Tag Archives: Martin Luther

Twas the dawn of Reformation (a poem/parody)

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What happens when a history buff and theology geek can’t sleep around Christmas time?
How about a mash-up that goes something like this (updates in italics):

Reformers: Luther, Erasmus, and Zwingli

Reformers: Luther, Erasmus, and Zwingli

‘Twas the dawn of Reformation, all thro’ the land,
penance was sold for a Cathedral so grand.
The theses were hung on Wittenburg with great care,
In hopes that needed reform soon would be there.
Now, Martin Luther was torn with guilt you see,
the gospel of Romans was what set him free,
But the marketing plan used by one Tetzel,
tied up good news into a works based pretzel.

When all across Europe there arose such a clatter,
it was clear to see the gospel does matter.
Cajetan was sent to Ausburg in a flash,
to examine Luther who was acting quite rash.
Next up was Eck, the debate was quite a show,
to Papal authority Luther said no.
Then what in Martin’s inbox should now appear,
but a Bull from the Pope, you’re out now my dear.

Now, what next in history should happen , just wait
But the Diet of Worms to decide Luther’s fate.
More rapid than eagles his accusers came,
they questioned his writings and put him to shame.
Luther asked for more time and prayed thru the nite,
Before them he said – Here I Stand for what’s right.
Tho’ captive to God, he was hidden from view,
Tis’ dangerous to challenge the Pope’s purview.

Erasmus the scholar, who brought back the Greek,
A fight with Luther he did not want or seek.
For, the Catholic Church, both sought to restore,
But on this issue they created rancor.
Does anyone have the ability to choose,
or is it our God who determines you lose?
The Bondage of the Will or is it set free,
a doctrine on which we may never agree.

In Zurich, Zwingli joined Luther’s reform work,
After fighting in Marsburg, called him a jerk.
Despite much in common, one thing caus’d tension,
the presence of Christ, the point of dissention.
Now what do you believe and hold to be true?
These things Luther presents in Augsburg to you.
Translating the Bible so it can be read,
Luther helped many change to living from dead.

Now two more reformers entered the fray,
and sola scriptura was what they did say.
The faithful, Calvin said, only God can elect,
sorry if it was you He did not select.
But, Arminius did not see it as such,
instead he taught that coming to faith ‘went Dutch’.
Now, this doctrine they tried to settle in court,
and a TULIP was grown at the Council of Dort.

While in doctrine we don’t all see eye to eye,
In God and His Word, does authority lie.
Reformed and reforming by this we’re driven:
Telling all – by faith, salvation is given.
’cause Jesus exclaimed as He rose out of sight,
be My witness to all, thru My power and might.
And in all that we do may God get the glory,
as we live our lives based on this Christmas story.

Happy Reformation Day

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Originally published on Oct. 30, 2009

Martin Luther

On Oct. 31, 1517 Martin Luther (reportedly) nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany thus sparking the Protestant Reformation.
The immediate problem Luther was dealing with was the selling of indulgences to pardon sins and free souls from purgatory. This was an offense to the real good news that we are saved by grace through faith!

A few years after posting the 95 Theses Luther would write Concerning Christian Liberty describing the inner and outer man, and the relationship between faith and works. In this work he gives the following illustration:

To make what we have said more easily understood, let us set it forth under a figure. The works of a Christian man, who is justified and saved by his faith out of the pure and unbought mercy of God, ought to be regarded in the same light as would have been those of Adam and Eve in paradise and of all their posterity if they had not sinned. Of them it is said, “The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. ii. 15). Now Adam had been created by God just and righteous, so that he could not have needed to be justified and made righteous by keeping the garden and working in it; but, that he might not be unemployed, God gave him the business of keeping and cultivating paradise. These would have indeed been works of perfect freedom, being done for no object but that of pleasing God, and not in order to obtain justification, which he already had to the full, and which would have been innate in us all.

So it is with the works of a believer. Being by his faith replaced afresh in paradise and created anew, he does not need works for his justification, but that he may not be idle, but may exercise his own body and preserve it. His works are to be done freely, with the sole object of pleasing God. Only we are not yet fully created anew in perfect faith and love; these require to be increased, not, however, through works, but through themselves.

Let’s remember the courage of Martin Luther and other reformers who took a strong stand for Jesus making sure that the truth of the Gospel was clearly taught at a time when it was dangerous to do so.

Clear and Present Danger

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Clear and Present Danger is not just a good book and later movie but got its start in the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) way back in 1919. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writing the unanimous opinion for the SCOTUS in the case Schenck v. United States, gave us the clear and present danger test. It states in essence that there are times when the 1st Amendment right to free speech may be restricted. The test was actually refined through additional cases as a means to protect speech unless the immediate threat of illegal activity was present.

The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.  (emphasis added)

Martin Luther (Lucas Cranach the Elder 1526)

In Luther’s introduction to his commentary on Galatians, he articulates his own test for clear and present danger when it comes to matters of theology.

I have taken in hand, in the name of the Lord, once again to expound this Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians: not because I desire to teach new things, or such as you have not heard before, but because we have to fear, as the greatest and nearest danger, that Satan take from us the pure doctrine of faith and bring into the Church again the doctrine of works and men’s traditions.  (emphasis added)

There are areas where people can have theological differences, but whenever the gospel itself is being compromised then we must rise up to define and defend it. Why?

If this doctrine is lost, then is also the whole knowledge of truth, life and salvation lost.

Consider the danger that is present when someone teaches that people are right before God on the basis of the “works of the law” (active righteousness).

There is a danger to:

  • the one teaching “another gospel” whom Paul tells to ‘go to hell’ (Gal 1:8-9)
  • the people who are led astray by this false teaching and find themselves without Christ (Gal 5:4)
  • the preservation of the gospel itself (2:5)

In order to understand and defend the gospel, according to Luther, we have to know the difference between two types of righteousness. That which is active and that which is passive.

An active righteousness, as defined by Luther, is one that is achieved through our natural strength and abilities. It is earned through work and effort and is contrary to grace.

A passive righteousness is one that is not worked for. It is achieved by the strength and abilities of another and we receive it by grace through faith. This righteousness is contrary to works.

In contrasting these two forms of righteousness Luther asks a question and then emphatically answers it:

Do we then do nothing? Do we do nothing at all for the obtaining of this righteousness?

I answer, Nothing at all.

If we do nothing then is passive righteousness received by all? Though it is available to all, sadly, not all receive it. In order to receive this righteousness, nothing is done. However there must be an apprehending of this righteousness through faith. Is faith a work, thus making passive righteousness a form of active righteousness? No. Not according to Paul.

Now to the one who works, his pay is not credited due to grace but due to obligation. But to the one who does not work, but believes in the one who declares the ungodly righteous,his faith is credited as righteousness. … For this reason it is by faith so that it may be by grace (Rom 4:4-5, 16 NET)

Notice that work and grace are contrasted and considered incompatible. One can’t work for something and say it is by grace. Yet, “not working”, grace, and faith are all shown to be similar and in agreement with each other. No matter what we may think about faith, it is clearly not a “work” or activity that is in conflict with grace.

If we do nothing but have faith then are good works contrary to this form of righteousness? May it never be! One who has accepted passive righteousness should show love and goodness ‘how and wheresoever the occasion arise’. For it is good works that are the “true religion” and are how a follower of Jesus is going to be identified (James 1:27; John 13:35; 1 John 4:8). These good works, which are the expected result of having received passive righteousness, should not be mistaken as the means to earning or keeping what was provided by grace.

Yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.  And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. (Gal 2:16, NET)

The next post will examine Paul’s defense of the gospel in Galatians.

I seek not active or working righteousness, for if I had it, I could not trust it, neither dare I set it against the judgment of God. Then I abandon myself from all active righteousness, both of my own and of God’s law, and embrace only that passive righteousness, which is the righteousness of grace, mercy, and forgiveness of sins. – Luther

[Continue reading through the series: part 3]

Happy Reformation Day [Insane Guilt]

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If chapter four of the Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul was about how God’s holiness unsettles people, then this chapter explored that theme through the lens of Martin Luther’s life. I enjoyed Sproul’s retelling of key moments in the life of Martin Luther exploring the events and personality that shaped the man who sparked the Protestant Reformation. If you are looking for a good intro to Luther this chapter is excellent. I am a church history buff and have added a new book – Here I Stand – to my ever growing Wish List too.

The thing that struck me (maybe because I can relate to some degree) was Luther’s obsession with his guilt resulting in his compulsions to go to confessions daily often for hours to be cleansed. He seemed to struggle mightily with trying to figure out how to be right before a Holy God. What brought him to a point where he could barely function…

Luther examined the Great Commandment, ” `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, `Love your neighbor as yourself”‘ (Luke 10:27). Then he asked himself, “What is the Great Transgression?” Some answer this question by saying that the great sin is murder, adultery, blasphemy, or unbelief. Luther disagreed. He concluded that if the Great Commandment was to love God with all the heart, then the Great Transgression was to fail to love God with all the heart. He saw a balance between great obligations and great sins.

Sproul describes most people when they realize the great demands of a Holy God:

The test is too great, too demanding; it is not fair. God will have to judge us all on a curve.  … Lesser minds went merrily along their way, enjoying the bliss of ignorance. They were satisfied to think that God  compromise his own excellence and let them into heaven.

However:

Luther didn’t see it that way. He realized that if God graded on a curve, He would have to compromise His own holiness. To count on God doing so is supreme arrogance and supreme foolishness as well. God does not lower His own standards to accommodate us. He remains altogether holy, altogether righteous, and altogether just.

This chapter brought home the fact that we really have a poor idea of what holiness is whereas Luther really understood this concept and it impacted his life mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Sproul quotes from Bainton’s Here I Stand  the following passage where Luther describes the insane guilt and how the truth set him free:

I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven….

I have seen this or portions of this quotation before and wondered from which of Luther’s works was it taken. I figured a quick Internet search would clear this up and I could then read the quote in context along with the rest of the work. While I found many hits that includes portions of this quotation it took awhile before I finally found the work of Luther from which this was taken. It appears in the Preface to The Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Works, which was published in 1545. However even this link is only an excerpt from the preface.

Since Romans 1:17 was such a crucial passage in Luther’s understanding the gospel and coming to Jesus I wanted to let readers know of a series that was done recently  last year where scholars explore how to translate that passage.

[originally posted on blogger on November 11, 2010]