I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do… For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:15, 19, 22-25a
Martin Luther loved this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans – which we’ll be reading in the lectionary coming up in July. Luther was a man tortured by his own shortcomings and failings; fearful that he would never be good enough for God, he would sometimes even leave the confessional booth only to go right back in to confess other sins that he had thought of. He identified deeply with the struggle Paul names here: despite his best intentions and efforts to be a model Christian, Luther kept finding himself giving in to sin and brokenness.
It was in this struggle of feeling like he would never, ever be good enough that Luther experienced the revelation of grace. He would never be good enough to earn his own salvation. Yet he had been redeemed by Christ’s self-giving love, once and for all time. He had been saved by grace through faith, apart from works, for the sake of Christ. And this revelation actually freed Luther to start becoming the better Christian he wanted to be. His focus shifted from being directed inward toward himself to going outward toward the church and the broader world, a change that enabled him to become a powerful voice of reform in the church. This is the legacy that we, as Lutherans, inherit.
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