Luther, vol. 2 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

The termination of this work shows that it was intended to incite the minds of its readers against Rome, in order to forestall the impending Ban.

This end was yet better served by the third “reforming” work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” a popular tract in Latin and German with its dangerously seductive explanation of his teaching on faith, justification and works.[70]

In this work, as a matter of fact, Luther expresses with the utmost emphasis his theological standpoint which hitherto he had kept in the background, but which was really the source of all his errors. As before this in the pulpit, so here also he derives from faith only the whole work of justification and virtue which, according to him, God alone produces in us; this he describes in language forcible, insinuating and of a character to appeal to the people; it was only necessary to have inwardly experienced the power of faith in tribulations, temptations, anxieties and struggles to understand that in it lay the true freedom of a Christian man.

This booklet has in recent times been described by a Protestant as “perhaps the most beautiful work Luther ever wrote, and an outcome of religious contemplation rather than of theological study.”[71] It does, as a matter of fact, present its wrong ideas in many instances under a mystical garb, which appeals strongly to the heart, and which Luther had made his own by the study of older German models.

The new theory which, he alleged, was to free man from the burden of the Catholic doctrine of good works, he summed up in words, the effect of which upon the masses may readily be conceived: “By this faith all your sins are forgiven you, all the corruption within you is overcome, and you yourself are made righteous, true, devout and at peace; all the commandments are fulfilled, and you are set free from all things.”[72] “This is Christian liberty ... that we stand in need of no works for the attainment of piety and salvation.”[73] “The Christian becomes by faith so exalted above all things that he is made spiritual lord of all; for there is nothing that can hinder his being saved.”[74] By faith in Christ, man, according to Luther, has become sure of salvation; he is “assured of life for evermore, may snap his fingers at the devil, and need no longer tremble before the wrath of God.”

It was inevitable that the author should attempt to vindicate himself from the charge of encouraging a false freedom. “Here we reply to all those,” he says in the same booklet,[75] “who are offended at the above language, and who say: ‘Well, if faith is everything and suffices to make us pious, why, then, are good works commanded? Let us be of good cheer and do nothing.’” What is Luther’s answer? “No, my friend, not so. It might indeed be thus if you were altogether an interior man, and had become entirely spiritual and soulful, but this will not happen until the Day of Judgment.”

But in so far as man is of the world and a servant of sin, he continues, he must rule over his body, and consort with other men; “here works make their appearance; idleness is bad; the body must be disciplined in moderation and exercised by fasting, watching and labour, that it may be obedient and conformable to faith and inwardness, and may not hinder and resist as its nature is when it is not controlled.” “But,” he immediately adds this limitation to his allusion to works, “such works must not be done in the belief that thereby a man becomes pious in God’s sight”; for piety before God consists in faith alone, and it is only “because the soul is made pure by faith and loves God, that it desires all things to be pure, first of all its own body, and wishes every man likewise to love and praise God.”

In spite of all reservations it is very doubtful whether the work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man” was capable of improving the many who joined Luther’s standard in order to avail themselves of the new freedom in its secular sense. “By faith” man became, so Luther had told them, pure and free and “lord of all.” They might reply, and as a matter of fact later on they did: Why then impose the duty of works, especially if the interior man has, according to his own judgment, become strong and sufficiently independent? Such was actually the argument of the fanatics. They added, “to become altogether spiritual and interior,” is in any case impossible, moreover, as, according to the new teaching, works spring spontaneously from the state of one who is justified, why then speak of a duty of performing good works, or why impose an obligation to do this or that particular good work here and now? It is better and easier for us to stimulate the spirit and the interior life of faith in the soul merely in a general way and in accordance with the new ideal.

As a matter of fact, experience soon showed that where the traditional Christian motives for good works (reparation for sin, the acquiring of merit with the assistance of God’s grace, etc.) were given up, the practice of good works suffered.