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Eschatology of the Simul
Introduction
One of the most important discoveries Martin Luther made from his years studying Scripture is that of simul iustus et peccator, the understanding that the Christian is simultaneously justified and a sinner. The life of the Christian as simul is not philosophical ontology in the vein of Neoplatonism. It is not combing the idea of the hierarchical dualism of the material and nonmaterial with the ideas of potentiality, actualization, and habitus. Nor is the simul a sequential, progressive equation moving from less sinner to more saint in the self. The Christian life as simul in this old world is eschatological, where one is simultaneously old and new, fully dead in sin and fully alive in Christ, completely under the Law in the flesh and completely free from the Law in Christ, simultaneously at an end and a new beginning, simultaneously two persons in one person: at the same time righteous and sinner.
The locus classicus for the coinage of simul iustus et peccator and the beginning of Luther ’s construction of this biblical thesis is found in his Lectures on Romans (1516):1
“Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered” (Romans 4:7), is to be rightly understood, we must therefore keep the following theses in mind: (1) The saints are intrinsically always sinners, therefore they are always extrinsically justified. . . “Intrinsically” means as we are in ourselves, in our own eyes; in our own estimation, and “extrinsically,” how we are before God and in his reckoning. . . (2) “God is wonderful in his saints” (Psalm 68:35); to him they are at the same time righteous and unrighteous. And God is wonderful in the hypocrites; they are at the same time unrighteous and righteous [italics mine].
Luther expands on the simul in his Romans’ lecture, specifically on chapter seven. For example, he writes,
“Because of the flesh, [the Christian] is carnal and evil, for the good is not in him and he does evil; because of the spirit, he is spiritual and good, for he does the good. . . Thus, there comes about a communicatio idiomatum; one and the same man is spiritual and carnal, righteous [iustus] and sinful [peccator], good and evil.”2
The benefit of this discovery is comparable to his discovery of the distinction of Law and Gospel. Because just as God’s Word is not one Word of Law, but two (Law and Gospel), so the Christian is not one, but two (righteous and sinner).3 The Law and Gospel distinction and the distinction of the simul iustus et peccator are something like the Siamese twins of biblical theology working in tandem. The old creature (peccator) remains – as long as one is alive – under the Law and its accusations, and the new creature (iustus) born out of the Gospel is no longer under the Law and all threats have been silenced. The Christian is simultaneously completely old, and consequently sinful (totus peccator), and yet, at the same time, completely new and justified (totus iustus).4 This means, according to Scripture, the whole life of the Christian is simul being justified by the crucified and risen Christ, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and being redeemed in the sight of God the Father (1 Corinthians 1:30) from the Law’s accusation and its consequence of death.
While the Romans lectures are where Luther first identifies the biblical description of the Christian as simul, Luther gives a fuller treatment of this “double life” in both his early Lectures on Galatians in 1519 and throughout his later Lectures on Galatians in 1531 (published in 1535). In those commentaries, he actually takes up, not only Romans, but he also highlights that the simul is identifiable throughout all of Scripture, indeed it is the reality of all God’s elect who are at the same time 100% sinner in themselves and 100% saint in Jesus Christ. Luther shines the light of the simul in the broader context of scripture when he begins to expound upon 1 John and Job in his Galatians lectures from 1519: “Those who have been justified in Christ are not sinners and are sinners nevertheless. . . Scripture establishes both facts about the Christian. John says in the first chapter of his canonical epistles: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). In the last chapter of the same epistle, he says: “We know that everyone who is born of God does not sin, but God’s generation (that is, the fact that he is born of God) preserves him, and the evil one will not touch him” (1 John 5:18). The same writer says in the third chapter (v. 9): “No one born of God commits sin because His seed abides in him, and he is not able to sin.” Behold, he is not able to sin, says John. Yet if he says he has no sin, he is lying. . ..
A similar paradox can be seen in Job, whom God, who cannot lie, pronounces a righteous and innocent man in the first chapter (1:8). Yet later on Job confesses in various passages that he is a sinner, especially in the ninth and seventh chapters: “Why do you not take away my iniquity?” (7:21; 9:20)
But Job must be speaking the truth, because if he were lying in the presence of God, then God would not pronounce him righteous. Accordingly, Job is both righteous and a sinner (simul iustus, simul peccator).5
In his Lectures on Galatians in 1535, the discussion of the simul is laid out by Luther when he comes to verse 3:6, “Thus a Christian man is righteous and a sinner at the same time, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a Child of God,” and, “These two things are diametrically opposed: that a Christian is righteous and beloved by God, and yet that he is a sinner at the same time. . . Therefore, Paul complains in Romans 7:23 about the sin that still remains in the saints, and yet he says later on (Romans 8:1) that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”6
These two, the righteous and the saint, are as far as east is from west, though not in a geographic distancing, nor in an ontological or Neoplatonic bifurcation of the material and spirit. Rather these two are opposed and separated in a relational (relatio)7 and eschatological manner which is the result of the revelation (αποκαλύψεις) of the spoken Law and Gospel resounding in the ears (the hearing of faith) of a sinful creature. The Law kills the old Adam, and the Gospel raises a new creature of faith out of death (2 Corinthians 3:6). The peccator faces fatal destruction and then, the construction of something entirely new which is faith/the righteous creature (iustus), ex nihilo, that had never existed before.8 These two, the peccator and the iustus, though simultaneous for now, are nevertheless eschatologically and relationally distinct, separated by death and the grave, not the lex aeternae that remains to be fulfilled. The relational aspect is precisely when God interrupts our lives by speaking directly through the mouth of the preacher, the direct address. It is eschatological because the address spoken is not that of the Law towards a continually existing subject exercising “free will” to spiritually ascend. Rather the Law’s accusation unto death that Luther describes in his Heidelberg Disputation (1518), “do this, and it is never done,” is brought to an end (finis) in the Gospel promise (promissio): “it is finished.” “Believe this and it is already done;” there is nothing left to do, you are a new creation. Ego te absolvo (I forgive you), you are free in Christ.
Job
The Law’s Double Terminus: in Christ Crucified, in the Conscience
The simul is a scriptural insight Luther learned very early on in his studies of the book of Romans which served as a key for, not only understanding the struggle of faith as a Christian laid out in the letters of Paul, but also unlocking the understanding of the whole life of all God’s elect from the time of the Old Testament, such as we find in the book of Job, but also as far back as the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve receive the protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15). One can also recognize the simul in the New Testament pastoral epistles, such as 1 John. Just as Scripture is divided into two parts, the Law and the Gospel, so, too, the Christian life is divided into two parts: the old sinner (peccator) who is under the Law with its power to accuse (the law always accuses) and the new justified creation (iustus) saved through the Gospel, with the Law behind him, emptied (lex vacua) and silenced, having met its eschatological end and goal (finis and telos) in Christ crucified (Romans 10:4).9 Christ terminates the Law in the cross: he fulfills (finis) the law and is the goal (telos) toward which the Law points, “the Law is a disciplinarian towards Christ” (Galatians 3:14). “An end has to be set for the Law, where it will come to a stop. Therefore, the time of the Law is not forever; but it has an end which is Christ. But the time of grace is forever.”10 Paul makes his typical eschatological turn of phrase, asserting, “But now.” This is the rupture of the times, indicating an end of the Law and the beginning of the age of grace. Once you, the peccator, were under the Law, but since Christ has come, now you are no longer under the law because you are a child of God through faith, the iustus.
St. Paul
Just as the Law and Gospel distinction is Scripture’s own hermeneutical key, so too, the simul is given by Scripture as the interpretative key to the life as a Christian. Paul continues, “For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (3:27), and as Luther poignantly clarifies, Christ is not the Law. The Law, then, does not discipline or drive or instruct the sinner to itself, but to Christ who is not the Law. 11 The baptized experience this fatal destruction of the old (through repentance) and the construction of the new (which is faith). Through the daily drowning in repentance of the old sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, the new self is raised through the hearing of the absolution, extra nos, that Christ’s preachers declare.
Luther points out that the end of the Law is a double event, literally and spiritually. First, Christ terminates (telos) the Law, “The telos or end of the Law involves both its termination and its fulfillment. Thus, in Paul’s original argument, the Law had lost its force or value and so terminates in Christ,”12 (Luther says, in a literal sense, “The Law was, until Christ”) and secondly, the Holy Spirit silences the accusing voice of the Law, spiritually, in the conscience.13
Now the time of the Law is finished in two ways: first, through the coming of Christ in the flesh at a time set by the Father. For Christ became a man in time just once, ‘born of a virgin, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law’ (Gal. 4:4-5) . . . Secondly, that same Christ who came in time comes to us in spirit every day and hour. With his own blood, to be sure, He redeemed and sanctified all men just once. But because we are not yet perfectly pure but remnants of sin still cling to our flesh and the flesh wars against the spirit, therefore He comes end of the Law spiritually every day; day by day. He worked completes the time set by the Father more and more, abrogating and abolishing the Law.14
As the Law has met its eschatological end in the crucified Christ, the Law also meets its end in the Christian, day by day. This is accomplished, however, not in the activity of the old Adam’s will exercising the deeds of the Law. No, the second eschatological end of the Law worked in the life of the sinner is accomplished as Christ arrives as a gift for the sinner, first in baptism, and daily in the hearing of the Word. This is to say, it is the active work of the Holy Spirit sending Christ into the life and ear of the waiting creature (passive),15 bringing the end to the old sinner under the Law and creating him anew in the Gospel, thus sanctifying that which is unsanctified.
“We begin and make progress. . .”
On the one hand, Luther speaks of the simul as totus totus. There is no “progress” towards justification for the sinner living under the Law. There is a complete lack of any kind of movement; the old sinner is totally dead. And at the same time, the sinner is made to be totally righteous through the eschatological preaching of the promise. A Christian is not righteous in himself, but only by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This righteousness is complete, for Christ has fulfilled the Law on the cross; there is nothing residual that needs to be completed. So, the promise, faith, and imputation go together. “Imputed righteousness as a divine judgement brings with it the simul iustus et peccator as total states.”16
One of the most important books on the simul is Wilfried Joest’s Gesetz und Freiheit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1956). Its clarity is in showing that the sinner is not a continually existing subject progressing towards righteousness in the self, nor that the life of the Christian is a sequential, chronological existence, moving from mostly sinner to mostly saint. Rather, Joest writes,
The simul is not the equilibrium of two mutually limiting partial aspects but the battleground of two mutually exclusive totalities. It is not the case that a no-longer-entire sinner and a not-yet completely righteous one can be pasted together in a psychologically conceivable mixture; it is rather that real and complete righteousness stands over against real and total sin . . . The Christian is not half-free, and half bound, but slave and free at once, not half saint, but sinner and saint at once, not half alive, but dead and alive at once, not a mixture but a gaping opposition of antithesis . . .17
This total and double imputation – the sinner is imputed with the righteousness of Christ and Christ is imputed with the sins of the unrighteous – militates against any typical theological discussion of “progress” in the Christian life. Oswald Bayer has recently contributed to the conversation of the simul regarding the total double state of imputation: “But the guilt of sin, as Luther asserts against the standard of his day, which is still upheld today by the Roman Catholic Church, is no fomes concupiscentiae, no mere tinder, but rather a brightly blazing flame. It is truly and completely sin; sin qualifies humans in their entirety. Therefore, sin is to be understood qualitatively not quantitatively. There are no fractions when it comes to sin. The same is true of faith; it is whole (totus) and without fractions.”18
Oswald Bayer
On the other hand, Bayer, as well as Joest,19 have shown that Luther also discusses a partum iustus, partum peccator. This is discussed in two senses. In first sense, partum partum is not meant as a a zero-sum equation of the person being a certain percentage sinner and the remaining percentage saint, equaling 100%. It is, rather in the sense of, “on the one hand,” you are 100% sinner and “on the other hand” you are 100% saint.”20 In the second sense, Luther talks about progress in the Christian’s life as partum partum, though not in the typical discussions of progress in Law and actualizing one’s potential in the mode of Aristotle (ad modum Aristotelis). The Law always accuses the old Adam. The sinner, however, imagines that there is a “Law” that does not accuse, and believes that this imaginary “Law” is doable.
The progress that is made in the life of the Christian, however, is not about turning inward, to work on the self in matters of Law in order to chip away at sin. This only makes matters worse; the Law brings wrath (Romans 4:15) by increasing sin (Romans 5:20), it does not remove it. The progress, Luther says in his Romans’ lectures, is not the sinner ridding himself of sin, but rather the sinner who is extracted from sin.21 In this life, sin is removed in hope (spei) in Christ’s promise from the cross, but it is the Holy Spirit who daily drowns the old sinner in repentance and raises a new creature. We are extracted from gazing at our navels, depending upon our effort and understanding and working on ourselves, to instead placing ourselves in the hands of the living God to justify, sanctify, and redeem his sinners.
In Luther ’s well-known explanation to the third article of the Creed in The Large Catechism, he speaks of holiness beginning and “growing daily,” and being “halfway pure.” Like a dog who returns to his vomit, we repeat our folly when we hear this and immediately assume Luther is speaking about “growth,” and “halfway pure” in the mode of Aristotle (ad modus Aristotelis), that the old Adam, who has been given a little “grace,” can now actualize his full potential and grow in the Law, moving from “halfway” holy towards the goal of “perfect holiness” by himself. Listen, however, to Luther ’s explanation where it is the Holy Spirit alone who is the actor; it is the office and work of the Holy Spirit to extract life out of death by the forgiveness of sins:
"Meanwhile, because holiness has begun and is growing daily, we await the time when our flesh will be put to death, will be buried with all its uncleanliness, and will come forth gloriously and arise to complete and perfect holiness in a new, eternal life. Now, however, we remain only halfway pure and holy. The Holy Spirit must always be in us through the Word, granting us daily forgiveness until we attain to that life where there will be no more forgiveness. In that life there will be only perfect pure and holy people, full of integrity and righteousness, completely freed from sin, death, and all misfortune, living in new, immortal, and glorified bodies. All this, then, is the office and work of the Holy Spirit to begin and daily increase holiness on earth through these two means, the Christian church and the forgiveness of sins."22
Aristotle
The progress is not made by the sinner in righteousness and sanctification in the Law, but rather it is the Holy Spirit who progresses in upon the sinner, wresting the sinner from the Law and its accusation, and giving new life by bestowing Christ and his benefits. We are not the actors, but the ones acted upon.
Conclusion
The eschatology of the simul is not progressive in the Law, but rather depends upon grace which is the end of the Law and all under the Law’s accusation. As the Christ descended from heaven above to earth below, he made his dwelling among sinners until we crucified him. His crucifixion was the fulfillment and end of the Law. Now, as he has ascended and fills all things, He has promised to always be with us and “for you” in the eschatological preaching of his promises to actual, live sinners. His arrival, whole and complete, true God and true man, into the ears of sinners, silences the voice of the Law in the conscience, creating a truly free creature that did not exist beforehand. The Christian as simul iustus et peccator is the result of the eschatological event of the preaching of Christ, by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of one creature to another, specifically the preaching of the forgiveness of sins in Word and Sacrament. “The Holy Spirit effects our being made holy through the following: the community (Gemeine) of saints (or the Christian church), the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. That is, he first leads us into his holy community, placing us in the church’s lap, where he preaches to us and brings us to Christ.”23 Such preaching of the Word into the ears of an actual sinner, that old Adam (peccator) accused by the law, and then raises a new creature (iustus), free from the Law and in Christ. This new creature, the justified (iustus), is, however, very deeply hidden though fully present, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,” (Galatians 2:20) and “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
Rev. Dr. Marney Fritts is an instructor of Systematic Theology for Saint Paul Lutheran Seminary. Her Ph.D. dissertation was “Responses to Gustaf Aulén’s Christus Victor and their Impact on the Doctrine of Atonement for Proclamation” (Luther Seminary, 2011). She has written an essay for the festschrift, Handing Over the Goods: Determined to Proclaim Nothing but Jesus Christ and Him Crucified (1517 Publishing: Irvine, California, 2018), in honor of Dr. James A. Nestingen, and is a regular contributor to the Connections magazine published by Sola Publishing.
Endnotes
1Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans (1516) in The Library of Christian Classics, volume XV (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), translated and edited by Wilhelm Pauck, 124-125.
2Ibid., 204.
3Steven D. Paulson, “The Simul and the Two Kingdoms,” in Logia 25, no. 4 Reformation 2016, 17. When Dr. Paulson parenthetically says, “that baptized, I am for the time being, not one, but two – one is old and dead, the other new and eternal,” he is accurately portraying what Luther states in the later lectures on Galatians regarding the simul as the “double life” (LW 26, 170).
4Gerhard O. Forde, “Forensic Justification and the Christian Life,” in A More Radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, and Ecumenism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), edited by Mark Mattes and Steven D. Paulson, 119.
5Martin Luther, Lectures on the Galatians (1519), LW 27: 230-23.
6Martin Luther, Lectures on the Galatians (1535), LW 26: 232, 235.
7Oswald Bayer, “Luther’s Simul Iustus et Peccator,” in Simul: Inquiries into Luther’s Experience of the Christian Life edited by Robert Kolb, Torbjörn Johansson, and Daniel Johansson (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021), 44.
8Ibid., 42; Robert Kolb, “Old Adam, New Martin,” in Simul: Inquiries into Luther’s Experience of the Christian Life edited by Robert Kolb, Torbjörn Johansson, and Daniel Johansson (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021).
9LW 26, 279; James A. Nestingen, “Speaking of the End to the Law,” in The Necessary Distinction: A Continuing Conversation on Law & Gospel (St. Louis: Concordia, 2017), 170-174.
10LW 26, 342.
11Ibid., 203.
12Nestingen, 170.
13Ibid., 317.
14Ibid., 360.
15Luther, Romans, “He does not speak of the ‘essence’ of the creature, and of the way it ‘operates,’ or of its ‘action,’ or inaction,’ and ‘motion,’ but using a new and strange theological word, he speaks of ‘the expectation of the creature.’ By virtue of the fact that his soul has the power of hearing the creature waiting, he no longer directs his inquiry toward the creature as such but to what it waits for.” 235-236.
16Forde, 118.
17Forde, “Forensic,” on Wilfried Joest, Gezetz and Freiheit, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1956), 58-59.
18Bayer, 39.
19Joest, 59.
20Bayer, 39, n. 37.
21Ibid., 42.
22Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert, 438-439.
23Ibid., 435-436.
