Martin Luther finally understood the Gospel in Romans 1:17 “For in it (the Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written ‘the righteous shall live by faith.’”

Near the end of his life he wrote, “Then, finally, God had mercy on me, and I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that gift of God by which a righteous person lives, namely, by faith, and that this sentence-the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel-is passive, indicating that the merciful God justified us by faith…Now I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered Paradise.”

He wrote in further explanation of what it meant to discover that the Gospel was the heart of Scripture.

“For the person is justified and saved, not by works or laws, but by the Word of God, that is, by the promise of his grace, and by faith, that the glory may remain God’s, who saved us not by works or righteousness which we have done, but by virtue of his mercy by the word of his grace when we believed.”

Hymn: Almighty God Your Word is cast

Stanza 4,

So when the .precious seed is sown,

Life giving grace bestow

That all whose souls the truth receive

Its saving pow’r may know.