Martin Luther was born in 1483 in Eisleben, Germany. He earned his Master of Arts from the University of Erfurt in 1505 and subsequently enrolled in the university’s law faculty. In July of that year, a thunderstorm near Stotternheim derailed Luther’s plans for a career in jurisprudence. Terrified by a nearby lightning strike, he vowed: “Help me, St. Anne, I will become a monk.”1 Not the sort to leave a vow unfulfilled, Luther entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, where he became an exceptionally earnest monk. Luther was ordained as a priest in 1507 and received his doctorate in 1512, at which time he became professor of Bible at the University of Wittenberg. During this time, Luther found himself plagued incessantly by terrors of conscience before the righteous God whom he served. His superior, Johann von Staupitz, was able to allay Luther’s fears somewhat by directing him away from speculation about God’s hidden decree and toward Christ crucified.
Luther’s Reformation theology began to take shape as he lectured through Psalms, Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. He had long been troubled by the phrase “the righteousness of God” in Romans 1:17, taking it to mean the righteous standard by which God condemns sinners. Meanwhile, the abuses Luther witnessed in the indulgence trade led him to draw up ninety-five theses for academic debate, which he first distributed on October 31, 1517. Within a matter of weeks, Luther’s ninety-five theses had spread throughout Germany. From that point on, Luther’s relations with Rome deteriorated swiftly. It was in the thick of that controversy that he came to understand “the righteousness of God” to refer to the righteousness God freely gives to sinners, received by faith alone. In 1520, he published three great treatises—To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and The Freedom of a Christian—challenging Rome’s authority and sacramental system and setting out his positive vision for the Christian life. That same year, he burned a papal bull threatening his excommunication, which followed at the beginning of 1521.
In April of 1521, Luther was summoned before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms and ordered to recant his writings. Luther refused, pronouncing his conscience captive to the Word of God. Soon to be declared an outlaw of the empire, Luther went into hiding in the Wartburg castle under the protection of Frederick the Wise. He spent his time there translating the New Testament into everyday German. In 1522, Luther returned to Wittenberg in an effort to restrain radical reformers, insisting that the Word of God, not compulsion, ought to carry the Reformation forward.
The year 1525 brought a series of major developments for Luther, as he lent vehement opposition to the Peasants’ War, married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, with whom he had six children, and penned The Bondage of the Will, his most powerful statement of the priority of divine grace in salvation, in response to Erasmus. In 1529, Luther published his Small and Large Catechisms, aiming to remedy widespread ignorance of basic Christian doctrine. That same year, he met Ulrich Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy where the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper proved the thorniest issue. In 1534, Luther’s complete German Bible appeared. On February 18, 1546, Luther died in Eisleben, the town of his birth.
1 Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation, 1483–1521, trans. James L. Schaaf (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 48, translating WA TR 4:440 (no. 4707).
In many ways, Luther stands as the catalyst of the Protestant Reformation. His recovery of justification by faith alone, his insistence on the supreme authority of Scripture, his teaching on the priesthood of all believers, and his gift of the Bible and congregational song to the common people left lasting marks on the church and the world. Luther, who declared the Christian to be at once righteous and a sinner, was certainly under no illusions regarding his own shortcomings. His polemics were often coarse and his theology lacking in the precision that subsequent generations of Lutheran scholars would achieve. Yet justification remains, now as ever, the article by which the church stands or falls. Like Luther, may we seek solace for our oft-troubled consciences not in our own merits but in those of Christ alone.
From Luther’s Works, American Edition
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. . . May God help me!”
—The declaration at the Diet of Worms (1521), LW 32:112–13
“I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.”
—The second Invocavit sermon (1522), LW 51:77
“At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, ‘In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”’ There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. . . Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”
—Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings (1545), LW 34:337
“The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.”
—The Ninety-five Theses 62 (1517), LW 31:31
“We are beggars. That is true.”
—Luther’s last written words, left on a slip of paper two days before his death (1546), LW 54:476 (no. 5677)
“The chief article and foundation of the Christian doctrine is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is our righteousness and life.”
—Lectures on Galatians (1535), LW 26:27
“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times”
—Word and Sacrament I, LW 35:370
“Although the Christian is free from all works, he ought in this liberty to empty himself, take upon himself the form of a servant, and be made in the likeness of men.”
—The Freedom of a Christian (1520), LW 31:367
The Ninety-five Theses (1517) The Heidelberg Disputation (1518) To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520) The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520) The Freedom of a Christian (1520) The Bondage of the Will (1525) The Small Catechism and The Large Catechism (1529)
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At Westminster Seminary California, study Martin Luther and other scholars who have shaped the church by laying a rich theological foundation that continues to equip pastors and church leaders for faithful ministry.
