Luther's Three Treatises

By Martin Luther

2021

First Published

4.40

Average Rating

285

Number of Pages

8H39M

Audio Length

"Luther is lyrical, even ecstatic, as he proclaims the benefits of justification by faith alone...The three treatises are short reads. It would not be unfair to refer to them as pamphlets. But they are surely the weightiest pamphlets in Christian history." ~ from Wedgeworth's Introduction Luther was not just a firebrand who riled up the establishment and accidentally started a religious movement. In these three treatises, we get a full picture of what Luther stood for and what he stood against. In his An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility, he explains the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and calls upon German princes to reform the church, since the Papacy refused to do so. Then in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church he attacks the sacramental system of the Roman Catholic church and explains that the Lord's Supper is not a sacrifice made to God, but an offering of the promise to the people. He calls for them to feed the people the bread and wine again. Finally, in his inspiring On the Freedom of the Christian, Luther proclaims the heart of the the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Because God has saved us once and for all from our sins and no works can increase our salvation, we are free to love both God and our neighbor, not from a spirit of fear, but out of gratitude for everything God has done for us. Read these works and be inspired. "What man is there whose heart, hearing these things, will not rejoice to its very core, and in receiving such comfort grow tender so as to love Christ, as he never could be made to love by any laws or works? Who would have power to harm such a heart or to make it afraid? For it believes that the righteousness of Christ is its own, and that its sin is not its own, but Christ's, and that all sin is swallowed up by the righteousness of Christ is a necessary consequence of faith in Christ. So the heart learns to scoff at death and sin, and to say with the apostle, 'Where, O death, is thy victory? Where, O death, is thy sting?'. For death is swallowed up not only in the victory of Christ, but also by our victory, because through faith His victory has become ours, and in that faith we also are conquerors." ~From On the Freedom of the Christian

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Author

Martin Luther

Author · 71 books

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a German monk, theologian, university professor and church reformer whose ideas inspired the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of Western civilization. Luther's theology challenged the authority of the papacy by holding that the Bible is the only infallible source of religious authority and that all baptized Christians under Jesus are a spiritual priesthood. According to Luther, salvation was a free gift of God, received only by true repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah, a faith given by God and unmediated by the church. Luther's confrontation with Charles V at the Diet of Worms over freedom of conscience in 1521 and his refusal to submit to the authority of the Emperor resulted in his being declared an outlaw of the state as he had been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Because of the perceived unity of the medieval Church with the secular rulers of western Europe, the widespread acceptance of Luther's doctrines and popular vindication of his thinking on individual liberties were both phenomenal and unprecedented. His translation of the Bible into the vernacular, making it more accessible to ordinary people, had a tremendous political impact on the church and on German culture. It furthered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the translation of the English King James Bible. His hymns inspired the development of congregational singing within Christianity. His marriage to Katharina von Bora set a model for the practice of clerical marriage within Protestantism. Much scholarly debate has concentrated on Luther's writings about the Jews. His statements that Jews' homes should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated and liberty curtailed were revived and used in propaganda by the Nazis in 1933–45. As a result of this and his revolutionary theological views, his legacy remains controversial.