Martin Luther on Spiritual warfare
Through the usual means of the Christian life: Scripture, prayer, faith and watchfulness, including asking God to deliver the afflicted
"Therefore there is nothing for us to do upon earth but to pray against this arch enemy without ceasing."
THE POSITION
The devil is a real, constant enemy, a liar and a murderer, and nothing is left to do on earth but pray against him without ceasing. The weapons are prayer and God's Word, and when Scripture alone does not drive him off, Luther mocks him, because he cannot bear scorn. For the possessed he rejects ceremonial exorcism: what remains is prayer in Jesus' name asking God to deliver them.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
11 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 Spiritual warfare", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/luther/spiritual-warfare (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/luther/spiritual-warfare).