Martin Luther was tormented by a sense of sin and guilt. He entered a monastery hoping to purge his soul of the continual pain, and find peace with God.
With a small cell containing a hard, simple bed, a chair and a desk, Luther gave himself completely to the austere lifestyle of a monk. He arose at 2 a.m. every morning to engage in the saying of the Lord’s Prayer and repeating the Ave Maria during the seven appointed hours of prayer.
In his zeal to be a saint and make his salvation sure, Luther went beyond the required discipline of the monastery. He engaged in extended times of prayer, meditation, fasting, vigils, night watches and other religious exercises. He was held up as a model of sanctity by his fellow monks and later wrote, “If ever a monk got to heaven by monkery, I would have gotten there.”
But in spite of his best efforts, he was still tormented by a sense of corruption in his heart and the fact that he had no peace with God. It was not a particular sin that he could identify, but sin as a corruption of nature and a sense of alienation from God that distressed his mind and brought him to the brink of despair.
Finally, the truth dawned on his soul and set him free. As he read and taught from the book of Romans, Romans 1:17 came alive in his heart by the Holy Spirit. It reads, For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
Luther suddenly saw that righteousness, or acceptance with God, is not something one can earn, but is a gift given to the sinner who puts his/her faith completely in Christ and what He has done. As this light dawned over his soul, he said,
All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light.
This discovery led him to challenge the teachings of the church of his day, which emphasized church-appointed works and the authority of the pope and church hierarchy to forgive sins. It was after this that he challenged this religious system by nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door, which was comparable to a modern post on Facebook.
Luther's discovery of the power of faith for salvation ignited the Protestant Reformation and led to his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. It also changed the course of church and world history.
What about you? Have you discovered Luther's revelation? Have you put your faith completely in Christ and His redemptive work on the Cross?
This article was derived from Dr. Eddie Hyatt's book, The Charismatic Luther, available from Amazon and his website at www.eddiehyatt.com.
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