Fattened by Grace - the Happy Theology of Martin Luther
You aren’t as happy as you ought to be. Were Luther alive he’d tell you that.
Strangely he was miserable most of his. He entered his thirties morose and gaunt. Trying to please an un-pleasable God, His existence was an extended episode of the night Cool Hand Luke spent digging, filling, and then digging again a ditch in a prison yard. Regardless of what he did the boss was never pleased.
Luther confessed for hours. Fasted for days. Starved himself of sleep to pray. Nothing was enough.
It was agonising.
Then He died at 63 plump and happy.
What happened?
He was made fat by grace.
The story though well-known begs rehearsing. It was around the year 1515. Luther’s confessor - Johann Von Staupitz - had been long worn out by Luther’s melancholy, sometimes having to endure day long confession sessions as Luther ransacked his memory for known sin - bringing back such minor infractions his confessor, expelling a frustrated sigh burst “if you expect Christ to forgive you, come in with something to forgive - patricide, blasphemy, adultery - instead of all these peccadilloes”. This morbid introspection left Von Staupitz exhausted and Luther paralyzed. Von Staupitz knew this. But he knew not what to do about it.
Finally he struck upon a cure - he would force Luther out of himself.
Von Staupitz appointed Luther as his successor teaching the New Testament at the University of Wittenberg. It was the equivalent of trying to help a man walk by stealing his wheelchair then telling him to cross a tightrope. Luther could barely function under the stress of caring for his own soul - and that in the tranquil compound of the Augustinian Cloister. How could he prepare lectures, speak in public and deal with students when he could barely sweep the floor of the monastery? It might drive him to despair. Maybe death.
But it worked.
As a professor of the New Testament Luther was obliged to read it. And it was there, in the pages of a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to a church in Rome, where Luther discovered the gospel.
In his own words:
“I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. The passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven"
The gospel exploded in Luther's heart like a bomb in the ocean and happiness began to ripple out into every area of his life like shockwaves. Previously God to Luther was a unappeasable ogre, but now he was beginning to see Him as an extravagantly-generous Father and the author of all goodness, truth and beauty. Whereas before Luther might nervously eat a meal, unsure if he should instead be fasting, and more unsure whether that meant Hell, now he feasted with a glad heart - believing God his Father had made the meal and set the table. Every good thing Luther had tried to sacrifice to please God He now understood as not needing to be sacrificed (because Jesus’ had already made full sacrifice) but rather enjoyed as God’s gift reflecting His grace and creativity. In essence, because of the picture painted of God in the gospel, Luther went from being unable to look anywhere without doubting God’s goodness, to being unable to look anywhere without seeing it.
What the Cross meant for Luther was that God could not be other than a lavish-giver in all of life. If He was willing to give up that which was dearest to Him in order to rescue those who hate Him - how could he be anything other than a prodigal God? As soon as Luther saw that, everything began to refract in jubilant rays this grace - dogs, music, trees, leaves on trees, marriage and of course, food. Any later portraits of Luther will at once betray his love for this gift and the fact he indulged it frequently. But this beautiful fact of history embodies better than anything else the happy theology of Martin Luther. A once moribund morose monk could die confident he would “give the worms a fat doctor to feast on” because he had known himself the beneficiary of grace and had, in response, gleefully enjoyed that grace in all things. May we, instead of responding in noxious censoriousness with benign cautions about over-eating, do exactly the same. For this is how we live out a happy theology.
Strangely he was miserable most of his. He entered his thirties morose and gaunt. Trying to please an un-pleasable God, His existence was an extended episode of the night Cool Hand Luke spent digging, filling, and then digging again a ditch in a prison yard. Regardless of what he did the boss was never pleased.
Luther confessed for hours. Fasted for days. Starved himself of sleep to pray. Nothing was enough.
It was agonising.
Then He died at 63 plump and happy.
What happened?
He was made fat by grace.
The story though well-known begs rehearsing. It was around the year 1515. Luther’s confessor - Johann Von Staupitz - had been long worn out by Luther’s melancholy, sometimes having to endure day long confession sessions as Luther ransacked his memory for known sin - bringing back such minor infractions his confessor, expelling a frustrated sigh burst “if you expect Christ to forgive you, come in with something to forgive - patricide, blasphemy, adultery - instead of all these peccadilloes”. This morbid introspection left Von Staupitz exhausted and Luther paralyzed. Von Staupitz knew this. But he knew not what to do about it.
Finally he struck upon a cure - he would force Luther out of himself.
Von Staupitz appointed Luther as his successor teaching the New Testament at the University of Wittenberg. It was the equivalent of trying to help a man walk by stealing his wheelchair then telling him to cross a tightrope. Luther could barely function under the stress of caring for his own soul - and that in the tranquil compound of the Augustinian Cloister. How could he prepare lectures, speak in public and deal with students when he could barely sweep the floor of the monastery? It might drive him to despair. Maybe death.
But it worked.
As a professor of the New Testament Luther was obliged to read it. And it was there, in the pages of a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to a church in Rome, where Luther discovered the gospel.
In his own words:
“I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. The passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven"
The gospel exploded in Luther's heart like a bomb in the ocean and happiness began to ripple out into every area of his life like shockwaves. Previously God to Luther was a unappeasable ogre, but now he was beginning to see Him as an extravagantly-generous Father and the author of all goodness, truth and beauty. Whereas before Luther might nervously eat a meal, unsure if he should instead be fasting, and more unsure whether that meant Hell, now he feasted with a glad heart - believing God his Father had made the meal and set the table. Every good thing Luther had tried to sacrifice to please God He now understood as not needing to be sacrificed (because Jesus’ had already made full sacrifice) but rather enjoyed as God’s gift reflecting His grace and creativity. In essence, because of the picture painted of God in the gospel, Luther went from being unable to look anywhere without doubting God’s goodness, to being unable to look anywhere without seeing it.
What the Cross meant for Luther was that God could not be other than a lavish-giver in all of life. If He was willing to give up that which was dearest to Him in order to rescue those who hate Him - how could he be anything other than a prodigal God? As soon as Luther saw that, everything began to refract in jubilant rays this grace - dogs, music, trees, leaves on trees, marriage and of course, food. Any later portraits of Luther will at once betray his love for this gift and the fact he indulged it frequently. But this beautiful fact of history embodies better than anything else the happy theology of Martin Luther. A once moribund morose monk could die confident he would “give the worms a fat doctor to feast on” because he had known himself the beneficiary of grace and had, in response, gleefully enjoyed that grace in all things. May we, instead of responding in noxious censoriousness with benign cautions about over-eating, do exactly the same. For this is how we live out a happy theology.
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