God often allows evil to reach a climax before He intervenes. So it was at the epoch of the Reformation. For centuries the vital truths of the Christian gospel had been buried under a mass of superstition. An enormous amount of “wood, hay, stubble” (1 Cor. 3:1212Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; (1 Corinthians 3:12)) had been built into the public profession of Christianity by those who had thereby corrupted the temple of God and made it, as the Lord said of the ancient temple in Jerusalem, “a den of thieves” (Luke 19:4646Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves. (Luke 19:46)).
The great feature of the gospel in apostolic days was faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; the command was to repent and believe in Him. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ were the keynote of the proclamation that changed the face of the world in the first century and drove out the demon of idolatry.
But the doctrine of human merit had since been substituted for faith. Man had replaced God. Idols in the form of saints had replaced Christ. The simplicity of Christianity had been elaborated into pompous ceremonies rivaling the ritual of the pagans. The pious elders of apostolic days had been replaced by a wicked, worldly hierarchy at whose head, at times, were men whose iniquity was without parallel in the world’s history.
And where was human merit? If the fallen, corrupt nature of humanity needed any proof, Christendom in the dark hour that preceded the Reformation afforded it in the most abundant measure. For years men had been crying out for a reform. The common people called for it, princes called for it, and Rome herself owned the need for it. It was admittedly beyond the wisdom and power of man to effect it; God alone could effect the change.
But was it God’s intention to reform the corrupt system of Rome? No, indeed! He sent forth His light to dispel the awful night which shrouded the souls of men; He made a way out of Babylon for thousands of her prisoners, restoring once again to men the Word which alone can set the mind of man free from Satan’s power. God exercised His own sovereign power, and the way in which He accomplished His ends redounds to His praise and demonstrates the power of the divine Word. Once again He used the weak things of the world to bring to naught the strong things. Many had prayed for such a movement, but human power could not set it in motion. The account of this divine intervention is stimulating to faith and affords instruction in the ways of God. And, let us not forget that the light and liberty we enjoy today is traceable to this great work of God. Unless it had taken place, we should still be in the darkness that enveloped men’s minds at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
The outstanding — but not the sole — instrument in this divine operation was Martin Luther. The way in which God fashioned the servant whom He set apart and prepared for this work is very interesting and profoundly instructive. God coordinated with the service of Luther the activities of others, but he was first among peers. He had certain qualities which fitted him to be the spearhead of the movement. God moved the hearts of princes, He had stirred up the neglected study of Greek and Hebrew, and, above all, He brought out from the obscurity in which they had long lain the precious Scriptures of truth. The invention of printing which had taken place a little earlier made possible, in a way hitherto undreamed of, a vast multiplication of the copies of the Bible and the writings of Luther and others. Wycliffe’s translation and others in other European languages already existed, but only in manuscript form, and the Bible was to many an unknown book. Luther was twenty years old when he saw a Latin Bible for the first time, among the books in the university library of Erfurt.
Luther was born in 1483, the son of a comparatively poor miner, who, however, made considerable sacrifices to have him well educated. He hoped to see him an accomplished lawyer who would make a name for himself in the world. God had other plans. At Erfurt, Luther took the degrees of M.A. and Doctor of Philosophy. When two years earlier he had opened the Bible for the first time, it produced a profound effect upon his soul. A serious illness, an accident and the sudden death of a friend had each affected him deeply, and then, returning one day across the mountains from his home to the University, a violent storm overtook him. The lightening struck the earth immediately before him. “Encompassed with the anguish and terror of death” — to use his own words — he made a vow that if he were spared, he would give up the world and devote his life to God. From that moment he resolved to fulfill his vow in the only way he knew; he became a monk. To the amazement of all and the distress of his parents, he immured himself in an Augustinian convent. There he nearly killed himself with his austerities. He had one compensation. In the convent was a chained Bible, and every moment he could snatch from the arduous round of a mendicant monk’s life he spent poring over this sacred and beloved volume. All his religious exercises — his fastings and his tears — only led him more and more deeply to realize the corruption of his own heart. The holiness he longed for he could not attain. He knew God as the God of Sinai, but not yet as the Saviour God, who gave His only begotten Son.
Staupitz, the vicar-general of the Augustinian convents, who, though himself a monk, had the light of salvation in his soul, took a tender interest in him and sought to comfort him with a sense of the grace which he himself had. But while comforted and helped, full assurance and peace with God were yet to come. The ground in Luther’s soul was being deeply ploughed. He fell grievously ill. Again appalled by the terror of death, he was visited in his cell by one of the aged monks who repeated the simple words of the creed: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Luther assented. “Ah!” said the monk, “you must believe not only in the forgiveness of David’s and Peter’s sins; it is God’s command that we believe our own sins are forgiven us.” Then he added a sentence from the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux: “The testimony of the Holy Ghost in thy heart is this: Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Luther was impressed. God had spoken; Luther believed.
From now on he got fresh help from the Word, fresh grace from on high. After three years in the cloister, Luther was appointed professor at Wittenberg, though he still remained a member of his order and still lived in the monastery. At first he taught philosophy, a task uncongenial to him. He longed to unfold the riches of the Word of God, and to this end he became a professor of divinity — not of the dry doctrines of the schools, but of the Bible. It was then he was struck by the words in Romans 1:1717For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17): “The just shall live by faith.” Further light was entering his soul. Nothing like these lectures of Luther had been heard before, and students crowded to hear him.
He was sent on a mission to Rome, for with all his light, he was still a bigoted son of the Romish Church. Taken ill on the journey and once more faced with the prospect of death, those words again came home to his soul in power: “The just shall live by faith.” At Rome he was bitterly disillusioned. Expecting to find sanctity and peace, he found corruption and violence. Still fascinated by the superstitions of Babylon, he began to crawl up “Pilate’s Staircase” on his knees in order to obtain the special papal indulgence granted to those who performed this act of false piety. While thus engaged, a voice of power resounded within him: “The just shall live by faith.” This was the third time. It was God speaking. This was the light that was to dispel not only the darkness in Luther’s soul but to shine out, through God’s mercy, on the whole of Christendom and set thousands free. This divine sentence was to shake the papal edifice to its very foundations. The just shall live — not by keeping Romish superstitions — but by faith. This was the key that would open the gates of Babylon and set her prisoners free.
Luther himself had no idea of reforming the Church. His sole desire was to preach the truth. Nothing would have pleased him better at this time than to have been left in peace to make known the gospel to men high and low. But God was leading him in a path he knew not. The traffic in indulgences was at its height. Luther was seated one day in the confessional at Wittenberg. Many came and confessed their sins. Some confessed to very serious sins. But they showed no real repentance. Why? They had bought letters of indulgence. They had purchased forgiveness with money. They had paid a fine, so to speak, and all was settled. He made it clear to such persons that they could not expect absolution. This was reported to Tetzel, the notorious vendor of indulgences, then perambulating the district. His anger knew no bounds. The battle was joined. For the truth’s sake, Luther must speak out. He preached against this iniquity and, on October 31, 1517, fixed to the church door at Wittenberg his Ninety-Five Theses, which were intended to be the headings of a proposed debate, which he hoped would thoroughly ventilate the matter.
The Pope did not at first treat the matter seriously, but the Theses before long became the talk of Christendom, and he was compelled to act. Luther was summoned to meet the papal legate and ordered to recant. He agreed to do so if the legate could show him he was wrong. The legate saw him three times but could not prevail. A more cunning emissary of the Pope then took the matter in hand and urged Luther to desist from further attack on the traffic in indulgences. What he had already said and written had already had such an effect that Luther was prepared to let the matter rest for the moment and get on with his duties as teacher and preacher.
Meanwhile, Luther himself was making rapid progress in the truth. He began to see it was not only a matter of abuses in the Church, but that the whole Romish system was wrong — the very idea of a pope was wrong. Indeed, he soon came to regard the Pope as Antichrist. In October 1520, he published his famous book, The Babylonish Captivity of the Church. He was then thirty-seven years of age.