Christian Essentials: The Reformation.

Martin Luther (Nov 10, 1483 – Feb 18, 1546) was a German theologian,  Augustinian monk, and an ecclesiastical reformer whose teachings inspired the Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines and culture of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions.

Luther’s call to the Church to return to the teachings of the Bible led to the formation of new traditions within Christianity and to the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic reaction to these movements.

The opposition to the Roman Catholic Church and its false teaching came to a head in the sixteenth century, when a Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther posted his 95 propositions (or theses) against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the Castle Church door at Wittenberg, Germany.

Luther’s intention was to bring reform to the Roman Catholic Church, and in doing so was challenging the authority of the Pope. With the refusal of the Roman Catholic Church to heed Luther’s call to reformation and return to biblical doctrines and practices, the Protestant Reformation began.

From this Reformation four major divisions or traditions of Protestantism would emerge: Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, and Anglican. During this time God raised up godly men in different countries in order to once again restore churches throughout the world to their biblical roots and to biblical doctrines and practices.

Many of us have probably heard something about Martin Luther even though some get him confused with Martin Luther King the civil rights leader.

Some of us know something about Luther nailing a list of 95 Thesis on a church door and that’s where our knowledge ends.

In reality Luther and his church door notice was the culmination of a long struggle for biblical truth and the beginning of an explosion of a return to authentic Christianity.

Luther just didn’t drop into history from nowhere. He came from a long line of men and women who opposed or sought to reform the corrupt Roman Catholic system.  

Maybe we can begin our exploration with Peter Waldo a traveling merchant in France.

In 1173, Waldo committed his life to Christ, sold his possessions, and financed a French translation of the New Testament.

Waldo gathered a group of mendicant preachers, the Poor Folk of Lyons.

The Waldensians (as they became known) closely studied the Scriptures and rejected both purgatory and the pope’s supreme power.

According to the Poor Folk, “We believe ... the Apostles’ Creed.... There is no other mediator … beyond God the Father, except Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5  For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus).

An English theologian named John Wycliffe suggested that the church was not built on popes or councils or sacraments. Instead, the church, in its essence,  was the people of God.

According to Wycliffe, a person’s actions showed whether he or she truly belonged

to God not church policy.

Wycliffe urged every believer to seek truth in the Scriptures.

To enable every believer to study Scripture, Wycliffe and his Lollards translated portions of the Bible into easy-to-understand English.

Wycliffe died of a stroke in 1384.

Because of his influence on later Reformers, Wycliffe became known as the Morning Star of the Reformation.

Jan Hus embraced Wycliffe’s teaching and began to preach them from a pulpit in Prague.

In 1415, the Council of Constance had Hus burned alive at the stake for his teachings—then had Wycliffe’s bones unearthed and burned!

The Perfect Storm in the year 1453

The Hundred Years’ War ended, with England retreating to the British Isles.

That same year, Ottoman Muslims conquered the last remnant of the Eastern Roman Empire, the ancient city of Constantinople.

On May 28, 1453, Orthodox and Catholic Church

members gathered for Communion in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The next day, the church became a mosque.

Many Christian scholars from Constantinople fled west, in the direction of Rome.

Among the valued items they took with them were manuscripts, especially New Testament manuscripts in the original Greek language.

This influx of Greek manuscripts influenced a renaissance of interest in ancient rhetoric, art, and writing.

Renaissance scholars were known as “humanists” because they focused on practical human actions and interests.

Among Christian scholars, the Renaissance led to a renewed interest in the original text of the New Testament.

Greek is a more clear and precise language which brought greater understanding to bible study than the Catholic Latin Translation.

Also in 1453, Johann Gutenberg pioneered the use of movable metal type to print books. It has been estimated that there were perhaps 30,000 books in all of Europe before Gutenberg printed his Bible; less than 50 years later, there were as many as 10 to 12 million books.

New printing methods supplied humanists with mass-produced books. Greek and Roman classics, and the Bible, flooded Europe.

William Tyndale was a theologian and scholar who translated the Bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew. He was the first person to take advantage of Gutenberg’s movable-type press for the purpose of printing the scriptures in the English language. Besides translating the Bible, Tyndale also held and published views which were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by King Henry VIII.

His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting these views. Tyndale’s translation was banned by the authorities, and Tyndale himself was burned at the stake in 1536,  at the instigation of  agents of Henry VIII and the Anglican Church.

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam is the next stepping stone to the Reformation. As a young man, Erasmus had been taught by Brothers of the Common Life. These teachers whetted Erasmus’ taste for the Greek language.

In 1516, Erasmus edited and published a Greek New Testament.

Now the original words of the apostles were available to anyone.

Erasmus was a faithful Catholic priest and scholar, yet his Greek New Testament became the tool that would launch the Protestant Reformation.

Now back to Luther.

In 1505 his life took a dramatic turn. As the 21-year-old Luther fought his way through a severe thunderstorm on the road to Erfurt, a bolt of lightning struck the ground near him. "Help me, St. Anne!" Luther screamed. "I will become a monk! "The scrupulous Luther fulfilled his vow: he gave away all his possessions and entered the monastic life.

Luther was extraordinarily successful as a monk. He plunged into prayer, fasting, and ascetic practices—going without sleep, enduring bone-chilling cold without a blanket, and flagellating himself. As he later commented, "If anyone could have earned heaven by the life of a monk, it was I."

Though he sought by these means to love God fully, he found no consolation. He was increasingly terrified of the wrath of God: "When it is touched by this passing inundation of the eternal, the soul feels and drinks nothing but eternal punishment."

During his early years, whenever Luther read what would become the famous "Reformation text"—Romans 1:17—his eyes were drawn not to the word faith, but to the word righteous. Who, after all, could "live by faith" but those who were already righteous? The text was clear on the matter: "the righteous shall live by faith."

Luther remarked, "I hated that word, 'the righteousness of God,' by which I had been taught according to the custom and use of all teachers ... [that] God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner." The young Luther could not live by faith because he was not righteous—and he knew it.

Meanwhile, he was ordered to take his doctorate in the Bible and become a professor at Wittenberg University. During lectures on the Psalms (in 1513 and 1514) and a study of the Book of Romans, he began to see a way through his dilemma.

"At last meditating day and night, by the mercy of God, I ... began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith… Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open."

On the heels of this new understanding came others. To Luther the church was no longer the institution defined by apostolic succession; instead it was the community of those who had been given faith.

Salvation came not by the sacraments as such but by faith. The idea that human beings had a spark of goodness (enough to seek out God) was not a foundation of theology but was taught only by "fools."

Humility was no longer a virtue that earned grace but a necessary response to the gift of grace. Faith no longer consisted of assenting to the church's teachings but of trusting the promises of God and the merits of Christ.

It wasn't long before the revolution in Luther's heart and mind played itself out in all of Europe.

It started on All Saints' Eve, 1517, when Luther publicly objected to the way preacher Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences. These were documents prepared by the church and bought by individuals either for themselves or on behalf of the dead that would release them from punishment due to their sins. As Tetzel preached, "Once the coin into the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory heavenward springs!“

Eventually Luther was put on trial and the Catholic Bishop tried to force Luther to recant all of his criticisms of the church.

I stand convicted by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us. On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me. Martin Luther

An imperial edict calling Luther "a convicted heretic“ was issued,  he had escaped to Wartburg Castle,  where he hid for ten months.

Underlying the Protestant Reformation lay four basic doctrines in which the reformers believed the Roman Catholic Church to be in error.

These four questions or doctrines are How is a person saved? Where does religious authority lie? What is the church? And what is the essence of Christian living?

In answering these questions, Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and John Knox established what would be known as the “Five Solas” of the Reformation (sola being the Latin word for “alone”).

These five points of doctrine were at the heart of the Protestant Reformation, and it was for these five essential Biblical doctrines that the Protestant Reformers would take their stand against the Roman Catholic Church, resisting the demands placed on them to recant, even to the point of death. These five essential doctrines of the Protestant Reformation are as follows:

1-“Sola Scriptura,” or Scripture Alone: This affirms the Biblical doctrine that the Bible alone is the sole authority for all matters of faith and practice. Scripture and Scripture alone is the standard by which all teachings and doctrines of the church must be measured.

As Martin Luther so eloquently stated when asked to recant on his teachings,

“Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.”

2—“Sola Gratia,” Salvation by Grace Alone: This affirms the Biblical doctrine that salvation is by God’s grace alone and that we are rescued from His wrath by His grace alone. God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary, but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. This grace is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

3—“Sola Fide,” Salvation by Faith Alone: This affirms the Biblical doctrine that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. It is by faith in Christ that His righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.

4—“Solus Christus,” In Christ Alone: This affirms the Biblical doctrine that salvation is found in Christ alone and that His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to God the Father. The gospel has not been preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared, and if faith in Christ and His work is not solicited.

5—“Soli Deo Gloria, For the Glory of God Alone: This affirms the Biblical doctrine that salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God for His glory alone. It affirms that as Christians we must glorify Him always, and must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God, and for His glory alone.

 These five important and fundamental doctrines are the reason for the Protestant Reformation. They are at the heart of where the Roman Catholic Church went wrong in its doctrine, and why the Protestant Reformation was necessary to return churches throughout the world to correct doctrine and biblical teaching.

They are just as important today in evaluating a church and its teachings as they were then. In many ways, much of Protestant Christianity needs to be challenged to return to these fundamental doctrines of the faith, much like the reformers challenged the Roman Catholic Church to do in the sixteenth century.

Luther contributed to the rising status of women.

He was patriarchal, but Luther was progressive. He assumed that girls, along with boys, should be taught the bible, and in that he anticipated co-education.

He insisted that marriage was just as important a vocation as monasticism, and in that he accorded greater status to a woman’s role in marriage. And he was married to and proud of a woman who was, in effect, the treasurer, manager, and administrator of a rather complex business—the informal boarding house that the Luthers kept.

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