{"id":5665,"date":"2020-06-18T05:48:42","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T12:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=5665"},"modified":"2020-06-19T05:43:39","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T12:43:39","slug":"nicholas-hopman-presents-a-pseudo-forde-a-forde-open-to-inerrancy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=5665","title":{"rendered":"Nicholas Hopman presents a pseudo-Forde, a Forde open to inerrancy, 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Please click here for a pdf version of this document<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas Hopman throws eternal law out the front door, only to sneak it in the back door \u2013 in a recent Lutheran Forum <\/em>article in praise of Gerhard Forde. This is not the first time he makes this move. He did it in a 2016 essay, \u201cLuther\u2019s Antinomian Disputations and lex aeterna<\/em>,\u201d in the Lutheran Quarterly<\/em>.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this earlier essay Hopman also claims that Luther and Forde affirm the ten commandments as God\u2019s divine law. His argument goes like this: Natural law = the decalogue = God\u2019s divine moral code:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously, Forde could go right around Bultmann and Kant back to Luther to find a properly \u2018existential\u2019 (namely, experiential) understanding of the law. This understanding of the law does not exclude the fact that the law is natural, summarized in the Decalogue, comes in specific commandments, tells people what to do,<\/strong> and in God\u2019s first use of it, extracts works which are good coram hominibus.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis fundamental argument in the Antinomian Disputations <\/em>does not prevent Luther from<\/strong> repeatedly defining the law as the Decalogue<\/strong>29<\/sup> and mentioning specific sins condemned by specific commandments and natural law including avarice,30<\/sup> vainglory, pride,31<\/sup> anger, despair, presumption,32<\/sup> lust,33 <\/sup>fornication, adultery,34<\/sup> murder,35<\/sup> unbelief, despair, hatred of God, and blasphemy.36 <\/sup>Apparently Luther saw no contradiction in acknowledging<\/strong> the law\u2019s specific commandments<\/strong> and defining it according to its effect.<\/strong>\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cForde\u2019s affinity for defining the law<\/strong> as the law written on the human heart and as its oppression of the heart does not make the law subjective according to human whim; it is<\/strong> the Creator\u2019s law<\/strong> and condemns the creature.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopman wants to use the Bible the way inerrantists do. <\/strong>Hopman does not want to be called an inerrantist; he just wants to use the Bible the way inerrantists do \u2013 as if God revealed a divine moral code in the ten commandments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luther was not an inerrantist.<\/strong> For Luther, revelation is the cross and resurrection alone. As Forde, for Luther the Bible is the pure proclamation of Christ and only this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA formal legalistic biblicism is clearly not what Luther and early Lutherans had in mind.<\/strong> In the controversy with the peasants especially, and with other sectarians of the times as well, such biblicism was encountered and rejected.<\/strong> \u2018Luther\u2019s ultimate authority and standard was not the book of the Bible and the canon as such<\/strong> but that scripture<\/strong> which interpreted itself and also<\/strong> criticized itself from its own center, from Christ and from the radically understood gospel.\u201927<\/sup><\/strong> For Luther, the authority of Scripture was Christ-centered and therefore gospel-centered. Scripture bears testimony to all the articles about Christ and is on that account to be so highly valued.28<\/sup> One who does not find Christ in the Scriptures engages in superfluous reading, even if he or she reads it carefully.29<\/sup> One should \u2018refer the Bible to Christ\u2026nothing but Christ should be proclaimed.\u201930<\/sup> Luther can even go so far as to say: \u2018If adversaries use scripture against Christ, then we put Christ against the scriptures.\u201931<\/sup><\/strong> The Word of God therefore is ultimately Christ and the proclamation of the gospel.<\/strong>\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luther\u2019s two uses<\/em> of law. <\/strong>And what about the ten commandments and biblical law? What matters about the law is not the particular content of law but its use<\/strong>, as Forde writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor Luther the crucial question was not so much what the law says<\/em>, i.e. the information it contains, but what it actually does <\/em>to you when you hear it. This is why Luther puts so much stress on the question of the uses <\/em>of the law. The question is one of how the law is intended to be used<\/em>, what it is actually supposed to do. What he worked out was the doctrine of the \u2018two uses\u2019 of the law.<\/strong>\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luther on the ten commandments as natural law. <\/strong>This applies even for the ten commandments. Luther writes that the ten commandments are natural law. As such they are not eternal, but human and changeable.<\/strong> For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1525:     In \u201cHow Christians should regard Moses\u201d Luther writes:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n