On this day, February 18, 1546, 476 years ago, Martin Luther (1484-1546) died from a stroke, having delivered his last sermon only three days prior. As is true of all of us, Luther was not perfect. He had his faults. But God still used this godly man to set in motion the Reformation, preserving the integrity of His Word and the way of Salvation....by grace alone through faith alone.
"One aspect of Luther is often overlooked. Before Luther went to the monastery, he had already established himself as one of the brightest young minds in the field of law. Some heralded him as a legal genius. Once he applied his legal mind to the law of God, he saw things that most mortals miss.
Luther examined the Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” He concluded that if the Great Commandment was to love God with all the heart, then the Great Transgression was to fail to love God with all the heart. He saw a balance between great obligations and great sins.
Most people do not think that way. None of us keeps the Great Commandment for five minutes. We may think that we do in a surface way, but upon a moment’s reflection it is clear that none of us loves God with our whole heart or our whole mind or our whole strength. No one loves his neighbor as he loves himself. Our comfort is that nobody is perfect. We all fall short of perfect love for God, so why worry about it? If God punished everyone who failed to keep the Great Commandment, He would have to punish everyone in the world. The test is too great, too demanding; it is not fair. God will have to judge us all on a curve.
Luther didn’t see it that way. He realized that if God graded on a curve, He would have to compromise His own holiness. To count on God doing so is supreme arrogance and supreme foolishness as well. God does not lower His own standards to accommodate us. He remains altogether holy, altogether righteous, and altogether just. But we are unjust and therein lies our dilemma.
Luther’s legal mind was haunted by the question: How can an unjust man survive in the presence of a holy God? Where everyone else was at ease in the matter, Luther was in agony. He wrote about others who so easily dismissed their sin: “Don’t you know that God dwells in light inaccessible?
Lesser minds went merrily along their way enjoying the bliss of ignorance. They were satisfied to think that God would compromise His own excellence and let them into heaven. They thought that surely God must grade on a curve.
Two things separated Luther from the rest of men: First, he knew who God was. Second, he understood the demands of the Law of that God. He had mastered the Law. Unless he came to understand the Gospel, he would die in torment.
Luther would look at the Law of God and its demands of perfection and he would analyze himself in light of the holy Law of God and he couldn't stand the result. He kept evaluating himself not by comparing himself to other human beings but by looking at the character of God, the righteousness of God, and he saw himself so awful in comparison of the righteousness of God.
One night while preparing his lecture for his students, he was reading Romans chapter one..."the righteousness of God is revealed by faith, and the just shall live by faith." Suddenly, the concept burst upon his mind. What this passage was teaching about was the righteousness that God provides for you and me, freely to anyone who puts their trust in Christ. Anyone who puts their trust in Christ receives the covering in the cloak of the righteousness of Christ.
Luther said that for the first time he realized his justification is established not on the basis of his own naked righteousness which will always fall short of the demands of God but solely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ which we receive through trusting faith. He said, "For the first time I understood the Gospel, the doors of Paradise swung open and I walked through. The just shall live by faith alone."
“The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11). The idea that justification is by faith alone, by the merits of Christ alone, was so central to the Gospel that Luther called it “the article upon which the church stands or falls.”
Once Luther grasped the teaching of Paul in Romans 1:17, he was reborn. The burden of his guilt was lifted. The crazed torment was ended. This meant so much to the man that he was able to stand against pope and council, prince and emperor, and, if necessary, the whole world.
I pray that the Gospel will not be eclipsed, that we may understand that in the presence of a holy God, we who are unjust may be justified by the fact that God in His holiness, without negotiating His holiness, has offered the holiness of His Son as a covering for our sin. Whoever puts their trust in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life (John 3:16). That is the Gospel for which Luther was prepared to die."
~ R. C. Sproul 1939-2017, “The Holiness of God - Luther's Insanity"
