As mentioned in chapter 1, this dissertation situates Luther’s teaching on faith and love in two dimensions—alien, passive, and perfect righteousness and holiness vis-à-vis proper, active, and progressing righteousness and holiness. Grasping the nexus of these two dimensions is decisive for delving into the dynamics of Luther’s discussion of faith and love. This chapter concentrates on Luther’s thoughts on faith, love, and their relationship in the dimension of alien, passive, and perfect righteousness and holiness. In this dimension, the salient point is that faith in Christ does everything for the justification of sinners to the utter exclusion of love.
This dimension involves several interrelated questions: who are human beings in the sight of God (coram Deo), as opposed to in the sight of the world or other human beings (coram mundo)? How can human beings stand justified before God? How does God alone work to justify sinners through and in Christ? What has Christ achieved for humanity? How can this work of God be personally made efficacious only by faith in Christ? Why should sinners rely completely on God’s promise, and not their own power and calculations for justification and the attainment of eternal life? Where does the hope for the salvation of sinners lie?
On the other hand, in the matter of a Christian’s being and life in the dimension of proper, active, and progressing righteousness and holiness, Luther’s main point is that love is the incarnation and fruit of faith. This dimension primarily concerns itself with the following questions: how does a justified Christian existentially and socially live a Christian life in relation to God, neighbor, and self? How does God work through justified Christians? How does Christ relate to Christians? What does it mean for a justified Christian to bear fruit in works of love in lieu of being idle or sterile? Why are Christians held accountable for bearing fruit in every estate of life?
How then do these two dimensions exist with each other? Are they mutually exclusive? Is the relationship between them asymmetrical? Is one reducible to the other? Is there an internal connection between them?
Two Dimensions: Interpretive Framework
Although the six concise chapters of Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians expand into several hundred pages in Luther’s commentary on the epistle, Luther indicates that both proclaim the same fundamental message, namely, faith and love. Luther discerns faith and love in the Epistle as the two cardinal theological themes in terms of its literary structure as well as its contents. Accordingly, Luther reflects this prioritization of faith and love in his own commentary. Luther’s assessment emphasizes faith and love as a paired theme that constitutes the whole structure and contents of the Epistle.
The paired theme defines the major division of the letter: the guiding topic of the first part is faith and that of the second part is love. According to Luther, specifically Galatians 4:8-9 signals the transition point in Paul’s two main concerns: from faith, Christ, righteousness, and justification (or more precisely, alien, passive, and perfect righteousness and holiness) to love, works of the law, and sanctification (or more precisely, proper, active, and progressing righteousness and holiness). Touching on this transition-point, Luther states, “This is the conclusion of Paul’s argument. From here until the end of the Epistle he will not argue very much but will set forth commandments about morality.”[1]
In his comment on Galatians 5:12, Luther again articulates that
there follow exhortations and commandments about good morals. For the Apostle makes it a habit, after the teaching of faith and the instruction of consciences, to introduce some commandments about morals, by which he exhorts the believers to practice the duties of godliness toward one another.[2]
In fact, these statements seem to be insufficient evidence that Luther assesses Paul’s teaching according to two paramount theological themes, faith and love, because of the absence of the exact word “love.” To resolve this problem, George Rörer’s original lecture notes (1531) are useful. For Luther’s exposition of Galatians 5:12, the original lecture notes contain a succinct and valuable sentence for our claim: “He will exhort the duties of love after the doctrine of faith.”[3] What draws our further attention in Luther’s exegesis of the same passage (as cited above) is his contention that Paul habitually repeats the identical pattern of teaching faith and then love.
When it is understood that Luther holds faith and love as the key to Paul’s epistles, including his Epistle to the Galatians, a question arises: what does this have to do with our contention that faith and love is the interpretive key to Luther’s commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians? Some might protest that Luther’s faithful following of the sequence of Paul’s message is one thing and Luther’s own theology as revealed in his exegesis is another. Therefore, Luther’s remark on Paul’s teaching on faith and love may not carry any substantial weight in an investigation of the substance of Luther’s theology in this commentary. Yet this suspicion needs to be reappraised if we have appropriately perceived Luther’s deliberation in dwelling on Paul’s shift from faith to love:
Therefore to avoid the impression that Christian teaching undermines good morals and conflicts with political order, the apostle[Paul] also admonishes about good morals and about honest outward conduct, the observance of love and harmony, etc. Thus the world has no right to accuse Christians of undermining good morals or of disturbing public peace and respectability; for they teach morals and all the virtues better than any philosophers or teachers, because they add faith.[4]
What is intriguing in this exegesis is that it expresses no less Luther’s description of his own theology and context than his elucidation of Paul’s theology and context. This perception is substantiated, for instance, by a comparison between George Rörer’s notes on Luther’s lectures and the published lectures on the same passage. “Nostra,” “nos,” and “docemus” in the original lecture notes (1531) are become “Christiana” and “Christianos,” and the name of the Apostle Paul is integrated into the passage in the published commentary (1535).[5]
A juxtaposition of these two versions alludes to a convergence in Luther’s exegesis of two worlds—those of Paul and Luther.[6] There are understandable dissimilarities between the two worlds, considering the almost fifteen-hundred-year gap between them; nonetheless, there are similarities as well. So Luther draws on the hermeneutical imagination of his readers to place themselves in Paul’s circumstances and see how he handles the theological and practical agendas he confronts in the matter of faith and love. In this way, Luther generates a clear parallel between his own polemical milieu and Paul’s and prompts his readers to follow him in heeding the authoritative instruction of Paul. Soliciting Paul and his way of teaching on faith and love, Luther is arming himself with the best equipment to defend his own teaching on faith and love against his polemical opponents.
Hence, we need to unearth three layers of significance for this convergence of two worlds in Luther’s exegesis from the vantage point of his teaching on faith and love: (1) his explication of Paul’s context and theology at the surface level, (2) the implications of his own context and theology at the underlying level, and (3) his intention to...
