This quick study on Reformation History was given at the end of service at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on October 1, 2017. The text of the study is included and you may play the audio of the study here.
Luther had a problem. The indulgence selling was tantamount to paying someone to earn salvation. This was horrible. Luther had just started rediscovering the Gospel, that the benefit of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was completely free. You couldn’t do anything to earn it; you never would. Luther was happy with the idea that through the graciousness of the pope then, heaven could come faster to those who believed. He was still okay with Purgatory, at least for a little while. He was still sort of okay with indulgences. But Luther’s problem was that he could stay silent no longer.
So, on October 31, 1517, Luther went to the place where he knew he could start a good discussion. You see, back then, they didn’t have Twitter, they didn’t have Facebook, they had the church doors. They were like a bulletin board. When Luther wrote down his 95 points of discussion, his 95 theses, he wasn’t trying to get all dramatic. There wasn’t a soundtrack behind him, he didn’t march up there in anger, he didn’t make a show of it. He wrote his theses in Latin, the dead language of academia, the language that, theoretically, no one outside the university or church knew, and he placed them on the Wittenberg church door.
He just wanted to start a discussion about the practice of indulgences. And they were decent theses. Most people have at least heard of Luther’s first thesis, “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said, ‘Repent,’ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” And this is true. Not all of the 95 theses that Luther wrote are good orthodox, Christian doctrine. But, some are. I think my favorite thesis questions the pope and essentially demands that, if he has the power to release souls from Purgatory by his own will, why doesn’t he do it for everyone out of love instead of taking their money.
Regardless, Luther wanted to start the discussion in the academic circles he ran in, trying to get a handle on what had been happening. He tried to be humble and gracious, but with a good amount of biting wit (not that he could really help it–this was his personality, after all). What happened instead was that a few students, we suppose, saw Luther’s posting on the church door, thought the content incredible and salacious, and took it to a local printer. At the printer, the Latin theses were translated into basic German, so that the people could read it. Thousands of copies were printed. They spread out all across the Holy Roman Empire, they spread outside the Empire, the spread down into Rome, and ultimately into the hands of Pope Leo X.
Now, in reality, Luther had no thought as to forming his own church body. He only wanted the discussion to bring Catholicism back into line with the Scriptures. Yet, once the document spread, the writing was on the wall. People Leo X and his authority were offended. They could not be questioned in such a way, and Luther, one way or another, was going to have to pay. Luther, knowing that the document had spread but ignorant to all of its consequences, went through the rest of 1517 and most of 1518 oblivious, but still engaging the debate as well as others. One day, however, he received a summons to appear in Augsburg before the pope’s personal representative. If Luther was a ship, he had fired the first volley. The Pope heard it, saw it, received it, saw no damage, and thought that if he fired back, surrender would be immediate. Little did the Pope, or even Luther, know that the 95 Theses were more than just a dull cannon ball; they were a time bomb, set to explode in his face and send the pope’s ship into the shark-infested water, ready for the lay people to eat up whatever they could.
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