Reformation

On All Saints' Day, November 1st, the castle church would open its doors and allow the public to come in and view its vast collection of relics. To do so would grant you a reduction in the days you would spend in purgatory after your death. It was as good as purchasing an indulgence, a remission of punishment granted by the church for sins already forgiven. So everyone in Wittenberg would come to church. And what better place for a monk and scholar to post a list of his objections to the sale of indulgences than the church door everyone would pass by?

So on October 31 Dr. Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses, or propositions he would like to debate, to the church door for all to see. Unfortunately, they were in Latin, the proper language for debate. Someone soon translated them into German and copies began to circulate, not only throughout Germany but all over the continent. Luther also sent a copy to his archbishop, who forwarded it to the Pope. Neither of them liked it because both had a hand in the selling of indulgences in Luther's area. Some of the proceeds were going to the Pope to pay for St. Peter's church in Rome as well as paying off a papal dispensation allowing the archbishop to have more than one bishopric. But what really bothered Luther was Johann Tetzel. This Dominican friar was commissioned with the task of getting people to buy the indulgences and he was a natural-born salesman. Imagine one of those guys who sells Oxy-clean or Sham-wows on TV. Tetzel even had ear-catching jingles that described how good his product was. It didn't matter to him if he distorted or overstated what an indulgence could do. "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory into heaven springs." To hear Tetzel tell it, no sin was too heinous for the indulgences he was selling; it didn't matter if you had raped the Virgin Mary herself. These indulgences were "get out of Purgatory free" cards.

Luther was appalled at this. He knew Tetzel was distorting the whole doctrine of divine forgiveness and leaving out the roles of grace and faith entirely. He was misleading people about the most wonderful news about God and our relationship with him. And this wasn't merely academic to Luther. His whole Christian life had been transformed by understanding what the Bible really said about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Luther at one point had been driving his confessor at the monastery crazy with his obsessive cataloging of every sin he could think of. Finally the older priest told Martin to go out and commit some sins worth confessing! But Martin took the idea of sin, of falling short of God's standards seriously. He saw Jesus as a hanging judge. So when his mentor had him teach the New Testament, and he studied Paul's letters, their core argument came as a revelation. Paul, once a zealous Pharisee, explained that no one can possibly be good enough to save him or herself. Thank God he sent his son Jesus to take away our sins so that whoever puts their trust in him is saved. In Ephesians Paul wrote, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one may boast." This was good news to Luther and indeed to all Christians who had been trying desperately to buy their way into heaven with good works, such as donations to the church which secured them magical indulgences.

Nobody in the Roman Catholic church wanted to debate Luther; they wanted him to take it all back and shut up. Luther could not do that. The Protestant Reformation was underway.

All over Europe people read and debated Luther's writings. They inspired others to read the scriptures for themselves and many became reformers as well. Not all, though. Not at first. King Henry VIII was a real Renaissance man and he wrote a book refuting Luther and was awarded the title Defender of the Faith by the Pope. Of course, later he broke away from the Roman Catholic church and let people like Thomas Cranmer reform the Church of England along the lines of what was then called not Protestantism but Lutheranism. But Henry kept the title Defender of the Faith, as has every British monarch down to this day.

Today most people in the West know Christianity as a religion of divine love and forgiveness. Unfortunately, they have grossly oversimplified this to mean something like "God loves me just the way I am and forgives me my sins so I can choose to live however I want." They agree with those who misstated Paul's teachings that we can sin so God's grace abounds even more. But Paul said that's like being freed from the slavery of sins only to go back to one's old master. I'd compare it to having a doctor cure you of lung cancer only to take up smoking again. Sin is more than breaking rules; it's breaking yourself and those you drag down on the foundational laws of creation.

Luther, like Paul, did not teach that because we cannot save ourselves by good works, we needn't bother about behaving virtuously. Luther and those who followed him saw 3 uses for the law. The first is obvious: to curb bad behavior. Laws tell us what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Traffic laws tell you what speed to drive, who has the right of way, when you may and may not pass, etc. If we all obey the laws, we all shall be safer.

A second use of the law is to mirror our condition. This is very much in line with what Paul teaches about God's law. We compare ourselves to it and realize how far short of it we've fallen. When a blood test comes back, there are the normal values for human beings in one column and then the patient's values in another. At a glance you can tell if someone's potassium is too far up or down, if they have the right concentration of red or white blood cells, or if it's taking their blood too long to clot. Often a doctor can diagnose a condition just from the blood work. When we compare our values to God's we can see where we are out of alignment with spiritual health. Like being told your cholesterol is too high, this should motivate you to change, to let the Great Physician take over your care.

There is a third use for the law: to guide one in living the Christian life. But I thought Paul said no one could follow the law completely? And he was right. But that's not the fault of the law. It is still how God wishes us to live. But no one can do so--by themselves. Only one aided by the Holy Spirit can. And you receive the Holy Spirit when you put your trust in Jesus Christ.

Ever notice how they tell you to check with your physician before taking up an exercise regimen. Isn't exercise good? Yes, but not if you're so unhealthy that it can bring on a heart attack or leave you gasping for air. So first you should go to your doctor and see if you have health issues that have to taken care of first. And he's still not going to tell you to run marathons right off the bat. Just so, living the Christian life requires coming to Jesus for healing and salvation first. Only then can you start to try to live according to the guidelines for a godly life which are the law.

But you don't follow the law in order to be saved. That was accomplished by Christ and must be accepted on faith as a gift, as God's grace. Rather we live according to the law of love because it is God's will for us and because we love him and are thankful to him. We follow his precepts out of gratitude.

I think the reformers would be horrified if they saw how people today have so twisted the doctrine they recovered, that we are saved by grace through faith, to mean Christians don't have to obey God's commandments. It's like saying because exercise won't take the place of a heart transplant, one needn't, after the transplant, exercise. Indeed, if one doesn't change one's lifestyle after a transplant, if one doesn't eat better and exercise properly, one can end up in poor health again.

In his letters Paul, speaking to a culture where trials were held in public, used legal language to help people understand the change that Jesus makes in our lives--from guilty to innocent. Luther and the other reformers used the same language. But in a world where people have become cynical about the law and are much more conscious of health, I think medical metaphors might work better to get God's truth through to modern people.

Think of sin is as spiritual dysfunction, disorder, disease. As with heart failure, we cannot cure ourselves of our sin. We need Jesus to heal us. The diagnosis: our heart is bad and we need a new heart to replace it. That requires a donor and the death of the donor. Jesus is the donor whose death means life to the recipient of the new heart. And only when we have the heart of Jesus within us, can we begin the task of getting better and shedding the self-destructive habits that caused our spiritual illness.

This metaphor covers the main features of salvation and underlines the difference between what only Jesus can do and what we can. It emphasizes the necessity of salvation by making it sound less arbitrary than choosing to be on one side or the other, as if following God and not following him are equally valid choices. It's not about following made up rules. It's about being in harmony with the creator of the universe and the laws which regulate it. It's a matter of spiritual health or disease. It's a matter of life or death.

I don't know who called it the Reformation but it is apt. It's not just about reforming the church; it's about personal reformation. God is the potter and we are the clay. If we submit to him he will change the shape of our lives, making them fit vessels for his Spirit and for the accomplishing of his will. We cannot do this without God. God will not do this without our consent. That he offers to save us after all we have done to ourselves, our neighbors, his creation is grace. That he trusts us to have a part, however small, in redeeming his creation is love. Our response is to trust and love him back.

In "A Treatise on Christian Liberty," Martin Luther wrote, "From faith flows forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love, a joyful, willing and free mind that serves one's neighbor willingly and takes no account of gratitude or ingratitude, of praise or blame, of gain or loss." We do not obey God in order to be saved but because we are saved, because we are recipients of his undeserved, unreserved goodness. Like our Father who makes the sun rise on good and evil people alike and who showers his gifts on all people, we imitate his graciousness towards friends and enemies alike. It's not a matter of mechanically following rules, but, as C.S. Lewis said, it is more like painting a portrait. And the portrait is that of Jesus, and the canvas is ourselves, and by close observation of the subject and by use of the gifts God gave us, and the guidance of his Spirit, we can trust that we are creating a good likeness of the one who is Love Incarnate.