Luther’s Discoveries: God’s righteousness & the real Satan.

I wrote this a few years ago but thought a repost might be appropriate in light of Reformation Day!

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent time with a good friend, Martin Luther. It’s been a rich and fruitful time! I would encourage anyone to do the same. As I was rereading Luther’s Lectures on Galatians (1535) and Heiko Oberman’s biography Luther: Man between God and the Devil (A must-read!), the dramatic change caused by Luther’s personal discovery of God’s character and what he would call the “white devil” struck me. Before he became the famous Reformer, “stubborn and unbending” in his pursuit of Christ and standing up to both Emperor and Pope, Luther was not all that remarkable. For example, he was not an outstanding student, finishing thirtieth of fifty-seven candidates in his first university exam. He probably only received an education because of his mother’s social status and connections rather than his abilities. Luther was an ordinary man, nothing special.

So what happened? What caused Luther, the unimpressive student, to become the remarkable Professor of Biblical Theology at Wittenberg?

This new paradigm that God’s righteousness clothed us with His righteousness freed Luther from the bondage of trying to appease the wrath of God with his works. God’s character now gave him the great assurance that God was for him and that God only wanted “the gaze of our hearts” upon Christ, not on our sin (Gal, 29). Luther discovered and experienced the reality of God’s goodness: God giving himself to us. By faith, we are united to his Son, our Bridegroom, who paid for all our sin on the cross, and we receive all that is his–life, glory, and love. Having true union with Christ means that the Father relates to us as perfect in Christ, and faith is the certainty that this is true (despite still living in our fallen flesh with the enemy telling us otherwise).

Another critical discovery for Luther’s personal discovery and its impact on the Reformation was a clearer and biblical view of “our adversary, who prowls around and seeks to devour us.”

Luther’s Discovery of the true Satan: The devil’s existence wasn’t a question for anyone living in the medieval period. However, just like the righteousness of God, the reality of the enemy and his deceptive methods were fantastically twisted.

The medieval images of the Satan as the red beast with horns and a pointed tale surrounded by his demons are well known to us. This foe, the “dark devil,” prompts people to “overt acts of evil” like murder, theft, drunkenness, etc., a well-known idea to Luther and his contemporaries. But Luther, as an overflow of his experience of God’s true righteousness, suddenly was confronted with the real Satan, the “white devil.” He enticed people to commit and participate in his “righteous” evil so that he could control them in the fiery depths of hell.

Thus the black devil always emerges in disguise and covers all his works and tricks. But in the spiritual area, where the Satan appears not black but white, in the guise of an angel or even God Himself, he puts himself forward with very sly pretense and amazing tricks. He peddles his deadly poison as the doctrine of grace, the Word of God, and the Gospel of Christ. If we recall, Paul calls the doctrine of the false apostles and ministers of Satan a “gospel,” calling it “a different gospel” that isn’t truly a gospel at all (Gal, 49).

The false gospel for Luther mixed the Law and the Gospel. To preach righteousness and holiness is to “hate and condemn as evil and demonic the righteousness of Christ.”

That means sin isn’t just vice, ruled and promoted by the dark devil, but also seemingly virtuous morality led and promoted by the white devil–the real devil transformed into an angel of light. Then, vices of slander, adultery, covetousness, and others, for Luther, are “minor compared” with the world when “it is at its best in men who are religious, wise, and learned; yet in them, it is actually evil twice over.” (Gal, 40-1)

What did this mean for Luther? Luther realized that he lived in a constant tension between the truth of being in Christ by faith alongside our flesh and the enemy enticing us to take our eyes off that truth. The Law, then, had no place for him because it was a means to cause us to feel and know that we are sinners, the exact opposite reality of the gospel.

Therefore the doctrine of grace cannot stand with the doctrine of the Law. One must be rejected and abolished, and the other must be confirmed or substantiated. But just as the Jews were inclined away from this doctrine of faith and grace, we are also inclined away from it. I, personally, want to keep both the righteousness of grace as that which justifies and the righteousness of the Law as the basis for God’s attitude toward me. But, as Paul says here, confusing these means perverting the Gospel of Christ. (Gal., 54)

For Luther, it was no surprise that the Law and works would often win out. It is the gravitational force of our flesh to prefer Law and works over grace. This was the battle Luther recognized in this life. However, God’s attitude toward us is constant, for we are always seen in Christ. Thus the Father’s love for us can never increase or decrease.

How often do the world and our flesh tell us that what people think of us, combined with how we perform, determine who we are as a person? The gospel proclaims the exact opposite message: the Son of God is our Bridegroom, he has taken all our debts and given us all his riches!