31/10/2024
Martin Luther: The German Monk who Sparked the Reformation
by Vic Bernales
What's Martin Luther best known for? Among many other things he is well-known for, Luther and his writings were responsible for sparking the Protestant Reformation and the eventual split of the medieval Roman Church leading to the establishment of Reformational churches all over Europe (Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican, Anabaptist, and other independent churches).
Luther's greatest legacy to the Reformation cause, however, is his teachings, essential to which are the claim that the Bible is the final and ultimate authority in matters of doctrine and conduct and that justification is through faith in Christ alone, which shaped the core of Protestantism. Luther believed that salvation is a gift of God. It is not earned. It is not, as Rome believes, through faith in Christ plus our meritorious works. But his greatest achievement, I think, and his best contribution to the German Reformation was his translation of the German Bible.
But how did the work of Protestant Reformation start? Well, the Reformation began when the monk Johann Tetzel decided to sell his indulgences in Saxony of Germany where the news of it came to Luther's attention. Luther, who at that time was already convinced in his own soul of the evil of indulgences, decided to open the subject to debate among the monks of the Augustinian Order of which he was a part.
To invite others to the debate, he attached the ninety-five theses to the chapel door of the castle church of Wittenburg on October 31, 1517 as notice to anyone wishing to participate what the subject of the debate would be.
It became evident from this time on that the Reformation was indeed the work of God, not the work of Luther. God took the 95 theses and through the marvel of the printing press, caused them to be distributed through the whole of Europe where they shook Europe to its foundations. The theses were the germ of the gospel of salvation in Christ alone, a truth for which Europe hungered.
Although the upheavals in Europe over Luther's theses soon came to the attention of the pope, Rome was not immediately perturbed by these events and dismissed the whole matter as "a monks' quarrel." But it was far more than that, and even Luther did not know the extent of it. But when the seriousness of it all became evident, some important events took place. (Read Herman Hanko's "Portraits of Faithful Saints," Reformed Free Publishing, 1999, pp. 121-125)
Why did the Reformation happen? Here's what Luther wrote: “I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing: the Word did everything. Had I wanted to start trouble….I could have started such a little game at Worms that even the emperor wouldn’t have been safe. But what would it have been? A mug’s game. I did nothing: I left it to the Word“ (Adapted from quotations in Timothy George’s "Reading Scripture With the Reformers," InterVarsity, 2011, p. 20, and Carl Trueman’s "Luther on the Christian Life," Crossway, 2015, pp. 94-95).
