From the Archives |  True Worship and the Idolatry of Works in the Christian Life

Martin Luther

The Christian life is lived by faith in the Son of God, who gave his life as a ransom to free those in bondage to sin and to give them everlasting life — a pure gift of God, without any human effort. The sinful human heart, however, looks elsewhere to find comfort and help. It looks not to God’s justification for Christ’s sake, which is to be received by faith alone, but seeks instead help elsewhere. Sometimes it finds help in some other god of a false religion, sometimes in material possessions or money, sometimes in other people or substances, but most often the sinner seeks self-help, to justify himself by his works.

This well-known selection from Martin Luther, a sermon on the First Commandment from the Large Catechism,^[1] is intended to help readers consider the place of works in the Christian life by first considering faith in God. Not only among some Lutherans, but among Protestant Christians more broadly there is a deep desire to make the works we do meaningful. Basic duties and responsibilities that God has commanded each person in his or her walk of life are now called by many in the Protestant churches “vocations.” The term vocation to describe a Christian’s work in the world has taken on strikingly similar tones to that of medieval Catholicism with its self-chosen works. The Roman Catholic Church made a distinction between spiritual vocations or holy orders and the earthly and thus less spiritual responsibilities of the common people. It is common to hear among Protestants today that to be doing God’s work you need a vocation and not just a job. God can’t be in the mundane, we think, so we seek to spiritualize the mundane and have God bless our self-chosen or at least our self-preferred works.

Luther is helpful because he sees through veiled self-righteousness better than most. He recognizes that our search for meaning in our work is, like all self-interest, idolatry. God-pleasing works are those that proceed from faith in Christ and have God’s command. They are not for us, to make us holy or to justify us, but to help others. That is why God has commanded them. They are to be selfless, directed entirely outward to others, just as all of God’s works for our good are selfless, given by grace, without any merit or worthiness in us.^[2]

True Worship and the Idolatry of Works in the Christian Life

The following is excerpted from Martin Luther’s, The Large Catechism.

Lo, here you have the meaning of the true honor and worship of God, which pleases God, and which He commands under penalty of eternal wrath, namely, that the heart know no other comfort or confidence than in Him, and do not suffer itself to be torn from Him, but, for Him, risk and disregard everything upon earth. On the other hand, you can easily see and judge how the world practises only false worship and idolatry. For no people has ever been so reprobate as not to institute and observe some divine worship; every one has set up as his special god whatever he looked to for blessings, help, and comfort.

Thus, for example, the heathen who put their trust in power and dominion elevated Jupiter as the supreme god; the others, who were bent upon riches, happiness, or pleasure, and a life of ease, Hercules, Mercury, Venus, or others; women with child, Diana or Lucina, and so on; thus every one made that his god to which his heart was inclined, so that even in the mind of the heathen to have a god means to trust and believe. But their error is this, that their trust is false and wrong; for it is not placed in the only God, besides whom there is truly no God in heaven or upon earth. Therefore the heathen really make their self-invented notions and dreams of God an idol, and put their trust in that which is altogether nothing. Thus it is with all idolatry; for it consists not merely in erecting an image and worshiping it, but rather in the heart, which stands gaping at something else, and seeks help and consolation from creatures, saints, or devils, and neither cares for God, nor looks to Him for so much good as to believe that He is willing to help, neither believes that whatever good it experiences comes from God.

Besides, there is also a false worship and extreme idolatry, which we have hitherto practised, and is still prevalent in the world, upon which also all ecclesiastical orders are founded, and which concerns the conscience alone, that seeks in its own works help, consolation, and salvation, presumes to wrest heaven from God, and reckons how many bequests it has made, how often it has fasted, celebrated Mass, etc. Upon such things it depends, and of them boasts, as though unwilling to receive anything from God as a gift, but desires itself to earn or merit it superabundantly, just as though He must serve us and were our debtor, and we His liege lords. What is this but reducing God to an idol, yea, [a fig image or] an apple-god, and elevating and regarding ourselves as God? But this is slightly too subtile, and is not for young pupils.

But let this be said to the simple, that they may well note and remember the meaning of this commandment, namely, that we are to trust in God alone, and look to Him and expect from Him naught but good, as from one who gives us body, life, food, drink, nourishment, health, protection, peace, and all necessaries of both temporal and eternal things. He also preserves us from misfortune, and if any evil befall us, delivers and rescues us, so that it is God alone (as has been sufficiently said) from whom we receive all good, and by whom we are delivered from all evil. Hence also, I think, we Germans from ancient times call God (more elegantly and appropriately than any other language) by that name from the word Good, as being an eternal fountain which gushes forth abundantly nothing but what is good, and from which flows forth all that is and is called good.

For even though otherwise we experience much good from men, still whatever we receive by His command or arrangement is all received from God. For our parents, and all rulers, and every one besides with respect to his neighbor, have received from God the command that they should do us all manner of good, so that we receive these blessings not from them, but, through them, from God. For creatures are only the hands, channels, and means whereby God gives all things, as He gives to the mother breasts and milk to offer to her child, and corn and all manner of produce from the earth for nourishment, none of which blessings could be produced by any creature of itself.

Therefore no man should presume to take or give anything except as God has commanded, in order that it may be acknowledged as God’s gift, and thanks may be rendered Him for it, as this commandment requires. On this account also these means of receiving good gifts through creatures are not to be rejected, neither should we in presumption seek other ways and means than God has commanded. For that would not be receiving from God, but seeking of ourselves.

Let every one, then, see to it that he esteem this commandment great and high above all things, and do not regard it as a joke. Ask and examine your heart diligently, and you will find whether it cleaves to God alone or not. If you have a heart that can expect of Him nothing but what is good, especially in want and distress, and that, moreover, renounces and forsakes everything that is not God, then you have the only true God. If, on the contrary, it cleaves to anything else, of which it expects more good and help than of God, and does not take refuge in Him, but in adversity flees from Him, then you have an idol, another god.

^[1] Martin Luther, “The Large Catechism” in Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church: German-Latin-English (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921). The text may be found in the public domain here: https://bookofconcord.org/large-catechism/.

^[2] We thank Jason Lane for selecting and graciously writing this brief introduction to the following excerpt from Martin Luther.