Lecture 19: Luther and Protestant Theology
of good works lies in the contribution it makes to our external welfare and
the good of our neighbors.Luther’s concept of Gospel is based on Catholic sacramental theology. His
early theological writing was focused on the effort to merit a state of grace
by penitential works. He had been taught that a kind of preliminary “merit
of congruity” is required before grace. This merit is acquired by penitential
works: confession, contrition, and satisfaction. For Luther, the merit of our
good works is always undermined by the fact that we do them not out of
pure love for God but out of the sel¿ sh desire to be saved, for the motive
of our heart is always “curved in on itself” (incurvatus in se). The deep
problem was uncertainty about whether or not good works were useless. A
truly sincere contrition, therefore, requires self-hatred and the desire to be
damned. He called this justi¿ cation by faith alone, because it meant attaining
righteousness by believing God’s accusation.The ¿ rst time Luther identi¿ es a gracious word of God to cling to—what
he later calls “Gospel”—is in the word of absolution in the sacrament of
Penance. The word of absolution is to be believed as Christ’s own word.
More than a year after posting the 95 Theses, Luther ¿ nds a word of Christ’s
grace—the Gospel—in Baptism and the Eucharist as well as the sacrament
of Penance. He would say that the Gospel itself is a kind of sacrament,
because its words and stories bring about what they signify.Justi¿ cation by faith alone extends a version of medieval Catholic pastoral
care to the whole of life. Many people found it terrifying to die when they
did not know if they were in a state of grace or deserved damnation. A good
priest would often hold up a cruci¿ x before the face of the dying and urge
them to trust in Christ rather than worry about their inadequate moral life.
Luther called this kind of terror Anfechtung, German for “assault,” because
it was a temptation of the devil which he frequently experienced himself. Ŷ