A Holy God and a Holy Love

Reading about Luther's conversion experience, particularly in the light of his torment over the problem of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of people, has really helped me rejoice so much more in the gospel. Being reminded of the holiness of God is so crucial if we are to appreciate the incredible rescue God has accomplished for us.

Sproul:

 Luther was a lawyer; he had studied the Old Testament Law; he knew the demands of a pure and holy God, and it was driving him crazy. 

The genius of Luther ran up against a legal dilemma that he could not solve. There seemed to be no solution possible. The question that nagged him day and night was how a just God could accept an unjust man. He knew that his eternal destiny rode on the answer. But he could not find the answer. Lesser minds went merrily along their way, enjoying the bliss of ignorance. They were satisfied to think that God would compromise His own excellence and let them into heaven. After all, heaven would not be the marvelous place it was cracked up to be if they were excluded from it. God must grade on a curve. Boys will be boys, and God is big enough not to get all excited about a few moral blemishes. 

Two things separated Luther from the rest of men: First, he knew who God was. Second, he understood the demands of God’s law. He had mastered the law. Unless he came to understand the gospel, he would die in torment. 

Then it happened: Luther’s ultimate religious experience. There were no lightning bolts, no flying inkwells. It took place in quietness, in the solitude of his study. Luther’s so-called “tower experience” changed the course of world history. It was an experience that involved a new understanding of God, a new understanding of His divine justice. It was an understanding of how God can be merciful without compromising His justice. It was a new understanding of how a holy God expresses a holy love.

Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by 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. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven. . . .

Like Isaiah before him, Luther felt the burning coal on his lips. He knew what it meant to be undone. He was shattered by the mirror of a holy God. He said later that before he could get a taste of heaven, God had to dangle him first over the pit of hell. God did not drop His servant into the pit; He saved his life from the pit. He proved that He was a God who was both just and the justifier. When Luther understood the gospel for the first time, the doors of paradise swung open, and he walked through. 

Once Luther grasped Paul’s teaching in Romans, he was reborn. The burden of his guilt was lifted. The crazed torment was ended. This meant so much to the man that he was able to stand against pope and council, prince and emperor, and, if necessary, the whole world. He had walked through the gates of paradise, and no one was going to drag him back. Luther was a Protestant who knew what he was protesting.