[1] Without a reformation early Lutherans feared that the gospel
as they understood it might have been lost. We cannot make a
historical judgment about that fear, but we can be reasonably sure
that without the law the Reformation would have been lost. John
Witte's book, Law and Protestantism, demonstrates the extent to
which the survival of the Reformation in its Lutheran form depended
on the law. Without legal regulations to transpose early
evangelical theology into new forms of church and civic life,
Protestant pastors would have preached their hearts out without
substantially altering the religious institutions and practices
which they decried as idolatrous and unchristian: monastic vows,
compulsory clerical celibacy, private masses and the sacrificial
theology underlying them, the cult of the saints, satisfactions and
indulgences, and the marital provisions of canon law. By
redirecting assets from ecclesiastical foundations to schools and
social welfare, Protestants not only preached that love of neighbor
was more pleasing to God than misguided religious activity, but
they also embodied what they preached in legal structures that
lasted. As Witte phrases it: ". . . it was the combination of
theological and legal reforms that rendered the Lutheran
Reformation so resolute and resilient."[1]
[2] It is hard to overestimate the importance of law to the
Reformation. Is it possible, however, that the cost was too high?
Could the gospel have been lost among the new Protestant laws that
guaranteed the survival of the Reformation? Since the 1520s both
theologians and historians have insisted that such was the case.
Pastors like John Agricola (1494-1566) and his sympathizers,
dismissed as antinomians by Luther, feared that preaching the law
would undercut the evangelical message and its power to effect
repentance and engender faith. Historians have argued that Luther's
endorsement of parish oversight by civil and clerical officials
subverted both Christian freedom and the right of parishes to judge
the preaching of pastors whom they were entitled to call and
dismiss. The present tendency to evaluate the outcome of the
Reformation by the process of confessionalization usually
culminates in a negative judgment. The early spontaneity of the
evangelical movement gave way to church orders and consistories
that regimented the behavior of believers and subjected them to
rulers who were interested mainly in their obedience.
[3] Such criticisms of the impact of law on the Reformation are
too harsh and in some cases wrong. To the extent that Luther's
reforms could be installed by civil and ecclesiastical law, the new
regulations did provide structures of worship and piety that were
consistent with evangelical theology. Those structures, however,
did not guarantee that Protestant believers who lived within them
would internalize the evangelical message and conform to the
template of the ideal Christian drawn by Luther in his treatise on
Christian freedom (1520). According to that model, the Christian
was through faith the freest ruler of all and through love the most
dutiful servant of all.[2] Faith in
Christ led spontaneously to love for the neighbor and enabled
believers to direct all their energy toward securing the welfare of
others. This model of Christian ethics depended on the efficacy of
the gospel to awaken faith, to embrace forgiveness for the sake of
Christ, and to stimulate love of neighbor so deeply that believers
acted as Christs to one another. The law was not absent from this
model; the Word of God was both law and promise, and law was needed
to lead people to repentance. As the basis of structures that
abolished the old piety and protected the preaching of the gospel,
however, the law could only go so far. It could create space for
the evangelical message, but it could not guarantee that the
message would be imprinted on the hearts and minds of its
hearers.
[4] In other words, as valuable as the law was to the
Reformation, its effect on Lutheran belief and ethics was limited.
Theologians proposed different theoretical means of
facilitating the impact of the law on Christian conduct: two
kingdoms, three orders, three uses of the law, and simul iustus et
peccator. The last-named concept was perhaps the most teachable.
Since Luther argued that believers after baptism were never free of
sin, the law was deemed useful for inspiring continual repentance
and for controlling the effects of sin in the lives of the
redeemed. Explanations of the Ten Commandments in the catechisms
provided guidance both for behavior that should be avoided and for
conduct that would express God's will. Whether that guidance
should be called a third use of the law was sharply debated by
theologians, but while they debated it seemed that people in the
pews were not getting the message. Luther and other reformers
lamented the fact that laity were being told they did not need the
law at all. In his 1535 homiletical handbook, the Lutheran
superintendent of Lower Saxony, Urbanus Rhegius (1489-1541), blamed
naïve young preachers for leading people astray:
In striving to present
Paul's teaching about the law and its office, some preachers
brazenly teach the following: "The ten commandments were not given
for us to obey." Here they abruptly stop the sermon and move on to
another topic, although they should explain in detail why the law
was given at all since it cannot justify the sinner. Unless they
already understand Paul perfectly, people who hear such things
cannot avoid taking offense. Right away they think that meditating
upon the law, keeping it, and doing good works are unnecessary and
that it is permitted to steal and to commit adultery and murder.
For one hears these things said publicly by people who have
listened to such foolish sermons.[3]
[5] Nowhere was the law's limitation more evident than in the
writings of Luther that treated Christian living within the
framework of two kingdoms. Consider, for example, the question of
whether parents should be able to prevent or compel the marriage of
their children. In the dedication of his 1524 treatise on this
question, Luther recalled that he had previously written (in
opposition to canon law) that "obedience to parents is so important
that a child should not become engaged or marry without their
knowledge and consent, and that if this does occur the parents have
the authority to dissolve such a union."[4] Luther had indeed written
in late 1522 that obedience to parents obliged children to seek
their consent so that the perils of secret engagements could be
avoided.[5] Now he claimed that parents
had gone too far and were arbitrarily preventing their children
from marrying or, in the one specific case about which he had been
consulted, compelling their children to marry someone they did not
love. Luther quickly acknowledged that parental authority was
strictly limited by God's authority, that is, the "very highest
authority" to preach the gospel and to govern souls in a way that
builds up and does not destroy (2 Corinthians 10:8). By this
standard parents who forced children to marry someone they did not
love were flouting God's authority and, like tyrants, wreaking
destruction on their children.[6] The
fourth commandment did not give parents the right to abuse their
children.
[6] The appeal to a higher authority did not resolve the issue,
however, because there remained the question whether children
should resist such tyranny. According to the Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew 5:38-41) evil should not be resisted, and consequently
children should obey their tyrannical parents and accept the
injustice imposed upon them.[7] Luther
responded to this reasoning with the same answer that he frequently
gave to ethical questions. True Christians, those who complied with
the gospel, "would by all means neither refuse nor resist such a
forced marriage." They would react like Jacob after Leah was forced
upon him: he kept her against his will even though he was under no
obligation to do so (Genesis 29:21-30).[8] Although Luther implied
that few such "hardy" Christians existed, Christ's command could
not be escaped, and "weak Christians" who could not follow it
should appeal to civil authorities to prevent injustice and
restrict parents to the proper use of their
authority.[9] Except for these courses of
action - non-resistance, appeal to governmental enforcement, or
escape to another jurisdiction - Luther had no other advice to give
"a Christian." As for those who were "not Christians," Luther left
them to do what they could "within the temporal
laws."[10]
[7] In the case of parents compelling their children to marry,
two limitations on the law were disclosed, both of which overrode
the fourth commandment. One limitation was imposed by a higher
divine command to build up and not to destroy, the other by the
specific behavior required of Christians in the Sermon on the
Mount. The first limitation was often applied directly on the basis
of Acts 5:29 ("We must obey God rather than any human authority"),
or with discretion through the principle of equity that Lutheran
jurists adapted to their legal systems.[11] The second limitation,
however, disclosed a fundamental tension between the law and the
Christian life that was not easily resolved even by the model of
two kingdoms.
[8] The development of this model in Wittenberg in 1522 produced
the distinction between true Christians who lived by the Sermon on
the Mount and others who lived by the law. In his treatise,
Temporal Authority, Luther attempted to reconcile the
non-resistance enjoined by Matthew 5 with the imperative of Romans
13 to be subject to the governing authorities ordained by God. His
solution was to divide humanity into two classes, the first
belonging to the kingdom of God, composed of true believers in
Christ and living under Christ and the rule of the gospel. The
second class, all who were not Christians, belonged to the kingdom
of the world and lived under the law. "There are few true
believers, and still fewer who live a Christian life, who do not
resist evil and indeed themselves do no evil. For this reason God
has provided for them a different government beyond the Christian
estate and the kingdom of God."[12] If
the world were filled with true Christians, then no law would be
necessary, since in themselves Christians did not need the law or
the sword.[13] Because, however, "the
world and the masses are and always will be un-Christian, even if
they are all baptized and Christian in name," the world can never
be ruled in a Christian or evangelical manner. Instead, people must
be restrained by the law given by God for that
purpose.[14]
[9] The sharp divide created by Luther between the kingdoms does
not lend itself easily to the common Lutheran affirmation that
Christians "live in both kingdoms." On the contrary, Luther is
saying that Christians live in the kingdom of God ruled by the
gospel and Christ's commands, and that non-Christians live in the
kingdom of the world ruled by the law. That uncomfortable position
can be eased, however, by the doctrine of simul iustus et peccator,
which seems to be compatible with Luther's admission that so few
true Christians exist and that the baptized masses can be regarded
as un-Christian. On the ground that all baptized believers still
sin and therefore cannot conform to the Sermon on the Mount, one
could presume that no true Christians exist and that Luther's
version of the two kingdoms was an ideal construct that can be
spiritualized so that all Christians can fit into both kingdoms.
Insofar as they believe in Christ by the power of the Spirit and
their sin is forgiven, Christians live in the kingdom of God or the
spiritual kingdom; insofar as they still sin, require restraint,
and seek earthly justice for themselves and others, Christians are
governed by the law in the worldly kingdom and can govern others
according to the law.
[10] That adjustment reduces the dis-ease caused by Luther's
conception and affirms the political and theological uses of the
law, but it does not eliminate the tension from Luther's ethical
vision or capture its radicality. Luther expected more from
Christians for their life in the world than the law could provide.
Although he conceded that baptized believers still waged war with
sin and that only a few, if any, true Christians could be found, he
persistently held up biblical paradigms like the Sermon on the
Mount as the proper path for those who would live under Christ and
the gospel. Christians should not rest content with life within the
law but exceed its limitations and risk living by the gospel. For
example, Luther not only supported regulations for marriage that
would fit his theology and apply to all, but he urged Christians to
conduct their marriages in a loving and equitable manner that grew
out of their faith.[15] The
rule of love (lex charitatis) should govern the lives of believers,
even though that rule allowed Christians to obey civil government
and its law on behalf of others.[16]
[11] In spite of his gibes at jurists and legalistic
religion,[17] Luther extolled the law
and its value for social, political, and ecclesiastical
order:
"Since the government in our German lands is supposed to be guided
by the imperial law of Rome, and this law is our government's
wisdom and reason, given it by God, it follows that this government
cannot be maintained and will inevitably perish unless the law is
maintained. Now who will maintain it? Not fist and weapons; heads
and books must do it. People must learn and know the law and wisdom
of our worldly government."[18]
[12] In addition, Luther appreciated the concept of equity and
realized that the application of law to specific cases required
both realism and fairness.[19] In
the end, however, the law could not create what Luther desired more
than a legally established Reformation: Christians empowered by the
gospel to live in faith and love.
© February 2004
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 4, Issue 2
[1] John Witte Jr., Law and
Protestantism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,
2002), 4.
[2] Martin Luther, The Freedom of A
Christian (1520), in Luther's Works, American Edition, 55 vols.
(St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955-1986),
vol. 31, p. 344 (LW 31:344).
[3] Urbanus Rhegius, Formulae quaedam
caute (1535), in Preaching the Reformation: The Homiletical
Handbook of Urbanus Rhegius, ed. Scott Hendrix (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 2003), 31.
[4] Martin Luther, That Parents Should
neither Compel nor Hinder the Marriage of Their Children, and That
Children Should Not Become Engaged without Their Parents' Consent
(1524), LW 45: 385-386.
[5] Martin Luther, The Estate of
Marriage (1522), LW 45: 29
[6] Luther, That Parents Should neither
Compel nor Hinder the Marriage of Their Children, LW 45: 386.
[7] Ibid. (387-388).
[8] Ibid. (388)
[9] Ibid. (388-389)
[10] Ibid. (389)
[11] Witte, Law and Protestantism,
14-15.
[12] Martin Luther, Temporal
Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523), LW 45: 88,
90.
[13] Luther, Temporal Authority, in LW
45: 89.
[14] Ibid (91).
[15] For this interpretation, see
Scott Hendrix, "Luther on Marriage," Lutheran Quarterly 14:3
(2000): 335-350; reprinted in Harvesting Martin Luther's
Reflections on Theology, Ethics, and the Church, ed. Timothy J.
Wengert (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2004), 169-184.
[16] Johannes Heckel, Lex Charitatis:
Eine juristische Untersuchung über das Recht in der Theologie
Martin Luthers, 2nd ed., ed. Martin Heckel (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973), 287-289.
[17] For examples, see Witte, Law and
Protestantism,, 119; also H. G. Haile, Luther: An Experiment in
Biography (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 285-287.
[18] Martin Luther, A Sermon on
Keeping Children in School (1530), LW 46: 239.
[19] Haile, Luther: An Experiment in
Biography, 346: "Epikeia was Martin Luther's final reconciliation
of law with humanity in the business of the world."