The Gentiles Justified Without the Law, Even When the Law and Policy of Moses Was Yet in Force

Therefore God, long before, when the kingdom of Moses was yet standing and flourishing, did show that he justifies men without the law, as in deed he justified many kings in Egypt & in Babylon: also Job and many other nations of the East. Moreover, Nineveh a great city was justified and received the promise of God, that it should not be destroyed, but should be preserved. By what means? Not because it heard & fulfilled the law, but because it believed the word of God which the prophet Jonah preached. For so says the prophet: And the Ninevites believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth: that is: they repented. Our adversaries do craftily skip over these words: They believed, and yet the effect of altogether rests therein. You read not in Jonah: And the Ninevites received the law of Moses, were circumcised, offered up sacrifice, fulfilled the works of the law, but believing the word, they repented in sackcloth and ashes.

This was done before Christ was revealed, when as yet that faith reigned which believed in Christ that was to come. If then the Gentiles were justified without the law, & received secretly the Holy Spirit when the policy of the law was yet in force, why now should the law be required as necessary for the obtaining of righteousness, which by the coming of Christ is already abolished? This is therefore a sure and a strong argument grounded upon the experience of the Galatians: Whether did you receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith preached? For they were compelled to grant, that they heard nothing of the Holy Spirit before the preaching of Paul, but when he preached the Gospel, then received they the Holy Spirit.

So we also at this day, convicted by the testimony of our own conscience, are constrained to confess, that the Holy Spirit is not given by the law but by the hearing of faith. For many heretofore in Popery have gone about with great labor and study, to keep the law, the decrees of the fathers, and the traditions of the Pope: and some with painful and continual exercises in watching, fasting, and praying, etc., did so wear and consume their bodies that they were able to sustain no labor: whereby notwithstanding they gained nothing else but that they miserably afflicted and tormented themselves. They could never attain to this, to have a quiet conscience and peace in Christ, but continually they doubted of God's good will toward them. But now, since the Gospel teaches that the law and works justify not, but faith alone in Jesus Christ, there follows a most certain knowledge and understanding, a most joyful conscience and true judgment of every kind of life, and of all things else whatever. The believing man may now easily judge that the Papacy with all the orders and traditions thereof is wicked: which before he could not do. For so great blindness reigned in the world, that we thought those works which men had devised, not only without the will of God, but also contrary to his commandment, to be much better than those, which the magistrate, the householder, the child, the servant did at the commandment of God.

Doubtless we ought to have learned by the word of God, that the religious orders of the Papists (which only they call holy) are wicked, since there is no commandment of God at all, or testimony in the holy scriptures approving the same. Contrariwise other orders of life which have the word and warrant of God, are holy & ordained of God. But we were then wrapped in such horrible darkness, that we could not truly judge of any thing. But now at the appearing of the clear light of the Gospel, all kinds of life in the world are under our judgment, which is most certain & infallible. We may boldly pronounce out of the word of God, that the condition of servants, which before the world is most vile, is far more acceptable to God than all the religious orders of the Papists. For by his word he commends, approves, and sets forth the state of servants, and so does he not, the orders of Monks, Friars, and such other. Therefore this argument grounded upon experience ought to stand in much force with us also. For although diverse men in Popery wrought sundry and diverse works both great and painful, yet could they never be sure what was the will of God toward them, but they were always in doubt: they could never attain to the knowledge of God, of themselves, of their calling, nor felt the testimony of the spirit in their hearts. But now that the truth of the Gospel appears, they are fully instructed by the only hearing of faith, in all these things.

It is not without cause that I do so largely treat of these matters. For it seems to man's reason but a light and a small matter to purchase the Holy Spirit by the only hearing of faith, and that nothing else is required of us but that we, setting apart all our works, should give ourselves only to the hearing of the Gospel. Man's heart does not understand nor believe that so great a price, namely the Holy Spirit, is given by the only hearing of faith: but reasons after this sort: Forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death, the giving of the Holy Spirit, of righteousness and everlasting life, are great things: therefore if you will obtain these inestimable benefits, you must perform some other great and weighty matter. This opinion the devil does well like and approve, & also increases the same in the heart. Therefore when reason hears this: You can do nothing for the obtaining of sins, but must only hear the word of God, by and by it cries out & says: Fie, you make too small an account of the remission of sins, etc. So the inestimable greatness of the gift is the cause that we cannot believe it: and because this incomparable treasure is freely offered, therefore it is despised.

But this must we learn, that forgiveness of sins, Christ, and the Holy Ghost are freely given to us at the only hearing of faith preached, notwithstanding our horrible sins and demerits. And we must not weigh, how great the thing is that is given, and how unworthy we are of it (for so should the greatness of the gift and our unworthiness terrify us): but we must think that it pleases God freely to give to us this unspeakable gift: to us (I say) who are unworthy, as Christ in Luke says: Fear not little flock: for it is your Father's pleasure to give to you (Luke 12:32): (Lo, to give to you, says he) a kingdom. To whom? To you unworthy, who are his little flock. If I then be little and the thing great (in fact rather of all things the greatest) which God has given to me, I must thus think, that he also is great and only great, who gives it. If he offers it and will give it, I consider not my own sin and unworthiness, but his fatherly good will toward me who is the giver, and I receive the greatness of the gift with joy and gladness, and am thankful for so inestimable a gift given freely to me, to me (I say) unworthy, by the hearing of faith.

Here again foolish reason is offended and reproves us saying: Where you teach men to do nothing at all for the obtaining of so great and unspeakable a gift, but to hear the word of God, this seems to tend to the great contempt of grace and to make men secure, idle and dissolute, so that they slack their hands and do no good at all. Therefore it is not good to preach this doctrine, for it is not true: but men must be urged to labor and to exercise themselves to righteousness, and then shall they obtain this gift. This very same thing the Pelagians in times past objected against the Christians. But hear what Paul says in this place: You have received the Holy Ghost: not by your own labor and travail, not by the works of the law, but by the hearing of faith. Briefly, hear what Christ himself says, and what he answers to Martha, being very careful and hardly bearing, that her sister Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing his word, should leave her to minister alone. Martha, Martha (says he) you care and are troubled about many things, but one thing is needful (Luke 11:45). Mary has chosen the good part which shall not be taken from her. A man therefore is made a Christian, not by working but by hearing. Therefore he that will exercise himself to righteousness, let him first exercise himself in hearing the gospel. Now, when he has heard and received the Gospel, let him give thanks to God with a joyful and a glad heart, and afterward let him exercise himself in those good works which are commanded in the law, so that the law and works may follow the hearing of faith. So may he quietly walk in the light which is Christ, and boldly choose and do works, not hypocritical, but good works indeed, such as he knows to please God and to be commanded of him, and contemn all those hypocritical shadows of free will works.

Our adversaries think that faith whereby we receive the Holy Ghost, is but a light matter: but how high and hard a matter it is I myself do find by experience, and so do all they which with me do earnestly embrace the same. It is soon said that by the only hearing of faith, the Holy Ghost is received: but it is not so easily heard, laid hold on, believed and retained, as it is said. Therefore if you hear of me that Christ is that Lamb of God sacrificed for your sins, see also that you hear it effectually. Paul purposely calls it the hearing of faith, and not the word of faith (although there be small difference): that is, such a word as you hearing do believe, so that the word be not only my voice, but may be heard of you, and may enter into your heart, and be believed of you: then is it truly and indeed the hearing of faith, through which you receive the Holy Ghost: which after you have once received, you shall also mortify your flesh.

The faithful do find by their own experience how gladly they would hold and embrace the word when they hear it, with a full faith, and abandon this opinion of the law and of their own righteousness: but they feel in their flesh a mighty resistance against the spirit. For reason and the flesh will needs work together. This saying: You must be circumcised and keep the law, cannot be utterly rooted out of our minds, but it sticks fast in the hearts of all the faithful. There is therefore in the faithful a continual conflict between the hearing of faith and the works of the law. For the conscience always murmurs and thinks, that this is too easy a way, that by the only hearing of the word, righteousness, the Holy Ghost and life everlasting is promised to us. But come once to an earnest trial thereof, and then tell me how easy a thing it is to hear the word of faith. Indeed he who gives is great: moreover he gives great things willingly and freely, and upbraids no man therewith: but your capacity is hard, and faith weak, still striving against you, so that you are not able to receive this gift. But let your conscience murmur against you never so much, and let this [Must] come never so often into your mind, yet stand fast and hold out until you overcome this [Must]. So, as faith increases by little and little, that opinion of the righteousness of the law will diminish. But this cannot be done without great conflict.

Verse 3. Are you so foolish, that after you have begun in the spirit, you would now finish or be made perfect by the flesh?

This argument being concluded, how that the Holy Ghost comes not by the works of the law, but through the preaching of faith: he begins here to exhort the Galatians, and to terrify them from a double danger and inconvenience. The first is: Are you so foolish that after you have begun in the spirit, you would now end in the flesh? The other follows: Have you suffered so great things in vain? As if he said: You began in the spirit: that is, your religion was excellently well begun. As also a little after he says: You ran well, etc. But what have you gotten thereby? In truth you will now end in the flesh, yea rather you are ended in the flesh.

Paul here sets the spirit against the flesh. He calls not the flesh (as before I have said) lust, beastly passions, or sensual appetites: for he treats not here of lust or of other fleshly desires: but of forgiveness of sins, of justifying the conscience, of obtaining righteousness before God, of deliverance from the law, sin, and death: and yet notwithstanding he says here, that they, forsaking the spirit, do now end in the flesh. Flesh therefore is here taken for the very righteousness and wisdom of the flesh and the judgment of reason, which goes about to be made righteous by the law. Whatever then is best and most excellent in man (as the wisdom of reason, indeed, and the righteousness of the law itself) the same here Paul calls flesh.

And this place must be well weighed and considered, because of the slanderous and caviling Papists, which wrest the same against us, saying that we in Popery began in the spirit, but now, having married wives, we end in the flesh. As though a single life, or not to have a wife were a spiritual life: and as though it nothing hindered their spiritual life, if a man not contented with one whore, have many. They are mad men, not understanding what the spirit, or what the flesh is. The spirit is whatever is done in us through the spirit: the flesh, whatever is done in us according to the flesh without the spirit. Therefore all the duties of a Christian man, as to love his wife, to bring up his children, to govern his family, and such like, which to them are worldly and carnal, are the fruits of the spirit. These blind buzzards can not discern the things, which are the good creatures of God, from vices.

Here also is to be noted, that the Apostle says, the Galatians did begin in the spirit. He should here have added actively: Nunc carne consummatis? that now you end in the flesh? But he does not so: but says passively, carne consummamini: that you end, indeed, or rather are ended in the flesh? The righteousness of the law which Paul here calls the flesh, is so far from justifying, that they which after the receiving of the Holy Spirit through the hearing of faith, fall back again to it, are ended in it, that is to say, are utterly destroyed. Therefore whoever teaches that the law ought to be fulfilled to this end, that men might be justified thereby, while they go about to quiet their consciences, they hurt them, and while they would justify them, they condemn them.

Paul evermore by the way has a glance at these false apostles, for they still urged the law, saying: Faith only in Christ takes not away sin, pacifies not the wrath of God, justifies not: Therefore if you will obtain these benefits, you must not only believe in Christ: but therewith you must also keep the law, be circumcised, keep the feasts, sacrifices, etc. Thus doing you shall be free from sin, from the wrath of God, from everlasting death: indeed rather (says Paul) by the self same things you establish unrighteousness, you provoke the wrath of God, you add sin to sin, you quench the spirit, you fall away from grace, and utterly reject the same, and you together with your disciples do end in the flesh. This is the first danger, from which he terrifies the Galatians, lest if they seek to be justified by the law, they lose the spirit, and forgo their good beginnings for a wretched end.

Verse 4. Have you suffered so many things in vain?

The other danger and inconvenience is this: Have you suffered so many things in vain? As though he would say: Consider not only how well you began, and how miserably you have forsaken your good beginnings, and your course well begun: moreover, that not only you have lost the first fruits of the spirit, being fallen again into the ministry of sin and death, and into a doleful and a miserable bondage of the law: but consider this also, that you have suffered much for the Gospel's sake, and for the name of Christ: to wit, the spoiling of your goods, railings and reproaches, dangers both of bodies and lives, etc. All things were in a happy course and great forwardness with you. You taught purely, you lived holily, and you endured many evils constantly for the name of Christ. But now all is lost, as well doctrine as faith, as well doing as suffering, as well the spirit as the fruits thereof.

Hereby it appears sufficiently what inconvenience the righteousness of the law and man's own righteousness brings: to wit, that they which trust in it, do lose at once unspeakable benefits. Now, what a miserable thing is it, so suddenly to lose such inestimable glory and assurance of conscience toward God? Also to endure so many great and grievous afflictions, as loss of goods, wife, children, body, and life, and yet notwithstanding to sustain all these things in vain? And out of these two places, much matter may be gathered to set forth and amplify at large the goodly commendation of the law and man's own righteousness, if a man would stand upon every parcel by itself, and declare what spirit it was wherewith they began: what, how great, and how many the afflictions were which they endured for Christ's sake. But no eloquence can sufficiently set forth these matters. For they are inestimable things whereof Paul here treats: to wit the glory of God, victory over the world, the flesh and the devil, righteousness and everlasting life: and on the other side, sin, desperation, eternal death, and hell. And yet notwithstanding in a moment we lose all these incomparable gifts, and procure to ourselves these horrible and endless miseries, and all by false teachers, when they lead us away from the truth of the gospel to false doctrine. And this not only they do easily bring to pass, but also under the show of great holiness.

Verse 4. If notwithstanding it be in vain.

This he adds as a correction: whereby he mitigates the reprehension that goes before, which was somewhat sharp. And this he does as an Apostle, lest he should terrify the Galatians too much. Although he chides them, yet notwithstanding he always does it in such sort, that he pours in sweet oil withal, lest he should drive them to desperation.

He says therefore: If notwithstanding it be in vain. As if he would say: yet I do not take away all hope from you: but if you would so end in the flesh, that is to say, follow the righteousness of the law and forsake the spirit, as you have begun: then know you, that all your glory and confidence which you have in God, is in vain, and all your afflictions are unprofitable. Indeed I must needs speak somewhat more roughly to you in this matter: I must be more fervent in the defense thereof, and more sharp in chiding of you, especially the matter being so weighty, and constraining me to that, lest you should think it to be but a trifle to cast away the doctrine of Paul, and receive another. Notwithstanding, I will not utterly discourage you, so that you repent and amend. For sickly and scabby children may not be cast away, but must be helped and seen to more carefully than they which are in health. So that Paul here like a cunning Physician, lays all the fault in a manner, upon the false Apostles, the authors and only cause of this deadly disease. Contrariwise he entreats the Galatians very gently, to the end that by this his mildness he might heal them, and restore them again. We therefore by the example of Paul, ought in like manner to rebuke the weak, and so to heal and remove their disease, that in the mean time we leave not off to cherish and comfort them, lest if we handle them too sharply, they fall into desperation.

Verse 5. He therefore that ministers to you the spirit, and works miracles among you, does he it through the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith preached?

This argument grounded upon the experience of the Galatians does so well please the Apostle, that after he has rebuked and terrified them, setting before them a double danger and inconvenience, he now repeats the same again, and that with a more large amplification, saying: He which ministers, etc. That is to say: You have not only received the spirit by the hearing of faith, but whatever you have either known or done, you have it by the hearing of faith. As though he would say: It was not enough that God gave you once the spirit: but the same God also has enriched you with the gifts of the spirit, and increased the same in you, to the end that you having once received the spirit, it might always grow and be more and more effectual in you. Hereby it is plain, that the Galatians had worked miracles, or at the least had shown such fruits of faith as the true disciples of the gospel are wont to bring forth. For the Apostle elsewhere says, that the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. Now, this power is not only to be able to speak of the kingdom of God: but also in very deed to show that God through his spirit is effectual in us. So, before in the second chapter he says of himself: He that was effectual in Peter among the Jews, was also effectual in me: he that was mighty by Peter in the apostleship over the circumcision, was also mighty by me towards the Gentiles.

When a preacher then so preaches that the word is not destitute of its fruit, but effectual in the hearts of the hearers, that is to say: when faith, hope, love and patience do follow, then God gives his spirit and works miracles in the hearers. In like manner Paul says here, that God has given his spirit to the Galatians, and has wrought miracles among them. As though he would say: God has not only brought to pass through my preaching, that you should believe: but also that you should live holily, bring forth many fruits of faith, and suffer many afflictions. Also by the same power of the Holy Ghost, of adulterers, of wrathful, impatient, and covetous persons, and of very enemies, you are become liberal, chaste, gentle, patient, and lovers of your neighbors. Whereupon afterwards he gives testimony of them in the fourth chapter, that they received him as an Angel of God, yea rather as Christ Jesus: and that they loved him so vehemently that they were ready to have plucked out their own eyes for him.

Now, to love your neighbor so heartily, that you are ready to bestow your money, your goods, your eyes, and all that you have for his salvation: and moreover to suffer patiently all adversities and afflictions, these (no doubt) are the effects and fruits of the spirit, and these (says he) you received and enjoyed before these false teachers came among you. But you received them not by the law, but of God, who so ministered to you, and daily increased in you his holy spirit, that the gospel had a most happy course among you in teaching, believing, working and suffering. Now, seeing you know these things (being convicted even by the testimony of your own consciences), how comes it to pass that you show not forth the same fruits that you did before: that is, that you teach not truly, that you believe not faithfully, that you live not holily, that you work not rightly, and that you suffer not patiently? Finally, who has so corrupted you, that you bear not so loving affection towards me, as you did before? That you receive not Paul now as an Angel of God, nor as Christ Jesus? That you will not pluck out your eyes to give them to me? How comes it to pass (I say) that this fervent zeal of yours grows so cold towards me, and that you now prefer before me the false apostles which do so miserably seduce you?

In like manner it happens to us at this day. When we first preached the gospel, there were very many that favored our doctrine, and had a good and a reverent opinion of us: and after the preaching thereof, followed the operations and effects of faith. But what came then? A sort of light and brain-sick heads sprang up, and by and by destroyed all that we had in long time and with much travail planted before, and also made us so odious to them which before loved us dearly, and thankfully received our doctrine, that now they hate nothing more than our name. But the Devil is the author of this mischief, working in his members contrary signs, which wholly fight against the operations of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, says the Apostle, your experience (O you Galatians) ought to teach you, that these great and excellent miracles proceeded not of the works of the law. For as you had them not before the hearing of faith preached: so have you them not now, although the false apostles reign in the midst of you.

Therefore we also may say to them at this day which vaunt themselves to be gospellers, and to be freed from the tyranny of the Pope: have you overcome the tyranny of the Pope, and obtained liberty in Christ through the Anabaptists and such other fanatical spirits, or through us which have preached faith in Jesus Christ? Here if they will confess the truth, they must needs say: no doubt, it was by the preaching of faith. And true it is, that in the beginning of our preaching, the doctrine of faith had a most happy course, and down fell the Pope's pardons, purgatory, vows, Masses, and such like abominations, which drew with them the ruin of all Popery. No man could justly condemn us: for our doctrine was pure, raising up and comforting many poor consciences, which had been long oppressed with men's traditions under the Papacy: which was a plain tyranny, a racking and crucifying of consciences. Many therefore gave thanks to God, that through the Gospel (which by the grace of God we then first preached) they were so mightily delivered out of these snares, and this slaughterhouse of consciences. But when these new foolish heads sprang up (who went about by all means to work our discredit) then began our doctrine to be evil thought of: for it was commonly bruited abroad, that the professors thereof disagreed among themselves. Whereat many being greatly offended, fell quite from the truth, putting the Papists in comfort, that we together with our doctrine, should shortly come to nothing, and by this means they should recover their former dignity and authority again.

Therefore, like as the false apostles vehemently contended that the Galatians now justified by faith in Christ ought to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses, if they would be delivered from their sins and from the wrath of God, and obtain the Holy Ghost: and yet notwithstanding by the self same means they burdened them the more with sins (for sin is not taken away by the law, neither is the Holy Ghost given through it, but only it works wrath and drives men into great terrors): so at this day these rash heads, which thought to provide for the safety of the Catholic Church, and at once to drive down all Popery, have done no good, but much hurt to the Church: they have not overthrown the Papacy, but have more established it.

But if they had (as they began) with a common consent together with us taught and diligently urged the article of justification: that is to say, that we are justified neither by the righteousness of the law, nor by our own righteousness, but by only faith in Jesus Christ: doubtless this one article by little and little (as it began) had overthrown the whole Papacy, with all her brotherhoods, pardons, religious orders, relics, ceremonies, invocation of Saints, purgatory, Masses, watchings, vows, and infinite other like abominations. But they, leaving off the preaching of faith and true Christian righteousness, have gone another way to work, to the great hindrance both of sound doctrine and of the Churches. Therefore it has happened to them much like as is said in the common Dutch proverb: They have driven away the fish which the net was about to enclose, while they went about to catch them with their hands.

Verse 6. As Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness.

Hitherto Paul grounds his argument upon the experience of the Galatians, and with this argument he presses them vehemently. You (he says) have believed, and believing have done miracles, and have shown many notable signs: and moreover you have suffered many afflictions, all which things are the effects and operations, not of the law, but of the Holy Ghost. This the Galatians were constrained to confess. For they could not deny these things, which were before their eyes and subject to their senses: and therefore this argument grounded upon their own experience is very strong.

Now he adds the example of Abraham, and rehearses the testimony of the scripture. The first is out of Genesis (Genesis 15:6): Abraham believed God, etc. This place the Apostle here mightily prosecutes, as also he does in his epistle to the Romans (Romans 4:2-3). If Abraham (he says) was made righteous by the works of the law, he has righteousness and rejoicing, but not before God, but before men: For before God he has sin and wrath. Now, he was justified before God, not because he did work, but because he did believe. For the scripture says: Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. This place does Paul there notably set out and amplify, as it is most worthy (Romans 4:19-21). Abraham (he says) was not weak in the faith, neither did he consider his own body being dead, when he was almost 100 years old: neither that Sarah was past childbearing. Through unbelief he doubted not of the promise of God, but was made strong in the faith, and gave glory to God, being surely persuaded that whatever God had promised, he was able to perform: therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. And this is written, not only for him, that it was counted to him for righteousness, but for us also, etc.

Paul by these words, Abraham believed, makes the chiefest worship, the chiefest duty, the chiefest obedience and the chiefest sacrifice, of faith in God. Let him that is a rhetorician amplify this place, and he shall see that faith is an almighty thing, and that the power thereof is inestimable and infinite. For it gives glory to God, which is the highest service that can be given to him. Now, to give glory to God, is to believe in him, to count him true, wise, righteous, merciful, almighty, briefly to acknowledge him to be the author and giver of all goodness. Reason does not do this, but faith. That is it which makes us divine people, and (as a man would say) it is the creator of a certain divinity, not in the substance of God, but in us. For without faith God loses in us his glory, wisdom, righteousness, truth, and mercy. To conclude: There no majesty or divinity remains to God, where faith is not. And the chiefest thing that God requires of man is, that he give to him his glory and his divinity: that is to say, that he take him not for an idol, but for God: who regards him, hears him, shows mercy to him, and helps him. This being done, then has God his full and perfect divinity, that is, he has whatever a faithful heart can attribute to him. To be able therefore to give that glory to God, it is the wisdom of wisdoms, the righteousness of righteousnesses, the religion of religions, and sacrifice of sacrifices. Hereby we may perceive, what a high and excellent righteousness faith is, and so by the contrary, what a horrible and grievous sin infidelity is.

Whoever then believes the word of God as Abraham did, is righteous before God, because he has faith, which gives glory to God: that is, he gives to God that which is due to him. For faith says thus: I believe you (O God) when you speak. And what does God say? Impossible things, lies, foolish, weak, absurd, abominable, heretical, and devilish things, if you believe reason. For what is more absurd, foolish and impossible, than when God says to Abraham, that he should have a son of the barren and dead body of his wife Sara?

So, if we will follow the judgment of reason, God sets forth absurd and impossible things when he sets out to us the Articles of the Christian faith. Indeed it seems to reason an absurd and a foolish thing, that in the Lord's supper is offered to us the body and blood of Christ, that baptism is the Laver of the new birth and of the renewing of the Holy Ghost, that the dead shall rise in the last day, that Christ the son of God was conceived and carried in the womb of the virgin Mary, that he was born, that he suffered the most reproachful death of the cross, that he was raised up again, that he now sits at the right hand of God the father, and that he has power both in heaven and in earth. For this cause Paul calls the Gospel of Christ crucified, the word of the cross and foolish preaching, which to the Jews was offensive, and to the Gentiles foolish doctrine, etc. Reason therefore does not understand, that to hear the word of God and to believe it, is the chief service that God requires of us: but it thinks that those things which it chooses and does of a good intent (as they call it) and of her own devotion, please God. Therefore when God speaks, reason judges his word to be heresy, and the word of the Devil, for it seems absurd and foolish.

But faith kills reason, and slays that beast which the whole world and all creatures cannot kill. So Abraham killed it by faith in the word of God, by which word seed was promised him of Sara who was barren and now past child bearing. To this word reason yielded not right away in Abraham, but doubtless it fought against faith in him, judging it to be an absurd, a foolish, and impossible thing that Sara, who was now not only 90 years of age, but also was barren by nature, should bring forth a son. Thus faith (no doubt) wrestled with reason in Abraham, but herein faith got the victory, killed and sacrificed reason, that most cruel and pestilent enemy of God. So all the godly entering with Abraham into the darkness of faith, do kill reason, saying: Reason, you are foolish, you do not savor those things which belong to God: therefore speak not against me, but hold your peace: judge not, but hear the word of God and believe it. So the godly by faith kill such a beast as is greater than the whole world, and thereby do offer to God a most acceptable sacrifice and service.

And in comparison of this sacrifice of the faithful, all the religions of all nations, and all the works of all Monks and meritemongers are nothing at all. For by this sacrifice, first (as I said) they kill reason, a great and mighty enemy of God. For reason despises God, denies his wisdom, righteousness, power, truth, mercy, majesty, and divinity. Moreover, by the same sacrifice they yield glory to God: that is, they believe him to be righteous, good, faithful, true, etc.: they believe that he can do all things, that all his words are holy, true, lively, and effectual, etc., which is a most acceptable obedience to God. Therefore there can be no greater or more holy religion in the world, nor more acceptable service to God, than faith is.

Contrariwise, the Justiciaries, and such as seek righteousness by their own works, lacking Faith, indeed do many things. They fast, they pray, they watch, they lay crosses upon themselves. But because they think to appease the wrath of God and deserve grace by these things, they give no glory to God: that is, they do not judge him to be merciful, true, and keeping promise, etc., but to be an angry judge, which must be pacified with works, and by this means they despise God, they make him as a liar in all his promises, they deny Christ and all his benefits: to conclude, they thrust God out of his seat and set themselves in his place. For, they rejecting and despising the word of God, do choose to themselves such worship and works as God has not commanded. They imagine that God has a pleasure therein, and they hope to receive a reward of him for the same. Therefore they kill not reason, that mighty enemy of God, but quicken it: and they take from God his majesty and his divinity, and attribute the same to their own works. Therefore only faith gives glory to God, as Paul witnesses of Abraham. Abraham (says he) was made strong in the faith, and gave glory to God, being fully assured, that whatever God had promised, he was able to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

It is not without cause that he adds this sentence out of the fifteenth Chapter of Genesis: And it was imputed to him for righteousness. For Christian righteousness consists in two things, that is to say, in faith of the heart, and in God's imputation. Faith is indeed a formal righteousness, and yet this righteousness is not enough: for after faith there remain yet certain remnants of sin in our flesh. This sacrifice of faith began in Abraham, but at last it was finished in his death: And therefore the other part of righteousness must needs be added also to finish the same in us: that is to say, God's imputation. For faith gives not enough to God, because it is imperfect, yea rather our faith is but a little spark of faith, which begins only to render to God his true divinity. We have received the first fruits of the Spirit, but not yet the tenths. Besides this, reason is not utterly killed in this life: which may appear by our concupiscence, wrath, impatience, and other fruits of the flesh, and of infidelity yet remaining in us. Indeed, the holiest that live, have not yet a full and continual joy in God, but have their sundry passions, sometimes sad, sometimes merry, as the Scriptures witness of the Prophets and Apostles. But such faults are not laid to their charge because of their faith in Christ, for otherwise no flesh should be saved. We conclude therefore upon these words: It was imputed to him for righteousness, that righteousness indeed begins through faith, and by the same we have the first fruits of the Spirit: but because faith is weak, it is not made perfect without God's imputation. Therefore faith begins righteousness, but imputation makes it perfect to the day of Christ.

The Popish Sophisters and Schoolmen dispute also of imputation, when they speak of the good acceptation of the work: but besides and clean contrary to the Scripture, for they wrest it only to works. They do not consider the uncleanness and inward poison lurking in the heart, as incredulity, doubting, despising and hating of God, which most pernicious and perilous beasts are the fountain and cause of all mischief. They consider no more but outward and gross faults and unrighteousness, which are little rivers proceeding and issuing out of those fountains. Therefore they attribute acceptation to works: that is to say, that God does accept our works, not of duty, but of congruence. Contrariwise we, excluding all works, do go to the very head of this beast which is called reason, which is the fountain and headspring of all mischiefs. For reason fears not God, it loves not God, it trusts not in God, but proudly despises him. It is not moved either with his threatenings or his promises. It is not delighted with his words or works: but it murmurs against him, it is angry with him, judges and hates him: to be short, it is an enemy to God, not giving him his glory. This pestilent beast (reason I say) being once slain, all outward and gross vices should be nothing.

Therefore we must first and before all things go about by faith, to kill infidelity, the contempt and hatred of God, murmuring against his judgment and his wrath, and against all his words and works: for then do we kill reason, which can be killed by none other means but by faith, which in believing God gives to him his glory, notwithstanding that he speaks those things which seem both foolish, absurd, and impossible to reason: notwithstanding also, that God sets forth himself otherwise than reason is able either to judge or conceive, that is to say, after this manner: I will account you and pronounce you to be righteous, not for the keeping of the law, not for your works and your merits, but for your faith in Jesus Christ my only begotten Son, who was born, suffered, was crucified, and died for your sins: and that sin which remains in you, I will not impute to you. If reason then be not killed, and all kinds of religion and service of God under heaven that are invented by men to get righteousness before God, be not condemned, the righteousness of faith can take no place.

When reason hears this, by and by it is offended: it rages, and utters all her malice against God, saying: Are then my good works nothing? Have I then labored and borne the burden and heat of the day in vain? Hereof rise those uproars of nations, of Kings and Princes, against the Lord and against his Christ (Psalm 2:2). For the world neither will nor can suffer that his wisdom, righteousness, religions and worshippings should be reproved and condemned. The Pope with all his Popish rabble, will not seem to err, much less will he suffer himself to be condemned.

Therefore let them which are studious of the word of God, learn out of this saying: Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, to set forth truly and rightly this true Christian righteousness after this manner: that it is a faith and confidence in the Son of God, or rather a confidence of the heart in God through Jesus Christ. And let them add this clause as a difference: Which faith and confidence is accounted righteousness for Christ's sake. For these two things (as I said before) work Christian righteousness: namely, faith in the heart, which is a gift of God, and rightly believes in Christ: and also, that God accepts this imperfect faith, for perfect righteousness for Christ's sake, in whom I have begun to believe. Because of this faith in Christ, God sees not my doubting of his good will towards me, my distrust, my heaviness of spirit, and other sins which are yet in me. For as long as I live in the flesh, sin is truly in me. But because I am covered under the shadow of Christ's wings, as is the chick under the wing of the hen, and dwell without all fear under that most ample and large heaven of the forgiveness of sins, which is spread over me, God covers and pardons the remnant of sin in me: that is to say, because of that faith with which I began to lay hold upon Christ, he accepts my imperfect righteousness even for perfect righteousness, and counts my sin for no sin, which notwithstanding is sin indeed.

So we shroud ourselves under the covering of Christ's flesh, who is our cloudy pillar for the day, and our fire by the night, lest God should see our sin. And although we see it, and for the same do feel the terrors of conscience, yet flying to Christ our Mediator and reconciler (through whom we are made perfect), we are sure and safe: for as all things are in him, so through him we have all things, who also does supply whatever is wanting in us. When we believe this, God winks at all our sins and the remnants thereof which are yet sticking in our flesh, and will have them so covered as though they were no sins. Because (says he) you believe in my Son, although you have many sins, notwithstanding they must be forgiven you, until you be clean delivered from them by death.

Let Christians learn with all diligence to understand this article of Christian righteousness. And to this end let them read Paul, and read him again both often and with great diligence, and let them compare the first with the last, indeed let them compare Paul wholly and fully with himself: then shall they find it to be true, that Christian righteousness consists in these two things, faith which gives glory to God, and God's imputation. For faith is weak (as I have said) and therefore God's imputation must needs be joined with all, that is to say, that God will not lay to our charge the remnant of sin, that he will not punish it, nor condemn us for it: but that he will cover it and will freely forgive it, as though it were nothing at all: not for our sake, neither for our worthiness and works, but for Jesus Christ's sake in whom we believe.

Thus a Christian man is both righteous and a sinner, holy and profane, an enemy of God and yet a child of God. These contraries no sophist will admit, for they know not the true manner of justification. And this was the cause why they would have men to work well so long until they should feel no sin at all in them: and thereby they gave occasion to many, which, striving with all their endeavor to be perfectly righteous, and yet not able to attain to it, to become stark mad: and an infinite number also of those which were the authors of this wicked opinion, at the point of death were driven into desperation. Which thing had happened to me also, if Christ had not mercifully looked upon me and helped me out of this error.

On the other side, we teach and comfort the afflicted sinner after this manner: Brother, it is not possible for you to become so righteous in this life, that you should feel no sin at all, that your body should be clear like the Sun, without spot or blemish: but you have as yet wrinkles and spots, and yet are you holy notwithstanding. But you will say: How can I be holy when I have and feel sin in me? I answer: in that you do feel and acknowledge your sin, it is a good token, give thanks to God, and despair not. It is one step to health, when the sick man does acknowledge and confess his disease. But how shall I be delivered from sin? Run to Christ the Physician, which heals them that are broken in heart and saves sinners. Follow not the judgment of reason, which tells you that he is angry with sinners: but kill reason and believe in Christ. If you believe, you are righteous, because you give glory to God, that he is almighty, merciful, true, etc.: then do you justify and praise God. To be brief, you yield to him his divinity and all things else. The sin which remains in you is not laid to your charge, but is pardoned for Christ's sake in whom you believe, who is perfectly just: whose righteousness is your righteousness, and your sin is his sin.

Here we see that every Christian is a high Priest, for first he offers up and kills his own reason, and the wisdom of the flesh. Then he gives glory to God, that he is righteous, true, patient, pitiful, and merciful. And this is that daily sacrifice of the new testament which must be offered evening and morning. The evening sacrifice is to kill reason. The morning sacrifice is to glorify God. Thus a Christian daily and continually is occupied in this double sacrifice and in the exercise thereof. And no man is able to set forth sufficiently the excellence and dignity of this Christian sacrifice.

This is therefore a strange and wonderful definition of Christian righteousness, that it is the imputation of God for righteousness or to righteousness because of our faith in Christ or for Christ's sake. When the popish schoolmen hear this definition, they laugh at it. For they imagine that righteousness is a certain quality poured into the soul, and afterward spread into all the parts of man. They cannot put away the vain imaginations of reason, which teaches that a right judgment, and a good will or a good intent is true righteousness. This unspeakable gift therefore exceeds all reason, that God does account and acknowledges him for righteous without works, which embraces his Son by faith alone, who was sent into the world, was born, suffered, and was crucified for us.

This matter, as touching the words, is easy (to wit, that righteousness is not essentially in us, but without us in the grace of God only and in his imputation: and that there is no essential substance of righteousness in us besides that weak faith or first fruits of faith, whereby we have begun to apprehend Christ, and yet sin in that meantime remains verily in us): but in very deed it is no such small or light matter, but earnest and of weighty importance. For Christ which was given for us, and whom we apprehend by faith, has done no small thing for us, neither has he dallied with us, but (as Paul said before): He has loved us and given himself in very deed for us: He was made accursed for us, etc. And this is no vain speculation, that Christ was delivered for my sins, and was made accursed for me, that I might be delivered from everlasting death. Therefore to apprehend that Son by faith, and with the heart to believe in him, given to us and for us of God, causes God to account that faith, although it be imperfect, for perfect righteousness.

And we are altogether in another world, far from reason, where we dispute not what we ought to do, or with what works we may deserve grace and forgiveness of sins: but we are here in a matter of high and heavenly divinity, where we do hear this Gospel or glad tidings, that Christ died for us, and that we believing this, are counted righteous, though sins notwithstanding do remain in us, and that horrible sins. So our Savior Christ also defines the righteousness of faith. The father (says he) loves you. Therefore does he love you? Not because you were Pharisees, unreproachable in the righteousness of the law, circumcised, or because you did good works, and fasted, etc.: but because I have chosen you out of the world, and you have done nothing, but that you have loved me and believed that I came out from the father. This object, being sent from the father into the world, pleased you. And because you have apprehended and embraced this object, therefore the father loves you, and therefore you please him. And yet notwithstanding in another place he calls them evil, and commands them to ask forgiveness of their sins. These two things are quite contrary: to wit, that a Christian is righteous and beloved of God, and yet notwithstanding he is a sinner. For God cannot deny his own nature, that is, he must needs hate sin and sinners: and this he does of necessity: for otherwise he should be unrighteous and love sin. How then can these two contradictories stand together? I am a sinner and most worthy of God's wrath and indignation, and yet the father loves me? Here nothing comes between, but only Christ the mediator. The father (says he) does not therefore love you because you are worthy of love, but because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from him.

Thus a Christian man abides in true humility, feeling sin in him effectually, and confessing himself to be worthy of wrath, the judgment of God, and everlasting death for the same, that he may be humbled in this life: And yet notwithstanding he continues still in his holy pride, in which he turns to Christ, and in him he lifts up himself against this feeling of God's wrath and judgment, and believes that, not only the remnants of sin are not imputed to him, but that also he is loved of the father, not for his own sake, but for Christ's sake whom the father loves.

Hereby now we may see, how faith justifies without works, and yet notwithstanding, how imputation of righteousness is also necessary. Sins do remain in us, which God utterly hates. Therefore it is necessary that we should have imputation of righteousness, which we obtain through Christ and for Christ's sake, who is given to us and received of us by faith. In the meantime, as long as we live here, we are carried and nourished in the bosom of mercy and long-suffering of God, until the body of sin be abolished, and we raised up as new creatures in that great day. Then shall there be new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness shall dwell. In the meantime, under this heaven sin and wicked men do dwell, and the godly also have sin dwelling in them. For this cause Paul (Romans 7) complains of sin which remains in the saints: yet notwithstanding he says afterwards in the 8th chapter: that there is no damnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Now, how shall these things so contrary and repugnant be reconciled together: that sin in us is no sin? That he who is damnable shall not be condemned? That he who is rejected shall not be rejected? That he who is worthy of the wrath of God and everlasting damnation, shall not be punished? The only reconciler hereof is the mediator between God and man, even the man Jesus Christ, as Paul says: There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.

Verse 7. Know therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

This is the general argument and whole disputation of Paul against the Jews, that they which believe are the children of Abraham, and not they which are born of his flesh and his blood. This disputation Paul vehemently prosecutes in this place, and in the 4th and 9th chapters to the Romans. For this was the greatest confidence and glory of the Jews: We are the seed and children of Abraham. He was circumcised and kept the law: therefore if we will be the true children of Abraham, we must follow our father, etc. It was, no doubt, an excellent glory and great dignity, to be the seed of Abraham. For no man could deny but that God spoke to the seed and of the seed of Abraham. But this prerogative nothing profited the unbelieving Jews. By reason whereof Paul, especially in this place, mightily strives against this argument, and wrests from the Jews this strong confidence in themselves. And this could he, as the elect vessel of Christ, do above all other. For if we at the beginning should have disputed with the Jews without Paul, perhaps we should have prevailed very little against them.

So then Paul reasons against the Jews which stood so proudly upon this opinion, that they were the children of Abraham, saying: We are the seed of Abraham. Well, what then? Abraham was circumcised and kept the law: we do the same. All this I grant. What? Will you therefore look to be justified and saved? No, not so. But let us come to the Patriarch Abraham himself, and let us see by what means he was justified and saved. Doubtless, not for his excellent virtues and holy works: not because he forsook his country, kindred, and father's house: not because he was circumcised, and observed the law: not because he was about to offer up in sacrifice at the commandment of God, his son Isaac in whom he had the promise of posterity: but because he believed. Therefore he was not justified by any other means than by faith alone. If you then will be justified by the law, much more ought Abraham your father to be justified by the law. But Abraham could not otherwise be justified, nor receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit than by faith alone. Since this is true by the testimony of the Scripture, why do you stand so much upon circumcision and the law, contending that you have righteousness and salvation thereby, when as your father Abraham himself, even your headspring, of whom you do so much glory, was justified and saved without these by faith alone? What can be brought against this argument?

Paul therefore concludes with this sentence: they who are of faith are the children of Abraham, that corporal birth or carnal seed does not make the children of Abraham before God. As though he would say: there is none before God accounted as the child of this Abraham (who is the servant of God, whom God has chosen and made righteous by faith) through carnal generation: but he must have such children given him before God, as he was a father. But he was a father of faith, and was justified, and pleased God, not because he could beget children after the flesh, not because he had circumcision and the law, but because he believed in God. Therefore he that will be a child of the believing Abraham, must also himself believe, or else he is not a child of the elect, acceptable, and justified Abraham, but only of the begetting Abraham, which is nothing else but a man conceived, born, and wrapped in sin, without the forgiveness of sins, without faith, without the Holy Spirit, as another man is, and therefore condemned. Such also are the children carnally begotten of him, having nothing in them like to their father but flesh and blood, sin and death: therefore these are also damned. This glorious boasting then: We are the seed of Abraham, is to no purpose.

This argument Paul sets out plainly in Romans 9 by two examples of the holy scripture. The first is of Ishmael and Isaac, which were both the seed and natural children of Abraham, and yet notwithstanding Ishmael, (which was begotten of Abraham as Isaac was, yea and should also have been the first begotten, if carnal generation had any prerogative, or could have made children to Abraham) is shut out, and yet the scripture says: In Isaac shall your seed be called. The second is of Esau and Jacob, who when they were as yet in their mother's womb, and had done neither good nor evil, it was said, The elder shall serve the younger. I have loved Jacob and Esau have I hated. Therefore it is plain, that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham.

But some will here object (as the Jews do, and certain unskillful persons at this day which will seem to know much) and say, that this word faith in the Hebrew signifies truth, and therefore we do wrongly allege it in this matter: and moreover, that this place out of Genesis 15 speaks of a corporal thing, namely of the promise of posterity, and therefore is not well applied by Paul to faith in Christ, but ought simply to be understood of the faith of Abraham, whereby he believed according to the promise of God, that he should have seed. And hereby they would prove that the arguments and allegations of Paul conclude nothing. In like manner they may cavil also, that the place which Paul a little after alleges out of Habakkuk speaks of faith concerning the accomplishing of the whole vision, and not of faith only in Christ, for the which Paul alleges it. Likewise they may twist all of Hebrews 11, which speaks of faith and the examples of faith. By these things such vainglorious and arrogant spirits do hunt for praise, and seek to be counted wise and learned, where they least of all deserve it. But because of the simple and ignorant we will briefly answer to their cavillings.

To the first I answer thus, that faith is nothing else but the truth of the heart: that is to say, a true and a right opinion of the heart as touching God. Now, faith only thinks and judges rightly of God, and not reason. And then a man thinks rightly of God, when he believes his word. But when he will measure God without the word, and believe him according to the wisdom of reason, he has no right opinion of God in his heart and therefore he cannot think or judge of him as he should do. As for example: when a monk imagines that his cowl, his shaven crown and his vows do please God, and that grace and everlasting life is given to him for the same, he has no true opinion of God, but false and full of impiety. Truth therefore is faith itself, which judges rightly of God, namely that God regards not our works and righteousness, because we are unclean: but that he will have mercy upon us, look upon us, accept us, justify us and save us, if we believe in his Son whom he has sent to be a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. This is a true opinion of God, and in very deed nothing else but faith itself. I cannot comprehend nor be fully assured by reason, that I am received into God's favor for Christ's sake: but I hear this to be pronounced by the Gospel, and I lay hold upon it by faith.

To the second cavil I answer, that Paul does rightly allege the place out of the 15th of Genesis, applying it to faith in Christ. For with faith always must be joined a certain assurance of God's mercy. Now, this assurance comprehends a faithful trust of remission of sins for Christ's sake. For it is impossible that the conscience should look for anything at God's hand, except first it be assured, that God is merciful to it for Christ's sake. Therefore all the promises are to be referred to that first promise concerning Christ: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. So did all the Prophets both understand it and teach it. By this we see that the faith of our fathers in the old Testament, and ours now in the new is all one, although they differ as touching their outward objects. Which thing Peter witnesses in the Acts when he says: which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. But we believe through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be saved even as they did. And Paul says: Our fathers did all drink of that spiritual rock that followed them, which rock was Christ. And Christ himself says: Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Notwithstanding, the faith of the fathers was grounded in Christ which was to come, as ours is now in Christ which is now revealed. Abraham in his time was made righteous through faith in Christ to come, but if he lived at this day, he should be made righteous by faith in Christ now already revealed and present: Like as I said before of Cornelius, who at the first believed in Christ to come, but being instructed by Peter, he believed that Christ was already come. Therefore the diversity of times neither changes faith, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the gifts thereof. For there has been, is, and ever shall be one will, one meaning and understanding concerning Christ, as well in the ancient fathers as in the faithful which are at this day and shall come hereafter. So we also have as well Christ to come and believe in him, as the fathers of the old Testament had. For we look for him to come again in the last day with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whom now we believe to be come already for our salvation. Therefore this allegation of Paul offends none but those blind and ignorant cavilers.

Paul therefore (as I have said) rightly alleges that place out of Genesis of faith in Christ, when he speaks of the faith of Abraham. For all the promises past, were contained in Christ to come. Therefore as well Abraham and the other fathers, as also we are made righteous by faith in Christ: They by faith in him to come, we by faith in him now present. For we treat now of the nature and manner of justification, which is all one both in them and us concerning Christ to come and being come. It is enough therefore that Paul shows, that the law justifies not, but only faith, whether it be in Christ to come, or in Christ already come.

At this day also Christ to some is present, to other some he is to come. To all believers he is present: To unbelievers he is not yet come, neither does he profit them anything at all: but if they hear the Gospel and believe that he is present to them, he justifies and saves them.

Verse 7. You know therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

As if he would say: You know by this example of Abraham and by the plain testimony of the scripture, that they are the children of Abraham which are of faith, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, without any respect either to the law, or to works, or to the carnal generation of the fathers. For not by the law, but by the righteousness of faith the promise was made to Abraham, that he should be heir of the world: that is to say, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, and that he should be called the father of nations. And lest the Jews should falsely interpret this word Nations, applying it to themselves alone, the scripture prevents this and says not only, a father of nations: but a father of many nations have I made you. Therefore Abraham is not only the father of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles.

Hereby we may plainly see that the children of Abraham are not the children of the flesh, but the children of faith, as Paul (Romans 4) declares: who is the father of us all (as it is written: I have made you a father of many nations) even before God whom he did believe: So that Paul makes two Abrahams, a begetting Abraham, and a believing Abraham. Abraham has children and is a father of many nations. Where? Before God, where he believes: not before the world where he begets. For in the world he is the child of Adam, a sinner, or (which is more) a worker of the righteousness of the law, living after the rule of reason, that is, after the manner of men: but this pertains nothing to the believing Abraham.

This example then of the believing Abraham comprehends also the holy scripture which says that we are counted righteous by faith. This argument therefore is strong and mighty two ways, both for the example of Abraham, and also for the authority of the scripture.

Verse 8. For the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith.

These things pertain to the former argument. As if he should say: You Jews do glory in the law above measure: you highly commend Moses because God spoke to him in the bush, etc.: As the Jews do proudly brag against us, (as I have myself at various times heard) saying: you Christians have Apostles, you have a Pope and you have Bishops: but we Jews have Patriarchs, Prophets, yes we have God himself, who spoke to us in the bush, in Sinai where he gave to us the law, and in the temple, etc. Such a glory and such an excellent testimony allege you for yourselves against us, if you can. To this answers Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles: This your proud bragging and boasting is to no purpose. For the scripture prevented it, and foresaw long before the law, that the Gentiles should not be justified by the law, but by the blessing of Abraham's seed, which was promised to him (as Paul says afterwards) 430 years before the law was given. Now the law being given so many years after, could not impede or abolish this promise of the blessing made to Abraham, but it has continued firm and shall continue forever. What can the Jews answer to this?

This argument grounded upon the certainty of time, is very strong. The promise of blessing is given to Abraham 430 years before the people of Israel received the law. For it is said to Abraham: Because you have believed God and have given glory to him, therefore you shall be a father of many nations. There Abraham by the promise of God is appointed a father of many nations, and the inheritance of the world for his posterity and issue after him, is given to him before the law was published. Why do you then brag, O you Galatians, that you obtain forgiveness of sins, and are become children, and do receive the inheritance through the law, which followed a long time, that is to say 430 years after the promise.

Thus the false Apostles did advance the law and the glory thereof above measure: but the promise made to Abraham 430 years before the law was given, they neglected and despised, and would in no wise know that Abraham (of whom they gloried notwithstanding as the father of their whole nation) being yet uncircumcised, and living so many ages before the law, was made righteous by no other means than by faith only, as the scripture most plainly witnesses: Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Afterwards, when he was now accounted righteous because of his faith, the scripture makes mention of circumcision in the 17th chapter of Genesis, where it says: This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you, etc. With this argument Paul mightily convinces the false Apostles, and shows plainly that Abraham was justified by faith only, both without and before circumcision, and also 430 years before the law. This self-same argument he handles in the fourth chapter of Romans: to wit, that righteousness was imputed to Abraham before circumcision, and that he was righteous being yet uncircumcised: much more then was he righteous before the law.

Therefore (says Paul) the scripture did well provide against this your glorious bragging of the righteousness of the law and works. When? Before circumcision and before the law. For the law was given 430 years after the promise, whereas Abraham was not only justified without the law and before the law, but also dead and buried: and his righteousness without the law did not only flourish until the law, but also shall flourish even to the end of the world. If then the father of the whole Jewish nation was made righteous without the law and before the law, much more are the children made righteous by the same means that their father was. Therefore righteousness comes by faith only, and not by the law.

Verse 8. Preached the Gospel before to Abraham saying: in you shall all the Gentiles be blessed.

The Jews do not only lightly pass over, but also do deride and with their wicked glosses do corrupt these excellent and notable sentences: Abraham believed God, etc., I have appointed you a father, etc., and such like, which highly commend faith and contain promises of spiritual things. For they are blind and hard-hearted, and therefore they see not that these places do treat of faith towards God, and of righteousness before God. With like malice also they trifle with this notable place of the spiritual blessing: In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. For (say they) to bless signifies nothing else but to praise, to pray for prosperity, and to be glorious in the sight of the world. After this manner they say, that the Jew who is born of the seed of Abraham, is blessed: and the proselyte or stranger who worships the God of the Jews and joins himself to them, is also blessed. Therefore they think that blessing is nothing else but praise and glory in this world, that is to say, that a man may glory and vaunt that he is of the stock and family of Abraham. But this is to corrupt and pervert the sentences of the scriptures, and not to expound them. By these words: Abraham believed, Paul defines and sets before our eyes a spiritual Abraham, faithful, righteous, and having the promise of God: an Abraham (I say) who is not in error, and in the old flesh: who is not born of Adam, but of the Holy Spirit. And of this Abraham renewed by faith and regenerate by the Holy Spirit, speaks the scripture, and pronounces of him, that he should be a father of many nations: Also, that all the Gentiles should be given to him for an inheritance, when it says: In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

The scripture then attributes no righteousness, but to the believing Abraham: and it speaks of such an Abraham, as he is accounted before God. Therefore such sentences of the scripture do set forth to us a new Abraham, who is separate from the carnal marriage and bed, and from the carnal generation, and is taken for such a one as he is before God, that is to say, believing and justified through faith, and to whom now God makes this promise because of his faith: You shall be a father of many nations. Again: In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And this is the meaning of Paul where he shows how the scripture prevents the vain presumption and proud brags of the Jews as touching the law. For the inheritance of the Gentiles was given to Abraham, not by the law and circumcision, but long before the same, by the only righteousness of faith.

Therefore, whereas the Jews will be counted and called blessed because they are the children and seed of Abraham, it is nothing else but a vain glorious brag. It is (no doubt) a great prerogative and glory before the world to be born of Abraham's seed, as Paul shows (Romans 9): but not so before God. Therefore the Jews do wickedly pervert this place concerning the blessing, in applying it only to a carnal blessing, and do great injury to the scripture which speaks most manifestly of the spiritual blessing before God, and neither can nor ought otherwise to be understood. This is then the true meaning of this place: In you shall be blessed. In which you? In you Abraham believing, or in your faith, or your seed which is to come: that is to say, in Christ in whom you believe, all the nations of the earth (I say) shall be blessed: that is, all the nations shall be your blessed children, even as you are blessed, as it is written: So shall your seed be.

Hereof it follows that the blessing and faith of Abraham is the same that ours is: that Abraham's Christ is our Christ: that Christ died as well for the sins of Abraham as for us. Abraham, which saw my day and rejoiced (John 8). Therefore all sound but one thing. We may not suffer this word blessing to be corrupted. The Jews look but through a veil into the scripture, and therefore they understand not what or whereof the promise is which was made to the fathers: which we notwithstanding ought to consider above all things. So shall we see that God speaks to Abraham the Patriarch, not of the law nor of things to be done, but of things to be believed: that is to say, that God speaks to him of promises which are apprehended by faith. Now, what does Abraham? He believes those promises. And what does God to that believing Abraham? He imputes faith to him for righteousness, and adds further many more promises, as: I am your defender. In you shall all nations be blessed. You shall be a father of many nations. So shall your seed be. These are invincible arguments, against which nothing can be said, if the places of the holy scripture be thoroughly considered.

Verse 9. So then they which are of faith, are blessed with faithful Abraham.

All the weight and force lies in these words: with faithful Abraham. For he puts a plain difference between Abraham and Abraham, of one and the same person making two. As if he said: There is a working Abraham and there is a believing Abraham. With the working Abraham we have nothing to do. For if he be justified by works, he has to rejoice, but not with God. Let the Jews glory as much as they will of that begetting Abraham, which is a worker, is circumcised, and keeps the law: but we glory of the faithful Abraham, of whom the scripture says, that he received the blessing of righteousness through his faith, not only for himself, but also for all those which believe as he believed (Romans 4:3): and so the world was promised to Abraham, because he believed. Therefore all the world is blessed, that is to say, receives imputation of righteousness, if it believe as Abraham did.

Therefore the blessing is nothing else but the promise of the Gospel. And, that all nations are blessed, is as much to say, as all nations shall hear the blessing, that is, the promise of God shall be preached and published by the Gospel among all nations. And out of this place the Prophets have drawn many prophecies by a spiritual understanding. As (Psalm 2:8): Ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. And again (Psalm 19:3): Their voice has gone through all the earth. Briefly, all the prophecies of the kingdom of Christ and of the publishing of the Gospel throughout all the world, have sprung out of this place: In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Therefore, to say that the nations are blessed, is nothing else, but that righteousness is freely given to them, or that they are counted righteous before God, not through the law, but by the hearing of faith: for Abraham was not justified, by any other means, than by hearing the word of promise, of blessing, and of grace. Therefore, just as Abraham obtained imputation of righteousness by the hearing of faith: even so did all the Gentiles obtain and yet do obtain the same. For the same word that was first declared to Abraham, was also afterward published to all the Gentiles.

Hereby then we see that to bless signifies nothing else, but (as I said before) to preach and teach the word of the Gospel, to confess Christ, and to spread abroad the knowledge of him among all the Gentiles. And this is the office of the priesthood and continual sacrifice of the church in the new testament, which distributes this blessing by preaching and by ministering of the sacraments, by comforting the broken-hearted, by distributing the word of grace, which Abraham had and which was also his blessing: which when he believed, he received the blessing. So we also believing the same, are blessed. And this blessing is a great glory, not before the world, but before God. For we have heard that our sins are forgiven us, and that we are accepted of God, that God is our Father, and that we are his children, with whom he will not be angry, but will deliver us from sin, from death and all evils, and will give to us righteousness, life and eternal salvation. Of this blessing (as I have said) do the Prophets preach in every place, who did not so coldly consider those promises made to the fathers as the wicked Jews did, and as the popish Schoolmen and Sectaries do at this day, but did read them and weigh them with great diligence, and also drew out of those promises whatever they prophesied of Christ or his kingdom. So the prophecy of (Hosea 13): I will redeem them from the power of the grave: I will deliver them from death: O death I will be your death: O grave I will be your destruction, and such like places of the other Prophets did all spring out of these promises, in which God promised to the fathers the bruising of the serpent's head and the blessing of all nations (Genesis 3).

Moreover, if the nations be blessed, that is to say, if they be accounted righteous before God, it follows that they are free from sin and death, and are made partakers of righteousness, salvation, and everlasting life, not for their works, but for their faith in Christ. Therefore that place of (Genesis 12): In you shall all the nations be blessed, speaks not of the blessing of the mouth, but of such a blessing as belongs to the imputation of righteousness, which is availing before God, and redeems from the curse of sin, and from all those evils that do accompany sin. Now, this blessing is received only by faith. For the text says plainly: Abraham believed and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Therefore it is a mere spiritual blessing, and there is no blessing indeed but this: which although it be cursed in the world (as indeed it is) yet is it availing before God. This is therefore a mighty place, that they which are of faith are become partakers of this promise of the blessing made to the believing Abraham. And by this means Paul prevents the cavilation of the Jews, which brag of a begetting and a working Abraham and just before men, and not of a believing Abraham.

Now, like as the Jews do glory only of a working Abraham, even so the Pope sets out only a working Christ, or rather an example of Christ. He that will live godly (says he) must walk as Christ has walked, according to his own saying in the 13th of John: I have given you an example, that you should do even as I have done to you. We deny not but that the faithful ought to follow the example of Christ, and to work well: but we say that they are not justified thereby before God. And Paul does not here reason what we ought to do, but by what means we are made righteous. In this matter we must set nothing else before our eyes, but Jesus Christ dying for our sins, and rising again for our righteousness, and him must we apprehend by faith, as a gift and not as an example. This reason understands not, and therefore as the Jews follow a working and not a believing Abraham, even so the Papists and all that seek righteousness by works do behold and apprehend, not a justifying, but a working Christ, and by this means they swerve from Christ, from righteousness and salvation. And like as the Jews which were saved, ought to follow the believing Abraham: so we also, if we will be delivered from our sins and be saved, must take hold of the justifying and saving Christ, whom Abraham himself also by faith did apprehend and through him was blessed.

It was indeed a great glory that Abraham received circumcision at the commandment of God, that he was endued with excellent virtues, that he obeyed God in all things: as it is also a great praise and felicity to follow the example of Christ working, to love your neighbor, to do good to them that hurt you, to pray for your enemies, patiently to bear the ingratitude of those which render evil for good: but all this avails nothing to righteousness before God. The excellent deeds and virtues of Abraham were not the cause that he was counted righteous before God: So likewise the imitation and following of the example of Christ does not make us righteous before God. For, to make us righteous before God, there is a far more excellent price required, which is neither the righteousness of man, nor yet of the law. Here we must needs have Christ to bless us and save us: like as Abraham had him to be his blesser and Savior. How? Not by works, but by faith. Therefore, as the believing Abraham is a thing far differing from the working Abraham: so is Christ blessing and redeeming a thing far differing from Christ working or giving example. And Paul here speaks of Christ redeeming and Abraham believing, and not of Christ giving example, or of Abraham working. Therefore he adds purposely and that with great vehemence: They which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

Therefore we must separate the believing and the working Abraham as far asunder, as there is distance between heaven and earth. A man believing in Christ is altogether a divine man, the child of God, the inheritor of the world, a conqueror of sin, death, the world and the Devil: therefore he can not be praised and magnified enough. Let us not suffer this faithful Abraham to lie hidden in his grave, as he is hidden from the Jews: but let us highly extol and magnify him, and let us fill both heaven and earth with his name: so that in respect of this faithful Abraham, we see nothing at all in the working Abraham. For when we speak of this faithful Abraham, we are in heaven. But afterwards, doing those things which the working Abraham did, which were carnal and earthly, and not divine and heavenly (but in as much as they were given to him of God) we are among men in earth. The believing Abraham therefore fills both heaven and earth. So every Christian through his faith fills heaven and earth, so that besides it he ought to behold nothing.

Now, Paul of this word, [shall be blessed] gathers a contrary argument. For the scripture is full of oppositions or contrary relations. And it is a great point of cunning, to mark well these kinds of speech in the scriptures, and by them to expound the sentences thereof: as here this word blessing by and by infers the contrary: that is to say, malediction. For when the scripture says that all nations are blessed in faith or with faithful Abraham, it follows necessarily, that all, as well Jews as Gentiles are accursed without faith, or without this believing Abraham. For the promise of blessing was given to Abraham, that in him all nations should be blessed. There is no blessing then to be looked for, but only in the promise made to Abraham, now published by the Gospel throughout the whole world. Therefore whatever is without that blessing, is accursed. And this Paul shows plainly when he says:

Verse 10. For as many as are of the works of the law are accursed.

Here you see that the curse is as it were a flood swallowing up whatever is without Abraham: that is to say, without faith and the promise of the blessing of Abraham. Now, if the law itself given by Moses at the commandment of God, makes them subject to the curse which are under it, much more shall the laws and traditions devised by man's brain do the same. He therefore that will avoid the curse, must lay hold upon the promise of blessing, or upon the faith of Abraham, or else shall he abide under the curse. Upon this place therefore [shall be blessed in you] it follows, that all nations, whether they were before Abraham, in his time, or after him, are accursed and shall remain under the curse forever, unless they be blessed in the faith of Abraham, to whom the promise of blessing was given to be published by his seed throughout the whole world.

To know these things it is very necessary, for they help greatly to comfort troubled and afflicted consciences: moreover they teach us to separate the righteousness of faith from the righteousness of the flesh or civil righteousness. For we must note that Paul here is in hand, not with a matter of policy, but with a matter divine and spiritual before God, lest any mad brain should cavil, and say that he curses and condemns political laws and magistrates. Here all the sophisters and popish schoolmen are dumb and can say nothing. Therefore the readers must be admonished that in this place there is nothing handled as touching civil laws, or touching manners and matters political (which are the ordinances of God and good things, and the Scripture elsewhere approves and commends the same), but of a spiritual righteousness, by which we are justified before God, and are called the children of God in the kingdom of heaven. To be brief, there is nothing handled here concerning the bodily life, but concerning everlasting life, where no blessing is to be hoped for, or righteousness to be sought either through the law, or traditions, or whatever can be named in this life, besides the promise of Abraham's blessing. Let civil laws and ordinances abide in their right place and order: let the magistrate make good and notable laws, yet notwithstanding they deliver no man from the curse of God's law. The kingdom of Babylon ordained of God, and by him committed to kings, had excellent laws, and all nations were commanded to obey them: notwithstanding this obedience of the laws did not save it from the curse of the law of God. In like manner we obey the laws of princes and magistrates, but we are not thereby made righteous before God: for here we are in another matter.

It is not without cause that I do so earnestly urge this distinction. For it is very necessary to know it. Although there are very few that do mark it and understand it indeed. Again, the confounding and mingling together of the heavenly and civil righteousness is very easy. In the civil righteousness we must have regard to laws and works, but in the spiritual, divine and heavenly righteousness, we must utterly reject all laws and works, and set the only promise and blessing before our eyes, which lays before us Christ the giver of this blessing and of grace, and our only Savior. So that this spiritual righteousness, secluding the law and all works, looks only to the grace and blessing which is given by Christ, as it was promised to Abraham and by him believed.

Hereby we may plainly see, that this argument is invincible. For if we must hope to receive this blessing by Christ alone, then it must needs follow of the contrary that it is not received by the law. For the blessing was given to faithful Abraham before the law and without the law. Now, like as Abraham believed in Christ to come, the giver of the blessing: so and by the same faith, we believe in Christ being come, and so are we now justified by faith, as Abraham was then justified by faith. They therefore which are under the law are not blessed, but do remain under the curse.

This the Pope and his proud prelates neither do nor can believe, neither can they abide this doctrine. Yet must we not hold our peace, but must confess the truth and say, that the papacy is accursed: indeed all the laws and civil ordinances of the Emperor are accursed: for according to Paul, whatever is without the promise and faith of Abraham, is accursed. When our adversaries hear this, by and by they pervert and slander our words, as though we taught that the magistrates should not be honored, but that we raise up seditions against the Emperor, that we condemn all laws, that we overthrow and destroy commonwealths, etc. But they do us great wrong. For we put a difference between the corporal and the spiritual blessing, and we say that the Emperor is blessed with a corporal blessing. For to have a kingdom, laws, and civil ordinances, to have a wife, children, house and lands is a blessing. For all these things are the good creatures and gifts of God. But we are not delivered from the everlasting curse by this corporal blessing, which is but temporal and must have an end. Therefore we condemn not laws, neither do we stir up sedition against the Emperor: but we teach that he must be obeyed, that he must be feared, reverenced and honored, but yet civilly. But when we speak of the blessing after the manner of divines, then we say boldly with Paul, that all things which are without the faith and promise of Abraham, are accursed and abide under that heavenly and everlasting curse. For there we must look for another life after this, and another blessing after this corporal blessing.

To conclude, we say that all corporeal things are the good creatures of God. Therefore (as I have said) to have wife, children, goods, to have political laws and orders, are the good blessings of God in their place: that is to say, they are temporal blessings belonging to this life. But these blessings the Justiciaries and Law-workers of all ages, as the Jews, Papists and Sectaries, and such like, do confound and mingle together. For they put no difference between corporeal and spiritual blessings. Therefore they say: We have a law, and this law is good, holy, and righteous: therefore we are justified through it. Who denies but that the law is good, holy, and righteous? And yet is it also the law of malediction, of sin, of wrath, and of death. Therefore we make here a distinction between the corporeal and spiritual blessing, and say, that God has a double blessing: one corporeal for this life, and another spiritual for the everlasting life. Therefore to have riches, children and such like, we say it is a blessing, but in his degree, that is to say, in this life present. But as touching life everlasting, it is not enough to have corporeal blessings: for the very wicked do therein abound most of all. It is not sufficient that we have civil righteousness or the righteousness of the law: for therein also the wicked do specially flourish. These things God distributes in the world freely, and bestows them both upon the good and bad, like as he suffers the Sun to rise both upon the good and the evil, and sends rain upon the righteous and unrighteous: for he is liberal to all. And to him it is a small matter to put all creatures under the feet of the wicked. The creature is subject to vanity, not of his own will (Romans 8). They therefore which have but only these corporeal blessings, are not the children of God, blessed before God spiritually, as was Abraham: but they are under the curse, as Paul here says: Whoever is under the works of the law, is under the curse.

Paul might have said by a general proposition: Whatever is without faith, is under the curse. He says not so, but he takes that which besides faith is the best, the greatest, and most excellent among all corporeal blessings of the world: to wit, the law of God. That law (says he) indeed is holy and given of God: notwithstanding it does nothing else but make all men subject to the curse and keep them under the same. Now, if the law of God does make men subject to the curse, much more do the inferior laws and blessings. And that it may be plainly understood what Paul calls it to be under the curse, he declares by this testimony of the scripture, saying:

Verse 10. For it is written: Cursed is every man that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.

Paul goes about to prove by this testimony taken out of the 27th of Deuteronomy, that all men which are under the law or under the works of the law, are accursed, or under the curse: that is to say, under sin, the wrath of God, and everlasting death. For he speaks not (as I have said before) of a corporeal, but of a spiritual curse, which must needs be the curse of everlasting death and hell fire. And this is a wonderful manner of proving. For Paul proves this affirmative sentence which he borrows out of Moses: Whoever are of the works of the law are under the curse: by this negative: Cursed is every one that abides not in all things, etc. Now these two sentences of Paul and Moses seem clean contrary. Paul says: whoever shall do the works of the law, is accursed. Moses says: whoever shall not do the works of the law, are accursed. How shall these two sayings be reconciled together? Or else, (which is more) how shall the one be proved by the other? Indeed no man can well understand this place, unless he also know and understand the article of justification.

Paul (no doubt) being among the Galatians, had before more largely treated of this matter: for else they could not have understood it, seeing he does here but touch it by the way. But because they had heard him declare the same to them before, they being now again put in mind thereof, do call it to remembrance. And these two sentences are not repugnant, but do very well agree. We also do teach in like manner: That the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified (Romans 2). And contrariwise: They that are of the works of the law, are under the curse. For the article of justification teaches, that whatever is without the faith of Abraham, is accursed. And yet notwithstanding the righteousness of the law must be fulfilled in us (Romans 8). To a man that is ignorant of the doctrine of faith, these two sentences seem to be quite contrary.

Therefore, above all things, we must mark well whereupon Paul treats in this place, whereabout he goes, and how he looks into Moses. He is here (as before I have often said) in a spiritual matter, separated from politics and from all laws, and he looks into Moses with other eyes, than the hypocrites and false apostles do, and expounds the law spiritually. Therefore the whole effect of the matter consists in this word [to do]. Now, to do the law, is not only to do it outwardly, but to do it truly and perfectly. There be two sorts then of doers of the law: The first are they which are of the works of the law, against whom Paul strives throughout all this Epistle. The other sort are they which are of faith, of whom we will speak hereafter. Now, to be of the law or of the works of the law, and to be of faith, are quite contrary, indeed even as contrary as God and the Devil, sin and righteousness, death and life. For they are of the law which would be made righteous by the law. They are of faith, which do assuredly trust that they are made righteous through only mercy for Christ's sake. He which says that righteousness is of faith, curses and condemns the righteousness of works. Contrariwise, he which says that righteousness is of the law, curses and condemns the righteousness of faith: therefore they are altogether contrary the one to the other.

He that considers this, shall easily understand, that to perform the law, is not to do that which is commanded in the law in outward show only (as the hypocrites imagine) but in spirit: that is to say, truly and perfectly. But where shall we find him that will so accomplish the law? Let us see him and we will praise him. Here our adversaries have their answer ready, saying: The doers of the law, shall be justified (Romans 2). Very well. But let us first define who be these doers of the law. They call him a doer of the law, which does the works of the law, and so by those works going before, is made righteous. This is not to do the law according to Paul: for (as I have said) to be of the works of the law, and to be of faith are contrary things. Therefore to seek to be justified by the works of the law, is to deny the righteousness of faith. Therefore these justiciaries and law-workers when they do the law, even in so doing deny the righteousness of faith, and sin against the first, the second, and third commandment, yes even against the whole law. For God commands that we should worship him in faith, and in the fear of his name. These, on the contrary make righteousness of works without faith and against faith: therefore in that they do the law, they do clean contrary to the law, and sin most deadly. For they deny the righteousness of God, his mercy and his promises: they deny Christ with all his benefits, and in their heart they establish, not the righteousness of the law (which they understand not, and much less do it): but a mere fantasy and idol of the law. Therefore we must needs say, that not only in doing of the law they perform it not, but also they sin, and deny the divine majesty in all his promises. And to this end the law was not given.

Therefore, they not understanding the law, abuse the law, and as Paul says: They being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God (Romans 10). For they are blind, and know not how they ought to judge of faith and of the promises, and therefore without all understanding they rush into the Scripture, taking hold but of one part of it: to wit, the law, and this they imagine that they are able to fulfill by works. But this is a very dream, a bewitching and illusion of the heart: and that righteousness of the law, which they think they do fulfill, is nothing else in very deed, but idolatry and blasphemy against God. Therefore it cannot be but they must needs abide under the curse.

It is impossible therefore that we should do the law in such form as they imagine, much less that we should be justified by it. This thing first the law itself specifies, which has a clean contrary effect: For it increases sin, it works wrath, it accuses, it terrifies and condemns. How then should it justify? Moreover, the promise also shows the very same thing. For it was said to Abraham: In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. There is no blessing therefore but in the promise of Abraham: and if you be without that promise, you are under the curse. If you be under the curse, you fulfill not the law, because you are under sin, the Devil, and everlasting death: all which do assuredly follow the curse. To conclude. If righteousness should come by the law, then should the promise of God be in vain, and in vain should he pour out his blessing in so great abundance. Therefore when God saw that we could not fulfill the law, he provided for this long before the law, and promised the blessing to Abraham, saying: In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And so has he testified that all the nations should be blessed, not by the law, but through the promise made to Abraham (Genesis 17). They therefore that lay hold on the law, and seek to be justified by it, despising the promise, are accursed.

Therefore [to do] is first of all, to believe, and so through faith to perform the law. We must first receive the Holy Ghost, with whom we being lightened and made new creatures, begin to do the law, that is to say, to love God and our neighbor. But the Holy Ghost is not received through the law (for they which are under the law, as Paul says, are under the curse): but by the hearing of faith, that is to say, through the promise. We must be blessed only with Abraham in the promise made to him, and in his faith. Therefore before all things, we must hear and receive the promise, which sets out Christ, and offers him to all believers: and when they have taken hold upon him by faith, then the Holy Ghost is given to them for his sake. Then do they love God and their neighbor, then do they good works and carry the cross patiently. This is to do the law truly and indeed: otherwise the law remains always undone. Therefore, if you will define truly and plainly what it is to do the law, it is nothing else, but to believe in Jesus Christ, and when the Holy Ghost is received through faith in Christ, to work those things which are commanded in the law: and otherwise we are not able to perform the law. For the scripture says, that there is no blessing without the promise, no not in the law. It is impossible therefore to perform the law without the promise, for the blessing must needs go with all, which is the preaching and publishing of Christ, who was promised to Abraham, that the world should be blessed through him: otherwise, we shall never perform the law.

There is not one therefore to be found in all the world, to whom this title, to be called a doer of the law, appertains without the promise of the Gospel. Therefore this word [doer of the law] is a feigned term, which no man understands unless he be without and above the law in the blessing and faith of Abraham. So that the true doer of the law is he, who receiving the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ, begins to love God and to do good to his neighbor. So that this word [to do the law] must comprehend faith also which makes the tree: and when the tree is made, then follow the fruits. The tree must be first, and then the fruit. For the apples make not the tree, but the tree makes the apples. So faith first makes the person, which afterwards brings forth works. Therefore to do the law without faith, is to make the apples of wood and earth without the tree: which is not to make apples, but mere fantasies. Contrariwise, if the tree be made, that is to say, the person or doer, which is made through faith in Christ, works will follow. For the doer must needs be before the things which are done, and not the things which are done before the doer.

The doer then is not so called of the things that are done, but of the things that are to be done. For Christians are not made righteous in doing righteous things, but being now made righteous by faith in Christ, they do righteous things. In political matters it comes so to pass, that the doer or worker is made of the things which are wrought, as a man in playing the carpenter becomes a carpenter: but in divine matters the workers are not made of the works going before, but the persons made and framed already by faith which is in Christ, are now become doers and workers. Of such speaks Paul when he says: The doers of the law shall be justified, that is, shall be counted righteous.

Indeed, the very Sophists and popish Schoolmen are compelled to confess, and so they teach also, that a moral work outwardly done, if it be not done with a pure heart, a good will, and true intent, it is but hypocrisy. And hereof comes the proverb among the Germans: Such a cowl covers many a knave. For the vilest and the wickedest knave in the world may counterfeit the same works that a godly man works by faith. Judas did the same works that the other Apostles did. What fault was there in the works of Judas, seeing he did the very same works that the other Apostles did? Here mark what the Sophist answers out of his moral philosophy. Although he did the very same works (says he) which the other Apostles did, notwithstanding, because the person was reprobate, and the judgment of reason perverse, therefore his works were hypocritical and not true, as were the works of the other Apostles, however like they seemed to be in outward show. Therefore they themselves are constrained to grant that in political and external matters works do not justify unless there be joined withal an upright heart, will, and judgment. How much more are they compelled to confess the same in spiritual matters, where, before all things, there must be a knowledge of God and faith which may purify the heart? They walk therefore in works and in the righteousness of the law, as Judas did in the works of the Apostles: not understanding what they say or what they affirm. And although Paul says plainly everywhere that the law justifies not, but causes wrath, utters sin, reveals the indignation and judgment of God, and threatens everlasting death: yet notwithstanding reading these things they see them not, much less do they understand them. Therefore they deserve not to be called hypocrites, but visors and shadows of disguised hypocrites, most miserably bewitched in that they dream that they are made righteous by the works of the law. Therefore (as I have said) this word [doer of the law] as they define it, is an imagined term, a very monster, and nowhere to be found.

Therefore, when Paul proves this place: Whoever are of the works of the law are under the curse, by this sentence of Moses: Cursed is everyone that abides not in all that is written in this book: he proves not one contrary by another, as at the first sight it may appear, but he proves it rightly and in true order. For Moses means and teaches the very same thing that Paul does, when he says: Cursed is everyone which shall not do all, etc. But no man does them: therefore whoever are of the works of the law keep not the law. If they keep it not, they are under the curse. But seeing there be two sorts of men that are doers of the law (as before I have said,) true doers and hypocrites, the true doers must be separated from the hypocrites. The true doers of the law are they which through faith are the good tree before the fruit, doers and workers before the works. Of these speaks Moses also: and except they be such, they are under the curse. But the hypocrites are not of this sort: for they have this opinion, that they will obtain righteousness through their works, and thereby make the person just and acceptable. For thus they think: We that are sinners and unrighteous, will be made righteous. How shall that be? By good works. Therefore they do even like a foolish builder which goes about from the roof to make the foundation: from the fruits to make the tree. For when they seek to be justified by works, of the works they would make the worker, which is directly against Moses, which makes such a worker subject to the curse as well as Paul does. Therefore while they go about to do the law, they not only do it not, but also deny (as I have said) the first commandment, the promises of God, the promised blessing of Abraham: they renounce faith, and they go about to make themselves blessed by their own works: that is to say, to make themselves righteous, to deliver themselves from sin and death, to overcome the Devil, and by violence to lay hold upon the kingdom of heaven. And this is plainly to renounce God, and to set themselves in the place of God. For all these are the works of the divine Majesty alone, and not of any creature either in heaven or in earth.

Hereupon Paul was able easily to foreshow out of the first commandment, the abominations that were to come, which Antichrist should bring into the Church. For all they which teach that any other worship is necessary to salvation, than that which God requires of us by the first commandment, which is the fear of God, faith and the love of God, are plain Antichrists and set themselves in the place of God. That such should come, Christ himself foretold, when he says in chapter 24 of Matthew: Many shall come in my name, saying: I am Christ. So we also at this day may boldly and easily pronounce, that whoever seeks righteousness by works without faith, denies God and makes himself God. For thus he thinks: If I do this work, I shall be righteous, I shall be a conqueror of sin, death, the Devil, the wrath of God, and of hell, and shall obtain life everlasting. And what is this else (I pray you) but to challenge that work to himself which does belong to God alone, and to show in deed that he himself is God? Therefore it is an easy matter for us to prophesy, and most certainly to judge of all those which are without faith, that they are not only idolaters, but very idols, which deny God and set themselves in the place of God. Upon the same ground Peter also prophesies when he says: There shall be among you false teachers, which secretly shall bring in damnable heresies, and shall deny the Lord etc. and make merchandise of the people.

And in the old testament all the prophecies against idolatry sprang out of the first commandment. For all the wicked kings and prophets, with all the unfaithful people, did nothing else but that which the Pope and all hypocrites always do. They, contemning the first commandment and worship appointed of God, and despising the promise of Abraham's seed, even that seed in whom all nations should be blessed and sanctified, ordained a wicked worship clean contrary to the word of God, and said: With this worship will we serve God and set out his praise, which has brought us out of the land of Egypt. So Jeroboam made two golden calves and said: Behold your Gods, O Israel, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. This he said of the true God which had redeemed Israel, and yet both he and all the people were idolaters: for they worshipped God contrary to the first commandment. They only regarded the work: which being done, they counted themselves righteous before God. And what was this else, but to deny God himself, whom they confessed with their mouth and said that he had brought them out of the land of Egypt. Paul speaks of such idolaters when he says: They confess that they know God, but in their deeds they deny him.

Therefore all hypocrites and idolaters go about to do those works which do properly pertain to the divine majesty, and do belong to Christ only and alone. In deed they say not in plain words, I am God, I am Christ: and yet in very deed they proudly challenge to themselves the divinity and office of Christ, and therefore it is as much in effect as if they said: I am Christ, I am a Savior, not only of myself, but also of others. This the monks have not only taught, but also have made the whole world to believe: to wit, that they are able, not only to make themselves righteous through their hypocritical holiness, but also others to whom they communicate the same: whereas notwithstanding it is the proper and only office of Christ to justify the sinner. The Pope in like manner, by publishing and spreading his divinity throughout the whole world, has denied and utterly buried the office and divinity of Christ.

It is expedient that these things should be well taught and well weighed, for thereby we may learn to judge of the whole Christian doctrine, and the life of man: also to confirm men's consciences: to understand all prophecies and all the holy scriptures, and rightly to judge of all other things. He that knows all these things rightly, may certainly judge that the Pope is Antichrist, because he teaches a far other manner of worship than the first table sets out. He may perfectly know and understand, what it is to deny God, to deny Christ, and what Christ means when he says: Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ: what it is to be against God, and to be lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: what it signifies that Antichrist sits in the temple of God, showing himself as God: what it is to see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place etc.

Now, hereof spring all these mischiefs, that this cursed hypocrisy will not be made righteous by the divine blessing, nor created anew of God the creator. It will in no way be a patient, or suffer anything to be wrought in her: but will needs be altogether an agent, and work those things which she should suffer God to work in her and receive of him. Therefore she makes herself a creator and a justifier through her own works, despising the blessing promised and given to Abraham and to his believing children: so that every hypocrite is both the matter and the work (although this be against philosophy, for one and the self same thing cannot work upon itself): the matter because he is a sinner: the worker, because he puts on a cowl, or chooses some other work through which he hopes to deserve grace, and to save himself and others: therefore he is both the creature and the creator. Therefore no man can express with words, how execrable and horrible it is, to seek righteousness in the law or by works, without the blessing. For it is the abomination standing in the holy place, which denies God, and sets up the creature in the place of the creator.

The doers therefore of the law are not the hypocrites, doing the law outwardly: but the true believers, who receiving the Holy Spirit, do fulfill the law, that is to say, they love God and their neighbor. So that a true doer of the law is to be understood, not in respect of the works which he works: but in respect of the person regenerate now by faith. For according to the Gospel, they that are made righteous do righteous things, but according to philosophy it is not so: but contrariwise they that do righteous things are made righteous. Therefore we being justified by faith do good works, through which (as it is said in 2 Peter 1) our calling and election is confirmed, and from day to day is made more sure. But because we have but only the first fruits of the Spirit, and have not as yet the tenths, and the remnants of sin do still remain in us: therefore we do not the law perfectly. But this imperfection is not imputed to us which do believe in Christ, who was promised to Abraham, and has blessed us. For we are nourished and tenderly cherished in the meantime for Christ's sake, in the lap of God's long-suffering. We are that wounded man, which fell into the hands of thieves, whose wounds the Samaritan bound up, pouring in oil and wine, and afterwards laying him upon his beast, he brought him into the inn, and made provision for him, and departing, commended him to the host, saying: Take care of him. And thus we in the meantime are cherished as it were in an inn, until the Lord puts to his hand the second time (as Isaiah says) that he may deliver us.

Therefore the sentence of Moses — Cursed is every one that abides not in all the things that are written in this book — is not contrary to Paul, who pronounces all them to be accursed which are of the works of the law. For Moses requires such a doer as may do the law perfectly. But where shall we have him? No where. For Moses himself confesses that he is not such a one: for he says in Exodus 34 that none is innocent before God. And David says: Lord, enter not into judgment with your servant, for no flesh is righteous in your sight. And Paul says: For what I would, that do I not: but what I hate, that do I. Therefore Moses together with Paul does necessarily drive us to Christ, through whom we are made doers of the law, and are not accounted guilty of any transgression. How so? First by forgiveness of sins and imputation of righteousness, because of our faith in Christ. Secondly by the gift of God and the Holy Spirit, which brings forth a new life and new motions in us, so that we may also do the law effectually. Now, that which is not done, is pardoned for Christ's sake. And moreover, whatever sin is left in us, is not imputed. So Moses agrees with Paul, and means the self-same thing that he does, when he says: Cursed is every one that abides not, etc. For he says that they do not the law, because they would make themselves righteous by works, and concludes with Paul that they are under the curse. Therefore Moses requires true doers of the law which are of faith, even as Paul condemns those which are not true doers of the law, that is to say, which are not of faith. Herein is no repugnance, that Moses spoke negatively and Paul affirmatively, so that you define rightly what is meant by this word "do." So, both sentences are true, to wit, that all are accursed which abide not in all that is written in this book: and, that all they are accursed, which are of the works of the law.

Long before Christ came, even while the kingdom of Moses was still standing and flourishing, God was already showing that He justifies people without the law — as He justified many kings in Egypt and Babylon, as well as Job and many nations of the East. The great city of Nineveh was likewise justified and received God's promise that it would not be destroyed but spared. How? Not because it heard and fulfilled the law, but because it believed the word of God that the prophet Jonah preached. The prophet records: 'And the people of Nineveh believed God and called for a fast and put on sackcloth' — that is, they repented. Our opponents cleverly pass over the words 'they believed,' yet the whole point rests there. You do not read in Jonah that the Ninevites received the law of Moses, were circumcised, offered sacrifice, or fulfilled the works of the law — you read that they believed the word and repented in sackcloth and ashes.

All of this happened before Christ was revealed, when faith in the coming Christ was still the reigning form of saving faith. If the Gentiles were justified without the law and received the Holy Spirit inwardly even while the law was still in force — why should the law now be required for righteousness, when Christ's coming has already brought the law to its end? This is therefore a firm and solid argument grounded in the Galatians' own experience: 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?' For they were compelled to admit that they had heard nothing about the Holy Spirit before Paul's preaching — but when he preached the Gospel, they received the Holy Spirit.

We today are likewise convicted by our own consciences and forced to confess that the Holy Spirit is given not through the law but through hearing with faith. Many in past times under the papacy worked with great labor and effort to keep the law, the decrees of the church fathers, and the traditions of the pope. Some wore out their bodies through relentless vigils, fasting, and prayer until they could barely function — and yet all they gained was misery and self-torment. They could never arrive at a quiet conscience and peace in Christ; they remained in constant doubt about whether God was favorably disposed toward them. But now that the Gospel teaches that the law and works do not justify — only faith in Jesus Christ — there follows a clear and certain knowledge, a deeply joyful conscience, and a true ability to evaluate every way of life and everything else. The believing person can now readily see that the papacy with all its religious orders and traditions is corrupt — something he could not perceive before. Such was the blindness that gripped the world: we thought that works invented by human beings — not only without God's command but contrary to it — were far superior to the works that magistrates, heads of households, children, and servants performed in obedience to God's actual commands.

We should have learned from God's word that the religious orders of the papists — which they alone call holy — are corrupt, since there is no commandment of God and no testimony in Scripture approving them. By contrast, other ways of life that have the word and warrant of God are holy and ordained by Him. But we were wrapped in such terrible darkness that we could not rightly judge anything. Now, in the clear light of the Gospel, all the ways of life in the world come under our judgment — a judgment that is certain and reliable. We can boldly declare from God's word that the life of a servant, which the world regards as the most lowly, is far more pleasing to God than all the religious orders of the papists. God commends, approves, and honors the role of servants in His word — but He does not do the same for the orders of monks, friars, and their kind. Therefore this argument grounded in experience should carry great weight for us as well. For even though many people in the papacy performed various works — some of them great and painful — they could never be certain what God's will toward them was; they were always in doubt and could never come to a knowledge of God, of themselves, of their calling, or feel the testimony of the Spirit in their hearts. But now that the truth of the Gospel has appeared, they are fully instructed in all of these things through the hearing of faith alone.

It is not without reason that I spend so much time on these things. To human reason it seems a trivial and simple thing — that the Holy Spirit should be received merely by hearing with faith, and that nothing more is required of us than to set aside all our works and simply listen to the Gospel. The human heart does not grasp or believe that something so great as the Holy Spirit could be given by the hearing of faith alone. Instead it reasons this way: 'Forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death, the gift of the Holy Spirit, righteousness, and eternal life are immense things. If you want to obtain these priceless benefits, you must perform some equally great and weighty deed.' The devil is well pleased with this reasoning and works to increase it in the heart. So when a person hears that nothing is required to obtain forgiveness of sins except hearing God's word, reason immediately cries out: 'You are making far too little of the forgiveness of sins!' In this way, the immeasurable greatness of the gift is the very reason we cannot believe it — and because this incomparable treasure is freely given, it is despised.

But this we must learn: that forgiveness of sins, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are freely given to us through the hearing of faith alone, despite our terrible sins and our complete unworthiness. We must not dwell on how great the gift is and how unworthy we are of it — for measuring it that way would only terrify us. Instead we must take hold of this truth: that God is pleased to give us this unspeakable gift freely, even to us who are unworthy. As Christ says in Luke: 'Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom' (Luke 12:32) — to give it, He says, to you. To whom? To you who are unworthy — His little flock. If I am small and the gift is great — the greatest of all things — then I must recognize how great He is who gives it. If He offers it and wills to give it, I do not look at my own sin and unworthiness but at His fatherly goodwill toward me as the giver, and I receive this immense gift with joy and gladness, giving thanks that such an incomparable gift has been freely given to me — yes, to me, the unworthy — through the hearing of faith.

Here foolish reason objects and rebukes us again, saying: 'When you teach people that they must do absolutely nothing to obtain so great and unspeakable a gift — only hear the word of God — this seems to lead to contempt of grace and to make people careless, idle, and loose, so that they slack off and do no good at all. Therefore this teaching should not be preached, for it is not true. People must be pressed to work and strive toward righteousness, and then they will receive this gift.' The Pelagians raised exactly this same objection against Christians in former times. But hear what Paul says here: you received the Holy Spirit not through your own effort and labor, not through the works of the law, but through the hearing of faith. And hear what Christ Himself says in answer to Martha, who was deeply troubled that her sister Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet listening to His word instead of helping her with the serving. 'Martha, Martha,' He said, 'you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken from her' (Luke 10:41-42). A person therefore becomes a Christian not by working but by hearing. Therefore whoever wants to grow in righteousness should first exercise himself in hearing the Gospel. When he has heard and received the Gospel, let him give thanks to God with a joyful heart — and then let him practice the good works commanded in the law, so that the law and works follow the hearing of faith. In this way he can walk calmly in the light, which is Christ, and boldly choose and do genuine works — not hypocritical performances, but truly good works that he knows are commanded by God and pleasing to Him — while rejecting all those hypocritical shadows of self-willed devotion.

Our opponents think that the faith by which we receive the Holy Spirit is a simple and easy thing — but how lofty and demanding it actually is, I know from my own experience, as do all who earnestly embrace it alongside me. It is quickly said that the Holy Spirit is received through the hearing of faith alone — but it is not so easily heard, grasped, believed, and held on to as it is said. Therefore when you hear from me that Christ is the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for your sins, make sure you hear it truly. Paul deliberately calls it 'the hearing of faith' rather than merely 'the word of faith' — though the difference is small — meaning this: it is a word that you, in hearing it, actually believe, so that the word is not merely my voice but enters your heart and is believed by you. When that happens, it is truly and genuinely the hearing of faith, through which you receive the Holy Spirit — and once you have received Him, you will also mortify your flesh.

Believers discover in their own experience how eagerly they want to hold and embrace the word when they hear it — to believe it fully and let go of all confidence in the law and their own righteousness — and yet they feel powerful resistance in their flesh against the Spirit. Reason and the flesh insist on working together. The thought 'you must be circumcised and keep the law' cannot be fully rooted out of our minds; it clings firmly in the hearts of all believers. So there is a constant conflict in believers between the hearing of faith and the works of the law. The conscience constantly murmurs and thinks: 'This is too easy a path — that righteousness, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life are promised simply through hearing the word.' But come to an honest test of it, and then tell me how easy it really is to hear the word of faith. The Giver is great — and He gives great things willingly and freely, without reproaching anyone for their unworthiness. But your capacity to receive is strained, and your faith is weak, still fighting against you, so that you struggle to take hold of this gift. Even so, however much your conscience murmurs against you and however often this 'you must' rises up in your mind, stand firm and hold on until you overcome it. As faith grows little by little, that assumption of righteousness through the law will shrink. But this cannot happen without a great struggle.

Verse 3. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Having concluded his argument — that the Holy Spirit does not come through the works of the law but through the preaching of faith — Paul now begins to exhort the Galatians and warns them of two serious dangers. The first is: 'Are you so foolish that, having begun in the Spirit, you would now end in the flesh?' The second follows right after: 'Have you suffered so many things in vain?' It is as if he were saying: You began in the Spirit — that is, your Christian life had an excellent start. As he says a little later: 'You were running well' (Galatians 5:7). But what have you gained by it? In truth, you are now ending in the flesh — indeed, you are already ending in the flesh.

Paul here sets the Spirit against the flesh. By 'flesh' he does not mean — as I have noted before — lust, animal passions, or sensual desires; he is not addressing lust or other bodily cravings here. Rather, he is talking about forgiveness of sins, the justifying of the conscience, the obtaining of righteousness before God, and deliverance from the law, sin, and death — and yet he says they have abandoned the Spirit and are now ending in the flesh. Here 'flesh' means the very righteousness and wisdom of fallen human nature — the judgment of reason that tries to become righteous through the law. Whatever is best and most excellent in a person — the wisdom of reason, yes, and the righteousness of the law itself — Paul here calls 'flesh.'

This passage must be carefully weighed, especially against the slanderous and fault-finding papists who twist it against us, saying that we in our time began in the Spirit but now, having taken wives, we are ending in the flesh. As if living without a wife were what constitutes a spiritual life — and as if it were no obstacle to spiritual life for a man, not content with one mistress, to keep many. These are people who do not understand what the Spirit is, or what the flesh is. The Spirit is whatever is done in us through the Spirit; the flesh is whatever is done in us according to fallen human nature and without the Spirit. Therefore all the duties of a Christian man — loving his wife, raising his children, governing his household, and the like, which the papists dismiss as worldly and carnal — are in fact fruits of the Spirit. These blind critics cannot tell the difference between good gifts of God and vices.

It should also be noted that Paul says the Galatians 'began' in the Spirit. He could have written this actively: 'Are you now being completed in the flesh?' — but he does not. Instead he uses the passive: 'Are you being completed in the flesh?' — or more precisely, 'Are you being ended in the flesh?' The righteousness of the law, which Paul calls 'flesh' here, is so far from justifying that those who, after receiving the Holy Spirit through hearing with faith, fall back to it, are in fact ended in it — that is, utterly destroyed by it. Therefore, whoever teaches that the law must be fulfilled in order to be justified, while trying to quiet people's consciences, actually harms those consciences — and while trying to justify people, actually condemns them.

Paul throughout this letter keeps taking aim at the false apostles, who were still insisting on the law — saying: 'Faith in Christ alone does not take away sin, does not appease the wrath of God, does not justify. Therefore if you want these benefits, you must not only believe in Christ but also keep the law, be circumcised, observe the festivals, offer sacrifices, and so on.' Paul answers: 'On the contrary — by doing those very things you establish unrighteousness, you provoke the wrath of God, you pile sin upon sin, you quench the Spirit, you fall away from grace and completely reject it, and you and your disciples together are ending in the flesh.' This is the first danger from which Paul warns the Galatians — that if they seek to be justified by the law, they will lose the Spirit and exchange a good beginning for a wretched end.

Verse 4. Did you suffer so many things in vain?

The second danger and loss is this: 'Did you suffer so many things in vain?' It is as if Paul were saying: Consider not only how well you began and how miserably you have abandoned your good start and your course so well begun. Not only have you lost the first fruits of the Spirit, falling back into the ministry of sin and death and into the painful bondage of the law — but consider also that you have suffered much for the sake of the Gospel and the name of Christ. You endured the loss of your possessions, insults and slander, and dangers to your bodies and your lives. Everything was going well and moving forward. You taught the truth purely, you lived holy lives, and you bore many hardships steadfastly for the name of Christ. But now all of it is lost — both the teaching and the faith, both the doing and the suffering, both the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit.

From this it is clear what harm the righteousness of the law and human merit brings — those who trust in it lose immeasurable blessings in an instant. What a terrible thing it is to so suddenly lose such incomparable glory and the assurance of a clear conscience before God — and to have endured so many great and grievous afflictions, the loss of goods, wife, children, body, and life, and yet to have endured all of it for nothing. From these two points — the loss of the Spirit and the loss of all suffering for Christ's sake — a great deal of material could be gathered to expose and set forth at length the true commendation of the law and human righteousness, if one were to take each part separately and consider what Spirit it was they began with, and what great and numerous afflictions they endured for Christ. But no eloquence can adequately express these things. What Paul is dealing with here are immeasurable realities: the glory of God, victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil, righteousness and eternal life — and on the other side, sin, despair, eternal death, and hell. And yet in a moment we lose all these incomparable gifts and bring upon ourselves these horrible and endless miseries — all through false teachers who lead us away from the truth of the Gospel into false teaching. And they accomplish this not only easily, but under the guise of great holiness.

Verse 4. If indeed it was in vain.

Paul adds this as a qualification — softening the sharp rebuke that came before. He does this as an apostle, so as not to crush the Galatians with too much severity. Even while rebuking them, he always does it in a way that mixes in a touch of comfort, lest he drive them to despair.

Paul says: 'If indeed it was in vain.' It is as if he were saying: I have not removed all hope from you. But if you are going to end in the flesh — that is, if you are going to follow the righteousness of the law and abandon the Spirit, as you have begun to do — then know this: all your confidence and glory before God has been in vain, and all your sufferings have been wasted. I must speak somewhat more directly to you on this matter; I must be more forceful in defending the truth and sharper in rebuking you — especially since the issue is so serious, and the situation demands it — lest you think it is a trivial thing to reject the teaching of Paul and take up another. Nevertheless, I will not leave you without hope, so long as you repent and change course. Sick and weak children must not be abandoned but must be cared for more diligently than those who are well. So Paul, like a skilled physician, lays the blame almost entirely on the false apostles — the authors and the only real cause of this deadly disease. At the same time he treats the Galatians with great gentleness, hoping that through this gentleness he may heal them and restore them. Following Paul's example, we also ought to rebuke the weak in such a way that, while we address and remove their sickness, we also continue to encourage and comfort them — lest if we handle them too harshly, we drive them to despair.

Verse 5. So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

This argument drawn from the Galatians' own experience pleases Paul so much that after rebuking and warning them with a double danger, he returns to it again — this time expanding it further. 'He who provides the Spirit,' and so on. That is to say: You have not only received the Spirit through the hearing of faith — everything you have ever known or done, you have through the hearing of faith. It is as if he were saying: It was not enough for God to give you the Spirit once — He also enriched you with the gifts of the Spirit and caused them to grow in you, so that having once received the Spirit, He would continue to increase and become more effective in you. This makes it clear that the Galatians had worked miracles, or at the very least had shown such fruits of faith as true disciples of the Gospel are accustomed to bear. The apostle says elsewhere that the kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power (1 Corinthians 4:20). This power means not only the ability to speak about the kingdom of God, but actually showing that God is at work through His Spirit in us. So Paul says of himself in chapter two: 'He who was at work in Peter for his apostleship to the circumcised was also at work in me for mine to the Gentiles' (Galatians 2:8).

When a preacher preaches in such a way that the word is not empty but bears fruit — that is, when faith, hope, love, and patience follow — God gives His Spirit and works miracles in the hearers. Paul says here that God gave His Spirit to the Galatians and worked miracles among them. It is as if he were saying: Through my preaching God accomplished not only that you would believe, but that you would live holy lives, bring forth many fruits of faith, and endure many afflictions. By the same power of the Holy Spirit you were transformed — from adulterers, the wrathful, the impatient, and the greedy — into generous, chaste, gentle, patient, and loving neighbors. He then testifies of them in chapter four that they received him as an angel of God — indeed, as Christ Jesus Himself — and that they loved him so intensely they would have plucked out their own eyes for him.

To love your neighbor so wholeheartedly that you are ready to give your money, your possessions, your eyes, and everything you have for his good — and on top of that to bear all hardships and afflictions with patience — these are without question the effects and fruits of the Spirit. And these, Paul says, you received and enjoyed before the false teachers came among you. You received them not through the law but from God, who provided and daily increased His Holy Spirit in you — so that the Gospel flourished remarkably among you in teaching, believing, working, and suffering. Since you know all of this — being convicted by the very testimony of your own consciences — how is it that you are no longer bearing the same fruits as before? Why are you no longer teaching the truth, believing faithfully, living holy lives, working rightly, and suffering patiently? And finally: who has so corrupted you that you no longer have the same warm affection for me that you once had? That you no longer receive Paul as an angel of God, nor as Christ Jesus? That you would not now pluck out your eyes to give them to me? How is it, I ask, that your former zeal for me has grown so cold, and that you now prefer these false apostles — who miserably mislead you — above me?

Something similar has happened to us in our own day. When we first preached the Gospel, many people were drawn to our teaching and held it in high regard, and after the preaching of it, the operations and fruits of faith followed. But then what happened? A number of unstable and confused people sprang up and quickly destroyed everything that we had planted over a long time with great labor — and they also made us hateful to those who had previously loved us deeply and received our teaching with gratitude, so that now there is nothing they hate more than our name. But the devil is the source of this damage, working through his followers to produce the opposite of what the Holy Spirit produces. Therefore, says the apostle, your own experience — O Galatians — ought to teach you that these great and excellent miracles did not come from the works of the law. For just as you did not have them before you heard the Gospel preached with faith, so you do not have them now, even though the false apostles reign in your midst.

We can say the same thing today to those who claim to be followers of the Gospel and to have been freed from the pope's tyranny: Did you overcome the pope's tyranny and find liberty in Christ through the Anabaptists and other such fanatics — or through us, who preached faith in Jesus Christ? If they will be honest, they must say: without any doubt, it was through the preaching of faith. And it is true that at the beginning of our preaching, the teaching of faith had a remarkably fruitful season — the pope's indulgences, purgatory, vows, Masses, and similar abominations came crashing down, and with them the whole structure of the papacy began to fall. No one could rightly condemn us, for our teaching was pure — it lifted up and comforted many poor consciences that had been crushed for a long time under human traditions in the papacy, which was open tyranny, a tormenting and crucifying of consciences. Many therefore gave thanks to God that through the Gospel — which by God's grace we were the first to preach — they had been so powerfully delivered from these snares and from this slaughterhouse of consciences. But when these new unstable people sprang up and set about discrediting us by every means, our teaching began to be viewed with suspicion — for it was widely rumored that those who held it disagreed among themselves. Many people were deeply troubled by this and fell away entirely from the truth, which gave the papists hope that we and our teaching would soon come to nothing, and that they would recover their former authority.

Just as the false apostles insisted strongly that the Galatians — who had been justified by faith in Christ — now needed to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses if they wanted to be delivered from their sins and from God's wrath and to receive the Holy Spirit — and yet by doing exactly that they loaded the Galatians with more sin (for sin is not taken away by the law, nor is the Holy Spirit given through it — the law only produces wrath and drives people into terror) — so today these reckless people, who thought they were securing the welfare of the church and overthrowing the papacy at a single blow, have not done good but great harm to the church. They have not overthrown the papacy; they have only strengthened it.

But if they had continued as they began — if they had with one mind, together with us, taught and pressed the article of justification: that we are justified neither by the righteousness of the law nor by our own righteousness, but by faith alone in Jesus Christ — this one article, little by little as it had begun to do, would have overthrown the whole papacy, with all its brotherhoods, indulgences, religious orders, relics, ceremonies, invocation of saints, purgatory, Masses, vigils, vows, and countless other abominations. But they abandoned the preaching of faith and true Christian righteousness and went a different direction, to the great damage of sound teaching and of the churches. It has happened to them much as the old Dutch proverb says: they drove away the fish the net was closing in around, by trying to catch them with their bare hands.

Verse 6. Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Up to this point Paul has grounded his argument on the experience of the Galatians, and he has pressed it strongly. 'You believed,' he says, 'and in believing you worked miracles and showed many remarkable signs — and beyond that, you endured many afflictions. All of these things are the effects and work not of the law but of the Holy Spirit.' The Galatians were compelled to acknowledge this. They could not deny what had been before their eyes and was subject to their own senses — and therefore this argument drawn from their own experience is very powerful.

Now Paul adds the example of Abraham and cites the testimony of Scripture. The first citation is from Genesis: 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness' (Genesis 15:6). Paul develops this passage with great force here, as he also does in his letter to the Romans (Romans 4:2-3). 'If Abraham was made righteous by the works of the law,' he says, 'he has something to boast about — but not before God, only before other people; for before God he still has sin and wrath.' Abraham was justified before God not because he worked but because he believed. For Scripture says: 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Paul expands on this passage memorably in Romans (Romans 4:19-21): 'Abraham did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver in unbelief at God's promise but was strengthened in faith and gave glory to God, being fully convinced that what God had promised He was also able to perform. Therefore it was credited to him as righteousness.' And Paul adds: 'But the words, it was credited to him, were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also' (Romans 4:23-24).

With the words 'Abraham believed,' Paul makes faith in God the highest form of worship, the highest duty, the highest obedience, and the highest sacrifice. Let anyone with a gift for rhetoric develop this passage at length and he will see that faith is an almighty thing, whose power is beyond measure and without limit. For faith gives glory to God — which is the highest possible service one can give Him. To give glory to God means to believe in Him, to regard Him as true, wise, righteous, merciful, and almighty — to acknowledge Him as the source and giver of all goodness. Reason does not do this; faith does. This is what makes us people of God — it is, one might say, the creator of a kind of divinity in us, not in the substance of God, but in us. For without faith, God loses in us His glory, wisdom, righteousness, truth, and mercy. In short: wherever there is no faith, God's majesty and divinity have no place in us. The greatest thing God requires of a person is to give Him His glory and honor — that is, to treat Him not as an idol but as God, who takes notice of us, hears us, shows mercy, and helps. When this is done, God has His full and perfect honor among us — that is, He receives everything that a believing heart can give Him. To be able to give that glory to God is therefore the wisdom of all wisdoms, the righteousness of all righteousnesses, the truest religion, and the greatest sacrifice. From this we can understand how high and excellent a righteousness faith is — and by contrast, how terrible and grievous a sin unbelief is.

Whoever therefore believes God's word as Abraham did is righteous before God, because he has faith, which gives glory to God — that is, he renders to God what is due Him. Faith says: 'I believe You, O God, when You speak.' And what does God speak? To the ear of reason: impossible things, falsehoods, foolish and absurd things, worthless and scandalous things. For what is more absurd, foolish, and impossible to reason than God's word to Abraham — that he would have a son by his barren and aged wife Sarah?

If we follow the judgment of reason, God presents us with impossible and absurd statements when He sets before us the articles of the Christian faith. To reason it seems absurd and foolish that in the Lord's Supper the body and blood of Christ are offered to us; that baptism is the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit; that the dead will rise on the last day; that Christ the Son of God was conceived and carried in the womb of the virgin Mary; that He was born, suffered the most shameful death of the cross, was raised again, now sits at the right hand of God the Father, and holds all authority in heaven and on earth. This is why Paul calls the Gospel of Christ crucified the 'word of the cross' and 'foolish preaching' — a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:18-23). Reason therefore does not understand that hearing God's word and believing it is the highest service God requires of us — instead it thinks that whatever it chooses and does with good intentions and sincere personal devotion is what pleases God. And so when God speaks, reason judges His word to be heresy, the word of the devil — because it seems absurd and foolish.

But faith slays reason — it kills that beast which the whole world and all creation together cannot kill. Abraham killed it by faith in God's word, by which word a child was promised him through Sarah, who was barren and now well past the age of childbearing. Reason did not immediately yield in Abraham — without doubt it fought against faith in him, judging it absurd, foolish, and impossible that Sarah, now ninety years old and naturally barren, should bear a son. So faith wrestled with reason in Abraham — and faith won. Faith killed and sacrificed reason, that most cruel and destructive enemy of God. So all the godly, following Abraham into the darkness of faith, put reason to death and say: 'Reason, you are foolish — you do not grasp the things of God. So do not argue against me, but be silent. Do not judge; instead hear the word of God and believe it.' In this way the godly, by faith, slay a beast greater than the whole world — and in doing so offer to God the most acceptable sacrifice and service.

Compared to this sacrifice of the faithful, all the religions of all nations and all the works of all monks and merit-seekers are nothing at all. By this sacrifice, first of all — as I said — they slay reason, the great and mighty enemy of God. For reason despises God and denies His wisdom, righteousness, power, truth, mercy, majesty, and divinity. Furthermore, by the same sacrifice they give glory to God: they believe Him to be righteous, good, faithful, and true; they believe He can do all things; they believe all His words are holy, true, living, and effective — which is the most acceptable obedience to God. Therefore there is no greater or holier religion in the world, and no more acceptable service to God, than faith.

By contrast, those who seek righteousness by their own works — lacking faith — do many things. They fast, they pray, they keep vigils, they take up crosses. But because they think to appease God's wrath and earn grace by these things, they give no glory to God — that is, they do not regard Him as merciful, faithful, and true to His promises, but as an angry judge who must be appeased by works. In this way they despise God, treat all His promises as lies, deny Christ and all His benefits, and in the end push God from His throne and set themselves in His place. For by rejecting and despising God's word, they choose for themselves forms of worship and works that God has not commanded. They imagine that God takes pleasure in these things and hope to receive His reward for them. Therefore they do not kill reason, that mighty enemy of God — they strengthen it. And they strip God of His majesty and divinity, attributing it instead to their own works. Therefore only faith gives glory to God, as Paul testifies regarding Abraham: 'He grew strong in faith and gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised — therefore it was credited to him as righteousness' (Romans 4:20-22).

Paul does not add this quotation from Genesis 15 without purpose: 'And it was credited to him as righteousness.' Christian righteousness consists of two things: the faith of the heart, and God's imputation. Faith is indeed a real and genuine righteousness — and yet faith alone is not enough, because after faith there remain certain remnants of sin in our flesh. This sacrifice of faith began in Abraham, but it was completed only at his death. Therefore the second part of righteousness must also be added to complete it in us — namely, God's imputation. For faith does not give God everything He deserves, because faith itself is imperfect. In fact, our faith is but a small spark, just beginning to render to God His true glory. We have received the first fruits of the Spirit, but not yet the fullness. Beyond this, reason is not completely put to death in this life, as is evident from our sinful desires, anger, impatience, and other fruits of the flesh and of remaining unbelief in us. Even the holiest among the living do not yet have full and constant joy in God; they have their varying emotions — sometimes sorrowful, sometimes glad — as Scripture testifies of the prophets and apostles. But these faults are not charged against them because of their faith in Christ — for otherwise no one in the flesh would be saved. We conclude therefore from the words 'it was credited to him as righteousness' that righteousness does begin through faith, and that through faith we have the first fruits of the Spirit. But because faith is weak, it is not made complete apart from God's imputation. Faith therefore begins righteousness, and imputation perfects it until the day of Christ.

The papist sophists and Scholastics also discuss imputation when they speak of God's acceptance of a work — but they do so in a way that is contrary to Scripture, twisting it to apply only to works. They do not consider the inner corruption and poison lurking in the heart: unbelief, doubt, contempt of God, hatred of God — these most dangerous and destructive passions, which are the source and cause of all wickedness. They see no further than external and obvious faults and wrongdoing, which are merely small streams flowing out from those fountains. And so they attribute God's acceptance to works — saying that God accepts our works not because He must but by fittingness. We, by contrast, exclude all works and go straight to the head of this beast called reason, which is the very fountainhead and source of all evil. For reason does not fear God, does not love God, and does not trust in God — it proudly despises Him. It is moved neither by His warnings nor by His promises. It takes no delight in His words or works but murmurs against Him, grows angry with Him, judges Him, and hates Him. In short, it is an enemy of God who refuses to give Him His glory. Once this pestilent beast — reason — is slain, all external and obvious vices would amount to nothing.

Therefore we must first and above all things work through faith to kill unbelief — the contempt and hatred of God, the grumbling against His judgments and His wrath, against all His words and works. For it is in this way that we kill reason, which can be killed by no other means than by faith — faith that in believing God gives Him His glory, even when He speaks things that seem foolish, absurd, and impossible to reason. God presents Himself to us in a way that reason cannot judge or comprehend, saying: 'I will count you and declare you righteous — not for keeping the law, not for your works and merits, but for your faith in Jesus Christ My only begotten Son, who was born, suffered, was crucified, and died for your sins. And the sin that remains in you, I will not count against you.' If reason is not killed, and if every form of religion and service to God invented by human beings to earn righteousness before God is not condemned, the righteousness of faith can find no room.

When reason hears this, it is immediately offended — it rages and unleashes all its hostility against God, saying: 'Are my good works then worth nothing? Have I labored and borne the burden and heat of the day for nothing?' From this comes the uprising of nations, kings, and princes against the Lord and against His Christ (Psalm 2:2). The world will not and cannot tolerate having its wisdom, righteousness, religions, and devotions reproved and condemned. The pope with all his company will not admit to being in error — much less will he allow himself to be condemned.

Therefore let those who study the word of God learn from this saying — 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness' — to define true Christian righteousness rightly and accurately: it is faith and trust in the Son of God, or more precisely, a confidence of the heart toward God through Jesus Christ. And let them add this defining clause: 'This faith and confidence is credited as righteousness for Christ's sake.' For these two things, as I said before, produce Christian righteousness: faith in the heart, which is God's gift and which truly believes in Christ — and God's acceptance of this imperfect faith as perfect righteousness for Christ's sake, in whom I have begun to believe. Because of this faith in Christ, God does not see my doubts about His goodwill toward me, my distrust, my heaviness of spirit, or the other sins that remain in me. For as long as I live in the flesh, sin is truly present in me. But because I am sheltered under the shadow of Christ's wings — as a chick under the wing of a hen — and dwell without fear under that vast and spacious heaven of forgiveness spread over me, God covers and pardons the remaining sin in me. That is: because of the faith with which I have begun to lay hold of Christ, He accepts my imperfect righteousness as perfect righteousness and does not count my sin as sin — even though it truly is sin.

So we hide ourselves under the covering of Christ's flesh — He is our cloud by day and our fire by night — so that God does not see our sin. And even when we do see our sin and feel the terror of conscience on account of it, we flee to Christ our Mediator and reconciler, through whom we are made complete — and we are safe and secure. For all things are in Him, and through Him we have all things; He supplies whatever is lacking in us. When we believe this, God overlooks all our sins and the remnants of them still clinging to our flesh, and wills that they be so covered as though they were no sins. 'Because you believe in My Son,' He says, 'even though you have many sins, they must be forgiven you, until you are fully delivered from them through death.'

Let Christians study this article of Christian righteousness with all diligence. To that end let them read Paul — read him again and again, carefully and repeatedly — comparing earlier passages with later ones, and indeed reading Paul as a whole in light of himself. Then they will find it to be true that Christian righteousness consists in two things: faith, which gives glory to God, and God's imputation. For faith is weak, as I have said, and therefore God's imputation must accompany it — meaning that God will not count the remaining sin against us, will not punish us for it, and will not condemn us for it, but will cover it and freely forgive it as though it were nothing at all. Not for our own sake, nor for our worth or our works, but for the sake of Jesus Christ in whom we believe.

So a Christian is at once righteous and a sinner, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a child of God. No sophist will accept this combination, for they do not understand the true nature of justification. This is what drove them to demand that people do good works until they felt no sin in them at all — and in doing so they drove many people who were striving with all their strength to be perfectly righteous, but could not achieve it, to the point of utter despair. And countless even among those who promoted this wicked teaching were themselves driven to despair at the hour of death. The same would have happened to me, had Christ not mercifully looked upon me and delivered me from this error.

By contrast, we teach and comfort the troubled sinner this way: 'Brother, it is not possible in this life for you to become so righteous that you feel no sin at all — that your body should be as clear as the sun, without spot or blemish. You still have wrinkles and blemishes, and yet you are holy nonetheless.' 'But how can I be holy,' you might ask, 'when I have sin in me and feel it?' I answer: The very fact that you feel and acknowledge your sin is a good sign. Give thanks to God and do not despair. Recognizing and confessing one's disease is the first step toward healing. 'But how shall I be delivered from sin?' Run to Christ the Physician, who heals the brokenhearted and saves sinners. Do not follow the judgment of reason, which tells you He is angry with sinners — kill reason and believe in Christ. If you believe, you are righteous, because you are giving glory to God — acknowledging that He is almighty, merciful, and true. You are justifying and praising God. In short, you are rendering to Him His divinity and everything that belongs to Him. The sin remaining in you is not counted against you but is pardoned for the sake of Christ in whom you believe, who is perfectly righteous — His righteousness is your righteousness, and your sin is His sin.

Here we see that every Christian is a high priest. First he offers up and slays his own reason and the wisdom of the flesh. Then he gives glory to God — acknowledging that He is righteous, true, patient, compassionate, and merciful. This is the daily sacrifice of the new covenant, which must be offered morning and evening. The evening sacrifice is the slaying of reason. The morning sacrifice is the glorifying of God. So a Christian is daily and continually engaged in this double sacrifice and its exercise. No one can adequately express the excellence and dignity of this Christian sacrifice.

This is therefore a remarkable and wonderful definition of Christian righteousness: it is God's imputation of righteousness — or imputation for righteousness — on account of our faith in Christ, or for Christ's sake. When the papist Scholastics hear this definition, they laugh at it. They imagine that righteousness is a kind of quality poured into the soul and then spreading through all parts of a person. They cannot set aside the foolish assumptions of reason, which tells them that sound judgment and a good will or a good intention constitute true righteousness. But this unspeakable gift exceeds all reason — that God counts as righteous and declares righteous, without works, the person who embraces His Son by faith alone, that Son who was sent into the world, was born, suffered, and was crucified for us.

In terms of the words, this is not a complicated matter — that righteousness does not reside essentially in us but outside us, in God's grace alone and in His imputation; and that there is no inherent righteousness residing in us apart from that weak faith, or first fruits of faith, by which we have begun to take hold of Christ, while sin in the meantime truly remains in us. But in reality it is no small or trivial matter — it is serious and of the greatest importance. For Christ, who was given for us and whom we lay hold of by faith, has done no small thing for us and has not trifled with us. As Paul said before: He loved us and gave Himself for us in very truth; He was made a curse for us. It is no empty idea that Christ was delivered up for my sins and was made a curse for me, so that I might be delivered from eternal death. Therefore to take hold of that Son by faith, and with the heart to believe in Him who was given for us and to us by God — this causes God to count that faith, even though it is imperfect, as perfect righteousness.

We are in an entirely different realm from reason — far from it — where we do not debate what we ought to do or by what works we might earn grace and forgiveness. We are here in the realm of high and heavenly theology, where we hear this Gospel — this good news — that Christ died for us, and that in believing this, we are counted righteous, even though sin still remains in us, and terrible sin at that. Our Savior Christ Himself defines the righteousness of faith in the same way. He says: 'The Father loves you' (John 16:27). Why does He love you? Not because you were Pharisees blameless in the righteousness of the law, not because you were circumcised, not because you did good works and fasted, and so on. Rather: 'I chose you out of the world, and you have done nothing except love Me and believe that I came from the Father.' 'This reality of My being sent from the Father into the world pleased you, and because you took hold of it and embraced it, the Father loves you and you are pleasing to Him.' And yet elsewhere He calls these same disciples sinful and tells them to pray for forgiveness. These two things are directly opposite: that a Christian is righteous and beloved of God, and yet is at the same time a sinner. For God cannot deny His own nature — He must hate sin and sinners, and He does so necessarily, for otherwise He would be unjust and would be loving sin. How then can these two opposite truths stand together? I am a sinner and fully deserving of God's wrath and indignation — and yet the Father loves me? Nothing stands between these two realities except Christ the Mediator. 'The Father does not love you,' Jesus says, 'because you are worthy of love, but because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from Him.'

So a Christian lives in true humility — genuinely feeling sin in himself and confessing himself worthy of wrath, God's judgment, and eternal death — so that he is kept humble in this life. And yet at the same time he continues in a holy boldness, turning to Christ and lifting himself up through Christ against this felt sense of God's wrath and judgment — believing not only that the remnants of sin are not counted against him, but that he is loved by the Father, not for his own sake but for the sake of Christ whom the Father loves.

From this we can now see how faith justifies without works — and also why the imputation of righteousness is necessary. Sin remains in us, and God utterly hates sin. Therefore we must have the imputation of righteousness, which we receive through Christ and for Christ's sake, who is given to us and received by us through faith. In the meantime, for as long as we live here, we are carried and nourished in the lap of God's mercy and patience, until the body of sin is abolished and we are raised as new creatures on that great day. Then there will be new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). For now, under this present heaven, sin and wicked people dwell — and the godly too have sin dwelling in them. This is why Paul in Romans 7 complains about the sin that remains even in the saints — and yet afterward in chapter 8 he declares that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). How are these contradictions resolved — that sin in us is not counted as sin? That one who deserves condemnation will not be condemned? That one who is rejected will not be rejected? That one who is worthy of God's wrath and eternal punishment will not be punished? The only reconciler of these opposites is the one Mediator between God and humanity — the man Christ Jesus — as Paul says: 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.'

Verse 7. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.

This is Paul's central and overarching argument against the Jews — that those who believe are the children of Abraham, not those who are descended from his flesh and blood. Paul presses this argument forcefully here and in chapters 4 and 9 of Romans. The Jews' greatest confidence and glory was this: 'We are the seed and children of Abraham.' Their reasoning followed: 'He was circumcised and kept the law; therefore, to be true children of Abraham, we must follow our father.' Without a doubt it was a remarkable privilege and great honor to be Abraham's descendants — no one could deny that God spoke to and about the seed of Abraham. But this privilege did the unbelieving Jews no good at all. For this reason Paul, especially in this passage, fights powerfully against this argument and strips from the Jews their proud confidence in it. As God's chosen instrument, Paul was uniquely equipped to do this above all others — if we had tried to argue against the Jews from the beginning without Paul, we would likely have made very little headway.

Paul argues against the Jews who stood so proudly on their identity as Abraham's children. Their claim was: 'We are Abraham's seed.' 'Very well,' Paul says, 'what of it?' 'Abraham was circumcised and kept the law — we do the same.' 'All of this I grant you.' 'Are you therefore to be justified and saved by it?' No, not by that. Let us go back to the patriarch Abraham himself and look at how he was justified and saved. Not by his excellent virtues and holy works — not by leaving his homeland, his relatives, and his father's house; not by being circumcised and keeping the law; not by his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command, the son in whom the promise of his descendants rested. He was justified because he believed. Therefore he was justified by no other means than by faith alone. If you are to be justified by the law, then certainly Abraham your father ought to have been justified by the law far more than you. But Abraham could not be justified or receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit by any other means than faith alone. Since Scripture itself testifies to this, why do you make so much of circumcision and the law, insisting that you have righteousness and salvation through them — when your own father Abraham, the very source of your boast, was justified and saved without them, by faith alone? What can be said against this argument?

Paul therefore draws this conclusion: those who are of faith are the children of Abraham — physical birth or natural descent does not make someone a child of Abraham before God. He is saying: no one is counted as a child of the true Abraham — the servant of God whom God chose and made righteous by faith — through physical descent alone. Abraham must have children given to him before God who are children in the same way he was a father. But he was a father in faith — justified and pleasing to God not because he could produce children in the flesh, not because he had circumcision and the law, but because he believed in God. Therefore, whoever wants to be a child of the believing Abraham must himself also believe — otherwise he is not a child of the elect, accepted, and justified Abraham, but only of the procreating Abraham, who apart from faith is simply a person conceived, born, and wrapped in sin, without forgiveness, without faith, without the Holy Spirit — condemned like any other person. Such too are the children physically born from him — they carry nothing from their father except flesh and blood, sin and death. Therefore these also are condemned. That proud boast — 'We are the seed of Abraham' — is completely empty.

Paul sets out this argument clearly in Romans 9 by means of two examples from Scripture. The first is the case of Ishmael and Isaac, who were both the natural, physical children of Abraham. And yet Ishmael — who was begotten by Abraham just as Isaac was, and who would have had the privilege of the firstborn if physical descent had any standing before God — is excluded. The Scripture says: 'In Isaac shall your offspring be named' (Romans 9:7). The second example is Esau and Jacob, who, while still in the womb having done nothing good or evil, were told: 'The older will serve the younger' and 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated' (Romans 9:12-13). It is therefore clear that those who are of faith are the children of Abraham.

But some will object here — as the Jews do, and certain overconfident people today who wish to appear knowledgeable — saying that the Hebrew word for 'faith' in this passage means 'truth,' and that we are therefore misusing it in this context. They add that Genesis 15 is speaking about a physical thing — the promise of descendants — and therefore Paul is not entitled to apply it to faith in Christ; it should simply be understood as Abraham's faith in God's promise that he would have offspring. By this they hope to show that Paul's arguments and citations prove nothing. In the same way they might object that Paul's later citation from Habakkuk speaks of faith concerning the fulfillment of that vision as a whole, not specifically of faith in Christ, for which purpose Paul uses it. Likewise they might twist all of Hebrews 11, which speaks of faith and the examples of faith. By these arguments such vain and arrogant people hunt for praise and seek to be considered wise and learned — where they least deserve it. But for the sake of simple and less-informed readers, we will briefly answer their objections.

To the first objection I answer this: faith is nothing other than the truth of the heart — that is, a right and genuine conviction about God. Faith alone thinks and judges rightly about God; reason does not. A person thinks rightly about God when he believes God's word. But when he tries to understand God without the word and trusts in him according to the wisdom of reason, he has no right understanding of God and therefore cannot think or judge of Him as he should. Take the example of a monk who imagines that his robe, his shaved head, and his vows please God, and that grace and eternal life are given to him on account of these things — he has no true understanding of God but a false and godless one. Truth therefore is faith itself, which judges rightly about God: namely, that God does not regard our works and righteousness, since we are unclean, but that He will have mercy on us, look upon us, accept us, justify us, and save us — if we believe in His Son, whom He sent to be a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. This is a true understanding of God — and in fact it is nothing other than faith itself. I cannot grasp or be fully assured by reason that I have been received into God's favor for Christ's sake; I hear this declared in the Gospel and I take hold of it by faith.

To the second objection I answer that Paul rightly uses the passage from Genesis 15, applying it to faith in Christ. For faith must always be joined with a certain assurance of God's mercy. This assurance includes a confident trust in the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake. It is impossible for the conscience to look for anything from God unless it is first assured that God is merciful to it for Christ's sake. Therefore all the promises must be referred back to that first promise concerning Christ: 'The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head' (Genesis 3:15). All the prophets understood it this way and taught it this way. From this we see that the faith of our fathers in the Old Testament and our faith in the New Testament are one and the same — though they differ in their external object. This is what Peter witnesses in Acts when he says: 'What neither our fathers nor we were able to bear — we believe through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that we will be saved, just as they were' (Acts 15:10-11). Paul also says: 'Our fathers all drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ' (1 Corinthians 10:4). And Christ Himself says: 'Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad' (John 8:56). Even so, the faith of the fathers was grounded in Christ who was to come, just as our faith is now grounded in Christ who has been revealed. Abraham in his time was made righteous through faith in Christ yet to come — but if he lived today, he would be made righteous by faith in Christ already revealed and present. As I said before about Cornelius: he first believed in Christ to come, but after being instructed by Peter, he believed that Christ had already come. The difference in times does not change faith, the Holy Spirit, or His gifts. For there has been, is, and will always be one will, one purpose, and one understanding concerning Christ — in both the ancient fathers and the faithful of today and those yet to come. We too have a Christ to come and believe in Him, just as the Old Testament fathers did — for we await His return in the last day in glory to judge the living and the dead, He whom we now believe has already come for our salvation. Therefore Paul's citation offends no one except blind and ignorant critics.

Paul therefore, as I have said, rightly uses the passage from Genesis about faith in Christ when speaking of Abraham's faith. For all the promises of the past were contained in Christ who was to come. Both Abraham and the other fathers, and we as well, are made righteous by faith in Christ — they by faith in Him yet to come, we by faith in Him now present. We are dealing here with the nature and manner of justification, which is the same for both them and us — concerning Christ who was coming and Christ who has come. It is enough, then, for Paul to show that the law does not justify — only faith does, whether that faith is in Christ yet to come or in Christ who has already come.

Even today, Christ is present to some and still to come for others. To all believers He is present; to unbelievers He has not yet come and profits them nothing at all. But if they hear the Gospel and believe that He is present for them, He justifies and saves them.

Verse 7. So then, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.

It is as if Paul were saying: You know from the example of Abraham and from the plain testimony of Scripture that those who are of faith are the children of Abraham — whether they are Jews or Gentiles — without any consideration of the law, works, or physical descent from the patriarchs. For it was not through the law but through the righteousness of faith that the promise was made to Abraham: that he would be heir of the world — that is, that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed, and that he would be called the father of nations. And lest the Jews falsely interpret this word 'nations' as referring only to themselves, the Scripture prevents this and says not merely 'a father of nations' but 'I have made you a father of many nations' (Genesis 17:5). Abraham is therefore not only the father of the Jews but also of the Gentiles.

From this we can clearly see that the children of Abraham are not the children of the flesh but the children of faith, as Paul explains in Romans 4: Abraham 'is the father of us all, as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations — in the presence of the God in whom he believed' (Romans 4:16-17). Paul thus presents two Abrahams: a procreating Abraham and a believing Abraham. Abraham has children and is a father of many nations — where? Before God, where he believes; not before the world, where he begets. In the world he is a son of Adam — a sinner, or even more precisely, a performer of legal righteousness living by the rule of reason, after the way of ordinary human beings. But that has no bearing on the believing Abraham.

The example of the believing Abraham therefore aligns with what Scripture declares: that we are counted righteous by faith. This argument is powerful from two directions — both from the example of Abraham and from the authority of Scripture.

Verse 8. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith...

These words continue the previous argument. It is as if Paul were saying: You Jews boast excessively about the law — you praise Moses greatly because God spoke to him in the burning bush, and so on. As the Jews would brag against us (as I have heard them do more than once): 'You Christians have apostles, a pope, and bishops — but we Jews have the patriarchs, the prophets, and God Himself, who spoke to us in the burning bush, at Sinai where He gave us the law, and in the temple.' 'Bring forward a glory and testimony to match that, if you can!' To this Paul the apostle to the Gentiles answers: 'This proud boasting of yours is worthless.' For Scripture anticipated it — foreseeing long before the law was given that the Gentiles would not be justified by the law but by the blessing promised to Abraham's seed, which was given to him, as Paul notes shortly after, 430 years before the law was given. The law, coming so many years later, could not block or cancel this promise of blessing made to Abraham — it has stood firm and will stand forever. What can the Jews say in response to this?

This argument from the chronology of events is very strong. The promise of blessing was given to Abraham 430 years before the people of Israel received the law. God said to Abraham: 'Because you believed God and gave glory to Him, you shall be a father of many nations.' There, by God's promise, Abraham was appointed the father of many nations, and the inheritance of the world for his descendants was given to him — before the law was ever proclaimed. Why then do you boast, O Galatians, that you obtain forgiveness of sins, become children of God, and receive the inheritance through the law — which came so long afterward, 430 years after the promise?

The false apostles promoted the law and its glory beyond all measure — while neglecting and despising the promise made to Abraham 430 years before the law was given. They utterly refused to acknowledge that Abraham — whom they boasted about as the father of their entire nation — was still uncircumcised and living many ages before the law when he was made righteous, and that he was made righteous by no other means than faith alone, as Scripture most plainly says: 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Only afterward, once he was already counted righteous on account of his faith, does Scripture speak of circumcision — in Genesis 17: 'This is My covenant which you shall keep between Me and you.' With this argument Paul thoroughly defeats the false apostles and shows plainly that Abraham was justified by faith alone — without circumcision, before circumcision, and 430 years before the law. He handles this same argument in Romans 4: that righteousness was credited to Abraham before circumcision, so that he was righteous while still uncircumcised — and therefore all the more righteous before the law existed.

Therefore, Paul says, Scripture well anticipated this proud boasting about the righteousness of the law and works — by establishing Abraham's justification before circumcision and before the law. The law was given 430 years after the promise, while Abraham was not only justified without the law and before the law existed, but had already died and been buried. And his righteousness without the law flourished not only up until the law came but will flourish to the end of the world. If then the father of the entire Jewish nation was made righteous without the law and before the law, all the more are his children made righteous by the same means their father was. Therefore righteousness comes by faith alone, and not through the law.

Verse 8. ...preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.'

The Jews not only pass lightly over these remarkable sentences — 'Abraham believed God,' 'I have appointed you a father,' and similar passages which highly commend faith and contain promises of spiritual things — they openly mock them and corrupt them with wicked interpretations. For they are blind and hard-hearted, and therefore cannot see that these passages deal with faith toward God and righteousness before God. With equal malice they trifle with this significant passage about spiritual blessing: 'In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.' They say that 'to bless' means nothing more than to praise, to wish prosperity, and to be celebrated before the world. On this basis they claim that the Jew born of Abraham's seed is blessed, and that the proselyte or foreigner who worships the God of the Jews and joins himself to them is also blessed. They think 'blessing' means nothing more than worldly praise and glory — that a person may boast of belonging to Abraham's family. But this is to corrupt and distort what Scripture says, not to explain it. By the words 'Abraham believed,' Paul defines and sets before us a spiritual Abraham — faithful, righteous, and holding God's promise. This is an Abraham not living in error and the old flesh — not born of Adam, but of the Holy Spirit. It is of this Abraham, renewed by faith and born again by the Holy Spirit, that Scripture speaks when it declares he would be a father of many nations and that all the Gentiles would be given to him as an inheritance — as in: 'In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.'

Scripture therefore attributes righteousness only to the believing Abraham — and it speaks of him as he stands before God. These passages of Scripture present us with a new Abraham, separated from physical marriage and physical descent, and regarded as he is before God: believing and justified through faith, to whom God now makes this promise on account of his faith: 'You shall be a father of many nations' and 'In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.' This is Paul's meaning when he shows how Scripture anticipated and exposed the vain presumption and proud boasting of the Jews about the law. For the inheritance of the Gentiles was given to Abraham not through the law and circumcision, but long before them — through the righteousness of faith alone.

Therefore, when the Jews claim to be blessed simply because they are Abraham's children and physical seed, it is nothing but empty boasting. It is indeed a great privilege and worldly honor to be descended from Abraham, as Paul acknowledges in Romans 9 — but not so before God. The Jews therefore wickedly distort this passage about the blessing by applying it only to a physical blessing, doing great injustice to Scripture, which speaks plainly of a spiritual blessing before God and cannot and should not be understood any other way. This then is the true meaning of 'in you shall all be blessed.' In which 'you'? In you, Abraham, who believes — or in your faith, or in your seed that is to come — that is, in Christ in whom you believe. All the nations of the earth shall be blessed — meaning all nations shall be your blessed children, just as you are blessed, as it is written: 'So shall your offspring be' (Genesis 15:5).

From this it follows that Abraham's blessing and faith are the same as ours — that Abraham's Christ is our Christ — and that Christ died for Abraham's sins just as He died for ours. Abraham 'saw My day and was glad' (John 8:56). Therefore everything sounds the same note. We must not allow the word 'blessing' to be distorted. The Jews look at Scripture through a veil and therefore do not understand what the promise made to the fathers is or what it concerns — yet we must consider this above all things. When we do, we will see that God speaks to Abraham the patriarch not about the law or about things to be done, but about things to be believed — that is, God speaks to him of promises that are received by faith. What does Abraham do? He believes those promises. And what does God do for that believing Abraham? He counts his faith as righteousness, and adds still more promises: 'I am your protector' (Genesis 15:1); 'In you all nations shall be blessed' (Genesis 12:3); 'You shall be a father of many nations' (Genesis 17:5); 'So shall your offspring be' (Genesis 15:5). These are unbreakable arguments against which nothing can be said — if the passages of Scripture are examined carefully.

Verse 9. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

The whole weight and force lies in the words 'with faithful Abraham.' Paul draws a clear distinction between Abraham and Abraham, making two persons out of one. It is as if he were saying: there is a working Abraham and there is a believing Abraham. With the working Abraham we have nothing to do. For if he is justified by works, he has reason to boast — but not before God. Let the Jews glory as much as they like in the procreating, working, circumcised, law-keeping Abraham. But we glory in the faithful Abraham, of whom Scripture says he received the blessing of righteousness through his faith — not only for himself but for all who believe as he believed (Romans 4:3). So the world was promised to Abraham because he believed. Therefore all the world is blessed — that is, receives the imputation of righteousness — if it believes as Abraham believed.

The blessing therefore is nothing other than the promise of the Gospel. And that all nations are blessed means that all nations will hear the blessing — that is, the promise of God will be preached and published by the Gospel among all nations. The prophets drew many prophecies from this passage through spiritual understanding. As in Psalm 2:8: 'Ask of Me, and I will make the nations Your heritage, and the ends of the earth Your possession.' And again in Psalm 19:4: 'Their voice goes out through all the earth.' In short, all the prophecies of Christ's kingdom and the publication of the Gospel throughout the whole world have sprung from this one statement: 'In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' To say that the nations are blessed, then, is nothing other than saying that righteousness is freely given to them — that they are counted righteous before God, not through the law but through hearing with faith. For Abraham was justified by no other means than by hearing the word of promise, of blessing, and of grace. Just as Abraham obtained the imputation of righteousness through hearing with faith, so all the Gentiles obtained and still obtain the same. For the same word first declared to Abraham was afterward published to all the Gentiles.

From this we see that 'to bless' means nothing other than — as I said — to preach and teach the word of the Gospel, to confess Christ, and to spread the knowledge of Him among all the Gentiles. This is the office and continual sacrifice of the church's priesthood in the new covenant — distributing this blessing through preaching, through the ministry of the sacraments, through comforting the brokenhearted, and through distributing the word of grace, which Abraham had and which was his blessing. He believed it, and in believing he received the blessing. We believe the same and are therefore blessed. And this blessing is a great glory — not before the world, but before God. For we have heard that our sins are forgiven, that we are accepted by God, that God is our Father and we are His children, with whom He will not be angry — but will deliver us from sin, from death, and from all evils, and will give us righteousness, life, and eternal salvation. The prophets — as I said — preached this blessing everywhere. They did not read those promises to the fathers as carelessly as the wicked Jews, the papist Scholastics, and the sectarians of today do. Instead they read and weighed them with great care and drew from them everything they prophesied about Christ and His kingdom. So the prophecy of Hosea 13:14 — 'I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?' — and similar passages from the other prophets all sprang from those promises in which God promised the fathers the crushing of the serpent's head and the blessing of all nations (Genesis 3).

Furthermore, if the nations are blessed — that is, if they are counted righteous before God — it follows that they are free from sin and death and have been made partakers of righteousness, salvation, and eternal life, not for their works but for their faith in Christ. Therefore that passage from Genesis 12, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed,' is not speaking of a blessing of words — of praise and good wishes — but of the kind of blessing that belongs to the imputation of righteousness, which avails before God and redeems from the curse of sin and from all the evils that accompany it. Now this blessing is received only by faith. For the text says plainly: 'Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.' It is therefore a purely spiritual blessing — and there is in truth no real blessing but this one, even though it is despised and cursed by the world, as indeed it is. Therefore this is a powerful passage: that those who are of faith have become partakers of this promised blessing given to the believing Abraham. By this Paul cuts off the objection of the Jews who boast of a procreating and law-keeping Abraham who is just before men — and not of the believing Abraham.

Just as the Jews glory only in a working Abraham, so the pope sets before us only a working Christ — or rather Christ as an example to imitate. He says: 'Whoever wants to live godly must walk as Christ walked,' citing His own words in John 13: 'I have given you an example, that you should do just as I have done to you.' We do not deny that the faithful ought to follow Christ's example and do good works — but we say that they are not justified before God by doing so. Paul is not discussing here what we ought to do but how we are made righteous. In this matter we must set nothing before our eyes except Jesus Christ dying for our sins and rising for our justification — and we must take hold of Him by faith as a gift, not as an example. Reason does not understand this; and so just as the Jews follow a working Abraham instead of a believing one, the papists and all who seek righteousness by works look not to a justifying Christ but to a working Christ — and in doing so they turn away from Christ, from righteousness, and from salvation. And just as the Jews who were saved were to follow the believing Abraham, so we also, if we want to be delivered from sin and saved, must take hold of the justifying and saving Christ — whom Abraham himself also laid hold of by faith and through whom he was blessed.

It was indeed a great glory that Abraham received circumcision at God's command, that he was endowed with excellent virtues, and that he obeyed God in all things. It is also a great honor to follow the example of Christ in action — to love your neighbor, to do good to those who harm you, to pray for your enemies, and to bear patiently with those who repay good with evil. But none of this avails anything for righteousness before God. The excellent deeds and virtues of Abraham were not what caused him to be counted righteous before God. Similarly, imitating and following the example of Christ does not make us righteous before God. To make us righteous before God requires a far more excellent price — one that is neither the righteousness of man nor the righteousness of the law. Here we need Christ to bless us and save us, just as Abraham needed Him as his blesser and Savior. How? Not by works, but by faith. Therefore, just as the believing Abraham is something entirely different from the working Abraham, so Christ as blesser and redeemer is something entirely different from Christ as example and worker. Paul here speaks of Christ redeeming and Abraham believing — not of Christ giving an example or Abraham performing works. Therefore he adds deliberately and with great force: 'those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.'

We must therefore separate the believing Abraham from the working Abraham as far as heaven is from earth. A person who believes in Christ is altogether a divine person — a child of God, an heir of the world, a conqueror of sin, death, the world, and the devil — and cannot be praised or magnified enough. Let us not leave this faithful Abraham buried in his grave, as he is buried to the Jews, but let us highly honor and magnify him and fill heaven and earth with his name — so that in the light of this faithful Abraham, we see the working Abraham as nothing at all. For when we speak of the faithful Abraham, we are in heaven. But when we afterward do the things that the working Abraham did — which were earthly and human, not divine and heavenly, except insofar as God assigned them — we are among ordinary people on earth. The believing Abraham therefore fills both heaven and earth. So every Christian through his faith fills heaven and earth, so that beyond it he ought to behold nothing.

Now Paul draws an opposing argument from the word 'shall be blessed.' Scripture is filled with contrasting relationships and contrary opposites. It is a mark of skill to recognize these kinds of speech in Scripture and to use them to interpret its statements — as here, the word 'blessing' immediately implies its opposite: curse. For when Scripture says that all nations are blessed through faith, or together with the faithful Abraham, it necessarily follows that all — both Jews and Gentiles — are cursed apart from faith, or apart from the believing Abraham. The promise of blessing was given to Abraham, that in him all nations would be blessed. No blessing, then, is to be found except in the promise given to Abraham, now published by the Gospel throughout the whole world. Whatever is apart from that blessing is therefore under a curse. And this is what Paul shows plainly when he says:

Verse 10. For all who rely on the works of the Law are under a curse.

Here you see that the curse is like a flood sweeping over everything that is outside of Abraham — that is, outside of faith and outside of the promised blessing of Abraham. Now, if the very law given by Moses at God's command brings those under it under a curse, how much more do the laws and traditions invented by human minds do the same? Whoever wants to escape the curse must therefore take hold of the promise of blessing — of the faith of Abraham — otherwise he will remain under the curse. From the words 'shall be blessed in you' it therefore follows that all nations — whether they lived before Abraham, in his time, or after him — are cursed and will remain under the curse forever, unless they are blessed through Abraham's faith, to whom the promise of blessing was given to be spread by his seed throughout the whole world.

Knowing these things is very necessary, for they greatly help to comfort troubled and afflicted consciences — and they also teach us to distinguish the righteousness of faith from the righteousness of the flesh, or civil righteousness. We must note that Paul is not dealing here with a matter of civil policy but with a divine and spiritual matter before God — lest any reckless person accuse him of cursing and condemning civil laws and magistrates. At this point all the sophists and papist Scholastics are silenced and have nothing to say. Readers must therefore be warned: this passage deals with nothing relating to civil laws or to behavior and political affairs (which are God's ordinances and good things, commended elsewhere in Scripture), but with a spiritual righteousness by which we are justified before God and called His children in the kingdom of heaven. In short, nothing here concerns bodily life but only eternal life, where no blessing is to be hoped for and no righteousness is to be sought through the law, through traditions, or through anything that can be named in this life — apart from the promise of Abraham's blessing. Let civil laws and ordinances remain in their rightful place. Let the magistrate make excellent laws — yet they deliver no one from the curse of God's law. The kingdom of Babylon, ordained by God and entrusted to kings, had excellent laws, and all nations were commanded to obey them — yet this obedience to its laws did not save it from the curse of God's law. In the same way, we obey the laws of princes and magistrates, but we are not made righteous before God by doing so — for we are in an entirely different matter here.

It is not without reason that I press this distinction so earnestly — it is very necessary to understand it. Yet very few people actually notice it and grasp it. It is all too easy to confuse and blend together heavenly righteousness and civil righteousness. In civil righteousness we must pay attention to laws and works. But in spiritual, divine, and heavenly righteousness we must completely set aside all laws and works, and keep only the promise and blessing before our eyes — which sets before us Christ, the giver of this blessing and of grace, our only Savior. This spiritual righteousness, then, excluding the law and all works, looks only to the grace and blessing given by Christ — as it was promised to Abraham and believed by him.

From this we can plainly see that this argument is unbreakable. For if we must receive this blessing through Christ alone, it necessarily follows from the opposite that it is not received through the law. The blessing was given to the believing Abraham before the law and without the law. Just as Abraham believed in Christ who was to come as the giver of the blessing, so we believe by the same faith in Christ who has come — and in this way we are now justified by faith, just as Abraham was then justified by faith. Those who are under the law are therefore not blessed but remain under the curse.

This the pope and his proud prelates neither believe nor can tolerate — nor can they endure this teaching. Yet we must not stay silent but must confess the truth and say that the papacy is under a curse — indeed that all the laws and civil ordinances of the Emperor are under a curse, because as Paul teaches, everything outside the promise and faith of Abraham is under the curse. When our opponents hear this, they immediately twist and slander our words, as though we were teaching that magistrates should not be honored, that we are stirring up rebellion against the Emperor, condemning all laws, and overturning civil society. But they do us great injustice. We make a distinction between the physical blessing and the spiritual blessing. We say that the Emperor is blessed with a physical blessing — for to have a kingdom, laws, civil order, a wife, children, house, and land is a blessing, since all these things are good gifts and creatures of God. But this physical blessing, which is temporary and will come to an end, does not deliver us from the eternal curse. Therefore we do not condemn laws, nor do we stir up rebellion against the Emperor — we teach that he must be obeyed, feared, respected, and honored, but in the civil realm. But when we speak of blessing in the theological sense, we say boldly with Paul that everything outside the faith and promise of Abraham is under the curse and remains under that heavenly and eternal condemnation. For there we must look for another life after this one, and another blessing beyond this physical one.

In conclusion: all physical things are good creatures of God. Therefore — as I have said — to have a wife, children, and goods, to have civil laws and social order, are good blessings from God in their proper place — that is, temporal blessings belonging to this present life. But those who seek justification through law-keeping at every age — Jews, papists, sectarians, and the like — confuse and blend these two kinds of blessing together. They make no distinction between physical blessings and spiritual ones. They say: 'We have a law, and this law is good, holy, and righteous — therefore we are justified through it.' Who denies that the law is good, holy, and righteous? And yet it is also the law of condemnation, of sin, of wrath, and of death. Therefore we make a distinction here between the physical and spiritual blessing, saying that God has a twofold blessing: one physical, for this life, and one spiritual, for eternal life. To have wealth, children, and the like is a blessing — but only in its proper degree, that is, in this present life. As for eternal life, physical blessings are not enough — for the wicked actually have the most of them. Civil righteousness and the righteousness of the law are not sufficient either — for the wicked flourish in these most of all. God distributes these things freely throughout the world, giving them to both the good and the bad — just as He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous — for He is generous to all. It is a small thing for Him to place all created things at the feet of the wicked. 'The creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will' (Romans 8:20). Therefore those who have only these physical blessings are not children of God, not spiritually blessed before God as Abraham was — but are under the curse, as Paul says here: whoever is of the works of the law is under the curse.

Paul could have stated this as a general proposition: 'Whatever is without faith is under the curse.' He does not do this — instead he takes what is, apart from faith, the best, greatest, and most excellent among all the physical blessings of the world: namely, the law of God. 'That law,' he says, 'is indeed holy and given by God — and yet it does nothing but place all people under the curse and keep them there.' Now if the law of God itself places people under the curse, how much more do all lesser laws and blessings do the same? And to make it clear what Paul means by being under the curse, he explains it through this testimony of Scripture:

Verse 10. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them' (Deuteronomy 27:26).

Paul uses this testimony from Deuteronomy 27 to prove that all who are under the law or who are of the works of the law are under the curse — that is, under sin, God's wrath, and eternal death. For he is speaking, as I noted before, not of a physical but of a spiritual curse, which must necessarily be the curse of eternal death and hell fire. And this is a remarkable form of proof. Paul proves this positive statement — 'whoever is of the works of the law is under the curse' — by means of this negative statement from Moses: 'Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things.' Now these two statements — Paul's and Moses' — appear to be directly opposite. Paul says: whoever does the works of the law is under the curse. Moses says: whoever does not do the works of the law is under the curse. How can these two statements be reconciled? And even more: how can one prove the other? Indeed no one can understand this passage well unless he also knows and understands the article of justification.

Paul had undoubtedly explained this at greater length when he was among the Galatians in person — otherwise they could not have followed his argument here, where he only touches on it briefly. But because they had already heard him explain it before, being reminded here they could recall it. These two statements are not contradictory — they fit together very well. We teach the same thing: 'It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified' (Romans 2:13). And at the same time: 'Those who are of the works of the law are under the curse.' For the article of justification teaches that whatever is outside the faith of Abraham is under the curse — and yet 'the righteous requirement of the law' must be fulfilled in us (Romans 8:4). To someone ignorant of the teaching of faith, these two statements seem entirely contradictory.

Above all things, then, we must carefully observe what Paul is addressing in this passage, what his aim is, and how he looks at Moses. He is here — as I have said many times — in a spiritual matter, entirely separate from politics and from all civil laws, and he looks at Moses with different eyes than the hypocrites and false apostles do, reading the law spiritually. Therefore the entire point of the matter rests on the word 'to do.' Now, to do the law means not merely to perform it outwardly, but to perform it truly and perfectly. There are two kinds of 'doers' of the law. The first are those who are of the works of the law — the very people Paul is arguing against throughout this entire letter. The second kind are those who are of faith, about whom we will speak further on. Now, to be of the law or of the works of the law, and to be of faith, are completely opposite — as opposite as God and the devil, sin and righteousness, death and life. Those who are of the law seek to be made righteous through the law. Those who are of faith trust with certainty that they are made righteous through mercy alone for Christ's sake. Whoever says that righteousness is of faith condemns and curses the righteousness of works. And conversely, whoever says that righteousness is of the law condemns and curses the righteousness of faith. They are therefore completely opposed to one another.

Whoever understands this will easily see that to fulfill the law is not to do what the law commands in outward appearance only — as the hypocrites imagine — but to do it in spirit: that is, truly and perfectly. But where are we to find the person who fulfills it this way? Let us see such a person and we will praise him. Our opponents have their ready answer: 'the doers of the law will be justified' (Romans 2:13). Very well. But let us first define who these doers of the law are. Our opponents call a doer of the law someone who performs the works of the law and is thereby made righteous by those works done before grace. But this is not what 'doing the law' means for Paul — for as I have said, to be of the works of the law and to be of faith are opposite things. Therefore to seek to be justified by the works of the law is to deny the righteousness of faith. So these law-workers, when they perform the law, in doing so are actually denying the righteousness of faith and sinning against the first, second, and third commandments — indeed against the whole law. For God commands that we worship Him in faith and in the fear of His name. These people, by contrast, manufacture a righteousness of works without faith and against faith — and therefore in performing the law, they do the opposite of what the law requires and commit deadly sin. They deny the righteousness of God, His mercy, and His promises. They deny Christ and all His benefits. And in their hearts they establish not the righteousness of the law — which they neither understand nor actually keep — but a mere fantasy and idol of the law. We must therefore say that in performing the law they not only fail to fulfill it, but also sin and deny God's majesty in all His promises. This is not the purpose for which the law was given.

Not understanding the law, they abuse it. As Paul says: 'Being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God's righteousness' (Romans 10:3). They are blind — they do not know how to think rightly about faith and the promises. So without any real understanding they rush into Scripture and grab hold of only one part of it — the law — and imagine they can fulfill it by their works. But this is pure delusion, a bewitching and illusion of the heart. That so-called righteousness of the law which they think they are fulfilling is in reality nothing other than idolatry and blasphemy against God. It is inevitable, therefore, that they remain under the curse.

It is impossible for us to do the law in the way they imagine — much less to be justified by it. The law itself demonstrates this, for it produces the opposite effect: it increases sin, it produces wrath, it accuses, it terrifies, and it condemns. How then could it justify? The promise also confirms the same. For God said to Abraham: 'In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' There is no blessing therefore except in Abraham's promise — and if you are outside that promise, you are under the curse. And if you are under the curse, you do not fulfill the law, because you are under sin, the devil, and eternal death — all of which certainly follow from the curse. In conclusion: if righteousness came through the law, then God's promise would be empty, and He would have poured out His blessing so abundantly for nothing. Therefore, when God saw that we could not fulfill the law, He made provision for this long before the law — promising the blessing to Abraham: 'In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' So He made clear that all nations would be blessed not through the law but through the promise made to Abraham (Genesis 17). Those who cling to the law and seek justification through it, despising the promise, are under the curse.

Therefore, 'to do' the law means, first of all, to believe — and then through faith to fulfill the law. We must first receive the Holy Spirit, and being enlightened and made new creatures by Him, we then begin to do the law — that is, to love God and our neighbor. But the Holy Spirit is not received through the law (for as Paul says, those who are under the law are under the curse) — but through hearing with faith, that is, through the promise. We must first be blessed together with Abraham, in the promise made to him and in his faith. Therefore above all things we must hear and receive the promise, which presents Christ and offers Him to all believers. When they take hold of Him by faith, the Holy Spirit is then given to them for His sake. Then they love God and their neighbor, then they do good works and bear the cross with patience. This is truly and genuinely doing the law — otherwise the law remains always unfullfiled. Therefore, if you want to define truly and plainly what it is to do the law, it is this: to believe in Jesus Christ, and then — once the Holy Spirit has been received through faith in Christ — to do what the law commands. Apart from this we are not able to fulfill the law. For Scripture shows that there is no blessing without the promise — not even in the law. It is therefore impossible to fulfill the law without the promise, for the blessing must accompany everything — the preaching and proclaiming of Christ, who was promised to Abraham so that the world would be blessed through Him. Otherwise we will never fulfill the law.

There is therefore not a single person in the whole world who deserves the title 'doer of the law' apart from the promise of the Gospel. The term 'doer of the law' is therefore an empty title — no one truly understands what it means unless he stands outside and above the law in the blessing and faith of Abraham. The true doer of the law, then, is the one who, having received the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ, begins to love God and to do good to his neighbor. So the word 'to do the law' must include faith — which makes the tree. Once the tree exists, the fruit follows. The tree must come first, and then the fruit. Apples do not make the tree; the tree makes the apples. So faith first makes the person — who then brings forth works. Therefore to do the law without faith is like carving apples out of wood and clay without any tree — that is not making apples but only imitations. By contrast, if the tree exists — that is, if the person has been made a doer through faith in Christ — works will follow. For the doer must come before the deeds, not the deeds before the doer.

The doer, therefore, is not called a doer because of deeds already done, but because of the deeds that will follow. For Christians are not made righteous by doing righteous things — rather, having already been made righteous by faith in Christ, they then do righteous things. In ordinary human affairs, the doer is made by what he does — a person becomes a carpenter by practicing carpentry. But in divine matters, people are not made workers by prior works; instead, persons already formed and shaped by faith in Christ become doers and workers. It is of such people that Paul speaks when he says: 'The doers of the law shall be justified' — that is, shall be counted righteous.

Indeed the sophists and papist Scholastics are themselves compelled to admit — and actually teach — that a moral work done outwardly, if it is not done with a pure heart, a right will, and true intent, is mere hypocrisy. Hence the German proverb: 'Such a robe covers many a rogue.' The vilest and most wicked person in the world can copy the very same outward works that a godly person does by faith. Judas did the same works that the other apostles did. What was wrong with the works of Judas, since he performed the very same deeds as the other apostles? Note what the sophist answers from his moral philosophy: 'Although he did the same works as the other apostles, the person was reprobate and his judgment perverse — therefore his works were hypocritical and not genuine, however similar they looked on the outside.' So they are compelled to admit that even in civil and external matters, works do not justify unless they are accompanied by a right heart, will, and judgment. How much more are they forced to admit the same in spiritual matters, where above all things there must be a knowledge of God and a faith that purifies the heart? They walk in works and in the righteousness of the law as Judas walked in the works of the apostles — not understanding what they say or what they affirm. And although Paul says plainly everywhere that the law does not justify but produces wrath, exposes sin, reveals God's anger and judgment, and threatens eternal death — when they read these things they do not see them, much less understand them. They do not even deserve to be called hypocrites — they are the masks and shadows of disguised hypocrites, miserably bewitched, dreaming that they are made righteous by the works of the law. Therefore, as I have said, the term 'doer of the law' as they define it is a mere fabrication — a monster — found nowhere in reality.

Therefore when Paul proves the statement 'whoever is of the works of the law is under the curse' by citing Moses — 'Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in this book' — he is not proving one contrary by another, as it might first appear. He is proving it rightly and in correct order. For Moses means and teaches the very same thing as Paul: 'Cursed is everyone who does not do all things' — and no one does them. Therefore whoever is of the works of the law does not keep the law. And if they do not keep it, they are under the curse. But since there are two kinds of doers of the law — as I said — true doers and hypocrites, the true doers must be distinguished from the hypocrites. The true doers of the law are those who through faith are the good tree before the fruit — doers and workers before the works. Moses also is speaking of these — and unless people are of this kind, they are under the curse. But hypocrites are not of this kind. They hold the view that they will attain righteousness through their works and thereby make the person righteous and acceptable to God. Their reasoning is: 'We who are sinners and unrighteous will be made righteous.' 'How?' 'By good works.' They therefore act like a foolish builder who tries to build from the roof down to the foundation — from the fruits to make the tree. For by seeking to be justified by works, they try to make the worker out of the works — which is directly contrary to Moses, who subjects such a person to the curse just as Paul does. And so, in their attempt to do the law, they not only fail to do it but also deny — as I have said — the first commandment, the promises of God, and the promised blessing of Abraham. They renounce faith and set out to make themselves blessed by their own works — to make themselves righteous, to deliver themselves from sin and death, to overcome the devil, and to seize the kingdom of heaven by sheer effort. This is plainly to renounce God and to put themselves in God's place. For all of these things are the works of divine majesty alone — not of any creature in heaven or on earth.

From this Paul could easily predict, on the basis of the first commandment, the abominations that Antichrist would bring into the church. For all who teach that any worship is necessary for salvation beyond what God requires in the first commandment — the fear of God, faith, and the love of God — are outright antichrists who put themselves in the place of God. Christ Himself foretold that such people would come, saying in Matthew 24: 'Many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ.' We today can also boldly and with certainty declare that whoever seeks righteousness through works without faith denies God and makes himself God. For this is what he thinks: 'If I do this work, I will be righteous; I will conquer sin, death, the devil, God's wrath, and hell, and I will obtain eternal life.' And what is this, I ask, but to claim for oneself the very work that belongs to God alone — and to show in action that one considers himself to be God? Therefore it is simple for us to prophesy and to judge with complete certainty of all those who are without faith: they are not only idolaters but actual idols themselves, who deny God and put themselves in His place. On this same foundation Peter also prophesies: 'There will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master ... and in their greed they will exploit you with false words' (2 Peter 2:1-3).

All the prophecies against idolatry in the Old Testament sprang from the first commandment. For all the wicked kings and false prophets, along with all the unfaithful people, did nothing other than what the pope and all hypocrites always do. They despised the first commandment and the worship God had appointed, and they rejected the promise of Abraham's seed — the very seed in whom all nations would be blessed and sanctified. In its place they set up a corrupt worship entirely contrary to God's word and said: 'With this worship we will serve God and declare His praise — He who brought us out of the land of Egypt.' So Jeroboam made two golden calves and said: 'Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt' (1 Kings 12:28). He said this of the true God who had redeemed Israel — and yet both he and all the people were idolaters, for they worshipped God contrary to the first commandment. They focused only on the outward act — and having performed it, they counted themselves righteous before God. And what was this but to deny God Himself — the very God they confessed with their lips when they said He had brought them out of Egypt? Paul speaks of such idolaters when he says: 'They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their deeds' (Titus 1:16).

All hypocrites and idolaters, therefore, go about to do the very works that properly belong to divine majesty — works that belong to Christ alone. They do not say in plain words 'I am God' or 'I am Christ.' And yet in practice they arrogantly claim for themselves the divinity and office of Christ — which amounts to the same thing as saying: 'I am Christ; I am a savior — not only of myself but of others as well.' This is what the monks not only taught but persuaded the whole world to believe: that through their hypocritical holiness they could make not only themselves righteous but also others who shared in it. And yet it is the sole and unique office of Christ to justify the sinner. The pope in the same way, by spreading his own kind of 'divinity' throughout the whole world, has denied and completely buried the office and divinity of Christ.

These things need to be taught and weighed carefully, for they teach us to judge the whole of Christian doctrine and of human life — to strengthen people's consciences, to understand all prophecy and all of Scripture, and to judge rightly about everything else. Whoever understands all of this rightly can say with certainty that the pope is Antichrist, because he teaches an entirely different kind of worship from what the first table of the law sets out. He can fully understand what it means to deny God, to deny Christ, and what Christ means when He says 'Many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ' (Matthew 24:5). He understands what it means 'to be against God and to exalt oneself above everything called God or worshipped' (2 Thessalonians 2:4), what it signifies that 'Antichrist sits in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God,' what it means 'to see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place' (Matthew 24:15), and so on.

All of these evils spring from this: that this accursed hypocrisy refuses to be made righteous by the divine blessing or to be created anew by God the Creator. It will not be passive — will not allow anything to be worked in it. Instead it insists on being entirely the one who acts, doing those things that it ought to let God work in it and receive from Him. Therefore it makes itself creator and justifier through its own works, despising the blessing promised and given to Abraham and his believing children. So every hypocrite is at once both the raw material and the finished work — though this is contrary to all reason, since one and the same thing cannot work upon itself. He is the material because he is a sinner; he is the worker because he puts on a robe, or chooses some other work through which he hopes to earn grace and save himself and others. So he is both the creature and the creator. Therefore no words can express how execrable and horrible it is to seek righteousness through the law or through works, without the blessing. For it is the abomination standing in the holy place, which denies God and sets the creature in the Creator's place.

The doers of the law, therefore, are not the hypocrites who perform the law outwardly — but the true believers, who having received the Holy Spirit actually fulfill the law, that is, love God and their neighbor. A true doer of the law, then, is to be understood not in terms of the works he performs but in terms of the person who has been reborn through faith. For according to the Gospel, those who are made righteous then do righteous things — but according to ordinary human logic it works the opposite way: those who do righteous things are made righteous. Therefore, being justified by faith, we then do good works, through which — as 2 Peter 1:10 says — our calling and election is confirmed and made more certain day by day. But because we have only the first fruits of the Spirit, and not yet the fullness, and the remnants of sin still remain in us — we do not keep the law perfectly. But this imperfection is not counted against those of us who believe in Christ, who was promised to Abraham and has blessed us. For in the meantime we are tenderly nurtured and cared for in the lap of God's patience, for Christ's sake. We are like that wounded man who fell into the hands of robbers — whose wounds the Samaritan bound up, pouring in oil and wine, and then set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn, made provision for him, and on departing said to the innkeeper: 'Take care of him' (Luke 10:30-35). So we in the meantime are cared for as guests in an inn, until the Lord reaches out His hand a second time — as Isaiah says — to deliver us fully.

Therefore Moses's statement — 'Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in this book' — is not opposed to Paul, who declares all those under the curse who are of the works of the law. For Moses requires a doer who can perform the law perfectly. But where shall we find such a person? Nowhere. For Moses himself confesses he is not such a person — for he says in Exodus 34 that no one is innocent before God. And David says: 'Lord, do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for no living person is righteous in Your sight' (Psalm 143:2). And Paul says: 'For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do' (Romans 7:15). Therefore Moses, together with Paul, necessarily drives us to Christ, through whom we are made true doers of the law and are not held guilty of any transgression. How? First, through the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness, on account of our faith in Christ. Second, through the gift of God and the Holy Spirit, who produces new life and new desires in us, so that we may also begin to fulfill the law in practice. And whatever is not yet done is pardoned for Christ's sake — and whatever sin still remains in us is not counted against us. So Moses agrees with Paul and means the very same thing when he says: 'Cursed is everyone who does not abide' — for he says they do not fulfill the law because they are trying to make themselves righteous by works, and he concludes with Paul that they are under the curse. Moses therefore requires true doers of the law who are of faith, just as Paul condemns those who are not true doers of the law — that is, those who are not of faith. There is no contradiction in Moses speaking negatively and Paul speaking positively — so long as you define correctly what is meant by the word 'do.' Both statements are true: that all are cursed who do not abide by all things written in this book, and that all are cursed who are of the works of the law.