Thesis #37

Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses are well known as the spark of the Protestant Reformation. Luther drew on a mountain of scholarship in drafting the theses, and in one thesis in particular, there is a phrase that has a fascinating history. In thesis 37, Luther is engaging letters of pardon. These, of course, are the indulgences that sparked Luther's ire and led him to post the Ninety-Five Theses. And so, for the previous few theses, he'd been carrying on about how this practice of the church was simply wrong, and in thesis 37, this is what he says: "Every true Christian whether living or dead has part in all the benefits of Christ and the church and this is granted to him by God, even without letters of pardon." His reference to Christians living or dead refers to the practice of buying indulgences for dead relatives in purgatory. Luther is telling us that participating in the benefits of Christ has nothing to do with an indulgence but is granted to us by God.

That is the phrase that I'd like to talk to you about. The phrase in Latin is participatio omnium bonorum. In English, we would say that you participate in all the benefits of Christ and the church. Luther first came across this phrase in studying Thomas Aquinas. Thomas talked about this phrase because of his discussion of Plato and Aristotle. There was a bit of a debate in Aristotle's Ethics where he took on Plato. The debate centered on whether the good can only be known in and of itself or if the good is found in all things and can be known in all things and, therefore, can be participated in through all things. Part of that philosophical discussion was really after a crucial question, that of the meaning of life. How do we know what is the good? How can we do the good? That's the ethical question. And how do we live the good? We might say, borrowing a line from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, how can we enjoy the good?

Thomas Aquinas engaged that debate and challenged both Plato and Aristotle by saying that we participate in the good, and all of the good, in God. Do you see what Luther is doing here in thesis 37? He is telling us that all of the good, omnium bonorum, is in Christ and in the church. The Reformers would develop this phrase, "the participation in all the benefits of Christ," into a wonderful doctrine that we call union with Christ. And Luther and the Reformers got that from Paul. We see it in texts such as Ephesians 1:3, where Paul tells us, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ"—that's the key phrase, "in Christ"—"with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." So, there we have it. In Christ, we participate in all the benefits.

A wonderful Greek word that comes to us in the pages of the New Testament is the word koinōnia. It means "fellowship." There is true koinōnia among the members of the Godhead, and because of Christ alone and what He has done for us, we then, participate in fellowship with God through Christ. We can know the good, we can do the good, and we can even live and enjoy the good.