Martin Luther: Theologian of the Cross
Martin Luther was bold. He was only a priest in an Augustinian monastery, a college professor in a tiny town, and a preacher in the local church. But when he posted his Ninety-Five Theses, Martin also sent a copy to Prince Albert of Brandenburg, the same prince who had made the deal with Pope Leo to sell indulgences in Germany. The note said, “If you will look over what I’ve written, you will see how wrong your indulgence doctrine is.”
Prince Albert was furious. In anger, he immediately forwarded Martin’s letter to the pope. When Pope Leo read Martin’s theses, he also acted right away. But Leo didn’t think Martin was a threat. He saw Martin as a lowly backwoods priest with no influence. So Leo simply instructed the leaders of the Augustinian monastery to tell the young monk to change his ways. Leo thought this would settle the matter.
He was wrong. Martin’s students in Wittenberg had handed copies of his Ninety-Five Theses to a printer, and when the paper was published, people across Germany had begun to gather in their homes to read it out loud with their families. They liked the spunky monk from Wittenberg. To protect the weak and poor, he’d spoken up against a prince and the pope.
A few months later in April 1518, Martin wrote another paper, and he prepared to talk about it at the Augustinian order’s spring meeting in Heidelberg, Germany. Martin walked to the meeting in fear, expecting the leaders there to sternly rebuke him, just like the pope had asked. But to Martin’s surprise, the priests at the meeting loved his new document. Martin even made new friends at the meeting, and they gave him a ride home. “I went on foot,” Martin reported when he arrived back to Wittenberg, “but I came home in a wagon.”
What was Martin teaching that got his new friends so excited? In this second paper, his Heidelberg Disputation, Martin described two types of theologians. (By “theologian,” Martin didn’t just mean people who work as Bible teachers for their jobs. He knew every Christian is a theologian because all Christians study about God.) In his document, Martin contrasted two types of people—the “theologian of glory” and the “theologian of the cross.” These two types of people have two very different ways of thinking about God.
Theologians of glory think people are capable and smart enough to know God through human reason. These people say we just need a little help—a little boost from God’s grace through the sacrifice of the mass—to live a good and righteous life. They also say we can know who God’s righteous people are because we see God reward them with power, success, and wealth. (Sounds pretty glorious, right?) Though Martin didn’t use Prince Albert and Pope Leo’s names, it’s clear he was talking about their greedy doctrine of indulgences when he described the theologian of glory.
Martin’s “theologian of the cross” was different. This person knows that the truth can’t always be judged by outward appearances. It’s not always people who appear good, beautiful, and powerful by worldly standards who truly know God. (After all, Jesus didn’t look glorious on the cross.) “One deserves to be called a [true] theologian,” Martin wrote, “who sees God even in suffering.” The Bible says that even broken and weak sinners can know God if they trust his word and receive the forgiveness Jesus offers. In fact, Jesus told his disciples that the reason he came to earth was to save sinners (Luke 5:31–32). As Paul wrote, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Cor. 1:27–28). This is the message that the theologian of the cross believes. After Heidelberg, the Latin phrase “Crux sola est nostra theologia” (“The cross alone is our theology”) became a rallying cry for Martin Luther’s followers. It still is today.
Martin’s students sent his Heidelberg Disputation to the printers too. As more of the German people began to read Martin Luther’s teaching, they bought fewer indulgences. And when the people stopped spending money on indulgences, Pope Leo began to take Martin more seriously. Something had to be done about this rebellious German monk.
In October 1518, Martin was summoned to Augsburg, Germany, to meet with a high-ranking church official, Cardinal Thomas Cajetan. Cardinal is the title used for church officials who rank just below the pope. The cardinal was a picture of glorious wealth, power, and human learning. The cardinals wear rich, red robes (the bright red birds we call cardinals are named after these officials), and they have many responsibilities, including choosing a new pope when one dies or retires.
If Martin was afraid when he traveled to Heidelberg, he and his friends were even more afraid when he traveled to Augsburg. The situation was desperate. One hundred years before, a priest named Jan Hus from the nearby region of Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) had traveled to meet with Catholic leaders like Cardinal Cajetan. Hus had been burned at the stake for teaching doctrines similar to what Martin now taught. Martin was understandably worried. He became so sick to his stomach he was unable to walk.
After some days of rest, Martin recovered enough to meet with the cardinal. Martin’s old friend and advisor, Dr. Staupitz, who had traveled with him, encouraged Martin to be respectful. When Martin was brought before Cajetan, he immediately bowed down in front of the fancy chair where the cardinal sat. When Cajetan spoke to Martin, Martin rose to his knees. He only stood when Cajetan asked him to.
The cardinal made his expectations clear. He asked Martin to respond with one simple Latin word, revoco, which means “I recant.” (To recant means to officially change your mind and reject your earlier ideas.) Instead, Martin politely asked Cajetan to list the errors in his teaching. He wanted to know what he was being asked to reject.
When Cajetan mentioned Martin’s teaching about how Jesus justifies sinners, Martin said he couldn’t change his mind on that point. To do so would be to reject Christ’s cross. Cajetan threatened the priest, “You must recant today, no matter what you wish.” He laughed at Martin and asked why he would choose to stand alone against the Catholic Church in all her power and majesty. Cajetan then ended the meeting, “Do not appear before me again until you are ready to recant.”
Content taken from The Story of Martin Luther by Jared Kennedy, ©2024. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, crossway.org.