Out of Luther's opposition to the sale of indulgences there grew in the course of time one of the fundamental principles of Protestantism: complete, universal, and free salvation of sinners by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. In the controversies which started immediately after the publication of the Ninety-five Theses, Luther was led step by step to a greater clearness in his view of sin and grace, faith and works, human reason and the divine revelation. Not yet realizing the full import of his act, Luther had in the Theses made that article of the Christian faith with which the Church either stands or falls the issue of his lifelong conflict with Rome—the article of the justification of a sinner before God. It is, therefore, convenient to review the misrepresentations which Luther has suffered from Catholic writers because of his teaching on the subject of justification at this early stage in our review, though in doing so a great many things will have to be anticipated.
Catholic writers charge Luther with having perverted the meaning of justifying faith. Luther held that justifying faith is essentially the assurance that since Christ lived on earth as a man, labored, suffered, died, and rose again in the place of sinners, the world en masse and every individual sinner are without guilt in the estimation of God. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Cor. 5, 19.) To this reconciliation the sinner has contributed nothing. It has been accomplished without him. He cannot add anything to it. God only asks the sinner to believe in his salvation as finished by Jesus Christ. To believe this fact does not mean to perform a work of merit in consideration of which God is willing to bestow salvation on the believer, but it means to accept the work of Christ as performed in our place, to rejoice therein, and to repose a sure confidence in this salvation in defiance of the accusations of our own conscience, the incriminations which the broken Law of God hurls at us, and the terrors of the final judgment. The believer regards himself as righteous before God not because of any good work that he has done, but because of the work which Christ has performed in his place. The believer holds that, when God, by raising Christ from the dead, accepted His work as a sufficient atonement for men's guilt and an adequate fulfilment of the divine Law, He accepted each and every sinner. The believer is certain that through the work of his Great Brother, Christ, he has been restored to a child relationship with God and enjoys child's privileges with his Father in heaven. The idea that he himself has done anything to bring about this blessed state of affairs is utterly foreign to this faith in Christ.
Catholic writers assert that the doctrine which we have just outlined is not Scriptural, but represents the grossest perversion of Scripture. They say this doctrine originated in "the erratic brain of Luther." Luther "was not an exact thinker, and being unable to analyze an idea into its constituents, as is necessary for one who will apprehend it correctly, he failed to grasp questions which by the general mass of the people were thoroughly and correctly understood. . . . He allowed himself to cultivate an unnecessary antipathy to so-called 'holiness by works,' and this attitude, combined with his tendency to look at the worst side of things, and his knowledge of some real abuses then prevalent in the practise of works, doubtless contributed to develop his dislike for good works in general, and led him by degrees to strike at the very roots of the Catholic system of sacraments and grace, of penance and satisfaction, in fact, all the instruments or means instituted by God both for conferring and increasing His saving relationship with man." Luther's teaching on justification is said to be the inevitable reverse of his former self-exaltation. Abandoning the indispensable virtue of humility, he had become a prey to spiritual pride, and had entered the monastery to achieve perfect righteousness by his own works. He had disregarded the wise counsels of his brethren, who had warned him not to depend too much on his own powers, but seek the aid of God. Then failing to make himself perfect, he had run to the other extreme and declared that there was nothing good in man at all, and that man could not of himself perform any worthy action. Finally he had hit upon the idea that justification means, "not an infusion of justice into the heart of the person justified, but a mere external imputation of it." Faith, in Luther's view, thus becomes an assurance that this imputation has taken place, and man accordingly need not give himself any more trouble about his salvation.
This teaching, Catholic writers contend, subverts the prominent teaching of the Scriptures that man must obey God and keep His commandments, that he must be perfect, even as his Father in heaven is perfect, that he must follow in the footsteps of Jesus who said: "I am not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it." Furthermore, this teaching is said to dehumanize man and make out of him a stock and a stone, utterly unfit for any spiritual effort. God, they say, constituted man a rational being and imposed certain precepts on him which he was free to keep or violate as he might choose unto eternal happiness or eternal misery. The sin which all inherit from Adam has weakened the powers of man to do good, but it has not entirely abolished them. There is still something good in man by nature, and if he wants to please God and obtain His aid in his good endeavors, he must at least do as much as is still in his power to do, and believe that God for Jesus' sake will assist him to become perfect, if not in this life, then, at any rate, in the life to come. He cannot avoid sin altogether, but he can avoid sin to a certain extent; he can at least lead an outwardly decent life. That is worth something, that is "meritorious." He may not feel a very deep contrition over his wrong-doings, but he can feel at least an attrition, that is, a little sorrow, or he can wish that he might feel sorry. That is worth something; that is "meritorious." He cannot love God with all his heart and all his soul, and all his strength, but he can love Him some. That is worth something; that is "meritorious." Accordingly, when the rich young man asked the Lord what he must do to gain heaven, the Lord did not say, "Believe in Me, Accept Me for your personal Savior, Have faith in Me," but He said: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Paul, likewise teaches that faith and love must cooperate in man, for "faith worketh by love." Therefore, "faith in love and love in faith justify," but not faith alone. Faith without works is dead and cannot justify. A live faith is a faith that has works to show as its credentials that it is real faith. Hence, faith alone does not justify, but faith and works. Love is the fulfilment of the Law; faith works by love, hence, by the fulfilment of the Law. Therefore, faith alone does not justify, but faith plus the fulfilment of the Law. In endless variations Catholic writers thus seek to upset with Scripture Luther's teaching that man is justified by faith in Christ alone, and that all the righteousness which a sinner can present before God without fear that it will be rejected is a borrowed righteousness, not his own work-righteousness.
We might express a just surprise that Catholics should be offended at the doctrine that the righteousness of Christ is imputed, that is, reckoned or counted, to the sinner as his own. For, does not their system of indulgences rest on a theory of imputation? Do they not, by selling from the Treasure of the Church the superabundant merits of Christ and the saints to the sinner who has not a sufficient amount of them, make those merits the sinner's own by just such a process of imputation? They surely cannot infuse those merits into the sinner. But Catholics probably object to the Protestant imputation-teaching because that is too cheap and easy, and because Protestant success has spoiled a lucrative Catholic imputation-business.—This in passing. Let the Bible decided [tr. note: sic] whether Luther was right in teaching justification by faith alone, by faith without works.
What does the Bible say about the condition of natural man after the fall? It says: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," that is, corrupt (John 3, 6); "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. 8, 21); "They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Ps. 14, 3); "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one" (Job 14, 4); "There is here no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3, 22. 23).
What does the Bible say about the powers of natural man after the fall in reference to spiritual matters? It says: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2, 14); "Ye were dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2, 1); "The carnal mind," that is, the mind of flesh, the natural mind of man, "is enmity against God" (Rom. 8, 7); "Without Me"—Jesus is the Speaker—"ye can do nothing" John 15, 5).
What does the Bible say about the value of man's works of righteousness performed by his natural powers? It says: "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Is. 64, 6); "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit" (Matt. 7, 17).
What does the Bible say about man's ability to fulfil the Law of God? It says: "Cursed is he that confirmeth not all the words of this Law to do them" (Deut. 27, 26) ; "Whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (Jas. 2, 10) ; "What the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8, 38); "The Law worketh wrath," that is, by convincing man that he has not fulfilled it and never will fulfil it, it rouses man's anger against God who has laid this unattainable Law upon him (Rom. 4, 15).
What does the Bible say about the relation of Christ to the Law and to sin? It says: "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem them that were under the Law" (Gal. 4, 4); "Christ is the end of the Law 'for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10, 4); "God hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteous of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5, 21); "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law; being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3, 13).