Luther (and Walther): Who is a Christian?

      A certain hymn was known to me in my lifetime – I think I may have sung it somewhere with other people… it could have been with other LC-MS Lutherans… I can't remember where or when.  But it strikes me now as a particularly un-Christian hymn.  A quick search for it in Wikipedia reveals the reason why it is so wrong for Christianity – it was written by a Roman Catholic priest.  What was the hymn? “They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.”  Now this is a good time to present C. F. W. Walther's blurb in the 1881 Der Lutheraner, vol 37, p. 13 that quoted one of Martin Luther's great writings contained in one of his Church Postils.  Translation by BackToLuther, also in English by Lenker Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 5, p. 329-330.:

Who is a Christian?

Luther writes in his Church Postil: 

“One is not called a Christian because he does much, but because he takes from Christ, creates and lets him give only. If a man no longer takes from Christ, he is no longer a Christian; so that the Christian name remains only in taking and not in giving or doing, and that he takes nothing from anyone but from Christ. If you look at what you do, you have already lost the Christian name. It is true that one should do good works, help others, give advice and give; but no one is called a Christian by this, and therefore he is not a Christian. Therefore, if a Christian is to be considered rightly, he must be recognized as taking only from Christ and having Christ in him, for this is what the Word actually implies. Just as one is called white from the whiteness that is in him, black from the blackness, great from the greatness: so also a Christian from Christ, whom he has in him and from whom he receives good things. Now if any man be called a Christian by Christ, he is not called a Christian by his works: and it soon follows that no man is a Christian by works. I may be called a faster, a praying man, a pilgrim by my works, but not a Christian. Even if you add all your works together, even if you add all the works of others, you still do not have Christ and are not called a Christian by them. Christ is another thing and something higher than the Law and the commandments of men. He is the Son of God, who alone is willing to give and not to receive. If I am so skilled as to take from him, I have him; if then I have him, I am justly called a Christian.” (XI, 2452, 2453). [St. L. 11, 1837-1838; see also Lenker, Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 5, p. 329-330]

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      Note well! Luther first, and repeatedly, identifies who is not a Christian!  Only then does he show who is a Christian. And this distinction, as Luther points out, is what separates the true Lutheran Church from Rome and the Reformed sects. The following passage in Holy Scripture expresses this explicitly:

“Not of works, lest any man should boast.”  Eph. 2:9