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Personal Reflection, August 8, 2011
In James Arne Nestingen's book, Martin Luther: His Life and Teachings, he presents Luther's theology as rooted in the common and ordinary. Rather than seeking a spiritual experience outside of the ordinary or dreaming that a higher, holier, or more sanctified realm exists beyond the familiar, Luther discovers that living for Christ is found in loving others. No longer esteeming the sacred space of the monastery or the merit of escaping the secular world to serve God, the role of the believer is to carry on the mission of Christ in the marketplace. With the requirements of salvation realized through faith alone, Christians are liberated from the chore of performing religious works to appease an angry God. Free to serve others through the love of Christ, the walk of faith is manifest in the midst of a broken and suffering world; helping a neighbour, caring for an aging parent, or comforting a crying child all announces the presence of the resurrected Christ. In many ways, Luther's life began to reflect this "down to earth" reorientation of the gospel and may have been the basis for Nestingen's description of Luther's Small Catechism as having "the earth in its mouth" (49).
Given the priority Luther placed on the Word of God, it is somewhat confusing that Luther would have less regard for some books of Scripture and a greater regard for other books (32). It seems that Luther esteemed the Gospels and the Pauline epistles as the primary works containing the message of Christ and the essence of the gospel. Other writings, such as the book of James which he criticized as "the epistle of straw" (most likely for its emphasis on works), is clearly undervalued; the presence of these books within the Canon even seems to have irritated him. Although he was convinced that God expresses himself to creation in and through the Word alone, I wonder what prevented Luther from allowing all the books of the Bible to inform and balance his theology (33). Was he so embittered by Roman Catholic soteriology that taught justification by works that he was unable to appreciate James' exhortation that faith without works is useless? Undoubtedly, his view of the Scriptures must be seen through the lens of his experiences. Given his experience of the Roman distortion of the gospel, it appears Luther's view of the Word of God was somewhat weighted according to his emphasis on faith alone.
Examining the nature of the continuing conversation between Luther and contemporary Christian thought, Nestingen makes a helpful clarification regarding Luther's concept of Christian freedom. Unlike the popular definition of the word that understands freedom as freedom for the self, Luther regarded freedom as freedom from the self (79). No longer bound by the personal quest to achieve salvation by means of obedience to the commandments of the Church, liberty for Christians is established on justification by faith alone. Released from the uncertainties of salvation that defined faith according to Rome, Christians can be free to live for Christ, love their neighbours, and transform their communities. For Luther, freedom was not about the individual possession of religious choice currently pervading the consumer-driven ethos of contemporary Western culture, but was rather about the unfettered privilege of serving others through the grace of Christ.
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