In Luther’s confessing of the faith we have an excellent example to follow. When von der Ecken asked Luther if he would affirm or retract what he written, the professor from Wittenberg requested time to think about his answer. He explained that he did not want to “assert less than the cause demands or more than accords with the truth.” In addition, he wanted to ensure that he would not “come under Christ’s judgment” by denying the Savior before the world.[1] Confessing the faith, Luther demonstrated, is important business that requires great care. The next day, after prayer and meditation, Luther did what a child of God does. He confessed. He believed, and therefore he spoke (2 Cor 4:13), for the glory of God and the benefit of others. The Word that had conquered his heart sounded forth from his lips. It’s true that he did not have opportunity at the Diet of Worms to explain what the Scriptures teach about the righteousness that matters before God, given the strictures placed on him. However, he did confess that he still believed what he had written about the way to life with God. The good news of righteousness through faith alone by grace alone was more important to him than his status in the church or the empire. Recanting the good news would have robbed God of his glory as the Savior of unworthy sinners and would have caused many to stumble.
Luther realized the gift he had been given by God, this understanding of righteousness received through faith in Christ. He felt an obligation to proclaim it to others. That obligation did not arise from the law, that is, from a demand God made of him if he wished to remain in God’s good graces. It came from the gospel. The Holy Spirit, in convincing Luther that life with God came as a gift, changed Luther’s view of those around him. Instead of using them as means to an end, as objects to be served primarily to gain something from God, he was free to spend his life in service to his neighbors, for their benefit, as God’s instrument to bless them.[2] Luther had been freed to serve. For him that meant proclaiming the good news of righteousness through faith in Christ to those who had been taught to produce their own righteousness. Through the gospel, Luther believed, the Lord would accomplish great things. In a letter to Spalatin in January 1521, Luther expressed his confidence in the Lord’s working through the Word: “I would not fight for the gospel with force and slaughter. The world is overcome by the Word, the Church is saved, and will even be reformed, by the Word, and Antichrist also will hereafter, as formerly, be restrained without violence by the Word.”[3] Luther trusted the Lord’s promises about his gospel, that it was “the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16 NIV).
We have been given a special treasure in the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone. By the grace of God, we believe, teach, and confess that we do not need to participate in the acquisition of righteousness by our obedience to God’s commands. From beginning to end, God does everything. It does not depend in even the smallest way on us: on our asking Jesus into our heart or our putting aside sin or our leading a new life. We are beggars. We receive what the Lord freely gives through Spirit-worked faith. Most in our world do not know the unconditional gospel. We do, because of God’s grace. It is our joyful obligation to confess the righteousness of faith in Jesus to those around us, for their benefit, that they may join us in praising the God who loves undeserving sinners and rescued them in Christ. Christ’s love for us, and for all, compels us. We imitate Luther’s faith when we trust the Lord’s promise to work through his gospel. Whenever the gospel is proclaimed, the Lord sends his Holy Spirit, “who produces faith, where and when he wills, in those who hear the gospel.”[4] The Lord does not ask us for results; he asks only that we be faithful with the life-giving gospel he has planted in our hearts and placed in our mouths.
[1]. LW 32:107.
[2]. Heiko Oberman expresses it this way: “Only when the crippling fear of not being saved and the anxious egotism of achieving one’s salvation have been overcome by faith does the welfare of the world come into view. The gift of justification releases man from his greed for rewards and enables the believer to be truly pious ‘for nothing’—not from fear of punishment and Hell but to the greater glory of God and ‘to the benefit of one’s neighbor.’” Oberman, 206. Charles Arand and Joel Biermann point out that the medieval church’s teaching of righteousness by works “both undermined salvation and failed the neighbor. It failed the neighbor because it required that I instrumentalize or objectify my neighbor by using him in order to obtain my salvation.” Charles P. Arand and Joel Biermann, “Why the Two Kinds of Righteousness?” Concordia Journal 33 (2007), 121.
[3]. Luther’s Correspondence, 442. In a sermon delivered in March 1522, soon after he returned to Wittenberg from his time at the Wartburg, Luther spoke about his confidence in the gospel’s power: “Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and 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.” LW 51:77.
[4]. AC V, 3.