The very essence of the Reformation.
(Address delivered at a community celebration of the Reformation Festival of St. Louis congregations at the Exposition Building).
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| Dr. Franz Pieper |
Esteemed assembly, dear fellow members in the faith!
The Lutheran congregations of the city of St. Louis have gathered here today to commemorate the Reformation, and it has become my task to briefly describe the essence of the Reformation. To this theme I will adhere.
So I do not want to talk about the fact that with the Reformation a new and better time has dawned also for civil and state life, as is generally conceded outside the Roman camp. I do not want to go into the obvious fact that the countries that have closed themselves off to the Reformation are also behind the countries in which the Reformation has found its way into civil life. Of these things I will not speak, because they belong only to the external consequences of the Reformation. The Reformation itself is essentially an ecclesiastical event. It has to do not with the state, but with the church. It has to do with the question:
How does sinful man get a gracious God? And the essence of the Reformation is that through it the right Christian answer to this question has again become known in the church, namely, the answer: man obtains God's grace, not through his own works, but through faith in Christ, the Savior of the world.
There is really only One important question in the world for people after they become sinners. The question is the same at all times and among all peoples. All people also deal with this question in one way or another. This is the question: How can I get a gracious God? As long as this question is not answered correctly, no human being can find inner peace.
This question has been answered correctly by Christianity. Christianity, of course, gives an answer that no man has thought of, nor could think of, an answer that has not come into any man's heart, as the apostle Paul says. All human religions, that is, all non-Christian religions, seek God's grace in the way of human works. They instruct men how men themselves can and should make themselves gracious to God by sacrifices, gifts, giving of life, etc. Christianity says no to this! To this Christianity says no! It is not by his own works, whether they be many or few, that man obtains a gracious God, but only through faith in Christ. And why only through faith in Christ? Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, stepped in for man before God. By His deeds and sufferings Christ reconciled men to God, and since God has thus had mercy on men, His unalterable order is this: whoever believes in Christ as his reconciler has a gracious God. This is the teaching of the Old Testament, this is the teaching of the New Testament, this is the teaching of Christianity. And this doctrine satisfies consciences, as the apostle Paul confesses in the name of all believers in Christ: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" [Rom. 5:1] Thus even at the last hour the penitent avenger on the cross satisfied his conscience. So also the astronomer Copernicus became certain of the grace of God, as he himself testifies. Thus must every conscience be satisfied that is to come to rest. That is Christianity! This is Christianity as taught by the prophets and apostles and Christ himself.
But what happened to this teaching in the course of time within external Christianity? It was gradually forgotten and, on the contrary, according to the way of the heathen, the salvation
from the works of men. The outer Christendom began to walk in the way of the heathen in the main doctrine of Christianity. In Old Testament times, the people of Israel repeatedly fell away from the religion God had given them and turned to the idolatry of the surrounding pagans. So it happened in the New Testament, especially under the papacy, that that which called itself the Christian Church fell away to the heathen, became heathen, in the doctrine of the attainment of the grace of God and of salvation. If any man, whose conscience was awakened, asked in the anguish of his life, "How can I obtain a gracious God?" he was not answered by the official church, "Faith in Jesus Christ," "Christ is the propitiation for our sins," etc., but was then pointed to his own works, to penances, penitentials, pilgrimages, monastic life, and other works of man. This was the deformation, the de-Christianization of the Church under the Papacy. And the result was unspeakable misery of souls, doubt and despair, especially among the serious-minded, for no man can be sure of the grace of God by his own works.
Now how did the Reformation of the Church come about? How could it come to a Reformation of the Church? Of course, even before the Reformation it was noticed that something, yes, much, was not right in the church. There was even talk of a reformation "of head and limbs" which was necessary for the church. Three great councils in the 15th century, the councils of Pisa, Costnitz, and Basle, wanted to reform the church. They achieved nothing, because they did not recognize the actual damage to the church, namely the apostasy from the Gospel. They only wanted to put an end to external abuses. No, no, the Church could only be reformed in such a way that it was called back from the Law to the Gospel, from the pagan-papist doctrine of works to the Christian doctrine of faith in Christ. And how did this happen?
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