Here's another choice passage from Luther's preface to his commentary on Galatians. The biblical Gospel as presented in Galatians (and Romans, etc) is what Luther has called "passive righteousness" - that is, Christ has done everything necessary to secure my justification before our holy & just God. My works are not part of the equation. I am declared "not guilty" because of Christ's Cross-work on my behalf - and I am declared positively righteous because of Christ's active Law-work on my behalf. He has attained eternal life through His perfect obedience to God's Law, His righteousness is imputed to me as I receive it by faith alone, and thereby I receive the gift of eternal life. To put it another way, His Cross delivers me from eternal condemnation, and His righteousness gains me eternal life. This is a "passive righteousness" because I do nothing for my justification because Christ has done everything. Faith is simply an empty hand which receives this gift (which faith itself is the gift of God!).
Luther, like Paul, and like every faithful minister of the Word of Christ, encountered the misguided objection that the Gospel of free justification will lead to lawlessness, i.e., "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?..." (Rom 6:15). Paul's answer is an emphatic "Certainly not!" - as he explains how our union with Christ in His death to sin and His resurrection to new life precludes that possibility. Good works necessarily follow free justification - but are not in any way part of the basis of our justification. That is the deadly error of the Judaizers, the Roman Catholic Church, and every other legalist of whatever stripe who has destroyed the Gospel by trying to mix our works with the all-sufficient work of Christ.
Here's the way Luther describes how good works follow from free justification. Notice the context for these good works - not hidden away in the monastery, but in the wide-open world of our everyday vocations:
When I have Christian righteousness reigning in my heart, I descend
from heaven as the rain makes fruitful the earth; that is to say, I do good
works, how and wheresoever the occasion arises. If I am a minister of the Word,
I preach, I comfort the brokenhearted, I administer the sacraments. If I am a
householder, I govern my house and family well, and in the fear of God. If I am
a servant, I do my master’s business faithfully.
To conclude, whoever is assuredly persuaded that Christ alone is his righteousness,
does not only cheerfully and gladly work well in his vocation, but also submits
himself through love to the rulers and to their laws, yea, though they be
severe, and, if necessity should require, to all manner of burdens, and to all
dangers of the present life, because he knows that this is the will of God, and
that this obedience pleases Him.
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