Sermonette: Who Claimed Works Justify?
Not Justified by Works
#1661s
Craig Sablich
Given 09-Jul-22; 16 minutes
description: Martin Luther, living in a highly superstitious period of time (part of the 'Holy' Roman Empire) in 1500 A.D. Germany, became a Roman Catholic monk, engaging in austere penance, bordering on tortuous self-flagellation in an attempt to placate what he considered a hostile God. Feeling "God's" (the Catholic church's) standards were too hard to obey, he found solace in Romans 1:17 which convinced him that if one had faith, he would not have to do any works. This prompted him to inscribe the word sola or "alone" at the end of the verse, making him believe that the books of James, Jude, and Revelation were epistles of straw because they prescribed works, allegedly militating against grace. Sadly, Luther never did fully understand Paul's teaching of grace and salvation. By claiming that the Law had been replaced by grace, he disposed of any need for obedience. Confusing the Roman Catholic rituals, relics, and the sale of indulgences, Luther mixed the hatred of these rituals with God's Law, similar to what the Pharisees had done with their man-made traditions. Luther and other reformers glommed onto Galatians 3:13, claiming that Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law, which he mistakenly thought was the law itself instead of death, which is the wages of disobedience to the Law (I John 3: 4). As our forebears on the Sinai were initially shown grace apart from the law, they were expected to obey the law throughout their journey through the wilderness—just as the called-out ones of the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16) are expected to keep God's holy law through their sanctification process with the help of God's Holy Spirit. The hatred toward works may well be directed to Pharisaical rituals and traditions of men as well as the plethora of rituals and pagan customs of the Roman Catholic Church, but never to God's holy and spiritual law which liberat