Martin Luther’s Reform of the Christian Life: A Reflection on the Doctrine of Vocation | Ancient Paths

The late medieval church of the West taught that man had a natural capacity to become righteous with the help of divine grace. According to the teaching of Gabriel Biel (1420–1495), for example, man must simply do what is within himself (facere quod in se est), that is, he must draw on his own natural powers (ex puris naturalibus) to receive grace. It was thought that man, by doing good and righteous works according to his own powers, could become righteous before God. No Christian would deny that God’s grace offered in the church was necessary for salvation, but Biel and others taught that grace must be accompanied by right intentions and right actions. God’s grace was understood as a kind of divine energy which served as a starting point and an aid for man to become righteous in the sight of God. Many people sought the assurance of God’s grace by fleeing the world’s affairs and dedicating their lives to the church. They took vows and entered holy orders to become nuns or monks, because they regarded the monastic life as the holiest life possible and the surest way to earn God’s favor. Martin Luther (1483–1546) was one of those many people.

Luther’s “evangelical breakthrough” came as the gospel broke through to him from the text of Holy Scripture. He recounted later in life that his study of St. Paul’s letters opened to him something entirely different than the doctrine of grace that he had been taught. Luther discovered in Scripture the passive righteousness, a righteousness that is not fulfilled by human effort but received by faith as a gift.^[1] He had learned very well in his monastic life that he was a sinner. Even if, at his best, he did what God commanded outwardly, such as pray at the appointed times and obey in earthly matters, his heart and inner life were nevertheless corrupt and sinful beyond measure. He learned from St. Paul that, sinful as he was, God justified him by faith alone in Christ apart from works.^[2]

After Luther believed the gospel for himself, his bold teaching concerning the righteousness of faith liberated souls in Germany and beyond from the burden to become righteous by doing righteous deeds. Human effort, charity, or good intentions, Luther taught, are not the reason that God loves sinful human beings. He loves them for the sake of His Son, who became man, who suffered and died to pay for human sinning. Now God counts a person’s faith in Christ as righteousness (Gen 15:6; Rom 3:28; Rom 4:1-5). No works are necessary for man’s salvation. God does not need our works, but our neighbors do. The implications of this distinction between faith and love or law and gospel are profound and reshaped life in society and in the church.

One may ask, if our works, our duties, even our prayers do not make us holy or righteous, but only faith in Christ can, are our works even necessary? Luther anticipated this question and spent his life not only teaching the righteousness of faith, but also teaching Christian love as a fruit of faith. And it is in the realm of Christian love that Luther’s doctrine of vocation takes shape.

Vocation has come into vogue among Luther scholars since the early 1900s as they began to consider the implications of Luther’s thought on daily life and society. The most thorough treatment of Luther’s teaching on vocation is Gustav Wingren’s book, Luther on Vocation, first published in Swedish in 1942 and in English in 1957.^[3] The doctrine has been popularized by Gene Edward Veith in his book, God at Work.^[4] But what exactly is vocation and why was it so important to Luther? The term appears in three different ways in Scripture, and Luther recognized all of them. Most importantly, one is called by the gospel through faith in Christ (Rom 1:6; 1 Cor 1:26). The second way Scripture speaks of vocation, which Luther also maintains, is the call into the pastoral office, either immediately by Christ, as is the case for the apostles, or mediately by the church (Acts 6:3–6; 1 Tim 3:1–7; 5:22; 2 Tim 1:6). Finally, and only in one place, does Paul speak about vocation as a general term to mean a Christians station in the world (married, free, slave, master, etc.). Paul exhorts new Christians in Corinth to “let each remain in the calling in which he was called” (1 Cor 7:20). The term “calling” here refers not to a special call from God to be married or a virgin, to be a slave or a master, but it refers to the stations or walks of life that Christians find themselves, and in which any Christian can carry out God’s command to love and serve others.

Luther believed with St. Augustine and the medieval church that God had established orders or estates in creation in which all humans live and move and are placed in the world to do His will whether knowingly or unknowingly. The estates Luther regarded as God’s orders are the church, the political realm, and the household (ecclesia, politica, oeconomia). God ordains and uses these three estates to govern His creation and bless it. He governs the inner life of man by the gospel and faith, to forgive sins and make forgiven sinners heirs of eternal life; He governs the external world and human interaction through the law, reason, and earthly government, to retrain wickedness and establish justice; He governs all humanity through the home by establishing marriage and blessing husband and wife with children, so that faith can be nurtured and morals taught. The home was also the place where people learned discipline, proper social interactions, and were trained in industry. These three realms were for Luther where Christians live for each other by faith.

To deny any of these orders or to seek life apart from them, Luther regarded as sin and enmity with God. Any activity within these realms that contradicted faith, Christian freedom in the Gospel, God’s clear commands in Scripture, or Christian love, Luther also regarded as wicked and must be rejected by Christians. For example, Luther came to reject monastic vows because they do not have a command in God’s word. God has not established monasticism in the church but rather men have invented it. The human institution of monasticism either enslaved consciences by demanding things not commanded by God or promoted spiritual pride by teaching that one can merit grace through works. Therefore, a monastic vow is evil in the sight of God and must be broken just as a vow to steal, lie, or murder must be broken.^[5] Such monastic orders, then, stand in contrast with Luther’s treatment of stations of life that God in His word has established but are carried out poorly or evilly. A pastor may have a clear vocation, but he does not fulfill it if he does not do what Christ commands of one in the office. Likewise, one may be a father or mother, child or servant, and thus belong to a household, an estate established by God. But that does not mean that those in the household always fulfill their duties and offices as parents, children, servants, etc. Each duty, office, and station has a particular word of God attached to it. Parents are to love, nurture, and teach their children. Children are to honor, love, and obey their parents. All these duties, offices, and stations are established in God’s word and Luther organizes God’s word concerning these duties and commands in his Catechism under “The Table of Duties.” These teach Christians how to love and honor each other in the church, in the political realm, in the family, and generally in all matters of Christian charity.

For this reason, the term calling in the sense of station in life or the way one is set in relationship to others, as found in 1 Corinthians 7:20, cannot be understood apart from the call of the gospel and the ministry of the church through which God awakens faith, forgives sins, and gives eternal life. Those who are called by the gospel are made sons of God by faith. They are adopted and heirs of everlasting life and freed from the burden of justifying themselves by their works. God has already justified them in Christ. Luther believed that the call of the gospel and faith in Christ reshaped all of life. All who believe are set free to live selflessly and recklessly in love for their neighbor regardless of which station God in His goodness has placed them. God’s word, Luther taught, gives direction to each walk of life.

In discussing Luther’s doctrine of vocation, I am convinced it is best to avoid, as Luther does, calling a particular occupation, such as nurse, baker, lawyer or whatever other earthly occupations there may be, a vocation. Vocation as Lutherans speak about it today sometimes misses how central the call to faith in Christ is for Luther. With good intentions, Lutherans want to show how Luther’s teaching of faith made the ordinary sacred. And he did that. However, it is also possible that by concentrating so intently on our vocation and our work, we make Christ and the sacred ordinary. Luther taught faith in Christ, which allowed him to place works and love in their proper place, in service to others. He generally avoided the term vocation to talk about occupation or even being a parent or child, because vocation is not about oneself. Those who wish to contemplate “their vocation” and what they should be doing are most often thinking about themselves. Vocation for Luther was always love and service for others as commanded in God’s word and established in His orders. For this reason, he preferred terms such as station, estate, office, duty, or responsibility, and he was flexible with the terms depending on the context. This does not answer every question about how one should speak about having different stations of life at the same time, when the demands of love within those stations seem to conflict with one another. Should I take care of my aging parents or concentrate my effort on raising my own children and caring for them? The answer to such questions is not found in the law, because God’s law commands that one do both. That is why Luther taught faith in Christ and God’s forgiveness for those who are weak and for those whose love is insufficient to love all those whom God gives them.

Luther consistently taught that Christians should hold fast to Christ and His righteousness and pour themselves out selflessly for others wherever they find themselves. Only the one who has Christ by faith can begin in any way to love another rightly. The unbeliever cannot do that. He does not have the call of the gospel and therefore, without faith, he cannot please God, even if his works may outwardly look similar to that of Christians. Here we can learn from Luther (and St. Paul) that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin (Rom 14:23). On the other hand, whatever does proceed from faith pleases God for the sake of Christ.

Although Luther’s reform efforts remained concentrated on the inner life of every Christian, they extended into almost all areas of sixteenth-century life. Perhaps it is because he sought to reform the inner life that his teaching shaped so much of ordinary life. As Christ says, a good tree bears good fruit (Matt 17:7). No longer must we become nuns or monks to assure ourselves that we are pleasing to God. Now, butchers and bakers and mothers and children and businessmen and administrative assistants can be pleasing to God by faith, so that the works they do can be selfless and for the good of their neighbor. Thus, Luther’s teaching of the righteousness of faith reshaped society by directing faith to Christ and not to oneself, so that those who have been justified and are pleasing to God for Christ’s sake could direct their love and mercy outward to those who need it here below.

^[1] Martin Luther, “Preface to the Latin Writings” (1545): vol. 34, p. 337, in Luther’s Works, American Edition, vols. 1–30, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1955–76); vols. 31–55, ed. Helmut Lehmann (Philadelphia/Minneapolis: Muhlenberg/Fortress, 1957–86); vols. 56–82, ed. Christopher Boyd Brown and Benjamin T. G. Mayes (St. Louis: Concordia, 2009–), hereafter LW; here LW 34:337. Luther recalls that he discovered the righteousness of faith in his study of Romans 1:16–17. “At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, ‘In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”’ There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.”

^[2] LW 26:253, Commentary on Galatians (1535). “Now to rely on the Law or on the works of the Law and to be a man of faith are altogether contrary, just as the devil and God, sin and righteousness, death and life are contrary. Those who rely on the Law are those who want to be justified through the Law; those who are men of faith are those who trust that they are justified solely by mercy. Anyone who says that righteousness is on the basis of faith damns and curses the righteousness of works; on the other hand, anyone who says that righteousness is on the basis of the Law damns and curses the righteousness of faith. Therefore these two are exact contraries.”

^[3] Gustav Wingren, Luther on Vocation (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957).

^[4] Gene Edward Veith, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Publishing, 2002).

^[5] Wingren, Luther on Vocation, 2.