It was 500 years ago.<\/p>\n
In the year, 1517, in Wittenberg, Germany, a Catholic monk named Martin Luther had been studying and lecturing on Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s letter to the Romans. He became fearfully captivated by one word near the beginning of Romans: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in [the gospel] the\u00c2\u00a0righteousness\u00c2\u00a0of God is revealed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (1:17). Luther later explained that he hated that phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153righteousness of God,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s righteousness, he thought, surely meant God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s righteous punishment of all unrighteous sinners. Knowing himself to be a sinner, he wrestled with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a fierce and troubled conscience\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153beat upon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the text to know what Paul meant.<\/p>\n
At the same time Luther had another concern, but this one with increasing clarity. The Catholic Church had for many years sold indulgences. For a fee, one could pay-off the guilt and payment of sins. A new salesman of indulgences, Johann Tetzel, was creatively and aggressively making a bad practice worse. Luther had written against Tetzel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tactics before, but now Tetzel was coming to Luther\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s town of Wittenberg. So on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed to the church door Ninety-Five Theses meant to engender academic debate about such indulgences. At the time, no one could have anticipated\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot even Luther himself\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe reverberating effects of this moment. While many events, documents, and people were used of the Lord to bring about the Protestant Reformation, for 500 years the church has looked back to the nailing of Ninety-Five Theses upon the church door as a pivotal moment towards the recovery of the gospel.<\/p>\n
While Luther\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concerns for indulgences grew in conviction and clarity, he continued to struggle with his own guilty conscience and how God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s righteousness could be good news (a gospel) for sinners. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153righteousness of God\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Romans 1:17 was of no comfort to him until the context made it clear: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the righteousness of God is revealed\u00c2\u00a0from faith to faith,\u00c2\u00a0as it is written, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe righteous shall\u00c2\u00a0live by faith.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Like a lightning bolt, it hit him: God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just-righteousness was a gift from God to those who believe; God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just mercy is revealed in the gospel of Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s substitutionary sacrifice. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he wrote. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise through its open doors.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That word which Luther once hated\u00e2\u20ac\u201drighteousness\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhad now come to be the source of all his hope and joy. In Romans, he later attested, there is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153very purest gospel; \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6every Christian should know it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6[and] occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
This is the essence of the Reformation. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we celebrate today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"