Martin Luther was the iconic figure in the church’s history of Protestant Reformation during the 1500s through his breakthrough on justification by faith through grace alone. He was the author of the famous ‘Ninety-five Theses’. In this essay, I will first examine the background of Luther and what was happening in his era that lead to the writing of the Ninety-five Theses. I will then analyse whether Luther’s theological breakthrough on justification by grace alone was reflected in the Ninety-five Theses.
Luther was born into a peasant family in 1483, in Eisleben Germany. His childhood was not a happy one as his parents were extremely severe[1]. In July 1505, a bolt of lightning knocked him to the ground. Struggling to rise, he cried in terror, ‘St. Anne help me! I will become a monk’ and decided to enter the monastery[2]. When he started celebrating his first mass, he started getting gripped by a terror where he felt unworthy of God’s love, and that God seemed to be a severe judge like his father and teachers. His conscience kept telling him: ‘You fell short there.’ ‘You were not sorry enough.’‘You left that sin off your list.’[3]
Just when Luther was disillusioned his superior took a bold step in ordering him to teach Scripture at the new University of Wittenbergbetween 1513-18[4]. When Luther studied the books of Psalms and Romans he found the solution to his difficulties[5]. He was reading in the tower when he felt the force of the Pauline text ‘the just shall live by faith’ such that he proclaimed ‘I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered paradise’[6]. Although the date of the experience of the tower where Luther encountered his theological breakthrough of justification by grace could not be dated precisely[7], he composed ninety-seven theses in 1517[8] to attack several of the main tenets of scholastic theology, but it seemed to have evoked no responses[9]. It was another set of thesis he wrote in 1517 titled ‘Ninety-five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences’ that created the massive stir towards the Reformation when it was translated into German and circulated in an inexpensive edition. To understand why it created such a stir, we have to look into the background of Luther’s era. During this expensive Renaissance age, the Roman administration had been living beyond its income and faces the risk of bankruptcy[10]. Pope Leo X, one of the most corrupt popes of the era, had to raise money for building St Peter’s church, and one of the means of raising the funds was through the sale of indulgences. Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg hoped to acquire the most important archbishopric in Germany, that of Mainz. He began negotiations with Leo X, and agreed on the sum of ten thousand ducats to get what he wanted. This was a considerable sum so the pope authorised Albert to announce the sale of indulgences in his territories. The vendor of the indulgences, Dominican Tetzel, made such outrageous claims on the efficacy of the indulgences that it infuriated Luther to write the Ninety-five Theses[11].
The content of the Ninety-five Theses was a debate forged in anger attacking claims made by Tetzel and Albert. It concentrated on three main points: a denial of the powers of the pope over purgatory, an objection to indulgences, and a consideration of the welfare of the sinner. Thesis 5 introduced Luther’s concept of the Church and her role in the salvation of man. The pope’s power of forgiveness is restricted to the canonical order. The only power which the pope has over purgatory is that of making intercession on behalf of souls, and this power is exercised by any priest or curate in his parish[12]. The sinner cannot be reconciled to God until he is first reconciled to the Church; but reconciliation with the church does not necessary mean reconciliation with God. There are sins whose remission is outside and beyond the limited power of the pope; they are in the hands of God alone[13].
Luther attacked the efficacy of the indulgence from theses 27-40 saying that whatever their value, they had no efficacy in the life hereafter, and no relevance to the souls in purgatory. In fact, no external act is efficacious, meritorious and beneficial to the souls in purgatory. Contrition is required and the external act must be formed by internal faith and charity, and that every truly repentant Christian has the right to full remission without indulgences, and that indulgences were redundant and delusive by nature.
He continued to devaluate indulgences by contrasting them, with the works of charity (theses 41-61), and with the teaching of the gospel (theses 62-68). Christians should in fact be taught that he who does works of mercy and gives to the poor is better than he who receives a pardon. Mullet observed that although Luther disparaged papal indulgences as a media of final forgiveness of sins, he was still placing considerable weight on the responsibility of the individual to secure remission of sins through contrition for them[14]. Then was a turning point in thesis 62 “The true treasure of the Church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.” At this point, Luther’s attack upon indulgences sprang out of a Pauline conviction of God’s grace[15]. In fact, the indulgences were a threat to the gospel because they induce a false sense of security which diverted people’s attention away from the grace of God and piety of the Cross[16]. He then attacked it was blasphemy to suggest that indulgences have equal worth with the Cross of Christ and concluded with sarcasm that to assert that the pope can deliver souls from purgatory was absurd: if he could do so, then he was cruel not to release them all[17], and why not build the church with his own money since he was so rich.
We could see from the timing of when Luther wrote the Ninety-five Theses, he already had some rudimentary ideas on the justification by grace. Although there was no direct wording of “justification by grace” in these theses, it could be seen as a vital part of the reformation journey as Luther’s mature views on justification by grace subsequently seemed to have been established by 1519-20[18], where he heightened, intensified and clarified the theology of Paul, which was the affirmation of the forgiveness of sin through the utterly unmerited grace of God made possible by the cross of Christ[19].
Bibliography:
Bainton, Roland H. Here I stand: A Life of Martin Luther, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1950.
Cameron, Euan. The European Reformation, London: Oxfords University Press, 1992.
Chadwick, Owen. The Penguin History of the Church 3: The Reformation, London: Penguin, 1990.
Diener, Ronald. “Ninety-five theses: some historical and semantic aspects”, Concordia Theological Monthly, 38 (1967): 601-606.
González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity Volume II: The Reformation to the Present Day, New York: Harper Collins, 2010.
McNally, Robert Edwin. “Ninety-five theses of Martin Luther: 1517-1967”, Theological Studies, 28 (1967): 439-480.
Mullett, Michael. “Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses”, History Review, 46(2003): 46-51.
Pedersen, Else Marie Wiberg. “Justification and grace. Did Luther discover a new theology or did he discover anew the theology of justification and grace?”, StudiaTheologica, 57 (2003): 143-161.
Spaeth, Adolph et al. Works of Martin Luther. Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Company, 1915.
Study Guide for the "Disposition of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," English 233: Introduction to Western Humanities, Accessed February 25, 2014, http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lyman/english233/sg-95ths.htm
[1]Justo L. González,The Story of Christianity Volume II: The Reformation to the Present Day, (New York: Harper Collins, 2010), 21.
[2]Roland H Bainton, Here I stand: A Life of Martin Luther, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1950), 15. During a thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning knocked him to the ground. Struggling to rise, he cried in terror, ‘St. Anne help me! I will become a monk’
[3]González, Story of Christianity, 22.
[4]Chadwick, Reformation, 44-45.
[5]González, Story of Christianity, 24-25.
[6]Robert Edwin McNally, “Ninety-five theses of Martin Luther: 1517-1967”, Theological Studies, 28 (1967): 452.
[7]Chadwick, Reformation, 45. It has been argued that it happened after the Indulgence, perhaps in spring 1518. Probably it happened in 1512.
[8]González, Story of Christianity, 26.
[9]Euan Cameron. The European Reformation, (London: Oxfords University Press, 1992), 100.He published his “Disputation against Scholastic Theology” saying: ‘God cannot accept a man unless the grace of God is there justifying him’; ‘We are not made righteous by doing righteous deeds; but when we have been made righteous we effect righteous deeds’.
[10]Owen Chadwick,The Penguin History of the Church 3: The Reformation, (London: Penguin, 1990), 40
[11]González, Story of Christianity, 26. The man put in charge of the sale of indulgences in Germany was Dominican John Tetzel, an unscrupulous man making claims such as the indulgences made the sinner ‘cleaner than when coming out of baptism,’ ‘cleaner than Adam before the Fall,’ and that ‘the cross of the seller of indulgences has as much power as the cross of Christ.’ Those who wished to buy an indulgence for a loved one who was deceased were promised that, ‘as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.’
[12] Bainton, Here I stand, 60-62
[13] McNally, “Ninety-five theses”, 455.
[14] Michael Mullett,. “Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses”, History Review, 46(2003): 47.
[15] Chadwick, Reformation, 46.
[16] McNally, “Ninety-five theses”, 457-458.
[17] Bainton, Here I stand, 54.
[18]Cameron. European Reformation, 121.In the tract Luther wrote against the Louvain theologian Jacobus Latomus, this seemed to be his clearest description of justification by grace: ‘What then? Are we sinners? No, rather we are justified, but by grace. Righteousness is not situated in those qualitative forms, but in the mercy of God. In fact, if you take mercy away from the godly, they are sinners, and really have sin, but it is not imputed to them because they believe and live under the reign of mercy, and because sin is condemned and continually put to death in them… Surely… it is almost greater to accept as righteous him who is still infected by sin than him who is entirely pure.’
[19] Bainton, Here I stand, 51.
