(Continued from vol. xxx., p. 444.)
“THIS young monk, absorbed in the quest of a gracious God in the Erfurt monastery,” says Dr Mackinnon, “is a tragic figure.” Rome, with all her gorgeous ritual and her splendidly-attired hierarchy, has nothing to offer this poor captive battling with problems that are shaking his soul to its very foundations. For a time he found some rest in reading the writings of Bernard and Gerson. Luther afterwards acknowledged help received from Staupnitz, the Vicar-General of his Order, on such questions as predestination, etc. “If Dr Staupnitz,” he says, “or rather God, through Dr Staupnitz, had not aided me in this, I would have been long since in hell.” In 1510 Luther was sent to plead the case of his monastery at Rome. When he came in sight of the city he dropped on his knees, but ere he left it its sanctity—at least what passed for such—was to be an utter abomination to him. “I would not,” he said, “have missed being in Rome for any amount of money. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it. For there is there so great and shocking impiety and wickedness. There neither God nor man, neither sin nor shame is regarded.” Luther spent only a few weeks in Rome, and his time was taken up with attending to the interests of his Order, and with visiting, praying, and saying masses at the shrines of the apostles and saints. As he was anxious to get some benefit for his grandfather’s soul in purgatory, he climbed the Scala Sancta (the Holy Stairs) at the Lateran, saying a Paternoster at each step. It was only when he arrived at the last step that the thought passed through his mind, “Who knows whether it is true?” This is Luther’s own account given in a sermon preached on 15th September 1545. The well-known story of the words, “The just shall live by faith” coming to him as he climbed the stairs rests on the authority of his son, Paul, who was only eleven years old, who says he had the story from his father. Dr Mackinnon is not disposed to accept this version of the time when the light dawned on the darkened soul of the struggling monk, and attributes it to a later period when the truth as set forth in Romans i., 17, set him free. We are not in a position to call in question Dr Mackinnon’s view and the quotations he gives from Luther’s writings seem abundantly to confirm his contention.
In 1512 Luther graduated as a Licentiate in Theology and a fortnight later as Master and Doctor. There was one passage of God’s Word which was a sore stumbling block to him, Doctor of Theology though he was; this was Romans i., 17: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” Troubled in conscience, he hated a just God who must needs punish sinners even in spite of such satisfactions as he was able to give. He chafed against the phrase “righteousness of God” in wrathful rebellion he tells us. Misreading the Scriptures and understanding “righteousness” to mean “punitive righteousness” he threw himself into paroxysms of bitter indignation. “Thus I raged,” he says, “and my conscience was agitated by furious storms. I beat importunately at that passage in Paul, thirsting with a most ardent desire to know what the Apostle meant.” At last the light shone into his understanding, and in reading “the just shall live by faith” with what goes before, he now saw that the “righteousness of God” must be understood in the passive and not the active sense. In other words, the righteousness of God that was revealed in the Gospel was the righteousness provided by Christ and which God mercifully imputes to the sinner believing in Christ. Luther read the passage in Rom. i. 17, as follows:—”For therein is the righteousness of God by faith (Greek, ek pisteos, translated in other places in this Epistle “by faith,” but in the 17th verse, “from faith”) revealed to faith.” That is, in the Gospel “the righteousness of God by faith” is revealed to “faith.” Other interpretations of this great passage have been given by orthodox commentators, but we are merely stating Luther’s view at present. Henceforth, he says, the whole Scripture assumed for him a new aspect. “Therefore,” he adds, “just as I had previously hated the phrase, ‘Justitia Dei’ (righteousness of God), so now I extolled it with equal love as the sweetest of words. And so to me that passage in Paul was the true gate of paradise.” The way for a guilty sinner to God, such as he felt himself to be, was not by works of righteousness, which he had done, but by the righteousness of Another. In his lectures on the Psalms and Romans the complete change of his outlook is clearly reflected, as yet he did not realise that he had come into possession of a truth that was to shake the whole mighty fabric of Romanism from the topmost stone in the building to its very foundations. Rejoicing in his deliverance, he little realised that God had placed in his hand a weapon that was to strike a smashing blow at one of the most tyrannical systems that had ever held the mind of man in thrall.
It was in 1515 that Luther found himself up against the teaching of Rome on indulgences. To begin with, Luther thought he was only waging war against a wandering deceiver in the person of Tetzel, but as the attack developed he learned to his cost that Tetzel was only a unit of a mighty army against which he found himself out to do battle. An Indulgence Bull had been issued by the Pope in 1515, half of the proceeds of which were to go to the Pope and the remainder to Prince Albrecht of Brandenburg. Tetzel was one of the most skilful and pushing of the Indulgence preachers. “As soon as the money in the coffer rings,” said the lying preacher, “the soul from the fire of purgatory springs.” Luther was carefully watching the progress of events; his soul burned with indignation at the cruel deception, and at last when the “Instruction” of the Archbishop of Maitz fell into his hands he felt bound to make a public protest. The whole conception underlying indulgences Luther felt to be at variance with the religion of the New Testament. He drew up his objections to indulgences in a series of theses, in which he appealed to the theologians of Wittenberg and other universities. He assumes throughout that his polemic is in accordance with the mind of the Pope and all good Christians. He sent these Theses with a letter to the Archbishop of Maitz, in the hope that he would put a stop to the reprehensible things done by his agents. At this stage Luther had no thought of breaking with Rome. He still reverenced the Pope and the priesthood, still believed in Penance, though striking against its abuses. Yet in these Theses the doctrine of justification by faith is assumed. It is at the bottom of his antagonism to the gross conception of indulgences. But as yet Luther is not fully conscious that he has struck a blow that is destined to shake the world of Christendom. How he came to realise this and finally to break with Rome is to be told by Dr Mackinnon in his second volume, which is not yet issued, and which we hope to notice when published.