The Lost Fool

 

The Lost Fool

Comments on Galatians with an ear to Luther’s commentary

Scripture Text: Galatians 3:10 and John 14:1–7

Series: Comments on Galatians

Today's Scripture Jigsaw

What does Luther mean when he says that “every ‘holy,’ ‘moral’ law-worker is accursed”? One might think of the man trying to find his way across the country, clearly lost but unwilling to ask for directions. His wife begs him to stop and ask for directions but he is too much of a “man” to ask for help. Hours later, he finally admits defeat and stops at a gas station to ask for directions to their location. The attendant, who grew up near where the man wants to go, gladly offers him directions but then, the man drives off in the opposite direction, confident that he knows better than the fellow who hailed from there. 

You are accursed if you are more confident in your lack of direction than the clear directions of one who knows how to get there. You have cursed yourself by choosing to be lost. 

In the same way, if you choose to go to heaven by a route that Jesus declared is not the way, you are accursed, a fool who is proud to be lost. If you try to earn God’s favor through religious devotion, pious works, keeping the law, or just being moral, then you are accursed. Jesus himself declared that you do not get to heaven in these ways. He said that he is the way, that you cannot go to the Father except through him. Paul said that we have access to the Father through Jesus (Ephesians 2:18). Now, if you think you are smarter than Jesus who came from the Father and knows his way around heaven, then you are self-cursed. If you believe you can work your way there or get there by being a fine example of a human being, you are self-deceived. Jesus is the way. Period. If you would keep the commandments, keep this one. “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us” (1 John 3:23).

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