We’ve heard the tune before. We heard it from the Pharisee in the temple, boasting of himself before God. We heard it from the poet who bragged, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” Like a broken record, it keeps playing over and over again, “As long as you don’t do anything really bad, God will accept you into heaven.”
A New Song for the Middle Ages
Loud and proud, that song was heard during the Middle Ages. With heavy emphasis on making satisfaction for one’s own sins, Roman Catholicism held the people in a bondage of fear. The monk Martin Luther tried hard to dance to the church’s tune. He did everything the church demanded in an effort to merit God’s favor, but to no avail. Of his experience he would later write: “Life had become a living hell, so firmly sin possessed me.”
Yet one day, while reading his Bible, Luther came across this passage from Habakkuk: “The just shall live by his faith.” (2:4 NKJV) It was then that Luther felt heaven open. Through the Word the Spirit caused him to discover that salvation is a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ. With great relief, Luther, like David before him, could now say: “He lifted me out of the slimy pit. . . . He put a new song in my mouth.” (Psalm 40:2-4 NIV)
Soon this “song” was being “played” all across Europe. Luther’s Ninety-five Theses and his many Gospel pamphlets rang with the promise of spiritual liberty, praising the blood and merits of Jesus as full payment for all sin. Salvation through Christ alone sweetly sounded in the hymns of Luther and the other reformers: “Salvation unto us has come by God’s free grace and favor!”
It’s true that the new song of the Gospel goes back all the way to when God first promised mankind a Savior to crush the power of Satan. Yet, its amazing message was new to the hearts and ears of most people during the Middle Ages. Satan, through the antichrist Church of Rome, had managed to muffle its glad tidings so that they were barely audible in the days prior to the Reformation.
A New Song for the Modern Ages
Sadly, the beat goes on! In this modern age we see Satan working harder than ever to silence the sound of God’s song of grace. Satan’s handiwork is evident in all the non-Christian religions of the world, which place the hope of salvation in one’s own deeds. We see it in churches which have abandoned Bible truth for work-righteous based human psychology. We hear it from the TV evangelist who teaches his audience that they must cooperate with God in order to be saved. In each case “the arrangement” might be slightly different, but it is always the same song of self-salvation.
There remains a crying need for the unconditioned song of “a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.” (Romans 3:28 NKJV) As in every age, the sinner must be pointed entirely away from himself to Jesus’ cross where full satisfaction for all sin has been accomplished! Only then can the unbeliever be lifted out of the mud and mire of damning sin. Only then can the believer maintain full confidence of his acceptance by God. Only then can the guilt be driven away and the accusing tongue of Satan be silenced.
May our new song be the same song of Luther, of Paul, of David. For it is God’s everlasting song of triumph for all through Christ. What music to the soul—a new song to give real and lasting peace—to bring us safely into the new heavens and the new earth!
“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” (Psalm 40:2-3 NIV)
The sinner must be pointed entirely away from himself to Jesus’ cross where full satisfaction for all sin has been accomplished!
is pastor of Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Saginaw, Michigan, and president of the Church of the Lutheran Confession.