“The True Treasure of the Church”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen. Nearly 500 years ago on October 31, 1517 a monk named Martin Luther
nailed a piece of paper to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany.
Nailing up a notice was actually not unusual, because in those days the church
door served as the town bulletin board. But, this particular notice written by
Luther was extremely unusual compared to the accepted religious ideas at the
time. Just as the first shot fired in 1775 at Lexington, Massachusetts was
called the “shot heard round the world,” because it set off the American
Revolution, you could call Luther’s nailing the notice to the church door that
day the “hammer heard round the world,” because it set off the Reformation, a
worldwide spiritual revolution, which we are commemorating today. The topic Luther was writing about was the sale of what were called
“indulgences,” which are based on the unbiblical teaching of purgatory.
Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise,”
and the Apostle Paul says in Philippians, “I desire to depart and be with
Christ, which is better by far.” So, the Bible clearly teaches that at the
moment of death the souls of all who trust in Christ go immediately to be with
him in paradise. But, during the Dark Ages a false doctrine arose, not
taught anywhere in the Bible, that when you die you must first suffer some
remaining punishment in a supposed “purgatory.” Based on this false
doctrine, it was claimed indulgences were like a “get out of purgatory free
card” that you could purchase, supposedly granting time off from purgatory and
immediate entrance into heaven in exchange for your cash payment. The purpose of the 95 Theses that Luther nailed to the castle church
door was to challenge this false doctrine and call for a scholarly debate about
them. Luther’s 95 Theses were revolutionary, the “hammer heard round the
world,” because he was beginning to lead the church out of the Dark Ages and
back to teachings of God’s Word. Jesus told the Pharisees, “In vain they do worship me, teaching for
doctrines the commandments of men.” That was the sorry state of the church
at the beginning of the Reformation. Just coming out of the Dark Ages, the
church had built up a whole series of false doctrines, such as purgatory and
indulgences, which made it almost unrecognizable as Biblical Christianity.
That’s because during the Dark Ages very few clergy knew the original Bible
languages of Greek and Hebrew, and many clergy were even illiterate and could
not read and write any language. Early on in the Reformation when Luther
visited the churches in Saxony he was shocked to find clergy who didn’t even
know the Ten Commandments, Apostles’ Creed, or the Lord’s Prayer, let alone the
Bible itself. “Good God!” he said. “What wretchedness I beheld!
Many of the pastors are completely ignorant and incompetent.” Luther, on the other hand, was a brilliant Bible scholar, fluent in
Greek and Hebrew. When he received his doctorate degree at age 28 he was
the youngest person in history up to that time ever to be awarded a doctorate.
Last year we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the King James Version, but 90
years before the King James Version, Luther had already translated the entire
Bible into German. With the end of the Dark Ages and the dawn of the
Renaissance and Reformation, Luther was leading the church back to the Word of
God, to rediscover what God actually says in his Word. One of the Bible passages that would come to mean so much to Luther is
today’s Epistle Reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans. There is a parallel
between Paul’s situation and Luther’s. The book of Romans is like Paul’s
own 95 Theses. Because, like Luther, Paul was challenging the accepted,
but false, religious ideas of his Hebrew people as they came out of their own
Dark Ages. Chronologically, there’s about a 400 year gap between the Old Testament
and the New Testament, about the same length of time as the Dark Ages in Europe.
This time between the testaments was the Dark Ages of the Hebrew people, when
the prophets ceased, but the Messiah had not yet come. Like the Christian
church in the Dark Ages, during this gap the Pharisees and other Hebrew leaders
wandered from the Word and developed distorted doctrines not based on the
Scriptures. The Old Testament makes clear that we are sinners and cannot save
ourselves. Just before today’s Epistle Reading, Paul quotes some of these
passages from the Old Testament to make this point that we cannot save
ourselves: “All alike are under sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one
righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who
does good, not even one.’” But, during their own Dark Ages, the Hebrew people developed the false
doctrine, not found anywhere in the Old Testament, that they could fully obey
the Law of God and therefore earn their own salvation. That is why they
rejected Christ as their Savior, because you don’t need a Savior if you can save
yourself. Paul challenges this false notion and declares that the Law cannot make
us righteous. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. . .
Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.”
What we do to keep the Law could never make us right with God, because we could
never do enough. By the time of the Reformation, the Christian church had fallen back
into this same false doctrine, that with our good works we can earn our own
salvation. In fact, the church went so far as to say that you can
literally buy your way into heaven. Because they needed money to complete
St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and one way to raise money was to sell
indulgences, certificates supposedly granting God’s par— and release from
purgatory. A monk named John Tetzel came selling indulgences in Germany. He
was a real huckster, who preached the supposed miraculous powers of indulgences
to forgive all sins and guarantee entrance into heaven. He also urged
people to buy indulgences on behalf of departed loved ones supposedly suffering
in purgatory, so that finally they could enjoy the blessings of heaven.
And because the people and even many of the clergy were ignorant of Scripture,
most believed Tetzel’s claim that whoever bought an indulgence received full
forgiveness of sins in exchange for their payment. Tetzel even had a
catchy sales jingle, “As soon as a coin in the box rings, another soul into
heaven springs.” As a result, many people were led astray to believe that they
did not need to repent of their sins, or trust in Christ for salvation, or live
a godly life, because they could just buy their way into heaven. Luther was outraged when he heard about this. The clear teachings of
God’s Word and the Gospel of Christ were being denied by the very church that
was supposed to proclaim them. Luther protested the sale of indulgences because
it threatened to destroy a Christian’s faith in Christ and relationship with
God. It is that same concern for souls, that same concern for getting the
Gospel right, that moved Paul to write to the Roman Christians. Paul was
pleading with them to understand that the Law cannot save people. “For all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . . Therefore no one will be
declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.” So, if we can’t earn it ourselves, how are we saved? Paul continues,
“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which
the Law and the Prophets testify.” Just as Luther pointed the church in
his day back to the teachings of the Bible, Paul is telling the Hebrew people
that the truth of salvation by grace, through faith in Christ, was there all
along in their Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly called the Law and the
Prophets. “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made
known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.” The Old Testament
clearly proclaims the Good News that the Messiah is bringing salvation to the
world as a gift of God, earned not by our good works, but earned for us by his
good works. As Jesus said, “These are the Scriptures that testify about
me.” Isaiah proclaims that he will take our sins upon himself and suffer for
them in our place: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for
our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his
wounds we are healed.” Jeremiah says that his righteousness will be
credited to us: “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill
the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from
David’s line; he will bring justice and righteousness to the earth. . .
This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’”
The Lord declares in Jeremiah that salvation is not by works but by his gracious
forgiveness: “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins
no more.” And in the very last verses of the Old Testament, the final
prophesy of the coming Messiah compares his coming and the dawning of the New
Testament era to the rising of the sun: “But for you who revere my name the Sun
of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.” “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known,
to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God
comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God
presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. . .
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” Luther used what Paul wrote to demonstrate from Scripture that we are
not saved by the things we do. We are saved by what Jesus has done for us. God
offered his Son as “a sacrifice of atonement.” We receive forgiveness and
eternal life “through faith in His blood.” In his 95 Theses, Luther began
to call the church back to the Word of God, back to the Gospel the church in his
day had largely forgotten, back to the Good News that Christianity is really all
about: Your sins are all forgiven because God presented his own Son as a
sacrifice of atonement; you are justified freely by his grace; you are righteous
through faith in Jesus Christ. Luther put it this way in his Thesis # 62:
“The true treasure of the church is the most holy Gospel of the glory and grace
of God.” Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office
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