Luther and the Freeing Word
In the “Freedom of the Christian,” a treatise appended to a letter written to Pope Leo X in 1520, Luther writes:
In order to make the way smoother for the average or common readers (for only them do I serve), I will put forth two themes concerning the freedom and bondage of the spirit.
A Christian is lord of all, completely free of everything.
A Christian is a servant, completely attentive to the needs of all. 1
In this translation by Mark Tranvik, the underlying Latin nulli subiectus (“free of everything”) is even more startling than the traditional “A Christian is lord of all, subject to none.” However as Tranvik notes, the more common translation “fails to comprehend Luther’s concern in this essay that all relationships (including inanimate things like money, property, and diet) are encompassed by Christian freedom.”2 The range of freedom Luther claims in Christ, then, includes “everything.” It is a bold, if not outrageous, thesis. In the Letter to Pope Leo X, Luther includes even the interpretation of Scripture in this freedom: “I acknowledge no laws for the interpretation of the word of God, since the word of God teaches freedom in all other matters and must not be bound (2 Tim 2:9).3”
Luther is aware that these two “themes” (freedom/servanthood) may superficially seem to be in conflict with one another. He points out, however, though initially puzzling, the tension is not of his own creation:
Both are statements from the Apostle Paul. He says in 1 Cor 9:19,”For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all.” And in Rom 13:8 he asserts “Owe no one anything except to love one another.” It is in the very nature of love to be attentive to others and to serve the one who is loved. So it is the case with Christ. Although he was Lord of all and “born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4), he was at the same time a free man and servant, in “the form of God” and in the “form of a slave” (Phil 2:6–7).
Here we see Luther’s characteristic use of the Bible, one that norms his teaching and preaching. Luther’s use is grounded in Scripture’s witness of the revelation of (a) God in Christ, as well as (b) God’s intent for humanity. One sees the christological grounding of the “themes” in his reference to Galatians and the Philippian’s hymn; his notion of the particular charism of discipleship (to serve the world) is found in the ethical admonitions of 1 Corinthians and Romans. Throughout the treatise on the “Freedom of the Christian” Luther, in particular, continues to return to the kenotic Christ of Phil 2:2–6, who empties himself of his status before God to become a servant of all. In a similar way Christians made righteous before God “by grace through faith” become Christ to other humans through a love that knows of no possible repayment.4
Some questions arise at this point with respect to these seemingly paradoxical “themes” of the Christian life, themes that are occassionally condensed to the slogan “freed to serve.” These questions include: “Freed from what?” and “How are we Freed?” and “How is being a ‘servant’ an expression of Freedom?”
Freed from What?
For Luther, the starting point of theological reflection is human bondage to the trifecta of “sin, death, and the devil.” The freedom Luther refers to in this and other writings involves a liberation from powers over which human beings have no control. Luther departs from the post-Enlightenment ideal of human freedom based in a desire for economic or political autonomy. We have been created to be in authentic relationship with God and one another. To the extent, then, that we think ourselves a “law unto ourselves” (Gk. auto – nomos) and experience a “freedom” from justice in our relationships with God and neighbor, we—ironically—are driven further into bondage to the principalities and powers that have claimed us as their own. The freedom of late-capitalist-consumerist culture, for example, to create one’s own sense of self and privilege at the expense of others’ wellbeing is, Luther would say, simply an illusion of freedom that keeps us in bondage to “sin, death, and the devil.” Such a human notion of freedom actually fuels our rebellion against God. It reveals, Luther would say, not true freedom but our “idolatry” — trusting in some other god than the one revealed in Christ crucified.5 Rather our true freedom is the result of our redemption by God.
“Redemption” is a term that Hellenistic texts use to describe the process by which the freedom of slaves or captives were purchased. The late-medieval church was well aware of the power of the analogy. In Luther’s explanation of the Second Article (“On Redemption”) of the Apostles’ Creed in the Small Catechism of 1529, he writes:
Jesus Christ…has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in eternal righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.6
One is freed from sin, death, and the devil by the redeeming cross of Christ for the purpose that we might belong to God rather than the devil. Our “eternal righteousness,” that comes as a gift of this redemption, reflects the “Happy Exchange” expressed in 2 Cor 5:21, “For our sake God made Christ to be Sin who knew no Sin, so that in him we might become the Righteousness of God.” Christ becomes human Sin so that we might become God’s very own righteousness.
How are we Freed?
For Luther, this remarkable, unimaginable freedom is a result of the liberation from bondage to evil that comes only through the agency of the Word of God. Here, “Word of God” in the first place means the Incarnate Word (John 1:14), the self-disclosure of God in the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. In the second place, this “Word” is inscripturated in the full range of biblical texts, texts that are — in analogy to the incarnation — both fully human and fully divine where the “humanness” of biblical texts does not inhibit God’s use of them as a means of grace. In the third place, this same “Word” is proclaimed through the preaching of the church in terms of Law (that reveals our Sin) and Gospel (that creates faith in the mercy of God). In the fourth place, the Word is truly present, according to Luther, in the sacrament of Holy Communion. It is a “visible” Word — as was Christ himself. The Word of God thus (a) variously engages humans, yet (b) is commonly “external” to human experience and wisdom (1 Cor 1:18–25). For Luther, the Word becomes efficacious to the extent that it creates the very “faith” that apprehends one’s freedom in Christ. Faith is God’s work done in us.
A critical distinction must be made between the living, active, “faith” — created by God’s own Word — and human “belief” in propositions about God. In a wonderful passage in his “Preface to Romans” (1546) Luther notes:
Faith is not the human notion and dream that some people call faith. When they see that no improvement of life and no good works follow — although they can hear and say much about faith — they fall into the error of saying, ‘Faith is not enough; one must do works in order to be righteous and be saved.’ This is due to the fact that when they hear the gospel, they get busy and by their own powers create an idea in their heart which says, ‘I believe’; they take this then to be a true faith. But, as it is a human figment and idea that never reaches the depths of the heart, nothing comes of it either, and no improvement follows.
Faith, however, is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God [John 1:1–13]. It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different, in heart and spirt and mind and powers; and it brings with it the Holy Spirit. O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them. Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever. He gropes and looks around for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith is nor what good works are. Yet he talks and talks, with many words, about faith and good works.
Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God’s grace makes one glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures. And this is the work which the Holy Spirit performs in faith. Because of it, without compulsion, a person is ready and glad to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown him this grace. Thus it is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire. Beware, therefore, of your own false notions and of the idle talkers who imagine themselves wise enough to make decisions about faith and good works, and yet are the greatest of fools. Pray God that God may work faith in you. Otherwise you will surely remain forever without faith, regardless of what you may think or do.7
How is Being a “Servant” an Expression of Freedom?
The post-Enlightenment notion that an individual could be completely autonomous, freed from any obligations to higher powers, would have struck Luther as absurd. One was a servant of either God or the devil; no other possibilities presented themselves.8 As Luther says in his explanation of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, God defeated the devil through the cross of Christ in order that one “might belong to God, live under God in his kingdom, and serve God in eternal righteousness.” This, however, raises another question — how might one best serve God? For Luther, another biblical text suggested the answer, Matthew 22:34–40:
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
In his commentaries to Galatians and Romans, Luther states that the first and greatest commandment was fulfilled by Christ in that he, as the Second Adam, “became obedient to the point of death—even death on the cross” (Phil 2:8). That means that we are freed in Christ from the impossible obligation to love God (with all one’s heart, soul, and mind!) so that we might serve our neighbor in need.9 We have, in short, been liberated by God from the demands to love God in order to actively serve in the world. A “Lutheran” spirituality, rather than being focused on one’s relationship to God (with the inevitable incurvatus in se — curving in upon oneself — that results), is focused on the needs of the neighbor. Being freed in Christ results in compassion for and service to the world and all its creatures through “works” that cannot be separated from faith any more than one can “separate heat and light from fire.”
Living Pulpit
For the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, preachers should remember the high office to which they have been called. It is through the proclamation of the church, Luther would claim, that God’s Word creates the “living, active, busy” faith focused on the care of neighbor and world. Under the rubric “The One Thing Needed: The Word of God,” Luther in the “Freedom of the Christian” notes:
Let us consider it certain and firmly established that the soul [i.e., the whole human being in relationship to God] needs only one thing: the word of God. When this is missing, the soul lacks the one item that is essential. Having the word of God makes the soul rich — for what else could it possibly need? The word of God brings life, truth, light, peace, righteousness, salvation, joy, liberty, wisdom, power, grace, glory, and every other blessing imaginable. This is why in Psalm 119 and in many other places in the Bible there is a yearning and sighing for the word of God. This also makes clear why there is no greater disaster than when God’s wrath results in a famine when God’s word is not heard (for example, see Amos 8:11). Similarly, there is no greater mercy than when God sends his word as in Psalm 107:20: “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction.” Thus Christ was given to the world for no other ministry than the word. Similarly, all the apostles, bishops, and priests have been called and instituted only for the ministry of the word.10
Preachers can best celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by re-discovering their call to be “ministers” (Latin: “servants”) of God’s Word that has the power to “kill the Old [self-absorbed] Adam” that we may be “altogether different in heart and spirit and mind, and powers” by proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. More than ever, the world is in dire need of such a Word.
Notes
1. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, trans. and intro. by Mark D. Tranvik (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 50. Another translation can be found in The Three Treatises (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979); Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy Lull (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989/2005); and Luther’s Works (American Edition, 55 vols. St. Louis: Concordia and Philadelphia: Fortress) 31:343–77 [henceforth LW]. A shorter German edition has been translated in Philip W. Krey and Peter D.S. Krey, Luther’s Spirituality, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist, 2007), 69–90. A fine commentary on this work is Timothy J. Wengert, “Introduction to Martin Luther’s ‘The Freedom of a Christian,’” in Free in Christ to Serve the Neighbor: Lutherans Talk about Human Sexuality. ELCA Studies on Sexuality: Journey Together Faithfully, Part Three (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2006) available at http://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Journey_Together_Faithfully3.pdf
2. Tranvik, trans., The Freedom of a Christian, 50.
3. Tranvik, trans., The Freedom of a Christian, 43.
4. Tranvik, trans., “The Freedom of a Christian,” 84: “Who then can even begin to comprehend the glory and riches of the Christian life? It can do all things and has all things and lacks nothing. It rules over sin, death, and hell and at the same time seeks to serve and benefit all people. Unfortunately, this type of life is unknown in our day. It is not preached about or sought after. Indeed, we are totally ignorant of our name and do not even know why we are Christians or bear that name. Now we ought to know that we are named after Christ — and not because he is absent but precisely because he dwells in our midst! Our trust in him means that we are Christs to one another and act toward our neighbors as Christ has acted toward us.”
5. See in Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment in his Large Cathecism: “A ‘god’ is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart…There are some who think that they have God and everything they need when they have money and property; they trust in them and boast in them so stubbornly and securely that they care for no one else. They, too, have a god — mammon by name, that is, money and property—on which they set their whole heart. This is the most common idol on earth. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, The Book of Concord (Minneapolis: Fortress), 386–87.
6. Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert, The Book of Concord (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 355.
7. LW 35:370–73.
8. The classic treatment is Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
9. For an analysis of this text as providing the center for Luther’s understanding of how the church is to interpret biblical commandments in its own context, see Timothy J. Wengert, “Reflections on the ELCA Churchwide Assembly and the Bible,” Journal of Lutheran Ethics 9:9 (2009), available at http://www.elca.org/JLE/Articles/361
10. Tranvik, The Freedom of a Christian, 53.
