A Word from Bob
Today’s post is Part 3 in a three-part blog mini-series on the Reformation and the life and ministry of Martin Luther. You can read Part 1 here: Cropping Christ Back Into Your Picture. And read Part 2 here: Staking Our Life on Christ Alone.
I’ve developed this mini-series from my book Counseling Under the Cross: How Martin Luther Applied the Gospel to Daily Life. While many celebrate October 31 as Halloween, Protestants around the world celebrate October 31 as Reformation Day—the day Martin Luther launched the Reformation. This is his story…and our story—the story of the joy of salvation in Christ alone.
Luther’s Tower Experience
Luther’s tower experience is so called because it occurred in the tower of the Black Cloister in Wittenberg at an undetermined date between 1508 and 1518. In later years, Luther often reflected on this experience and saw it as the breakthrough for which he had been searching:
“The words ‘righteous’ and ‘righteousness of God’ struck my conscience like lightning. When I heard them I was exceedingly terrified. If God is righteous (I thought), he must punish. But when by God’s grace I pondered, in the tower and heated room of this building, over the words, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live’ (Rom. 1:17) and ‘the righteousness of God’ (Rom. 3:21), I soon came to the conclusion that if we, as righteous men, ought to live from faith and if the righteousness of God should contribute to the salvation of all who believe, then salvation won’t be our merit but God’s mercy.”[i]
This was a soul-freeing, joy-filled encounter for Luther:
“My spirit was thereby cheered. For it’s by the righteousness of God that we’re justified and saved through Christ. These words (which had before terrified me) became more pleasing to me. The Holy Spirit unveiled the Scriptures for me in this tower.”[ii]
A Cross-Centered View of Life
Six years later, on September 12, 1538, Luther’s thrill of discovery had only grown:
“The expression ‘righteousness of God’ was like a thunderbolt in my heart. When under the papacy I read, ‘In thy righteousness deliver me’ and ‘in thy truth,’ I thought at once that this righteousness was an avenging anger, namely, the wrath of God. I hated Paul with all my heart when I read that the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel.
Only afterward, when I saw the words that follow—namely, that it’s written that the righteous shall live through faith—and in addition consulted Augustine, was I cheered, When I learned that the righteousness of God is his mercy, and that he makes us righteous through it, a remedy was offered to me in my affliction.”[iii]
Reborn!
The very expression at which Luther had trembled—the justice of God—now became his friend. Luther explains the results of this shift.
“Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.” Now, “the whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the ‘justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.”[iv]
Staupitz, Psalms, and Romans all converged to provide Luther with a new cross-centered view of Christ, God, and himself.
- He saw Christ as a gracious Savior instead of a wrathful enemy.
- Luther now viewed God as a loving Father instead of an avenging judge.
- He perceived himself as loved by God and freed to love others instead of being hated by God and consumed with hate.
Jesus the Open Door
Luther’s quest for personal peace ended at the foot of the cross. Because Christ was nailed to the cross, Luther no longer found himself standing outside the door of his Father’s home.
So he nailed his theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, proclaiming that Christ the great Shepherd is the only door to the Father’s house.
Having found personal spiritual peace, Luther shifted his focus from his own spiritual state to the spiritual state of the sheep he was called to shepherd.
Luther the Shepherd of Souls
He did not want them to experience the tormented conscience he had so long endured. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses are the theological, logical, historical, and practical bridges between Luther the troubled soul and Luther the pastor of souls.
As Peter Manns notes:
“Luther’s religious experience canonized his pastoral work.”[v]
His conscience had been tortured by the theology of the religious culture of his day, and now he sought to warn others away from this agony. His first and highest task was to ease the conscience of the faithful by pointing them away from works and toward Christ’s grace.
The Ninety-Five Theses was a pastoral soul care ministry of consoling troubled consciences by pointing people to Christ’s gospel of grace.
Timeless Truth for Life and Ministry Today
We capture the essence of how Christ’ gospel story invaded Luther’s life story with this tweet-size summary:
The Christ of the Cross transformed Luther the man terrified before God into Luther the man at peace with God.
Join the Conversation
How has the Christ of the Cross transformed you from being terrified before God into being at peace with God?
Notes
[i]Luther, LW, Vol. 54, pp. 193-194.
[ii]Ibid., p.194.
[iii]Ibid., pp. 308-309.
[iv]Bainton, pp. 49-50.
[v]Manns, Luther’s Ecumenical Significance, pp. 1-48.
