Martin Luther's Writings

10. So long as you keep your pledge to God, he in turn gives you his grace. He pledges himself not to impute to you the sins which remain in your nature after baptism, neither to take them into account nor to condemn you because of them. He is satisfied and well pleased if you are constantly striving and desiring to conquer these sins and at your death to be rid of them. For this reason, although evil thoughts and appetites may be at work, indeed even though at times you may sin and fall, these sins are already broken by the power of the sacrament and covenant. The one condition is that you rise again and enter again into the covenant, as St. Paul says in Romans 8[:1]. No one who believes in Christ is condemned by the evil, sinful inclination of his nature, if only he does not follow it and give in to it. St. John the Evangelist writes in his epistle [I John 2:1–2], "If any one does sin, we have an advocate with God, even Jesus Christ, who has become the forgiveness of our sins." All this takes place in baptism,where Christ is given us, as we shall hear in the treatise which follows.

11. Now if this covenant did not exist, and God were not so merciful as to wink at our sins, there could be no sin so small but it would condemn us. For the judgment of God can endure no sin. Therefore there is no greater comfort on earth than baptism. For it is through baptism that we come under the judgment of grace and mercy, which does not condemn our sins but drives them out by many trials. There is a fine sentence of St. Augustine which says, "Sin is altogether forgiven in baptism; not in such a manner that it is no longer present, but in such a manner that it is not imputed." It is as if he were to say, "Sin remains in our flesh even until death and works without ceasing. But so long as we do not give our consent to it or desire to remain in it, sin is so overruled by our baptism that it does not condemn us and is not harmful to us. Rather it is daily being more and more destroyed in us until our death."

For this reason no one should be terrified if he feels evil lust or love, nor should he despair even if he falls. Rather he should remember his baptism, and comfort himself joyfully with the fact that God has there pledged himself to slay his sin for him and not to count it a cause for condemnation, if only he does not say Yes to sin or remain in it. Moreover these wild thoughts and appetites, and even a fall into sin, should not be regarded as an occasion for despair. Regard them rather as an admonition from God that we should remember our baptism and what was there spoken, that we should call upon God's mercy and exercise ourselves in striving against sin, that we should even welcome death in order that we may be rid of sin.

12. Here, then, is the place to discuss the third thing in the sacrament: faith. Faith means that one firmly believes all this: that this sacrament not only signifies death and the resurrection at the Last Day, by which a person is made new to live without sin eternally, but also that it assuredly begins and achieves this; that it establishes a covenant between us and God to the effect that we will fight against sin and slay it, even to our dying breath, while he for his part will be merciful to us, deal graciously with us, and—because we are not sinless in this life until purified by death—not judge us with severity.

So you understand how in baptism a person becomes guiltless, pure, and sinless, while at the same time continuing full of evil inclinations. He can be called pure only in the sense that he has started to become pure and has a sign and covenant of this purity and is ever to become more pure. Because of this God will not count against him his former impurity. A person is thus pure by the gracious imputation of God, rather than by virtue of his own nature. As the prophet says in Psalm 32[:1–2], "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven; blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity."

This faith is of all things the most necessary, for it is the ground of all comfort. He who does not possess such faith must despair of his sins. For the sin which remains after baptism makes it impossible for any good works to be pure before God. For this reason we must boldly and without fear hold fast to our baptism, and set it high against all sins and terrors of conscience. We must humbly admit, "I know full well that I cannot do a single thing that is pure. But I am baptized, and through my baptism God, who cannot lie, has bound himself in a covenant with me. He will not count my sin against me, but will slay it and blot it out."

13. So, then, we understand that the innocence which is ours by baptism is so called simply and solely because of the mercy of God. For he has begun this work in us, he bears patiently with our sin, and he regards us as if we were sinless. This also explains why Christians are called in the Scriptures the children of mercy, a people of grace, and men of God's good will. It is because through baptism they have begun to become pure; by God's mercy with respect to the sins that still remain they are not condemned; until, finally, through death and at the Last Day, they become wholly pure, just as the sign of baptism shows.

Therefore those people err greatly who think that through baptism they have become wholly pure. They go about in their ignorance and do not slay their sin. Indeed they do not admit that it is sin. They simply persist in it, and so make their baptism of no effect. They continue to depend only on a few external works. Meanwhile pride, hatred, and other evils in their nature, which they disregard, grow worse and worse.

How contrary this is! Sin, evil inclination, must be recognized as truly sin. That it does not harm us, however, is to be ascribed to the grace of God. He will not count sin against us if only we keep striving against it with many trials, tasks, and sufferings, and at last slay it at death. To them who do this not, God will not forgive their sins. For they do not live according to their baptism and covenant, and they hinder the work of God and of their baptism which has been begun.