Tag: luther

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 14

Rev. Donavon Riley

One topic Luther engaged as a lecturer was the place of humility in a Christian’s life. In the Late Middle Ages humility was central to a person’s faith and life. It was taught that if a Christian wasn’t devastated by his sin, then he wasn’t ready to receive God’s grace. To help a person arrive at this state, the church came up with various spiritual exercises for him. Confession, penance, and other spiritual exercises were taught as necessary to achieve the proper mental and physical condition to receive God’s grace.

For Luther the monk, judging oneself in order to be in harmony with God, was necessary to salvation. Only the meekest would be blessed. Only a person in a state of true penance, who has made a genuine confession of his sin, can be raised up by God. However, for Luther the lecturer who taught the Psalms day after day, this belief began to lose traction. Martin concluded that either humility was a human work, which then led to self-righteousness, or a work of God, which led to pride. By the end of his first psalms lectures, Luther concluded that either way there was no comfort for a Christian who worked to become truly humble.

Of course, critics point out that Luther was always troubled by his inability to stand before God in true, genuine humility. His sin and lack of righteousness weighed heavy on him. His inability to work with God’s grace to achieve a state of genuine humility that led to salvation gnawed at him. Luther was always crying out to God for mercy, but didn’t believe himself worthy to of being heard by the Lord.

This all changed as Martin worked his way through the psalms and St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. By the end of his Romans lectures, Luther was convinced that human beings were only capable of living themselves. Even their profession of love for God was a confession of self-love, of loving a god formed in the image of man. Self-love was “the sum of all vices” for Luther.

Therefore, the underlying motive for striving after humility wasn’t a desire to enter into God’s grace, but the urgency of a sinner to put himself first, last, and always. Luther said it was “plainly insane” what he’d been taught: that a man had the ability to love God above all things and with the help of grace, obey the commands. He referred to his teachers and those who believed such things as “fools” and “pig theologians.”

What Luther taught shocked his students, that, “The term ‘old Adam’ describes what sort of person is born of Adam…the term ‘old Adam’ is used not only because he performs the works of the flesh but more especially when he acts righteously and practices wisdom and exercises himself in all spiritual works, even to the point of loving and worshipping God himself.” Because the old Adam always hangs round our necks, Luther taught, human beings not only “enjoy the gifts of God,” but also, “seek to use God.”

Just at that point when he believes he is most humble, most spiritual, most in harmony with God’s grace, human beings because they are “in the flesh” seek to use God to their advantage.

Next time we will look some more at how Luther changed what the Church taught about humility, but how this led him to proclaim Christ alone and cleared the way to a proper understanding of the Gospel.

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.

Woodcut (“Sauritt des Papsts”) after Lucas Cranach the Elder, used by Christian Roedinger the Elder of Magdeburg. According to I. Gobry, it is a reproduction of a Cranach woodcut (no. 6) in Martin Luther’s 1545 polemic Abbildung des Bapstum (cf. Image de la papaute (Grenoble: Millon, 1997), p. 118).

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 11

Wood carving of Luther rose
Saved by Christ alone

Rev. Donavon Riley

Throughout the course of his early lectures, Martin Luther found that even though he had been taught as a young monk that there was a vast, uncrossable chasm between sinners and a righteous God, that is not what he discovered in Scripture. Instead, especially in the pages of the Old Testament, Luther discovered sinful men and women pursued and saved by a God of faithful, lovingkindness; a God slow to judge and quick to forgive sinners; and a Savior God who led sinners down into darkest hell so He could carry them up into heavenly glory.

Martin was delighted to learn (and teach his students) that one does not become a theologian by knowing God’s mind and will, or by reading many theology books, but by “living, no, rather dying and being damned.” That, he discovered, is what makes a theologian.

This revelation was, as one Luther scholar writes, “like a pinch of yeast that gradually worked its way into his thoughts, his being, and his entire life.”

It is impossible to get to know Martin Luther unless one accepts that he embraced, in totality, what Scripture teaches about God’s righteousness: that God is righteous when He gives sinners His righteousness through Jesus Christ. God crosses the divide between Himself and sinners (a divide that sinners, not God, establish), and through Jesus’ bloody suffering and death, takes our sin on Himself and gives us His righteousness instead.

The reason this was so important for Luther, is that he also discovered in the Bible this truth: people cannot do anything other than love themselves. The first, middle, and last thing sinners only ever care about is themselves. Even when we are focused on being righteous our focus is on ourselves. We only worry about becoming righteous because we fear death and hell. Left to ourselves, without the threat of judgment and hell, we sinners will run amok through creation.

That is why, for Luther, he taught his students that people who imagine they can love God above all things and do what the Law commands as God Himself intends, are “plainly insane” “fools” and “pig theologians.”

There is no movement from sin to righteousness for Luther, not from us to God anyway. The whole movement of righteousness is from God to sinners through Christ Jesus. All a sinner, the Old Adam, contributes to his salvation, Luther said, is “sin and resistance.”

Everything human beings do is selfish, and everything God does in Christ Jesus is selfless. The scales of justice are then completely unbalanced because God has His thumb on the scale. Righteousness is always a one-sided action, from God to us.

This was a revolution for Luther that captured his entire imagination for the rest of his life, and it eventually resulted in his excommunication and a death sentence hung on him.

Next time, we will look more at this teaching about sin and righteousness that led to Martin Luther’s excommunication.

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 10

Luther reads about righteousness

Rev. Donavon Riley

For Luther, while he lectured on the books of the Bible at the University of Wittenberg, one question captivated his imagination: “Where can I find a merciful God?” And the one text that drove Martin forward was St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans [1:17] “For therein [in the Gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed.”

In the Late Middle Ages, it was popularly taught that the righteousness of God was the eternal law by which God is holy (and for us, unapproachable) and by which He will judge all people on doomsday. At that time God will hand out His just judgments on all people, and punishments or rewards will be handed out.

But, what about the righteousness of grace that comes through faith in Christ? Didn’t theologians before Martin Luther embrace that part of St. Paul’s teaching? The simple answer is, no, not really. Medieval theologians taught that what St. Paul meant by righteousness was this: The Church hands out righteousness in the place of and by the command of Christ.

At that time, righteousness was understood to be like money that is paid out because someone works hard for it or because someone makes a good investment of his time and talent. Christ’s righteousness doesn’t make someone righteous before God though. It puts one in a position to become righteous through faith and hard work. Then, at the Last Judgment, and only then, will each person learn whether righteous God has decided they are worthy of entering Paradise or whether they will be thrown into hellfire.

What was “new” about Luther’s discovery of the true, biblical meaning righteousness is that God’s righteousness cannot be torn away from Christ’s righteousness by which He makes righteous people for free as underserved gift. And that, Luther said, is “the reason all the faithful will be able to stand the test: ‘That is the long and short of it: He who believes in the man called Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, has eternal life – as He himself says (John 3:16): ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.'”

But why did Luther grasp this when so many other theologians, priests, and religious leaders did not? Because he tested what he read in St. Paul against the rest of the Scriptures. He did not go to church traditions, or theology books, or canon law, or the word of the Pope. The Bible, and nothing else, was his anchor at this time of gospel discovery. Only then, as he later said, were the “Gates of Paradise” opened and a flood of knowledge overwhelmed him now that he had finally broken through and grasped the text (Romans 1:17) in which St. Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk: “The just will live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). Therefore, as Luther said, “I am not good and righteous, but Christ is.”

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 9

Martin Luther Wittenbrerg doors

Rev. Donavon Riley

Martin Luther’s move to Wittenberg did not lighten his workload at all. In fact, if anything, after he received his special license that made him a candidate for the doctorate in 1512, Luther’s life became so busy he barely had time to sleep.

“I could use two secretaries,” Luther wrote, “I do almost nothing during the day but write letters… I am a preacher at the monetary, a reader at meals, a parish preacher, director of studies, supervisor of eleven monasteries, superintendent of the fish pond at Litzkau, referee of a squabble at Torgau, lecturer on Paul, a collector of materials for a commentary on the Psalms, and then, as I said, I am overwhelmed with letters. I rarely have time for the required daily prayers and saying mass, not to mention my own temptations with the world, the flesh, and the devil. You see how lazy I am.”

Still, the old nagging questions hung onto him. Martin was still in search of a merciful God. As “lazy” as he imagined himself to be, or not, Luther’s studies and teaching led him deeper into Scripture. He searched, and wrote, and lectured, and preached like a man on his hands and knees crawling through the valley of the shadow of death. He hunted God through the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, which was where his particular theological expertise lay.

This is why, as Luther later said, “I did not learn my theology all at once, but had to search deeper for it, where my temptations took me.”

During his early years as a lecturer Luther taught the book of Genesis (1512), the Psalms (1513-15151), Romans (1515-1516), Galatians (1516-1517), Hebrews (1517-1518), and again the Psalms (1518-1521).

And through them all, Luther was hunting for God’s mercy. He chased after “the righteousness of God,” to understand what “righteousness” meant. As Luther said years later, “I hated that word [at Romans 1:17], ‘the righteousness of God,’ which, according to the custom and the use of teachers, I had been taught to understand in the philosophical sense with respect to the formal or active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.”

“Though I lived as a monk without reproach,” he said, “I felt, with the most disturbed conscience imaginable, that I was a sinner before God. I did not love, indeed I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners and secretly (if not blasphemously and certainly with great grumbling) I was angry with God, and said, “As if indeed it is not enough that miserable sinners, eternally lost through eternal sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Ten Commandments, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel’s threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!”

This is why he had been taught, and continued to teach in his early lectures, that when St. Paul wrote that “the righteous live by faith,” Luther had to be righteous to be given and keep faith. Martin did not care how sinners come to God. He was only interested in how a Christian can live with a God whose demand for righteousness can never be satisfied.

God was righteous and holy. Martin Luther was not. And the Gospel, no matter how many times he heard it, taught it, or preached it, gave his heart no rest. Luther heard the Gospel, but the question stuck in his mind: “How can I ‘live by faith?'”

Next time, we will look at Luther’s biblical lectures and how these lectures led him to the discovery that changed not just the Christian Church, but the world.

Rev. Donavon Riley serves as pastor at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 8

Luther in Rome

By Rev. Donavon Riley

Martin Luther’s time in the monastery, all his study and work, all his searching for a merciful God, kept leading him back to the same point: If he wanted to enter into eternal life he needed to make sure he was always leaning toward heaven.

It didn’t matter if he was praying, or scrubbing floors, or just out for a walk, Luther was taught by every authority in the church, that if he just did his best, God would show him grace. But, only if the young monk did his best.

As Luther later said, when he thought back about this time in the monastery, “I Iost hold of Christ the Savior and comforter and made him a stick-master and hangman over my poor soul.”

There was not anything during those early years that shows us Luther was going to bust loose from what the church of his day believed and confessed as the truth about God, salvation, and so on. In fact, young Martin pretty much went along with what he was taught, even after he began to teach at university. He lived the way he was expected to live. He taught what he was expected to teach. He was, by most everybody’s opinion, a good and faithful monk.

Even his trip to Rome in 1510 did not change his attitude toward the faith of the Church. Near his 27th birthday, Luther was sent by his order to Rome in the hope that someone higher up, with more authority in the Church, could settle some political infighting that was happening amongst the monastic orders.

Luther and one other monk walked to Rome in the winter of that year—yes, they walked to Rome, over the Alps, in the winter!—as representatives of their order. Even though Luther expected to find a Rome (and a pope) that represented an example of faith, hope, and charity for the whole Church, what he found was something different.

First, the pope was not even in the city when Luther was there. Second, Rome was not a clean city. Garbage and sewage were dumped into the gutters. Wealthy people, especially women, avoided walking on the streets, mostly because they were under constant threat of being mugged. Third, Luther wanted to say a Mass at one of the little chapels that were everywhere in Rome at the time, but they were so jammed with priests wanting to do the same, that when he got his turn at an altar another priest behind him kept saying, “Hurry up! Hurry up!” the whole time. All in all, his experience in Rome was so bad that Luther, when he returned to Wittenberg, said that Romans were no better than dogs.

Still, he was able to overlook the poor conditions of the city and the overall miserable piety of the clergy he saw there, that as he later said, Luther “was so drunk… submerged in the Pope’s dogmas that I would have been ready to murder all… who take but a syllable from the obedience to the pope.” Life in Rome may not have been what Luther expected, but his hope in the Church and God’s grace were there for him, even if they were hidden and had to be hunted up.

When the young monk got back to Erfurt, and it was determined that what Rome had decided about their infighting was unacceptable, monks took sides. That is why, in the end, Luther and his friend Johannes Lang, were more or less pushed out of the monastery and sent into exile, to live at the monastery in Wittenberg, the “Black Cloister,” with their superior and friend in the Augustinian order, Johann von Staupitz.

Next time, we will look at what kind of city Wittenberg was in 1511, and what happened to Luther when he arrived.

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota. 

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 7

Martin Luther and Staupitz learning the Gospel

Rev. Donavon Riley

Martin Luther was now living with fifty other monks at the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt. Along with the regular monastic observances that occupied his time, “Brother Martinus,” as he was now called, spent much of his day sweeping and cleaning. Little time was left to him to continue his studies or pursue his questions about where he might find a merciful God.

But, at the same time, the new vicar general of the Erfurt monastery, Johann von Staupitiz, learned from others of Luther’s interest in biblical studies. After speaking to the young monk, Staupitz persuaded the monastery’s prior to give Luther a new job that would set him to the work of memorizing the Bible. Luther was now expected to learn the Bible, and be able to recite every page, from heart. Luther did this and impressed Staupitz so much that his career path as a professor of theology was practically certain.

However, before that could happen, and not even a year after he had entered the monastery, Brother Martinus was ordained into the priesthood. On April 3, 1507 (possibly on Easter Saturday) Luther was ordained. One month later, on May 2, he celebrated his first Mass at the Augustinian church.

By Luther’s own words, it was a difficult thing for him, that first Mass. As he later said while lecturing about Isaac’s prayer in the book of Genesis:

“‘And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord answered his prayer'” (Genesis 25:21). A prayer like this, which breaks through the clouds and reaches up to the majesty of God, is not easy. I, ashes, dust, and full of sin, speak with the living, eternally true God. This cannot but cause one to tremble, as did I when I celebrated the Mass… joyous faith, however, which rests on the mercy and the Word of God overcomes the fear of his majesty…and rises boldly above it.”

By 1507, Luther was on his way to becoming a Master of Theology, under the watchful eye of his professor, Johannes Nathin. By April 1508, Martin was scheduled to lecture. At Wittenberg, Staupitz set Luther to lecturing on Aristotle’s “Ethics” for the winter semester. Luther also prepared to receive his doctorate in theology at that time. In the autumn of 1509, he was called back to Erfurt to lecture, too. But that lasted only three-quarters of a year. Soon enough, Luther was called back to Wittenberg as a member of the theological faculty.

The next several years were critical for Luther as a monk and theologian. Church politics, the testing of personal allegiances, and a visit to Rome changed everything for him.

Next week we will look at just what happened to Martin that eventually resulted in his reformation breakthrough.

Note: If you’ve enjoyed these articles and want to know more about Martin Luther, I’ve been following the work of the remarkable Luther scholar, Heidi Obermann, in his book: Luther: Man Between God and The Devil. Also, in the weeks and months that follow I will introduce you, the reader, to other works by Luther scholars that I believe will help deepen your knowledge and appreciation for Luther’s life and work. Enjoy!

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota. He is also the online content manager for Higher Things.

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 6

Martin Luther with tonsure

Rev. Donavon Riley

Later in life, Martin Luther remarked that he had entered the monastery in search of a gracious God. He was driven, he said, “by trembling and fidgeting.” He was worried, after two near-death experiences, that God would not allow him to enter into Paradise.

Reflecting on his time in the monastery, Martin said, “I did not think about women, money, or possessions; instead my heart trembled and fidgeted about whether God would bestow his grace on me… for I had strayed from faith and could not but imagine that I had angered God, whom I in turn had to appease by doing good works.”

Luther was taught that his sanctification, his holiness in relation to God, came by works. On the one hand, all monks believed their entry into a monastic life was a divine call and they had been ushered into the monastery by God’s grace. On the other hand, they believed if they didn’t fight the good fight of faith they would never achieve the prize of forgiveness, life, and eternal salvation. For Luther, and all monks, grace was both gift and obligation.

But Luther was also taught it was not his responsibility to walk alone into the Last Judgment. On the way, he would receive help from the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary and St. Augustine, and other saints. All of them who had gone ahead of Luther into heavenly glory were always ready to help him in his fight against temptation, sin, and the devil. The only question for him was, “Will you accept their offer and rely on them to direct you to your final, heavenly goal?”

It wasn’t until later, after he’d been shown the Gospel, that Luther recognized the devil’s pre-occupation with good works. But, for Martin, the devil, by attacking him in this way, had actually helped the young monk to rediscover the Gospel. Luther said, “I became a monk by driving my head through the wall: against the will of my father, my mother, of God, and of the devil.”

This “driving his head through the wall,” for Luther, is what eventually caused him to collide with the practice of selling indulgences. Also, after wearing the monk’s cowl for fifteen years, Martin was prepared to speak knowledgeably and articulately about life for a generation of monks and nuns. As he was drawn closer and closer to Gospel freedom, the burden placed on himself and his fellow monastics became an unbearable weight. It broke his back, and caused him to cry out, not to St. Anne this time, but to God, and in that he received the answer he had long searched for: good news about a merciful God—a God who was for him and was the One who led him to confess: “Christ is different than Moses, the pope, and the whole world. He is not just different, he is far more than our conscience…When the conscience attacks you, he says, ‘Believe!'”

Next time, we will look more at Luther’s life in the monastery, his trip to Rome, and his increasing conflict with the sale of indulgences.

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 5

Young Martin Luther the Monk

Rev. Donavon Riley

Martin Luther wasn’t even 22 years old when he approached the monastery door in Erfurt. But he’d made up his mind. He knocked on the door of the Augustinian hermits. Martin asked the prior—the man responsible for running the monastery—to admit him.

Then Luther turned his back on a career in law, his father’s expectations, and his friends’ concerns. He allowed fear to drive him into a cloistered life. But why?

At the end of the winter semester in 1503, Martin traveled home to Mansfeld. On the way, the ceremonial dagger (a popular affectation amongst students at that time) Luther wore at his side stabbed him in the leg, probably in the femoral artery—a very dangerous, often fatal wound. A friend who had travelled with him ran to fetch a doctor, since they were still in sight of the city walls. While Luther laid there, propped against a tree, feet pointed toward the heavens, he prayed to the Mother of God: “Oh, Mary, help.” But that wasn’t the event that drove him to seek out the Augustinian hermits in Erfurt. It was, however, the beginning of the end of his law studies.

The second life threatening event, the one that finally drove young Martin into a monastery, happened on July 2, 1505. Caught in a thunderstorm, Luther believed he was about to die (again), and as fear overwhelmed him he cried out, “Help, St. Anne, [and] I will become a monk!” Family and friends tried to talk Martin out of his decision, but it was no use. Two weeks after the storm Luther threw a “going away” party for his friends. The next morning, he went and knocked on the monastery door. “You see me today and never again,” he said. He thought that was the last he’d see of the world. But it wasn’t to be for Luther. As he later remarked, “To the world I had died till God thought it was time.” Some of his friends, like Crotus Rubeanus and Johannes Nathin, compared Luther’s conversion to that of St. Paul. But, Martin didn’t see it that way, and neither did the Augustinian hermits.

Upon entry into the monastery, he was first questioned: Why did he want to join the order? Was his call truly “from God.” What happened during the storm near Stotterheim? Was he filled with fear and trembling about eternal life? Only after the order decided whether his answers were honest and true, was Luther admitted into the monastic life. He was informed of their decision when, as he lay face down at the prior’s feet, the prior prayed: “Oh, God, who kindles the hearts of those who have been converted from the vanity of the world to the victorious prize of the heavenly calling… May they recognize that the grace of their conversion has been granted gratuitously… Amen.”

Luther had come to the monastery for one purpose only. After two near-death experiences, overcome by fear and driven to question everything he’d done up to that point, what Luther wanted more than anything, what he ached for more than money, fame, or his father’s approval, was to find the merciful God.

Next time we will learn about what life was like for the young monk, Martin Luther.

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 4

Wood carving of Luther rose
Saved by Christ alone

Rev. Donavon Riley

After four years at the university in Erfurt, Luther had become “magister atrium“, which is what we know as a Master of Liberal Arts. He finished second amongst seventeen students who were candidates to receive a degree that year. By the time young Martin was prepared to test for his degree, he’d devoted four years of study primarily to the classic Greek philosopher, Aristotle and all his works on metaphysics, politics, ethics, and economics.

An exciting part of a student’s education at that time happened during the last two years at university. Students learned how to interpret and debate important topics, usually from the works of Aristotle. They also were expected to devote more time to the “quadrivium”—music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.

University was intense for any student. Administration and faculty set high expectations for learning and academic achievement. To make sure everyone was focused on their studies, students lived together in what we call “dorms” under strict supervision. Free time or taking a break from studies was not considered to be a part of a student’s daily routine. In fact, university life was very much based on a monastic style of life.

But, since life was so difficult during the late Middle Ages, why would anyone want to attend university? Why go through such a strict curriculum—one which many students could not complete? What was the upside to a university education and degree during such dark, apocalyptic times?

The simple answer is because there was an opportunity to become a theologian, lawyer, or doctor. Rulers and authorities always needed lawyers, especially as feudalism continued to crumble and capitalism began to capture peoples’ imaginations. More and more, daily life in city, town, and village was run by bureaucrats rather than dukes, earls, and lords.

In the field of medicine, Germany lagged far behind more medically advanced countries like Italy and England. A town doctor in Germany at the turn of the sixteenth century was, to put the best construction on things, one step above the local butcher for skill and usefulness. And often, it was the butcher who was the town doctor and dentist! But, there was a push to write new, up-to-date medical books and improve the quality of medical faculties at universities, and that meant a demand for more gifted young doctors.

Finally, skilled theologians were much sought after by the growing university faculties of Europe. Theological studies were, after all, considered “the queen of the faculties.”

To sum up, a university degree meant status, money, and a better life, not just for an individual, but possibly for his whole family.

After Luther’s success with the Master of Arts exam, his father, Hans, gifted his son with a sum of money so Martin could buy the necessary books to continue his law studies. However, several weeks later, young Martin returned the books unused to the bookseller in Gotha. He didn’t need them anymore, he said. He’d made a decision not to pursue a law degree. Martin had decided to enter the monastery instead, stunning both family and friends.

That’s why, after throwing a “going away” party, of sorts for his friends, Martin then entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt on July 16, 1505. Later, when he reflected on this decision at his dinner table at the “Black Cloister” in Wittenberg, Luther remarked that his decision to ignore his father’s authority, to disregard everything Hans had suffered and sacrificed so his son could enjoy a better life than he, was a sin. Luther said that he had made his decision to enter the monastery out of fear. “But how much good the merciful Lord has allowed to come of it!” he said.

Next week we will read about what motivated Luther to give up his law studies and enter a monastery. It was a big decision for Martin, and a decision that ended up affecting not just church history, but world history.

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 3

Paying indulgences

Rev. Donavon Riley

Martin Luther, like most people during the sixteenth century, lived during a time of both earthly and spiritual insecurity. Frequent wars, plagues, peasant revolts, and famine meant people had to struggle to secure daily bread. And, at the same time that they were worried about sustenance, the church taught that sins could be atoned for by praying to the saints, making pilgrimages, worshipping holy relics, and the like.

The world Luther grew up in was an apocalyptic time. Death could overcome a person at any moment. The Grim Reaper, Four Horsemen, and other end times figures were popular in literature, art, and music. Images of fire and brimstone occupied the church’s imagination, too. Jesus wasn’t pictured as a merciful shepherd or suffering servant, but as a judge seated on a rainbow throne, a two-edged sword coming out one side of his mouth and a lily the other. They symbolized judgment and mercy, death and resurrection. This meant that the primary question on Christian’s minds was: “What must I do to avoid the sword and receive the lily?”

The church’s answer was, “Do what is in you.” Then, God willing, the church would dispense grace to penitent sinners.

To this end, at least once a year, people were expected to confess their sins to a priest. Of course, the more often the faithful Christian confessed his sins the better, but at least once a year was required. In fact, before he could go to communion, he was obligated to go to a priest for confession and absolution. However, if the priest didn’t feel the sins confessed were sincere, honest, or expressed from a contrite heart, he would ban the offender from communion until such time as he made a proper, sincere confession of sins.

Then there was purgatory. In Luther’s day, the church taught that anyone who had not done enough in this life to be purged of all their earthly sins must pay for them in purgatory. As Luther scholar James Kittelson writes: “They would sweat out every unremitted sin before they could see the gates of heaven,” unless, of course, a family member or friend could afford to offer a monetary “gift” to the church in return for a loved one’s release from purgatory.

The “indulgences” as they were called, were legal documents that came with fill-in-the-blank spaces for the purchaser, for those whom he wanted to buy out of purgatory, how many years off purgatory he wanted to pay down, and so on.

Young Martin Luther came of age in a religious culture that mirrored the world. If he worked hard enough, maybe he received his just desserts. In the same way, if he was devout and earnest about his eternal salvation, he might receive grace and be allowed to walk through heaven’s gates at the time of death.

Whether Luther received an earthly or spiritual reward, hard work was the focus. How much he applied himself, how he used the gifts God had given him and how devoted he was to his spiritual development would determine for young Luther where he ended up—not only in life but also in the afterlife.

Next week, we will look at Luther’s time in Erfurt.

NOTE: If you’ve enjoyed these articles and want to know more about Martin Luther, I’ve been following the work of my professor, James M. Kittelson, in his book Luther The Reformer: The Story of The Man and His Career. Also, in the weeks and months that follow I will introduce you, the reader, to other works by Luther scholars that I believe will help deepen your knowledge and appreciation for Luther’s life and work. Enjoy!

Rev. Donavon Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.