Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born at Eisleben in Prussian Saxony on November 10, 1483. Luther's father came from a peasant background, but achieved success in the mining business so that he was able to afford an excellent education for his son. Luther began his education at the Ratschule (city school) in Mansfield, and probably attended the Cathedral School at Magdeburg, where he came under the influence of the Brethern of the Common Life. He completed his preparatory education in the Georgenschule in Eisenach, where he was a member of the Cotta and Schalbe circle, before enrolling at the University of Erfurt in 1501. He received his B.A. in 1502 and his M.A. in 1505. In accordance with his father's wishes, he had begun to study for a law degree at Erfurt until he was nearly killed by a bolt of lightning in a thunderstorm on July 2, 1505, when he was returning to Erfurt from Mansfeld. In July of that year, Luther entered the chapter house of the Hermits of St. Augustine in Erfurt as a novice, due to a vow he had made in "a moment of terror", when thrown to the ground by the bold of lightning. He was troubled about his salvation before this and this incident led him to become a monk. While in the monastery, Luther studied theology and two years later Luther was ordained a priest in 1507. He began serious study at Erfurt, where he earned the Baccalaureus Biblicus in 1509. His teachers at Erfurt adhered to the nominalist theology of William of Ockham and of one his follower, Gabriel Biel, who disparaged the role of reason in theology and placed more emphasis on human free will in salvation than did traditional Augustinianism. In 1508, Luther was sent to the University of Wittenberg, where he lectured on moral theology, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and the Bible. During November 1510, he and fellow friar traveled to Rome on business for his order and stayed in Rome until March, 1511. While in Rome, Luther was shocked by the worldliness of the clergy and was disillusioned by their religious indifference. Upon his return to Erfurt in 1511, he was sent back to Wittenberg, where he earned the Doctor of Theology degree in October of 1512. In the same year that he received the doctor of theology degree, Luther received permanent appointment to the chair of lectura in Biblia at Wittenberg.
Because of the recent activity of the sale of indulgnces and the preaching of the Dominican, Johann Tetzel, Luther on October 31, 1517, posted on the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg Ninety-five Theses Concerning Penitence and Indulgences for debate in the university; the church door was used as the bulletin board for the university. Tetzel, in the effort to raise money for the completion of the Basilica of St. Peter's in Rome, apparently had promised not only release from punishment but also the forgiveness of sins. In these Theses, Luther attempted to correct these abuses concerning indulgences. In them, Luther argued that the indulgnces had no reference either to purgatory or to the making of satisfaction to God. Indulgences had reference only to the possibility of the remission of penalties which the papacy had the right to impose upon Christians as a sign of their seriousness of their penance. But this meant that indulgences were relevant only to the discipline of the church, not binding upon God. In Thesis 5, Luther says,
"The Pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any penalties,And in Thesis 20, he says,
beyond those imposed by his own discretion or by canon law."
"Therefore the Pope, when he speaks of the plenary remission of all penalties,In Thesis 21, he concludes,
does not mean simply of all, but only of those imposed by himself."
"Thus those preachers of indulgences are in error who say that, by theAnd in Thesis 62, Luther says,
indulgences of the Pope, a man is loosed and saved from all punishment."
"The true treasure of the church is the most holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God."These 95-Theses were translated into German, printed, and circulated throughout Germany, arousing a storm of protest against the sales of indulgences. When the sale of indulgences was negatively affected, the papacy sought to silence Luther. The disputation was never held. But in 1518, Luther published his Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses in which he states, "The merits of Christ perform an alien work." In his sermon on the "Two Kinds of Righteousness" (1518), Luther explains that this alien work is "the righteousness of another, instilled from without, the righteousness of Christ by which He justifies through faith."
The Protestant Reformation actually began, not when Martin Luther nailed his 95-Theses upon the door of the Wittenberg church on 31st of October, 1517, but when Martin Luther rediscovered many years before the meaning of the righteousness of God in the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans. [1] This discovery was made at the end of a long and troubled search which began when at the age of 21, on July 17, 1505, Luther applied for admission to the monastery of the Augustinian Friars known as the Black Cloister because of their black habit. They were also known as the Augustinian Hermits. Having recently been made a Master of Arts at the University of Erfurt, Martin had gone home to Mansfeld on a vacation during the month of June, 1505. On July 2, when returning to Erfurt from Mansfeld, at a distance of about five miles from his university, close to the village of Stotternheim, he was overtaken by a thunderstorm. When one of the lightning bolts nearly struck him, he cried out in terror, "Help, St. Anne, and I'll become a monk." Later, in his DeVotis Monasticis ("Concerning Monastic Vows," 1521) Luther explains his state of mind at that time.
"I was called to this vocation by the terrors of heaven,Accordingly, he sold his books, bade farewell to his friends, and entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt.
for neither willingly nor by my own desire
did I become a monk; but, surrounded by
the terror and agony of a sudden death,
I vowed a forced and unvoidable vow." [2]
Luther observed the canonical regulations as prescribed in the constitution of the Observatine section of the Augustinian Order of Mendicant Monks. He says:
"I was an earnest monk, lived strictly and chastely,The purpose of all of it was justification, being righteous with God.
would not have taken a penny without the knowledge of the prior,
prayed diligently day and night." [3]"I kept vigil night by night, fasted, prayed,
chastised and mortified my body, was obedient, and
lived chastely." [4]
"When I was a monk, I exhausted myself by fasting,But all these observances did not bring peace to his troubled conscience. He says:
watching, praying, and other fatiguing labors.
I seriously believed that I could secure justification through my works..." [5]"It is true that I have been a pious monk,
and followed my rules so strictly that I may say,
if ever a monk could have gained heaven through monkery,
I should certainly have got there.
This all my fellow-monks who have known me will attest." [6]
"I was often frightened by the name of Jesus, and when I looked at him hanging on the cross, I fancied that he seemed to me like lightning. When I heard his name mentioned, I would rather have heard the name of the devil, for I thought that I had to perform good works until at last through them Jesus would become merciful to me. In the monastery I did not think about money, worldly possessions, nor women, but my heart shuddered when I wondered when God should become merciful to me." [7]Later in 1545 in the famous autobiographical fragment with which he prefaced the Latin edition of his complete works, Luther thus described his feelings:
"For however irreproachably I lived as a monk, I felt myself in the presence of God to be a sinner with a most unquiet conscience, nor could I believe that I pleased him with my satisfactions. I did not love, indeed I hated this just God, if not with open blasphemy, at least with huge murmurings, for I was indignant against him, saying, 'as if it were really not enough for God that miserable sinners should be eternally lost through original sin, and oppressed with all kind of calamities through the law of the ten commandments, but God must add sorrow on sorrow, and even by the gospel bring his wrath to bear.' Thus I raged with a fierce and most agitated conscience..." [8]
These inward, spiritual difficulties were intensified by a theological problem. This was the concept of the "righteousness of God" (justitia Dei). His religious background made him intensely aware of the justice of God, and he had learned the Greek concept of justice as found in book 5 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and the use of justitia in Gabriel Biel and the other nominalists, he thought of God's righteousness as justice and being primarily the active, punishing severity of God against sinners as he explains in his exposition of Psalm 51:14 in 1532:
"This term 'righteousness' really caused me much trouble. They generally explained that righteousness is the truth by which God deservedly condemns or judges those who have merited evil. In opposition to righteousness they set mercy, by which believers are saved. This explanation is most dangerous, besides being vain, because it arouses a secret hate against God and His righteousness. Who can love Him if He wants to deal with sinners according to righteousness?" [9]This conception blocked his understanding of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
"All the while I was aglow with the desire to understand Paul in his letter to the Romans. But...the one expression in chapter one (v.17) concerning the 'righteousness of God' blocked the way for me. For I hated the expression 'righteousness of God' since I had been instructed by the usage custom of all teachers to understand it according to scholastic philosophy as the 'formal or active righteousness' in which God proves Himself righteous by punishing sinners and the unjust..." [10]But God used this passage to change his understanding of the righteousness of God and to solve his inward, spiritual difficulties.
"Finally, after days and nights of wrestling with the difficulty, God had mercy on me, and then I was able to note the connection of the words 'righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel' and 'just shall live by faith.' Then I began to understand the 'righteousness of God' is that through which the righteous lives by the gift (dono) of God, that is, through faith, and that the meaning is this: The Gospel reveals the righteousness of God in a passive sense, that righteousness through which 'the just shall live by faith.' Then I felt as if I had been completely reborn and had entered Paradise through widely opened doors. Instantly all Scripture looked different to me. I passed through the Holy Scriptures, so far as I was able to recall them from memory, and gathered a similar sense from other expressions. Thus the 'work of God' is that which God works in us; the 'strength of God' is that through which He makes us strong; the 'wisdom of God' is that through which He makes us wise; and the 'power of God,' and 'blessing of God," and 'honor of God,' are expressions used in the same way.""As intensely as I had formerly hated the expression 'righteousness of God' I now loved and praised it as the sweetest of concepts; and so this passage of Paul was actually the portal of Paradise to me." [11]
This discovery not only brought peace to Luther's troubled conscience but it was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther's protest against the errors of the Roman church stems from this discovery. But his discovery was lost by those who came after him, the Protestant scholastics. Luther's use of the scholastic distinction of active and passive righteousness tended to obscure the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God. Luther obviously rejected the active sense; but the Lutheran Protestant Scholastics interpreted Luther as accepting both senses. Because their explanation of the death of Christ was still grounded in the legalistic concept of justice, that is, that Christ died to pay the penalty for man's sin which the justice of God requires to be paid before God can save man, they had to retain the active sense also. Thus Luther's discovery of the Biblical understanding of the righteousness of God was obscured and eventually lost.
By identifying the righteousness of God with the passive sense, Luther also gave the impression that the righteousness of God is the righteousness from God, that is, the righteousness that man receives from God through faith (Phil. 3:9). But the righteousness of God is not the righteousness from God. These are different though related ideas and must be carefully distinguished. The righteousness from God is the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:11) which is that right personal relationship to God that results from faith in the true God (Rom. 4:3). To trust in God is to be righteous (Rom. 4:5). The righteousness of God, on the other hand, is God acting to set man right with God Himself and, as we will see below, is synonymous with salvation.
The Biblical concept of the righteousness of God must be carefully distinguished from the Greek-Roman concept justice. The righteousness of God in the Scriptures is not the attribute of God whereby He must render to each what he has merited nor a quantity of merit which God gives, but God acting to set right man with God Himself. Luther's apparent identification of the righteousness of God with the righteousness from God lead eventually to the equating of the righteousness of God with Christ's righteousness, that is, the merits of Christ, which is imputed to the believer. Thus righteousness is misunderstood as merits and the righteousness of God as the justice of God. The idea that the righteousness of God is the justice of God, that is, that attribute of God which requires that God punish all sin and reward all meritorious works, is a legalistic misunderstanding of the righteousness of God. This legalistic misunderstanding reduces and equates the righteousness of God to justice, that is, the giving to each that which is his due to them with a strict and impartial regard to merit (as in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics). It is this concept of righteousness that gave Luther so much trouble.
The Biblical concept of the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God whereby He puts or sets right that which is wrong. Very often in the Old Testament, it is the action of God for the vindication and deliverance of His people; it is the activity in which God saves His people by rescuing them from their oppressors.
"In thee, O Lord, do I seek refuge;Thus the righteousness of God is often a synonym for the salvation or deliverance of God. In the Old Testament, this is clearly shown by the literary device of parallelism which is a characteristic of Hebrew poetry. [12] Parallelism is that Hebrew literary device in which the thought and idea in one clause is repeated and amplified in a second and following clause. This parallelism of Hebrew poetry clearly shows that Hebrew poets and prophets made the righteousness of God synonymous with divine salvation:
let me never be put to shame;
in thy righteousness deliver me!" (Psa. 31:1)"In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline thy ear to me, and save me!" (Psa. 71:2)"143:11For thy name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life!
In thy righteousness bring me out of trouble!
143:12And in thy steadfast love cut off my enemies.
and destroy all my adversaries,
for I am thy servant." (Psa. 143:11-12)
"The Lord hath made known His salvation:From these verses, it is clear that righteousness of God is a synonym for the salvation or deliverance of God.
His righteousness hath he openly showed
in the sight of the heathen." (Psa. 98:2 KJV)"I bring near my righteousness,
it shall not be far off,
and my salvation shall not tarry;
and I will place salvation in Zion
for Israel my glory." (Isa. 46:13 KJV)"My righteousness is near,
my salvation is gone forth,
and mine arms shall judge the people;
the isles shall wait upon me,
and on mine arm shall they trust." (Isa. 51:5 KJV)"Thus saith the Lord,
keep ye judgment and do justice [righteousness]:
for my salvation is near to come,
and my righteousness to be revealed." (Isa. 56:1 KJV)
(See also Psa. 71:1-2, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 61:10; 62:1)
The righteous acts of the Lord, or more literally, the righteousnesses of the Lord, referred to in Judges 5:11; I Sam. 12:7-11; Micah 6:3-5; Psa. 103:6-8; Dan. 9:15-16, means the acts of vindication or deliverance which the Lord has done for His people, giving them victory over their enemies. It is in this sense that God is called "a just [righteous] God and a Savior" (Isa. 45:21) and "the Lord our righteousness" (Jer. 23:5-6; 33:15-16).
A judge or ruler is "righteous" in the Hebrew meaning of the word not because
he observes and upholds an abstract standard of Justice, but rather because
he comes to the assistance of the injured person and vindicates him.
For example, in Psalm 82:2-4 (NAS):
"82:2How long will you judge unjustly andFor the judge to act this way is to show righteousness (See Psa. 72:1-3.).
show partiality to the wicked?
82:3Vindicate the weak and fatherless;
do justice [judgment] to the afflicted and destitute.
82:4Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them out of the hand of the wicked." (Psalm 82:2-4 NAS).
(See also Psa. 72:4; 76:9; 103:6; 146:7; Isa. 1:17.)
A judge in the Old Testament is not one whose business it is to interpret the existing law or to give an impartial verdict in accordance with the established law of the land, but rather he is a deliverer and thus a leader and savior as in the book of Judges (Judges 1:16-17; 3:9-10). His duty and delight is to set things right, to right the wrong; his "judgments" are not words but acts, not legal verdicts but the very active use of God's right arm. The two functions of a judge are given in Psalm 75:7 (NAS):
"But God is the judge:Since this a statement concerning God as a judge, it could be taken as a general definition of a Biblical judge. In Psa. 72:1-4, these two functions of Biblical judge are given to the king of Israel.
he puts down one and exalts another." (Psalm 75:7 NAS).
"72:1Give the king Thy judgment, O God,These same two functions are ascribed to the future ruler of Israel, the Messiah, according to Isaiah 11:3-5.
And Thy righteousness to the king's son.
72:2May he judge Thy people with righteousness,
And Thine afficated with justice [judgment].
72:3Let the mountains bring peace to the people,
And the hills in righteousness!
72:4May he vindicate the afflicted of the people,
Save the children of the needy,
And crush the oppressor." (Psalm 72:1-4 NAS).
"11:3And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.His righteousness is shown in the vindication of those who are the victims of evil, the poor and meek of the earth.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what His ears hear;
11:4but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and He shall smite the earth with a rod of His mouth;
and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
11:5Righteousness shall be the girdle of His waist,
and faithfulness the girdle of His loins." (Isaiah 11:3-5).
The righteousness of God is not opposed to the love of God nor does it condition it. On the contrary, it is a part of and the proper expression of God's love. It is the activity of God's love to set right the wrong. In the Old Testament, this is shown by the parallelism between love and righteousness.
"But the steadfast love of the LordGod expresses His love as righteousness in the activity by which He saves His people from their sins. In His wrath, He opposes the sin that would destroy man whom He loves. In His grace, He removes the sin: the grace of God is the love of God in action to bring salvation (Eph. 2:4-5; Titus 2:11). Thus the righteousness of God may be considered as the proper expression of the grace of God. For in His righteousness, God acts to deliver His people from their sins, setting them right with Himself.
is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children's children."
(Psa. 103:17; see also Psa. 33:5; 36:5-6; 40:10; 89:14.)
Thus the righteousness of God is God acting in love for the salvation or deliverance of man. This righteousness of God has been manifested, that is, publicly displayed, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
"3:21But now apart from the LawThe righteousness of God, as we have just seen, is God acting in love to set man right with God Himself and is synonymous with salvation (Ps. 98:2; 71:1-2, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 46:13; 51:5; 56:1; 61:10; 62:1). Now this righteousness of God has been manifested, that is, publicly displayed, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God was active in the death and resurrection of Christ for man's salvation. And because He is this act of God for man's salvation, Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God (I Cor. 1:30). And since the gospel or good news is about Jesus Christ, who He is and what He did (Rom. 1:3-4; I Cor. 15:3-4), it is about this manifestation of the righteousness of God. The gospel tells us about God's act of salvation in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:13).
the righteousness of God has been manifested,
being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets;
3:22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;"
(Rom. 3:21-22 NAS).
But the gospel is not only about the righteousness of God manifested in the past on our behalf, but in the preaching of the Gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed in the present.
"For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of GodThe revelation that is spoken of in this verse is not just a disclosure of truth to be understood by the mind, but it is a working that makes effective and actual that which is revealed. Hence, the revelation of the righteousness of God is that working of God that makes effective and actual that which is revealed, that is, the righteousness of God. And since the righteousness of God is God acting to save man, the revelation of the righteousness of God is the actualization of God's salvation. In other words, the righteousness of God is revealed when the salvation of God is made actual and real, that is, when salvation or deliverance takes place. Thus in the preaching of the Gospel, there is taking place continually an actualization of the righteousness of God. In other words, salvation or deliverance is taking place as the Gospel is preached. This is the reason that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16. Compare Rom. 1:16-17 with Isa. 56:1 which is, no doubt, the source of Paul's concepts and words in these verses.)
is being revealed from faith unto faith" (Rom. 1:17a ERS).
The Gospel not only tells us about this manifestation of the righteousness of God (Rom. 3:21) [It is the Gospel of our salvation (Eph. 1:13)], but also in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or made effective and actual (Rom. 1:17). That is, when the Gospel is preached, God is acting to set man right with Himself. The result of God's activity of righteousness is the righteousness of faith, the righteousness from God, since it has been received from God by faith. God in His righteousness sets man right with Himself and through faith man is set right with God; faith rightly relates man to God. The righteousness of God is what God does and the righteousness of faith is what man does in response to God's activity. The righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God because faith which is man's response to the Word of God, comes from God;
"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ."That is, in a sense, faith is "caused" by the Word of God, even though it is man who does the believing and trusting.
(Rom. 10:17 NAS)
In his Ninety-five Theses, Luther was concerned with the correction of the abuses concerning indulgences, and not directly with the Gospel and the doctrine of salvation. To deal more directly with these issues, Luther published near the end of 1518 his sermon on the "Two Kinds of Righteousness". But on April 26, 1518, Luther dealt directly with the central theological issues of sin, free will, grace and salvation at a meeting of his order held in Heidelberg; he used the Heidelberg disputation to defend his theology and to make new converts. In the Theses that he prepared for the disputation, Luther gave classic expression to his theology of the cross in contrast to the theology of glory; that is, the understanding of God in the suffering and humiliation of the cross in contrast to the understanding of God in the glory of His creation. Johann Staupitz, his Superior, who had selected him to be his successor at Wittenberg in the chair of Bible, arranged the disputation at the Augustinian monastery at Heidelberg, and ask Luther to concentrate on those theological points in order that his more evangelical ideas might become more clear and open to examination. Luther not only presented the doctrine of justification by grace through faith, but he opposed the Scholastic theology by a direct attack upon Aristotle.
In August of 1518, Luther was summoned to Rome to answer charges of heresy, even though he had not taught anything contrary to any clearly defined medieval doctrines. Because Luther was likely not to receive a fair trial in Rome, his prince, Frederick the Wise, intervened and asked the papacy to send representatives to deal with Luther in Germany. Luther met with Cardinal Cajetan, before the Diet of Augsberg, at Augsburg in October, 1518, and with Karl von Miltitz in January, 1519; they failed to obtain a recantation from Luther, although Luther continued to treat the pope and his representatives with respect.
Luther debated Johann Eck at Leipzig in 1519 where he questioned the authority of the papacy as well as the infallibility of church councils and insisted on the primacy of the Scriptures. This led his opponent, Johann Eck, to identify Luther with the fifthteenth century Bohemian heretic, Jan Hus, in an effort to discredit Luther. After the debate, Luther became more outspoken and expressed his beliefs with increasing certainty. Also in 1519, Charles V was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and soon became aware of the magnitude of the situation in Germany caused by Luther's writings and the anticlericalism of the German people.
In 1520, Luther wrote the most important reformatory writings. In April 1520, he published his "Sermon on the Mass" where he taught that every Christian believer is a priest. In May 1520, he published the Treatise on Good Works where Luther used the Decalogue as a basis for showing how faith is implemented in the life of the believer. In June 1520, he published his pamphlet On the Papacy at Rome where he branded the pope as "the real Antichrist of whom the Scripture speak." Also Luther published three pamphlets of great importance.
A papal bull of excommunication was drawn up to go in effect in January, 1521. In December, 1520, Luther showed his defiance of papal authority by public burning of the bull. Although condemned by the church, Luther still received a hearing before emperor and the estates of the empire at an imperial diet at Worms in April, 1521. At the Diet of Worms on April 17, 1521, Luther was asked to recant his teachings, but he stood firm and declined to recant unless persuaded by Scripture. Luther said,
"Unless I am shown by the testimony of of Scripture and by evident reasoningHe then added "Gott helf mir, amen"
(for I do not put faith in pope or council alone, because it is established
that they have often erred and contradicted themselves),
unless I am overcome by means of scriptural passages that I have cited
and unless my conscience is taken captive by the words of God,
I am neither able or willing to revoke anything,
since to act against one's conscience neither safe nor honest."
Although he was condemned by the Edict of Worms and declared an outlaw, Luther returned to Wittenberg in March of 1522 to deal with the Wittenberg Movement, stopping its radical direction, preserving the conservative character of his reformation. While Luther was in "captivity" in the Wartburg Castle, Luther's colleagues, Philip Melanchthon and Gabriel Zwilling, reorganized the liturgy and the life of the local church. But from a neighboring town of Zwickau, self-styled prophets came to Wittenberg, claiming special revelation of the Spirit over and above the Scriptures. When they appeared to have succeed in winning over some to a radical reorganization of the church rather than reforming it, Luther came out his exile and risked returning to Wittenberg to take command of the situation. He remained Wittenberg the rest of life.
Luther threw his energies not only into opposing the pretension and errors of the Roman See, but also into the task of the reformation of the life and thought of the Church. He not only preached the Word but revised the liturgy and the organization of the church. Luther denied that monasticism was a higher calling than other stations in men's life. As a result of this view, the foundation of monasticism collapsed in many parts of Germany and the Reformation was faced with the problem of rehabilitating the countless monks and nuns who were fleeing the monasteries. Many of these nuns found husbands and married. One of these nuns decided that she would not settle for as a husband nothing less than Luther himself. In 1524, Luther married Katherine von Bora, that former nun, whom Luther came to love and cherish and who bore him six children. She was a woman of unusual ability, managing the large household and the "hangers-on", who were always around her husband. Luther had an extremely happy family life.
Luther broke with the humanist Erasmus over Erasmus' Diatribe on Free Will (1524). Luther answered Erasmus with his The Bondage of the Will (1525) affirming that man cannot will to turn to God or play any part in the process leading to his own salvation. Luther did allow that man has freedom regarding "things below him." In the Peasant's Revolt (1524-1525), Luther upheld authority of the state, denied the right to rebel, called for social justice, and urged consideration for the economic welfare of the lower classes. But Luther used intemperate language in urging the princes to put down revolt and alienated many of the lower classes.
Between 1525 and 1529, Luther carried on a controversy with Ulrich Zwingli of Zurich and others regarding the Lord's Supper. Luther took the words of institution, "This is my body" and "This is my blood," in a literal sense and opposed all attempts to intepret them figuratively. Luther rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation but his position has been often called consubstantiation. Luther held that the substance of the bread and wine used in the Lord's Supper is not changed into the body and blood of Jesus, but Christ is only present with the substance of the bread and wine. Philip of Hesse attempted to bring about a reconciliation by calling the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529. Fourteen articles of the Christian faith were agreed upon by the participants (Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer, and others), but there was no agreement reached on the fifteenth article, regarding the Lord's Supper. But in 1536, Bucer and Luther agreed on the Wittenberg Concord.
Luther never viewed himself as the founder of a new church. He saw his task was to reform the church and restore the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith to its central position in Christian theology. When his followers in 1522 first began to use his name to identify themselves, he pleaded with them not to do this.
Luther died at Eisleben on February 18, 1546, while on a trip to arbitrate a dispute between two Lutheran nobles. He was buried in the Castle Chruch at Wittenberg.
[1] All quotations from the Scripture are taken from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Holy Bible (NT-1946, OT-1952) unless otherwise noted. The following symbols will be used to designate other translations.
KJV King James Version, 1611 RV English Revised Version, 1881-1885 ARV American Revised Version, 1901 GNB Good News Bible, 1976 NAS New American Standard, 1971 NEB New English Bible, 1961-1970 NIV New International Version, 1978 ERS My own translation from the Greek or Hebrew
[2] Quoted in Albert Hyma, New Light on Martin Luther
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1958), p.16.
[3] Luther, Commentary on the Gospel of John
Weimer ed., XXXIII, 561. Dated 21, 1531, quoted in Hyma, p. 28.
[4] Luther, op. cit., dated October 28, 1531, p.574,
quoted in Hyma, p. 28.
[5] Luther, Exposition on Psa. XLV, p. 29.
[6] Luther, Answer to Duke George's Latest Book
quoted in Hyma, pp. 28-29.
[7] Luther, Sermon on Matthew XVIII-XXIV, pp. 29-30.
[8] Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XV,
Luther: Lectures on Romans, 1961), pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.
[9] What Luther Says, Vol. III,
Complied by Ewald M. Plass
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), p. 1225.
[10] What Luther Says, Vol. III, pp. 1225-1225.
[12] Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1950), pp. 281-282.
See also Gleason L. Archer, Jr.,
A Survey of Old Testament Introduction,
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1964), pp. 418-420.