Luther's Reformation

In 1517, the Christian tradition had two major branches: in the East was the orthodox tradition, and in the West was the Roman Catholic tradition. These were, by no means, the only Christianities in existence - the Nestorians in Arabia, the Gnostics in Persia, the Coptic tradition in Egypt all continued to flourish outside the two large branches and were considered heresies. But within the sphere of what was known as the Holy Roman Empire (basically western Europe), Roman Catholicism was the only game in town. Those in the West who attempted to pursue any Christianity outside the authority of the Roman bishop (the Pope) ran the risk of excommunication, arrest, and even death.

The start of the 16th century is a key time in western Europe's history. Columbus had just "discovered" the Americas, and explorers began seeking its riches. This accelerated tensions between the four powers of Europe: the Spanish, the English, the French and the Dutch. Michelangelo was achieving his fame, Galileo was insisting on a sun-centered solar system, the printing press was brand new - all of these pieces would contribute to what we know as the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was supposed to be a lawyer, according to his father. But Luther, for whatever reasons, was a man with an acute religious anxiety. Given the Roman Catholic system that had taken shape by the 1500s, a person who took religion seriously could easily feel that anxiety.

The Church had defined the human problem as an offense against God - we are unjust from our birth, and God must, in his perfect justice, destroy us. The righteous shall live by faith is a line that Paul had quoted over 14 centuries before in his letters to the Christians in Rome and Galatia, and in the 16th century the Roman Catholic Church had come to believe that it meant that we must live faithful lives in order to be declared just, and thus escape God's anger and judgment. But the human being did not have the ability to choose that path, because we were already born as sinners.

But God, in his mercy, had given the world Jesus Christ, so that we would be delivered from our inability to live faithfully, and thereby be saved. In other words, when a person is baptized by the Church, they are cleansed from all prior sin, and their will is set free to choose to live for or against God.

Luther tried. On the way to the university to become the lawyer his father wanted him to be, he was caught in a fierce thunderstorm in the Black Forest. In fear, he cried out to St. Anne - Save me and I shall be a monk! Of course, the thunderstorm passed, and Luther returned home to tell his father that his destiny had changed. One gets the feeling the Martin's demeanor was a little too cheery for one who had such a close brush with death. At any rate, he journeyed forth and joined an Augustinian monastery.

(At the time, there were already a variety of monastic groups within the Roman Catholic tradition, in addition to the general life of the local parish. Such groups provided the committed few the opportunity to escape from the temptations of daily life in order to devote themselves to a life of prayer and faithfulness. The Franciscans followed St. Francis's teaching, Dominican's followed Dominic de Guzman's -- both from the 13th century. Before that, a monastic order - that is, a set of rules for ordering monastic life -- had been established by Benedict at Monte Cassino in Italy in the 500s and many continue under that order to this day. The Augustinian order had grown up in northern Africa even earlier under the ordering of Augustine of Hippo in the 300s. It was this last group that Luther joined.)

Luther was an excellent student, and while in the monastery he pursued the university degree in Biblical Theology - culminating in a Masters degree (the highest possible) and a teaching position at the University of Wittenberg. But Luther's conscience was fraught. He was perpetually in the confessional, speaking his sins, big and small. Considering that life in a monastery was rather cushioned from daily temptation, most of the sins he confessed were likely either very old or very small. But Luther believed in the Roman Catholic system, and knew that any sin unconfessed would simply prove he was not faithful enough, and could deny him salvation.

Two events changed Luther's convictions. The first was the arrival of a salesman of indulgences. The Catholic tradition maintained (and still does maintain) that certain heroes of the faith were not only faithful, but more than faithful -- their lives had surpassed God's expectations on them, and thus their goodness was available to those who did not have sufficient goodness. In simple terms, the saints had done so much good that their extra was available to overcome any shortcoming of faith a typical Christian might have. That merit was in the hands of the Pope, who could offer it to the people of the Church. The sale of indulgences made that extra merit available to people, not only for themselves but for anyone else who had died and in whose name a Christian might purchase it. Since the shortage of faith in this world could mean a person could get stalled in the purifying state of Purgatory for thousands of years, a person in this world could easily be convinced that the purchase of an indulgence on their behalf was a deep act of compassion and love.

Luther found the practice questionable, to say the least. Thus, he formulated 95 points of debate regarding the practice, such as the question, If the Pope has the power to apply the merit of the saints and set Christians free from suffering and grant them access to heaven, "Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love?" (#82). Luther intended a scholarly debate, and posted his 95 Theses on October 31, 1517 as an invitation to the university faculty and students. However, the local printer, with his new printing press, saw the chance to try out his new equipment, and printed up copies of the 95 Theses for anyone to have. Before long, the Pope was one of those who had a copy.

The second event came of Luther's preparation for an upcoming class on Paul's Letter to the Romans. Luther had aquired Erasmus's Greek New Testament, published in 1516. Prior to its publication, there really was no New Testament available in its original language. Only the Latin translation known as the Vulgate were available. But with Erasmus's New Testament, a new possibility existed to read the text in the language behind the translation. Luther, his friend and colleague Philip Melanchthon, and others taught themselves Greek and began to explore the original. Luther says that he was in the privy, reading Paul's letter, when he came across that line "The just shall live by faith." In that moment, he realized that the Latin translation had hidden the phrase's meaning. Instead of seeing something like "the one who lives faithfully will live," Luther read, "those who have been declared righteous will live by faith." With that discovery, Luther began to turn the Catholic system upside down.

Luther was not systematic in his writings, so it is hard to make everything he said fit into a single, consistent argument. But one new positions he unfolded is the idea that the human problem was indeed "sin" but that "sin" was at its heart a condition, not a moral failure. We are, Luther said, "in bondage to Sin, Death and the Devil." The three are nearly interchangeable terms. Our problem is that we have been snatched from God by the power of Death -- we are born mortal, destined to die, and theis is the meaning of "sin". God, acting in Jesus Christ, engaged in a cosmic battle with the power of Death, the Devil, and in the time between Jesus's death and resurrection, Death was destroyed. Those who are baptized into Jesus Christ are indeed given full freedom to choose, but the choice is not between life and death - that choice has been made for the Christian already, in the act of baptism carried out by the Church. Luther called God "the Hound of Heaven" -- and insisted that the one baptized into Christ could not be lost to Death again.

Thus, the Pope had an empty power. For his argument, Luther was excommunicated by the Pope in 1520. The prince of Saxony saw this as an opportunity to make a political break from the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire, and took with him the churches of Germany. He set Luther to the task of creating a new Church, something Luther himself had never wanted to do. The wheels of the Reformation had begun to roll.

 
Copyright 2001 Thomas P. Shoemaker