Reformation Day

Reformationstag; Reformation Sunday

October 31, or the Sunday on or before it (Reformation Sunday)

Luther sent his Ninety-five Theses against indulgences, with a covering letter, to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, who was responsible for their sale for the building of St. Peter’s in Rome. The date, the eve of All Saints, is the date of the day. An original of the letter survives; the original theses do not. Whether he also posted them on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg is disputed (H3). In 1961 the Catholic historian Erwin Iserloh, building on doubts raised by the Lutheran historian Hans Volz, argued that the posting never happened; he is reported to have softened that claim later.

The Lutheran confession says that observances such as holy days and fasts must not be made necessary to earn God’s favor, and cites Colossians 2:16-23 against requiring them. This is the Lutheran ground for treating a day as free. It is not about Reformation Day, which did not exist.

In his preface to Luther’s works, written months after Luther’s death, Melanchthon says Luther fixed the theses publicly to the church door. La Civiltà Cattolica notes that in 1517 he was a 17-year-old student at Tübingen and came to Saxony only in 1518, so he was not an eyewitness. The posting is plausible but unproven (H1).

Luther wrote the theses on indulgences and he affixed them publicly to the door of the church which is next to the castle of Wittenberg, the eve of the Feast of All Saints, in the year 1517.

From 1667, 150 years after 1517, sets October 31 as the yearly day of remembrance of the Reformation in Saxony. It is the first documented fixing of the date; earlier Lutheran remembrances of the Reformation fell on other days.

The second centenary jubilee of the Reformation. After the jubilees of 1717 and 1817 the Reformation feast spreads and becomes settled in German Protestant life.

The 300th anniversary is also a celebration of German identity and the victory over Napoleon. The king and his government stressed that Lutheran and Reformed Protestants were now united. Orthodox Lutherans saw Luther above all as a theologian who taught the tenets of true faith, and Pietists as the man who brought the Bible to ordinary readers.

A joint Catholic-Lutheran commemoration of the Reformation. The two churches give thanks for what was received through it, and lament the division.

we also confess and lament before Christ that Lutherans and Catholics have wounded the visible unity of the Church.

For the 500th anniversary, October 31 is a one-time day off across all of Germany. Before then it was a legal holiday only in the eastern states.

On October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints, Luther sent his theses against indulgences to the archbishop of Mainz (H1). The story of hammering them to the door of the Castle Church is a good deal younger than the event, and was first told after his death (H3). The day was not kept on October 31 at first. Lutheran churches marked the Reformation on other days until Elector John George II fixed the date in 1667 (H4), and the centenary jubilees of 1717 and 1817 set the feast in German life (H5, H6).

The day has always meant more than one thing. For Lutherans it is a thanksgiving for the gospel of grace and the authority of Scripture. For Germany it became a national day (H6). For the Roman Catholic Church it has been a reminder of division, and in 2016 it was a day of joint prayer (H7). It falls on the same date as Halloween, and some churches hold Reformation parties as an alternative.

Lutheran churches

German Protestant churches (Evangelical and Union)

Reformed and evangelical churches

Strict Reformed and Presbyterian churches

The Roman Catholic Church

The Eastern Orthodox

Slovenia and Chile

The Churches of Christ

Reformation Sunday services

Lutheran churches read the lessons on justification by faith, with red paraments. Before the 20th century most kept October 31 on whatever weekday it fell.

“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”

Luther’s paraphrase of Psalm 46, written between 1527 and 1529, in the English of Frederick Hedge (1853). It is the hymn most tied to the day.

Jubilees

The centenary years set the tone of the day: 1617 stressed Lutheran orthodoxy, 1717 was largely directed against Rome, and 1817 was national and political (H5, H6). The 2017 jubilee was a one-time German holiday (H8).

Ecumenical commemoration

At Lund in 2016 Catholics and Lutherans prayed together and issued a joint statement (H7).

Reformation parties

Some Reformed and evangelical families and churches hold Halloween-style parties in which guests dress as Luther and other Reformers, with games such as “Pin the Theses on the Church Door”. Some Christians feel such parties come across as self-righteous.

A public holiday

A legal holiday in the eastern German states, and for Chile and Slovenia a national day. October 31 is also Halloween.

The church’s appointed day and memorial

The New Testament gives the church the first day and the Supper; no yearly day for a person or a movement is among them (S1, S2).

The church gathered “upon the first day of the week” to break bread (S1), and the Lord gave the memorial: “this do in remembrance of me”, proclaiming His death “till he come” (S2). That is the appointed remembrance. Apostolic example binds, and a specific appointment excludes other kinds: the church has no warrant to add a yearly day, however good its subject, to its worship. A day honoring reformers is still an addition. This is not a charge against Luther or those who keep the day with thanks. The standard is the New Testament.

The standard is the apostles’ word, not the Reformation

Every teaching and every church is tested by what the apostles delivered (S3, S4, S5), the Reformation as much as Rome.

Paul tells the Corinthians “not to go beyond the things which are written” (S3). He says even “an angel from heaven” who preaches another gospel than the one the apostles delivered is to be anathema (S4). The Bereans are called more noble because they examined the Scriptures daily “whether these things were so” (S5). So the Reformers’ own principle, Scripture over tradition, is the measure of their work. Where Luther’s theses showed that a sale of indulgences has no support in the apostles’ word, they were right by it. Where a Reformation church kept something the text does not give, that is weighed the same way. A reform is true only as far as it returns to the New Testament.

One body, one Lord, no party names

The church has one Lord, one faith and one baptism; the servants through whom it believed are not its heads (S6, S7).

Paul’s call is to keep “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”: one body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism (S6). Of the men through whom the Corinthians believed, he says that neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase (S7). A teacher is a servant, and the church is God’s. This does not forbid remembering a faithful teacher, which Hebrews commands (S16). It forbids dividing the church under a human name, and it asks the church to grieve at division among those who hold the apostles’ word.

Days are a matter of conscience for each believer

Romans 14 leaves a believer free to regard a day, and forbids judging one who does not (S8, S9).

“One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind” (S8). The days at Rome were most likely Jewish days and fasts, so Paul is not approving a Christian feast; but he gives the rule for a believer’s own regard for a day: it is between the believer and the Lord. And “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day” (S9) forbids judging a believer by the calendar. A Christian may keep October 31 in thanks for the gospel, or let it pass. What they may not do is bind the day on others or bring it into the church’s worship (A1).

A feast centered on Luther repeats the party spirit Paul rebuked: “I am of Paul; and I of Apollos”. It sets Christians under a man’s name.

Paul’s rebuke is of the party that sets itself under a human name against others who hold the same gospel. The keepers of the day say it thanks God for the gospel and does not exalt the man, and the text does not forbid remembering a teacher. It does ask the question the day invites: “Is Christ divided?” A church answers it by wearing no name but Christ’s, and the question applies to every name, not only Luther’s (A3). The text does not by itself condemn a day of thanks.

Jesus prayed that all who believe may be one. A split in the church is a cause for lament, not for a feast. Catholics and some ecumenical Lutherans say this.

The prayer is for unity of those who believe “through their word”, the apostles’ word. Division among those who hold it is sin to be grieved, as the Lund statement grieves it (H7). But the prayer does not call all who keep the name of Christ to stay joined whatever they teach, and Paul calls for a break from another gospel (S4). So the day may give thanks for what was recovered from the apostles’ word and lament the division together. The text does not forbid the one, and requires the other.

“Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years.” Some Christians object to any man-made holy day on this ground.

The Galatians were taking up the law’s calendar as a way to stand right with God, and Paul fears his labor was in vain. Read in context the text strikes at any day made necessary to please God. Lutheran churches, in their own confession, say the same of such observances (H2). It does not by itself forbid a Christian to remember the Reformation at home, which Romans 14 allows (S8). The case against a yearly day in the church’s worship rests on the New Testament’s pattern (A1), and this passage is not the proof.

This is the verse Luther said opened the gospel to him: “the righteous shall live by faith”. The Reformation recovered the gospel, and a day of thanks for that is fitting.

The gospel Paul describes is the church’s own, and it is good to thank God for any recovery of it. But the verse is the apostle’s, not Luther’s. It was true before 1517 and would be true without any day. That the gospel was recovered is a reason for thanks at home and in preaching on any Lord’s Day; it does not appoint a yearly day for the church to keep (A1).

Salvation is by grace through faith and not of works. This was the center of the Reformation against indulgences, and the day recalls it.

The text says that salvation is God’s gift and cannot be earned, which cuts at the root of selling pardons. The Reformers used it rightly against indulgences. The same standard weighs every slogan, theirs included: James says “by works a man is justified, and not only by faith” (James 2:24), and Paul’s “not of works” shuts out works done to earn merit, not the “obedience of faith” he preached (Romans 1:5). Both are Scripture, and they are read together. The right use of this text is to hold the apostles’ words in full. It does not make a feast.

Scripture is inspired and complete. The Reformation stood on this: Scripture judges tradition. The day honors that principle.

The principle is right, and it cuts every way. If Scripture furnishes the man of God “completely unto every good work”, it measures the church’s worship too, including a yearly day for the Reformation. The Westminster divines, who held it most strictly, kept no holy day but the Lord’s Day for that reason. The text supports the case on this page (A1, A2).

Remembering faithful teachers is commanded. The Reformers spoke the word of God, so we may keep a day of remembrance for them.

Remembering the teachers “that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God” is commanded, together with imitating their faith, and a church or family may do it on any day. Nothing in the text appoints a yearly day, or makes the remembrance a service of the church. The right way to honor a teacher is to imitate their faith and to hold the word they taught, which means testing even their work by it (A2).

Study

• Luther’s letter of October 31, 1517 is certain; the posting on the door is not (H1, H3). Why might a legend have grown around the day?
• Paul tells the Corinthians “not to go beyond the things which are written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). How should a Christian test the Reformation by that rule, as it tested Rome?
• John 17:21 asks that all believers be one. At Lund, Catholics and Lutherans both gave thanks and lamented (H7). What would it take to give thanks for the recovery of the gospel without celebrating the division?
• Hebrews 13:7 commands remembering faithful teachers. How does a church remember a teacher without making the teacher the center of its worship?
• The Lutheran Confessions say observances must not be made necessary to earn God’s favor (H2). Does that settle whether a church may add a yearly day to its worship?

The Lord’s Day

All Saints, All Souls and Halloween

The Marian Feasts

Christmas

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