At that point, von der Ecken, in the name of the emperor, demanded that Martin provide an unambiguous (without horns or teeth) response to the question of recanting what he had written. In response Luther spoke the famous words:
Since then your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.[1]
He could have just said, “No.” But he was a teacher and a preacher, so a one-word answer would not suffice. What particularly shines through is the tenacious hold the Scriptures had on Luther. He said that he was bound (captured/seized/conquered) by the Scriptures he had cited in his writings. While granting that Luther was speaking figuratively, his description of the Scriptures’ hold on him is revealing.
The living and active Word of God had conquered his heart. For so long Luther had an inadequate conception of God and the way to life, thinking it was incumbent on him to produce a righteousness by which he could stand before the righteous God. Until, that is, the Holy Spirit enlightened him by the gospel of Christ. Years later, as he reflected on the Lord’s grace in leading him to the truth, the Reformer pointed to his wrestling with Rom 1:17: “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” He confessed that he had hated the expression “the righteousness of God,” because he could think only of the righteous God demanding a righteousness from sinners that they could not achieve, no matter how fervently they struggled. In his mercy, the Lord helped Luther to see that “the righteousness of God” revealed in the gospel is the righteousness God gives. That, Luther said, changed everything for him. “Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.”[2] As he enabled Luther to believe that he was righteous before God through faith in Christ, the Lord filled his heart with a newfound zeal for the Scriptures. Because the Scriptures revealed the glorious message of forgiveness in Christ and freed him from the foolish idea that he must earn righteousness by his obedience, they would hold central place not only in his heart but also in his preaching, teaching, and writing. He could not escape the Scriptures. And, because of the Spirit’s work, he had no desire to do so.
Luther’s insistence on the Scriptures alone[3] being able to establish and judge doctrine, then, resulted from the gospel capturing Luther’s heart. Martin Brecht, author of a three-volume biography of Luther, offers this observation: “The absolute commitment to the Scriptures, however, was not merely an empty formal allegiance to a principle. Rather it was precisely the Word of God which had freed him from guilt and then also from false human impositions. He could not repudiate the Word which promised him salvation.”[4] The faith the gospel worked in his heart placed him willingly under the Scriptures. What Luther had heard from popes and councils had too often contradicted the gospel of righteousness through faith in Christ, thereby robbing God of the glory he deserved as the Savior of unworthy sinners and depriving consciences of the comfort the Lord desired them to have.
[1]. LW 32:112–13.
[2]. LW 34:33.
[3]. When Luther said that he would have to be “convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason,” he was not saying that the Scriptures and reason were two separate items that could move him to recant. Robert Rosin helpfully explains that the clear reason Luther had in mind was “a reasoning ability that had been shaped by the word…. At bottom, since clear reason is that which is aligned with the word, the actual bottom line, the foundation, is simply Scripture—sola Scriptura.” Robert Rosin, “Luther at Worms and the Wartburg: Still Confessing,” Concordia Journal (Spring 2019), 64.
[4]. Brecht, 461.