Martin Luther Quotes on God
Martin Luther's understanding of God grew out of his long monastic struggle over how a sinful human being can stand before a righteous God, and the quotes collected here reflect the answer that launched the Reformation. Faith, for Luther, is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, not a human achievement but a trust that rests wholly on Christ. He is sharply critical of idolatry, which he locates not merely in carved images but in the heart that seeks help from anything other than God, and he insists that fallen humanity by nature resists letting God be God. Yet alongside this severity stands a tender confidence in divine mercy, which he compares to a mother's love, stronger than all the filth that clings to a child.
Quotes
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“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace.”
An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans from Dr. Martin Luthers Vermischte Deutsche Schriften . Johann K. Irmischer, ed. Vol. 63(Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), pp. 124-125. (EA 63:124-125) -
“Pray, and let God worry.”
In, I Am a Christian: The Nun, the Devil, and Martin Luther , Carolyn M. Schneider, Fortress Press 2010, ISBN 0800697324 ISBN 978-0800697327 p . 49. (citing in Notes (p. 148), WA , Tr 2:131–32). | Expurgated version in, What Luther Says , Ewald M. Plass, vol. 1, pp. 403-404, (citing WA , Tr 2, No. 1557). 1191 How Luther Handled the Devil, May 20, 1532. "When the devil comes during the night to pla -
Attributed to Martin Luther:
“A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it.”
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“The heathen really make their self-invented notions and dreams of God and idol. Ultimately, they put their trust in that which is nothing. So it is with all idolatry. For it happens not merely by erecting an image and worshipping it, but rather it happens in the heart. For the heart seeks help and consolation from creatures, saints, or devils. It neither cares for God, nor looks to Him for anything better than to believe that He is willing to help.”
On Infant Baptism," Large Catechism (1529) -
“Some will object that the Law is divine and holy. Let it be divine and holy. The Law has no right to tell me that I must be justified by it.”
Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians(1535) | Chapter 2 -
“The Mass is the greatest blasphemy of God, and the highest idolatry upon earth, an abomination the like of which has never been in Christendom since the time of the Apostles.”
Table Talk(1569) | 171 -
“Man is by nature unable to want God to be God. Indeed, he himself wants to be God, and does not want God to be God.”
Disputation against Scholastic Theology(1517) | Thesis 17 -
“I know that a Christian should be humble, but against the Pope I am going to be proud and say to him: “You, Pope, I will not have you for my boss, for I am sure that my doctrine is divine.””
Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians(1535) | Chapter 2, Verse 6 -
“Mother love is stronger than the filth and scabbiness on a child, and so the love of God toward us is stronger than the dirt that clings to us.”
Table Talk(1569) | 94 -
“Never any good came out of female domination. God created Adam master and lord of living creatures, but Eve spoiled it all.”
Table Talk(1569) | -- Table Talk, quoted in Luther On "Woman" -
“For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel...Thus is the Devil ever God's ape.”
Table Talk(1569) | 67. Compare "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton , Anatomy of Melancholy , part III, section 4, member 1, subsection 1 -
“The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.”
"Heidelberg Disputation: Thesis 7" (1518), http://bookofconcord.org/heidelberg.php#7 -
“A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing. Our helper He amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing.”
Psalm. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (1529), translated by Frederic H. Hedge, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 10th ed. (1919) -
“"She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God.”
Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 11, Vol. 24, 107 -
“There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know.”
Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works (Translation by William J. Cole) Vol. 10, p. 268 -
“God has formed the soul and body of the Virgin Mary full of the Holy Spirit, so that she is without all sins, for she has conceived and borne the Lord Jesus.”
D. Martin Luthers Werke , Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 61 vols., (Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, 1883-1983), 52:39 [hereinafter: WA] 1544