Martin’s Blunder . . . Born Again - Dead Again
 PREFACE
 "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?" - Thesis # 86.

Martin Luther (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest and professor of theology who initiated the Protestant Reformation.  He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money.  He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517.  His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the emperor. 

Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin.  His theology challenged the authority of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.  Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans.  

 His translation of the Bible into the language of the people (instead of Latin) made it more accessible, causing a tremendous impact on the church and on German culture.  It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the translation into English of the King James Bible.  His hymns influenced the development of singing in churches.  His marriage to Katharina von Bora set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant priests to marry.
In his later years, while suffering from several illnesses and deteriorating health, Luther became increasingly anti Semitic, writing that Jewish homes should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated and liberty curtailed. These statements have contributed to his controversial status.

 Martin Luther (1483-11-10 – 1546-02-18) was a German theologian, an Augustinian monk, and an ecclesiastical reformer whose teachings inspired the Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines and culture of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions. 

“Martin Luther was born to Hans Luder (or Ludher, later Luther) and his wife Margarethe (née Lindemann) on 10 November 1483 in Eisleben, Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire.  He was baptized as a Catholic the next morning, on the feast day of St. Martin of Tours.  His family moved to Mansfeld in 1484, where his father was a leaseholder of copper mines and smelters and served as one of four citizen representatives on the local council.  The religious scholar Martin Marty describes Luther's mother as a hard-working woman of "trading-class stock and middling means" and notes that Luther's enemies would later wrongly describe her as a whore and bath attendant.  He had several brothers and sisters, and is known to have been close to one of them, Jacob.  Hans Luther was ambitious for himself and his family, and he was determined to see Martin, his eldest son, become a lawyer.  He sent Martin to Latin schools in Mansfeld, then Magdeburg in 1497, where he attended a school operated by a lay group called the Brethren of the Common Life, and Eisenach in 1498.  The three schools focused on the so-called ‘trivium’: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Luther later compared his education there to purgatory and hell. 

 “In 1501, at the age of nineteen, he entered the University of Erfurt — which he later described as a beerhouse and whorehouse.  The schedule called for waking at four every morning for what has been described as ‘a day of rote learning and often wearying spiritual exercises.’  He received his master's degree in 1505. 

 “In accordance with his father's wishes, Luther enrolled in law school at the same university that year but dropped out almost immediately, believing that law represented uncertainty.  Luther sought assurances about life and was drawn to theology and philosophy, expressing particular interest in Aristotle, William of Ockham, and Gabriel Biel.  He was deeply influenced by two tutors, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi von Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter, who taught him to be suspicious of even the greatest thinkers and to test everything himself by experience.  Philosophy proved to be unsatisfying, offering assurance about the use of reason but none about loving God, which to Luther was more important.  Reason could not lead men to God, he felt, and he thereafter developed a love-hate relationship with Aristotle over the latter's emphasis on reason.  For Luther, reason could be used to question men and institutions, but not God.  Human beings could learn about God only through divine revelation, he believed, and Scripture therefore became increasingly important to him.

“He later attributed his decision to an event: on 2 July 1505, he was on horseback during a thunderstorm and a lightning bolt struck near him as he was returning to university after a trip home.  Later telling his father he was terrified of death and divine judgment, he cried out, ‘Help! Saint Anna, I will become a monk!’  He came to view his cry for help as a vow he could never break.  He left law school, sold his books, and entered a closed Augustinian friary in Erfurt on 17 July 1505.  One friend blamed the decision on Luther's sadness over the deaths of two friends.  Luther himself seemed saddened by the move.  Those who attended a farewell supper walked him to the door of the Black Cloister.  ‘This day you see me, and then, not ever again,’ he said.  His father was furious over what he saw as a waste of Luther's education.
“Luther dedicated himself to monastic life, devoting himself to fasting, long hours in prayer, pilgrimage, and frequent confession.  He would later remark, ‘If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them.’  Luther described this period of his life as one of deep spiritual despair.  He said, ‘I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul.’  Johann von Staupitz, his superior, concluded that Luther needed more work to distract him from excessive introspection and ordered him to pursue an academic career.  In 1507, he was ordained to the priesthood, and in 1508 began teaching theology at the University of Wittenberg.  He received a Bachelor's degree in Biblical studies on 9 March 1508; and another Bachelor's degree in the Sentences by Peter Lombard in 1509.  On 19 October 1512, he was awarded his Doctor of Theology and, on 21 October 1512, was received into the senate of the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg, having been called to the position of Doctor in Bible.  He spent the rest of his career in this position at the University of Wittenberg.”
 Justification by Faith

Sola Fide: "Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it." 

“From 1510 to 1520, Luther lectured on the Psalms, the books of Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians.  As he studied these portions of the Bible, he came to view the use of terms such as penance and righteousness by the Catholic Church in new ways.  He became convinced that the church was corrupt in its ways and had lost sight of what he saw as several of the central truths of Christianity.  The most important for Luther was the doctrine of justification – God's act of declaring a sinner righteous – by faith alone through God's grace.  He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God's grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus as the Messiah.  ‘This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification,’ he wrote, ‘is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness.’

 “Luther came to understand justification as entirely the work of God.  This teaching by Luther was clearly expressed in his 1525 publication On the Bondage of the Will, which was written in response to On Free Will by Desiderius Erasmus (1524).  Luther based his position on Predestination on St. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians 2:8–10.  Against the teaching of his day that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.  ‘That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law,’ he wrote.  ‘Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ.’  Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God; the experience of being justified by faith was ‘as though I had been born again.’  His entry into Paradise, no less, was a discovery about ‘the righteousness of God’ – a discovery that ‘the just person’ of whom the Bible speaks (as in Romans 1:17) lives by faith.  He explained his concept of ‘justification’ in the Smalcald Articles:

“The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord died for our sins and was raised again for our justification (Romans 3:24–25).  He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29); and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).  All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood (Romans 3:23–25).  This is necessary to believe.  This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit.  Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us.  Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls (Mark 13:31).
“In January 1519, at Altenburg in Saxony, the papal nuncio Karl von Miltitz adopted a more conciliatory approach. Luther made certain concessions to the Saxon, who was a relative of the Elector, and promised to remain silent if his opponents did.  The theologian Johann Maier von Eck, however, was determined to expose Luther's doctrine in a public forum.  In June and July 1519 he staged a disputation with Luther's colleague Andreas Karlstadt at Leipzig and invited Luther to speak.  Luther's boldest assertion in the debate was that Matthew 16:18 do not confer on popes the exclusive right to interpret scripture, and that therefore neither popes nor church councils were infallible.  For this, Eck branded Luther a new Jan Hus, referring to the Czech reformer and heretic burned at the stake in 1415.  From that moment, he devoted himself to Luther's defeat. 

“On 15 June 1520, the Pope warned Luther with the papal bull (edict) Exsurge Domine that he risked excommunication unless he recanted 41 sentences drawn from his writings, including the 95 Theses, within 60 days.  That autumn, Johann Eck proclaimed the bull in Meissen and other towns.  Karl von Miltitz, a papal nuncio, attempted to broker a solution, but Luther, who had sent the Pope a copy of On the Freedom of a Christian in October, publicly set fire to the bull and decretals at Wittenberg on 10 December 1520, an act he defended in Why the Pope and his Recent Book are Burned and Assertions Concerning All Articles.  As a consequence, Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X on 3 January 1521, in the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.  

“In this work, one of his most emphatic statements on faith, he argued that every good work designed to attract God's favour is a sin.  All humans are sinners by nature, he explained, and God's grace, which cannot be earned, alone can make them just.  On 1 August 1521, Luther wrote to Melanchthon on the same theme:

‘Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.  We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides.’

“In the summer of 1521, Luther widened his target from individual pieties like indulgences and pilgrimages to doctrines at the heart of Church practices.  In On the Abrogation of the Private Mass, he condemned as idolatry the idea that the mass is a sacrifice, asserting instead that it is a gift, to be received with thanksgiving by the whole congregation.  His essay On Confession, whether the Pope has the power to require it, rejected compulsory confession and encouraged private confession and absolution, since ‘every Christian is a confessor.’  In November, Luther wrote The Judgement of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows.  He assured monks and nuns that they could break their vows without sin, because vows were an illegitimate and vain attempt to win salvation.  

“Luther made his pronouncements from Wartburg in the context of rapid developments at Wittenberg, of which he was kept fully informed.  Andreas Karlstadt, supported by the ex-Augustinian Gabriel Zwilling, embarked on a radical programme of reform there in June 1521, exceeding anything envisaged by Luther.  The reforms provoked disturbances, including a revolt by the Augustinian monks against their prior, the smashing of statues and images in churches, and denunciations of the magistracy.  After secretly visiting Wittenberg in early December 1521, Luther wrote A Sincere Admonition by Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard against Insurrection and Rebellion.  Wittenberg became even more volatile after Christmas when a band of visionary zealots, the so-called Zwickau prophets, arrived, preaching revolutionary doctrines such as the equality of man, adult baptism, and Christ's imminent return.  When the town council asked Luther to return, he decided it was his duty to act.“Luther secretly returned to Wittenberg on 6 March 1522.  ‘During my absence,’ he wrote to the Elector, ‘Satan has entered my sheepfold, and committed ravages which I cannot repair by writing, but only by my personal presence and living word.’  For eight days in Lent, beginning on Invocavit Sunday, 9 March, Luther preached eight sermons, which became known as the ‘Invocavit Sermons.’  In these sermons, he hammered home the primacy of core Christian values such as love, patience, charity, and freedom, and reminded the citizens to trust God's word rather than violence to bring about necessary change. 

“‘Do you know what the Devil thinks when he sees men use violence to propagate the gospel?  He sits with folded arms behind the fire of hell, and says with malignant looks and frightful grin: "Ah, how wise these madmen are to play my game! Let them go on; I shall reap the benefit. I delight in it." But when he sees the Word running and contending alone on the battle-field, then he shudders and shakes for fear.’ 

 The effect of Luther's intervention was immediate.  After the sixth sermon, the Wittenberg jurist Jerome Schurf wrote to the elector:  ‘Oh, what joy has Dr. Martin’s return spread among us!  His words, through divine mercy, are bringing back every day misguided people into the way of the truth.’"

“Luther next set about reversing or modifying the new church practices.  By working alongside the authorities to restore public order, he signalled his reinvention as a conservative force within the Reformation.  After banishing the Zwickau prophets, he now faced a battle not only against the established Church but against radical reformers who threatened the new order by fomenting social unrest and violence. 

“Luther had published his German translation of the New Testament in 1522, and he and his collaborators completed the translation of the Old Testament in 1534, when the whole Bible was published.  He continued to work on refining the translation until the end of his life.  Others had translated the Bible into German, but Luther tailored his translation to his own doctrine.  When he was criticised for inserting the word ‘alone’ after ‘faith’ in Romans 3:28, he replied in part:
‘The text itself and the meaning of St. Paul urgently require and demand it. For in that very passage he is dealing with the main point of Christian doctrine, namely, that we are justified by faith in Christ without any works of the Law . . . but when works are so completely cut away – and that must mean that faith alone justifies – whoever would speak plainly and clearly about this cutting away of works will have to say, 'Faith alone justifies us, and not works.’" - Martin Luther / From: Wikiquote, Wikipedia.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The author acknowledges that the preceding information about Martin Luther had been obtained from WIKIPEDIA / The Free Encyclopedia from its website at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther.  Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License; additional terms may apply.  See Terms of Use for details.

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Martin’s Blunders: "Born again – Dead again"

 The doctrine of Martin Luther which inspired the Reformation and deeply influenced the prevailing doctrines and precepts of Protestantism today teaches that “faith alone justifies us, and not works.”  Let it be said that Martin Luther studied the Bible for a considerable length of time and perhaps attained a significant amount of understanding of its revelations.  Yet that does not necessarily bestow upon him the power or authority to interpret the meanings and intentions of its written words by the timid deliberations of his human mind.  By doing so, Luther has either willfully or ignorantly transgressed the divine will of God which certainly forbids man to add or subtract from His written or spoken words.  The Apostle Paul indeed said that faith justifies a man, but Martin added the word “alone,” by saying, “faith alone justifies us and not works.” 

“The text itself and the meaning of St. Paul urgently require and demand it. For in that very passage he is dealing with the main point of Christian doctrine, namely, that we are justified by faith in Christ without any works of the Law . . . but when works are so completely cut away – and that must mean that faith alone justifies – whoever would speak plainly and clearly about this cutting away of works will have to say, ‘Faith alone justifies us, and not works.’” - Martin Luther.  

Any addition to or subtraction from the written words of revelations should end up either altering or contradicting its real meaning and purpose.  The Apostle James teaches all Christians that faith without works is dead.  Now, this written teaching of an apostle of Jesus Christ directly contradicts the conviction of Martin Luther.  And so did he refer to the epistle of James as “an epistle of straw and a work unworthy of an apostle” in order to invalidate it and on the other hand give credence to his conviction that faith alone justifies the man.  Our effort to establish the truth should then be founded upon an impartial comparison of the words of the Apostle James and that of Martin Luther.  Let us find out whether or not the Apostle James also added or subtracted from the Biblical revelations.  

Indeed, Martin Luther had already blundered in his doctrine when he added the word, 'alone', to the words written by the Apostle Paul out of what he perceived as compulsion.  But if it was indeed necessary, why did not the apostle write it down for all his readers to see?  Grammatically, Paul could not have broken any rule by adding the word, 'alone' when he wrote down what he had been instructed to write.  He said: 

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to Jew first and then to Greek.  For in it the justice of God is revealed, from faith unto faith (alone) as it is written, 'He who is just lives by faith (alone)." - Romans 1:16-17.  

And the answer is plain and simple: That is not what Paul meant in his words.  He never meant to say that faith alone justifies the man which would be sufficient for man's salvation; for there is a true faith even as there are many different false faiths.  There is a faith founded upon wisdom and understanding and there is a faith founded upon ignorance and folly.  And if one's faith must be founded upon wisdom and understanding, it must come from knowledge imparted by the revelation of God's words.  Such faith comes from work - from one's earnest and honest effort to seek the truth of God's words.  But Martin Luther failed to see that the Apostle Paul is referring to the works of the Law and the Prophets.  In other words, justification is not attained by man's obedience to the commandments and ordinances and statutes provided in the Law and the Prophets under the dispensation of Moses.  For Moses is the mediator of the Old Covenant whose authority ended when Jesus Christ began His God-given task as the mediator of the everlasting covenant that God made with His people.  

Faith indeed justifies the man.  But the Apostle James wrote and so teaches that faith without works is dead.  Shall we believe and abide the presumptions of Martin Luther and ignore these written words of a chosen apostle of Jesus Christ who dwelt with Him during His earthly presence?  The two, James and Martin, are very clearly divergent in their words, each one directly contradicting the other.  Unfortunately, however, there are so many Lutheran and Protestant adherents in the world today, and they are still fast increasing in number.  And these great numbers have been misled to believe God in a false faith that is dead.   

Consider these words which Martin Luther has promulgated in the world of faith and religion: 

‘Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.  We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides.’   

“Luther came to understand justification as entirely the work of God.  This teaching by Luther was clearly expressed in his 1525 publication On the Bondage of the Will, which was written in response to On Free Will by Desiderius Erasmus (1524).  Luther based his position on Predestination on St. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians 2:8–10.  Against the teaching of his day that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.  ‘That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law,’ he wrote.  ‘Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ.’  Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God; the experience of being justified by faith was ‘as though I had been born again.’  His entry into Paradise, no less, was a discovery about ‘the righteousness of God’ – a discovery that ‘the just person’ of whom the Bible speaks (as in Romans 1:17) lives by faith.   

"Be a sinner and let your sins be strong."  Neither Jesus Christ nor any one of His chosen apostles ever uttered such words, teaching one to be a sinner.
"But let your trust in Christ be stronger."  How can anybody be a sinner and still trust in Christ even stronger than his sins?  If Luther is alive today, he will not be able to convince anybody with his sophistry.  A sinner is not classified by the strength or weakness of his sins.  Sinners are all transgressors of God's laws and commandments.  And every sinner is dead in the eyes of God.  Thus, the sinner is unable to trust in Christ at all.  Consider this specific Biblical account: 

“Now a certain man was there who had been thirty-eight years under his infirmity.  When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been in this state a long time, he said to him, ‘Dost thou want to get well?’  The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred; for while I am coming, another steps down before me.’  Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up thy pallet and walk.’  And at once the man was cured.  Now that day was a Sabbath.  “The Jews therefore said to him who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; thou art not allowed to take up thy pallet.’  He answered them, ‘He who made me well said to me, “Take up thy pallet and walk.”’  They asked him then, ‘Who is the man who said to thee, “Take up thy pallet and walk”?’  But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had quietly gone away, since there was a crowd in the place.  Afterwards Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, ‘Behold, thou art cured.  Sin no more, lest something worse befall thee.’  The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.” - John 5:5-15.   

The preceding Biblical account immediately invalidates the words of Martin Luther and consequently voids his whole doctrine of faith.  "Sin no more lest something worst befall thee," are indelible words of Jesus Christ in the Bible.  Did Luther miss these words of Scripture?  Or did he simply ignore it to promote his own?
I was walking my way to my nephew's house one fine morning when a nice looking man called me for a minute, telling me that he had some important thing to say.  He was standing there in front of his garage and was quite eager with his seemingly good intention.  And so he told me, "Do you know that all your debts have been paid for?  And that there is nothing more you needed to do?"  Wondering, I told him, "But I don't remember owing anyone anything."  And he replied, "No, I mean your sins . . . it has been paid for by Jesus when He died on the cross!  He has saved you and you need not do anything to be saved."  And then he handed me a flyer and implored me to read it.  

Oh, I have encountered a number of these individuals who refer to themselves as "born-again Christians," usually from the Protestant religious groups and denominations.  I have also been handed those flyers that say the same thing about Jesus and in end invites everybody to attend scheduled prayer meetings and worship or some kind of Bible exposition.  

Today, Protestantism has been fragmented into so many independent religious groups and denominations.  They all preach the same doctrine of convenience and prosperity and happiness, telling one and all that they have been saved by the redemption of sins that Jesus Christ wrought on the cross.  They have been born again, as Martin Luther promulgated; and the death of Jesus has saved them from the sins they have committed including those that they shall be committing later on.  

Almost all of these "born again" believers understand and believe the doctrine of Martin Luther: that faith alone, without works, justifies the man.  Just what does Martin Luther really mean by saying so?  Once again, here are his words: 

"‘Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.  We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides.’
"Faith alone justifies us and not works.""That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law.  Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ.
Faith was a gift from God; the experience of being justified by faith was as though I had been born again.
And so did he refer to the epistle of James as “an epistle of straw and a work unworthy of an apostle."  

Now, we must ask some questions.  If faith alone really justifies the man, will his justification make certain his salvation so that he has no need to work anymore?  Luther says that faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law.  Thus, in saying that faith alone is enough to make someone just, Luther is also saying that a man has fulfilled the law by his faith alone.  Having fulfilled the law and being born again, that someone is already saved through the justification that he received by his faith alone.  And being already saved, such a man can live a happy, prosperous and convenient life with no more laws to keep and abide.  

But what did the Apostle James say in his epistle?  It is written: 

“What will it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but does not have works?  Can the faith save him?  And if a brother or a sister be naked and in want of daily food, and one of you say to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ yet you do not give them what is necessary for the body, what does it profit?  So faith too, unless it has works, is dead in itself.  But someone will say, ‘Thou hast faith, and I have works.’  Show me thy faith without works, and I from my works will show thee my faith.  Thou believest that there is one God.  Thou dost well.  The devils also believe; and tremble.  “For, just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith also without works is dead.” - James 2:14-19; 26.  

Faith in Jesus Christ justifies the man.  This is Biblically true.  But justification is not salvation.  Justification will not necessarily save the man.  Yet Luther believes and so teaches otherwise.
"Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin.  His theology challenged the authority of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.  Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans." - Wikipedia.  

Luther is dead wrong in saying that salvation is not earned by good deeds.  This perception and teaching contradicts the divine purpose and meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Holy Bible that Jesus and His apostles are preaching and teaching to all men.  Let us carefully examine the written words concerning salvation, justification faith and works. 

“Everyone therefore who hears these, my words, and acts upon them, shall be likened to a wise man who build his house on rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against that house, but it did not fall, because it was founded on rock.  And everyone who hears these, my words, and does not act upon them, shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house on sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and was utterly ruined.” - Matthew 7:24-27.  

"How then are they to call upon him in whom they have not believed?  But how are they to believe him whom they have not heard?  And how are they to hear, if no one preaches?  And how are men to preach unless they be sent?  As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace; of those who bring glad tidings of good things!’  But all did not obey the gospel, for Isaias says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’  Faith then depends on hearing, and hearing on the word of Christ." - Romans 10:14-17.  

Faith in Jesus Christ is hearing and keeping His words.  Jesus Himself commands His believers to hear and act upon His words.  And He likened those who hear and act upon His words to a house built upon rock which the rains, the flood, and the wind that blew and beat against it were not able to tear down and destroy.  Obviously, hearing and acting upon the words of Jesus Christ is the rock that saves every house that had been built upon it.  But Luther says no.  For him, it is enough that one professes faith alone in Jesus Christ in order to be justified.  And such a man who hears the words of Christ need not act upon His word in order to be saved.  Martin Luther is wrong and both Jesus and the Apostle Paul are right.  Consider these words of the Apostle Paul in this regard: 

“But now the justice of God has been made manifest independently of the Law, being attested by the Law and the Prophets; the justice of God through faith in Jesus Christ upon all who believe.  There is no distinction, as all have sinned and have need of the glory of God.  They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith, to manifest his justice, God in his patience remitting former sins; to manifest his justice at the present time, so that he is just, and makes just him who has faith in Jesus.” - Romans 3:21-26.  

“Much more now that we are justified by his blood shall we be saved through him from wrath.  For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? And not this only, but we exult also in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.  

“Therefore as through one man sin entered into the world and through sin death, and thus death has passed unto all men because all have sinned - for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law; yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come.  

“But not like the offense is the gift.  For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more has the grace of God, and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto many.  Nor is the gift as it was in the case of one man’s sin, for the judgment was from one man unto condemnation, but grace is from many offenses unto justification.  For if by reason of the one man’s offense death reigned through the one man, much more will they who receive the abundance of the grace and of the gift of justice reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.  Therefore as from one offense of the one man the result was unto condemnation to all men, so from the justice of the one man the result is unto justification of life to all men.  For just as by the disobedience of the one man the many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of the one the many will be constituted just.  

“Now the Law intervened that the offense might abound.  But where the offense has abounded, grace has abounded yet more; so that as sin has reigned unto death, so also grace may reign by justice unto life everlasting through Jesus Christ our Lord.” - Romans 5:9-21.   

“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts.  And do not yield your members to sin as weapons of iniquity, but present yourselves to God as those who have come to life from the dead and your members as weapons of justice for God; for sin shall have no dominion over you, since you are not under the Law but under grace.   

“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the Law but under grace?  By no means!  Do you not know that to whom you offer yourselves as slaves for obedience, to him you obey you are the slaves, whether to sin unto death or to obedience unto justice?  But thanks to God that you who were the slaves of sin have now obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered, and having been set free from sin, you have become the slaves of justice.  But now set free from sin and become slaves to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and as your end, life everlasting.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 6:12-23.  

 These words of the Apostle Paul are profound.  And Martin Luther never got to the bottom of its divine truth and counsel because he is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church organization but not of God.  He did his best to know and understand the divine meaning and intention of God's words by means of his limited human wisdom and prudence.  And thus was he never able to receive the Father's revelations.  The Apostle Peter wrote:

“Therefore, beloved, while you look for these things, endeavor to be found by him without spot and blameless, in peace.  And regard the long-suffering of our Lord as salvation.  Just as our most dear brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given him, has written to you, as indeed he did in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things.  In these epistles there are certain things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable distort, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures also, to their own destruction.  You therefore, brethren, since you know this beforehand, be on your guard lest, carried away by the error of the foolish, you fall away from your steadfastness.  But grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  To him is the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” - 2 Peter 14-18. 

 Martin Luther very clearly distorted the epistle of the Apostle Paul, altering and contradicting its meaning and purpose by promulgating his doctrine which teaches that faith alone justifies the man who need not work anymore in order to be saved.  Martin Luther was confused by his limited human wisdom which he so desired to promote instead of the wisdom that is in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  

"Having been set free from sin, you have become the slaves of justice.  What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the Law but under grace?  By no means!  Do you not know that to whom you offer yourselves as slaves for obedience, to him you obey you are the slaves, whether to sin unto death or to obedience unto justice?"  These are Paul's words which Luther failed to correctly comprehend.  If faith in Jesus Christ has indeed justified the man and therefore made him just, then he becomes a slave of justice as Paul underlines in his words.  Does Martin Luther believe that slaves are meant to do nothing?  Slaves work in order to live.  But the slaves of justice work in order to live an everlasting life.  This is what the Apostle John meant when he wrote: 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only - begotten Son, that those who believe in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.  For God did not send his Son into the world in order to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him.  He who believes in him is not judged; but he who does not believe is already judged, because he did not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.  Now this is the judgment: The light has come into the world, yet men have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works are evil.  For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, that his deeds may not be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest, for they have been performed in God.” - John 3:16-21.   

The everlasting life promised by God to those who believe in His only-begotten Son is conditional: ". . . that those who believe in him MAY not perish but may have life everlasting."  Precisely, those who believe in the only begotten Son of God SHALL be saved if they will work out their salvation.  They have their work cut out for them.  Otherwise, they also MAY perish.  Such is the thought of the written words of the Apostle Peter: 

“For indeed his divine power has granted us all things pertaining to life and piety through the knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and power - through which he has granted us the very great and precious promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption of that lust which is in the world.  Do you accordingly on your part strive diligently to supply your faith with virtue, your virtue with knowledge, your knowledge with self-control, your self-control with patience, your patience with piety, your piety with fraternal love, your fraternal love with charity.  

“If you possess these virtues and they abound in you, they will render you neither inactive nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For he who lacks them is blind, groping his way, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.  Therefore, brethren, strive even more by good works to make your calling and election sure.  For if you do this, you will not fall into sin at any time.  Indeed, in this way will be amply provided for you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” - 2 Peter 1:8-11. 

Peter's words are very clear: he who has faith in Jesus Christ is just but he has works to do in order to be saved.  Now we can be certain that Martin Luther greatly blundered in his understanding of the words of Scriptures.  One need not be a scholar in order to understand these words written by Apostle Peter.  ". . . Supply your faith with self-control, your self-control with patience, your patience with piety, your piety with fraternal love, your fraternal love with charity.  If you possess these virtues and they abound in you, they will render you neither inactive nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."  Now you don't get self-control, patience, piety, fraternal love and charity by doing nothing.  But Luther says no.  All these virtues are mere gifts from God which are imputed and not infused in the faithful man.  That is plain sophistry.  Even accepting that these virtues are indeed gifts either infused or imputed to the faithful, what good would it do if the faithful will not act pursuant to these virtues?  The Apostle John therefore wrote: 

"Now this is the judgment: The light has come into the world, yet men have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works are evil.  For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, that his deeds may not be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest, for they have been performed in God.” - John 3:16-21.  

Who comes to the light but he who has faith in Jesus Christ, he who had been made just and is just?  And why does the just and faithful man come to the light that he loves?  He comes to the light in order to manifest his works that he performed in God.  But Martin Luther and his adherents hated the light that the words of Jesus and His chosen apostles have been preaching to all men unto the consummation of the world.  A very great number of people tongues and nations in the world of faith and religion have come to embrace the doctrine and precepts of Martin Luther concerning faith, justification and salvation.  They all believe that faith alone in Jesus Christ has saved them; that they are now expecting prosperous, happy and convenient lives doing nothing except to praise, glorify and worship God with their lips and mouths.  Such faith is well defined in Scriptures: 

“And the Lord said, ‘Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandments and doctrines of men; therefore, behold I will proceed to cause an admiration in this people, by a great and wonderful miracle; for wisdom shall perish from their wise men, and the understanding of their most prudent men shall be hid.  Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the Lord: and their works are in the dark, and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?  This thought of yours is perverse: as if the clay should think against the potter and the work should say to the maker thereof: Thou madest me not: or the thing framed say to him that fashioned it: Thou understandeth not.” - Isaias 29:13-16.  

Martin Luther is the father of Protestantism, the doctrine of faith that a great number of people have come to embrace religiously with the hope and longing that this shall lead them to the final salvation of their souls.  

"Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin.  Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God; the experience of being justified by faith was ‘as though I had been born again'." - Wikipedia.  

Martin Luther blundered in his belief and doctrine.  Faith alone without works will not and does not render the rebirth of any man.  But Martin Luther blundered even more by promulgating this falsity despite his patent ignorance of God's truth.  And the saddest part of all is that many people feared God not by His commandments, but with the commandments and doctrines of Martin Luther.  And thus have their wise men lost their wisdom and prudence was hidden from their most prudent men.  Falsely believing, like Martin Luther, that they have been born again, they soon die again because they refuse to perform the works of justice that God requires from them whom He had made just through faith in Jesus Christ.  

Neither is there anybody, dead or alive, who can claim salvation through faith alone in Jesus Christ.  Being born again, which is the requisite for one's final entrance into the heavenly kingdom, does not even happen through faith alone in Jesus Christ.  Simply believing that Jesus suffered and died on the cross in propitiation for the sins of men will not necessarily save men from sins without its accompanying work.  The suffering and death of Jesus on the cross merely made possible the forgiveness of sins which was not possible beforehand.  So what work must the Christian faithful do in order to be saved from his sins?  He must repent and ask God the Father the forgiveness of his sins.  God the Father will NOT forgive your sins if you do not seek His forgiveness that He promised to give to those who has faith in His Son and to those who first forgive those who have sinned against them.  This act of seeking and granting forgiveness is the work that must accompany one's faith that justifies and should save the perishing man.  ###