God's Hideous Self-Portrait

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One of the theological distinctions from the works of Martin Luther that, I’d say, is deserving of more attention is his juxtaposition between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross. These categories might seem like esoteric abstractions. Distinguishing between the two can feel as though you’re splitting hairs, a meticulous theological and philosophical tincture that doesn’t offer much in the way of “rubber-meets-the-road” applicability. But Luther’s discrimination between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross represents a fundamental hermeneutic not only for the crucifixion narratives of the Gospels but also for the entire text of Scripture. 

This theological apparatus finds its roots in Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, in which the German reformer was afforded the opportunity to abdicate or affirm some of his statements in the previous year’s infamous Ninety-Five Theses. In so doing, Luther was granted the bandwidth to more accurately articulate his quarrels with the church and the papacy. Gerhard Forde writes in On Being a Theologian of the Cross, pseudo-commentary on Luther’s 1518 disputations, that “the Heidelberg Disputation is the most influential of all Luther’s disputations. It is theologically much more important and influential, for instance, than the Ninety-five Theses, even though the Ninety-Five Theses caused more of an ecclesiastical and political stir.” (19) This due in large part because of Luther’s insistence on the basic tenets of theology itself, particularly in Thesis 20, in which he avers, “He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.” For Luther, the cross wasn’t merely the coronation of God’s saving action through his only begotten Son, it was the culmination of God’s self-disclosure.