On the Freedom of a Christian: With Related Texts

by Martin Luther, Tryntje Helfferich (Editor)

Perhaps the clearest and most influential statement of the principles driving the early Protestant reformers, Martin Luther''s "On the Freedom of a Christian" (1520) challenged the teachings and authority of the old Church while simultaneously laying out the blueprint for a new one.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christian, Christianity, Nonfiction, School, Philosophy

162 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 13, 2013

About the author

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a German monk, theologian, university professor and church reformer whose ideas inspired the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of Western civilization.

Luther's theology challenged the authority of the papacy by holding that the Bible is the only infallible source of religious authority and that all baptized Christians under Jesus are a spiritual priesthood. According to Luther, salvation was a free gift of God, received only by true repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah, a faith given by God and unmediated by the church.

Luther's confrontation with Charles V at the Diet of Worms over freedom of conscience in 1521 and his refusal to submit to the authority of the Emperor resulted in his being declared an outlaw of the state as he had been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Because of the perceived unity of the medieval Church with the secular rulers of western Europe, the widespread acceptance of Luther's doctrines and popular vindication of his thinking on individual liberties were both phenomenal and unprecedented.

His translation of the Bible into the vernacular, making it more accessible to ordinary people, had a tremendous political impact on the church and on German culture. It furthered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the translation of the English King James Bible. His hymns inspired the development of congregational singing within Christianity. His marriage to Katharina von Bora set a model for the practice of clerical marriage within Protestantism.

Much scholarly debate has concentrated on Luther's writings about the Jews. His statements that Jews' homes should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated and liberty curtailed were revived and used in propaganda by the Nazis in 1933–45. As a result of this and his revolutionary theological views, his legacy remains controversial.

Reviews

[Shelby Peck · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Although I am unworthy and condemned, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part, out of pure, free mercy, so that from now on I need nothing except faith which believed that this is true. Why should I not therefore freely, joyfully, with all my heart, and with an eager will do all things which I know are pleasing and acceptable to such a Father who has overwhelmed me with his inestimable riches?”

[Jonah Twiddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear, concise summary of many of the major tenets of Luther's theology and an insightful glimpse into the turmoil of the Reformation.

[Dominic Muresan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful message sent straight to the pope, on the importance of the Gospel for salvation, a gospel that cannot be gained but through Faith. Luther talks about the value of commandments to a christian's life, the righteousness of Christ given to us (in a most beautiful image of marriage), but he is most valuable on the importance of works.
Luther's attack on them is not, as many would falsely characterise it, for the sake of it, but for the sake of freedom. The christian, in his freedom from the law, doesn't need works to gain righteousness, thus all his works are done out of love of God and out of humility towards the world. A christian is a servant to all, he does good for their sake, not for his! It's a total change of perspective. Man is not caught in the egotistic and individualistic trap of doing good for his salvation, but as an act of worship to God. That is the substance of christian liberty!

What can I say? Luther surprises me with his eloquence and copious amounts of common sense again!
9.5/10

[Marc Sims · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Luther. This was written in 1520, one year before the Diet of Worms and Luther's formal and final break with Rome. This was one of the books that was laid before him which he was told to recant.

He didn't. And that is good.

"A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."

This is the thesis of this work. The heart of it centers on the role of faith and works, and the Christian's responsibility to his neighbor. A Christian is not "subject" to anyone and a "perfectly free lord of all" because God alone--not the church--justifies him through his faith. So good works for a neighbor are not required to earn salvation. But, a Christian is simultaneously "subject to all" and a "perfectly dutiful servant" precisely because he already has been saved by his faith alone. Because of the love of Christ given to the Christian through Jesus' own death, a Christian now naturally overflows with a desire for good works and love for neighbor as a natural consequence. Thus, Luther's famous dictum is proved true, "We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that remains alone."

If you want a snapshot of early Reformation theology--and, for that matter, simply Christian theology--look no further. I was surprised at the balance in this book since Luther (particularly later in life) can be famously lopsided in some of his writing. The Reformation sought to recover the doctrine of the early church that the middle ages had lost, and this work shows just how spot on (and how needed) that Reformation was.

[James Bunyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one."

Luther basically writes this short book as an exposition of these two propositions.
Banger- very helpful and a good way to get to grips with Luther and his view of justification by faith.
Loads of it is quotable!

Helpful quotes
On the convicting power of the law: "[The Laws] were ordained, however, for the purpose of showing man to himself, that through them he may learn his own impotence for good and may despair of his own strength."
On the marriage of Christ to the church: "If we compare these possessions, we shall see how estimable is the gain. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sin, death, and condemnation. Let faith step in, and then sin, death, and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the soul. For, if He is a husband, He must needs take to Himself that which is His wife's, and at the same time, impart to His wife that which is His. For, in giving her His own body and Himself, how can He but give her all that is His? And, in taking to Himself the body of His wife, how can He but take to Himself all that is hers?"
On how the good gospel impacts our hearts: "Who can injure such a heart, or make it afraid?"
On identity leading to works: "For nothing makes the person good but faith, nor bad but unbelief."
On legalists and those of tender conscience: "Fight vigorously against the wolves, but on behalf of the sheep, not against the sheep."

[Giovanni Generoso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luther at his best! This is a classic text on the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone, apart from the works of the Law, over against the Catholic doctrines of justification by faith and works.

Recent scholarship, however, (namely, the New Perspective on Paul) has challenged the very assumptions that shaped the debate between the Reformers and the Catholics, and has sought to redefine such terms as "righteousness," "justification," and "faith" in terms of what we find in Jewish literature of the Second Temple Period. The debates continue on! We shall see the shape of Pauline scholarship in due time. Nonetheless, this text is as important historically as it is helpful theologically.

[Sam Harder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This edition does a good job of presenting Luther’s works in context with his Catholic and more radical Protestant contemporaries. As a convert to Catholicism, I obviously quibble with some of Luther’s conclusions. But I still deeply value his exhortations to pray and serve others out of a sense of free love instead of legalistic obligation. I remain convicted that what unites Christians is far more important than what divides us. I would suggest this book to any Christian who wants to learn more about Luther’s theology. It’s honestly way more interesting than what any YouTube apologetics video can convey.

[Jonathan Suggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic for a reason.
The section on union with Christ is 🔥

“And if they [Christ and the soul] are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage indeed the most perfect of all marriages, since human marriages are but poor examples of this one true marriage—it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own.”

[Michael Jeffries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent exposition of Christian freedom and love of brother. I’d read this again.

[Daniel Lieber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is far shorter (approx. 30 pages) and not as complicated as some of Luther’s other works, but it is perhaps the most foundational to understanding what it means to be saved by grace through faith. For anyone seeking clarity on this doctrine, this book should be high on the list because Luther emphasizes the joy and freedom of those who rest in Christ’s merit rather than their own. He talks of the great exchange on the cross where our sin become’s Christ’s and His righteousness becomes ours. He speaks of how good works are no longer an obligation but are freely and joyfully offered in gratitude to the Lord. The thesis is well summed up I think by the following quote: “The work of man is the same; how he stands in faith or unbelief determines if his works are good or evil, not the other way around, that how his works stand determines if he is pious or believing… This it is clear that faith alone, by sheer grace and through Christ and His word, makes a person sufficiently pious and saved.”

[Brian Ferry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many important and noble themes are expounded on by Luther in a time when the laity began to question faith in the Catholic Church. However, the book itself is fairly repetitive and uses passive language that sometimes makes it difficult to understand Luther's exactness on the aforementioned themes.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Martin Luther’s Concerning Christian Liberty (1520) appears in volume 36 of The Harvard Classics, alongside his 95 Theses (1517) and Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520). Luther was the father of the Protestant Reformation and in this pamphlet, he directly attacks basic tenets of the Roman Catholic Church of his era. He argues the theological concept of justificatio sola fide (often abbreviated to sola fide), meaning “justification by faith alone.” The idea is that Christian faith is the only path to salvation, whereas Catholic doctrine has traditionally required good works for a person to become right with God. Luther states that good works will come naturally to a person who has experienced salvation. There have been many ramifications from the ideas expressed in Concerning Christian Liberty, not all of which could have been imagined by its author.

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[Image: Cover of the Delphi Classics’ The Harvard Classics]

Citation:
Luther, M. (2018). Concerning Christian liberty (R.S. Grignon, Trans.). In C. W. Eliot (Ed.), The Harvard classics [eBook]. Delphi Classics. https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/t... (Original work published 1520)

SuperSummary Editorial Team. (2025, February 26). “Ninety-Five Theses Study Guide.” SuperSummary. www.supersummary.com/ninety-five-thes...

Title: Concerning Christian Liberty
Author(s): Martin Luther (1483-1546), R.S. Grignon (translation)
Year: 1520
Series: The Harvard Classics (1909): Volume 36 - Delphi Complete Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction
Genre: Nonfiction - Religion & Religious Criticism
Date(s) read: 4/12/25 - 4/13/25
Book 77 in 2025
*******************************************************************************************

[Jonathan Fowler · Rating 3 out of 5]

If they [Christ and the believer] are one flesh [in marriage],…then it follows that all they have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things, so that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to itself and boast of its own, and whatever belongs to that soul, that Christ claims as his.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agree, and disagree.

[Chungsoo Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freedom from sin, freedom to love

The initial distinction Luther draws between the soul and the body dissolves as soon as he discusses Christian love towards other human beings. If faith alone is sufficient to save the soul, then all the works of the body are useless unless directed towards the fellow humans in love. The soul is necessary to be made right with God in faith, the body is necessary to serve others, and thus "become a Christ" for their sake. The good man does the good works and not the other way around, as Luther puts it. Having been freed from condemnation, we are free to love others. Thus freedom from the economy of works and production leads to the freedom to love.). Luther quotes I Cor. 9: 19 (“I am free in all things and have made myself a servant of everyone”) (18). He further writes: “And toward my neighbor I will also become a Christ, as Christ became for me… I will become a Christ for my neighbor.” (38); “… a Christian does not live within himself, but in Christ and his neighbor; in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love” (41).
For Luther, freedom (of the soul) enables love towards the fellow humans (that requires the body). In short, it is the freedom of love which is at issue here. What kind of freedom is this? Is this similar to the soul transcending the body in the manner of the inverse incarnation that Levinas talks about: the descent of the soul (Christ) to the body (the Incarnation), so as to be a sacrifice for others (kenosis that Levinas calls "substitution"). In Luther, freedom of the soul (from condemnation) immediately becomes freedom of love (for others). In Levinas, desire for the Other is the love for the Other in substitution. Luther is in fundamental agreement here. For he states: We are free to love for the sake of others--even to death--as Christ did for us. Freedom does not lead to responsibility (as almost all western ethics teaches us). Rather, as with Luther and Levinas, we can say that freedom leads to love. We have the Christian freedom to love: freedom to serve. This freedom is burdened with responsibility for all others, like Christ substituting for the whole world-- inexhaustible and inexorable.

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual for a long-published work that has something close to the status of a classic, the rating is for the editing and apparatus. Editor Tryntje Helfferich writes one of the better and more lucid short accounts of the emergence of the Reformation and Luther's place in it that I've read. Because the title work is so brief, there are several make weights here, some more useful and judiciously chosen than others. Including Luther's open letter to Pope Leo X gives a decent taste of the man's briskly defensive side. The anti-Luther selections leave a bit to be desired. The Eck piece consists in large measure of collections of biblical quotations against Luther's position on works. John Fisher's sermon, if anything seems even more confused (and self-congratulatory). They have the effect of making Luther's opponents look simultaneously fervent and dim. There are better opposing pieces, but perhaps cutting them to fit might have entailed too much excision. Müntzer's "Highly Provoked Defense" nicely captures his captious style and shows that there were madmen to the left as well as the right of Luther. Concluding with Luther's own very nasty piece against peasants shows that everyone was capable of more heat than light in these matters, which may finally be the point of such a collection. The notes throughout are helpful (at the foot of the page, where they belong) and offer illumination of some of the most obviously obscure moments in these writers' prose. Also nice is the habit of citing the biblical verse whichever writer happens to paraphrasing in his argument at any one time. There's a list of further reading at the end (unannotated) with not too many surprises on it. A useful volume if at times an unedifying slog through theological slanging matches.

[Vincent Kajuma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luther is exceptional in this little treatise. It's facsinating to see his genuine respect for the Pope, whom he sees as a good man surrounded by people who flatter (by deifying!) and manipulate him for selfish reasons. He sees the pope as a "Daniel among wolves", expects goodwill from him, and dedicates this treatise as a gift to the pope, by which he can examine Luther's doctrine.

The Christian's freedom, as Luther uses it here, is not the freedom of indifferent things ('adiaphora') as we tend to primarily think about it. It is freedom from the authority that the law has to either condemn or justify us. We are married to Christ, who is no longer under the law, but simply loves God and loves us. We, like Christ, do not need obey the law for ourselves. Having been justified completely by Him, our obedience cannot offer us anything or take anything from us but is to please him, and to love our neighbours.

I wasn't sure about the division of man as soul and body, where the soul believes and the body does good works. I think he's on to something on the difference between our inner and outer man, but the language is not feliciotous.

It is one thing to read peoples' representation of Luther's thought; it is another to read him for yourself!

Highly recommended.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had only read excerpts of On the Freedom of a Christian before, so I was glad to read the whole thing. Luther explains not only the place of faith but also of good works in his theology. The accompanying documents were also helpful. There were lengthy excerpts of criticisms of Luther by his nemesis Johannes Eck and English bishop John Fisher. From another angle, the editor included the revolutionary theologian Thomas Muentzer's harsh assault against Luther for not siding with the peasant rebels in the mid-1520s, as well as Luther's call for the nobles to suppress the peasant rebels. The commentary by the editor was helpful, too.

[Russ Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read many books that are leaves on the branches of Christiantiy, but this book is the tree trunk from which the others have sprouted. Reading the actual words and thoughts of Martin Luther as he wrestled with the existing church and the pope (which eventually led to the Protestant reformation) is fascinating and lays the foundation for most of today's reformed theology. It's a short book and an easy read once you get past Luther's introduction to the pope (I'd recommend skipping this part).

[Joseph Sverker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic if anything, not simply a theological one either. One of Luther's most celebrated works, and probably because it is less polemic in tone than much of his other writing. After reading this book I find it difficult to understand people who argue that Luther has no place for good deeds in his theology. He makes his views quite clear here. With that it is of course possible to disagree, or that Luther was wrong, but surely it is not possible to say that he didn't think or work out a view on good deeds.

[Tieno · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't understand the first half of this. As a Catholic, his ideas didn't click with me. However, the more I read, the more sense I got from it. Although I disagree with Luther's methods of faith and Christianity, his concepts are reasonable and sensible. His heart is obviously in a good place, and he makes strong and accurate revelations about faith in his contemporary that are still relevant today. I may not agree with his means, but I agree with his intentions. He does make some good points!

[Dave Pettengill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative articles of the beginning of Protestantism and Luther's viewpoints. It also gave a clear view of those who opposed Luther on his quest. At times in reading the articles I felt like I was reading a 1500's version of people complaining about one another on religious blogs.

[Min Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to no one. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”
This great masterpiece essay by Martin Luther really helped me to think clearly about this greatly distorted belief.

[Emma Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for school and found it very thought-provoking. It's especially interesting for me, because I have attended Catholic school my entire life, and I had never been exposed to opposing viewpoints in a significant way before this.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a big fan of that guy who called Martin Luther "Doctor Liar." It's especially funny when you consider that liar in German is "Lugner," so it's a pun. Anyway, it was alright. I guess I get the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism now. Still an atheist, though.

[Bill Torola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read from the "Father" of the Reformation

[Brad Dieno]

This is the full definition of grace. Parallel to the writings of Paul. Anyone who ministers God's grace start here. This is where the Reformation started again.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this classic Martin Luther treatise for our Book Club. It's been relevant for 500 years.