How much would you be willing to pay to guarantee the forgiveness of your sins? For members of the late medieval church (AD 1100-1500), this was not a theoretical question. Beginning in the eleventh century, the practice of indulgences made this possible. Medieval Christians would purchase an indulgence to pay for either past sins, or in some special cases, future sins (this was especially helpful for those planning to commit adultery but were afraid of vengeful spouses).
For one particularly introspective monk, the attempt to pay for personal sins was overwhelming. He viewed God’s wrath as insatiable. The monk tried everything he could to earn God’s forgiveness. he took a pilgrimage to Rome, where he climbed the supposed steps of Pilate on his knees, kissing each step. (According to tradition, Christ himself had climbed these steps on his way to be tried by Pilate.) The Monk prayed all night, slept on cold stone floors without a blanket, fasted, and even flogged himself in an attempt to overcome his flesh, yet none of this brought relief.
One day he was studying the book of Romans when he came across Romans 1:17: “the just shall live by faith.” According to the monk, “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 though open doors to paradise. The whole of scripture took on new meaning. . . . This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven” (quoted from The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History). When a preacher named John Tetzl began selling indulgences near the monk’s community of Wittenburg, the monk felt the need to confront this abuse of Grace. On October 31, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther posted 95 points of debate onto the church door at Wittenburg.
This concept of Grace was scandalous to the medieval church. The pope condemned Luther’s views in 1520. After this, when the council at Worms in 1521 ordered Luther to retract his views and Luther refused, Luther was excommunicated (cut off from the Church) and his writings banned. His friends eventually kidnapped Luther and relocated him to Wartburg castle. Here he wrote the hymn A Mighty Fortress is Our God.
For Martin Luther, the concept of Grace was life changing. He could not keep this concept to himself, even if sharing the good news of God’s Grace would cost him his life. Ironically, the very Church that was to be the caretaker of the message of God’s Grace opposed Luther’s communication of that Grace.
Do you feel like you must earn God’s approval? The bad news is you can’t. The good news is He paid the price for you. You can experience God’s approval based on God’s work (not yours). That is the life changing message of Grace.
