6. Christ and Moses
6
Christ and Moses
There is nothing on which Luther is more Pauline and more powerful than on the Law, and on our right use of the Law. “Understand,” he is continually saying, “that Moses is not intended to be your saviour. You will never save yourself by the deeds of the Law. The Law is intended to have the very opposite result. For the divine intention of the Law is, to begin with, to show us ourselves. Its first function is to reveal to us our hopeless sinfulness and our estate of condemnation. Nay, not only does the Law reveal to us our hopeless sinfulness, it mightily increases our sinfulness, and it mightily deepens and darkens our despair.” The Law enters, says Luther’s master in divinity, in order that the offense may abound.1 Moses with his Law is most terrible to us, Luther is always saying. There never was the like of Moses for terrifying our consciences and tyrannizing over our hearts, he is always threatening and thundering against us. Moses and his Law never have had one single word of comfort, or of hope, to say to any poor sinner.
Out of a thousand passages about Christ in Luther’s writings Bunyan would read this a thousand times. ‘Christ, then, is no Moses. Christ does not speak from Sinai. No weapons in his hands are seen, nor voice of terror heard. Christ is not a hard master who will compel the uttermost farthing. Christ comes to all sinners full of grace and mercy; both able and willing to save. Christ is nothing but infinite grace and goodness. Be sure that you always paint Christ to yourself in his true and correct colours. It is the very hope and complete crown of Christian truth to be able to define and describe Christ aright, and that especially in the season of sin and guilt and condemnation. Hold fast, at all times, by Paul’s description and definition of Christ. Now Paul’s true description and definition is this: “He loved me, and gave himself for me.”2 “For myself,” says this true Pauline preacher and true pastor of souls; “for myself, I have much difficulty in always holding this divine definition of Christ which Paul gives to all believers.”
And, again, on Paul’s further words, “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me,” Luther asks: “But who is this me? It is even I, Martin Luther, a wretched and a condemned sinner. This word me is full of saving faith,” he says. “He who will utter aright this little word me shall be a good advocate and disputer against all the accusations of the Law, and of his own conscience. For Christ delivered up for me neither sheep, nor ox, nor gold, nor silver, but himself, and that entirely and wholly for me. Yes even for me, who am such a wretched and miserable sinner. Say me then with all thy might, and print this pronoun me indelibly in thine heart. Not doubting, no, not for one moment, but that word is written for thee, to make it thy very own and to make Christ and his death for sin thy very own also.”
*From Bunyan Characters, Fourth Series (Edinburgh/London: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, [1908]), 165-67, 172.
1. See Romans 5:20.
2. Galatians 2:20.