We are all given to projection with our heroes. That is, we see those who have done well, who have made an impact, and assume the person’s effectiveness flowed out of some quality we admire or think we have. Spike Lee used to insist that what made Michael Jordan Michael Jordan was the shoes. It is tempting, therefore, especially among those of us who have a passion for the study of theology to assume that what animated Luther was his brilliant theological mind. Read through his destruction of Erasmus in The Bondage of the Will and you can tell Luther wasn’t one to back down from a theological battle. Nor was he apt to lose one.
That, in turn, might make us believe the power came from his valor. Luther giving his “Here I stand” speech is surely a picture of courage in action. It’s a quality I admire, that I covet, and that Luther had in spades. He was a man with a brilliant mind and with a stout heart.
My position, however, is that Luther’s greatness flowed not from his riches of mental clarity or his boundless bravery. Instead it flowed from his poverty, more specifically, his poverty of spirit. Luther was used of God to do great things precisely because Luther knew just how small, and how sinful he was. We know that Luther went into the monastery to seek to work off his guilt. We know that he was to monkery what Paul was to Judaism. And he learned, just as Paul learned, that all he could amass through his labors was a bigger pile of judgment. Luther was the man who could not look up, who beat his breast, who cried out, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” Because of that he was the man who went home justified and from there was used to change the world. He did not change the world to earn God’s favor. Rather, having not earned but secured by faith God’s favor, he went forth with the message of the gospel.
Which should remind us of the true affront of Rome. The problem with Rome isn’t merely that they claim for themselves an authority equal to the Word of God. It isn’t merely that they have a deficient view of how it is that a man might find favor with God. Their problem is that in making themselves rather than Jesus the mediators between God and men they leave us holding the bag, having to earn our salvation, an endeavor damned to failure. Luther hung on to the gospel that the church had cast away because he understood that without it there was no way of salvation.
It is not theological precision that wins the crown. It is not boldness that seizes eternity. It is instead brokenness. Our failure is the way to gain His victory, our weakness the way to be rescued by His strength. Our poverty is that by which we are given His riches. Luther heard Jesus, and believed Him, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”