I think we should start. It has fallen on me to do a quick overview of the life of Martin Luther. I don't know how much you have spent with Martin Luther or looked at materials on Luther, but it is an immense field of study. It's a daunting challenge to try to reduce his life into 40 minutes. especially for someone who's not a Luther scholar, and I am not. So there are probably, I'm sure there are men more qualified who could get you really juicy tidbits into a 30 or 40 minute session. I will do the best that I can by God's grace. There's probably gonna be a lot of things you might know, some of you anyway, that you won't hear. I'm not gonna say anything about his ordination to the priesthood. I'm not going to say anything about his one-time visit to Rome, the one time he left Germany. I'm not really going to talk about that. I'm going to say very little about Philip Melanchthon. What we're going to do is kind of approach this like a highlight film. I stopped watching football on the Lord's Day a long time ago, but I still like to watch it from time to time. the important games you can see on reruns, like the NFL Channel will replay a game later in the week. And I was telling some of the brothers earlier that I've watched the Patriots beat the Atlanta Falcons a number of times. I've watched the three-hour version. I've watched the 60-minute version. I've watched the 30-minute version. And what we're going to get on Luther today is more akin to the 30-minute version. I think what I'll do before we begin is talk about some resources because this is probably going to take up most of the time and I don't want to skip it. A very helpful book by Martin Marty, not to be confused with Marty Martin, Martin Marty. He is a, you'd consider him a liberal Lutheran scholar. His liberalism doesn't show up very much in this book. It's really easy to read. A lot of anecdotes about Luther, really accessible, really delightful book. This is probably the standard place to begin if you want more detail. Luther the Reformer by James Kittleson, another Lutheran scholar. He taught at Concordia for years. Stephen Nichols, a reformed guy. Martin Luther, a guided tour of his life and thought, fast moving. Martin Luther Visionary Reform by Scott Hendricks. He's a top class historian who taught at Princeton. He's now retired. Nice little book. This is really short, succinct, written by a British theologian named Graham Tomlin, Luther and His World. This was very helpful. And then in terms of understanding Luther's theology, a book by Robert Kolb and Charles Arend. Kolb's a world-class historian, Lutheran. He was here at the spring conference. Charles Arend, another academic who's very devotional in a lot of his writings. So the genius of Luther's theology. You've got to be a little more ambitious to read this. It gets into a lot of his theological thought, but highly recommended. Bob Kolb was here for the conference. I asked him about what to read, and the first book he recommended was The Freedom of the Christian, which Luther wrote in 1520, and it's still in print today. Okay, let's look at the quiz. I'm not gonna answer these questions for you right now. This is just my attempt to get you engaged in what we're doing. And I want you to answer these questions as best you can, and then listen for the answers as I go through the material. So, where was Luther born? Eiselben, Mansfeld, or Wittenberg. There are no trick questions, but that's probably a little tricky. Name the university he attended, Wittenberg, Nuremberg, Erfurt, and so forth. Influence of nominalism. Affectung is misspelled here. It's a-n-f-e-c-h-t-u-n-g. Is that an affection? Is that an infection? Or is that a despair of the soul? True or false, the medieval church did not teach a doctrine of justification. And then his call to be a monk, the order he was in, the purpose of the 95 theses. Probably the hardest question would be number nine, because I'm asking you for a verse. I'm asking you for a verse. And then what was the purpose of the Edict of Vorms? So let's begin with prayer, and I thought what we would do this morning is use Luther's morning prayer that he included in his catechetical work for his congregations. Let us pray. We thank you, our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept us this night from all harm and danger. And we pray that you would keep us this day also from sin and every evil, that all of our doings and lives may please you. For into your hands we commend ourselves, our bodies and souls, and all things. We ask you to be with us, that the evil foe may have no power over us. This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. Okay. Let's begin with Luther's birth. Where was he born? Anyone know? He was born in Eiselben. November 10th, 1483 to Hans and Marguerite Luther. That was the German name. He changed it to Luther later on. His father was a peasant stock, which means he was a farmer. A few days after Martin was born, his father brought him to St. Peter's to be baptized. The day on which he did that was the Feast of St. Martin, thus the name Martin. About a year earlier, the looters had moved to Isle Bend in search of a better life. When Hans's father died, the farmland was left, interestingly enough, to the youngest son in the family. That was the custom. And so Hans had a choice. He either worked for his brother in the fields or find a better way. And he decided he was going to try to make his wealth in copper mining. He had already done that for a time. So he goes to Eiselben to start mining. Stays there for just a short time, maybe a year, maybe six months. It's very competitive. Finds it to be difficult, so he moves the family to Mansfeld, where he was able to oversee smelting works and gain some ownership into several mines. This moved them upward in approaching middle class. And eventually, somewhere around 1490 or so, they became a respected family in the community. Family life for Martin was loving and yet very stern. Parents were strict if not at times severe disciplinarians. One story says that there was a time when Martin stole a nut off the table and he received a severe beating from his mother to the point that his hands began to bleed. And there were times when he received similar treatment from his father. And overall, the scholars say it was a loving home where he received a religious upbringing. coupled with the religious upbringing was a pagan superstition. So he grew up in what we call an enchanted world where he was taught that there were witches and spirits and fairies out in the woods, that demons play tricks on you, and more seriously, when Margaret lost one of her sons, she blamed her neighbor who she thought was a witch and was responsible for his death. In the home, he learned the creed, the commandments, and the Lord's Prayer. The religion of his childhood taught a very simple premise. You had to work for your future salvation, just as you had to work for your material needs in the present. Hans decided that he wanted a better life for his son, so he did something that was very unusual. He sent him to school. He sent him to Latin school, where he would gain word perfection in Latin and German grammar. And he did it with the hopes that one day Luther would become a lawyer. Law would provide a prosperous standard of living. It would elevate the reputation of the family, and one day, perhaps, provide a measure of security for the parents. The method of teaching that Martin received would be drill. The rod, if you didn't get your drills right. And if you were really bad, the dunce cap. So somewhat of a brutal way to be educated. When I went to grammar school in Lowell, Massachusetts, we had a principal named Mr. Parent. And he had a reputation that if you messed things up, you'd go to his office and receive the ruler. And I don't know if that was true, because I never went to the office to receive the ruler. I remember one time, when I thought it was going to happen and was greatly relieved that it never took place. Well, it was much worse for Martin in Latin school. At the age of 17, Luther enrolled into the University of Erfurt, not Wittenberg, the University of Erfurt, somewhere around 1500, 1501. And he basically studied the seven liberal arts. Today you would perhaps refer to it as a classical education, the trivium and the quadrivium. Year one would be logic, dialectic, rhetoric, grammar. Next year or two would be ethics, politics, economics, metaphysics, music, art, and so forth. All this was done to prepare you to specialize in one of three fields. And all of this was learned through the lens of Aristotle. The University of Erfurt was a prominent school in a prominent city. It was known as the Little Rome. Population, if memory serves me correctly, was about 20,000. There were 36 different churches and 11 monastic orders, and it was really a wonderful opportunity for him. 1502, he earns the Bachelor of Arts. 1505, the Master of Arts, which qualifies him to study either law, medicine, or theology, theology being considered the queen of the sciences at that time. He goes into law due to the wishes of his father. I think I have a question about nominalism. In the University of Erfurt, there was a scholastic tradition called the via moderna. And those who taught in that tradition were considered nominalists. And I only bring this up because oftentimes you'll hear it said Luther was a nominalist or more specifically an alchemist. Whenever I ask average people what that means, they don't really get good definitions. And I'm gonna make a feeble attempt to give you a little bit of a definition now. Nominalists taught that there were no such things as universally true propositions. So a nominalist wouldn't find any benefit in talking about human nature, but they would rather talk about human beings. They taught that you could not use reason and logic to attain higher level knowledge that would be universally true. They were more concerned about the here and now. You can only know things by investigating them or by revelation from God himself. And the key question that they were concerned with is how do you cajole a holy, good, righteous, just God to accept an unholy, unjust, unrighteous, sinful man? That was the most important question. And they came up with an answer that they formed in a covenant or a pact or a contract. And it said this, if a sinner did what lay within him or her, then God would not deny His grace. The way I would summarize that is, do your best, and God's grace will take care of the rest. The initiator in salvation is the person. Because they taught, humans, though corrupt and sinful, had a remaining spark of the divine that they call the centuresis, which enabled them to do something imperfect, polluted, partial, but enough, enough moral value that God would provide grace to perfect the work. And Luther bought into that. Second thing to bring up is anfechtung, or anfechtungen. It's as good a place as any to mention this. It means an attack of the soul, a bout of despair, a spiritual crisis. And Martin suffered with this throughout most of his life, on and off. It is, in fact, one of the things that drove him, if not the singular purpose of his life, was to find some certainty or some assurance about the future state of his soul. At that time, Christ was depicted more often than not as a severe judge. There are paintings of the Lord with a sword coming out of his right ear and a lily coming out of his left and most fully expected the sword, or a sword in his teeth staring down in a menacing way on human beings. And so Luther sensed that Christ was watching over him, demanding an impossible standard of purity that he could not attain. And so he often wondered and feared that he was not one of the elect, but rather he was doomed to internal agony with the demons. The questions that would have haunted him, will God be merciful to me? Will he receive me into heaven, or will he banish me to endless anguish with the devils? So much for his years as a student. Those dates would have been 1483 to around 1505. So Luther, picking up in 1505, decides to become a monk. He engages in legal studies for a few weeks, most likely experiences another bout of despair, and he goes home to see his parents for a while. He finally decides it's time to return, to resume his legal studies, and on the way back to Erfurt, he gets caught into a sudden thunderstorm. He's knocked to the ground by a bolt of lightning, and in terror, he cries out, to Saint Anne, asking for mercy, asking that she would save him, and he'd become a monk. Do you know anything about Saint Anne? She was a saint of... Huh? Well, it said that she was Mary's mother, but she was the saint of miners. The saint of miners. You know what his father did? He was a copper miner. So there are some who speculate that Luther is embellishing a little bit because it's not going to go over very well with dad at home, right? His father hears about this vow and he's irate. His father spent a year's worth of wages to buy his legal books. All of his future hopes had dashed, and now his son's going to enter into a monastery. And when he first hears about it, he's furious. And he accuses Luther of not listening to God, but listening to the devil, because he's breaking the Fourth Commandment. The Fourth Commandment. In the Lutheran county, it was the Fourth Commandment. Well, in the Catholic county. The Fifth Commandment, by our count. Also, in the literature, you'll learn that, let's assume that this really took place, and it's not myth or legend. It was probably a culminating event, not the singular event. There were a series of events that probably led up to it. At one time, he was out with a friend that used to wear swords, and fell and stabbed himself in the leg and almost bled to death. But his friend was able to get help for him in time. And so probably a series of events led Luther to decide he was going to become a monk. He walks across to the order of the Augustinian friars in the city of Erfurt, very close to the university, and makes his vow and becomes a novice. He goes into a one-year probationary period. Do you have any idea about why he would have become a monk? Why a monk? Given his An Phet Thung, his fear of the state of his soul, why do you think he became a monk? Anyone want to guess? Yeah, the answer is he wants to save his soul. And the highest probability at that time that you had in achieving some level of assurance that all would be right with you in eternity was to become a monk. Rod Rosenblatt, another Concordia apologist, academic, likens it to the altar call. Why do people walk the aisles? In part, I think, or I would agree, in part, it's to achieve some level of certainty that God is pleased with me, that my soul is okay. And so he goes into the order of the Augustinian friars. The monastic order was the Augustinians. One of the strictest of the orders. The life of a monk was extremely demanding. They were well aware of the teaching of the scripture that God desires absolute righteousness. that you must absolutely love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You must love your neighbor as yourself. And so the monks were required to fulfill all laws and commands of God. Poverty, chastity, obedience, the recitation of all 150 psalms each week by praying through the canonical hours, eight different times of prayer per day every three hours. by manual labor, by physical deprivation, one or two small meals per day, sleeping in extremely cold temperatures without a blanket, going in their black garb through the city streets, begging for sustenance, listening to the church fathers read during meals, and engaging in confession so that you confess all of your sins so that they'll be forgiven. Something that Luther was almost obsessive about. His confessor and superior in the order was Johann von Staupitz, one of my favorites from this time. And there were times when he would see Luther coming his way and he would hide because he didn't have time to listen to his confession. And there are accounts where Luther would spend hours in confession and he would leave only to remember something he forgot and he would go back and want to confess some more. So Luther went above and beyond an already strict regiment to the point of harming his own body and experiencing poor health in later life. Here's what he says about his years as a monk. I was a good monk, and I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got into heaven by monkery, it was I. No monkering around. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, readings, and other work. But none of this brought him any assurance of salvation. He couldn't obtain the certainty that he longed for. In fact, it made things worse. He became more and more aware of his inability to please God by his own efforts. It didn't matter how many sins he confessed, he repeated those sins again. It didn't matter how many works he did, he knew he didn't really do it out of genuine love for God, but because he was trying to earn forgiveness. No matter how great the guise of monastic holiness, he knew in his heart that he was a self-centered man, which led to further despair. On the positive side, His confessor, von Staupitz, would point Luther to the cross. Take your eyes off yourself, put them on the Lord, who hung and died for you. He had access to devotional liturgy from Bernard of Clairvaux, who pointed the readers in the direction of the suffering Christ who hung on the cross for your sins. And then von Staupitz did another thing to help. He decided to send Luther to the University of Wittenberg to earn his Doctor of Theology degree and to become a lecturer of the Bible. Some have said it was either the best thing the Western Church ever did or the dumbest thing the Roman Church ever did. Depends on your perspective. Luther at first resists, saying, I don't have the stamina for this. This will kill me. but then he relents. So von Staupitz sends him to Wittenberg because he knows that Luther is a gifted scholar with a deep interest in the scripture, and he wants to distract him from the severe introspection and get him studying theology. And also, von Staupitz needed help. He was overworked, and he wanted to hand off Bible lecture to Luther. That brings us up to 1512. Now we'll talk about Luther the Reformer, which is the reason you're all here. The reason I did this first part is I think it's vitally important to understand the context. Luther's Anfechtung, Luther's monastic life, that drives him to start searching the scriptures for the answer that he so desperately needs. He earns the Doctor of Theology degree in 1512, which qualifies him to lecture the Bible at the University of Wittenberg. If Erfurt is the little Rome, Wittenberg is a mud hole. 20,000 beautiful buildings, beautiful land, 3,000 inhabitants who brew beer and drink most of it. There's a pig sty on every corner. but it happens to be the capital of Saxony. Very important providentially. Von Staupitz and others, with the money of Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, founded the University of Wittenberg and wanted to make it a world-class school on par with every other university in Germany. He wants to elevate the status of this city, which is the capital of his region, So he invests in the school. He highly prizes it, Frederick, and all those associated with it. And he's thrilled that Luther is going to come on to the faculty. Along with Luther, there's Andreas Karlstadt. There's Amsdorff. In 1518, several years later, they bring on Philip Melanchthon, a 21-year-old linguist who becomes a lifelong friend of Luther. At Wittenberg, by the way, do you know what an elector is? Why was he called Elector of Saxony? Someone else? Why is he an elector? Peter, you can answer, you're here, if you know. Right, he was one of seven princes who elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. And at this time, He had a lot of power and a lot of influence. And at one point, the Pope wanted Frederick to become the emperor and promised that he would elevate one of his theologians to become a cardinal, implying it would be Luther. But Frederick wants nothing to do with it. The years of 1514 through 1518, Luther is now back to the sources, right? He's studying the scripture in the languages provided. It wasn't a great translation from Erasmus, but it was all they had. At least he's back into the source. He lectures on the Psalms, on the Book of Romans, the Book of Galatians, and the Book of Hebrews. During this time, he gains a deeper understanding of the gospel and the doctrine of justification through faith alone. Not at first from the Book of Romans, but from his lectures in the Book of Psalms. The scholars say from the notes that you can see a transition taking place as he goes through the Psalms. Always seeing Christ as the King, but also seeing Christ as the one suffering in the Psalms. So the transition takes place. Then he comes to Romans 1, verse 17, That's the verse that I asked about. The righteous shall live by faith. At first, he focuses on the word righteous. The righteous shall live by faith. I'm not righteous. This is something only righteous people can do. I'm not righteous. I cannot have faith. But then he starts exploring and digging deeper. And he comes to understand that the emphasis is not on the word righteous, but on faith. which he defines as trust in Christ, trust in the promise of the gospel. The righteous live by faith. The righteousness of God is a gift received by faith alone. Luther viewed his understanding as not something new, but as a recovery. Remember, he's in the Augustinian order, which means he's been reading Augustine, or Augustine. The correct pronunciation is Augustine. So he says that the heart of the gospel is the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins, not something earned by works. The righteousness of God with respect to one's salvation is passive. It's received, it's grace, it's gift. And for the first time, he begins to experience a peace that's founded on a childlike trust in God's own promises in the Bible. Let me read to you from an autobiographical fragment where Luther writes about this time in his life. I greatly longed to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans, and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, the justice of God. Because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner, troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore, I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that the just, the righteous, shall live by his faith. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which, through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith. Thereupon, I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of scripture took on a new meaning. And whereas before the justice of God had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet and greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven. As you can imagine, this is revolutionary. It puts him on a whole different track, right? 1517, he writes Theses. How many did he write? Huh? Okay, 95. He wrote 97 others before those, so I guess you could say he wrote 192. Before writing the 95 Theses, he wrote the 97 Theses called The Disputation Against Scholastic Theology. You can imagine why. He's found the Gospel. He attacks Aristotle. He attacks the via moderna understanding of justification. He says, tear down the whole edifice of theological scholastic theology. Let's study the scripture and the church fathers. This is where we find the truth. And then, which in some ways was more controversial at that moment than the 95 Theses. Then we come to the 95 Theses and the indulgence controversy. True or false, Luther posted the Theses as an attack against papal authority. How many believe that's true? How many false? Okay, it's false. He never intended to attack papal authority. He was criticizing the sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins. The theology behind indulgences taught that Christ, by his death, gave a treasury of merit to the church. This treasury was further increased by the good deeds of Mary, the saints, and all of the elect. And it just so happened that those merits could be dispensed by the successors of Peter, also known as the popes. By the time of Luther, an indulgence could be acquired for one's own soul or for the souls of one's family. This goes back to 1300. It didn't just start in the 1500s. It allowed a Christian to replace acts of penance, confession, contrition, and satisfaction. You are the one doing the satisfaction and then absolution. You can pay a fee and go right to absolution. Luther didn't really object to the use of indulgences as long as it was to relieve you from penalties imposed by the church. But what he became really concerned about is that it was being preached and sold as a plenary indulgence that would guarantee the forgiveness of your sins, all for a price. The renewal of the practice, was approved by Pope Leo X, the Pope, during Luther's time, in 1513. And this is what sparked the Reformation. There was a man named Albrecht of Brandenburg. He held three major offices in Germany, Archbishop of Magdeburg, Administrator of Halberstadt, and then Archbishop of Mainz. He wasn't technically permitted to have that much power. He, at this time, had become the most powerful church figure in Germany. In order for him to secure the offices, he had to pay a fee. And so he strikes a deal with King Leo to pay, I think in modern money, three and a half million dollars. That money comes from the Fugger Bank in Germany. And Leo says you can pay off the debt by the sale of an indulgence in the German territory. Half of the proceeds go to Rome, Half of the proceeds go back to pay the debt. So you can imagine Albrecht is very interested in this being successful. And he recruits a Dominican named Johannes Tetzel. And Tetzel is a very experienced, very successful preacher slash salesman of indulgences. Here's a bit of his plea. Don't you hear the voices of your wailing dead parents and others who say, have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me, because we are in severe punishment and pain. From this you could redeem us with a small alms, and yet you do not want to do so? So you get the gist of the preaching. And so it becomes a very profitable endeavor. Frederick the Wise, gets wind of it and forbids Tetzel from entering into Saxony. Frederick had thousands, ten thousands plus of relics and he opened up admission to the relics twice a year and you paid a fee and he wasn't going to tolerate any competition. However, the Wittenbergers would go across the Elbe River and buy the indulgence and come back into Saxony. Luther sees what's going on, and he's horrified because he considers this to be a desecration of the gospel. And it's resulting in slothfulness in terms of their Christian lives. No more confession, no more good works. They have a certificate that will get them into heaven, which leads to more sinful living. So he takes up pen and paper, and he writes the 95 theses a disputation on the value of indulgences. He sends a copy with a cover letter to Albrecht, and he posts them on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, which was probably the bulletin board of the kiosk of the day. Really nothing heroic. You know, sometimes images, there's this big act of courage, and the nail goes on the hammer. It was probably more courageous to send the letter to the Archbishop of Mainz for him to read. He does this on October 31st, 1517. Let me read a few of the theses. First thesis, number one. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. The Christian life is a life of repentance, not penance. but a condition of the heart, a condition of the mind, repentance. Number 20. Therefore, the Pope, when he uses the words plenary remission of all penalties, does not actually mean all penalties, but only those imposed by himself. 21. Thus, those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by a papal indulgence. 24. For this reason, most people are necessarily deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalty. They're defrauding you and giving you a false security. You will not go into heaven with that certificate of paper. 42. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgence but God's wrath. Number 50, Christians are to be taught that if the Pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the Basilica of St. Peter were burnt to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep. Now, I think there's a little naivete in the 50th Theses. Luther doesn't know that Leo has approved this endeavor. And part of his mission here is to protect the honor of the Pope. So he calls for a public debate. It never takes place. No one shows up. But Albrecht sends the theses to Rome for their opinion. And they spread quickly throughout the region because a Nuremberg councilor named Caspar Nerzel prints them in German. You have to remember now that the printing press is rolling and it's very inexpensive. to circulate literature. And when I was thinking through this, it occurred to me that Luther did with pamphlets and books and print what Donald Trump does today with Twitter, right? Straight to the people. And at one time, one of Luther's opponents said, in terms of print, it is raining down Luther upon us. And I heard another person saying in a lecture on Luther that there was a time where it's estimated that 93% of all the literature circulating in Europe was Luther. There are no copyright laws. There's copying it and sending it, copying it and sending it. And he is a master at writing and releasing his thoughts. Incredible. The volume of work is just incredible. On February 15, 18, Rome orders the Augustinians to silence Luther. Tetzels and the Dominicans, he was a Dominican, remember, stir it up trouble. to silence Luther's criticism. And a man named Johannes Eck of Ingolstadt starts opposing him in Rome. The 95 Theses have now been interpreted by his opponents as an attack against papal authority, never dealing with the scriptural basis of indulgence. I'd like to say something about the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518. It was pretty quiet for almost a year after the theses went out. Nothing really happened. It took months for things to go back and forth. And he writes a disputation that he presents to the Augustinian order, because he's appointed by Staubitz to do so. And he lays out 28 theological theses and 12 philosophical theses, developing what is known as his theology of the cross. And this is what he really develops and defends throughout the rest of his life. And you could argue that this is where real reform starts to take place. The presentation of the Heidelberg Disputation. Martin Bucer happens to be in attendance. In the Disputation, he states that the human will cannot choose good without grace, and that all theology must be grounded in the cross. He writes, the law says, do this, and it's never done. Grace says, believe in this, and everything is done already. Believe in this, meaning this man, Christ. And it has a profound impact on all in attendance. It's considered a triumph. Bootser is quoted as saying, what Erasmus insinuates, Luther says freely. It's a game changer. And reform really starts to spread. This brings us to 1518 and the Imperial Diet of Augsburg. Luther is cited to go to Rome on the charge of heresy and it frightens him to the bone. He knows if he goes there he's going to become a human torch just like Jan Hus 100 years earlier. So he makes an appeal to George Spallatin, the secretary of Frederick the Wise, pleading to have his case heard in Germany. Frederick intervenes with Rome, and they agree to have Luther meet with Cardinal Cajetan at the Imperial Diet. Luther comes in, bows before Cajetan, hoping for a debate on the issues. Cajetan has one word in mind. It's not a debate, it's an inquisition. He has one word in mind, and that word is revoco, revoco. He simply wants Luther to recant. Luther says, of what? Where am I wrong? Show me where I'm wrong, and I'll recant." They go back and forth. They make no progress. Luther believes his views are biblical and in the stream of thought held by other theologians at that time. Khajatan condemns him and demands that he be sent to Rome, but Frederick refuses and says that he needs to be tried by theologians, not canon lawyers. So again, Frederick intervenes and protects him. Let's go forward. The Leipzig debate of 1519. Andreas Karlstad begins writing against Johann Eck of Ingersoll, defending Luther's theology. Eck calls for a public debate with Karlstad and insists that Luther appear to debate the issue of papal authority. Karlstad holds his own for a time, but he begins to weaken when they tell him he can no longer use his books in the debate. So Luther takes his place in the second phase. and comes up to one of his strongest opponents, Johann Eck. Rather than talk about indulgences, Eck, in a very sneaky way, associates Luther with Jan Hus. He accuses him of holding the very same views that resulted in Hus' execution at the Council of Constance. Luther responds that his views are based on scripture, and Hus' condemnation indicated that popes and church councils err. Now you read this and you say, oh, Martin, you fell into the trap. That's what he wanted. He's making you into a Hussite. But one thing you learn about Martin is the stronger the opposition over these years, the more entrenched he becomes and the stiffer his spine in standing against the pope and the medieval church. So he publicly denies the authority of the medieval church and its institutions, moving the debate from indulgences to questions of papal authority. Luther's disgusted that his opponents did not call on scripture, but rather simply branded him as a heretic and asserted ecclesial authority. He writes, I had so secured and armed my disputation with scripture and papal decretals that I was sure the Pope would damn Tetzel and bless me. He, Cardinal Cajetan, never produced a syllable from the Holy Scriptures against me." And you see developing in Luther's work a strong, ever stronger commitment to Sola Scriptura. This brings us to a papal bull called Exerge Domine and what is known as the Three Treatises of the Reformation in 1520. Luther begins to shape his thought into great three works that distance him from Rome. The address to the Christian nobility of the German nation, a plea to the German rulers to reform the church because she won't reform herself, the Babylonian captivity of the church, an exposition of the sacrament that reduces its number to two, and the freedom of the Christian man, an extended discussion on the doctrine of justification by faith. Two well-known statements come out of the freedom of the Christian man. A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. The first proposition is grounded in our union with Christ. There's been a great exchange. All that I have has been placed on Him. All that He has has been imputed to me. There's a great exchange. I am free. My conscience before God is free. I'm subject to none. The second proposition says, faith works by love. That that justification is not idle, but drives us to strive against our passions and to serve our neighbor in the name of the Lord. Rome issues a papal bull threatening Luther with excommunication, calling on him to recant within 60 days. It reaches Luther in October 1520. Frederick supports Luther and suggests that he should be tried at the imperial Diet of Worms, not again brought to Rome. Luther, on December 10th of that same year, walks out into the public square with the papal bull and he burns it, along with his book of canon law. And then he publishes a treatise announcing that he's done so. In January 3rd, 1521, he's excommunicated by virtue of a document called Decet Romanum from Leo X. He's now outside of the church. Now he doesn't have to worry about ecclesiastical politics because he's done as far as the church is concerned. This brings us to the Diet of Worms, 1521. It was scheduled for January 1521 to recognize the new emperor, Charles V. and the fact that he's been made king three times. The king of Spain, of Naples, and of Germany. An imperial diet was an assembly that was called together to conduct the rule of the empire. The real purpose here was to give more power to the German princes to reduce conflict between them and the emperor. And the princes were hoping to loosen the hold of Rome over Germany. Luther comes in kind of at the end of it all. He's like, we'll add him on the docket. He's like at the end. So Luther makes his way to Worms to appear before the emperor in a closed session. They grant him safe travel, which they honor. He's gonna be called upon to recant, and as he makes his way to Worms, he stops in different towns and he preaches, and it's like a victory march. You've seen those parades when some professional sports team wins the championship, and they designate a certain day, and they close off the streets, and down they go, and there's a great to-do about it. The people are cheering Luther all the way to Worms. It's not a march of repentance. He appears before the Diet for questioning by Johann von Eck, not of Ingolstadt, but a senior priest. He walks into the room before the emperor, and there is a pile of 25 books. There won't be any debate. He never gets the debate that he wants. Instead, again, we have an inquisition. Two questions to Luther. Are these yours? Did you write these? Second, do you stand by them? He says, well, what are the titles? His defense attorney says, what are the titles? They read the titles. He says, yes, I wrote those. Second question, do you stand by them? Let me think about it. To the surprise of the emperor and to Von Eck, you would have thought you'd had an answer by now. They give him 24 hours. Have no idea why he wanted that time. Maybe he agonized through the night. Maybe I should recant. Am I right after all? Maybe I need to really be careful about how I phrase this. Don't know what really happened. He comes before the Diet the next day and here's the famous quote. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of scripture or plain reason, for I believe neither in Pope nor councils alone, since it is agreed that they have often heard and contradicted themselves. I am bound by the scripture I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the word of God. I neither can nor will retract anything, for it is neither safe nor honest to go against one's conscience. Amen. He exits the room and he's heard to cry out, I'm finished. As he exits the room, he's surrounded by German nobles because they want to protect his life. His safe passage, as I said, was honored. He makes his way back to Wittenberg, leaving Worms on April 26th. Charles issues an imperial ban a few days later. And then on May 25th, he issues the Edict of Worms, making him an outlaw and calling for his execution. This means that any citizen in the empire could execute Luther and not be punished for it. He's open game. It means that anyone who helps Luther is also condemned. And it calls for the burning of all of his books. During his journey from Worms to Wittenberg, he's kidnapped, quote unquote, by Frederick's soldiers, which he knew would happen. He's brought to Frederick's stronghold at the Wartburg Castle, which Frederick didn't know, would happen. He didn't want to know. Plausible deniability. He wanted to be able to say he didn't know where Luther was. And he's left there in isolation for at least a year to protect him from the edict. While he's there, he grows out his beard, he grows out his hair, changes his clothes, and he's referred to as Knight George, Yunker York. He suffers on Fekton. He's a man of action, now he's all by himself. But he does manage, somehow, to translate the New Testament into the German vernacular. He completes the German translation of the Bible in 1834, and it forms a basis for modern German language. That is the end of my talk. That's where we leave Luther, we leave him in the Wartburg Castle. Told you how to leave things out, and I had to make some choices. If you want to know more, read one of the books. Any questions or comments? Okay, it means you've had enough. Let me leave you with a couple thoughts, very briefly. When you study Luther's life, you cannot help but see a magnificent display of God's providence. Keeping his promise to build his church. Just think about it. A peasant who becomes a doctor in the church. Born in Eiselben to the capital of Wittenberg, protected by Frederick the Wise. Access to cheap print so that he can circulate his thought. political events, Francis I coming after Charles from the West, the Turks from the East, political intrigue, takes the emperor's gaze and the Pope's gaze off of Luther oftentimes, providing him with times of peace. And then a profound adherence to scripture and the power of the word. Luther said, I wrote, I preached, and I drank Wittenberg beer with Philip in Amsdorf. The Word of God did everything else. And then lastly, Luther's emphasis on the for you-ness of the gospel. Christ is for you. Luther's great emphasis.