return thanks to God, they too say that everything they have comes from God, that of themselves they are nothing and lacking in every respect. On the whole, they imitate as closely as possible the truly humble, even down to their gestures; that is, they have the form of humility but deny its power [cf. II Tim. 3:5], which is proven when they compare themselves with others.
Secondly, this blindness and ignorance of oneself goes even further, as St. Augustine says: It is not enough for them not to petition God; they must praise themselves. Even though they may quite wonderfully blame themselves in words, they are nevertheless pleased with themselves in their hearts.
They do not groan over themselves, they do not accuse themselves, but always keep on saying: I was not conscious of doing anything wrong. Have I not done well, even better than this person and that person?
The humble man, on the contrary, when he had prayed to God to be merciful to him, went on and accused himself, saying, "to me a sinner." Behold, he calls himself, confesses himself a sinner. He draws away from the righteousness and holiness in which the proud man wraps himself.
Thirdly, he completes his wickedness, not only by praising himself, but also by deriding and accusing the one who is praying and accusing himself. This is a horrible monstrosity, which alone ought to humble all who are proud, for, of course, every proud person tears down and accuses his neighbor when he sits in judgment. Then just look at the evil he involves himself in. First, he fails to perform a work of mercy, for he ought to have compassion on his neighbor, pray for him, and help him in every way possible. Therefore he is worthy of eternal death (Matt. 25 [:41]). Then, mind you, he goes after him with his tongue, which is a sword worse than one of iron [cf. Ps. 57:4], and this he does before God and men and himself. And finally, he commits a lie and an injustice by doing this to one who is praying and confessing and thus is already justified. And he would be committing a lie and an injustice against his neighbor, even if he actually were what he accuses him of being. Then he even attacks Christ, who received all sinners, for thus Christ is judged, accused, and pilloried as a sinner, since every one whom one accuses is a sinner. But he who judges Christ, judges his own judge, and he who judges his own judge is violently denying God.
You see where this furious and foolish pride comes out! On the other hand, the humble man declares his neighbor just; he really accuses only himself, for he says, "to me a sinner," not "to us sinners." Do you think he was so jealous that he did not want God to be merciful to the other sinners also? Then he certainly would not have been justified, but rather damned. But he sees none who is a sinner except himself alone.
Everybody with whom he compares himself is just. So "to the pure all things are pure," but to the impure nothing is pure [Titus 1:15].
It is clear, then, that this Pharisee did not keep the first commandment. On the contrary, he had another God—if he had not had another God, he would certainly have been justified—I mean the idol of his own righteousness erected in his heart. But now let each one who hates and despises this Pharisee take heed lest he put himserf above the Pharisee, just as the latter put himself above the publican. I believe that few are afraid of being like the Pharisee, whom they hate, but I know that the majority are like him; for who is so proud that he can boast of being free of all pride and can claim for himself this utter humility of the publican? Therefore we shall rather acknowledge that we are like the Pharisee and shall groan over ourselves and hate ourselves more than he did, and not presume so confidently that we are like the publican; for he was blessed beyond measure and was a child of grace. We, however, are children of nature and, therefore, children of wrath.
This sermon contains one of the first detailed expositions of what Luther later called the "theology of the cross" and further developed in the Lectures on Hebrews (1518) and the Heidelberg Disputation (1518).
For a discussion of Luther's theologia crucis, see Philip S. Watson, Let God be God (Philadelphia, 1949), pp. 156–160 and for an analysis of this sermon, see Kiessling, op. cit., pp. 96–97.
Text in Latin; WA 1, 111–115, compared with CL 5, 419–424.
"The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" [Ps. 19:1].
The gospel is nothing else but the proclamation of the works of God, for it preaches what God does, and this in itself preaches his glory, since God is glorified through the very telling of the works of God.
Glory and praise is nothing else but a proclamation of his power and a telling of his works. It follows that the heavens reprove and censure human glory and put to silence the works of men's hands, as Ps. 17 [:3–
4] says, "My mouth does not speak of the works of men." For the glory of God makes us to understand that human glory is vanity, nay, shame; and the works of God declare and show that the works of men, which they glory in, as if they were good, right, wise, and useful, are nothing, or better, actually sins. For it is the works which are the substance and foundation of praise and glory. Therefore, where the substance is destroyed, the house which stands upon it is also destroyed. Therefore, the gospel, since it proclaims the glory of God, reveals human shame, and, since it manifests the works of God, discloses the idleness and sin of men. But proud man can bear neither of these indignities; for here his works, in which he was so pleased with himself and which he gloried in, because he felt that they were just and faultless, are shown to be polluted, even shameful. As Wisd. of Sol. 2 [:16] says, "He abstains from our ways as from filthiness." The wicked man hears it "and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away" [Ps. 112:10].
Thus glory arouses anger and envy in men, and grace provokes indignation, mercy provokes cruelty, pity provokes tyranny, and salvation provokes perdition; in short, good becomes the cause of evil. Who would not wonder at this? The sun, when it rises, offends the eyes of the owl, and wine kills those who are fevered.
In order that this may be more clearly understood, we must know what is meant by the work of God. It is nothing else but to create righteousness, peace, mercy, truth, patience, kindness, joy, and health, inasmuch as the righteous, truthful, peaceful, kind, joyful, healthy, patient, merciful cannot do otherwise than act according to His nature. Therefore God creates righteous, peaceful, patient, merciful, truthful, kind, joyful, wise, healthy men. These are his handiwork, or his creations, as Ps. 111 [:3] says, "Full of honor and majesty is his work." That is to say, praise and comeliness, or glory and brightness is the work of God. It is praiseworthy and very beautiful, without any blemish whatsoever, as Ps. 96 [:6] says, "Honor and beauty are before him; strength and majesty are in his sanctuary," that is, in his church. The acts of God are therefore the righteous and the Christians; they are his new creation. The new works, however, are the righteousness, truths, etc., which he performs in his acts, as the psalm says: They have proclaimed the works of God and understood his acts,1 that is, they caused them to be understood. And again: "They have not understood the works of the Lord, or the work of his hands" [Ps. 28:5].
But He cannot come to this his proper work unless he undertakes a work that is alien and contrary to himself, as Isa. 28 [:21] says: An alien work is his that he may work his own work. His alien work, however, is to make men sinners, unrighteous, liars, miserable, foolish, lost. Not that he actually makes them such himself, but that the pride of men, although they are such, will not let them become or be such, so much so that God makes use of a greater disturbance, indeed, he uses this work solely to show them that they are such, in order that they may become in their own eyes, what they are in God's eyes.
Therefore, since he can make just only those who are not just, he is compelled to perform an alien work in order to make them sinners, before he performs his proper work of justification. Thus he says, "I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal" [Deut. 32:39]. But they who deem themselves just and wise and think they are somebody are most violently hostile to this alien work, which is the cross of Christ and our
Adam. For they do not want what is theirs to be despised and regarded as foolish and evil, that is, they do not want their Adam to be killed. So they do not come to God's proper work, which is justification or the resurrection of Christ.
God's alien work, therefore, is the suffering of Christ and sufferings in Christ, the crucifixion of the old man and the mortification of Adam. God's proper work, however, is the resurrection of Christ, justification in the Spirit, and the vivification of the new man, as Rom. 4 [:25] says: Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. Thus, conformity with the image of the Son of God [cf. Rom.
8:29] includes both of these works. This is what I said not long ago2 concerning John [the Baptist] and the gospel of which he is a figure. For just as the work of God is twofold, namely, proper and alien, so also the office of the gospel is twofold. The proper office of the gospel is to proclaim the proper work of God, i.e. grace, through which the Father of mercies freely gives to all men peace, righteousness and truth, mitigating all his wrath. Therefore it is called a good, delightful, sweet, friendly gospel, and he who hears it finds it impossible not to rejoice. But this happens whenever the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to grieving consciences, as Rom. 10 [:15] says: "How beautiful," that is, how amiable, delightful, and, as the Hebrew reads, desirable [cf. Isa. 52:7], "are the feet of those who preach the gospel," that is, those who bring the good and pleasant news, who proclaim peace, and therefore, not the law and the threats of the law, not something which must still be fulfilled and performed, but rather the forgiveness of sins, peace of - 14 conscience, the message that the law has been fulfilled, etc. "Who preach good news," that is, the altogether sweet and delightful mercy of God the Father, the Christ who is given to us.
But the strange work of the gospel is to prepare a people [cf. Luke 1:17] perfect for the Lord, that is, to make manifest sins and pronounce guilty those who were righteous in their own eyes by declaring that all men are sinners and devoid of the grace by God [cf. Rom. 3:23]. But such a message may appear to be the worst kind of a message, and therefore one might much rather call it a Cacangelium, i.e. bad news, sad news. Just as one who awaits death in sadness and desperation hears nothing more sweet than to be told:
Look, you shall be free, now live! so they who live securely hear nothing sadder than to be told: Look, you shall die!
So the gospel sounds exceedingly harsh in its alien tones, and yet this must be done, in order that it may be able to sound with its own proper tones. This must be made manifest through examples, as I have done previously.3 Behold, the law says: "You shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery" [Exod. 20:13–15]. Here the proud, who are righteous with the righteousness of works, and have not done these works,4 already live in security, as though they had fulfilled the law, nor are they conscious of any sin in themselves, but of much righteousness. To those who are so presumptuous, the interpreter of the law, namely, the gospel, comes and says: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" [Matt. 4:17].
In saying to all men, "repent!" it undoubtedly declares all to be sinners, and so its brings sad and unwelcome tidings, which is Cacangelium, i.e. bad news and an alien office. When, however, it says:
"The kingdom of heaven is at hand," this is good news, and a pleasant and joyous preaching; it is the proper office, namely, of the gospel. So John comes as "the voice of one crying" [Matt. 3:3], i.e., the gospel, and preaches to all men a baptism of repentance, and by this preaching he claims unceasingly that all men are sinful.
But here the Lord rises up "as on the mount of division,"5 as Isa. 28 [:21] says. For some believe John as the voice of the gospel. They hold this mournful message to be true and thus are humbly and tremblingly obedient, recognizing that they are sinners. Whether they are conscious of it themselves or not, they nevertheless believe John more than themselves. And here already they are prepared by John to be a perfect people [cf. Luke 1:17], elect of the Lord, for they are capable of receiving grace; they hunger for righteousness; they mourn for consolation; they are poor in spirit [Matt. 5]; they are mild and biddable.
Therefore, Christ, the kingdom of heaven, he who comes to save sinners, comes into them.
Others, however, who consider themselves just, do not believe that John's message is true, nor that those words, "repent ye," apply to them. On the contrary, they say: We are just; we are not aware of any sin; we are already reigning, since the kingdom of heaven is at hand, indeed, it came a long time ago. So when John proceeds to demonstrate their hard-heartedness and says: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance" [Matt. 3:7–8], they immediately say,
"He has a demon" [Matt. 11:18]. They say this, not only because he contends that these altogether just and worthy people have sins, but also because he calls them a brood of vipers in the presence of others and thus arouses anger.
Such are, now and always, all who put their trust in their own righteousness, who are bent solely on hearing—from themselves, not from Christ—the gospel, that is, the good news that they are just and that they are doing what is right. Again, they do not want to hear the alien tone of the gospel, which declares that they sin and are fools. On the contrary, they believe that the gospel is false, that it is a lie. That is why they are the most irritated of all men, prompt to defend themselves and to be vindictive against others, to justify themselves and judge and condemn others, complaining and charging that they are being done an injustice when they are actually doing what is right.
But it was Christ and Paul who taught us how to show that these too are sinners, namely, by showing that they do not fulfil the law in spirit, that at all events they sin and have evil desires in their hearts. And even though they do not kill anybody, they are nevertheless angry. They may not steal, but they are avaricious. They may not commit adultery, but they have evil desires. This is so, because without grace concupiscence does not disappear, as Rom. 7 [:24] says, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" He does not say "disposition,"6 or "constantly repeated acts," but rather,
"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!" [Rom. 7:25]. Therefore the gospel magnifies sin in that it so broadens the law that no man can be found just, that there is none who does not transgress the law. And as all sin and have sinned, so it is obvious that all must receive the baptism of repentance before the baptism