Lectures on Galatians

Luther's 1531/1535 great commentary on Galatians — major theological work

Tradition: Lutheran / Reformation

Luther's 1531/1535 great commentary on Galatians

Luther's Lectures on Galatians — delivered at the University of Wittenberg in 1531 and published in 1535 (the so-called 'Great Galatians,' to distinguish from his earlier 1519 Galatians commentary) — is among Luther's most beloved and most-influential theological works. Luther regarded Galatians as his 'epistle, to which I have been betrothed; it is my Käthe von Bora' (a famously affectionate identification with the Pauline letter alongside his wife Katharina). The commentary is the mature statement of the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide), worked out through extended verse-by-verse exposition of Paul's most polemical anti-works-righteousness epistle. Luther reads Galatians as Paul's foundational defence of the Gospel against the 'false brethren' who would supplement faith in Christ with circumcision and Mosaic-law observance — and uses this exegetical occasion to articulate his own theological position against the Roman-Catholic 'works of supererogation' tradition, against the late-medieval Pelagian-tinged piety he had absorbed in his Augustinian-Erfurt years, and against the Anabaptist and 'enthusiast' radicals who were emerging as a third front by 1531. Key Lutheran themes receive their classical formulation: the distinction between law and gospel; the imputed righteousness of Christ (iustitia aliena, the alien righteousness given to the believer); the simul iustus et peccator (the believer is simultaneously righteous in Christ and sinner in himself); the proper-pastoral use of the law (to drive to Christ); the Christological hermeneutic of Scripture; the freedom of the Christian. Edited from student-note-transcripts by Veit Dietrich and others under Luther's authorisation, the commentary became one of the principal texts of the Lutheran Reformation. John Bunyan reported that Luther's Galatians 'before all the books I ever saw' best fit his condition; John Wesley read it with great profit; the early Reformed (Calvin) engaged it carefully though with reservations.