freely bestowed was not the norm in popular piety in the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation. The notion of God as a stern judge was common during the High Middle Ages, from the fourteenth century to the period prior to the Reformation. The belief that God delighted in sending recalcitrant sinners to hell kept faithful persons on guard lest they anger this fearful divine power. Many of the faithful lived in fear that they would be severely punished for their infractions.
The Roman Catholic Church claimed the power to mediate God's grace and God's correction to the faithful. The sacrament of penance or confession administered by the church during this period did little to diminish the fear engendered in the faithful. God, the all-powerful judge, could be placated by making one's confession to a priest, receiving absolution from him, and carrying out any assigned penance. Normally the penance imposed by the priest was some act or good work. Confession and absolution were deemed effective only if the penitent had a truly contrite heart.
By the High Middle Ages this process of confession had been complicated by the widespread and increasingly corrupt use of indulgences. In the eleventh century the practice emerged of allowing believers to make a contribution to the church and receive in exchange a paper (indulgence) that could be used to satisfy the penance phase of absolution. The contribution to the church constituted a “good work.” Those who could afford it were able to make contributions to Rome and receive indulgences that would meet future penitential obligations required for absolution.
By the sixteenth century, many religious leaders were abusing the use of indulgences. People who could afford them were able to purchase these substitutions for penitential acts in anticipation of sins they would commit. From the perspective of the church, these indulgences had become useful ways to raise funds. But the widespreading selling of indulgences by the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel alarmed and infuriated an Augustinian monk and priest named Martin Luther. Luther discovered that his congregants could purchase in Magdeburg, the region across the river from Saxony, papal-authorized letters of jubilee indulgences (for rebuilding St. Peter's Cathedral) that Frederick the Elector had refused to sell in Saxony. Luther's parishioners now arrived for confession with these letters that granted pardons not only to them but also to their forebears in purgatory. When Luther refused to grant absolution in cases where there was obviously no genuine repentance, the holders of the indulgences appealed to Tetzel.
Luther's actions created a controversy; Tetzel contended that Luther was failing to obey the pope's instructions. Luther, who protested to Archbishop Albert, did not know that the sale of these indulgences raised money not only for St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome but also for Albert. Albert was using the money to relieve the debt he had incurred gaining papal consent for extending the boundaries of his archbishopric.
Luther's disdain for clerical abuse of indulgences, both in regard to the way they were used by the church for monetary gain and in their impact on the lives of penitents who in some instances did not even feign contrite hearts, created a crisis for Luther. With the publication of the ninety-five theses, On the Power of Indulgences, in late October of 1517 Luther's objections were made public. For his refusal to accept the bidding of Rome in these matters, he soon was in open opposition with significant power bases within the church.
In the midst of this turmoil in early 1518, Luther, a scholar of the scriptures, was studying Romans 1:16–17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” Luther had been taught that from God's righteousness comes punishment for the unrighteous. Romans 1:18, for example, contends that God's wrath is revealed from heaven to punish the unrighteous. These passages troubled Luther considerably. “Despite his irreproachable life as a monk, he felt himself a sinner before God and was therefore extremely disturbed in his conscience. He was unable to trust that he could placate God through his own works of satisfaction. He therefore was not able to love God, but rather hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.”8
Then, although allowing himself to express his rage toward God in the midst of his ongoing study of these passages, he attained a new theological insight. Suddenly he experienced his own sense that one did not have to earn the approval of God, the stern judge. Luther recognized that God's saving love was offered as a gift to believers. His fear—reinforced by the phrase “the righteousness of God”—now was viewed in the context of the earlier phrase, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.” With that change in focus Luther's experience of God and his theology were transformed. Luther no longer believed he had to earn God's favor; it was a gift granted with faith. His earlier preoccupation with moral purity was eclipsed by his experience of God's saving grace. No longer did Luther fear the inscrutable judgment of a severe and demanding God. He knew from his encounter with the text that God's love and acceptance were offered to those who had faith.
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