In honor of today’s holiday—Reformation Day—I have been rereading Luther’s 95 Theses , which he nailed to the church door in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. A few of his theses, in particular, stood out this time around:
41. Apostolic pardons are to be preached with caution, lest the people may falsely think them preferable to other good works of love.
42. Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend the buying of pardons to be compared in any way to works of mercy.
43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better work than buying pardons;
44. Because love grows by works of love, and man becomes better; but by pardons man does not grow better, only more free from penalty.
45. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a man in need, and passes him by, and gives [his money] for pardons, purchases not the indulgences of the pope, but the indignation of God.
Striking is his emphasis on works of mercy and love, implicitly evoking the sheep and the goats of Matthew 25: “Truly, I say to you. As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
“Faith,” Luther wrote in his Introduction to Romans , “is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God.” Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the faithful man “freely, willingly, and joyfully does good to everyone, serves everyone, suffers all kinds of things, loves and praises the God who has shown him such grace.” True faith, in short, is alive in love.
For love, the Apostle John wrote and Luther certainly agreed, is our grateful and grace-filled response to the One who loved us first and called us to himself: “He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked . . . . Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth” (1 John 2:6, 3:18).
On the door of the church in Wittenberg, Martin Luther proclaimed it well: “Love grows by works of love.”
