Martin Luther on Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
Through baptism, as the ordinary means
And in those things which concern the spoken, outward Word, we must firmly hold that God grants His Spirit or grace to no one, except through or with the preceding outward Word.
THE POSITION
Luther answers by what means rather than at what instant. The Spirit is never had apart from the external Word, and Baptism is where he is ordinarily given: the baptized receive 'the entire Christ, and the Holy Ghost with His gifts.' Nobody comes to faith another way — 'neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ... unless it were offered to us and granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Gospel.'
5 He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
4 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Augustinian friar whose protest over indulgences opened the Reformation, and the theologian for whom justification by faith and the bondage of the will are the whole of the gospel. This entry rests on his own writings only — The Bondage of the Will (1525), the Smalcald Articles (1537), the Large and Small Catechisms (1529), Concerning Christian Liberty (1520), the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), the Church Postil and his biblical prefaces — and deliberately excludes the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord, which are not his.
Cite this page
"Martin Luther on Indwelling of the Holy Spirit", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/luther/indwelling (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/luther/indwelling).