The Tragic Shift in Luther's Thinking

In earlier writings Martin Luther spoke of justifying faith as the engine that produced loving conduct in a believer. In his Romans commentary (1516) he likened the Christian to "a sick man who believes the doctor who promises him a sure recovery and in the meantime obeys the doctor's order in the hope of the promised recovery [from his sinful disposition] and abstains from those things which have been forbidden him [by the doctor], so that he may in no way hinder the promised return to health or increase his sickness until the doctor can fulfill his promise to him. Is this sick man well? . . . He is sick in fact [many sinful tendencies remain] but he is well [accounted as righteous] because of the sure promise of the doctor, whom he trusts and who has already reckoned him as already cured. . . . [The sick man] has the beginning of righteousness, so that he continues more and more always to seek it. . . But now if this sick man should like his sickness and refuse every cure for his disease, will he not die? Certainly, for thus it is with those who follow their lusts in this world" (LW 25:260).

I am grateful to my former student, Dr. Ted Dorman, Associate Professor of Religion in the Department of Biblical Studies at Taylor University, Upland, Indiana, for alerting me this spring to Luther's use of the "Doctor's Analogy," an illustration used so frequently since 1967 in my own teaching.

This statement, taken from his comment on Rom. 4:7, shows that in those early days Luther saw a sinner's deliverance to depend on two elements. First, there is justification, the forgiveness for past sins and for the sinful inclinations, that God, the "Doctor," is now working to remove, and second, the promise the Doctor gives to cure a sick sinner who expresses confidence in him by complying with the particulars of his prescribed health regimen. These particulars are the conditions the patient is to meet in getting his sinful inclinations replaced by Christ-likeness.

Failures here and there to meet these conditions are forgiven as are the sinful inclinations the health regimen is designed to cure. But persistent apathy toward the Doctor's health regimen will not be forgiven, because it is a vote of "No confidence" in the Doctor's health expertise. Far from promising health to such people the Doctor tells them their sickness will lead to misery and death unless they repent.

Two Kinds of Righteousness.

Alien righteousness consisted of two elements. Justification is one element. It is alien in that it comes to us from outside ourselves -- from Christ and his finished work on the cross. God's promises are the other element. They are also alien in that God makes them to us sinners on the basis of Christ's shed blood that atoned for our sins. "God has granted to us very great and valuable [promises] in Christ [II Pet. 1:4; 2 Cor. 1:20]" (p. 297). Using Luther's Doctor analogy, justification is the sinner's being accounted as forgiven "because of the sure promise of the doctor." The promises, on the other hand, along with the conditions for enjoying their fulfillment, motivate the sick sinner to bide by the Doctor's health regimen.

These two elements of alien righteousness, Luther said, make it "the basis, the cause, the source of all our own actual [proper] righteousness" (p. 298). Alien righteousness "causes" actual righteousness. The promise of alien righteousness to overcome the shame and hurt of our sinful dispositions and behavior patterns, coupled with the encouragement of knowing God has already forgiven our sinfulness -- this makes a powerful incentive to comply with the particulars of the Doctor's health regimen.

A negative, but no less powerful, incentive for complying with it comes from understanding that protracted indifference to its particulars constitutes a repudiation of the Doctor's trustworthiness. In response to this insult the Doctor cannot view the sick patient as well (no justification!). His prognosis for such unbelief is that his sickness will only grow worse and lead to final misery and death. So alien righteousness urges the believer to obey such commands in the Bible as "do nothing through strife or vainglory" (Phil. 2:3), "do all things without murmuring and disputing" (Phil 2:14), "make the most of the time" (Eph. 5:16), "speak evil of no one" (Tit. 3:2), and "be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (James 1:19). Obeying God's commands then is a part of the "obedience of faith" (Rom. 1:5).

In his treatise "The Freedom of a Christian" (1520) the early Luther put strong emphasis on this "obedience of faith" (Rom. 1:5) which is rendered to God's commands as "laws of faith" (Rom. 9:32). "If you wish to fulfill the law and not covet. . . come, believe in Christ in whom. . . all things are promised you. If you believe you shall have all things; if you do not believe, you shall lack all things. That which is impossible for you to accomplish by trying to fulfill all the works [commands] of the law. . . you will accomplish quickly and easily through faith" (LW 31:348-49).

He then continued, "Faith honors him whom it trusts with the most reverent and highest regard, since it considers him truthful and trustworthy. . . . On the other hand, there is no way in which we can show greater contempt for a man than. . . to be suspicious of him, as we do when we do not trust him. . . . Is not such a soul most obedient to God in all things by this faith? What commandment is there that such obedience has not completely fulfilled? This obedience . . . is rendered by faith alone. On the other hand, what greater rebellion against God. . . what greater contempt of God is there than not believing his promise? For what is this [unbelief] but to make God a liar? . . . . Therefore God has rightly included all [sins] not under anger or lust, but under unbelief. . . "(p. 350).

A few pages later Luther said, "Every Christian is by faith so exalted above all things that, by virtue of a spiritual power, he is lord of all things without exception, so that nothing can do him any harm. . . . The power of which we speak is spiritual. . . . This is a . . . truly omnipotent power, a spiritual dominion in which there is nothing so good and nothing so evil but that shall work together for good to me, if only I believe. . . . Thus Christ has made it possible for us, provided we believe in him, to be his . . . fellow kings. . . But he who does not believe is not served by anything. Nothing works for his good . . . and all things turn out badly for him. . ." (pp. 354-55).

No one who faces squarely the prospects of unbelief can tolerate them. So we are driven to faith, not only to avoid such a bleak prospect, but also to be a "fellow king" with Jesus, whose love for us will employ his full authority to make the many adversities and stumbling blocks of life into steppingstones leading to better blessings not possible otherwise.

Hence we want to "glory in tribulation" (Rom. 5:3). Christians will also want to render an obedience of faith to God's promise to recompense all disobedience (Rom. 12:19) by forgiving those who have wronged them in the sense of leaving the punishment they deserve to God, and in the meantime showing benevolence to the wrongdoers. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him to drink" (Rom. 12:20). To allow bitterness to fester in one's heart against a wrongdoer insults the integrity of the God who promises that "every transgression and disobedience shall receive a just retribution" (Heb. 2:2). Christians will also want to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess. 5:18), because to murmur and complain about disappointments is both to flout God's promise to "work all things together for good" (Rom. 8:28) and to deny that one is a "fellow king" with Jesus, "seated with him in the heavenly places" (Eph. 2:6).

A Radical Shift in Thinking.

No such disconnection existed back in 1521 when Luther said in his Preface to the Romans that "faith alone gives us the spirit and desire for doing good outward works," and two pages later, "Because of faith, without compulsion, a person is ready and glad to do good to everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown him this grace. Thus it is impossible to separate works from faith" (35:370, 72).

But now in his preface to the Galatians commentary he says that "we must take great care to. . . hold to this distinction between the righteousness of the Law and that of Christ." This is because

. . . in the hour of death or in other conflicts of conscience these two kinds of righteousness come together more closely than you would wish. . . . In the conflict of conscience it is the devil's habit to frighten us with the Law and to set against us . . . those passages in the Gospel in which Christ Himself requires works from us and with plain words threatens damnation to those who do not perform them (pp. 10-11).

An example of such a passage in the Gospel would be the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25:31-46), where Jesus said to people who had not fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited prisoners, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (v. 41).

Had Luther stayed with the point of view expressed in his commentary on Romans in 1516, he would have regarded these implicit commands of Jesus, enforced by the threat of eternal damnation, as elements of the Doctor's health regimen. These were to be followed "so that the patient may in no way hinder the promised return to health or increase his sickness until the Doctor [who already regards him as well] can fulfill his promise of a complete recovery from sin's power" (25:260). So a failure to trust God by complying with these commands hurled an insult against God's trustworthiness. This is such a cosmic outrage against his glory that hell's eternal punishment is the rightful destiny of those persisting in unbelief. Nor did the early Luther regard the existence of these commands (the Law!) as posing a threat against his assurance of salvation. On the contrary, in those days they were the stipulations of the loving Doctor for getting well.

But as he concludes the introduction to his Galatians commentary nineteen years later with an expression of his famous doctrine of the "two kingdoms," he speaks of such commands as an enemy trying to break into his castle of faith. As the law tries to ascend into his conscience he says to it,

Law, you want to ascend into the realm of conscience and rule there. You want to denounce its sin and take away from the joy of my heart, which I have through faith in Christ. . . . Stay within your limits. . . . You shall not touch my conscience. . . Through the Gospel I have been called to a fellowship of righteousness and eternal life. . . in which my conscience is at peace, where there is no Law but only the forgiveness of sins, peace, quiet, happiness, salvation, and eternal life. . . . In my conscience not the Law will reign, that hard tyrant and cruel disciplinarian, but Christ. . . the King of peace and righteousness, the sweet Savior and Mediator. He will preserve my conscience happy and peaceful . . . in the knowledge of this passive righteousness" (27:11).

To be sure, Luther regarded obeying the law as still "necessary" (p. 7) when he wrote the Galatians commentary. "When I have passive righteousness within me . . . I come forth into another kingdom , and I perform good works whenever the opportunity arises" (p. 11). But now Luther had so separated faith and obedience as to put them into two separate kingdoms. This substantially changed the nature of the decision one must make in becoming and maturing as a Christian.

What believing in Jesus now means.

By the time of the Galatians commentary, however, believing in Jesus means simply gaining the assurance of forgiveness by appropriating Jesus' finished work on the cross. In expounding Gal. 2:19 Luther said,

Just as what is offered to us is neither the Law nor any of its works but Christ alone, so what is required of us is nothing but faith, which takes hold of Christ and believes that my sin and death are damned and abolished in the death of Christ (26:160).

As before all sins are swallowed up in a moment.

But nothing now is heard of the "many great and valuable promises" (2 Pet. 1:4) that God extends on the basis of justification. We do not hear of that exceedingly valuable promise (the basis of Luther's Freedom of a Christian -- 1520) of being "fellow kings" with Jesus, if we persist in believing that "Christ works all things together for good to them that love him" (Rom. 8:28). Nor does Luther say now, as he did in the 1520 essay, that "that which is impossible for you to accomplish by trying to fulfill all the works [commands] of the law. . . you will accomplish quickly and easily through faith," because the soul who worships God by clinging to his promises has the requisite motive for fulfilling all that God commands. No longer does Luther speak of all sin as stemming from unbelief as he did in 1520 and in his Preface to Romans (1521), because the commands that spell out sin have been put into the kingdom where Law reigns, a kingdom separate from faith.

Now Luther warns that the Church will collapse if the connection between faith and the law is restored. "If we cannot distinguish between [passive and active] righteousness . . . then we are under the Law and not under grace, and Christ is no longer a Savior. Then He is a lawgiver. Then there can be no salvation left, but sure despair and eternal death will follow" (26:11). Passive righteousness, now shorn of "the great and valuable promises" that were vital part of "alien righteousness" that made it the engine for "proper righteousness" (now termed "active righteousness"), has no power left in it to produce the works of love and Christian maturity. "Active righteousness" is now accomplished by gritting one's teeth to submit oneself to the Law, that "hard tyrant and cruel disciplinarian." But this is only one of several problems that Luther had now raised up for the "standing church."

New Problems!

In some way the faith of Gal. 5:6c is a carry over from justifying faith without now being suited for accomplishing justification. Luther is silent about what change occurred in justifying faith to make that happen. But the faith that can no longer justify is nevertheless able now to produce the works of love, though Luther does not indicate its dynamics for doing this.

The text's wording, however, forces the conclusion that the faith here is indeed the justifying faith spoken of in 2:16. Paul says this faith avails everything (contrasted with the "nothing" in the two preceding clauses), and so it is arbitrary to remove justification from "everything." Hence the faith spoken of in Gal. 5:6c must avail for justification as well as produce the works of love. This would have presented no difficulty to the Luther of the 1516 commentary on Romans, who regarded the faith that complied with the commandments in the Doctor's health regimen to be of a piece with the faith in the Doctor's pronouncement that the patient is as good as cured already (justified).

Why did the 1535 Luther ride in this roughshod manner over the text of Gal. 5:6? Apparently he was afraid of explaining things in a way that might sound close to Roman Catholic teaching. "In this [Roman Catholic way of understanding things] faith which believes in Christ becomes idle and useless, for it is deprived of the power to justify unless it has been formed by love" (p. 160). Indeed, that teaching leaves people to wonder if they have added enough works to their faith to have a justifying faith. So they can never enjoy the "spirit of adoption" (Rom. 8:16) in knowing they are God's children. (Only those few enjoy it who get a special revelation from God that they are will persevere to the end -- Canon 16 of the 5th Session of Trent, 1546.)

Evidently therefore, Luther concluded that the only way to checkmate this Roman Catholic teaching was to separate alien and proper righteousness into two kingdoms with no "mean" or "connection" between them. Surprisingly, he did not feel that the teaching of his earlier days distinguished itself clearly enough from Roman Catholicism. Unlike that false teaching, the Romans commentary taught people always to enjoy the full assurance of justification as they were careful to persevere in an obedience of faith.

Nor did that early teaching violate the language conventions of Gal. 5:6c. It allowed the "everything" that faith availed to include justification as well as the works of love. And that teaching bided by the syntax of Gal. 5:6c in regarding faith itself as the engine producing those works. (But in talking of "adding" good works to one's faith, Roman Catholicism does not follow the syntax of Gal. 5:6c, where faith itself generates the works of love.)

Despite the shift in his thinking Luther's way of expounding Gal. 5:6 strove to track with its textual requirements. In his exposition of it he speaks of love as the tool, apparently already there, which faith then deftly uses to accomplish loving deeds (27:29). He then says that "[a no-longer justifying] faith is the impulse and motivation of love and good works toward one's neighbor" (27:30). Consequently, there is now no talk of how "the promises of God [in justification] give what the commandments of God demand [in sanctification]" (31:349), nor of how justifying faith is the "basis, cause, and source" of the works of love (31:298), nor of how the works of love are the "fruit and consequence [of justifying faith]" (31:300).

In several places his wording for this text is that "faith forms and adorns [the works of] love" (e.g., 26:161). This reveals the later Luther's preference for a faith that forms the works of love by adorning and shaping them, rather than a justifying faith that causes them. How one behaves after one leaves the heavenly kingdom and is in the earthly kingdom provides a picture of what he means in saying that faith "adorns" works:

Whoever knows for sure that Christ is his righteousness not only cheerfully and gladly works in his calling but also submits himself for the sake of love to magistrates, also to their wicked laws, and to everything else in this present life [the kingdom where Law resides] -- even, if need be, to burden and danger. For he knows that God wants this and that this obedience pleases him (26:12).

2. The problem of assurance. In his comment on Gal. 5:6 Luther said, "[A true and living faith] is what arouses and motivates good works through love. . . He does not truly believe if works of love do not follow his faith. . . .Genuine faith, after it has justified, will not go so sleep but is active through love" (26:30) Such statements reveal Luther's concern to urge believers to be godly people.

The problem with such statements, however, is that they force people to ask, "Do I truly believe? Do I have genuine faith?" In seeking an answer Protestants have to scrutinize their recent track record of how well they have obeyed God, and may have to face some things they have done that make them wonder if their having genuine faith is only wishful thinking.

Consequently, it is difficult to see how Luther kept Protestants from being in the same quandary as Roman Catholics who must check to see if they have enough works to be justified. While a Protestant never thinks, as a Catholic does, that his justification depends on his or her works, yet when Protestants have to look at their works to know if they have a genuine faith, the result is the same. It is no wonder that historic Protestantism has had such difficulty maintaining the assurance of justification in that their thinking has been influenced by the Luther of the Galatians commentary and not by the earlier Romans commentary.

3. The problem of schizophrenic preaching. The third problem with Luther's handling of Gal. 5:6c surfaces in his complaint that "if we teach faith, carnal people will neglect works; and if we urge works, faith and the comfort of conscience will be lost" (27:75).

In Luther's earlier theology there was no such chasm between justifying faith and diligence in good works. But his Galatians commentary created a problem that has troubled preachers ever since. Earlier Luther urged nothing but a response of faith to alien righteousness. He urged them to entrust their future to the "great and valuable promises of God" (2 Pet. 1:4) "to work all things together for their good" (Rom. 8:28). Such confidence that God would be so favorably disposed to do this for sinners who have been insulting him by their unbelief came from Jesus' finished work on the cross.

This confidence regarding one's future then had a most profound effect on one's behavior. What we hope for in the future we worship, and what we worship we serve. The preaching of the early Luther gave people the confidence to plan out their lives in a way that benefited themselves and others. It also freed them from fear of the future so they could concern themselves more with the needs of others.

His later theology, however, with its plea to be loving in the earthly kingdom because "God wants this and that this obedience pleases him" (26:12), is a much weaker incentive than that provided by his earthier theology which said, "Be loving in order to become well and have fullness of life" or "Be loving, or else you will be condemned to hell."

It was indeed a tragedy that Luther did not stay with that earlier theology, for the shift to his later thinking has caused trouble in Protestantism ever since.

Send comments to dfuller@fuller.edu (Daniel Fuller)