Some thoughts from David Yeago to a Revisionist on Luther's understanding of the nature of sin ...

   As is obvious from Romans 6, one reason for rejoicing in our redemption in Christ is that under the rule of grace, we don't have to do evil anymore. Our bondage to sin expresses itself precisely in the commission of evil works (of thought, word, and deed): "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (Romans 7:19).

   Romans 7 is so terribly Jewish. Our tendency is to read v. 20 and say, Oh, well then, if "it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me" then I am off the hook, the "real me" is innocent. But that is precisely not the conclusion Paul draws. It's the deed that makes the difference. I can delight in the law all day long in my inmost self, but as long as what I do is evil, I am a slave, I am wretched, and the state of my "inmost self" is meaningless. The contrary point is true too, of course: the worship of the hand without the heart is equally meaningless. But for Paul, it runs both ways: the heart and the hand make up a life, not one without the other, so that the renewal of the nous is fulfilled in the offering of the body to God (Romans 12).

   Lutherans today are not very good readers of Romans 8, at least not till we get to the part about groaning in pain. The whole ductus of Romans 6-8 comes to a climax when Paul says that in the flesh of Jesus God condemned sin "so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Since the end of Chapter 5, he has been dealing with the objection that proclaiming a dominion of grace which supplants the dominion of Torah will leave righteousness out in the cold, righteousness in a very Jewish sense that definitely includes our deed, what we do with our "members," (Romans 6:19), our bodily life in the world. These chapters are not mainly about guilt and forgiveness; they are about what Luther calls the inauguration of "holiness on the earth" (Large Catechism, Third Article), which, Pauls says, happens not through the dominion of the Torah but through the dominion of grace.

    Luther is also utterly clear about this. The treatise in which the doctrine of simul justus et peccator is first worked out at length is Against Latomus from 1521. Luther makes the point about the struggle against particular sins precisely in the context of arguing that there is a remnant of the "bondage of sin" left behind in the baptized which renders us simul peccator. One of his most important arguments is to point to New Testament talk about particular sins, and say: "See, the Apostle says that these are sins in believers, not weaknesses."

   It is for this reason that in Rom 8:13 and Col 3:5, Paul recommends the putting to death of what is earthly; that is, such things as anger, passion, and covetousness. He uses unmistakable terms, not simply speaking of sin, but calling it by its names: anger, passion, covetousness. Yet these new linguistic authorities would persuade us that these are not the names of either faults or sins, for the Apostle is writing to saints and believers (LW 32:207).
One of his key arguments also comes from Romans 6:12 and 14. "This must be understood as referring not to the sins of others, but to our own sins, for who can resist the sins of others, or prevent another from sinning?" (p. 208).

   This point is bolstered by Luther's argument about the simul. In what sense is the believer a sinner? In the sense that, because there is still sinfulness in the believer, he or she can only stand before God on the basis of undeserved mercy for Christ's sake. But this does not mean that the believer is a sinner in an unqualified way, that baptism and faith leave the bondage to sin untouched. On the contrary, as Paul says in Romans 6:12, the sin that is in believers does not rule, but is ruled over; it is not peccatum regnans but peccatum regnatum.

   What is the meaning of this distinction? Obviously, one meaning is that this remnant sin can no longer separate the believer from God's favor (so long as the believer is a believer, that is, clings to Christ). But that is not all that it means that sin is "ruled over." "It must not therefore be said that baptism does not remove all sin; it indeed removes all, but not their substance. The power of all, and much of the substance, are taken away. Day by day the substance is removed so that it may be utterly destroyed" (pp. 208-209). It is one thing to say that sin is present in the saints, but quite another to say that it rules in the saints, and "Luther never talks of sin reigning in the saints" (p. 210).

There is another aspect to Luther's teaching in this treatise that is ignored by many Lutherans today. Luther quite explicitly denies that anyone who is not fighting against the sins the New Testament identifies can have the comfort of the simul justus et peccator. As Otto Pesch, the great Catholic Luther scholar, once put it: there is a big difference between a peccator who is simul justus and an out-and-out impius, an ungodly person. How does Luther establish this difference without reintroducing works-righteousness?

He does so by developing the doctrine of justification with three interrelated terms, drawn from Romans 5:15: "the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ." I don't vouch for what follows as exegesis of that verse, but I do think it is excellent theology. The point to remember is that for Luther these are three distinct ideas, (1) the grace of God, (2) the free gift, and (3) the grace of Jesus Christ. The third term, the grace of Jesus Christ, is Christ's personal God-pleasingness, the favor he has with God for his obedience, suffering, and death. Christ is the one who is in God's favor, and we receive the twofold blessing of grace and the free gift insofar as we cling to him. The grace of God is familiar to us: it is the unmerited favor of God who receives us into his fellowship out of sheer mercy for the sake of the one to whom we cling.

   The neglected element in Luther's account is the "free gift," which plays the key role in making sense of his account of the simul and "ruled-over sin." The gift is simply enough faith. Faith is our very clinging to Christ, by whose grace we are accepted into God's favor. But this same faith is a new life, it is indeed "the true righteousness which is the gift of God" (p. 227):

   Faith is the gift and inward good which purges the sin to which it is opposed. It is that leaven which is described in the gospel as wholly hidden under three measures of meal (Matt 13:33). The grace of God, on the other hand, is an outward [i.e. relational] good, God's favor" which is opposed to wrath.