The Three Solas

We love to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. We celebrate notable events or discoveries in history. We celebrate the birthdays of people who made a difference in the world, such as Presidents Washington and Lincoln, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

And, speaking of the man whose birthday we celebrate every January, this year we celebrate the 500th anniversary of a movement ignited by the man for whom MLK Jr. was named, Martin Luther (1483-1546).

It wasn’t a civil rights movement, although perhaps you could make that argument.

It was more of a reformation than a movement. What Martin Luther did October 31, 1517, 500 years ago Tuesday, sparked a protest and reform that came to be known as the Protestant Reformation. Five hundred years ago.

What did Luther do? He posted a sign on a church door.

Luther had written a little tract which had 95 debating points, or “talking points,” which he hoped would be the basis of a discussion of some dubious practices in the church.

The tract was called Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. It was written in Latin and printed by a local printer. The printing press was a relatively new media invention at the time, and some argue that without the invention of the printing press, neither the Protestant Reformation nor the American Revolution could have happened.

Luther’s 95 propositions were printed on a folio sheet and tacked to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. Church doors were often used as a place to post announcements and advertisements, much like the placards and “For Sale” signs you might see nailed to a telephone pole, or tacked to a community board on a college campus.

Luther’s propositions caused an immediate stir.

This action – the posting of the 95 Theses – was quickly recognized as the beginning of a religious, theological and cultural change of tsunamic proportions as early as 10 years later. On the 10th anniversary of this posting, Luther himself and a few of his buddies had a pint in a local pub to celebrate the “trampling out of indulgences.”

Reforming the church is like remodeling your house. It takes longer than you think, costs more than you expect, and makes a bigger mess than you ever imagined.

What Luther posted on All Hallows Eve 500 years ago was not an essay or a sermon, but a series of propositions or statements about which he hoped there’d be some debate. The major issue, as the title of the document indicates, was indulgences. The first proposition gets right to the point:

Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite (repent, do penance), willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.

The rest of the theses argue similar points.

Luther was deeply concerned about selling “get-out-of-jail-FREE” cards called indulgences. These indulgences released people from needing to repent of the bad things they did. The more serious the crime, the higher the cost of the indulgence.

An indulgence could also be purchased to shorten the time a loved one needed to spend in Purgatory – a period of purification and cleansing one had to endure before going to heaven itself.

A popular jingle at the time that the seller of indulgences would sing was “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs.”

Luther felt that the church was teaching people that they could literally buy their way into the kingdom of God or buy God’s favor when, in fact, the sale of indulgences was fattening the wallets of local ecclesiastics, and the treasury of the larger church itself.

Indulgences had become complex instruments for granting forgiveness of sins. The granting of forgiveness in the sacrament of penance was based on the “power of the keys” given to the apostles according to Matthew 16:18, and was used to discipline sinners.

Luther argued that sins could not be forgiven nor could salvation be gained by making forgiveness and salvation a commercial transaction. We cannot buy forgiveness, nor can we buy our way into heaven.

From these conclusions came three major ideas which have influenced the way we understand our relationship to God to this day. These ideas are – retaining the Latin – sola Scriptura, sola gratia and sola fidei. Only Scripture, only by grace, only by faith.

Sola Scriptura. Central to Luther’s view of the primacy of Scripture is his theology of the cross that emerges from it. While Romans 1:19-20 says that people can know that there’s a God from their experience of the created world, that knowledge does not lead them to know who God is. Paul’s indictment of unbelievers in the following verses is not because they are atheists but because they’ve become idolaters. So Luther says that a person who tries to understand God from what can be observed about the world “does not deserve to be called a theologian.”

Instead, a true theologian is someone who “comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.” The one in whom we are to trust is the one who hung on the cross – and who was raised on the third day. As Luther says in support of that claim, “True theology and recognition of God are in the crucified Christ.”

Isn’t it strange that the image of “A Mighty Fortress” is used for the one who “was crucified in weakness” (2 Corinthians 13:4)?  But that is what is meant by saying that we know God “through suffering and the cross.” The one who died on the cross is true God.

Knowledge of all this comes to us through Scripture and Scripture alone.

Sola gratia. Only by God’s grace are we reconciled to God. Nothing we do can earn God’s favor.

The prevailing view was that if you wanted to get into heaven and be saved from eternal damnation, you needed to work for it.

Is there a subtle sense in which we still, deep in our hearts, believe that today? We have such a strong sense of the virtue of fairness that we tend to believe that God is also fair. And, being fair, God will give people who try hard, give it their best effort and live a good, clean life a ticket to the heavenly show.

Luther said that no one is embraced by God because of good works. God’s world is not a meritocracy. It is only because of God’s grace and unmerited favor that we are invited to be a member of the family of God. As Paul writes in Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

God loves you. For no good reason … except His goodness. Though you may be tempted to work to improve to be more liked or loved, God doesn’t wait for your improvement. He doesn’t even require it. He loves you. His love is what changes you from sinner to saint. His love sent Jesus to die and rise for you. His love gives you salvation in Christ freely. His love caused Holy Scripture to be written so that you might hear and believe in His love. His love washed you in Baptism. His love feeds you in the Lord’s Supper. His love makes you lovable. He loves you freely and fully. No strings attached.

Sola fidei. Only trusting in Jesus puts us right with God.

This view advanced by Luther is also known as “justification by faith alone.” It assumes that there was a great divide between humanity and God. We were in need of reconciliation. This rapprochement occurred on the cross. We cannot do anything to achieve reconciliation on our own. We can only receive this by faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Then, and only then, are we reconciled with God.

We assume that being righteous comes from personal achievement of virtue, attained by personal effort. We hear these words as a claim that someone has kept the Ten Commandments and all else that is required to be good perfectly. We assume nobody can do that.

Fortunately, because of God’s grace, our failure to follow the law is not an issue.

We have no righteousness of our own. Instead, thanks to what Luther called an iustia alienum or “alien righteousness,” we are ourselves considered righteous.

Here are Luther’s own words: “Through faith in Christ, therefore, Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; rather, he himself becomes ours.”

So as you celebrate Halloween on Tuesday, remember Martin Luther and his 95 theses.  And as you hand out free candy to the trick-or-treaters, remember the free gift of salvation given to us by God.  A Snickers bar may satisfy for an hour or so, but Jesus satisfies for an eternity.

Sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fidei.