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The theses were an attack on the mistreatment of indulgences from a monk who still worked within the thought-world of medieval Roman Catholicism.
1518, the pope decided to confer the Golden Rose, the highest honour he could confer, on Elector Frederick the Wise (with the clear understanding that Frederick, in gratitude, would naturally wish to hand Luther over to trial).
Scripture draws its power and authority from the pope. Would Luther dare to contradict him?
if Rome held the pope to be an authority above Scripture, she could never be reformed by God’s word.
The pope’s word would always trump God’s. In that case, the reign of the antichrist there was sealed, and it was no longer the church of God but the synagogue of Satan.
Luther had begun to see the extreme naïveté of the medieval teaching that ‘God will not deny grace to those who do their best’.
That suggested that mankind was morally neutral, even good, meaning that our ‘best’ is acceptable to God.
This was salvation, not by trusting God’s promise of salvation, but by accepting his damnation. It was salvation by humility.
How could one love such a God?
Now he saw that forgiveness is not dependent on how certain the sinner is that he has been truly contrite; forgiveness comes simply by receiving the promise of God.
Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.
all the anxiety could be replaced with massive confidence and simple faith, receiving the gift.
three such walls,
Luther attacked by arguing that there is no distinction between clergy and laity, meaning that the pope’s claims were unfounded and that every Christian has the right to interpret Scripture and to call a council to reform the church.
grace flowed only through the sacraments controlled by the priests.
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.
‘justification by faith alone’,
unbelief.
This is the sin of the world: that it does not believe on Christ. Not that there is no sin against the law besides this; but that this is the real chief sin, which condemns the whole world even if it could be charged with no other sin.
For him, the question ‘Have I got enough faith?’ completely misunderstands what faith is, by looking to and so relying on itself, rather than Christ.
There
‘But if that is not enough for you, Devil, I have also shit and pissed; wipe your mouth on that and take a hearty bite.’
‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’,
catechisms
He knew he could not force belief, but he insisted that the people at least know the truth.
Erasmus.
For Erasmus, it was simple: he
wanted nothing more than to give the church a good, moral bath. Scrub away the corruption, wash off the hypocrisy, and all would be well. Over the years, however, he became increasingly troubled by the fact that Luther meant something entirely different by ‘reformation’. Where he wanted to call popes to be better popes, Luther wanted to get rid of popes altogether. Where he wanted to clean up the Roman Catholic system, Luther wanted to burn it all down and replace it.
Christianity, to Erasmus, was essentially morality, with a minimum of doctrinal statement loosely appended.
doctrine first and foremost,
The Bondage of the Will, savaging Erasmus’ half-baked arguments. And it really was a savaging.
Augsburg.
Philipp Melanchthon,
Undoubtedly it contains horrible material that one wishes he had died before writing.
There was no racism involved.
unbelieving Jews,
While he condemned personal acts of vengeance, he argued that then-standard blasphemy laws should be applied to the Jews, making their religion criminal. As such, Jewish synagogues and houses should be destroyed as dangerous hotbeds of blasphemy; and, along with other blasphemers, the Jews themselves should be expelled.
standard measures taken against heretics.
‘May Christ, our dear Lord, convert them mercifully and preserve us steadfastly and immovably in the knowledge of him, which is eternal life. Amen.’
Finally, in what almost looks like an ultimate repeat of his trial at Worms, he was asked, ‘Are you ready to die trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name?’ A clear ‘Yes’ was his answer. Soon after, he took his last breath. There was no priest present, there were no sacraments administered, and no last confession was made. Instead there was simple confidence before God. It was all testimony to how his teaching had changed things.
3
Zwingli’s romantic view of the noble Swiss fighting with honour for a holy cause was drowned in their blood. He realized he had misunderstood both warfare and the pope. The shock forced him to wonder what else he might have misunderstood.
At the time, to go straight to the Bible and seek to understand it was considered dangerously subversive.
It is this high view of Scripture that was the motor for the transformation of Zurich. God’s word, he said, is like a mighty, unstoppable river. It can be preached with the utmost confidence, for it is God’s effective power to create, save, and change the world.
savaged the practice of praying to saints, denied the existence of purgatory, and argued that only trust in Christ, not our own good works, can save. It was the first volley Zwingli had fired directly at Rome. But it was a heavy one.
Better, Zwingli so carried the day that the city council immediately ruled that only preaching that was biblical would be legal in Zurich.
Zwingli disapproved of instrumental music in church, fearing that its beauty would lure people to idolize music itself.
‘God’s mercenary’ to the last, he would defend the gospel with arms.
Finding him unable to move, the victorious soldiers demanded that he pray to the Virgin Mary. He refused, and so Captain Fuckinger of Unterwalden stabbed him to death, leaving his men to quarter the body and burn it. As a final gesture, they then mixed his ashes with dung to prevent them ever being turned into a relic.
