⭐ Two sentences that marked out the two cliffs of the doctrine of imputation: good works are necessary for salvation against good works are harmful to salvation.
The issue
What exactly is the relation between good works and salvation?
Claim
Georg Major (rector of the University of Wittenberg), as González reports him: good works are necessary for salvation, and also necessary for keeping salvation. ⚠ González makes a special point of noting that in this Major did not go further than Melanchthon, although Melanchthon used more careful language and avoided putting good works and salvation side by side in the same sentence — Melanchthon was willing to say that good works are necessary as the fruit of faith, and that faith is necessary for salvation, but would not put the two into one sentence, lest they be taken, as González puts it, to mean justification by good works. ⭐ That is: where Major stumbled was not theology but how he built a sentence.
Counterclaim
The counter-attack of the two leaders of the Gnesio-Lutherans differed in weight. Matthias Flacius's attack, González records, was limited to restating Luther's main claims on justification by faith and pointing out that Major's words were harmful to that doctrine; ⚠ while Nikolaus von Amsdorf, González goes on, went further, raising Luther's exaggerated attacks on good works to the level of a dogmatic assertion and declaring that good works are harmful to salvation.
⚠ Readers please note: this section is thinner than the claim, and that was decided by the sources, not chosen by us. González records that Flacius's attack was limited to restating Luther's main claims on justification by faith — that is, the opposing side did not bring any new argument in this controversy; it only brought out the old standard to measure by. Amsdorf's sentence is an assertion, and the source does not give the reasoning behind it. ⭐ If you want to know why he went as far as he did, see his person page — it records the setting of the Interim, which is the only clue the source gives.
The ruling
In 1577 Article IV of the Formula of Concord took a middle position and rejected both sides: “We reject, therefore, and condemn the following phrases, when it is taught: That good works are necessary to salvation; that no one has ever been saved without good works” … “We repudiate and condemn this bald phrase, full of offense and pernicious to Christian discipline: That good works are detrimental to salvation.” ⚠ Notice how it did this: it said neither good works are necessary nor good works are harmful; instead it affirmed again salvation by faith, while pointing out that the Augsburg Confession does speak of the necessity of good works.
What was at stake for salvation
The two sides were guarding the two ends of the same line: one end feared that justification would become empty words that do not change a person; the other feared that good works would quietly creep back in as a condition of salvation. ⭐ And the Formula of Concord refused to choose a side between these two extremes — what it rejected were two formulas, not two concerns.
Aftermath
⭐ What is most worth taking away from this controversy is not who was right, but the fact itself that different ways of saying the same thing can come to blows. Melanchthon and Major really meant the same thing; one put the two words into the same sentence and the other did not — and the controversy broke out from that. ⚠ This module has now found, for the fourth time, that the disagreement is first a matter of language: the translation of Romans 5:12 on thread 3, the two definitions of free will on thread 3, the two readings of iustificare on thread 4, and now this one.
⚠The setting both sides shared — leave it out and this reads like a storm in a teacup. Major's sentence was spoken in defense of the position the Wittenberg theologians had taken in the matter of the Interim, and the Augsburg Interim and the Leipzig Interim were exactly what the Gnesio-Lutherans of the time saw as surrender. As González records, when the Augsburg and Leipzig Interims came into force, many Protestant leaders had to suffer for refusing to accept them. The general principle of Flacius's and Amsdorf's party was, in González's account, that when the faith must be confessed clearly, nothing can be treated as indifferent, to be accepted or rejected.
⭐ That is: when they heard good works are necessary for salvation, what they heard was not only a theological statement but the party of compromise taking one more step backward. ⚠ We record this setting, but not to decide on its account who was right — a setting can explain how strong a reaction was; it cannot take the place of the argument itself.