By Tiago Cavaco
Martin Luther was no stranger to the devil. During his stay at Wartburg Castle, the tempter would come to frighten the friar and shake his faith. Legend has it that Luther threw his inkwell at Satan, and that stains can still be seen on the wall as proof.
It is a very suggestive story. As evangelicals, we can boast that the Protestant Reformation was high on hell’s list of things to prevent. But it happened anyway.
The devil would not have minded Luther being away from his city, Wittenberg. He would not have minded that much if Luther were away from his work as a theology teacher. He would not even have minded Luther being away from his church.
But the devil would have gone crazy at the thought of Luther being close to his Bible. And the Bible was precisely the one thing Luther, amid all the mess he was in, never distanced himself from.
The Church and the challenges of every age
We don’t have to be Martin Luther fans (as I will always be) to be inspired by this story when thinking about the Protestant Reformation and the Church today. The truth is that the Church and its times have never been an easy match.
Those of us celebrating the Protestant Reformation believe that the events that took place more than 500 years ago represent a kind of yesterday that still has something to say to today.
The Church is Christ’s Body, and this very fact should give us pause. Our Lord did not have an easy life while on earth. Now that He stands at the right hand of the Father, and the Church serves as the closest thing to His presence here, we should not expect an easy life for the Church either.
The Church will always face the difficulties of the present age, just as Christ did while He was here. First, it was hard for the Bridegroom; now it is hard for the Bride. Only at the wedding will this ordeal be over.
But we should not give in to fatalism. As a Portuguese person, it runs in my veins: we are known for our sense of saudade (think longing on steroids) and our surrender to tragedy. Our way of facing the present is not to expect much from the future.
But the Church has a different calling. The fact that today demands so much of us is simply a sign that we have not yet been taken out of the world, but are being kept from the evil one (John 17:15). We know this because Jesus said so.
From Eden to the Word made flesh
Which brings us back to the devil. The first time Satan appears in the Bible, he comes with the same trick he used on Martin Luther: getting Adam and Eve to turn away from the Word of God. Satan knew that if a breach could be created between people and what the Lord had told them, even paradise would lose its appeal.
Eden ends whenever doubt about what God says is born. This is why the problem could only be solved by something greater than that doubt also being born. That was the Gospel promise, looking ahead to the offspring of the woman (Genesis 3:15).
When Adam and Eve see what they did, they want to be unseen by God: they “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God” (Genesis 3:8, ESV). This is what sin does to us. They ran from the very thing that the rest of the Bible spends its pages looking for: the face of our Lord.
The moment we perceive “the sound of the Lord” not as the root of everything (for He created all things with His voice), but as our ruin, we are done. Paradise is lost.
This is why the Word of God was made flesh in Jesus. We ran from paradise, afraid of the Word of the Lord, but the Word of the Lord entered fear to bring us back. Christ undid through hell what the devil had done through paradise.
The Church needs the Protestant Reformation today because every day must be lived trusting God’s Word above all things. In this world, in every age, we will be tempted to doubt it — probably most of all when our lives feel like Eden.
Why the Reformation still matters today
You too will probably be no stranger to the devil, just as Luther was not. After all, being tempted was Christ’s first assignment after His baptism.
The Church today must be ready for the same experience: as creatures of the Word, we will be presented with plenty of opportunities to run away from that very Word.
But now that the Living Verb has taken hold of us, get those inkwells ready and don’t be afraid to spray-paint a few walls: “The Protestant Reformation is still here.”
About Tiago Cavaco
Tiago Cavaco is pastor of Igreja Batista da Lapa (Lapa Baptist Church) in Lisbon, Portugal. He is also a musician and a writer.
