Magyar Egyház, 2001 (80. évfolyam, 1-3. szám)
2001 / 2. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 5. oldal believes.” Salvation! Luther was thrilled. Was this the essence, the secret he had been searching for? He read on: “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed...” (verse 17). Luther couldn’t understand. Was the apostle telling him that even the gospel is a revelation of God’s justice? How could Paul call the gospel “justice”? Was this another manifestation of the law? If it was, then the gospel also condemned the sinner. Was “justice” not the treatment God gives to each one according to what one deserves? Luther groaned, “Who can love an angry and condemning God?” As Jacob, he wrestled with God. He studied. He tried to understand the expression “the righteousness of God” but no one opened the door for him. V V hat was new about Luther’s discovery was that he identified God’s righteousness and Christ’s righteousness as one, and saw that this divine righteousness is received by faith already now! Luther discovers the gospel A Bible lay open in his little study as he was preparing his class lectures. The question in his mind was, How could Paul call the gospel itself the “righteousness of God”? Luther read again the text in relation to its context. He came to Romans 3:21: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known...” Suddenly his vision cleared. By the grace of God he saw what Paul meant: the righteousness was not something God required humans to offer to Him, but something God offered to humans who believed the gospel - it was a marvelous expression of the grace of God! God offers the personal righteousness of Christ as His divine gift to the believer now! That is the salvation of the gospel. God justifies the repentant human being through the righteousness of Christ. This means that the gospel does not demand work or sinless perfection from us, but offers to us the gracious gift of His own work and perfect righteousness. By His grace He justifies us and announces us righteous. When Luther understood this truth, his conscience was freed from the weight of guilt and he became a free person. Now the Psalms tasted good. Later, Luther described his discovery this way: “It seemed to me as if I had been born again and was entering into paradise through newly opened doors. All at once, the Bible began to speak in quite a different way to me. The very phrase ‘righteousness of God,’ which I had hated before, was the one that I now loved the best of all. That is how that passage of Paul’s became for me the gateway to paradise. At once the whole Scripture showed me another face.” For Luther, God’s promise that “the just shall live by faith” provided the salvation he was seeking. Paul was quoting the promise from Habakkuk (2:4), but he gave it a new emphasis on how a person becomes just or righteous, when he explained: “He shall gain life who is justified through faith" (ROM. 1:17, NEB), or, “Anyone who is upright through faith will live” NJB). What was new about Luther’s discovery was that he identified God’s righteousness and Christ’s righteousness as one and saw that this divine righteousness is received by faith already now\ This last point it’s the teaching of Jesus, when He declared in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God (that day)” (Luke 18:14). This is how all the faithful stand the test of God’s final judgment. Luther explained, “That is the long and the short of it: He who believes in the man called Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, has eternal life - as He himself says (John 3:16), ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Some Luther scholars assert that Luther was the first since Paul to recover the original purity of the gospel of the New Testament. What made Luther the Reformer of the Christian church was the fact that his gospel message was anchored in a sound exegesis of the Bible. Only thus could it have had the lasting value it has for the whole church. The “Gates of Paradise” were opened to Luther, because “the keys of the kingdom” were handed to him once he grasped the central passage of Romans: “He who is righteous by faith, shall live.” We are saved now and in the judgment by our faith in Christ and His free gift of righteousness. This caused Luther to write his famous book in 1520, The Freedom of the Christian, dedicated to Pope Leo X.
