Martin Luther’s teachings offer insights for Christians celebrating Reformation Day
October 31 is not just Halloween but also Reformation Day for Protestant churches. Four applications of Martin Luther’s teaching remain as important today as they were in his time.
The Christian is justified and yet a sinner. This was a hugely stabilizing principle. In and of ourselves, all we see is a sinner; but when we see ourselves in Christ, we see people counted righteous with his perfect righteousness. Such a person therefore is able to stand before God as righteous as Jesus Christ, because they are righteous only in the righteousness of Christ.
God has become our father in Christ. We are accepted. One of the most beautiful accounts found in Luther’s Table Talk was recorded by John Schlaginhaufen: “God must be much friendlier to me and speak to me in friendlier fashion than my Katy to little Martin. Neither Katy nor I could intentionally gouge out the eye or tear off the head of our child. Nor could God. God must have patience with us. He has given evidence of it, and therefore he sent his son into our flesh in order that we may look to him for the best.”
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The whole of the Christian life is a cross-bearing. Luther emphasized that life in Christ is necessarily life under the cross. If we are united to Christ, our lives will be patterned after his. The way for both the true church and the true Christian is not the theology of glory but the theology of the cross. This affects us inwardly as we die to self and outwardly as we share in the sufferings of the church. The medieval theology of glory must be overcome by the theology of the cross.
The Christian life is marked by assurance and joy. This was one of the hallmarks of the Reformation, and understandably so. The Reformation’s rediscovery regarding justification — that instead of working toward a hoped-for arrival at it, the Christian life actually begins with it — brought stunning deliverance, filling mind, will and affections with joy. It meant that one could now begin to live in the light of a settled future in glory. Inevitably, that light reflected back into the present life, bringing intense relief and release.
For Luther, the Christian life is a gospel-grounded, gospel-built, gospel-magnifying life that exhibits the free and sovereign grace of God and is lived out in gratitude to the savior who died for us, yoked to him in cross-bearing until death is swallowed up in victory and faith becomes sight.
–Lee Hartman | Metro Voice
