To state that Luther, in his essay: Treatise on Christian Liberty destroyed the motivation to live a morally good life would be an all too quick and equally false presumption. Rather, I feel that the opposite is true. In dealing with Luther's essay as well as my own personal beliefs I feel that Luther in fact strengthens every Christian's motivation for faith by way of grace and in relation, the use of works to exude an already present faith in Christ. Though it may seem that Luther shuns the idea of works he in fact presents, quite thoroughly, the case that works are nothing without faith. Yet it is by faith that works become a way of celebrating our salvation. In this essay I will show how Luther actually motivates Christians to …show more content…

We will take our ease and do now works and be content with faith…that would indeed be proper if we were wholly inner and perfectly spiritual men. But such we shall be only at the last day, the day of the resurrection of the dead."
This statement really hit home with me because it showed me that because we have both a mortal as well as spiritual nature we need to concern ourselves both with faith and works. In addition, until the day when we physically die and go to heaven we are still bound by earth and its carnal pleasures and desires. Luther reinforces this point in that he believes a Christian must "control his own body and have dealings with men" and this is the basis for why "works begin" (191). In the second part of Luther's essay he deals with the "outer man" and how the outer man is a reflection on the "inner man". That is to say that our outer works are done in response to what we hold onto with our "inner man". Luther shows that the outer man must show the goodness of Christ and our faith in him so that our outer man will "not revolt against faith and hinder the inner man" (191). It is man's natural desire to do work to bring praise upon him self yet as Christians we should not seek after personal praise but instead we should try and show God how much we love him by doing works as an example of the faith we have. In a way I think of works as a way to not only show God how thankful we are for salvation by grace but in addition