HAPPY REFORMATION DAY TO ALL
On Oct. 31, 1517, Luther gave us the 95 theses, that would start the Reformation.So to those who share in our Reformation heritage of grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, Scriptures alone, I salute you all.
posted by Thuyen Tran at 7:21 PM
7 Comments:
Info on Luther's hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God:
http://community.gospelcom.net/Brix?pageID=5820&article=8988
The one hymn that most symbolizes the Protestant Reformation is "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." In it, Martin Luther proclaims his confidence in God and rallies all Christians to war against evil. Basing his words on Psalm 46, he victoriously states "We will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through us." Those persecuted and martyred for their convictions during the Reformation sang these words.
Luther understood the power of evil: After he posted his ninety-five theses on the door of Wittenberg's Castle in 1517, he faced years of trials and persecution, he was excommunicated from the Roman church, and he continually faced threats against his life and his freedom. Other reformers had been persecuted and burned at the stake.
But he also knew "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in danger" (Psalm 46:1) and so he wrote "A Mighty Fortress is our God," proclaiming boldly that "the prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him . . . one little word shall fell him."
Since he wrote it in 1529, Luther's hymn has been translated into nearly every language. There are said to be over eighty English translations alone to this hymn, but the version most used in the United States is the translation by Frederic Henry Hedge in 1852.
The first line of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" is inscribed on the tomb of Martin Luther at Wittenberg. And its powerful words and tune continue to live. The hymn was sung at the funeral of President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, March 1969. And it was also included in the National Service of Prayer and Remembrance, held shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks against America.
More info:
http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Poetry/A-Mighty-Fortress.html.htm
Part 2: The Background of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"
Both the words and music of the hymn are by the Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Of the many translations of Luther's hymn from the German language, the translation by Frederick H. Hedge (1805-1890) is used above. Martin Luther, the former Augustinian monk, led the Reformation away from the Church of Rome based upon the battle cry, "The just shall live by Faith" (Romans 1:17), in opposition to the human only, ex cathedra decrees of the Papacy. Luther's confidence in the Power of Faith that comes from the Scriptures, i.e., "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17), was followed closely by his belief that the singing of hymns was most significant in motivating the Believer. He said, "With all my heart I would extol the precious gift of God in the noble art of music... Music is to be praised as second only to the Word of God because by her all the emotions are swayed." It is said that Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" was sung by many an oppressed Christian as they were forced into exile or brought to their martyrdom. "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His Saints" (Psalm 116:15). Luther played the lute and paid his school fees through the money he earned singing in the streets of Eisenach. He later said, "The one who sings, prays double."
"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (Ein' fest Burg ist unser Gott) quickly became the Battle Hymn of the Reformation. Turning away from a music form dominated by the clergy of the Catholic Church, Luther placed the emphasis upon congregational singing. Hymn books were soon published from the newly introduced printing presses (1450) of Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468). Luther's first hymnal was introduced in 1524 with a total of eight hymns-- half by Luther. Early congregational singing of the Reformation was in unison without accompaniment, but organ music was later added as an accompaniment to the chorale. Christian hymns, like the Scriptures, in the language of the people instead of Rome's liturgical language of Latin, were published in tract form and distributed far and wide as a powerful tool of evangelizing the lost. "The LORD gave the Word: great was the company of those that published it" (Psalm 68:11). By 1529, the growing popularity of congregational singing necessitated Luther to update his hymn book in the form of Joseph Klug's Geistliche Lieder auff neue gehessert, which included the first hymnal publication of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." He wrote at least 35 hymns. After Martin Luther's famous appearance at the Diet of Worms (1521), i.e., "Here I stand, I can do no other," he followed with a stay at Wartburg Castle under the protection of Frederick III of Saxony, where he completed the translation of the Greek New Testament manuscripts into German, giving birth to the New High German written language, as well. [See our article, "Babylon the Great (Part 2): The Reformation and the Church of Rome" ---New Window for an account of Martin Luther's pivotal role in the Protestant Reformation.] Since Luther's New Testament was published in 1522, it is most interesting that his hymnal appeared only two years later, and "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" saw its first hymnal publication only five years after that. "What hath God wrought!" (Numbers 23:23).
When the cause of the Reformation seemed lost, it is said that Luther would turn to his close friend and colleague, Philipp Melancthon (1497-1560)-- author of the Augsburg Confession-- and say, "Let's sing the Forty-sixth Psalm." "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" is a paraphrase based upon Psalm 46. "1 God is our Refuge and Strength, a Very Present Help in Trouble. 2 Therefore will not we fear, though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. 4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. 6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the Earth melted. 7 The LORD of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. 8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations He hath made in the Earth. 9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the Earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire. 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the Earth. 11 The LORD of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our Refuge. Selah" (Psalm 46:1-11).
The lyrics:
1
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe --
His craft and pow'r are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
2
Did we in our own strength confide
Our striving would be losing,
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He --
Lord Sabaoth His name,
From age to age the same --
And He must win the battle.
3
And tho this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph thru us.
The prince of darkness grim --
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure --
One little word shall fell him.
4
That word above all earthly pow'rs --
No thanks to them abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Thru Him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still --
His kingdom is forever.
Luther's Here I Stand comments:
http://chi.gospelcom.net/DAILYF/2001/04/daily-04-18-2001.shtml
"Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason--I do not accept the authority of popes and councils for they have contradicted each other--my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me. Amen."
Luther in 1520.
Perhaps the most notable words spoken in the Reformation, this according to early printed reports, was Luther's reply at Worms when urged to recant. He uttered the memorable lines on this day, April 18, 1521, in German and then, upon request, repeated their gist in Latin for those who did not understand. He was sweating, said witnesses. With a victory gesture he slipped out of the room.
Frederick the Wise, Luther's supporter was uneasy. Did the scriptures condemn Luther or not? "He is too daring for me," the elector admitted. Nonetheless, on the next day, when asked to stand against Luther with the emperor, he did not sign the condemnation which was subscribed to by four other electors.
As for the Emperor, he reasoned that a single friar who went contrary to the whole church could not possibly be right. Descended from a long line of Christian emperors, he felt that to accept Luther's view was to betray the faith of his fathers. He would take prompt action against Luther, he vowed. But since Luther had been given safe conduct to Worms, he would allow him to depart in safety.
Luther did not leave Worms at once. For several days a committee reasoned with him, begging him not to rend the church in two. They pointed out that war would surely come to Germany. Melanchthon might be killed. Luther could not help but be moved, but his determination held. God's word must be followed whatever the cost. To this confrontation his 95 theses had finally brought him.
There is some ground for doubting that Luther said "Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise." Although the earliest printed versions contain these lines, the official transcripts do not. Whether spoken or not, the words convey the brave monk's attitude. When Luther left Worms, the Reformation was irrevocable.
Martin Luther was at his noblest at Worms. His bold words have stirred men's imagination through subsequent centuries. They have the same ring to them as Peter's famous defiance of the Sanhedrin. "Judge for yourselves whether we ought to obey God or men."
My friend Brett has a post dedicated to Luther here, posted today:
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=18218245&postID=116229587012237323
http://thelutheran.net/editorial/tower.htm
Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Works
(1545)
by Dr. Martin Luther, 1483-1546
Meanwhile in that same year, 1519, I had begun interpreting the Psalms once again. I felt confident that I was now more experienced, since I had dealt in university courses with St. Paul's Letters to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the Letter to the Hebrews. I had conceived a burning desire to understand what Paul meant in his Letter to the Romans, but thus far there had stood in my way, not the cold blood around my heart, but that one word which is in chapter one: "The justice of God is revealed in it." I hated that word, "justice of God," which, by the use and custom of all my teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically as referring to formal or active justice, as they call it, i.e., that justice by which God is just and by which he punishes sinners and the unjust. But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience.
I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I did not blaspheme, then certainly I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God. I said, "Isn't it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity through the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?" This was how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience. I constantly badgered St. Paul about that spot in Romans 1 and anxiously wanted to know what he meant.
I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice, i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: "The just person lives by faith." All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. I exalted this sweetest word of mine, "the justice of God," with as much love as before I had hated it with hate. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise.
Afterward I read Augustine's "On the Spirit and the Letter," in which I found what I had not dared hope for. I discovered that he too interpreted "the justice of God" in a similar way, namely, as that with which God clothes us when he justifies us. Although Augustine had said it imperfectly and did not explain in detail how God imputes justice to us, still it pleased me that he taught the justice of God by which we are justified.
Luther had in mind probably this passage from Augustine's writing:
CHAP. 18 [XI.] -- PIETY IS WISDOM; THAT IS CALLED THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, WHICH HE PRODUCES.
Now, this meditation makes a man godly, and this godliness is true wisdom. By godliness I mean that which the Greeks designate qeosbee, --that very virtue which is commended to than in the passage of Job, where it is said to him, "Behold, godliness is wisdom." Now if the word qeosbee be interpreted according to its derivation, it might be called "the worship of God; " and in this worship the essential point is, that the soul be not ungrateful to Him. Whence it is that in the most true and excellent sacrifice we are admonished to "give thanks unto our Lord God." Ungrateful however, our soul would be, were it to attribute to itself that which it received from God, especially the righteousness, with the works of which (the especial property, as it were, of itself, and produced, so to speak, by the soul itself for itself) it is not puffed up in a vulgar pride, as it might be with riches, or beauty of limb, or eloquence, or those other accomplishments, external or internal, bodily or mental, which wicked men too are in the habit of possessing, but, if I may say so, in a wise complacency, as of things which constitute in an especial manner the good works of the good. It is owing to this sin of vulgar pride that even some great men have drifted from the sure anchorage of the divine nature, and have floated down into the shame of idolatry. Whence the apostle again in the same epistle, wherein he so firmly maintains the principle of grace, after saying that he was a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, and professing himself ready, so far as to him pertained, to preach the gospel even to those who lived in Rome, adds: "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." This is the righteousness of God, which was veiled in the Old Testament, and is revealed in the New; and it is called the righteousness of God, because by His bestowal of it He makes us righteous, just as we read that "salvation is the Lord's," because He makes us safe. And this is the faith "from which" and "to which" it is revealed,--from the faith of them who preach it, to the faith of those who obey it. By this faith of Jesus Christ -- that is, the faith which Christ has given to us --we believe it is from God that we now have, and shall have more and more, the ability of living righteously; wherefore we give Him thanks with that dutiful worship with which He only is to be worshipped.
CHAP. 22.--NO MAN JUSTIFIED BY WORKS.
What the difference between them is, I will briefly explain. What the law of works enjoins by menace, that the law of faith secures by faith. The one says, "Thou shalt not covet;" the other says, "When I perceived that nobody could be continent, except God gave it to him; and that this was the very point of wisdom, to know whose gift she was; I approached unto the Lord, and I besought Him." This indeed is the very wisdom which is called piety,, in which is worshipped "the Father of lights, from whom is every best giving and perfect gift." This worship, however, consists in the sacrifice of praise and giving of thanks, so that the worshipper of God boasts not in himself, but in Him. Accordingly, by the law of works, God says to us, Do what I command thee; but by the law of faith we say to God, Give me what Thou commandest. Now this is the reason why the law gives its command, -- to admonish us what faith ought to do, that is, that he to whom the command is given, if he is as yet unable to perform it, may know what to ask for; but if he has at once the ability, and complies with the command, he ought also to be aware from whose gift the ability comes. "For we have received not the spirit of this world," says again that most constant preacher of grace, "but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." What, however, "is the spirit of this world," but the spirit of pride? By it their foolish heart is darkened, who, although knowing God, glorified Him not as God, by giving Him thanks. Moreover, it is really by this same spirit that they too are deceived, who, while ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to God's righteousness. It appears to me, therefore, that he is much more "a child of faith" who has learned from what source to hope for what he has not yet, than he who attributes to himself whatever he has; although, no doubt, to both of these must be preferred the man who both has, and at the same time knows from whom he has it, if nevertheless he does not believe himself to be what he has not yet attained to. Let him not fall into the mistake of the Pharisee, who, while thanking God for what he possessed, yet failed to ask for any further gift, just as if he stood in, want of nothing for the increase or perfection of his righteousness. Now, having duly considered and weighed all these circumstances and testimonies, we conclude that a man is not justified by the precepts of a holy life, but by faith in Jesus Christ,--in a word, not by the law of works, but by the law of faith; not by the letter, but by the spirit; not by the merits of deeds, but by free grace.
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