How a Hidden God Revealed Himself to Martin Luther (1)

Rev. C. Sonnevelt, Lethbridge, AB

In three articles we want to give attention to Martin Luther. In the first article, we will see how he was brought into the dust before a holy and righteous God. In the second, we hope to read how a hidden God revealed Himself in Christ Jesus to Luther’s soul, and finally, we will learn about the message of this great Reformer and its meaning for today.

A terrible thunderstorm

It was in the summer of the year 1505 that Martin Luther was walking through a forest when he was suddenly overtaken by a terrible thunderstorm. The young student of law had grown up with lively impressions of death and eternity but had never heard about the way of salvation. Indeed, the name of Jesus was occasionally mentioned by the priests serving in the Church of Rome, but most of the time He was presented as a relentless Judge and not as a seeking Savior. Young Luther had often wondered, “How will I fare on the last day? Will I stand on His right or on His left hand?” Now, amidst that frightening thunderstorm, he feared that the last day of his life had arrived. When a heavy thunderclap was heard and lightning struck right beside him, he cried out in mortal fear, “Help me, holy Anna, I will become a monk!”

Shortly after that, Martin Luther reported at the gate of an Augustinian monastery located in Erfurt, the German town where he pursued his studies. As someone in search of a hidden God but at the same time fleeing from that God, he requested admission. During a short interview three questions were put before him: “Are you a serf (that is, a slave)? Do you have unsettled debts? Do you suffer from a hidden plague?” Each time his answer was, “No.” In giving that answer he did not deny the truth.

Viewed from a deeper perspective, however, his answer should have been a threefold “Yes.” Yes, he was a slave. Yes, he had unsettled debts. Yes, he had a hidden plague. Was not this the very reason that he applied for a place in the monastery? Yet, no one asked him about these things, and Martin Luther himself still understood so little of it. Man may have a hidden plague and yet not be aware of it. Even when a sinner has initially been arrested by sovereign grace and convicted of guilt and sin, he does not yet realize how hopelessly lost his condition is.

Three questions

Dear reader, how is it in your life? It is true that we are not monks or nuns; we are not even knocking at the door of a monastery. Nevertheless, the same questions posed to Martin Luther are posed to us: “Are you a slave? Do you have unsettled debts? Is there a hidden plague in your life?”

Ah, if we are made honest by grace, then we shall discover that we are bound by sin and Satan. We are locked up as though in a prison, unable to release ourselves. In one of his writings Luther expressed it as follows, “Man has been twisted by sin; inwardly he has become crooked and bent over towards himself.”

God’s Word teaches us the same thing. In Paradise we have not only fallen away from God, but we have also fallen towards ourselves. We always revolve around our big I, even in matters of religion. We are rebels who have robbed God of His honor and are always aiming at our own glory. That may sometimes happen in a very subtle way since the heart is “deceitful and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9), but the root of our existence is always self-love. We are “bent over towards ourselves.”

A hidden plague

Will this ever change? Not until the Lord comes into our life with the saving ministration of His Spirit! When that happens, man is not only conquered by almighty power but also won over by divine love. He is convicted in his conscience but also bent over in his heart. He was bent over towards himself, but now he is bent over towards God. He falls at God’s side and adores Him in His holy justice. He begins to weep over the solemn reality that he has turned into a slave of himself, the devil, the world, and sin.

When God converts sinners, it will manifest itself in these fruits. They are brought to see that they are people with a hidden plague. What kind of plague is that? It is enmity against God and our neighbor, against the law and the gospel, against God’s rightful dominion and His sovereign grace “because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). This is their plague and their perplexity. They have to serve God, and they cannot. They have to be converted, but they are not able. It is even worse: they have to, but they are not willing! Deep down in their heart they are enemies of God and their own salvation.

Born slaves

Will such people remain in this condition? Can they boast about their evil nature? Do they try to excuse themselves because of their inability? No, they do not. Their inability becomes guilt, and their corruption causes them to mourn and weep with bitter tears. Sin is not just an oversight or an unfortunate step for them, but it is felt as a plague inside their heart. They are born slaves, and they cannot deliver themselves. They have a debt so high that it reaches from the earth unto the heavens.

Martin Luther had no debts among men when he entered monastic life. Yet, he was exposed to another debt, a greater debt, an unsettled debt towards God. Moreover, he did not have a single penny to pay this debt. That is what he discovered in a deep and painful way. He had to learn that he was born not only as a slave but also as a guilty criminal and a bankrupt sinner.

Many people, also today, do not believe that this is hard to learn. By nature no one believes that it is impossible from man’s side. However, the reality is that man is ignorant, stubborn, and unwilling to surrender. In fact, he will never surrender unless God lays him in the dust as a poor beggar with broken arms and broken legs. Do we understand what that means? To admit to a few shortcomings is not the same as to become a guilty sinner, yea, the vilest of all sinners before the Lord. To confess that we are going lost is something different from being taught from above that we are lost.

A second thunderclap

Martin Luther did not learn all these things in just one day. He had become a devout monk and, in addition to that, he did remarkably well in his first year which was a year of probation. “During one’s first year in the monastery, the devil always keeps quiet,” he would later say. Although his father was adamantly opposed to his son’s decision to become a monk, Martin Luther was at peace with this life, with the many religious exercises and the regular hours of prayer in the chapel, as well as with the daily chores and duties. Discipline, meditation, and fellowship with his companions had a beneficial effect on him. He was convinced that he was treading the pathway paved by saints of old, one which was leading him to heaven. When finally the day arrived on which he would take his monastic vows, nobody had any objection to him taking that step.

Perhaps the storm in Luther’s life would have passed by forever if lightning had not again struck, this time within his heart. As Martin Luther was destined for the priesthood, he would be ordained and for the first time officiate and celebrate a Mass. He had studied the complex ritual in a painstaking manner, deeply aware of the seriousness and glorious weight of his calling. Then the bell of the monastery chimed. The monks and family members, including Martin’s father, took their seats. The choir began singing: “Sing a new song to Jehovah....” The young priest stood before the altar and recited the prescribed text until he came to the words, “We offer Thee, the living, true, eternal God.”

“At that moment,” he recalled in later years, “I was struck with a great fear. I thought, ‘How should I address such a divine Majesty when man already trembles in the presence of an earthly prince? Who am I that I would dare to raise my eyes to this majestic God? Angels surround Him, and the earth quakes at His bidding. How then will a wretched little dwarf request Him for this or that? For I am dust and ashes—full of sin—and yet I speak unto the living, eternal, true God!”’ Martin Luther would have run away if his legs had not trembled so much. The dread for that which is holy, yea, for Him who is holy, struck him as a thunderclap.

Many coins

For the second time lightning had struck in the life of young Martin Luther; once while he was traveling and once while he stood at the altar. He was struck with blindness and was not able to see anymore. He now had to go a difficult way to come to see the light, a way of strife and wrestling at the throne of a holy and righteous God. In fact, it was an impossible way. “How will I ever find a gracious God?” That was the anxious question of Martin Luther.

The desperate monk made many attempts to find peace with God in his own strength. He gathered many coins, as it were, to pay off his spiritual debts and to move God to be gracious unto him. Often he fasted for three days in a row without taking a crumb of bread. Frequendy, he was found reading and studying at night while his half-frozen blankets lay on the ground. At regular times Luther would even chastise himself hoping to get rid of his sin and to come closer to God, but it was all to no avail.

Surely, these exercises gave him a certain feeling of satisfaction, but they afforded him no lasting peace or outcome for his soul. He endeavored to make himself humble before God and to die to his own self, but deliverance remained as far away as ever. “I almost tortured myself to death,” he once said, “but it was all in vain.”

A felled tree

Reader, have you learned the same lesson? Has your heart already been struck by the majesty and holiness of God? Has the tree of your life been split, and has your face been turned to heaven? In one of Luther’s writings we can read the following quote: “When someone hides under a tree against a thunderstorm and the tree is struck by lightning, the tree ends up being felled, and the man ends up being dead. The split tree lies open towards the sky, and the dead man has his countenance turned towards heaven.”

What a remarkable picture. In a literal sense this had almost occurred to Martin Luther under that tree near Erfurt; in a deeper sense, however, it occurred to him in the monastery of that town. He died spiritually and then lay upon the ground with his face turned to heaven.

Did God leave him there? No, He did not. It is so true what Hannah said in her song of praise, “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up” (1 Samuel 2:6). The time had come for Christ to reveal Himself in mercy. The same Spirit who had opened Luther’s festering wounds would now direct him to the fountain of blood opened in Jesus’ side. In the next article we hope to hear how that happened.

— to be continued —

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