The Protestant Reformation: What Happened?

“The Protestant Reformation: What Happened?!”
(Galatians 2:16)
Series: 500 Years of Reformation (1 of 2)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

**LINK TO SLIDES USED IN THIS PRESENTATION (Linked to SlideShare).

Source documentation refers to the Kindle location # of Michael Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame (B&H; Nashville: 2009).

This month we are Commemorating 500 Years of Protestant Reformation (SLIDE).

So we’ll be talking about that this morning and next Sunday morning as well. And to get us started today we’re going to look at a verse that summarizes the key truth of the Reformation as well as what I believe to be the key verse of the Book of Galatians.

So if you have your Bible you probably know by now where Galatians is located! By God’s providence we spent several weeks going verse-by-verse through this letter which is supremely helpful to our getting a sense of this great biblical truth of justification. The doctrine of justification really is the essence of the Reformation.

So let’s take a look at this verse in Galatians chapter 2 and verse 16. Galatians 2:16. And as I read the word “Justified” here, a word that occurs three times in this verse—remember that it means, “To be declared right with God” or, “The way a person can stand before God ‘not guilty’ of all his sin.”

Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

16 knowing that (or, we know this, that) a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

•Pray: “Jesus, thank you for doing for us what we could not do ourselves. Living a perfect life and dying to take our punishment for our sin. You’re alive! And we thank you that we can be saved by grace, through faith, in YOU Jesus Christ, alone, amen.”

This morning we’ll address the most basic question about the Reformation: “What happened?!” (SLIDE)

What is it that happened 500 years ago this very month such that we gather this morning not as Catholics, but as Protestants, and more specifically Protestants who are Baptist? What happened?

Well something did happen (SLIDE) and it happened October 31st, 1517. 500 years ago. And this is the event we typically have in mind. From the movie “Luther,” here is a picture of Martin Luther (SLIDE)

nailing his 95 Theses to the church door of All Saints’ Church—sometimes called Castle Church—in Wittenberg, Germany. And we’ll talk more about that specific event in just a moment.

By the way, I found this meme I thought was kind of funny (SLIDE). It says, “No, the door was fine. I’m just fixing your theology.” Haha!

But before we take a closer look at Luther, it is important to know that the Reformation was really going on already for quite some time. There were a number of so-called “Early Reformers” dating back to the 13th Century, more than 300 years before Martin Luther was born. We don’t have time this morning to trace the entire history and some of the early tremors that led to the earthquake of the Reformation, but there were men like Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and others who were kindling a growing fire that led to the unquenchable flames of Reformation.

Now what is this, “Reformation?” What does that even mean? Well, it means to fix something, to repair what is wrong, to recover, to bring it back to its original state, the purify, to change back, to reform.

That’s what we mean by the word Reformation, Reformers, and even Reformed, as in Reformed theology—the recovery of doctrine that had become impure and needed to be brought back to its original state, purpose, or meaning.

So the church had gotten off-course. The spelling of Catholic with a Big C refers specifically to the Roman Catholic Church. This is the church about which we are speaking in the 16th Century, the Roman Catholic Church. Remember that this is before Protestants—so no Methodists, no Episcopalians, no Pentecostals, no Baptists—though Landmark Baptists trace their roots to John the Baptist—nearly all of what we call “Protestant” today was originally part of the church universal, the Catholic church.

That’s really important because the early reformers, like Martin Luther, about whom we’ll be talking in a moment, the early reformers were not seeking to leave the Catholic church, but were initially interested in reforming it. This was not to be a revolution, but a reformation. Staying within the church, merely reforming it, getting it back on track.

So how had the church gotten off track? Well, the best way to answer that is to go back to Martin Luther (SLIDE). No, not that Martin Luther! That’s Martin Luther King. Different Luther. Different Era. Different Reformation!

This Martin Luther (SLIDE). Born November 10th, 1483 to Mr. and Mrs. Luther, who took their newborn baby the very next day to the church to be baptized where he was given the name of that day’s saint, Martin. Luther’s dad was a coal miner who wanted his son to be a lawyer and paid some big bucks for him to get into a good school to study law.

But one day 21-year old Martin Luther was caught in a severe July thunderstorm and feared for his life (SLIDE). A lightning bolt struck close to where he was standing and he was so scared that he made a vow, crying out, involuntarily, “Saint Anne, help me! I shall become a monk!” It was one of those vows made in a time of fear and danger. But Luther meant to keep that vow and so, he became a Monk.

He entered the monastery where there were “rules for how to walk, how to talk, where to look and when, rules for how to hold one’s eating utensils.” (Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame; loc 411).

Monks were also expected to regularly confess their sins to a person called a Confessor. Luther was so aware of his sinfulness, so conscience-stricken, so mortified by his sin that “he would exhaust his confessors, taking up to six hours at a time to catalogue his most recent sins.” (Reeves, loc 411).

In 1510, Luther was instructed to take a trip to Rome in the hopes that he might chill out a bit and find peace in the midst of the holy city. So he traveled to Rome from Erfurt, 635 miles by airplane, but of course, he made the journey on foot, a distance of some 1,000 miles, something like walking from Henderson to Denver Colorado.

Luther was looking forward to this pilgrimage, believing he might be at peace with God by meriting favor with Him in accordance to the teachings of the Catholic church. Every time a person participated in the Mass, for example, he was able to accrue “merits,” a number that ranked one’s favorability with God, a works-based, merit-based system of righteousness.

The city of Rome was crammed with relics (SLIDE), these were things like pieces of straw supposedly from the manger of Baby Jesus, or pieces of wood that supposedly came from the cross of Christ, and so on. People could view these relics, venerating them, viewing them with respect, in the hopes of pleasing God and meriting favor with Him.

In the very church where Luther would later nail his “95 Theses” to the door, the Castle Church in Wittenberg, inside that very church were nine aisles “proudly displaying more than 19,000 relics. There you could see a wisp of straw from Christ’s crib, a strand of his beard, a nail from the cross, a piece of bread from the Last Supper, a twig from Moses’ burning bush, a few of Mary’s hairs and some bits of her clothing, as well as innumerable teeth and bones from celebrated saints. Veneration of each piece was worth an indulgence of 100 days (with a bonus one for each aisle), meaning the pious visitor could tot up more than 1,900,000 days off purgatory.” (Reeves, loc 444).

Purgatory is the place Catholics believe a person’s soul goes to at death, going there to be further purged from sins he confessed on earth. Some may spend several years, or hundreds of years, in purgatory before being properly purged and ready for heaven. So if a person viewed a lot of relics, he could cut that time in purgatory short and hasten his entrance into heaven.

Another way a person could merit favor with God was through the purchase of what were called “indulgences.” These were, essentially, certificates (SLIDE), slips of paper pre-signed by the pope and sold by the church to guarantee the buyer a certain number of years that his soul could escape purgatory. So if a person had a lot of money he could buy indulgences to cut that time short—either for himself, or for another loved one who had already died and was in purgatory—and thus guarantee an entrance, and a quicker entrance, to heaven.

In fact, while in Rome, Luther “decided to climb the Scala Sancta (SLIDE). This was the staircase which, supposedly, Jesus had climbed to appear before Pilate, and which subsequently had been brought to Rome. By climbing it, kissing each step and repeating the Lord’s Prayer for each one, he was assured he could free the soul of his choice from purgatory.” (Reeves, loc 432).

So that’s the kind of stuff that was going on in Luther’s time. Luther had been taught all of this and had embraced it. His problem was two-fold. First, he could never find peace for his anxious-ridden soul and, secondly, he was becoming increasingly repulsed by the practices of the church—witnessing so many relics, so many indulgences, especially the selling of them in a way that seemed to require no repentance on the part of the purchaser. Just the money would do. Give the money, get the certificate.

Luther really felt like it was time for the church to get her act together and clean herself up. Reformation. His main concern was the church’s abuse of the practice of indulgences, the way they cheapened repentance. His anger was especially aroused by a friar by the name of Johann Tetzel. Tetzel was like a modern day prosperity-preaching traveling evangelist.

This guy would travel throughout various towns and guilt the peasants into giving their money to the purchase of indulgences. Tetzel was collecting the money for the building of the new Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome. And Tetzel was good at what he did. He would travel into this common country towns and preach to the townsfolk there and tell them that if they would purchase these indulgences they could guarantee that their dead loved ones would go to heaven.

Tetzel’s most famous line was, “When the coin in the coffer rings,” and coffer is an old term meaning a chest for holding valuables—so he said, “When your coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.” Well, that’s the kind of thing that really ticked off Martin Luther. For one, he didn’t believe the Bible taught such things and he didn’t like the way the church was selling favor with God with no concern for the person’s individual repentance.

Tetzel had another line he used to guilt the common peasants into giving money to free their mothers from purgatory. He would say, “Place your penny on the drum, the pearly gates open and in strolls mum.”

And even worse he would say, “Don’t you hear the voices of your wailing dead parents, and others who say, ‘Have mercy on me, because we are in severe punishment and pain. Form this you could redeem us with a small alms.’” And again, there was never the teaching of the need to confess sins or repent, just give your money.

So Luther had had enough and he wrote his 95 Theses and nailed them to the church door there in Wittenberg (SLIDE) where he was a teacher of moral theology.

The 95 Theses were all about indulgences. Other teachings that became prominent during the reformation—like the authority of the Bible and the doctrine of justification—were not part of the original 95 Theses. In fact, the actual title of Luther’s work that he hammered onto the church door was, “Disputation on the Power of Indulgences.” They were written in Latin, not in the language of the common people, but in the language of academia, because Luther wanted to engage scholarship on these statements and debate the higher ups of the Catholic church. Remember, he wanted merely to reform the church. So he was actually being a “good Catholic.”

But, of course, one thing led to another and, before long, most of Northern Europe would break away from the Catholic Church. That’s why this event, October 31st, 1517, was such a pivotal moment in church history. Luther was called to defend his position, and, over time, continued writing more and more materials at odds with the teachings of the church, writing new complaints, calling into question the Pope’s supreme authority and criticizing the church for endorsing 7 sacraments when the Bible only mentioned two: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

The Pope threatened to excommunicate Luther—to officially kick him out of the church. At this time, Emperor Charles V, a devout Catholic, summoned Luther to appear before him at a meeting called a “Diet,” like when we go on a diet. Weird name for a gathering, but that’s what it was called! They would occur every year or so, these meetings of German princes and bishops. This particular Diet was held in Western Germany in a city called Worms. It’s pronounced “Verms,” but it looks like Worms. So in print, it looks like a diet of worms. But it just means the place where Luther gathered to defend his writings.

By the way, my double great grandfather came to America from this area in Germany. Henry Linn came from Germany by himself at the age of 15 and our family lore includes the anecdote that the Linns traveled to Worms to stand with Luther. Don’t know whether that’s true, but it’s a cool story!

Anyway, by this time, Luther had written a number of books and they were all stacked upon a table there at the Diet of Worms. He was shown the stack of books and asked if he was the author and whether he would recant, or take back, what he said in them. Well, he was expecting to defend his writings, but he wasn’t expecting to have to recant upon threat of excommunication.

He refused to recant and his reply was written down as he spoke. He said: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason — I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other — my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.”

The printed document that was released after the meeting also contained the words, “Here I stand, I can do no other.”

Shortly after Worms, the emperor declared Luther a heretic and ordered his death. So Luther’s friend Frederick the Wise kidnapped him and hid him in his castle in Wartburg, Castle (SLIDE). Here, Luther wrote furiously, translating the Greek New Testament into German, the everyday language of the common folk. According to Roman Catholic law, translating the Bible into the common language was considered a heresy punishable by death.

Now this is where we’re going to pause and address what really became the heart of the Reformation. And it’s a teaching that Luther began to understand in a more prominent way about two years after he had nailed the 95 Theses to the Castle Church door.

It is the matter of justification by faith in Christ alone. JD mentioned the “five solas” in our evening service a couple weeks ago. By the way, the handouts we gave out that evening—our discussion on the differences between Protestants and Catholics—those links are available on our church website. Just go to fbchenderson.org and click on the picture of Luther.

So the reformation is largely about these five solas (SLIDE). Sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, and soli Deo Gloria. Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

Mankind is saved not by accruing merit. Not by venerating relics. Not by purchasing indulgences. According to the Bible, Sola Scriptura, the Bible is our highest authority. The Bible teaches we are saved by grace alone, sola gratia, through faith alone, sola fide, in Christ alone, solus Christus, to the glory of God alone, soli Deo Gloria.

That’s what the Bible teaches, as in passages such as Galatians 2:16:

Luther discovered this truth in the year 1519 after meditating upon Romans 1:17, “…the just shall live by faith.” He wrote, “Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”

Luther had previously regarded God as a vengeful, mean, and hateful God. Luther knew only the wrath of God and felt his own sense of unworthiness before such a God. But now Luther began to see God as kind, loving, and forgiving—through Jesus Christ on his behalf. He understood that righteousness is not something we earn—thankfully!—but something credited to us by the Father through faith in Christ.

Luther knew he could never earn his own righteousness, even as a faithful monk. He had once said, “If ever a monk were to get to heaven by his monkery, it would be I.”

And how true, given his obsessive work at trying to please God, joining the monastery, praying for hours on end, fastings, continual works of penance, including personal punishment, flogging or beating himself with lashings in an attempt to appease God.

Now he understood that the Bible teaches we cannot do enough to please God and that God is our righteousness in Christ Jesus. When we believe in Christ, God saves us not by our works but by our faith. The Bible teaches we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

To be justified does not mean to earn favor with God, earn righteousness with God. To be justified means to be declared righteous by God. It’s not that God helps us become righteous and acceptable. He declares us righteous and acceptable—even though we really aren’t! God changes the way He thinks of us and regards us because of our trust in Christ. By grace through faith, God clothes us not in our own righteousness, but in the righteousness of another—Jesus Christ! And God sees us this way, always!
No wonder then that he felt “altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”

The idea that before God in Christ we are justified even though we are sinners is a liberating truth! This phrase, then, became one of the key phrases of the reformation, this teaching (SLIDE). Simul justus et peccator. Simultaneously justified (in status before God) and sinful (in heart).

Again, this is the teaching of the Bible, spelled out clearly throughout Old and New Testaments, captured in the Apostle Paul’s teaching succinctly in verses such as Galatians 2:16. Hear it again:

16 knowing that (or, we know this, that) a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

No amount of works of the law can justify us. By the works of the law, by the works of the 10 Commandments, by the works of prayers, fasting, punishing ourselves through floggings—none of things justify us before God, make us “not guilty” of sin. No. “A man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.” This is gospel. This is good news!

This is why Galatians was Luther’s favorite book! He named it after his wife, Katy. Yes, Luther would renounce his monastic vows and enjoy the bliss of marriage! He enjoyed Galatians so much he referred to the letter as his “dear Katie.” In his commentary on Galatians he writes that this truth of the gospel is, “the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consists. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

That’s why we say nearly every week here that we are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ, alone! Jesus Christ is our Mediator, the one who stands between God and man. And 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might wear the righteousness of God in Christ.”

We who believe are accepted by God in Christ, Christ’s performance saves us, not our own performance. God approves of us in the performance of His Son.

Luther again, “I must harken to the gospel, which teaches me not what I ought to do, but what Jesus Christ the Son of God has done for me…that he suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death.”

That year Luther was hidden away at Wartburg Castle doing all that writing. He wrote what is arguably his most important work that year, The Freedom of a Christian. It was a setting forth of this gospel truth of justification. Michael Reeves explains:

At the heart of it is a story of a king who marries a prostitute, Luther’s allegory for the marriage of King Jesus and the wicked sinner. When they marry, the prostitute becomes, by status, a queen. It is not that she made her behaviour queenly and so won the right to the king’s hand. She was and is a wicked harlot through and through. However, when the king made his marriage vow, her status changed. Thus she is, simultaneously, a prostitute at heart and a queen by status. In just the same way, Luther saw that the sinner, on accepting Christ’s promise in the gospel, is simultaneously a sinner at heart and righteous by status. What has happened is the ‘joyful exchange’ in which all that she has (her sin) she gives to him, and all that he has (his righteousness, blessedness, life and glory) he gives to her. Thus she can confidently display ‘her sins in the face of death and hell and say, “If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his”.’ This was Luther’s understanding of ‘justification by faith alone’, and it is in that security, he argued, that the harlot actually then starts to become queenly at heart. (Reeves, loc 562).

If you are a Christian, then Jesus Christ’s medals are pinned to your chest. You get credit for what He has done and He takes the punishment you deserved. Takes it all by dying on the cross and rising from the grave. He completely absorbs the wrath of God that previously had been directed upon you. He makes satisfaction on our behalf, atones for our sin on our behalf.

There is powerful victory in this truth. It means that God forever accepts us and approves of us all of our days. No matter our religious performance. No matter our failings. God loves us in Christ.

There’s a great line from the movie we’re going to show next Sunday evening, the movie, “Luther.” There’s a scene where Luther is preaching and he’s talking about this truth, that believers are, at once, simultaneously just and sinful, and that God accepts us not on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of Christ’s work in our place. And he says:

“So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this:

‘I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God. Where He is, there I shall be also.’” Amen!

Are you in Christ Jesus? Can you say, “I have been saved by grace, through faith, in Christ alone?” You say you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior. Are you sure He accepts you? Can you say you know that He sees you in Christ Jesus?

This status of justification comes freely by God’s grace. His Amazing Grace.

I want to pray for us and then I’d ask you to sing back to God in response, responding to the truth of His grace. If you don’t know God’s grace and you’re not saved, or you’re not sure whether you are saved, we’re going to sing and I’d invite you to come forward here during the song and just say, “I need Jesus.” You can also come at this time if you’d like to be baptized, or if would like to join the church or want more information about the church, you can come. This is our time to respond to the truth.

Let’s pray. “God, thank you for your amazing grace that comes freely to us so that we can be saved by grace, through faith, in Christ, alone. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Now stand and sing, and respond however you need to respond.

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