Martin Luther as a Monk

“I was a good monk, and I kept to the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I.  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, reading, and other work.”

“I too may say that before I was enlightened by the Gospel, I was a zealous for the papistical laws and traditions of the fathers as ever a man was.  I tried hard to live up to every law as best I could.  I punished myself with fasting, watching, praying, and other exercises more than all those who today hate and persecute me.  I was so much in earnest that I imposed on my body more than it could stand.” (From Luther’s Commentary on Galatians)

"I crucified Christ daily in my cloistered life, and blasphemed God by my wrong faith.  Outwardly I kept myself chaste, poor, and obedient.  I was much given to fasting, watching, praying, saying of masses, and the like.  Yet under the cloak of my outward respectability I continually mistrusted, doubted, feared, hated, and blasphemed God.  My righteousness was a filthy puddle.  Satan loves such saints.  They are his darlings, for they quickly destroy their body and soul by depriving them of the blessings of God’s generous gifts.” (From Luther’s Commentary on Galatians)

“I tell you I stood in awe of the pope’s authority.  To dissent from him I considered a crime worthy of eternal death.  I thought of John Huss as a cursed heretic.  I counted it a sin even to think of him.  I would gladly have furnished the wood to burn him.  I would have felt I had done God a real service.” (From Luther’s Commentary on Galatians)

“I remember that when I went to Rome I ran about like a madman to all the churches, all the convents, all the places of note of every kind.  I implicitly believed every tale about all of them that imposture had invented.  I said a dozen masses, and I almost regretted that my father and mother were not dead so that I might have availed myself of the opportunity to draw their souls out of purgatory by a dozen or more masses and other good works of similar description. . . . We did these things then, knowing no better.  It is the Pope’s interest to encourage such lies.”

“I would not have missed seeing Rome for 100,000 florins.  I should have felt always an uneasy doubt whether I was not, after all, doing injustice to the Pope.  As it is, I am quite satisfied on the point.”

“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 satisfy him.  Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement ‘the just shall live by faith.’  Then I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith.  Therefore I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise . . . This passage of Paul became to me a gateway into heaven.”

Corpus Iuris Canonici, the Papal decree approving the sale of indulgences:

Now this treasure is not hidden in a napkin nor buried in a field, but he entrusted it to be healthfully dispensed - through blessed Peter, bearer of heaven’s keys, and his successors as vicars on earth - to the faithful, for fitting and reasonable causes, now for total, now for partial remission of the temporal punishment of sins . . . And to this heap of treasure the merits of the blessed Mother of God and of all the elect, from the first just man to the last, are known to have supplied their increment.

Some of Luther’s 95 Theses

#26 - The pope does well in giving remission to souls, not by the power of the keys (he has no such power) but through intercession.

#27 - Those who assert that a soul straightway flies out (of purgatory) as a coin tinkles in the collection-box, are preaching an invention of man.

#28 - It is sure that when a coin tinkles greed and avarice are increased; but the intercession of the church is in the will of God.

#36 - Every Christian who is truly contrite has plenary remission both of penance and of guilt as his due, even without a letter of pardon (from the pope).

#45 - Christians are taught that that a man who sees a brother in need and passes him by to give his money for the purchase of a pardon wins for himself not the indulgences of the pope but the indignation of God.

#50 - Christians must be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the preachers of indulgences he would rather have Saint Peter’s basilica reduced to ashes than built with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.

#54 - A wrong is done to the word of God when in the same sermon an equal or longer time is devoted to indulgences than to God’s word.

#79 - It is blasphemy to say that the cross adorned with the papal arms is a effectual as the cross of Christ.

#82 - They (the laity) ask: Why does not the pope empty purgatory on account of most holy charity and the great need of souls?  The most righteous of causes, seeing that he redeems an infinite number of souls on account of sordid money, given for the erection of a basilica, which is a most trivial cause?

#86 - The pope’s riches at this day far exceed the wealth of the richest millionaires, cannot he therefore build one single basilica of Saint Peter out of his own money, rather than out of the money of the faithful poor?

#93 - And so farewell to all those prophets who say to Christ’s people “the cross, the cross” and there is no cross.

Martin Luther’s Statement on the Second Day of the Diet of Worms (April 18, 1521)

“Therefore we must fear God.  I do not say this because it is necessary for such high authorities as you to be instructed by my teaching or admonition, but because I must not without the fealty [loyalty] due to my Germany.  With these words I commend myself to Your Most Serene Majesty, and to Your Lordships; humbly begging you not to suffer me to be rendered odious without cause, but the persecution of my adversaries.  I have spoken.”

[To these words the same imperial orator replied with harshness that he ought not to have made such a response, nor were the subjects formally condemned and defined by the councils to be called in question; therefore he sought from him a simple answer, and one without horns: would he recant or not?  Then Luther said:]

“Therefore, Your Most Serene Majesty and Your Lordships, since they seek a simply reply, I will give one that is without horns or teeth, and in this fashion: I believe in neither pope nor councils alone; for it is perfectly well established that they have frequently erred, as well as contradicted themselves.  Unless then I shall be convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I must be bound by those Scriptures which have been brought forward by me; yes, my conscience has been taken captive by these words of God.  I cannot revoke anything, nor do I wish to; since to go against one’s conscience is neither safe nor right: here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.  God help me.  Amen.”

From Martin Luther’s Table Talk

"Such fellows as Tetzel, Cochlaeus, Lemnius, I nothing regard. We should have no dealing with such backbiters and slanderers, they are most detestable; they appear not openly in the field, nor come right in our sight, but, in their poisoned hatred, scorn everything we do. They boast highly of the Fathers; let them; we have one Father, which is in heaven who is above all fathers; their piece and patchwork is of no weight. They write under the inspiration of a corrupt and vicious heart, and we all know that their works are mere impudent lies. The article of the Holy Trinity is nowhere written expressly in Holy Scripture, yet it is believed; therefore, they say, we ought also to believe traditions and ordinances of men without God's Word."

From Philip Melancthon’s funeral oration for Luther

“I do not deny that the more ardent characters sometimes make mistakes, for amid the weakness of human nature no one is without fault.  But we may say of such a one what the ancients said of Hercules, Cimon, and others: ‘rough indeed, but worthy of all praise.’  And in the church, if, as Paul says, he wars a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, he is to be held in the highest esteem by us.”

Martin Luther, from his commentary on Galatians

“Did God call me on account of my holy life?  Or on account of my pharsaical religion?  Or on account of my prayers, fastings, and works?  Never.  Well, then, it is certain God did not call me on account of my blasphemies, persecutions, oppressions.  What prompted Him to call me?  His grace alone.”

“True faith lays hold of Christ and leans on Him alone.  Our opponents cannot understand this.  In their blindness they cast away the precious pearl. Christ, and hang on to their shabby works.”

“On the question of justification we must remain adamant, or else we shall lose the truth of the Gospel.  It is a matter of life and death.  It involves the death of the Son of God, who died for the sins of the world.  If we surrender faith in Christ, as the only thing that can justify us, the death and resurrection of Jesus are without meaning; that Christ is the Savior of the world would be a myth.  God would be a liar, because He would not have fulfilled His promises.”

“Some will object that the Law is divine and holy.  Let it be divine and holy.  The Law has no right to tell me that I must be justified by it.  The Law has the right to tell me that I should love God and my neighbor, that I should live in chastity, temperance, patience, etc.  The Law has no right to tell me how I may be delivered from sin, death, and hell.  It is the Gospel’s business to tell me that.  I must listen to the Gospel.  It tells me, not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has done for me.”

From Martin Luther’s Preface to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans

“But faith is a divine work in us, which transforms us and begets us anew from God (John 1:13), which crucifies the old Adam, makes us new in heart, tempter, disposition, and in all our powers entirely different men, and brings with it the Holy Spirit.  O, this faith is a living, busy, active, powerful thing!  It is impossible that it should not be ceaselessly doing that which is good.  It does not even ask whether good works should be done; but before the question can be asked, it has done them, and it is constantly engaged in doing them.  But he who does not do such works, is a man without faith.  He gropes and casts about him to find faith and good works, not knowing what either of them is, and yet prattles and idly multiplies words about faith and good works.”

“Faith is a living, well-founded confidence in the grace of God, so perfectly certain that it would die a thousand times rather than surrender its conviction.  Such confidence and personal knowledge of divine grace makes its possessor joyful, bold, and full of warm affection toward God and all created things – all of which the Holy Spirit works in faith . . . It is thus impossible to separate works from faith – yea, just as impossible as to separate burning and shining from fire.”

John Calvin, from “Instruction in Faith”

“For we are said to be justified by through faith, not in the sense, however, that we receive within us any righteousness, but because the righteousness of Christ is credited to us, entirely as if it were really ours, while our iniquity is not charged to us, so that one can truly call this righteousness simply the remission of sins.

The Confession of Augsburg, 1530

This Lutheran statement of faith was originally composed by Martin Luther, but Melancthon contributed to its final form.

“. . . Our works cannot reconcile us to God or merit remission of sins and grace and justification.  This we obtain only by faith, when we believe that we are received into grace on account of Christ . . .”

From “The Joint Declaration on Justification (Salvation) by Faith,” composed by Roman Catholics and Lutherans, to be officially approved by Roman Catholic and Lutheran leaders on October 31, 1999

“In faith we together hold the conviction that justification is the work of the triune God.  The Father sent his Son into the world to save sinners.  The foundation and presupposition of justification is the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ.  Justification thus means that Christ himself is our righteousness, which we share through the Holy Spirit in accord with the will of the Father.  Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”

“In light of this consensus, the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the 16^th century do not apply to today’s partner.” (the Lutheran World Federation)

“We give thanks to the Lord for this decisive step forward on the way to overcoming the division of the church.  We ask the Holy Spirit to lead us further toward that visible unity which is Christ’s will.”