TRF has touched on the topic of Luther and predestination during the 1530s and 1540s – obviously, not in any sort of comprehensive way – in previous posts (here, here, here). So, I was studying Luther’s doctrine of the Trinity and reading his sermon for Trinity Sunday of 1537. Luther was commenting on this passage of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:

³³ O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” ³⁵ “Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?” ³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

After Luther’s meditations on the Trinity and the limits of human understanding about God, especially “what and how things happen within that divine essence” (5), he said the following about predestination:

In this Epistle reading [Romans 11:33-36], St. Paul wants to show Christians that these high, divine matters — that is, both His real divine essence and also His will, government, and works — are and remain simply above all human thought, understanding, and wisdom; in short, they are incomprehensive, inscrutable, and hidden. Everything they presume and undertake to search, know, teach, and investigate about this is in vain, and even darkness and lies. If anything is to be learned, known and found about this, it must be only through revelation, that is, God’s Word given from heaven above. [It might be noted that, earlier in the sermon, Luther acknowledged the truths, however partial, about ethics and even God’s unity in pagan writings, even the works of Aristotle.]

We do not apply these words of St. Paul to the question of divine predestination: whether each person in particular will be saved or not. God does not want us to ask or search out anything about that. That is why He gives no special revelation about this but points all people to the Word of the Gospel, by which they are to be guided so that they hear and know it; if they believe it, they will be saved. So all saints have become confident and have laid hold of their election and eternal life not through special revelation about their predestination, but through faith in Christ. That is why St. Paul (when he speaks about predestination in the three chapters before this text [Romans 9-11]) does not want anyone to ask or investigate whether or not he is predestined. Rather, he points everyone to the Gospel and faith. Previously, he taught that we are saved through faith in Christ, and he says, “The Word is near, in your heart and in your mouth” (Romans 10[:8]), etc. He himself explains that this Word should be proclaimed to all people so that they would all believe it, as he says, “There is also one Lord of all who is rich toward all who call on Him, for ‘Whoever calls on the Lord’s name will be saved'” [Rom. 10:12-13; Joel 2:32].

However, he is talking about God’s amazing governance in His Church, namely, that those who have the name and reputation of being the people of God and the Church (such as the people of Israel) are rejected because of their unbelief. The others who previously were not God’s people but were under unbelief, now that they receive the Gospel and believe in Christ, become the true Church before God and are saved. The first group was rejected only because of their own unbelief. On the other hand, God’s grace and mercy in Christ were offered for eternal life without any merit to those who previously were in unbelief and sin, if only they would accept and believe it, as he says, “God has enclosed all under unbelief so that He may have mercy on all” [Rom. 11:32].

This text now follows, which which he begins with great astonishment at the governance and work of God in His Church, saying: Oh, what a depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments and inscrutable His ways! [Rom. 11:33] These are the high thoughts and counsel of God, which very highly surpass every human mind and understanding, even all creatures! He abundantly pours out His goodness and out of pure grace and mercy chooses the poor, miserable, unworthy [people] who are enclosed under sin, that is, those who know that they are truly worthy and guilty of eternal wrath and damnation before God. He wants them to know both what He is inwardly in His divine essence and what He has in His heart, namely, that through His Son he wants to give all who believe eternal life and salvation. (Martin Luther, “Trinity Sunday, Rom. 11:33-36,” in Church Postil IV, ed. Benjamin T. G. Mayes and James L. Langebartels, vol. 78 of Luther’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2015), 8-10, emphasis added in bold)

1. Luther encourages the readers of Romans 9-11 not to think about their individual predestination but about God’s governance in his church.
2. In light of Luther’s infamous, though tragically not unusual (and here), views about the Jewish people in this period, it would be helpful to grapple with his reading of Romans 11 as a whole.
3. The incomprehensibility of God’s judgments and the inscrutability of God’s ways in Romans 11:33-36 was in the past (here, ch. 16, and here) and future (here and here) used in the context of the perplexity that many Christians have experienced when wrestling with the mystery of predestination, especially in its Augustinian formulations. These figures have also counseled caution about speculation. But Luther’s desire in 1537 to turn this passage to a broader meditation on God’s providence towards the Jewish people and the conversation of the Gentiles is remarkable. And Luther’s concerns seem to align in broad strokes with some scholarly accounts (here, here (pp. 238ff.), etc.) of this section of the Epistle to the Romans.
4. It appears that the liturgical calendar in Wittenberg was organized around Trinity Sunday. The sermons for the following weeks are titled First Sunday after Trinity, Second Sunday after Trinity, and so on.