Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings

Timothy F. Lull, William R. Russell, Timothy F. Lull, William R. Russell

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780800698836
• eBook ISBN: 9781451419221
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

VI

Luther on Ethics

34

A Sermon on the Estate of Marriage (1519)

In some respects, Luther is a one-issue theologian. He consistently asks the question of how God relates to humankind. For Luther, the gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ is such a surprisingly wonderful reality that it stands out above all other concerns. This is why the well-worn Reformation slogans repeat “alone,” when describing Luther’s focus on this question: “grace alone,” “faith alone,” “Christ alone,” and “Scripture alone.” This is the Christian faith.

Never a quietest or disengaged from the issues of his day, Luther was quick to point out that this faith is an active, dynamic reality. For the Reformer, Christian ethics is indeed “faith active in love.”

The overall impression from these selections challenges the way in which Luther has popularly been taught as the theologian who fostered quiet submission to the powers that control this world. We see his reforming energies at work on a range of questions—political, sexual, educational, and pastoral. He works from that which he knows securely—the gospel of Jesus Christ—to address a wide range of secondary, but pressing, questions that Christians must face in every generation.

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This piece, published six years before Luther’s own marriage, exemplifies Luther’s pastoral realism about applied Christian ethics—and how believers can faithfully participate in God’s created orders of family, civil society, and the church. In contrast to the ascetic traditions of medieval theology, the Reformer affirms that the vocation of marriage, though not a sacrament, is a holy calling from God (as the call to priesthood). He recognizes the complexities of following God’s call in married life and “sanctifies” the orders of creation as contexts in which they may faithfully serve their neighbors.

Luther’s Preface

A sermon on the estate of marriage has already been published in my name, but I would much rather it had not. I know perfectly well that I have preached on the subject, but it has never been put into writing yet, as I am about to do at this moment. For this reason I determined to revise this same sermon, and improve it as much as possible. I ask every good soul to disregard the first sermon published and discard it. Further, if anybody wants to start writing my sermons for me, let him restrain himself, and let me have a say in the publication of my words as well. There is a vast difference between using the spoken word to make something clear and having to use the written word.

A Sermon on the Estate of Marriage

Revised and Corrected by Dr. Martin Luther, Augustinian at Wittenberg

1. God created Adam and brought all the animals before him. Adam did not find a proper companion among them suitable for marriage, so God then said, “It is not good that Adam should be alone. I will create a helpmeet for him to be with him always.” And he sent a deep sleep upon Adam, and took a rib from him, and closed his side up again. And out of this very rib taken from Adam, God created a woman and brought her to him. Then Adam said, “This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called a woman, because she was taken from her man. This is why a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. And the two shall be one flesh” [Gen. 2:18–24].

All of this is from God’s word. These words teach us where man and woman come from, how they were given to one another, for what purpose a wife was created, and what kind of love there should be in the estate of marriage.

2. If God himself does not give the wife or the husband, anything can happen. For the truth indicated here is that Adam found no marriageable partner for himself, but as soon as God had created Eve and brought her to him, he felt a real married love toward her, and recognized that she was his wife. Those who want to enter into the estate of marriage should learn from this that they should earnestly pray to God for a spouse. For the sage says that parents provide goods and houses for their children, but a wife is given by God alone [Prov. 19:14], everyone according to his need, just as Eve was given to Adam by God alone. And true though it is that because of excessive lust of the flesh lighthearted youth pays scant attention to these matters, marriage is nevertheless a weighty matter in the sight of God. For it was not by accident that Almighty God instituted the estate of matrimony only for man and above all animals, and gave such forethought and consideration to marriage. To the other animals God says quite simply, “Be fruitful and multiply” [Gen. 1:22]. It is not written that he brings the female to the male. Therefore, there is no such thing as marriage among animals. But in the case of Adam, God creates for him a unique, special kind of wife out of his own flesh. He brings her to him, he gives her to him, and Adam agrees to accept her. Therefore, that is what marriage is.

3. A woman is created to be a companionable helper to the man in everything, particularly to bear children. And that still holds well, except that since the fall marriage has been adulterated with wicked lust. And now [i.e., after the fall] the desire of the man for the woman, and vice versa, is sought after not only for companionship and children, for which purposes alone marriage was instituted, but also for the pursuance of wicked lust, which is almost as strong a motive.

4. God makes distinctions between the different kinds of love, and shows that the love of a man and woman is (or should be) the greatest and purest of all loves. For he says, “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife” [Gen. 2:24], and the wife does the same, as we see happening around us every day. Now there are three kinds of love: false love, natural love, and married love. False love is that which seeks its own, as a man loves money, possessions, honor, and women taken outside of marriage and against God’s command. Natural love is that between father and child, brother and sister, friends and relations, and similar relationships. But over and above all these is married love, that is, a bride’s love, which glows like a fire and desires nothing but the husband. She says, “It is you I want, not what is yours: I want neither your silver nor your gold; I want neither. I want only you. I want you in your entirety, or not at all.” All other kinds of love seek something other than the loved one: this kind wants only to have the beloved’s own self completely. If Adam had not fallen, the love of bride and groom would have been the loveliest thing. Now this love is not pure either, for admittedly a married partner desires to have the other, yet each seeks to satisfy his desire with the other, and it is this desire which corrupts this kind of love. Therefore, the married state is now no longer pure and free from sin. The temptation of the flesh has become so strong and consuming that marriage may be likened to a hospital for incurables which prevents inmates from falling into graver sin.^[1] Before Adam fell it was a simple matter to remain virgin and chaste, but now it is hardly possible, and without special grace from God, quite impossible. For this very reason neither Christ nor the apostles sought to make chastity a matter of obligation. It is true that Christ counseled chastity,^[2] and he left it up to each one to test himself, so that if he could not be continent he was free to marry, but if by the grace of God he could be continent, then chastity is better.^[3]

Thus the doctors of the church have found three good and useful things about the married estate, by means of which the sin of lust, which flows beneath the surface, is counteracted and ceases to be a cause of damnation.

First, [the doctors say] it is a sacrament. A sacrament is a sacred sign of something spiritual, holy, heavenly, and eternal, just as the water of baptism, when the priest pours it over the child, means that the holy, divine, eternal grace is poured into the soul and body of that child at the same time, and cleanses him from his original sin. This also means that the kingdom of God, which is an inestimable benefit, in fact immeasurably greater than the water which conveys this meaning, is within him. In the same way the estate of marriage is a sacrament. It is an outward and spiritual sign of the greatest, holiest, worthiest, and noblest thing that has ever existed or ever will exist: the union of the divine and human natures in Christ. The holy apostle Paul says that as man and wife united in the estate of matrimony are two in one flesh, so God and man are united in the one person Christ, and so Christ and Christendom are one body. It is indeed a wonderful sacrament, as Paul says [Eph. 5:32], that the estate of marriage truly signifies such a great reality. Is it not a wonderful thing that God is man and that he gives himself to man and will be his, just as the husband gives himself to his wife and is hers? But if God is ours, then everything is ours.^[4]

Consider this matter with the respect it deserves. Because the union of man and woman signifies such a great mystery, the estate of marriage has to have this special significance. This means that the wicked lust of the flesh, which nobody is without, is a conjugal obligation and is not reprehensible when expressed within marriage, but in all other cases outside the bond of marriage, it is mortal sin. In a parallel way the holy manhood of God covers^[5] the shame of the wicked lust of the flesh. Therefore, a married man should have regard for such a sacrament, honor it as sacred, and behave properly in marital obligations, so that those things which originate in the lust of the flesh do not occur [among us] as they do in the world of brute beasts.

Second, [the doctors say] marriage is a covenant of fidelity. The whole basis and essence of marriage is that each gives himself or herself to the other, and they promise to remain faithful to each other and not give themselves to any other. By binding themselves to each other, and surrendering themselves to each other, the way is barred to the body of anyone else, and they content themselves in the marriage bed with their one companion. In this way God sees to it that the flesh is subdued so as not to rage wherever and however it pleases, and, within this plighted troth, permits even more occasion than is necessary for the begetting of children. But, of course, a man has to control himself and not make a filthy sow’s sty of his marriage.

At this point I want to say what kind of words^[6] should be used when two people are betrothed^[7]to each other. The matter has been dealt with at such length, in such depth, and in such concise fashion that I am much too inadequate to understand it all. I am afraid that there are many who are really married, but before now we thought unmarried. Because the estate of marriage consists essentially in one freely and previously consenting to another and because God is wonderfully merciful in all his judgments, I will leave it all to his care. The generally accepted formula is “I am yours, you are mine,” and though some intended it most strictly, it is not enough when they say, “I will take you” or “I am willing to take you” or when they use some other form of words. Nevertheless I would still prefer to consider the words in the sense in which they have been understood up to the present.

Similarly, when someone has made a secret betrothal, and subsequently takes another, either clandestinely or publicly, I am still not sure whether what we write about it or the judgment we make on it is altogether right. My advice is that parents persuade their children not to be ashamed to ask their parents to find a marriage partner for them. Parents should make it clear from the start that they want to advise their children so that they in their turn may remain chaste and persevere in expectation of marriage. In return, children should not become engaged without the knowledge of their parents. You are not ashamed, are you, to ask your parents for a coat or a house? Why be foolish then, and not ask for what is far greater, a partner in marriage? Samson did it. He entered a city and saw a young maiden who pleased him. Thereupon he immediately goes back home and says to his father and mother, “I have seen a young maiden whom I love. Dear parents, get me this girl for a wife” [Judg. 14:1–2].

Third, [the doctors say] marriage produces offspring, for that is the end and chief purpose of marriage. It is not enough, however, merely for children to be born, and so what they say about marriage excusing sin does not apply in this case. Heathen, too, bear offspring. But unfortunately it seldom happens that we bring up children to serve God, to praise and honor him, and want nothing else of them. People seek only heirs in their children, or pleasure in them; the serving of God finds what place it can. You also see people rush into marriage and become mothers and fathers before they know what the commandments are or can pray.

But this at least all married people should know. They can do no better work and do nothing more valuable either for God, for Christendom, for all the world, for themselves, and for their children than to bring up their children well. In comparison with this one work, that married people should bring up their children properly, there is nothing at all in pilgrimages to Rome, Jerusalem, or Compostella,^[8] nothing at all in building churches, endowing masses, or whatever good works could be named. For bringing up their children properly is their shortest road to heaven. In fact, heaven itself could not be made nearer or achieved more easily than by doing this work. It is also their appointed work. Where parents are not conscientious about this, it is as if everything were the wrong way around, like fire that will not bum or water that is not wet.

By the same token, hell is no more easily earned than with respect to one’s own children. You could do no more disastrous work than to spoil the children, let them curse and swear, let them learn profane words and vulgar songs, and just let them do as they please. What is more, some parents use enticements to be more alluring to meet the dictates of the world of fashion, so that they may please only the world, get ahead, and become rich, all the time giving more attention to the care of the body than to the due care of the soul. There is no greater tragedy in Christendom than spoiling children. If we want to help Christendom, we most certainly have to start with the children, as happened in earlier times.

This third point seems to me to be the most important of all, as ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Chronology of Luther’s Writings in This Volume
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Preface to the First Edition
• Introduction
• Luther on Theology
• Luther on Scripture
• Luther on the Gospel
• Luther on the Sacraments
• Luther on Reform
• Luther on Ethics
• Luther the Man
• Chronology of Martin Luther’s Life
• Glossary
• Selected Bibliography