He cites Abraham as an example and says that he was justified so entirely without works that even the highest work—which, moreover, had been newly commanded by God, over and above all other works and ordinances, namely circumcision—did not help him for justification; rather he was justified without circumcision and without any works, by faith, as he says in chapter 4[:2], “If Abraham was justified by works, he may boast, but not before God.”
But when all works are so completely cut away—and that must mean that faith alone justifies—whoever would speak plainly and clearly about this cutting away of works will have to say, “Faith alone justifies us, and not works.” The matter itself, as well as the nature of the language, demands it.
“But,” they say, “it has an offensive sound, and people infer from it that they need not do any good works.” Land, what are we to say? Is it not much more “offensive” that St. Paul himself does not use the term “faith alone,” but spells it out even more bluntly, and puts the finishing touches on it by saying, “Without the works of the law”? And in Galatians 1[2:16] and many other places he says, “Not by the works of the law,” for the expression “faith alone” is susceptible of another interpretation, but the phrase “without the works of the law” is so blunt, offensive, and scandalous that no amount of interpreting can help it.
How much more might people learn from this “that they need not do any good works,” when they hear this preaching about the works themselves put in such plain, strong words, “No works,” “without works,” “not by works”! If it is not “offensive” to preach, “without works,” “no works,” “not by works,” why should it be “offensive” to preach, “by faith alone”?
And what is still more “offensive,” St. Paul is here rejecting not just ordinary works, but “works of the law.” Now someone could easily take offense at that all the more and say that the law is condemned and accursed before God, and we ought to be doing nothing but evil—as they did in Romans 3[:8], “Why not do evil that good may come?”
This is the very thing that one factious spirit began to do in our time. Are we to deny Paul’s word on account of such “offense,” or stop speaking out freely about faith? Land, St. Paul and I want to give such offense; we preach so strongly against works and insist on faith alone, for no other reason than that the people may be offended, stumble, and fall, in order that they may learn to know that they are not saved by their good works but only by Christ’s death and resurrection.
Now if they cannot be saved by the good works of the law, how much less shall they be saved by bad works, and without the law! For this reason it does not follow that because good works do not help, therefore bad works do help, any more than it follows that because the sun cannot help a blind man to see, night and darkness must, therefore, help him to see.
I am amazed that anyone can take exception in a matter as evident as this. Just tell me: Is Christ’s death and resurrection our work, that we do, or is it not? Of course it is not our work, nor the work of any law either. Now it is Christ’s death and resurrection alone that saves us and makes us free from sin, as Paul says in Romans 4[:25], “He died for our sins and rose for our justification.” Tell me, further: What is the work by which we lay hold of Christ’s death and resurrection? It cannot be any external work, but only the eternal faith that is in the heart.
Faith alone, indeed, all alone, without any works, lays hold of this death and resurrection when it is preached by the gospel. Why then this raging and raving, this making of heretics and burning them at the stake, when the matter itself at its very core is so clear and proves that faith alone lays hold of Christ’s death and resurrection, without any works, and that his death and resurrection [alone] are our life and our righteousness?
Since, then, the fact itself is so obvious—that faith alone conveys, grasps, and imparts this life and righteousness—why should we not also say so? It is no heresy that faith alone lays hold on Christ, and gives life; and yet it must be heresy, if anyone mentions it. Are they not mad, foolish, and nonsensical? They admit that the thing is right, but brand the saying of it as wrong, though nothing can be both right and wrong at the same time.
Luther, M. (1999, c1960). Vol. 35: Luther's works, vol. 35 : Word and Sacrament I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (Vol. 35, Page 195-197). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
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