Martin Luther Law Quotations

Those who lapse from the Gospel to the Law are no better off than those who lapse from grace to idolatry.

The proverb has it that Hunger is the best cook. The Law makes afflicted consciences hungry for Christ. Christ tastes good to them. Hungry hearts appreciate Christ. Thirsty souls are what Christ wants. He invites them: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Christ's benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them and really desire them.

The law of God cannot be fulfilled by external obedience.

Thus, dear friends, I have said it clearly enough, and I believe you ought to understand it and not make liberty a law...

If there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God. But if it is a gift of God, then it is entirely a debt one owes to love, that is, to the law of Christ. And if it is a debt owed to love, then I must serve others with it, not myself.

A Christian has no need of any law in order to be saved, since through faith we are free from every law. Thus all the acts of a Christian are done spontaneously, out of a sense of pure liberty.

Leave the ass burdened with laws behind in the valley. But your conscience, let it ascend with Isaac into the mountain.

Our preaching does not stop with the law. That would lead to wounding without binding up, striking down and not healing, killing and not making alive, driving down to hell and not bringing back up, humbling and not exalting. Therefore, we must also preach grace and the promise of forgiveness--this is the means by which faith is awakened and properly taught. Without this word of grace, the law, contrition, penitence, and everything else are done and taught in vain.

Every doer of the law and every moral worker is accursed, for he walketh in the presumption of his own righteousness.

If the peasants are in open rebellion, then they are outside the law of God. Therefore let all who are able slash, strike down, and kill (those who rebel) openly and secretly, remembering that there can be nothing more venomous, harmful, or devilish than a rebel. It is exactly like killing a mad dog.

Some will object that the Law is divine and holy. Let it be divine and holy. The Law has no right to tell me that I must be justified by it.

Singing has nothing to do with the affairs of this world: it is not for the law. Singers are merry, and free from sorrows and cares.

Cujus region, ejus rligio (Whoever's reign, his religion) ... He who owns the country owns the Church, and he that makes your laws for you has the right to make your religion for you.

Music must be supported by the king and the princes, for the maintenance of the arts is their duty no less than the maintenance of the laws.

A unjust law, is no law at all.

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.

The law works fear and wrath; grace works hope and mercy.

Christ is no Moses, no exactor, no giver of laws, but a giver of grace, a Savior; he is infinite mercy and goodness, freely and bountifully given to us.

Maternity is a glorious thing, since all mankind has been conceived, born, and nourished of women. All human laws should encourage the multiplication of families.

It is certainly true that reason is the most important and the highest rank among all things and, in comparison with other things of this life, the best and something divine. It is the inventor and mentor of all the arts, medicines, laws, and of whatever wisdom, power, virtue, and glory men possess in this life.

The Law is for the proud and the Gospel for the brokenhearted.

All laws and philosophy merely tell us what should be done, but they do not provide the strength to do it.

The first duty of the gospel preacher is to declare God's law and to show the nature of sin.

The fatuous idea that a person can be holy by himself denies God the pleasure of saving sinners. God must therefore first take the sledge-hammer of the Law in His fists and smash the beast of self-righteousness and its brood of self-confidence, self wisdom, and self-help. When the conscience has been thoroughly frightened by the Law it welcomes the Gospel of grace with its message of a Savior Who came-not to break the bruised reed nor to quench the smoking flax-but to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, and to grant forgiveness of sins to all the captives.

It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own body for the very purpose that by its soundness and well being he may be enabled to labour... for the aid of those who are in want, that thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may be children of God, and busy for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfiling the law of Christ.

Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily newsects and last of all, which of all other I should never have forseen or once suspected, he hath raised up a sect such as teach....that men should not be terrified by the Law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.

One is not righteous who does much, but the one who, without work, believes much in Christ. The law says, 'Do this,' and it is never done. Grace says, 'Believe in this,' and everything is already done.

We refuse to have our conscience bound by any work or law, so that by doing this or that we should be righteous, or leaving this or that undone we should be damned.