Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Martin Luther
Martin Luther -
Works
Quotes
40 Sourced Quotes
View all Martin Luther Quotes
Source
Report...
Adam was created righteous, acceptable, and without sin. He had no need from his labor in the garden to be made righteous and acceptable to God. Rather, the Lord gave Adam work in order to cultivate and protect the garden. This would have been the freest of all works because they were done simply to please God and not to obtain righteousness. … The works of the person who trusts God are to be understood in a similar manner. Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
For all works and things, which are either commanded or forbidden by God and thus have been instituted by the supreme Majesty, are 'musts.' Nevertheless, no one should be dragged to them or away from them by the hair, for I can drive no man to heaven or beat him into it with a club.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
The first care of every Christian ought to be to lay aside all reliance on works, and strengthen his faith alone more and more, and by it grow in the knowledge, not of works, but of Christ Jesus, who has suffered and risen again for him.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another — God alone.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
He that will maintain that man's free will is able to do or work anything in spiritual cases, be they never so small, denies Christ.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
In Matthew 12:23 Christ says: Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, as if to say: Let the one who wishes to have good fruit begin by planting a good tree. Therefore, let the person who wishes to do good works being not with the works but with the believing, for this alone makes a person good.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
Good works are the seals and proofs of faith; for even as a letter must have a seal to strengthen the same, even so faith must have good works.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
One ought to fast, watch, and labor to the extent that such activities are needed to harness the body's desires and longings; however, those who presume that they are justified by works pay no attention to the need for self-discipline but see the works themselves as the way to righteousness. They believe that if they do a great number of impressive works all will be well and righteousness will be the result. Sometimes this is pursued with such zeal that they become mentally unstable and their bodies are sapped of all strength. Such disastrous consequences demonstrate that the belief that we are justified and saved by works without faith is extremely foolish.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
It is always necessary that the substance or essence of a person be good before there can be any good works and that good works follow and proceed from a person who is already good. Christ says in Matthew 7:18: A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.... The fruit does not make the tree good or bad but the tree itself is what determines the nature of the fruit. In the same way, a person first must be good or bad before doing a good or bad work.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
I am entirely of the opinion that the papacy is the Antichrist. But if anyone wants to add the Turk, then the Pope is the spirit of the Antichrist, and the Turk is the flesh of the Antichrist. They help each other in their murderous work. The latter slaughters bodily and by the sword, the former spiritually and by doctrine.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
If we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
How great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is! How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses, although procreation is the work of God.
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
I have done nothing; the Word has done and accomplished everything.... I let the Word do its work!
Martin Luther
Source
Report...
We believe that the very beginning and end of salvation, and the sum of Christianity, consists of faith in Christ, who by His blood alone, and not by any works of ours, has put away sin, and destroyed the power of death.
Martin Luther
1
2
Quote of the day
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
Martin Luther
Creative Commons
Born:
November 10, 1483
Died:
February 18, 1546
(aged 62)
More about Martin Luther...
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes