Martin Luther on Justification By Faith Alone
Martin Luther was
wrestling with an existential issue when he asked, “How could one stand in
holiness before a righteous and demanding God?”[i]He
had no peace. As a monk in the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt he strove to
acquire holiness on the basis of following a meritorious system.[ii]
Luther seriously attempted to follow the prescribed way and to do even more
than required. However, Luther had bad personal experiences with his conscience
condemning him as he attempted to live the monastic life.[iii] To
understand Luther’s predicament we must have a picture of thought and practices
of the Medieval Catholic Church. They believed that grace was objective and
acquired through sacraments offered by the church.[iv]
It was through sacraments that man was presented blameless before God. The
sacraments were taken throughout one’s life from birth to death, from baptism
to unction.[v]In order
for one to be saved, one had to confess their sins and exhibit a nominal worthiness
for grace. But Luther had doubts because he asked, “Could one be sure that one
confessed all one’s sins?”[vi]Luther
was not persuaded instead he saw despair, and viewed God as wrathful and condemnatory.[vii]He
needed assurance that his salvation was completely dependent on God.[viii]
As Luther strove to understand the meaning of
justification and what Paul meant by writing, “For we hold that a person is
justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”[ix]
For Luther, justification was by faith alone (sola fide) and scripture alone (sola
scriptura).[x]Luther’s
formula was “justification by grace through faith.”[xi]He
charged that the righteousness of God was obtained through grace by which we
are justified before God.[xii]He
ruled out justification through works.[xiii]He
insisted that justification was through faith in God and apprehension of his
love and mercy.[xiv]According
to Luther justification was the condition of being put in right relationship with
God. It was obtained as a gift from God as righteousness, which, he called
passive righteousness through faith.[xv]He
saw righteousness as forensic, which, God imputes upon sinners.[xvi]Luther
asserts grace was the unmerited favor of God - a substance that bridged the gap
between divinity and humanity.[xvii]
For Luther when you are justified
then you must live a life of sanctification. Luther declared that good works
always followed faith. It was faith first then good works.[xviii]
He stated that good works never produced salvation but they followed faith as
day follows night.[xix]Therefore
sanctification was a result of justification. Without justification one could
never come to a place of sanctification.[xx]
Luther developed this system after he
had struggled with the medieval penitential system, which taught that individuals
were responsible for their salvation.[xxi]It
was more of a bargain; if you do your part, God would do his part. In this
system justification came after a long process of sanctification. But for Luther
justification was instant and it always preceded sanctification.[xxii]Luther
preached against the Roman Catholic idea of indulgences.[xxiii]He
called the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church robbers and he believed that they
were the Babylonian system that was birthed by Nimrod the mighty hunter.[xxiv]Luther
wrote a strong polemic against Rome and its Papacy.[xxv]Luther’s
fundamental question was, “How do we know that we have done enough through this
penitential system?”
Also Luther’s important differentiation
between law and gospel enabled him to correctly interpret scripture.[xxvi]For
Luther, the gospel stood contradistinctive and antithetical to the law. Luther
taught the distinction between the law and the gospel is not identical to the
distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament.[xxvii]He
charged that the Old Testament is a volume of both the law and the gospel in as
much as the New Testament is volume of both the law and the gospel.[xxviii]Luther
taught that the word gospel means the good news and also that Christ’s life,
righteousness and holiness overcame death, sin and eternal damnation.[xxix]He
declared that the gospel demanded no works to merit our redemption.[xxx]He
affirmed that the gospel condemns such works and demands only faith in Christ.[xxxi]According
to Luther the law taught that we should merit our salvation by good works, but
that’s impossible on the account of our sin. Instead the law exposes our sin
hence the law is condemnatory.[xxxii]Luther
charged that no one would be justified by fulfilling the dictates of the law.
He affirmed that God introduced the law as a schoolmaster to show us that we
cannot save ourselves by fulfilling it. It came to show us how sinful we are
and that we are in desperate need of a gracious savior Jesus Christ. This
Christ is revealed through the proclamation of the gospel.
Luther
concluded that man is justified by faith and by scripture alone.[xxxiii]He
formulated the formula, “justification by grace through faith.”[xxxiv]He
realized that man has no capacity to save self hence is in need of grace and
mercy from God.[xxxv]
[i] Martin Luther, Martin Luther:
Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger, The Anchor Library of
Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1961), xv.
[ii]
Ibid.
[iii]
Ibid.
[iv]
Ibid.
[v]
Ibid.
[vi]
Ibid, xvi.
[vii]
Ibid.
[ix] Michael David Coogan, The New
Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 1981.
[x] Martin Luther, Martin Luther:
Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger, The Anchor Library of
Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1961), xvv.
[xi]
Ibid.
[xii]
Ibid.
[xiii]
Ibid, xxvi.
[xiv]
Ibid.
[xv]Ibid,
11.
[xvi]
Ibid, xxiv.
[xvii]
Ibid.
[xviii]
Ibid, xxix.
[xix]
Ibid, xxiv.
[xx]
Ibid, xxix.
[xxi]
Ibid, 249.
[xxii]
Ibid, 131.
[xxiii]
Ibid, 271.
[xxiv]
Ibid, 250.
[xxv]
Ibid.
[xxvi]
Ibid, 14.
[xxvii]
Ibid.
[xxviii]
Ibid, 15.
[xxix]
Ibid.
[xxx]
Ibid.
[xxxi]
Ibid.
[xxxii]
Ibid, 21.
[xxxiii]
Ibid, xxv.
[xxxiv]
Ibid.
[xxxv]
Ibid, xxvii.
Bibliography
1. Coogan, M. D.
(2010). The Oxford Annotated Bible (4th ed.). New York, NY, USA:
Oxford University Press.
2. E.Capetz, P.
(2003). God. Minneapolis, MN, USA: Fortress Press.
3. Luther, M.
(1961). Martin Luther. (J. Dillenberger, Ed.) Garden City, NY, USA:
The Anchor Library of Religion.
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