There’s a common attack against Martin Luther that you’ll often hear in Roman Catholic circles that goes something like this: Luther had some form of mental illness, maybe bipolar or OCD, that made him obsess over his sins, which is why the Roman church’s penitential system didn’t give him any comfort, So Luther invented the doctrine of justification through faith alone as a way to escape being consumed by the sins that shouldn’t have consumed him. In short, if Luther hadn’t been crazy, he would have seen sin as something manageable.
The great problem with this theory, of course, is that it’s utterly disconnected from the Scriptures and how they teach us to view sin. We see this in our reading from Romans yesterday and today, where Paul has been lamenting the plight of his sinful nature raging against the new nature. He desires that which is good, that which is holy, but his flesh siezes him and makes him do the very thing he hates. His sinful nature won’t let go, won’t give up, leading him to cry out “wretched man that I am, who can save me from this body of death?”
But after Paul asks this question, he gives the answer. He can be at peace because he possesses a glorious, priceless treasure in the blood of Jesus Christ. Through faith in the name of Jesus Christ alone, Paul has victory over everything that has assaulted him and hounded him, all his sins and failures and corruption. There is now no condemnation for him. There is now no condemnation for Luther and there is no condemnation for you. No matter how great your sin, it has been destroyed forever in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Everything you need to be loved and cherished by Him He Himself has given you. And you have received this all through faith alone.
So the problem with the Reformation was not that Luther took sin too seriously. It was that the Pope didn’t take it seriously enough and therefore didn’t take the gospel seriously enough. But you have a greater treasure than indulgences and elaborate systems of managing the body of death. You have life. You have Christ. You have the fullness of His salvation. You have everything. Christ has made you new. Rejoice in Him.
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