JUSTIFIED BY FAITH ALONE
The following is the sermon I will preach for Reformation this year. I don't often post my sermons, but thought this one was worth sharing.....
Five hundred years ago, on the spring day of May 4, 1521, men disguised as robbers captured a young monk and professor and quickly whisked him away to the Wartburg Castle in Germany for safe keeping. His life was at great risk. For just a few months before, the head of the church, Pope Leo X, wrote a special order[1], Decet Romanum Pontificem, “It Befits the Roman Pontiff,” which excommunicated Dr. Martin Luther from the church, essentially branding him a heretic who could be arrested, tried and executed. To further protect his identity, Luther disguised himself as a knight with a beard called Junker Jörg, or Knight George. Although now separated from all the activity outside, Luther did not simply sit around and wait. But here, hidden away from the world and the dramatic changes he began, he started one of his most important works: translating the Bible from the New Testament’s original Greek into everyday German.[2]
And in that German Bible one particular verse captures the most attention and generates the most controversy. It is from our text this evening/morning in the Epistle reading in Romans 3. Luther added one simple German word to better express the meaning of the text: “allein”: “…allein durch den Glauben,” “by faith alone.” In the Smalcald Articles, Luther’s confession included in the Book of Concord[3], Luther includes this verse and writes that true faith “alone justifies us.” He writes that the “first and chief article” of the Christian faith is that “Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, ‘was put to death for our trespasses and raised again for our justification…’” He further warns that “nothing in this article can be given up or compromised, even if heaven and earth and thing temporal should be destroyed.”[4] That’s pretty strong language. And very specific and exclusive and bold: alone, first and chief, nothing…be given up. “Alone” limits it to one thing: We are justified only by faith that believes Christ as our righteousness. Period. Justification lies at the heart of what we believe, teach and confess as Lutheran Christians.
Yet that one, single, little, seemingly innocent word “allein,” or “alone,” was and remains controversial. Philip Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession writes that “the particle ‘alone’ offends some people.”[5] Offends. Go figure. Many argue that it is not in the original Greek text. True. And Luther knew that. But he insisted that to convey the same thought in German the word ‘alone’ was needed. Some argue that if you read books like James, where the writer notes that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,”[6] you must have both faith and works. So, faith and works therefore save, or more specifically justify us.[7]
And it is true that faith without the living expression of works is no more than a dead faith. It has no fruit on the faith tree. But faith alone justifies. A good summary that reconciles all this is: faith alone saves, but faith is never alone.[8] True faith will produce true works. It is alive. But, why is all this wrangling over one little word so important? Isn’t it akin, as we say, to ‘making mountains out of mole hills’?
Well, to understand the importance of this and how it relates to a special day of celebration like today, we need to take a moment and look at a second critical word: justifies. Now we don’t use this word very much in our regular talk today. We might say that someone tried to ‘justify’ himself by making excuses for what he did. But that’s not what Paul meant. “Justify” means to “be pronounced or accounted righteous.”[9] In some ways, like a judge, who hammering the gavel on his desk declares a defendant innocent. But in this case, we aren’t innocent. We are guilty sinners. We deserve death, and even hell, as we so often confess in our worship. So how do we end up having God declare us “righteous” or right in His sight? What do we do, as the rich young man asked in one of our recent readings?
And here’s the point Luther wanted stressed: We do nothing. God does it all. Faith, itself a gift of God, merely accepts the declaration as one accepts a gift. Paul said it so well in his letter to the Ephesians when he wrote those words so many of us know well: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.”[10] Pure grace, entirely God’s unmerited and boundless love. A love that sent the Son of God to His death, our death, and suffered the punishment of hell on our behalf.
Now if we roll the clock back a little bit further from 1521 to 1517, the year from which the Reformation is officially dated, we get another picture of why Luther was so fixed on the importance of this teaching; why it was so important to him, why that one word seemed so critical. As tradition has it, Luther took a list of debate points, called the 95 Theses, and nailed them to the church door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg where fellow scholars could read them. But Luther wasn’t simply looking to drum up support for a good academic debate. He was upset over something else. The next day, All Saints Day, his elector would have on display a huge collection of the relic of saints, which included everything from pieces of cloth to bones. People would get credit for venerating these relics, credit that could be applied to their time in a place they called purgatory, kind of a midpoint between heaven and hell. These ‘credits’ were called indulgences, and they were often purchased for a certain sum of money.
Aside from the point that purgatory finds no support in the Bible, another issue arises. Purgatory was a place the theologians said many people go to suffer for their past sins and be cleansed so the soul can be purified. The church taught that you needed to atone for these past sins and therefore be ‘purged’ or cleansed of their stain before you could go to the holiness and purity of heaven.
But Paul was clear that we are declared holy and right in his sight only by faith in Christ. This is very important. Critically important. Because if we need to do anything – here or later – we are left with the agony of uncertainty that we never can do enough, although some might think that time in purgatory could do it. One Spanish theologian actually theorized that the average soul would have to spend 1,000 to 2,000 years in purgatory. Some claimed 12 months. Others as little as 49 days. But whatever it is, it ends up with us. Our responsibility. We must suffer, not Jesus. The burden is thrown back on us. And others even feel compelled to pray for us to speed up the process. It all gets tied to what we do, our works, or efforts.
And no despair is greater than having to doubt about one’s future salvation. Nothing is more important than the assurance that we have a place in heaven.
In our complete text Paul lays it all out in a very straightforward manner. The Law condemns us. It reveals our sin. We are stopped dead in our tracks. “Every mouth is stopped,” He says. We can claim innocence, but it doesn’t hold up. No way to wiggle out of this. No way to correct it on our own. We are guilty, plain and simple.
But God has granted us a status of righteousness before Him through His Son, who was sacrificed in our behalf. We are covered in His blood. That’s makes us holy. And this is accepted by faith. Both are a gift of God. Again, nothing done by us. Nothing! Thus, Paul says, no boasting. No rejoicing in what we did. None of this stuff about how good so-and-so is. Because instead of getting what we all deserve – death and hell! – we get what we don’t deserve: heaven! But Paul wants us to understand this: We are justified, that is declared and pronounced righteous and holy in His sight entirely separate from the Law, entirely separate from what we might ever do or attempt to do. We are justified by faith alone.
And every year Lutherans pause to remember this, and set aside a special day like today. But not because of Luther, mind you. That’s one misunderstanding some have that this is a ‘glorify Luther’ day. You will notice we do not have a day on the calendar acknowledging ‘St. Luther’. Rather, we thank God that He used a man like Luther to bring the church back to a correct understanding of this most important truth of our salvation. As Pastor Hahn noted in the beginning of his sermon last week, some of Luther’s last words were: “This is true. We are all beggars.” No boasting, especially from Luther. In fact, Luther was quite clear when he also said:
“What is Luther? The teaching is not mine. Nor was I crucified for anyone … How did I, poor stinking bag of maggots that I am, come to the point where people call the children of Christ by my evil name? … I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.”[11]
Yes, it is by faith alone, in the scriptures alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone. Soli Deo Gloria. “To God alone be the glory.”
In Jesus’ name, Amen
Pastor Engebretson
St. Peter Lutheran Church of Polar (Antigo) Wisconsin
[1] Technically called a papal bull, a type of public decree issued by the pope. “Bull” comes from the Latin bulla, a leaden seal affixed to the end of the document to attest to its authenticity.
[2] The publication of the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, would not come until 1534.
[3] The official collection of the confessional writings of the Lutheran church. Compiled and published in 1580.
[4] Smalcald Articles, Article I, Part II, Christ and Faith, Tappert Ed.
[5] Augsburg Confession, IV, Justification. Tappert ed.
[6] James 2:17
[7] Canon 9 from the Council of Trent’s Decree on Justification writes: “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, so that he understands that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.” One basic difference is in the way Catholics and Lutherans understand justification. Catholics see it more as a process, Lutherans as a declaration.
[8] Often attributed to Luther, but no references ties this exact quote to him.
[9] Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV, Justification, 72. Tappert ed., page 117.
[10] Ephesians 2:8,9
[11] Martin Luther, “A Sincere Admonition to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion” (1522), Luther’s Works, Vol. 45, p. 70.
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