“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord [Rom. 7:25]. Paul gives thanks, not to his righteousness, but to the merciful God, and he does this through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is with him that he always shields himself from God, hiding under his wings, and through his grace rejoicing and glorying in the grace and gift of God. He wishes to be freed from this body, for he does not say, Who will liberate me from the death of this body?, but From this body of death [Rom. 7:24]. He says this because he sees that this purity of the Louvainian saints is not possible in this life and, as he chooses to be clean, he therefore chooses to die. The ungodly do not say this, or if they do, they do not say it for this reason. He [Paul] does not thus cry out, pleading for death because of punishment, but because sin troubles him exceedingly. You therefore see that this passage fits the case of those who are most saintly. They suffer from wild and raging sin; and from this we learn not to lessen the grace of God by lessening our evil through denying—because of human interpretations—that it is sin. We underline and emphasize sin as much as we can so as to make clear that this confession and emphasis is the work of God, who is wonderfully present in his saints, doing all his will in them while we yet seem to have sin and, truly, have it. His will is not the sin which is in us, but rather our sanctification from that sin. Martin Luther, Luthers Works, AE 32:254, Career of the Reformer II, Against Latomus, 1521, Explanation of the Relationship of Sin and Grace, Law and Gospel, and Justification and Sanctification
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 13:14:53 +0000
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