Saturday, October 21, 2017

Luther

Justification 27
In Romans 1:17 Paul writes, "For in it [the gospel] the righ-
teousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 
'The righteous shall live by faith.'" Luther could not understand 
how the righteousness or justice of God could be gospel—good 
news. It seemed to offer only the threat of judgment. Not only 
does the law condemn us, but so does the gospel! "For in the 
gospel a righteousness of God is revealed." But Luther began to 
see the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel not simply 
as a quality of God—his impartial justice by which he judges 
sinners. Instead he saw it as a gift from God. The righteous-
ness of God is the righteousness he gives to us so that we may 
be righteousness before him. The righteousness of God is not 
an attribute of God that stands over and against humankind, 
judging us on the basis of merit. It is the gift of God by which 
God declares us righteous even though we are not in ourselves 
righteous. Luther says:
[Paul] says that they are all sinners, unable to glory in God. 
They must, however, be justified through faith in Christ, 
who has merited this for us by his blood and has become 
for us a mercy seat [compare Ex. 25:17; Lev. 16:14–15; 
1 John 2:2] in the presence of God, who forgives us all our 
previous sins. In so doing, God proves that it is his justice 
alone, which he gives through faith, that helps us, the jus-
tice which was at the appointed time revealed through the 
Gospel and, previous to that, was witnessed to by the Law 
and the Prophets.4
This first step in Luther's thought was from a troubled con-
science, created by medieval theology, to a rediscovery of the 
view of Augustine—and Augustine's view of sin. Luther came 
4. Martin Luther, "Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans," trans. Brother An-
drew Thornton OSB, accessed October 9, 2015, www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/prefacetoromans 
(emphasis added); also available at www.yale.edu/adhoc/etexts/luther_preface.html.

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