The 500th Anniversary of the Reformation is being celebrated this year, 2017. Why? Because historians acknowledge and date the beginning of the Reformation to October 31, 1517, the day Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
(Since I will be in Europe for a Reformation 500 trip with others from Bethel, I will be sharing Theses 24- 40 here in one space. For the previous theses, see this same blog. As previously mentioned, I am using Martin Luther's 95 Theses with Introduction, Commentary, and Study Guide by Timothy Wengert.)
47. Christians are to be taught that buying indulgences is a matter of free choice, not commanded.
48. Christians are to be taught that the pope, while granting indulgences, needs and thus desires their devout prayer for him more than their money.
49. Christians are to be taught that papal indulgences are useful only if they do not put their trust in them but extremely harmful if they lose their fear of God because of them.
50. Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the demands made by the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the Basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than that it be constructed using the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.
51. Christians are to be taught that the pope ought to give and would want to give of his own wealth -- even selling the Basilica of St. Peter if necessary -- to those from whom certain declaimers of indulgences are wheedling money.
52. It is vain to trust in salvation by means of indulgence letter, even if the [indulgence] agent -- or even the pope himself -- were to offer his own soul as security for them.
53. People who forbid the preaching of the Word of God in some churches altogether in order that indulgences may be preached in others are enemies of Christ and the pope.
These theses show that Luther was centrally frustrated by the danger that indulgences (i.e buying salvation) would supplant faith in Christ in the naive person of faith. He put the responsibility for this on the "indulgence preachers" assuming the best possible action on the part of the pope (like he later states in his explanation of the 8th commandment). Luther assumes that the pope is generally unaware of what is happening with indulgences. It is only when he realizes that the pope himself is complicit, that Luther begins a verbal diatribe against the pope.
Lord Jesus, lead us into stronger and braver faith. Amen.
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