On October 31st, 1517, a young monk approached the doors of Wittenberg church in Germany and nailed on its door a series of 95 postulates written in Latin.
At first the document was intended to foster discussion among the theological community of the church and that is why he wrote it in Latin. His students, however, made a copy of the document and disseminated the work in the German tongue.
Immediately the document sparked controversy, conversations among the common people of matters that they have never heard before but that were not hard to understand either, and such was the impact of this document that eventually made it to the hands of the Pope!
The name of the monk was of course, Martin Luther, and every Evangelical church today owes its origin, in some measure, to that day on October 31st in 1517. This was the day in which the light of the Gospel shone through the darkness once again.
That was the day in which many of us as Protestants can look back to and claim or inheritance. We have come to exist because God in His providence didn’t abandon His Church.
To be clear, it was not that He had abandoned His Church entirely, as some sects like to claim. No, there have always been a remnant chosen by grace (Rom. 11) who held fast to the truth of Scriptures.
But what made a difference in the XVI c. Was that the truths of Scriptures had come to be entirely eclipsed in the church and almost abandoned. The way of salvation was understood as baptized people who having received initial grace, were now trying to do their best and earning salvation by their own, by works.
Scriptures were not read in the common language, the priests themselves didn’t know Scriptures or had little education. Some became famous for selling papers that promised people forgiveness of sins if they only paid for the paper.
Corruption inside the church had crept to a very alarming levels. In the famous town of Zurich, one priest was chosen to be the main priest of the town because he only had had one affair! His contender had had many, and eight children with different women.
This was the climate of the church in which Luther wrote his thesis. And Luther didn’t want to destroy the church, as some have argued. Neither was he a revolutionary. Luther was a reformer, he wanted to reform the church.
And his work of reformation started in the pulpit. Every single Lord’s Day (Sunday), Luther would open Scriptures and teach the meaning of it to his parishioners in plain German language. Something that was considered a scandal.
But the major discovery of Luther, the one upon which all his project depended was on his understanding of salvation. By reading Romans 1:16-17 he discovered that salvation is a gift that is given and apprehended by faith.
In simple terms, salvation is believing that the Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins in order to forgive me of all of my sins: past, present, future. In the work of salvation acquired by the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no place for human efforts.
Those were and are the great news that Luther discovered. This understanding of salvation was so impactful that changed the landscape of the church. Soon, more and more priests started to preach the same good news of the Gospel to others in their own languages.
And it is these same good news of the Gospel, the free offer of salvation in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to everyone who believes, that needs to be preached today as well.
The cry for reformation during the XVI c. in a sense is no less necessary today. The good news of the Gospel are still needed, just like it happen 500 years ago, so still happens today. Many people still think that they need to be “good persons” to receive salvation.
Others believe that salvation is something that can be bought. While others are simply ignorant about this message of salvation as found in Scriptures or simply actively reject what Scriptures say, dismissing Scriptures as outdated, or minimizing its message to “good morals.”
Just like 500 years ago, the landscape of the church today does not seem to have a good outlook. But the solution to that problem cannot be found in any other place than the Gospel.
The cry of the Reformation was: Post Tenebrax Lux (after darkness light!), and that is the same cry we need today, we need the light of the Gospel shining in the midst of much darkness, the good news of Jesus Christ being preached from the pulpits once more, so light shines again.
Happy Reformation day!