Luther's Reformation Breakthrough

in this lecture we're looking at Luther and his Reformation breakthrough in Luther's Reformation in the breakthrough they had is one of the most well recognized and most important moments in the history of the church so many folks are aware that Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of the church at the castle there in Vinton Bourg and that everything that flowed after it gave rise to the Protestant Reformation and subsequently all of the Protestant denominations that came thereafter but sometimes things that are recognized are not well understood they become too familiar to us we get so used to the idea that Luther began the Reformation through a protest over maybe salvation maybe indulgences that it can be sometimes hard to understand what the Reformation and what Luther's breakthrough was really all about and so we're going to talk about this here in this lecture we're going to get a bit of a sense as to who Luther was and as to what his goals were how he began the Reformation and all the events that flowed thereafter and to begin we have to look at Luther's life Luther was a man from Germany he was born into a middle-class family in the heart of modern-day Saxony there in the middle part of modern-day Germany and a great deal is made about Luther's background in his life at times there are those whether in the historical studies world or in the popper level who believe that Luther had something of a rough childhood there are allegations that Luther's father was abusive that he often was tyrannical over Luther both in his discipline and in the way that he organized Luther's life and the allegation here is that Luther's Reformation his eventual rebellion against the authorities of the church stem in part from the fact that he was really quite cross with his father that he and his father did not get along and that because of that he developed something of an identity crisis to who he really was and therefore when he entered the monastery the angry father is quickly translated to become the angry tyrannical God who Luther has to impress with his works and with his righteousness well the problem with all this of course is that it's a modern interpretation of Luther Luther does at a later date and actually throughout his life at times tell us a great number of things about the way that his parents were disciplinarians well what happened was is in the 1900s a neo Freudian scholar by the name of Eric Erickson compiled all these comments and all that we know about the young man Luther and publish it under that title young man Luther in Erickson alleges all kinds of things but Luther that had never been said before namely that he was a man who suffered from one of Erikson's more popular theories which is that of the identity crisis Erickson believed that Luther is a prime candidate for a historical example of what he found in his modern research on identity midlife crisis and etc well the problem here as historians have noted again and again is it really psycho analyzes Luther in a way that he is not really intending us to psychoanalyze him there is no evidence for example that Luther began the Reformation because it a horrible relationship with his father at times Erickson mistranslates or miss applies or misinterprets texts from Luther on his life so we can set aside the idea that Luther had a horrible childhood he had a disciplinarian father and Luther does tell us that his father at times was maybe a bit excessive but as we'll see Luther's Reformation was more about the medieval system that he was raised in as a monk than it was the family life that he was raised in as a child Luther's father was a copper miner he was a man again of middle-class income at times approaching upper-middle class income status but in the end he sometimes lost some of his profits and kind of lived right there in the middle of the income spectrum for his own day he was a well respected man and having some extra capital he wanted more for his son Martin than he had had himself and so Morton got a good education as a young boy he was sent to what they call grammar school which is where he would go and learn his Latin in preparation of joining the University Manny does eventually he joins the University of Airport a really sort of middle level up-and-coming University not too far from his home area there in Saxony then Luther was a good student this is another one of the messages out there that Luther was a bit of a bumpkin a bit of a redneck when it came to his education in fact he was really at the top of his class in 1505 he eventually graduated with his master's in arts now the way education worked in this day and age is you did your bachelor's and your masters in the arts in preparation potentially at least for some further study there on in a special field you could go into theology and Bible you can go into law into medicine Bend into another of other subjects well the story as we know it is that Luther and his father had tentatively agreed that Luther would join the law faculty and that he would pursue a career in law this had a number of prospects for career perhaps he could come back and work with the family estate and be a Paragon along with his father as a lawyer there for the city the horizon for Lutheran other words was not all that small if he studied law well faithfully well on July 2nd 1505 after Luther had been home for awhile after having completed his master's in arts while riding on horseback back to law school to begin Luther gets caught in a thunderstorm and Luther tells us a story much later in his life so there's a bit of a editorial hand at work here but Luther tells us that he's caught in the thunderstorm and in this day and age to be caught in a thunderstorm was considered a bit of a bad omen it's not that they considered lightning to be superstitious but they knew that if you were struck by lightning that you could very well die and in the Middle Ages to die suddenly like this was seen as divine judgment to be struck down either with a sudden illness or in this case to be struck by lightning and perish would be some indication that God had been unhappy with you well it's for this in a number of other reasons that Luther begins to really panic during the thunderstorm Mandi tells us that he falls off of a source and he makes a vow a vow to st. Anne and he calls out Saint Anne I will become a monk now there's always an element of duplicity here that people have noticed first and foremost and as a saint was actually believe it or not the patron saint of minors now this is a medieval practice it's still in effect relatively in the same way today in fact in Catholic circles and that is that a saint would be assigned to be the over watcher or the protector and the one to whom you pray depending on whatever circumstance you're in or whatever profession you follow well st. Ian as it turned out was the patron saint of miners and a lot of people have noticed that Luther here might very well be twisting his father's arm he knows that if he vows to st. Anne that he'll become a monk while his father being a minor is not exactly going to back down and hack off the very Saint that is in charge of protecting his own industry but laying that aside we're not quite sure if Luther was twisting his father's arm or not it does seem to be the case that Luther does make this valid earnest because just a month later July 17th Luther has a dinner party with his friends and it's sort of a farewell party and at the end of it they walk Luther to the gate of the Augustinian observant Order there in the city of air fort Luther says to them today you see me but tomorrow no more many enters the monastery there now what's in play here why is Luther joining the monastery what would it have been like to be a monk and what were the assumptions here well first and foremost to become a monk is not seen as saving oneself than leaving a secular world as we might say it today a monk is not seen as someone who is saved whereas someone who's a lawyer is someone who's in the secular world and therefore unsaved you could be a good Catholic and be a lawyer or a copper miner any of these things rather a monk is you might say someone who is taking the Christian life more seriously and it's not that they believe again that they're better than the people but rather becoming a monk fits hand in glove with the way that the medieval world viewed the Christian life and that is that salvation while begun and enacted by the Spirit and by God's predestination was believed in the Catholic system to also require a lifetime of penance and good works - you might say polish the gem that had been entrusted to the person in their baptism the Catholic life goes something like this you were born and then within seven days you were baptized often people would get their name in fact from their christening date Martin Luther himself was named Martin because he was baptized on the feast of Saint Martin so you'd be christened and the belief in the Catholic system is that at your baptism original sin is wiped away the Holy Spirit comes into the infant and the infant that enters into something that we call the state of grace the state of grace is not a slippery term but it's sometimes hard to understand if you're not used to this language I often say that the state of grace is to use maybe a bad analogy like the car coming out of the carwash perfectly clean as clean as it's going to be relatively speaking of course in terms of the car but perfectly so when referring to the human soul after baptism it is as clean and pure as possible well the Catholic system does believe that you go on sinning but though original sin is wiped away and the original stain is wiped away the belief is that sin corrupts or taints or ruins maybe to a small degree maybe to a large degree depending on the sin the state of the purity of the state of grace in that person to use the car analogy you drive through a mud patch and splash the car and get a dirty again well in the Catholic system the goal of the Christian life is not so much to save oneself in the ultimate sense but rather to take care of the ongoing effects of sin in the Christian life in other words the Catholic system in a very specific sense believes that salvation is a gift because it comes first and foremost in baptism the infant has done no good works by the age of seven days and there is no righteousness in that infant and therefore they maintain what they believe is the Augustinian priority of grace grace comes in they then say though that the rest of the Christian life is the working out of one's salvation in the sense of paying back the debt for each of these sins as the Christian life carries on and so one sins and the way you deal with sin is you confess it first of all and you confess it always always always to a priest private confession to Christ alone in prayer or simply to another layperson is not enough it's insufficient you must go to the church and you must go to the representative of Christ within the church which in this case would be a priest when you confess your sins and the priest says you are absolved which is a way of saying that you are forgiven it will not be tossed out of the church and thrown into Hellfire and damnation however following on from that the priest will assign a number of penances for the sins that one has committed and penance could be any number of things can be Hail Marys it could be our fathers it could be giving of alms to the church which a gnome is anything above and beyond your tithes which was required it can be to go on pilgrimage it could be to attend Mass and take part in the sacraments any number of these things could be assigned and the idea here is that you're supposed to purge and wash away the dirt of the sin that you have committed and it was also at times described as a bit like exercise you would exercise through these acts of good works to strengthen the soul so that the next time sin presents itself you don't succumb to the pressure and with the penance having been completed and finished you are then returned now you don't feel this you don't experience this personally but you are guaranteed to have been returned to the state of grace now what happens if you don't complete all of the penance or you don't confess all the sins in your life well that's what purgatory comes in I always tell students purgatory goes up not down purgatory is not pre hell or another word for hell purgatory rather is the final penance it's the penance one does at the end of their life on the way to the final beatific vision where we see Christ in heaven so this is the Christian life it's begun by grace and then there is this cycle of sin confession penance sin confession penance the goal of the Christian life in is to continue to work yourself back into the state of grace now here's where the monastic life comes in if the goal of the Christian of all Catholics is to confess and perform penance moult Linna stands to reason that those who are engaging in a life that is constantly working out penance and confession are achieving more in terms of washing away the dirt of sin in their Christian life then those who say confess once a year which was all that was required of laypersons within the catholic system once a year usually on Easter you confess and as you can imagine you can't confess an entire hears with the sins much less remember them all and so the lay person is believed to be stacking up all kinds of penances and all kinds of things that will be washed away in purgatory the monk though is living more on that edge they're trying to achieve a life of sanctification and godly living when they're doing this to constant devotion and prayer and etc so what does Luther believe he's doing when he joins the monastery well but simply he believes he's joining the higher life the life of constant devotion in merit and penance he doesn't believe he's going to save himself per se at least not yet but he does believe there is something in his life that requires a certain severity a certain radical commitment to the life of the monastery now there's any weakness in late medieval Catholicism on the doctrine of salvation it said it wasn't quite clear and it wasn't expressed as clearly as it maybe could have been whether or not someone could lose their salvation fully if they didn't perform enough penance or more importantly and this will be very important for Luther if they didn't perform penance self-consciously with real conviction in other words there was an ambiguity in the latter middle ages for Luther as to whether or not his penance was good enough and because there was a lack of clarity as to whether or not his penance was good enough there was also a lack of clarity as to whether or not a person living their life not performing penance in the appropriate way would eventually be cast out and have so corrupted and corroded themselves that they do end up losing you might say their salvation now this is an important point because Luther does not fundamentally believe that he's in the monastery again to save himself but rather you might say he believes he's in the monastery attempting to make sure that he doesn't lose himself which is sort of the inverse of the idea of performing works for salvation rather what he's trying to do was perform works to maintain the free grace of salvation that he is said to have received at baptism in other words the late-medieval system was a in by grace remain in by works system it is not the case and Protestants really need to know this it is not the case that the Catholic system is a pure works righteousness system they believe that at baptism the infant receives nothing but grace nothing but the good grace of God that is infused into their hearts the works of the Christian life then are said to be a result of that but what was ambiguous at least by the time Luther joined the monastery is what happens if you do not perform your penance well enough and what happens if you do not perform enough do you lose your salvation so Luther's life as a monk was full of ups and downs highs and lows but we do know from his own words later that it was a bit of a torturous experience now Luther wasn't always being tortured he was actually in terms of his career in terms of his education rapidly advancing up the ranks in 1512 for example he received a doctorate and he is eventually installed as a professor of theology and Bible at the University of Wittenberg this new startup University out in the eastern part of Germany and it was there at Vinton board where Luther will essentially lived for the rest of his life Luther is also being moved up the ranks in terms of his monastic order he's being given opportunity for leadership but there is something fun until Luther tells us in his heart where he's not comfortable with the Christian life as he's living it and he gives us a word for this he calls it unfit to him and on fact organ is a word that's hard to translate into modern English it has a number of elements within it crisis anxiety anger depression fear etc but Luther tells us as he has this unfit tongan here's all these complex emotions in his life and he does not believe fundamentally that he is living up to the standard of the monastic life that was held before him Luther had a mentor all throughout his days first an airport and then in Wittenberg the man was named Johan stop it's stopped it's is the older brother and the father figure for Luther in the monastery stop it's continually points Luther to Christ and as Luther's confessor it was to stop it's that Luther constantly came to confess everything that was upon his heart and on his mind then Luther tells us all kinds of stories about this in one case he is a marathon session which Talbots and on the way back to his cell you remember some more sins that he needed to confess and so he races back to confess those as well what seems to have Luther locked up here is not so much that he takes his own sin seriously lots of Catholics took their sin seriously what's locking Luther up more than anything else and he tells us this later is that he has no conviction that his heart is in the right place you have to not simply be fearful of purgatory or damnation to confess your sins rather Luther was told and this was standard for the day you have to actually legitimately be sorry for your sins as an affront to God anything short of that is not true confession mensa Luther cannot come to the fundamental conviction that he has done this with any sincerity and conviction he always knows that his heart and his will are mingled with sin and therefore sometimes he is just fearful he doesn't feel bad for his sins and so Luther's life to go back to this idea of the cycle of sin confession and penance and returning to the state of grace is that this loop for Luther so seized him up because he believed that fundamentally he was falling further away from the state of grace and that here he was in a life as a monk and he had joined not just any old monastery he had joined an observant monastery which is one of the most important revival groups within the monastic orders that really took monastic life seriously he wasn't in a lazy monastery he was in a very serious one and he was taking it very seriously in that monastery and yet Luther still believed fundamentally that he was unable to achieve any serious conviction for his sin and he felt that his penance was insufficient well all this comes to a head for Luther sometime around fifteen fifteen maybe fifteen sixteen some historian stated earlier 1513 maybe we really don't know Luther gives us the what happened of this story but he never gives us the when of this story but sometime around let's say around number of fifteen fifteen sometime around 1515 Luther has what we call today his breakthrough and his breakthrough is really a fundamental rereading of what the Gospel message is all about and the breakthrough Luther describes as his Torm our lateness which is translated to mean his tower experience now one little Messier the Tour Mayer lateness is too often believed to be Luther sitting upon the toilet yes on the toilet don't believe me there was actually a play in the 1960s and 70s called Luther a lot of famous people were in this play and it had a good run for a while well the play really culminates with Luther having a bowel movement on the toilet there at the end again a lot of this comes from Eric Erickson and the Freudian side of the interpretation of Luther is alleged that Luther's spiritual crisis manifested itself physically in constipation and therefore the Torme lateness was less to say relief from this constipation and there's all kinds of myths here it's not what happened frankly and historians have exploded this repeatedly it was injected into historic interpretation by people who are not historians but were psychologists and they got the history wrong Luther does describe his bodily functions let's just put it that way quite often both before his Reformation breakthrough and after but that just means he's a bit scatological he's not really describing his Reformation breakthrough itself as being literally upon the toilet no the tour my lateness we're pretty certain happened in the tower on the side of one of the great buildings there in the monastery of it and Bourg Luther would have been in this tower because it'll been cold and this was the warmest part of that area and he was in there reading he does tell us what he was reading though he was reading Romans and he came to Roman's 117 which says that a righteousness is revealed from above from faith to faith that the just shall live by faith no Protestants are very familiar with this passage were very much used to seeing this as the heart of the gospel the God has revealed a righteousness in the person of Christ and it is by faith that you grab hold of Christ well just to show how the interpretation of a passage can affect the way someone interprets the passage in the light of the Christian living Luther tells us that the way he read this passage was entirely medieval and what he means by that is he actually had a particular set of assumptions about what this passage meant in the context of the monastery for Luther he says the passage was actually one that was quite scary when he read the words that a righteousness from Christ is revealed he tells us that what he interpreted that passage to mean was that God had given us a standard a righteousness that we had to live up to it was not a righteousness that is in Christ it is a righteousness that is more like the bar the high jump bar that the Christian is supposed to jump over and even the words that the just shall live by faith was interpreted to mean that the just to live by working out their faith and love through the context of sin confession penance etc so right there you can see that what we have here is something like a hermeneutical grid or a way of understanding a passage in the light of the Middle Ages Luther's breakthrough in a simple way just as simple as you want to put it is that he comes to a reorientation of this passage as the heart of the gospel and it's not just this passage but this is the one he tells us about the breakthrough the Luther is that as he reflects on it and as he meditates on this passage he eventually comes to the conclusion that the way that the medieval church was understanding righteousness as being tied up with merit then the good works of the Christian in their life was antithetical to what Paul was saying here Manny spends the passage around now he believes after his breakthrough after his tour Marylebone as' that the righteousness is the righteousness of Christ himself it's the righteous life that he lived as the Covenant keeper as the one who was purer and more importantly living by faith is not living a life devoted to works unto oneself even if they are inspired and nourished by the sacraments and by the spirit no rather Luther says by faith means that we grab on to that righteousness of Christ that we trust that it counts as our righteousness now he will come eventually to call this the alien righteousness of Christ which is just another way of saying it's a righteousness that's not ours it's a righteousness that's external to us it's Christ's righteousness it belongs to him but what Paul is saying here Luther tells us is that we grab that by believing that his life by faith counts as our good works and that his death by faith counts as the death that we owed and so Luther again and again says the breakthrough was about the gospel itself and this is important to grasp because what we're going to look at in our next lecture is Luther's Reformation itself what Luther does with this fundamental breakthrough how does this break through to a new understanding of Christ's righteousness and our faith in him and his work how does that affect the ongoing fight with the Catholic Church but it needs to be stressed right now Luther's breakthrough in the fundamental core of his Reformation is about the gospel it's not about Church corruption in fact too often what happens is the story is told that the church was corrupt and Luther went and fought against the church but that's not the core conviction here rather the core conviction for Luther when he has his breakthrough when he's in that tower when the gospel shines new light into his heart that is the gas in the engine that is what drives him for the remainder of his career in fact all the challenges Luther has for the church and all the reforms that he eventually puts forward for the Lutheran Church are driven by this commitment to the alien righteousness of Christ and through a life lived beneath the cross not in anticipation that our works will accomplish anything for our life but rather that Christ's work has paid it all including the sins that are part of the ongoing Christian life rather for Luther it is the gospel breakthrough the Reformation breakthrough as we call it that is the driver for everything he is about to do and it's telling that he has his breakthrough at least a couple of years before he even posts the ninety-five theses and he begins to fight with Tetzel and the Catholic Church on the subject of indulgences the gospel breakthrough has happened first and it's that breakthrough as we'll see in our next lecture that drives him to reform the church you