A Resume of Martin Luther’s Change of Heart and How We are Put Right With God
In my immediate previous posts one and two I responded to Professor Dawkins’ view of what he understands as ‘a personal experience with God’ (TGD, p. 87-92), with my own contrary views. Here I will finish with my view on Martin Luther’s change of heart and his influence on the last 500 years of Christianity.
It was in July 1505 that the young law student, Martin Luther, felt ‘terrorised’ when a bolt of lightening is said to have sent him reeling to the ground during a thunderstorm. Luther thought God was responsible - such was his view of God! It would not surprise Richard Dawkins!
Martin Luther cried out in fear to his father’s patron saint: “St Anne, help me! I will become a monk.” One can only imagine the father’s thoughts at the turn of direction in his son’s life, especially after investing in his son’s education! But Luther’s law career was over. Within two weeks he had entered the monastery of the Augustinian Order of Hermits to become a monk. There, Luther set about to rid himself of a deepening burden of sin and guilt to save his soul to try and be at peace with God. He is said to have shrank from no sacrifice, whether from self-flagellation, or mental stress, in his quest to attain God’s approval.
Later Luther said, “I was a good monk, . . . if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I . . . If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, reading, and other work” [Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, page 45].
Despite his efforts to satisfy what he thought to be an angry God, (a view of God to which Dawkins would subscribe - if God existed!), Luther never felt the heavenly books were balanced in his favour. The more he tried the more sinful he felt. The inner peace he sought eluded him. He felt he could not do enough to merit God’s forgiveness and favour.
Luther thought that through some means of physical effort, or punishment, or mental anguish, or deeds of kindness he could bribe God to grant him forgiveness and eternal life? But he finally concluded that if forgiveness rested on his own works, he was lost. He then turned to the church, which promised forgiveness through indulgence, through penance and gifts.
In 1510 the Augustinian monasteries selected Luther to head a delegation to Rome, 5 years after his ‘terror‘ experience. For Luther no city on planet Earth had so many holy relics or spiritual indulgences. Here was his chance to earn merit and secure the peace he so much wanted.
Determined to earn all the merit with God he could while in Rome, Luther climbed the so-called Pilate’s Staircase or the Santa Scala on hands and knees, repeating the Lord’s Prayer. And for good measure, the historian, Roland Bainton, tells us that Martin Luther kissed each of the 28 steps in the hope of delivering a soul from purgatory. Luther even “regretted that his own father and mother were not yet dead and in purgatory so that he might confer on them so signal a favour” (Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, p.50). But, as he climbed those stairs, he was disturbed by the thought, could a person earn salvation by climbing those stairs? At the top of the stairs, Luther stood erect and voiced his question: “Who knows whether it is so?” (Ibid, page 51).
Back in Germany Luther’s nagging doubts led him to search the Bible as never before. He was determined to find the answer to this most important question: “How is man saved?” - keeping in mind of course that Luther lived in a world that believed in God - however shaped by the culture of his time. As he studied the Book of Romans Luther found this text in chapter 1:17 that eventually gave him the answer to his troubled mind: “The righteous shall live by faith.” Among the legacies inherited by the Christian church from Luther this one legacy stands out most.
Instead of seeking forgiveness by works such as prayers, by vigils and scourgings, and climbing stairs on hands and knees, Luther found and took the simple steps of faith given by God in the Bible. He had already recognized the first step to eternal life years before when he had been struck down by lightning: he was a sinner who needed help. The Apostle Paul had written in Romans 3:10: “There is no one righteous, no not one: . . .” That included Paul and it included Martin Luther and everyone else who has ever lived.
Just like the laws of our land, there is a penalty for disobedience. The Bible says, “For the wages of sin is death; . . .” The Good News which Martin Luther discovered, was, “the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Luther discovered that eternal life is not something that can be earned or is deserved, or automatically inherited. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8,9: “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast“. It is God who provides. Luther could not save himself by his own works or indulgences; he had to depend on God’s grace; God’s love and favour, and these are free. This is what his listeners and those who read Luther would come to know.
The Bible says, “The Lord…is long?suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Now I know this is not the image of God that our dear Professor Dawkins expresses in TGD, but regardless of how good or bad we may have been, Luther came to see that the Bible taught that God wasn’t an angry God to be appeased but that God loved him and wanted to save him. He is not willing that “any should perish.”
What Luther found was that God cannot ignore sin or change His law. He cannot make wrong right. So those who separate themselves from God, who is the Source of Life, will die. Yet, God found a way to save anyone who chooses and still be just. The Apostle John, explains it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life“(John 3:16).
Jesus’ death was in no sense intended to appease “an angry God,” as Martin Luther thought God to be, and as still portrayed today in some thinking - described by some as ‘Cosmic Child Abuse’. We see it discussed here. The Bible teaches that Jesus was Himself the incarnate God paying the price for a lost race, a broken law, the wages of sin. In the first verse of the Gospel of John we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” In verse 14 of chapter 1 it says, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” In Philippians 2:6-8 it says of Jesus, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, - even death on a cross!”
All that humiliation and suffering on a cross 2000 years was for all who will believe in him. Jesus volunteered to die in man’s place, as His substitute. In Ephesians 2:8 the Apostle Paul said, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith . . . .” This is what Luther discovered for himself.
A Philippian jailer, in the book of Acts, asked the Apostle Paul what he must do to be saved. The Apostle Paul answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, . . .” (Acts 16:31). Luther found that saving faith is not believing what he could do, but believing and accepting what Jesus had already done for him - it is what Jesus had done for him on the cross that saved him. He found that Jesus had given the invitation to everyone, and where ever, so that, “…whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). He found that no life is too bad; no sin too great for Jesus to forgive.
It was that assurance that the honest Roman Catholic monk, Martin Luther, found for Himself in his search for salvation. Martin Luther found that it is not the doing of things which saves a person, but personally knowing the Person who saves. As Jesus said in John 17:3; “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Martin Luther’s discovery was that a person is made just and is saved by all that Jesus Christ has done - hence the emphasis Luther took from Romans 1:17, “The just shall live by faith.”
For Luther, although a believer, it was an experience that led to a change of heart, a different experience from those mentioned in the previous post, but nevertheless, a change of heart, - it was not born out of superstition but from what the Bible calls, being ‘born again‘ (John 3:5-8).
(Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, Penguin Paperback, 2002. This gripping biography by the historian, Roland Bainton, is worth reading for anyone not familiar with Luther’s story and how the 16th century Reformation began - linked in the previous post). See also:
For some more reading on Martin Luther:
