Love and Fulfilling the Law

There is a proper Biblical understanding of the relationship between justifying faith and the related good works. If this aspect of the faith is misunderstood it leads to utter despair. To understand this relationship rightly, on the other hand, is to have true peace with God and abiding freedom.

The readings for July 31st in The Treasury of Daily Prayer include—in addition to Ps 80.14-19; 1 Sam 16.1-23; and Acts 25.13-27—the beginning of Article 5 of The Apology of The Augsburg Confession (AAC), “Love and Fulfilling the Law.” This article brings comfort to the reader by explaining the Biblical relationship of faith and good works.

I am reading from the new Reader's Edition of The Book of Concord, the collection of faith statements that summarize Lutheran theology and which include the AAC. This edition includes the following helpful preparatory note on AAC V:

Good works do not cause justification; rather, they are the result of justification. Melanchthon [the writer of the AAC] carefully distinguishes between the effect of the Law before a person is justified and he effect of the Law after a person is justified. Rome had garbled these critical biblical distinctions with disastrous consequences. Melanchthon returns to them constantly, writing the longest article in the Apology. Lutherans believe that Christians improve at keeping the Law, and they require good works. However, good works are not necessary for salvation, but are the necessary fruit of salvation…

Copyright may prevent me from extensive quotations from the Reader’s Edition, so here are paragraphs 1-8 of AAC V from an older translation that is in the public domain. In a few places I have put explanatory material in brackets [italics]:

Article III: Of Love and the Fulfilling of the Law.

1] Here the adversaries [Roman church] urge against us: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments, Matt. 19, 17; likewise: The doers of the Law shall be justified, Rom. 2, 13, and many other like things concerning the Law [10 Commandments] and works. Before we reply to this, we must first declare what we believe concerning love and the fulfilling of the Law.

2] It is written in the prophet, Jer. 31, 33: I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. And in Rom. 3, 31, Paul says: Do we, then, make void the Law through faith? God forbid! Yea, we establish the Law. And Christ says, Matt. 19, 17: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Likewise, 1 Cor. 13, 3: If I have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 3] These and similar sentences testify that the Law ought to be begun in us, and be kept by us more and more [that we are to keep the Law when we have been justified by faith, and thus increase more and more in the Spirit]. Moreover, we speak not of ceremonies, but of that Law which gives commandment concerning the movements of the heart, namely, the Decalog [10 Commandments]. 4] Because, indeed, faith brings the Holy Ghost, and produces in hearts a new life, it is necessary that it should produce spiritual movements in hearts. And what these movements are, the prophet, Jer. 31, 33 shows, when he says: I will put My Law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. Therefore, when we have been justified by faith and regenerated, we begin to fear and love God, to pray to Him, to expect from Him aid, to give thanks and praise Him, and to obey Him in afflictions. We begin also to love our neighbors, because our hearts have spiritual and holy movements [there is now, through the Spirit of Christ a new heart, mind, and spirit within].

5] These things cannot occur until we have been justified by faith, and, regenerated, we receive the Holy Ghost: first, because the Law cannot 6] be kept without [the knowledge of] Christ; and likewise the Law cannot be kept without the Holy Ghost. But the Holy Ghost is received by faith, according to the declaration of Paul, Gal. 3, 14: That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 7] Then, too, how can the human heart love God while it knows that He is terribly angry, and is oppressing us with temporal and perpetual calamities? But the Law always accuses us always, shows that God is angry. [Therefore, what the scholastics say of the love of God is a dream.] 8] God therefore is not loved until we apprehend mercy by faith. Not until then does He become a lovable object. –Concordia Triglotta - English : The Symbolic Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Milwaukee WI: Northwestern Publishing House, 1997), 161.