When Martin had the wonderful Romans revelation about Grace and Faith, did it come from his common sense or did he experience a personal encounter with Our Lord Jesus Christ? My vote, of course, is that he experienced a personal encounter. I would even say he was Born Again.
It came from the Holy Spirit:
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:12-15)
This is the historic Gospel for Cantate Sunday, the 4th Sunday after Easter. You can check that in your TLH, p. 70. That is, last Sunday. All enlightenment comes from the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament.
The mistake so many make is to assume that everything comes at once. As if, when one comes to faith, the Holy Spirit flips the main circuit breaker in the house that is our heart and mind and suddenly all the lights come on. But that is not the way it worked for the apostles, nor for anyone else in the Bible, including Jesus Himself in His state of humiliation. It is more like this, that as we meditate upon the Word of God, living our baptisms (living lives of daily repentance, see the Small Catechism) and receiving the Sacrament, the Holy Spirit goes through the rooms of our house one by one, turning on a light here and a light there, as and when it pleases Him. (see John 3:8) And in our fallen state we often follow behind Him, turning off this or that light. But in the end it is the grace of God that wins out, and enough lights remain on to guide us in life and through life to eternal life.
In the case of Jesus, the same thing happened. With one exception. Because He had no sin, nor was His understanding clouded or diminished in any way, because He was untouched by original sin, when He meditated on God’s Word the lights the Holy Spirit turned on stayed on until all were burning brightly. This Man, when He began His earthly ministry, understood the Holy Scriptures as no one ever had before or since. He understood every verse, every phrase, every word, from beginning to end.
When He, at 12 years old, departed from Jerusalem knowing that He was the promised Messiah, Luke tells us: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52) Great indeed is the mystery of godliness, that God was manifested in the flesh.
Luther’s understanding came from the Holy Spirit. All Christian understanding comes from the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit works through the Word.
Why vote, he wrote about it. His 'revelation' about Grace and Faith came from the Holy Spirit and an objective reading of the Scriptures. Brother Martin was baptized, he had been born again. If you submit he had a 'revelation' then it had to come from God as God is the source of 'revelation'. The Word was always before him, the Holy Spirit illuminated, for lack of a better term, the text so that he could understand it.
My question to you is this: What makes you think that Confessional Lutheranism isn't about a personal relationship? The words used in the Bible, brothers, sons of God, heirs, Father all describe relationships. Through Christ we are sons, God is our Father, though infinitely better than our earthly fathers. In Luther instruction for determining fitness for the Lord's Supper he emphasizes that the prospective communicant understand 'given and shed FOR YOU' (my emphasis). Sounds personal to me.