What is Reformation Day?
Reformation Day marks 31 October 1517, the day a monk named Martin Luther fastened ninety-five written objections to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. What began as a protest against a church fundraising scheme became a movement that put the Bible back into ordinary hands — and the writers below treat it as both a gift from God and an unfinished work.
The Day Itself
The date was chosen for its crowds. Pilgrims were pouring into the town for a religious festival when Luther walked out with a paper and a hammer.
For the YoungOne day, on the eve of All Saints' Day, when the streets of Wittenberg were filled with pilgrims who had come to feed their piety at the many shrines of Wittenberg, Luther came out of his home and joined the stream of people flowing to the Castle Church, which stood by the eastern gate. Taking a paper from his pocket, he began to nail it to the church door. The strokes of his hammer soon drew a crowd around him, and they pressed eagerly forward to read what was written on it. And what was this paper? It was Luther's remarkable "Theses," ninety-five propositions on the doctrine of indulgence.
What He Was Protesting
An indulgence was a payment made to the church in exchange for release from punishment for sin. In practice, the poor understood it as something far worse.
For the YoungThe sale of indulgences was bound to be a great encouragement to sin. Indeed, the more ignorant of the people could see nothing in the doctrine but outright permission to do evil, while the priests, who profited all the more from this distorted view of their doctrine, were in no hurry to correct the people.
The Verse That Started It
Years before the door, Luther had been teaching through Romans in his room. One clause stopped him — in older translations, "the just shall live by faith" (ESV: "The righteous shall live by faith").
Church HistoryWhen he reached, in his teaching, the last clause of Romans 1:17, "the just shall live by faith," a light, we may say, brighter than the sun filled his whole soul... He now saw that eternal life was to be obtained not by penance but by faith. The whole story of the German Reformation is bound up with these few words. In their light he explained the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament; by their truth he exposed the falsehoods of the papacy.
The Weapon Was the Bible
Commentators are careful about where the power lay. Luther was the instrument; Scripture was the tool.
A. J. PollockNo movement is of God unless it gives the Word of God its true place. Luther founded the glorious Reformation on an open Bible. He emphasised the great truths of the gospel. "Justification by faith" was the mighty battleaxe of that wonderful period, breaking down superstition and idolatry, releasing multitudes from their slavery, and the blessing and fruits of it remain to this day.
Luther himself refused the label of innovator, and pointed anyone who doubted him back to the book:
For the YoungWe have called this recovered truth, and so it was, and Luther saw it to be so. He denied that what he taught was new truth. He said it was in the Bible. "Let anyone read that book, and then say whether our theology is a new thing. For that book is not new."
What It Gave Ordinary People
The result was not merely a change of church policy. It reached individuals who had never been allowed to read Scripture in their own language.
C. H. MackintoshThousands heard the glad tidings of salvation — heard, believed, and were saved. Thousands who had long groaned under the unbearable weight of Roman superstition welcomed the heavenly message with deep thankfulness. Thousands flocked with intense delight to draw water from those wells of inspiration which had been blocked for ages.
An Unfinished Recovery
Not everything was recovered at once. One writer notes that the structure of church life was largely left as it had been found.
J. N. DarbyThe Reformation removed many corruptions which had become unbearable, and many false principles; but the idea of the church was still based on the clergy and the sacraments.
This shapes how the day should be kept. Several writers link Protestantism to Sardis, the church in Revelation told it has "the name of being alive" while being dead — and they warn against turning an anniversary into a monument.
Greg Quail"You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead" carries the sad message of having a reputation but no present ability. One of the marks of Protestantism (pictured by Sardis) is its reliance on "the historic Christian faith" dating back to the Reformation, and its making the Reformation a standard to be maintained, rather than seeking that the process of recovery may continue.
Summary
- Darkness. Indulgences were sold as release from sin's punishment, and ordinary people read them as permission to sin.
- Discovery. One line in Romans — the righteous shall live by faith — reached Luther in his room years before it reached the church door.
- Door. On the eve of All Saints' Day 1517, ninety-five propositions nailed to the Castle Church made a private discovery a public question.
- Deliverance. The weapon was an open Bible, and thousands who had been shut out from Scripture heard, believed, and were saved.
- Danger. The recovery was real but partial; commentators warn that treating the Reformation as a finished standard leaves a reputation for life without the life itself.