Reckoning with Sin

Via The Righteousness of Faith According to Luther

In his teaching [on original sin] Luther is also very different from the teaching of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, most of us are more familiar with the Catholic teaching than we are with the Protestant teaching of Luther. Nothing is more foolish than to think that the doctrine of original sin is merely a medieval Catholic idea from which Lutherans have liberated themselves. The reformers had intended exactly the opposite in mind and even the simplest Christian knows this from singing hymns of the Reformation. The reformers won over some of the best people in all areas and classes, not because they took sin less seriously, but because they risked maintaining that sin was a powerful force to be reckoned with. In Catholic theology, original sin is understood as a congenital defect, a weakness of nature that does not really count as sin in the life of a Christian. Only when this weakness manifests itself in some external, outer deed or action, is it considered sin. What we, however, know from Luther’s intentions on original sin is that from him sin is no mere “defect” – no shortage of power to do good – but rather is a positive, passionate, will to life in which the person seeks to assert himself and to prevail. Luther coined the term “passio” meaning “passion” that describes a definite, driving inclination in a person that makes the good difficult and the bad easy. This tendency that attracts us over and over again in the wrong direction – like a magnet – is the genuine life of sin in us. Thus, for Luther, sin is an affective tendency – a wishing, a willing, and a drive that is fully present in every person. Just as faith is not a peaceful “quality” in us, so also sin is not a slumbering condition, but manifests itself as a state of unrest, impulse, striving, and of being carried away. Luther does not concede that in a Christian there is no sin or, more precisely, that there is any directly traceable trail to evil and lawlessness, as if the inclination to sin is any different for Christians than it is for pagans. It is the same impulse for both pagans and Christians, recognizable in a creature who is by nature lost-in-himself and is revealed as such. In the recognition of his sin the Christian remains still a naturally human figure – or becomes even more so through the recognition of it. Forgiveness, therefore, does not mean that the sins that the Christian perceives are any less “bad,” and it also does not mean that in contrast to others he is more certain of forgiveness from the start. Rather, it means that the Christian can count on God’s judgment and that God declares us justified, solely on the basis of His Word – even while we are sinners – and that we can live in the assurance of His unfathomable, inestimable and ever new, living Word.