WorkMartin Luther

A Treatise on Good Works

Luther's answer to the charge that faith alone makes people idle: a walk through the Ten Commandments that counts faith as the first good work.

by Martin Luther205 passages held

German, the original language

Original title: Von den guten Werken
First published: 1520(aged 37)
Original language: German

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Overview

Critics of Luther's teaching — that a sinner is justified by faith alone — said it was making people less eager to do good. Georg Spalatin, the secretary of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, reminded him that he had promised a sermon on good works, and Luther began one early in 1520. By 25 March he was telling Spalatin it would be a whole booklet rather than a sermon. The book he finished in May is dedicated to Frederick's brother Duke John, who would succeed him as elector in 1525. Its first move is to narrow the field: the only good works are the ones God has commanded, as the only sins are the ones he has forbidden. Its second is to put faith in Christ at the head of them, as the first and highest work of all, from which every other work takes its worth. Luther then goes through the Ten Commandments in order and asks of each what good works it calls for. Along the way he complains that people count only praying in church, fasting and almsgiving as good works, and despise a craftsman's working, walking, eating and sleeping, which please God whenever they are done in faith. On 8 June Luther sent a printed copy to Philipp Melanchthon, his younger colleague at Wittenberg, who called it in a letter Luther's best book. Within seven months it had gone through eight editions, and six more followed by 1525.

Key concepts

How can faith itself be a good work?

Faith is the work the first commandment asks for: to have one God means to put all one's trust in him alone. Luther calls it the first and highest work because every other deed draws its worth from it. Without that trust, even dramatic acts of piety are not good. With it, the smallest task becomes good, and faith keeps acting as the master workman behind all the rest.

What does Luther mean by 'confidence' in this book?

Confidence, Zuversicht in his German, is the heart's settled trust that what one does pleases God because God is gracious, not because the work is impressive. It is the test Luther gives readers for themselves: if the heart is confident, picking up a straw is good. If it doubts, the work is not good even if it raised the dead.

Why are the Ten Commandments split into two tables?

The first table, the first three commandments, concerns God: trust, honouring his name and keeping the holy day. The second table concerns the neighbour, beginning with honour for father and mother. Luther treats the first table as the source of the second. The works owed to other people grow out of the faith the first commandment demands, so he works through both in order.

Why do ordinary jobs count as good works?

Because God judges a work by the faith in which it is done, not by how religious it looks. Luther complains that people treat only praying in church, fasting and almsgiving as good works. A craftsman's work, walking, eating and sleeping, done in trust that God is pleased with him, are good works too. Those who deny it, he says, have drawn good works far too narrowly.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Faith, the First of All Works

If people are made right with God by faith alone, does doing good still matter? Luther's answer turns the objection round: faith itself is the highest good work.

Good works, Luther begins, are only those God has commanded, and the first commandment asks for trust. So faith heads the list, and every other deed takes its worth from the confidence that it pleases God: lifting a straw in that confidence outranks raising the dead without it. A husband and wife sure of each other's love need no rulebook, and neither does faith. The book's real target is narrow piety that counts only church prayer, fasting and alms and despises a craftsman's working, eating and sleeping.

faith
good works
grace
trust
worship
religious practice
prayer
hypocrisy
humility
conscience
suffering

Enter a dialogue

The Commandments, One by One

What does each of the Ten Commandments ask a person to do, not just to avoid? Walked through in order, they turn out to cover the household, the street and the church.

Taking the commandments in turn, Luther asks of each what good work it calls for, and faith keeps reappearing as the master workman behind them. The holy day's best work is prayer for all Christendom, enemies included. Honouring parents binds parents too, who must not let a child have its own will. The ban on killing demands meekness, not the false kind that is gentle only with friends, and greed is a failure of trust. Along the way he tells church authorities to punish public vice rather than excommunicate debtors.

commandments
obedience
work
parenting
political authority
chastity
greed
self-discipline
justice
temptation
church reform
church authority

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 205
distinct concepts: 256
by passages held, corpus-wide: #346

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “faith” and “good works”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 24 pairings. 83 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
faith	good works	40
faith	prayer	22
faith	grace	19
faith	religious practice	12
good works	religious practice	12
faith	worship	10
faith	sin	7
religious practice	worship	7
good works	grace	6
good works	worship	6
grace	prayer	6
prayer	sin	5
faith	obedience	4
good works	obedience	4
grace	sin	4
good works	prayer	3
grace	religious practice	3
grace	obedience	2
obedience	sin	2
prayer	religious practice	2
good works	sin	1
grace	worship	1
obedience	religious practice	1
prayer	worship	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1517 Ninety-five Theses (Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum)
Where the quarrel began: an academic exercise in Latin, followed within months by the German sermon that carried its argument to lay readers.
LA
1518 Sermon on Indulgences and Grace (Ein Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade)
The German companion to the Latin Ninety-five Theses: the same quarrel over indulgences, taken out of the lecture hall and put to lay readers a few months later.
DE
1520 A Treatise on Good Works (Von den guten Werken) you are here DE
1520 Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation von des christlichen Standes Besserung)
The first of the three books of 1520 that made the break with Rome public; The Babylonian Captivity of the Church followed in October and The Freedom of a Christian in November.
DE
1520 The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae praeludium)
Of Luther's three treatises of 1520, the one written in Latin for the learned: the appeal to the nobility before it was in German, and The Freedom of a Christian, after it, appeared in both languages.
DE
1520 The Freedom of a Christian (Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen)
Meant as a peace offering to the pope, the third of Luther's treatises of 1520 turns from the institutions of the church to the life of a single believer.
DE
1522 A Sincere Admonition by Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion (Eine treue Vermahnung zu allen Christen, sich zu hüten vor Aufruhr und Empörung)
Written in hiding between the Diet of Worms and Luther's return to Wittenberg, in the same winter that he began translating the New Testament into German.
DE
1522 Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (Vorrede auf die Epistel S. Paul an die Römer)
A companion to The Freedom of a Christian: the same teaching on faith and works, given this time as a way into the book of the Bible it came from.
DE
1523 Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei)
A sequel that corrects its predecessor: three years after asking princes to reform the church, Luther marks the line beyond which their power over Christians stops.
DE
1529 The Large Catechism (Der Große Katechismus)
Sermons turned into a book: the catechism sermons Luther preached at Wittenberg in 1528, reworked into the fuller of his two catechisms.
DE
1529 The Small Catechism (Kleiner Katechismus)
Published a month after the Large Catechism, it gives the household the words to learn by heart, where the larger book explains them to the preacher.
DE
1530 An Open Letter on Translating (Ein Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen)
Eight years after the September Testament, and four before the complete German Bible, Luther explains how the translation was made and why he would not undo it.
DE

— or open another of their works