All Articles For Luther, Martin

Dear Friends: You heard yesterday the characteristics of a Christian  man, how his whole life is faith and love. Faith is directed  toward God, love toward man and one’s neighbor, and  consists in such love and service for him as we have  received from God without our work and merit. Thus there are two things: the one, which is the most  needful, and which must be done in one way and no other;  the other, which is a matter of choice and not of necessity,  which may be kept or not, without endangering  faith or incurring hell. In both, love...

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. This means that the words were spoken by the Holy Spirit. Christ does not want to give you the right to run to and fro in search of the Spirit, to lose yourself in reverie and say: “I have this by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” Actually, it may be the devil who inspired you! Thus they alleged in the edict issued at the Diet of Augsburg: “The church is holy; therefore it follows that its proclamations are holy and given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” Christ...

* Taken from Commentary on Galatians, © Copyright 1979, by Martin Luther, 84-87. Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.  “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” Galatians 2:19 It is necessary that we be well instructed to understand the difference between the righteousness of the law and grace. The righteousness of grace doth in nowise pertain to the flesh. For the flesh may not be at liberty, but must remain in the grave, the prison, the couch: it must be in...

Rev. VanderWal is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Redlands, California. “And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” Matthew 28:5, 6 The women feared indeed! They came with fear to the grave early that morning on the first day of the week. They had witnessed the horrible death of their beloved Lord upon the tree of the cross. They grieved at the shame He endured...

Reprinted from Luther’s Works, vol. 51, edited by John Doberstein, copyright © 1959 Fortress Press. Used by permission of Augsburg Fortress. Sermon on Soberness and Moderation against Gluttony and Drunkenness I Pet. 4:7-11 May 18, 1539 This part of [the first] Epistle [of Peter] is an exhortation to good conduct. Those who are Christians are to see to it that they are grateful for grace and redemption and conduct themselves modestly, moderately, and soberly, so that one does not go on living the swinish life that goes on in the filthy world. For this Epistle was written to the Greeks,...

From Luther’s Works, vol. 51, pp. 70-75, Muhlenberg Press, Philadelphia, 1959. Used with permission of Augsburg Fortress Publishers. The summons of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Every one must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone. We can shout into another’s ears, but every one must himself be prepared for the time of death, for I will not be with you then, nor you with me. Therefore every one must himself know and be armed with the chief things which concern a Christian. And these are what you, my beloved, have...

Quotations from various writings and sources. The Creation of Man   Here Moses returns to the work of the sixth day and shows whence man, the owner and cultivator of the earth, came, namely, that God formed him out of the ground, as the potter with his hand forms the vessel out of clay. Here He did not say, as of the other creatures: “Let Us make man,” in order to set forth the excellency of the human race and to make manifest the peculiar counsel of God according to which He created man, although afterwards man grew and multiplied...