Fortale - engelsk

Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans
by Martin Luther, 1483-1546
Translated by Bro. Andrew Thornton, OSB
"Vorrede auff die Epistel S. Paul: an die Romer"
in _D. Martin Luther: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch 1545
aufs new zurericht, ed. Hans Volz and Heinz Blanke.
Munich: Roger & Bernhard. 1972, vol. 2, pp. 2254-2268.


Translator's Note: The material between square brackets is
explanatory in nature and is not part of Luther's preface. The
terms "just, justice, justify" in this piece are synonymous with
the terms "righteous, righteousness, make righteous." Both sets of
English words are common translations of German "gerecht" and
related words. A similar situation exists with the word "faith";
it is synonymous with "belief." Both words can be used to
translate German "Glaube." Thus, "We are justified by faith"
translates the same original German sentence as does "We are made
righteous by belief."

This letter is truly the most important piece in the New
Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's
while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy
himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the
soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too
much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it
becomes and the better it tastes. Therefore I want to carry out my
service and, with this preface, provide an introduction to the
letter, insofar as God gives me the ability, so that every one can
gain the fullest possible understanding of it. Up to now it has
been darkened by glosses [explanatory notes and comments which
accompany a text] and by many a useless comment, but it is in
itself a bright light, almost bright enough to illumine the entire
Scripture.

To begin with, we have to become familiar with the vocabulary of
the letter and know what St. Paul means by the words law, sin,
grace, faith, justice, flesh, spirit, etc. Otherwise there is no
use in reading it.

You must not understand the word law here in human fashion, i.e.,
a regulation about what sort of works must be done or must not be
done. That's the way it is with human laws: you satisfy the
demands of the law with works, whether your heart is in it or not.
God judges what is in the depths of the heart. Therefore his law
also makes demands on the depths of the heart and doesn't let the
heart rest content in works; rather it punishes as hypocrisy and
lies all works done apart from the depths of the heart. All human
beings are called liars (Psalm 116), since none of them keeps or
can keep God's law from the depths of the heart. Everyone finds
inside himself an aversion to good and a craving for evil. Where
there is no free desire for good, there the heart has not set
itself on God's law. There also sin is surely to be found and the
deserved wrath of God, whether a lot of good works and an
honorable life appear outwardly or not.

Therefore in chapter 2, St. Paul adds that the Jews are all
sinners and says that only the doers of the law are justified in
the sight of God. What he is saying is that no one is a doer of
the law by works. On the contrary, he says to them, "You teach
that one should not commit adultery, and you commit adultery. You
judge another in a certain matter and condemn yourselves in that
same matter, because you do the very same thing that you judged in
another." It is as if he were say ing, "Outwardly you live quite
properly in the works of the law and judge those who do not live
the same way; you know how to teach everybody. You see the speck
in another's eye but do not notice the beam in your own."

Outwardly you keep the law with works out of fear of punishment or
love of gain. Likewise you do everything without free desire and
love of the law; you act out of aversion and force. You'd rather
act otherwise if the law didn't exist. It follows, then, that you,
in the depths of your heart, are an enemy of the law. What do you
mean, therefore, by teaching another not to steal, when you, in
the depths of your heart, are a thief and would be one outwardly
too, if you dared. (Of course, outward work doesn't last long with
such hypocrites.) So then, you teach others but not yourself; you
don't even know what you are teaching. You've never understood the
law rightly. Furthermore, the law increases sin, as St. Paul says
in chapter 5. That is because a person becomes more and more an
enemy of the law the more it demands of him what he can't possibly
do.

In chapter 7, St. Paul says, "The law is spiritual." What does
that mean? If the law were physical, then it could be satisfied by
works, but since it is spiritual, no one can satisfy it unless
everything he does springs from the depths of the heart. But no
one can give such a heart except the Spirit of God, who makes the
person be like the law, so that he actually conceives a heartfelt
longing for the law and henceforward does everything, not through
fear or coercion, but from a free heart. Such a law is spiritual
since it can only be loved and fulfilled by such a heart and such
a spirit. If the Spirit is not in the heart, then there remain
sin, aversion and enmity against the law, which in itself is good,
just and holy.

You must get used to the idea that it is one thing to do the works
of the law and quite another to fulfill it. The works of the law
are every thing that a person does or can do of his own free will
and by his own powers to obey the law. But because in doing such
works the heart abhors the law and yet is forced to obey it, the
works are a total loss and are completely useless. That is what
St. Paul means in chapter 3 when he says, "No human being is
justified before God through the works of the law." From this you
can see that the schoolmasters [i.e., the scholastic theologians]
and sophists are seducers when they teach that you can prepare
yourself for grace by means of works. How can anybody prepare
himself for good by means of works if he does no good work except
with aversion and constraint in his heart? How can such a work
please God, if it proceeds from an averse and unwilling heart?

But to fulfill the law means to do its work eagerly, lovingly and
freely, without the constraint of the law; it means to live well
and in a manner pleasing to God, as though there were no law or
punishment. It is the Holy Spirit, however, who puts such
eagerness of unconstained love into the heart, as Paul says in
chapter 5. But the Spirit is given only in, with, and through
faith in Jesus Christ, as Paul says in his introduction. So, too,
faith comes only through the word of God, the Gospel, that
preaches Christ: how he is both Son of God and man, how he died
and rose for our sake. Paul says all this in chapters 3, 4 and 10.

That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law;
faith it is that brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of
Christ. The Spirit, in turn, renders the heart glad and free, as
the law demands. Then good works proceed from faith itself. That
is what Paul means in chapter 3 when, after he has thrown out the
works of the law, he sounds as though the wants to abolish the law
by faith. No, he says, we uphold the law through faith, i.e. we
fulfill it through faith.

_Sin_ in the Scriptures means not only external works of the body
but also all those movements within us which bestir themselves and
move us to do the external works, namely, the depth of the heart
with all its powers. Therefore the word _do_ should refer to a
person's completely falling into sin. No external work of sin
happens, after all, unless a person commit himself to it
completely, body and soul. In particular, the Scriptures see into
the heart, to the root and main source of al sin: unbelief in the
depth of the heart. Thus, even as faith alone makes just and
brings the Spirit and the desire to do good external works, so it
is only unbelief which sins and exalts the flesh and brings desire
to do evil external works. That's what happened to Adam and Eve in
Paradise (cf. Genesis 3).

That is why only unbelief is called sin by Christ, as he says in
John, chapter 16, "The Spirit will punish the world because of
sin, because it does not believe in me." Furthermore, before good
or bad works happen, which are the good or bad fruits of the
heart, there has to be present in the heart either faith or
unbelief, the root, sap and chief power of all sin. That is why,
in the Scriptures, unbelief is called the head of the serpent and
of the ancient dragon which the offspring of the woman, i.e.
Christ, must crush, as was promised to Adam (cf. Genesis 3).
_Grace_ and _gift_ differ in that grace actually denotes God's
kindness or favor which he has toward us and by which he is
disposed to pour Christ and the Spirit with his gifts into us, as
becomes clear from chapter 5, where Paul says, "Grace and gift are
in Christ, etc." The gifts and the Spirit increase daily in us,
yet they are not complete, since evil desires and sins remain in
us which war against the Spirit, as Paul says in chapter 7, and in
Galations, chapter 5. And Genesis, chapter 3, proclaims the enmity
between the offspring of the woman and that of the serpent. But
grace does do this much: that we are accounted completely just
before God. God's grace is not divided into bits and pieces, as
are the gifts, but grace takes us up completely into God's favor
for the sake of Christ, our intercessor and mediator, so that the
gifts may begin their work in us.

In this way, then, you should understand chapter 7, where St. Paul
portrays himself as still a sinner, while in chapter 8 he says
that, because of the incomplete gifts and because of the Spirit,
there is nothing damnable in those who are in Christ. Because our
flesh has not been killed, we are still sinners, but because we
believe in Christ and have the beginnings of the Spirit, God so
shows us his favor and mercy, that he neither notices nor judges
such sins. Rather he deals with us according to our belief in
Christ until sin is killed.

Faith is not that human illusion and dream that some people think
it is. When they hear and talk a lot about faith and yet see that
no moral improvement and no good works result from it, they fall
into error and say, "Faith is not enough. You must do works if you
want to be virtuous and get to heaven." The result is that, when
they hear the Gospel, they stumble and make for themselves with
their own powers a concept in their hearts which says, "I
believe." This concept they hold to be true faith. But since it is
a human fabrication and thought and not an experience of the
heart, it accomplishes nothing, and there follows no improvement.

Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to
birth anew from God (cf. John 1). It kills the old Adam, makes us
completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our
powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living,
creative, active powerful thing is faith! It is impossible that
faith ever stop doing good. Faith doesn't ask whether good works
are to be done, but, before it is asked, it has done them. It is
always active. Whoever doesn't do such works is without faith; he
gropes and searches about him for faith and good works but doesn't
know what faith or good works are. Even so, he chatters on with a
great many words about faith and good works.

Faith is a living, unshakeable confidence in God's grace; it is so
certain, that someone would die a thousand times for it. This kind
of trust in and knowledge of God's grace makes a person joyful,
confident, and happy with regard to God and all creatures. This is
what the Holy Spirit does by faith. Through faith, a person will
do good to everyone without coercion, willingly and happily; he
will serve everyone, suffer everything for the love and praise of
God, who has shown him such grace. It is as impossible to separate
works from faith as burning and shining from fire. Therefore be on
guard against your own false ideas and against the chatterers who
think they are clever enough to make judgements about faith and
good works but who are in reality the biggest fools. Ask God to
work faith in you; otherwise you will remain eternally without
faith, no matter what you try to do or fabricate.

Now _justice_ is just such a faith. It is called God's justice or
that justice which is valid in God's sight, because it is God who
gives it and reckons it as justice for the sake of Christ our
Mediator. It influences a person to give to everyone what he owes
him. Through faith a person becomes sinless and eager for God's
commands. Thus he gives God the honor due him and pays him what he
owes him. He serves people willingly with the means available to
him. In this way he pays everyone his due. Neither nature nor free
will nor our own powers can bring about such a justice, for even
as no one can give himself faith, so too he cannot remove
unbelief. How can he then take away even the smallest sin?
Therefore everything which takes place outside faith or in
unbelief is lie, hypocrisy and sin (Romans 14), no matter how
smoothly it may seem to go.

You must not understand flesh here as denoting only unchastity or
spirit as denoting only the inner heart. Here St. Paul calls flesh
(as does Christ in John 3) everything born of flesh, i.e. the
whole human being with body and soul, reason and senses, since
everything in him tends toward the flesh. That is why you should
know enough to call that per son "fleshly" who, without grace,
fabricates, teaches and chatters about high spiritual matters. You
can learn the same thing from Galatians, chapter 5, where St. Paul
calls heresy and hatred works of the flesh. And in Romans, chapter
8, he says that, through the flesh, the law is weakened. He says
this, not of unchastity, but of all sins, most of all of unbelief,
which is the most spiritual of vices.

On the other hand, you should know enough to call that person
"spiritual" who is occupied with the most outward of works as was
Christ, when he washed the feet of the disciples, and Peter, when
he steered his boat and fished. So then, a person is "flesh" who,
inwardly and outwardly, lives only to do those things which are of
use to the flesh and to temporal existence. A person is "spirit"
who, inwardly and outwardly, lives only to do those things which
are of use to the spirit and to the life to come.

Unless you understand these words in this way, you will never
understand either this letter of St. Paul or any book of the
Scriptures. Be on guard, therefore against any teacher who uses
these words differently, no matter who he be, whether Jerome,
Augustine, Ambrose, Origen or anyone else as great as or greater
than they. Now let us turn to the letter itself.

The first duty of a preacher of the Gospel is, through his
revealing of the law and of sin, to rebuke and to turn into sin
everything in life that does not have the Spirit and faith in
Christ as its base. [Here and elsewhere in Luther's preface, as
indeed in Romans itself, it is not clear whether "spirit" has the
meaning "Holy Spirit" or "spiritual person," as Luther has
previously defined it.] Thereby he will lead people to a
recognition of their miserable condition, and thus they will
become humble and yearn for help. This is what St Paul does. He
begins in chapter 1 by rebuking the gross sins and unbelief which
are in plain view, as were (and still are) the sins of the pagans,
who live without God's grace. He says that, through the Gospel,
God is reveal ing his wrath from heaven upon all mankind because
of the godless and unjust lives they live. For, although they know
and recognize day by day that there is a God, yet human nature in
itself, without grace, is so evil that it neither thanks not
honors God. This nature blinds itself and continually falls into
wickedness, even going so far as to commit idola try and other
horrible sins and vices. It is unashamed of itself and leaves such
things unpunished in others.

In chapter 2, St. Paul extends his rebuke to those who appear
outwardly pious or who sin secretly. Such were the Jews, and such
are all hypocrites still, who live virtuous lives but without
eagerness and love; in their heart they are enemies of God's law
and like to judge other people. That's the way with hypocrites:
they think that they are pure but are actually full of greed,
hate, pride and all sorts of filth (cf. Matthew 23). These are
they who despise God's goodness and, by their hardness of heart,
heap wrath upon themselves. Thus Paul explains the law rightly
when he lets no one remain without sin but proclaims the wrath of
God to all who want to live virtuously by nature or by free will.
He makes them out to be no better than public sinners; he says
they are hard of heart and unrepentant.

In chapter 3, Paul lumps both secret and public sinners together:
the one, he says, is like the other; all are sinners in the sight
of God. Besides, the Jews had God's word, even thoug many did not
believe in it. But still God's truth and faith in him are not
thereby rendered use less. St. Paul introduces, as an aside, the
saying from Psalm 51, that God remains true to his words. Then he
returns to his topic and proves from Scripture that they are all
sinners and that no one becomes just through the works of the law
but that God gave the law only so that sin might be perceived.

Next St. Paul teaches the right way to be virtuous and to be
saved; he says that they are all sinners, unable to glory in God.
They must, however, be justified through faith in Christ, who has
merited this for us by his blood and has become for us a mercy
seat [cf. Exodus 25:17, Leviticus 16:14ff, and John 2:2] in the
presence of God, who forgives us all our previous sins. In so
doing, God proves that it is his justice alone, which he gives
through faith, that helps us, the justice which was at the
appointed time revealed through the Gospel and, previous to that,
was witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets. Therefore the law 6
is set up by faith, but the works of the law, along with the glory
taken in them, are knocked down by faith. [As with the term
"spirit," the word "law" seems to have for Luther, and for St.
Paul, two meanings. Sometimes it means "regulation about what must
be done or not done," as in the third paragraph of this preface;
sometimes it means "the Torah," as in the previous sentence. And
sometimes it seems to have both meanings, as in what follows.]

In chapters 1 to 3, St. Paul has revealed sin for what it is and
has taught the way of faith which leads to justice. Now in chapter
4 he deals with some objections and criticisms. He takes up first
the one that people raise who, on hearing that faith make just
without works, say, "What? Shouldn't we do any good works?" Here
St. Paul holds up Abraham as an example. He says, "What did
Abraham accomplish with his good works? Were they all good for
nothing and useless?" He con cludes that Abraham was made
righteous apart from all his works by faith alone. Even before the
"work" of his circumcision, Scripture praises him as being just on
account of faith alone (cf. Genesis 15). Now if the work of his
circumcision did nothing to make him just, a work that God had
commanded him to do and hence a work of obedi ence, then surely no
other good work can do anything to make a person just. Even as
Abraham's circumcision was an outward sign with which he proved
his justice based on faith, so too all good works are only outward
signs which flow from faith and are the fruits of faith; they
prove that the person is already inwardly just in the sight of
God.

St. Paul verifies his teaching on faith in chapter 3 with a
powerful example from Scripture. He calls as witness David, who
says in Psalm 32 that a person becomes just without works but
doesn't remain with out works once he has become just. Then Paul
extends this example and applies it against all other works of the
law. He concludes that the Jews cannot be Abraham's heirs just
because of their blood relationship to him and still less because
of the works of the law. Rather, they have to inherit Abrahams's
faith if they want to be his real heirs, since it was prior to the
Law of Moses and the law of circumcision that Abraham became just
through faith and was called a father of all believers. St. Paul
adds that the law brings about more wrath than grace, because no
one obeys it with love and eagerness. More disgrace than grace
come from the works of the law. Therefore faith alone can obtain
the grace promised to Abraham. Examples like these are written for
our sake, that we also should have faith.

In chapter 5, St. Paul comes to the fruits and works of faith,
namely: joy, peace, love for God and for all people; in addition:
assur ance, steadfastness, confidence, courage, and hope in sorrow
and suffer ing. All of these follow where faith is genuine,
because of the overflow ing good will that God has shown in
Christ: he had him die for us before we could ask him for it, yes,
even while we were still his enemies. Thus we have established
that faith, without any good works, makes just. It does not follow
from that, however, that we should not do good works; rather it
means that morally upright works do not remain lacking. About such
works the "works-holy" people know nothing; they invent for
themselves their own works in which are neither peace nor joy nor
assurance nor love nor hope nor steadfastness nor any kind of
genuine Christian works or faith.

Next St. Paul makes a digression, a pleasant little side-trip, and
relates where both sin and justice, death and life come from. He
opposes these two: Adam and Christ. What he wants to say is that
Christ, a second Adam, had to come in order to make us heirs of
his justice through a new spiritual birth in faith, just as the
old Adam made us heirs of sin through the old fleshy birth.

St. Paul proves, by this reasoning, that a person cannot help
himself by his works to get from sin to justice any more than he
can prevent his own physical birth. St. Paul also proves that the
divine law, which should have been well-suited, if anything was,
for helping people to obtain justice, not only was no help at all
when it did come, but it even increased sin. Evil human nature,
consequently, becomes more hostile to it; the more the law forbids
it to indulge its own desires, the more it wants to. Thus the law
makes Christ all the more necessary and demands more grace to help
human nature.

In chapter 6, St. Paul takes up the special work of faith, the
struggle which the spirit wages against the flesh to kill off
those sins and desires that remain after a person has been made
just. He teaches us that faith doesn't so free us from sin that we
can be idle, lazy and self-assured, as though there were no more
sin in us. Sin _is_ there, but, because of faith that struggles
against it, God does not reckon sin as deserving damna tion.
Therefore we have in our own selves a lifetime of work cut out for
us; we have to tame our body, kill its lusts, force its members to
obey the spirit and not the lusts. We must do this so that we may
conform to the death and resurrection of Christ and complete our
Baptism, which signifies a death to sin and a new life of grace.
Our aim is to be completely clean from sin and then to rise bodily
with Christ and live forever

St. Paul says that we can accomplish all this because we are in
grace and not in the law. He explains that to be "outside the law"
is not the same as having no law and being able to do what you
please. No, being "under the law" means living without grace,
surrounded by the works of the law. Then surely sin reigns by
means of the law, since no one is naturally well-disposed toward
the law. That very condition, however, is the greatest sin. But
grace makes the law lovable to us, so there is then no sin any
more, and the law is no longer against us but one with us.

This is true freedom from sin and from the law; St. Paul writes
about this for the rest of the chapter. He says it is a freedom
only to do good with eagerness and to live a good life without the
coercion of the law. This freedom is, therefore, a spiritual
freedom which does not suspend the law but which supplies what the
law demands, namely eagerness and love. These silence the law so
that it has no further cause to drive people on and make demands
of them. It's as though you owed something to a moneylender and
couldn't pay him. You could be rid of him in one of two ways:
either he would take nothing from you and would tear up his
account book, or a pious man would pay for you and give you what
you needed to satisfy your debt. That's exactly how Christ freed
us from the law. Therefore our freedom is not a wild, fleshy
freedom that has no obligation to do anything. On the contrary, it
is a freedom that does a great deal, indeed everything, yet is
free of the law's demands and debts.

In chapter 7, St. Paul confirms the foregoing by an analogy drawn
from married life. When a man dies, the wife is free; the one is
free and clear of the other. It is not the case that the woman may
not or should not marry another man; rather she is now for the
first time free to marry someone else. She could not do this
before she was free of her first husband. In the same way, our
conscience is bound to the law so long as our condition is that of
the sinful old man. But when the old man is killed by the spirit,
then the conscience is free, and conscience and law are quit of
each other. Not that conscience should now do nothing; rather, it
should now for the first time truly cling to its second husband,
Christ, and bring forth the fruit of life.

Next St. Paul sketches further the nature of sin and the law. It
is the law that makes sin really active and powerful, because the
old man gets more and more hostile to the law since he can't pay
the debt demanded by the law. Sin is his very nature; of himself
he can't do otherwise. And so the law is his death and torture.
Now the law is not itself evil; it is our evil nature that cannot
tolerate that the good law should demand good from it. It's like
the case of a sick person, who cannot tolerate that you demand
that he run and jump around and do other things that a healthy
person does.

St. Paul concludes here that,if we understand the law properly and
comprehend it in the best possible way, then we will see that its
sole function is to remind us of our sins, to kill us by our sins,
and to make us deserving of eternal wrath. Conscience learns and
experiences all this in detail when it comes face to face with the
law. It follows, then, that we must have something else, over and
above the law, which can make a person virtuous and cause him to
be saved. Those, however, who do not understand the law rightly
are blind; they go their way boldly and think they are satisfying
the law with works. They don't know how much the law demands,
namely, a free, willing, eager heart. That is the reason that they
don't see Moses rightly before their eyes. [In both Jewish and
Christian teaching, Moses was commonly held to be the author of
the Pentateuch, the first five books of the bible. Cf. the
involved imagery of Moses' face and the veil over it in 2
Corinthians 3:7-18.] For them he is covered and concealed by the
veil.

Then St. Paul shows how spirit and flesh struggle with each other
in one person. He gives himself as an example, so that we may
learn how to kill sin in ourselves. He gives both spirit and flesh
the name "law," so that, just as it is in the nature of divine law
to drive a person on and make demands of him, so too the flesh
drives and demands and rages against the spirit and wants to have
its own way. Likewise the spirit drives and demands against the
flesh and wants to have its own way. This feud lasts in us for as
long as we live, in one person more, in another less, depending on
whether spirit or flesh is stronger. Yet the whole human being is
both: spirit and flesh. The human being fights with himself until
he becomes completely spiritual.

In chapter 8, St. Paul comforts fighters such as these and tells
them that this flesh will not bring them condemnation. He goes on
to show what the nature of flesh and spirit are. Spirit, he says,
comes from Christ, who has given us his Holy Spirit; the Holy
Spirit makes us spiri tual and restrains the flesh. The Holy
Spirit assures us that we are God's children no matter how
furiously sin may rage within us, so long as we follow the Spirit
and struggle against sin in order to kill it. Because nothing is
so effective in deadening the flesh as the cross and suffering,
Paul comforts us in our suffering. He says that the Spirit, [cf.
previous note about the meaning of "spirit."] love and all
creatures will stand by us; the Spirit in us groans and all
creatures long with us that we be freed from the flesh and from
sin. Thus we see that these three chapters, 6, 7 and 8, all deal
with the one work of faith, which is to kill the old Adam and to
constrain the flesh.

In chapters 9, 10 and 11, St. Paul teaches us about the eternal
providence of God. It is the original source which determines who
would believe and who wouldn't, who can be set free from sin and
who cannot. Such matters have been taken out of our hands and are
put into God's hands so that we might become virtuous. It is
absolutely neces sary that it be so, for we are so weak and unsure
of ourselves that, if it depended on us, no human being would be
saved. The devil would overpower all of us. But God is steadfast;
his providence will not fail, and no one can prevent its
realization. Therefore we have hope against sin.

But here we must shut the mouths of those sacriligeous and
arrogant spirits who, mere beginners that they are, bring their
rea son to bear on this matter and commence, from their exalted
position, to probe the abyss of divine providence and uselessly
trouble themselves about whether they are predestined or not.
These people must surely plunge to their ruin, since they will
either despair or abandon them selves to a life of chance.

You, however, follow the reasoning of this letter in the order in
which it is presented. Fix your attention first of all on Christ
and the Gospel, so that you may recognize your sin and his grace.
Then strug gle against sin, as chapters 1-8 have taught you to.
Finally, when you have come, in chapter 8, under the shadow of the
cross and suffering, they will teach you, in chapters 9-11, about
providence and what a comfort it is. [The context here and in St.
Paul's letter makes it clear that this is the cross and passion,
not only of Christ, but of each Christian.] Apart from suffering,
the cross and the pangs of death, you cannot come to grips with
providence without harm to yourself and secret anger against God.
The old Adam must be quite dead before you can endure this matter
and drink this strong wine. Therefore make sure you don't drink
wine while you are still a babe at the breast. There is a proper
measure, time and age for understanding every doctrine.

In chapter 12, St. Paul teaches the true liturgy and makes all
Christians priests, so that they may offer, not money or cattle,
as priests do in the Law, but their own bodies, by putting their
desires to death. Next he describes the outward conduct of
Christians whose lives are governed by the Spirit; he tells how
they teach, preach, rule, serve, give, suffer, love, live and act
toward friend, foe and everyone. These are the works that a
Christian does, for, as I have said, faith is not idle.

In chapter 13, St. Paul teaches that one should honor and obey the
secular authorities. He includes this, not because it makes people
virtu ous in the sight of God, but because it does insure that the
virtuous have outward peace and protection and that the wicked
cannot do evil without fear and in undisturbed peace. Therefore it
is the duty of vir tuous people to honor secular authority, even
though they do not, strictly speaking, need it. Finally, St. Paul
sums up everything in love and gathers it all into the example of
Christ: what he has done for us, we must also do and follow after
him.

In chapter 14, St. Paul teaches that one should carefully guide
those with weak conscience and spare them. One shouldn't use
Christian freedom to harm but rather to help the weak. Where that
isn't done, there follow dissention and despising of the Gospel,
on which every thing else depends. It is better to give way a
little to the weak in faith until they become stronger than to
have the teaching of the Gospel perish completely. This work is a
particularly necessary work of love especially now when people, by
eating meat and by other freedoms, are brashly, boldly and
unnecessarily shaking weak consciences which have not yet come to
know the truth.

In chapter 15, St. Paul cites Christ as an example to show that we
must also have patience with the weak, even those who fail by
sinning publicly or by their disgusting morals. We must not cast
them aside but must bear with them until they become better. That
is the way Christ treated us and still treats us every day; he
puts up with our vices, our wicked morals and all our
imperfection, and he helps us ceaselessly. Finally Paul prays for
the Christians at Rome; he praises them and commends them to God.
He points out his own office and the message that he preaches. He
makes an unobtrusive plea for a contribution for the poor in
Jerusalem. Unalloyed love is the basis of all he says and does.

The last chapter consists of greetings. But Paul also includes a
salu tary warning against human doctrines which are preached
alongside the Gospel and which do a great deal of harm. It's as
though he had clearly seen that out of Rome and through the Romans
would come the deceitful, harmful Canons and Decretals along with
the entire brood and swarm of human laws and commands that is now
drowning the whole world and has blotted out this letter and the
whole of the Scriptures, along with the Spirit and faith. Nothing
remains but the idol Belly, and St. Paul depicts those people here
as its servants. God deliver us from them. Amen.

We find in this letter, then, the richest possible teaching about
what a Christian should know: the meaning of law, Gospel, sin,
punishment, grace, faith, justice, Christ, God, good works, love,
hope and the cross. We learn how we are to act toward everyone,
toward the virtuous and sinful, toward the strong and the weak,
friend and foe, and toward our selves. Paul bases everything
firmly on Scripture and proves his points with examples from his
own experience and from the Prophets, so that nothing more could
be desired. Therefore it seems that St. Paul, in writing this
letter, wanted to compose a summary of the whole of Christian and
evangelical teaching which would also be an introduction to the
whole Old Testament. Without doubt, whoever takes this letter to
heart possesses the light and power of the Old Testament.
Therefore each and every Christian should make this letter the
habitual and con stant object of his study. God grant us his grace
to do so. Amen.

_________________________________________________________________

This translation was made by Bro. Andrew Thornton, OSB, for the
Saint Anselm College Humanities Program. (c)1983 by Saint Anselm
Abbey. This translation may be used freely with proper
attribution.

Please direct any comments or suggestions to:

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Walther Library
Concordia Theological Seminary

E-mail: smithre@mail.ctsfw.edu

Surface Mail: 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA
Phone: (260) 481-2123 Fax: (260) 481-2126
________________________________________________________________
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