To understand Luther, you have to understand this enormous burden of guilt that haunted him. in the monastery. He would say, You asked me, Do I love God? Love God.
Sometimes I hate God. I see Christ with a sword. with judgment. coming to condemn me. Those are striking words from Martin Luther, aren't they?
But as Dr. R. C. Sproll points out, they were spoken by a man who was haunted by the reality of his own sin. and the holiness of God.
Welcome to Renewing Your Mind this Tuesday. This week we've been hearing from Dr. R.C. Sproll's series, Justified by Faith Alone. It's a 10-part series, and if you'd like to view all of the messages, simply visit renewingyourmind.org to donate in support of this program, and we will be glad to send you the series.
But today, we'll meet the German monk who rediscovered the gospel. and would end up being the spark that ignited the Reformation. Let's join Dr. Sproll now. I think one of the most interesting ways of studying church history.
is by focusing our attention on the people. who made history. And when we think of the Protestant Reformation and the central importance of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We think immediately. The role that was played by this Augustinian monk from Wittenberg, Martin Luther.
And so, what I want to do by way of introduction to our study of the doctrine itself. Is to look at the historical framework in which the controversy broke out. And also look first of all at the person of Luther to see. how he was involved the way that he was. in the Reformation.
Luther According to most experts, was born in 1483. Nobody's absolutely certain. for sure of the date of his birth.
Some set it at November the 20th. Others at December the 7th. Maybe that's why that date is a date that lives in infamy. according to future generations. But Luther was born in a little town called Eisleben in Eastern Germany.
But One of the ironies of church history is that his family moved away from Iceland very shortly after he was born. And so he spent the vast majority of his life outside of the town of Islabin, but yet That's the town in which he died in 1546. But when we look at Luther as a person and look at his history, one of the things that jumps out is that he tend to have crises every five years, at least for a while. beginning in the year 1505. Luther was the son Of a man who owns several mines and foundries in the area.
Hans Luther. And though he wasn't extraordinarily wealthy, He was certainly not a peasant. and had the funds to send Luther to good schools. and his dream is that his son would become a lawyer. And so Luther enrolled as a young man in the University of Erfurt.
And there he studied law. And even as a student of jurisprudence, he was already gaining for himself a reputation. for being a brilliant jurist, a brilliant student. of law with a marvelous future ahead of him. Which greatly excited his father.
And then in fifteen oh five, after coming home to visit his parents. On the way back to the University of Dereford, as he was nearing the city, There was a violent thunderstorm that took place. And a lightning bolt hit right next to where Luther was. And he was terrified, and he called out in horror. Save me.
Saint Anne, or help me, Saint Anne, I will become a monk. Saint Anne, who of course was the mother of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was in the Roman Catholic panoply of saints. the special saints for minors. And for those who were involved in dangerous enterprises such as Mining. And so Luther, being terrified at that moment, Said that he, if he survived this lightning bolt, would become.
Monk. And so he went to the University got his personal belongings. had a goodbye session with his friends. And they walked with him. to the Augustinian monastery They're in Erfurt.
and bade him goodbye as he turned his back upon them, and walked through the door into the monastery to present himself. As a candidate For the priesthood. You can't understand a reformation. You can't understand. Luther's role in it.
without understanding this crisis that took place. in fifteen oh five that drove him to become a monk. Much to his father's Consternation. Old Hans was fit to be tied that this son of his decided now to go into religious service as a clergyman, as a priest of all things, rather than to be a prominent attorney.
Well, in any case, when Luther entered the monastery and went through the different stages to become ordained, which he was ordained in fifteen oh seven. This was one of the most critical periods of his life, without which we would never understand the doctrine. There's some Great irony, however, involved. in Luther's being ordained. in Erfurt.
A century earlier. a Chuck preacher by the name of John Huss. or hoose, as it were, was accused of heresy because he denied the infallibility of the Church and put Scripture over the canons and decrees of the Roman Catholic Church. And he was interrogated at the Council of Constance, and there at the Council of Constance. was condemned to death.
And the bishop. who ordered his execution by being burned at the stake, had this response from John Huss. Has said, You may cook this goose, or you may burn me, if you will. but there will come after me a swan. Whom you will not be able to silence.
Again, John Hoose's name meant goose. And so he said, you can kill this goose. but there's going to come a swan that you're not going to be able to shut up. I was in Prague on one occasion and couldn't believe the irony of two Catholic churches in the center square. And in the middle of the center square was this statue to John Hus.
and our guide was telling us the story of his execution. And he said, this is where He pointed to a particular spot. He says, this is where John Huss was fired.
So we got a new perspective on what it means to be fired from this man who had a little trouble with the English language. But anyway, Haas was burned at the stake and he made that comment.
Now the apocryphal part of the story is the story that I make up. Which really isn't true. But what happened a century later? is that when Luther was ordained, there in the monastery at Erfurt. He was, of course, prostrate at the base of the altar, and made his body in the shape of a cross, and there he was consecrated to the priesthood.
And the man who was buried Under the altar. at Erfurt. was the bishop who condemned John Huss To death by being burned at the stake. And so, my apocryphal addition to that story is that when Huss said, you can kill this goose. but there will come after me a swan whom you will not be able to silence.
I have the bishop saying. Over my dead body, because he really was ordained. over that bishop's dead body. In the 500th anniversary of Luther's birth, All of Germany was adorned with giant posters. with a picture of Luther against the background, of a swan.
Because he was considered to be that swan that was foretold. by John Huss. But of course the years in which Luther was in the monastery were years of great anxiety, Great stress. Great torment. The best history that we have of it indicates that he was.
A superb monk? that he was very well behaved, and extremely productive in the monastery, except for one problem. The monks were supposed to have daily confession. with their father confessors. after they would go through the rigorous times of prairie stay, They would have a time set apart for entering the confessional and rehearsing the sins of the past day and most monks would come in and Father, I've sinned and would say that they coveted Brother Jonathan's extra bread at dinner last night or something like that.
and in five minutes the priest would get the absolution and he'd be out and back to work. Luther would go in, And he would spend twenty minutes, a half an hour. an hour, sometimes two hours and more. confessing the sins that he had committed, in the last 24 hours. I mean, you think about it, you're in a monastery.
How much trouble can you get in? in 24 hours. But Luther would think of all these things and ways in which he had disobeyed the law of God. in the last 24 hours. and then would finally get his absolution, and then on his way back to his cell, he would think of a sin that he forgot to confess.
and would lose the peace that he had received from Absolution.
Now some historians have looked at that. procedure in Luther and considered it evidenced that the man was insane. That he was crazy to have that kind of a guilt complex. that he would spend so much time confessing his sins every day. And we know that at that time Luther was a haunted man.
about his guilt. But at the same time, you have to understand that he had the mind of a lawyer. And he would study. carefully. With great scrutiny.
The Law of God And then he would measure himself. against that law. And he would realize that he was sinning against the law of God. Every minute. Here's how Luther would think: he would say, The Bible says the great commandment is thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength and all that, and your neighbor as much as you love yourself.
Well, nobody does that. And so who gets exercised about it?
Well, Luther would think like this and say, well, if that's the great commandment, Then the violation of that great commandment Must be the great transgression. And so Luther would go to his cell and he would beat himself up physically with self-flagellation. and he would enter into periods of fasting. that were somewhat extreme. trying to get peace.
From the guilt that he was experienced for breaking the law of God. I haven't kept the great commandment since I got out of my bed this morning. I haven't loved the Lord my God with all of my heart, and all of my mind, and all of my strength, and all of my soul. a single day of my whole life. But nobody else does and so I don't get so upset about it.
But Luther Did get upset about it.
So much so that his confessor would get frustrated with him and say to him, Brother Martin, if you're going to come to the confessional, come with something serious, come with some real crime against God instead of these paccadillos that you're always reciting there. But again, to understand Luther, you have to understand this enormous burden of guilt that haunted him. in the monastery. He would say, You asked me, Do I love God? Love God.
Sometimes I hate God. I see Christ with a sword. with judgment. Coming to condemn me. Many people believed in the church that an extra bonus for getting into heaven was to go to a religious vocation.
and thinking that by being a monk And consecrated to this religious vocation that would help him get into heaven. but he wasn't getting any peace from it. And then the next crisis came. In fifteen ten. five years later.
To Luther's unadulterated joy, He was informed by the leader of the monastery that he, along with one of his fellow monks, had been selected on behalf of the monastery, to make a visit to Rome. to carry out some business for The monastery. And so that these two men were chosen to represent the monastery at Erfurt. And they basically walked the whole way from Germany to Rome. And Luther was so excited because one of the most significant things you could do to acquire salvation.
was to make a pilgrimage. And the two great sites of pilgrimages were Jerusalem and Rome. And so Luthernav was going to be able to go personally to the holy city. And that was worth a huge number of indulgences, which concept will. Explore more later.
And though he was still alive and not in purgatory, he couldn't apply the indulgences he would get from this pilgrimage to Rome. To himself, he decided to devote this pilgrimage, this trip to Rome. to his grandparents. And so finally, after months of travel, he and his partner arrived. in Rome.
And it was an experience of raw Disillusionment. The first thing that upset him was the Immoral lives of the priests in Rome who openly were involved. with prostitutes, both male and and female. and that the moral and sexual corruption of the Roman priesthood There in the city, was not a secret behind closed doors, but it was openly. It was One big orgy.
From Luther's perspective. Secondly, The way in which the priests were selling their services for reciting the Mass. They would be paid so much money for saying a Mass. And in order to enhance their profits on that, they would say the mass as fast as they possibly could. Showing no reverence.
to the elements of the mass. but simply doing the mass for personal gain. And Luther saw that. And he was devastated because, in his estimation, before he got there, he said, this is Mecca. From a Christian perspective, this is where the holiest of holy men are to be found.
at the time, presumably Julius the Second, was the uh pope Who, even for moment Catholic historians' evaluation, was one of the most corrupt. Of all popes, he was a Borgia pope. And he had had the plan. of building a new Cathedral or basilica, which would house the bones of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. And so he undertook this massive building project to build a new cathedral or basilica, but he ran out of money.
And so the foundation was built and then it became overgrown with weeds and so on. and the building project was abandoned. Until later on. until Julius's successor, Leo X. came into power, but we'll see that.
and a little bit later. But the third event and the most decisive event that got to Lucer. when he went on his visit to Rome, was his visit to the Skala Sakra, the sacred stairs. that were in the Lateran Church, which was the previous basilica for the Pope, the Pope's headquarters. in the Lateran Church.
was this set of stairs, I don't know, twenty nine or so many stairs long. and these stairs were part of the judgment hall. where Pontius Pilate sigh to hear the case of Jesus and And that Jesus presumably walked up and down these stairs. during his trial. And so the sacred steps in Jerusalem.
were rebuilt in front of the Lateran Church. And this became the central point of visit for those who were doing pilgrimages to Rome. because the idea was that if you could go up these stairs On your knees. And on each step Recite an Our Father. And a Hail Mary.
Go to the next step on your knees. and recite the Hail Mary and the Our Father. And you did that on every step till the top. you would get a certain amount of indulgences that you could use for your family to get them out of purgatory or to reduce their time. in purgatory.
So Luther having made this journey, to Rome. Wanted to to go up the stairs on his knees. and perform this ritual. for the sake of his departed grandparent.
Now, if you've ever been to Rome... You know that those sacred stairs are still there at the Lateran Church. I don't know exactly how wide that staircase is. I'm guessing eight to ten feet. It's not a narrow stairway.
It's a wide stone stairway. And the first time I went to Rome and went to the Lateran Church, in fact, I have to back up and say, Our tour guide says, What do you want to see the most? And he expected me to say the Vatican or St. Peter's or this or that, the Colosseum. I said, I want to see the sacred stairs at the Lateran Church.
And he did a double take. He said, No tourists ever asked him that. I said, Well, That's what I want to say. I was on my own pilgrimage, a Luther pilgrim. But anyway.
I got to the site. And I wanted to go up the stairs. And I looked. I couldn't get near the stairs. Every square inch of those stairs.
was occupied. By somebody on their knees with their rosaries. doing their ritual. And on the wall next to the stairs was this plaque that announced harmony indulgences going up this staircase would be worth.
Now we're talking twentieth century, twenty first century. We're not talking the sixteenth century. And those who think that all of that is gone All I have to do is go to the sacred stuffs and you'll see that that practice is still alive and well. And So Luther, in any case, When he got there, He went up the stairs. on his hands and knees.
And when he got to the top, He stood up. and he mumbled to himself these words. Who knows? If it is true. He had a crisis.
of whatever faith he had. He had done all the things that the church required of monks and priests to do. and he still had no peace. No hope. No sense.
of redemption. What a great comfort that God has indeed provided a way for us to escape from the burden of our sin. and to receive the righteousness of Christ by faith alone. We've been listening to our C-Sproll series exploring the article on which the church stands or falls. Justification by faith alone.
Lifetime digital access to this ten part series is available when you give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind. Simply call us at 800-435-4343 or reach out to us online at Renewing Your Mind. org. The digital series and study guide will be added to your learning library in the Ligonir app. and we will also be glad to send you a copy of it on DVD.
Tomorrow, we'll learn how Martin Luther's struggle led to a rediscovery that would change the church forever. Here's a preview. He wrote these 95 theses, posted them on the church door. at Wittenberg And inviting the rest of the faculty to discuss indulgences in the whole system that it was involved with.
Well Some enterprising students. saw them. and were amazed by them without Luther's knowledge or permission. They took these Latin theses, translated them into German, and because of the newly invented Gutenberg press, they were able to. Duplicate the thesis, and within fourteen days, a fortnight, two weeks.
The documents, the theses, were in every village, city, and hamlet. in Germany. And it was now wild fire. And that's when people say that's when it all started. Karl Bart, reflecting on it, say Luther had no intention of making this a big public issue.
He was going to discuss it simply with his colleagues. But the metaphor that Bart used was, he said, that it was like a blind man who was climbing up the stairs in a bell tower, and he lost his balance, and he reached out in the dark and grabbed a hold of the first thing he could hold of, and it was the rope for the church bell. And all of a sudden, the church bell started ringing and waking everybody in town. And that was the result of the theses. I hope you'll join us again tomorrow, here.
on Renewing Your Mind.
