Make-Up: December 12th – Luther on Being a Saint & Sinner

Make-Up:

We ask you to read the material below. The material will include "deep thought", our key words (definition), scripture (link - please read) and some general thoughts. We ask you to read all material and then comment in the comments section. Share one key thought or concept that came to you and how it will make a difference.

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Saint & Sinner and "the solas" were the theme for the 2-part series of Martin Luther and the Reformation.


Bible Text:

Romans 5:1–11; Matthew 22:34–40

Lesson Focus:

We are always both sinner and saint and we need both law and gospel.

Big Question:

Am I good enough to be a Christian?

Key Words:

LAW, GOSPEL, SIMUL IUSTUS ET PECCATOR, SINNER, SAINT

Definitions of Key Words

LAW: what we should and should not do to be safe and live peacefully in community. God's law is designed to be impossible to keep perfectly.

GOSPEL: because we cannot keep the law, God gives us the gospel. Gospel means "good news" and it is the good news that, through Christ, we are freely saved, loved, and forgiven.

SIMUL IUSTUS ET PECCATOR: Latin phrase meaning justified (saint) and sinner at the same time.

SAINT: all baptized Christians are saints, regardless of how good or bad they are.

SINNER: all baptized Christians are sinners, regardless of how good or bad they are. It is an inescapable part of being human.


Going Deep

We all are bound to our sinful nature. We are indeed "captive to sin and cannot free ourselves" (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, pages 95, 117). It is part of our human condition. We are born into it.

Being a sinner means that we often are tempted to play God in how we live and in how we deal with other people. We judge others. We look upon them with envy. We neglect the needs of those who are poor because we are more concerned with ourselves and our needs. We cannot escape this innate nature.

It's necessary for us to recognize our sinfulness in order to see our need for Christ and his saving act of dying on the cross for us. That's one of the main purposes, or "use" of God's law.

An old Lutheran line says, "The law shows us our sin. The gospel shows us our Savior." If we do not see and believe that we fall short of God's vision for us and our world, then we won't see a need for salvation. At the same time, if we see only the ways we fall short, and not God's promise of redemption, we may find ourselves keeping score in an attempt to measure our worthiness. We will spend our spiritual energy striving to work our way to God, trying to be good or at least better than our neighbor.

When law and gospel are held in tension, this dialectic produces energy and movement. We glimpse God's intent for us in the law but see also our sinful short-sightedness. Because the gospel assures us that we are already welcomed into the communion of saints, we don't need to scramble to earn God's favor in spite of our flaws. Instead, we can find energy in God's love to try again and again, with our hearts focused on the well-being of ourselves, our communities, and the whole creation. When salvation is a given, we can engage our lives with generosity and hope in spite of, and even because of, our apparent failings.

Similarly, the fact that we are each both sinner and saint could lead us to develop an identity crisis as we engage in a daily tug-of-war within ourselves. But a sinner who recognizes his or her need for Christ and the saint who lives in faith in the promises of God is living a balanced human life. Each of us is 100 percent sinner and 100 percent saint. We are saint and sinner at the same time—simul iustus et peccator.

Scripture uses the word holy, not as it is commonly used in ecclesiastical terminology to denote the blessed, the perfected ones, but specifically to describe the living. Saints are to be found not only in heaven but here among us on earth throughout the community. Thus we no longer distinguish between saints and ordinary Christians but only between the saints who have died and those who are still alive" (Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966], 298).

When Paul writes to the early church communities, he frequently refers to them as saints. In 1 Corinthians 1:2, Paul addresses the Corinthian church by saying, "To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Saints live acknowledging their sin and their need for Christ. Saints celebrate the forgiveness that they receive through baptism and look forward to the promise of eternal life in Christ. Saints strive to grow in faith and knowledge of God's presence and work in the world.

Romans 3:23–26 tells us that all of us saints have "fallen short" and are in need of God's grace, which is given to us as a gift. There is nothing that we can do to earn it. We can only receive this gift of God's love given for us. "God died for us while we were still sinners" is the gospel: a powerful message of love for all of humanity.