# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1861_S364
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

364 Report on the Law.

Further Luther writes in his second Disputation "against the Antinomians" of the year 1538: "As the Law was before Christ and accused us under Christ; but through the forgiveness of sins is stilled and reconciled, and is henceforth to be fulfilled through the Spirit: so it will remain fulfilled after Christ in the life to come, when then the creature (as the Law meanwhile requires) has become wholly new. Therefore the Law will never in eternity be abolished, but remains either to be fulfilled in the damned or fulfilled in the blessed. These, however, the devil's disciples, hold this thought, as it seems, that the Law was given only for a time and was abolished after Christ's coming, like circumcision." — Further Luther writes in the third Disputation: "Although the Law, according to grammar and the dead letter, could be done away with (for that must be this fanatic's opinion), as one erases something written on a tablet; but tell me, who can tear the living Law out of our conscience — the Law that is written into hearts and stands before us as a handwriting that cannot be blotted out (which is of the very kind as Moses' Law)?" (See Luther's Works, Walch's Edition XX, 2044, 2048.)

Finally Luther writes on the words of Christ, Matthew 5:19, in his "Exposition of the 5th, 6th, and 7th Chapters of Matthew" of the year 1532: "I will hold so firmly to this," says he (Christ), "that not only will I not annul any (commandment), but whoever is a preacher and sets aside or lets go the least point shall know that he is not my preacher, but shall be condemned and cast out of the kingdom of heaven. For when he says that he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, that means nothing other than that he shall not be in the kingdom of heaven at all; rather, just as he holds it a small thing that he despises God's commandment, so shall he also be despised and cast away." (See Luther's Works, Erlangen Edition XLIII, 88; Walch's Edition VII, 635.)

2. The second reason why the Law must be preached even in the New Testament is this: only he who recognizes his sins can come to faith in Christ and to knowledge of his reconciling and redeeming work and suffering; and knowledge of sin comes only through the Law. For it is written not only: "Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20), but also: "I had not known sin, but by the law. Without the law sin was dead" (Romans 7:7-8). At the same time Scripture also testifies to us: "The law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20). Hence too St. Paul, when in his letter to the Romans he wishes to set forth the whole of God's counsel for our salvation, first proves from the Law that "both Jews and Greeks," that is, all men, "are all under sin" (Romans 3:9).