Both before and after the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, the crucial issue for Luther was always how, if at all, can we be right with God. How can we be saved from eternal damnation? How can we be legitimately relieved from the terrible burden of sin, from our fear of a righteous God, and from our cases of spiritual turmoil—our Anfechtungen? How can we live with genuine confidence and hope?
In the wording of these questions, key words are “legitimately” and “genuine.” Luther could not be satisfied with such easy answers as “Just do your best; God doesn’t expect any more than that” or “You do your part and God will do his” or “Trust in the goodness of a caring God” or “The Church’s answers have always been good enough for everyone else.”
Fortunately, Luther was not satisfied with easy answers. If he had been, he never would have dug so deeply into Scripture.
It was fortunate, too, that he was urged by his mentor, Johann von Staupitz, to earn a doctorate in theology and to teach biblical studies at the university level. This gave him the perfect opportunity to dig deeply.
And it was extremely fortunate that near the very beginning of his academic career, he focused on the Pauline letters to the Romans and Galatians.
The insights that Luther gained from his careful study of these writings were the crucial points that shaped Luther’s entire theology and his entire life. Those insights also freed him from his inner own “Anfechtungen,” and gave him the courage to speak out with amazing strength and directness. All of this was made possible by his pre–1517 work as a young theology professor at the University of Wittenberg.
Luther’s earliest lectures in 1513–14 were on the Psalms, and these were followed by lectures on Romans in 1515 and on Galatians in 1516 and early 1517. Preparation for the lectures forced him to explore and meditate on such passages as “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17 & Galatians 3:11), “We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law” (Romans 3:28), and “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse” (Galatians 3:10). In the process, Luther became a vigilant opponent of any form of Pelagianism, the heresy condemned by the Church in the fifth century according to which a person still has a free will uncorrupted by the fall and can earn righteousness,1 or of Semipelagianism, the heresy that free will is only partially impaired and a person must do his part which is then supplemented by God’s grace.
The Lectures on Galatians was prepared by Luther for publication in 1519. He lectured on the epistle again in 1531 with publication in 1535. The Lectures on Romans was not published during Luther’s lifetime but the manuscript survived and was published in its fullness in the 20th century. In 1522 Luther did, however, write for publication the important “Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans,” in which he clearly laid out his understanding of Law and Gospel.
These lectures and writings provide a perfect introduction to both the early and mature views on his most central theological position. It is also worth noting that Luther’s exegetical studies, in distinction from his polemical writings, can provide a helpful introduction to his theological views because the latter are often addressed to specific situations and are colored by personalities, context, and emotion.
In his early lectures on Galatians and Romans, Luther was critical of many practices of the Church as man-made and inconsistent with Scripture, but his language shows that he presented these criticisms as those of a loyal son seeking to promote renewal and reform from within. In his interpretations of specific verses, he made frequent positive use of Jerome, Augustine, and other Church Fathers respected and used in the Roman Church—and even of the contemporary Humanist, Erasmus. Later, however, he was critical of his early commentaries for being too soft in its criticisms of church practices and doctrines and for accepting too much of Jerome and Erasmus.
We will highlight Luther on Law and Gospel by looking at his early lectures on Romans, his early lectures on Galatians, the “Preface” to Romans, and finally to his later lectures on Galatians.
In his 1513–14 lectures on the Psalms, Luther had given special attention to the Penitential Psalms and to the picture of an obedient and suffering Christ that he saw in them. Then when he turned to Romans in 1515, he was struck by the significance of that picture of Christ for our own spiritual lives. It becomes, he realized, the basis for our own righteousness. Jesus was obedient and suffered for us that we might be made righteous in God’s eyes. A believer is still a sinner, but through faith is forgiven, is made righteous. A believer is humbled before God. This humiliation does not make people more distant from God but actually brings them closer to him “for in humility they will seek Christ and confess that they are sinners and thus receive grace and be saved.”2
When Luther compared the practices of the Church, including monasticism, with all of this, he was dismayed.3 There is no humility before God. There is no recognition that acts prescribed by the Church’s leaders are themselves sinful and do not result in the faith Paul described. There is no proper recognition of the Law. There is no proper respect for the Gospel.
Luther likewise loved Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia. He once said, “The Epistle to the Galatians is my epistle, to which I have wedded myself. It is my Catherine von Bora”4—a reference to his beloved wife.
Luther caught Paul’s emphasis on grace and the Gospel in this letter and gave it a poignant application:
Certainly today, too, the Gospel has been perverted in a great part of the church, since they are teaching people nothing but the decrees of the popes and the traditions of men who turn their backs on the truth; or the Gospel is treated in such a way that it does not differ at all from laws and moral precepts. The knowledge of faith and of grace is despised even by the theologians themselves.5
Significantly, Luther was not merely claiming that the contrast is between the commands and traditions of men on the one hand and Scripture’s teaching of faith and grace on the other; it is also between God’s commandments and that teaching of faith and grace. He was dealing with the fundamental distinction between Law and Gospel. He wrote:
The Gospel and the Law, taken in their proper sense, differ in this way: The Law proclaims what must be done and left undone; or better, it proclaims what deeds have already been committed and omitted, and also that possible things are done and left undone (hence the only thing it provides is the knowledge of sin); the Gospel, however, proclaims that sins have been remitted and that all things have been fulfilled and done.6
Luther included under the Law the entire law of the Old Testament—not merely the regulations and rules developed by the Pharisees and other Jewish religious leaders. The Law reveals our human inadequacies, our sin, and can never be a source of comfort. The Gospel, by contrast, tells us that through faith in Christ we are forgiven and freed.
But when the heart has thus been justified through the faith that is in His name, God gives them [those who trust in the Lord] the power to become children of God (John 1:12) by immediately pouring into their hearts His Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), who fills them with His love and makes them peaceful, glad, active in all good works, victorious over all evils, contemptuous even of death and hell. Here all laws and all works of laws soon cease; all things are now free and permissible, and the Law is fulfilled through faith and love.7
Works of the Law may be done and may be well and good, but one can never be justified by them. They follow righteousness, rather than leading to it. “Christian righteousness and human righteousness are not only altogether different but are even opposed to each other, because the latter comes from works, while works come from the former.”8
What, then, is the purpose of the Commandments? They are necessary for sinners to reveal their sin, and they show sinners, made righteous by faith, how they should live.9 The Law has prepared us for Christ and for faith; it is not our companion or custodian with Christ.10
Luther ended his commentary with a powerful statement that those who find his claim odious in any way should first set his name aside and only look at Paul and the clarity of his writing on Law and Gospel, and then compare it with “the appearance presented by the church, which today is most wretched.”11
The thrust of these powerful lectures is that the Law, God-given or man-made (even by the Church), can never make us right with God. That can only come through the Gospel according to which God forgives us because of Christ. The Law can lead us to Christ but it can never bond us with him.
In the “Preface,” Luther showed exceptionally high regard for Romans:
This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and is truly the purest gospel. It is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but also that he should occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. We can never read it or ponder over it too much; for the more we deal with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.12
By 1522, the date of the writing of this “Preface” (revised in 1546), Luther had developed a clearer understanding of Law and Gospel as the center of the Christian message. In this work there are no attacks or extraneous comments. There are only a concise explanation of key theological terms (law, sin, grace, faith righteousness, flesh, and spirit) and a brief chapter-by-chapter summary of the epistle.
The term that Luther explains first and most fully is “law.” In this he makes the following points:
• Paul does not mean a teaching about deeds that are to be done or not done; he means having a love for the law in the depth of one’s heart.13
• No one can love the law that God lays down even if one is determined to keep it; thus, no one can really keep the law.14
• Thus, all are sinners no matter what their outward deeds may be.15
• To fulfill the law, one must do its works with pleasure and love.16
• Christ has fulfilled the law for us.17
• Only with faith in Christ can one have this love for the law and what it requires.18
• Thus, only faith in Christ can fulfill the law.19
• This faith is given by God’s Holy Spirit and is not our own product.20
Luther then went on to explain the other key terms. “Gospel” is not among them but is mentioned in the last paragraph as having been clarified by him. Indirectly, this is the case, for he did explicitly explain grace, faith and righteousness.
“Grace” is “God’s favor or the good will which in himself he bears toward us, by which he is disposed to give us Christ and to pour into us the Holy Spirit with his gifts.”21
“Faith” is “a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God…. It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different men, in heart and spirit and mind and powers; and it brings with it the Holy Spirit. O [sic] it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly.”22 “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times.”23
On “righteousness,” he wrote:
Righteousness … is called ‘the righteousness of God’ because God gives it, and counts it as righteousness for the sake of Christ our Mediator, and makes a man to fulfill his obligation to everybody. For through faith a man becomes free from sin and comes to take pleasure in God’s commandments…. [H]e serves his fellow-men willingly, by whatever means he can, and thus pays his debt to everyone. Nature, free will, and our own powers cannot bring this righteousness into being.24
Out of this we may define “Gospel” in the following way: “Gospel” is the good news that God in his grace gives us faith to trust in the righteousness that Christ has won for us. Through this faith we are able to live a new life of good works totally impossible without God’s grace and the Holy Spirit working in us.
In his later and more developed commentary on Galatians, he showed beautifully his understanding of Law and Gospel.
He began with comments on the general argument of the epistle. “Christian righteousness,” he claimed is passive and thus unlike any other kind of righteousness of which we might speak, e.g., political righteousness, ceremonial righteousness, or even righteousness of the Law, for only Christian righteousness is absolutely none of our doing and is the result purely of God’s grace. Moreover, it is the only remedy that an afflicted conscience has against despair and eternal death. God, because of Christ, gives us faith and thus makes us righteous.25
But before this faith can have any effect, there must be awareness of the Law and of the God-given demands that we cannot fulfill. It is totally impossible for any human to achieve a righteousness by the Law. The Law can only lead to an afflicted conscience; that is, however, a good thing, for it makes us ready for the divine gift of faith and the total righteousness that is bequeathed on us because of Christ.
The comfort that the Christian finds in the Gospel is stated elegantly by Luther near the end of the opening section on the epistle’s argument:
I am baptized; and through the Gospel I have been called to a fellowship of righteousness and eternal life, to the kingdom of Christ, in which my conscience is at peace, where there is no Law but only the forgiveness of sins, peace, quiet, happiness, salvation, and eternal life. Do not disturb me in these matters. In my conscience not the Law will reign, that hard tyrant and cruel disciplinarian, but Christ, the Son of God, the King of peace and righteousness, the sweet Savior and Mediator. He will preserve my conscience happy and peaceful in the sound and pure doctrine of the Gospel and in the knowledge of this passive righteousness.26
What, then, in the end is Luther’s understanding of Law and Gospel—what he understood to be the central pillar of Christian faith?
Law is the entire body of God’s commands given to guide into holy living and righteousness but demanding at all times pure devotion and love. It is totally beyond our reach and properly condemns us daily. But it serves the wonderful purpose of making us desperate and preparing us for the passive reception of the Gospel.
The Gospel is God’s gift to us whereby he gives us faith and makes us righteous through the pure righteousness won for us by Christ. It remakes us and leads us gladly to do God’s will and the good works which God demands. While the Law condemns us every day, the Gospel assures us that we are forgiven and made righteous. The Gospel holds out for us the promise of new life now and in eternity.
It is not too much to say that Luther sought to bring all of his other positions under this central doctrine. All other teachings were to be consistent with and flow from the basics of Law and Gospel, sin and grace.
It is little wonder that the Roman Catholic Church of Luther’s day could not accept this. The problem wasn’t only that Luther objected to indulgences, corruption, wickedness in the priesthood, and the like. He was objecting to any theology that made room for humans to please God, even in the smallest way, through their own initiative. His vigilance opposed any form of Pelagianism—any effort to show that a human can cooperate and do some things that lead God to declare that person righteous.
Thus, all of canon law would crumble. The structure of ecclesiastical authority with its dependence upon human directives and punishments would collapse. And any effort to motivate people to act in certain ways in order to placate or to please God would be doomed.
Luther’s understanding of Law and Gospel is of great relevance today, for it is a constant temptation in various church bodies to promote a form of Christian moralism and legalism. The Gospel is wonderfully liberating, but for people who seek to control or manipulate others or for people who think that it goes against human reason, it is still an obstacle.