Martin Luther: Quotes about Christ

“Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.”

Martin Luther

Christ

“Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.”

Martin Luther

Source: Letter 99, Paragraph 13. Erika Bullmann Flores, Tr. from: <cite>Dr. Martin Luther's Saemmtliche Schriften</cite>Dr. Johann Georg Walch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Walch Ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.), Vol. 15, cols. 2585-2590. http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/letsinsbe.txt
Context: If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.

Death , World , Strong , Christ

“The Virgin Mary remains in the middle between Christ and humankind. For in the very moment he was conceived and lived, he was full of grace. All other human beings are without grace, both in the first and second conception. But the Virgin Mary, though without grace in the first conception, was full of grace in the second … whereas other human beings are conceived in sin, in soul as well as in body, and Christ was conceived without sin in soul as well as in body, the Virgin Mary was conceived in body without grace but in soul full of grace.”

Martin Luther

As quoted in Anderson, H. George; Stafford, J. Francis; Burgess, Joseph A., eds. (1992). The One Mediator, The Saints, and Mary. Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue. VIII. Minneapolis: Augsburg. ISBN 0-8066-2579-1., p. 236

Soul , Christ

“We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord. Therefore, if one is to boast of flesh and blood the Jews are actually nearer to Christ than we are.”

Martin Luther

That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew<cite>Luther's Works</cite>, American Edition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), Volume 45, Page 201.
Context: When we are inclined to boast of our position [as Christians] we should remember that we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord. Therefore, if one is to boast of flesh and blood the Jews are actually nearer to Christ than we are.

Law , Christ

“The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands”

Martin Luther

Love , Lie , Christ

“The truth of the matter is rather as Christ says, "He who is not with me is against me."… He does not say "He who is not with me is not against me either, but merely neutral.”

Martin Luther

Source: The Bondage of the Will

Truth , Christ

“One learns more of Christ in being married and rearing children than in several lifetimes spent in study in a monastery.”

Martin Luther

Children , Study , Learning , Christ

“In his life Christ is an example showing
us how to live in his death he is a sacrifice satisfying our sins in his resurrection a conqueror in his ascension a king in his intercession a high priest.”

Martin Luther

Life , Death , Christ

“We may search long to find where God is, but we shall find Him in those who keep the words of Christ. For the Lord Christ saith, " If any man love me, he will keep my words; and we will make our abode with him."”

Martin Luther

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 278

Love , God , Search , Christ

“It is always necessary that the substance or essence of a person be good before there can be any good works and that good works follow and proceed from a person who is already good. Christ says in Matthew 7:18: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”… The fruit does not make the tree good or bad but the tree itself is what determines the nature of the fruit. In the same way, a person first must be good or bad before doing a good or bad work.”

Martin Luther

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), pp. 74-75

Way , Nature , Tree , Christ

“Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind — that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.”

Martin Luther

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 69

Faith , Distant , Christ

“Our stubbornness is right, because we want to preserve the liberty which we have in Christ. Only by preserving our liberty shall we be able to retain the truth of the Gospel inviolate.”

Martin Luther

Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2

Truth , Christ

“Now, since on God's own testimony, men are 'flesh', they can savour of nothing but the flesh; therefore 'free-will can avail only to sin. And if, while the Spirit of God is calling and teaching among them, they go from bad to worse, what could they do when left to themselves, without the Spirit of God? Your [Erasmus] observation that Moses is speaking of the men of that age is not to the point at all. The same is true of all men, for all are 'flesh'; as Christ says, 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh' (John 3:6) How grave a defect this is, He Himself there teaches, when he says: 'Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (v. 5)…I call a man ungodly if he is without the Spirit of God; for Scripture says that the Spirit is given to justify the ungodly. As Christ distinguished the Spirit from the flesh, saying: "that which is born of the flesh is flesh', and adds that which is born of the flesh cannot enter the kingdom of God', it obviously follows that whatever is flesh is ungodly, under God's wrath, and a stranger to His kingdom. And if it is a stranger to God's kingdom and Spirit, it follows of necessity that it is under the kingdom and spirit of Satan. For there is no middle kingdom between the kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan, which are ever at war with each other.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 241, 253

Men , God , War , Age

“Furthermore, how will you endure [the Romanists'] terrible idolatries? It was not enough that they venerated the saints and praised God in them, but they actually made them into gods. They put that noble child, the mother Mary, right into the place of Christ. They fashioned Christ into a judge and thus devised a tyrant for anguished consciences, so that all comfort and confidence was transferred from Christ to Mary, and then everyone turned from Christ to his particular saint. Can anyone deny this? Is it not true?”

Martin Luther

Luther's Works, 47:45; cf. also Anderson, Stafford & Burgess (1992), p. 29

God , Confidence , Fashion , Christ

“Of all the fathers, as many as you can name, not one has ever spoken about the sacrament as these fanatics do. None of them uses such an expression as, 'It is simply bread and wine,' or, 'Christ’s body and blood are not present.' Yet since this subject is so frequently discussed by them, it is impossible that they should not at some time have let slip such an expression as, 'It is simply bread,' or, 'Not that the body of Christ is physically present,' or the like, since they are greatly concerned not to mislead the people; actually, they simply proceed to speak as if no one doubted that Christ’s body and blood are present. Certainly among so many fathers and so many writings a negative argument should have turned up at least once, as happens in other articles; but actually they all stand uniformly and consistently on the affirmative side.”

Martin Luther

That These Words of Christ, 'This is My Body' Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 1527, in Luther's Works, Word and Sacrament III, 1961, Fortress Press, , volume 37, p. 54. http://books.google.com/books?ei=PxdBTeK6F4PogQe9lKizAw&ct=result&id=J-0RAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Nicodemus%2C+joseph%2C+Paul%22&q=%22Still+Stand+Firm+Against+the+Fanatics%22#search_anchor This work appeared in vol. 2 of the Wittenberg ed. of Luther's Works (in German) and was later translated into Latin by Matthew Judex (Matthaeum Iudicem) under the title: Defensio τοῦ ρητοῦ Verborum Cenae: Accipite, Comedite: Hoc est Corpus Meum: Contra Phanaticos Sacramentariorum Spiritus. http://solomon.tcpt.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/cpt/getobject.pl?c.121:1.cpt
Luther's Latin: “Nullus ex patribus, quorum infinitus est numerus, de Sacramento sic loquutus est, ut Sacramentarii. Nam nemo ex iis talibus verbis utitur Tantum panis & vinum est: Vel Corpus & Sanguis Christi non adestProfecto non est credibile, nec possibile cum toties ab iis res ista agatur & repetatur, quod non aliquando, vel semel tantum excidissent haec verba. Est merus Panis, aut, non quod Christi corpus corporaliter adsit, aut his similia, cum tamen multum referat ne homines seducantur, Sed omnes praecise ita loquuntur, quasi nullus dubitet, quin ibi praesto sit corpus & sanguis Christi. Sane ex tot patribus, & tot scriptis, ab aliquibus, vel saltem ab uno potuisset negativa sententia proferri, ut in aliis articulis usitatum & frequens est, si non sensissent, corpus & sanguinem Christi vere inesse. Verum omnes concordes & constantes uno ore affirmatium proferunt.” See Luther's Opera Omnia, Wittenberg ed., (1558), vol., 7, p. 391. http://books.google.com/books?id=jrpjO-K_kQYC&pg=PR10&dq=Accipitae+Hoc+%22corpus+meum%22+luther&hl=en&ei=9iFBTeOqIonbgQeJ4IXmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=coenae&f=false

People , Wine , Time , Christ

“For the history of the centuries that have passed since the birth of Christ nowhere reveals conditions like those of the present. There has never been such building and planting in the world. There has never been such gluttonous and varied eating and drinking as now. Wearing apparel has reached its limit in costliness. Who has ever heard of such commerce as now encircles the earth? There have arisen all kinds of art and sculpture, embroidery and engraving, the like of which has not been seen during the whole Christian era. In addition men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.”

Martin Luther

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent, Luke 21:25-36 (1522) http://www.trinitylutheranms.org/MartinLuther/MLSermons/mlserms_original.html, as translated in The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker

Men , World , Art , History

“In Matthew 12:23 Christ says: “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad and its fruit bad,” as if to say: “Let the one who wishes to have good fruit begin by planting a good tree.” Therefore, let the person who wishes to do good works being not with the works but with the believing, for this alone makes a person good.”

Martin Luther

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 76

Tree , Christ , Personality

“Merit is a work for the sake of which Christ gives rewards. But no such work is to be found, for Christ gives by promise. Just as if a prince should say to me, "Come to me in my castle, and I will give you a hundred florins." I do a work, certainly, in going to the castle, but the gift is not given me as the reward of my work in going, but because the prince promised it to me.”

Martin Luther

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 409.

Christ

“Labour therefore diligently, that not only out of the time of temptation, but also in the time and conflict of death, when thy conscience is thoroughly afraid with the remembrance of thy sins past, and the devil assaileth thee with great violence, going about to overwhelm thee with heaps, floods and whole seas of sins, to terrify thee, to draw thee from Christ, and to drive thee to despair; that then I say, thou mayest be able to say with sure confidence: Christ the Son of God was given, not for the righteous and holy, but for the unrighteous and sinners…. If he gave himself to death for our sins, then undoubtedly he is no tyrant or judge which will condemn us for our sins. He is no caster-down of the afflicted, but a raiser-up of those that are fallen, a merciful reliever and comforter of the heavy and broken-hearted. Else should Paul lie in saying: "which gave himself for our sins."”

Martin Luther

A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (1535. Translation revised 1953 by Philip S Watson. On Galatians 1:4.)