believes our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isa. 53:1). But in this mystery the divine power shines forth in the personal union of the two natures which took place in Christ for the salvation of mankind; for what is loftier than God and lowlier than man? Yet divine power found a way to unify these two natures. But divine power also shines in the very preaching of the Gospel, that God preserves this teaching against all the gates of hell [Matt. 16:18], that He renders void and vain every effort of man to oppress this teaching.
(5) Finally, in the Gospel the truth of God is revealed. Indeed, the public announcement in the New Testament that the Messiah had come “was promised beforehand through His prophets in Holy Scripture” (Rom. 1:2). It is to these promises of the Old Testament that Zechariah looks (Luke 1:68, 70): “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and made redemption for His people as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old.” “Christ became a servant to be circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs” (Rom. 15:8).
§ 51. Therefore, since the wisdom, mercy, justice, power, and truth of God are revealed in the Gospel, surely the end purpose of the Gospel is God’s glory. In fact, God’s glory consists of the fact that He is acknowledged truly by us. But now the name of God is God Himself: “As Your name, O God, so Your praise reaches to the ends of the earth” (Ps. 48:1). Therefore we certainly acknowledge God truly and glorify His name if we acknowledge and preach His divine wisdom, mercy, justice, power, and truth, which are the very essence of God, as these shine forth in the word of the Gospel. “God has destined and called us to salvation, to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:[5–]6, 12).
The secondary and intermediate end purpose of the Gospel is our salvation. We could not aspire to salvation through the Law; God had compassion on us and revealed His “hidden plan of salvation” to us in the Gospel ([cf.] Acts 20:27), that through Christ “we receive forgiveness of sins, and from all the things from which we could not be justified in the Law of Moses, whoever believes in Him” (Christ the Mediator) “is justified” (Acts 13:38–39). Therefore the end purpose of this faith is “the salvation of souls” (1 Pet. 1:9).
1 That which completes another thing or determines it or through which it operates. “Form” is that which gives the being of a thing. Here the form of the Gospel is what makes it what it is or is the reason why it is the Gospel.
2 Read peccatorem with Cotta instead of peccatorum.
3 animalis homo, the Vulgate’s translation for ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος in 1 Cor. 2:14, which the KJV and many other English Bibles translate as “natural man.” The term translated here as “soulish” means “endowed with soul” but not with the Holy Spirit.
4 AC V (cf. Concordia, 33).