On this day in 1517, an obscure German Monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door at Wittenberg Castle. Luther was born to wealthy parents in 1483. His family wanted him to be a lawyer, but after a near-death experience, Luther felt that God was calling him to be a monk. Luther joined an Augustinian Monastery and would go on to achieve his doctorate in Biblical studies. During this time, the Scriptures started becoming more readily available in the common tongue, along with the writings of various church fathers. Luther began to pour over the scriptures and was quickly convinced of the erroneous teachings within the Roman Catholic Church. The 95 theses were in essence an invitation for public debate on the subjects they contained. His two primary arguments against the Roman Catholic Church was the selling of indulgences and that salvation was by grace alone. The selling of indulgences had been common practice since the ninth century. The selling of indulgences included performing certain acts that would ‘absolve’ someone of their sins. One example would be when Pope Urban II remitted anyone’s sins who fought in the Crusades. More commonly a person was asked to perform an act or purchase something from the church and in return the priest would provide the person with a slip of paper reducing someone’s time in purgatory, or forgiving them of their own sin. While the selling of indulgences is illegal in our time, they are still provided for people who do good works for the Roman Catholic Church. Luther’s other primary argument was salvation by works. For countless centuries the Roman Catholic Church taught that salvation was found only in the church and was only attainable by works. His 95 Theses spread rapidly in Germany and eventually came to the pope in Rome. Over the course of the next four years, Martin Luther was labeled as a heretic, the church demanded that he recant, and eventually, he was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, thus the church condemned Luther to hell. Luther would live out the next thirty years of his life challenging the Roman Catholic Church, even under the threat of harm and death. He even dedicated himself to translating the Scriptures into German for the common man, a task that took him over ten years to complete.
Luther was the spark for the Protestant Reformation and the breaking of the Catholic stronghold on the world. We are ‘children’ of that great fire that swept forth. The Protestant Reformation is one of the greatest miracles in history. Luther dared to stand up to the most powerful men of his time and declared “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).” Today we echo Martin Luther’s revolutionary thought, we are saved solely by God’s grace. We are not saved by any works, effort, morality, religion, or good that we possess. We are saved only by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross and the faith that we place in Him. It seems odd that there was a period when that theological truth was contested and standing against it meant the possibility of harm. A time may come when the world will move away from salvation by grace alone. We need more “Martin Luther’s” who will stand on the truth of salvation by grace. Today, rejoice that God saves unconditionally. Rejoice that He made salvation simple. Rejoice that it’s not based on what you and I do, but based on what Christ has done.
