My Spiritual Debt to Martin Luther

My Spiritual Debt to Martin Luther   (link)


Here is an excerpt:


By "theology of the cross" Luther understood first that the God who remains hidden to human gaze (both physical and philosophical) reveals himself where the world never thinks of looking for him. Faith alone knows this God. For this reason Luther liked to say, "The gospel is aural"; it can only be "heard." (In other words, the Spirit-sensitized heart recognizes the gospel as it is proclaimed.) The gospel can never be "seen." Luther knew that what we can all see every day everywhere in the world -- crime, war, starvation, betrayal, natural disaster -- never persuades anyone of the Father's love. We apprehend God's love for us and thereupon entrust him with our lives only as we "shut our eyes and open our ears." For only the faith-quickening Word that we hear can get beyond the resistance to God aroused by the doubt-quickening sights that we see.