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.

Melanchthon on Perfection

"In Colossians 1:28 it says, "You are presented perfect in Christ Jesus," that is, even if the regenerate do not yet  fulfill the law, yet they are righteous and pleasing to God for the sake of His Son. Here we should confess and celebrate the fullness of the mercy of God, that in those who have been reconciled, the obedience which is incomplete, imperfect, unclean, and corrupted by many wicked desires, is still accepted by God, not indeed because of the worth of our virtues but because of the Son of god, Rom 6:14"You are not under the law but under grace."

At this point, the question is asked: Does our obedience please God when it does not satisfy the law? Paul replies that it does please him because "We are not under the law," that is we are not condemned by the law; but we are under grace, that is, we have been reconciled or accepted into grace, Rom. 8:34 "Who will condemn us? It is Christ who died for us and rose again, who is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us," that is, the saints are pleasing to God because of the intercession of Christ" 

Melanchthon, Phillip, Loci Communes, 1543, trans. J.A.O. Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992) 102.

Luther on Imputation, Genesis 15:6

As for the verb חָשַׁב, I do not object very much whether you take it to mean either “to impute” or as “to think”; for the result remains the same. When the Divine Majesty thinks about me that I am righteous, that my sins have been forgiven, that I am free from eternal death, and when I gratefully grasp this thought of God about me in faith, then I am truly righteous, not through my works but through faith, with which I grasp the divine thought.

For God’s thought is infallible truth. Therefore when I grasp it with a firm thought—not with an uncertain and wavering opinion—I am righteous.

For faith is the firm and sure thought or trust that through Christ God is propitious and that through Christ His thoughts concerning us are thoughts of
peace, not of affliction or wrath.

God’s thought or promise, and faith, by which I take hold of God’s promise—these belong together. Therefore Paul correctly translates the word חָשַׁב with λογίζεσθαι, which also refers to thinking, as does the word “to account”; for if you believe God when He gives a promise, God accounts you righteous.

It is not stated here that God wants to regard the Law, circumcision, or sacrifices as worthy of righteousness. Only His accounting, only that thought of grace concerning us, brings this about.
For righteousness is given to Abraham not because he performs works but because he believes. Nor is it given to faith as a work of ours; it is given because of God’s thought, which faith lays hold of.


Luther, M. (1999). Luther’s works, vol. 3: Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 15-20. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 3, pp. 21–22). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Abraham believed God...Luther on Genesis 15:6

At this point there arises an important debate concerning the Law and faith: whether the Law justifies, whether faith does away with the Law, etc.

In this connection Paul learnedly stresses the matter of time: that in this chapter Moses is speaking about righteousness and a righteous or justified Abraham prior to the Law, prior to the works of the Law, yes, prior to the people of the Law and before Moses, the lawgiver, was born. Accordingly, he says that righteousness is not only not from the Law but is prior to the Law, and that neither the Law nor the works of the Law contribute anything toward it.

Then what? Is the Law useless for righteousness? Yes, certainly. But does faith alone, without works, justify? Yes, certainly. Otherwise you must repudiate Moses, who declares that Abraham is righteous prior to the Law and prior to the works of the Law, not because he sacrificed his son, who had not yet been born, and not because he did this or that work, but because he believed God who gave a promise.

In this passage no mention is made of any preparation for grace, of any faith formed through works, or of any preceding disposition. This, however, is mentioned: that at that time Abraham was in the midst of sins, doubts, and fears, and was exceedingly troubled in spirit.

How, then, did he obtain righteousness? In this way: God speaks, and Abraham believes what God is saying. Moreover, the Holy Spirit comes as a trustworthy witness and declares that this very believing or this very faith is righteousness or is imputed by God Himself as righteousness and is regarded by Him as such.

Luther, M. (1999). Luther’s works, vol. 3: Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 15-20. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 3, pp. 20–21). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Third Use of the Law (Commonplaces of Theology, Melanchthon)

Melanchthon 

"The third use of the Law pertains to the regenerate. Insofar as the regenerate have been justified by faith, they are free from the Law. This must be said under this locus. For they are indeed freed from the Law, that is, from the curse and condemnation and the wrath of God, which is set forth in the Law, that is to say, if they remain in the faith and fight against sin in confidence in the Son of God, and overcome the terrors of sin. 

"Yet in the meantime it must be said that the Law which points out the remnants of sin, in order that the knowledge of sin and repentance may increase, and the Gospel also must proclaim Christ in order that faith may grow. Furthermore, the Law must be preached to the regenerate to teach them certain works in which God wills that we practice obedience. For God does not will that we by our own wisdom set up works or obedience, but He wills that we be ruled by his word, as it is written, "In vain do they worship me by the commandments of men, Matt.15:9. Again, "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, "Ps. 119:105."

"When human reason is not directed by the Word of God, it is very likely to lack something. For it is seized by wicked desires or gives its approval to iniquitous works, as is apparent in the laws of the gentiles. The divine order that we are to obey God remains unchangeable. Therefore, even though we are free from the Law, that is from damnation, because we are righteous by faith for the sake of the Son of God, yet because it pertains to obedience, the Law remains, that is, the divine ordinance remains that those who have been justified are to be obedient to God. Indeed, thy have the beginning of obedience which we shall now discuss under its own locus as to how it is pleasing to God. These comments suffice to give us instruction regarding the threefold use of the Law."

Melanchthon, Phillip, Loci Communes, 1543, trans. J.A.O. Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992) 74.

Arguments of the Adversaries (Commonplaces of Theology)

The 1543 edition of Melanchthon's Commonplaces of Theology  lists 18 points of contention between Melanchthon and the Romanists. Melanchthon rehearses an argument and then responds. Below are examples of the arguments of the adversaries:

I The word "righteousness" means obedience according to all the commandments. Faith of which we are speaking is not properly the work of all the commandments: Therefore we are not justified by faith.

III "He who does not love remains in death." Therefore it is impossilbe to say that a person is righteous by faith alone.

V We are righteous by grace: Grace is the love which is poured into the heart: Therefore we are righteous by infused love.

XI Righteousness is in the will: Faith is not in the will: Therefore we are not justified by faith.

XIV  Matthew 19:17," If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." Therefore it is possible to satisfy the law and our obedience merits eternal life.

XV "Forgive and it will be forgiven you, Matt.6:14: Therefore our forgiving spirit merits the remission of sins

XVII Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven her because she loved much," Luke 7:47: Therefore remission f sins takes place on account of love

XVIII Eternal life is called a reward: Therefore it is owed to us because of our works.