10.2.1012 LUTHER II - JUSTIFICATION

..after L had concluded his lectures on the psalms, he began an exposition of the epistle to the romans (1515)..

60.1...'even more clearly than in his first lectures L teaches that the righteousness which is the possession of the believer in Christ comes to him from without.
'god saves us, not through a iustitia which belongs to us, but through a iustitia which is given us from without ourselves. it is not born of us, nor does it arise within ourselves, but comes from without. it is not native to our soul, but comes from heaven. for this reason it is supremely important that we come to know this foreign righteousness that comes to us from without. this can happen only when our won independent righteousness vanishes.
a soul that is filled with its own righteousness cannot be filled with the iustitia Dei, since this fills only those who are hungry and thirsty. for this reason
'he who is filled with his own truth and wisdom is not prepared to receive the truth and wisdom of God. they can only be received by those who know that they are empty and foolish.
let us therefore say to God:
oh, how gladly would we be empty so that you might become our fullness. i will gladly be weak, in order that your power might dwell in me, truly a sinner so that you may be my righteousness, truly a fool that you may be my wisdom.
'therefore i say rightly:
all our good is from outside ourselves, in Christ, just as the apostle says,
'He is made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

more than in his lectures on the psalms, the accent is thus placed on this foreign righteousness. yet this is not the abstract teaching of the 'forensic doctrine' of justification, the legalistically oriented doctrine of the imputatio, of the transferred merits of Christ, which we find in the dogmatics of later orthodoxy. in L the righteousness of God is always the living Christin his own person, dwelling within the believer. this basic insight which by means of the tropological method he had found through his exegetical study, was never surrendered.
'thus the saints may plead that although all their good is outside of them, in Christ, it is nevertheless in them through faith.

as in the lectures on the psalms, we find here, along with L's increasingly clear statements of the new, reformation understanding of justification by faith alone, remnants of other and older views, in which man's humility plays a vital role in the process of the iustificatio. it is like a tree in the spring, which unfolds its new leaves while some of the old ones still cling to its branches. we see L wrestle to find apt expression for new insights. here we find, for example, reference to
'passive justification'. by this L means that God justifies us when we agree with Him in His judgment that we are sinners and fit objects for His judgment.
'for in this passive iustificatio of god, by which He is justified by us, there is, said positively, our iustificatio by God. for he reckons for our righteousness that faith by which we acknowledge His judgments as just, since the righteous man lives through faith...for God is justified and conquers us with His word when He makes us what His word declares, namely, righteous, true, wise, etc. thus we are changed in His word, not His word in us.
for when we believe that His word is truth and righteousness, He makes us also true and righteous.

the central motif of these lectures is that God's word causes us to see our sin.
the believer is defined as
semper peccator, (always sinner)
semper penitens, (always penitent)
semper iustus, (always righteous)
always sinner and saint at the same time because he must always repent.
'A JUSTIFIED MAN IS, IN PRINCIPLE, ONE WHO ACCUSES HIMSELF.
when one accepts the judgment of God's word and thereby acknowledges his total lostness, he justifies god, and he is thereby himself justified. justification is therefore to be equated with faith in God's word.

from october, 1516, to the following march L taught the epistle to the galatians...

191.1...'here also we find, as with the young L, a preaching of the 'blessed exchange'.
Christ takes the guilt of our sin upon Himself;
His righteousness becomes the possession of those who believe in Him.
'when the merciful Father waw how we were oppressed by the law and held under its ban, without the slightest possibility of escape, He sent His son into the world. He laid the sins of all men upon Him and said to Him