Tag: theology

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Higher History

Who Was Martin Luther? Part 21

Johan Tetzel
Tetzel, Karlstadt, and other theologians respond to Luther

by Rev. Donavon Riley

After his Heidelberg Theses, Luther, more than ever, was under scrutiny from friends and opponents. Colleagues, like Andreas Karlstadt who was a colleague of Luther’s, wrote his own theses arguing for the authority of Scripture in matters of faith over all human opinions, even the Early Church Fathers.

On the other hand, John Tetzel, Luther’s sworn enemy since the indulgence controversy, preached a sermon entitled: “Sermon on Indulgences and Grace,” which was a direct attack on Luther’s teaching about indulgences. When he received word about this Martin said that Tetzel’s sermon treated the Bible “like a sow pushes about a sack of grain.” But, for Luther’s adversaries Tetzel’s argument had traction they could use. Tetzel asserted that the Pope had complete and ultimate authority in all matters in heaven and on earth. That meant that anyone who challenged the Pope’s word was a heretic because the Pope’s decisions, since he was the vicar of Christ, were to be heard as God’s own word.

Eck also took aim at Luther again after Heidelberg. But unlike Tetzel, Eck was a theologian of the church and his criticism held substantially more weight for Luther as a consequence. Even though he decided to say nothing, and “swallow this dose of hell” as Martin put it, colleagues pushed him to write a response to Eck. But Luther said he would not do it. He felt it would not be of any help to Christians to witness such an angry and provocative debate between theologians happening in public.

If the controversy Luther had stirred up remained amongst theologians and academics, and stayed locked behind the closed doors of the monastery and academia, perhaps Luther would have become a footnote in church history. A charismatic, if not controversial figure, on the same level as John Wycliffe or Jan Hus. However, once politically powerful, influential men jumped into the fray the stakes shifted for Luther and everyone else. Now, Luther could not protect himself simply by not responding to the criticism of theologians. Now he would have to find a benefactor to defend him from being arrested and executed.

And yet, as he wrote to a friend at the time, “The more they threaten me, the more confident I become… I know that whoever wants to bring the Word of Christ into the world must, like the apostles, leave behind and renounce everything, and expect death at any moment. If any other situation prevailed, it would not be the Word of Christ.”

Next week we will examine what was happening in Rome at this time and how the papacy decided to deal with Luther once and for all.

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.