# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1861_S374
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

374 Report on the Law.

...now only of the forgiveness of sins, and say nothing or little of repentance, although without repentance there is no forgiveness of sins, and forgiveness of sins cannot even be understood at all. And if one preaches forgiveness of sins without repentance, it follows that people imagine they have already obtained forgiveness of sins and thereby become secure and fearless. This is a greater error and sin than all the errors that have existed before this time, and it is truly to be feared, as Christ says (Matthew 12:45, Luke 11:26), that the last state will be worse than the first... Therefore preachers should rebuke gross sins in the common man, but where there is false holiness, admonish much more sternly to repentance." (Luther's Works, Erlangen Edition XXIII, 12, 13; Walch's Edition X, 1912-1914.)

Finally Luther writes in his tract against the Antinomians of the year 1539: "I have indeed taught, and still teach, that one should incite sinners to repentance through the preaching or contemplation of Christ's suffering, so that they may see how great God's wrath over sin is, that there is no other help against it except that God's Son must die for it; which teaching is not mine, but St. Bernard's — what, St. Bernard's? It is the preaching of the whole of Christendom, of all the prophets and apostles. But how does it follow from this that the Law should therefore be abolished? I cannot find such an inference in my Dialectica (art of drawing conclusions), and would gladly see and hear the master who could prove it. When Isaiah says, chapter 53:8: I have struck him for the sin of my people — tell me, dear friend, is not Christ's suffering here preached, that he was struck for our sin, and is the Law thereby cast away? What does it mean, for the sin of my people? Does it not mean simply that my people sinned against my Law and did not keep my Law?" (Luther's Works, Erlangen Edition XXXII, 5; Walch's Edition XX, 2018, 2019.)

2. Justification itself may be taught only from the Gospel, and the preaching of the Law is therefore to be wholly excluded from it, for thus it is written: "Now we know that what things soever the Law says, it says to them who are under the Law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness that avails before God is manifested without the aid of the Law." (Romans 3:19-21.)

On this Luther writes in his "Disputations against the Antinomians" of the year 1538: "The Law is not only unnecessary for man to be made righteous by it, but altogether useless and indeed wholly impossible for that purpose. But to those who are of the opinion that by keeping the Law they will thereby become righteous, the Law becomes to them a poison and a pestilence to righteousness. When one deals with justification, one cannot speak sufficiently against the incapacity and weakness...