Posted on 06/30/2017 4:43:54 PM PDT by Gamecock
The year 2017 is the year of Martin Luther—or at least it should be. Nearly 500 years ago on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed (or “mailed,” for some historians debate this point) his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church.
Even so, Luther didn’t become a full-fledged protestor of the church in that single moment. It took him about eight years (1513-1521) to challenge and hammer out a more robust understanding of the gospel.
Have you ever wondered what Martin Luther was reading during this crucial time in his life? Maybe I’m just a nerd, but I thought at least someone else might be interested in what Luther was reading during his slow, but steady, transition out of the medieval church and into the world of reformation.
Remember, Luther’s goal wasn’t to invent or start an entirely new church. His goal was to reform the church and call her to repentance and faith in the abiding Word of God.
Here are four books Martin Luther read that made him question everything:
1. The Psalms Luther spent time studying and lecturing through the Psalms in the Bible. He began to realize that the Bible teaches we are not generally sinful, we are totally sinful. Here, Luther had the beginnings of what theologians later would refer to as “total depravity,” meaning that we are sinful in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
2. Romans After that, Luther lectured through Paul’s letter to the Romans. He came across Romans 1:17, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” The last part of this verse is a direct quotation from Habakkuk 2:4.
Luther began to see something that he never saw before. He began to see the doctrine of imputation—that we are declared right before God not by our own righteousness, but by the righteousness of another. He began to understand that the righteousness of God that was such a terror to him as a priest (because it told him that he was unholy and unworthy), was actually the righteousness from God that told him he was holy and worthy. God gives this right standing by faith alone. It is a righteousness that is received as a gift and not earned.
3. Galatians It wasn’t until Luther started lecturing through Galatians that he began to realize that faith does not justify us before God. Faith is merely an instrument that God uses. Faith is a tool by which we embrace Jesus Christ as he is offered to us in the gospel.
Faith is, as John Murry once said, “extrospective.” It looks outward—not inward—to embrace the God who gives himself. In other words, faith is only an empty hand. It justifies because it grabs hold of the Jesus who justifies (Rom. 3:26).
4. Hebrews The last book that turned a medieval priest into a true Reformer was the letter to the Hebrews. Luther began to embrace an entirely different understanding of how the Old and New Testaments relate to one another. He realized that the law is not simply the Old Testament and the gospel is the New Testament, but that the gospel of God can be seen as preached throughout both Old and New Testaments.
The same Jesus of the same gospel was offered freely to both Jew and Gentile alike, throughout the whole Bible. Sure, there was a greater and fuller proclamation of that message, such that it went out to the whole world instead of only Israel and their close neighbors—but the gospel was preached nonetheless!
In short, reading and studying the Bible is what ultimately made Martin Luther “protest” the medieval church. Luther was convinced that the Bible was worth listening to. So this year we celebrate the anniversary of a “recovery of the bright light of the gospel.” To God alone be all the glory (Soli Deo Gloria).
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What you post as the words of our savior is corrupted.
” 3 All therefore whatsoever HE (Moses) bids you observe, [that] observe and do.
(from every MS in existence of the Hebrew Matthew)
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I'm not sure how you mean "is there anything in it that is not Torah," and I'm not that sure it should be of concern, anyway. Acts itself chronicles organic growth and innovation of the Church.
And the Hebrew Matthew is superior because....?
The book of The Acts of the Apostles chronicles to some extent the growth of the Ekklesia, the body of believers, not an institutional Org like Catholiciism.
Intetesting
I think it also had to do with the absolute, utter, corruption of the Medieval Papacy as well as the unending drain of money and wealth from the German states to the Papacy.
Did you get a clue yet about how to argue your opinions on a Religion Forum thread??? Doesn’t sound like it to me.
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>> “Anyone who speaks Hebrew knows yehudi means Jew or Jewish.” <<
Total nonsense!
There are many Yehudim that do not practice Phariseeism.
Jew began as a pejorative term and has no legitimate connotations beyond the practice of phariseeism.
Yehudim are descendents of Judah,and were called by that term for a millenium before Phariseeism popped its ugly head up.
Where “Jews” is used in the NT, it refers to the pharisees, and it came into use at the time Bibles were translated into English. It was unknown prior to that time. Its use has expanded largely due to bigotry and ignorance that has come from false, man made “christian” doctrine. (The lie that Yeshua brought a ‘new’ faith)
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I got the clue that many here are so enamored to the “Inherited Lies” that Jeremiah prophesied that they will gladly risk eternity in Hell rather than accept the word of God.
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Regarding your tagline, we are smart enough to reject your bilgespittle, antichristian, Roodian sludge.
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Enjoy then your inherited lies; you’ve taken ownership of them.
BTW, what will your trigger word be tomorrow? Bilgespittle has already been worn threadbare.
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When still means that you are engaging in psychology, attributing motive to Luther's writing of the 95 theses, which is your fitting opinion,
You seem frighteningly able to ignore the fact that no one ever heard of (at least) a couple of the "Solas" (Insofar as the way the Reformation defined them) for fifteen hundred years before Luther showed up.
" Frighteningly able to ignore," how dramatic. But instead it seems you are frighteningly (to some) able to imagine that sola scriptura and sola fide are manifestly taught in the 95 theses, "the culmination of Luther's work to design a pseudo-Christianity." And even if one accepts your psychohistory babel, that this was the culmination of Luther's work in that regard is absurd.
All the speculation about some hidden strain of Protestantism that existed from the time of Christ is just so much wishful thinking on the part of those who will not tolerate themselves to be refuted, even if it's by their own standards.
Actually, the idea that the NT church was that of Rome with her distinctives is just so much wishful thinking on the part of those who will not tolerate themselves to be refuted by the supreme standard the NT church invoked, and thus seek to avoid it. Meanwhile, it was always a relative remnant that made of the only one true church of 100% believers, which exist in the admixtures of visible organic fellowships.
By their fruits.....
Reformation Day, as we know it, is misleading. It creates the impression that the Reformation was about "cleaning up" the church. It wasn’t. There were moral reform movements about in the late middle ages and early 16th century but the Reformation wasn’t one of them. The Reformation was a theological event that was intended to have moral consequences, but it wasn’t first of all about moral self-improvement and tidying the ecclesiastical house. Beware all the various “Reform” movements in our churches today that want to turn the Reformation into moral renewal (and that’s most of them). Beware when folk invoke a "new" Reformation who don’t understand the old one. Beware when folk call for a Reformation that requires a repudiation of the first Reformation. Those movements abound.
Reformation Day, as we know it, perpetuates the pietist myth that the Reformation happened suddenly and in one-fell-swoop of religious experience (the so-called Turmerlebnis). It wasn’t and it didn’t. The Reformation doctrines developed gradually between 1513-21. In succession, and with fits and starts, Luther gradually realized the great Reformation solas. There are some Reformation solas with which we’re not all familiar. Luther’s first breakthrough happened during his lectures on the Psalms when he realized that Scripture teaches that we’re not just a little sinful but that we’re completely sinful, i.e., that the effects of sin are radical and affect every faculty. We’re not able to "do our part" or to "do what lies within us" toward justification because, as a consequence of the fall, all that lies "within us" is sin and death. Therefore the first Reformation sola was "solely unable." This is the essential assumption behind sola gratia, the claim that justification is by grace alone. Grace, is no longer to be reckoned a sort of medicinal stuff with which we are injected, with which we cooperate toward eventual justification. Luther came to understand that grace is God’s attitude of favor toward sinners. Grace isn’t something with which we are infused. Rather, God is gracious toward us. He shows us favor. He gives to us what we do not deserve: righteousness and life.
Only then did Luther realize, as he next lectured through Romans that it was only by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ that we are justified. The entire medieval system was about interior moral renewal. The Reformation is that the gospel is outside of us. The Gospel is that Christ has done it all for us. Justification is solely on the ground of imputed righteousness.
During his next two sets of lectures in Galatians and Hebrews Luther gradually realized that the medieval definition of faith as "formed by love" (fides formata caritate) is false and a misreading of Gal 5. Faith doesn’t justify because it produces sanctity (holiness) in internal moral renewal. Faith justifies because it apprehends Christ and his obedience and death for us (pro nobis). This is solus Christus. Faith is an open, empty hand. Faith is a beggar. Faith looks outside of itself and one’s self to Christ. Faith has no power except Christ its object. Faith is receiving and resting on Christ and his finished work for sinners. Faith is a certain knowledge and a hearty trust in Christ and his gospel. That’s sola fide.
With these breakthrough conclusions came others. During this period Luther came to a new hermeneutic. Where much of the patristic and all of the medieval church had read the Bible to contain two kinds of law, old and new, Luther came to see that the Bible had throughout two kinds of words: law (do) and gospel (done). The gospel is not: here is more grace so you can keep the law. The gospel is not: Christ will approve of you if you do your part. The gospel is: Christ has done it. This turn to the law/gospel hermeneutic was a foundation stone of the entire Reformation and it was adopted by all the Protestant churches and confessions Reformed and Lutheran. One of the great tragedies is that today there are congregations that will celebrate Reformation Day or who celebrate a nearby Reformation Sunday who will look you straight in the eye and tell you that the Reformed don’t use a law/gospel hermeneutic.
Another global change that occurred at the same time is the turn to Scripture as the magisterial and unique authority for faith and life (sola scriptura. There’s no one point at which this view developed, but it’s certainly symbolized by Luther’s stand for the sole and unique magisterial authority of Scripture at the Diet of Worms in 1521.) http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-i-chose-reformation500-theme.html
Here’s a thought...why don’t you open your OWN thread disputing what has been Biblical Christian theology for nearly two thousand years in favor of the teachings of your modern-day Rabbi Michael Rood instead of hijacking Religion Forum threads so often?
This hardly constitutes an answer to the questions. Once again, just how is this a refutation of the charge that Rome shed more blood than what you attribute to Luther?
And would you agree that Catholic salvation is by works, in that one is justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God, being accounted to have truly merited eternal life by these very works he did in God (meriting salvation by grace)? And that being formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis) means that one must actually become good enough in character to be with God via the torments of RC Purgatory, unless he has attained to the state by the time (and maintains to the time) he dies?
Faith is an open, empty hand. Faith is a beggar. Faith looks outside of itself and one’s self to Christ. Faith has no power except Christ its object. Faith is receiving and resting on Christ and his finished work for sinners. Faith is a certain knowledge and a hearty trust in Christ and his gospel. That’s sola fide.
To which should be added that it is God-given effectual faith out of a convicted poor and contrite heart (Ps. 34:18) that is salvific, being counted for righteousness, (Rm. 4:5) making one accepted in the Beloved, and positionally seated with Him in Heaven, (Eph. 1:6;2:6) and fit to be with God at death, but which "is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love." [Westminster Confession of Faith, CHAPTER XI. Of Justification.
But which effects themselves are what makes one accepted in the Beloved, but justify one as being a believer, manifestly "things that accompany salvation." (Heb. 6:9)
And that contrary to the Catholic description, it does not leave the person whitewashed but that in conversion the heart of the damned and morally destitute sinner is purified by faith, regenerated, (Acts 10:43; 15:7-9) and both rightly enabled and motivated to serve the Lord, not in order to earn eternal life but as one given that gift on Christ's account, but His sinless shed blood. (Rm. 3:25; 6:23)
Thus the exhortations to keep the faith, a faith which effects obedience, versus having an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. (Heb. 3:12) Thanks be to God
Man could not and would not believe on the Lord Jesus or follow Him unless God gave him life, and breath, and all good things he has, (Acts 17:25) and convicted him, (Jn. 16:8) drew him, (Jn. 6:44; 12:32) opened his heart, (Acts 16:14) and granted repentance (Acts 11:18) and gave faith, (Eph. 2:8,9) and then worked in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure the works He commands them to do. (Phil. 2:13; Eph. 2:10)
Thus man owes to God all things, and while he is guilty and rightly damned for resisting God contrary to the level of grace given him, (Prov. 1:20-31; Lk. 10:13; 12:48; Rv. 20:11-15) man can not claim he actually deserves anything, and God does not owe him anything but damnation, except that under grace — which denotes unmerited favor — God has chosen to reward faith, (Heb. 10:35) in recognition of its effects.
Which means that God justifies man without the merit of any works, which is what Romans 4:1-7ff teaches, with “works of the law” including all systems of justification by merit of works, “for, if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” (Galatians 3:21)
Thus the penitent publican and the contrite criminal, both of whom abased themselves as damned and destitute sinner and cast all their faith upon the mercy of God (which ultimately is Christ), were justified, and as such could go directly to be with the Lord at death, even before they did any manifest works of faith. But works justify one as being a believer, and fit to be rewarded under grace for such, (Mt. 25:30-40; Rv. 3:4) though only because God has decided to reward man for what God Himself is actually to be credited for.
Apparently some RCs imagine that "shewing by the scriptures" (Acts 18:28) means that you simply post a wall of text, versus as Paul's manner reasoning with them out of the scriptures, (Acts 17:2)
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