Out of Luther's opposition to the sale of indulgences there grew in the
course of time one of the fundamental principles of Protestantism:
complete, universal, and free salvation of sinners by grace through
faith in Jesus Christ. In the controversies which started immediately
after the publication of the Ninety-five Theses, Luther was led step by
step to a greater clearness in his view of sin and grace, faith and
works, human reason and the divine revelation. Not yet realizing the
full import of his act, Luther had in the Theses made that article of
the Christian faith with which the Church either stands or falls the
issue of his lifelong conflict with Rome--the article of the
justification of a sinner before God. It is, therefore, convenient to
review the misrepresentations which Luther has suffered from Catholic
writers because of his teaching on the subject of justification at this
early stage in our review, though in doing so a great many things will
have to be anticipated.
Catholic writers charge Luther with having perverted the meaning of
justifying faith. Luther held that justifying faith is essentially the
assurance that since Christ lived on earth as a man, labored, suffered,
died, and rose again in the place of sinners, the world _en masse_ and
every individual sinner are without guilt in the estimation of God. "God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them." (2 Cor. 5, 19.) To this reconciliation the sinner
has contributed nothing. It has been accomplished without him. He cannot
add anything to it. God only asks the sinner to believe in his salvation
as finished by Jesus Christ. To believe this fact does not mean to
perform a work of merit in consideration of which God is willing to
bestow salvation on the believer, but it means to accept the work of
Christ as performed in our place, to rejoice therein, and to repose a
sure confidence in this salvation in defiance of the accusations of our
own conscience, the incriminations which the broken Law of God hurls at
us, and the terrors of the final judgment. The believer regards himself
as righteous before God not because of any good work that he has done,
but because of the work which Christ has performed in his place. The
believer holds that, when God, by raising Christ from the dead, accepted
His work as a sufficient atonement for men's guilt and an adequate
fulfilment of the divine Law, He accepted each and every sinner. The
believer is certain that through the work of his Great Brother, Christ,
he has been restored to a child relationship with God and enjoys child's
privileges with his Father in heaven. The idea that he himself has done
anything to bring about this blessed state of affairs is utterly foreign
to this faith in Christ.
Catholic writers assert that the doctrine which we have just outlined is
not Scriptural, but represents the grossest perversion of Scripture.
They say this doctrine originated in "the erratic brain of Luther."
Luther "was not an exact thinker, and being unable to analyze an idea
into its constituents, as is necessary for one who will apprehend it
correctly, he failed to grasp questions which by the general mass of the
people were thoroughly and correctly understood. . . . He allowed
himself to cultivate an unnecessary antipathy to so-called 'holiness by
works,' and this attitude, combined with his tendency to look at the
worst side of things, and his knowledge of some real abuses then
prevalent in the practise of works, doubtless contributed to develop his
dislike for good works in general, and led him by degrees to strike at
the very roots of the Catholic system of sacraments and grace, of
penance and satisfaction, in fact, all the instruments or means
instituted by God both for conferring and increasing His saving
relationship with man." Luther's teaching on justification is said to be
the inevitable reverse of his former self-exaltation. Abandoning the
indispensable virtue of humility, he had become a prey to spiritual
pride, and had entered the monastery to achieve perfect righteousness by
his own works. He had disregarded the wise counsels of his brethren, who
had warned him not to depend too much on his own powers, but seek the
aid of God. Then failing to make himself perfect, he had run to the
other extreme and declared that there was nothing good in man at all,
and that man could not of himself perform any worthy action. Finally he
had hit upon the idea that justification means, "not an infusion of
justice into the heart of the person justified, but a mere external
imputation of it." Faith, in Luther's view, thus becomes an assurance
that this imputation has taken place, and man accordingly need not give
himself any more trouble about his salvation.
This teaching, Catholic writers contend, subverts the prominent teaching
of the Scriptures that man must obey God and keep His commandments, that
he must be perfect, even as his Father in heaven is perfect, that he
must follow in the footsteps of Jesus who said: "I am not come to
destroy the Law, but to fulfil it." Furthermore, this teaching is said
to dehumanize man and make out of him a stock and a stone, utterly unfit
for any spiritual effort. God, they say, constituted man a rational
being and imposed certain precepts on him which he was free to keep or
violate as he might choose unto eternal happiness or eternal misery. The
sin which all inherit from Adam has weakened the powers of man to do
good, but it has not entirely abolished them. There is still something
good in man by nature, and if he wants to please God and obtain His aid
in his good endeavors, he must at least do as much as is still in his
power to do, and believe that God for Jesus' sake will assist him to
become perfect, if not in this life, then, at any rate, in the life to
come. He cannot avoid sin altogether, but he can avoid sin to a certain
extent; he can at least lead an outwardly decent life. That is worth
something, that is "meritorious." He may not feel a very deep contrition
over his wrong-doings, but he can feel at least an attrition, that is, a
little sorrow, or he can wish that he might feel sorry. That is worth
something; that is "meritorious." He cannot love God with all his heart
and all his soul, and all his strength, but he can love Him some. That
is worth something; that is "meritorious." Accordingly, when the rich
young man asked the Lord what he must do to gain heaven, the Lord did
not say, "Believe in Me, Accept Me for your personal Savior, Have faith
in Me," but He said: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the
commandments." Paul, likewise teaches that faith and love must cooperate
in man, for "faith worketh by love." Therefore, "faith in love and love
in faith justify," but not faith alone. Faith without works is dead and
cannot justify. A live faith is a faith that has works to show as its
credentials that it is real faith. Hence, faith alone does not justify,
but faith and works. Love is the fulfilment of the Law; faith works by
love, hence, by the fulfilment of the Law. Therefore, faith alone does
not justify, but faith plus the fulfilment of the Law. In endless
variations Catholic writers thus seek to upset with Scripture Luther's
teaching that man is justified by faith in Christ alone, and that all
the righteousness which a sinner can present before God without fear
that it will be rejected is a borrowed righteousness, not his own
work-righteousness.
We might express a just surprise that Catholics should be offended at
the doctrine that the righteousness of Christ is imputed, that is,
reckoned or counted, to the sinner as his own. For, does not their
system of indulgences rest on a theory of imputation? Do they not, by
selling from the Treasure of the Church the superabundant merits of
Christ and the saints to the sinner who has not a sufficient amount of
them, make those merits the sinner's own by just such a process of
imputation? They surely cannot infuse those merits into the sinner. But
Catholics probably object to the Protestant imputation-teaching because
that is too cheap and easy, and because Protestant success has spoiled a
lucrative Catholic imputation-business.--This in passing. Let the Bible
decided [tr. note: sic] whether Luther was right in teaching
justification by faith alone, by faith without works.
What does the Bible say about the condition of natural man after the
fall? It says: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," that is,
corrupt (John 3, 6); "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his
youth" (Gen. 8, 21); "They are all gone aside, they are altogether
become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Ps. 14, 3);
"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one" (Job 14, 4);
"There is here no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God (Rom. 3, 22. 23).
What does the Bible say about the powers of natural man after the fall
in reference to spiritual matters? It says: "The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him;
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1
Cor. 2, 14); "Ye were dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2, 1); "The
carnal mind," that is, the mind of flesh, the natural mind of man, "is
enmity against God" (Rom. 8, 7); "Without Me"--Jesus is the Speaker--"ye
can do nothing" John 15, 5).
What does the Bible say about the value of man's works of righteousness
performed by his natural powers? It says: "We are all as an unclean
thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Is. 64, 6); "A
corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit" (Matt. 7, 17).
What does the Bible say about man's ability to fulfil the Law of God? It
says: "Cursed is he that confirmeth not all the words of this Law to do
them" (Deut. 27, 26) ; "Whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet
offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (Jas. 2, 10) ; "What the Law
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh" (Rom. 8, 38); "The Law worketh wrath," that is, by convincing
man that he has not fulfilled it and never will fulfil it, it rouses
man's anger against God who has laid this unattainable Law upon him
(Rom. 4, 15).
What does the Bible say about the relation of Christ to the Law and to
sin? It says: "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
Law, that He might redeem them that were under the Law" (Gal. 4, 4);
"Christ is the end of the Law 'for righteousness to every one that
believeth" (Rom. 10, 4); "God hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteous of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5, 21);
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law; being made a curse
for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree"
(Gal. 3, 13).
What does the Bible say about faith without works as a means of
justification? It says: "We conclude that a man is justified by faith,
without the deeds of the Law" (Rom. 3, 28); "To him that worketh not,
but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness" (Rom. 4, 5); "I rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no
confidence in the flesh, though I might also have confidence in the
flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in
the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the Law,
a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the
righteousness which is in the Law, blameless. [The speaker is the
apostle Paul.] But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for
Christ. Yea, doubtless; and I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may
win Christ and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which
is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. 3, 3-9) ; "If by grace,
then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it
be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work"
(Rom. 11, 6). (The Catholic Bible omits the last half of this text.)
What does the Bible say about faith being assurance of pardon and
everlasting life? It says: "If God be for us, who can be against us? He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall
He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that
loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord" (Rom. 8,
31-39); "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able
to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day" (2 Tim.
1, 12).
Here we rest our case. If Luther was wrong in teaching the justification
of the sinner by faith, without the deeds of the Law, then Paul was
wrong, Jesus Christ was wrong, the apostles and prophets were wrong, the
whole Bible is wrong. Catholics must square themselves to these texts
before they dare to open their mouths against Luther. If Luther was a
heretic, the Lord Jesus made him one, and He is making a heretic of
every reader of the texts aforecited. Rome will have to answer to Him.
But what about the answer of the Lord to the rich young man? What about
the commandment to be perfect? Does not the doctrine of justification by
faith alone, without the deeds of the Law, abolish the holy and good Law
of God? Not at all. When Paul expounds to the Galatians the doctrine of
justification by faith as compared with justification by works, he
arrays the Law against the Gospel, and raises this question: "Is the
Law, then, against the promises of God?" His answer reveals the whole
difficulty that attends every effort to obtain righteousness by
fulfilling the Law, he says: "God forbid: for if there had been a law
given which could have given life, verily, righteousness should have
been by the Law." (Gal. 3, 21.) Christ expressed the same truth when He
said to the lawyer: "Do this, and thou shalt live." (Luke 10, 28.) The
reason why the Law makes no person righteous is not because it is not a
sufficient rule or norm of good works by which men could earn eternal
life, but because it does not furnish man any ability to achieve that
righteousness which it demands. No law does that. The law only creates
duties, and insists on their fulfilment under threat of punishment. It
is not the function of the law to make doers of the law. Originally the
Law was issued to men who were able to fulfil it, because they were
created after the image of God, in perfect holiness and righteousness.
That they lost this concreate [tr. note: sic] ability through the fall is
no reason why God should change or abrogate His Law. He purposes to help
them in another way, by sending them His Son for a Redeemer, who fulfils
the Law in their stead. But this wonderful plan of God for the rescue of
lost man is not appreciated by any one who still believes, as the
Catholics do, that he has some good powers in him left which he can
develop with the help of God to such an extent that he can make himself
righteous. To such a person Jesus says to-day as He said to the rich
young man: "Keep the commandments!" That means, since you believe in
your ability, proceed to employ it. Your reward is sure, provided only
you do what the Law demands. But just as surely the curse of God rests
on you if you do not do it. When you have become convinced that it is
impossible to fulfil the Law, you may ask a different question, a
question which the knowledge of your spiritual disability has wrested
from you as it did from the jailer at Philippi: "What must I do to be
saved?" and you will not receive the answer: "Keep the commandments!"
but: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," (Acts
16, 29. 30.) Not a word will be said any more about anything that you
must do. You will be told: All that you ought to have done has been
accomplished by One who died with the exclamation: "It is finished!"
(John 19, 30), and who now sends His messengers abroad inviting men to
His free salvation: "Come, for all things are now ready!" (Luke 14, 17.)
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath
no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is
not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken
diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good" (Is. 55, 1. 2.) When
you have wearied yourself to death by your efforts to achieve
righteousness, as Paul did when he was still the Pharisee Saul of
Tarsus, as Luther did while he was still in the bondage of popery, when
you have become hot in your confused and despairing mind against God and
the Law, which you cannot fulfil, you will appreciate the voice that
calls to you as it has called to millions before you: "Come unto Me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11,
28.) And if you are wise, then, with the wisdom which the Spirit gives
the children of God, you will not delay a minute, but come rejoicing
that you need not get salvation by works, and will sing:
Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
Rome has cursed Luther for teaching justification by faith, without the
deeds of the Law. The principles which he had timidly uttered in the
Theses led to bolder declarations later, when the full light of the
blessed Gospel had come to him. It brought him the curse of the Pope in
the bull _Exsurge, Domine!_ of June 15, 1520. The following estimate by
a recent Catholic writer is a fair sample of the sentiments cherished by
official Rome for Luther: "From out the vast number whom the enemy of
man raised up to invent heresies, which, St. Cyprian says, 'destroy
faith and divide unity,' not one, or all together, ever equaled or
surpassed Martin Luther in the wide range of his errors, the ferocity
with which he promulgated them, and the harm he did in leading souls
away from the Church, the fountain of everlasting truth. The heresies of
Sabellius, Arius, Pelagius, and other rebellious men were insignificant
as compared with those Luther formulated and proclaimed four hundred
years ago, and which, unfortunately, have ever since done service
against the Church of the living God. In Luther most, if not all, former
heresies meet, and reach their climax. To enumerate fully all the
wicked, false, and perverse teachings of the arch-heretic would require
a volume many times larger than the Bible, and every one of the lies and
falsehoods that have been used against the Catholic Church may be traced
back to him as to their original formulator." The cause for this
undisguised hatred of Luther is chiefly Luther's teaching of
justification by faith, without works. In its Sixth Session the Council
of Trent condemned the following doctrines:
_On Free Will:_ Canon IV: "If any one says that the free will of man,
when moved and stirred by God, cannot, by giving assent, cooperate with
God, who is stirring and calling man, so that he disposes and prepares
himself for obtaining the grace of justification, or that he cannot
dissent if he wills, but, like some inanimate thing, does absolutely
nothing and is purely passive,--let him be accursed."
_On Justification:_ Canon IX: "If any one says that the ungodly are
justified by faith alone, in the sense that nothing else is required on
their part that might cooperate to the end of obtaining the grace of
justification, and that it is in no wise necessary that they be prepared
and disposed (for this grace) by a movement of the will,--let him be
accursed."
Canon XI: "If any one says that man is justified either by the
imputation of the righteousness of Christ alone or by the remission of
his sins alone, without grace and love being diffused through his heart
by the Holy Spirit and inhering therein, or that the grace whereby we
are justified is merely the good will of God,--let him be accursed."
Canon XII: "If any one says that justifying faith is nothing else than
trust in the divine mercy which forgives sins for Christ's sake, or that
it is this trust alone by which we are justified,--let him be accursed."
Canon XXIV: "If any one says that righteousness, after having been
received, is not conserved nor augmented before God by good works, but
that these works are merely the fruits or signs of the justification
which one has obtained, and that they are not a reason why justification
is increased,--let him be accursed."
It is a well-known characteristic of the decrees of the Council of Trent
that truth and error appear skilfully interwoven in them. They are like
a double motion that is offered in a deliberative body: they contain
things which one must affirm, and other things which one must negative.
They cannot be voted on--many of them--except after a division of the
question. They contain "riders" like those in a bill that comes before a
legislative body: in order to pass the bill at all, the "rider" must be
passed along with the bill. But enough crops out in these decrees to
show that the Catholic Church is not willing to let the merits of Christ
be regarded as the only thing that justifies the sinner. He must
cooperate with the Holy Spirit to the end of being justified. He must
prepare and dispose himself for receiving justifying grace, and this
grace is infused into him, and manifests itself in holy movements of the
heart and by good works, in acts of love. The Roman Catholic Christian
is taught to believe that he is justified partly by what Christ has
done, partly by what he himself is doing. He cannot subscribe to Paul's
statement: "By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should
boast." (Eph. 2, 8. 9.) Nor is his justification ever complete, because
his love is never perfect. It must be increased even after his death.
The Roman purgatory contains sinners whom God had justified as far as He
could, the sinners remaining in arrears with their, part of the
contract. Accordingly, the sinner can never have the assurance that he
will enter heaven. It would be presumptuous for him to think so. He must
live on and work on at his poor dying rate, and hope for the best.
This teaching of the Church of Rome subverts Christianity. It strikes at
the root of the faith that saves. It is a relapse into paganism and an
affront offered to the Savior. It borrows the language of Scripture to
express the most hideous error. By this teaching Rome does not drive men
into purgatory,--which does not exist,--but into hell. It is only by a
miracle of divine grace that sinners are saved where such teaching
prevails: they must forget what is told them about the necessity of
their own works and cling only to the Redeemer, and must thus
practically repudiate the teaching of their Church. Some do this, and
escape the pernicious consequences of the error of their Church. All of
them will rise up in the Judgment to accuse their teachers of a heresy
the worst imaginable.
Rome has, indeed, assailed "the article with which the Church either
stands or falls." All its other errors, crass, grotesque, and repulsive
though they are, are mere child's play in comparison with this damning
and destructive error of justification by works. Luther rightly
estimated the virulence of this abysmal heresy when he said that those
who attacked his teaching of justification by grace through faith alone
were aiming at his throat. Rome's teaching on justification is an
attempt to strike at the vitals of Christian faith and life. It sinks
the dagger into the heart of Christianity.