Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon Introduction:

This is Week Two of our study of the Five Solas of the Reformation.

This is Week Two of our study of the Five Solas of the Reformation.

We are looking at these Five phrases as the foundation for understanding what it means to be Protestant:

Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)

Sola Fide (Faith Alone)

Solus Christus (Christ Alone)

Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)

Soli Deo Gloria (For the Glory of God Alone)

As we look at this, the natural contrast is to the religious system that was in place during the Reformation, what the Reformers were trying to call back to Biblical Christianity: Roman Catholicism.

As I said last week, what we will do as we learn about each of these statements in contrast them to the teaching of the Church of Rome, which was pretty much the only visible church in that day.

To do that, we will spend some time in Church History which I have found to be very helpful to me personally as a Christian and I trust you will too.

Martin Luther

So let's set the stage a little bit tonight and go back to the 16th Century to understand one of the key figures in the Reformation: Martin Luther.

That name should be familiar to most of you.

We are not talking about Martin Luther King, Jr. (that's something I have to explain to kids pretty often when I refer to this Martin), but rather we are talking about a man who was born on November 10th, 1483 in the town of Eisleben, Germany.

Martin Luther was born in 1483 in Germany

Martin Luther was the first child born to Hans Luther (Luder), who was an ambitious man.

Hans had worked hard to gain a measure of success in his life and wanted his children to go further than he was able.

Hans oversaw a mine, and to gather enough funds to send his children to university and obtain better jobs than common labor, he took a second job overseeing another mine.

He was a very hard worker and pushed to improve the families position in life.

So skipping over many details, Martin Luther, the eldest son, was destined to be a lawyer (a job that didn't have quite the poor reputation in those days as it does today).

So Hans worked hard to get his son to this goal.

Martin was educated in Latin, grammar, rhetoric, and logic as was the common educational foundation in that day.

Once he completed those studies, he was then sent to the University of Erfurt in 1501 at the age of 19.

He graduated in February 1505 with his Master of Arts Degree.

This allowed him to now pursue the goal which his father had in mind, Law School and the eventual obtaining of the Juris Doctorate, or the Doctor of Law degree.

He graduated from university in 1505 with a M.A. and began working on his Law Degree.

Luther dutifully enrolled in Law School, but during that first semester, he requested time off from his studies and made a trip home.

It seems he was not as thrilled as his father Hans was about the vocation young Martin was destined for.

He asked his father to reconsider and let Martin explore other options for his vocation, but his father insisted and so Martin obeyed and headed back to Erfurt to continue his studies.

On his return back to Erfurt, a severe thunderstorm popped up and overtook him though.

A bolt of lightning struck very close to Martin during this heavy storm and in his surprise and fear, he called out "Help me, St. Anne… I will become a monk!"

He was spared from harm, through no act of St. Anne I assure you, and feeling convicted to honor his vow he went to the strictest monastery in Erfurt, that of the Augustinian Order.

Later in 1505, he applied to join the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt.

We will put a little pause on Martin's life story here and step back a little to understand the culture.

There are several things we need to understand about this time.

The teachings of the Roman Catholic church are particularly important to know here in order to explain the things that are taking place.

First of all:

Rome is considered the Church.

There was no church in the West outside of Rome at this point.

Going back, there was the Great Schism with the East in 1054 which created what we would refer to as the "Eastern Orthodox Church" (you may know of Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox as the more well-known parts of this today).

The belief of this day in the West is that what Rome teaches is the only Christian truth.

They are the church and they are dogmatically and doctrinally correct in all their teachings.

The belief of this being widely held is in large part because the laity (the common people) have no choice but to believe it.

Illiteracy is common place (among the laity and even many priests at this point in time actually).

Reading is slowly becoming more common, but for the common people it is mostly in the common languages of the people such as German, French, English, etc.

Scholarly works, particularly the words of theologians in the church, are all written in the academic language of the day: Latin.

Rome has not allowed the Bible to be printed in the "Vernacular" or the "Common Language" of the peoples at this point.

The Bible is officially the Vulgate.

If you recall other lessons we have had, that is a translation of the Greek and Hebrew into Latin that was done by Jerome.

At this point in Roman Catholic teaching and in the churches all throughout the West, that is the only way to read the Scriptures.

At this time in history, you were not allowed to read (much less interpret) the Bible unless you were authorized by Rome to do so.

This will be a key point in our study, the development of Reformation Theology, Protestant Theology, leads to the Bible being translated into the common language and being widely distributed.

In fact, we call the issue of the Scripture the "Material Principle" of the Reformation.

We will explore this in more detail when we look at Sola Scriptura, Scripture Alone, more fully.

The Bible at this time is only in Latin (The Vulgate).

So with Rome as the church and the Bible inaccessible to the common man, the traditions of the Roman Church are essentially the essence of what Christianity is from the view of the common people.

Definitional items for the Roman Church at this point are:

Belief in the Saints

Purgatory

Monastic Life

Purgatory

Sacraments

The Mass

Penance

The Papacy

Indulgences

We will take a look at each of these, as well as a few others, in our study over the next several weeks.

We will contrast these beliefs with what the Reformers taught.

With the lack of the Scriptures in the common languages already discussed a little, let's focus on these particular beliefs as they impacted Luther.

The Saints:

The first in this list is the belief in the Saints.

Now, you and I would actually probably really learn a lot from looking at the stories of many of these people.

They have fascinating lives and some are certainly worth studying.

However, you and I have a very different view today of what a saint is than what Rome teaches as a definition of saint.

In the Bible, a saint is simply a believer, not a special believer who did special things, but all believers.

I’ve stated before that "there are no Varsity vs J.V. Christians."

But that is not what Rome taught in the 1500s.

In fact, they taught just the opposite of my statement and do believe there are classes of Christians.

Saints are "particularly holy people" according to Rome.

They were either martyrs (those who were killed for the faith) or they were people who were incredibly holy in this life and are now said to "close to God" in heaven.

The belief is that these certain "saints" were so holy in life that they made it to heaven upon their death, not going into Purgatory (which Rome teaches is the fate awaiting most of us, and something we will discuss soon).

But these particular individuals were said to be in heaven and they are disposed toward helping us, being gracious toward us, based on certain relatable factors.

For Rome, Saints are special Holy People.

There were saints in general, but there were also "patron saints" or saints who had special favor for certain types or groups of people.

This is why Martin Luther called out to St. Anne on that day we mentioned.

He was taught that St. Anne was the patron saint of miners, the occupation of his father.

So in his moment of need, in his fear, he appealed to her for help, asking for her to mediate or intercede with God on his behalf so he could be saved from harm.

The view of the Roman church at this point strongly emphasizes that Jesus is God, they do rightly affirm His deity, but they teach that because He is God He is always angry toward us as sinners.

The Bible does, indeed, teach God's anger toward sinners.

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;

evil may not dwell with you.

5  The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;

you hate all evildoers.

6  You destroy those who speak lies;

the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

That God is said to “hate all evildoers” and not just “the evil they do” is striking.

The language in verse 6, he “abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”

isn’t the only place the speaks like this.