Lutherans and many Protestants celebrate October 31 as Reformation Day. It was on this day in 1517 that Martin Luther, a young monk and doctor, posted his 95 theses (or debating points) to the Wittenberg church door (as was common practice when one desired a debate at that time). Luther had no idea that his theses would see wide circulation or that it would have such far-reaching repercussions.
What was at issue for Luther was his discovery in God’s Word that gave him freedom and release from sin. Luther had been a devote monk. He had devoted himself to all kinds of good works. He tried to be the best person he could be. He tried to be pleasing to God. He strove to be perfect and worked so hard to accomplish such. In retrospect, Luther once observed, “If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them.” Yet this period of his life was in fact one of deep spiritual despair. He said, “I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul.”
He prayed for long hours, fasted often, worked hard, and endured many hardships—some of them self inflicted forms of penance. But the harder he tried to be perfect, the more he saw his sin and his lack of perfection. Thus, deep down in his heart he found that he even hated God and despised Him because His Father made all these demands that he found himself unable to meet. He was failing at being perfect. He strived so hard but he knew effort was not enough. He knew he had to actually BE perfect.
And since he was not able to achieve this no matter how many good works he did, Luther would go to his bishop to confess his failures in keeping God’s commandments so that he might have some peace. But without perfection such peace was always short lived. (He nearly wore out his bishop in his frequent coming for confession!) His bishop ordered him to become a doctor in the church trying to take Luther’s mind of his quest for perfection. Luther dutifully went about this task and became a professor, scholar, and preacher at the university at Wittenberg. It was here that another man helped Luther to find the answers he sought in God’s Word.
As Luther read God’s Word, he struggled with one passage that would become the real turning point for him. Romans 1:17 states, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (KJV). Luther wrote that he labored over the verse trying to understand it. To him and many in his day the “righteousness of God” meant God’s holy wrath at sin and so he wondered how he could love a God who judged and condemned people.
It was then, after studying Habakkuk 2:4 that he realized what the passage meant. He realized that God gave His righteousness to people through Christ. God bestowed on people His perfection. Being perfect like the Father was possible by faith in His only begotten Son, not because one would eventually become perfect but because God actually gave full perfection freely in Christ. Luther realized that God had given Him perfection already; he didn’t have to work for it. Abraham and David were righteous before God not because of their works or anything they did (the Lord knew all their failures and imperfection) but because of their faith in God’s promise of the Savior to come and Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for all people. Forgiveness was freely given to him. And with it, a conscience free from guilt and a life delivered from the impossible quest for perfection.
Luther was overjoyed in this and began to challenge the church of his day. He challenged them on purgatory, or the teaching that after death people would spend more time working to perfection. He challenged the idea that God had done his part and man needed to do his part. He challenged the idea that righteousness and perfection came from our doing good works. Luther, using only the clear Word of Scripture, challenged the church on exactly what the Gospel was.
His challenge rocked the world in which he lived for Luther preached and proclaimed that the Gospel was not about each person fulfilling God’s commands and ordinances for themselves, but rather about Christ’s fulfilling God’s commands for all people and winning free forgiveness, life, and perfection for them by His death and resurrection.
Luther sought to reform the church by removing all the confusing new teachings that had crept into the church and return it to teaching and living by nothing but God’s Word in all its truth and purity. Luther wanted everyone to share in his joy of knowing the miracle of God’s forgiveness and of having true holiness, righteousness, and perfection now through faith in Christ and His work to save us .
But because many in the church leadership of his time resisted these teachings as “anathema” or from the devil, Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. And since there was no reconciliation between Rome and Luther (as each stood by different teachings) , many followed Luther out of the Roman Catholic Church to continue teaching God’s grace and forgiveness as that which is freely given to those who do not deserve it. This was according to what our Lord Jesus Himself has proclaimed in Luke 5:32, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (KJV).
Thus, on October 31, the day when a little known monk’s debate points stirred up a search for the truth of God’s Word, Lutherans and many other Protestants celebrate the true foundation and definition of Christianity–forgiveness, grace, and faith in Christ Jesus.
This article was originally published in the Davis County Clipper in Utah; it is printed here with permission of the authors, Rev. Jason Krause and Rev. Kurt Hering. Rev Hering is currently serving at Holy Baptism Lutheran Church in Ogden, UT