Magyar Egyház, 2001 (80. évfolyam, 1-3. szám)
2001 / 2. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 7. oldal of justification itself. It is justification that creates the new human, not the new human who creates justification. It is here that we must confront the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification as defined by the Council of Trent in 1546. Trent taught that one’s justification must be accomplished by one’s own efforts in cooperation with God, and therefore one can never have the comforting assurance that one has been accepted by God. Here is the crux of the matter, as far as Luther was concerned. Luther as a witness of Christ and the Bible Luther felt it was basic for others to share the joy and assurance of redemption. He was a scholar of theology in order to be the most effective evangelist; one who would teach the grace of God and draw people to Christ. He believed that the Bible had to be preached for the gospel to become gospel for his fellow human beings. The written and oral Word are both needed. When the leaders of Luther’s church rejected his discovery of the gospel of free grace and threatened him with excommunication in the bull, Exsurge Domine of 1520, he was shocked. On .December 10, 1520, he publicly burned the papal bull, together with a copy of the Canon Law, which gave the Pope his powers. When his friends tried to keep Luther from going to the city of Worms to defend his message before the emperor, because they feared for his life, he replied without hesitation: “Even though there should be as many devils in Worms as shingles on the roof, I would still enter.” The question has justly been asked: How could Luther have been so absolutely convinced that he was right and the whole church wrong? He wrote to a friend, “We cannot attain to the understanding of the Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the true understanding of His word. There is no other interpreter of the word of God than the Author of this word, as He Himself has said. ‘They shall be all taught of God.’ Hope for nothing from your own labors, from your own understanding: trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit.” For true reformation to occur, Luther believed implicitly in the victorious power of Scripture, rather than in ecclesiastical pressure, coercion, or legislation. He wrote, “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word, otherwise I did nothing...I did nothing, the Word did everything.” Luther excelled in his preaching and teaching. He exalted preaching to a new significance and gave it a primacy over the sacraments. He insisted that the seven sacraments of the church could not save, only faith in the preached Word of God saves. He preached during the week and three times on Sundays, starting at five in the morning. For Luther, preaching was primarily expounding the Word of God. He systematically went through entire books of the Bible, first from the Old Testament, then from the New, always applying the biblical characters in connection with his own experience. By way of example, here is a part of his exposition of Jonah. “How could anyone imagine that a man could be three days and three nights in the belly of the fish without light, without food, absolutely alone, and come out alive? Who would not take this for a fairy tale if it were not in Scripture? But God is even in hell. ‘Jonah prayed unto the Lord from the belly of the whale.’ I do not believe he could compose such a fine psalm while he was down there, but this shows what he was thinking. He was not expecting salvation. He thought he must die, yet he prayed, T cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord.’ This shows that we must always pray to God. If you can just cry, your agony is over. Hell is not hell any more if you can cry to God. But no one can believe how hard this is. We can understand wailing, trembling, sighing, doubting, but to cry out, this is what we cannot do. Conscience, sin, and the wrath of God are about our necks. Nature cannot cry out. When Jonah reached the point that he could cry, he had won. Cry unto the Lord in your anguish, and it will be milder. Just cry and nothing else. He does not ask about your merit. Reason does not understand this, and always wants to bring in something to placate God. But there just is nothing to bring. Reason does not believe that all that is needed to quiet God’s anger is a cry.” Luther’s understanding of the gospel came through a responsible exegesis of Scripture, which gave him a new and liberating experience as a Christian believer. With immense courage, he lifted up Christ above all others. Luther’s devotion to the everlasting gospel has been described this way: “He hid behind the Man of Calvary, seeking only to present Jesus as the sinner’s Redeemer.” In this respect, Luther was a true Elijah, and a forerunner of the universal revival and reformation to come into being through the apocalyptic proclamation of the Three Angels of Revelation 14. Hans K. LaRondelle, Th. D. Professor Emeritus of Theology The above article has been reprinted from the “Ministry” magazine, with the permission of the Editorial Office.
