Osiander's corruption of the doctrine of justification was closely
connected with his peculiar view concerning the image of God (the
central idea of his entire system), of which, however, he declared that
he did not consider it essential, and would not contend with anybody
about it. Nor were the questions involved disputed to any extent or
dealt with in the _Formula of Concord_. As to Osiander, however, the
train of his thoughts runs as follows:--
The Logos, the divine Word, is the image of God, into whom His entire
essence flows in a manner and process eternal. In a temporal and
historical way the same image is destined to be realized in the nature
of man. Divine essential righteousness indwelling and efficacious in
humanity--such was the eternal plan of God. For the realization of this
purpose the Logos, God's image, was to become man, even if the human
race should not have fallen. This was necessary because in finite man
there is absolutely no similarity with the infinite essence of the
non-incarnate Logos. Without the incarnation, therefore, this infinite
dissimilarity would have remained forever (_esset et maneret simpliciter
infinita dissimilitudo inter hominem et Verbum Dei_). And in order that
man might be capable of God and share His divine nature (_capax Dei et
divinae naturae consors_), God created him according to His image;
_i.e._, according to the idea of the incarnate Logos. "God formed the
body of man," said Osiander, "that it should be altogether like unto the
future body of Christ. Thereupon He breathed into it the breath of life,
_i.e._, a rational soul together with the human spirit, adorned with the
proper powers, in such a manner that it, too, should be like unto the
future soul of Christ in everything." (Frank 2, 104.)
In the incarnate Logos, however, according to whom man was created,
humanity and divinity are personally united. When the Word was made
flesh, the divine essence was imparted to His human nature. And Christ,
in turn, imparts the same essence to all who by faith are one with Him.
From eternity the incarnate Word was destined to be the head of the
congregation in order that the essential righteousness of God might flow
from Him into His body, the believers. Before the Fall the Son of God
dwelled in Adam, making him just by God's essential righteousness. By
the Fall this righteousness was lost. Hence the redemption and atonement
of Christ were required in order again to pave the way for the renewal
of the lost image or the indwelling of God's essential righteousness in
man. The real source of this righteousness and divine life in man,
however, is not the human, but the divine nature of Christ. In the
process of justification or of making man righteous, the human nature of
Christ merely serves as a medium, or as it were, a canal, through which
the eternal essential wisdom, holiness, and righteousness of Christ's
divine nature flows into our hearts.
Christ, the "inner Word" (John 1), says Osiander, approaches man in the
"external Word" (the words spoken by Jesus and His apostles), and
through it enters the believing soul. For through Word, Sacrament, and
faith we are united with His humanity. In the Lord's Supper, for
instance, we become the flesh and blood of Christ, just as we draw the
nourishment out of natural food and transform it into our flesh and
blood. And since the humanity of Christ, with which we become one in the
manner described, is personally united with the deity, it imparts to us
also the divine essence, and, as a result, we, too, are the abode of the
essential righteousness of God. "We cannot receive the divine nature
from Christ," says Osiander, "if we are not embodied in Him by faith and
Baptism, thus becoming flesh and blood and bone of His flesh, blood, and
bone." As the branches could not partake of the nature of the vine if
they were not of the wood of the vine, even so we could not share the
divine nature of Christ if we had not, incorporated in Him by faith and
Baptism, become flesh, blood, and bone of His flesh, blood, and bone.
Accordingly, as Christ's humanity became righteous through the union
with God, the essential righteousness which moved Him to obedience
toward God, thus we also become righteous through our union with Christ
and in Him with God. (Frank 2, 104. 20ff.; Seeberg 4, 497f.)
In view of such speculative teaching, in which justification is
transformed into a sort of mystico-physical process, it is not
surprising that the charge of pantheism was also raised against
Osiander. The theologians of Brandenburg asserted that he inferred from
his doctrine that the believers in Christ are also divine persons,
because the Father, Son and Holy Ghost dwell in them essentially. But
Osiander protested: "Creatures we are and creatures we remain, no matter
how wonderfully we are renewed; but the seed of God and the entire
divine essence which is in us by grace in the same manner as it is in
Christ by nature and remains eternally in us (_das also aus Gnaden in
uns ist wie in Christo von Natur und bleibt ewiglich in uns_) is God
Himself, and no creature, and will not become a creature in us or on
account of us but will eternally remain in us true God." Frank says
concerning the doctrine of Osiander: It is not pantheism or a mixture of
the divine and human nature, "but it is a subjectivism by which the
objective foundation of salvation as taught by the Lutheran Church is
rent to the very bottom. It is a mysticism which transforms the Christ
_for us_ into the Christ _in us_, and, though unintentionally, makes the
consciousness of the _inhabitatio essentialis iustitiae_ (indwelling of
the essential righteousness) the basis of peace with God." (2, 19. 10.
13. 95. 103.) In his teaching concerning the image of God and
justification, Osiander replaced the comforting doctrine of the Bible
concerning the substitutionary and atoning work of Christ in His active
and passive obedience unto death with vain philosophical speculations
concerning divinity and humanity or the two natures of Christ. It was
not so very far beside the mark, therefore, when Justus Menius
characteized his theory as "a new alchmistic theology." (Planck 4, 257.)