Luther’s final thoughts were not meant to bum you out or lead you to despair.
I have been at more bedsides of dying people than I can remember and done more funerals than I can count. It is a profound honor to be with someone as they depart from this world and to profess Christ’s mercy to them as they prepare to see him, to see their last interactions with family and friends, to hear their last thoughts, and to learn about what is important to them when all of the chaos and inconsequential things have fallen away. For the Christian, death is not just part of the “grand circle of life.” It is a foreign thing, a consequence of our sin and rebellion. But as death comes to us, we often witness a person’s essence and beliefs displayed in a distilled, refined form.
At Luther’s death in February of 1546, those attending him found a scrap of paper in his garment pocket with his brief last thoughts written upon it. The words read, “We are beggars. This is true.” At first glance, these words may seem depressing, nihilistic, or even defeatist in some way, but they are really quite the opposite. This final statement of Martin Luther stands as the distilled, refined summation of his entire life’s work and the theology that the Holy Spirit caused him to rediscover. These last words do not point us to despair; they point us to Christ.
God’s Word teaches us both law (the things he commands us to do and not to do) and gospel (Christ Jesus crucified to atone for our sins). These truths comprise the meaning of human existence before God. Under God’s law, we learn what God’s perfect standard is for our thoughts, words, and deeds. As we witness and hear of that standard, we become painfully aware of the fact that we do not measure up. Throughout the course of his ministry, Luther continually proclaimed the reality of our inability to please God with our actions, as the Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), and that by the works of the law no one will be justified (Rom. 3:20, Gal. 2:16). Before God, we have no claim on the Kingdom of Heaven if we are relying on our own resume of good works. We cannot justify our lives before God. We have no case to make. We are beggars before God’s throne.
The best news for us is that the law does not have the final say. For while we were still sinners, bent on our own destruction, Christ Jesus’ love was the impetus for his life-giving atonement on the cross and his resurrection on the third day (Rom. 5:8). God’s law kills us with its severity, but the full sweetness of the gospel makes us alive. Christ’s innocent blood shed for us atoned for our sins, canceled our debt in hell, and freed us from all those things that we fear as our own death approaches. Christ’s death gives us life. While it is true that the wages of sin is death and we cannot merit salvation, it is also blissfully true that by faith, we are justified (saved) by his grace as a gift (Rom. 3:24).
In light of these realities in which we live before God, Luther believed that we live by grace alone and by faith alone (Eph. 2:8). This means that our salvation is an entirely unearned gift freely given by God, as is the faith by which we receive it. It is imperative that we understand that even the faith by which we cling to God and his truth is a gift of the Holy Spirit and not the product of our reason and strength. By grace, the faith that he demands of us, he himself gives to us.
Luther also believed, taught, and confessed that salvation comes to us by Christ alone. This is not to the exclusion of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Both the Father and the Holy Spirit give testament to Jesus. In him, we have seen the Father, and of him, the Holy Spirit teaches us. Jesus’ blood atonement for the sins of all mankind for all time is the single most important act in the history of the universe, as salvation is found in no one else, and there is no other name under heaven by which people are saved (Acts 4:12). Thus salvation is found in Christ alone.
How do we know that all of this is true? Martin Luther believed it to be by Scripture alone. This is not to say that natural law cannot show us anything about God at all because it most certainly does! But the depth of our sin and the revelation of the person and work of Christ is found only in the texts of the Bible. Only there do we find God’s will for our lives and the promises of God. Only there do we have access to the mind of God and know him as he wants to be known. Only in Scripture can we be certain about who God is, who we are, and the meaning of life
Since it is God alone who created us, God alone who redeemed us, God alone who sustains us in this life, and God alone who is coming again to take us home, we realize that all credit and glory must be given to him. Life does not come from us, truth does not come from us, faith does not come from us, and salvation does not come from us, so neither we nor anything else under heaven is worthy of glory. All glory is to be given to God alone. This was finally Luther’s unifying theme. Truth, life, identity, salvation, and hope come from God. To Him alone be the glory for it all.
These were the beliefs of Martin Luther: grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, Scripture alone, and to God alone be the glory for all of it. Distilled down to its simplest essence, we are beggars; this is true. Luther’s final thoughts were not meant to bum you out or lead you to despair. They were meant to cause you to look outside of yourself and towards Christ, the author and finisher of your faith and the one who promises to lead you into truth as you ready to face your own death with confidence and hope. From one beggar to another, go in peace.
