CHS

ASSESSMENT
TWO
LUTHER’S LIFE AND THEOLOGY

NAME: MINENHLE
SURNAME: KUMALO
STUDENT NUMBER: U20733497
STUDENT EMAIL:
U20733497@TUKS.COZA
MODULE CODE: CHS 120
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Table of Contents
1) INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................2
2) THE BIOGRAPHY OF LUTHER..........................................................................................................2
3) UTHER’S GOSPEL AND LAW...........................................................................................................4
4) LUTHER’S UNDERSTANDING OF GOD’S WORD..............................................................................6
5) THE REFORMED SOLA’S.................................................................................................................7
6) SOCIO-POLITICAL CHALLENGES.....................................................................................................9
7) CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................10
8) BIBLOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................................11
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1) INTRODUCTION
In this assessment I will be discussing the life of Martin Luther, his biography, the
understanding of the relation between the law and gospel, the understanding of
God’s World, the reformed Sola’s and socio-political challenges. I will be using
various sources to compile a well-structured assessment, there will be facts pointed
between different scholars that will reach in a harmonious conclusion. The content of
the assessment will start on the next heading.

2) THE BIOGRAPHY OF LUTHER

According to Calton (1853:7) Martin Luther was born in a village known as Aisleben
in the country of Mansfield, Saxony, on the 10 th of November in the year 1483. John
Luther and Margaret Lindeman were his parents. His father was found during the life
for industry and sobriety and after Luther drew attention to the public his son
dedicated and handed a book to him. The mother was an example in her conduct
and took the stance and pleasure in teaching him the first principles of religion and
morality. It is impossible now to be sure at what age was sent to school. George
Omilius was the guardian of Luther at Aisleben. At that time, the means of getting an
order were very limited.

According to Calton (1853:7) most of the schools, however, specifically those taught
by friars of the order of St. Augustine, still lasted the habit of communicating some
spiritual orders to their pupils. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Magdeburg and
remained in Aisleben for a year. The Franciscans had established a school at
Issenach, which had high and good reputation in that part of Germany. Luther stayed
at school four years. His passions and use of his studies were unflagging, and his
skill was what might be anticipated from the agreement of such work and talents,
under the trend of so able a master. He was exceptional in his classmates in the
ability he made in Greek and Roman literature, the work that was given even the
books too were written in greater facility and exactness.

Current essays written by Calton (1853:7) indicate that his ways and talents of
Trebonius were much designed to render him a well-known schoolmaster. He
depicted the greatest attention and respect to his peers. When he entered the
school, he always took of his hat, a tradition which we are told, his classmates did
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not observe. The main reason of Luther’s mending to Issenach, was in results of his
mother having some relationships in that neighbourhood who were in good
circumstances. Be that as it may, we have the power of Luther himself, that when at
school he like other people like other poor boys reinforced himself by requesting his
food. This may be seen as an no uncommon case in those days even by those who
were under no necessity of doing so, it was rather thought as honourable, because it
showed evidence of humbleness.

Current essays written by Calton (1853:8) indicate that after having placed a good
foundation for the beyond farming of classical learning, he mended to the university
of Erfurt in the end of 1501 or when 1502 began. He was made a Master of Arts in
1503. Having now landed at his twentieth year, his relations valued its high time that
he should make choice of a profession. With the reputation and discipline, he had he
was urged to study law, imagining that this was the most likely way to have both
honours and wealth. He started to study law to please them but soon renounced the
task because it was not something that he wanted; he was doing it just to please
people who honoured him.

According to Calton (1853:12) In the second half of the 15 th century, the Augustinian
order became separated into two fractions, on the other side seeking reform
direction and on the other seeking original strict rule. The abbey Luther joined in
Erfurt was part of the observant fraction, two months after joining it on the 15
September 1502 to make the general declarations and sent to the community as a
noviciate. In 1506 he was fully permitted to the instruction and started to prepare for
his ceremony to become a priest and then celebrated his first Mass in May. He then
studied Theology in 1507 in the University of Erfurt. He then began to become a
lecture in the University of Lutherstadt.

In 1517 Luther preaches against the selling tolerances, making him nail the 95
Theses to the door of Lutherstadt Wittenberg’s Castle Church. He also changed his
name from Luder to Luther. In 1522 he encouraged theological and social reforms as
such for education for all. He persuaded musician and poets to continue writing. He
got married to Katharina Botha in 1525 December 25. In 1533 he published a hymn
called the ‘Klug’s Songbook’ it included songs like A Mighty Fortress is our God.
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Then he died in Lutherstandt 1546 aged 63 years old. The cause of death was
stroke.

3) UTHER’S GOSPEL AND LAW

The relation between Law and Gospel is the main theological question. The
difference between the teachings of Law, which demands agreement to God’s
Gospel, which promises the forgiveness of sins considering the person and the work
of Jesus Christ was regarded as critical. The Usus Triplex known as the three uses
of the Law which were sin, obedience, discipline but not salvation. It became a
hermeneutical principle of biblical explanations and as a guiding principle in
homiletics and pastoral care. It means the withholding of the Old Covenant by the
New Covenant and Christian theology. It helps to frequently place the explanation on
Jesus Christ. As an outcome of Christo centric theology.(classnotes:2021)

It is known that Luther’s viewpoint towards God’s word takes the two different forms
of gospel and law and there is exact ancient order between them the gospel first
following the law. For the theologian Luther, the theologian’s task is to victimise
between the gospel and the law. The aim is not to separatee them whatsoever or
confusing them but to know and being able to apply them correctly. According to him
the legal order was needed to fall because God found it unbearable to direct human
matters as he said. The empire of the devil was in revolt against the Kingdom of God
and humans became internally separated between the two. God declared the law to
rule the human matters and turned away the order of patience. This meant that the
law operates as a guideline of behaviour of the Gospel. Couenhoven (2002:183)

Current essays written by Couenhoven (2002:183) indicate that in relation to the

spiritual control of which it was the church’s important part and perhaps the whole.
Luther usually addresses of the law as the dangers that urges us to the good news
of the gospel. Somehow the Gospel comforts and forgiveness, particularly in the
Sermon on the Mount, it tells us of a new world stability based on love and peace. In
accordance with the difference between the gospel and the law. Luther appoints the
use of the gospel to the spiritual regiment and any positive use of the law for ethical
direction to the earthly regiment. The two shapes of God’s word must be divided
between God’s perfect will, started in the formation and God’s flawed will, started in
the order of the world.
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According to Hegedus (2015:56) Luther worries that many will fail to understand the
difference and consider its consequences and they will fall into a misunderstanding
that God’s perfect will is an option that can be understood in this world and believing
that the world’s current systems are good and there is no need for change. The
understanding of Luther’s when it comes to creation and fall and his eschatology
which explains the distance between the aligned sinners blessed life as it is now,
and as it will be in heaven.

Yet his fine difference between gospel and the law also has a tend to give an
outcome in a contrast between a worldly state and the Christ-based church, as well
as the difference in the lives of believers, who live in both circles but finding it hard to
unite them. Since the law as Luther understands it, it has nothing positive to it, it
does not show the state towards the richness of life that is found in the gospel. The
state has to do with fairness and human aim, not revelation of perfect love. Luther
understands the worldly regiment as the servant of God yet not of Christ.

Current essays edited by Walt der van & Vorster (ed. 2017:107-108) indicate that it
is with significance that to stress the supreme and the final author power and the
sufficiency of Scriptures as the minor way the will of God for the lives of Christians is
showed. It is said that Luther had the edge to get the Word of God into the hands of
the people. He did not just translate the Bible into the vernacular of the people but
placed down key values concerning its explanations. Realising that there was no
agreement between the Church Father, excluding in the most basic teachings.
Luther preferred the Scriptures in contrast to the early texts of the Fathers.

Even though Luther in the earlier years of his department was still working within the
limitations of the medieval fourfold method, applying it more intensively and more on
values than other exegetes of his time, the belief was that the ancient and the actual
sense of Scriptures alone is the essence of faith and Christian theology. He watched
that heresies and wrongs began not from the simple word of scripture but primarily
from the abandon of those words. He eventually basically moved the ground of the
fourfold method by arguing that the literal sense is already a Christological sense.
We can say that the corresponding division of church and state, and the difference
between serving God and serving Christ was Luther’s understanding of gospel and
law. Walt der van & Vorster (ed. 2017:107-108)
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4) LUTHER’S UNDERSTANDING OF GOD’S WORD

According to Kolb (2014:45) Luther’s conduct of the work of the Holy Spirit covers all
items that are said in the Third Article of the Apostles’ creed: the holy catholic church
and the forgiveness of sins , the revival of the body and the life eternality. These are
all God’s work, approved out by the holy and life-giving Spirit, whom Luther calls the
sanctifier because he alone is holy and forgoes all who have devotion in Christ,
Luther’s thought on the person and work of the Spirit. Space does not allow a
conversation of all the items enclosed by the Third Article. The explanation will be on
the Word and the Spirit and the link between them, understood from a Trinitarian
viewpoint, for this is the novum of Luther’s theology, which comes out brightly in his
fight against the uncontrolled interest of the mystics of his day.

Luther’s agrees that the patristical traditions that God himself is active topics in the
divine ceremony. He also states that the church is not only called into life by the Holy
Spirit finished the Word. It also has undertaking of handling on the Word. The basic
form of the means of Spirit is the oral Word of the Gospel, by which the pity of sins is
preaching, for Christ himself speaks to the church today using the declared Word by
the power of Spirit. In the gospel of John Luther indicates that God has ruled that no
one can or will believe and receive the Holy Spirit without the Gospel being spoke
and trained by word of mouth. Kolb (2014:45)

Current essays edited by Walt der van & Vorster (ed. 2017:100-102) indicate that
Luther’s understanding of God soaks his work and in turning this grasp is packed by
his teaching of the reason of the sinner. God is the supreme source and origin of all
that is, and Luther grows an understanding of God In a manner of safeguard this
position in such a way that the personal relationship to God becomes the main point
for all he says. The main traits in his understanding of God became apparent in two
of his classic manuscripts on the matter. He also indicates that many books that God
work all in all. He is the independent source of reality, of goodness and to God alone
all honour is due. In his remarks on. Luther admires the big magnificence of God and
that Christians in their prayers should always glorify and praise the Lord for
everything he has shaped and upholds through his supreme all- powerful wisdom.

5) THE REFORMED SOLA’S

SOLA SCRIPTURA
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According to McGrath (2013:45) the sola scriptura ( Scripture Alone), the saying
goes the “God is a God of details” then surely the particulars of sola scripture are
where the Christians are, Lutherans between them, are most likely to not to
understand each other. The Sola scripture values have been misinterpreted to mean
that Luther discarded customs as having any authority at all and accepted “scripture
alone”. In this misreading of Luther, scripture and traditions are equally single and
custom is unlawful as part of our understanding of proper Christian faith and actions .
Yet Luther never understood the Sola in this way. The Sola Scriptura never meant
that for the Reformers only. The first rule of the Reformation, sola scriptura which for
the first generation of activists, never meant a factual inerrable biblical text. The
important about the Sola scriptura is whether something that we hold is necessary by
scripture and especially backed by those parts of scripture that point to the
redeeming and releasing work of Christ.

Luther disputed the view of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) that God reveals
himself through the church and its traditions as well as the Bible. He also said that
the Scripture is the only source of expose, and all theology must take the Bible as its
source. The RC upheld that the Pope was the agent of Christ and therefore all power
rests in the Pope. A person must trust on the Holy Scriptures for wisdom about the
gospel, and the gospel has to do with what Jesus Christ has done for us. Only from
Scripture can one get true acquaintance about God and man. Because of sin, natural
man, cannot know God as God wants to be known. Only Scripture, through the
working of the Holy Spirit, shows the true nature of God. Only through Scripture we
could learn the true nature of man and God. Theology, therefore, must read and
study Scripture – the mainly task of the church. By carefully reading, studying and
explaining the content of the Bible.(classnotes:2021)

SOLA GRATIA

Luther looked back at the start of the Reformation and characterised a theological
view that was important to his growth as a reformer. This was called the
Reformation discovery, has been argued for hundreds of years, but no agreements
on its specific nature or date have been attained. As Luther framed it, the problem
was how to understand the assertion of the virtue of God, was exposed in the
gospel. After thinking day and night, demanded Luther, he studied its settings and
understood that spiritual justice could only be good news if it were a gift received
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through faith. The concept of righteousness was the punishment of our sins.
Characterised among God’s law and justice in line with Psalm 71. This means the
law we need to be punished for our sins but by God’s grace Jesus dies in our place
for our iniquities. That means validity has been helped and God’s morality is argued.
(classnotes:2021)

The word grace is another of those significances that all Lutheran agree on with a
rare meaning the explain the main implications and meanings. At subject here for the
loyally is nothing fewer that the character of the reason. This is seen as only God’s
act. McGrath (2013:45)

SOLA FIDEI

Relationship between law and gospel the sequence of significance. The gospel is
always first. We lead a Christian life because we believe. Sin is not something we do
or do not do; we are born sinners we are aligned by Christ alone. The way we
participative in the reason, is by trust. Faith in Christ means redemption and reason.
This the basic change between Luther’s theology and Roman Catholic theology of
the 16th century. McGrath (2013:78)

6) SOCIO-POLITICAL CHALLENGES
Luther was opposed with the cruel actualities of neediness and large numbers of
poor farmers who did not have land and had lost the chance to make a demure living
. He was himself a descending of a long line of peasant farmers. The poor farmers
were prepared to rise. They staged these training to Luther to advise them, to which
he replied. Luther upholds the basic respect for civil power and even more, Luther
points out to the objecting farmers that they are mistaken in their grasp of both the
empire of God and of the kingdom of this world, if they think they can use the gospel
to reason political violence. He calls fronts who incite their followers to governmental
violence and violence fake prophets who act aggressively under the trick of Christian
freedom a clear orientation to Thomas Müntzer, one of the fronts of the Radical
Reformation. (classnotes:2021)

Luther characterized between two troops (zwei Regimenten) and two kingdoms
(zwei Reichen). Luther saw the difference between the civitas terrena and the civitas
Dei which Augustine grew in his City of God as well as the different reinterpretations
of it by primitive theologians. God is working in a two-side way in formation. God
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works in and through the church. God works through rulers. Luther’s teaching of the
two controls and two kingdoms is much disapproved . The criticism comes from
different directions: On the one hand, Luther’s method is seen as making a contrast
between church and government, between faith and politics. On the other hand, it is
assessed for allowing Christian governments to take responsibility for ecclesial well-
being, thus sacralising government and the state. It leads to a passivate and
submissive people, seeing themselves as slaves of the strong choice. It brings the
question whether Luther’s perspectives are so contextually in conditions of the 16th
century, that it lost its relevancies five hundred years later. (classnotes:2021)

Bornkamm indicates why Luther took this position. And a careful fight would be a
disturbance to the empire of God, the church of Christ and hinder the
announcements of the Word there will be unnecessary violence and loss of life and it
would risk the divine happiness of both the poor farmers and those who would follow
them by force. Luther faced government violence not only from a theological
viewpoint but also from a pastorally viewpoint. Luther was correct in his valuation of
the impending danger and devastation. The Peasants’ War of 1524–1525 involved
several hundred thousand harbour farmers, workers and artisans of whom almost
100 000 eventually died in battle or by killing. . (classnotes:2021)

7) CONCLUSION
We can at testify that Luther got responses of life’s most persistent and oppressing
problem that God’s word brought through talking, sacramental forms and a word of
forgiveness.
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BIBLOGRAPHY
Calton, M.,1853, The Life of Martin Luther, Calton and Phillip’s Publishers, New
York.
Couenhoven, J., 2002, Law and Gospel or the law of Gospel , Journal of Religious
Ethics Publishers, Unite Kingdom.
Dreyer, W., 2021, Historical theology, Faculty of Theology and Religion, Pretoria.
Hegedus, T.M.J, 2005, The three reformation Solas and Twenty-first Century Ethical
Issues, Commons Publishers, Louisville.
Kolb, R.,(ed.), 2014, The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s theology, OUP Oxford
Publishers, United Sates of America.
McGrath, A.E, 2013, Historical theology: An introduction to the History of Christian
Thought, Wiley Blackwell Publishers, United Kingdom
Walt der van, S.P. & Vorster, N.,(ed.), 2017, Reformed theology today : Practical -
theological, missiological and ethical perspectives, AOSIS Publisher, Durbanville.