That such a setting aside of the specifically Mosaic Law appealed to him, we can readily understand. But does he include in his reprobation the whole “lex moralis,” the Natural Law which the Old Testament merely confirmed, and which, according to Luther himself, is written in man’s heart by nature? This Law he asserts is implicitly obeyed as soon as the heart, by its acceptance of the assurance of salvation, is cleansed and filled with the love of God.[24] And yet “in many instances he applies to this Natural Law what he says elsewhere of the Law of Moses; it too affrights us, increases sin, kills, and stands opposed to the Gospel.”[25] Desirous of destroying once and for all any idea of righteousness or merit being gained through any fulfilment of any Law, he forgets himself, in his usual way, and says strong things against the Law which scarcely agree with other statements he makes elsewhere.
Owing to polemists taking too literally what he said, he has been represented as holding opinions on the Law and the Gospel which in point of fact he does not hold; indeed, some have made him out a real Antinomian. Yet we often hear him exhorting his followers to bow with humility to the commandments, to bear the yoke of submission and thus to get the better of sin and death. Nevertheless, particularly when dealing with those whose “conscience is affrighted,” he is very apt to forget what he has just said in favour of the Law, and prefers to harp on his pet theology: “Man must pay no heed to the Law but only to Christ.” “In dealing with this aspect of the matter we cannot speak too slightingly of so contemptuous a thing [as the Law].”[26]
His changeableness and obscurity on this point is characteristic of his mode of thought.
At times he actually goes so far as to ascribe to the Law merely an outward, deterrent force and to make its sole value in ordinary life consist in the restraining of evil. Even when he is at pains to emphasise the “real, theological” use of the Law as preparatory to grace, he deliberately introduces statements concerning the Law which do not at all help to explain the matter. According to him, highly as we must esteem the Law for its sacred character, its effect upon people who are unable to keep it is nevertheless not wholesome but rather harmful, because thereby sin is multiplied, particularly the sin of unbelief, i.e. as seen in want of confidence in the certainty of salvation and in the striving after righteousness by the exact fulfilling of the Law.[27] “Whoever feels contrition on account of the Law,” he says for instance, “cannot attain to grace, on the contrary he is getting further and further away from it.”[28]
Even for the man who has already laid hold on salvation by the “fides specialis” and has clothed himself in Christ’s merits, the deadening and depraving effect of the Law has not yet ceased. It is true that he is bound to listen to the voice of the Law and does so with profit in order to learn “how to crucify the flesh by means of the spirit, and direct his steps in the concerns of this life.” Yet—and on this it is that Luther dwells—because the pious man is quite unable to fulfil the Law perfectly, he is only made sensible of his own sinfulness; against this dangerous feeling he must struggle.[29] Hence everything depends on one’s ability to set oneself with Christ above the Law and to refuse to listen to its demands; for Christ, Who has taken the whole load upon Himself, bears the sin and has fulfilled the Law for us.[30] That this, however, was difficult, nay, frequently, quite impossible, Luther discovered for himself during his inward struggles, and made no odds in admitting it. He gives a warning against engaging in any struggles with our conscience, which is the herald of the Law; such contests “often lead men to despair, to the knife and the halter.”[31] Of the manner in which he dealt with his own conscience we shall, however, speak more in detail below (XXIX, 6).
It is not necessary to point out the discrepancies and contradictions in the above train of thought. Luther was untiring in his efforts at accommodation, and, whenever he wished, had plenty to say on the matter. Here, even more plainly than elsewhere, we see both his lack of system and the irreconcilable contradictions lying in the very core of his ethics and theology. Friedrich Loofs says indulgently: “Dogmatic theories he had none; without over much theological reflection he simply gives expression to his religious convictions.”[32]
It is strange to note how the aspect of the Law changes according as it is applied to the wicked or to the just, though it was given for the instruction and salvation of all alike. In the New Testament we read: “My yoke is sweet and my burden light,” but even in the Old Testament it had been said: “Much peace have they that love thy Law.”[33] According to Luther the man who is seeking for salvation and has not yet laid hold on faith in the forgiveness of sins must let himself be “ground down [’conteri,’ cp. ‘contritio’] by the Law” until he has learnt “to live in a naked trust in God’s Mercy.”[34] The man, however, who by faith has assured himself of salvation looks at the Law and its transgressions, viz. sin, in quite a different light.
“He lives in a different world,” says Luther, “where he must know nothing either of sin or of merit; if however he feels his sin, he is to look at it as clinging, not to his own person, but to the person (Christ) on whom God has cast it, i.e. he must regard it, not as it is in itself and appears to his conscience, but rather in Christ by Whom it has been atoned for and vanquished. Thus he has a heart cleansed from all sin by the faith which affirms that sin has been conquered and overthrown by Christ.... Hence it is sacrilege to look at the sin in your heart, for it is the devil who puts it there, not God. You must say, my sins are not mine; they are not in me at all; they are the sins of another; they are Christ’s and are none of my business.”[35] Elsewhere he describes similarly the firm consolation of the righteous with regard to the Law and its accusations of sin: “This is the supreme comfort of the righteous, to vest and clothe Christ with my sins and yours and those of the whole world, and then to look upon Him as the bearer of all our sins. The man who thus regards Him will soon come to scorn the fanatical notions of the sophists concerning justification by works. They rave of a faith that works by love (‘fides formata caritate’), and assert that thereby sins are taken away and men justified. But this simply means to undress Christ, to strip Him of sin, to make Him innocent, to burden and load ourselves with our own sins and to see them, not in Christ, but in ourselves, which is the same thing as to put away Christ and say He is superfluous.”[36]
The confidence with which Luther says such things concerning the transgression of the Divine Law by the righteous is quite startling; nor does he do so in mere occasional outbursts, but his frequent statements to this effect seem measured and dispassionate, nor were they intended simply for the learned but even for common folk. It was for the latter, for instance, that in his “Sermon von dem Sacrament der Puss” he said briefly: “To him who believes, everything is profitable and nothing harmful, but, to him who believes not, everything is harmful and nothing profitable.”[37]
“Whosoever does not believe,” i.e. has failed to lay hold of the certainty of salvation, deserves to feel the relentless severity of the Law; let him learn that the “right understanding and use of the Law” is this, “that it does no more than prove” that all “who, without faith, follow its behests are slaves, stuck [in the Law] against their will and without any certainty of grace.” “They must confess that by the Law they are unable to make the slightest progress.”