"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." (v. 36)
On October 31, 1517, the eve of All-Saints’ Day, at high noon, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. (We acknowledge that some scholars consider the story to be a pious legend.) It is easy to over-dramatize the event, but one cannot be unmindful of those hammer blows which echoed around the world. The Reformation had begun!
Precisely, what was Luther doing? Existentially, he was listing 95 reasons why he objected to the sale of Indulgences. His church door was, in reality, the university bulletin board where all announcements were affixed. As a professor he was calling for a debate; he was willing to take on all challengers:
Out of love for the faith and the desire to bring it t…