All Sermons

What can we learn from Martin Luther By Alister McGrath

learning from it, the view to helping us to understand our own situation and also giving us resources by which we can change our own situation.
And so what I'd like to do this morning is to begin by introducing Luther to you, telling you about his background and his career, and then focusing in on a number of themes where I think Luther has much to say to us today.
Luther, as many of you know, was German, and in many ways that's a very important point to make, because Luther's German nationalism is quite important in relation to the way in which the Reformation developed.
But let's just fill in the background before we go any further.
Luther was born in 1483, and Luther in many ways is set up by his father to become a lawyer.
His father is a well-to-do miner who hopes his son will bring the family fortunes to an all-time high by going into a very lucrative profession.
And Luther begins by going off to university to study arts with a firm intention of studying law, to keep his father happy.
But he studies law only for about six weeks, and then sees something happens.
Now here is what happens. Luther is riding home with some friends through a thunderstorm,
when a bolt of lightning hits the ground near his horse, and Luther's thrown off the horse.
Now I don't know what you would say if that happened to you.
What Luther said was something like, I guess if I get through this I'll go into a monastery,
which wouldn't be the kind of thing I'd say. I'd say thank goodness for that.
And his friends kind of say to him, look, you know, wise up, you don't have to do this.
But he says, no, no, no, I made that promise, I've survived the thunderstorm, I'm going to become a monk.
And his father in particular is not amused, because his father has invested very heavily in getting his son into this law course.
And for his son to go off and become a monk, well you can imagine how he felt about that.
And in fact the alienation from Luther's father is never really overcome at all.
Anyway Luther becomes a monk and he studies theology.
And he begins to ask some very interesting questions like, how can God love someone like me who is a sinner?
Luther is enormously aware of his own sinfulness.
And when I give the lecture on justification later in the week, I will be picking up on this whole theme in more detail.
But at this stage, all we need to know is simply, this was a very big problem for Luther, who basically couldn't see why God loved sinners.
Luther wrote that he always saw Christ as a stern judge, someone who was pointing out his failures, that kind of thing.
So Luther then goes on to do some business for his religious order, and then he takes up a position as a professor at the University of Wittenberg.
A professor of biblical studies in fact, and this happens in the year 1512.
Now I need to say to you that if there was a league table of insignificant European universities, Wittenberg would probably be up near the top.
It was a very recently established university, it couldn't attract students, and there were all kinds of problems.
But anyway, Luther is invited to talk about the biblical studies, and so in 1513 he actually begins to teach, and he begins by lecturing on the psalms.
And in the course of these, Luther begins to engage with questions like, how can God love sinners?
And at some point, at some point, Luther changes his mind in a very big way.
And Luther rediscovers the whole idea of the graciousness of God, of the gratuity of justification, and that really marks a turning point in his life.
And as I said, we'll talk about that a bit more when I lecture on justification.
But we need to set Luther in a broader context.
And the context is that of a church which was going through a period of convulsion.
There have been all kinds of things happening in the 15th century. The political power of the church had become enormous.
Its financial wealth also was very substantial, but things were going wrong.
And there were demands for reform and renewal from all kinds of sources.
One source was the humanist writers like Erasmus of Rotterdam and others.
And they were arguing that the church really needed to purge itself.
It had accumulated a whole series of undesirable practices.
It needed to rediscover a much more simple, a much more biblical way of life.
And Erasmus was one of many writers who argued that there was a need for a moral reformation of a church.
Now interestingly, Luther also believed there was a need for a moral reformation of a church.
But he believed there was also a need for something much deeper.
For Luther the problem wasn't simply that the church had kind of way accumulated a number of immoral practices.
Though in fact he was convinced they had had. There was something much more fundamentally wrong.
The church had simply lost sight of its vision. It had no idea what it was there for.
It had lost sight of what the Christian gospel really was.
And for Luther the doctrine of justification by faith was of central importance.
Luther for example was convinced that the church of his day had lapsed into a form of Pelagianism.
In other words the doctrine that you are saved by your own efforts.
That it's by doing good things that you achieve or earn or purchase favor in the sight of God.
And Luther was convinced that his church had lost sight of the gospel of grace.
In other words that the amazing news that God loved sinners before they even had a chance to start good things.
So Luther is saying that reformation is not simply about reforming the morals of a church or even the structures of a church.
It's about rediscovering the basics of Christian doctrine.
And therefore for Luther the word reformation has a very definite doctrinal dimension.
Reformation means checking out the doctrines of the church against scripture.
With a view to finding out if it remains faithful to the biblical inheritance.
And when Luther started to do this he began to discover that there were a whole range of areas
where the church seemed to have introduced non-biblical ideas or misunderstood what scripture was saying.
Now one of the most important contributors to the background against which Luther worked
were writers who were arguing that it was necessary to go back to scripture, back to scripture to rediscover the essence of Christianity.
Erasmus was one of those and there were others besides.
And they were arguing that one of the problems the medieval church had was that it was dependent on reading the Bible in a Latin translation.
In an inaccurate Latin translation.
Now I know that some of you are students here and you're being forced to learn Greek and Hebrew.
And some of you have hinted that you find this quite a burden.
But I want to say it's a very necessary burden because...
No names.
But I want to say it's a very necessary burden because otherwise you could be dependent on an inaccurate translation
and your theology is thus not based upon scripture but upon some biblical translator who got things wrong.
And basically this constant demand that began to emerge back to scripture, back to scripture in its original languages
opened the way to rediscovering what scripture said.
If I may I'll give you some examples of the kind of mistakes that it crept in.
What I'm going to read to you is an opening verse from, I shall look at Mark's gospel and I'll look at Mark chapter 1 and we'll look at verse 15.
This is Jesus being to preach the gospel in Galilee and he says, Mark 1, 15.
The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.
And that's a good translation of the Greek.
But the Latin version of that on which the medieval church depended for its theology said something slightly different.
The kingdom of God is at hand, do penance and believe in the gospel. Do penance.
Now I want you just to focus on those two different ideas. Repent, do penance.
What does repent say to you? Well it's all about an inward change of mind.
You have to do something inside yourself.
Do penance is all about going to find a priest and getting him to absolve you.
And the point I want to try and make is that as many of you will know, in the medieval understanding of things, the church was involved in everything.
You couldn't do anything really without the help of a priest.
One of Luther's things, his great emphasis was a restoration of emphasis on the ordinary Christian believer.
I don't know if you can see this but that correction of a translation, moving away from doing penance to repenting,
that is focusing in on the individual and the individual's need to get things right with God.
So what I want to try and make is a bad translation leads to bad theology.
And in the time of Luther, the right translations were being made available and Luther was determined that the church would come back into line with what the translations were saying.
Let me give you another one which makes this point again very clearly.
Now we're looking at Luke's gospel.
And Luke tells us of the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary.
So we'd like to find Luke chapter 1 and verse 28.
These are the opening words with which Gabriel addresses Mary.
In the version I'm reading from, the angel says,
Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you.
And that's a good translation.
But the medieval versions, the Latin versions, said something rather different.
They said, Hail, O one that is full of grace, the Lord is with you.
So again, I want you to just focus in on those words.
Favored one, the right translation, one that is full of grace, the Latin version.
Favored one means God is looking kindly on Mary, she has something very special to do.
One that is full of grace is implying this.
Mary is like a reservoir full of grace on which Christians can draw in times of trouble.
And many of you will know that the contemporary Roman Catholic Church still in many ways is drawn to that incorrect translation
because it helps to reinforce the position of Mary inside the understanding of the Christian gospel.
Luther in effect is saying, we need to rethink here, the translation has led us astray.
So in effect Luther is saying, back to scripture, but back to scripture in a good translation.
And that certainly makes all the difference.
But let's focus in on the relationship between Luther and Erasmus.
Erasmus, as you all know, was a great humanist scholar.
He was concerned to get scripture translated right.
But why did Erasmus think that scripture was important?
For Erasmus, scripture was important for cultural reasons, cultural reasons.
It was an ancient text and it was a very eloquent text and therefore it had authority amongst other sources.
Whereas for Luther, scripture had authority because it was the word of God.
It's a very big distinction there and it's a distinction which I think remains important today.
There will be those inside some of the churches who say, we ought to honour scripture
because after all it's a very old text and it's had a very big impact on our culture.
And there will be those who say, we need to honour scripture because through it God speaks to his church.
It's the word of God. It's that second approach which is the right approach.
And that's why scripture does have authority because there is something intrinsic in it.
That's the way it is. Scripture is the word of God and therefore you and I need to respond to it.
It's not that it's old that it's a critical thing, it's that it's through it God speaks.
So on the basis of a whole series of insights like this, you need to go back to scripture,
you need to rediscover God's grace, rediscover justification, restore Christ to his central place,
that Luther begins the whole process of reformation.
It's not entirely clear exactly when reformation gets underway.
Traditionally, the date that's always singled out is the 31st of October 1517.
The 31st of October 1517, which is the day when Luther posted the 95 Theses at Wittenberg.
And that certainly is the date of that historic event.
But it may not really be the day in which the reformation began,
because the reformation seems to have got underway a little bit later,
no matter how important that event may have been locally at Wittenberg.
But certainly by 1518, 1519, the reformation is underway and Luther is seen as being at its center.
And I want to underscore a point that I mentioned very briefly last night,
that is, it's very easy for us to overlook the enormous personal cost of this to Luther.
See, looking back at Luther's career, we can say, well, he died at a good old age.
You know, nothing happened to him. He wasn't executed or murdered.
But at the time, Luther's life seemed to be in danger at every turn.
He survived. It was by the grace of God. He had many enemies.
Yet Luther felt he had to make a stand for the gospel, even though the cost to him personally was going to be enormous.
So Luther really feels the need to remain faithful to this vision of recalling the church to its roots in Scripture,
and placing Christ back at its center, even though the cost is considerable.
Yet Luther initially is a university professor, as I mentioned, at a rather insignificant university in Europe.
In the year 1520, Luther makes a momentous decision.
Up to that point, he has been arguing for the need for reformation at an academic level.
He's been writing in Latin for an educated audience.
And then in 1520, he changes dramatically and begins to address ordinary people in German.
And in many ways, that ushers in a new phase in the reformation.
Because Luther is in effect saying, the ordinary people matter profoundly.
And they need to be addressed, they need to be engaged, and they need to be caught up in this work of reformation.
Luther says, in effect, if the clergy won't reform the church, then the laity needs simply to rise up and do it for them.
That's one of Luther's central themes in this early stage of reformation, the empowerment of the laity.
If you want to be more theological, it's all to do with the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, and I'll touch on that later.
But certainly, Luther is absolutely clear that the laity matter profoundly.
And that, I think, is an insight that matters to us today.
It's very easy for professional clergy to see the laity from a professional standpoint.
Laity equals laypeople equals people who don't know very much.
You need to forget that, and instead rediscover this Lutheran idea that the laity matter profoundly.
I don't know how many of you know the story about St. Sebastian.
Sebastian was a Roman martyr, and here is the reason he got martyred.
This is back about the third century.
The church was being persecuted, and one of the Roman emperors heard a rumor that the church had a lot of money.
They had a treasure stacked away somewhere, so he summoned Sebastian, who wasn't a saint by this stage,
and said, bring me your treasure.
And Sebastian went away and came back with three members of his congregation.
And he said, these are the treasure of the church.
And the emperor was not amused.
And I'm afraid that is why St. Sebastian got martyred and why he's regarded by many as being a saint.
But I think that in that story there is a profound truth that the laity, the ordinary people of God, are the treasure of the church.
And we need to affirm them in every way.
And to use that wonderful phrase from Paul in Ephesians chapter 4, we need to equip them for ministry.
Let me read you that wonderful phrase where Paul talks about in Ephesians 4 verses 11 and 12,
that everything is verse 12, for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.
And he's talking about all Christians there.
So Luther becomes a popular reformer. Popular meaning addressing the people and being liked by the people.
And from that moment onwards really, the Reformation becomes not simply an academic movement,
but a movement with a real following amongst ordinary people.
I think there is again another point there. It's very easy to discuss ideas at a very abstract and abstruse level.
But Luther would really want to encourage us to make sure we explain theology in terms which make sense to ordinary people.
That's such an enormously important point for Luther. People matter. Explain theology to them in ways that can be understood.
Now in many ways the rest of Luther's career can be seen as a gradual working out of this whole process of Reformation.
Luther eventually will die in 1546. And I'm going to tell you about his final day and the final words he wrote.
Because I think the final words that Luther wrote are of enormous importance.
What happened was that Luther was due to give a talk the next day and he wrote down the first six words of this talk and felt tired.
And he went to bed and during the night he died.
And the six words he wrote down were three words in German and three words in Latin.
And the words are, and I'll try to set them up, was,
We are beggars, this is true. We are beggars, this is true.
I mention these to you because they are so typical of the later Luther.
For Luther the Christian life is about Christians who are empty, who have nothing to offer and who turn empty to a God.
But a God who is willing to give and give and give again.
And that image of being beggars I think is very very helpful.
It means we are poor, we have nothing to give, nothing to bring except ourselves.
But we are turning to a God who is gracious and generous and who gives to us even though we are so poor and humble.
And that is a very helpful insight and in fact because it was the last words that Luther wrote, they are nevertheless very important.
Sometimes you'll hear confusion about this because those are not Luther's last words.
Luther's last word was yes.
When he was dying during the night and someone asked him,
Do you believe and trust that God loves you and forgives you your sins?
And Luther simply said yes.
And I think that even though it's only one word he said, what he was saying yes to is actually enormously helpful.
Luther as a historical figure is a very warm figure.
If I dare say this without offending anybody, one admires Calvin for his thought.
But one likes Luther because he probably was quite a jolly person.
Calvin does tend to come across as being something of a cold person.
Now I'm not in any sense criticizing him by saying that because Calvin clearly had other gifts.
Whereas Luther, very often you appreciate his warmth, particularly some of the stories he tells.
And I think it's fair to say I could not repeat any of them this morning because they're quite racy.
But they do very often make important theological points.
And so it's going to be the theology that Luther develops which is going to be our subject today.
And what I want to do is pick up some themes, if I may, from Luther which I think continue to be important.
Now I am slightly hampered in this because to talk about Luther in many ways is to talk about grace and justification.
And I'm talking about those in a lot more detail in later lectures.
So let me say immediately that one of the reasons why Luther is so important to the contemporary church
is that he demands that we do not lose sight of doctrines of grace and justification.
And I'll expand on that in two later lectures.
But I think it's a tribute to Luther's greatness that there are so many other areas that he is important in relation to as well.
One of them is Luther's distinctive emphasis on the cross. The cross.
Let me give you two quotations from Luther which bring this up very, very dramatically.
Quotation number one, the cross puts everything to the test.
For those of you who want the original Latin, the original Latin is crux probat omnia.
The cross puts everything to the test. In other words, that the cross is not merely central,
it is a means by which we can check everything out.
And again, another quote, the cross alone is our theology.
The cross alone is our theology. In Latin, crux sola nostra theologia.
And the point that Luther is making there is that theology which ceases to focus on the cross
really has lost sight of its central theme.
And interestingly, Luther contrasts a theologian of the cross and a theologian of glory.
This phrase, a theology of the cross on one hand, a theology of glory on the other.
Let me describe the difference. I think you'll be able to recognize that this distinction is still hopeful.
A theology of the cross is all about theology that focuses in on Christ on the cross
and his suffering and realizes that that's where God makes himself known.
A theology of glory is all about theology that is looking for the successful things in life
and tries to base itself on what the world regards as successful.
And Luther is saying simply, it's very easy for Christian theology, for Christians to be completely misled
by turning away from the cross to what the world regards as being successful and powerful.
And that's a very important point. I'm sure many of you will have heard of the health and wealth movement
which argues like this. If God likes you, he'll show it in a tangible way. You'll be rich and you'll be successful.
Therefore, go for riches, go for success because that's a sure mark of God's favor.
If you aren't rich, it's because you haven't got enough faith. If you ask God for wealth, he'd give it to you.
Therefore, you haven't enough faith, start praying now. Luther would have nothing to do with that at all.
For Luther, the cross puts a very big negation mark against that and says quite simply,
here is Jesus Christ, who we know is sinless, who we know is the Son of God, yet he died in agony on the cross.
To say that God's favor means health and success and wealth is simply way out of line with the cross of Christ.
That's a criticism I think we need to continue to hear.
We very often do tend to be seduced by the appeal of worldly standards of wealth and wisdom.
But Luther is also saying something else about the cross. I think this is something that is very, very important.
That the cross reminds us how misleading experience can be.
I want to talk about this because the whole question of the role of experience is actually very, very important, especially for younger Christians.
Let me ask you the question which lies behind this. How important, how reliable is our experience?
Let me give you a sort of case study to try and bring the point out.
Imagine somebody who comes to faith quite dramatically and to begin with they are overwhelmed by a sense of the presence and power of God.
They really feel that God is present in their lives. And suddenly their faith comes to depend on their feelings.
They believe in God passionately because they can feel Him in their lives.
And then the feelings, names of people you know who have gone through that kind of experience.
And the question I want to ask is how important is the way you feel in relation to your faith?
Here's Luther's answer. Faith depends on the promises of God.
Faith depends on the promises of God which are outside us.
And therefore faith needs to reassure itself of the total trustworthiness of God.
Your faith doesn't depend on the way you feel. The way you feel depends on all kinds of things.
It could be the weather, it could be your bank balance, all kinds of things.
But God's promises are there, they are firm and immovable.
And Luther's basic advice is look outwards to God's promises. Don't look inwards to your own feelings.
All you do is focus in on yourself and end up reinforcing your dependence on your own emotional state.
That will mislead. And Luther's point is you need to keep your eyes and heart focused on Jesus Christ.
And the great promises which God makes through Him and confirms through Him.
And that is the basis of Christian tranquility and security.
In fact at one point Luther describes sin as being, in kovat, as I say, bent in on yourself.
Always looking inward to your own inner feelings instead of looking outwards towards God.
And see for Luther, feelings can mislead. Feelings can mislead.
And Luther asks us to think about the very first Good Friday, focusing on the cross to bring this point home.
So let me just try and talk you through this so you'll see how important the point is.
I want you to imagine that you are an observer to the very first Good Friday.
But you don't know what's going to happen next.
In other words you are thinking of the cross without knowing that cross leads to resurrection.
So imagine that you are there on the first Good Friday watching Jesus die and you don't know there's going to be a resurrection.
And Luther says, imagine you are dependent on your experience or your feelings.
What would you conclude? And you conclude something like this.
I didn't feel that God was present on that day. I didn't experience God as being present. Therefore He wasn't.
Yet when you look at the cross from the standpoint of the resurrection, you see that maybe God wasn't experienced as being there,
but He was there in a secret and hidden way working out the salvation of the world through Christ.
Luther's point really is quite simple. Feelings can mislead seriously.
But if you approach things from the standpoint of God's promises, things are seen in a very different light.
And it may be that, if I conclude like this, that life does sometimes seem to us like our first Good Friday.
Bewildering, puzzling, we don't experience God as being there.
But faith knows that God is there even if we don't experience Him as being there.
And in many ways faith is about being trusting, realizing that God is there even if we don't experience Him in that way.
And I always find Psalm 42 very, very helpful in the situation.
And Psalm 42, which is the remarkable psalm that begins,
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God.
And sometimes you might like to read that psalm through and notice the way in which it's a psalm written by someone who knows that God is there.
But doesn't experience God as being there. In other words, His intellect and His feelings are out of line.
But He knows that one day His experience of God will return.
And He's looking forward to that. And in the meantime, He will simply trust that God is there and struggle on.
Luther is saying, if you rely on your feelings, you will be profoundly misled.
The way you experience things can be wrong.
But nonetheless, you've got to understand that God's promises are valid even when your feelings seem to suggest they aren't.
That's a lesson I think many Christians have to learn the hard way, and Luther certainly would encourage us.
If you want a kind of analogy for the way in which feelings can mislead,
here is one which might be helpful, especially to those of you who are of Scottish origins.
I want you to imagine that you're out on a very cold night.
And you're visiting a friend and you come in shivering because you're really cold.
And your friend looks at you and says, you poor thing, what you need is a good stiff drink to warm you up.
Have a large scotch. Now if you were to drink a scotch, you would feel that you were being warmed up.
You would feel that way. But actually what is happening is that you're cooling down.
The reason you feel as if you're warming up is that the blood vessels rise to the surface of the skin and dilate
and begin to give off heat which you feel. And you think, lovely, it's warming you up.
But actually they give off the heat to the room and you're just warming the room and you're getting colder.
So if you were to go out again into a cold night in that situation, you'd be in trouble.
You feel as if you're warming up. In reality, you're cooling down. Feelings can mislead.
But Luther also makes another point, I think it's a good point, you need to hear it.
He's saying don't rely on experience, but nevertheless experience does matter.
One of Luther's most interesting quotes, again it's very short, experience makes a theologian.
Experience makes a theologian. Now what you may say, does he mean by that? Well I will tell you.
He says it is very very easy for a theologian to be someone who's interested in ideas and words.
And completely miss the deeper things to which these words are pointing.
And Luther's point is a very valid thing. You can talk about grace and you can talk about forgiveness.
But if you haven't experienced God's forgiveness, if you haven't experienced God's grace, then these are just empty words.
And Luther is saying, in effect, that really you need to have experienced the wonder of God's grace in your life, if you're going to talk about it.
That seems to be a very important corrective because certainly I have heard theologians talking about things
and sometimes you wonder whether they really have experienced what they're talking about.
Heart and mind need to come together. The mind is explaining what the heart has experienced as God has touched it through his word and his gospel.
And Luther I think is saying there's a real need to experience the healing hand of God in our lives if we're going to talk about God to anybody else.
It's very easy to talk about God without having any first-hand knowledge of him.
So there's a real demand there from Luther for, so I put like this, authenticity on the part of pastors and preachers.
You need to have experienced what you're talking about.
So I talked a bit about the centrality of the cross, I talked a bit about Lutheran experience, and these certainly are important themes.
But Luther also has a very important thing to say about the nature of faith, the nature of faith.
And in many ways what Luther is saying to us is that we need to understand what faith is.
Before, for example, we can understand what something like justification by faith means.
And so I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about Luther on faith.
And I think if you want to take us further, then what I'm going to talk to you about comes from the 1520 work, The Freedom of a Christian.
The Freedom of a Christian, if you want to follow this up.
What is faith?
Well for us, faith very often means simply a belief that God is there, a belief that God is there.
And certainly in the wider culture, that's what faith means.
Faith is basically not knowing that something is true, but believing that something is true.
For example, I know that this is a Bible, but I believe that the Bible is true.
So a distinction between faith and knowledge.
And Luther really is saying we need to rediscover the richness of the Biblical idea of faith.
And for Luther, the Biblical idea of faith has three elements, three elements.
First of all, faith is about assent, assent.
In other words, agreeing that certain things are true.
So when I say I believe that God exists, I'm saying I assent to the fact that there is a God.
That's very simple and very straightforward, and it's not particularly distinctive for Luther.
What is distinctive, what is important comes next.
Luther argues that faith is about trust.
Faith is about confidence in the promises of God.
Now what Luther is saying here basically is that we are dealing with a God who makes promises.
That's one of Luther's central themes.
And faith recognizes that those promises are there, and that they are promises which may be trusted,
made by someone who may be trusted.
And therefore to have faith is to recognize that there are promises which may be trusted.
So there's this very definite emphasis, not simply on intellectual assent,
but on this whole idea of personal trust in a personal God who makes promises which may be trusted.
So I think it is very important because it rediscovers this personal aspect of faith.
And then in the third place, Luther emphasizes that faith is about being united to Christ.
In other words, that one of the central tasks of faith is to bond the believer to Christ.
Luther uses the analogy of a wedding ring.
Faith is the wedding ring which unites the believer to Christ.
What I'm going to do, if I may, is explain the analogy that Luther uses and then let you see how helpful it is.
Luther says that faith is like a marriage bond.
And he argues like this.
In a human marriage, what we have is this.
We have a man and a woman coming together in a new relationship.
And part of that relationship is a changed legal situation by which the man gives the woman all that he possesses,
and the woman gives the man all that she possesses.
Luther says that that is the same as being united to Christ.
Faith establishes a new personal relationship with Christ which has legal overtones.
Because Christ gives us all that He has, and we give Christ all that we have.
What does Christ give us?
He gives us grace, eternal life, and forgiveness.
What we give Christ, we give Him sin and damnation.
You can see that we do quite well out of this.
And the point that Luther is making is, this is no legal fiction.
This is the natural result of a transformed relationship.
Faith unites us to Christ so that we have a new relationship with Him,
and we share in all the benefits that He has won on the cross.
So you can see there's a very, very powerful image there.
And Luther stresses the importance of faith in relation to the promises of God.
Now as you probably know, Luther sees the sacraments as being closely linked with this whole business of God's trustworthiness.
And because I think many of us have lost sight of that idea,
I'd like to spend about two minutes just talking about this in case this might be of use or interest to any of you.
Luther argues that the Lord's Supper, or the communion service, or whatever you want to call it,
is of enormous importance in reaffirming God's promises to us.
And he argues along the following lines.
What he does is to look at the Last Supper narratives in the Gospels.
And basically he picks up some of the themes that we find in that narrative,
and he talks about the way in which the Gospel is a Testament, a Testament,
which is picked up in some of the Last Supper narratives.
And he says there's an analogy here between the Gospel, the Testament, and a Last Will and Testament.
And he argues like this. In a human Testament, we have three things.
First of all, we have the beneficiaries being identified.
Who it is who is going to benefit from the death of this person.
In other words, heirs or beneficiaries are named.
Secondly, the actual benefits which they will receive are named.
What is being bequeathed is identified.
And then thirdly, this Testament only becomes operational.
It only happens once the person who's made that Will and Testament has died.
So there are three elements there.
Naming the beneficiaries, naming the benefits, and proclaiming the death.
And Luther says the Gospel, the communion service, is very much like that.
Because it does those same three things.
It identifies the beneficiaries, those who trust in Christ.
It identifies the benefits, salvation and eternal life.
And it proclaims the death of Christ.
And therefore says these beneficiaries will now receive these benefits.
And therefore for Luther, 1 Corinthians 11 verse 26 is so important, 1 Corinthians 11 verse 26.
As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
For Luther, proclaiming Christ's death, is saying now these promises are in effect.
And now those who trust in Christ will receive these benefits.
Luther is saying that the communion service brings home to us the reality of God's forgiveness,
as well of course as its enormous cost.
It brings home to us by emphasizing the way in which Christ's death is linked with God's promises,
just how costly and precious, and also of course how real forgiveness and eternal life are.
So that I think is something that we do need to hear.
And finally, my last point this morning, Luther also developed the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.
I mentioned this briefly last night, and I want to pick it up in a little bit more detail this morning,
because I think it is an area where we need to pay attention.
One of the most significant sociological developments of the 20th century is the phenomenon of professionalization.
By which people who do certain things have increasingly seen themselves
as being somehow distinct from, or superior to, those who don't.
And professionalization has had an impact on clergy.
And that's a point we just need to be honest about.
Luther, I think, gives us a framework for allowing those who are engaged in any kind of professional ministry
to keep closely in touch with those to whom they minister.
Here is how Luther's argument goes.
On account of their faith, all Christians are priests.
Luther actually sees the priesthood of all believers as a corporate idea.
It's not so much individuals who are priests as the body of believers who exercise a corporate priesthood,
each believe in a different way. But that's not too important for our point this morning.
And therefore, since all believers are priests, there is no distinction in status.
As Luther's key point, there is no room for any conception of professional ministry,
of ordination, which somehow sees the ordained person as superior to those who are not ordained.
All are priests. However, there is a distinction to be made between those who are priests,
let's say the entire Christian body, and those who exercise the function of priests.
And Luther makes the point that the entire Christian community, all of whom are priests,
invites some of their members to exercise the work and the office of priests in their midst.
Now, in a Presbyterian tradition, you would avoid the word priest altogether,
and you'd use words like presbyto or something like that, but the same point is being made.
Let us say, professional ministry, to try and approach this whole issue in the broadest possible term.
All, according to Luther, are ministers, but only some exercise ministry professionally.
And Luther's key insight is that we must never somehow draw the conclusion
that those who exercise ministry professionally can lord it over ordinary Christian people.
For Luther, professional ministry is a responsibility. You have been chosen by your people.
You are responsible to them. You have no right to impose on them.
Your task is to serve them and remember that each one of them could do the same thing.
It's very much about seeing things in context, and that I think is a very, very helpful context-giver
in the whole area of ministry.
So what I've done very briefly is to tell you something about Luther
and to try and indicate some of the areas where he continues to be an important resource for us today.
I've made the point that one area where he's of enormous importance will have to wait to a later lecture,
namely doctrines of grace and justification.
But I want to end simply by reinforcing that point I made earlier.
Christianity has a history, and in the course of that history,
there are men and women who have been raised up by God in His service,
and very often we in the present can learn by turning back to the past.
That doesn't mean you're nostalgic. Things were much better back then.
It's simply saying, in today's church situation, we need every resource we can get our hands on
in dealing with today's problems.
We aren't the first people to face every issue there is.
Many have been thought through in the past, and the answers given then can continue to be of service today.
And in many ways, to value the past, for example, the Reformation is to realize,
in our past, there are resources which continue to have a present use.
I don't know if any of you have family albums, but very often you flick through them,
and it's very nice to flick through them, but you're aware that it's past.
We have a history, and as we read our own history, we do understand where we've been,
and it does help us understand where we've come from.
But also, it's about realizing that what was said and done in the past can be taken and used by us today.
What I'm saying is, whether we're looking at Luther, or Calvin, or Jonathan Edwards,
or whoever it is you find to be helpful, there are resources there waiting to be discovered.
And it seems to me that the ultimate arrogance is to say, because this idea is more than 20 years old, it's no good.
There's a real need for us to realize that the past continues to be important,
and that we must never arrogantly think that we know better today.
That seems to me to be the kind of approach you find in The Rhymes of John Shelby Spong,
and you can see where that takes you.
To have respect for the past is to be anchored, is to be given a real stability,
and without that kind of anchoring, you will wander and get lost and lose your distinctive identity.
And all I'm saying to you is, I want you to feel good about your inheritance.
It gives you a sense of place and purpose and history, and it gives you resources that you can use.
So, we are surrounded, if you like, by this great cloud of witnesses,
and Luther is simply one of them, but an important one, and he continues to be of service today.
Let's take time for some questions, and then we can break for lunch. Yes, please.
Is there any interest towards the conflict in France?
Well, the answer is there was in some circles, but it was seen as being unacceptable.
One of the main results of the Reformation is that whether you look at Germany or England or France,
the same thing happens, and the Reformers speak the language of the people.
Last night I talked with you about Calvin, and I made the point that Calvin spoke French,
and he translated his instruments into French, and he brought the Gospel in French to the French people.
And in fact, in doing so, both Luther and Calvin wrong-footed their opponents,
because their opponents answered them in Latin.
And the result was the ordinary people could see what Luther was saying, but they could see no answers being given.
And again, the same thing happens in Zurich with Zwingli.
In January 1523, what's called the Great Zurich Disputation takes place,
and the big issue is, do we go back to Scripture?
And the whole town council was assembled, and Zwingli was asked to give the case for Reform,
and a local Catholic bishop was asked to give the case against.
Zwingli spoke in Swiss German.
The visitors, A, didn't speak Swiss German, and therefore they couldn't understand what Zwingli was saying,
and nor could they reply to the people, because the people didn't understand Latin.
So in a very, very big way, they lost that debate, because Zwingli was prepared to speak the language of the people.
Now, that's a very important point. I'm going to make another point for May.
Why is liberalism dying?
Well, there are many answers you give. One of them would be because intrinsically it has nothing to say.
Another answer would be it has completely lost its roots with Christianity.
But there is a third answer, and an important answer.
Most liberal writers write in a form which is unintelligible to ordinary people,
and ordinary people just don't bother to read them, and serves them right.
I think there's a real need to follow the example of Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and Cranmer and others,
and simply say it really matters to get through to ordinary people.
The Incarnation is saying God came down to our level in Christ to speak to us,
and it seems to me that all of us who are engaged in preaching or teaching really must do that,
to go where people are, and take the Gospel to them. Thank you.
Yes?
You did say that Luther maintained protection, and that he took that responsibility from a preacher called Luther.
But I kind of think that where does that responsibility begin?
Where is the responsibility to God for what Luther said out there?
Well, Luther is absolutely clear that the people of God as a whole are responsible to God for the life of the Church.
And part of that responsibility is in the people you choose to exercise professional ministry.
Now, Luther argues that professional ministry is, in German, ampitman, an officeholder.
And that means it's temporary.
The professional minister, the priest, however you want to call him,
holds that function only as long as the people of God believe that they're entitled to.
And if they do something that's wrong, or if they lose their faith, something like that,
then they withdraw that recognition.
So there's no hint here of any idea of someone being ordained for life.
You're ordained for as long as the people recognize you as having all the personal qualities necessary for ministry.
And they as a whole have this responsibility of ensuring that their ministers remain faithful to preaching the Gospel.
And of course for Luther, while the central test of faithfulness is the effective faith...