Martin Luther on Justification
Forensic — righteousness imputed, not infused
Now, since it is necessary to believe this, and it cannot be otherwise acquired or apprehended by any work, law, or merit, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us.
THE POSITION
Justification is by faith alone, on the ground of Christ's death and resurrection, and nothing may be conceded on it. Luther states it as the article on which everything else depends and from which nothing can be surrendered 'even though heaven and earth... should sink to ruin.' The righteousness is Christ's and is reckoned to the believer: in Concerning Christian Liberty he says the soul 'has in her Husband Christ a righteousness which she may claim as her own.'
25 He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification.
18 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 Justification", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/luther/justification (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/luther/justification).