On
Good Works
An
extract
from Martin Luther's sermon on Good Works
Martin
Luther (1483-1546)
of
Germany
was the man who took the first steps in leading the
Reformation, proclaiming the Word of God and its doctrine of justification by
grace through faith alone. As a young man he had earned his Master of Arts at
the
University
of Erfurt, but after a series of events including the death of a close friend and
a near-death experience of his own, he decided to try to atone for his sins as
a monk of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther went to great extremes in order to
obtain forgiveness of sins by his own “good works”, going so far as to
damage his health permanently by severe physical punishment such as fasting
for many days and abstaining from sleep. Ordained to the Roman priesthood in
1507, he still found no satisfaction, seeing nothing but the depth and
darkness of his own guilt. He then discovered a Bible in a library, from which
he found his first great rays of hope through Jesus Christ, and travelling to
Rome
with the light of the Word in his heart, he saw through the pagan
superstitions of the Papal system. Finally he returned to his studies at
university, this time in
Wittenberg
where he gained a doctorate in 1512. Here, encouraged by his mentor, the
Augustinian scholar Johann von Staupitz (1470-1524), he continued earnestly to
study the Bible; and as the text from Romans 1:17, “The just shall live by
faith”, had several times come to him with power, so he began to preach this
earth-shattering doctrine to the world.
The first, the noblest, the
sublimest of all works, is faith in Jesus Christ.
It is from this work that all other works must proceed: they are but the
vassals of faith, and receive their efficacy from it alone.
If a man feels in his heart the
assurance that what he has done is acceptable to God, the work is good, if it
were merely the lifting up of a straw; but if he have not this assurance, his
work is not good, even should he raise the dead. A heathen, a Jew, a Turk, a
sinner, can perform all the other works; but to trust firmly in God, and to
feel an assurance that we are accepted by him, is what a Christian, strong in
grace, alone is capable of doing.
A Christian who possesses faith
in God does everything with liberty and joy; while the man who is not at one
with God is full of care and kept in bondage; he asks himself with anguish how
many works he should perform; he runs to and fro; he questions this man and
that; he nowhere finds peace, and does everything with sorrow and fear.
Consequently, I have always
extolled faith. But in the world it is otherwise. There, the essential thing
is to have many works – works high and great, and of every dimension,
without caring whether they are quickened by faith. Thus, men build their
peace, not on God’s good pleasure, but on their own merits, that is to say,
on sand. (Matthew 7:27.)
To preach faith (it has been
said) is to prevent good works; but if a man should posses the strength of all
men united, or even of all creatures,
this sole obligation of living in faith would be a task too great for him ever
to accomplish. If I say to a sick man: ‘Be well, and thou shalt have the use
of thy limbs,’ will any one say that I forbid him to use his limbs? Must not
health precede labour? It is the same when we preach faith: it should go
before works, in order that the works themselves should exist.
Where then, you will say, can
we find this faith, and how can we receive it? This is in truth what it is
most important to know. Faith comes solely from Jesus, who was promised and
given freely.
O man! figure Jesus Christ to
yourself, and contemplate how God in him has shown thee his mercy, without any
merit on thy part going before.
Draw from this image of his grace the faith and assurance that all thy sins
are forgiven thee. Works cannot produce it. It flows from the blood, and
wounds, and death of Christ; thence it wells forth into our hearts. Christ is
the rock whence flow milk and honey. (Deut. 32.)
Reference
Quoted
in J. H. Merle d’Aubigné's “History
of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century”,
Baker Book House (USA), p. 186. (Reprinted from the edition issued in London
in 1846).
