In his publication of January 10, 1552 _Wider den lichtfluechtigen
Nachtraben_, Osiander endeavors to prove that he is in complete
doctrinal agreement with Luther. In it he gives the following summary,
but guarded, presentation of his views. "I understand it this way," says
he. "1. It flowed from His pure grace and mercy that God sacrificed His
only Son for us. 2. The Son became man and was made under the Law, and
He has redeemed us from the Law and from the curse of the Law. 3. He
took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, for which He suffered,
died, shed His blood, descended into hell, rose again, and thus overcame
sin, death, and hell, and merited for us forgiveness of sin,
reconciliation with God, the grace and gift of justification, and
eternal life. 4. This is to be preached in all the world. 5. Whoever
believes this and is baptized, is justified and blessed (_selig_) by
virtue of such faith. 6. Faith apprehends Christ so that He dwells in
our hearts through faith, Eph. 3, 17. 7. Christ, living in us through
faith, is our Wisdom, Righteousness, Holiness, and Redemption, 1 Cor. 1,
30, Jer. 23, 6; 33, 16. 8. Christ, true God and man, dwelling in us
through faith, is our Righteousness according to His divine nature, as
Dr. Luther says: 'I rely on the righteousness which is God Himself; this
He cannot reject. Such is, says Luther, the simple, correct
understanding; do not suffer yourself to be led away from it.'" (Frank
2, 7f.) Seeberg cites the following passage: "But if the question be
asked what is righteousness, one must answer: Christ dwelling in us by
faith is our Righteousness according to His divinity; and the
forgiveness of sins, which is not Christ Himself, but merited by Christ,
is a preparation and cause that God offers us His righteousness, which
He is Himself." (_Dogg_. 4, 498.) Incidentally Osiander's appeal to
Luther is unwarranted. For according to him Christ is our Righteousness
because His obedience is God's obedience, the work not only of His human
nature, but, at the same time, also of His divine nature, while
according to Osiander everything that Christ did for us merely serves to
bring about the indwelling of the divine nature of Christ, whose
essential holiness is our righteousness before God. That Osiander was
not in agreement with Luther, as he claimed, appears also from his
assertion that such statements of Luther as: Christ's death is our life,
forgiveness of sins is our righteousness, etc., must be explained
figuratively, as words flowing from a joyous heart. (2, 23.)
The manner in which Osiander maintained that Christ is our Righteousness
only according to His divine nature appears from the following excerpts:
"If the question be asked according to what nature Christ, His whole
undivided person, is our Righteousness, then just as when one asks
according to what nature He is the Creator of heaven and earth, the
clear, correct, and plain answer is that He is our Righteousness
according to His divine, and not according to His human nature, although
we are unable to find, obtain or apprehend such divine righteousness
apart from His humanity." (Frank 2, 12.) Again: "When we say: Christ is
our Righteousness, we must understand His deity, which enters us through
His humanity. When Christ says: I am the Bread of Life, we must
understand His deity which comes into us through His humanity and is our
life. When He says: My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink
indeed, we must take it to mean His deity which is in the flesh and
blood and is meat and drink for us. Thus, too, when John says, 1 John 1,
7: The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin, we must understand the
deity of Christ which is in the blood; for John does not speak of the
blood of Christ as it was shed on the cross, but as it, united with the
flesh of Christ, is our heavenly meat and drink by faith." (23.)
Osiander, therefore, is but consistent when he reiterates that the Son
of God, the Holy Spirit, and the Father are our Righteousness, because
their divine essence which by faith dwells in Christians, is one and the
same.
Osiander emphasizes that the essential righteousness of the divine
nature of Christ alone is able to save us. He says: "For of what help
would it be to you if you had all the righteousness which men and angels
can imagine, but lacked this eternal righteousness which is itself the
Son of God, according to His divine nature, with the Father and the Holy
Ghost? For no other righteousness can lift you up to heaven and bring
you to the Father. But when you apprehend this righteousness through
faith, and Christ is in you, what can you then be lacking which you do
not possess richly, superabundantly, and infinitely in His deity?"
Again: "Since Christ is ours and is in us, God Himself and all His
angels behold nothing in us but righteousness on account of the highest,
eternal, and infinite righteousness of Christ, which is His deity itself
dwelling in us. And although sin still remains in, and clings to, our
flesh, it is like an impure little drop compared with a great pure
ocean, and on account of the righteousness of Christ which is in us God
does not want to see it." (Frank 2, 100. 102.)
To this peculiarity of Osiander, according to which he seems to have had
in mind a justification by a sort of mystico-physical dilution rather
than by imputation, the _Formula of Concord_ refers as follows: "For one
side has contended that the righteousness of faith, which the apostle
calls the righteousness of God, is God's essential righteousness, which
is Christ Himself as the true, natural, and essential Son of God, who
dwells in the elect by faith and impels them to do right, and thus is
their righteousness, compared with which righteousness the sins of all
men are as a drop of water compared with the great ocean." (917, 2; 790,
2.)
In his confession _Concerning the Only Mediator_, of 1551, Osiander
expatiates on justification, and defines it as an act by which
righteousness is "infused" into believers. We read: "It is apparent that
whatever part Christ, as the faithful Mediator, acted with regard to
God, His heavenly Father, for our sakes, by fulfilling the Law and by
His suffering and death, was accomplished more than 1,500 years ago,
when we were not in existence. For this reason it cannot, properly
speaking, have been, nor be called, our justification, but only our
redemption and the atonement for us and our sins. For whoever would be
justified must believe; but if he is to believe, he must already be born
and live. Therefore Christ has not justified us who _now_ live and die;
but we are redeemed by it [His work 1,500 years ago] from God's wrath,
death, and hell.... This, however, is true and undoubted that by the
fulfilment of the Law and by His suffering and death He merited and
earned from God, His heavenly Father, this great and superabounding
grace, namely, that He not only has forgiven our sin and taken from us
the unbearable burden of the Law, but that He also _wishes to justify us
by faith in Christ, to infuse justification or the righteousness
(sondern auch uns durch den Glauben an Christum will rechtfertigen, die
Gerechtmachung eingiessen)_, and, if only we obey, through the operation
of His Holy Spirit and through the death of Christ, in which we are
embodied by the baptism of Christ, _to mortify, purge out, and entirely
destroy sin_ which is already forgiven us, but nevertheless still dwells
in our flesh and adheres to us. Therefore the _other part_ of the office
of our dear faithful Lord and Mediator Jesus Christ is now to turn
toward us in order to deal also with us poor sinners as with the guilty
party, that we acknowledge such great grace and gratefully receive it by
faith, _in order that He by faith may make us alive and just from the
death of sin, and that sin, which is already forgiven, but nevertheless
still dwells and inheres in our flesh, may be altogether mortified and
destroyed in us. And this, first of all, is the act of our
justification._" (Tschackert, 492f.; Planck 4, 268.)
That Osiander practically identified justification with regeneration,
renewal, and gradual sanctification appears from the following
quotations. To justify, says he, means "to make a just man out of an
unjust one, that is to recall a dead man to life--_ex impio iustum
facere, hoc est, mortuum ad vitam revocare._" (Seeberg 4, 499.) Again:
"Thus the Gospel further shows its power and also justifies us, _i.e._,
it makes us just, even as, and in the same degree as, He also makes us
alive (_eben und in aller Masse, wie er uns auch lebendig macht_)."
(Frank 2, 18.) "And here you see again how terribly those err who
endeavor to prove by this passage of David and Paul that our
righteousness is nothing else than forgiveness of sin; for they have
overlooked the covering of sin with the [essential] righteousness of
Christ whom we put on in Baptism; _they have also removed from
justification the renewal of the inner man effected by regeneration._"
(102.)
Osiander was fanatical in denouncing those who identified justification
with the forgiveness of sins. In his Disputation of October 24, 1550, he
declared: "The entire fulness of the deity dwells in Christ bodily,
hence in those also in whom Christ dwells.... Therefore we are just by
His essential righteousness.... Whoever does not hold this manner of our
justification is certainly a Zwinglian at heart, no matter what he may
confess with his mouth.... They also teach things colder than ice [who
hold] that we are regarded as righteous only on account of the
forgiveness of sins, and not on account of the [essential] righteousness
of Christ who dwells in us through faith. _Glacie frigidiora docent nos
tantum propter remissionem peccatorum reputari iustos, et non etiam
propter iustitiam Christi per fidem in nobis inhabitantis. Non enim tam
iniquus Deus est, ut eum pro iusto habeat, in quo verae iustitiae
prorsus nil est._" (Frank 2, 97; Tschackert, 494; Seeberg 4, 497.) They
are errorists, Osiander declared, "who say, teach, and write that the
righteousness is outside of us." (Frank 2, 100.) "The [essential]
righteousness of Christ is indeed, imputed to us, but only when it is in
us." "For God is not so unrighteous, nor such a lover of unrighteousness
that He regards him as just in whom there is absolutely nothing of the
true righteousness; as it is written, Ps. 5, 4: 'For Thou art not a God
that hath pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with Thee,'"
(Planck 4, 273.) Evidently, Osiander rejected or had never fully grasped
Paul's clear statement and teaching concerning the God who justifies the
ungodly, Rom. 4, 5: "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him
that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."