4 Books That Made a Priest Leave the Church

CCC Discover ^ | May 24, 2017 | Nicholas Davis

[Gamecock]

The year 2017 is the year of Martin Luther—or at least it should be. Nearly 500 years ago on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed (or “mailed,” for some historians debate this point) his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church.

Even so, Luther didn’t become a full-fledged protestor of the church in that single moment. It took him about eight years (1513-1521) to challenge and hammer out a more robust understanding of the gospel.

Have you ever wondered what Martin Luther was reading during this crucial time in his life? Maybe I’m just a nerd, but I thought at least someone else might be interested in what Luther was reading during his slow, but steady, transition out of the medieval church and into the world of reformation.

Remember, Luther’s goal wasn’t to invent or start an entirely new church. His goal was to reform the church and call her to repentance and faith in the abiding Word of God.

Here are four books Martin Luther read that made him question everything:

1. The Psalms Luther spent time studying and lecturing through the Psalms in the Bible. He began to realize that the Bible teaches we are not generally sinful, we are totally sinful. Here, Luther had the beginnings of what theologians later would refer to as “total depravity,” meaning that we are sinful in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

2. Romans After that, Luther lectured through Paul’s letter to the Romans. He came across Romans 1:17, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” The last part of this verse is a direct quotation from Habakkuk 2:4.

Luther began to see something that he never saw before. He began to see the doctrine of imputation—that we are declared right before God not by our own righteousness, but by the righteousness of another. He began to understand that the righteousness of God that was such a terror to him as a priest (because it told him that he was unholy and unworthy), was actually the righteousness from God that told him he was holy and worthy. God gives this right standing by faith alone. It is a righteousness that is received as a gift and not earned.

3. Galatians It wasn’t until Luther started lecturing through Galatians that he began to realize that faith does not justify us before God. Faith is merely an instrument that God uses. Faith is a tool by which we embrace Jesus Christ as he is offered to us in the gospel.

Faith is, as John Murry once said, “extrospective.” It looks outward—not inward—to embrace the God who gives himself. In other words, faith is only an empty hand. It justifies because it grabs hold of the Jesus who justifies (Rom. 3:26).

4. Hebrews The last book that turned a medieval priest into a true Reformer was the letter to the Hebrews. Luther began to embrace an entirely different understanding of how the Old and New Testaments relate to one another. He realized that the law is not simply the Old Testament and the gospel is the New Testament, but that the gospel of God can be seen as preached throughout both Old and New Testaments.

The same Jesus of the same gospel was offered freely to both Jew and Gentile alike, throughout the whole Bible. Sure, there was a greater and fuller proclamation of that message, such that it went out to the whole world instead of only Israel and their close neighbors—but the gospel was preached nonetheless!

In short, reading and studying the Bible is what ultimately made Martin Luther “protest” the medieval church. Luther was convinced that the Bible was worth listening to. So this year we celebrate the anniversary of a “recovery of the bright light of the gospel.” To God alone be all the glory (Soli Deo Gloria).

[af_vet_1981]

You have not yet replied specifically to the passages I cited. All you just gave me was a talking point and then told me I was going to Hell.

To which posts on this thread are you referring ?

[papertyger]

To which posts on this thread are you referring ?

Get used to it. These people LOVE to strain at your literary "gnats," but expect you to swallow their "camels."

[editor-surveyor]

.
Are you simply not aware that Esther was produced in the second temple period?

And the term “Jew” was only used in the English translations.
.

[Luircin]

“I believe all the scriptures, even those the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction, even as do those who once believed and with the passage of years mistreated the beloved of God, imagining they were saved by the doctrines re-formed by the leaders of their faith communities, as if they could make the words of the Messiah of no effect with their studies, ever learning and yet never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. “

How is that NOT informing me I’m damned, hmm?

You still didn’t answer. Paul says plainly that we are saved by grace, not works. Multiple times. How are you going to reconcile that?

[editor-surveyor]

.
BTW, Yehudi does not mean “Jewish,” but of Yehuda’s tribe.

The two are not interchangeable,except to followers of the idiocy of Hal Lindsay.

Judaism is phariseeism, not a genetic label, but the name of a man made sect.

[af_vet_1981]

The dependence of the re-formation of the Christian on Luther is profound. If he is cut asunder and assigned a place with the hypocrites, with weeping and gnashing of teeth, it exposes all who followed his false teaching to risk of ruin. If the blind lead the blind, both fall into a ditch.

One English Protestant compared Martin Luther to Henry VIII :

There is very little to be said for this coarse and foul-mouthed leader of a revolution. It is a real misfortune for humanity that he appeared just at the crisis in the Christian world. Even our burly Defender of the Faith was not a worse man, and did far less mischief. We must hope that the next swing of the pendulum will put an end to Luther's influence in Germany.”

Very Rev. W. R. Inge,(in the Church of England Newspaper”, August 4, 1944).

[Luircin]

You two claim to be Catholic, do you not?

I’ve read Catholic doctrine. It’s salvation by works. Pretty it up all you like, but in the end it’s still that you have to do good things in order to ‘earn’ grace, which in itself is a paradox.

On top of that, the repeated Scripture posts from afvet are used for repeated Catholic talking points AGAINST salvation by grace. I believe them in the light of St. Paul’s writings and all else Jesus said. If you don’t believe official Catholic teaching, I have no idea what you believe because you won’t tell me.

So either you believe in salvation by works, or you don’t believe in your own church doctrine.

So start explaining, or evade more and admit by implication that you have not a single leg to stand on.

If you DO believe in salvation by grace, why are you constantly talking up having to do good works or else?

Get to it. Bible is available pretty much everywhere. Tell me how I’m supposed to gain salvation and show me in Scripture where it is, especially in light of St. Paul’s repeated assurances of grace and not works.

[Luircin]

Yawn.

You keep talking about Luther. I keep talking about Jesus and St. Paul.

Stop your evasion and deal with Scripture, not your impotent rage against blessed Dr. Luther.

[daniel1212]

"Scripture the criterion by which truth and heresy are distinguished."-Clement of Alexandria

Must have been one of those Protestant converts.

[Songcraft]

Thanks for that information.

Just a point of inquiry - in the post you deleted, I asked that other poster two questions, and also had a sentence in there saying essentially that I did not want to continue any discussions with another man who was calling me "sweetheart", and "pouty" in his posts to me (post 81 & 139), as I found that to be very weird. How is that mindreading?

[daniel1212]

Persist in posting the Truth, in season and out of season. God alone knows who is reading and His Spirit is ‘pricking’.

Indeed.

[Songcraft]

Correction to my post 170 - I meant to refer to post 81 & post 130.

[af_vet_1981]

Yawn.

You keep talking about Luther.

This thread is about Luther. I am writing about him. You are writing about him. It seems to me if one didn't want to read or write about him one would leave the thread.

[af_vet_1981]

Yawn.

You keep talking about Luther.

This thread is about Luther. I am writing about him. You are writing about him. It seems to me if one didn't want to read or write about him one would leave the thread.

[Religion Moderator]

I will not argue or debate with posters.

Your statement:

“Don’t tell me - I already know what you’re going to say.”

...is considered personal and mindreading.

You cannot know what another poster is going to say.

I suggest you take your own advice and stay in he news forum until you decide to understand and follow the guidelines for the Religion Forum.

[Luircin]

Keep on evading. I see you still haven’t addressed ANY of the points I made about salvation by grace.

The post you replied to was about Scripture. The original article is primarily about Scripture. You decided to attack Dr. Luther with NO reference to Scripture.

But okay. If you wanna talk about Luther, here we go. If Luther’s teachings match Jesus and St. Paul, then Luther was correct and the Romanists are wrong, and Protestants are right and Romanists are wrong.

So once again we come back to Jesus and St. Paul.

Now answer my challenges.

[Religion Moderator]

It’s protocol in the Religion Forum to address posters by their sign on name instead of nicknames.

Please comply.

[af_vet_1981]

I’ve read Catholic doctrine.

Did you read this ?

GRACE

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God's gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.47

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:48

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.49 2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God's interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.

2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"50

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.51

2002 God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of "eternal life" respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

If at the end of your very good works . . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by the voice of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed "very good" since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on the sabbath of eternal life.52

2003 Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces, gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning "favor," "gratuitous gift," "benefit."53 Whatever their character - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church.54

2004 Among the special graces ought to be mentioned the graces of state that accompany the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and of the ministries within the Church:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.55

2005 Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved.56 However, according to the Lord's words "Thus you will know them by their fruits"57 - reflection on God's blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.

A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: "Asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied: 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.'"58

[Religion Moderator]

Do not make personal sexual references to other posters.

Your post #173 has been removed.