Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in the truth, for His word is truth. Amen

Reformation Day (2009)

God’s Revealed Righteousness brings a Reformation Rev. Toby Byrd

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20] For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

[21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— [22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

[27] Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. [28] For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3:19-28 ESV)

492 years ago, on the eve of All Saints Day, Martin Luther did the unexpected; he posted his 95 theses against the sale of indulgences on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, Germany. This bold event of challenging the Church of Rome changed the church and the world forever. Oh, to be sure, this act by Luther ruffled feathers all the way to Rome, however, he was only doing what any pastor concerned for the souls of his parishioners would do, protect his flock against the assault of a dubious religious practice, a practice that endangered the spiritual life of the people.

This act of boldness by an unknown priest and professor, challenging the established church of Rome, has been credited as the beginning of the Reformation of the Church. However, there was a time before Martin Luther had posted his 95 theses that he suffered greatly from his sins because he had not yet come to understand St. Paul, when he wrote, “The righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17 ESV).

Brought up in a church which taught that both contrition and penance were required to relieve a person of the guilt of sin, Martin Luther often despaired because he was never certain if he had made satisfaction for his sins. Subjecting himself to harsh measures, Luther tried to atone for his sins by beating his flesh, depriving himself of food, or even by sleeping on a cold, stone floor. Each of these and many other self-sacrificing and self-debasing measures, he believed would appease God’s wrath and render some measure of retribution for his sins. Yet with each and every episode Martin Luther sank deeper and deeper into despair. Oh, he thought, what else must I do to satisfy God’s anger and make myself righteous in His eyes? How, he must have thought, can I be delivered from a life of misery and torture, from this life of uncertainty and fear, and from this life of never knowing whether my sins are ever truly forgiven by God? How can I obtain a life of holiness?

Poor Martin lived his life as so many others, chained to a medieval theology and religious practice that glorified the monastic life of poverty and asceticism, a life of self-denial, a life which sought mystical spiritualism believing such a life could placate God and guarantee at least an existence in purgatory, which, when your sins were paid for in purgatory, one could finally ascend to heaven. The Church of Rome taught work-righteousness and led her subjects to fear Christ as the Judge of Salvation. Thus, poor Martin was trapped by a theology that hid God’s goodness, grace, and mercy from the people.

However, an epiphany was about to take place in the life of Martin Luther; an epiphany which would open his heart and mind for evermore to God’s grace given to all men through the life, death, and resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. An epiphany that would Reveal God’s Righteousness and bring Reformation to the Church.

In October of 1512, Luther gained his doctorate in theology and began to lecture students at Wittenberg. During his life as an Augustinian monk and now as a professor, Luther was preoccupied with the problem of the “righteousness of God.” He once said he hated that word, “the righteousness of God” because he had been taught to understand the philosophical sense that only God is righteous and He punishes the unrighteous sinner. Thus, this flawed understanding of the righteousness of God lay at the root of his search for holiness. Like most people of his day, Martin Luther was living a synergistic life; a life that believed that man could aide in his salvation by adding his work to the work of Christ.

As his lecture progressed through the Word of God, Luther came to understand the error of his logic. In 1515 he began his lectures on Romans and came to understand through the words of St. Paul, humans can do nothing but love themselves. This, he concluded, was the sum of all vices. He became appalled by this human urge to put the self first, last, and always. The more he contemplated the idea of a spark of goodness in man, which, if fanned, would leap into flames of genuine devotion to God and love for neighbor, the more it struck him as pure foolishness and academic imaginary. Thus, he came to the conclusion that synergism was pure folly and he rejected it totally. He seized on St. Paul’s insistence that human beings had nothing to offer God and he asked, “Where is free will now?” “Where are those who would have it that from our own natural strength we can perform an act of love to God above all things?” Holy Scripture, Luther declared, “describes man as so turned in on himself, that he uses not only physical but even spiritual goods for his own purposes and in all things seeks only himself.”

Luther’s picture of the human condition in the presence of God was bleak indeed. However, even though man lacked any self-inherent value necessary for salvation, Luther insisted that it was God who graciously taught and provided humility. He said, “The whole task of the apostle and his Lord is to humble the proud and bring them to a realization of this condition, to teach them that they need grace, to destroy their own righteousness, so that in humility they will seek Christ and confess that they are sinners, and thus receive grace and be saved.” This, Luther taught, was the purpose of God’s Law; to reveal to humanity that their righteousness was corrupted by sin and their only relief from this wretched condition was God’s grace. So where could man find the answer to his wretched condition? Where could man find God’s grace?

St. Paul provided the answer in his letter to the church at Rome where he wrote, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (vv. 21-22). These soothing words of the apostle opened the heart and soul of Martin Luther to come to a true and correct understanding of the doctrine of justification as the single, central doctrine of Holy Scripture: the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls. Thus, God’s Revealed Righteousness to Luther brought a Reformation to the Church that was driven by the doctrine of Justification through the faithful efforts of Martin Luther.

The apostle Paul was just the opposite of Martin Luther, he believed that as a Jew he could do no wrong. He was a member of God’s chosen people and therefore his salvation was assured because he was a Jew. Thus, when Jesus preached a message that contradicted everything Paul had learned, that one was saved by faith in the promised Messiah and not by works of the Law, Paul was duty bound to oppose Him. As a Pharisee, Paul believed the only way to salvation was through a steadfast obedience to the Law, all 613 of them. Therefore, he aided in the death of Stephen and went throughout the land arresting and incarcerating those who followed Jesus and His message of salvation by faith. That is, until Jesus Himself intervened in Paul’s life and selected him as His apostle to the Gentiles. Just as Martin Luther’s life was changed by the inspired words of Paul, Paul’s life was changed from that day forward by the words of Christ.

Through the teaching of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul came to realize that, “The righteous shall live by faith” and that faith only comes through the Gospel. Paul writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans. 1:16 ESV). The Gospel, not the Law is the power of God for salvation. It is in the Gospel where we learn that God forgives sinners for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. In the Gospel, we learn what God has done for us, saving us from the ravages of sin, not what we have to do for Him in order to make ourselves right with Him. This is the saving truth that Martin Luther came to realize. No longer did he have to try to make himself right with God; God had already made him so through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, Martin Luther made it his life’s work to reveal God’s righteousness through his preaching of the Gospel and the Reformation of the Church.

Martin Luther’s faith was transformed from a man who believed he had to perform works of righteousness to earn God’s forgiveness, to a man who believed emphatically that, “by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (v. 20). Oh, not that the Law is abandoned, jettisoned on the trash heap of human wisdom, because the Law is necessary to show us our sin (v. 19). The Old Testament Scriptures, to which we are attached as Christians, shows us this truth, clearly. However, more importantly, the Old Testament Scriptures also points to the saving revelation of the forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus Christ. St. Paul attests to this truth when he writes, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (vv. 21-22 ESV). In these few verses, St. Paul takes us and Martin Luther from the negative advantage of Holy Scripture, recognizing our sin, to the positive advantage; the revelation of the one and only means for the forgiveness of sins, faith in Jesus Christ. Throughout his life Martin Luther, emphasized this truth, emphatically declaring that Sola Fide (Faith Alone) in Jesus Christ was the only means of achieving salvation.

What Martin Luther and so many others of his day had not learned was that Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, was the true life and blood “mercy seat” for the sins of mankind. Knowing, with St. Paul and Martin Luther, that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (v. 23), we come to the realization that the Law must be abandoned and the Gospel embraced if we are to be saved from the ravages of sin. There is no other way to obtain God’s verdict of “righteous” except through faith in Jesus Christ. St. Paul makes it clear, we are only “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (vv. 24-25). This was the battle cry of the Reformers; Faith Alone in Jesus Christ was the only path to salvation. Faith Alone was the door through which one must pass if they were to become children of God, heirs of His Kingdom and brothers and sisters of His Son, Jesus Christ. Faith Alone is the key that unlocks the Kingdom of God’s Glory and guarantees eternal life for all who believe. This is the true Revelation of God’s Righteousness.

Therefore, just as in the days of Moses, we, too, come to God’s tabernacle to hear His message of grace and mercy, witnessing, through the words of the Gospel, the life atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We look upon the Cross and see the new Ark of the Covenant covered by the true mercy seat, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. Not only is Jesus the true mercy seat, but He is both priest and offering in this sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. During His life, He fulfilled the Law, all the commandments of God. Now, as the true mercy seat, He covers the new Ark of the Covenant; the Cross and the Tablets of the Law with His precious body, offering Himself as a full propitiation for our sins. Therefore, it is on this new Ark of the Covenant, that we become true witnesses to the glorious Revelation of God’s Righteousness.

Our Lord blessed Martin Luther through the power of the Holy Spirit and the inspired word of God to receive this most blessed truth. Luther not only came to fully understand God’s grace and mercy through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of His Son, Jesus Christ, but he was given the gift of teaching, preaching, and faith to carry that message to a sin-filled, Gospel starved world. As eloquent and forceful a preacher as Martin Luther became, he never boasted of his accomplishments, giving all glory to God. His life emulated St. Paul who asked, “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith” (v. 27).

The Law of faith? What is this Law of faith? Is St. Paul trying to make faith a Law; heaven forbid! No, St. Paul makes no such assertion. In his letter to the Ephesians St. Paul clarifies what he means by the Law of faith, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9 ESV). The Law of faith is the truth that faith is solely a gift from God. It is not something you accomplish or come to on your own. It is not a result of your works, your desires, your flesh or anything of your doing. It is a pure gift from your heavenly Father, a gift to believe in His Son, Jesus Christ and the promises of the Gospel; the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting in heaven. The Law of faith is the truth that the Law will not save you. St. Paul makes this clear when he writes, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (v. 28). All works of the law are rejected; they are removed; thus, only Faith Alone is left.

During the life of Martin Luther, this understanding of salvation by faith was foreign to the church. The Church of Rome attacked Luther’s Sola Fide and perverted the entire idea of salvation by faith. Thus the doctrine of justification, which teaches we are saved by Faith Alone, was anathema to the Church of Rome. They clung to their false doctrine that man has something to do with his salvation. It is still so to this day.

Following the Roman Catholic Church, many churches today, those who call themselves Protestant, ascribe to this wrong and misguided understanding of the doctrine of justification. Rather than teach the true Biblical doctrine regarding justification, they teach that man is justified by an assent that is completed by good works. These works are those identified by the church as meriting salvation. Yet, who can know how many good works are required? Obviously, only God alone knows. Therefore, how can you ever be assured of your salvation? How can you be certain you have completed all the requisite good works to get yourself into heaven? Herein lays the dilemma of salvation by works, salvation by any means other than faith in Jesus Christ. If you count on your charitable nature, your works of charity, your offerings at the altar, your prayers, or your petitions to gain salvation, you can never be certain they are enough. The more you do, the more you hope for justification, the more that hope is dashed, and the more you must do; a fool’s merry-go-round.

Today as we commemorate the 492^nd anniversary of the Reformation, let us remember that Martin Luther taught there is one sure way of knowing you are truly justified: rely solely on God’s Word that says faith in Jesus Christ makes it so. God the Father tells us that for the sake of His Son, Jesus, He justifies all who believe, all who have faith in the atoning sacrifice of His Son. The apostle Paul makes it clear, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (v. 28). “And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:5 ESV).

God’s Revealed Righteousness brought about the Reformation of the Church, we pray that it will bring about a reformation of your faith. Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.