Well, last week we began a mini-series of sorts on the life and the work of Martin Luther. Obviously, Martin Luther's life is one of tremendous depth, tremendous breadth. I mean, there's a lot there. And so a lot of times you have to sort of pick which areas you want to discuss, because if you were to do them all, you'd be at it for weeks and weeks on end. And so last week we were discussing his birth. He was born in 1483, November of 1483. We also discussed some issues dealing with the politics that were surrounding the time of his birth as well as the time of when he first came into public service. For example, Spain had discovered the New World at the end of the 15th century. Because of that, primarily because of that, Spain had become the most powerful nation in the world. The riches of the New World had caused Spain to pretty much become rich, tremendously rich. And of course, money is power. It is today in many areas, and it wasn't any different back then. The Catholic regents wanted to convert the natives, right? And so the discovery, the exploration of the New World had a distinctly religious flavor, although, of course, you're talking about 15th century. 16th century, and so communication being what it was, a lot of times these conquistadores would come to the new world and they would do what they wanted, basically, enrich themselves. Of course, always sending some to the mother country, but not really fulfilling their mission all that closely. Charles, who was the eventual emperor, was a grandchild of the Catholic regents. We talked about how Luther's parents wanted him to be a lawyer. But he then made a vow to become a monk because he got caught in a thunderstorm. And again, we discussed how that's what he wanted to do anyway. And so he went ahead and did what he wanted to do. He was studying and teaching the Bible very assiduously. He was a very committed student. He became a professor at Wittenberg. met Frederick, who was the elector of Saxony at the time. And the interesting thing about the relationship between Luther and Frederick is that it was conducted primarily from a distance. Luther and Frederick only met three times during their lifetimes. And so it wasn't a very close relationship as far as that goes. You know, sometimes we have the impression that they were like this, but that's not the reality, right? They were at a distance. And I think that Frederick looked at his relationship with Luther more as companions than anything else. Luther, of course, encouraged that because it suited his purposes in great fashion. He went to Rome, but was ambivalent about it. He wondered whether all of that stuff was real. And of course, he saw the corruption of Rome. He was not surprised because he had heard about it many times before. In 1517, he wrote two theses. This was a traditional activity, and it was seeking debate. It wasn't something that was necessarily putting down the other side as much as just wanting to encourage discussion and debate. So he wasn't being rebellious. Again, when we look especially at movies, for example, and they show the scene where Luther is nailing the thesis to the cathedral door. We get the impression that he was being rebellious and sort of like holding his fist out to Rome and things of that nature, but that wasn't the case at all. He did it and it probably went unnoticed, really, when he did it, primarily. And so we get to 1517. And of course, 1517 is a pivotal year for the Reformation. Again, that's the year that Luther wrote two theses. The first one was against scholasticism and against medieval theology. Because medieval theology was in great fashion built around reason, and Luther called reason a prostitute. He said that you cannot reason your way to God. That is the God of the Bible. Of course, the only God that they worshiped at the time, right? It's not like our syncretistic society nowadays where everybody has their own God at the time. There was God. And of course, there were differences as far as how people approach God. And there were many ways in which the Catholic Church had corrupted that worship and that approach. But nevertheless, it was the God of the Bible that they were seeking to worship. He was not denying reason, and he was not denying that you can know God through reason, know of a God through reason. For example, he agreed with Paul in Romans 1, that man has that innate knowledge of God, and that if he goes astray, it's not because he doesn't have knowledge of God, but rather because he's suppressing that knowledge. On his commentary on Romans, for example, speaking of Romans 1, he says, the invisible things of God. This statement tells us that from the beginning of the world, the invisible things of God have always been recognized through the rational perception of the divine operations in the world. This demonstrates that there was in the hearts of man a knowledge of a divine, sovereign being. And so he understood and he acknowledged the part that reason plays in man knowing God. He just made it clear that you cannot just know the God of the Bible through reason. That's not enough. Reason is not enough. Natural revelation is not enough. You have to have special revelation because Christianity is a natural religion. It's not just nature, right? As an example of the challenge that sometimes Christians have trying to persuade non-believers about the supernatural nature of the Christian religion is, for example, Eusebius, one of the early church fathers, and his battle against pagans, primarily about miracles, and the fact that even though most pagans accepted the the fact that there were miracles, but yet they saw the miracles of Christ as just another one of a group of miracles. You know, Apollonius did miracles, and this individual did miracles, and so there was nothing special. And so there's always that challenge of trying to persuade the natural man about the things of the supernatural religion of Christ. He had great pastoral concern for his flock. I mentioned last week how he became a pastor of Wittenberg. And so he had great concern for them, and that's the thing primarily that led him to pen his second set of thesis. The indulgence controversy aroused concern, primarily, it sailed by the papacy. And the papacy was selling indulgences because they wanted to raise money primarily. and primarily because they wanted to raise money for the building of St. Peter's. St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and we've been there. It's an interesting place. It's rather impressive from the human standpoint. but from the Christian standpoint, unfortunately, it's a monumental idolatry, really. I remember we were with the preacher at the time, an Italian preacher, and we were commenting about the fact that these individuals thought of themselves as the richest, but in reality, they're the poorest because of the fact that they have corrupted the worship of God in such a fashion. Onto the scene came Tetzel. And of course, you've heard the little ditty about as soon as the coin rings, a soul springs, right? Talking about the souls coming out of purgatory. And in German, there was also, it rhymed also. So, it's not just in English. There's also a rhyme in German. And so, Martin Luther saw this as the people being fooled. One of the things that happened at the time was that Frederick did not allow indulgences to be sold on his territory. And so people had to travel outside of Frederick's territory in Saxony to buy indulgences, but they did it because of what they believe indulgences would do. And so that leads to the 95 Theses, which, of course, is pretty much the center of what eventually becomes the Reformation. He nails it to the church door, as we mentioned. That is common practice. This was like the bulletin board at the time. There wasn't a bulletin board like we have now. We have a little court thing and we tack things to it. That's how people come around and they understand things. Of course, nowadays you have electronic. bulletin boards, so the physical thing is not so prevalent anymore, but when I was a kid they were. But there was no court bulletin boards at the time, and so the church door served that purpose. One of the interesting things about the 95 Theses is that there isn't really anything particularly Protestant in them. It's pretty much against the Theses themselves and against their sale. Luther attacks the use of indulgences by the church. We'll see in a little while that he wasn't necessarily attacking the indulgences themselves. He was attacking the sale of them, especially the purpose of raising these funds to build St. Peter's. They were written in Latin. Of course, so they would have had very small appeal for the general populace because very few people at the time spoke Latin, which is interesting because all the masses were performed in Latin. So you can imagine sitting there in a church, the priest is saying all this stuff in Latin and you have no idea what he's saying. All right? And so that was, again, one of the big problems at the time. And so we have to realize, however, that Luther did not intend these theses for the general public. And so that's why he wrote them in Latin. If he had intended them for the general public, then he would have written them in German. However, what happens? There's some students who read them, right? Individuals who are studying Latin, they understand the language, and they read this, and they realize the impact that this can have. And so what do they do? They translate it into German, and they print them out, because remember, about 60 years or so before, Gutenberg had invented his moving press. So now you don't have to do everything by hand. By hand still prevailed because the printing press was not all that widespread yet, but these individuals had access to it. And so they print all these copies out and send them throughout Germany. And so it becomes quite a sensation, a lot more than what Luther intended them to be. So let me read to you four of them, which I think are especially salient, so that hopefully you get a little feel for them. If you haven't read them, there's 95 and it sounds rather like, well, that's pretty long, but no, they're just basically a sentence or two each. And so you can read them in a matter of 10 minutes or so, probably even less. So one of them says, when our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, repent, He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. Then another one, this word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, and is administered by the clergy. Third one, therefore the Pope, when he uses the words, plenary remission of all penalties, does not actually mean all penalties, but only those imposed by himself. And then the last one, thus, those indulgence preachers are in error, who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences. And so I think that in that third one, you can see that he's not necessarily attacking the existence of indulgences, but the nature of them, right? And so, their propriety. Although the indulgences do not explicitly promise absolution from all sins, Luther thought that this was implied and that uneducated people would make that leap. And so, And in fact, that's what happened in many cases. A lot of folks will buy these indulgences thinking that in doing so, they basically had a get out of jail free card, that they could go on and do whatever they wanted to do. And because they had this plenary indulgence that They would be accepted into heaven, no questions asked, as it were. Obviously, that was not what the indulgence necessarily, in reality, was doing. In 1515, Erasmus has published his Diaglot, which is Greek and Latin side by side of the New Testament. The original language can now be compared with Latin more readily than ever before. And that itself also was a factor in helping to bring about the Reformation. The original language of the New Testament said repent, not due penance, as it said in Latin. For example, in Latin, the phrase is penitentia agate, which is due penance, whereas in Greek, it's metanoio, which is repent, or turn, you know, have a turn of your life, of your mind, from one thing to the other. And so, two very different things. And Luther realized and recognized that difference. Repentance does not need to be shown by outward actions. In other words, it's not dependent on them. Okay? However, He was not attacking doing works per se, because as we'll see later, he made sure, made it clear that that's not the case, that you still have to do good works to demonstrate that repentance. What he was trying to decouple is the idea that your works are going to lead to your justification. In other words, do this penance, and this penance in turn gives you some sort of virtue. He also thought that the papacy was brought to disrepute by the practice. And as we'll see in a little while, it's interesting that, again, Luther was not mad at the popes. And as a matter of fact, he didn't necessarily think, at least in the beginning, he didn't necessarily think that the pope was somebody who didn't, who shouldn't exist. In other words, that there shouldn't be a pope necessarily. and we'll see that in a little while. But what he thought was that, for example, why not release anyone and everyone from purgatory if he has the power to do so? In other words, why do you have to wait to sell these things for people to buy these things if you already have the power to release these people from purgatory? Rather logical, right? And so again, what happens is that these theses have a dramatic effect. At this time, however, It's important to point out that Luther had not come to his evangelical breakthrough as of yet. And it's important to understand that because, again, it's an evolution in his thinking, including his conversion, which doesn't come till later. And so that explains, I think, in large measure, why the theses read the way they do, because he was still a Catholic in good standing. As Tim mentioned last week, Luther died a Catholic, technically, but he died a converted Catholic. is important to understand that I think history bears out that the thesis themselves were part of the struggle, of the struggle that he was having coming to that evangelical understanding. And so we get to the big wrestling with the soul, which has been referred to as the Tower Experience. And so he spends long hours in prayer and study, as I mentioned, right? He's fasting, he's flagellating. And flagellating was he would take a rope, put some knots in it, and then beat himself until he was bleeding. And he was one of those monks that was the most dedicated to what he considered the essence of monkery. I don't know if that word exists, but I just made it up, right? Of monkery, which is basically, I'm going to beat myself to a pulp, I'm going to fast, and I'm going to do all these things, all these external things. that are going to make me into the person that I should be. He went to confession frequently, right, but still found no peace, even though he spent hours confessing. His father confessor, I mentioned him last week, Staupitz, would say to Luther, don't make a pest of yourself. Go away. Do not come back until you have serious sins to confess. Because he would confess about anything and everything, right? I had a fleeting thought about whatever. And so he had to confess about that. And not only did he have to confess about it, he had to confess about it by telling a 10 or 15 minute story about it, right? And so he would spend a couple of hours. in the confessional. And then Stoppard said something to him that was very insightful. And that's why a lot of historians sort of look at Stoppard as a sort of a... a tragic figure of sorts. At the same time, they're not sure what to do with Stoppitz as far as whether he was a true believer maybe or not. He never broke with the church. He had sympathies for the Reformation, but he never said, okay, I'm going to break with the church and I'm going to become one of the reformers. He just could not bring himself to that. But he said to Luther, don't look at yourself, but at the wounds of Christ. And so, you know, that demonstrates, I think, that he was, he understood a lot more than your regular individual at the time. But Luther thought if God is righteous, okay, if God is perfectly righteous, I can't be justified. There's just no way. There's no way I can do enough to be able to be justified by a righteous and perfect God. And so, He hated God at one point because he thought that God was asking something of him that he could not do. And as we know, he was right in that respect. The only difference is that he did not yet understand that God had provided a way for him to be able to have that righteousness. And so he was tormented. He was really the quintessential example of the medieval saying that doubt makes the monk, because a lot of people had become monks or nuns because of their doubts. And so they had entered into monasteries hoping that doing that would relieve that doubt. Now they were doing these things that were helping them become righteous. In the case of Luther, and probably in the case of many other people, it didn't have that effect so the decisive moment comes. The breakthrough comes when he's sitting on the toilet. And I don't mean he was sitting on the toilet, but it was just a saying at the time of being depressed. He's depressed, but his breakthrough comes. Luther was a person who was subject to a lot of depression, very often, throughout his entire life, to the day of his death. But he's depressed at this time, but then he reads Romans 1, verses 16 and 17. Up to that point, this passage had been interpreted by the church to mean that the righteousness that God demands, and nothing more, right? God indeed demands perfect righteousness, and that's the idea. God is righteous, He demands perfect righteousness. What are we going to do about it, right? And that's why He was so tormented. But, Then, when he read the following, the end of the verse, in its context, it says, the just shall live by his faith. And so, it was like, you know, the light was turned on. He realized, if the just is going to live by his faith, in the context of righteousness, then this cannot be that we have to do things in order to gain the righteousness of God. On the contrary, it is the righteousness that God gives the believer. And so the righteousness that God gives the believer comes by his faith. And so that's where he began to understand the difference between faith and works. And although they are inseparable, you know, they're together, they're linked inseparably with each other, but they're not the same thing, and they do not lead to the same thing. So when did this happen? Some say that it was as early as 1514, but you know, not likely. Others, more of a medium term, 14 to 16. And then there's still others that say 1518. Luther says himself that it was the latter date, that it was most likely in 1518 that he really began to understand these things much clearly. And so again, if it happened in 1518, then it happened after he had written the thesis. So in 1518, although we're not sure when it happened, you know, even he's not quite all that certain when he really had that moment, that eureka moment. In 1518, we do know that he begins to teach these things clearly and openly. In the end of 1518-1519, Heidelberg Disputation takes place, and there he teaches about the difference between the theology of glory and the theology of the cross. The theology of glory doesn't mean what we may think it means as far as the glory in heaven, but rather the idea that man, by his efforts, can gain God's imputation of righteousness, whereas the theology of the cross is the opposite. that the cross, Jesus in his death, is the one that imputes that righteousness, that justification into the believer. In July of 1518, he was summoned to trial. August of that year, there's an order issue for his arrest, but Frederick again comes to his defense and says, no, this trial has to take place on German soil. And that sort of throws things into a loop, and what happens is trial is delayed. And as we'll see, it ended up being three years before that takes place. So here we have Luther on the path to Worms. You had the literal path, but rather, you know, moving in that direction. So, a lot of politics are taking place, as they're always taking place. But they're important to understand because, again, they're going to have an influence on what happens here. Luther's order arrested, as I mentioned. Then in January of 1519, Maximilian, who was the emperor at the time, dies. There's an imperial vacancy. And this is really important. Why? Because, again, Frederick is one of the electors. And so he is one of the seven that's going to determine who is going to be the next emperor. The favorite to succeed him is Charles, who I mentioned was the king of Spain at the time. But Rome doesn't want him elected. There's a dispute between Rome and Charles at the time that's going to extend for quite a few years, and Rome doesn't want him to be elected. Rome is also seeking to restrain Spain's power and the Habsburg dynasty as well, of which Charles was part. And so they want to restrain this power because Rome wants to be the most powerful agent in Europe. And as I mentioned, Spain is gaining tremendous influence in the world of the time. So Francis of France, how nice, right, is one of the favorites as well. It's Rome's favorite. And so because of that and because of some other issues, as I mentioned, that leads to the schism between the Pope and Charles. And then Henry VIII also sort of throws his hat in the ring and becomes one of the candidates, although he's sort of like a dark horse candidate. seriously in contention. The church at the time does what? They seek Frederick's support to elect somebody other than Charles. Because they want Frederick's support, they can't afford to antagonize him. And so therefore, they don't do things to Luther, the things that they would want to do to Luther. It's sort of like a hands-off, at least for a time being. Luther at this time is increasingly becoming a public figure. He doesn't go into hiding, even though there's an order for his arrest, even though he knows that he could be in tremendous trouble, even getting to the point of dying for what he's doing, he perseveres and is preserved from prosecution, not handed over for trial, but continues to do things publicly. At that time, in 1519, comes the Leipzig Disputation, and it is Luther and Karlstadt, who was another one of the reformers against Johann Eck, who was one of the best debaters of the time. He's a priest and is one of the best Catholic minds of the time at this point, and continues to become one of Luther's greatest antagonists, writes a number of things against him, insulting him, really, when you think about it. And again, the language of the time, if you read some of these treatises, you'll recognize quickly that the language of the time was a lot different. Other things that we think of as being insulting nowadays was just common language at the time. But in this case, he really was insulting him. I mean, there were a number of things that he said that were insulting. And Luther, you know, in many instances, responded in kind. You know, he called some of these folks by various and sundry names that we won't get into here. So in July of 1519, just after the election of Charles, who gets elected, becomes Charles V of Europe, he's seeking his legs, right? He just comes to the throne, becomes emperor. And what happens? That's more breathing space for Luther. And so at the disputation, Karlstadt and Eck, as well as Luther, but Karlstad at this point takes the lead, are disputing the freedom of the will, which is going to become very important as the decade continues. Only by efficacious grace against traditional freedom can a man be saved, was the point that Luther and Karstad were trying to make. Eric, however, on the other hand, who stood for the freedom of the will, of course, continuously was quoting councils, popes, and theologians, whereas Luther was quoting scripture. Eck thought that the papacy was the only divine institution that can interpret scripture. Personal interpretation was invalid. But Luther said, as he's beginning to move towards Sola Scriptura at this point, he says that scripture is clear enough for the church to understand. On the other hand, again, it compares this attitude to that of Wycliffe and Huss, and warns Luther of heresy. However, as we'll see later during the Diet of Worms, Luther already was believing some of Huss's positions. And so, in this instance, he was in agreement with Huss and with Wycliffe that the Scripture is what makes a difference, and that is what we need to appeal to, not councils and popes. On comes 1520, another important watershed year in the Reformation. And at this time he writes three treatises. One is addressed to the Christian nobility. And in this one, he mentioned some of the abuses of the church and talks about how the church is not self-reforming. There's been all these efforts, even as far back as the Council of Constance, there was an effort at reforming the church from within. But Luther saw that this was still not being done. He appealed to the nobility. to be the ones to take the leadership in reforming the church. He said the princes must act, and cited Constantine resisting Arius. The Arian controversy, as Tim mentioned several weeks ago, was the fact that for the essence or the nature of Christ, Arius thought that Christ was a created being, whereas the church, the orthodox biblical doctrine is that Christ is part of a Trinitarian God, self-existent, always in existence. Again, he appeals for a council, for a new council to bring about the reformation of the church. However, the church have made it clear that if anyone calls for a council outside of the church, the magisterium could, but anyone outside of the church In the case of Luther, who was a heretic, if he called for a council of the church, then he would be a double heretic. So you couldn't call for a council. And so, but you know, Luther's already heretic, he's already subject to execution, so what does he care? You can't kill a person twice. And so what happens? Many German princes support him, and they support reform. And again, a very important development for Luther's future. The church eventually becomes subservient to the princes, much in the future, but because of these developments, and we'll see later on, probably next week, The church in some countries, and I mean the Protestant church primarily, becomes sort of like subservient to some of those princes. And as I mentioned last week, even to this day in England, for example, in Scandinavia, many of the churches have the king or the queen as their head, the official head. In practice, that's not really done anymore, in a formal way, they still are. His second treatise is the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. And it's not about the Avignon Papacy, right? The Avignon Papacy had taken place more than a hundred years before. It was called the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, but this particular treatise has nothing to do with that. However, what Luther was thinking was that the practice that the church was making of the sacraments, of seven sacraments, was leading into pagan bondage. The sacraments were corrupted, Luther said. and they stand at the center of a religious experience of people rather than being Christ. It needed to be purified by reforms, and if reform in general was to happen, then these smaller reforms, reforms of the sacraments in this case, needed to take place. He denied that there were seven sacraments. All right, but the interesting thing about that is that even within the book itself, you can see some theological development taking place already in the mind of Luther, because he begins with three sacraments, which are the Lord's Supper, baptism, and penance. He thought that penance was also one of the sacraments. But then by the end of the book, he only mentions two. the Lord's Supper and baptism. Don't know when he began to write the book. You know how long it took for him to write that book. And so, but obviously it took him long enough to realize that, well, there's not three sacraments after all, there's only two. And then the third one that he wrote was on the freedom of the Christian man. And this one was in September of 1520. This book, it's not really a book, it's just a few pages long, really, was dedicated to Pope Leo, of all people, right? And it was a defense of Luther's beliefs. In other words, he's going to express in this little pamphlet what he believes. And it's primarily the idea of being justified by faith and how the Christian is free from the yoke of having to do works to be freed from his sin. In it, he says that Leo is a prisoner of evil forces and people. The Roman Sea and its evil masters are the true guilty parties, Luther says. And so he sort of absolves Leo X of being the instigator of all of these persecutions, of all of these problems. This little treatise is characteristic of medieval religion. expresses the characteristics of medieval religion, which was a sense of burden. People had a sense of burden because they had to do all of these things that had been heaped upon them. in order for them to feel justified. The essence of the pamphlet is the glory of the gospel and how it sets the person free. It sets the person free from the law. It gives them certainty with God, grounded on the work of Christ. A seeming contradiction, however, is something that Luther goes about to try to explain in this treatise, and I think he does a good job of doing so. The Christian is free from all. He lives Coram Deo, in the face or before God. Free of obligation to earn his way to God. But at the same time, seemingly contradicting that in a paradoxical way, he is a bondservant or a slave of all. There is a new motivation for living a holy life. This is a consequence of a right relationship with God. Again, as I mentioned before, and Luther emphasized this time and time again, and that is that the living, the holy living was not what brought about the justification, rather it was a consequence of that justification. He didn't play down the importance of holiness. There's a lot of writings from Luther that abound in this subject. But it wasn't by holy living that one earns this relationship A holy living was motivated by the love that we have for God, and we want to please Him in all things. As the Lord Himself said in Matthew 5, right? Talking about letting your light shine so that men will see your good works and do what? Glorify your Father in heaven. Not so that you'll be justified, because notice, you're already a son of your Father in heaven. Rather, it's so that men will see those things and glorify the Father in heaven. In this treatise, Luther is opposed by, among other people, John Fisher from England and Johan Eck. Again, among others, and as I mentioned, there's very strong language there. Eck was one of the ones that cited James numerous times, claiming that James said that works are required for justification. Of course, we know that that is, in its context, is incorrect. So on June 15th, Pope Leo X, publishes his bull, Ex Sergei Domini. Rise up, O Lord, for a wild board has arisen in your vineyard. And Luther was given 60 days to recant. All right, so this would put it in about the middle of August. However, again, you know, things didn't go from Rome to Germany in an instant like they do today. So by December, Luther finally gets ahold of the bull, and what does he do? He burns it, right? with great fanfare, obviously, meaning that he's not going to recant, he's not going to submit himself to its pronouncements. In January of 1521, he is officially excommunicated and is placed on the condemnation of the church. And interestingly enough, that condemnation has never been officially lifted. To this day, that condemnation still stands, and so Luther is still considered a heretic worthy of excommunication and of execution by the church. Remember, as I've mentioned before, again it bears repeating, that the church and the state at the time are pretty much one and the same. It's that sacralist idea. And those links lead to those who are under the discipline of the church to be also under the discipline of the state. Because you have the church and the church issues this bull, for example, excommunicates Luther. So now it is up to the state to be the executing arm of the church and to bring about the penalty that is Luther's because of what he does. So Charles the Emperor, of course, takes notice. In March of 1521, we finally arrive at the Diet of Worms. It is a trial, obviously, and he is to be placed on the ban of the empire eventually. If found in the empire, he is to be executed. Anyone giving him aid would also be executed, and so these will be the result of that diet. But before that takes place, however, there's a number of things that happen that are important for us to know as well. First of all, he's given safe conduct to the diet, to travel to and from the diet. However, he always has in mind hus. And what happened to hus? As Tim mentioned a few weeks back, he also was offered safe conduct by Sigismund at the time, who was the emperor of the time. But what happened? He's convinced, Sigismund is convinced that the word that you give to a heretic doesn't have to be kept. And so because of that, Huss ends up being burned at the stake. And so Luther has this in mind, that yes, they've given me safe conduct, but how is that going to be violated in the end? And so it bears mentioning here, though, that Charles saw rejecting or removing that safe conduct order as something that would have been dishonorable. And so to his credit, he said, no, I'm not going to rescind that order no matter what Luther has done. And so that's why Luther was not arrested. So in April, he travels to Worms, all right, and there's cheering crowds all along the way, and everywhere he stops, he's treated like the hero, right, because he's gained tremendous popular support at the time. His popularity has spread widely in Germany, which again, another factor as to why Luther is treated differently than some of the heretics that have come before him. He believes that this is the opportunity he's been waiting for to present his point of view to a wide audience of the church. It's not just writing, it's not just talking in little disputations and things. But now you have a whole diet where a number of politicians, of the princes of the church, are in attendance. He wants to express the fact that he is, in fact, not a dangerous individual. But the emperor had been warned of Luther's eloquence. He's sort of told if you give him a chance to speak, he's going to convince a whole bunch of people. And so he keeps in mind, and what happens is that Luther is kept from speaking very much at all. Basically, it's a series of questions, of yes or no questions. You know, are these your writings? He says, yes, of course, and then... He tries to explain certain of his writings and stuff and what's in them. Because a question, for example, not only are these your writings, but are these heresies yours or whatever? And he says, well, what heresies are you talking about? Well, you know which ones I'm talking about. You know what they are. So are they heresies or not? Are they yours or not? And so he was kept really from speaking very much at all. So finally, in the end, he's asked to recant. from his writings, but again, he's not given an opportunity to defend himself. It's either recant or you're going to be under the condemnation of this diet, of this trial. So again, he asks what the errors are, not given an answer. So finally, he asks for 24 hours to think about it. And so he goes away, and interestingly enough, as he looks back near his death, at this time, he makes it clear that he was not afraid, that it wasn't fear that motivated his asking for 24 hours, but rather, he kept asking himself the question, am I alone right? In other words, I've come to this point, it seems like The whole church is arrayed against me. There were other individuals who had already begun to see things the Luther way, so to speak, but obviously they were a small minority at the time of the Diet of Worms. And so, you know, medieval man could not conceive that he alone was right. which is quite different than today. Today, everybody has their rightness. Tim mentioned a couple of weeks ago about your truth and my truth, and so everybody's right. There's also the primacy of the modern. Whatever's the latest thing must be the right thing. We look at things today, for example, if we talk about Christianity. Today, the modern idea is that evolution is true. Well, then evolution must be true because it's the latest belief. What the Bible says cannot be true. That was not the attitude that people had, not only in the medieval world, but throughout history, for the most part, until fairly recently. However, he felt that taking a stand on the word was the right thing to do. what he needed to do, no matter what the cost may be. He was compelled by the word, not by his own thoughts. And so finally, he comes back to the diet the next day, and that's when he gives his famous, here I stand, speech. Of course, there's a lot of question as to whether he said those specific words, but I think that, as Philip Schaaf puts it, they sound Lutheran. They sound like something that he would say, and his attitude was just that. He says that unless he's convinced from the Scriptures, he will not recant. Councils and popes make mistakes. Scripture does not. To that, there was a reply that said, well, just because some made mistakes, like Peter, for example, who denied the Lord, among other things, does not mean that we don't listen to them. But the issue here was not that Peter did not make mistakes and that he was not wrong at times, but the fact that we know that he was wrong, how? by the scriptures, not because another council or another pope said so. And so we always go back to the scripture to determine what is right and what is wrong. He's finally asked whether he's a Hussite. And he asked the person asking him, well, what do you mean? What particular writings are you referring to? And so when they finally tell him, then he said, yeah, in some things I am a Hussite. I do believe like Huss. So finally, the die ends. He's on his road back. As I mentioned, the emperor refused to withdraw the safe passage pledge, and he's kidnapped by friendly soldiers in place in Warburg Castle. They did this to make sure that nothing was going to happen to him because they were afraid that even if the emperor did not remove or rescind that safe passage order, that some folks would take things into their own hands and would kill Luther. Frederick, always a sly one, asked the soldiers to take Luther to some castle in Saxony. He doesn't say specifically which one, and he leaves the diet before the condemnation of Luther is handed down. Thus, he was not present when Luther was declared an outlaw. He did not hear the declaration and did not feel the need to arrest him because they would ask him, aren't you going to arrest that heretic? And he'd say, what heretic? I didn't hear any order about Luther being a heretic and needing to be arrested. So that's how he kept himself from having to do this, and at the same time, without having to formally reject the order from the Diet. There's also some other political events that are taking place here. The advance of the Ottoman Empire is taking place, also an influence on how Luther is treated. A military campaign in Germany at the time is impossible because all these forces are arrayed to try to stop the Muslims. So once he's at Orenburg, he write more treatises and he translates the Bible into German. He's there a mere nine months and still, He's able to do this work. I mean, imagine how that goes, translating the Bible into a different language in just a mere nine months. This translation by Luther is considered to be the King James Version. of the German-speaking world. And so it is that highly regarded. There were some concerns while Luther was at Warburg. One of them was that he was informed that no real reforms were taking place in his absence. Nobody had stepped forward and become sort of like the one to take that mantle and carry it on in Luther's absence. They were just basically reforming external matters and little more. There were no changes in much of what the church was at the time. Karlstadt, who was much more radical than Luther was, was demanding reforms. And in his church, he demanded that the statues be removed, the liturgy had to be in German, and he married to show his Christian freedom. And so he was conducting some reforms, even if it wasn't a lot of reforms, a lot of reforms in the sense of the core. of what needed to be reformed. Luther, on the other hand, thought that Karlstadt was a little too legalistic. And so he thought that the reformers should convince the people that they were right in their position concerning the scripture and not do all these external things that really didn't arrest or that didn't go to the core of the faith. He saw them as trivial and unimportant. And finally, in March of 1522, Luther breaks with Karlstad because of their differences in how to conduct the Reformation. Finally, he returns to take the leadership once again of the Reformation, and he forces Karlstadt out. Karlstadt, in turn, goes to Zurich and Switzerland, which itself is undergoing a change under Zwingli and is received by Zwingli. Interestingly enough, this is one of the things that causes friction between Luther and Zwingli. Eventually, Luther and Zwingli will also have a falling out, And this sort of began the suspicion that Luther had for Zwingli, and that he received an individual that Luther thought was dangerous. And so that's where we'll leave it for today. Next week, we're going to talk about the 1520s. And maybe we'll finish Luther, hopefully. Because again, there's so many things about Luther that can't be said. But the 1520s, again, it's sort of like when the Reformation begins to take that great impetus, a lot of events take place during that decade. that are important for us to understand, like the diets of spire, colloquy of Marburg, Luther got married, then there's Luther and Erasmus doing some of their spiring back and forth, and so we'll talk about those things hopefully next week, and we'll leave it there for today.