Luther in 5 Sayings: Defender of Scripture

At the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther boldly affirmed Scripture’s authority over all else—including church councils and papal decrees. Today, Stephen Nichols examines this pivotal moment and Luther’s final words, “We are beggars. This is true.”

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we are finishing what we started last week. We ended with talking about Luther and the doctrine of salvation and solus Christus and sola fide and sola gratia. Well, the next saying, the fourth saying of Luther has to do with sola scriptura. It is his famous declaration given at Worms, “Here I stand.” Let's look at his speech in full. Luther, standing before the prince, standing before all these leaders of the church and the dukes of Germany, and here he is in the simple trappings of a monk standing by himself. He says, “Since then, your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer. I will give it in this manner, not embellished.” An actual, literal translation would be, “without horns.” And then he says, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, for I do not trust either in the Pope or in counsels alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradict themselves. I'm bound to the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot, and I will not retract anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against my conscience. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. May God help me. Amen.” Well, this is a clear articulation of the doctrine of sola Scriptura. We were talking last week about Luther's journey to faith, being disillusioned by his church and recognizing that he was coming to a very different view of salvation than that of his church. And so that raises a very obvious question. By what authority, Luther, on what basis do you arrive at this view and on what basis can you put this view forward in contradiction to the church? And Luther said, “Well, the church leans on its councils and leans on the edicts of popes. My source will be scripture.” And not simply scripture, but as we looked at last week, it's not just Christ, it's Christ alone. And so Luther says it's not just scripture, it is scripture alone. And this was articulated, this doctrine of sola scriptura, not in the cool academic closets, but in this moment of debate where a lot was at stake because the ruling at Worms was that Luther was excommunicated. Not only kicked out of his church, but to be excommunicated in that moment and in that time meant that the church had just declared you damned and that your soul would be condemned to hell. The other thing that happened at Worms was Luther got a death sentence upon his head. So, the stakes were high as our friend Luther articulated that statement and those wonderful words, “Here I stand.”

Well, for our fifth and final statement, we will go to the final words that Luther wrote as he was dying, and he was back at Eisleben. The town, interestingly enough, of his birth is where Luther died. Of course, in between quite a bit happened over that lifetime. But as he gets to the end of his life, he grabs a piece of paper and he writes, “Nobody can understand Virgil unless he has been a shepherd for five years. Nobody can understand Cicero and his epistles unless he has lived for twenty-five years in a large empire.” Luther is hearkening back to his early childhood days and his classical studies and reading these classic texts. And then he turns his attention to scripture, “Let no one think that he has sufficiently grasped the holy scriptures unless he has governed the churches for a hundred years with the prophets on one side and Christ and the apostles on the other.” Of course, that's Luther. We love his hyperbole, but he's talking about just the beauty and the wonder of scripture, which he devoted his life to. And then he says, “Don't venture on this divine Aeneid but rather bow before it in reverence.” And then he adds, “We are beggars. This is true.” So there it is. Luther's saying that we all need to be reminded of we are beggars. That's Luther in five sayings. And I'm Steve Nichols and thanks for joining us for 5 minutes in Church History.