The Scripture and Grace

It was today, October 31st, in 1517 that a young monk walked up to the church in Wittenburg and nailed a piece a paper to its doors — an act that would spark a firestorm in the life of this young monk and at the same time ignite a reformation in Christianity that would free people from the tyranny of religion and save them through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone.

You may think that this all started when Martin Luther pounded the first nail into the door, or maybe when Martin made his way to the church, or perhaps as he was writing down his 95 Theses at his desk. But the real start of the Reformation for the Church, the beginning of the reformation for Martin Luther, in fact the reformation of each of our hearts for saving faith begins with Scripture.

Acts 2:36–38 (ESV)

36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” 37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We understand this passage is saying that because Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for our sins we, in response, need to repent — turn away from living a life of our own desires and sinfulness and toward God through faith, and as an outward expression of our faith, be baptized.

Luther, however, would have read this passage, as many others had, and as many Roman Catholics still do — as a description of a two-fold plan of salvation.

In Luther’s day, almost no one had a copy of the Bible. Many churches did not even have a complete copy. The copy they did have was written in Latin, translated from the languages the Bible was originally written in (Hebrew and Greek) by Jerome in the 4th C.

In the Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate,

38 But Peter said to them: Do penance: and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Rheims New Testament)

From this was built an incorrect view of how someone is saved.

Baptism removes original sin

“doing penance” is the way sins are removed after baptism

Form this grew an entire theology that in order to be saved, to go to heaven, you must DO the work of baptism, and you must continue to DO penance in order to be seen as righteous enough for God.

It is this idea of needing to be righteous before a holy God that tormented Luther. Luther couldn’t figure out how he could ever be righteous enough in God’s eyes. He was constantly scrutinizing his every thought and action to see if there was sin involved.

confession for six hours

come back when you do something worth confessing

he would beat his body and sleep in cold without a blanket, or go without sleep all in an effort to show God how serious he was that he wanted to be loved by God (or at least not hated by God)

“If anyone could have earned heaven by the life of a monk, it was I.”

— Martin Luther

Through some travels and other experiences, Luther began to notice that few, if any, church leaders had any real desire to be righteous before God, and instead he found that many in church — even the pope himself — were using this idea of ‘doing penance’ not to become righteous before God but to become rich before men through the sale of indulgences.

Shortly after this, Luther was studying the New Testament not in Latin but in the original language of the New Testament — Greek and it is here that he came across Matthew 4:17:

Matthew 4:17 (ESV)

17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus is speaking — not pope, cardinal, other church leader — Christ himself — no higher authority.

preach — Jesus was calling out — this was a message for everyone

Saying — What Jesus is about to say sounds just like John the Baptist - in fact, from 4:12 we see that John was just arrested.

But John himself was echoing what all the OT prophets had called for — in fact, what we saw last week from the Prophet Joel.

Repent — That’s when he saw it. We have the word “repent” — similar to Acts 2:38 ; and in the Latin Vulgate both passages would have this word translated as “Do penance”

(poenitentiam agite) = ”Do penance”

Here in the Greek Luther noticed that is not what it said. Instead, the Greek word is Μετανοεῖτε, “Repent”

Luther realized this Greek word did not mean doing penance in any such way as the church was using it (sale of indulgences, working your way toward righteousness, etc). Instead, the word would mean “repent” — to change one’s mind really to change one’s whole direction.

This led Luther to write as his second of his 95 Theses:

“This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.”

— Martin Luther, Ninety-Five Theses

Even after discovering this Martin Luther still struggled with the idea of being good enough for God — being righteous enough.

Being a monk and only knowing a church that taught that you needed to do certain things to pay off your sins and earn your way to heaven, Luther felt as if he could never do enough. He was right.

Luther noted how he would struggle with Paul’s words in Romans 1:17

Romans 1:17 (ESV)

17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (quoted from Habakkuk 2:4)

“For I hated that word "righteousness of God," which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they call it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, "As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!" Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience.”

— Martin Luther, Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Writings.

“At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live.'" There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. . . Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”

— Martin Luther, Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Writings.

He realized the passage is not saying that the RIGHTEOUS (qualifier) will live by faith (consequence)

Rather, it is by FAITH (qualifier) the righteous will live (consequence)

Galatians 2:16 (ESV)

16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The Bible is our Final Authority — Do you know it?

The Bible is Truth (BIT)

Notice how Luther had a wrong view of God UNTIL he compared it with the Bible.

Here is where it gets scary — Luther’s incorrect view of God was given to him by the church.

2-part challenge here:

Become a student of the Bible (b/c BIT)

So many "Reformed” Christians today functionally operate today no differently in their understanding of the Christian faith than those Luther was willing to give his life for BEFORE the Reformation. Those who simply took another’s word for who God is, who Christ is, and how we follow him.

1 John 4:1–3 (ESV)

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

Testing the spirits does not mean to challenge every teaching for challenge’s sake or because we don’t like it. It means compare it to the revealed Word of God.

2. (Become a student of the Bible) with other Spirit-filled students. (b/c BIT)

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth and one way he does that is by our learning Scripture together.

Only Jesus saves — Do you know him?

Only Jesus Saves (OJS)

The essence of the gospel is that you cannot save yourself

“dead in your sin”

OJS

Natural inference of the gospel is that know one else can either.

Acts 4:12 (ESV)

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Many people think they can find immortality in

money

job

fame

spirituality

But OJS

This means the Church cannot save you which means, attending church cannot save you. Comes only through a relationship with Jesus. Because

OJS

We are saved by what Jesus did and not what we can do.

If we enter into God’s saving love not by anything we did, why would we ever think that we could do anything to take us out of his saving love?

I mean this in two ways:

— If Jesus did the work to get you saved, then he’s done the work to keep you saved.

If you couldn’t work to earn salvation, then you can’t work to keep it.

It is and always will be a gift.

— God’s love to you isn’t metered by your good works. You can’t earn favor with God.

You can stave off the natural consequences of sin through good works, but you don’t earn God’s love.

Maybe that’s not how you have ever understood love. You’ve been in relationships before where the love that was shown to you was directly related to the things you did for the other person.

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Some of you need to simply BE in the love of God instead of DOING to earn the love of God.

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