Martin Luther: Sin

Martin Luther was seminal figure in Protestant Reformation. Explore interesting quotes on sin.
Martin Luther: 428   quotes 387   likes

“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

“Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!”

Martin Luther

Widely attributed to Luther, but actually is an example given in 1658 book Ἑρμηνεια logica https://books.google.com/books?id=2MxlAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA228| of faulty logic. In Latin:
Si vero termini in sorite sunt causae subordinatae per accidens, sorites non valet; ut ia hoc, Qui bene bibit, bene dormit; qui bene dormit, non peccat; qui non peccat, est beatus; ergo: qui bene bibit est beatus. Vitium est, quod bene bibere sit causa per accidens somni.
Translated via Fauxtations https://fauxtations.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/drinking-and-not-sinning/:
If, however, the conclusions in the sorite are subordinate by accident, the sorites is not valid; as in this one, He who sleeps well, drinks well; he who sleeps well, does not sin; he who does not sin, is blessed; therefore, he who drinks well is blessed. The problem is that to drink well is a cause of sleep only by accident.
Disputed

Drink , Beer , Sleep

“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

“They are sinning against the Holy Spirit when they refuse to accept the rebuke of the preachers through whom he speaks.”

Martin Luther

Appeal For Prayer Against the Turks, 1541 (Vermannung zum Gebet wider den Türken), Luther’s Works, 1968, volume 43, , p. 228.
Dr. Martin Luther's Sämmtliche Werke, 1842, Erlangen, Johann Konrad Irmischer, ed., vol. 32, p. 84. http://books.google.com/books?id=4qIUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA84&dq=%22auch+in+den+Heiligen+Geist+s%C3%BCndigen%22&hl=en&ei=ub6XTeLMFOSY0QG_gpT8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=%22auch%20in%20den%20Heiligen%20Geist%20s%C3%BCndigen%22&f=false
Context: As David said, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, so that thou art justified in thy sentence” [Ps. 51:4]. As a matter of fact, true Christians willingly accept the rebuke and judgment that is in the preaching of God’s word. But those who won’t receive this judgment show plainly that they are really damnable knaves. They are sinning against the Holy Spirit when they refuse to accept the rebuke of the preachers through whom he speaks. Or they are so far gone that they regard our preaching as nothing more than man’s word and so won’t tolerate it.

“In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us…. More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children.”

Martin Luther
Children , Parent , Affliction

“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

“To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.”

Martin Luther

Source: Commentary on Galatians

God , Peace , Forgiveness , Heart

“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

“In particular, at this point also urge governing authorities and parents to rule well and to send their children to school. Point out how they are obliged to do so and what a damnable sin they commit if they do not, for thereby, as the worst enemies of God and humanity, they overthrow and lay waste both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Explain very clearly what kind of horrible damage they do when they do not help to train children as pastors, preachers, civil servants, etc., and tell them that God will punish them dreadfully for this. For in our day and age it is necessary to preach about these things. The extent to which parents and governing authorities are now sinning in these matters defies description. The devil, too, intends to do something horrible in all this.”

Martin Luther

Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19

God , Children , Age , World

“Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of 'free-will' … doubtless it gives the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 217

Men , God , Health , Age

“God has formed the soul and body of the Virgin Mary full of the Holy Spirit, so that she is without all sins, for she has conceived and borne the Lord Jesus.”

Martin Luther

D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 61 vols., (Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, 1883-1983), 52:39 [hereinafter: WA] 1544

God , Soul

“Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person”

Martin Luther

The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker; republished as Sermons of Martin Luther (1996), p. 291

God , Nature , Parent , Personality

“But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin.”

Martin Luther

Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 4, 694

God , Soul , Time

“Adam was created righteous, acceptable, and without sin. He had no need from his labor in the garden to be made righteous and acceptable to God. Rather, the Lord gave Adam work in order to cultivate and protect the garden. This would have been the freest of all works because they were done simply to please God and not to obtain righteousness. … The works of the person who trusts God are to be understood in a similar manner. Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.”

Martin Luther

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), pp. 73-74

God , Faith , Personality

“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

“The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.”

Martin Luther

"Heidelberg Disputation: Thesis 7" (1518), http://bookofconcord.org/heidelberg.php#7

God , Fear

“By the law is the knowledge of sin [Rom 3:20], so the word of grace comes only to those who are distressed by a sense of sin and tempted to despair.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 168

Law , Knowledge , Sense , Despair

“Now I say this to keep the conscience free from mischievous laws and fictitious sins, and not because I would defend images. Nor would I condemn those who have destroyed them, especially those who destroy divine and idolatrous images. But images for memorial and witness, such as crucifixes and images of saints, are to be tolerated.”

Martin Luther

Source: Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments (1525), p. 91

Law , Memory

“But the exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches, follows. Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime to produce semen and excite the woman, and to frustrate her at that very moment.”

Martin Luther

Luther's works Vol. 7 (1965), Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 38-44

God , Nature , Time

“I say that man without the grace of God nonetheless remains the general omnipotence of God who effects, and moves and impels all things in a necessary, infallible course; but the effect of man's being carried along is nothing--that is, avails nothing in God's sight, nor is reckoned to be anything but sin.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 265

God