Martin Luther (Essay Sample)

Martin Luther, born on November 10, 1483 and died February 18, 1546 was a German monk, theology professor, and catholic priest who wanted to change the Church in Europe in the 16th century. He was afraid that the Catholic Roman Church, during the 16th century was too corrupt to offer people the necessary help in getting the right idea about salvation. Martin Luther thought that people could seek salvation on their own without depending on priests. According to Luther, the clergy put into effect many traditions as well as customs in order to gain wealth. The Catholic Church had three ways in which it acquired wealth namely, through relics, indulgences, and pilgrimages. Luther felt the need to take action by speaking out about the means of attaining wealth by the Catholic Church by specifically dealing with the issue of indulgence of which mostly angered him. Martin Luther’s actions were the foundation of the European reformation including the social and political revolution.
Martin Luther believed the Catholic Church was wrong in its teachings of salvation being earned by performing good deeds and most significantly by indulgences. Although reformers had various complaints concerning the Catholic Church during the 16th century, the practice of selling indulgences raised the greatest opposition. Indulgence was a form of payment made to the Catholic Church that allowed purchasing of an exclusion from punishment (penance) for certain kinds of sins. Murder had no excuse to indulgence but had excuse to much lesser sins, such as lustful thinking. Catholic believers were the customers for indulgence who feared that if any of their sins went unconfused or unnoticed, they would spend more time in purgatory before getting to heaven or worse, end up in hell for failure to repent. The selling of indulgences was a byproduct of crusades during the 12th and 13th centuries. The mere fact that the church sold indulgences bothered numerous people including Martin Luther who felt the need to speak out. Despite the fact that Martin Luther was devout, he started to suffer from faith crisis. He often wondered if he was assured of going to heaven when he died. Luther performed the necessary good works of praying, confession, and fasting that was required of the Church but he still was unsure. Martin Luther being a religious scholar sought guidance from the Bible and found a letter from Paul to the Romans on a passage that stated that the just shall live faith. At that point, Luther realized that not all the good works the Church demanded were needed in order to have salvation and hence he started to preach the notion of faith alone. Luther learned about the indulgences while in Saxony and that’s where he spoke out against the practice. The indulgences were sold by a monk named John Tetzel for the Albrecht of Brandenburg, and Mainz’s Archbishop’s benefit and was also to help the then Pope Leo X fund the basilica building in Rome and benefit. Tetzel was a great salesman and had a song that helped him sell the indulgences and he also used voices to imitate the requests of a person’s loved one by begging them to buy indulgences as well as relieving their suffering of purgatory. Martin Luther objected to the selling of indulgences because he believed that Tetzel was playing on the emotions and fears of the people as well as forcing them to spend more than they had. He also believed that the people who bought the indulgences did not understand the need to repent their sins. Luther was worried that people would simply buy indulgences and not repent and he also believe that they had done sufficient to receive forgiveness from God.. Years later, the selling of indulgences spread to include the forgiveness of sins of the dead. Martin Luther opposed the selling of indulgences by the church because he believed that salvation comes from faith and not necessarily good deeds like charity, prayer, or even sacraments of Church. He also believed that true religion could be achieved through Biblical reading. This attacked the grounds of fabricated scripture and implied that humans have the ability to educate themselves, acquire knowledge, as well as question. In addition, he believed that nobody was capable of acting good or knowing religious truth, if God was unwilling.[Luther, Martin. "On Governmental Authority." Edited by Han J. Hillerbrand. In The Protestant Reformer. (New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968), 62-63.] [Luther, Martin. "On Governmental Authority." Edited by Han J. Hillerbrand. In The Protestant Reformer. New York, NY: (Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968), 62-63.]
It is against this backdrop that Luther outlines his main arguments of his treatise by laying down two propositions regarding the freedom as well as the bondage of the spirit.
"A Christian is a perfect all free lord and, subject to none. (2) A Christian is a perfect servant of duty to all, and subject to all.”
The two contradicting statements are fused together in tension and provide an outline of the treatises that follow, the first part according to Luther shows how a person’s inner spirit is justified as well as set free by only faith and secondly he shows how the outer carnal person who is saved by faith engages in good works as well as serves in Christian love.
Martin Luther criticized the Church by writing the 95 Theses. The 95 Theses condemned the Church for all the corrupt practices that it was involved in especially to do with the selling of indulgences. Despite the nailing of the 95 theses, the main theological issue was the faith alone mantra, which was the catalyst for the European reformation. The reformation was merely a point of confusion between Protestants and Catholics. The consequence of Martin Luther’s faith alone doctrine was that having good works has no role in freeing or even justifying the sinner. Not like faith, works alone cannot receive the significance of God’s word; hence, not leading to freedom. Furthermore, Luther asserts that freedom as well as righteousness relates to the inner soul rather than the outer body, and therefore outer works cannot bring inner freedom and righteousness. According to Luther, faith justification cannot exist in association with works. For that reason, Christians are very free as well as justified by faith from the requirements of justified works and hence they have no need for the law and are free from the law. With believe in Christ the fulfillments of the law are met, and hence no need to work in order to fulfill the law, which in turn makes the law as well as the works pointless for righteousness and salvation of any man. For in Christ man is made free from all forms of sin, and freedom is a result of faith. Because of this, they were translation as well as distributions across Europe in a couple of weeks with the assistance of a movable printing press, and hence precipitating the reformation ...