The Sum of the Commandment
In preparing to speak on the matter of a “good conscience,” as in St. Paul’s exhortation to St. Timothy, “The sum of our commandment is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5), I rediscovered one of Dr. Luther’s sermons, “On the Sum of the Christian Life” (1532), which he preached on this same passage of Holy Scripture. It’s been some time since I last looked at this sermon closely, although I’ve been struck by it in the past, especially because of Dr. Luther’s opening comments on the preaching and hearing of God’s Word as the way that “one gives to Him His greatest and highest service (Gottesdienst).” Those first five or six pages alone are well worth a read, as they succinctly summarize several key insights and emphases of the Lutheran Reformation, which are needed now as much or more than ever.
But what struck me in particular in this case, in preparation for my presentation, were Dr. Luther’s comments on a “good conscience,” what that means and what that looks like in relation to other people, on the one hand, and before God on the other hand. Because I found his words compelling, convicting, and instructive, I’ve excerpted a portion of the sermon, hopefully with enough of the context to maintain the points at hand in Dr. Luther’s masterful preaching of the Law and the Gospel unto repentance and faith:
“Let this suffice for now as a brief treatment of the first point, namely, that the heart is made pure only through the Word and not, as the monks have dreamed, by doing battle oneself with evil or impure thoughts and thinking other thoughts, for whatever the thoughts are, the heart still remains impure if the Word of God is not in it, even though they put on a great show of a godly life. . . .
“Now comes the second part, concerning a ‘good conscience,’ namely, that love should issue from a heart which has a joyful, quiet, conscience both toward men and toward God: Toward men in the sense in which St. Paul boasted that he had so lived that he had neither offended nor grieved anybody nor given a bad example, but that all who saw and heard him were compelled to bear witness that he had served, helped, counselled, and done good to all men. . . .
“Look, this is the kind of glory and confidence every Christian should possess, that he may so live before every man and practice and prove his love, that none may bring any complaint against him to terrify and dismay his conscience, but rather that every man will be compelled to say, if he is going to speak the truth, that he has so conducted himself that nothing but improvement has resulted for those who would accept it, and can declare this before God against every man. This is what it means to have a good conscience toward men or against men.
“Even though such a conscience will not be able to stand before God’s judgment, any more than the purity of heart which consists in outward life and works of love can stand before Him, for before God we still remain sinners, nevertheless we should have this kind of a heart in order that we may comfort ourselves before Him and say: This God has enjoined and commanded, therefore I do it out of a pure heart and a good conscience, and I would not willingly do otherwise nor offend and hurt anybody; but rather what I say and do is what God has ordered and commanded me to do.
“No Christian must ever allow to be taken away from him this confidence of being able to boast and appeal to God’s Word against the whole world. For any man who does not pay attention to living his life in such a way that he can put everyone to silence and defend himself and prove before men that he has lived, spoken, and done well, that man is not yet a Christian and has neither a pure heart nor love within him. For if a person is thus inclined to rely on the doctrine of faith, as if when he has it he can do whatever he likes, whether it harms or helps his neighbor, this will do him no good. Otherwise this doctrine will get the reputation of giving license to every kind of excess and villainy. It is rather love from a pure heart and a good conscience, that no man can blame or accuse him of anything evil.
“Even though these things are said about our life and our acts, and even though a Christian is quite another man before God, as we shall hear later, nevertheless he must earnestly endeavor to be blameless before the world. And when he fails to do this, he must interpose the Lord’s Prayer and say, both to God and to men, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ that so his life may remain blameless at least before men and retain a good conscience, if not through perfect love and purity of heart, then at least through the humility which begs and asks forgiveness of men whenever he has not acted purely and perfectly enough toward them or has not been able to do so. . . . So it can still be called blameless, becuase it has been covered by humility and what was blameworthy has been set right, so that none can complain.
“This is the way the Law should be interpreted and preached, in order both that love for every man may righly proceed from a pure heart for God’s sake and that the conscience may stand before the world. This is what those vain talkers should be preaching instead of their loose, lazy, and cold gibble-gabble.
“But, in order that all this may be acceptable and stand before God, there is still one other thing that must be added, which is as follows: ‘and sincere faith.’ For, as I have said, even though I have a good conscience before men and practice love from a pure heart, nevertheless there still remains in me the old Adam, the sinful flesh and blood, so that I am not altogether holy and pure. . . . The Spirit is willing to live purely and perfectly according to God’s Word, but the flesh remains and resists and tempts us, so that we continue to pursue our own honor, greed, and good days, and become slothful, fed up, and weary in our calling.
“Thus there remains in us an everlasting strife and resistance, so that much impurity is always creeping in and thus dividing our person, and there can be no flawless purity, or a good conscience, or perfect love, except perhaps what may appear to be so to men. But before God there is still much in us which is faulty and culpable, even though for men everything were altogether perfect. For example, even though David can boast before men that nobody can reproach him, and the holy Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. boast and are confident that what they have done in pursuance of their divine office was right and well done because it was God’s Word and command, and that in doing so they acted with a pure heart and conscience; nevertheless, they could not glory in this before God’s judgment. Rather they are compelled to say: If we are to strive in judgment before Thee, then no man has such a good conscience or pure heart that he need not dread Thy judgment and acknowledge his guilt. For God has reserved to Himself the prerogative of having cause and claim upon every saint, so that no man is so holy that He cannot rightly condemn him as worthy of damnation. Therfore, even though before men both heart and conscience are pure and good, you must still remember that the heart must be pure and the conscience good before God, that He may not condemn them and they be as safe from His judgment as that of men.
“And here the third part must be added, that is, faith. This is really the chief article and the highest commandment of all, which contains within it all the rest, in order that we may realize that when love is not perfect, the heart not sufficiently pure, and the conscience not at peace, and though the world cannot reproach us, God still finds in us that which is culpable, then faith must be added. And it must be a faith which is not hypocritical and mixed with confidence in our own holiness. For wherever this faith is not present the heart does not become pure before God and the conscience cannot stand when the searching judgment and reckoning begins. . . .
“Here, therefore, I must have something else, something I can hold on to when it comes to the last gasp and my abashed and terrified conscience cries out: I may very well have done what I could, but who knows how often I have done too little, for I can not see and mark all things, as Ps. 19 says, ‘Who can discern his errors?’ Therefore I can put no trust whatsoever in my own holiness or purity.
“I have the Word all right, and it says: This is the way you must live and love and have a good conscience, and this is pure and holy; but what is lacking is that I can never conclude that this is the way my heart is, and I never find within me a conscience which is as pure and good as the Word requires. For there is no man on earth who can say: I know that I have done everything and before God I owe nothing. Even the holiest of saints must confess: I have done what I could, perhaps, but I have failed far oftener than I know.
“So our conscience stands against us all, accusing us and declaring us unclean, even though we have passed with highest honors before the world or even now are passing. For the conscience must judge itself according to the Word, which declares: This you should have done, or this you should not have done. This it can neither avoid nor answer; the most it can do is to doubt. But when it doubts it is already impure, for it does not stand up before God but rather flounders and flees.
“Here, therefore, the chief article of our doctrine must come to our help, namely, that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was sent into the world by the Father, suffered and died for us and thereby reconciled and moved the Father to grace, and now sits at the right hand of the Father, pleading our cause as our Savior and as our constant Mediator and Intercessor interceding for us who can not of ourselves have or obtain this perfect purity and good conscience. Therefore through Him we can say before God: Although I am not pure and cannot have a good conscience, yet I cleave to Him who possesses perfect purity and good conscience and offers them for me, indeed, gives them to me. For of Him alone is it written, as St. Peter quotes from Isaiah 53, ‘He committed no sin; no guile was found on His lips.’ He bears with great honor the distinction of having no need of that part of the Lord’s Prayer which says, ‘Forgive us our debts,’ nor of that article of the Creed, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins,’ but is free and secure in perpetual, pure, and perfect righteousness and purity, whom none, neither man nor devil nor God Himself, can accuse or lay anything upon His conscience, for He Himself is God and can not accuse Himself.”
“On the Sum of the Christian Life” (1532), Luther’s Works AE 51, pages 272-277