# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1861_S362
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

362 Report on the Law.

set aside.. It is just as if a master of the house commanded his servant
to go plow, and the servant went off instead and wanted to wash the
dishes. Would not the master rightly be angry with the servant? So it
also is with God, who wants his commandments kept, and wants them valued
above human commandments, and wants all commandments to run down into
love in the end.. Therefore the Law, as has been said, should be only an
exercise by which love is demonstrated; otherwise, apart from love, God
asks nothing after the works, however fine they may seem to be. Now you
see how few people there really are who even know what this Law is: Thou
shalt love God with thy whole heart, and thy neighbor as thyself. Indeed,
there are few who know it, and far fewer still who keep it. How should
they keep what they do not even know? We are blind, and our whole nature
is utterly blind; and human reason besides knows nothing less well than
what the Law of God requires." (Luther's Works, Erlangen ed. XIV,
139–144; Walch's ed. XI, 2254–2260.)

III. Why must the Law also be proclaimed in the New Testament, and
also to Christians?

The answer to this is threefold:

1. Because the Law contains the unchangeable will of God, written
ineradicably into the heart of every man, as the eternal, irrevocable,
and unalterable rule for all beings created for the knowledge and
fellowship of God — just as Christ himself expressly says: "Think not
that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all
be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in
the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same
shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:17–19.

On this Luther writes in his treatise "Against the Antinomians" (the
"law-stormers") of the year 1539: "Whoever puts away the Law must also
put away sin along with it. If he wants to let sin stand, then he must
all the more let the Law stand. For (Rom. 5:13) where there is no law,
there is no sin; if there is no sin there, then Christ is nothing. For
why does he die, if there is neither law nor sin there for which he
would have to die? From this one sees that the devil, through this
spiritualizing trick, does not really intend to take away the Law, but
rather Christ, the fulfiller of the Law. For he knows well that Christ
can indeed be quickly and easily taken away; but the Law is written into
the very ground of the heart, so that it is not possible to take it
away — as one can well see in the psalms of lament, where the dear saints