We Lutherans talk about the spirit of the Confessions as if they were different from the actual words, the spirit of the liturgy as if it were something distinct from the words or form or ceremonies of the liturgy, the spirit of friendship as if if were different from friendship itself, etc... We talk about the spirit of Lutheranism as if Lutheranism had a spirit apart from the Holy Spirit. How goofy is that?!
The worst way we do this is to speak of the spirit of the Gospel. The Gospel is not something which has a spirit (again, other than the Holy Spirit). There is no spirit of the Gospel which is distinct from the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen. You cannot speak of the Gospel spirit as if it were different from its words. You should not speak of the Gospel as if it were something that could be reduced to a principle or a spirit. Every time we invoke the spirit of something, we are in danger of violating what it is that we invoke.
For example, when Christians invoke the spirit of the Gospel to recognize same sex marriage or regularize same sex attraction or justify gender dysphoria, we are violating the very words of that Gospel to do so and betray what it is that we are invoking. When we invoke the spirit of the Gospel to minimize doctrine and teaching and catechesis in favor of a broad church in which everyone gets to believe what they want, we get that spirit wrong and end up using the Gospel to justify or make normal that which the Gospel has come to forgive. When we call people to repent for things other than real sins, we are in danger of turning sin into something other than the things which God has forbidden and we are in danger of turning the things God has forbidden into mere suggestions.
Whenever someone talks about doing something in the spirit of..., that should engage your warning radar because without a doubt whatever is being urged in the spirit of will actually be in direct opposition to or at least a distortion of that of which the spirit is invoked. Plus, the real thing is always better than that which is the spirit of it. The real food you chew and savor is better than the imagined and the real meat is better than the fake meat in the spirit of beef. The real Gospel is so much better than the spirit of it. The real liturgy is so much better than the spirit of it. The real Christ is so much better than the spirit of Jesus (not meaning Holy Spirit, by the way). So don't let someone lead you from the real thing because somebody is telling you about the spirit of it.
1 comment:
In my working life over 35 years with a NY State regulatory agency, we often used the term “ the letter, spirit and intent of the law.” This was not used as a device to reinterpret a law or regulation, or ignore a statute which may not have been relevant or expedient in a given violation, but it was an effort to clarify that a given issue was covered under the rules. Sometimes we might say that we should temper our interpretation and not go beyond a reasonable interpretation, where we might wander into a legal swamp, and get bogged down in the types of controversy that courts must then decide. We like clear guidelines, not vagueness, or laws subject to interpretation. I think that the Bible is clear in many areas, but sometimes not to our imperfect understanding. Take the multiple versions of the Bible. Words matter. They clarify or confuse, and many newer Bible interpretations take liberties to reinterpret verses of scripture and truly test the “letter, spirit, and intent” of God’s word. As for excusing gay marriage and other sins in certain quarters, this goes beyond the spirit of the word of God to justify something expressly forbidden. Such reinterpretations never seek to clarify, they merely try to make God’s word of no effect. And that is an abomination. Soli Deo Gloria
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