During the Middle Ages, the sacraments became a system of good works by which a Christian earned salvation and the forgiveness of sins. Penance especially became torture instead of comfort. The indulgence controversy exposed the way the sacraments were seen as a burden to be borne not gifts to be cherished.
Early in 1519 in a tower experience, Martin Luther came to realize that righteousness is a gift that God gives, not the standard by which he condemns sinners. Salvation, therefore, was a gift held onto by faith. At first he did not realize how this insight changed everything. But change things it did.
The medieval view of sacraments as a way to earn grace no longer made sense. Confirmation, Marriage, ordination and the last rites did not bring the grace of God to Christians. Penance in the strictest sense of that word was a response to forgiveness, not a condition for it. Luther’s friends urged Luther to help everyday people see the Sacraments as comfort.
Five Hundred years ago, Luther began to do that in three sermons on the only three sacraments he could defend from Scripture as means of grace : absolution, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These sermons had the titles: The Sacrament of Penance (October 1519), The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism, and The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, and the Brotherhoods.
In the sermon on penance, Luther emphasized that absolution actually forgives sins and reconciled the believer with God. This forgiveness is received by faith and gladdens the heart of the believer. The penance assigned by the priest, rather, reconciles the believer with the Church as is done by the strength which comes from trusting God to keep his promises. Luther also commented that he saw no value in separating sins into two catagories, moral and venial.
The sermon on Baptism divided the sacrament into three parts: the sign of immersing a candidate in water, the beginning of the death of the believers old Adam and faith which relies on the word of God present in the sacrament. For Luther, faith returns to baptism each day and relies on the grace it offers.
In his sermon on the Lord’s Supper, the reformer recommended that laymen be permitted to receive both the bread and the wine. These had been withheld from them by the church at the request of the laity, who feared spilling the blood of Christ.
Luther was not fully satisfied with the way he spoke about the Sacraments in these sermons. In the next year, his A Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, the full teaching of these sacraments would take its Lutheran form.
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Very interesting! I’d love to read these sermons, and I’d bet that the “Prelude on Babylon Captivity of the Church” would be a good read as well!!
These sermons are in the American Edition of Luther’s Works. You can read the Prelude on the Bablyonian Captivity of the Church online. See http://www.projectwittenberg.org/etext/luther/babylonian/babylonian.htm