Talk:Andreas Osiander

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The article says that Osiander's position on essential righteousness was "maintained after his death by Johann Funck (his son-in-law) but disappeared after 1566" but after working my way through Calvin's polemic against it (Institutes III,XI), I began to think that Osiander's position is considerably more significant in the history of Christian theology and, in fact, endures to this day, particularly in the Christian Perfection tradition.

It seems to me that the dispute boils down to the degree of distinction between justification and sanctification (or, to use Calvin's word, regeneration). Calvin maintains that the two are concomitant but entirely distinct. That is, that an individual who is justified will always be subject to regeneration but justification and regeneration are not the same thing. For Calvin, justification is a legal term that refers to a pronouncement by a judge (in this case God the Father) and regeneration is a process by which an individual becomes decreasingly sinful and increasingly holy.

I am more familiar with Calvin than I am with Osiander, but, from what I gather, Osiander holds that justification is far more than a judicial pronouncement. Rather, it is a transfer of "essential righteousness" (Osiander's term) where the sinful nature of an individual is replaced by the righteous nature of Christ, presumably at the moment of conversion. This blurs the distinction between justification and regeneration which Calvin is so careful to maintain.

It seems to me that Osiander's "essential righteousness" lives on the Christian Perfection tradition in general and Pentacostal movement in particular. Note the popular phrase "Saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost" as a description of the moment of salvation. I do not know if Osiander would have approved of this description, but it does follow his view of the relationship between justification and regeneration, collapsing the two into a single moment. This stands in stark contrast to contemporary Reformed theology which, following Calvin, maintains that, though justified before God, Christians remain sinners in thought, word, and deed until Christ returns to glorify them (Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 82).

--Mike Duskis 18:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)