Five hundred years ago, on October 31, 1517, one of the most significant events in history took place when a 34-year-old Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed his now-famous “Ninety-five Theses” to the door of the All Saints Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. A church door was like a bulletin board; tacking a notice to it was an accepted way of requesting a debate on an issue. Luther wrote his theses in Latin, which the average commoner could not read. But someone translated them into German and thanks to Gutenberg’s recently invented printing press, thousands of copies were quickly disseminated in Germany and beyond. Luther had unintentionally changed his history and world history!
Luther was born into a German Catholic home in 1483. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, so he dutifully began law school in 1505. But that year a lightning bolt nearly struck him. Luther believed that God unleashed that bolt to judge his guilty soul. In terror he cried out to his father’s patron saint, “Help me, St. Anne, and I will become a monk!” Two weeks later, much to his father’s disapproval, he dropped out of law school and entered a monastery. In later years, Luther reflected back on his life as a monk: “I myself was a monk for twenty years. I tortured myself with praying, fasting, keeping vigils, and freezing—the cold alone was enough to kill me—and I inflicted upon myself such pain as I would never inflict again, even if I could…. If any monk ever got to heaven by monkery, then I should have made it.” But Luther found no relief from his guilt. He continued his studies and was a brilliant scholar. In 1510, Luther’s spiritual supervisor, who didn’t quite know how to deal with Luther’s extraordinary guilt, thought that a trip to Rome might help the troubled young man. But when Luther got to that supposed “holy” city, he was shocked by the debauchery, hypocrisy, and blatant sinfulness that he saw.
Luther returned to earn his doctorate in theology and teach at the University of Wittenberg. But his studies did not resolve his turmoil. He struggled with the question, “How can I be righteous before God?” The Catholic Church prescribed things like confession, penance, accumulating merits, and good works, but nothing helped alleviate his guilt. As he continued to study the Scriptures for his classes, he began to see that there was a huge difference between what Scripture taught and what the church taught.
In trying to grasp the meaning of Romans 1:17, “But the righteous man shall live by faith,” at some point (scholars debate the exact time), Luther came to the radical realization that we are not made right with God through our righteousness, but rather through God’s imputing the righteousness of Christ to us through faith. He later wrote of this breakthrough, “I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through gates that had been flung open.”
As Luther grew in understanding, he grew increasingly frustrated with the church’s sale of indulgences. So he posted his Ninety-five Theses, not knowing how that action would radically change both his life and the course of history. The pope at that time was the corrupt, hedonistic Leo X. Through his father’s wealth and connections, Leo had become a priest at age eight and a cardinal at 14. He became pope at the relatively young age of 37. He had no personal faith in Christ and no pretensions of being a religious man. His motto was, “God has given us the Papacy—let us enjoy it.” As pope, when someone had quoted to him from the Gospels, Leo remarked, “How very profitable this fable of Christ has been to us through the ages.” Leo had spent so much on his lavish lifestyle and extravagant tastes in art that he drained the Vatican treasury. So to raise funds to build St. Peter’s Cathedral, he sold positions in the church and he sold indulgences. Albert of Mainz in Germany had already bought two bishoprics, but at age 23 he wanted a third because of the money and power that went along with them. But it was against church law to hold so many bishoprics, so it required a papal act to grant it. So the pope and Albert struck a deal. Albert needed the cash he had agreed to pay the pope. And the pope needed funds to build his cathedral. So the pope authorized Albert to sell special indulgences. He could keep half for himself and give the other half to the pope. Albert recruited a monk, Johann Tetzel, to sell the indulgences, a complex system that basically involved being able to shorten the time in Purgatory for yourself or a deceased loved one by paying money to the church. Tetzel was a showman and a salesman. He played on people’s emotions: “Listen to the voices of your dear dead relatives
and friends, beseeching you and saying, ‘Pity us, pity us. We are in dire torment from which you can redeem us for a pittance.’” His advertising jingle was, “When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs.” At first, Luther naively thought that the pope would endorse his objections to this crass scheme. And the pope wrongly underestimated the threat of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, which were spreading like wildfire across Europe. The pope dismissed Luther as the ramblings of a drunken German who would think differently when he sobered up. But the issue quickly became not just the sale of indulgences, but rather the authority of the pope. Did he have the right to issue forgiveness of sins on the basis of someone paying money to the church? Things quickly escalated, fuelled by more of Luther’s writings, which urged major reform in the church. He declared that “a simple layman armed with the Scriptures” was superior to both popes and councils without them. In 1520, a papal bull threatened Luther with excommunication. He publicly burned it. These events led to the Diet of Worms in the spring of 1521, called for by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Luther went, thinking that he would get to debate his Ninety-five Theses. But he quickly realized that this wasn’t a debate—it was a judicial hearing where he was asked to recant his controversial writings that challenged the authority of the church. After a day of soul searching, Luther gave his famous reply, “Unless I can be instructed and convinced with evidence from the Holy Scriptures or with open, clear, and distinct grounds of reasoning … then I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience.” Then he probably added, “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me! Amen.”
Luther was condemned, but granted the safe conduct that he had been promised. (A century before, the Czech reformer Jan Hus had been promised safe conduct, but was imprisoned, tortured, and burned to death at the stake.) Now as an outlaw, anyone could kill Luther without fearing reprisals from an imperial court. On his way back to Wittenberg, a group of armed horsemen came suddenly out of the forest, snatched Luther from his wagon, and rode off. They had been sent by Luther’s prince, Frederick the Wise, to keep Luther safe. They took him to Wartburg, one of Frederick’s castles, where he was hidden for ten months.
During that time, he continued writing, but his most important accomplishment was to translate the New Testament into common German. And so the Reformation was launched. As it spread across Europe, the heart of the Reformation was to recover, clarify, and emphasize the gospel of God’s grace, as opposed to the system of works that had engulfed the church. The Reformation challenged the authority of the pope and church tradition, subjugating it to the Bible. It replaced the Mass with the sermon. It abolished the system of indulgences and merits as necessary for salvation. It abolished the unbiblical doctrine of purgatory. It did away with venerating Mary, praying to her and the saints, and venerating relics, idols, or icons in the church. It reintroduced congregational singing. It put the Bible in the common language of the people, who could then read it for themselves. It taught the priesthood of every believer. It recognized only two sacraments or ordinances, not seven. It taught that a person’s vocation is his calling and has significance before God. It taught that marriage is good and that church leaders may marry.