the shadow and secret place. And farther on in the same psalm it says: "He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you shall hope." (Ps. 91:4.) And Mai. 4:2: "But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings."
And Ps. 31:3: "Be to me a God who protects and a house where I can take refuge/' i.e., where I can abide. And again, Ps. 90:1:
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place.1' It is these and similar words of Scripture the apostle explains here, together with many other symbolical words of the law.
In our own day, the hypocritical moralists4 display a dreadful pride in imagining that they are saved and sufficiently righteous in themselves on account of the fact that they believe in Christ, but they do not want to acknowledge to themselves and others that they are unrighteous and foolish. What else is this than throwing away the protection of Christ and trying to approach God only from faith but not also through Christ? Yes, but then it is not really faith but only seems to be such—just as, at sundown, the rays and the light of the sun go down together. But a wise man does not value light apart from the sun, but he wants to have light together with the sun. These people, therefore, who approach God through faith, but not at the same time through Christ, actually go away from him.
Secondly, he turns against those who rely on too great a sense of security because of Christ and not because of faith, as if they could be saved through Christ without doing anything and without having to give any evidence of faith. They have too great a faith, nay, rather, none at all. For both must be in effect: "through faith" and "through Christ," so that we do and endeavor everything possible in faith in Christ. And yet we must recognize ourselves in all this as unprofitable servants, believing that only through Christ we are worthy of having access to God. In all works of faith, our main concern must be to become worthy of Christ and to take refuge under the wings of his righteousness. "Therefore, being justified by faith" and forgiven, we have access to God's grace and peace "but by our Lord Jesus Christ."
This affects also those who, following the mystical theology,5 exert themselves in the inner darkness and, leaving aside all pictures of the suffering of Christ,6 desire to hear and contemplate
5 I.e., the "Mystical Theology" of Dionysius Areopagita. Some of the terms Luther uses are borrowed from this work. (Cf. Myst. Theol., 1, 3.)
Later in his life, Luther passed severe judgment on Dionysius. (Cf. De capt. Bab., WA 6, 562, 4.) 6 Ficker states (p. 300, n. 28) that, on the title page of the volume of Tauler's
Works which Luther used, there was a picture of Christ carrying the cross.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS the uncreated Word itself without first having had the eyes of their heart justified and cleansed by the Word incarnate. For the heart must first be rendered pure by the incarnate Word, and only one who is thus purified can then in rapture ascend through the incarnate to the uncreated Word. But who can imagine his heart so clean that he can dare aspire to this, unless he is called, and, with the apostle Paul, carried away by God (II Cor. 12:2) and "taken up with Peter and James and John his brother" (Matt. 17:1). In short, this rapture cannot be called an "access."
And not only so; but we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience. (Rom. 5:3.) This text shows clearly the distinction of a twofold wrath and of a twofold mercy of God and hence also that of a twofold tribulation. For there is a tribulation that comes from God's severity and another that comes from his kindness. That of his kindness works what is very good as in this case here, though it may accidentally result in something else. But this is due to the weakness of him upon whom tribulation is inflicted, in so far as he does not recognize its nature, power, and purpose, but judges and evaluates it only according to its outward appearance, i.e., wrongly, inasmuch as he should adore it as if it were the cross of Christ itself.
(1) Tribulation enlarges and enhances the nature and character of the person whom it befalls. If a person who is carnal and weak, blinded, evil, irascible, proud, etc., is tried and tested, he becomes more carnal, weaker, more blinded, more evil, more irascible, and prouder, etc. But, conversely, a person who is spiritual, strong, wise, good, meek, and humble becomes more spiritual, stronger, wiser, better, meeker, and humbler, as it says in Ps. 4:1: "When I was in distress, thou hast enlarged me." But of the others it says in Matt. 7:27: "The floods came and the winds blew and smote upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof."
(2) People who impute their anger or impatience to what injures or troubles them, talk foolishly. For tribulation does not make anyone impatient but it brings to light the impatience that was or is in him. Thus everybody can learn in tribulation what kind of man he really is, just as the glutton can when he itches, etc.
(3) People who outwardly bestow the highest reverence upon the holy relics of the cross and detest tribulations and adversities and run away from them are crude and puerile, indeed, they are hypocrites. This is obvious, for, in Scripture, tribulations are expressly called the cross of Christ. First Corinthians 1:17: "lest the cross of Christ should be made void." "He that does not take his cross and follow after me." (Matt. 10:38.) And (Paul says) to the Galatians: "Why am I still persecuted? Then is the scandal of the cross made void." (Gal. 5:11.) And in Phil. 3:18: "I tell you weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." In the same way, the theologians and leaders of the church of today can think only of the Turks and the Jews when they have to identify these
"enemies of Christ." So it is done, for example, by the theologians of Cologne in their argument with Reuchlin7 and in the apostolic bulls and in the jurists' commentaries on them.8
But it is they themselves who are in fact "the enemies of the cross of Christ." For is it not true that only the friends of the cross are its enemies, according to the word of Ps. 38:11: "My friends and my neighbors are against me"? "And they that praised me did swear against me." (Ps. 102:8.) For is there anyone who detests tribulations and suffering more than the higher clergy and the lawyers? Indeed, who is there that excels them in seeking after riches, pleasures, leisure, honor, and glory?
(4) Whosoever does not want to undergo tribulation can be sure that he is not a Christian but a Turk and enemy of Christ. For the apostle speaks here of everyone when he says: We glory in tribulations (Rom. 5:3). Acts 14:21: "Through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God." It says: "We must," not "it so happens that" or "perhaps" or "we may." And I Peter 1:6:
"Now you must be fof a little while made sorrowful in diverse tribulations." He says: "You must," i.e., it cannot be done in any other way.
But we should note the fact that there are two kinds of enemies of the cross of Christ. Some use violence and others cunning.
Violent are those who want to make the cross of Christ ineffective by force and who pounce upon it with all their strength; they seek vengeance against anyone who offends them and they can and will not rest until they have been vindicated. They fall into many ills such as hatred, detractions, abuse, joy at the misfortune of their fellow man, and sorrow over his good fortune.
Cunning are those who desert the cross by avoiding it. They do not want to speak and do the truth to anyone, but they want to please, coax, and flatter everyone and offend none, or, under cer7 Cf. the preface of Arnold von Tungern to Articuli sive propositiones de iudaico favore nimis suspecto ex libello theutonico domini Ioannis Reuchlin (1512): "Perfidi canes inimici nominis Christi" Cf. also the title of Pfefferkorn's tract: Sturm — wider die drulosen Juden, anfechter des leichnams
Christi und seiner glidmossen (1514).
8 Papal bulls against the Turks. Cf. Ficker (p. 301, n. 26), LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS tain circumstances, they withdraw to be by themselves (at least for this reason). It is these especially the apostle has in mind, when he says in Gal. 6:12: "As many as desire to please in the flesh, they compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer the persecution of the cross of Christ."
We may note that this way of speaking in terms of an ascending scale or a gradation applies in reverse order to people who are not in this state of grace: tribulation works impatience, and impatience rejection, and rejection despair, and despair confounds eternally. And thus the hatred against God is poured out (i.e., the fact that it was poured out can be noted whenever this hatred becomes real) in their hearts by the evil spirit under whose sway they come, etc. For this reason, I say that a man who is impatient is not yet a Christian, at least before God, because by tribulation he was found to be rejected.
Inasmuch, therefore, as the Lord is called in many places Savior and Helper in need, a man who refuses to suffer as much as in him lies, deprives him of his proper titles and names. Thus he will not be a Jesus, i.e., a savior, to a man who does not want to be damned. He will not be God and creator for him, because he does not want to be that nothing out of which the Lord can create. He will not be his power, wisdom, and goodness, because he does not want to bear him in weakness, foolishness, and readiness to take punishment.
Knowing that tribulation works patience^ and patience trial.
The different kinds of impatience and its stages are known from the different degrees of anger which the Lord has indicated in Matt. 5:21 ff. in connection with his interpretation of the commandment "You shall not kill." For because impatience is the cause of anger, the effect of both is the same. But in case one separates impatience from anger, its different stages are intensive rather than extensive. For an impatient person is not patient in anything.
But here the apostle plainly suggests different stages of patience.
Baptista Montanus9 has quite adequately distinguished between them in the last chapter of the first book (of his work). To bear tribulation but unwillingly so and with the thought that one would rather not have to undergo such a trial is the lowest stage.
9 Baptista Montanus, De patientia, I, 32. There was an edition of his works in Paris, 1513. This Carmelite poet was widely read, particularly in the circles of the Brethren of the Common Life.
Gladly and willingly to bear it but not to seek it is the next and middle stage. But to desire and seek, even to bring about, tribulations as if they were a treasure—this is the highest stage of patience.
This is what is meant by the saying "We glory in tribulation" and also that other one of Gal. 6:14: "We must glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ/' etc.
And trial hope. (Rom. 5:4.) "Trial" must here be understood in the sense that it is a good, in so far, namely, as it is the goal one seeks to reach through tribulation. For God does not accept anyone as righteous unless he has first tried him, and he tries men precisely in the fire of tribulation, as we read in Ps. 17:3: "Thou hast tried me by fire and no wickedness was found in me." And in the word of the Preacher: "He pleased God and was found perfect." (Cf. Ecclus.
44: 16-17.) And again, "Who was found to be without blemish."
(Ecclus. 31:8.) And so also in Ps. 11:5: "The Lord tries the righteous, but the wicked," etc. To such a trial one can come only through patience. And this test takes place in order that everyone may see his inner state of mind (i.e., in order that everyone may come to know himself), whether he really loves God for God's sake; but God knows this, of course, without an examination.
Hence, it says in Ps. 139:23-24: "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (i.e., make it known to me too). "Try me and know my thoughts and see whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way everlasting." This beautifully expresses the reason why God inflicts tribulations upon men: in order to test them, i.e., in order through patience to give them the experience of having stood the test. For if God did not test us by tribulation, no man could possibly be saved.
This is so because, due to original sin, our nature is so curved in upon itself at its deepest levels that it not only bends the best gifts of God toward itself in order to enjoy them (as the moralists9a and hypocrites make evident), nay, rather, "uses" God in order to obtain them, but it does not even know that, in this wicked, twisted, crooked way, it seeks everything, including God, only for itself. As the prophet Jeremiah says in Jer. 17:9: "The heart of man is crooked and inscrutable; who can know it?" i.e., it is so curved in upon itself that no man, be he ever so holy, can know it
(apart from a testing experience). As it says in Ps. 19:12: "Who can discern his errors? Clear thou me from my hidden faults!" And Ps. 32:6: "For this let everyone that is godly pray unto thee at the »a "Iustitiarii" ("workmongers").
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS proper time." The Scripture calls this fault by the very special name of " 'awah" which means wickedness, crookedness, curvedness.10
The Doctor of the Sentences11 deals with it extensively in the first part of his first book in connection with a discussion of the difference between "enjoying" and "using" and between the love of friendship and selfish love.
So therefore, if what we have said is true, namely, that the wickedness that works impatience or, at least, causes us to be impatient is nothing else than this curvedness, which cannot but hate the cross because the cross mortifies everything we have, while our self tries to keep itself alive together with all that is part of it, then (we can understand) why God in his great goodness inflicts tribulation, trouble, and trial upon man soon after he has justified him and bestowed upon him the gifts of the Spirit: he wants to prevent his ungodly nature from rushing in upon them in order to enjoy them, because they are indeed lovely and most enjoyable; and he wants to save man from eternal perdition, for he would not know about this unless he were tried.
Thus man learns to love and worship God unconditionally, i.e., lo worship him not for the sake of grace and its gifts but solely for his own sake. Thus "God scourges every son whom he receives."
(Heb. 12:6.) If he did not do so, the son, carried away by the pleasantness of the new inheritance, would soon revel in the enjoyment of the gift of grace and offend the father more gravely than before. It is, therefore, in the best possible order that the apostle says "that tribulation works patience, and patience trial," i.e., that we should be proved by experience.
And hope confounds not. (Rom. 5:5.) Without a test of the sort I have described, hope would confound, indeed, it would not be hope, but presumption, and even
(and this would be worse still) the enjoyment of something created instead of the creator. Were a man to continue in this, he would be eternally confounded. Consequently, by testing and trying a man's patience, tribulation takes everything away from him and leaves him bare and naked; moreover, it does not let him find help and salvation in physical or spiritual merits, but it causes him to despair of everything created, to forsake all creatures and himself, and, outside himself and everything else, to seek help in 10 "Curvitas." This word was used by the Scholastics. Cf. Peter Lombard, II 11 Cf. Peter Lombard, I Sent., d. 1, referring to Augustine, De doctr. Christ.,
I, 4-6 ("A good man uses the world in order to enjoy God, but an evil man uses God in order to enjoy the world").
ROMANS, CHAPTER FIVE l 6 l God alone and to sing the verse of the psalm: "But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, and my glory" (Ps. 3:3). This is what it means to hope and to become hopeful through testing trials.
The experience of the ungodly is different from this. They are accustomed to trust in their own powers, and they are unwilling to bear tribulations quietly in order to be tested. And because they do not know what it means to hope unconditionally in God alone,12 it is inevitable that when, in the last trial, all their goods and the mountains of their good works collapse, they themselves will be ruined forever. Then they shall say to the mountains: "Fall on us/' etc. (Hos. 10:8; Luke 23:30). For their hope was no hope, but a crooked and presumptuous trust in their own works and their own righteousness.
But yet, one must know that tribulation is of two kinds.
The first kind is physical, and carnal people come to fall by it.
When in connection with their concern for physical goods, they fail in property, health, or reputation, they draw away from God and, because of their impatience, fall into despair. Thus they surrender to the flesh and forsake God. The apostle says about them in Eph. 4:19: "Who despairing gave themselves up to uncleanness."
The other kind is the tribulation of conscience and the spirit, where self-righteousness and all the wisdom in which men put their trust are devoured and carried off. About them the Savior says, and this is to be understood in the mystical sense: "When a strong man fully armed guards his own court, his goods are in peace, but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he will take away from him his whole armor wherein he trusted, and will divide the spoils" (Luke 11:21 f.), i.e., he will strip a man who has fortified himself in his own moral accomplishments and teach him that he must achieve them for the common good and not in order to please himself.
Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. (Rom.
This word must be understood as an explanation, or rather, as an instruction on the level of the spirit, why and how we can glory in tribulations; we are to learn that we cannot do this by relying on ourselves or our own power, but it is possible through love which is given by the Holy Spirit.
12 WA 56, 306, 5: "Quomodo in nudum Deum sperandum sit" Throughout his career, Luther used the phrase Deus nudus ("The naked God" = God as he is in and by himself. Cf. the phrase in one of his earliest sermons: "In nudum Deum confidere" (WA 1, 85, 3).
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS It is, then, this "love of God" alone, this unqualified devotion to God,13 which creates men of a right heart; it alone takes away iniquity; it alone extinguishes the enjoyment of self-righteousness.
Because it loves only God in and for himself14 and not what God gives, as the hypocritical moralists15 think, it does not get exalted when physical and spiritual goods come flowing in. On the other hand, it is not broken up when they depart and physical and spiritual evils come in. "Knowledge puffs up" (I Cor. 8:1), and so does righteousness. But, conversely, want of knowledge makes humble, and so does sin. "But love bears everything" (I Cor. 13:7), even if one must glory in tribulation.
We must, therefore, take notice of the fact that it is called the "love of God/' By it we love God alone. Here nothing can be seen and nothing can be experienced, either inwardly or outwardly, in which one can trust or which one can love or fear. But it is carried off, beyond everything that is, to God himself who is invisible, inexperienceable, incomprehensible, into the midst of inner darkness, not knowing what it loves but knowing what it does not love; it turns away from all that it has ever known and experienced, but it yearns for what it does not yet know and says: "I am sick from love" (S. of Sol. 2:5), i.e., what I have, I do not want, and what I do not want, I have. But this gift is utterly out of reach for those who want to see the evidences of their own righteousness and who are sad and desperate when they cannot see them but put their trust in them in so far as they can see them and then feel all the more secure. And thus they do not "glory in tribulation," and they are not tried, and so they also do not hope.
Now, this sublime power that is in us is not, so the apostle asserts, a product of our own, but it must be sought for from God.
This is why it is shed abroad and in no way brought forth from us or originated by us. And this by the Holy Spirit; it is not acquired by moral effort and habit as the moral virtues are. In our hearts, i.e., deep down in the innermost parts of the heart and not on the surface of the heart in the way foam lies on water. Of this kind is the love of the hypocrites who imagine and pretend that they have love. But a trial brings to light the impatience and the pride that lie hidden deep within them.
Which is given to us, i.e., which we have not deserved; indeed, we deserve exactly the opposite. Now that this is so is proved by what follows in the text: It is really "given to us" and not merited.
Also, Christ "died for the weak" (Rom. 5:6) and not at all for the strong and worthy. It is, therefore, called charity in difference from 13 " 'Charitas Dei/ quae est purissima affectio in Deum/'
14 "Quia non nisi solum et purum Deum diligit."
15 lit., "hipocritae iustitiarii" the very unfruitful and very low kind of love by which one loves a creature, for "charity" means to love something dearly and preciously or to esteem as precious what one loves. So also to esteem
God above everything means to love him with a precious love, i.e., with charity. But to love him for the sake of his gifts or for the sake of advantage means to love him with a base kind of love, i.e., selfishly.16 In other words, one uses God but does not enjoy him.17
Of God, it says, because thus one loves God alone and the neighbor for God's sake, i.e., because God wills it so, whose will one loves above everything.
We must also note that the dwelling place of love is only the heart, indeed, the innermost parts of the heart. This explains why there is a difference between the children and the slaves of God.
For the children of God serve him gladly, voluntarily, and gratuitously, and not from fear of punishment or because of a desire for praise, but only because they want to do the will of God. But the slaves serve him under compulsion, from fear of punishment, and hence, involuntarily and sullenly, or from a desire for wages and hence, voluntarily, but in the way of hirelings, but never in order to do the will of God as such. (Especially in times of tribulation, the slave and hireling retreat, but the son perseveres, as it says in John 10:12: "But the hireling flees.") Therefore, God says to them in Mai. 1:10: "Who is there among you who shuts the doors and kindles fire on my altar gratuitously?" Then there follows this: "I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts," precisely in view of the fact that they are so presumptuous as to think that God must have pleasure in them. This is why, in the same place (Mai. 1:7-8), they reply to the saying of the Lord: "You offer polluted bread upon my altar," by asking as if they could not believe this: "Wherein have we polluted thee?"—in other words: We have done all thou hast commanded. And the Lord answers: "When you offer the blind for sacrifice, is this not evil?
And when you offer the lame and sick, is this not evil?" This means: They worship God without love, but like hirelings, from the sinful desire for their own advantage; they are not like the bride (in The Song of Solomon) who has an eye only for the invisible God and is not concerned for herself or any other creature.18
And again we must note how the apostle connects the spring 17 Cf. Augustine, De doctr. Christ. V, 3-5, 22; Peter Lombard, I Sent., d. 1.
18 Lit: "They do not have the one eye of the bride with which she sees only the invisible God, while she sees nothing of her own or of any other creature." The reference is to S. of Sol. 4:9, interpreted in the medieval manner in terms of Christ-mysticism: "Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my bride; thou hast wounded my heart with one of thine eyes and with one hair of thy neck." Cf. also Lyra and GL ord.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS with the stream. He speaks of the 'love that is . . . through the Holy Spirit which is given to us." For it is not sufficient to have the gift if the donor is not also present, just as Moses prayed (Ex.
33:15): "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence."
Just so, it is to love, and to it alone, that the apostle attributes the presence and, together with it at the same time, the gift of the Holy Spirit. For, as he says in I Cor. 12:7 ff., all other gifts are given by this Spirit, but not the Spirit himself. So he says here of love that it is not given unless first the Spirit himself is given which sheds it abroad in our hearts. But there he says: "But all these things are the works of one and the same Spirit." (I Cor. 12:11.)
This is why he then goes on to say there: "But I show you a more excellent way" (I Cor. 12:31). Or, at all events, even if he is given in all gifts, he still does not shed love abroad in all.
For when we were as yet weak, according to the time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarce for a just man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would dare to die. But God commends his love toward us; because when as yet we were sinners,
Christ died for us; much more therefore, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. And not only so; but also we glory in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation. (Rom. 5:6-11.)
Some19 relate the phrase "according to the time" to the sentence that follows, so that the meaning of this phrase would be: When we were as yet weak, he died for the ungodly according to time, i.e., though he is immortal in eternity, he nevertheless died in time. He died because of his humanity that lived in time, but he lives forever because of his divinity that lives in eternity. Others read the phrase in this way: "He died according to the time when we were weak," i.e., he died at the time when we were not yet righteous and whole but weak and sick (so that the phrase "according to the time" must be understood with respect to that time when we were still weak). And this makes better sense, in view of the verse that follows later: For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled through the death of his Son (Rom. 5:10). Others again relate the term to the preceding sentence, so that it means this: When we were weak according to time, even though before God we were already righteous in predestination. For, in God's predestination, all has already happened that, in the world of things, lies still in the future, is Lyra.
As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men in that all have sinned. (Rom.
The apostle speaks here of original and not of actual sin. This statement can be proved in many ways and it must be taken as true in view of the fact that, first, he says "by one man/1 Hence,
Blessed Augustine20 says against the Pelagians in the first book of his work On the Merits of Sins and Their Remission: "If the apostle had wanted to recall that sin which entered the world not by propagation but by imitation, he would not call Adam but the devil its originator, and about him it is said in Wisd. of Sol. 2:24:
'They imitate him who are of his side.' In this sense also Adam imitated him and the devil became the originator of his sin. But here it says, 'by one man'—in the sense that all actual sins come and have come into the world through the devil, but original sin through one man." At the same place, Blessed Augustine says:
"So, then, the apostle in making mention of that sin and death which passed from one to all by propagation, represents him as the originator from whom the propagation of the human race had its beginning." And he has other fitting passages.
(And Chrysostom21 says on this passage: "It is apparent that not the sin that comes from a transgression of the law but that which comes from Adam's disobedience has contaminated everything.")
Second, he says: "by one." For actual sin comes into the world through many, because every individual brings his own sin with him.
Third, he says: "enters into the world." Now, no actual sin enters into the world, but everyone's sin is his own load, as it says in Ezek. 18:20: "Everyone must carry his own sin." Therefore, it does not enter into others but it remains in every individual. And that the term "world" does here not signify heaven and earth, but the human beings that are in the world, can be proved by reference to Rom. 3:6: "How shall God judge the world?" And to I John 5:19: "The whole world lies in the evil one." John 3:16:
"For God so loved the world." And later: "if the world hates you"
(John 15:18), and likewise: "I have chosen you not of this world"
(John 15:19). This is because the physical world is insensitive and not capable of sin, so that sin and death do not enter it. For it neither dies nor sins; only man sins and dies. Consequently, that sin enters into the world means that the world becomes guilty and 20 Augustine, De pcccat. merit, et remiss, et de bapt. parv., I, 9, 19.
2 1 Chrysostom, Horn, in ep.t ad Rom., 10, as quoted by Augustine, Contra Jul., LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS sinful through one man. As it says farther on: "for if by the trespass of one, many became sinners." (Rom. 5:12.)
Fourth: and by sin death. The death of the world (i.e., of all men) certainly is not the result of personal sin, inasmuch as people who have not sinned die too (as the next part of the passage shows).
If, therefore, death is death through sin and would not be death without sin, sin must be in all. Consequently, it cannot be that personal sin is meant here. If it were, it would be false to say that death entered into the world through sin; then the apostle should have said instead: It came through the will of God.
Fifth: So death passed upon all men. But even if death enters in because of personal sin, it befalls only the person who has committed it, as the law says: "Fathers shall not be put to death for the children," etc. (Deut. 24:16).
Sixth: He says "sin," speaking in the singular of one only. If he wanted to be understood as speaking of actual sin, he would use the plural as he does farther on where he speaks "of many trespasses" (Rom. 5:16). There he obviously compares that one sin, of which he speaks in the singular, with the many others and concludes therefrom that the efficacy of grace is greater than that of sin.
Seventh: in whom all have sinned. And there is not another kind of personal sin "in which22 all have sinned," but everyone sins in his own sin.
Eighth: For until the law sin was in the world, etc. (Rom. 5:13.) Actual sin was in the world also before Moses; men were charged with it just as men inflicted punishment because of it, but original sin was unknown until Moses revealed it in Gen. 3:16 ff.
Ninth: He says here: They had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression (Rom. 5:14), i.e., by committing a similar sin by way of imitation, as Pelagius wanted this to be understood,23 but all who commit this sin do so by actual sin.
Tenth: by this sin, Adam is a figure of him who was to come, and not by actual sin, else all men would be a figure of Christ; but now Adam alone is the figure of Christ because of the extension of his one sin to all.
As the apostle, in order to confound and break the obstinacy of future heretics whom he foresaw in spirit, continues to explain in what way Adam is a figure of Christ, he speaks from now on no longer only in the singular, lest some impudent joker might make nonsense out of it all and say: He regards the word "sin" as a 23 Cf. Augustine, Op. imperf. contra Jul., II, 214. collective term and uses it in the singular rather than the plural as the Scripture so frequently does. Hence, he says with emphasis:
"by one that sinned/' "by one to condemnation/' Likewise, "through the offense of one," "by one man's disobedience." And he lays special stress upon the following comparison: "The judgment was by one to condemnation, but grace is of many offenses to justification." And, as Augustine says in Chapter 12 of the above-mentioned work,24 "Also, judgment leads from many transgressions to condemnation." But inasmuch as he does not say this but rather "by one," it is readily obvious that he speaks of original sin. In the same way, he denies that many sinned except one when he says: "by the transgression of one," "through the transgression of one," "by one that sinned," etc. One can see, then, how both statements can be simultaneously true, that only one man sinned, that only one sin was committed, and that only one man was disobedient, and yet that because of him, many became disobedient sinners.
What, then, is original sin?
First, according to the subtle definitions of the Scholastic theologians, it is the privation or lack of original righteousness.25 They say that righteousness is only subjectively in the will and so, therefore, also its opposite, the lack of it. This conforms to what
Aristotle says in the Logic and Metaphysics about the category of quality.26
Second, but according to the apostle and in accordance with an understanding that is marked by simplicity in Christ Jesus, it is not merely the privation of quality in the will, indeed, not merely the loss of light in the intellect or of strength in the memory, but, in a word, the loss of all uprightness and of the power of all our faculties of body and soul and of the whole inner and outer man.
Over and beyond this, it is the proneness toward evil; the loathing 2 4 Cf. Augustine, De peccat. merit, et remiss., 1,12,15.
2 5 Cf. Ficker's full comment (p. 312, n. 2), also that of Ellwein (p. 494, n. 20).
Ficker refers to Lyra's exegesis of Rom., ch. 5, and especially to the III of Paul of Burgos: "Peccatum originate licet habeat privationem originalis institiae, tamen non est pura privatio, sed est quidam habitus corrupt tus" ("Original sin results, to be sure, in the privation of original righteousness, yet it is not a complete privation, but a certain corrupted disposition").
Burgos offers also this definition: "Peccatum originale dicitur a doctoribus fomes peccati et peccati concupiscentia, quod sonat aliquid positivum" ("The doctors call original sin the tinder of sin and the concupiscence of sin, and this means something positive"). Burgos refers to Peter Lombard, II Sent., d. 30; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., II, 1, q. 82, a. 3; Duns Scotus, II Sent., d. 30, q. 1, n. 2 (here the argumentation to which Luther refers).
26 Aristotle, Categor., 8. Cf. Ficker (p. 312, n. 5).
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS of the good; the disdain for light and wisdom but fondness for error and darkness; the avoidance and contempt of good works but an eagerness for doing evil. As it is written in Ps. 14:3: ''They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable/' And in Gen. 8:21: " T h e imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil." God hates and imputes not merely this lack (inasmuch as many forget their sin and are not aware of it) but this whole sinful cupidity that causes us to disobey the commandment "You shall not covet" (Ex. 20:17), as the apostle shows in a very clear analysis farther on in the seventh chapter of this letter. For it is this commandment that shows us our sin, as the apostle says: "I had not known that concupiscence is sin except the law had said: You shall not covet" (Rom. 7:7).
Accordingly, the ancient fathers27 were correct when they taught that it is this original sin which is the "tinder" 2 8 of sin, the law of the flesh, the law of our members, the feebleness of nature, a tyrant, our original disease, etc. It is as with a sick man whose mortal illness is due to the fact that not merely one part of his body lost its health, but that his whole body is sick and that all his senses and powers are debilitated, so that, to cap it all, he is nauseated by what would be wholesome for him and consumed by the desire for what harms him. This sin is Hydra, that extremely stubborn monster with many heads with which we fight in the Lerna29 of this life until death. Here is Cerberus,30 that uncontrollable barker, and Antaeus,31 who is insuperable when he is left on the earth.
I have found none that treats this theme of original sin so clearly as Gerard Groote32 in his little tract Blessed Is the Man; he speaks there not like a thoughtless philosopher but like a sane theologian.
27 Luther has Augustine in mind. This passage seems to be a quotation from Peter Lombard, II Sent., d. 30, who there relies chiefly on Augustine.
29 Lerna, or Lerne, a swamp near Argos, which, according to the myth, was inhabited by the Lernaean Hydra, which Hercules slew.
30 "Latrator incompescibilis"
Cf. Vergil, Aeneid, 6, 417. Cerberus = the three-headed dog guarding the infernal regions at the gates of Tartarus.
31 Antaeus was a powerful giant, ruler of Libya, who compelled all strangers coming into his country to wrestle with him. He was at last slain by Hercules, who, observing that each time Antaeus fell on the earth he gained new strength, held him aloft in the air and thus killed him.
82 Luther does not mean Gerard Groote (who, as far as is known, wrote no such tract) but Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen, whose devotus tractatulus de spiritualibus ascensionibus begins with the quotation of Ps. 84:5: "Blessed is the man whose help is from thee; in his heart he has disposed to ascend by steps." Cf. Ficker (p. 313, n. 14).
If one thinks, therefore, that original sin is only the lack of righteousness in the will, this means that one encourages indecision33 and dissolves the whole undertaking of penance. Indeed, one then plants pride and presumptuousness and uproots the fear of the Lord; one prescribes humility and invalidates the commandment of God and thus condemns it from beginning to end. At least this is the situation if one takes their teaching at its face value. Then too, it is easy for one to feel superior to another when he knows himself free from that sin in which he sees the other still involved.
This is also why many, who want to have a reason for humility, keep themselves busy by exaggerating their past sins, including those they might have committed, and they do the same also with respect to their present yet secret sins in order to practice humility by being on the lookout for them. In this way, you certainly can learn something. But look, there are also plainly visible present sins, and they do not let us entertain even the slightest feeling of superiority and complacency (as so frequently happens) when we see someone else being condemned. Now, the obvious reason for humility is the fact that sin remains in us but that "it has no dominion over us" (Rom. 6:14), because it is subject to the Spirit so that he may destroy what formerly reigned over him. When, therefore, someone despises another because he is a sinner, sin still has dominion over him, and doubly so. For inasmuch as he, too, is a sinner, he nevertheless compares himself with another as if he were righteous, and thus he becomes a liar and he does not sense that he is himself a sinner. This is a plain case of unrighteousness. He is forbidden to judge, and yet he judges. But no one is entitled to judge, unless he is superior or better. Consequently, he thinks himself better than the other by judging him, and thus he falls into sin, even though he has committed no other sin than that he has forgotten his own sinfulness and that he has taken it into his head that he is righteous.
A man, therefore, who knows that he has the sin in him that he should control certainly must be afraid that he may become enslaved to it and, even more, that he may judge somone. For one who judges knows what the Lord will say to him. How can you judge as if you were righteous, inasmuch as you are unrighteous?
And if you ever were righteous, you have now defiled your righteousness, because you put your trust in it; you have become doubly unrighteous, because you not only set up your sin as righteousness but you also boast of it.
83 Lit., "Hoc est occasionem dare tepiditatis."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world. (Rom.
The apostle uses this pointed expression in order to denote that original sin does not come from men but rather that it comes to them. But it is characteristic of actual sin that it comes forth from us, as the Lord says: "from the heart come forth evil thoughts"
(Matt. 15:19). But original sin enters into men and they do not commit it but they endure it. As also Moses says in Ex. 32:24:
"And this calf came out."
And so death passed upon all men in that all have sinned.
It is uncertain in the Greek whether the term (which we translate "in that") is meant to be understood as masculine or neuter.34
It seems, therefore, as if the apostle wanted it to be taken in both senses. Thus also Blessed Augustine interprets it in both senses in the tenth chapter of the work (we have just quoted.)35 He says:
" 'in that all have sinned.' It is certainly obvious that the personal sins, in which only those are involved as sinners who have committed them, are one thing, and that the one sin, in which all are involved as sinners in so far as all have been this one man, is another thing." From this work of Augustine's it seems to follow that original sin is the very first sin, namely, the transgression of Adam. For he interprets the phrase "they have sinned" in relation to an actual deed and not merely in relation to the transmission of a condition of guilt. He goes on to say: "But if this one man and not sin is meant, in the sense that in this one man all have sinned, what can be plainer than this plain statement?"
But the first interpretation suits better the context of the passage* For the apostle says farther on: "As by one man's transgression many were made sinners" (Rom. 5:19), and this is the same as to say: All have sinned in the sin of one.
Even so, one can still put forward the second interpretation, namely, by taking it to mean: While one sinned, all sinned. In this sense it says in Isa. 43:26 f.: "Tell if you have anything to justify yourself. Your father sinned first"; in other words: You cannot be justified, because you are a son of Adam who was the first to sin. Therefore you too are a sinner because you are the son of a sinner; a sinner cannot but beget a sinner like himself.
34 Here Luther follows Faber, who understands "in quo" ("in that") in terms of the neuter gender, while Lyra decides for the masculine gender ("in whom").
35 Augustine, De peccat merit, et remiss*, 1,10,11* For until the law sin was in the world; but sin was not imputed when the law was not. (Rom. 5:13.)
Blessed Augustine explains this as follows in the tenth book:36
"I.e., sin would not be taken away by the law, either natural or written. For no one could be justified by the works of the law."
And at another place in the book of Exposition of Certain Propositions, etc., he says:37 "The phrase 'until the law sin was in the world1 must be taken to mean 'until grace came/ For he directs himself against those who think that sins can be taken away through the law. Instead, he states that sins were made manifest by the law but not taken away by it when he says: 'But sin was not imputed when there was no law.' He does not say: There was no sin, but: It was not counted. Nor was it taken away when the law was given, but since then it began to be counted, i.e., it began to be apparent. We must, therefore, not think that the phrase
'until the law' is to be understood as if there were no longer any sin under the law, but this 'until the law* is to be understood in the sense that he counts the whole time of the law until the law's end, which is Christ."
In this way, Blessed Augustine connects the phrase "until the law" with the statement "There was sin." But then one is forced to say as he does that there was sin not only until the law but much more under the law which entered in order that transgression might abound. But this forced interpretation of the phrase "until the law," which in any case indicates an end, is not necessary if one understands it in connection with the negation "It was not imputed." The meaning of the passage, then, would be this: Until the law sin (which, to be sure, was in the world always) was not imputed; in other words: it was not imputed or known until the law came; the law brought it forth—not in the sense that it called it into being, for it was there before, but in the sense that it called it to the attention of the mind so that it could be known. Or we may say: "Until the law sin was in the world," i.e., it was there in so far as it was in being, but going beyond the fact that it was there and remained there, it was acknowledged through the law.
And so one must understand the phrase to mean, not that sin existed until the law and then ceased, but that through the law it obtained a knowledge of itself which it formerly had not had.
Now, this meaning is clearly given in the words of the apostle "that sin was not counted when there was no law"; in other words: it was not taken away but counted through the law which it had preceded.
S7 Augustine, Expositio quarundam propos. ex ep. ad Rom., 27-28.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS But death reigned from Adam unto Moses. (Rom. 5:14.) In other words: the penalty of sin, namely, death, was well known to all men through experience, but not the cause of death, namely, sin. Here again we must not understand the words to say that death reigned only until Moses, inasmuch as Moses, too, died and everyone will die until the end of the world; especially in the ungodly the reign of death will continue. "But it reigned unto
Moses" means that, until Moses, one did not know why and for what reason death reigned. Blessed Augustine interprets this reign as follows (in the work we have quoted before):38 "It prevails when the condition of sin has such dominion over men that it does not let them come to eternal life, which is true life, but brings upon them also a second death (which is eternal in punishment).'*
Even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgressions. (Rom. 5:14.) Blessed Augustine interprets this in the same work39 as follows: over them that had not yet sinned from their own will in the same way as he did. Also Blessed Ambrose40 understands it in this way. He relates the phrase "after the likeness" to the term "They had not sinned," because (he says) if the apostle had left the phrase
"They had not sinned" undefined, he would have contradicted his own earlier statement "in that all have sinned." For how have all sinned and yet a few not, unless what happened was that while all sinned in Adam and in his sin, not all sinned after the likeness of Adam's sin or, rather, Adam's transgression. There is, namely, a slight difference between "sin" and "transgression," in so far as sin as a condition remains but a transgression as an act passes by.
Consequently, all have sinned not by the same act but by involvement in the same condition; only Adam sinned both in terms of act and condition, in so far as he committed the first sin.
Faber Stapulensis,41 however, understands the matter differently and he reconciles the contradiction between the phrases "in that all had sinned" and "over them that had not sinned" in a different way. But I doubt whether he does it well; indeed, I fear he does not. He says that the phrase "after the likeness" must be referred to the word "reigned"; and I am willing to grant this on account of John Chrysostom, who in expounding this passage says42: "How did [death] reign? After the likeness of the trans3 8 Augustine, De peccat. merit, et remiss., I, 11, 13.
4 0 Ambrosiaster, Comment, in ep. ad Rom., ad loc.
4 1 Faber in his Commentary, ad loc.
42 Chrysostom, Horn. 10 in ep. ad Rom., quoted by Augustine, Contra ROMANS, CHAPTER FIVE gression of Adam." On the basis of this, he thinks that the phrase
"even over them that had not sinned" is put in parenthesis. Then the phrase "they have not sinned" must be understood in relation to personal sin and in a stricter sense than the earlier phrase "in that all have sinned." Just as the same teacher says of children:43
"For this reason we baptize also the children, even though they have no sins," personal sins, of course, as Blessed Augustine amply proves, in the second book against Julian, by reference to the same author.
Who is a figure of him that was to come. (Rom. 5:14.) According to Blessed Augustine44 who quotes him, Chrysostom interprets this as follows: "After the likeness of the transgression of Adam 'who is a figure of him that was to come'; for this reason
Adam is also a figure of Christ. But one asks, How is he a figure?
Because, just as Adam became the cause of death to those who were born of him, even though they did not eat of the tree—that death which was brought about through the eating—so Christ became for the Christians, even though they have done nothing righteous, the provider of righteousness, and he bestowed it on us all through the cross." So then, the likeness of Adam's transgression is in us, because we must die, as if we had sinned in the same way as he. And the likeness of Christ's justification is in us, because we have life, as if we had done justice in the same way as he. Because of this likeness, therefore, Adam "is a figure of him who was to come," namely, of Christ who came after him. Indeed, in order to take away the likeness of Adam and to give us his, Christ "was made in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7) and was sent by the Father
"in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3). And so it is that "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive" (I Cor.
15:22). For this same reason, I am inclined to agree with Chrysostom that the phrase "after the likeness" must be related to the word "reigned."
But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. (Rom. 5:15.) Chrysostom45 interprets this as follows: "If a Jew should ask you: How was the world saved by the power of the one Christ? you can answer him and say: How was the world damned by the one disobedient Adam? Nevertheless, grace and sin are not equal, and neither are death and life nor God and the devil." "For if sin
43 As quoted by Augustine (from Ad neophyt. homil.), Contra JuL, I, 6, 22.
45 Chrysostom, Horn. 10 in ep. ad Rom., as quoted by Augustine, Contra JuL, LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS had power and the sin of one man at that, how should the grace of God and the grace of one man not have more power? This seems to be much more reasonable. For it does not appear to be very reasonable to condemn one man for another. But that one man should be saved for another seems to be much more fitting and reasonable."
For if through the offense of one many died, much more the grace of God, and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded to many. (Rom. 5:15.)
The apostle connects grace and the gift of grace as if they differed from one another, but he does this in order to show clearly the nature of him who was to come, as he said, namely, that as we are justified by God and receive his grace, we do not receive this grace by any merit of our own, but it is a gift the Father gave to Christ in order that he should give it to men, according to the word of Eph. 4:8: "Ascending on high, he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men." These gifts, then, are the gifts of the grace of God which he received from the Father by his own merit and by his own personal grace in order that he might give them to us, as it says in Acts 2:33: "Having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you see and hear."
The meaning of the phrase, then, is this: "The grace of God"
(by which he justifies us, or rather: which is in Christ as in its origin just as the sin of man is in Adam) "and the gift" which Christ pours out from the Father upon those who believe in him.
This gift is "by the grace of one man," i.e., it is due to his merit and personal grace by which it pleased God to have him give us this gift. The phrase: "by the grace of one man" must be understood with respect to the personal grace of Christ, in correspondence with the particular and personal sin of Adam; and "the gift" is the righteousness which is given to us. So also original sin is (so to say) the gift in the sin of the one man Adam. Now "the grace of God" and "the gift" are one and the same, namely, the righteousness that is freely given to us by Christ. And he adds this grace because it is customary to give friends a gift. Yet this gift was given by mercy also to enemies, and they were worthy to receive it only because the mercy and grace of God made and counted them worthy.
And not as it was by one sin, so also is the gift. For judgment, indeed, was by one unto condemnation, but grace is of many offenses, unto justification. For if by one man's offense death
ROMANS, CHAPTER FIVE reigned through one, much more they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gifts, and of righteousness, shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offense of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the righteousness of one, unto all men to justification of life. For as by the obedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made righteous. Now the law came in besides that sin might abound. And where sin abounded, grace did more abound.
That as sin has reigned to death, so also grace might reign by justice unto life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom.
This phrase, "it came in besides/' is a very fitting one, i.e., sin entered and the law came in besides, i.e., after sin entered also the law came, and so sin was not taken away by the law. For "that it came in besides" signifies that sin remained, indeed, that it was increased. For sin entered and the law followed sin in order to excite it by prescribing what goes against it and by forbidding what it likes. Hence he says: that sin might abound. He speaks here not in a causal but in a consecutive sense, because the conjunction "that" points to the sequel and not to the final cause of the law. For the law did not come because of sin, though he says this too in Gal. 3:19: "What, then, is the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise had been made." But here he says that it came that sin might abound, i.e., because of sin.
This, then, is the meaning of the phrase: The transgression of the law made known that first sin; the law therefore came in because of the transgression, not in order that a transgression should occur, but because it followed necessarily upon the promulgation of the law in order that one should learn through this transgression of the law the sin of weakness, blindness, and evil desire. For it was not necessary to promulgate the law because of transgression, inasmuch as, also if this was not intended and the law was not promulgated on account of transgression, it had to happen necessarily that the law was violated, because without grace no one can overcome concupiscence and destroy the body of sin. So this affirmative sentence: "The law came in besides that sin might abound" does nothing else than point to this negative statement: the law did not give life and it did not take away sin, or: the law did not enter in order to take away sin or to quicken. Upon this there must necessarily follow the positive statement: therefore it came in order that sin might be increased. This is correct, and so this is what is meant: the law came, and, without its fault and without the intention of the lawgiver, it happened that its comLUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS ing served to increase sin; that this occurred is due to concupiscence which could not fulfill the law.
This is why Blessed Augustine says in his book about The Prop* ositions of This Letter:** "By this word he has indicated sufficiently that the Jews did not know for what purpose the law was given.
For it was not given to quicken—grace alone quickens through faith—but in order to show by how many tight chains of sin people are bound who presume to fulfill the law by their own powers.1' This is a common way of speaking, and one can often hear it used. When, for example, a physician comes to a sick person to comfort him and finds that he cannot help him because there is no hope that he will improve, the patient can say: You came not to comfort me but to increase my despair. So also mankind did not obtain from the law the help and remedy it had so eagerly longed for (as all philosophers and all seekers after truth show), but an increase of its sickness. A symbol of this is the woman of the Gospel who had an issue of blood and spent all she had on physicians and always grew worse (Luke 8:43 ff.). Hence, we must pay very close attention to the apostle when he says: "The law came in besides," for this means that God did not promulgate the law "in order that sin might abound," but that this happened when the law entered.
46 Augustine, Propos. ex ep. ad Rom., 30.