Luther’s Gospel Breakthrough

Luther’s Gospel Breakthrough

Luther’s Gospel Breakthrough

It was not so much the 95 theses as Luther’s later study of Scripture that fully crystallised his understanding of the gospel of grace. He came to the book of Romans but was stopped in his tracks by the word “righteousness” in chapter one. For Luther this meant God’s justice and judgment. “I meditated night and day on those words” he says, until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context (i.e. verse 17). He seized upon the words: “The just person lives by faith”. I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. As he meditated further, the whole gospel of grace was opened to him and the truth that we are justified by faith alone. Let’s take a closer look at the verse that became Luther’s Gospel Breakthrough.

Luther says. “I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice, i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: “The just person lives by faith.”

All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light.

“I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g.,the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God”.

I exalted this sweetest word of mine, “the justice of God,” with as much love as before I had hated it with hate. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise.

Luther had long struggled in vain to keep God’s law perfectly in order to be righteous before God. The idea of God’s perfect righteousness as a standard of justice terrified him. He says it “struck my conscience like lightning,” and “was like a thunderbolt in my heart”. But he came to see that the righteousness of God is also spoken of as a gift revealed in the gospel.

This discovery is often called Luther’s “Tower Experience,” because in one of his “table talks” he mentions that he was studying Romans 1:17 in the heated room (his study) of the tower of the Black Cloister in Wittenberg when the light broke upon him. The truth of justification by faith alone was a cornerstone of the Reformation’s recovery of the gospel of grace. 

Despite its significance we do not have much that Luther wrote about this verse. This verse is, however, helpfully expounded by John Brown of Wamphray in his comments on the book of Romans. It is not enough that Luther could see the truth of justification by faith alone in this verse, we need to see it for ourselves too. Brown’s comments help to draw out the truth carefully.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all that believe. This is because in that gospel the righteousness by which we must stand before God’s judgment seat is declared and revealed to believers. This is the righteousness that God reveals, no matter whether their faith is strong or weak; it is “from faith to faith”. The righteousness by which we must be justified is applied by sincere faith which is growing from one degree to another.

We are justified (declared righteous before God) by faith and not by works. Scripture affirms that we are just by faith and that we live by faith, therefore we are justified by faith. Paul quotes from Habakkuk 2:4 “The just shall live by faith” or “The just by faith shall live” (it can be read both ways).

 

1. There is No Salvation Without Righteousness

The Lord has made such a connection between righteousness (as the way) and life salvation (as the end) that no one can expect righteousness without salvation. God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Habakkuk 1:13). The “unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Revelation 21:27).

 

2. Saving Righteousness is Only Revealed in the Gospel

The only righteousness by which we attain to salvation cannot be learned by natural knowledge. However sharp-sighted in other things men may be by nature they cannot reach this. It is a matter that must be revealed in the gospel. It cannot be known except through the gospel because in it “is the righteousness of God revealed”.

 

3. We Cannot Earn this Righteousness

By nature we are inclined to obtain happiness through our own works. But the righteousness by which we must stand before God’s judgment seat (revealed and made known in the gospel) is not a righteousness we can purchase, merit or devise. It is a righteousness provided by the infinitely wise God and a righteousness of one who is God. It is therefore called “the righteousness of God” (Philippians 3:9) and the “righteousness which is of God by faith” (Romans 3:21 and 10:3).

 

4. This Righteousness is Received by Faith Alone

This righteousness of God revealed in the gospel is made ours by faith. It is applied by faith laying hold on Jesus and His righteousness. It is revealed “from faith” or by faith.

 

5. The Weakest Faith Receives this Righteousness

The least degree of faith (as long as it is true and sincere) receives this righteousness of God revealed to us in the gospel. It is “from faith to faith”; that is from the smallest degree and measure of faith to the greatest.

 

6. True Faith Continues to Grow

Although Satan uses many means to make true faith fail and die, it continues to grow from one degree and measure to another.

 

7. Justification by Faith is Essential

It is essential that justification by faith is properly understood. This is a truth opposed and obscured by Satan and those whom he uses. We must all understand it clearly and have it confirmed from the Lord’s Word. This is why Paul adds “it is written”.

 

8. Truth May be Established Indirectly

The law and the testimony of Scripture is the means to distinguish light from darkness. This is so full that we may confirm a truth from a verse where that truth is not directly addressed and is not necessarily the main purpose of the verse. The apostle makes use of a verse from Habakkuk here where the prophet is not primarily speaking about how or in what way people are justified before God. Rather, he is speaking about how the godly are supported and have life from faith even in days of trouble. The inference is justified, however. If the righteous have comfort through waiting on God by faith in a time of trouble it must be by faith that they are brought into life and justified.

If it is read alternatively, “The just by faith shall live”, it shows clearly that it is by faith (i.e. laying hold on Christ’s righteousness and blood) that they are just or justified. Great wrong is done to Scripture if we invalidate such inferences clearly deduced from it.

 

9. Justification is an Old Testament Truth

Although justification by faith is not outlined so fully and clearly in the Old as in the New Testament, it is still an Old Testament truth.  The apostle confirms this doctrine from a verse in the Old Testament (Habakkuk 2:4).

 

10. Justification is by Faith Alone

Faith is the only way by which sinners are brought from death to life and justification. Faith heartily embraces Jesus Christ for salvation as He is offered in the gospel. We are just and justified by our leaning on Him; for it is by faith that we are just.

 

11. Justification and Eternal Life Cannot be Separated

There is an inseparable connection between justification and eternal life. Thus, all those that are justified by faith in the blood of Christ, have fled to the city of refuge and sheltered themselves under the wings of Christ may be assured. Just as they are now spiritually alive so they will be carried through all difficulties and trials and at last inherit eternal life: for the just by faith shall live.

 

12. Justifying Faith is Living

Faith not only lays hold on Christ’s righteousness to be justified, it also draws strength from Christ as a root to live the life of grace and holiness. The same faith views God as reconciled in Christ, faithful in all His promises and mindful of the good of their souls in all sad circumstances. They have a life of comfort under the saddest circumstances that can befall them (Galatians 3:11; 2:20; Hebrews 10:38): the just shall live by faith.

 

13. Assurance is by Faith

Faith as God’s appointed means for accepting and embracing Christ and His righteousness justifies. By the same faith (not works), they get new confirmations of pardon; for the just (or he that is already justified) lives (in that justified condition) by faith.

READ MORE

LIKE THIS

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and receive an updated article every week.

Did Luther Reject the Ten Commandments?

Did Luther Reject the Ten Commandments?

Did Luther Reject the Ten Commandments?

It is not uncommon to encounter the idea that Luther discarded the Ten Commandments. The idea is that he emphasised grace so much against works and gospel so much against law that he downplayed the believer’s use of the Ten Commandments. Alternatively it is suggested that he was worried people would return to works righteousness if they were taught the obligation of holy living by the Ten Commandments.

It is a strange idea because the Ten Commandments were a constant feature of Luther’s experience and preaching. He said that “every morning, and whenever I have time, I read and say, word for word, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms, etc”. He preached on them from 1516 onwards and published A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments in 1518. In the midst of the conflicts raging at this time he says: “each evening I expound to children and ordinary folk the Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer”. He felt that it was necessary to keep these together in order to have a right perspective on the Commandments.

No man can progress so far in sanctification as to keep even one of the Ten Commandments as it should be kept, but that the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer must come to our assistance, as we shall hear, through which we must continually seek, pray for, and obtain the power and strength to keep the Commandments

Luther had a high esteem for the Ten Commandments. “They are the true fountain from which all good works must flow”. “Only those things are good works which God has commanded, just as only that is a sin which God has forbidden. Therefore, he who wants to know and do good works need only know God’s Commandments… These Commandments of God must teach us how to distinguish among good works”.

Luther also expounded the Ten Commandments in his Large and Small Catechisms as well as composing a song by which they could be learned. Saving faith must evidence its real character in a changed life. “We must prove ourselves before the world. How? By keeping the other commandments as well: ‘You shall honor your father and mother’ “

The idea that Luther rejected the Ten Commandments is in fact such an old notion that in 1648, Samuel Rutherford went to the extent of translating Luther’s treatise Against the Antinomians from the original German. The following is an updated extract from that book.

Luther’s Use of the Ten Commandments

And truly, I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law or Ten Commandments. There are available so many of my own expositions (and those of several sorts) on the Commandments. They are also daily expounded and used in our churches – to say nothing of the Confession and Apology and other books of ours. Add to this the custom we have to sing the Commandments in two different tunes; and also children painting, printing, carving, and rehearsing them both morning, noon, and evening. I know no other way than what we have done except that we do not (alas!) as we ought, really express and delineate them in our lives and conversations. I myself (as old as I am) have it for my custom to recite them daily, as a child, word for word.

If any should have been mistaken about what I had written, he might (seeing how vehemently I urge these catechetical exercises) in reason have been persuaded to call on me and demand these or similar questions. What? Good Doctor Luther, do you press so eagerly the Ten Commandments and yet also  teach that they must be rejected? They ought to have dealt thus with me and not secretly undermine me behind my back, and then wait for my death so they might afterwards make of me what they pleased. Well I forgive them, if they leave these courses.

 

FURTHER READING

Read more articles from the blog

AUTHOR MENU

READ MORE

LIKE THIS

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and receive an updated article every week.

How Does Faith Justify?

How Does Faith Justify?

How Does Faith Justify?

The Scriptural truth of justification by faith alone is the teaching most closely associated with Martin Luther. It was a radical change from the idea that justification would only take place in the future on the day of judgement. Even more radical was the truth that it was by faith alone and not faith formed by acts of charity that would merit eternal life. Luther saw that Scripture teaches that we are not justified by any work that we do but solely on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ (Romans 3:21; 4:4-5). No wonder he wrote: “One cannot go soft or give way on this article, for then heaven and earth would fall”.

He also wrote that justification is “the most delightful” doctrine. But he added, that there were “few…who have thought it through well and who teach it aright”. About 150 years later it still needed correct teaching and thinking. John Brown of Wamphray wrote The Life of Justification Opened in order to clarify the doctrine against those who were introducing error. This problem remains today. One of the areas that Brown discusses is how faith justifies:

Faith is looking to Christ, as the stung Israelite in the wilderness looked to the brazen serpent (John 3:14,-15). Faith is saying ‘In the Lord have I righteousness’ (Isaiah 45:24). It is the believer putting on the Lord Jesus, that he may be found in Him and clothed with His righteousness (Philippians 3:9). It is receiving Christ (John 1:12) and receiving the atonement in Him and through Him (Romans 5:11) together with abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17). It is therefore called ‘believing on His name’ (John 1:12; 6:29; 7:35; 17:20; Acts 16:31; 19:25). Because faith has laid hold on this righteousness of Christ, this righteousness is called the ‘righteousness of faith’ (Romans 4:11) and the ‘righteousness which is of faith’ (Romans 9:30). It is that, ‘which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith’ (Philippians 3:9). Justifying faith is receiving Christ and His righteousness. It takes the man out of himself so that he may find and partake of that all-sufficient righteousness of Christ. Thus he may stand before God with confidence and expect pardon and acceptance. To say that faith is itself the gospel-righteousness on which they may lean and expect justification would be to destroy the essential work of justifying faith.

Brown emphasises that believers are not justified on account of their faith, as if that constituted their “gospel-righteousness”. Rather they are only justified on account of the righteousness of Christ imputed to them through faith as a mere instrument or means of receiving it. He continues:

Faith, in this matter, is as the eye of the soul, that does not look to itself but looks out to another. All who would live the life of justification must take themselves to Jesus Christ, lean on Him and His righteousness. They must be clothed with the robe of His righteousness alone and found in Christ alone. This is the only basis on which they must think of standing before God, having on Christ’s righteousness which God imputes to believers, and which they receive by faith, in order that they may have justification.

 

FURTHER READING

Read more articles from the blog

AUTHOR MENU

READ MORE

LIKE THIS

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and receive an updated article every week.

An Entire Life of Repentance

An Entire Life of Repentance

An Entire Life of Repentance

The very first of Martin Luther’s 95 theses was: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance”. They begin, continue and end their life of faith here on earth with repentance. “The just shall live by faith” and repentance is the tear in the eye of faith. Luther was emphasising Christ’s own message in preaching the gospel. Part of its purpose was to call sinners to a life of repentance.

Luther’s reference to the words of Christ is interesting. It involved appealing to the original Greek as meaning repent rather than the Latin “do penance”. The Greek New Testament had been printed in 1516, the year before Luther posted the 95 theses. His explanation of the 95 theses demonstrates this.

the Greek word metanoeite itself…means ‘repent’: and could be translated more exactly by the Latin trasmentamini, which means ‘assume another mind and feeling, recover one’s senses, make transition from one state of mind to another, have a change of spirit’; so that those who hitherto have been aware of earthly matters may now know the spiritual, as the Apostle (Paul) says in Romans 12:2, ‘Be transformed by the renewal of your mind’. By this recovery of one’s senses it happens that the sinner has a change of heart and hates his sin.

Luther is pointing to the inward disposition, not merely outward actions (though he did not deny the need for these).  He goes on to say in the second thesis: “This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy”. He explains his statement about an entire life of repentance in the following way:

We pray throughout our whole life and we must pray ‘forgive is our debts’ [Matthews 6:12]; therefore, we repent throughout our whole life and are displeased with ourselves, unless anyone may be so foolish as to think he must only pretend to pray for the forgiveness of debts.

David Dickson shows how Christ’s preaching in Matthew 4:17 echoes the message of John the Baptist. John was now in prison but Christ continued his message. “Christ had preached before in the time of John’s freedom, and made more disciples than he (John 3:26), but now he begins in this countryside, and shows himself more powerful than before”. He notes the following points:

  1. When Christ’s gospel is opposed and His servants persecuted, He can let forth his light and power so much the more, and can supply the lack of instruments. Therefore it is said: “From that time he began to preach”.
  2. Christ’s doctrine and the doctrine of his faithful servants is all one in substance. The sum of John Baptist’s preaching and Christ’s is all one. Both preached in substance: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.
  3. When the gospel comes, it finds men under the tyranny of Satan. The offer to bring them into the kingdom of God implies this.

In his comments on John the Baptist’s preaching (Matthew 3:2), Dickson further draws out the message of repentance.  The aim of John’s preaching was to move men to repent, because the kingdom of God’s grace offered in the gospel, was now ready to receive the penitent.

 

1. Repentance restores men to their right minds

The gospel finds men mad and out of their right minds in an evil way. When it is sent unto them they are men who must return to their right minds. The original meaning of the word “Repent” implies this.

 

2. Repentance is the aim of gospel preaching

The aim of the preaching of the gospel is to persuade men to repentance. “Repent” is John’s main purpose.

 

3. Repentance and the kingdom of heaven

The grace of God offered in the gospel is in effect the kingdom of heaven, for it opens the way unto it, and enters the man not only into the right, but also into the begun possession of the kingdom of heaven.

 

4. Repentance and God’s offer

There can be no greater allurement to move a man to change his evil way and turn to God than the offer made to the penitent. This is the offer of the kingdom of grace and glory through Christ and this is the motive which John uses: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near”.

 

5. Repentance is brought about by the gospel

The ability and activity of repenting are both brought about by the preaching and power of the gospel. John is sent to preach this doctrine in order to bring these about, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”.

 

Conclusion

Luther was echoing Christ’s message and rediscovering something of the fulness of the gospel and gospel living. That message continues to be necessary. We need daily, personal, sincere repentance in the spirit of the gospel. Repentance that lays hold of the mercy of God in Christ. The kingdom of heaven is mark by repentance.

It was an appropriate message to signal the start of a Reformation. Reformation is not about merely making outward changes to the way that we do things. We need heart reformation and personal reformation in our lives. Then we also need to see families, Churches and the nation reformed according to the Bible.

Reformation and repentance both involve change. Repentance is not only about  sorrow for sin. It means turning from it and being transformed in our lives by the renewing of our minds. We need this constantly both as individuals and Churches.

RELATED ARTICLE

Read Christ’s Refining Fire of Reformation and Your Spiritual Life. This shows the real nature of spiritual reformation. Outward change is not enough. There must be deep inward refining.

FURTHER READING

Read more articles from the blog

AUTHOR MENU

READ MORE

LIKE THIS

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and receive an updated article every week.

Martin Luther’s Role in the Second Reformation

Martin Luther’s Role in the Second Reformation

Martin Luther’s Role in the Second Reformation

31 October 1517 was when Luther nailed up his 95 theses. He died about 100 years before the Second Reformation in Scotland and the rest of Britain. How could he possibly have a role in it? Further, Luther’s convictions on the Lord’s Supper, church order and worship weren’t those established by the Second Reformation.

Looking back from the time of the Second Reformation in Scotland, John Row wrote warmly of Luther. He said that “the Lord, by his Word and Spirit, taught him more and more grounds of true religion, which he set out to the view of the world”. The point is that Luther sought to recover biblical Christianity. He did so by an appeal to the supreme authority of Scripture. In the Second Reformation in Scotland, we see the culmination of this outworking. Luther said to the Emperor: “I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God”. This was a vital principle. God alone is Lord of the conscience and Scripture is the only rule in matters of faith and practice. The men of the Second Reformation were willing to assert this resolutely in the face of the tyranny of absolute monarchy.

It was this principle that the Westminster Assembly were committed to working out fully. An article on this site explains a little more of this.

The Second Reformation applied the principles of God’s Word to both Church and Nation. Scotland flourished under God’s blessing as a consequence. One could say that it was biblical Christianity come into its own – its natural outworking. You can read some more here about why we need the biblical accuracy of the Second Reformation in our day. There are 7 reasons why we need to learn from it. You can also read more about the principles of the Second Reformation here.

Scotland’s Greatest Revival

£1.00

FOR A BUNDLE OF 3 COPIES

What insights might you learn from understanding the seven key points why the Second Reformation period was not only a national movement of reform in the Church and Nation but also the greatest period of revival in our country’s history?  What if the key to the future is knowing the past?

Out of stock

FURTHER READING

Read more articles from the blog

AUTHOR MENU

READ MORE

LIKE THIS

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and receive an updated article every week.