How?
The Reformation was not the genius of man, but the grace of God. It was the work not of man but of God. God is the author of every scene, though history can only see the characters and their act.
This story is about Christ and His Bride, the church, and how He has changed the world in and through her. The world in which we now live cannot be conceived rightly apart from the redirecting course of events in this history.
The story began long before the sixteenth century. Spiritual darkness dominated the landscape of humanity. Christ’s Bride had largely fallen asleep, being somewhat overcome by that darkness. But all the while, Christ kept His Bride and stirred her life with His very own Word.
That Word—the sacred Scripture—is the key to this story. Scripture alone is supreme in authority, and by it alone do we hear the gospel—the good news—of salvation in Christ.
Yet in the darkness, the church was captivated in corruption. Abuses abounded. As the church drifted from Scripture, she increasingly accepted man-made doctrines and traded the authority of truth for traditions.
But God did not leave her in her darkness. He raised up several faithful and bold souls as light bearers. These forerunners of reform often faced fierce opposition. But also, they furnished faithful examples and great encouragement to the reformers who would follow.
The people of the land were bound by the weight of tradition. For centuries, the Roman Church had ruled the hearts of men, promising salvation through sacraments and indulgences—pieces of paper that supposedly reduced the time souls spent in purgatory. The church sold these indulgences like holy tickets, and the poor, desperate for peace, gave their last coins to secure them.
Germany, 1517
The formal start of the Protestant Reformation began in 1517. Deep in the heart of Germany, nestled by the Elbe River, was the growing village of Wittenberg. Though it was far from the grand capitals of Europe, yet it would soon become the center of a storm that would shake the church and the world.
Martin Luther
Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who had studied to become a lawyer and now found himself a professor of theology at the new university in Wittenberg, lived burdened with a troubled conscience. For years he sought relief through sacrifice, service to the church, acts of penance, works of righteousness, devotion, self-flagellation, and pilgrimages. He constantly wrestled with his own faith, tormented by the question of how a sinful man could ever stand righteous before a holy God. Peace ran and hid from him. Despite his every effort to earn or purchase it.
The Greek New Testament
In the providence of God, while he was at Wittenberg lecturing as a doctor of theology, Desiderius Erasmus, the world-renowned scholar from Rotterdam, was quick to print on the press—for the very first time—the Greek New Testament. Without a doubt, it was the unveiling of sacred Scripture in its original languages that unleashed the power of the gospel.
The Gospel
In the Scriptures, Luther discovered the true gospel, which changed his heart: salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Salvation cannot be attained through the purchase of indulgences or works of penance. God’s mercy, not man's deeds, was the key to redemption.
Indulgences
One autumn day, word reached Luther of a monk named Johann Tetzel, traveling from town to town with a coffer, selling indulgences in the name of the pope. "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs," went Tetzel’s jingle, promising freedom for the dead and the living alike. To Luther, this was not merely false teaching—it was an affront to the gospel.
The 95 Theses
Fueled by righteous anger and conviction, Luther took up his pen. In ninety-five statements of argument or “theses,” he laid bare the errors of indulgences, exposing them as greed disguised as piety. With his parchment in hand, he strode to the doors of Wittenberg's Castle Church, a place where notices were posted for all to see. The doors, like a public board, would bear his challenge.
On the 31st of October, 1517, Luther hammered his ninety-five theses to the wooden doors, the echo of his mallet reverberating through the cold air. Little did he know that this simple spark would ignite a flame across Europe.
At first, the ninety-five theses were intended to initiate a scholarly debate. Yet in God's providence, the printing press—recently invented by Johannes Gutenberg—spread Luther's words far beyond Wittenberg. Some students of Luther extracted the document and printed it in German, neatly and discreetly placing it back after copying it. Within weeks, his theses were read in cities across the Holy Roman Empire, and soon, across the continent. The people, hungry for change, embraced Luther's challenge. The Reformation had begun.
Reformation Spread
Luther’s scriptural arguments against theological errors and corrupt practices in the church reverberated a mighty jolt that descended to the very core of the medieval religious system. The Greek New Testament stood over and against medieval doctrines and erroneous rituals, fracturing and destabilizing the man-made superstructure and self-appointed authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Though condemned as a heretic, Luther would not recant. “Here I stand, I can do no other,” he declared before princes and prelates. The Reformation grew, as others like Ulrich Zwingli, William Tyndale and many more took up the cause. The gospel, once clouded by centuries of tradition, began to shine again with its simple, powerful truth: Christ alone saves.
And so, with strokes of ink on parchment and a hammer’s blow on a church door, Martin Luther sparked a revolution that would forever change the course of history.
