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Hello and welcome to Word and Work an Intersection.

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I'm your host Dale Meyer this hour we will talk with Dr.

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Robert Kolb. Dr.

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Kolb is professor emeritus of Systematic Theology here at Concordia

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Seminary and we'll talk with him about his new book Luther's Treatise

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on Christian Freedom and its Legacy.

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Welcome Bob glad to have you here. Good to be here. And in a minute or two

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I'll tell why we're glad to have you here, but you you understand but

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our audience would like to hear about your travels.

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First of all Systematic Theology.

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What does that mean?

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It means that once you've done the exegetical work that is delved into

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the scriptures of work through the biblical text, Bible study, Lutherans are

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been prone to go to the Lutheran confessions to see how our tradition

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has is put that particular subject that we're interested in together.

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And may glance down or should glance really at that other parts of

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History.

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And we're always dumping into the scriptures mining the scriptures and

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our own confessions so that we can speak to the world and the church

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as it exists in our world today.

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So systematics is stop likely it's like synthesis light won't like the

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catechism.

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Just just want to be clear about that because we ban diab around big

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words here.

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So your Bible study and then systematics try to put it together just

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like the catechism does.

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How long have you been at Concordia Seminary? About 26-27 years.

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I've venture to say you have you've only been here half the time.

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Now we're going to get into it. That's true.

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Would you tell our audience why you're only here part of the time and

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we're paying you 12 months a year. My version of the story is they

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didn't want me to have too much contact with students but the

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Administration has a different story.

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The Seminary was given a sizable many multi-year grant.

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To establish an Institute for Mission studies and to launch a number

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of experiments in how Mission really pervades the life of the church.

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Under the conditions,

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this was back in the early 90s, that we would help post-Soviet churches.

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And so my wife and I had the privilege and blessing of spending 13-14

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years on the road

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so to speak. It got to the point where post-Soviet churches had matured

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and we could go also to India four different times to Japan, to Taiwan.

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And then I have also been blessed with the teaching

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teaching opportunities at the Lutheran confessional of the faculty and

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Gothenburg Sweden and at Westfield house in Cambridge.

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So it was an attempt to bring Concordia Seminary to the world

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and we do that in all sorts of ways.

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Not only through publications of my many colleagues

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but through our continuing to teach at different places around

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the globe. We Treasure of we try for you and we treasure your work

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around the world. Dr.

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Kolb is world-renowned especially as as a Luther scholar.

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I remember a story you told, now you spend a lot of the time in

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Germany when you're away from the United States and you told the story

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about speaking with a German woman and she thought that by your accent

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you were from the West. Could you tell us story it's a cute story?

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We we're riding together in the train and we had talked for an hour and a half two hours.

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And as I was leaving, she said I don't have any right to ask but but

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are you from Switzerland or from Baden that stretch along the Rhine in

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South

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Germany and I said actually a little further west your French.

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Well even further west, English?

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No, well, there is nothing further west than England.

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So, I don't fool anybody that I'm speaking the German they speak at

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home, but.  I just had to ask that I'm still laughing even having

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heard that story some years ago.

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Now when you were in Germany, especially because it's the land of

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Luther.

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What do you do there that helps you with your research and writing?

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Well the sources are there. And so much is digitalized today, but I I concentrated for most of my

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career on Luther's students and the impact of Luther and his sidekick

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Melanchthon had on their students and how they interpreted what they had

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gotten in the classroom and didn't bury. Hence the word legacy in your book

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was written be talkin about. Yes.

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And so many of the sources that I need to look at simply aren't

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digitalized and then there are manuscript sources along with printed

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sources, but the other advantage of being in Germany two libraries that

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I worked at primarily you have the college there firsthand.

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I can talk with the German expert on the formula of Concord or with

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the colleagues who are doing Luther studies in Germany, and now

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much more easily.

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And so so there's that there's at least a double thrust there.

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In in facilitating the kinds of things that the Lord still got me

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doing. Well and you get a lot of energy for young man.

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I do. Quickly tell us the projects of scholarship that you working on now? Well I'm

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working on an essay for an Oxford history of modern German theology.

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I know nothing about modern German theology, but to get an

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introductory chapter on Protestant reformations and Protestant

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orthodoxies.

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And so that's one of my projects that I'm I'm wrestling through and

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you you may have missed it

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but this is the 500 birthday year of Matthias Flacius who was one of

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Melanchthon's Luther's most brilliant students.

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How did we miss that?

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How do you spell that depends on whether you want to spell it in

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Croatian or in Latin. He was a very interesting intellectual figure went

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astray on the doctrine of original sin so

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his version of the doctrine of original sin was rejected in the

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formula of Concord.

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But but he made many contributions in church history.

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He's called the father of modern hermeneutics, and so I've got to go two

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conferences that may materialize this fall at which I'm to give lectures.

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And then back in 2017 Tony Steinbronn from the New Jersey district of

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the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod had me a give five lectures on

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Luther in relation to the Latin word quorum in relation to God in

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relation to himself and so forth. And I'd like to pull those together

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into a book for pastors and students interested lay people. And you're

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also teaching.

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I am teaching the classroom even online.

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I'd like to see the whites of their eyes, but it's okay. You know that

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many takeaways from this interview, but two of them from the last

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answer from from Bob is Concordia Seminary has a top-flight faculty

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and here's one of our premier teachers, but secondly guys here don't

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retire.

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They keep producing for the love of the church and the love of Theology

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and counting the days till I can start producing and put

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Administration aside. You mentioned of modern theology in

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Germany.

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Let's take a little side trip on on that one.

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What's what's the religious culture like in Germany today?

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I mean, we know we know it's different but can you talk about that?

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Yeah, it's pretty sad.

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There

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are there still some remnants of Christianity in public life that are

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there because they're part of the German tradition.

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And so keep some sense of what it means to be Christian alive, but in

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terms of church attendance and and actual commitment to the program of

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the church, it's very spotty.

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We worship regularly at a Congregation of our partner Church the

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independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany in Braunschweig

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and there we have some exciting things going on.

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We have converts from a Middle Eastern country about 120 -140

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maybe now who have been baptized and with whom I have some contact and so

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there's some really exciting things going on,

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also in our partner Church. Do you see some of the United States

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today?

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Frankly I don't know that we're reaching out to immigrants.

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Overall in the same way that our partner Church in Germany is but

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frankly when you look at what we're doing here at Concordia Seminary

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with the EIIT program. Ethnic Institute of Theology.

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Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology. I think that the Missouri Synod really can be quit proud and I've noticed also that in Spanish speaking Protestant circles the work

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of our Institute and especially the written published work of Leopoldo

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Sanchez is being used certainly another Lutheran groups.

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But beyond that so I think again, I would say it's spotty

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I think some of our people have forgotten our own immigrant heritage

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and are a little bit uptight about all these foreigners coming in.

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But I think that what we got going here is

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a really dynamic sense of where the future of our mission lies in

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North America. It's a great place to work

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isn't it? Yeah, it really is.

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Tell us how you got into writing this book on the treaties and Christian freedom and its Legacy.

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Actually.

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I used to choose my own topics.

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But finally you get to the point where somebody else is dictating

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things to you. Paul Rorem is

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a good Lutheran, editor of Lutheran quarterly, but a Princeton

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professor and he's editing this mapping the tradition series

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originally designed for a seminars.

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The price has gone up with the book so I don't know how seminar how much

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seminar used it will get, but Paul said we need a book on Luther and

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the plan of the book is a brief biography.

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A longer commentary about half the book is a commentary on the text of

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of some writing by a person and I chose Luther on Christian Freedom or

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the Freedom of a Christian and then about 40% of the book is the

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legacy the impact of what have people done with it over the years and

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that that made for a fascinating study in itself.

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I bet it's really good and I would look forward to reading it probably in

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my retirement. We're going to take a short break and then dive into Christian Freedom.

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Stay with us, please.

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Concordia Seminary St.

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Louis provides continuing education resources for pastors and lay

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people to discover all the Concordia Seminary has for you visit us on

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the web at CSL.

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EDU.

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Welcome back to Word and Work an Intersection.

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I'm your host Dale Meyer. Today

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our guest is Doctor Robert Kolb.

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He's professor emeritus which means retired but knowing my Latin it

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means retired because of Merit.

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It's it's it's it's it's an honored word, isn't it?

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It is. I think they just wanted to get rid of me. Well he is professor emeritus of Systematic Theology

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at Concordia Seminary.

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And his new book is on Luther's Treatise on Christian Freedom and its

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Legacy. Freedom is is important today and in this coronavirus time, you

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know, nobody wants to be locked down.

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Was it as important Luther's day?

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That's one of the interesting things that I found out that I really

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hadn't thought about one way or the other. The

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Historian at the University of Jena, Georg Schmidt argues that it was not

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and that between 1520 and 1530.

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There are five thousand instances of Luther's talking at least in a

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sentence or two about freedom.

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So Schmidt argues that Luther really brought that word much more

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prominently into German usage.

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I would qualify that a little bit because the papacy made it clear

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that it wanted to be free from the control of the German Emperor. The

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German Empire it and it's a regular Imperial Diets made it clear it

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wanted to be free of the papacy. Diet meaning?  Legislative assembly.

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Explain it to me my dad was a milkman. My dad was an electrician that had a different meaning for diet too.

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Then the towns were always striving to to at least preserve their

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ancient freedoms in relationship to the local duke or count.

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The peasants were fighting against the introduction of Roman law,

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which was going to take some of their traditional freedoms and rights

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away.

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So the word freedom was was in the air.

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But it certainly wasn't being used much at the theologically.

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There's a German written in Latin

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of course.

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A theological dictionary from a friend of Johann von Staupitz,

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the mentor of Luther.

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Published in 1517 interestingly enough and the word freedom there

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getsonly a short definition.

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So it wasn't really a theological word.

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Now that now there was no unified Germany at this time.

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That's correct.

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Describe that to us?

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It's a mess. There were perhaps a dozen or 15 pretty important princes and then maybe

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another layer of 30 or 40 who somewhat sizable territories and then

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under them or alongside them were nobles with with much smaller bits

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and pieces of political territories. And sort of over the top was the church and

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the Holy Roman Empire. And the church had some power the Holy Roman

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Emperor had very little power.

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He was dependent on the taxes in the military support that that these

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important Dukes in and Counts

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would give him. So so we're not talking about a modern Western

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democracy United States or or Germany with with an enshrined freedom.

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This is something that that's I don't know bubbling up but it's it's

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in the air but in all the different different pockets. Was Luther's

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understanding of freedom different from what we have in America today.

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Quit decisively. Because his was a freedom granted by God won back for us by Christ's sacrifice and

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Resurrection.

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It was a freedom then to to be human and he understood being human as

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being bonded really we might say to our neighbors in mutual love and

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support. And so there was a sense of the interdependence of humanity

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and the dependence of humanity on God that has little or nothing to do

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with

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as we sing in our new national anthem "I Did It My Way." Frank Sinatra. I

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heard the the story and you'll know if this is accurate that Luther

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talked about

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Aquinas

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got to heaven and showed off

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all the good work said he had done. And Luther came and St.

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Peter said God said where where are your good works?

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He said I didn't bring him because

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I'm saved by grace.

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My good works were for my neighbor.

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Is there any they're certainly true that story did he actually say

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that? I actually made it up myself for Pastors conference where I was

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trying to illustrate what two fold righteousness in Luther's mind meant. But I think the final line of the dialogue where Luther is with Peter is important. Luther said:

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I left my work done on Earth with my neighbor

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I thought that's where it where they belonged. Peter said

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how am I supposed to let you into heaven then?

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What how do I know you have Grace? And loose pulled this ragged

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piece of paper out of your pocket and presented it on which was

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written Martin Luther baptized and he said I'm a member of the family.

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I'm a Child of God.

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So so that's the kind of freedom that Luther had the freedom to go

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into God's presence because Christ had had and ended his sinful identity

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in his death and had raised him up to be a righteous child of God.

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So that leads us into a famous line from Luther. A Christian is a

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perfectly free Lord of all subject to no one.

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That's really American. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of

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all subject to all subject to all.

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And that's how we begins on Christian freedom it's a paradox, isn't it?

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I don't think it really is.

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It's called a paradox and practically every book but that one that

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you'll read but I don't think it's a paradox to say I am free from all

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my enemies so that I can be free to serve my neighborhood.

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I think that that Luther fit that together with his distinction of the

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two Realms that we have a vertical dimension of our lives and a

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horizontal dimension of our lives and with his understanding of

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twofold righteousness.

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I have the gift of my identity as a child of God simply because Christ

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died and rose for me.

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That identity then I play out as a righteous child of God.

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Would you explain the active and passive

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righteousness the vertical and the horizontal and then compare to the

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United States and our  thinking today. I think the word righteous in Luther's

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vocabulary comes pretty close

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it's not exactly the same as our word identity.

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And so Luther is saying your core identity your DNA

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let's say is given you by God just as it's given you by your parents

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in an Earthly way and you have nothing to do with it.

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It's all God's favor and his love.

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That identity then is acted out in relationship to your siblings and

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in thanks and obedience to your parents.

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And so the passive of righteousness that he talks about is he calls it

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the righteousness given by another that is from outside us, alien

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righteousness is the bad translation of the Latin. But for those of us who

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know extraterrestrials ET alien make sense.

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Yes, it comes from outside, from up there you might say from the cross and the empty tomb actually. And then it's like the expectations that all parents have their

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children got his expectations of the of the people he has made

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righteous that they act righteously and then so Faith flows into works

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just like fruit comes naturally from a tree. Now compare that to

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American understanding?

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It's hard to know where to begin.

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I actually suppose that that if we follow on Abraham Maslow's

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hierarchy of needs and what not

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mu ultimate ultimate need is for self-actualization.

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Well, I'm 78 years old and I've never actualized myself on a single

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day of my life by parents actualize me my little brother actualized my

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wife and daughter.

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I mean, I'm actualized by the people around me.

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But ultimately, I'm actualized by God himself the actual me comes from

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his saying you're forgiven your sins are taken away. It's a fascinating

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thing to think about the Declaration life, liberty and the pursuit of

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happiness, but in the 18th century that didn't mean what we read into

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it now it was to meet to be actualized

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in your formation so that you can be a citizen a helpful gainful

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citizen in in the community and country. Ours I think is practically the first culture Western European and North

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American culture today the first to to really try to make concrete

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this idea that everybody can stand on their own two feet. No society

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before or after I predict should the world last so long will indulge

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in such foolishness. And the pandemic maybe helping if not the society

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for some of us to see and an show that that's the case. Now Luther's

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on Christian Freedom has had been called by some people his most

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important work. Would you comment on that? Yeah, I think in some ways.

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Although the impact in the 16th century was fairly limited and it was

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almost ignored in the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, but in the middle of

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the nineteenth Century it became one of the big three of 1520 and

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really had a tremendous impact.

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It had an impact in the next generation or two in the 16th century,

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but it's an interesting story if I have it, right. But my research

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would suggest that it was the Roman Catholic Seminary trained

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philosopher finally atheist or agnostic philosopher Martin Heidegger.

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Who discovered Luther's understanding of freedom and who fired up

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some Christian theologians to be interested in the concept. And then

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after World War II Oswald Bayer and Tubingen and a number of others

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saw how important and vital the concept that was and end in this

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writing of 1520 how important it really was for readers today.

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Does he talk in this volume about being bound?

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Yes. And that's an important concept. Yes. He was kind of on the ropes, he had written earlier in 1520

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on Good Works.

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To argue against the Catholics who said that he's destroying

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society,

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nobody's going to do good works if we're saved by faith alone. And

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already on Good Works

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he's showing how the person who hears the pronouncement

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of righteousness is going to act righteously and that's really what he

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develops here.

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And the the fact that God pronounces us righteous justifies us,

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sets us on a road to be bound to our neighbors need.

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So how would Dr.

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Luther tell us his parishioners to experience

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this freedom? I discovered in my research the word bonded works pretty

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well as a synonym for bound in this case. And he would say it wasn't

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good for Adam to be alone

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and it's not good for you to be alone.

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God has really created a structure for society in his

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understanding of the Christian callings of home, job and

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community and congregation that bond us together. And

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I don't know that the Germans have a word for fun.

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But actually we do we say spaß but. Too much spaß. Yeah, but what is interesting is that he saw

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real human fun

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joy not happiness in a can superficial way, but that that sense of

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fulfillment in satisfaction in life coming in mutual service.

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This is not a German hymn.

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But I've got that joy joy joy down in my heart.

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We can talk forever.

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Where can we get a copy this book?

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I suppose online is simplest the various booksellers

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there. It is published by Lexington in behalf of Fortress Academic.

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So if you go online and want to pay full price, you can go to

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Lexington or or Fortress Academic and find the link, but but I think

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people have any number of access

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to get books today.

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Well, I'm looking forward to retirement and studying and reading this book.

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Dr. Kolb thanks so much for being with us today and thanks to you our audience

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for being here as well.

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I'm Dale Meyer, May the intersection of Word and Work.

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Be busy on your corner.