The Entire Life

495 years ago today Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This event began what came to be known as the Reformation.

As a confessional Lutheran pastor, I am indebted to the steadfast faith, the unwavering confession, and the brilliant insights of the Reformer. He called things as they are. Sin. Heresy. Antichrist. Repentance. Forgiveness. Justification. Christ. What’s more, he kept returning to the central article of the Christian faith: we are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Today, as we celebrate the Reformation, it is my fervent prayer that every Christian will ponder the depths of Luther’s very first thesis, which states:

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Matthew 4:17), He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Christians today regularly jump from one “self help” book or philosophy to another. Always seeking to live a better Christian life. Always trying to gain insight into God’s heart toward them. Always pursuing some path that can be said to be living as Christ would have them live. Sadly, most of these are either legalistic drivel or feel-good fluff.

Read Luther’s first thesis again. There is so much to learn and take to heart and practice in that one thesis that it takes a sinner a lifetime of practice. Repentance is a daily calling. It involves living in the promises of Holy Baptism by crucifying the sinful flesh and rising to new life in Christ’s word of forgiveness.

Twelve years after posting the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther would expand upon his first thesis when writing about Holy Baptism in the Small Catechism.

What does such baptizing with water indicate?
It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

The Old Adam—the sinful nature inherited from the first Adam—must by daily contrition and repentance (First Thesis) be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires. Saint Paul writes: “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires” (Ephesians 4:22). Why must the Old Adam die? So that the New Man—Christ, the second Adam—might daily emerge and arise and live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Again, Saint Paul writes: “Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

That your entire life might be ordered around such repentance, Luther gives you four daily prayers—Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Asking a Blessing, and Returning Thanks—each of which is intertwined with the Lord’s Prayer and the petition “forgive us our trespasses...” These propers, coupled with regularly receiving our Lord’s Word and Sacrament on the Lord’s Day and other festival days, are how your Savior daily brings you to repentance and keeps you in the one true faith.

At home, at church, at work, and at play, Luther would have you look to Christ and Him crucified for your forgiveness. His cross. For you! His blood. For you! His perfect righteousness. For you!

So learn anew this day from the blessed Reformer. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says, “Repent,” He wills your entire life to be one of repentance. God grant you such repentance your entire life. For Jesus’ sake!