13 Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin.
14 Free will, after the fall, has power to do good only in a passive capacity, but it can always do evil in an active capacity.
15 Nor could free will remain in a state of innocence, much less do good, in an active capacity, but only in its passive capacity.
16 The person who believes that he can obtain grace by doing what is in him adds sin to sin so that he becomes doubly guilty.
17 Nor does speaking in this manner give cause for despair, but for arousing the desire to humble oneself and seek the grace of Christ.
18 It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.
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19 That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25),
20 He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.
21 A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.
22 That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.
23 The law brings the wrath of God (Rom. 4:15), kills, reviles, accuses, judges, and condemns everything that is not in Christ.
24 Yet that wisdom is not of itself evil, nor is the law to be evaded; but without the theology of the cross man misuses the best in the worst manner.
25 He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ.
26 The law says, do this, and it is never done. Grace says, believe in this, and everything is already done.
27 Actually one should call the work of Christ an acting work (operans) and our work an accomplished work (operatum), and thus an accomplished work pleasing to God by the grace of the acting work.
28 The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.
Surely, the above would have been an anathema to those who received the Good News from the apostles or their immediate appointees. Such cannot possibly have been
“the faith once for all delivered to the saints”675 or indeed anything like it, for none of the writings of the late first and second century Church witnesses most notably Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Ignatius and Polycarp, the latter two known to be fellow-disciples under the apostle John understood the gospel in the way the Reformers or for that matter 4th-5th century Augustine came to interpret it. Luther himself affirms the matter - none of these Apostolic Fathers had understood the gospel in terms of “faith alone”, “resting in the mercy of Christ” from the starting point of a condemned humanity incapable by nature of willing or doing anything pleasing to God. That is why this Augustinian monk came to regard them as being in “great darkness”.
From any rational and experiential perspective it is absurd to assert that everything that God does appears evil from a human perspective (#4); that acts of kindness and compassion towards those in need are effectively mortal sins (#2); that the response of a good conscience is “evil self-security” rather than the reciprocation of an innately provided faculty (#8); that doing what one believes to be right and just could ever be a mortal sin (#7); more generally that the vast majority who have failed to interpret the “Good News” in such a way are condemned to hell. For as just illustrated, few if any Christians in the first
millennium interpreted the Gospel in such a way, let alone the rest of humanity to whom 675 Jud1:3
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God has also wished to impart His saving truth. Given that these issues pertained to the essentials of human salvation and the historical mission of the Church they could never have been truths that were progressively to be revealed but are heretical teachings, resulting in the severing of the Body of Christ, hatred between sincere Christian believers and centuries of warfare.
It is therefore important to ascertain how the teaching of the apostles was disseminated through their successors to the churches being established throughout the world. Third century Origen aptly commented that the apostles when handing on the faith to the early Church expressed themselves “with utmost clarity concerning the essentials”
whilst on other subjects “they merely stated the fact that things were so, keeping silence as to the manner or origin of their existence, clearly in order that their successors who should be lovers of wisdom might have a subject of exercise on which to display the fruit of their talents”676. Examining the Ante-Nicene writings it will be discerned that all were in agreement concerning certain essentials that have subsequently been the cause of schism, whilst other issues including those being dealt with in this document such as God’s dealings with those outside the Church and the nature of the age to come were not fully agreed amongst the Fathers for they contained mysteries the solution for which did not form a part of the “faith once and for all delivered to the Church” but were data to be subjected to progressive revelation.