Quite a topic for a Friday in June! I was digging around for something in Martin Luther’s Table Talk – informal remarks of the reformer to his students, friends, etc. – and stumbled upon this passage from Spring 1533 (vol. 54 of Concordia Edition, p. 87, no. 502):

Concerning the statement, “It depends not upon man’s will [or exertion, but upon God’s mercy,’ Rom. 9:16], I respond: In this passage Paul was doing nothing less than disputing about predestination, but he was speaking against the Jews and the righteousness of the law and he meant to say, ‘You must despair, give God the glory, and confess that you didn’t start it.’ When I was a monk I depended on such willing and exertion, but the longer [ I worked at it] the farther away I got. What I have now I have not from exertion but from God. So in this passage Paul was saying everything against presumption, so that we may say, ‘Lord, whatever [good] there is in us exists by thy grace.’

Luther links Paul’s statements in Romans 9 to presumption and makes a pretty standard autobiographical remark about his focus on works during his days as a monk. Everything good comes from divine grace.

So he also appeals to that saying, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy’ [Rom. 9:15], that is, ‘you won’t do it without my forgiveness.’ In short, all this is spoken against those who are proud: ‘He to whom I give it will have it; you are not to win it from me by your holiness.’ What more should he do? He says, ‘You are to have it. But when you seek it and insist on having it because of your righteousness, I won’t suffer it. I would rather throw everything away — priesthood, kingdom, even my law. But expect grace from me, and you will have it.’

But then things get a bit more interesting. One of his interlocutors intervened:

When somebody inquired whether a person [under the papacy] would be saved if he had not embraced this teaching of ours, he replied, “I really don’t know.”

So, apparently, after laying out Luther’s teaching on grace and works and his reading of Romans 9, someone asked about those who did not embrace the Protestant soteriological vision. It is obviously not everything that those with an ecumenical spirit might dream of, but “I don’t know” is still better than saying that they would certainly be damned. And Luther goes on:

God might have had regard for his baptism. This could do it. Even so, I have seen many [monks] die with a crucifix held before their eyes [as was then customary]. In spite of everything else, the name [of Christ] proved to be effective on their deathbed.

Baptism and turning to the crucifix when one faces death – these things help Luther to give an answer to someone apparently concerned about the salvation of those – perhaps for many centuries – who did not embrace Luther’s teaching on justification by faith alone. Luther was famously told as a young Augustinian to look to the wounds of the suffering Christ in the midst of his trials. It is perhaps noteworthy that the Archbishop of Toledo, the Dominican Bartolomé Carranza, gave similar counsel to the Emperor Charles V (d. 1558) on his deathbed – something that actually generated controversy!

Perhaps even more fascinating is no. 514 in that same spring of 1533 (pp. 90-91) where Luther says that “Paul wasn’t discussing predestination with the Jews but was disputing only with those who opposed it and said, ‘We are the people of God, we have the fathers, the promises were given to us,’ etc. He didn’t touch upon predestination except to repudiate the righteousness of the law.”

The idea that Luther tried to focus the attention of his followers on justification by faith alone and on Christ himself rather than on the mysteries of predestination is a standard claim. But his suggestion that this is also what Paul was doing in Romans 9 is worthy of note. Even more significant is the role of the sacraments and sacramentals in his discussion of the salvation of monks!