Selected Quotes

    "We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the
true understanding of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of this Word, as He Himself has said, "They shall be all taught of God" (John 6:45). Hope for nothing from your own labors, from your own understanding: trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit. Believe this on the word of a man who has experience."
                         ... Martin Luther (1483-1546)
"Unless those who are in the office of preacher find joy in him who sent them, they will have much trouble. Our Lord God had to ask Moses as many as six times.He also led me into the office in the same way. Had I known about it beforehand, he would have had to take more pains to get me in. Be that as it may, now that I have begun, I intend to perform the duties of the office with his help. On account of the exceedingly great and heavy cares and worries connected with it, I would not take the whole world to enter upon this work now. On the other hand, when I regard him who called me, I would not take the whole world not to have begun it. Nor do I wish to have another God."

"To have a god means this: You expect to receive all good things from it and turn to it in every time of trouble. Yes, to have a god means to trust and to believe in Him with your whole heart. I have often said that only the trust and faith of the heart can make God or an idol. If your faith and trust are true,
       you have the true God, too. On the other hand, where trust is false, is evil, there you will not have the true God either. Faith and God live together. I tell you, whatever you set your heart on and rely on is really your god."

"Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they speak and hear much about faith. ``Faith is not enough,'' they say, ``You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved.''
They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working,creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, ``I believe.'' That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn't come from this `faith,' either. Instead, faith is God's work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn't stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words.

      Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.
       Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve
everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they're smart enough
to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools.
       Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do."

"For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant."

?You say you don?t baptize children because they don?t believe. Why do you preach the Word to adults who don?t believe, unless perhaps in the hope that they may believe? You do it on the strength of God?s command alone. For if you baptize me because I say I believe, then you baptize on account of me and in my name. Therefore, since you don?t know whether I believe or don?t believe, you do it only because of God?s command. It isn?t necessary to exclude children, since as a rule you baptize all, whether they believe or not.
?It would be a terrible thing if I were baptized on the strength of my confession. What would you do if you learned privately that a man who publicly desired baptism or the sacrament [of the altar] was an unbeliever? You couldn?t deny it to him, and yet you would know that he is without faith. So Christ offered [the sacrament] to Judas.345 Therefore, anybody at all should be baptized unless he has been publicly convicted of a crime, and let his faith and salvation be committed to God?s keeping.?
"We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the true understanding of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of this Word, as He Himself has said, "They shall be all taught of God" (John 6:45). Hope for nothing from your own labors, from your own understanding: trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit. Believe this on the word of a man who has experience."

It?s impossible for our adversaries to understand the forgiveness of sins because they are immersed in their notion of quality.241 The Holy Scriptures call Christians saints and the people of God. It?s a pity that it?s forgotten that we are saints, for to forget this is to forget Christ and baptism. (In Psalm 86 [:2] the Hebrew for ?I am a saint,? chasid, means the opposite, ?I am cursed.?) So it comes about that those who are truly sinners don?t want to be considered sinners, and those who are saints don?t want to be called saints either. The latter don?t believe the gospel which comforts them and the former don?t believe the law which accuses them.
You say that the sins which we commit every day offend God, and therefore we are not saints. To this I reply: Mother love is stronger than the filth and scabbiness on a child, and so the love of God toward us is stronger than the dirt that clings to us. Accordingly, although we are sinners, we do not lose our filial relation on account of our filthiness, nor do we fall from grace on account of our sin.
You object that we are always sinning, and where there are sins the Holy Spirit does not dwell; therefore we are not saints because the Spirit sanctifies. I reply: The text says, ?The Spirit will glorify me? [John 16:13, 14]. Therefore, where Christ is, there is the Holy Spirit also. Besides, sins do not separate Christ from sinners who believe. The God of the Turks helps only to the extent that one is godly. This is also true of the pope?s God, but when a papist begins to doubt, as he must, that he has made enough satisfaction, he becomes alarmed. Such is the faith of the pope and the Turks. But the Christian says: I believe and cling to him who is in heaven as a Savior. If I fall into sin I rise again but don?t continue to sin. I rise up and become the enemy of sin. Thus the Christian faith differs from other religions in this, that the Christian hopes even in the midst of evils and sins. Without the Holy Spirit natural man can?t do this. He can only seek refuge in works. To say, ?I am a child of God,? is accordingly not to doubt even when good works are lacking, as they always are in all of us. This is so great a thing that one is startled by it. Such is its magnitude that one can?t believe it.?

"One shouldn?t think of any other God than Christ; whoever doesn?t speak through the mouth of Christ is not God. God wants to be heard through the Propitiator, and so he?ll listen to nobody except through Christ. Though the Jews called and cried out, ?Lord, who livest,? etc., they looked for God in many places, but not in the Propitiator, where he promised to hear them. So it is in our case. Those who don?t seek God or the Lord in Christ won?t find him."

From the passage, ?Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive,? etc. [John 20:22, 23], some conclude that therefore only those who personally have the Holy Spirit are able to forgive sins. But this isn?t the meaning, for Christ gives the Spirit to the public office and not to a private person, as he had just said, ?As the Father has sent me, even so I send you? [John 20:21]. Consequently he was speaking about those who had been called and who had the authority to preach, administer the sacraments, etc. When somebody has the authority to preach he also has the authority to administer the sacraments, for we hold that the sacrament is less important than preaching. On this account, under the papacy none was admitted to the degree of bachelor of theology except priests, and they already had the right to administer sacraments.?

The Right and Wrong Use of Reason,1533

[The question was raised] whether the tools of the arts and nature are useful to theology. [Martin Luther answered:] ?One knife cuts better than another. So good tools?for example, languages and the arts?can contribute to clearer teaching. Just as many, like Erasmus, are equipped with languages and the arts and nevertheless make damaging mistakes, so the same thing happens with weapons, most of which are made for slaughter. A thing must be distinguished from its misuse. Job distinguished thus when he said, ?You speak as one of the foolish women would speak? [Job 2:10]. This text has always pleased me on account of its proper distinction between the creature and its abuse.?
[The question was asked,] Is the light of reason also useful [to theology]? [Martin Luther answered: ] ?I make a distinction. Reason that is under the devil?s control is harmful, and the more clever and successful it is, the more harm it does. We see this in the case of learned men who on the basis of their reason disagree with the Word. On the other hand, when illuminated by the Holy Spirit, reason helps to interpret the Holy Scriptures. So Cochlaeus? tongue speaks blasphemies while my tongue speaks God?s praise. Nevertheless, it is the same instrument in both of us. It is a tongue, whether before or after faith. The tongue, as a tongue, doesn?t contribute to faith, and yet it serves faith when the heart is illuminated. So reason, when illuminated [by the Spirit], helps faith by reflecting on something, but reason without faith isn?t and can?t be helpful. Without faith the tongue utters nothing but blasphemies, as we see in the case of Duke George. But reason that?s illuminated takes all its thoughts from the Word. The substance remains and the unreal disappears when reason is illuminated by the Spirit.?

"Thus the commandments teach man to recognize his sickness, enabling him to perceive what he must do or refrain from doing, consent to or refuse, and so he will recognize himself to be a sinful and wicked person. The Creed will teach and show him where to find the medicine-grace-which will help him to become devout and keep the commandments. The Creed points him to God and his mercy, given and made plain to him in Christ. Finally, the Lord's Prayer teaches all this, namely, through the fulfillment of God's commandments everything will be given him. In these three are the essentials of the entire Bible.
We begin with the commandments and there learn to perceive our sin and wickedness, that is, our spiritual sickness which prevents us from doing or leaving undone as we ought."

"In the worst temptations nothing can help us but faith that God's Son has put on flesh, is bone [of our bone], sits at the right hand of the Father, and prays for us. There is no mightier comfort. From the beginning of the world God has defended this doctrine against all heretics, who are innumerable, and defends it today against the Turk and the pope. He always confirms it by miracles, allows us to call his Son the Son of God and true God, and hears us all when we call upon him in Christ's name."

"Christ's life was very turbulent, for people were always moving about him. He was never alone, except when he prayed. Away with those who say, 'Be glad to be alone and your heart will be pure.' "

"When we pray we have the advantage [of the promise] that what we ask will be granted, although not according to our wish. If it weren't for the promise, I wouldn't pray. God does well, moreover, that he doesn't give us everything as we wish, for otherwise we'd want to have everything on our own terms. That our Lord God is the same in life and death I have often experienced. If our prayer is earnest it will be heard, even if not as and when we wish. This must be so or our faith is vain. Consequently it's difficult to pray. I know well what a prayer requires of me. I haven't committed adultery, but I've broken the first table against God's Word and honor. On account of my great sins [against the first table] I can't get to the others in the second table."

Luther's Tower Experience: Discovering the True Meaning of Righteousness

"Meanwhile in that same year, 1519, I had begun interpreting the Psalms once again. I felt confident that I was now more experienced, since I had dealt in university courses with St.Paul's Letters to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the Letter to
the Hebrews. I had conceived a burning desire to understand what Paul meant in his Letter to the Romans, but thus far there had stood in my way, not the cold blood around my heart, but that one word which is in chapter one: "The justice of God is revealed in it." I hated that word, "justice of God," which, by the use and custom of all my teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically as referring to formal or active justice, as they call it, i.e., that justice by which God is just and by which he
punishes sinners and the unjust.

"But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I
did not blaspheme, then certainly I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God. I said, "Isn't it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity through the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?" This was how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience. I constantly badgered St.Paul about that spot in Romans 1 and anxiously wanted to know what he meant.

"I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that
is by faith. I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice, i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: "The just person lives by faith." All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of
Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God,by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.

"I exalted this sweetest word of mine, "the justice of God," with as much love as before I had hated it with hate. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise. Afterward I read Augustine's "On the Spirit and the Letter," in which I found what
I had not dared hope for. I discovered that he too interpreted "the justice of God" in a similar way, namely, as that with which God clothes us when he justifies us. Although Augustine had said it imperfectly and did not explain in detail how God imputes justice to us, still it pleased me that he taught the justice of God by which we are justified."