Quotes from Martin Luther

Just as appearances of old happened for the direction of those for whom they happened, as also the Lord appeared to the two disciples going to Emmaus, so also Scripture speaks and appears in the manner in which we are disposed.

I do not bother my head with speculations about the nature of God. I simply attach myself to the human Christ

We exalt our calling, not to gain glory among men, or money, or satisfaction, or favor, but because people need to be assured that the words we speak are the words of God. This is no sinful pride. It is holy pride.

And Dan. 8:25 also writes concerning the Antichrist that he will kill the majority of people not through poverty but through an abundance of everything.

to live in good morals means calm and peace for the conscience, however much disquiet there may be in the flesh in public.

It is the nature of God's Word and the regulation of His will first to destroy what is in us and reduce to nothing whatever we are, and then erect His own structure.

Christ doesn't want sinners who refuse to admit that they're sinners.

Augustine explains: The flesh needs many things even for this life, and this, too, it seeks from God, because not only spiritual things but also earthly things are to be sought from no one but God.

Der freie Wille sei zu nichts fähig außer zum Sündigen.

God's approval isn't based on what a person does. Rather, he accepts what a person does because he already approves of the person. The person hasn't earned God's approval through the good that he or she does. Because

So we must guard against real sins. But it's also to real sinners that the gospel reaches out.

This is exactly how those who rely on their own efforts to be justified still act today. They concentrate on the good that they do, which they hope will please God. They don't trust in God's mercy and his grace. They aren't hoping that God will forgive their sins through Christ. This

and yet neither the bishops nor canons care how the poor people live or die, for whom nevertheless Christ has died, and who are not permitted to hear Him speak with them as the true Shepherd with His sheep.

Behold, from faith thus flow forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a joyful, willing, and free mind that serves ones neighbor willingly and takes no account of gratitude or ingratitude, of praise or blame, of gain or loss.

God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him.

God created us just in order to redeem us.. . .

The vanity and insatiability of the human heart are unspeakable. What a man has does not please him; what he does not have, that he yearns for.

Let us learn, then, to despise the threats and cruel plans of our enemies and conclude for certain that God in the heavens has decided on quite different things and is already laughing at them but playing with us so that He may prove our faith and hope and discipline us.

For "no one has ascended into heaven but He who descended" (John 3:13), that is, no one arrives at the understanding of divinity but he who has first been humbled and who has come down to an understanding of himself, for there he discovers the understanding of God at the same time.

The rabbis have written that when the earth had opened up and consumed Korah with the rest, his sons had by an apparent miracle stood firm above the abyss as though suspended in the air, because they would not depart from the tabernacle, but had admonished their father and his followers to desist from error.

And this is the pure and unalloyed meaning of the First Commandment: We should deem ourselves to be nothing as regards our merit, but to have, receive, and find power to do everything only by His mercy and love, to His glory — mercy which He first promises by His Word and then also confirms afterward by a work which He does through us, as by a sign, just as here He cites the Exodus from Egypt and the destruction of the Canaanites.

No one should be deceived by the glamor of the ceremonies and entangled in the multitude of pompous forms, and thus lose the simplicity of the mass itself

It is far better to bear the contempt and hatred of adversaries than to fall into reproach and into the snare of the devil, as Paul says in 1 Tim. 3:7. The

So if you wish to rejoice in Christ, for His sake you must bear sorrow, confusion, inward and outward vexations. The reason is that you cannot hold to Christ without offending the prince of the world. You cannot hold fast to the God of life without rousing against yourself the author of death.