Dear Congregation,
The pivotal truth at the heart of the Reformation was the truth of justification. It hinged on the question of how can one be just in the sight of a holy God. It is still a vital question for people to wrestle with today.
The Medieval Church taught that justification is an ongoing internal transformation by which a person is becoming more and more righteous, more and more just-ified, before a holy God. As a result, through this transformation, assurance was tied to a confidence in one’s own sinlessness. The fruit of this is that one cannot ever be sure of acceptance before God, indeed it created a fear of God in His holiness.
This is what we see in early life of Martin Luther. The depth of his troubling before God is highlighted when he was a 21-year-old Law student in 1505.
During a wild thunderstorm Luther screamed with fear when a lightning bolt hit so close that he was knocked to the ground. In fear of his life he screamed the words, “Saint Anne help me! I’ll become a monk.”
Michael Reeves explains,
‘He cried but not to God, for he had never in his life prayed to God. For he did not dare to speak to a holy God. Poor man, terrified of his fate, he couldn’t even cry out to God because he had no assurance of how he stood before Him. And so he puts a good word in with Anne, who is the mother of Mary, hoping Anne will speak with Mary, who’ll speak to Jesus, who’ll speak to the Father. And he thinks that entering a monastery to earn his salvation is going to help. And that’s what he did.’
Despite some 10 years as a monk trying to climb to heaven he said,
“Though I lived as a monk without reproach I felt like a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. And I could not believe that God was placated. I did not love God, I hated God, who punishes sinners. And secretly, if not blasphemous, murmuring greatly, I was angry with God.“
Later Luther, now in a position of teaching the Bible at the newly formed Wittenberg University, he found himself wrestling with Romans 1:17 and particularly that phrase “the righteousness of God.” Luther hated that phrase and couldn’t see how the righteousness of God is good news. He saw it as completely the opposite. Since he himself is unrighteous then he saw that it meant that a righteous God is going to judge him. Not good news, it was pure bad news for him.
Then he wrote “I began to understand the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith.”
With that Luther discovered God to be entirely different than he had thought. That though holy He does not demand that we be holy before he will love us. Rather he discovered that God in grace loves us first, giving His righteousness to sinners, which gift we receive through faith.
What a discovery to explain to the world!
It transformed Luther’s life, his teaching, his preaching, his writing… and the Reformation was sparked and blown into flame. The gospel, which had been buried under the churches call of working up sufficient righteousness before God to be acceptable, was now once again brought to light. People saw it wasn’t the righteousness of church or Christian that makes one acceptable to a holy God but the righteous of God provided in Christ and freely given to all who believed in Him for it.
That is gospel, Luther now joined Paul in saying this was good news – for indeed it was and still is 500 and more further years on today.
Listen to Paul in Rom 4:3-8,
| For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.” |
The blessed person is not a person who had no sin, or has done many good works. The blessed person is the one whose sin is not counted against them, the sinner who God has pronounced through faith in Christ the verdict ‘righteous.’ In Jesus Christ we have found the Saviour given by God who took to Himself and paid the penalty of all our sins and who gives to us His righteousness of a life lived in perfect obedience. It is a double exchange. This is much more than just forgiveness, it is being regarded as righteous, as not guilty before God. We receive it through union with Christ by faith.
Is this the discovery – justification by faith in Christ – that we know and make known?
Sola Fide – by Faith alone!
Together in Christ’s love and service,
John
Your Pastor