The Gospel Seminar

"Luther Quotations": #4C

"...who gave himself for our sins to rescue us..." (1;4)


Luther is relentless in addressing the great fault on the part of the Galatians which is also very much a fatal fault in our own day. That being: seeing our sins as sinful but not seeing our good, religious efforts of obedience as sinful, too. Scripturally, BOTH fall short of bringing you into an acceptable ("justified") state before God.

Listen to why Luther says it can be more dangerous to be a religious person than a pagan sinner;

“The grossest vices (ON THE PART OF PAGAN UNBELIEVERS) are small faults in comparison with the wisdom and righteousness (RELIGIOUS) of the world. These prevent men from accepting the Gospel of the righteousness of Christ. The white devil of spiritual sin is far more dangerous than the black devil of carnal sin because the wiser, the better men are without Christ, the more they are likely to ignore and oppose the Gospel.”

Reader: NOTHING you do can make you acceptable to God. NOTHING! Gospel "faith" is, therefore, ceasing once and for all (forever) all your own efforts at acceptability in God's sight and instead trusting Someone else (Christ COMPLETELY AND ALONE) to make you acceptable. Forever.

This is the gospel: Your sins are sinful, and your obedient acts are stained by sin as well. ONLY Christ's perfect obedience can rescue you and make you righteous in the sight of God.