Roland Bainton, in his landmark work on the life of Martin Luther entitled Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, presents a thorough and straightforward recounting of the life of the reformer. Bainton doesn’t hide Luther’s humanity but rather shows how God used him, his struggles, his weaknesses, and experiences to shine light on the darkness which covered the Catholic Church. As one reads the book, it becomes clear that Luther never set out to be, nor thought of himself as, anything like the nearly superhero figure so many today think him. Rather, Martin Luther is consistently shown as a humble servant of God, who was held captive by the guilt of his own sin and who only found freedom in the death and resurrection of Christ. Luther’s conscience was bound to Scripture and sickened by the abuse of the church. He deeply desired for the church to be set free by the light of the Gospel of Christ. This mixture of personal torment and scriptural enlightenment birthed what we now call the Reformation.

It is no secret that Luther didn’t always have the best judgment or exhibit the strongest discernment. This can be seen in his statements concerning the Jews, Anabaptists, the papists, the Roman Empire, and even in his writings on polygamy. However, Luther was a man of convictions. A man who was deeply troubled by sin, ruthlessly attacked by the devil, buffeted by depression, and who cleaved to grace found in Jesus Christ.

Luther’s impact was and still is deeply felt, changing the course of history, not only for the Germans, but the entire Roman empire, and world. God used him as a measuring rod, striking the church and bringing reform to its practices and offering hope to broken lives. Roland Bainton does a wonderful job illustrating how God used a depressed, fearful monk as an instrument of His grace, glory, and truth. Although the book was hard to read at times due to its age and use of older language, it was enlightening and encouraging to see Luther not as a superhero bashing the mountain of the Papacy, but as a sinner striving to live in the light of the Gospel of Christ.

Pr. Eric Christenson
Amery Free Lutheran Church
Amery, WI

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As a Lutheran, in the past I often referred to the “95 Theses” but had never actually read Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in their entirety.

Martin Luther wrote the theses and nailed them to the church door with the intention that they would be a starting point for debate with other church leaders or scholars. However, the debate never happened. Instead, Luther set the Catholic world on fire and started a revolution that became the Protestant church. A lot of the Ninety-Five Theses were in direct response to the new indulgences that were being sold by Tetzel, which he said forgave past, present, and future sins without any acts of repentance or penitence. Luther saw this as a direct contradiction to what the Bible said about repentance as well as what the Catholic Church taught about repentance. Now, instead of works of merit or repentance, you could simply buy your way free, and the burden was simply on being able to afford it. It was all about you, and there was nothing about the essential working of salvation and redemption to the process any more. In the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther doesn’t outright condemn all indulgences. It was the start of the process for him to untangle what he thought about them, and it wasn’t until later on that he realized he shouldn’t have continued to affirm the pope and indulgences and changed his viewpoint on these things and others.

Martin Luther had struggled his whole life to find freedom from feeling unworthy and sinful. To buy your way free went against everything he had struggled with. His Ninety-Five Theses helped him and other Catholics to start defining and discussing that the Church had begun to sell doctrine, turning theology into a money-making scheme. From this, Luther went back to what were to him the essentials of the faith—that grace and forgiveness were through Christ and the Word alone, not the Church.

The Ninety-Five Theses are very interesting to read, especially since so many of them are immersed in the world of Catholic theology at the time of 1517. This version I read, with edits by Stephen J. Nichols, had some interesting additions of notes that helped to describe the background of what was going on with each of the theses and what each was in response to.

Reading of the Ninety-Five Theses feels like a dipping of a toe in the waters of a much deeper theological and historical context, and I recommend following it with reading of further works by Martin Luther as he develops his thoughts more thoroughly based on his study of Scripture and moves further away from the practices of the Catholic Church.

Esther Moberg
AFLBS Alumni/Former AFLC Schools Librarian
Seaside, OR

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