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By Martin Luther
But you will ask, What is this word, and by what means is it to
be used, since there are so many words of God? I answer, The
Apostle Paul (Rom. i.) explains what it is, namely the Gospel of
God, concerning His Son, incarnate, suffering, risen, and
glorified, through the Spirit, the Sanctifier. To preach Christ
is to feed the soul, to justify it, to set it free, and to save
it, if it believes the preaching. For faith alone and the
efficacious use of the word of God, bring salvation. "If thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in
thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved" (Rom. x. 9); and again, "Christ is the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. x. 4), and "The
just shall live by faith" (Rom. i. 17). For the word of God
cannot be received and honoured by any works, but by faith alone.
Hence it is clear that as the soul needs the word alone for life
and justification, so it is justified by faith alone, and not by
any works. For if it could be justified by any other means, it
would have no need of the word, nor consequently of faith.
But this faith cannot consist at all with works; that is, if you
imagine that you can be justified by those works, whatever they
are, along with it. For this would be to halt between two
opinions, to worship Baal, and to kiss the hand to him, which is
a very great iniquity, as Job says. Therefore, when you begin to
believe, you learn at the same time that all that is in you is
utterly guilty, sinful, and damnable, according to that saying,
"All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. iii.
23), and also: "There is none righteous, no, not one; they are
all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable:
there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom. iii. 10—12).
When you have learnt this, you will know that Christ is necessary
for you, since He has suffered and risen again for you, that,
believing on Him, you might by this faith become another man, all
your sins being remitted, and you being justified by the merits
of another, namely of Christ alone.
Since then this faith can reign only in the inward man, as it is
said, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness" (Rom. x.
10); and since it alone justifies, it is evident that by no
outward work or labour can the inward man be at all justified,
made free, and saved; and that no works whatever have any
relation to him. And so, on the other hand, it is solely by
impiety and incredulity of heart that he becomes guilty and a
slave of sin, deserving condemnation, not by any outward sin or
work. Therefore the first care of every Christian ought to be to
lay aside all reliance on works, and strengthen his faith alone
more and more, and by it grow in the knowledge, not of works, but
of Christ Jesus, who has suffered and risen again for him, as
Peter teaches (1 Peter v.) when he makes no other work to be a
Christian one. Thus Christ, when the Jews asked Him what they
should do that they might work the works of God, rejected the
multitude of works, with which He saw that they were puffed up,
and commanded them one thing only, saying, "This is the work of
God: that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent, for Him hath God
the Father sealed" (John vi. 27, 29).
Hence a right faith in Christ is an incomparable treasure,
carrying with it universal salvation and preserving from all
evil, as it is said, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark xvi. 16).
Isaiah, looking to this treasure, predicted, "The consumption
decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord God of
hosts shall make a consumption, even determined (verbum
abbreviatum et consummans), in the midst of the land" (Isa. x.
22, 23). As if he said, "Faith, which is the brief and complete
fulfilling of the law, will fill those who believe with such
righteousness that they will need nothing else for
justification." Thus, too, Paul says, "For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness" (Rom. x. 10).
But you ask how it can be the fact that faith alone justifies,
and affords without works so great a treasure of good things,
when so many works, ceremonies, and laws are prescribed to us in
the Scriptures? I answer, Before all things bear in mind what I
have said: that faith alone without works justifies, sets free,
and saves, as I shall show more clearly below.
Meanwhile it is to be noted that the whole Scripture of God is
divided into two parts: precepts and promises. The precepts
certainly teach us what is good, but what they teach is not
forthwith done. For they show us what we ought to do, but do not
give us the power to do it. They were ordained, however, for the
purpose of showing man to himself, that through them he may learn
his own impotence for good and may despair of his own strength.
For this reason they are called the Old Testament, and are so.
For example, "Thou shalt not covet," is a precept by which we are
all convicted of sin, since no man can help coveting, whatever
efforts to the contrary he may make. In order therefore that he
may fulfil the precept, and not covet, he is constrained to
despair of himself and to seek elsewhere and through another the
help which he cannot find in himself; as it is said, "O Israel,
thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help" (Hosea
xiii. 9). Now what is done by this one precept is done by all;
for all are equally impossible of fulfilment by us.
Now when a man has through the precepts been taught his own
impotence, and become anxious by what means he may satisfy the
law--for the law must be satisfied, so that no jot or tittle of
it may pass away, otherwise he must be hopelessly
condemned--then, being truly humbled and brought to nothing in
his own eyes, he finds in himself no resource for justification
and salvation.
Then comes in that other part of Scripture, the promises of God,
which declare the glory of God, and say, "If you wish to fulfil
the law, and, as the law requires, not to covet, lo! believe in
Christ, in whom are promised to you grace, justification, peace,
and liberty." All these things you shall have, if you believe,
and shall be without them if you do not believe. For what is
impossible for you by all the works of the law, which are many
and yet useless, you shall fulfil in an easy and summary way
through faith, because God the Father has made everything to
depend on faith, so that whosoever has it has all things, and he
who has it not has nothing. "For God hath concluded them all in
unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all" (Rom. xi. 32). Thus
the promises of God give that which the precepts exact, and
fulfil what the law commands; so that all is of God alone, both
the precepts and their fulfilment. He alone commands; He alone
also fulfils. Hence the promises of God belong to the New
Testament; nay, are the New Testament.
Now, since these promises of God are words of holiness, truth,
righteousness, liberty, and peace, and are full of universal
goodness, the soul, which cleaves to them with a firm faith, is
so united to them, nay, thoroughly absorbed by them, that it not
only partakes in, but is penetrated and saturated by, all their
virtues. For if the touch of Christ was healing, how much more
does that most tender spiritual touch, nay, absorption of the
word, communicate to the soul all that belongs to the word! In
this way therefore the soul, through faith alone, without works,
is from the word of God justified, sanctified, endued with truth,
peace, and liberty, and filled full with every good thing, and is
truly made the child of God, as it is said, "To them gave He
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
name" (John i. 12).
From all this it is easy to understand why faith has such great
power, and why no good works, nor even all good works put
together, can compare with it, since no work can cleave to the
word of God or be in the soul. Faith alone and the word reign in
it; and such as is the word, such is the soul made by it, just as
iron exposed to fire glows like fire, on account of its union
with the fire. It is clear then that to a Christian man his faith
suffices for everything, and that he has no need of works for
justification. But if he has no need of works, neither has he
need of the law; and if he has no need of the law, he is
certainly free from the law, and the saying is true, "The law is
not made for a righteous man" (1 Tim. i. 9). This is that
Christian liberty, our faith, the effect of which is, not that we
should be careless or lead a bad life, but that no one should
need the law or works for justification and salvation.
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