Monday, January 17, 2011

Bullinger’s Summary of the Gospel

Sermon 4i of Bullinger’s Decades focuses on the gospel. The subscription is “Of the gospel of the grace of God, who hath given his son unto the world, and in him all things necessary to salvation (verae salutis omnia), that we, believing in him, might obtain eternal life."

The following is Bullinger’s summary of the gospel. It should dispel any thought that Bullinger might have a synergistic view:

“This is the sum and breviary of the whole gospel, that we are justified, that is to say, absolved from sins, from the definite sentence of death and damnation, and sanctified and adopted into the number of the sons of God, by faith, that is, by an assured confidence in the name of Christ, which is given by the Father to be our only Saviour. And here are works by name excluded, to the end there should be given to us no occasion to entangle faith with works, or to attribute to works the glory and title due to faith alone, or rather to Christ, upon whom our faith is grounded and upheld.” (Parker edition p43)

The Latin is:

Haec summa est brevissima totius evangelii iustificari nos,id est absolvi a peccatis, a lata mortis vel condemnationis sententia, sanctificari autem et adoptari in numerum filiorum dei fide, id est fiduicia in nomen Christi, qui datus est nobis salvator a patre unicus. Et hic nominatim excluduntur opera, ne ulla nobis suppeditetur occasio implicandi fidem operibus aut operibus eam tribuendi gloriam, quae uni fidei vel potius Christo domino, cui fides innitur, debetur. (Peter Opitz, Sermonum Decades, p516)

The modern German is:

Dies ist die kürzeste Zusammenfassung des gesamten Evangeliums: dass wir gerechtgesprochen, d.h. von den Sünden, von dem Todes- und Verdammungsurteil, das an uns ergangen ist, losgesprochen werden und dass wir geheiligt und in die Zahl der Kinder Gottes aufgenommen werden durch den Glauben, d.h. durch das Vertrauen auf den Namen Christi, de runs vom Vater als der einzige Erlöser gegeben worden ist. Und dabei werden die Werke ausdrücklich ausgeschlossen, damit uns keine Gelegenheit geboten wird, den Glauben mit den Werken zu vermengen oder den Werken die Ehre zuzuerkennen, die einzig dem Glauben – oder vielmehr Christus dem Herrn, auf dem der Glaube beruht – zusteht. (Heinrich Bullinger Schriften, vol IV TVZ 2006, p307)

We note that in this short summary of the gospel Bullinger refers to: justification, forgivness of sins, freedom from condemnation, sanctification, adoption, by faith, the definite number of the saved, assurance of salvation, Christ the only Saviour, exclusion of works for salvation, Christ as Lord.

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