Osiandrians

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

A denomination among the Lutherans, which was founded in the year 1550, by Andrew Osiander, a celebrated German divine, whose doctrine amounted to the following propositions:

1. That Christ, considered in his human nature only, could not, by his obedience to the divine law, obtain justification and pardon for sinners; neither can we be justified before God, by embracing and applying to ourselves, through faith, the righteousness and obedience of the man Christ. It is only through that eternal and essential righteousness which dwells in Christ, considered as God, and which resides in his divine nature, that is united to the human, that mankind can obtain complete justification. 2. That a man becomes a partaker of this divine righteousness by faith, since it is in consequence of this uniting principle that Christ dwells in the heart of man with his divine righteousness. Now, wherever this divine righteousness dwells, there God can behold no sin; therefore, when it is present with Christ in the hearts of the regenerate, they are on its account considered by the Deity as righteous, although they be sinners. Moreover, this divine and justifying righteousness of Christ excites the faithful to the pursuit of holiness, and to the practice of virtue.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

is the name of a body of Lutheran theologians who adhered to the doctrines of Andreas Osiander (q.v.) concerning the redemptive character of Christ by virtue of his divine nature alone. Osiander was opposed by Melancthon and others, but principally by Stancarus (q.v.), professor of Hebrew at Konigsberg, who adopted the opposite extreme, that Christ's divine nature had no concern in the satisfaction he made, and that the mediation between God and man belonged to Jesus, considered in his human nature only. After the death of Osiander the strife was continued by his disciples. They were at first upheld by Osiander's former protector, the duke; but in 1554 a council condemned their doctrines, and demanded that all Osiandrians should abjure their heresies. They protested, and were for the greater part obliged to leave the country. Osiander's son-in-law, the court preacher Johann Funck, was compelled to recant by the synod of 1556, but afterwards returned to his errors; he became also connected with political troubles, and paid the penalty of his heresy with his life. (See Funck). After this the party soon lost all importance, and the troubles ended. Morlin, the leader of the orthodox party, who had been exiled from Konigsberg, was recalled and made bishop, and framed a new confession of faith denouncing the Osiandrian heresy. The confession, in order that it should not be considered a new formula, but only a reassertion of the old, was called Repetitio coaporis doctrines Christiance; this name was afterwards changed, however, to Corpus Doctrine Prutenicum (in 1567), and all the Osiandrians were banished from Prussia, after which they soon became extinct. See references in the article OSIANDER. In recent times the Osiandrian view of justification has been espoused by Dr. John Forbes in his Analytical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Edinb. 1868, 8vo). See British and Foreign Evang. Rev. Oct. 1868, art. ii.