As I watched the plot of this movie unfold my mind turned to a saying of Luther regarding the teaching of morality. As I remembered it, he said that the teachers of the world are better at teaching morality than the teachers of the Gospel.
My cursory search this evening did not uncover this quotation, leading me to think that I may have remembered it incorrectly. I did find this quotation from Luther in volume 54 of the American Edition of Luther’s Works: Table Talk No. 3490: High Recommendation of Aesop’s Fables Between October 27 and December 4, 1536.
Luther praised the fables of Aesop highly:
“They are worthy of translation and of being put into a proper order and arrangement. It is not a book that was written by one man only, but it was diligently assembled by many men in different centuries. It would be very useful therefore if somebody would translate the book well and put it into proper order. The important fables that are pithy, smack of antiquity, and are useful to the commonwealth ought to be gathered into a first book; then those that are more elegant ought to be placed apart in a second book, and the rest ought to be reserved for a third.”
“It is a result of God’s providence that the writings of Cato and Aesop have remained in the schools, for both are significant books. Cato contains the most useful sayings and precepts. Aesop contains the most delightful stories and descriptions. Moral teachings, if offered to young people, will contribute much to their edification. In short, next to the Bible the writings of Cato and Aesop are in my opinion the best, better than the mangled utterances of all the philosophers and jurists, just as Donatus is the best grammarian.”
While I understand Luther’s point, I do not fully agree. In fact, if pressed I find that I disagree on the following principal observation, which this evening’s ponderings solidified:
Preachers of the Gospel do not preach morality and obedience to the Law. Rather, they preach justification and sanctification and the obedience that comes through the repentance worked by the Holy Spirit unto faith.
Preaching of morality is foreign to the preaching of the Gospel. The Gospel is the wonderful declaration of God’s love to us in Christ Jesus. The Gospel is the preaching of Christ crucified. The Gospel is the preaching of the new life that God works through Baptism and continually renews through the Lord’s Supper of His Holy Communion. The preaching of the Gospel is the preaching of walking in spirit by faith.
This is the opposite of what is preached and taught by sinful humanity who grasps after the glimmer of self-aggrandizement in search of works-righteousness.
St. Paul writes to the Galatians: “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11)
Further contemplation on this matter led me this evening to this conclusion in this connection:
If works and obedience of the Law could justify, then Christ would not have stood condemned and would not have died. Yet it was His perfect obedience and His perfect doing of the works of the will of God as proclaimed in the Law that brought Him to bear our condemnation and the curse of the death owed to sin.
No, the preaching and teaching of morality are works of the unbelieving world, whose preachers seek to make better people through knowledge of right and wrong and better or worse. The preaching and teaching of morality is the preaching of self-improvement and self-help.
This truly has no place in the Church of Christ. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Gospel. The Gospel is the preaching of the new life that is received in accompaniment with the gift of the Holy Spirit in the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3, Acts 2, 1 Peter 3:21). The life to which the Holy Spirit calls us is a childlike dependency upon the holiness of God won for us through the merits of Christ. It is the freedom to walk without fear of condemnation purely on account of God’s declaration of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us through faith.
Thus, as a preacher of the Gospel, I have no desire to preach the morality that leads people to strive to become better neighbors and citizens and people. My desire is to preach the Gospel that leads people to know and rely upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified for their forgiveness, justification, sanctification, reconciliation to God and to all. My desire is to preach Christ as our righteousness, into whom we are incorporated through Baptism and kept everlastingly through the Holy Supper of His Body and Blood. This is the way of grace, mercy, and peace. This is the way of freedom and joy without end. Through this preaching people hear that the grace of Christ truly is sufficient for them, and in this knowledge their struggles turn to everlasting rejoicing and thanksgiving. Yes, I will leave the preaching of the bondage of morality to the unbelievers and continue myself in the preaching of the love of God in Christ Jesus.
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