Nel linssen biography of martin luther

The world is a confusing place right now. We believe that faithful proclamation of the gospel is what our hostile and disoriented world needs. Do you believe that too? Help TGC bring biblical wisdom to the confusing issues across the world by making a gift to our international work. Carl Trueman :. His thinking, while remarkably consistent, does develop over time.

He nuances his positions on various issues as he faces challenges which his own Reformation theology generated. Thus, knowing what issues he is facing and when is important when reading him. The benchmark biography of Luther in English is the three volumes by the German historian, Martin Brecht. Upon his return to Germany, he enrolled in the University of Wittenberg in an attempt to suppress his spiritual turmoil.

He excelled in his studies and received a doctorate, becoming a professor of theology at the university known today as Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

Nel linssen biography of martin luther

Through his studies of scripture, Luther finally gained religious enlightenment. Finally, he realized the key to nel linssen biography of martin luther salvation was not to fear God or be enslaved by religious dogma but to believe that faith alone would bring salvation. This period marked a major change in his life and set in motion the Reformation.

Luther also sent a copy to Archbishop Albert Albrecht of Mainz, calling on him to end the sale of indulgences. Aided by the printing presscopies of the 95 Theses spread throughout Germany within two weeks and throughout Europe within two months. The Church eventually moved to stop the act of defiance. In Octoberat a meeting with Cardinal Thomas Cajetan in Augsburg, Luther was ordered to recant his 95 Theses by the authority of the pope.

Luther said he would not recant unless scripture proved him wrong. The meeting ended in a shouting match and initiated his ultimate excommunication from the Church. Following the publication of his 95 ThesesLuther continued to lecture and write in Wittenberg. In June and July of Luther publicly declared that the Bible did not give the pope the exclusive right to interpret scripture, which was a direct attack on the authority of the papacy.

Finally, inthe pope had had enough and on June 15 issued an ultimatum threatening Luther with excommunication. On December 10,Luther publicly burned the letter. In MarchLuther was summoned before the Diet of Wormsa general assembly of secular authorities. Again, Luther refused to recant his statements, demanding he be shown any scripture that would refute his position.

There was none. Friends helped him hide out at the Wartburg Castle. The significance of these written challenges caused the church to eventually respond. However, by that time, the criticisms of Martin Luther had already been widely distributed and found a receptive audience. With the help of the newly invented printing presses, the Reformation movement gained in strength and popularity.

The Catholic Church would never maintain the same unchallenged authority in Europe again. InMartin Luther was excommunicated for refusing to recant 41 sentences from his writings. Luther acknowledged he was the author of the writings but again failed to recant them. Saying he would stand by them. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.

May God help me. Luther was condemned as an outlaw and thereafter he feared for his life. However, he managed to remain hidden for several months, before returning to Wittenberg to preach more of his anti-clerical speeches and nel linssen biographies of martin luther. In this period he also translated the Bible from Greek to German.

At this I felt myself to be born anew, and to enter through open gates into paradise itself. The doctrine of justification, taking shape in Luther's thought between anddrew him into further theological speculation as well as into certain positions of practical ecclesiastical life. The most famous of these is the controversy over indulgences. In a great effort to dispense indulgences was proclaimed throughout Germany.

In spite of the careful theological reservations surrounding them, indulgences appeared to the preachers who sold them and to the public who bought them as a means of escaping punishment in the afterlife for a sum of money. In Luther posted the 95 Theses for an academic debate on indulgences on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg.

Both the place and the event were customary events in an academic year, and they might have gone unnoticed had not someone translated Luther's Latin theses into German and printed them, thus giving them widespread fame and calling them to the attention of both theologians and the public. News of Dr. Luther's theses spread, and in Luther was called before Cardinal Cajetan, the papal legate at Augsburg, to renounce his theses.

Refusing to do so, Luther returned to Wittenberg, where, in the next year, he agreed to a debate with the theologian Johann Eck. The debate, originally scheduled to be held between Eck and Luther's colleague Karlstadt, soon became a struggle between Eck and Luther in which Luther was driven by his opponent to taking even more radical theological positions, thus laying himself open to the charge of heresy.

By Eck secured a papal bull decree condemning Luther, and Luther was summoned to the Imperial Diet at Worms in to answer the charges against him. Diet of Worms. Luther throughout his life always revealed a great common sense, and he always retained his humorous understanding of practical life. He reflected an awareness of both the material and spiritual worlds, and his flights of poetic theology went hand in hand with the occasional coarseness of his polemics.

His wit and thought were spontaneous, his interest in people of all sorts genuine and intense, his power of inspiring affection in his students and colleagues never failing. He was always remarkably frank, and although he became first the center of the Reform movement and later one of many controversial figures in it, he retained a sense of self-criticism, attributing his impact to God.

Great personal attraction, absolute dedication to his theological principles, kindness and loyalty to his friends, and an acute understanding of his own human weakness—these were the characteristics of Luther when he came face to face with the power of the papacy and empire at Worms in He was led to a room in which his collected writings were piled on a table and ordered to repudiate them.

He asked for time to consider and returned the next day and answered: "Unless I am proved wrong by the testimony of Scripture or by evident reason I am bound in conscience and held fast to the Word of God. Therefore I cannot and will not retract anything, for it is neither safe nor salutary to act against one's conscience. God help me. Return to Wittenberg.

In Luther returned to Wittenberg, where he succeeded in cooling the radical reforming efforts of his colleague Karlstadt and continued the incessant writing which would fill the rest of his life. In he had written three of his most famous tracts: To The Christian Nobility of the German Nation, which enunciates a social program of religious reform; On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, on Sacraments, the Mass, and papal power; and Of the Liberty of a Christian Man, a treatise on faith and on the inner liberty which faith affords those who possess it.

The Lutheran Bible, which was "a vehicle of proletarian education" as well as a monument in the spiritual history of Europe, not only gave Luther's name and views wider currency but revealed the translator as a great master of German prose, an evaluation which Luther's other writings justify. Besides these works, Luther had other matters at hand.

His name was used now by many people, including many with whom he disagreed. The Reformation had touched society and its institutions as well as religion, and Luther was drawn into conflicts, such as the Peasants' Rebellion of — and the affairs of the German princes, which drew from him new ideas on the necessary social and political order of Christian Germany.

Luther's violent antipeasant writings from this period have often been criticized. Luther came to rely heavily upon the princes to carry out his program of reform. In Luther married Katherine von Bora, a nun who had left her convent. From that date until his death, Luther's family life became not only a model of the Christian home but a source of psychological support to him.

Luther's theological writings continued to flow steadily. Often they were written in response to his critics or in the intense heat of debate with Protestant rivals. Among those great works not brought about by conflict should be numbered the Great Catechism and the Small Catechism of and his collection of sermons and hymns, many of the latter, like Ein Feste Burg, still sung today.