Martin Luther In 5 Latin Phrases

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany, on November 10, 1483. He was christened at Saints Peter and Paul Church the next day. At age 7, Luther entered the Mansfeld Latin School. There he learned Latin grammar and prayers, and he memorized Aesop’s Fables. From those early years through his time studying at boarding school in Magdeburg then later at the University of Erfurt, Luther was a diligent student.

He kept up with his Latin, and several important Latin phrases appear throughout Luther’s writings. Five of them serve as a good summary of his life and chief theological emphases.

1. Iustitia Dei

In July 1505, Luther was caught in a fierce thunderstorm. Panicked and terrified, he bargained with God, promising to become a monk. After entering the monastery, Luther was again overcome by fear. When he led his first mass as a priest, it wasn’t an occasion of joy. Instead, it was filled with trembling.

As the service began, Luther took his place at the front of the chapel, and he began to recite the Latin prayers. Luther knew that God is perfect in judgment and completely without sin. So as he thought about iustitia Dei, “the righteousness of God” (Rom. 1:17), terror struck him.

Biographer Roland H. Bainton describes the thoughts that plagued Luther’s mind:

Who am I that I should . . . raise my hands to the divine Majesty? The angels surround him. At his nod the earth trembles . . . [but] I am dust and ashes.

When Luther held up the bread and wine, he shook so badly he almost dropped the cup.

During those years growing up in school and at the monastery, Luther only thought of God’s righteousness, or justice, as his active judgment against human sin. He later wrote,

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt and knew I was a sinner before God. I had an extremely disturbed conscience. . . . I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.

2. Extra nos

In 1512, Luther became a university professor in Wittenberg. As he studied the Bible for his lectures, he began to see God’s righteousness in a new light.

Luther saw how Jesus Christ took on our humanity, how he lived a perfect life and died the painful and shameful death of the cross to take the punishment due for sin. He saw how God raised Jesus from the dead, and how he now justifies Christians by faith. God declares that in his sight, Jesus’s perfect life and sacrificial death count for all believers. So God’s righteousness isn’t merely his judgment. It’s also his gift of salvation.

Jesus’s perfect life and sacrificial death count for all believers. So God’s righteousness isn’t merely his judgment. It’s also his gift.

What happened when Luther made this discovery? Here’s how he described it: “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” After that day, Luther began to teach that God gives Christians his “alien righteousness,” that is, a righteousness that comes extra nos, “from outside of us.”

Our righteousness isn’t from us; it doesn’t come from what we do. It can’t be earned by saying a prayer or even by having a good attitude. Our righteousness is ultimately found in and belongs to another, our Savior Jesus Christ.

3. Crux sola est nostra theologia

On October 31, 1517, Luther famously posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of Castle Church. In it, Luther spoke clearly against the money-raising indulgence schemes Pope Leo X and Germany’s own Prince Albert of Brandenburg had sponsored.

The next year, in April 1518, Luther defended these views at the Augustinian order’s spring meeting in Heidelberg. Luther walked to the meeting in fear. He expected the leaders there to sternly rebuke him. After all, that’s what the pope had asked them to do. But to Luther’s surprise, the leaders at the meeting welcomed his defense with excitement.

What did Luther say that got his new friends so excited? In his Heidelberg Disputation, Luther described two types of people—the “theologian of glory” and the “theologian of the cross.” Theologians of glory think people are capable and smart enough to know God through human reason. They also say we can know who God’s righteous people are because we see God reward them with political power, success, and wealth. Though Luther didn’t use Albert’s and Leo’s names in his disputation, it’s clear he was talking about their greedy doctrine of indulgences when he described the theologian of glory.

Luther’s “theologian of the cross,” by contrast, knows it’s not always people who appear good, beautiful, and powerful by worldly standards who truly know God. After all, Jesus didn’t look glorious on the cross. “One deserves to be called a true theologian,” Luther wrote, “who sees God even in suffering.” As Paul wrote, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27).

After Heidelberg, the phrase “Crux sola est nostra theologia” (“The cross alone is our theology”) became a rallying cry for Luther’s followers. It still is today.

4. Oratio, meditatio, tentatio

Luther’s teaching set the Protestant Reformation in motion. In support of his reforms, Luther published hundreds of books, sermons, and hymns. Significantly, he also translated the entire Bible into the language of Germany’s common people.

But Luther didn’t want common people to merely read Scripture. He wanted them to study it too. In the 1539 preface to the Wittenberg edition of his German writings, Luther wrote, “God himself lives in the Bible. Therefore, worthy Christian: get in, get in!” Luther gave his readers three rules for digging into God’s Word. Each has its own Latin term: prayer (oratio), meditation (meditatio), and suffering (tentatio).

A ‘theologian of the cross’ knows it’s not always people who appear good, beautiful, and powerful by worldly standards who truly know God.

The first rule is kept before we read the Bible. Luther wrote, “Kneel down in your private room and with humility, pray to God to give you his Holy Spirit to enlighten and guide and give you understanding.”

The second rule is kept while reading: “Read and reread the very words written down in the Bible. Observe and think about what the Holy Spirit means.”

The last rule is kept when we practice what the Scriptures say. Luther said,

As soon as you begin to know God’s word, the devil will afflict you. . . . This suffering will teach you how right, true, sweet, lovely, mighty, and comforting God’s word is. It is wisdom supreme.

5. Simul iustus et peccator

Luther was zealous and driven. He once said, “When I want to compose, write, pray, and preach well, I must be angry.” But while anger may have given Luther energy for work, it too often burned out of control. Sadly, today, Luther is as famous for his harsh words spoken against his enemies and the Jews as he is for recovering the biblical doctrine of justification.

Throughout his life, Luther taught that believers are simul iustus et peccator. That’s Latin for “simultaneously justified and a sinner.” Both realities are true of every Christian. Both were true of Luther. He was a broken man who desperately needed God’s grace, and he knew it.

Luther died while visiting Eisleben on February 18, 1546. Before he died, Luther scribbled out his last written words: “We are beggars. This is true.” Luther knew he could never earn God’s grace. Salvation isn’t won through indulgences or daily prayers. This is what Luther had discovered from the Bible and taught again to the world. God sent his only Son. Christ has overcome the world. All he asks of poor, begging sinners is that we believe.