Loading…

Luther’s Works, Volume 45 is unavailable, but you can change that!

In the eleven treatises comprising this volume, it is of extraordinary interest to note how the foremost exponent of evangelical ethics interprets the dictates of love in the concrete circumstances of his time. A Christian's behavior is determined more by the situation in which he finds himself than by any fixed and final ethical formulations or codes of moral conduct.

Postils29 and elsewhere. To put it here as briefly as possible, Paul says that the law has been laid down for the sake of the lawless [1 Tim. 1:9], that is, so that those who are not Christians may through the law be restrained outwardly from evil deeds, as we shall hear later. Now since no one is by nature Christian or righteous, but altogether sinful and wicked, God through the law puts them all under restraint so they dare not wilfully implement their wickedness in actual deeds. In addition,
Volume 45, Page 90