Justification, the Clearest Light

[Justification by faith] is the chief article of Christian doctrine. To him who understands how great its usefulness and majesty are, everything else will seem slight and turn to nothing. For what is Peter? What is Paul? What is an angel from heaven? What are all creatures in comparison with the article of justification? For if we know this article, we are in the clearest light; if we do not know it, we dwell in the deepest darkness. Therefore if you see this article impugned or imperiled, do not hesitate to resist Peter or an angel from heaven; for it cannot be sufficiently extolled.

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The article of justification is the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines; it preserves and governs all church doctrine and raises up our conscience before God. Without this article the world is utter death and darkness. No error is so mean, so clumsy, and so outwarn as not to be supremely pleasing to human reason and to seduce us if we are without the knowledge and the conetmpleation of this article.

Source: Quoted in Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says, A Practical In-home Theology for the Active Christian. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 1959 Edition, 10th Printing (1994), pp. 703, 705.