The Doctor’s Casebook: Dr Peter Rowe

Martin Luther: Personal Dilemma to Diet of Worms!

Hello and I pray the Lord’s blessing upon you today.

I am reading a book on the Reformation and it has given me some unexpected insights into the internal struggles of that great reformer, Martin Luther. One of the wonderful things about reading is that we can touch base with our own feelings in the experiences of others.

Before we look at Luther’s inner turmoil, let’s first take a whirlwind tour of what brought him to his crisis… a crisis that eventually had him stand before a Church Council at Worms (in Germany) – known as the Diet of Worms (hence our clever title) – and refuse to recant of his heretical view that salvation was by personal faith in Jesus Christ alone. As always, please forgive oversimplification for the sake of brevity.

Up until the time of Constantine – the Roman Emperor who converted to Christianity in the third century – conversion was generally a fruit of evangelism. It was Constantine who insisted that all those in the empire became converted and baptised en masse as an act of allegiance to the state. So it was at this time that the state became an expression and an extension of the church.

A hundred years later, the teaching of Augustine of Hippo (354-450) led to an idea, later known as ‘post-millennialism’, that is: the millennium had already come and the church should be triumphant upon the earth rather than simply the moderator of religious affairs (The true millennium is a future period of 1,000 years when Christ will rule upon the earth in glory). Augustine believed that this ‘already’ millennium was to be expressed in a theocratic rule – the direct rule of God through a monarchical bishop – mediated by a church that did not just reflect things ecclesiastical but also things governmental. So, the church was to be the dominant force representing the government of Christ upon the earth. This was demonstrated in the role of the pope as a sovereign ruler and his bishops as bishop/princes… the result was not just the empowerment of the clergy but also its secularisation; a dire consequence.

It was during the time of Pope Gregory VII in the twelfth century that the idea of the triumphant church carrying banners of war against the enemies of Christ came to the fore. The bloody Crusades were an expression of this belief. At this time, and until the time of the Reformation, it was impossible to separate ecclesiastical government from political dominance; they were one and the same. Pope Innocent III (1160-1216) was to become the most powerful monarch in Europe!

After the crusades, there was a shift to ‘cash’ as a means of exchange. This took the all powerful church, which had been trading in kind, completely by surprise, leaving it far behind the Kings of Europe in the power stakes. Quick to seize the advantage, the kings began to put financial pressure upon Rome. The church went bankrupt! And here begins our story… it was the church’s desperate need to raise cash that led to the excesses that were to be the catalyst of the reformation.

Apart from extorting money from local churches, the Pope John XXII began to create all sorts of money making schemes. One of these, and the most devious, was a system known as ‘indulgences’. The idea was not new; the faithful were already accustomed to financing the crusades in return for reductions in God’s future punishments for sin. Now, the commutation of retribution against loved ones who are already in purgatory (a place of post-mortem purging) could be purchased by helping to finance the building of a new abbey, cathedral, hospital or even a bridge, and of course the money often ended up elsewhere. I can almost hear you saying it’s so far fetched, and that some people will believe anything, but wait: what about the money we have all put in the various offerings to finance buildings, TV ministries or missions; to incur the blessings of God – isn’t this the same scam, just wearing different clothes!

Even more sinister, was the belief that the pope, who was able to administer grace as God’s representative on the earth, could not only commute punishment for sins but actually forgive them!

The abuses of the church only served to accentuate the agony of spirit Martin Luther was experiencing. All these rules and regulations and back door escapes failed to assuage the guilt that haunted him.

Just prior to the Reformation the church had power, not just over an individual’s temporal life but also his eternal life. A complex system of mediating grace for the forgiveness of sins had held the people in a place where they were too frightened not to avail themselves of every means of forgiveness. Nobody knew where he stood with God as to whether destined for heaven or hell. The fact is that any theological system of salvation that denies assurance of eternal life is not biblical, but of course, such was the power of the prevailing deception that the church fully believed it had an authority beyond that of Scripture. The practices of the church at Luther’s time were simply evil!

Luther mused over the implications of the need to confess every sin to get it forgiven. He could readily confess his conscious sins but what about the sins that he didn’t recognise as sin, or just as bad, the ones he had forgotten? How could Luther be sure that he had confessed everything: and if forgiveness was dependent upon confession then surely he remained a sinner and would be damned eternally?

As those of us who have had a revelation of grace understand, the doctrine of salvation is all about the love of God and it is only through experiencing God’s love that we can actually love God ourselves. The dilemma for Luther was that it would be impossible to love God because ‘God was unlovable’. In fact the following extract from the book the reformation of the sixteenth century, by Roland H. Bainton says it so well:

‘And then a deeper and more devastating doubt assailed Luther’s spirit. He could not love God because he suspected that God is not lovable. Man does not naturally love the unlovely, and God is unlovely if he is not just, if he damns men without reference to their desert. Some of the late scholastics, on whose theology Luther had been reared, claimed that God is a law unto himself. He deigns to recognize merit only as it may please him. Man’s fate is undetermined, and God’s decision is capricious. No one can have assurance of being saved. Then there was the Augustinian view, growing out of the theology of the founder of that monastic order to which Luther belonged, according to which man’s fate is already predetermined, favourably or adversely, but man does not know which way. Nothing he can do will make any difference. The damned are damned, do what they will. The saved are saved, do what they may. God has made them so that they cannot do otherwise, and has disposed of them in advance according to his pleasure. What fairness is there in this? What justice? Is not a God who so acts to be considered base, cruel, despicable. Who can love such a God? “Love him?” said Luther. “I do not love him. I hate him.” … Despair invaded Luther’s spirit. Panic swept over him…’

After a revelation from Psalm 22, and further study, Luther became convinced that salvation was by faith in Jesus Christ alone. In 1517 he nailed his 95 theses against indulgences and many other grievances to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church, then, two years later after refusing to recant at The Diet of Worms he was excommunicated and made an outlaw for his heretical views. Such was the power of the true gospel of Jesus Christ that it changed Luther’s life, but the same truth only served to infuriate the established church with its closed mind and vested interests. Wasn’t this the same reaction that Jesus and Paul experienced when they preached grace: and we must be ready for a backlash when we do the same.

There are two main theological systems in the Protestant church today. One of them insists that Jesus only died for the elect (the chosen) and all others would perish in Hell. The other insists that sins must be confessed but, while softening the blow with insistence that salvation is only by faith, delivers the cruel axiom that by failing to confess or continuing in sin, salvation can be lost. So there are huge implications with both systems. The first system, known as Calvinism (John Calvin French Theologian 1509-1564 – was actually first promulgated by Augustine) leads me to ask the huge question: ‘I think I am one of the elect, but how can I be sure’ and ‘how can a loving God damn most of mankind out of hand’. The second system would lead me to ask: ‘have I got continuing unconfessed sin that I am not aware of, or even aware of but cannot overcome’?

Both of these systems were the fruit of the last reformation. We could ask whether the reformation actually answered Luther’s dilemma at all, and if it did, it would only be because he doggedly considered himself to be one of the elect? Today’s doctrines of salvation as imposed by the Protestant church puts nearly all Christians into one of the two systems, or in reality, back to Luther’s pre-Reformation plight!

We may ask: what now? Before anything, we must assert the great truth of the New Testament that confession and forgiveness of sin is not an issue for salvation – Christ set us free from sin completely –. When we receive Christ, we receive his life and that life becomes our life from that day forth and forever. So the message for all believers is, let’s stop worrying about sin and start living.

Before the world can be won, the church needs to be re-evangelised. The first reformation created almost as many problems as solved. It is time for the New Reformation (or true Reformation). When non-Christians see that Christianity is not all about sin and self-righteousness, but about love, joy and peace, they may even decide to embrace Christ themselves?

Maybe it is time for another Diet of Worms?

If you would like to give your thoughts on this week’s Casebook topic, you are more than welcome.

Until next week, be blessed.

Dr. Peter Rowe.

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