as a pattern and index of holy works which are pleasing to God and as a
deterrent from evil works, but they do not seek their salvation, neither
wholly nor in part, in the Law, nor do they look to the Law for strength
to do the will of God. Moreover Christians, while they are still in the
flesh, apply the Law to the old Adam in themselves; they bruise the
flesh with its deceitful lusts with the scourge of Moses, and thus they
are in a sense under the Law, and can never be without the Law while
they live. But in another sense they are not under the Law: all their
life is determined by divine grace; their faith, their hope, their
charity, is entirely from the Gospel, and the new man in them
acknowledges no master except Jesus Christ, who is all in all to them
(Eph. 1, 23).

When Luther directed men for their salvation away from the Law, he did
what Christ Himself had done when He called to the multitudes: "Come
unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you
rest" (Matt. 11, 28). The people to whom these words were addressed had
the Law of Moses and wearied themselves with its fulfilment, such as it
was under the direction of teachers and guides who had misinterpreted
and were misapplying that Law continually. Even in that false view of
the Law which they had been taught, and which did not at all exhaust its
meaning, there was no ease of conscience, no assurance of divine favor,
no rest for their souls. Christ with His gracious summons told them, in
effect: You must forget the Law and the ordinances of your elders and
your miserable works of legal service. You must turn your back upon
Moses. In Me, only in Me, is your help.

Moses himself never conceived his mission to be what the Catholics
declare it to be by their doctrine of salvation by faith plus works.
Moses directed his people to the greater Prophet who was to come in the
future, and told them: "Unto Him shall ye hearken" (Deut. 18, 15). Jesus
was pointed out to the world as that Prophet of whom Moses had spoken,
when the Father at the baptism and the transfiguration of Christ
repeated from heaven the warning cry of Israel's greatest teacher under
the old dispensation (Matt. 3, 17; 17, 5).

But was it necessary, in speaking of the inability of the Law to save
men, to use such strong and contemptuous terms as Luther has used? Yes.
The Catholics do not seen to know in what strong terms the Bible has
rejected the Law as a means of salvation. Pau