242. Luther on Psalm 118

Martin Luther revered the whole book of Psalms, but there was one psalm that the German Reformer cherished most of all. Today on our journey back through the archives, Dr. Stephen Nichols and Dr. W. Robert Godfrey discuss Luther’s “own beloved psalm.”

Dr. Stephen J. Nichols: Well, it’s still October and we are still celebrating reformation month. We’re going back to the archives of 2017, and we are pulling another episode. It was so much fun to be there in Germany and visit those Luther sites and I wanted to share that with you, so I hope you enjoy this episode on Martin Luther and the Reformation. Thanks so much for listening.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes In Church History. We are making our way through Luther's life, and we are once again on location in Wittenberg. We are in Luther's town and I have a very special guest with me. I have Dr. W. Robert Godfrey and we are here for a conference together, actually in Wittenberg. And Dr. Godfrey, we've been talking about Luther's writings in particular this week on 5 Minutes. And a very important set of those writings would be Luther's commentaries. Now among the many biblical books, what were some of the key biblical books for Luther that he lectured on and wrote commentaries on?

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey: Well, particularly in his formative years, he looked at the Psalms, at Romans, at Galatians, at Hebrews. And you can imagine what a wonderful preparation that is to be a reformer. What better books could you spend time with? And then later in his life, he wrote a very long commentary on Genesis. So Luther's moving through the whole Bible, but those are books that were of particular importance to him.

SN: Let's hone in on one of his treatises within one of those commentaries. This would be his commentary on Psalm 118. Luther wrote this in 1530. Would you mind giving us a little bit of the context of what's going on in Luther's life while he's writing his commentary or his treatise on Psalm 118?

RG: Well, he writes that commentary, which he calls his “Own Beloved Psalm.” It’s so dear to his heart in a period of his life, which was very difficult for him. He was for six months, somewhat isolated in the Castle Coberg and he was there because he wanted to be as close to the city of Augsburg as possible in 1530, where the Imperial Deit was meeting to decide really the fate of the evangelical religion in Germany.

The emperor was back in Germany for the first time since 1521, when he had outlawed Luther. He would not give Luther a safe conduct to come to Augsburg. So Luther, a four days journey away had to wait anxiously for news to reach him and then to write back. So this was a very difficult time, but Luther was not immobilized by it. He wrote some 50 works while he was there. One of them being this marvelous commentary on Psalm 118, his own favorite Psalm.

SN: So he wasn't just wilding away at the time. He was keeping himself rather busy. I think I remember you mentioning at one point too, he was also doing some translation work that would become part of the Old Testament in German. Is that right?

RG: That's right. He was translating the Hebrew prophets into German and eventually would translate the whole Bible into German and really establish the Luther Bible, which was as foundational for Lutheran Protestantism in Germany as the King James version was in English.

SN: As we're looking back again at Psalm 118, it seems like Luther embraced, especially verse 17 of Psalm 118 as a bit of a motto. Why that verse?

RG: Well, that verse, I think, became so precious to him because really that verse was a verse he lived in and lived out of, and it spoke deeply to his heart. It spoke deeply to his spiritual experience, as well as his life in general. And that verse is, "I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord." And that, "I shall not die," is his confidence that God will not abandon him to his enemies before God's timing.

Luther was under no illusion that he would never die physically, but he knew that the Lord would preserve him as long as the Lord wanted to use him. And then, "I shall live." I shall live by the grace of Christ. I shall live by the grace of the one who was rejected for my sins and who was raised to be the head of the corner for my justification. And then Luther's profound sense of his own calling to be a preacher and a teacher. "I shall recount the deeds of the Lord." The Psalm so wonderfully begins with, "The Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever." That was the heart of Luther's gospel. The Lord is good as we see in Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Lord's steadfast love that we see in Jesus Christ endures forever. And so Luther bore that message to the world and that verse strengthened him in almost all the circumstances of his life and encouraged him to go on.

SN: Thank you, Dr. Godfrey. That's Luther on Psalm 118 and I'm Steve Nichols. And thanks for joining us for _5 Minutes In Church History. _