CHURCH: History and Today Jan. 27

Martin Luther

Martin Luther

And here we are, we’ve come to the man himself, Martin Luther. As we have seen in the last two classes, there has been a lot of buildup to this point, and Luther found himself in the middle of all these pieces fitting together, working together to build up to a certain point in time. To start, I want to read an excerpt from the book The Story of Christianity by Justo L. Gonzalez. This is his introduction to his first chapter about Martin Luther. But before that, let’s start with a question.

What comes to mind when we hear the name Martin Luther? Actions, events, theology, etc...

Just a quick note of interest before we jump in, here’s an interesting fact about Luther. He was known to be quite loud, and apparently he and his wife owned and operated a private brewery! They sold some of their craft to make ends meet, and some was used to “lubricate all those theological discussion over mealtimes and into the evenings.” (Reeves, 59) Luther enjoyed alcohol, and at times his wife would reprimand him for drinking too much! There it is, history can be interesting!

About Luther (1483-1546)

Martin Luther was born in 1483 in the town of Eisleben, Germany. He was born to a peasant family, his father started as a miner but eventually owned several foundries. His childhood was described as “unhappy.” His parents were strict and punished him severely for doing things wrong, and at school he was sometimes whipped for not knowing his lessons!

His father wanted him to be a lawyer, but Luther did not. In his early 20’s, several events in his life worked to guide him to a monastery. One reason was that he wanted to escape his father’s strong push to a career in law. Another reason was that several weeks before he went, he was caught in a strong storm, and being overcome by fear of death and hell, he had promised St. Anne that he would become a monk. But perhaps the biggest reason was because he was worried about his salvation.

If we think about the effects that the Black Death had on the European world, death had become so commonplace that life was simply preparation for the next life. That reality had such an impact on society that even 150 years later, life was still treated as such, at least to a certain extent.

He received his Masters Degree and later, in 1512, a doctorate in Theology. As a monk, Luther was incredibly devout. He pushed his body to the extreme, going on total fasts (no food or water) for three days at a time, several times, among other things. But the reason that he was so devout was that he was terrified of God. It seemed that no matter what he did, he was not worthy of God’s love, and could never do enough to be saved. To quote Gonzalez again, “God seemed to him a sever judge - much the same as his father and his teachers had been at an earlier time - who, in the final judgement, would ask for an account and find him wanting.” This fear of judgement and salvation is one of the most important factors in his theology and teaching later on. He was always aware of his guilt and deep sinfulness. No matter what he did as penance or what his teachers or colleagues did to assure him, it couldn’t dissuade him from the fact that he was a miserable doomed sinner separated from God. ‘The justice of God’ filled him with hatred, since God’s justice meant the punishment of evildoers and sinners.

A New Understanding

There were many factors that worked together to change Luther’s mind about salvation and God, but ultimately he saw things differently after closely studying a certain single verse. This was

Romans 1:17 ESV

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

It took Luther days, even weeks of studying and pondering this verse before that understanding of justification by faith alone became real to him. Once that happened, Luther wrote, “I felt that I had been born anew and that the gates of heaven had been opened. The whole of Scripture gained a new meaning. And from that point on the phrase ‘the justice of God’ no longer filled me with hatred, but rather became unspeakably sweet by virtue of a great love.”(Gonzalez, 25)

When we hear of Luther’s peace and joy at understanding even a single verse in the Bible, what does that do for us? Do we read and study the Bible with the same desire to understand God as Luther did, or have we lost some of that desire and passion?

But surprisingly, this isn’t what put him center stage. For a time after this new discovery, Luther kept teaching as a priest and professor. He had many discussion with his colleagues, but this new understanding stayed mostly within Wittenburg, where he lived and taught. Actually, before he wrote his famous 95 theses, he wrote another list, 97 theses. These didn’t take off nearly as much, because it was written in Latin, so only a few people could even read them. These theses criticized some key points of scholastic theology. But it didn’t seem to get much of a reaction.

So it Begins

But then he wrote another list. This list had to do not only with church theology, but also with church practice. The main topic THIS list of theses attacked was the sale of indulgences. He wrote this list in Latin as well, but someone, without his permission, translated it into German and circulated it, and this caused a massive stir, bringing Luther to the attention of the Pope himself.

But

What were indulgences? What role did they play in theology at the time? What role did they play in people’s lives? When we hear what indulgences were and what they implied, how do we respond?

Basically, an indulgence was a favor or blessing given by the church, and these could ease the punishment of sin here on earth but also after death in purgatory. An indulgence played a role in the sacrament of penance, or confession. People had to confess their sins, and, at its most basic level, “make up” for those sins, and there’s a lot more going on here than just that. Jesus and the saints had done much more good than they needed themselves, and this extra righteousness has gone into a “treasury of merit.” The pope, being the ultimate authority before God, can open this treasury to others who are less worthy. In exchange for an act of merit, such as going on a crusade, making a pilgrimage, or making a financial donation to the church, the individual can receive some of this excess goodness from the treasury of merit, and do away with the need to do penance. I apologize but this is a very simplistic explanation. If any of this interests you further, we can do some more research on Catholic theology some other time. I am not doing this justice at the moment. Please don’t think that this is all there is to the theology of indulgences.

Indulgences did not start as something you could buy. But again, time is the real killer hear, and over time the sale of indulgences became more common. One of the big reasons for this was greed. The sale of indulgences had a big impact on the crusades. Popes needed funding for their military costs, and many of these sales went directly to that. Other financial reasons for indulgences were construction, of all things. The sale of indulgences during Luther’s lifetime was going towards two things. First, one of the noble houses in Germany wanted to buy a bishopric (the territory in which a bishop has jurisdiction). It was also initiated by Pope Leo X, and I quote, “one of the worst popes in an age filled with corrupt, avaricious, and indolent popes.” (Gonzalez, 26) Pope Leo dreamt of rebuilding the city of Rome to its former glory and finishing St. Peter’s Basilica.

The salesmen of indulgences would sometimes make outrageous and ridiculous claims about the power of indulgences, at times treating them like magic trinkets that would give immediate benefit to the people, even though some of these claims directly contradicted even the Catholic theology they were representing! The reason that the sale of indulgences worked so well for a while was that with indulgences, people were promised that they could limit or absolve their time in purgatory and go straight to heaven, and could even shorten the time their deceased loved ones spent in purgatory! Since these words came from the church itself (and keep in mind that these words were spoken to an uneducated, illiterate population whose only hope for salvation was the church) it had to be true.

Based on our understanding of what Luther had discovered in Scripture, where does this sale of indulgences contradict Luther’s understanding?

Luther had a big problem with what was being said here, and he wasn’t the only one who was disturbed by this most recent indulgences sales campaign in his area. There were many others who noticed that this wasn’t what it should be. And in the middle of this all, on October 31, 1517, Luther nails his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg. This list directly attacked the sale of indulgences, and it spread rapidly.

Why do you think that this list of theses had such a big impact on the world compared to his previous list?

Direct attack on the income of the church, pope, and lords.

Others focused on practice, Luther attacks not only the theology but the practice as well. If the theology had changed but practice stayed the same, would it have made such a big difference? Perhaps not.

Luther on Trial

Obviously this all got the attention of the higher ups. Some Catholic theologians saw the similarities between Luther’s teachings and those of Jan Hus, who was burned as a heretic just a century before. And several years later, in 1521, he was summoned to the imperial Diet of Worms in the city of Worms, Germany. Now I’ll read another excerpt from a different book, The Unquenchable Flame, by Michael Reeves.

In this excerpt we heard Luther’s courageous yet dangerous response to the church. He was willing to risk his life for what he found in the Bible. Are we willing to have our “heads lopped off” as he was in the face of resistance? Why or why not?

Through all of this commotion, Luther also had a massive project he was working on, and that was the translation of the New Testament into German. This has been called his greatest work by some, since not only did the people hear the message of the Gospel from Luther, but now they could read it for themselves in a language they could understand.

Conclusion

In the middle of all the work Luther was doing, we should keep in mind that he was not a perfect person. As was mentioned before, he was uncouth and could be very rude and disrespectful. Part of that was that culture was much less politically correct in his time, and part of it was that he was simply a straightforward and blunt person. Probably Luther’s least favorite book in the Bible, he called the Book of James a “right strawy epistle.” It appears that this was because this book had very little to do with his theology of salvation by faith alone, instead of any historical doubt he had in it. It just didn’t really support his theology very much.

He also wrote a document called On the Jews and Their Lies. This reveals an anti-semitic side to Luther, and most people regret he ever wrote this document and some use it to dismiss Luther altogether. He wrote it from the perspective that Jews are Christian heretics, since they don’t teach Christ, even though their own Scriptures (the Old Testament) point to Him and thus their synagogues should be destroyed to prevent more heretical teaching, that there religion is a criminal offence, and that along with other blasphemers, Jews should be expelled.

Luther seemed to have a lot of strong, solid Biblical teaching, however there were certain things that definitely don’t resonate with us today. Does that mean we throw all his teachings away, or do we take the good, leave the bad? How do we know what is good or bad?

Are there teachers and scholars today that we treat the same way? What is the difference between taking the solid biblical teachings and just finding support for our personal preferences?

Do we see any parallels in this story to anything that is recorded in the Bible?

Salvation by faith in Christ alone

Scripture is the ultimate authority and the standard for Christian faith and behavior, not popes, councils or any other source besides the Bible.