Self-Righteousness Needs a Big Axe

In honor of the ever-hastening Reformation Day I will be doing some posts from leaders of the Protestant Reformation.

Here is Martin Luther on the evil of self-righteousness, the axe, and the remedy:

"When the Law was instituted on Mount Sinai it was accompanied by lightning, by storms, by the sound of trumpets, to tear to pieces that monster called self-righteousness.  As long as a person thinks he right he is going to be incomprehensibly proud and presumptuous.  He is going to hate God, despise His grace and mercy, and ignore the promises in Christ.  The Gospel of the free forgiveness of sins through Christ will never appeal to the self-righteous.

This monster of self-righteousness, this stiff necked beast, needs a big axe.  And that is what the Law is, a big axe...

The business of the Gospel, on the other hand, is to quicken, to comfort, to raise the fallen.  The Gospel carries the news that God for Christ's sake is merciful to the most unworthy sinners, if they will only believe that Christ by His death delivered them from sin and everlasting death unto grace, forgiveness, and everlasting life."

Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter III, 127