The Reformation’s Legacy
Part 1: Have I Done Enough?
As we approach Reformation Day, I want to spend the next four weeks looking at what was really at the heart of the Reformation. We all know at least some of the story: October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, the 95 Theses, indulgences, and that famous church door in Wittenberg.
But underneath all of that was a much deeper—and much more personal—question:
How can I know that God is gracious toward me?
For Luther, this wasn't some abstract theological question. It tormented him.
And if anyone could have beaten the sin out of himself through sheer religious determination, Martin Luther certainly tried.
As a young Augustinian friar, Luther threw himself completely into the spiritual disciplines of monastic life. He fasted. He prayed for hours. He deprived himself of sleep. He endured the cold without adequate clothing or blankets. He confessed relentlessly. He would later reflect that he had been so severe with his body that he nearly destroyed his health.
Luther wasn't playing at religion.
He was serious about this.
He desperately wanted to be holy.
And yet, after all of that fasting, praying, confessing, and self-denial, Luther discovered something terrifying:
Martin Luther was still Martin Luther.
He could discipline his body. He could punish his body. He could nearly wreck his body.
But he couldn't beat the sinner out of himself.
And that created a serious theological problem.
Luther had been taught to understand grace largely in terms of gratia infusa—“infused grace.” Grace was poured into the believer, enabling the sinner to become righteous and to cooperate with God's grace in love and good works.
So if Luther wanted to know whether God's grace was actually doing its work, where would he look for the evidence?
Inside himself.
And when Luther looked inside himself, what did he find?
Sin.
Worse yet, the closer he examined even his good works, the more sin he found hiding there too.
Why was he praying? Was it completely out of love for God—or was part of it because he was afraid of God's punishment?
Why was he confessing? Was he truly sorry because he had offended God, or was he sorry because he was afraid of what God might do to him?
Had he remembered every sin? Had he confessed them all? Was his repentance sincere enough? Had he prayed enough? Had he loved God enough?
Every answer produced another question.
The deeper Luther searched within himself for evidence that he was becoming righteous, the worse the problem became.
Luther would later describe sin with an ancient Christian image: incurvatus in se—humanity curved inward upon itself.
And there is a terrible irony in that.
The harder I stare into myself trying to determine whether I am righteous enough, sincere enough, repentant enough, faithful enough, or Christian enough, the more curved inward I become.
And eventually, all I find there is a sinner.
Then Came the Indulgence Preachers
In the medieval Church, an indulgence was not technically the forgiveness of sin itself. Rather, after sin had been forgiven through confession and absolution, there remained what the Church called the temporal punishment due for that sin. An indulgence promised to reduce or remove that punishment through the Church's application of the “treasury of merits”—the merits of Christ and the saints. This could be applied not only to the living, but also, according to the teaching and practice surrounding indulgences, to souls undergoing purification in purgatory.
That distinction is important. The Church was not officially teaching, “Put money in a box and God will forgive your sins.” But by Luther's day, the preaching and sale of indulgences could easily leave ordinary Christians with something sounding remarkably close to that impression.
And that is where Luther's pastoral concern began.
Meanwhile, another controversy was brewing not far from Wittenberg.
Pope Leo X was overseeing the enormous—and enormously expensive—rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. An indulgence proclaimed under papal authority became connected with financing the project. The situation in Germany was even more complicated. Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz had accumulated substantial debts connected with obtaining his ecclesiastical offices, and the proceeds from the indulgence campaign were divided between those obligations and the rebuilding of St. Peter's.
Now enter Johann Tetzel.
Tetzel was a Dominican friar and became the most famous preacher of this indulgence.
He didn't actually preach in Wittenberg. Luther's territorial prince, Frederick the Wise, wouldn't allow the campaign in Electoral Saxony. But there was nothing stopping Luther's parishioners from crossing into the neighboring territory, hearing Tetzel preach, purchasing an indulgence, and coming home with the certificate.
And Luther saw what this was doing to the consciences of the people entrusted to his pastoral care.
An he was furious.
The message became famously associated with a little rhyme:
“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,
the soul from purgatory springs.”
Whether Tetzel himself consistently used precisely those words is debated. But the rhyme certainly captured the popular understanding Luther was confronting: put money in the box and relief from the temporal punishment of sin could be obtained—even for someone already dead.
Luther saw the problem immediately.
And when you read the Ninety-Five Theses, you can already see flashes of something that would characterize Luther for the rest of his life:
The man could be very funny.
He also had a remarkable ability to take someone's argument seriously, follow it all the way to its logical conclusion, and then ask the painfully obvious question that no one else seemed willing to ask.
Thesis 82 is a wonderful example.
Luther essentially asks:
If the pope really has the power to release souls from purgatory, why doesn't he just empty purgatory out of Christian love?
Why release suffering souls because someone contributed money toward the construction of a basilica?
If the pope can release them, why not just release them?
For free!
It's funny. It's biting. And it is classic Luther.
Take the claim seriously.
Follow it to its logical conclusion.
Then ask the question everyone else seems afraid to ask.
But underneath Luther's wit was something deadly serious.
Because the indulgence controversy went straight back to the question that had tormented him for years:
How can a sinner know that God is gracious toward him?
If forgiveness and peace with God depend upon satisfying penalties, acquiring indulgences, performing acts of penance, or discovering sufficient righteousness somewhere within myself, where can certainty ever be found?
Now, we don't buy indulgences anymore.
But I'm not sure we've changed all that much.
We have simply invented different ways of measuring our worth.
Have I done enough?
- Am I a good enough husband or wife?
- Am I a good enough parent?
- Have I accomplished enough?
- Do people respect me?
- Have I served enough? Given enough? Prayed enough? Read my Bible enough?
- Am I becoming the Christian I'm supposed to be?
We can even take faith itself and turn it into one more thing to measure.
Do I believe strongly enough? Is my repentance sincere enough? Why do I still struggle with this sin? Why don't I feel closer to God? Shouldn't I be further along by now?
And before we know it, we're standing right beside Luther.
Looking inward.
Searching ourselves for evidence that we are enough.
And finding exactly what Luther found.
Sin.
St. Paul writes,
“There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22–23).
God's Law is good. God's Law is holy. But when the Law functions as a mirror and I use it to examine myself, it cannot assure me that I've finally done enough.
It does exactly what God intends it to do in its second use:
It shows me the truth about myself.
And this is where Luther's great breakthrough would eventually come.
He discovered that he had been looking for certainty in precisely the wrong place.
The answer wasn't deeper inside Martin Luther.
And the answer isn't deeper inside you or me.
The answer comes from outside of us.
The Reformers had a wonderful Latin expression for this:
extra nos—outside of us.
We're going to spend much more time there next week.
For now, I want to leave us with Luther's uncomfortable question:
Have I done enough?
If my peace with God depends upon finding something inside myself that will finally allow the answer to be yes, how could I ever possibly be certain?
Luther couldn't.
Neither can we.
Because the answer isn't found by looking deeper inside ourselves.
It is found somewhere else.
Or better yet, in Someone Else.
Christ.
And Christ has done enough.