_4_The Sources of the Two Existing Religions

As there are but two religions, of essentially different content, the religion of the Law, or of man’s own works, and the religion of the Gospel, or of faith in Christ, so there are but two principles of cognition (principia cognoscendi) from which these religions are derived — two essentially different sources.

The religion of the Law, practiced in various forms outside and within visible Christendom, is of human origin. It is a “man-made religion.” That is the clear teaching of Scripture. Let us present this matter more fully under three heads. First, Scripture teaches that even after the Fall men still have a knowledge of the divine Law. They “know the judgment of God” (Rom. 1:32).27 The “work of the Law,” that is, what God demands, is “written in their hearts”; though they do not have the Law as written in Scripture (“which have not the Law … are a Law unto themselves,” Rom. 2:14 f.). Apology: “Human reason naturally understands, in some way, the Law, for it has the same judgment divinely written in the mind” (Trigl. 121, 7). — Secondly, the heathen have an evil conscience because of their transgressions of the divine Law. They know “that they which commit such things” — the Apostie is speaking of the sins of the pagans — “are worthy of death,” of eternal damnation (Rom. 1:32).28 And so, in the third place, they propose to reconcile the Deity through “good works,” moral endeavors, self-devised worship and sacrifices, etc. Though they know little about God and inscribe on the altar: “To the Unknown God” (Acts 17:23), they feel sure that they can win God’s favor by observing the Law. They know of no other way. “This opinion of the Law” (that works obtain grace) “inheres by nature in men’s minds; neither can it be expelled unless we are divinely taught.” Thus the Apology (Trigl. 197, 144). Again: “Thus the world judges of all works that they are a propitiation by which God is appeased” (Trigl. 179, 91).

The religion of the Law is the religion of the flesh. The Apostle Paul expressly calls it that when he reminds the Galatians, who sought to obtain justification through the Law: “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3.) The religion of the Law is the product of the unregenerate, the natural mind. Luther on Gal. 3:3: “Paul setteth here the spirit against the flesh. He calleth not the flesh (as I have said before) fleshly lust, beastly passions, or sensual appetites; for he entreateth not here of lust and such other fleshly desires, but of forgiveness of sins, of justifying the conscience, of obtaining righteousness before God, of delivery from the Law, sin, and death…. Flesh therefore is here taken for the very righteousness and wisdom of the flesh, and the judgment of reason, which seeketh to be justified by the Law.” (St. L. IX:288 f.) Scripture thus clearly teaches that every type of religion which in any way directs men to gain God’s grace through human endeavors and accomplishments is not wisdom of God, but wisdom from below, man-made religion.

The religion of the Gospel, on the contrary, is not of man, but of God. It deals with things that “have not entered into the heart of man” (1 Cor. 2:9). The plan of salvation, according to which the Son of God became incarnate and by His work reconciled mankind with God, so that men are now saved without works of their own ( Rom. 3:28), by faith in the work of Christ, was conceived in the eternal counsel of God. The Christian religion, the religion of grace is very truth, the wisdom of God, and men know of it only through God’s revelation in the Word. Not even the intelligentsia, “the princes of this world,” can conceive the idea that God forgives the sins of men not because of their own works, but for the sake of the crucified Christ (1 Cor. 2:8). In short, the religion of grace is in no sense a human product. It is “God-made,” and the only source of this knowledge until the end of time is God’s revelation in the Word — in the written Word of the Apostles and Prophets. (Rom. 16:25 f.; Eph. 2:20; 1 John 1:1-4.)

Accordingly, various doctrinal systems in visible Christendom which say that God’s grace is obtained wholly or in part through human works and “moral achievements” (Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, synergism) are of human origin. They are outside the sphere of the divine religion, revealed in God’s Word, and must be classified as religions devised by men. The Christian Church would have been spared much confusion, strife, and dissension if the proponents of these theories had always plainly supplied them with the proper trademark: “Man-made.”

How old is the Gospel religion? It was revealed immediately after the Fall in the promise that the Seed of the Woman would crush the head of the Serpent (Gen. 3:15).29 All the Old Testament Prophets taught it unisono, and all the children of God in the days of the Old Testament believed it unanimiter, as Peter testifies: “To Him give all the Prophets witness that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43). Paul, too, declares that the righteousness which is obtained , “without the Law,” by faith in Christ, was witnessed “by the Law and the Prophets” (Rom. 3:21). And he brings the historical proof for this in Romans, Chapter Four. — Luther’s writings abound in statements that men derive their knowledge of divine things either from the Law or from the Gospel, that thus there are but two principles of religious knowledge.30