Reflecting and Responding
Martin Luther
Growing in the Freedom of God’s Love
Because there are still so many hindrances and temptations of the devil, our new life in Christ should be one that continually develops and progresses.
THE LARGER CATECHISM
WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY we want assurance of our salvation? Is it that we are simply too self-centered to care about anyone else? Or could it be that we have an innate need to know that we are loved by God? It is this question that riveted the mind and energy of Martin Luther.
The torrent that became the great Reformation began as a series of small streams and estuaries. As these small movements and innovations gained momentum, they swept some of the strongest Christian personalities into their wake. Standing tall in the midst of these raging forces is the legendary figure of Martin Luther (1483-1546).
Like Aquinas before him, Martin Luther believed that the Fall of Adam and Eve fundamentally changed us. But his response to this change was completely different. If Aquinas’ autobiography is irrelevant to understanding his writings, then almost everything about Luther’s life is necessary for understanding his work, as well as his love and experience of God.
There are few personalities in history as colorful as Martin Luther. Born November 10, 1483, in a small Bavarian town in modern Germany, Luther was raised in a strict, austere religious environment. His father’s remoteness, coupled with his mother’s severe religious temperament, colored Luther’s view and approach to life from an early age.
Luther trained initially as a lawyer, and his parents hoped he would pursue a career in government or social service. But another destiny was brewing. There is no other way to describe Luther during this time than as a cauldron of discontent. But this discontent opened him to the majesty of God’s work and its mesmerizing effects, which drew him into the priesthood. Although this decision angered his father, Luther was satisfied in his new life and launched a quest that would result in some of the most remarkable spiritual insights ever recorded.
The Heart of the Gospel
In his writings, Luther’s chief concern is that believers throw off the stifling effects of Catholic scholasticism. For him, the scholastic approach to life with God imposes the rigidity and formality of pagan philosophy and its meager attempt to build a stairway to heaven. In Luther’s estimation, what was lost in the Fall of Adam and Eve was the capacity to respond naturally to God in love.
Instead of earning our salvation by moving up the scale of human love to a pure love of God, Luther sees God reaching down to restore and guide us. We do not recover our love of God incrementally. We experience God’s love fully through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The immediate and evident effect of God’s love is that we are able to love others. Loving God and loving our neighbor are the two sides of our experience of redemption. We cannot have one without the other.
While still a pious monk and despairing of his personal salvation, Luther finally discovered satisfaction for his longings when he stumbled on the central message of the gospel. It was his understanding of God’s grace freely given, beyond any human effort, that set Luther free to enjoy the “medicine of immortality.”
Believing that earlier Christian thinkers Dionysius and Bernard placed too great an emphasis on human initiative, Luther states that the central importance of our encounter with God is revealed in Scripture. He criticizes the idea of natural revelation that comes through the “book of creation” and the “book of experience.” Earlier theologians and mystics emphasized finding God through his mediated presence. Luther, however, sees these overtures as diversions from the two most reliable sources of divine knowledge: the Holy Scriptures and the sacraments.
As a result, Luther places a dual emphasis on the work of Christ in redemption and the work of the Holy Spirit in our sanctification. We cannot ascend to God, the way others advocate. We can only respond to the promptings and leading of the Holy Spirit. For Luther, the whole tone and nature of the Christian life is the response of our spirit to the Spirit of God.
The Essence of Luther’s Faith
Ultimately, Luther says, God is hidden. As a result we can know him only through faith. Faith, though, is not based on personal experience or creation but on total confidence in God’s will as revealed in Scripture and confirmed by the sacraments. The key to faith for Luther is anfechtung, a state of hopelessness and helplessness. Only when we enter this state are we able to recognize our utter dependence on God and then respond to him in an appropriate act of faith.
This response of faith activates God’s structure of salvation. Faith creates godliness. It drives out sin. It produces strength. It enlightens spiritual blindness. It guards against moral relapse and empowers the believer to perform good deeds in fulfilling God’s command to love our neighbor. The commands of God are clear and, when we respond in faith, they become not an onerous responsibility but a liberating structure of mercy and grace.
Faith reveals the purposes of spiritual formation. It also shapes our inner life as Christians and molds us into the image of Christ. This inner formation leads to transformation and allows us to respond in active service and witness in the world. We do works of love and service not to earn our salvation but to respond to the living witness of God in our life.
Although Luther has been accused of deprecating the spiritual life and devaluing the work of sanctification, this is simply unfounded. Luther demonstrates a robust confidence in the power of faith to establish a relationship with God that leads us beyond our inclination to sin. If we try to become pious without faith, God is not allowed to work. If we act in pure faith, then God, through the work of Christ, relieves the burden of sin that weighs on our conscience. If we do not yield to God in faith, it is because we have a perpetual yearning to continue a life of sin.
Of significant influence in Luther’s own development was his “Damascus road” experience. The time was 1514 and Luther had been through a bout of serious depression. Realizing that all of his efforts to perfect himself in the eyes of God fell short, he was suddenly overcome with a perceptual reorientation to the “righteousness of God.” As a response to this overwhelming experience, Luther began to write. These writings changed the world. They also led to his confinement by religious and civil authorities in the castle tower at Wittenberg.
Yet this imprisonment did not break his spirit or deter him. Rather, it stimulated him to understand the ways and purposes of God. As a result, Luther was dramatically overcome one night by the sudden realization that “the just shall live by faith.” The just are brought to an assurance of salvation not by what they do but by how they are liberated by God to serve in the world.
The Dual Agency of Word and Spirit
The tower experience forever marked Luther and became a powerful component of his new theology. Whereas Thomas Aquinas had focused on the first person of the Trinity and the power of God the Father, Luther now focused on the sacrifice of Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. “All Christians,” Luther says, “need the comfort and aid of the Holy Spirit.” This experience of the Holy Spirit is not discernible or discoverable by human reason but is revealed supernaturally from heaven itself through a proper understanding of the “theology of the cross.”
The work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit creates the theater of action. The Spirit’s work as sanctifier brings all of Christ’s work as justifier to fruition in the believer’s life. Because we are born not fully formed but must develop, the Holy Spirit provides the guidance we need as we anchor our life to God. “The goal of redemption,” Luther states, “is the transformation of the believer who dies to sin in order to live for righteousness. The old man, the old Adam is replaced by the new man in Jesus Christ.” Ultimately, for Luther, the essence of the Christian life is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Because of his own profound experience of the Spirit leading and guiding him, Luther taught that the central, motivating force in all of Christian life was the active work of the Holy Spirit—but not the Holy Spirit acting on its own. As a constraint and guard against those who would set aside the law, Luther maintained a strong emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit that occurs most profoundly through reading Scripture. He advocates a creative balance: The Spirit’s activity is best understood in conversation with Scripture.
Becoming God’s tabernacle. This dual agency of Word and Spirit became a hallmark of Lutheran spirituality. “To study Scripture effectively,” Luther writes, “one must read the Scriptures with the eyes of faith.” For Luther, it is impossible to understand the Scriptures without the aid and guidance of the Holy Spirit. “Believe me,” Luther continues, “for I have had experience in this matter.”
Ultimately, for Luther the “one who is spiritual is the Christian who has the spirit of Christ.” Luther’s spirituality is concerned with the way the Spirit of God works to bring our human spirit to its natural fulfillment and maturity. God has created us for eternal fellowship with him in the communion of saints. Thus heaven is populated with people who have given their life fully and completely to Jesus Christ and dedicated themselves to realizing the meaning of this life in every dimension. It is this energizing influence of the Holy Spirit that awakens our human spirit and propels us to pursue our ultimate fulfillment and destiny.
Luther uses the structure of the Jewish tabernacle to demonstrate how the Spirit of God shapes our body, soul and spirit to become a dwelling place for God. Like the physical tabernacle of old, we become a dwelling place for the Spirit of God in the new and exciting world of post-law grace. Here Luther draws on his strong scholarly training to amplify his point. Utilizing the allegorical tradition of biblical interpretation, Luther presents his threefold progression of the spiritual life. Each of us consists of a spirit that is the holy of holies, a soul that is the place of seven candlesticks and a body that is the outer court open to the sky.
In the highest stage, the holy of holies, God dwells in the darkness of faith. This is the realm of human life that is not discernible by reason and not available by experience. It is here where we learn to believe what we can neither see nor prove. The second level, our soul, is where God manifests himself through reason, knowledge and understanding of all visible and bodily things. The third level, our body, is the outer court where we connect with all manner of experience and life.
Although God intends for us to be thoroughly sanctified in every part, it is our spirit that is especially sensitive to overtures from God. Drawing on John 14–17, Luther shows us that it is God’s full intention that we enjoy union with him through Jesus Christ. For it is here where the Holy Spirit provides us with the same opportunity to be present with Jesus as the first disciples.
The balance between extremes. Of course, anytime you place such a hearty and robust emphasis on the Holy Spirit, you open yourself up to potential abuse. Luther was especially resistant to the radicalism of Karlstadt, Munster and Zwickan, three Anabaptists who emphasized the superiority of the Spirit over Scripture. To their credit, these three leaders and the thousands who followed them were trying to break free of the ossified biblical interpretation of the nominalists and scholastics. But the result was a diminishing of the importance of the biblical text and an overemphasis on our reliance on the Holy Spirit.
Luther’s concern is steadfastly anchored to his understanding of human nature and his interpretation of the Bible. Because God always reaches out to us first and foremost through our senses, he likewise comes to us first and foremost through the visual words and texts of Scripture. For Luther, the outward always precedes the inward, for this is God’s order. But the Anabaptists, according to Luther, ruin God’s order. They not only claim that the inward precedes the outward, but also insist that the outward is secondary at best and often unnecessary for gaining the spiritual insights we need to live a life pleasing to God.
Enjoying God’s love. For Luther, the life-changing reality of regeneration is the starting point for our life with God. It is here where faith begins and the early root system of the spiritual life develops. Because of his own existential dilemmas and the way they awakened a longing for God’s habitual presence, Luther realized that our ultimate need as Christians is the assurance that comes from knowing we are right with God. “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39). This passage is central to Luther’s psychology of Christian belief. We come to this assurance by the outward reading of Scripture and the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit. This is an inner confirmation that exceeds all reason, although it is reasonable. It is discernible to the person who peers with the eyes of faith and can see the full meaning of the gospel.
It is this discernment that propels us forward. The spiritual life is active, not static. The Spirit leads us through progressive stages of understanding to deeper levels of love and holiness. Thus, although Luther never teaches that our works of holiness bring salvation, he does state that holiness reflects the progressive sanctification of every committed follower of Christ.
In a seldom emphasized section of his theological works, Luther teaches that believers are given power to live and lead a new life of righteousness. Every single one of us who responds with affirmation to God is given a new life through Jesus Christ. But not every one of us who is given this new life fully manifests its fruit. The difference lies in the level of dedication and response each one of us makes to the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Scandal of the Cross
For Luther, there is enough evidence for those who want to believe in God and enough mystery for those who want to turn away. But God clearly makes himself known to us through Scripture, through all of the world religions that reflect a longing for him and through the classical authors Paul quotes in Acts 17. We carry within ourselves a conceptual idea of God even if we have not yet understood this idea. This general knowledge is not enough for salvation, since complete and confirming knowledge of God is taught only by the Holy Spirit through experience. But it is evident and it does provide every human with an opportunity to respond.
This is Luther’s idea of the knowledge of God that must be recovered as a result of the Fall. We possess both superficial and proper knowledge of God. Superficial knowledge is available to everyone and is gained by reason. Proper knowledge of God comes only through the witness of the Spirit in the revelation of Scripture.
This discussion is undergirded by Luther’s intense dislike for scholastic theology. Luther states that philosophical and scholastic speculation about God is simply human reason trying on its own to build a citadel of belief without the need for faith. But this denies the way God comes to us first through our senses so that we can recognize and receive him and then grants us deeper knowledge through faith in Jesus Christ.
Luther’s whole enterprise culminates with his profound emphasis and original contribution on the “theology of the cross.” For Luther, true theology—the only reliable approach for gaining knowledge of God—is found in the cross. There is no such thing as direct, unmediated revelation of God. In fact, Luther says we can see only the “rear end” of God; we cannot view him face to face. As a result, through the cross we come to understand that it is impossible to know anything of God apart from what is revealed by Jesus Christ. Because God is revealed only through the cross, we do not initially recognize him as God. The cross shatters our confidence that we can know anything about God apart from that which is revealed to us through the cross.
The cross, then, becomes the central symbol of Christianity and embodies the role of suffering in our knowledge of God. Part of this emphasis on suffering is tied to Luther’s own acute suffering. But it moves beyond his experiences to reveal that all spiritual reality is based on physical reality and suffering. And suffering, as a part of our physical reality, opens us to spiritual realities in new and specific ways. This is why the spiritual disciplines matter so much. We cannot arrive at the fullness of our spiritual life in Christ without them. Thus reading Scripture, accepting the authority of Scripture, participating in baptism and the Eucharist, confessing our faith, obeying the Ten Commandments, engaging in corporate and individual prayer, practicing liturgical worship and much more all provide essential help in our life with God.
When discussing prayer specifically, Luther emphasizes three reasons why we should pray: God wants us to pray, God promises to hear our prayer, and prayer strengthens our resolve to resist temptation and the devil. In this emphasis on prayer, Luther steers away from what he saw as the rigidity and legalistic works-righteousness of so many prayer books. While emphasizing the central importance of the Lord’s Prayer, Luther levels his most devastating blow against medieval practices when he suspends any invocation of the saints in prayer. Instead, he highlights the singular role of Jesus as our mediator with God.
Finally, it is by faith that we enter into God’s grace. And it is by faith that we realize the effectiveness of God’s grace through participating in the spiritual disciplines as aids to salvation. By participating in these aids to salvation, we build immunities against the devil’s temptations. For all his emphasis on the fact that the just shall live by faith, Luther ultimately emphasizes the freedom of the Christian to make an authentic response to God through a life of love, service and prayer.
REFLECTING AND RESPONDING
Martin Luther was a robust personality, to say the least. From his ninety-five theses nailed to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, to his resounding confession at the Diet of Worms: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. . . . Here I stand, I can do no other.” From his gripping translation of the Bible into German to his exceptional skill as a hymn writer. From his famous tower experience, perhaps in 1514, when he came to the dramatic insight that “the just shall live by faith” (sola fide) to his declaration at Leipzig in 1519 of the supreme authority of Scripture over all ecclesiastical authority (sola scriptura). From his “Sermon on the Mass,” which teaches the priesthood of all believers, to “The Freedom of a Christian Man,” which states that the Christian is both a free lord subject to none and also a servant subject to all. From his dissolution of monasteries and the ending of clerical celibacy to his marriage to the former nun Katherine of Bora and a satisfying domestic life with six children.
Three things especially strike me about Martin Luther. The first is his rare theological insight. He could see to the heart of theological questions and express himself with astonishing originality and force. This can be seen in what over time has come to be called the “five solas of the Reformation”: sola fide, justification is by faith alone; sola gratia, salvation is by grace alone; sola scriptura, ultimate authority is in the Scripture alone; solo Christo, salvation is from Christ alone; and soli Deo gloria, everything is for the glory of God alone.
Luther’s theology of the cross is perhaps the most vivid illustration of this. The cross stands right at the heart of his massive theological construct. For Luther, everything points to the cross and everything culminates in the cross. Jesus’ death on the cross paid sin’s debt, satisfied divine justice and reconciled us to God. The work of Christ on the cross makes our justification before God possible. Indeed, it is the linchpin for our salvation. No works of our own will suffice. It is faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone.
Luther was absolutely committed to Christ alone as the one who merits and mediates our salvation. In the language of theology, this is called the “penal substitutionary atonement.” Christ bore the penalty for sin, for all sin—both past and future, both before baptism and after baptism—and there are no more acts we need to perform to satisfy God’s justice, whether of ascetic mortification or active service. No punishment is left for us to bear because Christ bore it all. In his Lectures on Galatians Luther uses the word “satisfaction” repeatedly as a kind of shorthand for this idea of penal substitutionary atonement. On the cross Christ paid the penalty for sin and satisfied the justice of God once and for all.
This laser-point emphasis on the finished work of Christ on the cross has led some to define Luther’s understanding of justification exclusively in forensic terms. Such a view excludes any essential connection to our sanctification, to our growth in grace, to our spiritual formation into the likeness of Christ. This, however, is a distortion of Luther’s position. Exciting new research by a group of Finnish Lutheran scholars is showing Luther’s more fully orbed theology. Tuomo Mannermaa’s new book Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification devotes fully six chapters to “The Presence of Christ in Faith and the Holiness of Christians.” Mannermaa shows the clear connection Luther saw between justification and sanctification, between our right standing with God and our growth in character formation.
A second striking reality is Luther’s extraordinarily grounded common touch with ordinary people. Think, for example, of his translation of the Bible into a superbly simple and idiomatic German. It proved to be enormously successful and just as influential a force in the German-speaking world as the King James Version would later become in the English sphere. The Luther Bible should be regarded as one of the most valuable contributions to the German church.
Or think of his letter to his barber, Peter Beskendorf, who had asked Luther for guidance on how to pray. In response Luther wrote him forty pages under the title A Simple Way to Pray . . . for Master Peter the Barber. I have always loved the humility of spirit in Luther’s beginning instruction: “I will tell you as best I can what I do personally when I pray. May our dear Lord grant to you and to everyone to do it better than I! Amen.”
Or think of Luther’s Table Talk, meal conversations with students and colleagues who were furiously scribbling notes as he spoke. Reading these excerpts it is easy to imagine Luther gripping his beer stein with its ten rings in honor of the Ten Commandments and holding forth on issues of grave concern to the Reforming movement. Here is one excerpt that underscores the importance of Scripture to the Reformers: “Oh! How great and glorious a thing it is to have before one the Word of God! With that we may at all times feel joyous and secure; we need never be in want of consolation, for we see before us, in all its brightness, the pure and right way.”
Finally, I am profoundly struck by Luther’s skill as a hymn writer and his love of music and poetry generally, which gave special impetus to his liturgical reforms. As with the Bible he put worship into the common tongue, and he restored congregational singing to the people. Indeed, he consistently placed strong emphasis on the congregation actively engaging in worship rather than passively listening to the leader. Just think: Luther gave the people a vernacular Bible so that God might speak directly to them and a vernacular worship so that they might speak directly to God.
We are all moved by Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Many also know his Christmas hymn Van Himmel hoch da komm ich her, “From Heaven High to Earth I Come.” And much more. It is hard to overestimate the power of setting the hearts and minds of the common people aflame with music. Samuel Taylor Coleridge observed, “Luther did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as by his translation of the Bible. In Germany the hymns are known by heart by every peasant; they advise, they argue from the hymns, and every soul in the church praises God like a Christian, with words which are natural and yet sacred to his mind.”
O Christ, Gracious Savior, we thank you for your work of redemption on the cross. You took into yourself all the sins and all the sorrows of all the world. You ransomed us from sin and death and hell. You paid in full the price for our rebellion. You utterly and completely satisfied the justice of God. On Golgotha’s hill you became the perfect example of self-sacrificing love. You delivered us from a life of fear and hatred. Thank you. Thank you for reaching down to us when we could not reach up to you. Thank you for your continual cleansing and redeeming love. Thank you for your free gift of salvation. Thank you for becoming the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. O Christ, your supreme sacrifice on Calvary has made your name precious beyond the telling. And it is in this name that we pray. Amen.