Welcome back to Him We Proclaim and to our ongoing Reformation Conference series celebrating the enduring gospel truths of the five solas. Today's episode highlights the final sola, Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory. It was an absolute honor to welcome Dr. Andreas Stegman, a German national and scholar of Reformation history, who traveled all the way from Berlin to share this powerful message with us. Doctor Stegman serves as Director for German Reformation Studies at the Wittenberg Center for Reformation Studies and lectures in Church History at the Theological Faculty of Humboldt University in Berlin.
His expertise spans early modern Lutheranism, Reformation thought, and the transformation of Protestantism into the modern era. With a rich and memorable German accent, doctor Stegman leads us through a stirring reflection on how every aspect of the Christian life, and indeed all of redemptive history, points beyond ourselves to the glory of God alone. His message is thoughtful, soul stirring, and deeply rooted in the heart of the Reformation. Thank you very much for having me here. Thank you for m inviting me and flying me in.
And thank you for sitting down here on a Saturday afternoon to listen to roughly one hour about what to God alone be the glory means for the Reformation. The title of this whole conference is not immediately understandable in Germany. What does the number five mean? After all, church and theology always speak only of four solas. Christ alone through scripture alone, by grace alone.
Through faith alone. That's how I learned it in my studies. and that's how I pass it on to my students. When a colleague heard about um the five solas, she suspected that it might be a Calvinist modification common among American Presbyterians.
However It seems to me that talk of the five solas is widely accepted and almost taken for granted here on the other side of the Atlantic. The fact that the alone to God be glory is one of the four solas. How it relates to the other four discussed in the previous presentations and what it means is the subject of my talk. Using Luther's programmatic writers of 1520 as an example, I will first show that all five solas. are already present at the beginning of the Reformation and are particularly emphasized by Martin Luther.
The first fifteen minutes will be reading Luther's text. And I've brought slides so that you can follow what I am reading. The second step will be Looking what these four five zolas mean and how they relate to each other. And in the last step, I will talk about what it means to glorify God, and I will especially concentrate on the topic of. Chr Christian prayer.
So first, we will talk about the Reformation solas in Luther's tract on Christian Liberty. In 1520, Luther wrote four best-selling books in which he set forth his ideas for the renewal of the church. These four books are the program of the Reformation. and they were widely received and had a great impact. In the spring of 1520, Luther's interpretation of the Ten Commandments appeared in print under the title On Good Works, which developed the new ethos of the Reformation.
This was followed in the summer by his appeal to the Christian nobility. calling for fundamental reform of the church. Also in the summer, Luther published his treatise on the Babylonian captivity of the Church, which taught a new understanding of the sacraments. and led to a reorganization of worship. This was followed in the fall of fifteen twenty by the treatise that provided the basic ideas for all of this, the freedom of a Christian.
That's now the title page of the Latin version of the thing. There is also a German vernacular version. It is here in this fourth tract that the solar statements are used programmatically for the first time. I will read and comment on a few pages of the text. paragraph by paragraph, using the translation in volume two of the Annotated Luther.
So on the right, it's the annotated Luther, a very fine edition of Luther texts with good annotations that help you getting deeper. into these sources. Luther starts with a question. How someone may become righteous, free and truly Christian. He replies.
It is evident. that no external thing at all. whatever its name, has any part in producing Christian righteousness or freedom. Nor does it produce unrighteousness or servitude. This can be proven by a simple argument.
How can it benefit the soul if the body is in good health, free and active, eating and drinking and doing what it pleases, when even the most ungodly slaves to complete wickedness may overflow in such things? On the other hand, How could poor health or captivity or hunger or thirst or any other external misfortune harm the soul? When even the godliest, purest, and freest consciences are afflicted with such things. Not one of these things touches upon the freedom or servitude of the soul. Thus it does not help the soul if the body wears the sacred robes set apart for priests, or enters sacred places, or performs sacred duties, or prays, fasts, abstains from certain food, or does absolutely any work connected with the body.
Righteousness and freedom of the soul will require something completely different. since the things just mentioned could easily be done by some ungodly person, or since such since such efforts result only in producing hypocrites. On the other side, the soul is not harmed if the body wears street clothes, goes around in secular places, eats and drinks like everyone else, does not pray aloud and fails to do all the things mentioned above, that hypocrites. Could do.
So far my first quotation. Yeah. Luther's first answer to the question of how to become a Christian is negative. not through external things and practices. He is primarily targeting the medieval piety, which was all too interested in external things.
However, as the following passage shows, he also criticizes the spiritual heights of medieval piety.
Next quotation. Moreover, so that we may exclude everything. Even contemplation, meditation, and whatever else can be done by the soul's efforts. All of this has no. Benefit.
End of quote. Please keep this statement in mind as I will come back later to what a man contributes to becoming a Christian and living as a Christian. and I will also talk about Luther's high regard for contemplation and meditation. For now, let us stay with the Freedom Treatise and the question of how to become a true Christian. Nothing a person can do will help not even the highest achievements of medieval piety.
Luther continues with a programmatic, exclusive statement.
Next quote. One thing And one thing alone is necessary for the Christian life: righteousness and freedom. and that is the most holy word of God. The Gospel. of Christ.
End of quote. A little later in the text, we also find the expression by the word alone, zolo verbo. which is also found in the version by Scripture alone, so das scriptura, in other writings of the period. Um I would like to make a small comment on the distinction between scripture and word. Um Luther is here talking about not scripture but the word because the word is what creates faith.
Scripture does not create faith. Scripture contains the word that creates faith.
So if you are talking about the effective a use of the word. It's the word, not script scripture. You talk about scripture alone if it is about the norms for church and theology.
So it's in different contexts you either speak of Sodo verbo, by the word alone, or you speak about soda scriptura by scripture alone. But it means roughly the same thing, two sides of the same coin.
So, the Bible, or more precisely, the promise of the gospel, is the only thing. That makes a Christian.
Now We are curious. What is this promise that only counts? Let us have a look at the following passage of Luther's Tract. As John Eleven states, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will never die.
and John 8. If the sun makes you free, you will be free indeed. and Matthew Fall. One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Therefore, we may consider it certain and firmly established.
That the soul can lack everything. except the word of God. Without it absolutely nothing else satisfies the soul. But when the soul has the word, it is rich and needs nothing else. Because the word of God is the word of life.
truth, light, peace, righteousness, salvation, joy, freedom, wisdom, power, grace, glory, and every imaginable blessing. End quote.
So, the biblical text that counts is the promise that Jesus Christ. is my salvation. One page later, Luther will also explicitly state the solus custus, Christ alone, that is already included in these quotations. But first Luther is still talking about the word.
So I'm simply reading through the text. No jumps, no leaps.
Next quote. This is why the prophet, throughout Psalm 119 and in so many other places in the Psalter, yearns and sighs with groans and cries for the Word of God. Again, there is no crueler disaster arising from God's wrath than when it sends a famine of the hearing of his word, as stated in Amos 8. just as there is no greater grace than whenever God sends forth His Word, as in Psalm one hundred and seven. He sent out his word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction.
And Christ was not sent into the world for any other office than the Word. Moreover, the apostles, bishops and the entire order of clerics have been called and established only for the ministry. of the word. You see, this text is all over with this exclusive language. nothing else than Alone, only.
After so emphasizing the importance of the word in this way, Luther returns to the content of the word, which has had previously been defined with three biblical quotations.
Now follows another Biblical quotation. You may ask. What is this word? and how should it be used when there are so many words? in words of God.
I respond as follows. Paul explains what this word is in Romans one. The Gospel of God concerning his son. who was made flesh Suffered, rose, and was glorified through the Spirit, the sanctifier. End quote.
The word of God that brings salvation and liberation and justification is the gospel, which tells us of Jesus Christ, his incarnation at Christmas. his death on the cross on Good Friday, his resurrection on Easter morning, and his ascension 40 days later. It is therefore not the Bible as a whole. Not even the New Testament or the Gospels but only a small, thematically limited part of the Bible that really counts. Because of this reduction, it is more appropriate to speak not of Scripture alone, but by the Word alone.
For when it when it comes to salvation of mankind It is all about this divine word of promise.
So far, we have learned that man's salvation depends solely on this word of promise, the gospel of Jesus Christ. But there is something more to the word, namely, the right use that is made of it. I continue reading quotes. Thus To preach Christ means to feed, justify free and save the soul. provided the person believes the preaching.
For Faith alone is the saving and efficacious use of the word of God. End quote.
So this is the next step in Luther's argument, again underlined by an exclusive statement. The only saving word is only grasped by faith. This is exactly, according to Luther, what Paul says, albeit without the explicit alone or only. I continue quoting. Romans ten states If you confess with your heart that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
And again, for Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. And Romans 1 states. The one who is righteous will live by faith. End quote.
We now continue our reading with the following remarks on the relationship between. The word and faith. In which all the three exclusive statements already mentioned are brought together.
So this is one paragraph. where you have the three basic exclusive statements all together. I Go on reading. For the word cannot be received or honoured by any works, but by faith alone. Therefore it is clear that the soul needs the word alone for life and righteousness, because if the soul could be justified by anything else, it would not need the word and consequently would not need faith.
Indeed, This faith absolutely cannot exist in connection with the works, that is to say, in connection with any other presumption of yours to be justified at the same time by any works whatsoever. Therefore, when you begin to believe, you discover at the same time. That everything in you is completely blameworthy. Damnable sins, as Romans 3 states, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And Romans 3 says, There is no no one who is righteous.
No one does good all have turned aside altogether they have done worthless things. By this knowledge, you will realize that you need Christ who suffered and rose again for you in order that believing in Him. You may become another human being by this faith, Because all your sins are forgiven and you are justified by another's merit, namely By Christ's. Alone.
So one paragraph. Four, fifteen, twenty, you have all the three solars in one. context. We see That the three sodas here are found in Luther's 1520 Treatise on Freedom, and that they summarize his theology. The Reformation is about Jesus Christ, whose salvation is granted through the Word and received by faith.
By far the most common sola statement, and the one that most succinctly sums up the Reformation theology, is sola fide. by faith alone. The fourth solar statement, solar gratia by grace alone, is not found in the Freedom Treatise. But in other writings of Rudolph from this period, Though rarely. as a programmatic short formula.
But what about the exclusive statement that is the subject of my talk? Zoli Deo Gloria. Glory be to God alone. Is it to be found in Luther's treatise on Christian freedom? It's not there.
Although this question must be answered in the negative, it is nevertheless striking. That the quoted passages on word and faith are followed by a longer section on the glory. Of God. The first power of faith is to believe the word and thus attain salvation. Luther now continues.
Let this suffice for the first power of faith. Let us now look at the second. Faith functions also in the following way. It honours the one in whom it it trusts with the most reverent and highest regard possible, for this reason. Faith holds the one in whom it trusts to be truthful and deserving.
For no honour is equal to attributing truthfulness and righteousness to someone which is how we honour the one in whom we trust. Could we ascribe to anyone anything greater than truthfulness, righteousness, and absolutely perfect goodness? Conversely, The greatest contempt is to suspect or to accuse someone publicly of being, in our opinion, a liar and wicked. which we do when we do not trust a person.
So when the soul firmly believes the God who promises, it regards God as true and righteous. Nothing can show God greater respect. This is the highest worship of God. To bestow in God truthfulness and righteousness, and whatever else ought to be ascribed to the One in whom a person trusts. Here, the soul submits itself to what God wishes.
Here it hollows God's name and allows itself to be treated according to God's good pleasure. This is because clinging to God's promise the soul does not doubt. that God is true, righteous, and wise, the one who will do, arrange, and care for everything in the best. Possible when. Unquote.
So Faith in the Word not only brings salvation to sinful man, but it also honors God. And there is no greater honour no greater glorification of God Then this faith in the promise. In the following passage, which I will not read aloud, Luther explains that unbelief, on the other hand, is a rebellion against God and robs God of all his honour. While such people fall prey to their nation, God is kind to those who believe in Him and thus truly honour Him.
Now I continue reading. But when God sees that we ascribe truthfulness to Him by our heart's faith, honour Him as is His due, Then in return, God honours us. ascribing to us truthfulness and righteousness on account of this faith. For faith results in truthfulness and righteousness, giving to God his own. Thus, in return, God gives glory to our righteousness.
For it is true and righteous that God is true and righteous, and to ascribe this to God and to confess it means being true and righteous. As I Samuel two states, For the ones who who honor me, I will honour. and those who despise me shall be treated with contempt. And Paul says in Romans 4, that Abraham's faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. because through it he fully gave God the glory.
For the same reason, if we believe, it will be reckoned to us as righteousness. End quote.
This passage makes clear That faith in the promise brings us into a relationship with God Himself. And more moreover, this faith is already the right relationship to God, since it gives him the only honour that God values, namely, that man trusts him. Honouring God is not something to be added to faith. not a particular practice of piety, not feelings, words, and deeds, but faith itself. And when man God honours God in this way, by believing in salvation, then man is honoured by God.
with God because God considers man to be righteous. Faith thus creates a mutual relationship of trust. in which man honours God, And God honors man because he trusts God. Regarding the relationship of the fifth solar to the other four. Luther's tract on Christian freedom shows that the glorification of God is closely linked to faith.
We even find the statement, I've highlighted it, that Abraham fully gave God the glory. which is quite close to the Fifth Reformation solar.
However, the text contains no programmatic condensation in the formula soli deu gloria. Glory to be be to God alone Indeed, I think uh this formula is not to be expected in this section, because Luther is concerned with the ex exchange between the glory of God and the glory of man.
However, where he deals with only one side of this interrelationship. namely, how faith glorifies God, we also find this formula. which is the subject of my talk. The year before, in 1519, Luther published an exposition of the Lord's Prayer that concludes with a quotation of 1 Timothy 1, 17.
So litero. Honourable At Gloria. There it is.
However, the fact that this formula is not woven into the text. that Luther does not use it as a programmatic summary. as he does repeatedly with the other solar formulas, and that this formula is not found too often in the Reformation. This all suggests that it is a somewhat different kind of exclusive statement. Let us summarize the result of my initial exploration.
Martin Luther's on the freedom of a Christian shows that the connection between word and faith and thus Jesus Christ is at the heart of the Reformation. Luther uses Zola formulations to emphasize these central ideas. Christ alone Through the word alone and by faith alone, they are present in the Reformation from the beginning. Although glorifying God is one of these fundamental ideas of the Reformation. Luther does not embed it in the three-step process of Christ, word, and faith.
but leaves it to follow this three step process and does not condense it into a solar statement. That was the rather easy part of my presentation.
Now follows an attempt to try to understand what's happening here. I will talk about the duality of the Reformation solas. What we just read has been translated by me into a graphic. It is a simple illustration that I usually draw with the chalk on the blackboard in my classes and explain as I do so.
So don't be disappointed. Yeah. We begin with the vanishing point of the dynamic, the person who yearns for salvation. For this person God began his work of salvation in Jesus Christ.
So Blackboard chalk. I have only to draw one line. For this person, God begins his work of salvation in Jesus Christ. Jesus became man in a stable in Bethlehem. Hence the schematised manga.
I hope you can see it.
Okay. He died on the cross. and was buried And he rose from the dead. and was glorified. All this is proclaimed and communicated to man through the gospel.
In which the dissonner believes. This faith in the Word does not come come from man, but is worked in man by the Word itself. Faith then is the vanishing point toward which this whole dynamic converges, and faith itself is part of this movement towards man. And because the word and thus Christ comes to man in no other way than through faith, Luther hammers in the by faith alone. We can now add to the diagram the solar formulas, namely solus crustus.
On the one hand, and soda scriptura and solar feeder on the other. And we can also add Zulagatia, which is nothing more than another way of expressing the same view of Christ's salvation granted to faith through the Word. Luther's tract on Christian freedom also gives us the opportunity to include the fifth sola into the diagram. Although It does not appear in the text of this tract.
So this is trying to. illustrate what I've read from Martin Luther in the previous section. I have deliberately used The Latin solas in the diagram because they tell us something about the relationship between these five solar formulas. To understand this, please forgive me, let's first look at the following slide. This chart will be familiar to anyone who has learned Latin.
Latin nouns and adjectives have different endings depending on how they are used in a sentence. We are only interested in the left column with the singular forms. We can see that the Latin sodus custus is nominative. while zola scriptura and zola gratia can be both nominative and ablative. And Zolo Verbo and Zola Fide are clearly ablative.
The formula soli dio gloria On the other hand, is dative. In the previous slide I gave you the English translations, and you saw that I understand Zuda Scriptuja and Zula Kratia to be ablatives. If this is now difficult to understand, please follow me to the next slide. Yeah. What if you if you don't know Latin?
It's rather enigmatic what I'm talking about. Therefore we get another slide. A slide showing us the functions. The nominative denotes the acting subject in the sentence. The ablative is a circumstance of action.
In our case, it denotes the means. And the dative denotes the indirect object of the action, and that means the recipient or the beneficiary. But the action for which the recipient is named in the dative also has its own nominative, namely glory. Be to the Lord. The solidiogloria does not belong directly.
to the solus Christus and Solas Scriptura and Sola Fide, but it is something new and different. One could say that the solus custus, Christ alone, is the subject of a first sentence. And the Zula Scriptura, Zula Fide, and Sola Gratia add information to this first sentence. Yeah. The solidio gloria begins a second subsequent sentence.
Names a new subject, namely glory, and the addressee of this glory, namely God alone.
So that's a summary of the four solas in two sentences. This now can be further illustrated. by the diagram on the next slide. The five solas denote two different movements. The movement from Christ to the believer, And the movement from the believer to Christ.
Four solas described how Christ's salvation comes to man. and one sola describes how man turns to Christ. The duality of this act of action is crucial to the Reformation. In his writing on the Babylonian captivity of the Church, Luther formulated the following principle. Because it's so important, I read it first in Latin.
and afterwards you get the English translation.
Okay. Non ergo sunt confondenda i la du du misa et oratio, sacramentum et oppos, testamentum et sacrificium, quia alterum ven et adeo ad nos per ministerium sacardotis et exigit fidem. Alterum procedures a fidel at Deum, et exegit ex auditionem. Elot the scandit, Hock, I skend it. In English translation These two things Mass and prayer, sacrament and work, testament and sacrifice, must not be confused.
For the one comes from board, to us through the ministration of the priest. and demands our faith. the other proceeds from our faith to God. and demands his hearing. The format descends The latter essence.
Not only is it important to distinguish between two directions of action. But it's also important to note that one is secondary to the other. Everything that human beings do, namely prayer and good works, is only the response to God's action towards human beings, which always comes first. For the Reformation, divine agency through which we receive salvation. It's always the first.
While human agency through which we respond, can only ever be the second. and never a decisive factor. That has been the last slide with complicated diagrams. The soli Deo Gloria, therefore, does not belong in the series of the other four. Because it is about something else.
It is not about divine agency. But about human agency. about what people do after God has done done something for them. In a moment, we will take a closer look at what glorifying God means. That is how people respond to God-saving action.
But first, I want to explain why, nevertheless, this fifth solar belongs with the others. and what it says about the question. of divine agency.
So I have to give you some reason to believe that those five solars are really five and not four plus one. The Alone to God be glory refers to human agency and describes the ascending movement to God. But it also reflects the descending movement from God to us. from for the human glory of God is related to God alone. Those who have received God's salvation turn to this God who brings salvation.
Precisely because Christ alone counts. who is salvation only through the word and only through faith. The believer is completely focussed on God. The first four solas are thus echoed in the fifth, And God's focus to unus corresponds to our focus on God. With God alone, the fifth sola offers a summary of the other four.
This refocusing on God is the power center of the Reformation and has profoundly changed the church and the world. Yeah. God alone means not only a focus on God, but also the downgrading of human action. Whereas the Middle Ages Had intertwined divine and human agency, combining an emphasis on divine grace with a demand for human participation. the Reformation understood grace as God's work.
in no way dependent on human cooperation. and it thus separated divine and human agency.
Solus Dios, God alone, would therefore be a good shorthand for the programme of the Reformation. And guess what? I'm not the first to tell you that. The German theologian Eberhard Jungel One of my teachers in the University of Tübingen notes in his book on the doctrine of justification, which is rather short, as you can see. I've given you the title page of the English translation.
He notes All four exclusive particles. or ultimately about the right understanding of one single exclusive particle. the right understanding of the solosteels. God. Alone.
It must be said, however, that this solar statement in this form does not play a major role for Luther. The reformers prefer to speak of Zulafide.
So, only by faith is probably the best summary of the Reformation message. While God alone was used elsewhere. namely, in God to God alone be the glory, which will be the topic of my third and concluding section of the text. What I quoted a few minutes ago from Luther's writing on the Babylonian captivity of the Church speaks of prayer and good works as the human action that responds to God's salvation. In fact, for the Wittenberg Reformation, glorifying God includes both.
Prayer and worship on the one hand and everyday Christian life and following one's calling in the world on the other. For Luther, obedience to the commandments to keep God's name holy is twofold. It is about words and works.
Now, I could interpret Zoli Diogloria in terms. of works. And that would be fully in accordance with the reformers.
However, I've written a thick book about the ethics of Martin Luther.
So I should better use my time here in Jacksonville to talk about the other aspect of glorifying God. Not the works, but the words. There is a good reason for this focus. Luther usually mentions the words first and the works second. In his large catechism he summarizes the exposition of the second petition in the Lord's Prayer as follows.
To hollow means the same as in our idiom to praise, extol and honour. both in works, uh in word and works.
So there you have this word and works, and word goes always first for Luther. The fact that Luther added the formula soli Deo Kono et Gloria to his interpretation of the Lord's Prayer in 1519 should also prompt us to turn our attention to the understanding and practice of prayer. in the Wittenberg. Reformation.
So that's what I'm going to do for the rest of my presentation. A rather practical use of all what you have heard during this conference. Again, I will focus primarily on Martin Luther. He wrote many guides to prayer. for example, his Catechisms of 1529, in which he discusses prayer in the context of the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer, and the 1535 publication, A Simple Way to Pray.
By the way, they don't have color printing in the 16th century. If you buy a book with a ni nice title page, you have to use your own colors to color it. And a lot of people did that because they wanted to have beautiful looking books. This book, A Simple Way to Pray on the Right. Um it goes back to Luther's Barber.
Peter Baskendorf. Luthus Barbo had asked his prominent client for suggestions on how to pray. Luther used the request to elaborate on the subject, giving twenty pages of practical advice. In the following, I will use these writings to explain how the solidiogloria is to be understood and implemented. I will talk about three points.
The foundation of prayer in God's command and promise. The three forms of prayer. of individual prayer. and at the end about common prayer. There will be No other slides for the next five minutes.
So you can relax. The catechism contains the basic instruction for glorifying God. The Ten Commandments, on the one hand, forbid taking God's name in vain. and the Lord's Prayer, on the other hand, demands that His name be hallowed. This is done primarily in prayer.
which is characterized by two things for Martin Luther. On the one hand, prayer is commanded by God.
So it is not at the Christian's discretion to pray. or not to pray. It's a command. On the other hand, it has the promise that God will hear it.
so it is not without effect. Those who obey this command and trust in this promise pray in two ways. There is the prayer of the individual Christian. and there is the prayer of the Christian community. Luther suggests three different ways of praying individually.
Daily prayer is the fundamental layer. He recommends that people develop a prayer routine and draw on traditional texts. Of particular importance are the three foundational texts of Christian faith. the Decalogue, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. Luther suggests that a daily prayer routine with a morning blessing.
prayers before and after the main meal at noon. and an evening blessing should be instituted.
So you pray in the morning after getting out of bed, in the evening after before going to bed, and you have a thanksgiving before the midday meal and after it. That's the daily prayer routine. The second form. Personal prayer develops out of the daily prayer routine, whenever a Christian feels the need to pray. When one feels this need, Luther advises either to be alone or to join a community of Christians.
For personal prayer in solitude, he suggests following the Lord's Prayer, the Decalogue or the Creed, or taking the Bible and going through a psalm or a chapter of the Old or New Testament, meditating on these texts and developing a conversation with God from this meditation. Faith also gives us the freedom to move away from these texts and to find our own words in conversation with God. Praying, according to Luther, must be a personal communication. It is not the mouth that prays. But the hurt.
And this is where contemplation and meditation have their place. The practice of piety is not a good work that earns us God's favor. But it is our effort. to fully understand the great gift we have already received. When we understand the role of devotional practice according to the Reformation, there is no obstacle to using medieval prayer techniques.
for example, to meditate on a biblical text. Luther recommends a four-step process for approaching texts such as the Ten Commandments. You may ask, how can I make out of the Ten Commandments a prayer? Follow the following rules. First, you meditate on the teaching of a text.
Second, you give thanks for God's great mercy as witnessed in the meditated text. Third, you confess your inability to respond to God's demands. And fourth, you ask God to help one grow in faith. And if you use this technique, you can make turn any biblical text into a prayer that is worth practicing. When you treat a text in this way, I quote: You form a wreath of four intertwined strands, and you light a flame in your heart.
as Luther tells his barber. And if you are now afraid that this way of praying will take a lot of time and turn into a lot of talking, the advice is to keep it short.
so that you will be able to remember the words of your prayer afterwards. That's a very wise advice.
So if you ever start to pray, Keep it short. And the test question is can I remember what I've prayed? If not, it's maybe too long. These suggestions show that two things are important to Luther. Locating prayer as a human act within the framework of divine agency on the one hand.
and focusing on the relationship between sinful man and justifying God on the other. Prayer places me as a sinful human being before the justifying God, and it prepares me to live my life in this world in faith. is a justified sinner. This is why we pray in the name of Christ. This daring to make contact with God takes place under the protection and in the name of the One who has passed through God's judgment and brings salvation to humanity.
And by following Christ as His Redeemer and model, the praying person relationship with Christ grows. Prayer, then, is the practice of justifying faith in one's own life. Individual prayer is a fundamental activity of Protestant piety. Those who do not pray That is, those who resist God's command and believe that they can do without God's promise. do themselves the greatest harm.
Those who do not pray will lose their faith. These two basic forms of prayer can be called routine prayer. and meditative prayer. And both are important and interrelated. Routine prayer needs to be deepened in meditation.
and meditation draws on the texts used in routine prayer. There is also a third form of prayer. Luther also speaks of continual prayer. which permeates all of the believers's daily activities, which are transformed into prayer, By faith. At this point we see how both words and works serve to glory God.
The focus on God alone in the daily routine of prayer and its meditative deepening permeates the entire existence of a Christian who lives his life in the presence of God and finds God present. in all his actions. In addition to individual prayer in its three forms, so. a prayer routine, routine prayer, meditative prayer and continuous prayer. There is the worship service that the English Reformation called common prayer.
It's interesting that in the English Reformation worship service. Hat bears the name Common Prayer This congregational prayer, in which the individual participates, is not the basic form of prayer. Common prayer presupposes the response of the individual to the word of God addressed through law and gospel. expressing itself first in thanksgiving and then in petition. For the Reformation, there can be no common prayer without the individual's personal relationship with God.
expressed in his or her prayers As an individual. Yeah. But individual prayer is not everything. Since faith in salvation is the fruit of the proclamation of the Gospel of prayer in which this faith turns to God in response belongs in the context of group activities. And I quote, When Christians come together, Their prayers are twice as strong as otherwise.
One can and only sh really should pray in every place and every hour. But prayer is nowhere so mighty and strong as when the whole multitude prays. together. The prayer of the community, which is so powerful.
So it's Better, much better than individual prayer, or much more efficacious, takes place primarily in the worship service. The reform of worship especially that of the Wittenberg Reformation emphasizes the descending movement. The faithful receive. audible and visible confirmations of the Divine promise in word and sacrament, to which they respond in common prayer of thanksgiving, petition, and lament. This twofold process of receiving And answering was done in the main Sunday worship service and in additional weekday services.
Special days of repentance and prayer could be announced for calamities and times of need when the congregation would gather before God in prayer. The litany was also a regular part of worship, a prayer inherited from the Middle Ages in which God is called upon to help against evil and wickedness. Sacred music and congregational singing were also used in worship. as expressions of prayer. It is no wonder that 200 years after the Reformation, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the three letters SDG.
on his music manuscripts. All of his music and especially his sacred music serves the purpose of glorifying God through the common prayer of the Christian congregation. The Christian community not only supported common prayer, but also made sure that children and youth were taught to pray and that adults received ongoing instruction on prayer. In Wittenberg, for example, sermons on the Dacalogue, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer were preached each year during Lent before Easter. And God's command and promise regarding prayer were inculcated over the year.
Children and youth were taught the basics of Christian faith at home and in church. Numerous media supported the learning and practice of prayer. In time it became standard for a Christian family to have and use a catechism, a Bible, a hymnal and a prayer book. The Zolidiogloria to God alone be the glory, was therefore an edic an educational mission that the Wittenberg Reformation and early modern Protestantism carried out with great energy, creating a culture of worship. that continues to have an impact today.
Let us summarize. what we have learned about glorifying God. Luther's understanding of prayer includes four main points. And I'm just reading what you can see on the slide. Prayer first is commanded by God.
Second, it has the promise that God will hear and answer it. Third, it has the two basic forms of individual and common prayer. And fourth, it has three levels. The daily prayer routine with given texts. The meditative prayer that engages with these texts and turns into a dialogue between sinful man and justifying God, and the continual prayer of living one's life as a Christian according.
to God's calling. By the way, I've given you a krana epitaph. From the 1540s, where you can see two Protestants praying Two. Christ. Luther's rules for prayer, so the practical outcome of everything we've heard at that conference are the following.
Thank you. Use the core texts of the Christian faith. Declaw Creed and Lord's Prayer, and unlock their potential by meditating on their teachings. Giving thanks, confessing your inability to live adequately to God's all-encompassing agency. and asking for God's intervention in what is happening in the world and in your personal life.
Second, focus on divine agency. In prayer you connect with the justifying God. Third, Make it personal. And keep it short. And fifth, Uh fourth Join the Christian community where you hear the gospel.
and pray together.
So the solidiogloria Glory be to God alone, opens up a rich life for the justified believer in his relationship with God and with the world. Focusing on God alone does not impoverish life. It enriches it. The German theologian Oswald Bayer, also one of my teachers in Tübingen, aptly called what happens here a conversion. to the world.
The cycle of faith and prayer becomes the engine of a transformation of personal life and everything around. But before here I spend here another hour talking about how the Reformation renewed the Church and the world by radically reordering priorities with the help of the five solas, I want to end here with a quote. from Martin Luther. As he began to change the world, Luther lectured on the Psalms from 1519 to 1521. This classroom work is the cradle of Reformation theology.
The resulting commentary on the Psalms, along with another commentary on Galatians already mentioned today, gives us a much deeper understanding of the Copernican turn in religion that was under way in Wittenberg. And I will simply read my English translation of this very nice Latin quotation, which is overflowing with alones and onlys.
So, Psalm 5 provides ample opportunity for Luther to elaborate on his religious discovery, which is that, I quote, I have done. Nothing. While God has done great things for me, God who alone does everything. who alone is powerful in every way, who alone therefore has a name. To Him alone be the glory, who alone has done all things, namely a holy name.
which no one is allowed to seize. and to assert for himself. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us today on Him We Proclaim. What a privilege it's been to hear from Dr.
Andreas Stegman, a German theologian and historian who flew in from Berlin to deliver this rich message on the final sola, Soli Deo Gloria. As Director of German Reformation Studies at the Wittenberg Center and lecturer in church history at Humboldt University, Dr. Stegman brings both academic depth and pastoral warmth to his teaching. His passion for the Reformation and his delightful German accent made his talk not only intellectually engaging but deeply enjoyable. If this series has blessed you, we encourage you to learn more at paramountchurch.com and check out the Wittenberg Center for Reformation Studies at wittenbergcenter.de, where Reformation truth is being rediscovered and proclaimed today.
Next time on the podcast, Pastor John Fonville will conclude our Reformation Conference series with a powerful and reflective message titled, The Spirit Gives Life. How the five solas move from history to our hearts. In this final message, Pastor John asks a vital question, how did the five solas move beyond the pages of 16th century history to become real, transformative truths in our everyday lives? The answer is found in the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. who awakens dead hearts and brings the gospel to life in us.
you won't want to miss this soul-stirring conclusion. Until then, keep your eyes on Christ and keep proclaiming Him.
