Grace. Law. Righteousness. Faith. These key terms, expressed in Martin Luther’s Death to the Law, encompass much of Luther’s theology and its relationship to Paul’s letters. This paper will explain how Luther’s use of the aforementioned terms has parallels with Paul’s writings, yet Luther’s theology is a significant departure from Paul’s.
Beginning with the Law, Luther aligns with Paul that faith in Christ is separate from works of the Law, while also pointing out that Paul redresses the term ‘grace’ to mean ‘Law’ — though as an ironic opposition to Mosaic Law. Therefore, grace itself must also be apart from works of the Law and cannot be merited at any time (382).
In short, Paul summarizes the Law in Galatians as what is received when being initiated by circumcision into Judaism and then living according to the Torah (Saint Leo Module 2). Additionally, between Gal 3:1 – 5:12, Paul uses the story of Abraham’s salvation by faith as an anchor for why circumcision is no longer necessary (Soard 63); this stems from Paul’s earlier comments that “for the law I died to the law…” and “for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (Gal 2:19, 21).
Luther then recapitulates Paul’s view of the Law by stating, “Now if we are dead to the Law…this supports the declaration that Law does not justify, but that only faith in Christ justifies.” However, when it comes to differentiating ‘ceremonial law’ from moral law, Luther takes an even stronger, more negative position about the Law overall than Paul does. In his letters, Paul declares that he in fact upholds the Law (Rom 3:31), encourages keeping the commandments (Gal 5:14), and even considers the Law as “holy and just and good” (Rom 7:12).
And though many NT scholars and even Paul himself differentiate moral law from ritualistic law (Sanders 99, 101), Luther claims that Paul is resoundingly referring to the entire Law, and that the ‘sophists’ who believe otherwise are using law-based injunctions, albeit those involving morality, as a way to support a works-based salvation (382, 383). Luther is certainly correct that Mosaic Law is not the means to salvation through Christ; however, he makes a proof-texting leap by superseding Paul’s own words.
Next, Luther uses the term ‘righteousness’ as something that comes from faith. Moreover, because his commentary includes chiding ‘sophists’, Luther essentially claims that the Catholic view of righteousness is a merit-based path to God’s grace (382). Nevertheless, while Luther’s claim about merit-based salvation is categorically incorrect, as the Council of Trent would later point out, his view of righteousness is also categorically incorrect.
Namely, Luther uses the term ‘righteousness’ (as well as justification) as something exclusively received (380), that it appears not to involve God’s righteousness in the subjective genitive sense. To the contrary, God’s righteousness as a subjective genitive is featured throughout Scripture, including in Old Testament passages such as Ex 12:13, Isa 28:16, and Dan 9:14. (Soards 105; Sanders 141).
Moreover, this same subjective genitive fits well with Paul’s references to righteousness – particularly the ‘righteousness of God’ (2 Cor 5:11-21; Rom 1:16-16; 3:21-26) – and which clearly means “God’s saving power and not human possibility” (Soards 171). Therefore, Luther is limiting the term to his own brand of soteriology. Furthermore, although his works draw on Paul’s letters, as well as St. Augustine’s expansion of ‘righteousness’ to include being ‘made righteous’, Luther nonetheless changes the theology to mean ‘passive righteousness’ (Saint Leo 1, 2).
Luther also appears to adjust the definition of faith to fit his overarching soteriology: As he believes faith is a “gift of God,” he not only stresses that the Law does not lead to justification, but he also declares that “only faith in Christ justifies” (383). In addition, Luther claims that Paul’s aim in preaching salvation through Christ is to abrogate both works of the Law and works themselves. Further, he chastises the idea that faith can be formed by love and even refers to the faith-love connection as a “trick of Satan” (384, 385).
But what does Paul truly say about faith? He calls it a ‘fruit’ of the Spirit (Gal 5:22) that, when connected with charity, leads to “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). Therefore, and when referring back to God’s righteousness, faith is what God’s saving power creates (Rom 3:21-26) – which means faith is not strictly a ‘condition’ for receiving salvation (Soards 171). On top of that, and as it pertains to ‘works’, Paul contradicts Luther’s rather narrow view: Throughout his letters, undisputed or otherwise, Paul makes it quite apparent that works are necessary to cooperating with God’s grace and the salvation received from it (Phil 2:12; Rom 2:6-7; Gal 5:14, 16-26; Eph 2:8-10).
To conclude, Luther and St. Paul share some common understandings of grace, Law, righteousness, and faith. However, Luther quite apparently customizes his theology as a rebuke against the sophists / scholastics he considers “smug” and plagued by “empty dreams” (382). Lastly, Luther’s theology ends up not only a major departure from Paul’s letters, but it also makes him an epitome example of what modern day theologians refer to as ‘creating a canon within a canon’ or building a theology more on eisegesis than exegesis.
Works Cited
Luther, Martin. Death to the Law. Edited by Meeks Wayne A. and Fitzgerald, John T. The Writings of St. Paul, 2d Edition. 2007.
Sanders, E.P. Paul: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Soards, Marion L. The Apostle Paul: An Introduction to his Writings and Teaching. Paulist Press, 1986.
Saint Leo University. Module 2 Lecture Slides. PHI-502. 2024
Saint Leo University. Life and Letters of Paul – The “Righteousness of God” in Romans. THY-532. 2024.