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.