On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.1 To understand the significance of this event, we must understand the historical context.
In the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church was the dominant world power. The Roman church had supreme authority over politics and religion. The Pope could set up kings and emperors and he could also remove kings and emperors. If anyone resisted the tradition or teaching of the Roman Church they would be excommunicated or executed.
The Roman Catholic Church taught that the authority of the Pope and the tradition of the church took precedence over Scripture. This was helped by the fact that the only Bibles were in Latin so common people couldn’t even read the Bible if they wanted to. The Church also taught that the sacraments were the means of receiving God’s grace. Baptism, confirmation, communion, and confession were the necessary works required for salvation. If a person performed the sacraments, they would be forgiven of their sins, but their sins still required punishment, either in this life or after death. The Roman Church had the authority to grant indulgences, which would free the recipient from the punishment of sins. Indulgences were letters of pardon signed by the Pope that signified removal of guilt and release from the penalty of sins. Indulgences also shortened the required time in purgatory, which was a holding place after death where a person would pay the penalty for unconfessed sins.
In the 16th century, the Pope had to raise funds to pay for the construction of St. Peter’s cathedral, so he decided to sell indulgences. People could pay money to the church and receive an indulgence either for themselves or for a loved one who had already died. The men who sold the indulgences would say, “when a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.”
The Roman Catholic Church was a massive, dominant force in the world of the 16th century. Now enter Martin Luther. Luther was a monk in the Roman Church. He studied the Scriptures diligently and he followed his religion legalistically. But his heart was in turmoil. At one point he was studying this passage in Romans 1.
I hated that word, "justice [righteousness] of God," which, I had been taught to understand as that justice by which God is just and by which he punishes sinners.Martin Luther trusted Jesus as Savior and he realized that his relationship with God was based on grace alone. So when Luther saw the Roman Church selling indulgences, he knew it was unbiblical and that it minimized the cross of Jesus and that it cheapened the grace of God. So he wrote 95 arguments against the sale of indulgences and nailed it to the door of Castle Church.
But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I did not blaspheme, then certainly I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God. I said, "Isn't it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity through the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?" This was how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience. I constantly badgered St. Paul about that spot in Romans 1 and anxiously wanted to know what he meant.
I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice, i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: "The just person lives by faith." All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates.2
Martin Luther loved Jesus, loved the gospel, loved the Bible and loved the church. He said, "the troubled conscience, in view of God’s judgment, hath no remedy against desperation and eternal death, unless it take hold of the forgiveness of sins by grace, freely offered in Christ Jesus.” “But where Christ is truly seen, there must be full and perfect joy in the Lord, with peace of conscience, which thus thinketh: Although I am a sinner by the law, and under condemnation of the law, yet I despair not, yet I die not, because Christ liveth, who is both my righteousness and my everlasting life.”3
Let's thank God for men and women who have stood firm for the faith and let's allow their example to compel us to deeper love for Jesus and the gospel.
1 James M. Kittelson, Luther the Reformer (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986); and Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand (New York: Mentor, 1950); and Mark A. Noll, Turning Points (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997).
2 Martin Luther, Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Works, 1545, trans. Andrew Thornton, http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/tower.txt
3 Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians (trans. by Erasmus Middleton; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1979), xiii, xvi.
