Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World

by Eric Metaxas

despite this perfect clarity about the situation Staupitz never followed Luther out of the church but faithfully remained there until his death.

This must at least convince any objective observer of this history that there were deeply principled and godly men on both sides of the great and coming divide.

.... sides of this great one coming divide.

Because to suggest that the church did not automatically speak with the voice of God was to suggest that the church could err. This would always be the sticking point and Luther would not even in this otherwise deeply humble letter remove that point.

A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it.

the Roman church, while certainly an institution of God, could not plausibly claim utter authority as it had been doing for four hundred years. And certainly not from Scripture.

To stand where only Christ should stand was to be anti-Christ.

More and more now, Luther accustomed himself to seeing the papacy in this way, and he became less and less shy about saying so.

the same hoary pseudo-argument for the unquestioned authority of the pope. It not only did not use Scripture and reason, but essentially swept both of them away as beside the point, as even beneath consideration.

going so far as to declare that the pope could not err “even if he were to give so much offense as to cause people in multitudes . . . to go to the Devil in Hell.”

So Luther was using the new technology of printing to do an end run around the cultural elites who formed the previously impenetrable wall of ecclesiastical power.

Suddenly history—via Gutenberg—had provided options that had not hitherto existed, and Luther would master this new way of reaching the people and fomenting a widespread uprising against the distant, out-of-touch taskmasters.

Though always humble and respectful in talking to pope and emperor, Luther nonetheless consistently made it clear that they too were under the authority of the truth and God

their rights and their own authority stemmed not just from the truth and God but from their properly executing their authority in accordance with God and his truth.

no man was above the truth or the laws of God and that even such as he, a lowly monk, had the right to demand of his superiors that they behave in accordance with the truth and with God’s laws.

.... accordance with the truth and with God's laws

Luther’s theology had dragged a startling egalitarianism out of the Gospels and into the center of history, and history and the world would never be the same.

...the world would never be the same.

That Luther was in some ways the first celebrity of modern culture had everything to do with the extraordinary reach of his publications,

One by one, the names of these works were announced. The long list of volumes itself spoke volumes. How the world had already changed as a result of them.

It seems the diet feared that Luther—whose ensorcelling powers of persuasion via the printed page had brought them to this difficult pass—might have asked for time so that he could repair to his room to summon from his pen yet another mesmerizing manifesto that would doubtless be printed over and over and read far and wide and cause much further damage to the Holy Church.

but I am being judged, not on my life, but for the teaching of Christ, and I cannot renounce these works either, without increasing tyranny and impiety.

so we will not strive to smooth out differences if by doing so we condemn the Word of God.

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the scriptures or clear reason, for I do not trust in the Pope or in the councils alone,

I am bound to the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.

I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. God help me. Amen.17

...help me. Amen.

Von der Ecken said that Luther must simply put aside his conscience, something that shocks the modern ear, principally because we now live in the world that came into being as a result of Luther’s stand that day, a world in which one’s conscience is considered sacred.

If ever there was a moment where it can be said the modern world was born, and where the future itself was born, surely it was in that room on April 18 at Worms.

The only difference between his view and the church’s view was in the idea that one’s conscience must obey God himself.

The Catholic church reserved the right to say that it and it alone spoke for God, whereas Luther, in pointing out that the pope had erred and church councils had erred, was saying that the church could not reserve the right to speak for God.

And Luther, in saying that he could not go against conscience, was simply saying that if his own understanding, his own knowledge, as guided by plain logic and clear arguments, showed him that Scripture said one thing and anyone else—even the church—said another, he had no choice but to go with what the Scriptures said.

So it was not Luther’s conscience that trumped anything. It was the Word of God that trumped everything.

He therefore concluded that only the Scriptures spoke for God. The church must therefore bow to that greater authority.

By demanding over and over that he be shown where he was mistaken—if he was indeed mistaken, as the church was saying—Luther appealed to the idea that anyone could understand what the Scripture said if one only dared to look at it.

But because they were unwilling to do this, they were ignoring what the Scriptures said and were asserting the naked power of the church.

Forcing people to believe did not comport with Luther’s view of the God of the Scriptures.

Luther was trying to call the church back to its true roots, to a biblical idea of a merciful God who did not demand that we obey but who first loved us and first made us righteous before he expected us to live righteously.

he was not at all asserting the freedom of the individual to do as he pleased.

He was asserting the freedom of the individual to do as God pleased—if and when the church or the state attempted to abrogate that freedom.

These things point not to man as a new free agent but to God himself.

That it would be possible for someone to abuse these ideas to do what God did not want him to do was always the risk,

But the alternative to opening things up to this risk is to accept the sheer authority of church or state, and that was far worse.

The idea that the emperor had issued this edict against Luther helps us see how the medieval world, where church and state essentially formed a theocracy of sorts, was very much like a Muslim caliphate.

We see that where the church and the state are essentially one, there can be no genuine—or “free”—church,

To free the Gospel—to free freedom—meant tearing it out of the world and letting it stand alone.

as with all movements some had been aroused for the right reasons and some for the wrong. The wheat and the tares must grow up together and God would decide in the end.

He had seen that he was not under these leaders as much as they were all under God together.

All authority came from God, and as in Christ all were one and all were judged equally, it was Luther’s right and indeed his duty as a Christian to speak the truth to these powers,

to point out to them where they were wrong and where they might go wrong, for the sake of their souls and for the sake ...

He thinks that everything should be discussed and handled in a civil manner and with a certain benevolent kindness.

For when the popes [and bishops] are admonished in a civil manner they think it is flattering and keep on as if they passed the right to remain uncorrected

For what is more dangerous than to incite such a big crowd of unmarried people to matrimony on the basis of such unreliable and uncertain Scripture passages, only to have them harassed afterward with continual anguish of conscience, worse than the cross they now have to carry.

It’s instructive to see how scrupulous Luther is. He wanted the case for everything he put forward to be rock solid in every way; anything less wouldn’t do.