Disputation Concerning Justification, 1536 (A)

THE DISPUTATION CONCERNING JUSTIFICATION (A)

The Theses

Dr. Martin Luther’s third disputation [concerning the passage Rom. 3:28]. The one line of reasoning deals with the justification of man in the sight of God, the other in the sight of men, etc.

1. It is clear enough from this passage that the method of justifying man before God must be distinguished from the method of justifying him before men.

2. For Paul expressly contrasts faith and works, for he takes justification in God’s sight away from works and attributes it to faith.

3. If a man is truly justified by works, he has glory before men, but not before God.

4. A man is truly justified by faith in the sight of God, even if he finds only disgrace before man and in his own self.

5. This is a mystery of God, who exalts his saints, because it is not only impossible to comprehend for the godless, but marvelous and hard to believe even for the pious themselves.

6. For human nature, corrupt and blinded by the blemish of original sin, is not able to imagine or conceive of any justification above and beyond works.

7. Hence that battle of the hypocrites against the believers about justification which must be decided by the judgment of no one but God alone.

8. For that reason we concede to the hypocrites or wise ones works and the justification of the law, if only we may hold fast that this is a righteousness of men, not of God.

9. In fact, the righteousness of man, no matter how much God honors it here in time with the best gifts of this life, nevertheless is a mask and impious hypocrisy before God.

10. The riddle is astonishing, because God rewards the very righteousness which he himself regards as iniquity and wickedness.

11. For in the prophets he openly calls the most excellent works according to the law and our reason the evil of our hands.

12. It seems to be similar to a prince who tolerates a bad servant whom he cannot kill without considerable peril to the kingdom.

13. Therefore, one need not look either to the person of the godless man who works out his own righteousness or to the excellence of such work;

14. But to the incomprehensible forbearance and wisdom of God who bears lesser evil so all is not destroyed by greater evil.

15. It is just as an ulcer, limping, or some other incurable illness in the body is tolerated out of necessity for supporting bodily life.

16. For the righteousness of the law is very ill and so weak that it often not only does not fulfil its own highest law but even loses sight of it entirely at the slightest movement.

17. But since one can have no other kind, it must be tolerated and supported with the highest goods of this world.

18. For God in accordance with the greatness of his goodness calculates too little and so gives as many great gifts to the unworthy and wicked as to the righteous or saints.

19. Just as the wise magistrate winks at the bad and mischievous citizen for a while and allows him to enjoy citizenship for the good of the public peace.

20. For God is looking at something else, namely at the glory of the future kingdom, into which the uncircumcised and the unclean will not come, as the Scriptures declare, etc. [Isa. 52:1].

21. Yes, he acts with similar forbearance and goodness also toward the church and his saints on earth.

22. He sustains and supports them on account of the first fruit of his creation in us, and he thereupon decrees that they are righteous and sons of the kingdom.

23. For we perceive that a man who is justified is not yet a righteous man, but is in the very movement or journey toward righteousness.

24. Therefore, whoever is justified is still a sinner; and yet he is considered fully and perfectly righteous by God who pardons and is merciful.

25. Moreover, God forgives and is merciful to us because Christ, our advocate and priest, intercedes and sanctifies our beginning in righteousness.

26. His righteousness, since it is without defect and serves us like an umbrella against the heat of God’s wrath, does not allow our beginning righteousness to be condemned.

27. Now it is certain that Christ or the righteousness of Christ, since it is outside of us and foreign to us, cannot be laid hold of by our works;

28. But faith itself which is poured into us from hearing about Christ by the Holy Spirit, comprehends Christ.

29. Therefore, faith alone justifies without our works, for I cannot say, “I produce Christ or the righteousness of Christ.”

30. Just as I can say, for all that, “I do works either of heavenly righteousness through the Spirit or earthly righteousness by nature.”

31. But I must speak thus, “I believe in Christ and afterward I do truly good works in Christ.”

32. Therefore, one speaks correctly thus, “We are justified by faith without the works of the law.”

33. To be justified includes that idea, namely that we are considered righteous on account of Christ.

34. Nor is any sin, either past or a remainder that is left in the flesh, imputed to us, but as if it were nothing, removed in the meantime by remission.

35. The start of a new creature accompanies this faith and the battle against the sin of the flesh, which this same faith in Christ both pardons and conquers.


Luther, M. (1999). Luther’s works, vol. 34: Career of the Reformer IV. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 34, pp. 151–153). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Disputation Concerning Justification (B)

Dr. Martin Luther’s fourth disputation

[Concerning the passage Rom. 3:28]

1. Man who must be justified is understood to be man, the sinner, who must be freed from his sins.

2. For those who are well have no need of a physician [Luke 5:31], just as the righteous do not need a liberator.

3. Therefore it is certain that a man cannot be justified in the sight of God by his own merits.

4. For what should a sinner earn before God by his merits, that is, by his sins or the works of a sinner?

5. Root sin, deadly and truly mortal, is unknown to men in the whole wide world.

6. How much less could they know of the remedy for sin, since they did not know sin, the disease.

7. Not one of all men could think that it was a sin of the world not to believe in Christ Jesus the Crucified.

8. This is original sin born in us after Adam’s fall, and not only something personal but also natural.

9. Not to believe in Christ is to be unbelieving, ignorant, and estranged from God, who promised Christ the Savior.

10. For this reason Paul rightly declares: all are consigned to unbelief, so that God may have mercy upon all.

11. This unbelief brings with it all the other sins, since it is the principal sin against the first commandment.

12. Some scholastics define original sin feebly and almost obscurely as concupiscence. Others define it as the absence of original righteousness which ought to be in us.

13. For a large part of them hold that it is that gross evil of lust on account of original sin; and after remission they call it only a punishment, an infirmity, and tinder.

14. But there are also those who have impiously asserted that natural powers remain undiminished after sin in men as well as in demons.

15. They are more correct who firmly confess that human nature has been corrupted through Adam’s sin.

16. For human nature cannot be understood to be corrupt and untainted at the same time, unless they are speaking of the unimpaired condition of animal powers, which, however, they do not do.

17. Notwithstanding, it is certain enough to the believers that neither animal nor rational powers have been left undiminished.

18. By the same ignorance they have imagined certain works to be neither good nor bad, but neutral or natural.

19. Thereafter they distinguished a gross ignorance, an invincible ignorance which excuses man entirely, etc.

20. These and similar teachings prove that they could not have known either sin or Christ and that they did not understand the decalogue, especially the first table.

21. Nevertheless, sin could be known in some measure from its effects, if reason were not also here too blind and too easily forgetful of reproaches.

22. For it is not probable that nature (which reason imagined to be too good by far) produces so many monstrous evils which the world does daily.

23. It certainly seems reasonable that just as nothing but truth comes from truth, so nothing but good follows from good, or surely fewer evils follow.

24. Now we see, however, how little good and how much evil reigns everywhere in the whole world and that there are many more bad men than good in the world.

25. So it is easy to conclude that in that nature, which according to the judgment of reason is good, there is much more evil than even civic goodness.

26. Also the poets assume that a good man is rare and compare him to a hybrid marvel and another complains of the lack of good men.

27. But the Scriptures which teach us the cause of sin testify that there is no good in man’s nature and that what good is left is nevertheless put to bad use.

28. Therefore, in order that justification may be esteemed as greatly as it can be, sin must be magnified and amplified exceedingly [Rom. 5:20–21].

29. For justification is healing for sin, which slays the whole world eternally and brings it to destruction with its infinite evils.

30. For this reason that divine work of justification is too great to allow any reckoning or consideration of our work or activity to hold here.

31. We must simply at this point say with Paul that we are nothing at all, just as we have been created out of nothing.

32. Indeed, those who look at the appearance of our work or want to be something will never understand the greatness of this divine work.

33. It is by far less certain than that that man could see the splendor of the sun who boasts of the brilliance of rotten wood, when the sun is shining.


Luther, M. (1999). Luther’s works, vol. 34: Career of the Reformer IV. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 34, pp. 153–157). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.