ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE What advantage, then, has the Jew? Or what is the profit of circumcision? (Rom. 3:1.) Because he has condemned the Jews according to the flesh and the circumcision which is done to the body, it may seem that he regards circumcision as useless and that he wants to affirm that its observance amounts to nothing. But this is not so. Therefore, he shows in this chapter what it was good for—and what Judaism did positively represent.
(1) The chief significance of circumcision was that the words of God were believed (Rom. 3:2), i.e., circumcision was of value because in it one believed in the promises of God, trusting that they would be fulfilled. This is the advantage of the Jew over the Gentiles. For, to them, God did not give any promise, but it was from pure mercy that, when the time was fulfilled, he regarded them as worthy to be put on the same level with the Jews. But toward the Jews he was not only merciful but also truthful, because he really actualized the mercy he had promised to them.
That is why these two, mercy and truth, are so often conjoined with one another in the Scriptures. So, for example, farther on in ch. 15:8 f, of this letter: "For I say that Christ has been made a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, that he might confirm the promises given unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy," etc.
One should note that the apostle does not say: "The words of God were believed by them/' but, as the phrase goes in Greek:1
"The words of God were believed in." He does not say specifically by whom, for against a statement to this effect the objection could easily be raised, which he refutes in what follows, namely, that 1 This is how Faber translates in his Commentary.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE 6l they are not believed in by all. This, then, is the meaning of the text: the chief value of the circumcision, not only for itself, but for the whole world, was that in it the words of God were believed in, i.e., that in it some were found who believed the words of God and that thus the promise of God's grace and mercy was received, in which now also the Gentiles share.
For if they had not been believed there, they would not have been believed anywhere, and thus the promises of mercy would have found no response. So, in any case, circumcision was useful for the future righteousness, even though it did not make anyone righteous. Then the apostle turns to reply to the objection that the words of God were here not believed in because not all believed them, and that, therefore, the Jew had no advantage and that there was no profit in circumcision.
His reply is this: "For what if some were without faith? Shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God?"
(Rom. 3:3), i.e., because the words of God have found faith there, his promise certainly remains in effect; indeed, God has now bound himself and, because he is truthful, one may expect to see the fulfillment of his promise. And if his promise remains in effect because of their faith, the unfaith of some cannot make the faithfulness and truthfulness of God of none effect. The circumcision has, therefore, been wonderfully useful, for through it the promise of God was begun and established. One may, therefore, most certainly expect it to be fulfilled, because God is truthful.
So also our Lord says (John 4:22): "Salvation is from the Jews," even though the Jews themselves may not be saved, for in his promises God is more concerned for his own truthfulness for the sake of the faith of a few than for the multitude of unbelievers because of whom, one might think, he might render his promise invalid. For God does not lie but is truthful.
(2) One can understand the text also in the sense that it refers to the words of the Gospel, namely, that it was necessary that the word should first be spoken to the Jews (Acts 13:46) because of the promises of God. And then it went forth from the Jews also to the Gentiles. The circumcision was, therefore, very useful indeed because it was deemed worthy to receive the law of the gospel of which, later on, also the Gentiles became partakers. This, then, was the "advantage of the Jews" that the Gentiles received the sayings of God from them and that they did not receive them from the Gentiles.
But the first interpretation is the better one. For if the text is interpreted in the sense that the apostle speaks here of the words of the Gospel, then he must be understood to say that it is the LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS advantage of the Jews not only that they have the words but also that they were the first to have the gifts of grace since, indeed, the apostles as the leaders and the highest and noblest part of the church came from them.
The passage has, then, the following meaning: The advantage of the Jews or the circumcision is not undone by the fact that a few did not believe. It is sufficient that some did believe, and it was through their faith that the promise was fulfilled and received. And so theirs is the advantage that they had the words of God before the Gentiles had them. In this sense it is said farther on in the letter in ch. 9:6: "It is not as though the word of God," i.e., the promise, "has come to nought/* for the reason, namely, that many did not believe. Because of the fact that many did not believe, it may seem that God cast off his people and did not fulfill his promise. In this case, then, his words were not believed in and therefore the Jew has no advantage over the Gentile.
But the fact is that their "unbelief did not make the faithfulness of God" of none effect, i.e., it will not be the cause on account of which one would have to say that God is not truthful, for "he did not cast off his people which he foreknew" (Rom. 11:2). For not all those are his people who belong to his people by the flesh, but those who belong to it by the promise. We must, therefore, construe the interpretation of the passage as follows:
What advantage, then, has the Jew and what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way.
First of all (chiefly or mainly) that they were entrusted with the words of God (Rom. 3:2), i.e., that they were deemed worthy to receive the promises that are contained in the law, which is something that was not granted to the Gentiles. This is why the apostle says farther on in ch. 15:8 f. of this letter: that God has revealed
Christ to the Jews because he is truthful and to the Gentiles because he is merciful. For he promised him not to the Gentiles but to the Jews, and among them his words were received in faith.
You may now object and say: If God gave his promise to the circumcision or if his words found faith in its midst, then he should have granted it his promise in such a way that all who belong to the circumcision could obtain it; otherwise, it might seem that he does not keep his promise and that he therefore is neither faithful nor truthful (indeed, it does seem that he did not make a promise to them, for, because he is truthful, he would keep it once he has made it, and that therefore the Jew has no advantage and that the words of God found no faith),2 and, indeed, the opposite has happened, for not only has the circum2 This parenthetical remark is written on the margin of the MS.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE cision not obtained the fulfillment of the promise but it has instead been given to others, namely, to the Gentiles; and the majority of the circumcision did not obtain it.
To this objection the apostle replies: For what if some were without faith? (Rom. 3:3) (i.e., if they did not obtain faith and the promise), for only those are guilty who did not want to receive the fulfillment of the promise. This need not hinder anyone from believing that God is truthful. God did not give his promise, and his words did not find faith in the circumcision in such a way that, regardless of whether they want it or not, they must necessarily obtain the fulfillment of the promise. For then the truthfulness and faithfulness of God could be realized only if he were to grant the fulfillment of his promise to those who resist it as well as to those who do not want it. But this is absurd. For then the truthfulness and faithfulness of God would depend upon the human will, as if God were truthful only if men believe in him and are ready to accept his gifts. Therefore, we must say that "their want of faith shall not make of none effect the faithfulness of God/1 i.e., because some of the circumcision refused to receive what
God promised to those who belong to the circumcision, one must not reproach him by saying that he is not truthful. It is enough that he did fulfill his promise to the circumcision, i.e., to some, not to all, namely, the elect. For God cannot lie. Hence, the apostle concludes: For God is truthful. (Rom. 3:4.)
You may persist in objecting and say: Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that he gave his promise to the Jews or to the circumcision and not to the Gentiles. If he, therefore, is truthful, he should have given it to all of them; and if he foresaw that he would not fulfill his promise to them on account of their unbelief, why did he give it to the circumcision at all? The answer to this is given farther on in chs. 9 and 11 of the letter. Here he touches the matter only briefly in order not to get too far afield from his topic. What he does say is that the promise was not made to all the children of Abraham, but only to the elect and those children of God who were to be adopted from the circumcision.
The Greek text reads: "God shall be truthful" or "Let God be truthful."3 These words give expression not so much to the truthfulness of God as to a confession of the truthfulness of God. What they mean is this: It is right that all should confess and admit that 3 WA 56, 212: "Graecus habet: 'Esto' she 'Sit autem Deus verax.'" Faber remarks on "Esto": "per imperativum dicendum est." Erasmus translates
"ginestho" by "sit" (in his Annotationes, he adds "sive fiat").
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS God is truthful. One should, therefore, let him be so and regard him as truthful and believe him to be faithful in all his words, however much others disbelieve him. That the word is to be taken as an imperative is proved by the authority of the passage which the apostle quotes: "That thou mayest be justified/' etc. (Rom.
3:4), i.e., let it be so, let all confess it, let it be made plain to all that thou art righteous and truthful in all thy words, regardless of how much the unbelievers will oppose and judge thee "in thy words/' i.e., condemn thee (Rom. 3:4).
There is a difference between saying simply that God "is justified" and saying, "God is justified in his words" or works; the same difference prevails between God "is judged" and he "is judged in his words"; between God "is victorious" and he is "victorious in his words." For God as he is in himself can be justified by none, because he is justice itself, nor can he be judged, because he himself is eternal law and judgment and truth. So he is also in himself victorious over all, and it is not necessary to wish and pray that he be victorious. Thus we pray that his will be done (Matt.
6:10), although we know that it cannot be impeded.
Now, God is justified in his words when his word is reputed and received by us as just and truthful and this is done by faith in his word. And he is judged in his words when his word is reputed as false and deceitful and this is done by unbelief and "pride in the imagination of our heart" (Luke 1:51), as the Holy Virgin says.
For our human wisdom does not only refuse to believe and obey the words of God, it also thinks that they are not words of God; it even believes itself to have the words of God and presumes to have truth. Such is the foolishness of the Jews and heretics and all stiffnecked men. And he is victorious in his words when his word prevails against all who try to oppose it—as it has happened with the gospel, which always is and has been triumphant. For the truth is all-victorious. He is, therefore, justified in those who in humility yield to his leading and believe in it. But he triumphs over those who disbelieve and judge him and contradict him. He is a sign "set for the resurrection" of the former and "for the fall"
(Luke 2:34) of the latter, a "sign which is spoken against," i.e., they judge him, but in vain. In the same way we pray that his will be done, i.e., that his word and his every work, be it good or ill, may readily and freely be received by us.
The fulfillment of this his will is, therefore, rather the fulfillment of our will according to the prayer that we might will what
God wills. For what God wills is something difficult and hard— ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE something that far exceeds our will. In the same way, God is justified in his words when we are justified. And his being judged or condemned is really our being judged and condemned, according to the saying: "He that disbelieves shall be condemned"
This, then, is the meaning of the passage: Must one say that God is not truthful because some do not believe, i.e., because they judge him in his words and are bent to make him a liar but regard themselves as bearers of the truth? No. We must, rather, say that he is all the more truthful and they all the more untruthful, for truth is all the more triumphant when it is impugned and it manifests its superiority all the more when it is held down. It is its nature that it marches forward when it encounters resistance; a symbol of this is the exodus of Israel and the drowning of Pharaoh. Hence, the apostle says: God is indeed truthful and man a liar, because it is written that it shall be so, namely: "That thou mayest be justified/' etc., i.e., that thou wilt be found true when all will be proved to be liars, either when thou makest them righteous or when thou dost triumph over them, when, namely, thou justifiest those who worship thee and believe, and triumph over those who judge thee and disbelieve. Hereby is rendered invalid the objection of anyone who says: Apparently that circumcision was of no use and it profited them nothing that the words of God were entrusted to them, because most of them—and as what a liar he appears to them—have taken no advantage of it. From this, one concludes by implication that God did not keep what he promised, because the majority of the circumcision did not accept his promise. Or it follows from this that those are wrong who say that God did not keep his promise and that, therefore, either they or God are liars.
To this conclusion, which is fair enough, the apostle answers:
"For what if some were without faith?" i.e., circumcision was useless because they did not believe, for God has nevertheless fulfilled his promises to the circumcision. Nor has God's faithfulness4 been rendered vain because of them, but, rather, they themselves are hereby proved to be liars, for God is truthful but man is a liar. This is proved by the fact that he triumphs over their judgment about him. Shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God? (Rom. 3:3), i.e., does it follow from the fact that they have not perceived the promise that it is not perceived at all, so that the Jews have no advantage over the Gentiles? For if it were the case that they were not preferred or did not have the words of God entrusted to them because most of them
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS did not believe, it would follow, indeed, that God lied when he gave his promise to this people. But this conclusion is absurd and false. For (according to the clearer treatment of this problem farther on in chs. 9 to 11 of the letter) not those who are children after the flesh "are Abraham's seed" (Rom. 9:7). Indeed, those who did not believe are liars, and not God, for he has given his promise and kept it, not, to be sure, in all, but still in all children of the promise.
That thou mayest be justified. (Rom. 3:4.) This word of Scripture must here not be understood in terms of the meaning and context it has in its own place, namely, in Ps. 51:6, but solely in so far as it is cited in order to confirm the statement that God is truthful in his words. For then it is put in another connection. To be sure, the apostle, too, does not fail to observe this, for quite incidentally he argues on the basis of the same text according to the meaning it has in the psalm, by saying:
"But if our unrighteousness," etc. (Rom. 3:5). For there it is stated that God is justified by the confession of our sin. Even though he is righteous and truthful in himself, he is not so in us unless we confess and say: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned"
(Ps. 51:4). Then he is acknowledged as the only righteous one.
And so he is made righteous also in us.
But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? (Rom. 3:5.) Some say that God's righteousness is proved by our unrighteousness when he punishes it, because then it becomes apparent that he is righteous in that he does not let the unrighteous go unpunished. This opinion is correct.5 But it has nothing to do with the topic the apostle treats in this context, for he does not here speak of the righteousness of God by virtue of which he is righteous in himself. Indeed, he denies that the righteousness of God is proved by our unrighteousness; if he affirms this, he does so only in accordance with the meaning of the word of the psalm: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned," etc. And the psalm does not say that it is our sin that justifies God but, rather, that it is the confession and acknowledgment of sin that humbles him who proudly regards himself as righteous, trusts in his own righteousness and thereby deprives God of his righteousness. To him alone belongs righteousness—and also power and wisdom and all that is good.
For he who humbly puts all righteousness away from himself and confesses himself a sinner before God thus glorifies God who 6 In opposition to Faber.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE alone is righteous. Therefore, not our unrighteousness, which God hates evermore as the enemy of his glory, but the acknowledgment and confession of our unrighteousness give him glory and praise because they show how needful to salvation his righteousness is.
Others, however, say that our unrighteousness incidentally commends God's righteousness, just as opposites placed next to each other shine all the more brightly—like colors and shadows in a picture.6 But the apostle absolutely denies that our unrighteousness can in any way set off God's righteousness. Only carnal men can find such a meaning in the words of the psalm. This is made plain by the fact that when the apostle quotes the saying of the psalm "that thou mayest be justified/' he draws conclusions from it, not with respect to God's righteousness, but to his truth.
He, therefore, does not speak here of the righteousness by virtue of which he is righteous in himself but of that by virtue of which he, being righteous, makes us righteous, and he alone is righteous with respect to us. Our unrighteousness, if it really has become our own (i.e., if it is acknowledged and confessed), greatly sets off his divine righteousness, for it makes us humble; it makes us throw ourselves down before God and causes us to ask for his righteousness. And when we have received it, we glorify, laud, and love God as the giver. Conversely, our righteousness reproves
God's righteousness; indeed, it suspends it and denies it and declares it to be a falsehood and a lie—and this happens whenever we resist the words of God, saying that we do not need his righteousness and believe that our own is sufficient. One must, therefore, speak as follows: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, that thou mayest be justified"7 (Ps. 51:4) (i.e., that thou mayest be proclaimed with praise and glory as the only righteous one who justifiest us "in thy words," i.e., as thou hast promised arid testified).
For if the truth of God has more abounded through my lie, unto his glory, why am I also yet judged as a sinner? (Rom.
This means: If, then, we are to think that the truth of God abounded unto his glory through my lie and his righteousness through my unrighteousness (this is to speak after the manner of men [Rom. 3:5], and so those did indeed think who said: "Let
6 Quoted by Nicholas of Lyra (ad Rom. 5:2; 7:15) from Aegidius Romanus, I Sent., d. 46, q.2. Aegidius refers to Aristotle, Elench., 15.
7Cf. Ps. 50:6. Luther here repeats literally his interpretation in the lectures on The Psalms. (Cf. WA 3, 284, 25.) LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS us do evil that good may come"8), how can God then punish the world and condemn me as a sinner? Should he not, rather, give me a crown instead, especially in view of the fact that his righteousness, truth, and glory thus increase more and more and that thereby his own purpose is fulfilled? And thus we do his will by committing evil.
By raising the matter in the form of a question, the apostle clearly forbids us to interpret it in this way. It is not to be understood according to the literal meaning of the text, or after the manner of men, but, as has been stated before, with reference to righteousness and unrighteousness. The righteousness of God is not set off because I act unrighteously but, rather, because I acknowledge that I have acted unrighteously and cease to do so in order to embrace the righteousness of God or that which comes from God, for all my righteousness is unrighteousness before him.
Wherefore I do not boast but am covered with shame before God.
And thus he alone is glorified in the righteousness by which he justifies me, because he alone is justified (i.e., acknowledged as righteous).
It is the same with truth: the truth of God is not glorified because I am caught in lies but because I acknowledge that I am a liar and cease to be one, and embrace the truth which comes from God in order to be rendered truthful by it and not by anything I have of myself. Thus, all self-adulation will cease, and only God will be glorified in me, because he alone has given me truth and made me truthful—inasmuch as all truth of my own is mendacious before him.
Now what is said here about truthfulness and falsehood and about righteousness and unrighteousness is applicable to all the other perfections and their opposites—power and weakness, wisdom and foolishness, innocence and sin, etc. For about all of them
God and we conceited men, especially the Jews, are engaged in a continuous harsh controversy, whereas God in his mercy desires by his truth, righteousness, wisdom, power, and purity to make one and all—who are lying, unrighteous, foolish, weak sinners— truthful, righteous, wise, strong, and pure in order to free them from lying, unrighteousness, foolishness, weakness, and sin, to the end that his truth, righteousness, wisdom, power, and purity be glorified and acclaimed by them and in them. Yet in their pride they resent this as if by their own power and initiative they were actually truthful, righteous, wise, strong, and pure. So they speak up against God, set themselves up as judges over him, and try
8 Luther writes by mistake: "faciamus bonum" but the Vulgate reads: "factamus mala ut veniant bona."
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE their best to make him appear mendacious, unrighteous, foolish, weak, and sinful. And all this because they want to establish their truthfulness, righteousness, wisdom, power, and purity, not wishing to be regarded as lying, unrighteous, foolish, weak sinners.
Therefore, either God or they must be caught in falsehood and be unrighteous, weak, etc.
This is as if (to quote the story of Persius9) a physician, intent on curing a patient, came upon a man who denies that he is sick and calls the doctor a fool who is much sicker than he because he presumes to promise health to a healthy man. This resistance makes it impossible for the physician to prove the effectiveness of his medical art. But he would succeed if this sick man, admitting that he is sick, would submit to the cure and say: I am indeed sick and you will be acclaimed as a healthy man, i.e., when you have restored my health.
So it is also with the godless and the proud. When, in God's sight, they are sick, they regard themselves as in the best of health.
Therefore, they do not only reject God as the physician but they regard him also as a foolish liar sicker than themselves because he presumes to heal them as if they were sick and not in the best of health. To be sure, thereby they do not censure God as he is in himself in his essence (because no creature and not even any malice can do this), but in his words. This is why the psalmist adds appropriately: "That thou mightest be justified in thy words."
For the words which God lets go forth to men are regarded as foolish, mendacious, and meaningless, as if they were not God's.
However, he has arranged to heal them by his speaking. Yet they refuse to admit that they are ill and, considering him as foolish and as sicker than themselves, resist and contradict him, set themselves up as judges over him and condemn him. But in vain. For God's words affirm themselves when they are judged in this way, or, rather, God affirms himself over against men in these his words when they set themselves up as judges over him by rejecting them.
By this, their rejection of them, they obviously regard him as foolishly ignorant and weak, and yet they profess to love nothing but wisdom, power, and truth—as if they could say: How can he be wise who says that we are stupid? Must he himself not, rather, be stupid, because it is a fact that we keep ourselves to wisdom and follow it. And so it is with everything else. Can he (namely, God or his word) be truthful, righteous, strong, etc., when he censures us for being mendacious, unrighteous, and weak, while we keep ourselves to the ways of truth, righteousness, and virtue? He himself must be what he accuses us of being, for he does not share our
9 Cf. Persius, Sat. Ill, 90 ff. Satyrarum opus (Venice, 1499).
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS knowledge of where the good is to be found. In exactly the same way, so the Gospel tells us, they said of Christ: "We know that this man is a sinner*' (John 9:24). And again: "This man is not of God." (John 9:16.) The same is said in Ps. 4:6: "Many there are that say, Who will show us any good?" i.e., We know what is good; anyone who presumes to teach us something else must be in error; he cannot show us the good. So also John 9:40: "Are we also blind? Jesus said unto them: If you were blind, you would have no sin: but now you say, We see. Your sin remaineth."
We conclude, therefore, that God cannot become wise, righteous, truthful, strong, good, etc., in his words unless we believe him and, yielding to him, confess that we are foolish, unrighteous, liars, weak, evil. Therefore, humility and faith are needed. This is what these words point out and affirm. We must become inwardly nothing, emptied of everything, and, completely rid of ourselves, say with the prophet: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, that thou mayest be justified in thy words." To thee I am foolish and weak, in order that thou be wise and strong in thy words. Every created being teaches us this: "They that are whole have no need of a physician" (Matt. 9:12); "Only the lost sheep are sought" (Luke 15:4), and "Only the captives are set free"
(Luke 4:18); only the poor will be filled with riches, only the weak strengthened, only the humble exalted; only what is empty is filled, and only what is unbuilt is put together. Do not also the philosophers10 say: A matter cannot be formed unless it was first formless or unless the previous form has been done away with; and the "possible intellect" cannot obtain a form unless the ground of its essence is bare of all form and like a tabula rasa?11
Inasmuch as every created being gives such testimony, it cannot happen that one who is full of his own righteousness can be filled with the righteousness of God. He fills only those who hunger and thirst. Whoever, therefore, is satiated with his own truth and wisdom is incapable of comprehending the truth and wisdom of God, for they can be received only in emptiness and a vacuum. Let us, therefore, say to God: Oh, that we might willingly be emptied that we might be filled with thee; Oh, that I may willingly be weak
10 Cf. Aristotle, Physics, I, c. 5-7. See the fuller discussion by Ficker (p. 128, n. 22).
11 The picture of the tabula rasa is used by Aegidius Romanus (II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1) on the basis of Aristotle, De anima, III, 4. See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheoL, I, q. 79, a. 2. The Scholastics distinguished between intellectus possibilis and intellectus agens. In so far as the "possible intellect" apart from the "active intellect" has only the "possibility" to know anything, a man about to accomplish knowledge may be compared to a writing slate on which as yet nothing is written.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE that thy strength may dwell in me; gladly a sinner that thou mayest be justified in me, gladly a fool that thou mayest be my wisdom, gladly unrighteous that thou mayest be my righteousness!
This is what is meant by the saying: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, that thou mayest be justified in thy words/'
By way of a summary, we may say that God is justified in three ways:
First, when he punishes the unrighteous, for then he shows himself as righteous and his righteousness is manifestly acclaimed by the punishment of our unrighteousness. But this is only slight evidence, because also the godless punish the godless.
Secondly, in an indirect and relative way as in the case of opposites which, when they are placed next to each other, are more enhanced in their individual character than when each stands by itself. In the same way, God's righteousness is the more beautiful, the more detestable our unrighteousness is.
But, in this passage, the apostle does not have this in mind, for this comparison applies to God's internal and formal righteousness.
Thirdly, when he justifies the godless and infuses his grace or when one believes that he is righteous in his words. For by such believing he justifies, i.e., he reputes as righteous. This is why this righteousness is called the righteousness of faith or of God.
This is similar to the way by which a good craftsman proves himself a master. First, when he criticizes the inexperienced and rebukes them for their mistakes. Secondly, when, in comparison with them, he appears to have greater skill than they. Thirdly, when he transmits the perfection of his craft to others who did not have it before. And this is true proof of mastership. For to criticize others and thus to give evidence of one's skill does not mean that one is a good craftsman, but to cause others to become skillful like oneself, this is evidence that one is a master craftsman.
In the same way, God is righteous in the sense that he causes us to be righteous and thus he proves himself a master.12 But just as the unskilled do not want to be taught, the proud do not want to be justified.
God is proved righteous and truthful13 in a threefold way:
First, when he punishes and condemns one who is unrighteous, mendacious, and foolish, etc.; for then he proves himself righteous, truthful, etc. Thus his righteousness, truthfulness, etc., are wonderfully set off and made manifest by our unrighteousness and falsehood. But this is but slight evidence; for also a liar often pun12 "Artifex" an artist; a master of any art. Luther frequently speaks of God as a master artist. In so doing, he was in line with Scholastic tradition.
*3 "Deus iustijicatur^ verificatur."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS ishes and rebukes another who is a liar, and one who is unrighteous does the same to another who is unrighteous, and yet they are, because of this, not immediately hailed as wholly truthful and righteous.
Secondly, by way of comparison,14 just as opposites when placed next to each other become more apparent than when they stand by themselves, so his righteousness is all the more admirable in comparison with our detestable unrighteousness. But the apostle does not speak here of these two modes, for they would apply to God's internal and formal righteousness, but of this he does not speak here.
Thirdly, by way of his working upon us,13 i.e., when we cannot become righteous by our own power and approach him that he should make us righteous as we confess that we cannot overcome our sin. He does this when we believe his words; for by such believing he justifies us, i.e., he reputes us as righteous. This is what we call the righteousness of faith and the righteousness which The apostle is not by any means saying here that "our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God" (Rom. 3:5). Indeed, he denies this, because it is not true. But he raises the question in the name of some who believe that this is implied in the words of the psalm. But this is not so. For neither the psalmist nor the apostle meant to say that our sin justifies or commends God, for not our sin does this, but our acknowledgment and confession that we are sinners. Hence, it says (in Ps. 51:3): 'Tor I know my iniquity/' etc., and then there follows: and thus, "To thee only have
I sinned" (i.e., I know that before thee only I am a sinner).
For such an acknowledgment causes one to yearn for the righteousness of God, and such a confession makes one commend it.
For when I acknowledge that I cannot be righteous before God because it is written: "In thy sight no man living shall be justified"
(Ps. 143:2), and similarly in many other places where God says that we are in sins, then I begin to ask him for righteousness. Thus, my acknowledgment of my sins has brought it about that God was justified in me (i.e., that I believed in him and that he thus justified me). This confession, then, commends and glorifies him as the one who alone is righteous and makes us righteous. But he is in no way commended wherever there is no confession and acknowledgment of sin and wherever it is the case that one does not ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE yearn for his righteousness because one is pleased and satisfied with one's own.
It is as in the case of a good craftsman: he can recommend himself in three ways. First, when he exposes and unsettles those who do not understand anything of his craft. But this is a meager and haughty recommendation. Secondly, when in comparison with others (even though he does not criticize them) he gives evidence of greater experience. Thirdly, when he transmits the mastery of his craft to others who ask him for it because they would not be able to achieve it by themselves. The first way of behavior often conceals pride and conceit, the second way, envy and arrogance, but the third is truly that of benevolence and humaneness. In the same way, God is righteous by making us righteous, and worthy of praise because he makes us similar to himself.
Yet, just as that craftsman cannot transmit his skill to any who do not trust him or who think of themselves as sufficiently skilled, and just as he cannot expect that they will praise and commend him for his dexterity and mastery unless they first acknowledge themselves as unskilled and believe him when he tells them that they are unskilled (even though their pride will not let them believe it), so the wicked do not believe that they are wicked and in no way acknowledge themselves as such. So, in short, they do not let God be justified in them and proved truthful, and thus they do not let him be commended and glorified.
What advantage, then, has the Jew? (Rom. 3:1) (namely, he who is a Jew outwardly and according to the letter, for if he is not regarded as a Jew, he is in all respects like the Gentiles and has no advantage). Or what is the profit of circumcision? (Rom.
3:1) (namely, that which is in the flesh according to the letter, for if it is not regarded as circumcision, as was stated in the preceding chapter of this letter, must it, then, not be without profit?). Much
(Rom. 3:2) (it is of advantage and of much profit). In every way.
(Rom. 3:2.) This is either a way to assert something as in the form of a vow or it expresses the ways by which circumcision can be of profit as he enumerates them below in ch. 9:4 f. of the letter where he says: "to whom belongs the adoption, and the giving of the law, and the glory, and the covenant, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers," etc. Chiefly (i.e., in so far as I now choose to emphasize) because unto them were committed the words of God. (Rom. 3:2.) For this and other things the Gentiles did not have in the same way, according to Ps. 147:20: "He has not dealt so with other nations." For this and other things were the LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS advantage only of the Jews before the Gentiles, also of those who were Jews only outwardly and according to the letter.
"Committed" means "received in faith." "Words" are what, below in ch. 9, he calls promises. The apostle does not say "unto them/'1* but we can let the word stand and relate it either to "Jew" or "circumcision" in the first verse. In this sense, he says below in ch. 15:8 that "Christ was minister of the circumcision but not of the Gentiles, for the truth of God," scil., because God so promised it to them (the Jews) and not to the Gentiles.
For what, if some did not believe? (Rom. 3:3.) This "did believe" must be taken in an absolute, unqualified sense, in difference from the phrase "were committed," for one must not by implication understand it with reference to "words." For, in fact, all have received the words and promises of God and are still waiting for the promised coming of Christ. In other words: they do believe, but they are not faithful believers in Christ. This, then, is the meaning of the text: What does it matter?17 What can we do about it? Is it not too bad just for them? Certainly not for God or for us. For it is clear that neither God's truth nor our faith are made without effect by their unbelief.
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? (Rom.
3:3) (i.e., the truthfulness and faithfulness of God). He says all this only because one could object to his statement that the promises are committed to the circumcision of the flesh and to the Jew who is outwardly a Jew, and ask: Why is it that no one who is a Jew outwardly, and according to the letter, received the promise?
For if the promises that were given to the Jews according to the flesh and the letter (and it is in this respect that they have an advantage over the Gentiles) have not been kept, for none of them has received them and, indeed, they have not been fulfilled to this day, does it then not appear as if they had no promise at all or as if God had not kept it (for the Jew according to the flesh should have received the fulfillment of the promise because it was given to the Jew according to the flesh)?
The apostle meets this objection as follows: as if he were hammering on one nail with another, he says: So God's truth is without effect, his promise is empty, and his words are invalid. This is impossible and, therefore, also a conclusion of this sort. Nevertheless, the apostle does not settle the argument here but defers this to the 16 Following Faber, Luther believed that the word illis should be stricken from the text of the Vulgate.
17 Luther uses the German phrase: "Was hit" [Uegt] "damn?"
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE ninth chapter. For there he shows how the fulfillment of the promise came to that Israel of the flesh which is the Israel of the promise and election as well as of the flesh, but never to that Israel which is Israel only according to the seed. Therefore, their unbelief cannot render the truth of God invalid. Thus he puts that objection aside for the time being. He simply rejects it, affirms over against it the truth of God and asserts that he always did fulfil] his promises.
God forbid. (Rom. 3:4.) He calls the faith of God that promise which is now fulfilled in Christ according to the word of Ps. 85:11:
"Truth is sprung out of the earth" (i.e., the promised Christ has come forth from the virgin). The meaning of the text, then, is this: God has now fulfilled his promises and has been proved truthful, but these people do not believe him and do not accept him. Shall it now be untrue, only because they do not believe, that God kept his promise, and must one say that the truth which now has been manifested is untrue? God forbid. If it were, the apostles, or rather God in them, would lie, because he himself witnesses to the fulfillment of his promises in Christ.
According to my understanding, "faith" here does not mean the faithfulness of God but rather "believing in God." This is the fulfillment of the promise, as is made plain in many passages of the Bible. For it is the righteousness that comes from faith which has been promised. Romans 1:17: "The just shall live by faith."
(But there is no contradiction in this distinction. For precisely what according to the literal sense is regarded as the objective truth of faith must be understood according to the moral sense as faith in this truth.) The meaning, then, is perfectly plain: Shall we now give up our faith in God and follow them and deny the fulfillment of the promise rather than believe God when he says that he has fulfilled his promise? This question deserves only one answer: God forbid. We will not follow them but hold to the faith of God. For God is true (Rom. 3:4), and therefore he must be trusted. But every man is a liar (Rom. 3:4), and therefore he must not be trusted and followed. Or, as the Greek text has it: "Let God be true" (put your trust in God rather than in man, for he is a liar).
Thus he invalidates the objection that said: Israel of the flesh did not obtain the fulfillment of the promises that were given to it: therefore, they have not yet been fulfilled. Do they, then, speak the truth and God a falsehood? God forbid. They say: No,
God: yes. This, then, is the reply to the objection: One must believe God, because he is truthful. As it is written that one must
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS believe him (following the Greek text), for "to be justified" means "to believe" as it will be explained below. That thou mayest be justified in thy words and mayest overcome when thou art judged.
(Rom. 3:4.) The apostle cites this word of Scripture in its plain meaning and not in a causal meaning, i.e., it must be understood in terms of "that" and not of "why,"18 as if it read: You will be justified in your words and you will overcome when you are judged. It does not matter much that, farther on, he makes a digression and there deals with that causal sense of the saying.
God, then, is justified in his words when one believes him in what he says in the gospel about the fulfillment of the promise and thus regards him as righteous and truthful. For his words are the word of the gospel. He is justified in them when one believes that he speaks the truth in them and that what is prophesied in this word of the psalmist will come to pass. Moreover, he will not only be justified by those who believe but he will also overcome when he is judged, i.e., when he is reproved by those others who deny that Christ has come and that the promises have been fulfilled. For they judge and condemn these words and do not regard them at all as right,19 i.e., they do not believe that they are just and true.
They even judge and condemn God in them, while the others regard him as righteous. But they do not prevail. He triumphs and maintains his victory, because however much they resist it, this faith of God, this "justification of God in his words" that is here spoken of (i.e., the trusting belief in his word), will persevere. For the justification of God and the trusting belief in God are one and the same.20 He will prevail and remain; indeed, he gains ground and increases while the unbelievers decrease and perish.
"God is justified in his words" means that he is rendered just and true in his words or that his words are rendered just and true.
And this comes to pass when one believes and accepts them and holds them true and just. The only resistance against this justification comes from the pride of the human heart through unbelief.
For it does not regard the words of God as right but condemns and judges them. It does not believe them, because it does not regard them as true. And it does not regard them as true, because it regards as true only its own understanding, and this contradicts them.
In this case, judging God in his words is the same as to reject him or his words and to render them untrue and unjust. And this comes to pass through the pride of unbelief and rebellion.
1 8 WA 56, 225, 11: "Hanc authoritatem adducit apostolus secundum sensum, non secundum causam sensus, i.e., non ut causaliter, sed ut indicative inteU ligatur"
19 "Nequaquam iustificant."
20 WA 56, 226, 1: "Iustificatio Dei et credulitas in Deum idem est."
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE It is, then, obvious that this justification which is really a condemnation of God is extrinsic of God and his word; in fact, it happens in men. For intrinsically, God and his words are just and true. But they do not become so in us until our wisdom and knowledge yield to them and through faith make room for them and accept them. This is why Ps. 51:4 says: "Against thee have I sinned," i.e., I give up my righteousness and my understanding that resist and condemn thy words, and I confess that I am sinful and unrighteous and untruthful in order that thy words may dwell in me and be regarded as true and be and become true (in order that they may become in us what they are in themselves, for they are words that are justified in and for themselves).
By this "justification of God" we are justified. And this passive justification of God by which he is declared righteous by us21 is our active justification by God. For he reputes the faith as righteous that regards his words as righteous, according to what is said in the fourth chapter (Rom. 4:5) and in the first: "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17). And conversely: the passive condemnation of God by which he is condemned by the unbelievers is their own damnation. For he reputes as unrighteousness and damnation that unbelief by which they judge and condemn his words.
This is in accordance with the Hebrew text which reads:22
"Against thee have I sinned that thou mayest justify" (i.e., thou wilt bring about justification), "when thou speakest and thou wilt make clean when thou art judged." For he justifies (and triumphs) in his word when he makes us such as his word is, namely, righteous, true, wise, etc. And thus he changes us into his word, but not his word into us. And he makes us such as we believe his word to be, namely, righteous and true. For then certainly there is conformity between the word and the believer, i.e., in truth and righteousness. Therefore, when he is declared righteous, he makes righteous, and when he makes righteous, he is declared righteous. The same idea is therefore expressed by an active word in Hebrew and by a passive word form in our translation.23
But God will triumph, i.e., he will prevail and, in the end, he will prove as untruthful and false all who do not believe, i.e., those who have defiled him by their judgment, as it is made plain in the case of the Jews and as it will become still plainer in the 21 "A nobis iustificatur."
2 2 T h e Vulgate reads "iustificeris"
("thou mayest be justified"). T h e version to which Luther here appeals was proposed by Reuchlin (Septem psalmi ponitentiales hebraici cum grammatica translacione latina, 1512).
23 I.e., the Vulgate.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Last Judgment. For this reason, the Hebrew text reads: "Thou wilt make clean" (i.e., effect a cleansing) "when thou art judged," i.e., thou wilt make clean thy word and those who believe in it and thyself in them, and wilt prove this over against the lie which those unbelievers put upon it. And these thou wilt defile and prove them as filthy liars (and this means that their unbelief does not invalidate the faith of God).
The passive and active justification of God and faith or trust in him are one and the same. For when we acknowledge his words as righteous, he gives himself to us, and because of this gift, he recognizes us as righteous, i.e., he justifies us. And we do not justify his words, until we believe that they are righteous.
But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? (Rom. 3:5.) This question has a twofold origin: it is occasioned by the quotation of the Bible passage from Ps. 51, and it arises naturally from the substance of the matter that is here dealt with. For because the psalm speaks causally (at least in our translation and in the Septuagint) when it says "that thou mayest be justified/' it can give one the impression that it means to say that we committed sins in order that God might be justified and, therefore, that we must sin in order that God may be glorified. Moreover, the matter under discussion implies that God or his words cannot be regarded as just and become true unless we become untruthful and unrighteous over against them, and that thus he is made righteous by our sin.
The problem is solved in the following way: the apostle speaks in the Spirit; he can therefore be understood only by those who are in the Spirit. The solution of Lyra—namely, that sin contributes accidentally to the commendation of God—can therefore not be maintained, for sin cannot possibly enhance the glory of God either by itself or by accident, especially if one keeps in mind the intrinsic truth of God or of his words.
However, "morally" or "tropologically," sin can be understood to enhance the truth of God by its being what it is, i.e., the trust by which we believe God that we are sinful, though we ourselves do not think or imagine that we are—this very faith establishes us as sinners and gives God the glory by accepting his words of grace and truth as fulfilling our needs. For who can be a recipient of grace and righteousness unless he confesses that he is a sinner?
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE From what has been said it is plain that the phrase "that thou mayest be justified in thy words" means the same as "God is true but every man is a liar," and the sentence "and mayest overcome when thou art judged" means the same as "Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?" The apostle, therefore, rightly puts in between both as it is written (Rom. 3:4), proving both by the Scriptures.
Likewise, in the same sense in which we can understand the statement that God and his words are justified when in faith we believe them to be true and righteous, though they are so in themselves also without our believing, we must take the sentence that we must become sinners and liars and fools and that all our righteousness, truth, wisdom, and virtue must perish. But this becomes a fact when we believe that we are sinners, liars, etc., and that our virtue and righteousness are absolutely nothing before God. And thus we become inwardly, inside ourselves, what we are outside ourselves, namely, before God, although inside ourselves we are not so, i.e., we do not believe that we are so. For as God, who alone is true and righteous and powerful in himself, wants to be such also outside himself, namely, in us, in order that he may thus be glorified (for this is the glory of any good that is in anyone that it must pour itself out beyond itself among others), so he wants also that man, who outside himself (i.e., before God) is wholly and without exception unrighteous and weak, become so also inside himself, i.e., that he confess and acknowledge himself to be as he actually is. By his outgoing, God thus causes us to enter into ourselves, and by making himself known, he causes us to know ourselves.24 For if God did not first go out from himself in this way, seeking to prove himself in us as true, we should not be able to enter into ourselves and become unrighteous liars. For it would be impossible for man to know from his own self-knowledge that he is a liar before God unless God himself revealed it to him. "For who has known the mind of the Lord? and who has been his counselor?" (Rom. 11:34.) Otherwise, man would always believe himself to be truthful, righteous, and wise, especially because he is so in his own eyes and in the judgment of other men.
But now God has revealed to us what he thinks of us and what he judges us to be, namely, that we are all sinners. We must, therefore, yield to this, his revelation and his words, and believe them and thus acknowledge them as just and true in order in their light
24 The terms "intra se extra se" and "exire-introire" are taken over from Tauler (Sermones, 1508).
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS to confess ourselves as sinners, which is something that we could not have known from ourselves. As the apostle says: "If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise." (I Cor. 3:18.) What he says here about foolishness applies to all other imperfections: one who wants to be righteous, truthful, and strong must become one who is sinful, mendacious, and weak.
This outgoing25 is spiritual and not physical or natural. It is to effect nothing less than the destruction of our self-will,26 which causes us to misjudge ourselves so badly. Thus, "He scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart." (Luke 1:51.) This is all the strength he has shown. It follows, then, that when we are told that we must become sinners, this is something entirely spiritual.
Many, however, understood the apostle literally and in a carnal sense when he preached how a righteous man turns into a sinner.
So he says in what follows.
The same theme runs through Psalm 51. It says: "For I know my transgressions" (Ps. 51:3), and then immediately thereafter:
"Against thee have I sinned" (Ps. 51:4), i.e., before thee I acknowledge myself a sinner, however much I may be righteous before men. But thereby I do not escape the judgment that to thee
I am a sinner in order that "thou mayest be justified," i.e., in order that I may be led to believe thy words so that I, too, may be justified. Farther on, the psalm speaks of "the uncertain and hidden parts of thy wisdom," i.e., of the fact that thou hast revealed to me that hidden wisdom which we never can have from ourselves, that before thee we are sinners.
Corollary: It is not a satisfactory exegesis of this "Before thee, thee only, have I sinned," etc., to say, as some do,27 that David spoke in this way only because princes have only God above them to whom they can confess their sins and by whom they may expect to be punished. No, he speaks here for himself as a spiritual person, in the same way in which everyone else must do so, as, for example, in Ps. 32:6: "For this" (namely, because of the iniquity of his sin) "everyone that is holy shall pray to thee," i.e., whoever wants to be holy will confess himself to be sinful and unholy, and to those who say, "I will confess my transgression before thee; thou wilt forgive the wickedness of their sin" (Ps. 32:5). The same is said in I John 1:10 and 9: "If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar" (and this is a double sin), "but if we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive our sins." And again: "If we say that 27 I.e., Lyra and the Glossa ordinaria, ad loc.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE 8 l we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."
(I John 1:8.) Therefore, let us say with the prophet: "And my mouth shall show forth thy praise'* (Ps. 51:15), not ours; and again:
"My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness" (Ps. 51:14), and not of ours.
We have, then, given more than sufficient proof that God alone is truthful and every man a liar. "Their unbelief,1' therefore, does not need "to make the faith of God without effect." What does it matter to our faith if they do not believe? We do not need to give up our faith because of their unbelief, nor is God's truthfulness undone by it, but the fact is that they are liars.
Even if we recognize no sin in ourselves, we must yet believe that we are sinners. This is why the apostle says: "I know nothing against myself, yet am not hereby justified" (I Cor. 4:4). For as through faith the righteousness of God lives in us, so through faith also sin is alive in us, i.e., by faith alone we must believe that we are sinners, for this is not obvious to us; indeed, quite often we are not even conscious of it. Therefore, we must stand in the judgment of God and believe him when he says that we are sinners, for he cannot lie. And it must be so, although it is not evident, for "faith is the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1) and rests content with the words of God alone.
The Kingdom of Christ that has been prophesied will consist of this very humility and judgment. For thus "he judges among the nations" (Ps. 110:6). And "there are set thrones for judgment"
(Ps. 122:5), for we must continuously accuse, judge, and condemn ourselves and confess ourselves as evil in order that God may be justified in us. It is this same faith which speaks out of words like these: "Clean thou me from hidden faults. Who can disclose his errors?" (Ps. 19:12), and again: "Remember not the sins of my ignorance" (Ps. 25:7).
Now, we must seriously ponder the idea that it is not enough to confess with one's mouth that one is sinful, unrighteous, untruthful, or foolish. For what is easier to do than that, particularly if you have peace of mind and are not upset?28 No, when you have said in so many words that you are a sinner, you must have the same feeling about yourself in your heart and behave accordingly in all you do and undertake. For this reason, it is exceedingly rare that a man acknowledges himself to be a sinner. For how can he acknowledge himself as a sinner if he cannot even tolerate a word of criticism against himself or his actions or intentions, but im28 "Extra tcntationem"
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS mediately flares up in anger, refusing to admit that he ever even spoke an untruthful word but claiming always to have been truthful and well-meaning? So he regards it as mean of others to oppose him and to accuse him unjustly. When he is forced to endure this or that, he gets furious and wearies everyone around him with the complaint that he and he alone has been done an injustice. What a hypocrite he is! He did confess himself a sinner, but he does not want to do or bear anything that behooves a sinner to do but only what a righteous and holy man is entitled to!
Every one of us is thus quick to say: I am a most miserable sinner; but hardly anyone ever wants to be a real sinner. For what else is a sinner but one who deserves to be punished and upset in every way? But to admit in words that one is a sinner and to refuse to act like one means that one is a hypocrite and a liar. Only a righteous man is entitled to peace, joy, glory, honor, and every good. Therefore, if you deny that you are righteous, you must refuse to accept any of these. And if you admit that you are a sinner, you must be willing to take punishment, injury, and ignominy as if it were what you had coming to you and what you deserve. You must avoid those goods as something that belongs to someone else, indeed, only to the righteous. So, when you happen to be insulted or shamed or beaten or injured or blamed or if you fall sick and you say: "I do not deserve this—why must I bear this? I am done an injustice; I am innocent!" do you then not deny that you are a sinner and do you then not resist God while your own words convict you as a liar? As a matter of fact, by all this (as if by his word, for "he spake and it was done" [Ps. 33:9]),
God proves and confirms that you are a sinner by letting you bear what a sinner deserves. And he cannot possibly err or lie. But you rise up in angry protest contradicting God and contending against him as if he had done something evil, foolish, and false. And so you resemble those who were spoken of earlier as "those who are contentious and do not believe the truth but believe unrighteousness" (Rom. 2:8). For you do not believe the truth (i.e., what God does against you when he lets all this befall you).
But if you say when something like this happens: Oh, yes, I deserve this; it serves me right; I readily admit that all this is just and right because I am, indeed, a sinner; certainly I have sinned against thee and what thou doest and sayest is justified, O God, truthful and righteous; thou art not mistaken with me and thou art not wrong, for I am indeed the sinner thou hast proved me to be by all this!—behold, this is to say: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done what is evil in thy sight, that thou mayest be justified in thy words1' (Ps. 51:4). And just so Dan. 3:31, 29:
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE "All thou hast done to us, O Lord, thou hast done rightly, for we have sinned against thee," etc.
It is just as if, when two men fight about something, one of them humbly gives in and says: I am ready to give in so that you can be right and true. I want to have been in error and in the wrong in order that you may be right in what you do and feel. Will the other not say: I have been wrong and you are right? And so they will be of one mind, whereas otherwise they would have remained in angry discord. Yes, yes, "be not wise in your own conceit" (Rom.
This is why I have said how unusual and difficult it is to become a sinner and to speak this verse correctly and from the heart. For nobody is eager to be contradicted in what he thinks of himself, or reproved in what he does, or despised in what he plans to accomplish. Nevertheless, if one were willing to take it and say:
Tell me what I must do, I shall be glad to do it; and if he would thus never take this side or that, how happy he would be! But the pride of our feeling and willing is much too deep-seated. Nobody is entirely free from this pest, especially if things go against us.
Now we must say a word about the way in which man must become spiritually a sinner. For this is nothing natural. For, naturally, every man does not become a sinner—he is one. But all that is able to bring this change about lies concealed in our mind or self-regard and self-esteem. To change our mind is the purpose of every word of Scripture and every action of God. For in our mind are "the evil eye" (Matt. 20:15) and, humanly speaking, incorrigible pride. This is why the Holy Virgin says: "He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart" (Luke 1:51), i.e., in their self-satisfied ways of thinking by which they set themselves over against God. Hence, this attitude of mind is called "the counsel of the godless" (Ps. 1:1) and "the golden calf" in the desert (Ex., ch. 32), mystically understood, and likewise, the idol of Baal and Moloch, etc., from which "the wicked shall not rise again in judgment" (Ps. 1:5).
To become a sinner means, then, to destroy this obstinate way of thinking that lets us imagine that we live, speak, and think well, piously, and justly, and to take on another understanding of ourselves (which comes from God), according to which we believe in our heart that we are sinners who do, speak, and live evil, and are in the wrong, so that we must accuse, judge, condemn, and detest ourselves. "He that does these things shall not be moved forever." (Ps. 15:5.)
What we have said here, must, of course, be rightly understood: the disapproval of righteous, good, and holy works must not be
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS interpreted in the sense that they are not to be done at all but with respect to the attitude of mind that causes us to esteem and regard them highly; in other words, we must not trust in them to such a degree and esteem and value them so highly as if, because of them, we were worthy before God to measure up to the requirements of righteousness. It is this display of vanity and this foolish estimation of ourselves that are to be rejected by what we have been saying.
In other respects, we must perform good works with utmost eagerness and fervor to the end that through them, in a preparatory course as it were, we finally become fit and capable of obtaining the righteousness of God. Our good works, therefore, do not constitute righteousness but they are our prayer for righteousness.
Thus, they do not represent our righteousness so long as we do not impute them to ourselves as such. By all this we must prepare the way of the Lord29 who will come to us. But good works are not the way of the Lord. The way of the Lord is the righteousness of God in so far as the Lord alone, as he is present in us, effects it in us after they have been done.
God is mutable to the highest degree.30 This is obvious, because one can justify and judge him, according to Ps. 18, 26: "With the elect thou wilt be elect, and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted/* For as everyone is in himself, so God is to him objectively.31 If he is righteous, God is righteous; if he is pure, God is pure; if he is unjust, God is unjust, etc. So he will appear as unjust to 29 Cf. Isa. 40:3; Matt. 3:3.
30 In the interlinear gloss, Luther comments as follows on Rom. 1:23 (WA 56, 12 f., 13 ff.): Et mutayerunt non Deum ipsum, quia incorruptibilis gloriam incorruptibilis Dei, i.e., gloriosam et incorruptibilem divinitatem in similitudinem imaginis" ("And changed not God himself, who is incorruptible but the glory of the incorruptible God, i.e., his glorious and incorruptible divinity, into an image"). In the marginal gloss, he defines the nature of the change further: "'Mutaveruntf sc. in seipsis (sc. per viciosam estimationem) non in Deo, qui est immutabilis" (" 'They changed/ namely, in themselves [on account of their defective judgment] and not in God, who is immutable"). On the problem of the divine immutability, cf. Peter Lombard, I Sent., d. 8, c. 2; Gabriel Biel, I Sent., d. 8, q. 7.
Luther's interpretation of justification here must be seen in relation to nominalist teaching. Cf. Gabriel Biel, I Sent, d. 17, q. 1, c. 2, a. 3, dub. 1.
See Feckes, Die Rechtfertigungslehre des Gabriel Biel (Munster, 1925), p.
8 1 WA 56, 234, 3: "Qualis est enim unusquisque in seipso, talis est ei Deus in obiecto. Si iustus, iustus; si mundus, mundus; si iniquus, iniquus, etc.
Unde et damnatis inaeternum iniquus videbitur, iustis vero iustus et sicut in seipso est, Verum haec mutatio extrinseca est."
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE those who are eternally damned, but to the righteous, as righteous, and so he is in himself. This change, however, is extrinsic. This is plainly implied in the word "Thou wilt be judged." For as God is judged only from the outside, on man's part, so he is also justified only from the outside. Hence, one can necessarily say only extrinsically of God: "That thou mayest be justified."
For if the truth of God has more abounded through my lie, unto his glory, why am I also yet judged a sinner? And not rather (as we are slandered and as some affirm that we say) let us do evil, that there may come good—whose damnation is just?2 What then? Do we excel them? No, not so. For we have charged both Jews and Greeks. (Rom. 3:7-9.)
Even though the Jews excel in the advantages that have been named and that are enumerated in more detail below in the ninth chapter of this letter, they are on this account not better before God but stand under sin equally with the Gentiles. From this it then follows plainly that when the apostle spoke earlier of "the Gentiles who know by nature the things contained in the law"
(Rom. 2:14), he intended to attribute to them only the particular righteousness of the law but not the universal one that is infinite, eternal, and wholly divine, and which only Christ gives to us. For as it is not enough to do the works of the law outwardly, so it is also not sufficient to do them inwardly except on the basis of the justification through Christ. If we, nevertheless, say of someone that he does the works of the law inwardly, we must be mindful that, as the Scripture says (Gen. 8:21), our heart and mind are always inclined toward evil and unwilling to do the good that 32 Here is Luther's marginal gloss on Rom. 3:8 (WA 56, 33, i3ff.): "This passage shows clearly that, in this letter, the apostle does not speak against those who obviously are sinners, through and through, but against those who in their own eyes are righteous and are confident that they will be saved by their works. It is these whom he tries to induce to take seriously the grace of God, but it cannot be taken seriously, unless one first acknowledges and takes seriously the sin which is forgiven by it. This is why some were scandalized by this when they heard about it. They thought that the apostle was preaching that one must do evil in order to take seriously the glory of God.
"Now, our iniquity and falsehood 'abound to his glory,' as, by humbling ourselves in confessing them, we glorify God for the sake of his abundant grace as he forgives us our sins. But he would not be glorified in this way, in case we should believe that we had no need of his grace but that we were standing before him sufficient to ourselves. One who acknowledges that he has many sins is, therefore, better than one who, like the Pharisee, acknowledges that he has much righteousness and no sin. For the former glorifies
God's mercy, but the latter his own righteousness."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS the law prescribes; and so, as we have sufficiently stated before, we actually do not do the good.
They are all under sin. (Rom. 3:9.) This entire passage must be understood as being spoken in the Spirit, which means that it does not deal with men as they appear in their own eyes and before other men but as they are before God, where they are all under sin, both those who are obviously evil even in the sight of men and those who appear to be good to themselves as well as to other men.
This can be explained as follows: Those who are obviously evil sin both inwardly and outwardly and are without an appearance of righteousness even in their own judgment. But those who seem to themselves as well as to others outwardly good sin in the inward man. Even though they do good works outwardly, they do them either because they fear punishment or because they love riches or glory or some other created good, but not because they want to do them gladly; so the outer man, it is true, applies himself diligently to good works, but the inner man is filled to overflowing with opposite lusts and desires. For if this kind of man could do so with impunity and if he knew that he could not obtain either glory or peace of mind by his actions, he would rather let the good go and do evil just like those others. What, then, is the difference before God between one who does evil and another who wants to do evil but does not do so only because he is restrained by fear or enticed by the love of some temporal good?
A man who regards this outward righteousness as sufficient and opposes those who teach an inward one; who defends himself against the criticism or does not recognize that he is meant by the criticism, not that he does not do anything good but that he does not act from an upright heart; who does not amend the inclination of his will toward desires that are opposite of what he does— such a man will be worse off than any other. For certainly his good works are doubly evil, first, because they are not done from good will and are therefore evil, and, secondly, because he affirms and defends them as good from a second, new kind of pride. As it says in Jer. 2:13: "My people have committed a double sin," etc.
We shall, therefore, always be under sin unless this inclination of our mind is healed by the grace of Christ, so that we do the works of the law freely and gladly and, acting neither from fear of punishment nor from self-love, seek nothing else than to please
God and to do his will.
Hence, he says: There is none righteous. (Rom. 3:10.) Here, ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE now, everyone must look out, keep his eyes open, and pay close attention. For the righteous man, whom the apostle here has in mind, is rare indeed. This is because we seldom analyze ourselves so profoundly that we recognize this weakness or, rather, this vicious pest of our will. This is why we humble ourselves so rarely and seldom seek the grace of God in a right way, for, as it says here, we lack understanding. For this disease is so subtle that even the most spiritual men cannot effectively deal with it. The truly righteous, therefore, implore God with groanings for his grace, not only because they see that they have an evil will and are thus sinful before God, but also because they see that they cannot possibly ever penetrate and confine the evil of their will. So they believe that they are permanently sinful as if the depth of their evil will were inexhaustible.33 So they humble themselves and pray with weeping and groaning until they are healed and rendered whole, but this happens only in death.
This is, then, why we are always in sin. "We fail in many things.** (James 3:2.) And "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.*' (I John 1:8.) Who, for example, does the good and avoids evil from such a mind that he would persist in thus doing and not doing even without a commandment or prohibition? I believe that if we really analyze our heart, nobody, unless he is absolutely perfect, will find himself to be this sort of man, but if he could, he would leave much good undone and do evil.
This is what it means to be in sin before God, whom we should serve freely from that attitude of mind that I have described. So then, "there is not a righteous man on earth that does good and sins not." (Eccl. 7:20.) Hence, the righteous always confess themselves as sinners (Ps. 32:6): "For this shall everyone that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time."
Yes, who knows or can know, though he imagines that he means to do good and not evil, whether this is really so, since only God will judge this and we ourselves cannot possibly act as judges in this case, according to the words of the apostle in I Cor. 4:7: "Who makes thee to differ** and, again, "Judge nothing before the time,** etc. (I Cor. 4:5). If some really imagine that they have such an attitude of mind, they make a dangerous presumption, in connection with which most are very cunningly deceived: confident that they are already in possession of divine grace, they fail to search the secrets of their heart; then they grow more indifferent from day to day and, in the end, they literally perish. If they would inquire whether they are moved to do good and avoid evil by fear of punishment or love of glory, by shame, inclination, or some
33 "Velut voluntatis malae infinita sit profunditas"
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS other desire, they would doubtless discover that they are moved by motivations of the sort that we have just spoken of, and not by the will of God alone, or, at least, that they do not know whether it is by the will of God that they do the right. As soon as they would find (as they inevitably must) that this is so, they surely would be scared, especially since we tend to anticipate, not something better, but the bad, because from ourselves we are naturally evil, and they would humble themselves, constantly seek the grace of God with wailing and groaning, and thus they would make steady progress. For when we are told to hope, we are certainly not told so in order that we might hope to have done what we should, but that the merciful God who alone can see into the innermost depth of our being (beyond the surface of which we cannot penetrate) will not impute our deeds as sin to us so long as we confess to him. As Job says: "Although I should be simple, even this my soul shall be ignorant of" (Job 9:21), and again: "I feared all my works," etc. (Job 9:28), because he could not know whether he had acted out of the duplicity of his heart or whether he had sought his possessions from a completely hidden cupidity.
In view of this, it is an expression of pride and every kind of sin that Seneca says: "Even if I knew that men would never be aware of it and that the gods would not notice it, I should never commit a sin/'34
For, first, man cannot possibly have such a will from himself, because he is always inclined toward evil to such an extent that only the grace of God can arouse him to do good. A man who is presumptuous enough to think himself capable of this has not yet come to know himself. Now it is true, I grant, that one can do and will some but not every good from such an attitude of mind, because we are not so thoroughly inclined toward evil that there is not left to us a portion which is affected toward the good, as is evident in the synteresis.35
Secondly, even if he says that he would not commit a sin, if he knew that the gods would not notice it and men would not become aware of it, would he also be bold enough to say that he would do the good even though he knew that neither the gods nor men would care about it? If he says he would, he is as proud as he is bold, because he could not avoid being self-satisfied in his own
3 4 This saying cannot be found in Seneca's writings. But, according to Ficker (p. 236, n. 32), it is quoted in a very similar form in a commentary (by Limperger, published in Strassburg, 1490) on the Rule of the Augustinians (37) and is there attributed to Seneca. It is also to be found as a quotation from Seneca in Jodocus Windheim's "Penitential
[Beichtbiichlein] for the students of Erfurt" (Erfurt, 1515), fol. A 3b.
(cf. Chapter I, note 46).
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE boasting vainglory. This is because man cannot but seek his own and love himself above everything. This is the sum and substance of all his faults. For this reason, people like this seek themselves even in the good they try to accomplish, i.e., they want to please and applaud themselves.
There is none that is righteous (Rom. 3:10), because nobody is willing of himself to fulfill the law of God, but all oppose the will of God (at least in their heart), inasmuch as he is righteous "whose will is in the law of the Lord" (Ps. 1:2).
And so also, There is none that understands (Rom. 3:11), because the wisdom of God is hidden and unknown to the world.
"And the word was made flesh" (John 1:14) and wisdom incarnate, and thus it is hidden and comprehensible only to proper understanding just as Christ is knowable only by revelation. For this reason, people who know only what they see and are knowledgeable only in what is visible (and of this sort are all men who are outside faith and who know nothing about God and the future life) do not understand and know anything, i.e., instead of having understanding and wisdom, they are stupid and blind; and even though they may be wise in their own eyes, they have become foolish.
Their wisdom consists of what is within the reach of human inquiry but not of the knowledge of things that are concealed.
There is none that seeks God. (Rom. 3:11.) This is said both of those who are obviously not concerned about God and of those who seek him or, rather, think they seek him, for in fact they do not seek him as God wants to be sought and found, namely, in humility through faith and not through one's own wisdom in presumptuousness.
As the sentence "There is none righteous" must be understood with respect to two kinds of people, namely, those who digress toward the left and others who digress toward the right, so also this passage: "There is none that understands; there is none that seeks God." For some, since they are not righteous, have no understanding and fail to seek God because they have no interest in doing so and simply let it go, while others are in the same predicament because they overreach and venture too much. They are excessively righteous and understand and seek too much, so that they are unteachable —or as the comic poet puts it: "Faciunt ne
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS intelligendo, ut nihil intelligunt"36 ("They do nothing without understanding and therefore understand nothing*'). And again:
"Summa iustitia saepe summa stultitia"37 ("The greatest justice is often the greatest foolishness") or rather injustice, namely, when one stubbornly insists upon it and refuses to yield to the opposite party. As the common proverb puts it: "Weiss Lent narrn groblich" ("The wise make the greatest fools").
It says here first: "There is none that understands," and then there follows: "There is none that seeks." For knowing precedes willing and doing; and "seeking" requires affection and the deed.
But this follows upon understanding. Hence, the godless on the left have no understanding because in their vain desiring38 they are blinded by what is immediately within their reach. And those on the right have no understanding because they are ensnared in the conceit of their own wisdom and righteousness. And thus they shut themselves out from the divine light.39
Over against these two types, a man can be called righteous in the true sense of the word if he has understanding and seeks God according to such understanding. For understanding without this seeking would be dead, just as faith without works is dead (James
2:17) and without power either to give life or to justify. By contrast, that man is unrighteous who neither understands nor seeks
God. Hence, the apostle says first: "There is none righteous." And by way of an explanation of what it means not to be righteous he says: "He does not understand and does not seek God."
The understanding of which the apostle here speaks is nothing else than faith itself or the knowledge40 of things that cannot be seen but must be believed. Thus it is an understanding in concealment, for it is concerned with things that man cannot know by means of his own resources,41 as we read in John 6:44: "No one comes to the Father but by me" and again: "No man can come to me, except my Father draw him" (John 14:6). And to Peter,
36 Terence, Andria 17.
37 Terence, Heautontim., 796 ("ius summum saepe summa malitia est"). Cicero said, "Summum ius summa iniuria."
38 "In vanitate concupiscentiae"
39 "Et sic sibiipsis sunt obex lucis divinae" ("And so they are to themselves a bolt against the divine light"). "Obicem ponere" ("to put a bolt before") is a term used in the theology of the sacraments; it refers to mortal sin as a "bolt" that keeps out grace.
4<> "Fides seu notitia." Cf. Gabriel Biel, III Sent., d. 23, q. 2, a. 1, n. 1.
41 WA 56, 239, 1: "Est intellectus in abscondito, quia eorum, quae homo ex seipso nosse non potest"
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE Christ said: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven/'
(Matt. 16:17.) How can the godless at the left and people who are bound to the senses possibly know this, in view of the fact that they put so much value on what can be seen? And how can the others at the right, in view of the fact that they consider and ponder so much the insights of their own minds? They both shut themselves off from the light of this understanding and put a foreign obstacle in their way toward it.
Now the yearning or seeking for God is the very love of God which causes us to will and to love what the understanding gives us to know. For even if one has come to understand and to believe, he cannot, without the grace of God, love and willingly do what he believes and understands. Now, it is appropriate that our text says: "There is none that seeks." For as long as we live on this earth we cannot possess God but must seek him.42 We must always seek him and search for him and ever keep seeking him, as it says in Ps. 105:4: "Seek his face evermore." "For thither did the tribes go up/' etc. (Ps. 122:4.) Thus the way goes from strength to strength and from clarity to clarity toward the same goal. For not he that starts to seek but he that "perseveres" in seeking "to the end will be saved" (Matt. 10:22; 24:13), one who begins his seeking all over again, ever seeking again what he has found. For he that does not go forward in God's way goes backward.43 And he that does not persist in seeking loses what he has found, for there is no standing still in the way of God. Or, as Saint Bernard says: "When we begin not to want to become better, we cease to be good."44
Though one may understand this psalm also with reference to the godless at the left, it speaks principally of those at the right.
For the former rarely err so profoundly that "they say in their heart: There is no God" (Ps. 14:1). They know of God and his commandments, but it is through their whole way of life that they say: "There is no God." What they tell us about him is not true: therefore there is no truth and no God.
Now the latter, too, say this with words and deeds but chiefly 42 WA 56, 239,14: "Quia huiusvitae status non habendo, sed quaerendo Deo peragitur."
43 WA 56, 230, 20: "Qui enim non proficit in via Dei, deficit." In his comment on Ps. 118:18 (WA 4, 350, 15) Luther says: "Proficere est nihil aliud, nisi semper incipere. Et incipere sine proficere hoc ipsum est deficere" ("to go forward is nothing else than to start afresh again and again. And to begin without going forward, this means to accomplish nothing at all").
** Bernard of Clairvaux, Ep. 91.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS with their heart, because they do not really know God but picture him to themselves as they like. Therefore, they do not hear what
God says nor know about it, but they think and assert that they have the word of God and demand to be listened to. This is how they go wrong in their heart and so, when they hear the voice of God, they harden their hearts as if it were not God's voice and as if it were not God speaking. And this because the voice of God speaks against everything they produce from their own mind
(which seems so right and wise and filled with the things of God), and so it is that they say from a zeal for God and out of the love of truth and because of their abundant awareness of the divine:
"There is no God." They deny the truth and become fools precisely because they claim to know everything.
All proud and self-sufficient people are in this moral predicament, particularly in connection with concerns that relate to God and the salvation of the soul. God certainly speaks here, but he speaks in such a way that it does not become apparent to the proud what word he speaks through a particular person at a particular time and place. Unbelieving and at the same time foolish as they are, they therefore draw back from it or object and say, at least in their heart: "There is no God," for only a humble man can receive the word of God.
All have turned out of the way; they are become unprofitable together: there is none that does good, there is not so much as one.
The "all" here refers to those children of men who are not yet children of God by faith, born "of water and the Spirit" (John
3:5). Some of these turn from the way to the left, namely, those who are enslaved to the riches, honors, pleasures, and powers of this world. But others turn to the right, namely, those who are concerned to maintain their own righteousness, virtue, and wisdom; disregarding the righteousness of God to which they should be obedient, they contend in their spiritual pride against the humbleness of truth. This is why the Scripture says in Prov. 4:27:
"Decline not to the right hand nor to the left," namely, from the way that is on the right hand, because the text goes on: "For the Lord knows the ways that are on the right hand, but those are perverse which are on the left hand." In other words, to turn to the right from the right means to overdo in knowledge and moral righteousness.
The word "together"45 is to be taken in a collective sense, as if the text read: AH have become unprofitable, i.e., empty and vain
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE in their worthless pursuits. People who seek the unprofitable deservedly become unprofitable themselves, and also empty, because they are concerned only for vanities; as we call people rich who have wealth, so they are unprofitable because they possess only worthless things. For the nature of that which we love becomes our own nature.40 "If you love God," says Saint Augustine,47 "you are
God; if you love the earth, you are earth." For love is a unifying power48 that turns into one the lover and his love.
One can also call them "unprofitable" in another respect, in so far, namely, as they are unprofitable to God and to themselves.
But the first interpretation is better, because the apostle wants to show that they became worthless by turning from the truth and righteousness of God toward their own ways.
One can also understand this series of statements as a kind of reiteration that leads up to a climax: to say "there is none righteous" is the same as to say: "All have turned away"; and to say:
"There is none that understands" is the same as to say: "They are together become unprofitable"; and to say that "none seeks God" is the same as to say: There is none that does good.
"To turn away" thus means to become unrighteous. And to become empty means to lose the truth in one's understanding and reflect on vanity. In many places of the Bible emptiness is therefore ascribed to the understanding of such people. Moreover, "not to do good" means "not to seek God." Though outwardly they do the good, they do not do so sincerely and do not seek God thereby, but what they have in mind is glory and gain or, at least, freedom from punishment. And thus they do the good not actively but (if I may say so) passively;49 i.e., fear and desire force them to do the good that they would not do voluntarily. But people who seek
God do the good gratuitously and joyfully and only for God's sake and not in order to obtain some created good cither spiritual or corporeal. But this is not the work of nature but of the grace of 46 "Quia qualia diligimus, tales cfficimur"
±i Augustine, Tract. 2 in ep. ad Johannem (PL 35, 1997): "Talis est quisque, qualis eius dilectio est. Terram diligisf terra eris. Deum diligis? quid dicamf
Deus erist" ("A man's love determines what kind of person he is. Do you love the earth? Then you will be earth. Do you love God? Do I dare say that you will be God?"). Augustine quotes Ps. 82:6: "I said, you are gods; and all of you sons of the Most High/' Tauler quotes this saying of Augustine's
(Sermones, ed. Vetter, 1910, 232, 4).
48 This reminds one of Augustine, De trin., VIII, 10, 14. But cf. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on Dionysius Areopagita, Divina nomina, c. 4: "Est emm amor unitio secundum quod amans et amatum conveniunt in aliquo uno." Cf. Ficker, p. 241, n. 5.
49 "Ac per hoc nee faciunt, sed potius . . . faciuntur bonum."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully. The venom of asps is under their lips. (Rom.
In the next three verses, it is shown how these people do wrong also to others. As he has described in the preceding how they are evil and godless in themselves and this because of their own aversion to God, so he shows now how they do evil toward others by converting them toward themselves in order to avert them from God in the same way as they themselves are averted from him.
This applies, first of all, to those who listen to them and imitate them. In these people they perform something threefold.
First, they devour the dead. This is what is meant by the phrase "Their throat is an open sepulcher." Just as a sepulcher is the receptacle of the dead, namely, of those who have died without the hope of rising again in the way in which one may hope to rise again from sleep, "like the slain," as it says in the psalm, "sleeping in the sepulchers, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cast off from thy hand" (Ps. 88:5): so their teaching and mouth or throat (i.e., the word that issues from their mouth and throat) is one swallowing down of those who have passed from faith to faithlessness, a gulping down of them which leaves no hope of return from the death of this faithlessness. Only a most singular demonstration of divine power, as our Lord has presented it in the case of Lazarus who had been in the tomb for four days, can possibly call them back before they descend into hell.
It says "open," because they devour and seduce many, for "their speech spreads like a cancer" (II Tim. 2:17), or, as it says farther on (in the psalm the apostle here quotes): "Do they not know who devours my people as they eat bread?" (Ps. 14:4), i.e., as one does not loath bread that one eats oftener and in greater quantities than other food, so they unceasingly eat their dead and their pupils and yet are never satiated, because "the mouth of the womb"
(i.e., the hellish doctrine) "is never satisfied" (Prov. 30:16). Indeed, as bread passes into him who eats it, so these pass into the faithlessness of their teachers. However, this resemblance can also be turned into a difference: these same godless men devour also the righteous, but not like a piece of bread, since they cannot absorb them in their bodies like bread, yet as they swallow them whole and alive and are therefore unable to digest them, they either perish or are led to betterment by their victims.
Hence, heresy or godless teaching is nothing else than some plague or pestilence that infects and kills large numbers of people just as in the case of the plague that affects the body.
The psalmist says "throat" rather than "mouth" in order to ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE characterize the effectiveness and persuasiveness of their teaching.
For they overpower and devour their victims as one swallows something down one's throat, but not as one eats it in the mouth from where one can spit it out again. Their teaching is effective in the sense that it is presented in an alluring and attractive manner, as the apostle says: they are "teachers for whom the ears itch" (II Tim. 4:3). It is comparable to the throat that has no teeth like the mouth, for the mouth bites food with the teeth, but the throat swallows it down easily without chewing.
This leads to something else: because such teachers do not bite, they do not chew and grind, i.e., they do not criticize and down their pupils; they do not lead them to repentance and do not pull them down and break them up. But being what they are, they swallow them down whole in their faithlessness as it says in Lam.
2:14: "Your prophets have not opened your eyes to your sins that would induce you to repentance." To reprove and chasten a sinner with words, means to bite him with one's teeth until he becomes very small and soft (i.e., humble and meek). But to flatter him, to extenuate his sins, and to grant him many liberties, means to gulp him down one's throat, i.e., to leave him whole and big and strong, i.e., proud and hardened against repentance and unable to take any treatment. Hence, the bride in The Song of Solomon is said to have "teeth like a flock of sheep that are shorn"
(S. of Sol. 4:2), i.e., words of rebuke taken from the Scripture without the intent to accuse anyone by them.
Also, here he goes on as if he wanted to explain with the following two phrases what he had in mind by saying, "Their throat is an open sepulcher," or how it can be that they devour their followers. And so,
Secondly, they teach deceitfully. The reason why their throat is an open sepulcher and why they devour ever so many is that they teach deceitfully. The reason why they devour and why their throat is an open sepulcher is that it surreptitiously infuses poison.
And by this means they kill men and deaden them, but by the other means (easy teaching) they make many insensitive. For blandishment and sly persuasion first lure and attract the masses, and when they are attracted, then the poison kills them.
Hence, this is a very appropriately phrased sentence: "Their throat" (this means that they deaden with cunning and deceit) is an "open" (this suggests many, the mass) "sepulcher" (this refers to those they deaden). It all hangs together. "To deal with the tongue" means "to teach," "to admonish and to exhort," in short to use it in order to approach someone else. To teach "deceitfully" means to offer a pleasant and prurient teaching as if it were holy,
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS saving, and divine, so that people who let themselves be deceived thereby believe they hear God speaking to them, because what is spoken appears to them as good, true, and from God. The pleasing and ingratiating impression which such speaking makes upon the listener is pointedly emphasized by the phrase "with their tongues," which parallels the expression "with the throat." For the tongue is soft, has no bones, and licks softly. Just so every word they speak only coddles the heart of people as they are satisfied with themselves in their wisdom and righteousness in all they say or do. As it says in Isa. 30:10: "Speak unto us pleasant things; behold not for us things that are right," i.e., do not say anything that goes against our grain. This, yes, indeed, this is the reason why they abhor the word of the cross (by which their self-conceit should have been mortified and torn to pieces as by teeth), and instead they want to hear something flattering. O horrible word! they say. So then: this deceitfulness makes the mass ready with expectancy and once made ready, the poison deadens them. And the sepulcher is wide open, etc. Hence:
Thirdly: They destroy the people who listen to their teaching, because poison of asps is under their lips. Precisely this flattering and agreeable teaching not only fails to quicken those who believe it, but it destroys them. Indeed, it destroys them utterly. For there is no cure for the poison of the asp. The asp is, namely, a species of the African snake whose sting, according to Aristotle,50 is deadly. Just so there is no cure for a faithless and heretical people. But these utterly wretched folk do not even recognize this poison that deals death to their souls. This is why the text says
"under their lips," i.e., death lurks underneath all that appears to them in what they are taught outwardly as life and truth. So then, because the poison of the asp is deadly and leaves one without any hope for recovery, the text speaks rightly of a "sepulcher." Now it is because truth and righteousness are given an outwardly alluring appearance that the sepulcher is open and the poison deadly and hopeless. It is characteristic of us that we all love truth and righteousness. Hence, we cling to truth when it has an attractive appearance, but we despise it when it appears to be unattractive— as it always does, as we can see in Christ who "had no form or comeliness" (Isa. 53:2). So it is the case with every truth that goes counter to our thinking.
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet swift to shed blood. (Rom. 3:14-15.) Notice, first, that here where they are up against those who refuse to follow them they are spoken of as having a mouth. Here so Aristotle, Hist, animal, VIII, 29.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE the text does not say "throat" or "tongue,** but "mouth" and, as it is implied in what follows, a mouth full of teeth at that.
Hence, we ask, secondly: How do they react to those who refuse to follow them but instead oppose them and try to teach them what is good and right, in order to turn them away from that threat of death of which we have just spoken? Now notice how they repay them! Again they do three things:
First: their "mouth is full of cursing." This is well said, because their cursing is not transferred to the ones they curse but stays with themselves. They do harm only to themselves, according to what is said with respect to Christ: "Cursed be everyone that curses thee"51 (Gen. 27:29). Or, as it says in another psalm: "God will break their teeth in their mouth" (Ps. 58:7), and not in the wound or the body of someone else. He lets them bite, but in such a way that they do not harm anyone; hence, he breaks their teeth in their mouth. To be sure, they do not lack teeth or curses, but these are only in their own mouth which, as the text says, is
"full" of them. The "cursing," of which it speaks, means striking someone openly with insults, imprecations, and blasphemies and wishing him ill. This is the way of all who feel that they are being contradicted in their set way of thinking (which to them appears to be true and just) and who are therefore ready to defend the truth, as it were, and to offer service to God (John 16:2) with greatest zeal which, however, is not "according to knowledge"
(Rom. 10:2). They behave in this way not sluggishly but, as I have said, with great zeal. Hence, the text says "their mouth is full,*' i.e., they curse excessively.
Second: Their mouth is full of bitterness, i.e., full of the most invidious slanders. Now, it is envy that is the bitterness of the heart just as, by contrast, love is its sweetness. And from envy the proud and godless curse not only the righteous but slander one another with the bitterest words. Yet also this envy stays in their own mouth and does not harm those whom they envy. Hence, the text says: Though their mouth is full of bitterness, it does not make others outside itself bitter and evil.
Third: Their feet are swift to shed blood. This, too, is a graphic description. For evil teachers cannot always accomplish their purpose but they try to do all they can. For if they cannot overcome the messengers of truth with curses and slanders, they go so far as to take steps to do away with them by murder in order that their own way of thinking may not be undone. This is how the Jews (of whom the text here speaks, according to its literal meaning) acted, and with great tenacity, as the book of Acts shows. But also today every enemy of the truth acts in the same way in order to uphold w Cf. also Num. 24:9.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS his own doctrine, believing all the while that he has a good intention and acts from the love of God.
Destruction and misery in their ways. (Rom. 3:16.) Here the text describes what befalls them.
First: "destruction"; i.e., they are crushed, cut to pieces, and laid low in body and soul, as one can see in the case of the Jews.
"They are like the chaff which the wind drives away," according to Ps. 1:4, for, once great and powerful, they are being ground to bits until they are "trodden underfoot as the mire of the streets"
(Micah 7:10). This physical destruction, which takes place in public, is accompanied by an even more miserable spiritual one. It is inflicted upon them by demons who tread upon them and "do not leave stone upon stone" (Matt. 24:2). As they are being reduced in their ways but try to maintain themselves in them, they become ever more hardened in their wickedness, just as, by contrast, people who walk in the ways of Christ constantly grow in spiritual stature. These experience a real growth, but these others are reduced by being pounded to bits.
Second: misery, i.e., misfortune. As Christ prospers in all he does, so they, by contrast, have no good fortune in their undertakings. This is plainly manifest in the Jews. Though they make progress in their faithlessness, they are in other ways weighed down with very many reverses.
The way of peace they have not known. (Rom. 3:17.) Why have they not known it? Because, inasmuch as it is peace in the Spirit, it is concealed and hidden in much tribulation. For who can believe that it is the way of peace when he sees how
Christians are exposed to suffering with loss of property and their good name, honor, and life, so that, throughout their life, they do not count peace their own, but suffering and the cross. (But those others try to attain a carnal peace by their way of righteousness— and therefore they lose both peace and righteousness.) But under these tribulations there is concealed a peace that no one knows unless he experiences it in faith. But the people of whom the psalmist here speaks did not want to believe and they abhorred the experience of faith. "Great peace have" only "they that love thy law, and to them" that love it "there is no stumbling block."
(Ps. 119:165.) Hence, only they who hate it will have occasion to stumble.
Now the cause of all the evils that have here been mentioned is pride, because it renders men utterly incapable of receiving the good. The fear of God is all-humiliating, to be sure, but humility
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE makes one capable of receiving every good. The reason why these folk here do not obtain anything good is that they are proud, and they are proud because they do not fear God. And the reason why they do not fear God is that in their presumptuousness they are sure that he must approve of their ways and actions, because they regard him as just and right according to their own standards. But they are unmindful of the possibility that, when God judges, he will find nothing that is righteous and nothing that is pure. For the judgment of God is a judgment of an infinitely fine exactness. One can do nothing so finely and accurately that in his presence it may not be found coarse, and nothing is so righteous that before him it may not be unrighteous; nothing so true that it may not be untruthful; nothing so pure and holy that before him it may not be defiled and profane. Yet in case they are mindful of this, they claim for themselves a "respect of persons with God" (Rom. 2:11), to the effect that he will not judge and condemn their kind of truth and righteousness, i.e., that by a singular favor he will regard them as pure in their impurity.
But if they feared God, they would know that only Christ and his truth and righteousness cannot fall under God's judgment, inasmuch as all this is infinite. Praise and glory be to God forever who has given us all this in him and with him so that we may be righteous and true through him and thus escape the judgment.
But with respect to all that is ours (and we can never be certain whether it ever belongs to us), we must always be in fear before Nevertheless, they imagine that they have "the fear of God"
(Rom. 3:18) to the fullest extent. For what virtue do the proud not arrogate to themselves? Just as they regard themselves as righteous God-seekers, so they believe they have also the fear of God and everything else the apostle asserts they have not; and, in their presumptuousness, they fancy themselves to be far, far removed from all that he ascribes to them. We must, therefore, in faith believe that what the Spirit says in this psalm is true and that none is righteous before God, for no one who is righteous in his own eyes will produce such a belief from himself. And so we must always consider that all this applies to us and that it can truly be said of every one of us that he is unrighteous and without the fear of God. And as we thus humble ourselves and confess to God that we are wicked and foolish,52 we may become worthy to be justified by him.
52 Inphrynitus. In Reuchlin's Vocabularius breviloquus this word appears as "infrunitus." It is defined to mean "non fronitus" i.e., "stultus" ("stupid"),
"insipiens" ("foolish"), "indiscretus" ("imprudent"), "sine freno rationis"
("without reason's bridle").
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Now we know that whatsoever things the law speaks, it speaks to them that are in the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the ivorld may be made subject to God. Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. (Rom. 3:19This "to be made subject" must be taken to mean "to be a debtor," "to be obligated or bound to pay a debt" so that the meaning of the text, as was stated in the gloss,53 is this: the law declares all men to be unrighteous in order that, in view of this declaration, they may acknowledge themselves to be unrighteous and that they cease to consider themselves boastingly as righteous, keep silent about it, and confess themselves guilty before God's righteousness. Psalm 37:7: "Be subject to the Lord and pray to him" or as the Hebrew text has it: "Be silent before the Lord," etc. Isaiah 41:1: "Let the islands keep silence before me and the peoples change their strength," i.e., let them keep their mouth shut and be quiet, so that they cease boasting that they are righteous before me. Psalm 65:1: "A hymn becomes thee, O God in Zion," or, according to the Hebrew version:54 "Silence be praise to thee,
O God in Zion," i.e., we owe it to thee to keep silent about our righteousness, and precisely this is to sing the praises of thy righteousness. One may add in thought the conjunction "and": Silence and praise to thee, O God, etc. But the meaning is more clearly brought out without an express conjunction: this is to give God the honor and glory that we become silent and stop praising ourselves as if we amounted to anything.
Here the question arises: How can one be justified without the works of the law and how can it be that one cannot be justified by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20), inasmuch as James, citing the example of Abraham and Rahab, says plainly that "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26) and "that a man is justified by works" (James 2:24). Likewise, in Gal. 5:6, Paul himself speaks of "faith that works by love," and, in the second chapter of this
63 WA 56, 35, 12 ff.: "Now we know and we do not need merely to believe, because it is certain that whatsover things the law speaks, in so far as it either promises the good or threatens evil, it speaks to them that are in the law; hence also this psalm speaks to and about the Jews. For concerning the Gentiles, they had no doubt that they were sinners, but concerning themselves they had great doubts whether they were sinners, indeed, they did not believe that they were: for the law was given to them that every mouth that proudly boasts before others of its own wisdom and righteousness may be stopped and that all the world may be made subject to God, to be obligated to him as a debtor or sinner, although, in his own eyes, he is nothing of the sort, inasmuch as just before he regarded himself as equal to 54 Cf. Faber's Quincuplex Psalterium.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE letter, he says that "the doers of the law shall be justified" (Rom.
To this we reply: As the apostle distinguishes between the law and faith, or the letter and grace, so he distinguishes also between the works that result from them. He calls those deeds works of the law which one does apart from faith and grace and which the law impels either by the fear of punishment or by the alluring promise of temporal rewards. But works of faith he calls deeds which are done in the spirit of liberty and only from the love of God. These can be done only by people who have been justified by faith. The works of the law, however, do not contribute anything to the justification of anyone; indeed, they are a great hindrance because they keep one from seeing himself as unrighteous and in need of justification.
Consider this parable: Suppose a layman enacts outwardly all the official functions of a priest and celebrates mass, confirms, pronounces absolution, administers the sacraments, dedicates altars, churches, vestments, vessels, etc. His actions certainly resemble in all respects those of a real priest and perhaps they are more fittingly and adequately performed than real ones. But because he is not consecrated and ordained and sanctified, he enacts inwardly nothing, but he merely puts on a play and deceives himself and his friends. So it is with righteous, good, and holy works that are done outside of or before justification. For just as that layman does not become a priest by his actions, though it is possible for him to become a priest entirely without them, namely, by ordination, so he that is righteous by the law is not made righteous by these works of the law but without them by something else, namely, by faith in Christ.55 By this faith he is justified and, as it were, ordained a righteous man for the performance of works of righteousness as a layman is ordained a priest in order to perform the acts of a priest. Now, it may happen that a man who is righteous by the law and the letter may do finer and more splendid works than a man who is righteous by faith. Nevertheless, he is not really righteous, but is all the more hindered thereby from obtaining righteousness and the works of grace.
Here is another comparison: A monkey can imitate human actions beautifully but he is not a man because of this. Were he to become a man, this would happen without a doubt not by virtue of the actions by which he emulated man but by virtue of a completely different action, namely, God's. But made a man, he certainly would perform human actions in the right way.
When, therefore, Saint James and the apostle say that one is 55 (tper fidem Christi."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS justified by works, they argue against the false understanding of those who think that faith without works is sufficient: and, as a matter of fact, the apostle does not say that faith justifies without its own works (for then it would not be faith, since, according to the philosophers,56 "a working or an action is the proof that there is a form"), but what he does say is that faith justifies without the works of the law.
Therefore, justification does not need the works of the law, but it needs a living faith that produces its own works. (Compare
But if justification is by faith with its own works but without the works of the law, why are the heretics then regarded as being outside justification, in view of the fact that they not only believe but from such a faith do great works and almost greater ones than other believers do? Yes, and all the proud spiritual folk in the church who can point to so many great works that certainly proceed from faith—are they, too, unrighteous? Does it not seem, then, that something else than faith in Christ with its works is necessary for justification?
The answer is given briefly in the following word of James:
"Whosoever stumbles in one point is become guilty of all" (James 2:10). For faith consists of something indivisible:57 it is either a whole faith and believes all there is to believe, or it is no faith at all if it does not believe one part of what there is to believe. This is why our Lord likens it to one single pearl and one single mustard seed, etc. (cf. Matt. 13:45 f., 31 f.). (For Christ is not divided; therefore, one either denies him in his totality when one denies him with respect to one point or one affirms him in his totality.
But one cannot at the same time deny and confess him now in this, and then in that, word.) The heretics, however, always select from what must be believed one or several points against which, out of their conceit, they state their own understanding as if they were wiser than all other believers. And thus they believe nothing of what must be believed and perish without faith and obedience to God despite their great works that so closely resemble the real ones. Theirs is the fate of the Jews, who also believe much of what the church, too, believes as true. But against one point, namely, Christ, they put what their
56 In his discussion of the Aristotelian concepts of form and matter, Trutvetter (Summa in totam physicen, I, c. 1) quotes the following saying as proverbial: "Operatio arguit formam sicut transmutatio materiam" ("An action is the evidence of form, just as change is the evidence of matter").
67 "Fides enim consistit in indivisibili"
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE own pride suggests that they think; therefore they perish in their faithlessness.
The case is not different with anyone else who conceitedly sticks to his own ideas as he withstands the precept or the counsel of a true teacher of salvation. In so far as he does not believe him, it must be said also of him that he believes nothing; his whole faith collapses because of the obstinacy with which he persists in one notion. Therefore, we must always be ready to surrender our own point of view so that we do not stumble on this rock of offense (cf. Rom. 9:32; Isa. 8:14), i.e., the truth which in humility stands over against us and is contrary to what we think it ought to be. We are so presumptuous as to believe that only what we think is the truth, and we want to hear and see as truth only what we agree with and approve. But this cannot be.
The works, therefore, of all these folk are works of the law and not of faith and grace; indeed, they are contrary to faith and contend against it. For this reason, justification can happen only without such works; indeed, it must happen without them, and, to use the words of the apostle, "they must be counted as dung because of Christ" (Phil. 3:8).
It is always safer to listen to what goes counter to our judgment than to listen to opinions that approve and applaud what we think, and that agree with us.
Yes, unless a man learns to listen freely to what goes against him and is glad to have his own opinion rejected and criticized, and, on the other hand, unless he is apprehensive and sorry or at least suspicious when his word, opinion, and action are approved, praised, and sustained, he can certainly not be saved. For nothing proves more truly that one's opinion, word, or action are from God than when they are criticized or reproved. Everything that comes from God is, as one can see in Christ, rejected by man as are stones by the builders.58
But if it is not from God, it is much safer, indeed it is necessary that it be rejected, lest one persevere in it and perish. This is why even the godless king Ahab gives testimony to the effect that he hated the prophet Micah for no other reason than that he always prophesied him evil. (I Kings 22:8 ff.) For the same reason, King
Jehoiakim cut the sayings of Jeremiah to pieces and burned them.
(Jer. 36:23.) And all the Jews persecuted the prophets because they proclaimed evil to them and the opposite of what was agree68 Cf. Ps. 118:22; Matt. 21:42; Acts 4:11; I Peter 2:7.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS able to their thinking. Instead, they should have received this humbly, with the acknowledgment of their guilt before God. On the contrary, they said: "Peace, peace!" (Jer. 6:14; 14:13; 23:17)
"we are God's people; he will do no evil to us and will not punish us; we shall not see disaster because we are righteous/' And so they never heard the voice of the Lord, indeed, they always opposed it. This is why the Lord says: "Woe unto you, when all men speak well of you, for in the same manner did their forefathers to the false prophets" (Luke 6:26). To be maligned, then, scolded, and accused is the way of security; but to be blessed, praised, and approved is the way of danger and perdition. The right thing to do is to keep waiting for the blessing and praise of the Lord; "his," not man's, "blessing is upon his people," as it says in Ps. 3:8.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe. (Rom. 3:21-22.)
Doctrine: Inasmuch as the faith in Christ by which we are justified consists in this, that one believe not only in Christ (or in the person of Christ) but in all that belongs to Christ, the proud and the heretics deceive themselves in the conviction it pleases them to hold that they believe in Christ while they refuse to believe in what belongs to him.
They surely divide Christ when they say that it is one thing to believe in Christ and another thing to believe in what belongs to him, but, as a matter of fact, "Christ is not divided" (I Cor. 1:13), as the apostle says; and we have stated above that likewise faith in Christ is indivisible. Therefore, Christ and what belongs to Christ are one and the same.
Now, the heretics confess and boast that they believe in Christ according to what the gospels say of him, i.e., that he was born, suffered, died, etc.; but they do not believe in what belongs to him. And what is this? The church, of course; and every word that proceeds from the mouth of a superior of the church or of a good and holy man, is Christ's word, according to his saying: "He that hears you, hears me" (Luke 10:16). People, therefore, who withdraw themselves from their superiors and who do not want to hear what they say but want to follow their own ideas—how can they, I ask, believe in Christ? Or do they believe in his birth and suffering but not in one who teaches this? "Is Christ, then, divided" (I Cor. 1:13), because, on the one hand, they believe in him, and, on the other hand, they deny him? No, this cannot be!
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE Even by what they believe they deny the whole Christ, because one cannot deny and confess him at the same time. (The Master of the Sentences59 says: "It is one thing to believe that God is, and it is another to believe him, and still another to believe in him." This applies also to faith in Christ. For to believe in Christ means to direct oneself to him with one's whole heart and to order everything with respect to him.)
This is why our Lord says in Matt. 4:4: "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." What is the mouth of God? The priest's mouth and the prelate's. Malachi 2:7: "They shall seek the law at the priest's mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts." And to Jeremiah, God says: "Thou shalt be my mouth." (Jer. 15:19.)
But why the phrase "by every word"? Because by disbelieving one single word you no longer live by the word of God. For the whole Christ is in every word, and he is wholly in all single words.
When, therefore, one denies in one word him who is in all words, one denies him in his totality. (Thus he is enclosed on two sides.)
Just so, if you kill one single Christian, sparing all others, you kill the whole Christ. So it is with everything else. If you deny Christ in one single host, you have thereby denied him in all.
If this is so, we must undergo an immense humiliation. For inasmuch as we cannot know whether we live by every word of God or deny none (in view of the fact that we hear many such words spoken to us by the superior, many by the brethren, many in the gospel and in the writings of the apostles, and many by God inwardly in ourselves), we can never know whether we are justified or whether we believe. For this reason, we should estimate our works as if they were works of the law and should humbly be willing to be sinners who desire to be justified only by his mercy.
Even though we are certain that we believe in Christ, we are not certain that we believe in all his words. Hence, also, "the believing in him" is uncertain.
For the same reason, it is the one complaint of the prophets that the voice of the Lord is not heard by his people. But a man who with fear and trembling has made humble confession will receive the grace of justification and forgiveness, even though he may perhaps have done something from a hidden unbelief of which he was not aware. In this sense Job was afraid of all his works. (Job 9:28.) And the apostle "was not conscious to himself of anything" but he did not think himself "thereby justified"
(I Cor. 4:4). For this reason, we must leave righteousness to Christ only and only with him works of grace and of the Spirit, w Peter Lombard, III Sent, d. 23,4.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS But we ourselves shall always be found to do works of the law; we shall always be unrighteous, always sinners, in accordance with the saying of Ps. 32:6: "For this shall everyone that is holy pray to thee."
But a proud man who is not acquainted with this kind of humility and has no understanding of the fine distinctions that faith makes,60 but who thinks that he is a believer and that he completely believes all there is to believe—he is unable to hear the voice of the Lord. Instead, he strives against it as if it were false because it goes counter to his thinking, which he believes to be right.
If you now raise the question: If the "No" is given so much weight that when one denies Christ in one respect one denies him in all, why is, then, the "Yes" not also so weighty that when one affirms him in one respect one affirms him in all?—it must be answered as follows: The good is perfect and simple. Hence, it is canceled by one single denial of it, but it is not validated by one single affirmation of it unless this is a straightforward "Yes" qualified by no negation whatever. For two opposites cannot prevail with respect to one and the same subject. And God wants to have everything pure and unblemished. But a denial is a blemish that defiles a confession, etc.
In the prophetic books, the term "voice" means unconditionally "the voice of the Lord" in the sense that we must receive, believe, and acknowledge every spoken word, regardless of who speaks it, as if it were spoken by God himself, humbly submitting our own mind to it. Thus and in no other way we shall be justified. But "who can understand sins" and perceive them everywhere? Therefore, "from my secret ones, cleanse me, O Lord." (Ps.19:12 f.)
For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. (Rom. 3:20.) This knowledge of sin through the law comes about in two ways: first, by mental insight,61 as, for example, farther on in the seventh chapter of the letter: "I had not known concupiscence except the law said: Thou shalt not covet" (Rom. 7:7).
Secondly, by experience,62 namely, by the work of the law or by our attempt to fulfill the law. For, in this connection, the law becomes an opportunity for sin in so far as the human will, which is inclined to evil, is directed by the law toward the good and thus eo "Fidei subtilitatem."
«2 "Experimentaliter"
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE becomes disinclined toward the good and detests it because it hates to be drawn away from what it loves, and, as the Scripture says, it loves evil (Gen. 8:21). But, nevertheless, by doing what the law compels him to do against his will, man is made to see how deeply sin and evil are rooted in him. He would never have understood this if he did not have the law and if he had not tried to fulfill it.
The apostle mentions this thought here only briefly because he plans to deal with it more fully farther on in chs. 5 and 7 (Rom.
5:12 ff.; 7:7 ft.); here he merely wanted to make the point, in reply to an objection, that, because the works of the law do not justify, the law is not useless.
So then, whenever something is prescribed or forbidden to us and we notice how unwilling we are to comply, we should thereby recognize that we do not love good but evil. And precisely thus we should come to know ourselves as evil and sinful, for a sinner is one who does not want to fulfill the law which prescribes the good and prohibits evil. For if we were righteous and good, we should readily assent to the law and take delight in it, just as now we take delight in our sins and evil desires. As the Scripture says: "Oh, how I love thy law!" (Ps. 119:97), and "His delight is in the law of the Lord/' etc. (Ps. 1:2). So it is that the law makes us conscious of the sin that is in us, i.e., of our ill will that inclines toward evil and shrinks back from the good. And how useful this knowledge isl For a man who sees this feels humbled and implores God that he straighten and heal this will. But a man who does not see this does not ask, and because he does not ask, he does not receive and therefore is also not justified, for he does not know his sin. And so it makes no difference whether one says that through the law comes the knowledge of "sin" or that it makes us conscious that "we are sinners." For it makes us know that we are sinners and that there is sin in us, that we are evil and that there is evil in us.
It is not the works one does in preparation of the justification one hopes to attain that are called the works of the law, but those which, as such, one regards as sufficient for righteousness and salvation.
A man who, by his actions, makes himself ready for the grace of justification is in some way already righteous. For we know that the will to be righteous is a large part of righteousness.63 Other63 In the lectures, according to the notes taken by his students, Luther appears to have said (WA 57, 158, 18): "Velle esse iustum sit magna pars iustitiae, secundum beatum Augustinum" (Ep. 127).
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS wise, the utterances and fervent prayers in which all the prophets called for Christ would have been pointless, and the lamentations of the penitent of all ages ineffective. (Then, too, Christ and John the Baptist would have taught in vain: "Do penance, for the Kingdom of God is at hand" [Matt. 3:2]). Yes, if all the righteous performed good works only in order to become more and more righteous,64 none of them would be righteous. Their works are good, not when they put their trust in them, but when they do them in preparation for justification, confident that they will be made righteous through it alone.65
People who act in this way are not under the law, because they long for grace and detest the fact that they are sinners.
("Works of the law" and "fulfillment of the law" are not the same. Only grace is the fulfillment of the law, but not works. It is right that the apostle speaks of the "works of the law" and not of the "will of the law." For they do not will what the law wills even though they do what the law commands. But the law wills and needs a certain will in order to be fulfilled.)
Others do good works from the belief that they are thereby fulfilling the law and thus are righteous, but they do not long for grace and do not acknowledge and detest themselves as sinners, because they are sure that their actions conform to the law. (They are not disposed to seek righteousness, because they are boastfully confident that they have already attained it.) They are unaware of the fact that they observe the law, not from the love of God, but either with no will or rather a hostile will or, to say the least, from a love and cupidity for earthly goods. And so they remain selfcontent; it does not occur to them to do the works of the law in order thus to obtain the grace by which they might do the law willingly. Indeed, neither the good works that precede justification nor those that follow from it make a man righteous—how much less the works of the law! Those that precede it do not because they only prepare a person for justification, and those that follow from it do not because they presuppose that justification has already been accomplished. For we are not made righteous by doing righteous deeds but we do righteous deeds in so far as we are righteous. Therefore, grace alone makes righteous.66
Even the righteousness of God, by faith in Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe in him, for there is no distinction. (Rom. 3:22.)
C4 "Ut iusiificcntur magis ac magis"
65 "In qua sola confidunt iustitiam suam futuram."
66 WA 56, 255, 18: "Non enim iusta operando iusti efficimur, sed iusti essendo iusta operamur. Ergo sola gratia iustificat."
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE This is a useful additional remark directed to the protest of the proud in case they might say: We concede that we are unrighteous in and from ourselves and we are aware of the fact that we incline toward evil and inwardly hate the law. Therefore, we do believe that only God can justify us. But we ourselves want to obtain this righteousness by prayer and suffering and by confession; however, we do not want Christ; God can give us his righteousness without The answer to this is as follows: This is impossible. Because
Christ is also God. Righteousness is given only through faith in Jesus Christ. So it has been determined, so it pleases God, and so it will be. Who can resist his will? Therefore, it is only evidence of an exaggerated pride if one does not want to be justified by Here also those people of whom I have spoken above should take notice, they who believe in Christ but not in his word, who do not listen to their superior but choose to rely on their own ideas. Instead of trusting a clergyman or a good man, i.e., Christ who speaks through them, they trust in themselves, thinking in their presumptuousness that they can be justified by their own works without such an obedience and faith in God. But this cannot be because over against them there stands what is said in the sentence:67 "The righteousness of God, by faith in Jesus Christ."
This leads us to the following corollary:
The phrase "without the law" must be understood as referring to the law together with its works, and, correspondingly, the phrase
"faith in Christ" must be understood to mean faith in Christ and in the word of anyone through whom he speaks.
Just as "without the law" means "without the co-operation of 67 Luther's marginal gloss on Rom. 3:11 reads as follows (WA 56, 36, 11 fF.):
"Blessed Augustine writes in the ninth chapter of On the Spirit and the Letter (9, 15): 'The apostle speaks of the "righteousness of God," not the "righteousness of man" or the "righteousness of one's own will," but the "righteousness of God," not that by which God is righteous but that with which he covers man when he justifies the ungodly. Just as one speaks of "Christ-faith" and means by it not the faith by which Christ believes but the faith by which he is believed in, so one speaks of the righteousness of God and means not that righteousness by which God is righteous. Both are ours. But they are called God's and Christ's righteousness and faith, because they are given to us by his bounty.' He says the same in Book 11
[ibid., 11, 18]. And in the same place he says [ibid., 9, 15]: 'How can it be witnessed to by the law, if it is manifested without the law? Because it is a righteousness without the law. God imparts it to the believer by the spirit of grace without the help of the law, i.e., without being helped by the law.
For by the law he shows man his weakness, so that by faith he may flee to mercy in order to be healed. It is said also of his wisdom that it carries the law and mercy on its tongue (Prov. 31:26), namely, the law by which he renders the proud guilty and mercy by which he justifies the humbled.' " no LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS the law and works of the law," so faith in Christ means faith in him wherever and through whomever he may speak. We must, therefore, try to avoid being so definitely set in our own thinking that at some time we become perhaps unable to believe in Christ because we do not realize when, where, and through whom he speaks to us. And it is almost always the case that he speaks through someone at a certain time and in a way contrary to what we think should be the person, time, and manner of his speaking to us. As he said himself: "The Spirit blows where it lists, and thou hearest the voice thereof but knowest not whence it comes and whither it goes/' (John 3:8.) For he is with us and in us but always in a manner of appearance that is strange to us, not in the form of glory but in humility and meekness, so that one thinks that it is not he and yet it is really he. This is why the Holy Spirit enjoins:
"Hearken, O daughter, and see and incline thine ear" (Ps. 45:11), i.e., you must at all times and places be ready to listen and keep listening; you must do nothing else than listen with humility in order that you may be taught, as it says in Ps. 2:10: "And now,
0 kings, understand, receive instruction."
But now without the law the justice of God is made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. (Rom. 3:21.) As, for example, in Hab. 2:4: "The just shall live by faith"; in Hos. 2:20: "I will espouse thee to me in faith"; and in Jer. 31:31—
33: "I will make a new convenant with the house of Judah. I will write my laws in their heart," etc. Likewise, in Genesis we find the example of Abraham (Gen. 15:6) and others who were justified by faith.
Blessed Augustine writes in the thirteenth chapter of On the Spirit and the Letter: "What the law of works commands by threatening, the law of faith accomplishes by faith. The one says:
"Thou shalt not covet," and the other says: "When I knew that 1 could not otherwise be continent except God gave it, I went to the Lord and besought him," etc. (Wisd. of Sol. 8:21). And accordingly the Lord says by the law of works: Do what I command.
But by the law of faith we say to God with humble prayer: Give what thou commandest. Now the law commands in order to advise what faith should do (i.e., must do), or, in other words, that the person commanded, if unable as yet to obey, should know what it is he must ask." And, in Chapter 19, he writes: "The law was given in order that grace might be sought. Grace was given that the law might be fulfilled. That the law was not fulfilled was not the fault of the law but of the wisdom of the flesh. And this fault had to be pointed out by the law before it could be remedied by ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE grace. Romans 8:3 f.: 'Tor 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; that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh." John 1:17: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
But who now will enable us to detect all the wiles by which the messenger of Satan (II Cor. 12:7) tries to deceive us? We all pray: Give what thou commandest, and yet we do not obtain what we pray for. We all believe and accordingly speak and make confession and act, yet we are not all justified.
Some who are still rather crude, he deceives in the following way: They do not realize how weak their will is and how prone toward evil, nor have they sufficiently analyzed themselves to know how unwillingly they observe the law of God and how little they love it. It is only from slavish fear that they believe and act accordingly, yet they think nevertheless that they do enough and regard themselves as righteous before God because they believe and do good works. Nor do they show any eagerness to do them gladly and with loving good will, and it does not occur to them that they need the grace of God for this. Depending only upon their own powers, they busily do good works but they are bored and morose in doing them. Instead, they should turn to God with fervent prayers asking him that he lift this boredom from them and endow their will with gladness and by his grace take away its proneness toward evil. Ah, but this can be had only through earnest prayer, readiness to learn, eager action, and much selfcastigation; then, finally, that old way will be uprooted and the will renewed. For grace cannot be had unless one works on oneself in this way.68 But the people I am talking about do not do anything of this sort: they are inattentive and gradually become tepid, stupid, arid, and hardened until, having lost their faith, they can no longer endure it all, and, full of desires of the worst kind, they become "unfit for every good work" (Titus 1:16).
But others who are more sensitive, he deceives by a more intricate method. He makes them do good works with joy and gladness in order, under this cover, to hide their weakness from them, so that they believe they have grace and, in a manner so subtle that one can hardly notice it, come to regard themselves as better than others and take pride in themselves, until, in the end, they affect eccentric and superstitious ways of a kind that one finds among heretics and fanatics who claim to speak in the name of 68 WA 56, 257, 30: "Non enim. dabitur gratia sine ista agricultura suiipsius"
(agricultura = husbandry; cf. I Cor. 3:9).
LUTHER! LECTURES ON ROMANS truth and righteousness and display a "zeal that lacks knowledge"
(Rom. 10:2). Then they turn into rebels: pretending to obey and fear God, they disobey and disregard God's spokesmen, i.e.,
Christ's vicars and messengers.
If, in the light of this, we examine ourselves carefully, we shall always find within ourselves at least some remnants of the flesh, by virtue of which, preoccupied with ourselves, we resist the good and incline toward evil. For if such remnants of sin were not in us and we could seek God with a pure heart, then what is human in us would certainly soon be dissolved and our souls would fly to God.69 But the fact that it does not take wings is a sign that it is still caught in the body70 until set free by the grace of God, and this can be expected to happen only in death. In the meantime, we can do nothing else than join the apostle in sighing: "Who shall deliver me from the death of this body?" (Rom. 7:24).71 We must always be apprehensive that we do not sufficiently keep it down. Therefore, we must ever pray and see to it that grace and the spirit increase but that the body of sin decreases and is undone and that the old Adam in us declines. For God has not yet justified us, i.e., he has not yet made us perfectly righteous and our righteousness complete, but he has begun to perfect it,72 so that, according to James 1:18, "we might be some beginning of his creature." An illustration of this is the man who was brought halfdead to the inn; after his wounds were bound, he was not yet whole, but he was taken in, in order to be cured (Luke 10:34 f.).
If we but pay attention, it is easy to see the perversity of our will in relation to the body, how we love what is bad for us and avoid what is good for us, in so far as, for example, we are disposed toward sensual lust, avarice, gluttony, pride, and honor but shrink back from chastity, generosity, sobriety, humility, and shame. It is easy, I say, to sense how we seek and love ourselves in all this, how we are bent in and curved in upon ourselves, if not in what we do, then at least in what we are disposed to do.
It is very difficult, however, to see whether we seek ourselves also in the things that belong to the realm of the spirit (i.e., in knowledge, righteousness, chastity, godliness). Inasmuch as the 6 d T h e notion that the soul will fly to God (on having received the remission of all sins) was popular at Luther's time. It is often expressed in penitentials and in books on dying. (Cf. Ficker, p. 258, n. 13.)
7 0 "Signum est, quod visco aliquo carnis adhuc haeret"
("It is a sign that it still hangs on some birdlime of the flesh").
7 1 This is how Luther quotes the passage. T h e Vulgate reads: "from the body of this death."
7 2 WA 56, 258, 19 f.: "Non enim iustificavit nos, i.e., perfecit et absoluit iustos ac iustitiam, sed incepit, ut perficiat."
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE love of spiritual values is honorable and good, it very often becomes an end in itself, so that these values are not placed in relation to God and referred to him. And so we pursue them not because they are pleasing to God but because they give us delight and inward satisfaction, and also because we thereby earn the plaudits of men; in other words: we pursue them not for God's sake but for our own. But this turns out to be a temptation. For if we are criticized because we cultivate these values or if God takes away our liking for them and our delight in them, we quickly drop them or we pay back our critics in kind and strike back at them.
By such presumptaousness and pride even the works of grace can be changed into works of the law and the righteousness of God into the righteousness of man. This happens when, having done good works in grace, people become satisfied with them, stop where they are and do not care to go on with them, as if they had already fully obtained righteousness, whereas, as a matter of fact, they should go forward on the basis of these good works as though they were but a preparation. Indeed, all righteous works that are done in grace are a preparatory stage in the progress of justification, in accordance with the saying "Let him who is righteous be justified still" (Rev. 22:11). With the apostle, who stretches forward to the things that are before (Phil. 3:13), "they will go from strength to strength" (Ps. 84:7) and "from glory to glory" (II Cor. 3:18).
Therefore, no saint regards and confesses himself to be righteous, but he always asks and waits to be justified, and because of this he is reputed as righteous by God who has regard for the humble
In this sense, Christ is the King of the Jews, i.e., of those who confess73 that they are always beset by sin and who yet seek to be justified and detest their sins. Hence, "God is wonderful in his saints" (Ps. 68:35), because he regards as righteous those who acknowledge and bewail themselves as sinners, but condemns those who think that they are righteous.
This is what is said in Ps. 32:5 f.: "I said I will confess against myself my unrighteousness, and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin. For this shall everyone that is holy (i.e., righteous,
73 The Glossa ordinaria comments as follows on Luke 23:38: "Jesus is the ruler [imperator] of believers and confessors. As such he is the King of the Jews." This must be understood in the light of the fact that, on the basis of Gen. 29:35, one commonly took Judah to mean "one who confesses or praises [confitens]" and the Jews (Judaei), therefore, as "confessors."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS justified) pray to thee." Is it not something wonderful that a righteous man prays for his sins! Just so it is said in Ecclesiaticus of the righteous man: "He will make supplication for his sins" (Ecclus.
39:7) and in prayer he will confess his sins to the Lord. I will confess "against myself/' he says; this is, as I have explained, what it means for a righteous man to recognize himself a sinner and for all that to hate his sin, just as, by contrast, the ungodly one recognizes his righteousness and is pleased with himself about it. In this sense it says in Ps. 51:3: "For I know my transgression and"
(I not only know) "my sin" but "it is ever before me." I confess, therefore, "that against thee only I have sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight that thou mayest justify in thy word," i.e., because I acknowledge and hate my sin, thou forgivest and justifiest me, because thou alone shalt be justified.
We are, therefore, saved only in so far as we, who are beset by sin and live in sin, bewail the fact that we are beset by sin and fervently pray to God for redemption, according to the word of John: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:8 £.).
Consequently, yes, indeed: consequently "the sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Ps. 51:17). "For there is no man on earth that sins not," says Solomon in his prayer. (I Kings 8:46.) And Moses says in Ex. 34:7: "before whom no one is innocent by himself." And again, Ecclesiastes: "There is not a righteous man upon earth that does good and sins not." (Eccl. 7:20.) And again: "Who can glory in himself that he has a clean heart?" (Prov. 20:9.) And so "there is none righteous; they all have gone out of the way." (Ps. 14:3;
Hence, we pray: "Forgive us our debts" (Matt. 6:12).
And where do these sins and debts come from? From the fact that no one fulfills the law except Christ. For no man living is justified before God, because his heart is always too weak to do the good and inclined toward evil. He does not love righteousness without loving in some way also iniquity. But Christ "loves righteousness and hates iniquity" (Ps. 45:7). As the apostle explains farther on in Rom. 7:25: "So then we serve with the flesh the law of sin but with the mind the law of God." And so we are partly and not wholly righteous. Hence, we have sin and debt. Therefore, whenever we pray that righteousness be perfected in us and our sin taken away, we ask at the same time for the end of this life.
For in this life the proneness toward evil is not perfectly healed ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE (just as, to speak figuratively, the Children of Israel were unable to drive out the Jebusites).74 This is the reason why the prayer
"Hallowed be thy name'1 (Matt. 6:9) (and this happens when our nature is hallowed from evils and sins) is immediately followed by the petition: "Thy Kingdom come" (Matt. 6:10), which is as much as to say that it will be fully hallowed only in thy Kingdom. But also this Kingdom will come only through tribulations. This is why there then follows the petition: "Thy will be done" (Matt.
6:10), as Christ prayed in the Garden at the time of his tribulation Who, then, can pride himself over against someone else and claim to be better than he? Especially in view of the fact that he is always capable of doing exactly the same as the other does and, indeed, that he does secretly in his heart before God what the other does openly before men. And so we must never despise anyone who sins but must generously bear with him as a companion in a common misery. We must help one another just as two people caught in the same swamp assist each other. Thus we must "bear one another's burdens and fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2).
But if we despise the other, we shall both perish in the same swamp.
For all have sinned and do need the glory of God. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God has proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to the showing of his righteousness, for the remission of former sins, through the forbearance of God, for the showing of his righteousness in this time; that he himself may be righteous and the justifier of him who is of the faith of Jesus Christ.
"Glory" must here be taken to mean "glorying" and "need" must be understood as referring to persons in the sense that they are empty or in lack of something, so that the meaning of the passage is this: They have no righteousness of which they could glory before God, as it says in I Cor. 1:29: "that no flesh should glory before God," and as above: "Thou gloriest in God," and as below in ch. 5:11 of this letter: "We glory in God through Jesus
Christ." "They do need the glory of God" means therefore: "They have nothing about which they could glory in God or about God," as in Ps. 3:3: "But thou, O Lord, art the lifter up of my head and my glory," i.e., my glorying. So also below: "If Abraham was justified by works, he has whereof to glory, but not before God."
(Rom. 4:2.) In the same way they have whereof to glory before LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS men about their righteousness. The term "glory of God" is used in the same way as the terms "righteousness, wisdom, power of God/' namely, in the sense that they are given to us by God so that we can glory about them before him and in him and with respect to him.
The Master of the Sentences and others75 construe and interpret the phrase [to the showing of his righteousness] for the remission of former sins, through the forbearance of God (Rom. 3:25) to mean: God shows his righteousness, i.e., truth, for the remission of the sins of the people of the past (i.e., the fathers of the old law), whose sins he has forgiven "through forbearance," i.e., because of the satisfaction of Christ that was to come. By forgiving the sins he forbore them, and he let the satisfaction follow upon forgiveness; but in our case the satisfaction of Christ came first. And so the text of the apostle must be put more clearly in this way: to declare his righteousness by forgiving or in forgiving through divine forbearance the sins of those that have gone before. For the sins of all, those that have gone before as well as those that are to come, are forgiven by Christ alone.
But it makes a better sentence if we read it to mean: By forgiving the sins that we have done in the past, God shows himself as the justifier of all. Then the forgiveness of sins proves him as the one who is righteous and who has the power to justify. As it was said above: "that thou mayest be justified in thy words" (Rom.
3:4), an idea which he promptly repeats here by saying: that he himself may be righteous and the justifier (Rom. 3:26).
Now he says "of former sins" in order to indicate that God does not forgive all sins, lest someone might say: If, then, all sins are taken away by Christ, let us do what we want; nobody can sin any more" (as the people say who surrender their spirit "to the occasion of the flesh" [Gal. 5:13] and "make liberty a cloak for malice" [I Peter 2:16]). For grace and kindness are not given in order that we may sin and act as we please, as the apostle explains below where he says that we are not under the law and asks:
"What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law?"
(Rom. 6:15). And he answers: God does not forgive in such a way that he imputes to no one anything as sin, no matter what he does, or that he cancels the law, but in such a way that he does not punish the sins of the past which he has borne in patience in order that he may justify; he is not kind to us in order that we may freely sin.
Then, too, the text shows clearly that the apostle calls God righteous because he justifies or makes righteous, as we have stated
75 Cf. Peter Lombard, Coll. in Ep. ad Rom.; also GL ord. and Lyra.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE before. And so it is plainly evident, and this is supported by the apostle as he explains his own words, that "the righteousness of God" is that righteousness by which he makes us righteous, just as the wisdom of God is that by which he makes us wise.
By the phrase "of the past" the apostle therefore put himself in opposition to a foolish and carnal interpretation of his words to this effect: God has fulfilled the law; he no longer imputes sin; he no longer wants to regard as sin what he has so regarded before.
Therefore, we can safely sin, for what once was sin is such no longer.
"To establish the law" (Rom. 3:31) must be understood in two ways, namely, intrinsically and extrinsically. The law is intrinsically and formally established, when the tenor and the words of the law are invoked in order to indicate and signify what may or may not be done. By contrast, the law is "made of no effect" when it is canceled and abrogated so that it is no longer in force and it is permissible to act against it. It is in connection with this interpretation that carnal persons may think that the apostle makes the law invalid by his statement that we are justified by the law but that "the righteousness of God is manifested and given without the law."
On the other hand, the law is established and confirmed extrinsically, and in an exemplary way, when its prescriptions and prohibitions are complied with. This is what is meant in Jer.
35:14: "The words of Jonadab, that he commanded his sons, have prevailed, because they have obeyed the commandment of their father." Notice that "the words prevail" means "to obey them."
And, farther on, Jeremiah says: "The sons of Jonadab have constantly kept the commandment of their father, but his people has not obeyed me" (Jer. 35:16), i.e., they have not kept and established my commandment but have destroyed it instead. So also,
Ps. 10:3: "They have destroyed what thou hast made." And Ps.
119:126: "It is time, O Lord, to do; they have broken up thy law."
Habakkuk 1:4: "Therefore the law is torn in pieces, and judgment comes not to the end." Jeremiah 31:32: "The covenant which they made void," namely, by not obeying it.
So then, the law is destroyed extrinsically when what it prescribes or prohibits is not complied with. Something of this sort the apostle has in mind when he says: "Do we then destroy the law through faith? God forbid. But we establish the law" (Rom.
3:31), i.e., we declare it fulfilled and confirmed by faith. But you would rather destroy it because you do not fulfill it, and even teach that it does not need to be fulfilled in view of the fact that you declare that the works of the law suffice, without faith. (Rom. 8:3: n 8
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh.") As it says in Ps. 18:36: "Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, and my feet have not weakened," i.e., the example of my way of life is made more effective when there are many who imitate it.
As we say in a common expression: This or that craft or this or that party is strong and healthy when there are many who adopt it. But when it has no members, it becomes weak and ineffective.
So then, the law is established in itself and in us—in itself, in so far as it is promulgated, in us, in so far as we fulfill it by word and deed. But nobody does this apart from faith. Whenever, therefore, we lack the grace through faith in Christ, we make
Where is, then, thy boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we account a man to be justified by faith, without the works of the law. (Rom. 3:27 f.)
The law of works necessarily puffs up and induces glorying, for a man who is righteous and who has kept the law without a doubt has something about which he can boast and be proud. Now the Jews believe that they have attained this status because they do outwardly what the law orders or prohibits. Therefore, they do not humble themselves and do not detest themselves as sinners.
They do not seek to be justified and they do not fervently long for righteousness, because they are confident that they already possess it.
Here we must take notice of what we stated before by quoting Augustine, namely, that "the law of works says: Do what I command, but the law of faith: Give what thou commandest."76 Therefore, the people of the law gives this reply to the law and to God as he speaks in the law: I have done what thou hast commanded; what thou hast ordered is accomplished. But the people of faith says: I cannot do it and I have not done it, but give thou what thou commandest. I did not do it, but I want to do it. And because
I cannot do it, I pray and ask thee to give me the power that will enable me to do it. Thus that people becomes proud and boastful, but this one humble and contemptible in its own eyes. And so the true difference between the two peoples is this, that the one says: I have accomplished, and the other: I seek to accomplish; the one: Command what thou wilt and I shall do it, the other:
Give what thou commandest so that I may do it. The one rests confident in an accomplished righteousness, the other longs for one that is still to be obtained.
In view of this, the whole life of the new people, the believing 76 Augustine, De spin et lit, 13,22.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE people, the spiritual people, is this: with the sigh of the heart, the cry of the deed, and the toil of the body to ask, seek, and pray only for justification, ever and ever again until the hour of death; never to stand still and never to rest in accomplishment; not to regard any works as if they had ended the search for righteousness, but to wait for this end as if it dwelt somewhere ever beyond one's reach; and to know that as long as one lives, he will have his being in sins. So then, by saying that we are justified without the works of the law (Rom. 3:28), the apostle does not speak of works that one does in order to seek justification. For these are no longer works of the law but of grace and faith, because the person who does them does not believe that he is justified by them but he desires to be justified, and he does not think that he has fulfilled the law by them but he seeks to fulfill it.
What the apostle means by works of the law are works in which the persons who do them trust as if they are justified by doing them, and thus are righteous on account of their works. They therefore do not do them in order to seek righteousness but in order to glory in having obtained it. For this reason, they stand still as soon as they have done their works, as if the law were already entirely fulfilled and as if they had no need of further justification. This is without a doubt the height of pride and boastfulness. Moreover, it is not true that the works of the law can fulfill the law, inasmuch as the law is spiritual and needs a heart and a will that we cannot possibly have from ourselves, as we have stated again and again. For this reason, they live up to the law outwardly but not inwardly.77
So the people of faith spends its whole life in search of justification. And this is how it gives utterance to its quest: "Draw me, we will run after thee" (S. of Sol. 1:4). "In my bed I sought him; I sought him and found him not" (S. of Sol. 3:1); "I called him, and he did not answer me" (S. of Sol. 5:6); i.e., I never believed that I had attained, but I continually seek. This is why its utterance is at last called the voice of a turtledove (cf. S. of Sol. 2:12), because it sighs so longingly. And "blessed are they that hunger for righteousness." (Matt. 5:6.)
Psalm 34:10: "They that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good." Psalm 14:3: "There is none that seek after God," i.e., because they claim to have found him. Psalm 105:4: "Seek his face evermore," i.e., do not think that you have already found him.
Psalm 105:45: "That they might seek his justifications." Isaiah 21:12: "If you seek, seek"; Isa. 65:1: "They have sought me that before asked not for me."
The same voice resounds through almost every verse of the " WA 56, 264,34: "Idcirco opera legis faciunt, sed non voluntates legis"
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS whole octonary psalm: "O that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications" (Ps. 119:5). "I will seek thy justifications." (Ps.
119:145.) "With my whole heart have I sought after thee; let me not stray." (Ps. 119:10.) So also the apostle does not think that he has already attained, but in seeking he stretches forward to the things that are before, and when he finds, he forgets the things that are behind. (Phil.
3:13.) Now a man who seeks thus within and without is certainly already righteous before God by the very fact that he asks to be justified and does not think that he is already righteous. He does not confess himself to be a sinner, because he wants to be redeemed and justified, ever saying: "Forgive us our debts"; "hallowed be thy name" (Matt. 6:12,9).
But what does it mean that Isa. 65:1 says: "They have found me that sought me not; I appeared openly to them that asked not for me" (Rom. 10:20)? Shall one then not seek him but wait until he lets himself be found by chance? This passage must be understood, first of all, as opposing the foolish quest of those who seek
God by a way of their own choosing and not by the one in which God wants to be sought and found.
And it must be understood, secondly, with respect to the fact that the righteousness of God is offered to us apart from our merits and works while we are occupied with the search for many other things than the righteousness of God. For who ever sought or would ever have sought the Word incarnate if he had not revealed himself? He was therefore found and not sought.
But once found, he wants to be still further sought for and again and again to be found. We find him when we are converted to him from our sins and we seek him as we persevere in this conversion.
There is, then, a difference between sinners and sinners. There are some sinners who confess that they have sinned but do not long to be justified; instead, they give up hope and go on sinning so that, when they die, they despair and, while they live, they are enslaved to the world. There are other sinners who confess that they sin and have sinned, but they are sorry for this, hate themselves for it, long to be justified, and under groaning constantly pray to God for righteousness. This is the people of God: it constantly brings the judgment of the cross to bear upon itself.
In the same way, there is a difference between the righteous.
Some are sure that they are righteous; they have no longing to be justified but wait for a reward and crown. Others are sure that they are not righteous; they fear the judgment and long to be justified.
ROMANS, CHAPTER THREE That we are sinners, therefore, does no harm so long as with all our strength we seek to be justified.
For this reason, the devil, that artist of a thousand tricks,78 pursues us with an amazing craftiness. Some he leads astray by getting them involved in manifest sins. Others, again, who regard themselves as righteous, he causes to stand still, so that they become lukewarm and give up all longing for betterment (in accordance with what the book of Revelation says in ch. 3:14 about the angel of Laodicea). Still others he seduces to fanaticism and ascetic sectarianism, so that, believing themselves to be holier than others and, as it were, experts in righteousness, they get busy in their good works with a feverish zeal that is everything else but lukewarm, and set themselves apart from others while in their pride they despise them and look down upon them. Still others he urges on to the foolish enterprise of trying to become pure and sinless saints. As long as they feel that they are sinful and that evil may unexpectedly overcome them, he keeps them in terror before the judgment, and fatigues their conscience almost to the point of despair. He senses what each individual's bent is and tries to tempt him accordingly. But because these people strive so fervently for righteousness, it is not easy to persuade them to try the opposite. So he deals with them in the following way:
First he helps them in their project—with the result that they are much too quick in their attempt to get rid of all concupiscence.
Then, when they find that they cannot accomplish their purpose, he makes them sad, dejected, despondent, desperate, and utterly upset in their conscience.
So there is nothing left to us but to remain in sins and, setting our hope on the mercy of God, to pray fervently that we may be freed from them. We are like a convalescent: if he is in too much of a hurry to get well, he runs the chance of suffering a serious relapse; therefore, he must let himself be cured little by little and he must bear it for a while that he is feeble. It is enough that our sin displeases us, even though it does not entirely disappear.
Christ bears all sins, if only they displease us, for then they are no longer our sins but his, and his righteousness is ours in turn.
78 "Mille artifex" (Tausendkunstler).