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mgrfin
Guest
Why do we have to do all the work? Why doesn’t one of the Lutherans step up with the sources?
peace
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mgrfin
Guest
Will someone please toss Ginger a life preserver. Since I went to the hockey game (Kings lost), she has been drowning.
peace
M
mgrfin
Guest
M
mgrfin
Guest
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mgrfin
Guest
Well, the reasons for that are obvious. Luther and his henchman did a great job of keeping it all secret, at least from the Catholics.
peace
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mgrfin
Guest
Bigamy and polygamy are two different things. I think we already discovered that Luther made this moral judgment about this polygamy case for politcal reasons.
In the case of bigamy, Luther reverted back to Catholic morality.
Your defense proof is almost non-existent Ginger.
peace
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mgrfin
Guest
St. Augustine wasn’t even married. As the Bishop of Hyppo, he would never allow a man to marry while he had one wife. I’ve read Augustine, and I’ve never seen such a thing. Ginger is trying to dirty his name because Luther’s is so smudged.
peace
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why_me
Guest
Here is the problem. A Luthern pastor can take these words and interpret the words and pass them on to her or his congregation. It is certainly a mellowing of the senses to be told such a thing. Also, within the quotation there is absolutely no room for change in direction of a person’s human nature. And that is the second problem.
The third problem is: Human beings need to be aware that through sanctity and attempting to lead a holy life, one can begin to see that through this attempted holiness a person can achieve peace and contentment on certain levels of his or her being. In other words, sin may not totally be overcome but it can certainly be lessened. And that we humans can bring out the good sides to our human nature, the kind, loving, charitable, benevolent aspects of our innate traits. We don’t need to be sinners awash in sin.
W
why_me
Guest
And I might add, he was the first early lds/mormon of the reformation
if the original quotation in the listed OP’s first post is dissected and read without bias.
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Ginger2
Guest
Quote: “It should gratify Ginger.”
No, it doesn’t, because I can’t verify the sources. I’ve seen this sort of thing done before. The JW’s do it on a regular basis. My policy is to verify everything.
Quote: “I’ve never seen such a thing. Ginger is trying to dirty (Augustine’s) name.”
Saint Augustine (354-430) On the Good of Marriage Chapter 15
I expect an apology.
No, it doesn’t, because I can’t verify the sources. I’ve seen this sort of thing done before. The JW’s do it on a regular basis. My policy is to verify everything.
Quote: “I’ve never seen such a thing. Ginger is trying to dirty (Augustine’s) name.”
Saint Augustine (354-430) On the Good of Marriage Chapter 15
I expect an apology.
G
Ginger2
Guest
Why Me post # 86
The letter you quoted is in fragments. It has no address, salutation, or signature.
While it is believe to be from Luther, we can’t seriously discuss a letter that only contains bits and pieces of what was said.
It’s bad enough we are discussing comments written in a book that can’t be verified.
The letter you quoted is in fragments. It has no address, salutation, or signature.
While it is believe to be from Luther, we can’t seriously discuss a letter that only contains bits and pieces of what was said.
It’s bad enough we are discussing comments written in a book that can’t be verified.
G
Ginger2
Guest
SIN BOLDLY
“Sin remains in the spiritual man for the exercise of grace, the humbling of pride, and the repression of presumption. For he who is not busily at work driving out sin without a doubt has sin by the very fact of this neglect, even though he has committed no further sin for which he may be damned. For we are not called to idleness; we are called to labor against our passions. These would not be without guilt—for they are truly sins, indeed damnable ones — if the mercy of God did not forego imputing them to us. But He does not impute them to those only who manfully undertake the struggle with their failings and, calling upon the grace of God, fight it through. Therefore he who goes to confession should not fancy that he is laying down burdens in order to live a life of ease. On the contrary, he should know that by laying down the burden he is undertaking to serve as a soldier of God and is taking a different burden upon himself, the burden of battling for God against the devil and his own failings. The man who does not know this will suffer a quick relapse. Therefore he who does not intend henceforth to fight—why does he ask to be absolved and to be enrolled in the army of Christ?”
The snippet from Sin Boldly sure made Luther sound like he was encouraging people to sin - and sin big!
But as you can see from another snippet, he was not. From what I read, Luther was telling the listener that no sin was to great for Jesus to conquer.
“Sin remains in the spiritual man for the exercise of grace, the humbling of pride, and the repression of presumption. For he who is not busily at work driving out sin without a doubt has sin by the very fact of this neglect, even though he has committed no further sin for which he may be damned. For we are not called to idleness; we are called to labor against our passions. These would not be without guilt—for they are truly sins, indeed damnable ones — if the mercy of God did not forego imputing them to us. But He does not impute them to those only who manfully undertake the struggle with their failings and, calling upon the grace of God, fight it through. Therefore he who goes to confession should not fancy that he is laying down burdens in order to live a life of ease. On the contrary, he should know that by laying down the burden he is undertaking to serve as a soldier of God and is taking a different burden upon himself, the burden of battling for God against the devil and his own failings. The man who does not know this will suffer a quick relapse. Therefore he who does not intend henceforth to fight—why does he ask to be absolved and to be enrolled in the army of Christ?”
The snippet from Sin Boldly sure made Luther sound like he was encouraging people to sin - and sin big!
But as you can see from another snippet, he was not. From what I read, Luther was telling the listener that no sin was to great for Jesus to conquer.
C
Calvinator
Guest
No, the problem, as I hope to show later, is that the quote doesn’t fit anything else Luther had to say about sin. Catholic bigots latch on to the one quote and ignore everything else Luther had to say.
You say “Also, within the quotation there is absolutely no room for change in direction of a person’s human nature. And that is the second problem.” Well, did you ever consider that the letter we have is only a fragment of what Luther wrote? So, maybe he did delve into this subject elsewhere in the document, we just don’t know.
Also, Luther need not develop his entire theological outlook everytime he writes a letter to a friend so to bring up *"… within the quotation there is absolutely no room for change in direction of a person’s human nature." *is meaningless, especially when one considers the corpus of Luther’s works.
C
Calvinator
Guest
This is the portion of the letter we are interested in.
*
“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness, but, as Peter says, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”*
The letter was written to his friend, Melanchthon, after the Diet of Worms and all we have left of the letter is an unsigned fragment that contains neither address, salutation, or signature but scholars are certain who wrote it and to whom it was addressed.
The actual text that interests us is this:**
“Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.”**
Luther’s point (as can be clearly seen in his other writings) is not to go out and commit copious amounts of joyful sin at every opportunity, but rather to believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly despite the sin in our lives.
So what then did Luther mean by sinning “boldly”?
If we look at other texts of Luther, which either you aren’t familiar with or chose to ignore give us this answer.
*
“Therefore let us arm our hearts with these and similar statements of Scripture so that, when the devil accuses us by saying: You are a sinner; therefore you are damned, we can reply: The very fact that you say I am a sinner makes me want to be just and saved. Nay, you will be damned, says the devil. Indeed not, I reply, for I take refuge in Christ, who gave Himself for my sins. Therefore you will accomplish nothing, Satan, by trying to frighten me by setting the greatness of my sins before me and thus seducing me to sadness, doubt, despair, hatred, contempt, and blasphemy of God. Indeed, by calling me a sinner you are supplying me with weapons against yourself so that I can slay and destroy you with your own sword; for Christ died for sinners. Furthermore, you yourself proclaim the glory of God to me; you remind me of God’s paternal love for me, a miserable and lost sinner; for He so loved the world that He gave His Son (John 3:16). Again, whenever you throw up to me that I am a sinner, you revive in my memory the blessing of Christ, my Redeemer, on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins; for “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” and “for the transgression of His people was He stricken” (Is. 53:6-8). Therefore when you throw up to me that I am a sinner, you are not terrifying me; you are comforting me beyond measure.”
The strong hyperbolic comparison Luther makes between “sinning boldly” and believing and rejoicing in Christ “even more boldly” comes clear. Luther’s point was that when one is unsettled by doubting Christ’s love because of previous sins or the remnants of sin in one’s life, one is brought back into the arms of Christ “on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins…”. *
Luther is not promoting a license to sin by saying “sin boldly,” Luther’s point is to simply compare the sinner to the perfect savior. Left in our sins we will face nothing but death and damnation. By Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the world, we stand clothed in His righteousness, the recipients of His grace, no matter what we have done.
Now, I don’t think there is anywhere else that Luther even hints at one should go about sinning boldly. If the “sin boldly” quote was more typical of what Luther wrote you may have a point but as far as I can tell this is pretty atypical.
Ginger beat me to a good bit of this but the “sin boldly” comment seems to be atypical of Luther’s writings so I am not sure why Catholics latch on to it so firmly and ignore the rest of what Luther says.
*
“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness, but, as Peter says, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”*
The letter was written to his friend, Melanchthon, after the Diet of Worms and all we have left of the letter is an unsigned fragment that contains neither address, salutation, or signature but scholars are certain who wrote it and to whom it was addressed.
The actual text that interests us is this:**
“Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.”**
Luther’s point (as can be clearly seen in his other writings) is not to go out and commit copious amounts of joyful sin at every opportunity, but rather to believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly despite the sin in our lives.
So what then did Luther mean by sinning “boldly”?
If we look at other texts of Luther, which either you aren’t familiar with or chose to ignore give us this answer.
*
“Therefore let us arm our hearts with these and similar statements of Scripture so that, when the devil accuses us by saying: You are a sinner; therefore you are damned, we can reply: The very fact that you say I am a sinner makes me want to be just and saved. Nay, you will be damned, says the devil. Indeed not, I reply, for I take refuge in Christ, who gave Himself for my sins. Therefore you will accomplish nothing, Satan, by trying to frighten me by setting the greatness of my sins before me and thus seducing me to sadness, doubt, despair, hatred, contempt, and blasphemy of God. Indeed, by calling me a sinner you are supplying me with weapons against yourself so that I can slay and destroy you with your own sword; for Christ died for sinners. Furthermore, you yourself proclaim the glory of God to me; you remind me of God’s paternal love for me, a miserable and lost sinner; for He so loved the world that He gave His Son (John 3:16). Again, whenever you throw up to me that I am a sinner, you revive in my memory the blessing of Christ, my Redeemer, on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins; for “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” and “for the transgression of His people was He stricken” (Is. 53:6-8). Therefore when you throw up to me that I am a sinner, you are not terrifying me; you are comforting me beyond measure.”
The strong hyperbolic comparison Luther makes between “sinning boldly” and believing and rejoicing in Christ “even more boldly” comes clear. Luther’s point was that when one is unsettled by doubting Christ’s love because of previous sins or the remnants of sin in one’s life, one is brought back into the arms of Christ “on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins…”. *
Luther is not promoting a license to sin by saying “sin boldly,” Luther’s point is to simply compare the sinner to the perfect savior. Left in our sins we will face nothing but death and damnation. By Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the world, we stand clothed in His righteousness, the recipients of His grace, no matter what we have done.
Now, I don’t think there is anywhere else that Luther even hints at one should go about sinning boldly. If the “sin boldly” quote was more typical of what Luther wrote you may have a point but as far as I can tell this is pretty atypical.
Ginger beat me to a good bit of this but the “sin boldly” comment seems to be atypical of Luther’s writings so I am not sure why Catholics latch on to it so firmly and ignore the rest of what Luther says.
C
Calvinator
Guest
Sermons of Martin Luther 1:155:
No sinning boldly here.
C
Calvinator
Guest
Sermons of Martin Luther 1:147 said:
No sinning boldly here.
C
Calvinator
Guest
Sermons of Martin Luther 1:21-22 said:
Wow…no sinning boldy.
C
Calvinator
Guest
Maybe the clincher…?
What Luther Says 3: 1509:
What Luther Says 3: 1509:
Again, no sinning boldy and a pretty clear assesment of the role works play in salvation.
C
Calvinator
Guest
I could go on all day posting snippets of Luther all over the place, the point is, I don’t know of any quote that even hints that Luther believed it was okay to sin and sin boldly at that, other than the one we are discussing.
I know Edwin is much more knowledgeable on this subject than I am, maybe he can lend his opinion to this?
I know Edwin is much more knowledgeable on this subject than I am, maybe he can lend his opinion to this?
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