Trying To Be Justified By The Law Is Like Eating From An Empty Dish

I wish that you students of Sacred Scripture would equip yourselves with such parables, in order to retain the distinction between Law and Gospel better, namely, that trying to be justified by the Law is like counting money out of an empty purse, eating and drinking from an empty dish and cup, looking for strength and riches where there is nothing but weakness and poverty, laying a burden upon someone who is already oppressed to the point of collapse, trying to spend a hundred gold pieces and not having even a pittance, taking clothing away from a naked man, imposing even great weakness and poverty upon someone who is sick and needy, etc.

Therefore anyone who seeks righteousness through the Law does nothing by his repeated actions but acquire the habit of this first action, which is that God in His wrath and awe is to be appeased by works. On the basis of this opinion he begins to do works. Yet he can never find enough works to make his conscience peaceful; but he keeps looking for more, and even in the ones he does perform he finds sin. Therefore his conscience can never become sure, but he must continually doubt and think this way: “You have not sacrificed correctly; you have not prayed correctly; you have omitted something; you have committed this or that sin.” Then the heart trembles and continually finds itself loaded down with wagonloads of sins that increase infinitely, so that it deviates further and further from righteousness, until finally it acquires the habit of despair. Many who have been driven to such despair cried out miserably in the agony of death: “Miserable man that I am! I have not observed the rules of my monastic order. Where shall I flee from the countenance of Christ, the wrathful Judge? If only I had been a swineherd or the most ordinary of men!” Thus at the end of his life a monk is weaker, more beggarly, more unbelieving, and more fearful than he was at the beginning, when he joined the order. The reason is that he endeavored to strengthen himself by means of weakness and to enrich himself by means of poverty. The Law or human traditions or the rule of his monastic order were supposed to heal and enrich him in his illness and poverty, but he became weaker and more beggarly than the tax collectors and harlots. For such people do not have that miserable habit of works on which to depend but are extremely aware of their sins and yet can say with the tax collector (Luke 18:13): “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” On the other hand, a monk who has been trained in the weak and beggarly elements has acquired this habit: “If you observe the monastic rule, you will be saved.” He has been so crazed and captivated by this false idea that on account of it he is incapable of grasping grace or even of remembering grace. Therefore neither past nor present works are enough for him, regardless of their quantity and quality; but he continually looks at and looks for ever-different ones, by which he attempts to appease the wrath of God and to justify himself, until in the end he is forced to despair. Therefore he who falls away from faith and follows the Law is like the dog in Aesop, which snapped at the shadow and lost the meat.

Therefore it is impossible for men who want to provide for their salvation through the Law, as all men are inclined to do by nature, ever to be set at peace. In fact, they only pile laws upon laws, by which they torture themselves and others and make their consciences so miserable that many of them die before their time because of excessive anguish of heart. For one law always produces ten more, until they grow into infinity.

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Luther, Martin. (1999). Luther’s works, vol. 26: Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 1-4. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 26, pp. 404–407). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.



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