Most North Americans believe there is a heaven, and most North Americans believe they will go there. Why? Because they believe they are good people. Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant Reformer thought otherwise. He knew he was a sinner.

Luther became a monk and a professor of theology. He first taught a course on the Psalms. The Psalms begin (and often continue) with a contrast between the righteous and the wicked: “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked” (Psalm 1:1). The problem for Luther is that he felt more like one of the wicked than one of the righteous. Another theme Luther saw in the Psalms was being CORAM DEO. This Latin phrase means “in the presence of God.” (Luther, like everyone else in the Middle Ages, was reading the Vulgate, a Latin translation of the Bible.) For Luther, being in the presence of the holy, living God was terrifying. Conscious of his own sin, Luther was terrified that God would strike him dead.

Luther next turned to lecturing on the book of Romans. He was hopeful that this New Testament book would provide more encouragement. Instead, he found: “In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed” (Romans 1:17). Luther was reading his Latin Bible, and the Latin word for “righteousness” is JUSTITIA, from which we get our word “justice.” This filled Luther with despair. If even the gospel is all about God’s justice, then he was convinced that he was doomed since he knew he was a sinner.

It was only when Luther read on and found “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17) that he found hope. It was at that point that Luther realized that the righteousness spoken of here is not the righteousness that we can achieve on our own but the righteousness of Christ that God confers on those who have faith in Him.