Martin Luther's Use Of Justification

Martin Luther had many great accomplishments throughout the course of his life, but it all started with his spiritual breakthrough and his newfound understanding of justification by faith. During the time he had recently had took the position as a professor at Wittenberg University, teaching biblical theology. While he worked at Wittenberg he often thought about how the church had an opinion of God and his grace that was too lowly and that God could never be approached by humans like himself no matter how many good deeds that they had done. He also saw how the practice of selling indulgences, a donation to the church instead of performing penance for sins, was being abused by the pope and was using this as a method to raise money. One day

This kind of justification cannot be sold or earned, but is simply given to us as a gift through the mercy of God. Although God gives mercy and forgiveness, Martin Luther believed that they cannot be justified, righteous in His eyes, if they don’t have complete faith in him. It is faith and faith alone that saves and justifies the common people and is also the key to salvation. Once people are justified by faith, they are lead to do good works, but these good works should be done as a result of justification and not as a way to get justification. He felt like the church, indulgences, and the use of them instead of repenting for sins was allowing the whole idea of religion to be abused and corrupted. He also believed that this was weakening their faith in God. The conclusion that this spiritual breakthrough happened all at once in very unlikely and it was most probably spread out over time instead. But it is not how or when this happened which is important, but instead, that has occurred at all because this epiphany eventually influenced greater events in the future. Martin Luther’s spiritual breakthrough and his new perspective on religion eventually lead to the publication of a famous historical document, the 95 theses.

The 95 theses were rebellious statements that were very impactful during the renaissance,

Luther’s actions sadly lead to his excommunication, but it also leads to greater things such as the Protestant Reformation. He started the Reform Movement at Wittenberg in 1522, approximately 5 years after the nailing of the 95 theses.He also argued about justification by faith and although he never planned to, he spent the next 20 years of his life creating a new church. Although Luther wanted to change the religion, he was a conservative, meaning that he only wanted to change religion when he felt as if the Gospel demanded it to be changed. This even angered some of Martin Luther’s followers and supporters because they wanted to see bigger changes. The Reformation was launched by the actions of Martin Luther and the first Protestant religion was Lutheranism, named after Martin Luther, but he isn’t the only one who took part in this movement and other types of religion rose as history went by. The Reformation spread far and wide until it was widely embraced in places such as France and Scandinavia. Protestantism can have small or large differences between catholicism, but the main difference is the different beliefs pertaining to the connection between God and man. Catholics believed that the pope speaks for God, while Protestants believed that not one man could have that much power over the