Luther's Treatise on Christian Liberty

To state that Luther, in his essay: Treatise on Christian Liberty destroyed the motivation to live a morally good life would be an all too quick and equally false presumption. Rather, I feel that the opposite is true. In dealing with Luther’s essay as well as my own personal beliefs I feel that Luther in fact strengthens every Christian’s motivation for faith by way of grace and in relation, the use of works to exude an already present faith in Christ. Though it may seem that Luther shuns the idea of works he in fact presents, quite thoroughly, the case that works are nothing without faith. Yet it is by faith that works become a way of celebrating our salvation. In this essay I will show how Luther actually motivates Christians to live a morally good life and to this end offer text based evidence from his treatise to support these claims.

Based upon my own meager understanding of theology and faith, I grew up with the belief that because I had been baptized as a child and attended church with my family then I would go to heaven when I died. Yet as I grew older I came to realize that this was not the case. I finally came to realize that just going to church did not give me the right to go to heaven. I had to have faith to get to heaven. Luther illustrates this point by noting the passage of John 11 [:25], “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (188). I came to realize that my going to church was only a “work” and that this alone would not offer me salvation.

In his essay, Luther divides the discussion into two main parts, the first of which deals with the inner man, and the second dealing with the outer man. This is what Luther refers to when he mentions that “man has a twofold nature, a spiritual and a bodily one” (188). My understanding of this separation is that the “inner man” represents the faith which we have in Christ and that the “outer man” represents the work we do as a result of the faith we share in Christ. Luther states that “the word of God cannot be received and cherished by any works whatever but only by faith”. I think that this statement alone is very powerful in that it commands our attention to the fact that no matter how hard we try and no matter how good our deeds, we are still lost as to the word of God unless we possess faith. Luther continues on to say:

“It is clear that, as the soul needs only the word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works; for if it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the word, and consequently it would not need faith” (189).

This further reinforces my belief that Luther in point of fact motivates Christians in that it shows them that they need nothing more than true belief to become righteous. It is amazingly simple yet at the same time very complicated for many people because we live in a world that evaluates us on how much we can do and at what speed we can accomplish our said task. This I believe is where faith in Christ is able to free us from our suffering here on Earth. If we only accept that Jesus was sent to pay for our sins and accept him as our savior then we are granted access to the eternal kingdom of heaven.

Yet if faith is all that we need to have everlasting life in heaven, then why on earth would we even worry about how we act. It would seem as though once we have salvation through grace then we could return to our lives of sin without having to worry about where we will spend eternity. Luther poses a similar question by stating on page 191:

“If faith does all things and is alone sufficient unto righteousness, why then are good works commanded?