Martin
Luther (1483-1546)
of
Germany was the man who took the first steps in leading the
Reformation, proclaiming the Word of God and its doctrine of justification by
grace through faith alone. As a young man he had earned his Master of Arts at
the
University
of Erfurt, but after a series of events including the death of a close friend and a
near-death experience of his own, he decided to try to atone for his sins as a
monk of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther went to great extremes in order to
obtain forgiveness of sins by his own “good works”, going so far as to
damage his health permanently by severe physical punishment such as fasting
for many days and abstaining from sleep. Ordained to the Roman priesthood in
1507, he still found no satisfaction, seeing nothing but the depth and
darkness of his own guilt. He then discovered a Bible in a library, from which
he found his first great rays of hope through Jesus Christ, and travelling to
Rome with the light of the Word in his heart, he saw through the pagan
superstitions of the Papal system. Finally he returned to his studies at
university, this time in
Wittenberg where he gained a doctorate in 1512. Here, encouraged by his mentor, the
Augustinian scholar Johann von Staupitz (1470-1524), he continued earnestly to
study the Bible; and as the text from Romans 1:17, “The just shall live by faith”, had several times come to him with
power, so he began to preach this earth-shattering doctrine to the world.
On
the fourth petition in the Lord's Prayer: Give us this day our daily bread
On
Good Works
On
Education
The
Sovereignty of God
Bernard
and the One Thing Needful
