Phil. 1:7 declares, “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me.”
This sermon is about the Reformation. John Hus predicted the coming of Dr. Luther hundred years prior. I do not believe that it can be proven from church history that the reformation by Martin Luther was a mistake or that he never intended to divide from the Church of Rome.
My hope is to exalt the glorious gospel and the Head of the Gospel. It is my hope to testify of the gospel by words of Martin Luther. He defended and confirmed the gospel in his day. We ought to also defend the gospel from the Divine Word.
The Reformation was the time when the good news (that is, the very gospel of Christ) was proclaimed, declared and presented to a world that were foreigners and strangers to the gospel of Jesus. The Church of Rome adhered to unbiblical concepts alien to the gospel. This is still true today of the Church of Rome. They proclaim and believe another gospel, another Jesus and another religion. But the Reformers introduced the gospel from the Scriptures. The Reformers got their doctrine of the gospel from the very Scriptures themselves. Their understanding of the gospel was not derived from alleged “sacred Tradition.” No, the Reformers highly esteemed the Scriptures and got their true understanding from the divine Scriptures. The Reformers proclaimed none other gospel than the divine gospel. Rome exercised their tyranny over the people and offered them the gospel of Rome. The gospel of Rome is not the gospel of the Scripture. But the gospel of the Reformers was and is the gospel of Christ. This verse is a picture of Luther for he confirmed and defended the gospel. Luther declared in the midst of fierce opposition, as I myself have encountered, “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.” (Acts 20:24).
Regarding Luther’s experience from Scripture; I mention it because it is a sure example of the life-changing power of the Word of God.
….I had begun interpreting the Psalms once again. I felt confident that I was now more experienced, since I had dealt in university courses with St. Paul's Letters to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the Letter to the Hebrews. I had conceived a burning desire to understand what Paul meant in his Letter to the Romans, but thus far there had stood in my way, not the cold blood around my heart, but that one word which is in chapter one: "The justice of God is revealed in it." I hated that word, "justice of God," which, by the use and custom of all my teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically as referring to formal or active justice, as they call it, i.e., that justice by which God is just and by which he punishes sinners and the unjust….But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I did not blaspheme, then certainly I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God. I said, "Isn't it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity through the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?" This was how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience. I constantly badgered St. Paul about that spot in Romans 1 and anxiously wanted to know what he meant….I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice, i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: "The just person lives by faith." All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God….I exalted this sweetest word of mine, "the justice of God," with as much love as before I had hated it with hate. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise. Afterward I read Augustine's "On the Spirit and the Letter," in which I found what I had not dared hope for. I discovered that he too interpreted "the justice of God" in a similar way, namely, as that with which God clothes us when he justifies us. Although Augustine had said it imperfectly and did not explain in detail how God imputes justice to us, still it pleased me that he taught the justice of God by which we are justified.
This verse of Romans that Luther was changed by; it was Romans 1:17.
Let’s read from 16 through 17:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For
in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is
written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH."
Luther was a man who was not ashamed of the gospel. He stood
against Rome and stood for none other then Christ his King.
The King of the Faith of the Gospel. He understood that it was
the power of God unto salvation. He understood it was not by
works and faith but by faith alone. He was a man who lived by faith.
Who among us is not ashamed of the gospel? Do you understand
that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation? Are you a
person who lives by faith? I exhort you, live by faith!
On Galatians, Luther says:
Note the resourcefulness of the devil. Heretics do not advertise
their errors. Murderers, adulterers, thieves disguise themselves.
So the devil masquerades all his devices and activities. He puts
on white to make himself look like an angel of light. He is
astoundingly clever to sell his patent poison for the Gospel
of Christ. Knowing Satan's guile, Paul sardonically calls the
doctrine of the false apostles "another gospel," as if he would
say, "You Galatians have now another gospel, while my Gospel
is no longer esteemed by you."
Luther on October 31, 1517 wrote to the Archbishop because of
the abuses of Rome. Listen to how Luther makes bold throughout
his letter for the gospel of Christ. In Psalm 9:20 says, “Put them in
fear, O LORD: that the nations may know themselves to be but men.”
I would say about the leaders of Rome using the phraseology of this
verse, “Put them in fear, O LORD: that these Romanish leaders know
themselves to be but men.” What do you think was in Luther’s mind?
He stood his ground against renowned men of Rome. It took nothing
more then the Courage of Christ and the Power of God to have Luther
manifest the Boldness of the Gospel. Because Luther stood for the
Gospel and he knew there would be a serious cost. The cost could
have been his life, but to be in a day of the oppression of divine truth,
demands that he stand for the gospel. God granted him divine courage;
he was a mad-man for Christ. What a picture! Will you be a mad-man
for Christ, to stand against the enemies of the cross? Will you stand
for the gospel no matter the cost? Stand then, and fight for His truth;
proclaim His truth and defend His truth.
Luther understood that salvation was not merited. He understood
that salvation is unmerited. He understood that faith is necessary.
Faith is only granted by God’s divine Word and divine Spirit.
God’s righteousness is imputed to the sinner. It is to the one who
believes. The imputation of the righteousness of Christ, by faith,
to a depraved sinner is nothing but consistent with God’s divine
righteousness. The Father, through His beloved Son, declares a
sinner just. It is Luther’s doctrine of “at the same time just and sinner.”
This verse GREATLY influenced his doctrine on justification.
Do you understand as Luther did that sinners are justified by
faith alone? Do you know the truth but lack it in practice? Is
it in your spiritual blood stream? The Life-Giving Spirit
produces a life lived by faith. Life is the opposite of death
and death is the opposite of life. The just shall live by faith.
By faith we live; by faith we experience the truths of the gospel;
by faith we really have forgiveness and remission, and it is by
faith we trust His Word by His Spirit to preserve His people
that is by, of, because and from grace alone! Live by grace through faith!
Luther thought, “I understand by the divine Spirit that His gospel
is true. That it is by faith alone. It is by faith. I must stand for the
truth, and although I am a nobody, I must stand for Christ, for
nothing less then divine truth is at stake!” He wrote,
Spare me, Most Reverend Father in Christ and Most
Illustrious Prince, that I, the dregs of humanity, have
so much boldness that I have dared to think of a letter
to the height of your Sublimity. The Lord Jesus is my
witness that, conscious of my smallness and baseness,
I have long deferred what I am now shameless enough
to do, -- moved thereto most of all by the duty of fidelity
which I acknowledge that I owe to your most Reverend
Fatherhood in Christ. Meanwhile, therefore, may your
Highness deign to cast an eye upon one speck of dust,
and for the sake of your pontifical clemency to heed my prayer.
Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter's are
circulating under your most distinguished name, and
as regards them, I do not bring accusation against the
outcries of the preachers, which I have not heard, so
much as I grieve over the wholly false impressions
which the people have conceived from them; to wit,
-- the unhappy souls believe that if they have purchased
letters of indulgence they are sure of their salvation;
again, that so soon as they cast their contributions
into the money-box, souls fly out of purgatory; furthermore,
that these graces [i.e., the graces conferred in the indulgences]
are so great that there is no sin too great to be absolved,
even, as they say -- though the thing is impossible --
if one had violated the Mother of God; again, that a man
is free, through these indulgences, from all penalty and guilt.
O God, most good! Thus souls committed to your care,
good Father, are taught to their death, and the strict
account, which you must render for all such, grows
and increases. For this reason I have no longer been
able to keep quiet about this matter, for it is by no gift
of a bishop that man becomes sure of salvation, since
he gains this certainty not even by the "inpoured grace"
of God, but the Apostle bids us always "work out our
own salvation in fear and trembling," and Peter says,
"the righteous scarcely shall be saved." Finally, so
narrow is the way that leads to life, that the Lord,
through the prophets Amos and Zechariah, calls
those who shall be saved "brands plucked from the
burning," and everywhere declares the difficulty of salvation.
Why, then, do the preachers of pardons, by these
false fables and promises, make the people careless
and fearless? Whereas indulgences confer on us no
good gift, either for salvation or for sanctity, but only
take away the external penalty, which it was formerly
the custom to impose according to the canons.
Finally, works of piety and love are infinitely better
than indulgences, and yet these are not preached
with such ceremony or such zeal; nay, for the sake
of preaching the indulgences they are kept quiet,
though it is the first and the sole duty of all bishops
that the people should learn the Gospel and the love of
Christ, for Christ never taught that indulgences should
be preached. How great then is the horror, how great
the peril of a bishop, if he permits the Gospel to be kept
quiet, and nothing but the noise of indulgences to be
spread among his people! Will not Christ say to them,
"straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel"?
In addition to this, Most Reverend Father in the Lord,
it is said in the Instruction to the Commissaries which
is issued under your name, Most Reverend Father
(doubtless without your knowledge and consent),
that one of the chief graces of indulgence is that
inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to
God, and all the penalties of purgatory are destroyed.
Again, it is said that contrition is not necessary in those
who purchase souls [out of purgatory] or buy confessionalia.
But what can I do, good Primate and Most Illustrious
Prince, except pray your Most Reverend Fatherhood
by the Lord Jesus Christ that you would deign to look
[on this matter] with the eye of fatherly care, and do
away entirely with that treatise and impose upon the
preachers of pardons another form of preaching; lest,
perchance, one may some time arise, who will publish
writings in which he will confute both them and that
treatise, to the shame of your Most Illustrious Sublimity.
I shrink very much from thinking that this will be done,
and yet I fear that it will come to pass, unless there is
some speedy remedy.
These faithful offices of my insignificance I beg that your
Most Illustrious Grace may deign to accept in the spirit of
a Prince and a Bishop, i.e., with the greatest clemency,
as I offer them out of a faithful heart, altogether devoted
to you, Most Reverend Father, since I too am a part of
your flock.
Luther concludes:
If it please the Most Reverend Father he may see these
my Disputations, and learn how doubtful a thing is the
opinion of indulgences which those men spread as though
it were most certain.
Luther speaks against the indulgence preachers. Luther
published his 95 Theses. He declared “Out of love for the
truth and the desire to bring it to light” he published his 95 Theses.
He would debate anyone in writing or in person. Do you have love f
or the truth and desire to bring it to light to a dark world? Ask
God to kindled your heart to burn with passion. Would you
stand for the truth and defend His truth being unashamed?
There are many people who have left the gospel and went to
Rome. This is Satan’s design and they are held captive by
his will. They went out from us because they were never really
of us. Men, like Karl Keating, and others, who have rejected
the gospel of the King, and submitted their souls to Rome,
are awaiting judgment. I perceive, and believe rightly, and
may I say from experience, that men of Rome would use
the power of Satan to get people to believe Rome. They
believe the end justifies the means, or so they do secretly.
Will you be a Judas who would do evil so good would
occur? Paul thusly declares in Romans 3:5-8: “But if
our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness
more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in
bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.)
Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the
world? Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances
God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I
still condemned as a sinner?" Why not say—as we are
being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim
that we say—"Let us do evil that good may result"? Their
condemnation is deserved.” Do you hear? Their condemnation
is deserved or just!
Dearly Beloved children of the King, flee from using ill
means get what is desired! For ill gotten leads to destruction:
Proverbs 1:18-20 declares, “These men lie in wait for their
own blood; they waylay only themselves! Such is the end of
all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the lives of those
who get it.” Proverbs 20:16 proclaims, “A tyrannical ruler
lacks judgment, but he who hates ill-gotten gain will enjoy a long life.”
Luther endured the tyrannical reign of Rome, and tyrannical
rulers will be stopped by the King, for they are in defiance of
Him. Impure and sinful judgment (not pure and holy judgment)
leads to tyranny. Who among us has not experienced, who is
now a Reformed Christian, the tyranny of Satan as we were
unconverted and yet in our sins? Those under the tyranny
of Satan are held captive to him and in great sin, and yet as
this is true, many do not know it, for they are blinded and
the gospel is plainly hid from them, and by no means does
this excuse them, for they are yet in their sins.
What, then, is a horror that these men do, it will be a dreadful
last day for them on the Great Day of Judgment! Therefore
love the truth and submit to it and desire to bring it to light so
that more may be saved. Indeed, Christ Jesus knows of these
men, and He has much to say in judgment of them. But Luther
declared, proclaimed and preached the gospel of repentance
and submission to Christ. Submit to the Gospel of the
Reformation not the false gospel of Rome. He defied the
Pope because he desired to be obedient to the true head,
Jesus Christ, the divine Head of the Church. Have you
defied tyranny and rules of sin? Luther’s Reformation of
the church was a magisterial Reformation. Many
Protestants lack this understanding and reject Luther because
he believed contrary things. But I must speak in Luther’s defense.
In a world without the Word, Luther brought the Word by the
designed and appointed providential hand of God to a lightless
world. He must hear Luther, otherwise, by hearing you do not
hear, or by seeing you do not see, or by perceiving you do not
perceive. We do not dare say that Luther was always correct
but we know he was correct by his preaching of the glorious
gospel of grace! Turn to Luther to understand the gospel.
For the Reformation is the Reformation of good news.
Luther spoke under “to the Christian Reader” about his learning:
I tell these things to the end that, if thou shalt read my books,
thou mayest know and remember that I am one of those who,
as St. Augustine says of himself, have grown by writing and by
teaching others, and not one of those who, starting with nothing,
have in a trice become the most exalted and most learned doctors.
We find, alas! many of these self-grown doctors; who in truth
are nothing, do nothing and accomplish nothing, are moreover
untried and inexperienced, and yet, after a single look at the
Scriptures, think themselves able wholly to exhaust its spirit.
Luther was a man of learning. Are you a person of learning what
pleases God? Be like Luther who kept learning the things of God
and grew in His knowledge. Who is able to exhaust the Scriptures?
For it will take all eternality to exhaust them. There is no
man of knowledge of has exhausts the Scripture. The
Reformation brought the gospel to a lost world without Christ.
Luther understood the King of the Gospel. He proclaimed his
Master’s Gospel. Luther preached sola fide. It means faith alone.
Rome proclaimed the view of faith and works. But he not only
preached faith alone but grace alone, Christ alone, to God be the
glory alone and Scripture alone. These doctrines are the five solas
of the Reformation. He believed and lived his doctrines and
defended them against heretics.
The five solas of the
Reformation are doctrines that emerge from the richness, perpetuity and totality
of Scripture. The five solas are: sola scriptura (Bible alone),
sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), Solus
Christus (Christ alone), soli Deo Gloria (to God alone be the
glory). These were the pillars of the Reformation. The result of
maintaining these doctrines is because of the purity of Scripture. The
words of Scripture are God-appointed pure words. The words of Scripture
are pure because it is God-Breathed. These doctrines demonstrate the
purity, unity and peace of the Reformed Protestant church. God’s people
believe these doctrines of the Christian Faith. Sola Scriptura means the Bible is the sole written revelation and it alone binds the conscience absolutely. Sola Fide means justification by faith alone. Christ’s merit is the single grounds for justification; God accepts it and our sins remitted. Sola Christus means we are redeemed through the word of Christ alone. Sola Gratia means salvation rests on God’s grace for us and in us. Soli Deo Gloria means to God alone belongs the glory.
Luther
was not a man that was puffed up, for he prayed: “Lord God,
You have appointed me as a Bishop and Pastor in Your Church, but you see how
unsuited I am to meet so great and difficult a task. If I had lacked Your help,
I would have ruined everything long ago. Therefore, I call upon You: I wish to
devote my mouth and my heart to you; I shall teach the people. I myself will
learn and ponder diligently upon You Word. Use me as Your instrument -- but do
not forsake me, for if ever I should be on my own, I would easily wreck
it all.”
Luther was a servant-friend of Christ. He knew God sustained him and
he was sustained. He knew that without God’s constant intercession, he
would wreck it all. But he was a man who was matured by his true doctrine
of faith alone. It made him a man, a man fruitful faith! So then: Will you
stand firm as he did against Rome and their false doctrines? Will you stand
strong against them to exalt your Redeemer? The doctrines of Rome concerning
salvation are a serious offense against my God, and to believe them until death is
the real consequence of hell. He stood against Rome, and the London
Confession under Chapter 26: Of the Church declares in conformity
with the Reformers regarding the Pope as antichrist. The Pope, as I
believe, is surely an antichrist, for he rejects the gospel of the Reformers,
the gospel found and located in Holy Scripture!
“4. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, in whom,
by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling,
institution, order or government of the church, is invested in a
supreme and sovereign manner; neither can the Pope of Rome
in any sense be head thereof, but is that antichrist, that man of
sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church
against Christ, and all that is called God; whom the Lord shall
destroy with the brightness of his coming.”
Against Rome he declared: “If anyone despise my fraternal warning, I am free
from his blood in the last judgment. It is better that I should die a thousand times
than retract one syllable of the condemned articles. And as they excommunicated
me for the sacrilege of heresy, so I excommunicated them in the name of sacred truth
of God. Christ will judge whose excommunication will stand. Amen.”
Luther knew the Jesus of Scripture. He
did not embrace the Jesus of Rome, for Luther understood these contrary truths
against Rome, as I do, and declare to you this day:
·
The Bible has
authority over the church not the church over the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16 vs. CCC 119).
·
The Bible
teaches that a person is born by the Word and the Spirit not by water (1 Peter 1:23, 3:8 vs. CCC 694).
·
The Bible
teaches that a Christian is eternally justified once through faith, and so, we
are not justified by works and sacraments (Rom. 4:5, 8:30
vs. CCC 1035 and 1446).
·
God’s grace is
unmerited and so it is, not merited (Eph. 2:8-9 vs. CCC 2010).
·
Christians are
saved for good works but not by good works in any way (Eph. 2:10 vs. CCC 1477).
·
Salvation is in
Jesus Christ not in the Roman Catholic Church (Eph. 1:7 vs. CCC 846).
·
Christians are
purified by the blood of Christ only but not by the fires of purgatory (1 John
1:7 vs. CCC 1030).
·
Christians
understand the Lord’s Supper is a memorial of the finished work of Christ but
it is not a sacrifice of Christ which continues the work (1 Cor. 11:24-25 vs. 1367, 1414).
·
Christians
receive Jesus permanently in the heart. It is done spiritually but it is
not done frequently and physically in the stomach (2 Cor. 1:22 vs. CCC 1374-78).
·
Christians are
priests and saints, and as Christians we do not need a priest, and Roman
Catholic in light of the Gospel are not saints (1 Peter 2:9; Eph. 1:1; 2 Cor.
1:1 vs. CCC 987).
·
Christians are
condemned by the Roman Catholic church because of the anathemas of Trent and
Vatican II, but Roman Catholics are condemned by the divine Word (John 12:48;
Gal. 1:9).
·
Jesus alone is
the Savior (nothing else takes away sin): “He saved us, not because of
any righteous deeds we had done, but because of His mercy.” (Titus 3:5).
·
Jesus is the
sinless Redeemer (not the Virgin Mary as the sinless CoRedeemix): “For
you know it was not perishable things…that you are redeemed…but with the
precious blood of Christ.” (First Peter 1:18, 19).
·
Jesus is our
Mediator (not praying to saints or Mary): “God is one, one also is the mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (First Timothy 2:5).
·
Jesus finished
the work of redemption (not continual offerings at Mass): “By one
offering He has forever perfected those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews
10:14). “Unlike other high priests, He does not need to offer daily
sacrifices.” (Hebrews 7:27, 28).
·
There is
salvation in Jesus (this denies the understanding Pope John Paul has which was
modified universalism): “There is no salvation in anyone else, for
there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be
saved.” (Acts 4:12).
·
Jesus remitted
sins (not Mass offerings): “Without the shedding of blood there is no
forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22). “Since these [sins] have been forgiven,
there is no further offering for sin.” (Hebrews 10:18).
·
Jesus has
cleansed His people from their sins (not the offering of the Mass): “When
He had cleansed us from our sins, He took His seat at the right hand of the
Majesty in heaven.” (Hebrews 1:3). “Christ…presents you to God holy, free
of reproach and blame.” (Colossians 1:22).
·
Jesus is head of
the church (not the Pope in anyway): “He has put all things under
Christ’s feet and made Him, thus exalted, head of the church.” (Ephesians
1:22, 23).
Regarding salvation, we believed not because
of anything of this fallen world. Rather
spiritual salvation is because of everything concerning Him.Luther who believed the gospel died for the honor of the gospel as a treasure honor to God, for he stood up not for man’s treasure or doctrines made with human hands but we the God-designed gospel. The death of a saint of God is nothing less then precious in the sight of God. Luther’s death was precious, for he preached the divine message of the gospel.
Let’s pray: “Lord, when we think of a picture of the Gospel, may we think of Luther, and imitate him in this: That we stand, saying “…Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.