Georg Burkhardt, the son of a Bavarian tanner, was born in 1484, a year after his friend Martin Luther, and died in 1545, the year before the reformer. Like Luther, his father sent him to school, first in Nuremberg, and later in Erfurt, about the same time Luther attended the same university. He became a humanist scholar and changed his name to Spalatin, after the small town near Nuremberg in which he grew up.
He was ordained a priest in 1508. Frederick the Wise appointed him first as a tutor to his nephew, John Frederick, then the court librarian and later the court chaplain and his secretary. In these positions he would function much the same way a chief of staff serves the President of the United States. He would serve three Electors of Saxony during his lifetime.
In Wittenberg, Spalatin became friends with Dr. Luther and whole-heartedly embraced the theology he came to teach. From the very beginning of the indulgence controversy, Spalatin advocated for Luther with his sovereigns and communicated the will of the Electors to Luther. His diplomatic skills made him a key figure in the Lutheran Reformation, although not very well known.
Spalatin often counseled Luther on which works to write, which ones not to write and which ones to tone down. He was responsible for the successful plan to “kidnap” Luther after the Diet of Worms and put him in the Castle Wartburg while controversy cooled a bit and where the Reformer could have a much needed sabbatical.
Five Hundred years ago, in February of 1520, Spalatin reminded Martin Luther that he had promised the Elector to write a sermon, a treatise really, on the subject of good works. Now that the doctrine of salvation by faith alone was becoming known, the Elector and other rulers sympathetic to Luther’s theology were concerned their subjects would believe they did not have to do good works at all, including obeying their rulers!
The Treatise on Good Works would take until summer to complete. More about that later this year. It isn’t often talked about, since three other major works were published that year. Yet in it the familiar understanding of good works taught by Lutherans is first stated in detail. Christians do not do good works to become Christians and be saved, but do good works because they are Christians, are saved and want to please God.
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