Accordingly, whoever conveys this teaching concerning the gracious election of God in such a way that troubled Christians gain no comfort from it but are thrown into despair by it, or in such a way that the impenitent are strengthened in their impudence, then it is undoubtedly certain and true that this teaching is not being presented according to God’s Word and will but rather according to reason and at the instigation of the wicked devil

“Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real sate of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been give to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.”

“The biblical and reformational understanding of a generous God, who is continuously giving, sharply contradicts the activism that is advocated in the present age, which wants nothing to be given as a gift. But God is categorically the one who gives. His giving nature defines the form that is his actions take, as the one who ‘justifies the ungodly’ (Rom. 4:5) and who in the same way ‘gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist’ (Rom. 4:17). Creation and new creation are both categorical gift. The first Word to the human being is a gifting Word: ‘You may freely eat of every tree!’ (Gen. 2:16)—renewed in the gifting Word of the Lord’s Supper: ‘Take and eat. This is my body, given for you!’ According to Luther, God’s entire trinitarian being, within his own being as well as for us—though it is not usually emphasized in the theological tradition—is to be apprehended as giving and giving as a sacrifice.”

“The third incomparable benefit of faith is that h it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Ephesians 5:31-32]. And if they are on flesh and there is between them a true marriage—indeed the most perfect of all marriages—it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Let us compare these and we shall see inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ’s, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul’s; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride’s and bestow upon her the things that are his If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?”

“To obtain [saving] faith God instituted the office of preaching, giving the gospel and the sacraments. Through these, […]

“As we have said, God never has dealt, and never does deal, with mankind at any time otherwise […]

“A number of church members who have joined Alcoholics Anonymous or weight-control groups have reported on the radical […]

You cast your sins from yourself on onto Christ when you firmly believe that his wounds and sufferings […]

In the doctrine of the antinomians there was this statement: “If somebody were an adulterer, provided only that he believed, he would have a gracious God.” But what kind of church will it be, I ask, in which so awful a statement is heard? A distinction is necessary, and it should be taught that adulterers or sinners are of two kinds: some who become aware of their adultery or sin to such an extent that they shudder with their whole heart and begin to repent earnestly, and not only feel sorry for what they have done but also sincerely desire and endeavor never again to commit anything like it. These are not smug in their sin; they are thoroughly frightened, and they dread God’s wrath. If they take hold of the Word of the Gospel and trust in the mercy of God for Christ’s sake, they are saved and have forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ.

“What is it to become a lord?” It means that he has redeemed and released me from sin, from the devil, from death, and from all misfortune. Before this I had no lord or king, but was captive under the power of the devil. I was condemned to death and entangled in sin and blindness.

“We shall confess—he shall build. We shall preach—he shall build. We shall pray—he shall build. We do not […]

“Prayer and asceticism are the two powerful weapons of faith for the preservation of the life of the […]

“To be grasped by the freedom of the Gospel is to face a new question: What would you like to do now that Christ has done everything required? The freedom of the Gospel creates a whole new agenda that arise from finally being grasped by the reality that we do not have to do anything and thus are free to be and do what we are in Christ. As a new creation in Christ, the necessity of good works is beside the point! Gerhard Forde has a marvelous illustration of the meaninglessness of have to questions about good works in this context. Imagine the joyful expectation of their wedding night of just-married lovers. Now try to imagine the groom asking his bride: Do I have to do something tonight? If you were his bride, how would you answer the question? What would you say? The question is just crazy! Perhaps if we thought about it for a while we might think the best reply would be something similar tow what was shared above: I don’t know, don’t you want to?”

“If we do not want to drop the term altogether—which would really be the safest and most Christian thing to do—we may still in good faith teach people to use it to credit man with ‘free-will’ in respect, not of what is above him, but of what is below him. That is to say, man should realize that in regard to his money and possessions he has a right to use them, to do or to leave undone, according to his own ‘free-will’—though that very ‘free-will’ is overruled by the free-will of God alone, according to His own pleasure. However, with regard to God, and in all that bears on salvation or damnation, he has no ‘free-will,’ but is captive, prisoner and bondslave, either to the will of God, or to the will of Satan.”

When all has been said, there can be no question that the preaching of the forgiveness always runs the risk of seeming to condone sin. Always there will be some who, hearing the good news of God’s graciousness, will decide to sin so that grace may be more abundant (Rom. 6:1; cf. 3:8). Luther recognized that his preaching was leading to this result. Does that mean, he asked, that we should quit preaching forgiveness because of the abuse? His answer was a ringing “no.” Taking comfort from the fact that Jesus and Paul had been similarly misunderstood, he concludes with a typically pungent statement. “Nor should we pay attention to how our doctrine is abused by the vicious and wicked rabble, who cannot be cured whether they have the Law or not. On the contrary, we should pay attention to how suffering consciences are to be counseled, lest they perish with the wicked rabble.” Luther here is in harmony with the practice of Jesus. Despite the danger that some will use the teaching of forgiveness to condone sin, forgiveness must be offered to all who suffer the pangs of guilt or who stand condemned by society. The words of condemnation and judgment are to be reserved for those who feel no need of being forgiven because they find nothing wrong with themselves.

Scripture teaches that sanctification and good works are not necessary for salvation. It teaches that faith obtains not only the remission of sins, but also salvation without the works of the Law, entirely irrespective of sanctification and good works. The Formula of Concord, quoting Rom. 4:6 and Eph. 2:8 declares: “We believe, teach, and confess also that good wokrs should be entirely excluded, just as well in the question concerning salvation as in the article of justification before God, as the apostle testifies with clear words, when he writes as follows: ‘Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin,’ Rom. 4:6ff. And again: ‘By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast,’ Eph. 2:8-9.” Luther: “Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”

“If the Gospel is ever experienced for the ridiculous good news that it is, then laughter is soon to follow…Humor and hyperbole are, then, delicate ministers of God’s good relief. In various ways, either through satire or self-deprecation, humor is a way of uncoupling the truth from its sting. It is a way of including oneself on the wrong side of the righteousness equation. It is a delightful willingness to be wrong, because you can afford to be. It also allows us the privilege of disarming the stings against us, to find humor in things around us that might have wounded or offended us before.”

– William McDavid, Ethan Richardson, and David Zahl, Law and Gospel: A Theology for Sinners (and Saints), pg. 74

“Leave us free to make assertions, and to find in assertions our satisfaction and delight; and you may applaud your Sceptics and Academics—till Christ calls you too! The Holy Spirit is no Sceptic, and the things He has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinions, but assertions—surer and more certain than sense and life and itself.”

– Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, trans. JI Packer and OR Johnston, pg. 70

The devil, that master of subjectivity, can do nothing about the alien Word, the Word from without, the visible and tangible Word. It has simply happened and nothing can change that. As such it is part and parcel of the proclamation and must be preached against all objection. An amusing incident from the television series “All in the Family” illustrates the point. When Michael protests at Archie’s conniving to have the baby baptized, Archie retorts, “What’s the matter, you were baptized, weren’t you?” “Yes,” Michael replies, “but I renounce my baptism.” “You can’t do that,” Archie says, “You can renounce your belly button but it won’t go away.” Archie was a better theologian than most of us on this point. It has happened. It is a Word from without. It sticks. Nothing can change that. It will not be manipulated by our internality. No doubt that is what rankles us as old beings. It is part of the offense. But the point of it is that if we can do nothing about it, so also can the devil do nothing about it.

“Further we believe that in this Christian community we have the forgiveness of sins, which takes place through […]