c. 1515 (1513–1521)

Luther: The Discovery of the "Righteousness of God" and Justification by Faith Alone

Trained in the via moderna, Luther in his first lectures on the Psalms (1513–1515) still taught that God by covenant justifies the one who "does what is in him," and he understood the "righteousness of God" in Rom. 1:17 as the punishing attribute of the Judge. Meditating on the words "the righteous shall live by faith," he came to understand it as passive righteousness – a gift by which the merciful God justifies through faith; according to McGrath, scholars date this breakthrough to about 1515. For Luther, justifying righteousness is the "alien" righteousness of Christ, imputed to the sinner rather than implanted in him, hence the formula "at once righteous and a sinner." Faith is not a work of the mind or will but a work of the Holy Spirit and personal trust in God's promises, uniting the believer with Christ as a bride with her bridegroom; good works are the fruit, not the means, of righteousness. González calls the dialectic of law and gospel the heart of his theology: the law exposes sin, and the gospel is God's undeserved "yes," which declares the law fulfilled for us.