_2_The Divine Law and Sin

Since sin is (lawlessness), we must, if we would properly know the doctrine of sin, clearly see what the is, the transgression of which constitutes . The definition of the Law given by the Formula of Concord is Scriptural in every detail: “We unanimously believe, teach, and confess that the Law is properly a divine doctrine, in which the righteous, immutable will of God is revealed, what is to be the quality of man in his nature, thoughts, words, and works, in order that he may be pleasing and acceptable to God” (Trigl. 957, 17). It is pointed out here, in the first place, that the power to decree laws for men rests solely with God, with God’s will. That belongs to the dignity of man. Every man is subject to God’s Law. Laws enacted by men are a norm binding our consciences only when God sanctions them and thus makes them His precepts. God does that in the case of the laws of civil government (Rom. 13:1 ff.: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers”) and of the parents (Col. 3:20: “Children, obey your parents in all things”), and He sanctions here only such laws as do not contradict the divine Law (Acts 5:29: “We ought to obey God rather than men”).

The so-called “laws of the Church” cannot bind our consciences. Christ has not given His Church any legislative power (potestas legislatoria); on the contrary, He has forbidden His Church to exercise any such power. Matt. 23:8: “One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.” What Christ has not commanded is regulated in the Church not by command, but by mutual agreement of the Christians themselves. Even the abuse of this liberty must not lead the Church to command things which God has not commanded. In short, we must maintain from first to last that only God’s Law is the norm, the transgression of which constitutes a sin. “The Pope,” Luther declares, “has filled the world with satanic obedience. For the Pope does not command what God has enjoined, but what he himself invents; whence it has come about that his whole religion is not true, but is his own fabrication and choice, and, in short, pure hypocrisy.” (St. L. 1:765.)

In the second place, God’s Law is authoritative not only in part, but in its every detail. God demands in His Law the purity of the human nature (therefore Eph. 2:3 says of the inborn corrupt state of nature: “And were by nature the children of wrath”) and consequently also the purity of all internal and external acts which belong to a righteous and pure nature. He demands purity of thoughts (Matt. 5:22: “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment,” and v. 28: “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart”); of words (Matt. 12:36: “But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment”); and of works (Eph. 5:5: “For this ye know that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God”). There has always been opposition, public, and even more so, secret, to the truth that the divine Law pertains to all internal and external acts of men. People have been saying at all times: “God hath forgotten; He hideth His face; He will never see it” (Ps. 10:11). And in particular there always was and still is today a universal protest against declaring the inborn depravity of human nature to be truly sin and bearing the “character of guilt.” “Guiltless sin,” men say, is the proper term to be used here. (See the section De Peccato Originali.) But men cannot nullify God’s Law; the Lord will enforce it to its full extent. And no matter what attempts they make to remove guilt from sin, the Lord holds man accountable for every transgression of His Law. And — we say it again and again — man’s own conscience holds him accountable.

The Formula of Concord correctly defines the Law as the righteous, immutable will of God as to “what is to be the quality of man in his nature, thoughts, words, and works, in order that he may be pleasing and acceptable to God.” The correctness of this definition is clearly confirmed by the fact that our Substitute, who in our stead assumed the obligation to fulfill the demands of the Law and bear its punishment, thus to make us “pleasing and acceptable to God,” had to be a most unique, miraculous person, namely, “holy, harmless, un-defiled, and separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26), one “who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21).