The Texts
"He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler."
"Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Romans 5:1 is not followed immediately by a command to maintain the peace it declares through subsequent works. It is followed by a description of what that peace produces: rejoicing in hope, and then tribulation, which produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope that does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The sequence moves from justification to fruit, not from fruit back to justification. The peace of Romans 5:1 is the immovable foundation; the hope, endurance, and love of verses 3–5 are what grow from that foundation. AC XX is the doctrinal form of this sequence: faith first, fruit after, never the reverse. Psalm 91's life in the shelter of the Most High is the form the Christian life takes when the peace of Romans 5:1 is the ground beneath it. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Under His wings, with His faithfulness as shield and buckler, covered from terror by night and arrow by day. The person who lives this life is not the person who has performed enough religious acts to qualify for divine protection; she is the person whose ground is the Most High's shelter, not her own achievement.
Falsely Accused: What the Reformers Actually Taught
Augsburg Confession Article XX opens with a defense, not an apology: our teachers are falsely accused of forbidding good works. The accusation arose from a misidentification of what the Reformers had actually rejected. Medieval preaching had defined good works largely as manufactured, extraordinary religious acts: particular holy-days, particular fasts, brotherhoods, pilgrimages, services in honor of saints, the use of rosaries, monasticism, and the like. When the Reformers stripped these away, their opponents concluded that they were opposing good works entirely. The actual position was different: the Reformers redirected the definition from self-chosen religious feats back to the works God actually commands in the everyday duties of one's calling.
AC XX argues that the Reformers did not abolish good works but redirected their definition from self-chosen religious feats to the duties God actually commands in everyday vocations. How does this redirection change the way a congregation member evaluates whether she is living a good Christian life, moving from the question 'am I doing enough religious activities' to the question 'am I faithfully fulfilling what God has assigned to me in my specific calling'?
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The Anchor of Peace: Romans 5:1
AC XX's central pastoral argument is its diagnosis of what happens to the conscience when it seeks peace through works. Some were driven into the desert; others entered monasteries; others devised new rituals. None found rest, because human works are always imperfect, and a conscience that must assess its own performance for peace will find imperfection everywhere it looks. The Confession quotes Romans 5:1 directly: being justified by faith, we have peace with God. The peace is not the consequence of works performed; it is the precondition of works that are genuinely good.
AC XX says consciences cannot be pacified through any works but only by faith in Christ's reconciliation. Psalm 91's shelter is a refuge received, not a position earned. When a congregation member looks at her own spiritual fruit, or lack of it, to assess whether she is truly justified, what error is she making, and what does AC XX's Romans 5:1 argument require to be said to her instead?
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Faith as Mother: Between Cheap Grace and Works-Righteousness
AC XX navigates the tension between cheap grace and works-righteousness with the distinction it draws from Ambrose: faith is the mother of a good will and right doing. The image is precise. A mother produces children; the children do not produce the mother. Justifying faith produces good works; the good works do not produce or sustain justifying faith. This means that good works are genuinely necessary, as AC XX insists: it is necessary to do good works, not that we should trust to merit grace by them, but because it is the will of God.
AC XX says justification by faith alone is the only doctrine that actually shows how we are enabled to do good works, citing Christ's 'without me you can do nothing' and the need for the Holy Spirit to renew the heart before genuine good works are possible. How does a pastor preach the necessity of good works and the renewing work of the Spirit without allowing the congregation to slide into either cheap grace (peace without fruit) or works-righteousness (fruit as the ground of peace)?