To Hans von Rechenberg zur Freistadt. 1522.
1. grace and peace in Christ, amen. My lord! My gracious lord, Count Albrecht of Mansfeld etc., has asked me to give your monks written instruction on the question: Whether God may or will save those who die without faith? so that your monks, after they have fought much with unbelievers in the flesh, may also have spiritual armor to meet them, or those who ask on their behalf, with strong and right reason.
(2) For it seemed to us here, and at times to the very highest people, as Origen and his kind, too harsh, too severe, and too inappropriate to divine goodness, that he should have so cast down men and created them to eternal torment. And they have taken their reason from the 77th Psalm, v. 9.10., where it says: "Should God cast down for eternity and not continue to be merciful? Or should he have cut off his mercy for and for, or forget his mercy, and in wrath keep his mercy?" Ps. 85, 6. Item from Paul, 1 Tim. 2, 4: "God wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." From this they continued and held that even the devils will finally be redeemed and not remain eternally damned, and many such things that are spun from one another.
(3) But to answer this, one must keep our conceit and God's truth very far apart, so that we do not punish God with lies, but rather allow all men, angels and devils to be lost, because God should not be truthful in His words. Such questions come from the innate forwardness of human nature, that it allows itself to be moved harshly, that it should not know the cause and reason of such a strict and serious judgment of God, and is completely inclined, if it were not God's judgment.
to conclude that it would be sacrilege, violence and injustice.
4. And, indeed, there is not the slightest impetus for the devil to accuse us and to turn our eyes against God out of faith, since he knows that this is the most noble and noblest virtue of faith, so that in this case he closes his eyes and simply refrains from such research, and happily leaves everything to God; does not want to know why God acts in this way, but nevertheless considers God to be the highest goodness and righteousness, although here, against and beyond all reason, sense and experience, there appears to be vain anger and injustice; for this is why faith is called Argumentum non apparentium, "a sign of that which does not appear," Heb. 13:1; indeed, the contradiction appears.
Therefore this is also the highest honor and love of God, yes, the highest degree of divine love and honor, that one can hold him in this and praise him as good and just. For there the eye of nature must be completely open and there must be pure faith; otherwise it will not come off without terrible, dangerous upsets, and those who fall into it - as commonly happens that everyone wants to approach the highest - who are still young and untrained in faith and want to look at this with the light of nature, are very close to taking a great fall and fall and fall into secret disgust and hatred of God, who is then difficult to counsel.
(6) For this reason, they are advised to remain unsworn by God's judgments until they grow up better in the faith, and in the meantime, as St. Peter says, I Ep. 2:2, feed on milk and save such strong wine, practice the suffering and humanity of Christ and contemplate His lovely life and walk; otherwise it will happen to them according to the saying of Solomon: Qui scrutator est majestatis, opprimetur a gloria: "Who according to the
2004 A- 22, 35-37. AA. Epistle: Whether someone died without faith re. W. X, 2316-2319. 2005
Majesty inquires, the glory will crush him."
7 So now it is not difficult to answer this question; but this is dangerous, where we find those who could suffer and bear such answer, that we do not let children come to this strong wine or water them with it. Nature and reason cannot bear it, they shrink too hard from it; nor does weak faith bear it, it frets too much at it; for here it goes, as Christ says, Matt. 9:17: "If must be put into old wineskins, it breaks the wineskins and is spilled." So also, this answer corrupts these weak and sensible people and perishes and is despised. How then shall it be? "New wineskins - he says - one should take to the must", that is, this trade of God's judgments, as the highest and most excellent, one should abstain from, until we become firm and quite strong, otherwise it is futile and harmful what one can think, write and say about it.
(8) Therefore, my advice is that your masters see here who and with whom this matter is dealt with, and make them speak or keep quiet about it. If they are natural, high, reasonable people, they will soon avoid this question; but if they are simple, deep, spiritual and tried (i.e. tested) people in the faith, nothing more useful than this can be done with them. For as strong wine is death to children, so it is a refreshment of life to the aged. Therefore, not all doctrine can be traded with everyone.
9th Now that we come to this answer, we have strong sayings that without faith God neither wants nor can save anyone, as He says Marc. 16, 16: "He who does not believe will be lost"; item, Hebr. 11, 6: "Without faith it is impossible to please God"; item, Joh. 3, 6: "He who is not born again of the Spirit and water cannot see the kingdom of God"; item, Cap. 5, 18: "He who does not believe is already judged."
(10) Now if God made someone blessed without faith, he would be doing against his own words, and would be lying to himself, even denying himself; this is impossible. For, as St. Paul says, 2 Tim. 2, 13:
"God cannot deny Himself." Now as little as it is possible for divine truth to lie, so little is it possible for Him to make blessed without faith. This is clear, easy and bright to understand, how reluctantly even the old hose fasts this wine, indeed, cannot grasp and hold it.
(11) That would be another question: Whether God could give faith to some in death or after death and thus make them blessed by faith? Who would doubt that he could do this? But that he does it cannot be proven. For we only read that he raised the dead before, and so gave faith; now in this he does what he does, he gives faith or not, so it is impossible for anyone to be saved without faith, otherwise all preaching and gospel and faith would be in vain, false and seductive, since the whole gospel requires faith.
(12) But the fact that they assume from the Psalms that God will not keep His anger forever, as is said above, does not conclude it; for the whole Psalm speaks of all the suffering of the saints on earth, as the following and preceding words and all the circumstances prove. For those who are in suffering always think that God has forgotten them and wants to be angry forever. And the saying of St. Paul, 2 Tim. 2:1, "God wants all men to be saved," does not penetrate any further, for as it says before, God wants us to pray for all classes, to teach and preach the truth to everyone, and to help everyone physically and spiritually. Because he commands us to do this and wants us to do it, St. Paul rightly says that it is God's will that everyone should be saved, for it does not happen without his will; but it does not follow from this that he will save all men. And even if more sayings were used, they must all be understood in this way, otherwise the divine providence and election from eternity would be nothing, which St. Paul insists on.
(13) I have written these things, my lord, for your love, and I ask you. Your strict ones did not want to let the high-sighted and flying spirits act in such matters, but, as I said, bind them.
2006 D. 22.37.; 55.2M. III. Main st. - 6. from the Father-Our in particular. 7. petition. W. X. 231S-S32I. 2007
in Christ's humanity, strengthen and teach themselves beforehand, until they grow up sufficiently. For what should the man Christ be given to us for a ladder to the Father, if we leave him lying there and want to go over him and go to heaven with our own reason and measure God's judgment? Nowhere is it better than in Christ's humanity to learn what we need to know, since he is our mediator, and no one can get to the Father without being guided by him.
him, can come. "I am the gate, I am the way", he said to Philip, Joh. 14, 6. who also asked about the Father apart from Christ. For "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lie secretly in him," Col. 2, 3. Hereby I commend your consecrated ones to God's grace and offer my Christian services always ready. Given at Wittenberg on the Monday after Assumptionis Mariae (Assumption of the Virgin Mary) 1522. Martinus Luther, D.