By Robb Brunansky - Posted at The Cripplegate:
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenburg Church, igniting the Protestant Reformation. Luther was not trying to start a political or a spiritual revolution but attempting to begin a conversation about the theological problem of indulgences.
The sale of indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church originated, not as a spiritual matter, but as a civil one. In the Middle Ages, the church was the state, so it not only enforced theological, but civil, standards. Indulgences, then, were first instituted for criminals to pay for offenses against the state, increasing revenue and decreasing expenses. Initially, the church did not promise any spiritual benefit from these purchases.
Unfortunately, because church and state were one, this distinction between civic forgiveness and remission of guilt soon blurred into spiritual forgiveness and remission of guilt. The church saw how effective indulgences were in raising revenue for criminal activity, so they began selling indulgences for spiritual benefits. By the time Martin Luther came along nine centuries later, the sale of indulgences for spiritual benefit was rampant. Unsurprisingly, the more money Rome needed, the more “spiritually beneficial” indulgences became.
Martin Luther understood that true salvation through forgiveness of sins could not be purchased with perishable things (1 Peter 1:18-19). Luther therefore rightly condemned these sales and promoted the gospel of God’s grace, setting off a firestorm as Rome defended its stream of revenue.
Truly, at the heart of the Reformation stood the gospel. Four principles were developed to explain the gospel – the five solas of the Reformation. The first was sola gratia, which means ‘grace alone.’ We receive salvation because God freely chose to give it. Second was sola fide, which means ‘faith alone.’ Works cannot avail to justify sinners before a holy God.