The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther

First published:Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, 1520 (English translation, 1901)

Edition(s) used:The Freedom of a Christian, in Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, edited with an introduction by John Dillenberger. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Meditation and contemplation; spiritual treatise

Core issue(s): Faith; freedom and free will; Protestants and Protestantism; works and deeds

Overview

“Who then can comprehend the riches and the glory of the Christian life?” asks Martin Luther near the end of his treatise The Freedom of a Christian. The Christian can do all things and has all things and is filled with “the love which makes us free, joyful, almighty workers and conquerors over all tribulation, servants of our neighbors, and yet lords of all.” However, who lives this Christian life in our day? It is neither preached about nor sought after, so that Christians do not know why they bear the name of Christ. Surely, Luther says, it is because God dwells in us, so that by faith in God we become Christs to one another and treat our neighbors as Christ has treated us, that “Christ may be the same in all . . . that we may be truly Christian.”

These challenging words, written in 1520 during a time of extreme conflict with the papacy, express the heart and soul of Luther’s treatise on Christian liberty in which he sets forth, with simplicity and clarity, the essence of Christian faith and life. The book is dedicated as a “token of peace and good hope” to Pope Leo X, whom Luther calls “a lamb in the midst of wolves” and “a Daniel among lions” because of the wickedness present in the Roman Curia surrounding the pope. Luther writes in a bold and straightforward style, confident that although he has written a book small in size, “it contains the whole of Christian life in a brief form, provided you grasp its meaning.” Subsequent generations have confirmed it as one of Luther’s most important and enduring writings, especially in its clear articulation of the central Reformation concept of justification by faith.

Born in 1483 in Eisleben, Germany, Luther was preparing for a vocation in law when, in the summer of 1505, he was caught in a violent thunderstorm and knocked to the ground by a bolt of lightning. This experience seemed to provide a culmination and partial answer to the religious questions that troubled him, and two weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt. In 1508 he became professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg; and in 1517, to protest the corrupt sale of indulgences by the church, he nailed ninety-five theses challenging this practice to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This proved to be the spark that ignited the Protestant Reformation.

The truly great event in Luther’s life, however, was his breakthrough into personal faith and freedom in Christ which came, in the years 1513-1519, through careful study and teaching of the Scriptures. Luther’s major problem had been how to stand in holiness before a righteous, demanding God. In recovering the biblical meaning of the righteousness of God—as mercy, not judgment—Luther came to the belief that a person stands before God in the light of God’s grace alone, not dependent on any good work or infusion of righteousness through the sacraments. The joy and freedom of a Christian was that in faith; one need not look to oneself, a broken sinner, but only to God’s mercy and goodness. It was this wonderful liberation and joy that Luther speaks of so passionately to Pope Leo in The Freedom of a Christian.

Luther outlines the main argument of his treatise by setting down two propositions concerning the freedom and the bondage of the spirit:

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” These seemingly contradictory statements are held together in tension and provide an outline of the two main parts of the treatise that follow: the first part in which Luther shows how the inner spiritual person is justified and set free by faith alone; and the second part in which he shows that the outward carnal person, saved by faith, necessarily engages in good works and serves the neighbor in Christian love.

The inner person has nothing to gain from outward external acts such as fasting, going on pilgrimages, or performing “sacred” duties. “Such works produce nothing but hypocrites.” Neither will secular dress or activities necessarily harm the spiritual person. Only one thing is absolutely necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the Word of God, the gospel of Christ. Jesus says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The soul can do without anything except the Word of God, writes Luther. If it has the Word of God, it is rich and lacks nothing because it has life, truth, light, peace, salvation, joy, wisdom, power, and every incalculable blessing of God. And what is this Word of God? The gospel concerning Jesus, who was made flesh, crucified, raised from the dead, and glorified through the Spirit. This gospel, preached, feeds the soul and makes it righteous, sets it free, and saves it by faith, and this Word of God cannot be received by any works of the flesh, but only by faith.

The Scripture is divided into two parts: commandments (law) and promises (gospel). The commandments teach what ought to be done, but they do not give the power to do it. The law thus convicts a person of wrongdoing and sin and leads to despair. However, the promises of God set the person free, for what cannot be accomplished by works of the law is easily and quickly accomplished through faith. “The promises of God give what the commandments of God demand . . . so that all things may be God’s alone, both the commandments and the fulfilling of the commandments.” It is then through faith alone without works that the soul is justified by the Word of God, made a free child of God, and filled with every blessing.

Faith derives such great power from God for three reasons: First, it lives and rules in the soul. A person is free from all external works or law when the soul, like iron exposed to fire, glows as the Word of God imparts its life-giving qualities.

Second, faith alone truly honors God. When trust is given, the soul consents to be obedient to God’s will and allows itself to be treated according to God’s good pleasure. Clinging to God’s promises, “it does not doubt that he who is true, just, and wise will do, dispose, and provide all things well.” And, to the contrary, what greater rebellion and contempt can there be against God than not believing his promises? This makes God a liar and doubts that he is truthful, ascribing truthfulness to one’s self but lying and vanity to God. It is to make an idol of one’s self.

Third, faith “unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom.” As in a marriage covenant, everything is held in common, the good and the evil, so that the soul can take glory in the goodness of Christ as though it were its own, and Christ takes the sin, death, and evil of the soul upon himself.

Through faith, Christians also become like kings and priests to God, in the manner of Christ. As kings, Christians are exalted above all things in spiritual power and rule in the midst of enemies or oppression, because God works in all things for good to those who believe. As priests, Christians are worthy to come before God in intercession for others and to teach one another divine things. The priesthood is not for a select group of “ecclesiastics” but is for all believers, though not all are called to teach or preach publicly.

Those who are called to preach must do so boldly, proclaiming Christ in such a way that faith is established in the heart of the believer, so that Christ becomes “Christ for you and me.” When Christian liberty is rightly preached, showing the ways in which Christians are all kings and priests and therefore lords of all, then nothing has power to harm or frighten. “’Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’”

Luther, having dealt with the inner spiritual person, now turns to a discussion of the outward carnal human being and the proper place of good works in the Christian life. “If faith does all things,” he asks, “why then are good works commanded?” Because a Christian, though by faith a free lord of all and subject to none, is also a servant of all and subject to all. Good works, though not determinative of one’s relation to God, follow from faith as day follows night, as good fruit comes from a good tree. Good works serve especially to discipline the body and meet the neighbor’s needs.

The body needs to be disciplined by good works because Christians still live in the world, with its temptations and bodily enticements that hinder the spiritual person. Right actions reduce the body to subjection and purify it of its evil lusts so that all things may join with it in loving and praising God. The discipline of good works can be effective in conforming the outer bodily person to the inner spiritual person, as the Christian does such works out of spontaneous love in obedience to God.

Good works can also be effective in behalf of the neighbor. The Christian lives not for self, but for others, in the freest servitude. It is toward this end that the body is brought into subjection, that one may more sincerely and freely serve others. The Christian is to consider nothing except the need and the advantage of the neighbor, so that faith takes action through love, finding expression in cheerful and loving service done without expectation of reward. Just as the heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, says Luther, so “each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians.”

Luther concludes that a Christian is not caught up in the self, but in Christ and the neighbor. The Christian lives in Christ through faith, in the neighbor through love. Faith catches one up beyond the self to God. Love moves beneath the self into the neighbor. Still, the Christian always remains in God’s love, and the Christian’s freedom will never be used as license to disregard works, ceremonies, or ritual, but will despise only that which expresses a lack of faith in God and a trust in one’s own works.

Christian Themes

Luther’s main points in The Freedom of a Christian include the following: that the Christian, justified by grace through faith alone, is completely free of any necessity to establish worthiness before God through ceremonial, legal, and moral works. Furthermore, the Christian, responding to what God has so freely given in Christ, disciplines the body and serves the neighbor in love, without any expectation of reward or thought of self-justification.

Throughout The Freedom of a Christian, Luther’s concern is to put the gospel into clear perspective. In faith a person stands before God in the light of grace. There is no other possibility. From the Christian who has understood this, good works flow forth as naturally as good fruit comes from a good tree. This is inevitable. Only where faith and works are present is the cost and joy of belonging to God understood and experienced. “Who then can comprehend the riches and glory of the Christian life? It can do all things and has all things and lack nothing.” To read Luther’s passionate vision of the Christian’s faith and life is to see more clearly and understand more fully the depth and reality of Christian love and freedom.

Sources for Further Study

Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. New York: Abingdon Press, 1950. Popular history, superbly done, without sacrificing scholarship or precision.

Forell, George W. Faith Active in Love. Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg, 1954. A thorough and balanced exploration of the principles underlying Luther’s social ethics.

Jüngel, Eberhard. The Freedom of a Christian: Luther’s Significance for Contemporary Theology. Translated by Roy A. Harrisville. Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg, 1988. A fresh look at Luther as he speaks to modern Christians. Bibliography.

Luther, Martin. Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings. Edited by Timothy F. Lull. 1989. 2d ed. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2005. The Freedom of a Christian is included among the writings. Includes a brief biography, glossary, bibliographic references, illustrations, and a fully searchable CD-ROM.

Marius, Richard. Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. Covers Luther from his flight to the monastery through his breakthrough work TheFreedom of a Christian to his attack on Desiderius Erasmus. Bibliography, index.

Rupp, Ernest Gordon. Luther’s Progress to the Diet of Worms, 1521. New York: Harper & Row, 1951. A vivid account of Luther’s development in the critical years leading to his break from the Catholic Church.

Spitz, Lewis W. The Protestant Reformation, 1517-1559. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. An outstanding, well-written assessment of the Protestant Reformation and Luther’s crucial role in its development.