It is chiefly in the question of justification by faith alone that he twists his text so much that his version ceases in reality to be a translation. He indeed speaks of his additions as “commentaries,” but no one could thus have “commented” on the passages who was not, like Luther, entirely taken up with the new dogma of grace, justification and faith.
In his efforts to provide his doctrine with a firm foundation in the eyes of his readers, he added the word “only” in Rom. iv. 15 and Rom. iii. 20, thus making these Pauline texts into a condemnation of the Law: “The law worketh only wrath,” “by the law only is the knowledge of sin.”
Again, in Rom. iii. 25 f., the Apostle speaks of Christ “whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to the showing of his justice for the remission of former sins through the forbearance of God for the showing of his justice in this time, that he himself may be just and the justification of him who is of the faith of Jesus Christ.” Luther, however, in the interests of his new doctrine, makes him say that God had “set up Christ as a mercy seat through faith in his Blood, in order that he may present the righteousness which is acceptable to him, forgiving the sins which had remained till then under divine forbearance, that he might in his season offer the righteousness which is acceptable to him that he might himself alone be just and the justifier of him that is of the faith of Jesus.” The offering of the righteousness that is acceptable to God—an expression twice repeated—is not found in the original text, but of course is highly favourable to Luther’s doctrine of a merely imputed righteousness.[1995] In the same way he here speaks of God as “alone” being just, an interpolation of which the origin must also be sought in the translator’s theology.[1996]
Another passage falsely rendered is Rom. viii. 3: “He condemned sin in the flesh by sin,” instead of “on account of sin” (the Son of God was sent) as the Greek text (περὶ ἁμαρτίας) plainly states.
The frequent substitution of the word “pious” for “just” would seem innocent enough, but this too was done purposely. Here a pet term of Luther’s theology is made to replace the right word in order the better to represent holiness as something merely imputed. “To be pious,” according to Luther, is to have faith, and, through faith, imputed justice.[1997] Thus Noe becomes a “pious man without reproach” (Gen. vi. 9) instead of a “just and perfect man.” Zachary and Elizabeth are described as “pious,” but not as “just” before God (Luke i. 6), and similarly with Simeon (ib., ii. 25), and Joseph, the husband of Mary (Mt. i. 19). Job, too, is not asked, as in the Sacred text: “What doth it profit God if thou be just?” but “What pleasure is it to the Almighty if thou makest thyself pious?” (Job xxii. 3). The exhortation in Apoc. xxii. 11: “He that is just let him be justified still,” appears in the weakened form: “He that is pious let him be pious still.”[1998]
From his constant use of the word “congregation” instead of “Church” the latter conception unquestionably suffers. In Luther’s translation the word church is used only of the heathen temples and illegal sanctuaries of the Israelites. He also terms the heathen priests and soothsayers “parsons,” and unmistakably likens them and their practices to those of Catholicism. Baruch vi. 30, for instance, which describes the heathen priests is rendered as follows: “And the priests sit in their temples in their voluminous copes [!]; with shaven faces and wearing tonsures they sit there bareheaded and howl and cry aloud before their idols.” “It is perfectly obvious at whom this is aimed,” remarks a Protestant critic.[1999]
The licence of the translator here is, however, of less importance than in his treatment of the passages on faith and justice, of which we shall give two further instances. These also show how Luther, even where he does not essentially alter the text, nevertheless succeeds in construing the words of Holy Scripture in such a way as to favour his own doctrine. When Paul’s statements were obscure they should have been left in their obscurity, or, at any rate, they should not have been translated in such a way as to contradict the doctrine elsewhere taught by the Apostle.
And yet this is just what Luther does in Rom. x. 4. The passage according to the Greek runs: “For the aim of the law is Christ unto the justice of everyone that believeth,” whereas Luther’s version is: “For Christ is the end of the law, and whoever believeth in Him is just.”
The same is the case with the oft-quoted text Rom. iii. 28, of which Luther’s Bible makes a kind of palladium for the new teaching by the arbitrary addition of the word “alone.” The text has been immortalised in its Lutheran shape even to our own day in inscriptions on Protestant churches and pulpits. There Luther makes the Apostle say: “Thus we hold that a man is justified by faith alone without the works of the law,” whereas the old Latin of the Vulgate rightly rendered it: “Arbitramur enim iustificari hominem per fidem sine operibus.”
The word “alone” is not called for either by the text or the context. It is indeed true that the Apostle wishes to emphasise the exclusive action of faith, nevertheless, if we take this faith as he understands it, i.e. as a strong and vivifying faith and no mere dead thing, then it naturally comprises the works wrought by faith and man’s co-operation under the influence of grace. Of this faith to which the Apostle expressly refers, for instance in Romans ii. 6 ff. and in Galatians v. 6, he might quite well have said in the above passage that it justifies without works, i.e. without such as are performed apart from faith and grace. In fact, taken in this sense, Luther’s interpolation of the word “alone” is not reprehensible, though in the sense in which he intended it it is altogether inadmissible; for he would fain make the Apostle say, that faith “alone,” without any works of the law, operates justification, the works being merely an aspect of faith. The addition of the word “alone” amounted to a quite unjustifiable usurpation of the famous Pauline dictum for the uses of his own party. It must also at least be termed a subjective falsification, even though, objectively, it be capable of a better interpretation. If, as we have heard Luther say, he really wished to show in his translation “the utmost fidelity and industry and had never a thought of deception,” then he should not have made St. Paul say more than he does in the original, viz. that man is justified by faith without works.