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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There is none so blind as he who will not see.
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Quite the reverse, but I’ve learned you can’t argue a person in a cult out of a cult.
“It totally rejects the gospel of the Kingdom, and replaces it with gas passed by fairies. (and an assurance that Yeshua had to have lied his way through Matthew 24)”
NOTE: ignored assertion that has no facts, evidence or logic to support the claim. It is one cult’s false teaching.
The fact is that protestant “christianity” denies every assertion that Yeshua made in Matthew 24.
If the Gospel of Matthew was all you had, it would be all you need to demolish every crazy assertion of Protestant christianity, chapter by chapter.
And, “he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.”
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All salvation occurs at the Last Trump, when we are reborn into that special body that saves us when Yehova pulls the plug on the material universe, as Yeshua explained to Nicodemus in John ch 3.
Without that body we cannot exist in the realm of Yehova. .
“The fact is that protestant “christianity” denies every assertion that Yeshua made in Matthew 24.”
I can’t imagine why anyone would take your claims seriously. You are a self-identified follower of a false teacher.
“Come out from among them and be holy.”
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I choose to remain among Yisrael, the Bride of Yeshua.
The narrow path to eternal life: The Gospel of the Kingdom as delivered at the first Shavuot on Mt Sinai in Arabia.
Enjoy your 8 lane freeway!
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I can’t imagine why anyone would take your claims seriously. You are a self-identified follower of a false teacher.
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I can see that you don’t take the Gospel of the Kingdom seriously. You claim that it was “hung on the Cross.”
By the scriptures, you are lost, without hope, an accuser of the brethren, a preacher of the “other gospel” that Paul called the Mystery of Iniquity.
I cannot take you seriously. You’ve cast your lot with the adversary. Surely your fathers have inherited “lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.” Jer 16:19
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more assertions from the fake rabbi... no sale.
Hey turn off the lights when you leave this thread please. It saves $.
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I’d like to turn off your darkness; my savior is the light.
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A lot of different topics are addressed in these chapters. Pick a verse or verses that seem to support either of the claims you were making in your comment on Post #123, which comment itself seems to be irrelevant and unintelliglble in terms of the issue in view (as does this latest post of yours to me). Vapid.
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Wasting bandwidth again, I see.
Responding to the adversary’s agents is below my pay grade.
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With you, yes . . .
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With everyone.
Deniers of the word waste everyone’s time.
Try the plain word of Yehova for a change.
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