Human Law and Divine
The variety in the representations of Luther's position is nowhere more apparent—and more significant for our approach to Luther's influence and image in these crucial early years—than in the treatment of law and works, for on this issue the Strasbourg publications offer a seemingly contradictory reading of Luther's position.[84] At the heart of Luther's understanding of law and works lies the paradoxical notion of Christian freedom. This is best expressed in Luther's remarkable "best seller," On the Freedom of a Christian . Although Luther himself prepared both a Latin and a German version, the Strasbourg printers
chose only to reprint the German version. Two editions appeared in 1520, another in 1521, another in 1522, and the last Strasbourg printing in 1524.[85] So Strasbourg readers had ample opportunity to read this important treatise.
Luther began with the paradox itself: "A Christian is a free lord over all things, subject to no one. A Christian is a subservient servant of all, subject to all."[86] One half of the paradox meant, Luther said, "that a Christian has enough with faith [and] needs no works to make him pious; [and] if he no longer has need of works, then he is certainly unshackled [empunden , "set free"] from all commands and laws; [and] if he is unshackled, he is free indeed."[87] It is this paradoxical freedom from the law and submission to the law that many of our authors failed to understand or accept even as they wrote in support of Luther and his program. Luther explained this freedom clearly. "One should know," Luther wrote,
that the complete Holy Scripture is divided into two words, which are commandment or law of God, and promise or pledge. The commandments teach and prescribe for us various good works, but they are not thereby accomplished. They indeed point the direction, but they do not help [with accomplishment]. They teach what one should do but give no strength for the doing. Therefore they are only established so that the human being can see from them his inability to do the good and learn to doubt himself.[88]
That was the function of the law, to humble a person and reveal the human incapacity to fulfill the law. "Then comes the other word," Luther explained,
the divine promise and pledge. And [it] says, if you wish to fulfill all the commandments [and] be freed from your evil desires and sin as the commandments compel and demand, look at this! Believe in Christ, in what I [Christ] promised you, all grace, righteousness, peace, and freedom. If you believe, then you have [it]. If you do not believe, then you do not have it. For it is impossible for you [to achieve this] with all the works of the commandments, which are numerous but are of no use. But you will easily and quickly [achieve] it through faith.
Therefore the promise of God gave what the commandments required, and accomplished what the commandments commanded. Everything belonged to God—commandment and fulfillment. "He alone commands; he alone also fulfills."[89]
Luther went on to explain that once freed from the law by grace through faith, Christians voluntarily subjected themselves to the law for the sake of the neighbor and undertook service to others, not for
any reward that such service might be thought to merit, but out of spontaneous love in obedience to God. At the same time that Luther taught the voluntary submission to the law, he also concluded that a wide range of clerically imposed "human" laws were not just unnecessary and fraudulent, fabricated in order to enrich the clergy, but positively sinful since they motivated people to trust in their own efforts rather than to accept God's free gift of forgiveness.
Significantly, many of our authors adopted Luther's insistence that Scripture should be the sole authority and his concomitant rejection of "man-made" laws that conflicted with Scripture, but they did not share his understanding of the inability of human beings to fulfill the law, even the divine law. Instead, they rejected "man-made laws" but insisted on the fulfillment of "divine law." For example, the author of New Karsthans severely criticized the clergy because they did not live according to the pattern set by the early church or in accordance with the teachings of Christ; that is, they did not conform to Scripture. Papal law was contrasted with Christ's commands. For example, the character Karsthans responded to a recitation of 1 Timothy 4:1–4 with the comment, "These words are against the papal law, in which, as I hear and the clergy preach, it is forbidden to eat meat, eggs, and milk on fast days and [it is stated] that clergy should not have wives." The character Sickingen agreed that the words of 1 Timothy 4 were indeed opposed to the papal law. Unfortunately, however, "it has come to the point where more attention is now paid to what the pope institutes than to what Christ himself says with his own mouth and [what] the apostles have said and written. And the pope is served with greater fear than God Himself." That was what the clergy believed and taught, Sickingen asserted, and they thereby perverted "the legitimate Holy Scripture with their human, indeed devilish decretals."[90] At another point Sickingen observed that, although the papal law was illegitimate and should be rejected, it was given precedence over the commands of God. Christ himself had excoriated the Jews for just such a practice of violating God's commandments for the sake of human laws.[91] Further on Sickingen deplored the fact that the papal law was considered to be completely firm and constant while the gospel and Christ's teaching was given little respect. One could see this in the widespread opinion, he remarked, that to eat meat on Friday was an "unchristian, evil thing," although this was not God's prohibition but rather the pope's.[92]
This attack is strongly reminiscent of Erasmus's insistence on a simple, scripturally based Christianity. This impression is reinforced
by a prototypically Erasmian attack in New Karsthans on external ceremonies. They were unnecessary, the author observed. Christians should rather serve God spiritually and confine their external activity to good works.[93] The author of New Karsthans was still operating with traditional categories, although in a humanist vein. His objection was not to a reliance on law per se but only to a reliance on false, man-made laws and especially ecclesiastical law. In fact, he sought above all to champion "divine law and commandments," which he equated with God's "wholesome faith."[94] Tradition or custom was rejected in favor of the teachings of Christ and the apostles.[95] Christ was a teacher and example to the clergy.[96] Divine law was not to be sullied by human additions; but the role of the divine law was viewed in completely positive terms. The problem was the burden of ecclesiastical law, not law generally. God was implored to rescue them from the "papal oppression and the wantonness of the clergy, who with their arrogant, irritating life have scandalously suppressed your divine word and sacrilegiously taken from us the wholesome food for souls [and who] have laid upon us an unbearable burden in the place of your light yoke."[97] This "light yoke" was the teaching and example of Christ, the "divine law." It is crucial to note that the author did not offer his readers Luther's condemnation of all works done in anticipation of reward. More importantly, he did not offer the word of promise as the answer to the challenge of the law, even (or perhaps especially) the challenge of "divine law."
Other treatises also took this more "humanistic" than "Lutheran" approach to law and works. The author of A Beautiful Dialogue , who may be the same person as the presumed author of New Karsthans , namely Martin Bucer, used Scripture to criticize the clergy and the institutional church, for Scripture was seen as the source of divine law, which took precedence over all human laws of the church. When he stated that Luther "grounds all his writings in right faith and out of the holy gospel and out of Saint Paul's teaching and leads us out of many entanglements into which the clergy has for a long time gotten us on account of money and goods,"[98] the clerical entanglements that he had in mind was the ecclesiastical law, concerning which he remarked, "I am concerned [that] there is little in it of God's law."[99] On this basis he proceeded to criticize the clergy and many clerical practices.
The student Laux Gemigger suggested that Luther had taught "Christ's teaching," namely, "how we have turned from good to evil," and had laid out the "teaching of the evangelists . . . without addi-
tions." The additions were, of course, human laws. Luther was "sent by God to teach us God's word and good morals and to drive out the Antichrist here on earth, also to see to it that God's word not be completely spoiled and that the Roman tyranny be recognized, that they should have no kingdom here on earth."[100]
While New Karsthans, A Beautiful Dialogue , and Laux Gemigger's To the Praise of Luther did not even mention salvation by faith alone, Hartmuth von Cronberg's Rejection did attempt to explain the relation between salvation by faith alone and good works. Luther had given everyone the power to become a child of God and an inheritor of his eternal kingdom, Cronberg began, because
he who believes that is assured and his God will lead him and keep him on his way. There may be no doubt: no one who believes in Christ rightly may be ungrateful for such magnificent grace. For this reason we wish to be thankful to our Lord Christ for the magnificent grace that he has shown to us his unworthy creatures. Therefore we must be attentive to the works that please the Lord God the most and on which the whole Christian foundation stands. That is to love God with all the strength of body, mind, and soul and [to love] the neighbor as our selves.[101]
But as this excerpt shows, Cronberg was still operating largely with a contrast between the divine law of love and human laws. Cronberg set the two great commandments taught by Christ against the ecclesiastical laws of the pope. If the pope could be led from "human wisdom" to the "true wisdom," "the divine Christian wisdom," he would virtuously desist from "all unchristian laws." All self-seeking would be transformed into "the most sweet brotherly love" based on the love of God and neighbor. Justice would be instilled into human hearts and consciences, and there would be less reliance on juridical books because "Christian brotherly love cannot tolerate the interminable legal dealing [Juristery ]."[102] God, for Cronberg, "does not regard the multiplication of external works of pageantry or longer prayers. He wishes that [one] have a good heart. This is what is truly called seeking the kingdom of God."[103]
If in their defense of Luther Cronberg, Gemigger, and the author or authors of New Karsthans and A Beautiful Dialogue viewed the contest largely in terms of "divine law" or Scripture versus "human law," Michael Stifel and the anonymous author of A Pleasant Argument read and represented Luther differently. For them, as for Luther himself, the law disclosed human unworthiness and drove one to God's unmerited gift of forgiveness. "See now, dear man," Stifel wrote, "thus
Luther teaches us to fear God through His law so that we can in no way by our own efforts fulfill the law without His grace." Fear induced humility and a great desire "to run after the grace of God." "But observe what clumsiness is in our doctors," Stifel exclaimed. They raised the cry that Luther "disparages God, the wicked heretic! He says that God demands more from us than we are able. If that were the case, God would be unjust for condemning us on account of that which was beyond our power." "O blindness!" Stifel replied, "Take notice, dear lay person, dear peasant, how these big cheeses understand nothing about either the law of God or His grace!"[104]
Stifel went on to state that Luther taught that the Christian was not bound to do good works but, in the freedom of faith, did good works joyfully. Christian freedom "joyfully fulfills the law." For this reason, Stifel explained, Luther said of the righteous man in Psalm 1 that he was not bound to any work nor to any time. Rather he freely did what the law required. "That is truly the correct teaching of the spirit of freedom," Stifel insisted, citing 1 John 2 and 2 Corinthians 3. There was freedom where there was the spirit of the lord. "From this it follows that a work done in the conviction that it is necessary . . . is a work contrary to Christian freedom. It is a work of presumption. It goes against the Holy Spirit."[105]
To be sure, Stifel explained, Luther was criticized by his enemies because he taught that good works outside of grace were sins, but for Stifel salvation itself hung on this point. "Everything that occurs before grace is sin and nothing good because it is mere human work which God does not reward other than by appearance." Stifel explained that just as such works had an appearance of goodness, God gave for them temporal reward, that is, an appearance of a reward. "But in truth it is more a punishment," he said, "since the human being misuses it as all other things before he is in grace." But now that Luther had taught such things, his enemies cried against him "as the Jews did against Christ." The Jews said that Christ could not be sent from God because he broke the Sabbath. In the same way, Luther's opponents said that Luther could not be a messenger from God because he rejected praying, fasting, the giving of alms, and so on. He was a heretic. "God willing," concluded Stifel, "may I die on account of the confession of such a heresy, namely, on account of the honor of God and His Grace."[106] Stifel seemed relatively unconcerned about the confusion and outrage that was occasioned by this rejection of works apart from grace.
Not so the author of A Pleasant Argument . He took some pains to lay out his understanding of Luther's position and to protect it from misunderstanding. In the dialogue, the nobleman challenged the curialist. "Doctor Luther teaches that one may not do good works because one may not earn heaven though good works. Also, that one can do no good work without sin. If this is the case, why are you always talking about good works?"[107] The curialist replied that the nobleman had not understood Luther and was doing him an injustice. Luther never forbade people to do good works. "If you wish to read him, you must understand him correctly for Luther is never against the Gospel and Paul, who teach us that we should do good works."[108] When challenged by the burgher to make sense of this, the curialist urged the burgher and nobleman to read Luther's Instruction Concerning Several Articles That Were Attributed To Him By His Opponents . "There you will find that he thinks a great deal of good works and although it is indeed true that one cannot come to salvation through works, nevertheless works are necessary for salvation, for Christ has commanded us to work in his vineyard."[109] The curialist then went on to explain Luther's position as he understood it. Luther's opinion was that "external works such as fasting, going to church, giving alms, doing pilgrimage, endowing masses and benefices" were insufficient in themselves for salvation. The human being was unable to become holy through such things, however many of them he did. "This must be understood," the curialist said, "for good works do not make the human being justified (because a wicked, lost person can also do good works)." If the human being wished to be saved, he had to be just beforehand. This could not happen through works but only through God's grace, which relieved the human being. "And it is indeed a false delusion," the curialist said, "when one takes it upon oneself to earn God's favor and grace through one's good works, for the grace of God comes solely from the free inspiration of God without our merit but rather out of His mercy."[110] The curialist went on to say that once we had grace, that grace worked in us so that we did good works. So people did Luther an injustice when they said that he rejected fasting, confessing, alms giving, and the like.