Wherefore you are without excuse, O man, whosoever you are, etc. (Rom. 2:1.) The exegesis of this text is threefold: First, one can understand it with respect to those who hold the public office of judges and who by authority of their office condemn and punish men from whom they themselves do not differ in, or as to their capability to commit, crimes. Some, therefore, want to turn this word of the apostle upon the Romans, in so far as they were the ones who exercised the right to judge all malefactors throughout the earth though they themselves were entangled in the crime of idolatry and other vices, as if the apostle reproved them for proudly exercising the power of judgment without being concerned in fear and sorrow about the extent of their own sins.
But the apostle has already made it sufficiently clear that he does not have only the Romans in mind. Hence, this comment is not convincing, chiefly because it is forced. Granted that the text of the apostle is to be understood as criticizing those who are established in positions of power and that it can be applied practically in the manner of declamation that is customary in the churches, it can be much more emphatically directed against those who in our time hold positions of power, who turn with raging anger upon their fellow men and pass severe judgments upon their subjects while they themselves go unpunished for having committed not lesser but much worse crimes. It is they to whom the apostle addresses himself in order to awaken them from their profound blindness. Or is it not a fact that the secular as well as the spiritual lords1 are guilty of pride, dissoluteness, adul1With respect to these accusations, Ficker (p. 189, n. 8) calls attention to Berthold Piirstinger, Onus ecclesiae, 1524. This book contains a description
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS tery, and still worse sorts of thievery, and that they disregard God and men and cause unjust wars, i.e., commit multiple murder!
And yet they punish their people for these same crimes with utmost severity. But because they do not find their judge among men, they do not care about what will happen to them. Yet they will not "escape the judgment of God/1 as the apostle says here. But let me speak more clearly and suggest how one should preach about this matter on the basis of the words of the apostle:
By what authority do princes and secular rulers help themselves to all game and fowl, so that no one but they can go on the hunt?
By what right? If an ordinary man would do such a thing, he would rightly be called a thief, a robber, and a crook, because he would take from the community something not belonging to him. But when the rulers do something of this sort, they cannot be thieves because they are the rulers. Should one then say in the manner of Demodocus2 that, though princes and rulers are no robbers, they nevertheless act like thieves and thugs? The vice of Nimrod, "the first mighty and strong hunter before the Lord,"3 is so deeply ingrained in them that they cannot rule without oppression and without being strong, i.e., violent hunters, which means: they seize whatever they want. In the same sense, Blessed Augustine says in The City of God:* "What else are the great kingdoms but great robberies?" In the same place he tells this story: "When
Alexander the Great asked a pirate who had been taken prisoner how he dared to infest the safety of the sea, he got from him the very frank and insolent reply: 'And how do you venture to make the whole earth unsafe? When I do this with a small boat, they call me a robber, but when you do it with a large fleet, they call you an emperor.' " If, therefore, one wants to direct this word of the apostle against these thieves, one must apply it to them by saying: They hang the thieves and behead the robbers, and thus the big thieves sit in judgment over the little ones.
And do you reckon this, O man, who judge those who do such things, and do the same, that you shall escape the judgment of Similar to this is their habit of exploiting the people by imposing unnecessary taxes, or by changing or devaluing the coin, yet they sentence their subjects to severe punishment for illegal of the religious and ecclesiastical conditions of the sixteenth century. The author believes that they are signs of the imminent end of the world.
2 Cf. Demodocus about the Milesians in Aristotle, Eth. Nicom., VII, 8.
4 Augustine, De civ. Dei, IV, 4. profit or avarice. This is nothing else than stealing what belongs to others. Indeed, how can one say that mch fellows are no thieves when one sees that they are the recipients of regular taxes and other payments to which they are entitled and yet do not fulfill their duty toward the people by giving them protection, furthering their welfare, and administering justice, and that it is their sole interest to lord it over the people, to gather wealth, and to make a pretentious show with all they have acquired?
Even the children in the street can know that the spiritual princes, being almost totally blinded, commit the same, if not worse, crimes: luxury, ambition, pomp, envy, avarice, gluttony, and an utter neglect of religion do not seem to faze them. They are filled to the brim with all this. Any restriction of their privileges and income and a reduction of their pensions which, as it may sometimes happen, their subjects cannot prevent, they regard worthy of the harshest judgments and penalties. What, in your opinion, I ask you, would God—no, not God but an Orestes5 or someone even crazier than he—make of it if he saw an ambitious, greedy, extravagant bishop annoying his people by fulminating the ban against them on account of a mere half florinl Will he not judge him to be an Orestes twice, nay, seven times over, and will he not say to him: "And do you reckon this, O man, who judge those who do such things, and do the same, that you shall escape the judgment of God?" But today all such things are so common that one does not attach any significance to them on account of their frequency. How awfully does God chastize us today in his anger that he wants us to live with such trials, letting us experience such an unfortunate desolation of the holy church, for it is worse than any devastation or ruin that could be inflicted upon it by its ent mies!
In the second place, the text has those in mind who judge others privately in their thoughts and also by word of mouth when they scold them, and yet are like them in all respects. We cannot but call it impudent when a conceited man criticizes another who is also conceited, when a squanderer blames another for wastefulness, and when a miser cuts someone else down for avarice. Although this impudence is so obvious that even fools consider it ridiculous and stupid, a great many are so deluded that they have become afflicted with this disease: more or less conceited people criticize each other for being proud; great and small misers jump upon 6 The "insane Orestes" is referred to by Lang in the preface of his edition of two letters of Jerome together with Filelfo's comparison of Jerome and Augustine. (The preface is dated IV. Id. Jan. 1515. Cf. Ficker, p. 190, n.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS other misers, and so forth. To such people our text certainly applies: "Do you reckon this, O man, who judge/' etc. For they should judge themselves instead of condemning others who are exactly as they are. Therefore they convict themselves. * Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matt. 7:1), i.e., that you do not bring judgment upon yourselves while you put it upon others. However, we are blind toward our own failings but have sharp eyes for the faults of others.
The text deals, thirdly, with those who regard themselves as holy. As I have said before, people of this sort are themselves caught in another sin than that which they condemn, and so they assume themselves to be righteous for the sole reason that they do not act entirely in the same way as others do—just as if it were not a fact that they, too, are unrighteous because they do at least part of what others do! They emphasize the good they do to such an extent that they are incapable of seeing their faults. It is of these people that the apostle speaks most particularly—and it is difficult to teach them and to set them right because they cannot be called impudent when they condemn sins of which, or at least of some of which, they themselves are free, and yet do not know that they, too, are unrighteous or do not notice that they, too, commit the sins they condemn. We can put the matter more adequately in the words of Blessed Augustine in the eighth chapter of On the Spirit and the Letter:* "They do the works of the law according to the letter without the spirit, i.e., for fear of punishment and not out of love for righteousness. According to their real intention, they would like to act differently if they could do so without being punished, although their will would become guilty. What do works that are done outwardly profit a man if his will is sinful before God, though humanly speaking his actions may appear righteous?" They therefore do that which they condemn, i.e., in their mind they do what others do in fact, and they themselves would do it too if it were permitted. Now this is the ugliness of the synagogue and the cause of its repudiation. In this weakness we are all equal to one another; none must therefore judge another, lest he himself be judged.
It is these people, then, that the apostle tries to bring to true self-knowledge by teaching them that no man who is not a Christian should be placed outside the rank of sinners, no matter how good he is and no matter how severely he condemns sinners. He will always be one of them, even if he does not see it that way; and he always does what he condemns, even if he does not believe that he does.
The apostle then calls attention to the three good gifts which 6 Cf. Augustine, De spir. et lit., 8, 13.
God offers to sinners, namely, goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, or rather the riches, i.e., the multitude and magnitude of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering (Rom. 2:4).
By the riches of his goodness he means the abundance of physical as well as spiritual benefits, as, for example, the goods of body and soul we enjoy, the use and service we derive from everything that is created, the protection we receive from the angels, etc. By the riches of his patience (i.e., his forbearance and tolerance; for this is the meaning of the Greek word and of the phrase in Rom.
3:25: "in sustentione Dei" [in the forbearance of God]) he means his immense forbearance of their ingratitude for all his gifts and of their evil-doing toward him in the multitude and magnitude of their vices, by which, as far as they can, they insult God, who deals kindly with them, and repay him with evil. They mar his glory and desecrate his name (i.e., they do not sanctify it) and they profane and blaspheme all that relates to God.7
By the riches of his long-suffering, he means the very long delay of punishment for such ingratitude and evil-doing and his expectation of a change for the better on their part, as if he really hoped that they would become better. But the more patiently
God waits, the more severely will he judge if he must wait in vain.
Hence, there follows (in the next verse) the word: You treasure up wrath for yourself. The apostle does not say: "You will deserve wrath/' but "You treasure up," i.e., you will deservedly come to feel God's fully heaped up anger. As Valerius Maximus, who was a heathen, to be sure, put it: "Divine anger balances the slowness of punishment by the severity of judgment."8
From this text one can learn what a hardened heart is. It is a heart which despises God's goodness, patience, and long-suffering; a heart which receives much good and does much evil and never proposes to change itself. This attitude is shown by two kinds of people: some display it because they are motivated by lust and physical desire; others because they cling to their own opinion and wisdom, stubbornly maintaining their own holiness in the manner of Jews, heretics, schismatics, and individualists.9 This is why Blessed Bernard writes in the first chapter of On Consideration:10 "That heart is hardened which cannot be softened by good gifts, nor frightened by threats, nor corrected by blows, nor moved by promises," etc.
People of the second type are more hardened and more im8 Valerius Maximus, Memorab., I, 1,3.
9 "Singularitatis amatores" Ellwein translates Sonderlinge. Perhaps Eigenbrotler would be best.
10 Cf. Bernard of Clairvaux, De consideratione, I, 2.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS penitent because of the complacency with which they consider themselves wise and holy, not knowing that they are doubly foolish and wicked. "Have you seen a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him/' (Prov. 26:12.)
Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
There is so much blindness in a sinner that he misuses what is given to him for his good, thus causing his own ruin. On the other hand, there is so much light in a righteous and religious man that he uses for his good what is given to him for ill. Hence, the godless man does not know that the goodness of God leads him to repentance, but the righteous man understands that the severity of God also works toward his salvation. For he breaks down and heals,
"he kills and makes alive/'11
In the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. (Rom. 2:5.) The Last Day is called the day of wrath and the day of mercy; the day of tribulation and peace; the day of confusion and glory.
For then the godless will be punished and confounded, but the God-fearing will be rewarded and glorified. Just so one calls also that spiritual day which prevails through the light of faith in the heart of believers a day of wrath and grace, a day of salvation and perdition. See Ps. 110:5: "The Lord at thy right hand has broken kings in the day of his wrath/' i.e., in the day and time of grace which is now; and Zeph. 1:14 ft.: "The voice of the Day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty man" (i.e., the powerful and proud man) "will there meet with tribulation. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and whirlwinds, a day of the trumpet and alarm/' etc.
By patience in well-doing. (Rom. 2:7.) So necessary is patience that no work can be good if it lacks patience. Yet the world is so perverse, and the devil such a crook, that he cannot let any good work be done without attaching himself to it. But yet in his marvelous good pleasure it is by this that God tests the good work that pleases him.
Let us therefore observe the following rule: When, in doing the good, we do not suffer persecution, hatred, and evil or adversity, we must fear that our work does not yet please God. For idea, suggested by I Sam. 2:6, constitutes one of the major themes in Luther's theological thinking. He gives frequent expression to it in all his writings, beginning with his lectures on The Psalms and on this letter. then it has not yet been tested by patience, nor has God approved it because he has not yet tested it. For he approves only what he has first tested.
But when persecution quickly follows our work, let us rejoice and be confident that it is pleasing to God and even believe that it comes from him. For all that comes from God must be crucified in the world (and so long as it is not led to the cross, i.e., the readiness to endure shame, it cannot be recognized as coming from God). Even his only-begotten Son was not exempted from this but was placed before us as an example for this. "Blessed, therefore, are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake." (Matt. 5:10.)
"Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward/' etc.
Those who are impatient, and complain of the suffering they have to bear while doing the good, thereby show that their doing the good is not from God but that it is, rather, an assumption of human righteousness by which man does the good for his own sake, because he seeks to be honored and respected thereby, and because he resents it to be slandered, defamed, and hated on account of it. So it is made plainly evident that he did not do the good from love and humility alone for God's sake, but for his own sake, and in order to enhance his reputation (out of hidden pride and self-love). One who acts from love and humility toward
God says, when he is praised because of this: I did not begin it for thy sake, dear applause; therefore I shall also not complete it for thy sake. And when he is rebuked, he says: I did not begin it for thy sake, you scold, and for thy sake I shall not let it go. And, protected at his right and left, he happily pursues what he has begun in the love of God.
This is why it is said in James 1:4: "Let patience have its perfect work," i.e., though any virtue may produce a good work, only patience will bring forth the perfect good, namely, something that is not beset by any vice nor begun in the love of praise of self nor left undone for fear of blame, but completed and brought to an end in the love of God. "For you have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise."
The heathen word of Cicero:12 "Virtue increases when it is applauded" is rightly denied and rejected in the church of God.
12 In this form, the saying is quoted by Lyra in connection with his comments on Heb. 6:10, but he does not attribute it to Cicero. As a matter of fact,
Cicero too criticized the idea.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS For the apostle says just the opposite: "Virtue is made perfect through weakness," i.e., good works are made perfect through suffering. 'Tor when I am made weak, then I am made strong."
(II Cor. 12:10.) Human virtue, therefore, increases when it is applauded, because it wants to be praised; Christian virtue, however, grows when it is scolded and subjected to suffering; and it is reduced to nothing when it is applauded, according to Ps. 53:5:
'Tor God has scattered the bones" (virtues) "of those who please men; they have been confounded because God has rejected them."
Now if human virtue increases when it is praised, what happens when it is scolded? Does it decrease? Yes, certainly, because it turns into fury and desperation. Finally, even those whom the apostle here calls "factious" on account of their lack of patience have done good. But because they did not know patience and wanted to be praised by others, they came to disbelieve the truth and were reduced to their own wisdom in terms of which they regarded as good what in fact is evil; in other words, they came to think that "to be righteous" is the same as "to be in honor acceptable to oneself and other men."
Glory and honor (Rom. 2:7) (i.e., glorious honor).
"Glory" (so says Blessed Augustine with reference to John, ch.
1613) "is, in the definition of the most famous ancient Latin authors, the fame that steadily accompanies a man"—or, as he writes in The City of God, Chapter 1214: "It is the judgment of men in so far as they think well of other men." In the same sense the Holy
Scriptures often speak of glory and glorification15 and correspondingly of "being glorified and being transfigured." Honor, however, is, according to Aristotle,16 the reverence shown to a man in recognition of his virtue or the reverence one shows to a man by word, deed, or sign in recognition of his virtues.
Honor and glory are thus plainly different from each other: glory is something that goes out from one person to others, while honor goes from others toward or into a person. Glory flows outward and leaves for the outside, but honor flows inward and makes an entrance. The one, therefore, is realized by going out, and the other, by entering in.
Wrath and indignation. (Rom. 2:8.) I take this to mean the wrath of indignation or wrath of anger which God sends upon body and soul: it is the wrath of his sever13 Augustine, Tract, CV in Joann., c. 17.
14 Augustine, De civ. Dei, V, 12. is "Claritas et clarificatio" Cf. John 12:16, 23.
16 Probably according to Eth. Nicom., IV, 5. ity. It is to be noted, by the way, that he is angry also with the righteous; as they themselves say: "He has been angry and he has shown us mercy" (Ps. 60:1), and again: "In wrath remember mercy" (Hab. 3:2). This is the wrath of goodness and the rod of the father. The psalmist prays thus (Ps. 6:1): "O God, rebuke me not in thy anger," which means: Thou must rebuke me, for such is thy wrath, but do not do this to me in anger but in mercy, so that thou destroyest only the old man but savest the new one.
Tribulation and anguish. (Rom. 2:9.) These words must be understood as an exposition of the phrase:
"wrath and indignation." I take it to mean that they belong together and mean the same. The tribulation which is here meant is not any kind of tribulation but that which is connected with anxiety, i.e., it is the tribulation from which there is no way out and in which there is no hope of an end—it is a tribulation without consolation. To be sure, also the saints are troubled, but in their very tribulation they are consoled, as we read in Ps. 4:1:
"Thou hast set me at large when I was in distress," and in II Cor.
1:4: "who comfortest us in all our afflictions." This kind of comfort flows from hope and faith in God. But the godless in distress are filled with anxiety through despair, for they have no hope or faith in anything, because in their godlessness they do not believe that they can ever be set free. As joy, therefore, is some kind of largeness of heart also in tribulation, so anxiety is the sense of being narrowed in and constricted in tribulation.
Occasionally, God lets even his own fall into this double distress, for we read in Ps. 116:3: "I found trouble and sorrow/' i.e.,
"anxiety," as the Hebrew text has it,17 but the godless are forever caught in it. The apostle suggests this by saying "upon every soul"
(Rom. 2:9), not merely upon the body as is the case with the elect.
For whosover have sinned without the law shall perish without the law; and whosoever have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law. (Rom. 2:12.)
The "law" must be understood here (i.e., in the whole chapter) as the whole law of Moses where the Ten Commandments and the love of God and the neighbor are taught. How can it then be that they shall perish without this law and that they have sinned without it, for without it there is neither sin nor merit and therefore also neither punishment nor reward?
17 The Vulgate has "tribulatio" ("trouble"), but Jerome (Liber psalmorum . . . ,ad loc.) has "angustia" ("anxiety"). Cf. Faber Stapulensis, Quincuplex
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Answer: The apostle means to say that they will perish "without the law" of the written tradition, though they knew it perhaps in another way, as he says farther on: "in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts." Or "without the law" can mean
"without the co-operation of the law" in the sense that the law did not occasion sin. For a law that does not exist cannot occasion sin. And it is clear that the Gentiles did not know of a revealed law. To be sure, they did not receive the rites and ceremonies of the law of Moses and they had no tradition concerning it. Therefore, they were under no obligation to it and they could not fall into sin by disobeying it, as was the case with the Jews who had accepted it, entered through it into a covenant with God, and received in it the promise of Christ. But, nevertheless, they did receive a spiritual law, and, according to the "moral" interpretation of the Scriptures, the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law signified this (quite apart from the fact that they symbolize Christ).
This law is impressed upon all, Jews as well as Gentiles; and all are therefore bound to obey it. In this sense our Lord says in Matt. 7:12: "All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also unto them; for this is the law and the prophets." The whole law handed down to us is, therefore, nothing else than this natural law which everyone knows and on account of which no one is without excuse.
This, then, is obviously what the apostle has in mind: "They shall perish without having received the law" or, in other words, as they did not become sinners, like the Jews, by not observing the law they had received, and as they will therefore not perish on account of their failure to observe this law, the cause of their perdition is something else, namely, the fact that they knew this very law which, to be sure, they did not receive in the way of the Jews but in a different way, and that they did not observe it. The very fact that they received the law will bring the Jews to judgment, as Saint Stephen announces to them in Acts 7:53: "You have received the law and kept it not."
"They shall perish without law" means then: It is not the law that was handed down and received that condemns them, and they will therefore perish without this sort of law, but not without any law at all, but by one which is the same though it was not handed down to them in writing and contained and represented therein.
Here the question may be raised whether Gentiles who, though living outside Christ, nevertheless fulfill the law according to their conscience in a natural way, can be saved, in view of the fact that original sin is not taken away without Christ and no law fulfilled without grace (even though one may substantially have fulfilled it in fact18) and that salvation is by Christ alone. To be sure, the apostle seems here to assert that some have done or do the things of the law by their natural ability. But it is suspicious that he does not say that they fulfill the law but that they observe some and certain parts of the law. For he says "the things of the law," i.e., part of the law and not the whole law, and so they all are still under the sway of sin because of all that they have not done, as he says later on in the third chapter of this letter.
If one understands the apostle to say that they do fulfill all the things of the law, the question must, it seems, be answered in the affirmative. And if someone objects to this answer by reference to Christ, original sin, and grace, one must reply to him with the statement that whosoever fulfills the law is in Christ and obtains grace by virtue of the fact that he has prepared himself for it to the limit of his ability. For God could forgive them original sin (even if they did not know or confess it) on account of some humble action directed toward God and the highest being they knew.
Moreover, neither they nor the Jews were in any way bound to the gospel and the Christ who was specifically made known by it.
Or one can say that, by the special prevenience of God's mercy, all people of this kind received as much light and grace as they needed for their salvation, as (for example) Job, Naaman, Jethro,10 etc. The first answer, according to which they have not done all things of the law, does not seem satisfactory to me, in view of the fact that the apostle says farther on (Rom. 2:27): "And shall not that which by nature is uncircumcision, if it fulfill the law, judge you/' etc. This means that uncircumcision, namely, the Gentile, fulfills the law. In the same connection (Rom. 2:26) he says: "If the uncircumcision keeps the ordinances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision?" They have therefore fulfilled the law. But what they lacked (and for this lack their invincible ignorance is a valid excuse) God in his forbearance certainly supplied in order that it might be made perfect by the Christ to come—not different from what he did to the circumcised children who were killed for his sake20 and not different from what he does today to our children.
For there is no respect of persons with God. (Rom. 2:11.) This he says, first, in criticism of the pride of the Jews, who extolled themselves because it was they who had received the law and who boasted of being its bearers and disciples. Therefore, they
18 "Etiamsi substantiam facti habeant"
19 Cf. Job 42:10; II Kings 5:1 ff.; Ex. 18:1 ff.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS resented it that, with respect to the good, the Gentiles were put on the same level with them and they on the same level with the Gentiles, with respect to evil, when the apostle said: "to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Rom. 2:9), and again: "to every man . . . , to the Jew first, and also to the Greek'* (Rom. 2:10).
But they wanted God to act in such a way that he would attribute good only to the Jews and evil only to the Gentiles, just as if all descendants of Abraham were eo ipso equal to Abraham in their merits.
Thus the Jews always incline to make God a respecter of persons.
It is this foolishness of theirs which the heretics and all the spiritually proud imitate when they presume that just as they have elected themselves before others because of their sanctity and wisdom, and are pleased with themselves in preference to others, so also God will elect them and have pleasure in them. They do not know that, on the contrary, God elects and favors only a soul that despises itself and considers itself worthy only to be rejected in the house of God, that chooses to prefer others to itself and to take pleasure in them. In exactly the same way, he proceeds to pierce also the pride of the Gentiles when they puff themselves up with the excuse that because they did not know the law, they do not deserve his anger. To this he replies: No! for "they shall perish without the law/* just as they observe their own law. And this is a law which is inborn and indigenous to them, not given; a law which was there before they came into being and is therefore no mere tradition; a law which is alive and not merely written down.
When we do to another what we want done to ourselves (and we want for ourselves only something good, glorious, and great), we must first of all make an offering to God of our own will, judgment, and glory, and of all the things of God which we have arrogated to ourselves in league with Lucifer, and then, in order that they too may be our superiors, we must make the same offering to our fellow men, whom we generally try to outstrip. Only then we have fulfilled the whole law of humility toward God as well as toward men, i.e., the whole righteousness of perfection.
Indeed, the entire Scripture teaches nothing else than humility: we must be subject not only to God but also to every creature. But we want all and everything to be subject to us and we want this out of a perverse tendency of our mind. However wrong our will may be, we say that we want to do to others what we would expect them to do to us. And lo and behold! Precisely this is quite right and of the highest perfection. For what could be more concise and more useful than this small teaching? But how rarely is it understood in all its comprehensiveness! Also, our Lord stated it as briefly as possible when he gave men only this rule: "All things whatsoever that you would that men should do to you, do you also unto them" (Matt. 7:12). So then, when you extol yourself above the sinner, above the unlearned and the common man, expecting them to take this kind of treatment from you—you must take the same treatment from them unless you dare deny that the sinful and unlearned and common people are human.
For whosoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law. (Rom. 2:12.) One must take care that the phrase "without the law" is not combined with the words "have sinned" and "shall perish"; one must, rather, understand the passage in this way: as many as have sinned without the law, i.e., without the law's help in making sin possible, without its furnishing the occasion for sin. In the same way the phrase "they shall perish without the law" means: without the law's giving testimony against them and pronouncing sentence upon them, because it is not that kind of law but another kind.
For every law occasions sin unless, under the influence of grace, feeling, mind, and will are bent toward the law. For the will always tends to go in a direction opposite to that in which it should go and it would rather do something else if it could, even though it does outwardly what the law commands. Indeed, when it is brought under the rule of the law, it is stimulated in the direction of sin rather than helped against it.
Blessed Augustine says in the fourth chapter of On the Spirit and the Letter:21 "I do not know why it is that what one desires becomes more agreeable when it is forbidden." Or as the poet22 says: "We yearn for what is forbidden and always desire what is denied to us. Thus a dam is a threat to the waters that it controls."
"What one may have is worthless, what one may not have gives the more edge to one's desires." "That which pursues me, from it
I fly; that which flies, I ever pursue." In line with this, Blessed Augustine says aptly in the eighth chapter of On the Spirit and the Letter:23 "A man who fulfilled the law without being helped by the spirit of grace did so from fear rather than from love of righteousness. Hence, before God there was not in his will what before men was apparent in the deed," (and, conversely, what was not apparent in the deed was, nevertheless, before God in the 2 1 Augustine, De spir. et lit., c. 4.
22 Ovid, Amores, III, 4, 17, 18: "Sic interdictis imminet aeger aquis"
Luther has agger (dam) for aeger.
2 3 Augustine, De spir. et lit*, 8,13.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS will) "and he was regarded as guilty, because God knew that he would commit evil (if he could do so without incurring punishment)/' Of this kind were the Jews, as the Gospel plainly shows in Matt. 5:20 when it says: "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees/' etc. For they said that being angry with one's brother was no sin, but to kill him was, etc. That is why it is written in Ps. 1:2: "But his delight is in the law of the Lord/' but God gives this only by grace through the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, sin is offered new occasions by the law and kills thereby (and even if great deeds are done, the will lies dead), as it is said in I Cor. 15:56 f.: "The power of sin is death, but the sting of death is sin: but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ/'
But the doers of the law shall be justified. (Rom. 2:13.) In the twenty-sixth chapter of On the Spirit and the Letter,2*
Augustine explains this passage in two ways: First, "the doers of the law shall be justified" in the sense that by justification they become or are made to be what they had not been prior to justification, namely, doers. Secondly, (and this is better): "They will be justified" in the sense that they will be considered and declared righteous,25 as it has been stated in the Gloss.26 This is plainly the sense of the context. "For not the hearers of the law are righteous before God," and if you ask: Who else can be righteous before God except the hearers? you must be given the answer: Only the doers will be righteous, i.e., justified and regarded as righteous.
In this sense it is written in Ps. 143:2: "For in thy sight no man living is righteous," and below in this letter, ch. 3:20: "By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified in his sight," and in Luke 10:29: "And he desired to justify himself" (i.e., to declare, to establish that he was righteous, and to put all sin away from himself as if he did not know who was his neighbor whom he was commanded to love), and in many other places in a similar way.
When the Gentiles who have not the law do by nature the things of the law. (Rom. 2:14.) 24 Augustine, De spir. et lit., 26, 45.
25 "Iusti habebuntur et deputabuntur." (Cf. Augustine, De spir. et lit., 26, 26 WA 56, 22, 24 ff.: "For 'to be righteous before God' is the same as 'to be justified before God/ For it is not because he is righteous that he is so regarded by God, but because God regards him so, he is righteous, as it is stated below in ch. 4. But no one is regarded as righteous unless he fulfills the law. Yet none fulfills it unless he believes in Christ. And so the apostle points to the conclusion that, outside Christ, none is righteous and none fulfills the law/'
This, too, Augustine understands in a double way (as above in Chapter 26):27 First, he takes these Gentiles to be the believers among the Gentiles who were justified by the grace of Christ and whom the apostle wants to contrast with the unbelievers and with the Jews who presumptuously rely on the law and its righteousness.
On the basis of this he interprets "by nature" (i.e., by that nature which was corrupted by sin and restored by the grace of Christ through the Holy Spirit) as follows:28 "Grace is not negated by nature but, rather, nature is restored by grace." He himself is inclined toward this understanding of the passage. Secondly, he says that it can also be understood with respect to those who, although they lead an ungodly life and do not worship God truly and rightly, nevertheless do some good, so that they deserve to be regarded as people who do and understand the law.
Their "excusing thoughts" must, therefore, be understood as "thoughts" by which they excuse themselves in order to obtain a milder punishment. For just as certain venial sins which in this life are unavoidable do not exclude a righteous man from the life eternal, so few good works which will hardly be lacking even in the life of a very bad man cannot secure eternal salvation for a godless man. But this view conflicts with the statement that they do by nature the things of the law; and the doers of the law are righteous. It seems, therefore, that the apostle does not speak of this kind of ungodly men. But also not of the first-mentioned ones, namely, those who believe in Christ. For this exposition of "by nature" is forced, and I cannot see for what reason the apostle should have chosen to use this particular word unless he wanted to conceal from his reader what he really meant, especially in view of the fact that elsewhere he does not speak in this way. Therefore, I think that he really has in mind those who stand in between the godless Gentiles and the believing ones, people who by some good action toward God, according to the measure of their natural ability, earned grace which then directed them farther—not as if grace were given to them in recognition of such a merit, because then it would not have been grace, but because they thus prepared themselves for receiving it as a free gift.
This interpretation will prove tenable if one grants that the passage must be understood with reference to particulars when it says: "They did the things of the law" (i.e., some of them) "by nature." Then the text is quite plain and the second interpretation of Blessed Augustine is most adequate. In that case the apostle refers to these Gentiles for the reason that they observed the law as little as the Jews did. Even though they have done some of the 27 Augustine, De spir. et lit, 26, 46.
LUTHER! LECTURES ON ROMANS good works of the law, hoping that because of this they will not have to suffer a heavy punishment on the Day of Judgment, they nevertheless are still found to be in need of the grace and mercy of Christ, just as it was of no advantage to the Jews that they had observed the law externally. Both, therefore, are under the sway of sin, regardless of the good they have done: the Jews with respect to the inner man, (on account of their observance only of the letter of the law) and the Gentiles with respect to something twofold, namely, that they fulfilled the law only in part and then not wholeheartedly. I gladly accept this interpretation in view of the fact that the whole argument of this chapter (as the apostle himself says farther on in ch. 3:9 of the letter before us: "We have charged both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin") is nothing else than the demonstration that all, and this means both Jews and Gentiles, are sinners in need of the grace of God.
How can one combine with this interpretation a proper understanding of the saying of the apostle that the work of the law is written in their hearts (Rom. 2:15), especially in view of the fact that even the prophet29 says that it would be given at a future time only to a believing people, that God would write his law not on tables of stone but on their hearts? Now it seems to me (without wanting to prejudice a better opinion) that it is one thing to say
"that the work of the law is written in their hearts" and another that "the law is written in their hearts." For the apostle did not intend to say here (even if he could have done so on the basis of knowledge) that they had the law written in their hearts, but he wanted to say only "the work of the law."
I believe, therefore, that "the law is written in their hearts" means the same as "love is shed abroad in their hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 5:5). This love is the law of Christ and the fulfillment of the law of Moses or, rather, it is a law without law, without measure, without end, without limit, but extended above and beyond everything the law prescribes or can prescribe. But "the work of the law is written in their hearts" means that the knowledge of the law is written in them, i.e., the law written in letters concerning what must be done but not grace which enables one to do this. Hence, those who have had only the work of the law written in their hearts must necessarily have remained confined until now in the letter that kills.
They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts.
How do they show it? First of all, and before others, by the fact that they do the things of the law. Secondly, and this now before 20 Cf. Ezek. 11:19; II Cor. 3:3. themselves and before all on the Day of Judgment, by the fact that their conscience gives them testimony about themselves. How does it do so? By giving good testimony about good deeds (and this happens by the thoughts that accuse or excuse30 them) and by giving bad testimony about evil deeds (and this happens by the thoughts that accuse them and fill their conscience with remorse).
This proves that the law was not unknown to them but that they had a knowledge of good and evil, for their remorse shows them that they have done evil. For they would not feel remorse unless they recognized the evil they have done.
As they thus judge themselves before themselves in their conscience that gives testimony about themselves and by "the thoughts that accuse and excuse," so God will judge them by the evidence furnished by the same witnesses. Nor do they see themselves in the light of other people's opinions about them and their praise or rebuke but in the light of their innermost considerations of themselves which are so deeply inward that the soul cannot flee or escape from them nor silence them as it can silence the opinions and words of men.
So also God will judge all men according to their inner thoughts, and he will disclose our most secret thoughts of ourselves in such a way that there will be no deeper inwardness or secrecy to flee to.
But our thoughts will lie naked and open before all as if God were to say: Behold, I do not judge you but assent to your own judgment about yourself and confirm it, and as you cannot judge differently about yourself, neither can I. According to the witness of your thoughts and of your conscience, you therefore deserve either heaven or hell. As it is said: "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Matt. 12:37.)
And if by words, then how much more by thoughts, which are witnesses much more secret and reliable!
And their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them. (Rom. 2:15.) From our conscience we have surely only accusing thoughts, because before God our works are nothing (unless he himself works in us through his grace). It is true that it is easy for us to excuse ourselves before ourselves, because we are easily pleased with ourselves. But what good is this to us except it proves to us absolutely that we know the law? For such complacent thoughts testify for us that we have done the good or avoided evil. But this does not yet mean that we have satisfied God or really fulfilled the law.
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS Wherefrom, then, shall we take the thoughts that excuse us?
Only from Christ and in Christ. For when his own heart reproaches a Christian and accuses him by testifying against him that he has done evil, he presently turns away from it and turns to Christ and says: He made satisfaction, he is righteous, he is my defense, he died for me, he made righteousness to be mine, and made my sin his own. And if he made my sin his own, then I have it no longer, and I am free. And if he made his righteousness mine, then I am righteous in the same righteousness as he. But my sin cannot swallow him up but it is swallowed up in the infinite abyss of his righteousness, for he is God himself to whom be praise forever and ever. Thus, "God is greater than our heart." (I John
3:20.) As our defender he is greater than our accuser, and infinitely so. God is our defender, the heart our accuser! Is this the proportion? Yes, yes, indeed, so it is!31 "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" No one! Why? Because "it is God that justifies." "Who is he that condemns?" No one! Why? Because "it is Jesus Christ" (who is also God) "that died, yea, rather, that was raised from the dead," etc. "If God is for us, then who can be against us?"32
You that teach another, do you not teach yourself? (Rom. 2:21.) How can one teach without knowing something beforehand and without having been taught? For a teacher must know and first be taught in what he teaches others. Now the apostle indicates here clearly that he is speaking of spiritual teaching and learnedness in the law, and he points out that those who teach others in it according to the letter have themselves not learned it correctly.
In other words, the works of the law must be done by a willing and pure heart. Thus, because the nobler and better part of man, which is also more agreeable to God (namely, the heart and will), is not engaged in doing the works of the law, they do not fulfill it at all, at least not in God's sight, however much they engage the meaner part, namely, the body, against its natural inclinations in the observance of the law. And so he goes on to say emphatically: You who preach that a man should not steal, you steal, and you who say a man should not commit adultery, you commit adultery (Rom. 2:21 f.). And so also: You who say a man should not kill, you kill, as the fact that Christ was killed plainly shows, etc.
This is what our Lord means when he says in Matt. 23:2 f.:
"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses* seat: all things, there31 WA 56, 204, 25: "Sic, Sic, etiam Sic!"
32 Cf. Rom. 8: 31 fE. fore, whatsoever they say to you, these do and observe: but do not according to their works; for they say, and do not." How can we understand this to be true in view of the fact that outwardly they appeared to other men as righteous? Our Lord himself confirmed this in the same chapter, which he certainly would not have done if they had not accomplished works of righteousness. That one should not act according to the standard of their works, which appear to be good works, can mean only that one must not imitate them by observing the law, as if this sufficed, only according to the letter and in order to be seen by men and without having one's heart in it (which means in fact: observing it with an unwilling heart). So "they say" (i.e., they do teach the law, to be sure, and recite it correctly, and for this they are not rebuked, just as the apostle does here not criticize those that teach the law to others) but "do not." They can keep the law they teach only if they do so with a joyful and pure will, i.e., with a heart that is circumcised of all lusts and desires, so that they do or do not keep the law merely by observing it outwardly but do or do not keep it with all their heart and will. In other words, they must be pure and free from evil works, in the sense that they must be free from all inner cupidity and not perfect only in outward acts; and they must be ready to do good works, in the sense that they do them with a willing mind and not from physical necessity. So they teach, it is true, the right and whole law but they do not keep it and they do not fulfill it. They do not keep it inwardly and they do not fulfill it outwardly.
It follows from this, that "they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them" (Matt. 23:4). These burdens are the commandments of the law which, as the apostle said before, they should keep. But if one understands them literally, they become heavy and grievous to be borne, for then they kill and do not make alive. For in so far as they teach that the law must be fulfilled at least by an outward deed, regardless of whether it is being kept in the heart, and fail to show where or how this fulfillment of the law can be accomplished, they confront those they teach with something impossible. For one can never fulfill these commandments if one does not fulfill them inwardly in the heart. But "they themselves do not move" these commandments "with their finger," i.e., they do not try, even in the slightest way, to deal with them inwardly, but confine themselves solely to the outward deed. And thus they become vainglorious, as can be seen from the saying: "But all their works they do to be seen of men" (Matt. 23:5). Note that our Lord says here that they do
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS the works of the law, yet he stated just before that they do not move a finger in order to accomplish this. But there is no contradiction here, because they do the works outwardly and with a desire for vainglory, but inwardly they do not move them with a finger. It is these works of theirs which, as he said before, we should not imitate, although he here admits that they are good, but they are not really good.
All this makes it obvious that the "to do" of this passage and the "to commit adultery," "to steal," "to kill" of this chapter we are discussing, refer to the attitudes of the inner man, for in the sight of God anyone who desires to do anything of this sort is regarded as one who has in fact done it, as it is said farther on in ch. 7:16,
18 of this letter: "But what I would not, that I do, but the will to do that which is good is not in me."
Hence, they themselves do not understand these words, nor do they believe that they are men of such a kind. For example, according to Acts 5:28, they said (believing that it was not they that had killed Christ because they had not killed him with their own hands): "You intend to bring this man's blood upon us," and, according to Acts 7:52, when Saint Stephen reproached them in the same way with the words: "You are the murderers of this righteous man," etc., "they gnashed at him with their teeth" (Acts
7:54). This is why, in Prov. 30:20, they are called "an adulterous woman" (the synagogue which is iniquitous of heart and righteous only physically)33 "who eats" (i.e., has devoured Christ by killing him) "and wipes her mouth" (i.e., exculpating herself from her sins) "and says: I have done no wickedness."
In view of the fact, therefore, that (as I have already said) they do not understand the words of the apostle or believe that they are such men as preach that one must not steal yet steal, the apostle goes on to say (and he still speaks in the spiritual sense and of a spiritual doing): Circumcision indeed profits (Rom. 2:25) and, still more clearly farther on (Rom. 2:28): "For he is not a Jew who is outwardly circumcised; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh," etc., and again: who are with the letter and circumcision a transgressor of the law (Rom: 2:27). "With the letter," he says, because you are a thief in the spiritual sense, though not according to the letter. He emphasizes, namely, the word "letter," because he wants to indicate that he is speaking in the spiritual sense, in order that they might understand what they should have known, etc.
Now someone will object and say: This circumcision of the heart can be brought about only by grace. For as I have already
33 Luther here follows Lyra. said, human nature is inclined toward evil and without strength toward the good; it despises rather than loves the law which enjoins the good and prohibits evil, and, therefore, it has no immediate liking for the law, but resents it. And so, unless helped from above, it continues to be held in evil longing contrary to the law and it is filled with selfish lusts, even though, from the compulsion of the fear of punishment or under the leading of the love for temporal satisfactions, it may perform good works. It is not the voice of human nature or of the old Adam which says: "Thy law do I love, but I hate them that are of a double mind" (Ps. 119:113), or: "How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Ps. 119:103) or: "More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the droppings of the honeycomb" (Ps. 19:10). This is the voice of the new and spiritual man, for the psalmist goes on to say:
"Moreover thy servant has loved them and keeps them." Now if grace brings this about, why do the apostle and even our Lord himself accuse and reprove the Jews?
I answer: It is the one concern of the apostle and his Lord to humble the proud and to make them acknowledge this fact; to teach them that they are in need of grace and to destroy their own righteousness so that humbled they ask for Christ, confess that they are sinners and thus obtain the grace of salvation. It is this same conclusion which the apostle explains farther on in this letter in ch. 11:32: "For God has shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all."
But they did not want to hear and accept this, and when they heard this voice (according to Ps. 95*7-8) "they hardened their heart." Therefore, "they have not known the ways of the Lord and shall not enter into his rest." (Ps. 95:10 f.) This "they have not known" means "they did not want to know" in the same sense in which we say "they did not do it" and take this to mean "they did not do what they should." They are, then, not excused but rather accused by the fact that they did not know because they should have known and did not, as it says in Rom. 10:16: "But all do not obey the gospel," which means they do not want to obey, although they should.
You that abhor idols commit sacrilege, (Rom. 2:22.) A sacrilege is a robbery and theft of the holy.34 The Jews committed it in a twofold way: first, by withdrawing their heart and mind from the truth and the spirit and by relying instead upon s*Reuchlin, Vocabularius breviloquus (Strassburg, 1504): "Sacrilcgium committitur auferendo sacrum de sacro."
LUTHER: LECTURES ON ROMANS their own understanding; second, and this is much more relevant to the discussion, in the following way: They took the letters and the words of Scripture, which is not only holy but the Holy of Holies, and distorted them by giving them a false meaning, and thus they cast and carved them into a spiritual idol, as it says in Ezek. 16:17:
"You took your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men/' etc. It is, then, a sacrilege that Jerusalem took gold and silver (i.e., it arbitrarily singled out certain words of Scripture) but worse still is the idolatry that it fashioned them into idols and pictures, i.e., dead and static, i.e., obstinately maintained, conceptions, which it placed in the temple of its heart. According to the letter, it abominates idols, but according to the spirit, they not only worship them but even fashion them for themselves. "Of their silver and their gold have they made idols to themselves that they might perish"
(Hos. 8:4), and "Gilead is a city of workers of idols" (Hos. 6:8), i.e., of a false and deceitful teaching. But, in the eyes of the apostle, sacrilege is worse than idolatry, because to invent something erroneous is not so great a sin as to put a false meaning on Scriptures, i.e., to disregard the holy. The simplest interpretation of the text would, therefore, be one that parallels that of the preceding verse, so that the meaning of the apostle would be the following: you commit a sacrilege, if not by what you actually do then by what you want and yearn to do.
If, then, the uncircumcised keep the ordinance of the law, shall not this uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision? (Rom.
He speaks here of the uncircumcised, who believe in Christ, and he contrasts them with the Jews, who take pride in their own righteousness. Otherwise (i.e., if they do not believe in Christ), they could not keep the ordinances of the law. This is also proved by the fact that farther on, in order to explain, as it were, why the uncircumcised will condemn the Jew, he makes a distinction, namely, when he says: "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly," etc. (Rom. 2:25). If "he who is a Jew outwardly" is judged by someone uncircumcised, it cannot be that the uncircumcised one is the one who is outwardly a Jew, but he is one who is a Jew in concealment,35 namely, by his faith in Christ, for otherwise he could not judge the Jew.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly. (Rom. 2:28.) We must construe this as follows: not one who is outwardly a 35 WA 56, 208, 17: "in abscondito."
Jew is a real Jew, and not that which is outwardly circumcision is the real circumcision, but one who is a Jew in concealment is a real Jew and the circumcision of the heart is the real circumcision, in the spirit and not in the letter. He explains here what he had said earlier (Rom. 2:25): "Thy circumcision is become uncircumcision," i.e., outward circumcision is not circumcision before God.
Whose praise is not of men, but of God. (Rom. 2:29.) This is the same as what our Lord says in Matt. 23:5 about the moralists:36 "They do all their works in order to be seen by men."
Outer righteousness is praised by men and reproved by God; inner righteousness, however, is praised by God and reproved and persecuted by men. Moreover, this righteousness seems foolish and even unrighteous to men as the other one is foolish before God; indeed, it is a double unrighteousness.
This, then, is the lesson: one who has not yet evaded the commendation of men, or suffered calumny, reproof, and persecution for his actions, has not yet attained to perfect righteousness. About this see the exposition given above of the word: "by patience in well-doing" (Rom. 2:7).
36 "Iustitiariis," commonly translated ''workmongers."