A Lutheran View of the Decalogue

Introduction

From the moment the law was first given, mankind has been unable to keep it, with every human being, in their propensity to sin, falling short of the law of God (Romans 3:23) and drifting into sin. Yet this does not stop the adversary from convincing man to rely on his own strength and reason to be reconciled to God and ultimately attain eternal life. In the fifteen hundred years from Christ to Martin Luther, the Catholic doctrine regarding the necessity of keeping the commandments as an integral part of salvation had grown from loving admonition into a bludgeon that destroyed the spirits of countless people, including the German monk himself. Yet Luther would have a revelation from the Lord, a precise clarity and insight into the Holy Scriptures, given by the Holy Ghost, that would lead him to publicly scorn the decalogue as a means of reaching God. While Doctor Luther certainly considered the Ten Commandments good for civil order,¹ he would diligently work to show from the Scriptures that the law could show mankind their faults and sin but was powerless to lift them to God. To show this in full detail this paper will look at Luther’s background and personal history with the law, and the views of the Lutheran and Catholic churches respectively. Finally, the legacy of the reformation on the Decalogue will be shown within both Catholic and Lutheran traditions.

Luther’s Personal Experience with the law

Luther’s world at home under his parents, and then later in the monastery, was a world defined by the law, obedience to it, crushing discipline, and strictly enforced ridged order. Many accounts of young Martin’s home life include a certain view of the strictness of his father,² a long with a story about his mother beating him with a cane until he was bleeding.³ His life growing up is somewhat of a mystery, as there is not too much information available about his upbringing. But history begins to take notice of his daily routines once Martin enters the monastery and begins to write. In his biography of the man, Booth notes that Luther was under, “the conviction that man could attain righteousness by his own will and action.”⁴ This philosophy caused the young monk to be driven to action to seek assurance for his salvation,⁵ including the extremes of asceticism. Though it wouldn’t be until much later that he would realize the actions he was taking were only service of himself, and not his neighbor.

The theology of the Roman Catholic church at the time⁶ was a theology of works-righteousness. The poor and miserable sinner could only reach beatitude through “right conduct, freely chosen, with the help of God’s law and grace […], and conduct that fulfills the twofold command of charity, […].”⁷ It was left up to man to reach the beatific vision by his own works in this life after baptism. Christ was the one who would judge the man’s works and determine whether or not they were sufficient to reach beatification. And if they were not, and the man still had the temporal consequence of his sin to deal with, he must burn off that temporal consequence in purgatory. Christ’s sacrifice, it would seem to many, was only enough to get the individual to the starting line. From there, though, it was up to that person to run the race, as it were, and finish in an acceptable place.⁸ This thought crushed Martin for many years, as he struggled through the Word of God. Often, as he would read through Scripture, he would encounter the Righteousness of The Lord – perhaps in an epistle – and would consider it a great curse. The Lord demands such a righteousness of us, yet we are unable to ever attain it! His sorrow from reading the Scriptures in the light of Rome in his day was so great that one of his professors, Usingen, once urged him to stop reading the Scripture altogether, calling it a book of sedition!⁹ It wouldn’t be until Luther had his so-called Tower Experience¹⁰ that he would come to understand the place of the Law in the life of the Christian.

Luther and the Lutheran View of the Decalogue

While studying Romans chapter one somewhere between 1518 and 1520, young Doctor Luther would have an epiphany. That despicable word, righteousness, which so often cursed and oppressed him as though it were a demand upon him, would take on new light. Luther would realize, while studying in the bell tower of the monastery where he lived, that the righteousness that God was demanding of us was not a command, but rather a free gift in Christ Jesus. Upon coming to this revelation, Luther would declare that Christians, “are now conquerors of sin, of the law, of death, and of the devil; freed and delivered from all human traditions.”¹¹ Luther would then go on to castigate the law in its entirety. He declared Moses a thundering preacher, saying, “Moses with his law is most terrible; there never was any equal to him in perplexing, affrighting, tyrannizing, threatening, preaching, and thundering; for he lays sharp hold on the conscience, and fearfully works it, but all by God’s express command.”¹² Yet in the same breath that Luther would tear apart completely the man and despise him and his preaching, he would declare that only by expelling Moses could one truly be his friend:

I will have none of Moses with his law, for he is an enemy to my Lord and Saviour Christ. If Moses will go to law with me, I will give him his despatch [sic], and say: Here stands Christ. At the day of judgment Moses will doubtless look upon me, and say: Thou didst understand me rightly, and didst well distinguish between me and the law of faith; therefore we are now friends.¹³

This view of the law as superseded by the Grace and Love of God would become central to Luther and his view of the Decalogue, especially as contrasted over and against Rome. While Luther would initially have a view of the law as primarily good for civil order, he would come to find and situate the law within the Christian life in a meaningful way. Talking about the law, and it’s uses, Luther says, “First, there are the ten commandments of God, Doctrina Doctrinarum, the doctrine of all doctrines, by which God’s will is known, what God will have of us, and what is wanting in us. Secondly, there is the confession of faith in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ.”¹⁴ In this view of the law one can see the primary use of the law (to show man his sin), the secondary use of the law (to order civil righteousness), and the tertiary use of the law (to show mankind how God would will them to behave).

The Primary place of the decalogue for Martin Luther was as an instructive tool to be used to order civility and to teach the Christian the ways in which his life could be pleasing to God. Luther states, “The Decalogue—that is, the ten commandments of God, are a looking glass and brief sum of all virtues and doctrines, both how we ought to behave towards God and also towards our neighbour; that is, towards all mankind.”¹⁵

Never in Luther’s mind, however, could keeping the law be considered as a means of actually reaching salvation. While describing, in one of his table talks, the primary use of the law as a curb against sinful behavior, Luther offers the following thoughts about the law being a means of justification of men before God:

But here some one may object: If the law hinder sin, then it also justifies. I answer: Oh! no, this does not follow; that I do not murder, commit adultery, steal, &c., is not because I love virtue and righteousness, but because I fear the hangman, who threatens me with the gallows, sword, &c. It is the hangman that hinders me from sinning, as chains, ropes, and strong bands hinder bears, lions, and other wild beasts from tearing and rending in pieces all that come in their way.¹⁶

Luther is explicit that there can be no righteous work for God unless that work is motivated out of a pure heart and pure intention, and that to introduce any fear of repercussion into the mixture is to make the work itself sinful and therefore powerless to save.¹⁷ For Luther, then, the chief use of the law is not to save us from our sin, but to make us completely dependent on Christ for salvation by showing us just how deep our sin truly goes. Arand, et al., speaking of the order of Luther’s catechisms, note, “The Reformer explained his reasoning for placing the Decalogue first, the Creed second, and the Lord’s Prayer third, with a comparison to a sick person who must first diagnose the illness […]”¹⁸ before he can do anything else. This presents a stark departure from Roman Catholic doctrine, which gives men the law not as a mirror to diagnose their sickness, or a curb from evil behavior, but as a relentless task master who always sets forward the high bar that man must vault in order to reach God.

Modern Catholicism Contrasted

In the Roman Catholic view, salvation is given to mankind by infused Grace. There is no imputation of righteousness from God. Rather, man must strive with God via this habitual infusion of grace¹⁹ in order that man might be able to act with the love of God. The question is then raised as to what, in this view, acting with the love of God, must look like? According to the Roman Catholic Catechism,²⁰ Christians are no longer under the old law, but are now under a new law, and this new law is “the Grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ.”²¹ What is so fascinating about this particular passage is how opposite to Luther the Roman Catholic church views the law.

In Luther’s view, the law is primarily used as a mirror to show mankind his sinfulness and a curb to his worst desires. This is the thrust of Saint Paul’s argument in the fifth chapter of Romans. The law is given that sin may increase (Romans 5:20), because without the law there can be no transgression. Thus, the purpose of the law is not to fix or heal mankind²² but to show him his deficit, with the added benefit of potentially restraining his behavior.

This is contrasted against the Roman Catholic view which pits the Grace of Christ as new kind of law that “works [itself] through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it[.]”²³ The Gospel itself is even called the Law of the Gospel,²⁴ wherein the human person, through aid of the Holy Spirit, is called upon to fulfill the old law in a new way: Through love and orientation towards God. While there is certainly lip service to Gospel as “the law of love,” noting that the performance of the law is now done out love “love infused by the Holy Spirit,”²⁵ that man may grow closer to God and join Him in Heaven.

This is further complicated in the Catholic view by adding on the traditions of men as necessary for salvation. Now, not only must the Law of God must be followed in a new, more Christian way, but Christians are now required to follow the decrees of the councils,²⁶ at least insofar as they apply to any given person, in any given place or time, and do not conflict with other decrees at other councils which that person, in their conscience, is following.²⁷ This ultimately stems from the Catholic view of Grace as the “free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to His call […].”²⁸ Rather than providing unmerited favor from God, Grace simply provides man with an undeserved help. But help in what?

Luther cautioned that, “We must take good heed that we make not a Moses out of Christ, nor out of Christ a Moses, as often has been done.”²⁹ In a similar vein, the Prophet from Wittenberg also notes that the Catholics themselves admit in their own writings, “what darkness, unbelief, traditions, and ordinances of men we have lived, and in how many conflicts of the conscience we have been ensnared, confounded, and captivated under Popedom.”³⁰ Indeed the Roman Catholics have turned the ten commandments from a mirror and guide into a grave obligation.³¹ The Roman Church says that, since the commandments express man’s fundamental duties towards God and neighbor, they shall never pass away and are immutable in all time and everywhere.³² This is contrasted against Luther, who notes:

> The first commandment will stand and remain, that God is our God; this will not be accomplished in the present, but in the life everlasting. All the other commandments will cease and end; for, in the life to come, the world will cease and end together with all external worship of God, all world policy and government; only God and the first commandment will remain everlastingly, both here and there.³³

Conclusion

“The law, with its righteousness, is like a cloud without rain, which promises rain but gives none; even so does the law promise salvation, but gives it not, for the law was not assigned to that end, as St. Paul says, Gal. 3.”³⁴ This Luther quote, said nearly five hundred years ago, continues to outline the stark differences between the Lutheran church and the Roman church even to this day. Man is unable to keep the law perfectly or by its keeping attain any kind of salvation. This does not yet stop the Roman Catholic church from teaching that man must keep both the laws of God and the laws of men as outlined in councils and decrees in order to achieve the salvation of God. While the call of Luther continues to echo throughout the corridors of time,³⁵ encouraging man to not trust in his own efforts but to trust solely in the effort of Christ Jesus alone. This Gospel must continue to be preached to the ends of the earth, for wherever man is, there will be found with him the opinio legis, and thus the need for the free Grace of Christ.

Bibliography

Arand, Charles P., Robert Kolb, and James A. Nestingen. The Lutheran Confessions: History and Theology of The Book of Concord. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012.

Booth, Edwin P. Martin Luther: The Great Reformer. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 2000.

Koehler, Edward W. A. A Summary of Christian Doctrine. Third Revised Edition. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2006.

Luther, Martin, and Alexander Chalmers. The Table Talk of Martin Luther: New Edition, to Which Is Added, The Life of Martin Luther, with Additions from Michelet and Audin. Edited by

William Hazlitt. Translated by William Hazlitt. London: H. G. Bohn, 1857.

McCain, Paul Timothy, W H T Dau, and F Bente. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions: A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2006.

Nestingen, James Arne. Martin Luther: His Life and Teachings. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004.

U.S. Catholic Church. Catechism of The Catholic Church. New York, NY: Penguin Random House, 1995.

Footnotes

1. James Nestingen, Martin Luther: His Life and Teachings (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004), 99. ↩︎
2. Something which many suspect Martin never truly recovered from based on his seeming distance from his father, and his willingness to air his dirty laundry with the man in his public writings. ↩︎
3. The author regrets not having a citation for this. It is something he has run across in several biographies but has yet to find the primary source for – though it is apparently a direct quote. ↩︎
4. Edwin P. Booth, Martin Luther: The Great Reformer (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 2000), 40. ↩︎
5. Ibid. ↩︎
6. The author would note that in his research he discovered that the Papists’ doctrine on this front (works-based salvation) hasn’t “developed” much in the last half millennia, and thus the current edition Catholic Catechism is sufficient. This will be more fully touched on later. ↩︎
7. Catholic Church, Catechism of The Catholic Church (New York, NY: Penguin Random House, 1995), 13. ↩︎
8. It is from this theology that one can see how easily a cult of the saints sprang up amongst the medieval Roman church. This Jesus character was a harsh and impenetrable figure, distant and angry. But His mother? Surely, she must be caring and soft, as is the wont of mothers everywhere. And surely, she must hold at least sway over this dictatorial Son of hers. Perhaps one could pray instead to her…. ↩︎
9. Booth, Martin Luther, 40. ↩︎
10. The author will not spend time on the Tower Experience, as he assumes his readers will be familiar. Rather, let it be sufficient to say that Luther’s mind was most definitely changed regards the Grace of Christ. ↩︎
11. William Hazlitt, The Table Talk of Martin Luther: New Edition, to Which Is Added, The Life of Martin Luther, with Additions from Michelet and Audin (London: H. G. Bohn, 1857), 140. ↩︎
12. Ibid., 133. ↩︎
13. Ibid., 134. ↩︎
14. Hazlitt, Table Talk, 125. ↩︎
15. Ibid., 126. ↩︎
16. Ibid., 130. ↩︎
17. Ibid. ↩︎
18. Arand, Charles P., Robert Kolb, and James A. Nestingen, The Lutheran Confessions: History and Theology of The Book of Concord (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 76. ↩︎
19. Catholic Church, Catechism, 538. ↩︎
20. The author would note that the source for the section of the paper was quite literally his own question when reading through the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And the answer was provided in the same catechism by a handy little cross-reference. ↩︎
21. Catholic Church, Catechism, 531. ↩︎
22. For who loses a disordered desire upon learning the desire is against the law? An pyromaniac, for example, does not lose his love of fire or of watching things burn, upon learning that arson is illegal. Rather, the law only functions here for him as a restraint to keep him from burning down homes – he knows that doing so results in punishment! Likewise, the law (burning down people’s houses for no reason is bad) also shows him that, according to a standard greater than himself, his desire is disordered. Again, this law does not remove the disordered desire, but simply shows it to the man and offers a way of constraining it. ↩︎
23. Catholic Church, Catechism, 531. ↩︎
24. Ibid. ↩︎
25. Ibid., 533. ↩︎
26. Ibid. ↩︎
27. The author here sincerely wishes he was arguing against Roman Catholicism in bad faith and intentionally misquoting the catechism, but he unfortunately is not. ↩︎
28. Catholic Church, Catechism, 538 (emphasis added). ↩︎
29. Hazlitt, Table Talk, 140. ↩︎
30. Ibid., 139. ↩︎
31. Catholic Church, Catechism, 539. ↩︎
32. Ibid. ↩︎
33. Hazlitt, Table Talk, 128. ↩︎
34. Hazlitt, Table Talk, pp. ↩︎
35. Not a Molinism reference. ↩︎

Remy Sheppard

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Remy is a graduate of Liberty University and currently attends American Lutheran Theological Seminary, where he is pursuing a Master of Divinity. When he isn't podcasting, Remy spends his time playing video games with his wife Samantha, and tending to his gaggle of cats.

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