Calvin and Luther – Sola Scriptura

This week will mark the 509^th Anniversary of what is often pointed to as the start of the Reformation.  On October 31^st, 1517, Martin Luther posted on the door of the church in Wittenberg his 95 theses. While history has tended to romanticize this event as a declaration against the hierarchy of the church and a corrupt leadership, the reality is that these theses were posted by Luther in an attempt to open a dialogue.  Luther’s goal was not to break the church apart; rather, his goal was to ask the church leaders to examine what he perceived to be as disconnects between what he read in the Bible and what the church practiced.  But Luther was not just looking at these disconnects as a purely academic examination of the faith, he was posting these theses as a result of his own personal struggle to live as a disciple of Christ.  What he had been taught by the church in his seminary training was not able to be reconciled when he was reading the Scriptures.

One of the key points that Luther struggled with was how his good deeds could influence God’s decision to grant him salvation from his sins.  The church leadership had long told the people that their good works were pleasing to God and that God would look more favourably on those who did what was right.  And if you did fall short, you could always cover those failings by purchasing indulgences – a form of offering designed to make you more acceptable to God and thereby guarantee that you would receive the forgiving grace of God.  Luther’s own inner conflict – in which he agonized, even despaired over his inability to adequately do good works – led him to wonder if anyone could truly be saved.

In the letter of Paul to the Romans, he found what he believed to be the answer: “The one who is righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17).   What Luther understood from this passage is that good works have no bearing on God’s decision to save and to forgive. The decision to save is God’s alone. Our decision is to accept that salvation for what it truly is - a gift - and our response of thankfulness is to seek to do what is right and pleasing in God’s eyes in order that we may reveal how God has directed us to be with one another.   This revelation brought a real sense of peace and what Luther would call real “Christian freedom.” No longer did he feel bound by fear or worry, and he wanted to share that with others.

As I mentioned, Luther’s goal was not to start a whole new church but to reform the church from where it was to where he believed it needed to be. And that is a goal that those of us in the Reformed tradition are to ever keep before us.  We can so easily fail to understand the historical and cultural setting in which the Scriptures were first recorded and translation work – though very diligent – can lead to a translation that does not capture the true sense of what the original language is saying. There are also times when we may interpret a passage of Scripture from our own cultural or historical perspective and so miss the true intent of what has been recorded. Whenever we choose to read the Scriptures with an open mind seeking for the Spirit of God to illumine our reading, we often discover a hidden message that may become plain but before we were unable or unwilling to see. It is so easy for those of us who have spent our lives in the church to become closed to the possibility that we have misinterpreted a message and taken the church and our faith in a direction that does not properly reflect and communicate the gospel of our Lord. And when we find that we have misinterpreted or misrepresented the gospel message, it is critical that we make amends and seek forgiveness from those whom we have misled or even harmed physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.

For Luther, the lack of spirituality, the lack of real desire on the part of the church’s leadership to even consider his concerns led him to believe that the answers he sought could only come from the Bible itself. Sola Scriptura became one of the marks of the reforming movement and has remained for our denomination the most prominent component of any decisions that we make with regard to doctrine or practice.

Luther’s strong belief in the Word of God as contained in the Bible led to his desire to translate the Bible into the language of his country and then to encourage all people to learn to read it for themselves.  The publication of Die Bibel – Luther’s   translation of the Bible in German – enabled the people in the pews to not need to depend on the interpretation given by the priests but allowed them to learn what God had said for themselves.  This led to the need for people to become literate and raised the need for education among the general population – not just the rich and powerful.  Luther had a deep desire for all people to have faith in God and in God’s forgiving grace not out of fear that they could never do enough to earn that forgiving grace but out of a love for God and a desire to try their best to follow the will of God as a thankful response to God’s generous gift.

John Calvin is another important figure in the Reformation.  Born in France, Calvin studied law. While at university, he became acquainted with a radical student movement that sought to reform both church and society by encouraging studying the Bible in its original languages. The Latin translation by Jerome had been the standard for centuries. But people had begun challenging the interpretation that the Latin translation had made the standard. People believed that examining the original texts was necessary in order to better understand the message contained in the Bible.  But even more it was critical to give people the opportunity to read and hear the Bible read in their own language. This practice of studying the Scriptures in the original languages was a radical move and one that was not well received by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, but the fact that it survived and flourished in spite of opposition, has been of great assistance to the work of translation even today.

In 1533, intolerance of the reform movement was growing, and Calvin went to Basel in Switzerland where there was tolerance for the ideas of the Reformers. Except for a brief time spent in Strasbourg, Calvin remained in Switzerland for the rest of his life spending his last years in Geneva where many of his reforms were adopted by the local community and from where such reformers as John Knox received their instruction.

Like Luther, Calvin struggled with the issues that he saw in how the faith had been represented to the people and the world. Among the more significant reforms of Calvin was the change that he made in church order.  Pastors and teachers would be responsible to preach and explain the Scriptures, elders would represent the congregation and be the administrators of the church, and deacons would attend to charitable responsibilities. This order speaks directly to that order of early church life that was spoken of by Paul and others where the church was established in the first century.

Some other interesting things to note about Calvin. While it was important for the church to have leaders and followers, he did not believe that women were to naturally be subordinated to men. In his day in Geneva, the double standard of sexual morality was rejected.

Another thing to note is that while Calvin emphasized knowledge of Scripture because of his strong insistence on learning, he did not believe in a purely intellectual understanding of faith. Faith was a matter of head and heart. In fact, Calvin believed that it is one’s experience of God is critical to knowing God.  God needed to enter one’s heart and soul and not just be in one’s head.  Calvin also believed that each person was on a spiritual journey and that each person grew in their faith as they explored their relationship to God through study, prayer, sacrament, worship, and practice.

The legacy of the Reformation is still with us today. The struggles that Luther and Calvin had as they sought to live out their faith and come to new understandings of how to be the people of God and respond to the salvation of God are still with us today.  To somehow believe that the Reformation of the 15^th and 16^th centuries has defined our faith today in ways that cannot be challenged or debated really denies the very foundation from which that movement came. What motivated those reformers was their own questions and concerns, their own internal struggles of heart and mind that caused them to question the accepted practices and interpretations of the faith in their day.  Expressing those struggles and concerns, asking those questions caused each of them to suffer – some more than others. But their belief that those questions needed to be asked and those concerns raised led to positive changes that made all the difference in the lives of other believers.  It is often said that the process of reformation needs to ever be before the church.  The church needs to be open to being challenged and prepared to examine its understanding of Scripture so that faith will be seen as something with a present and a future and not just something remembered from the past.

AMEN