Romans 4:7 is problematic for me, help - lol

[thereselittleflower]

I try not to say too much about what Luther believed or didn't believe unless I investigated it further, but are you saying that Luther did not believe in sins being washed away or blotted out, but simply covered up?

Right.

Ok - not the greatest example (but not the worst either I guess) but you've heard of air fresheners that neutralize or eliminate odors - while some seem to just cover them up and not remove them - well that's what I'm thinking now lol.

I guess that is a good analogy.

 

[Radagast]

I try not to say too much about what Luther believed or didn't believe unless I investigated it further...

What Luther did or didn't believe isn't really important, but this quote may shed some light on his ideas:

Everything is forgiven through grace, but as yet not everything is healed through the gift. The gift has been infused, the leaven has been added to the mixture. It works so as to purge way the sin for which a person has already been forgiven, and to drive out the evil guest for whose expulsion permission has been given. In the meantime, while this is happening, it is called sin, and is truly such in its nature; but now it is sin without wrath, without the law, dead sin, harmless sin, as long as one perseveres in grace and his gift. -- Martin Luther

 

[JoabAnias]

Does anyone realize it was Calvin who actually originated Sola Fide, not Luther, though he was building off of Luthers deficiency of thinking sin was irrrelevant, or as that quote above says; "harmless".

Catholicism rightly expresses this similar soterology in justification.

Protestantism takes it to the extreme to wrongly eliminate the horror of sin.

Since we have Protestants coming in here and quoting Luther with confusing heretical statements I will respond in kind with a few of my favorite quotes from the pope of protest that shows his irrational state:

I need not have any title and name to praise highly the word, office, and work which I have from God and which you blind blasphemers defile and persecute beyond measure. I trust my praise will overcome your defiling, just as my justice will overcome your injustice. It does not matter if, with your blasphemy, you are on top for the moment.

Therefore, I now let you know that from now on I shall no longer do you the honor of allowing you - or even an angel from heaven - to judge my teaching or to examine it. For there has been enough foolish humility now for the third time at Worms, and it has not helped. Instead, I shall let myself be heard and, as St. Peter teaches, give an explanation and defense of my teaching to all the world - I Pet. 3:15. I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels' judge through this teaching (as St. Paul says [I Cor. 6:3 ]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved - for it is God's and not mine. Therefore, my judgment is also not mine but God's.

(From: Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So-Called, July 1522. Martin Luther, Luther's Works, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (volumes 1-30) and Helmut T. Lehmann (volumes 31-55), St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House (volumes 1-30); Philadelphia: Fortress Press (volumes 31-55), 1955. This work from Volume 39: Church and Ministry I (edited by J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, and H. T. Lehmann); pages 239-299; translated by Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch; excerpt from 248-249)

"As soon as our Gospel began . . . decency . . . and modesty were done away with, and everybody wished to be perfectly free to do whatever he liked." [Walch. V. 114]

"We deserve that our Evangelicals (the followers of the new Gospel) should now be seven times worse than they were before. Because after having learnt the Gospel, we steal, tell lies, deceive, eat and drink (to excess), and practice all manner of vices." [Walch. III. 2727]

"After one Devil (Popery) has been driven out of us, seven worse ones have come down upon us, as is the case with Princes, Lords, Nobles, Citizens and Peasants." [Walch. III. 2727]

"The more and the longer we preach, the worse matters grow." [Walch. XII. 2120]

"People are now possessed with seven Devils, whereas formerly they were possessed with one Devil; the Devil now enters into the people in crowds, so that men are now more avaricious, unmerciful, impure, insolent . . . than formerly under the Pope." [Walch. XIII. 19]

"After the dominion and power of the Pope has ceased . . . the people, while despising the true doctrine, are now changed into mere irrational animals and beasts;

About seven months before his death, Luther wrote to his wife, "Away from this Sodom (Wittenberg) . . . I will wander about, and sooner beg my bread than allow my poor old last days to be martyred and upset with the disorder of Wittenberg." [July 1545. de Wette. V. 753]

. . . . "See how foolishly the people everywhere behave towards the Gospel, so that I scarcely know whether I ought to continue preaching or not." [Walch. XI, 3052]

. . . . "If God had not closed my eyes, and if I had foreseen these scandals, I would never have begun to teach the Gospel." [Walch. VI. 920]

In 1538, . . . Luther dwells on the same thought: "Who would have begun to preach, if we had known beforehand that so much unhappiness, tumult, scandal, blasphemy, ingratitude, and wickedness would have been the result?" [Walch. VIII. 564]

. . . . "I confess, that I am much more negligent, than I was under the Pope, and there is now nowhere such an amount of earnestness under the Gospel, as was formerly seen among Monks and Priests." [Walch. IX. 1311]

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