Tag: ignorance

Martin Luther: God Hater to God Lover

Martin Luther was one of the famous Reformers in the Protestant Reformation. He unknowingly started the Reformation on October 31, 1517. 

There was a time in his life when he confessed:

“I actually hated the righteous God who punishes sinners…” 

In 1505 he became a Roman Catholic monk by entering a monastery at Erfurt in Saxony Germany.  In 1533 he described his life as a monk:

“I was indeed a pious monk and kept the rules of my order so strictly that I can say: “If ever a monk gained heaven through monkery, it should have been I. All my monastic brethren who knew me will testify to this. I would have martyred myself to death with fasting, praying, reading, and other good works had I remained a monk much longer.”

Luther was a very pious, moral, Roman Catholic monk trying to work his way to heaven. A heaven which is ruled by a righteous God who he confessed hating.

Why did Luther hate God? At the root of it was his ignorance. Apostle Paul writing about the unbelieving Gentiles says they are “excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in” them (Ephesians 4:17-18). Such was Luther’s case. The following explains, in his own words, what happened:

“Meanwhile, that same year I had again turned to the exposition of the Psalter, confident that after the academic treatment of the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans and Galatians and the Epistle of the Hebrews I was better trained. Certainly, I had been possessed by an unusually ardent desire to understand Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. Nevertheless, in spite of the ardour of my heart I was hindered by the unique word in the first chapter: ‘The righteousness of God is revealed in it.’ I hated that word ‘righteousness of God’, because in accordance with the usage and custom of the doctors I had been taught to understand it philosophically as meaning, as they put it, the formal or active righteousness according to which God is righteous and punishes sinners and the unjust.”

“As a monk I led an irreproachable life. Nevertheless, I felt that I was a sinner before God. My conscience was restless, and I could not depend on God being propitiated by my satisfactions [good works]. Not only did I not love, but I actually hated the righteous God who punishes sinners…. Thus a furious battle raged within my perplexed conscience, but meanwhile I was knocking at the door of this particular Pauline passage, earnestly seeking to know the mind of the great Apostle.”

“Day and night I tried to meditate upon the significance of these words: ‘The righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written: The righteous shall live by faith.’ Then, finally, God had mercy on me, and I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that gift of God by which a righteous man lives, namely, faith and that this sentence -The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel – is passive, indicating that the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: ’The righteous shall live by faith.’ Now I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered Paradise. In the same moment the face of the whole of scripture became apparent to me. My mind ran through the scriptures, as far as I was able to recollect them, seeking analogies in other phrases, such as the work of God, by which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.”

“Just as intensely as I had before hated the expression ‘the righteousness of God’, I now lovingly praised this most pleasant word. This passage from Paul became to me the very gate to Paradise.”* 

In another place Luther writes about this experience,

“At first whenever I read or sang the Psalm: ‘Deliver me in thy righteousness’, I was frightened, and I hated the words ‘the righteousness of God’ and ‘the work of God’, for I believed that the righteousness of God meant his severe judgment.  Were he to save me accordingly, I should be damned for ever. But the words ‘the mercy of God’ and ‘the help of God’ I liked better. Thanks to God, when I understood the matter and learned that the righteousness of God means that righteousness by which he justifies us, the righteousness bestowed as a free gift in Jesus Christ, the grammar became clear and the Psalter more to my taste.”*

And in one last place he writes,

“These words ‘righteous’ and ‘righteousness of God’ struck my conscience as flashes of lightning, frightening me each time I heard them: if God is righteous, he punishes. But by the grace of God, as I once mediated upon these words in this tower and heated room: The righteous shall live by faith’ and the ‘righteousness of God’, there suddenly came into my mind the thought that if we as righteous are to live by faith, and if the righteousness of faith is to be for salvation to everyone who believes, then it is not our merit , but the mercy of God. Thus my soul was refreshed, for it is the righteous of God by which we are justified and saved through Christ. These words became more pleasant to me. Through this word the Holy Spirit enlightened me in the tower.”*

As we can read, Luther goes from a ‘God hater’ to a ‘God lover’ once he is no longer ignorant of the following verse:

‘For in it [the gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.’ (Romans 1:17)

Martin was no longer “excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in” him. By the Lord’s revelation to him, Martin went from being a lost Roman Catholic monk seeking to be saved by his good works to a person who was saved by God’s grace by faith ALONE. He says this truth ‘became to me the very gate to Paradise’.  Now he could participate in the life of God with a clear conscience knowing that his sins were forgiven in Christ. He realized his good works amounted to nothing when it came to being saved from the guilt and penalty of his sin.

All of his anger and hate toward God was due to not properly understanding God’s ‘righteousness’. The Roman Catholic doctors who had taught Luther only understood one side of the ‘righteousness’ coin. In His heart Luther knew he was a sinner and he had been taught that this “righteousness” was responsible for God punishing sinners and the unjust. And he said he hated this righteous God because of this.

Unfortunately, Luther’s teachers had received an unbiblical, false work-based salvation from their Roman Catholic ancestors and could not teach Luther the other side of the “righteous” coin. This being that when sinners place their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross ALONE for salvation, this very righteousness is imputed or credited to their account and thereby they stand before God legally as if they had never sinned. All because of what Jesus Christ did and they are now in Him through their faith and God’s grace.

His teachers did not believe this.

The believer becomes the ‘righteousness of God’ in-Christ Jesus (II Corinthian 5:21).  All of God’s moral excellence and virtue is imputed or credited to the believing sinner’s account. Hallelujah!

What about you?

Is your ignorance about God hindering your relationship with Him?

Do you have a clear conscience before Him or in your heart of hearts you know something is not right, maybe very, very wrong.

Have you ever checked God and Jesus Christ out by reading the New Testament yourself? If not, I encourage you to do so.

If your relationship with the God of the Holy Bible needs a correction or is non-existent, I pray that you will not rest until you are at peace with God the Father through Jesus Christ alone.

“The Lord … is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (Peter – II Peter 3: 9)

Carl

* Martin Luther quotes from Hans Hillerbrand, Editor, The Reformation – A Narrative History Related by Contemporary Observers And Participants (Baker Book House, 1972) pp. 27-28

Awake Up

“Awake up righteously, and sin not; for some have no knowledge of God: I speak this to move you to shame.” 1st Corinthian 15:34 (KJV)

Paul is writing to the Corinthian believers about the Corinthian believers. The “some” are not the unbelievers on the streets of Corinth who do not know God and run to idols but Paul is addressing those in the church who were teaching the error of no resurrection of the believer’s physical body.

Amid the assembly of believers there were those who had “no knowledge of God”.  Sounds like an oxymoron, a Christian believer with no knowledge of God.  In the Greek “no knowledge” does not mean “mere ignorance” (agnoia) but “reprehensible ignorance” (Vines).  They were not just lacking facts, but they were guilty before God for their own sloth (spiritual apathy and inactivity) and slight of God.

How do we slight God? They were guilty of treating God with indifference, treating His revealed will and ways as something of truly little importance, and pursuing their spiritual growth and relationship with Him in a careless manner.

The Amplified Bible puts it this way:

“…for some of you have not the knowledge of God [ you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, lacking the sense of God’s presence and all true knowledge of Him]. I say this to your shame.”  (emphasis added)

Denying the resurrection was giving evidence of this type of ignorance in some of the people.

Are we guilty of slighting God?  Are we living our lives in a manner that displays indifference to God’s will and ways, considers them of little importance and pursuing our spiritual growth and our Kingdom of God responsibilities in a careless manner?  Are we “gathering” with the Lord Jesus or “scattering”?

Not everyone in the Corinth Church believed this error. The “you “ in the latter part of the Scripture refers to the whole body of believers in Corinth. Paul is saying that because they pride themselves on their wisdom and intelligence, the spread of this error in their midst “displayed their culpable inability to recognize the character and power of God” (Henry). For this, the whole body should be ashamed, experience grief or inward pain because they now realized that they did not measure up to what they thought they were, in God’s eyes.

And herein is the danger of our walking in pride.

 In the first half of the Scripture Paul tells them “Awake up righteously, and sin not…”.

Their pride, rooted in their perceived wisdom and intelligence, had put them in a state of spiritual stupefaction. A state where the saint experiences a profound spiritual drowsiness or stupor. They had drunk deeply of the poison, their delusional pride, by comparing themselves among themselves and measuring themselves by themselves and not measuring themselves against God’s standard. Oh, how we need to heed Paul’s admonition in 1st Corinthians 10: 12 “…let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”.

This produced in the church a state of spiritual lethargy where they were devoid of spiritual energy and interest. They had grieved (Ephesians 4:30) and quenched (1st Thessalonians 5:19) the Holy Spirit with their pride.  He is the Giver of the desire and will “to work for His good pleasure”.  (Philippians 2:13) His ministry was stopped by the pride in their lives. Now the Church was not a place of spiritual edification but a place of danger for the saints.  God now opposed them (James 4:6)!!!

Therefore, Paul commands them “Awake up righteously and stop sinning…”. The NASB says “Become sober minded as you ought and stop sinning,”. The Amplified Bible says “Awake [from your drunken stupor and return] to sober sense and your right minds, and sin no more.”

 Matthew Henry (1700s) says:

“Rouse yourselves, break off your sins by repentance: renounce and forsake every evil way, correct whatever is amiss, and do not by sloth and stupidity, be led away into such conversation and principles that will sap your Christian hopes, and corrupt your practice.”

This is what the Holy Spirit is telling the Corinthians through the pen of Paul.

What saith we? Do we see ourselves in Paul’s rebuke of the Corinthian believers? Oh, Father God remove the blinders of pride from our understanding that keeps us in darkness.

Do we need to wake up, to rouse ourselves, to become sober minded about our spiritual state?  Have we quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit in our life?  Have we stopped the rivers of living water (John 7:38) that are supposed to flow out of our innermost being and replaced it with a muddy slough of arrogance, self-indulgence, and worldly ways from our carnal nature.

Are we slighting God?

If the rapture of the believers happened today and we, in the twinkling of an eye, went from earth to His presence, what would be in our hand, in our mind and in our heart?  Would we be ashamed of what He caught us doing, thinking about, and craving for?

 It is going to happen one day. Let us be sober minded. Get right (with God) and ready (to stand in His Presence).

Believer, the Judgement Seat of Christ is also drawing closer. Are you ready to stand before your Savior and give an account of what you have done in this earthly life? Are we ready to receive our rewards or will we suffer loss ….for eternity?

Will He have to “wake us up” for the momentous occasion?

May Paul’s words to Timothy move us to self-examination in the light of His Word:

“Pay close attention to yourself…” (1st Timothy 4:16)

With repentance, love, and concern for the Church,

Carl

Ignorance Is A Terrible Thing

One evening last week, we went outside to check on a juvenile Goldfinch that was asleep on top of the bird feeder. Little guy was fluffed up with his head tucked behind a wing, a miniature ball of feathers. We didn’t know if he was sick or had one too many sunflower seeds. When my wife made a squeeky noise, he opened his eyes and stared at us for three or four seconds before taking to the wing. Seems he was just napping.

As my wife started watering the petunias in the window boxes, I stood by the car surveying the trees and the surrounding woods. Suddenly, without any words or thoughts, I became aware of how blessed I was that I did not have to fear the evil spirits in the woods.

What? I realize this is a strange statement but let me explain.

I had recently viewed the testimony of Chief Shoefoot, a former Yanomami shaman or witch doctor, who Christ Jesus had set free from bondage to the evil spirits that dwelled in the Amazon jungle. As I stood on the driveway that evening, I was reminded of an article in National Geographic, which related how primitive tribes lived in constant fear of the evil spirits that dwelled in the jungle, constantly trying to appease them. Since I had been exposed to the truth in the Holy Bible, thank the Lord, I did not need to fear the kingdom of darkness around me.

Anthropologists say that missionaries should leave these remote tribes alone and let them live as they have for thousand of years. Chief Shoefoot does not agree with them. He said he never wanted to return to his former life. He had experienced what 2 Timothy 2:25-26 revealed:

[25]…if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, [26] and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

Ignorance is a terrible thing. The powers of darkness take advantage of ignorance. Ignorance about God Almighty and His ways, about His Son, Jesus, and about what God did for lost mankind through Jesus’ Cross and resurrection. Ignorance about His Holy Spirit and how He comes alongside the believer to comfort and help him.

The jungle dwellers and all men deserve a chance to hear the truth that sets man free from the domain of darkness.

Colossians 1:12-14 says:

[12] giving thanks to the Father….[13] For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Let us offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father for the knowledge of the Truth. The revelation of His Truth is contained in the Holy Bible. How I thank Him for using men and women, who believed the Holy Bible, to establish our country. And let us be faithful to share with those who are still ignorant about God’s wonderful Son, Jesus Christ, mankind’s Messiah.

Thank you for your time.

Carl