Be Loving God

"The love of God is required no less than our conversion and the keeping of all the commandments; for the love of God is our true conversion." - Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, Revell edition, page 164

Take the Trouble

"Pray tell me, what can a man do in the realm of theology and the sacred writings, if he has not even reached the point of knowing what the law and the gospel are, or, if he does know, scorns to observe the distinction? He is bound to mix up everything, heaven with hell and life with death, and will not take the slightest trouble to know about Christ." - Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, Revell edition, pages 163-164

Get Ready for Grace

"The Diatribe constantly imagines a man who either can do what he is commanded, or at any rate knows that he cannot. But such a man is nowhere to be found. If there were such, then, in truth, either the commanding of impossibilities would be absurd, or the Spirit of Christ would be in vain. But the Scripture sets before us a man who is not only bound, wretched, captive, sick and dead, but who, through the operation of Satan his lord, adds to his other miseries that of blindness, so that he believes himself to be free, happy, possessed of liberty and ability, whole and alive. Satan knows that if men knew their own misery he could keep no man in his kingdom; God could not fail at once to pity and succour wretchedness that knew itself and cried to Him, for God is proclaimed with mighty praise throughout the Scripture as being near the broken-hearted. Thus Isaiah 61 bears witness that Christ was sent 'to preach the gospel to the poor, and to heal the broken-hearted'. Hence, the work of Satan is to hold men so that they do not recognize their wretchedness, but presume that they can do everything that is stated. But the work of Moses the lawgiver is the opposite of this--namely, through the law to lay open to man his own wretchedness so that, by thus breaking him down, and confounding him in his self-knowledge, he may make him ready for grace, and send him to Christ to be saved. Therefore, the function performed by the law is nothing to laugh at, but is most emphatically serious and necessary." - Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, the Revell editon, pages 161-162

The Blindness of Reason & Impotence of the Law

"So the words of the law are spoken, not to assert the power of the will, but to illuminate the blindness of reason, so that it may see that its own light is nothing, and the power of the will is nothing. 'By the law is knowledge of sin,' says Paul (Rom 3:20). He does not say: abolition, or avoidance, of sin. The entire design and power of the law is just to give knowledge, and that of nothing but sin; not to display or confer any power. This knowledge is not power, nor does it bring power; but it teaches and displays that there is here no power, and great weakness. What can 'knowledge of sin' be, but knowledge of our weakness and badness? He does not say: 'by the law comes knowledge of power or goodness'! All that the law does, on Paul's testimony, is to make sin known. It is from this passage that I derive my answer to you: that by the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do; that is, that he may know his sin, not that he may believe that he has any strength." - Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, the Revell editon, pages 158-159

I Trust Jesus; and Sometimes I Hate Him.

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith

apart from observing the law.

Romans 3:28

Still pondering the meaning of the Protestant Reformation, the above text comes to mind. It is faith alone that ties a person to God savingly. No wonder this came to Martin Luther as exceedingly good news, since he is known to have said that he sometimes hated God. You see, it is not your love for God that ties you to Him, or brings you into His family, or gets you a seat at the Father's table, or moves Him to welcome you in. It is your faith in His Son.

None of this is to belittle the great and first commandment that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Dt 6; Mt 22), or to minimize the sinfulness of hating the Lord. It is to distinguish correctly the most significant biblical categories of Law and Gospel. That we love God with all our being is a command, and command keeping does not bring us to God. That is the point of the Bible verse above. God justifies a person by faith alone without regard to one's command keeping.  Astounding. Unbelievable really, until He makes one believe. Salvation is gift, and that's why it is gospel (good news).

The Myth of Free Will

"By the lives of all men from the beginning of the world, 

nothing whatever has been disclosed that favors 'free will.'"  

Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, the Revell Edition, page 136

Do Not Quell the Tumults, and Smile at the Upheavals

In response to Erasmus' assertion that, "It is lawful to speak the truth, but it is not expedient to do so in every company, nor at every time, nor in every way," Luther writes:

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

. . .You make it clear that this carnal peace and quiet seems to you far more important than faith, conscience, salvation, the Word of God, the glory of Christ, and God himself. . .You say this sort of thing simply because you have not read, or at any rate have not noticed, that it is regularly the case with the Word of God that the world is thrown into confusion by reason of it. Christ openly affirms as much: "I came not (says He) to send peace, but a sword (Matt 10:34). So in Luke: "I came to send fire on the earth" (12:49). So Paul, in 1 Cor 6: "In tumults," etc. (2 Cor. 6:5). The prophet in the second Psalm bears elaborate testimony to the same truth when he declares that the nations are in uproar, the peoples rage, the kings rise up, the rulers conspire, against the Lord and against Christ--as though to say that the many, the mighty, the wealth, power, wisdom, righteousness and all that is exalted in the world opposes the Word of God. Look at the Acts of the Apostles, and see there what happened in the world by reason of the word of Paul alone (to say nothing of the other apostles)--how, single-handed, he threw into confusion Jews and Gentiles alike. As his foes said of him, he turned the world upside down! (Acts 17:6). The kingdom of Israel was thrown into confusion under Elijah, as Ahab complained (1 Kings 18:17). What upheaval was there under the other prophets, when they were all executed or stoned, and Israel was led captive into Assyria, and Judah to Babylon! Was that peace? The world and its god cannot and will not bear the Word of the true God, and the true God cannot and will not keep silent. Now these two Gods are at war; so what else can there be throughout the world but uproar?
     To want to quell these tumults, therefore, is really to want to remove the Word of God and stop its course. When the Word of God comes, it comes to change and renew the world, and even heathen writers acknowledge that such changes cannot take place without commotion and upheaval--nor, indeed, without bloodshed. Now it is the Christian's part to expect and coolly to endure these things--as Christ says, "When you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, be not dismayed: for these things must first come to pass, but the end is not yet" (Matt 24:6). Personally, did I not see the upheavals, I should say that the Word of God was not in the world. Now that I see them, I rejoice from my heart and smile at them, knowing for sure that the Pope's kingdom and all its allies will fall; for the Word of God is now in full cry, and these are its principal target. . .
 

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

  Stop your complaining, stop your doctoring, the origin and continuance of this conflict is from God; and it will not cease till all who oppose the Word have become as the mire of the streets.
     . . .You grovel on the ground and cannot conceive of anything that is above man's understanding. But there is nothing childish, or merely man-like, about the operations of God; they are Divine, and they exceed man's grasp. And that is why you fail to see that it is by reason of God's will and activity that these tumults and divisions are raging throughout the world--and so you are afraid that the sky will fall. . .You see again how unadvisedly you rush against the Word of God, as though you rated your own thoughts and ideas far above it. -- From The Bondage of the Will, Revell Edition, pages 90-95

    

In Fierce Combats Against the Devil. . .

"But I, God be praised, have learned out of the Holy Scriptures, and by experience in my trials, temptations, and fierce combats against the devil, that this article of Christ's humanity is most sure and certain; for nothing has more or better helped me in high spiritual temptations, than my comfort in this, that Christ, the true everlasting Son of God, is our flesh and bone, as St. Paul says to the Ephesians, chapter 5: 'We are members of his body, of his flesh and bone; he sits at the right hand of God, and makes intercession for us.' When I take hold of this shield of faith, then I soon drive away that wicked one, with all his fiery darts." -- Martin Luther, from Tabletalk,#186.

For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free

"Men's ordinances cannot be observed 

together with the Word of God, 

because the former bind consciences and the latter looses them. 

The two things are as much opposed to each other 

as fire and water."

Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, page 96 in the Revell Edition

The Offense Is In Us

"Doctrinal truth should be preached always, openly, 
without compromise, and never dissembled or concealed. 
There is no offense in it; it is the staff of uprightness."

Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, page 95 in the Revell Edition

The Bondage of the Will

I was honored to write the forward for this special edition of one of the real classic Christian texts. Time is well spent learning church history in general, and the untamed Martin Luther in particular. Five hundred years later, this book still matters. It's for sale here

The Christian's Chief and Only Comfort

"Not only should we be sure that God wills, and will execute His will, necessarily and immutably; we should glory in the fact, as Paul does in Romans 3 -- "Let God be true, but every man a liar" (v.4). . .If then we are taught and believe that we ought to be ignorant of the necessary foreknowledge of God and the necessity of events, Christian faith is utterly destroyed, and the promises of God and the whole gospel fall to the ground completely; for the Christian's chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His will cannot be resisted, altered or impeded." -- Martin Luther, from The Bondage of the Will, page 84 in the Revell edition

Some Of God's Children Are Not Well, Because of God

"God deals strangely with the saints, contrary to all human wisdom and understanding, to the end that those who fear God are good Christians, may learn to depend on invisible things, and through mortification may be made alive again; for God's Word is a light that shines in a dark place, as all examples of faith show. Esau was accursed, yet it went well with him; he was lord in the land, and priest in the church; but Jacob had to fly, and dwell in poverty in another country. God deals with godly Christians much as with the ungodly, yea, and sometimes far worse. He deals with them even as a house-father with a son and a servant; he whips and beats the son much more and oftener than the servant, yet nevertheless, he gathers for the son a treasure to inherit, while a stubborn and a disobedient servant he beats not with the rod, but thrusts out of doors, and gives him nothing of the inheritance."  -  From Luther's Tabletalk, #77.

God Deals Strangely with the Saints

"God deals strangely with the saints, contrary to all human wisdom and understanding, to the end that those who fear God are good Christians, may learn to depend on invisible things, and through mortification may be made alive again; for God's Word is a light that shines in a dark place, as all examples of faith show. Esau was accursed, yet it went well with him; he was lord in the land, and priest in the church; but Jacob had to fly, and dwell in poverty in another country. God deals with godly Christians much as with the ungodly, yea, and sometimes far worse. He deals with them even as a house-father with a son and a servant; he whips and beats the son much more and oftener than the servant, yet nevertheless, he gathers for the son a treasure to inherit, while a stubborn and a disobedient servant he beats not with the rod, but thrusts out of doors, and gives him nothing of the inheritance."  -  From Luther's Tabletalk, #77.

Christ Alone

"We must think of no other God than Christ; that God which speaks not out of Christ's mouth, is not God. . .We seek God everywhere; but not seeking him in Christ, we find him nowhere." -- Martin Luther, from Tabletalk, #182

Persons Prepared and Placed

"A violent physician for a violent age" - That's what one of Martin Luther's closest friends and co-laborers called him. His name was Philip Melancthon. I thank God for rough men, made so by God, and strategically located in time and space to serve His purposes. These are perhaps the most rare of creatures, whose default setting is truth, not peace or self-preservation.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them. For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel, nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you; yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate. Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.  Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house.”  Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely.  Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people, and speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or not, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’” - Ezekiel 3:4-11

Christ Must Needs Be True God

Christ must needs be true God, seeing he, through himself, fulfilled and overcame the law; for most certain it is, that no one else could have vanquished the law, angel or human creature, but Christ only, so that it cannot hurt those that believe in him; therefore, most certainly he is the Son of God, and natural God. Now if we comprehend Christ in this manner, as the Holy Scripture displays him before us, then certain it is, that we can neither err nor be put to confusion; and may then easily judge what is right to be held of all manner of divine qualities, religion, and worship, that are used and practiced in the universal world. Were this picturing of Christ removed out of our sight, or darkened in us undeniably there must needs follow utter disorder. For human and natural religion, wisdom, and understanding, cannot judge aright or truly of the laws of God; therein has been and still is exhausted the art of all philosophers, of all the learned and worldly-wise among he children of men. For the law rules and govern mankind; therefore the law judges mankind, and not mankind the law.

Martin Luther, from Tabletalk, pages 163-164

Martin Luther on Serving God

". . .that is upright serving of God, when a man does that which in his Word God has commanded to be done, every one in his own vocation, not that which he thinks good of his own judgment." - Martin Luther, from Tabletalk #112

God's Merciful Inclinations

"No human creature can rightly know how 

mercifully God is inclined toward those 

that steadfastly believe in Christ." 

Martin Luther, from Tabletalk #110

Young Charlie and Old Martin

This is my niece, Charlie Eden Fiore (named for her father Charles). And yes, that onesie is a gift from yours truly.