What's a Lutheran? (6) The Centrality of Jesus Christ

Lutherans affirm the traditional Christian doctrine that Jesus was fully God and fully human – but this doesn’t mean that we have a pre-existing, philosophical understanding of what “God” and “human” mean and then try to figure out how Jesus could possibly be both at the same time.  Rather, what we understand of God is what we see revealed in Jesus – in his healings, teachings, compassion, and faithfulness – and we also see in Jesus what a fully human life looks like.  It is Jesus who defines for us what both humanity and divinity mean.

Luther taught that we might be able to infer the existence of God from just observing and reflecting on the world – but if that was all we knew of God, God would be terrifying.  The universe is vast and we are tiny; nature is “red in tooth and claw” and the survival of the fittest is its way.  Only in Jesus do we come to understand that God is love, compassion, mercy, and salvation.

More than that:  Lutherans believe that God tends to hide from us when we try to find a God whom we can control or use for our own ends – God wants to be found by us in God’s weakness, where we least expect to find God.  Luther spoke of the “theologians of glory” who want to find a God who meets all their expectations of power, might, and majesty, in contrast to the “theologians of the cross” who have learned to see God in places of suffering, weakness, and solidarity with the “least of these.”  For him, theologians of glory inevitably distort reality to fit their image of what God should be; only the theologian of the cross sees God and life as they really are.

We therefore oppose any attempt to use God as the justification for human beings to seek power and control over others, including in Christian nationalism in this or any other country.  Rather, we recognize that God’s power is revealed in the faithfulness of Jesus enduring even the cross for the sake of others in the hope of God’s ultimate justice and the promise of resurrection life.