From the beginning, the Lutheran Reformation in the 16th century was not meant to establish a new church or faith. Essentially it was the renewal of the existing Roman Catholic Church, meanwhile deliberately and systemically asking about the beginning of Christ’s event. Things which were written in 27 New Testament canonical books, were important, as well as the clearly distinguishable pre-Christian congregation’s life and work.
The Reformation attempted to correct obviously incorrect church dogma and interpretation, which did not correspond to the message of the Gospel of Christ and which can be found in the Scriptures (for example, priesthood/mediatorial questions).
The idea of the Reformation comes from the New Testament’s biblical theology, not from the Middle Age church interpretation and folk tradition, which tend to mix up mythological and superstitious folklore elements.
The interpretation of the New Testament taking into account the text inner and contextual logic, meaningful exegesis and hermeneutics of a biblical text establishes the fundamental theological principle of the Lutheran Reformation and it is summed up in “4 Soli”: soli fide (faith only), sola gratia (only mercy (of God)), sola scriptua (only Sacred writings) and solus Christus (only Christ).
These principles establish the theological mentality, life and practice of Lutheran churches (and all protestant movements).
The textual exit point for the Reformation can be found in The Letter to Romans 3:28: “therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law”.
Therefore, it was not oriented to a person’s aspiration, work, achievement, but to God’s work through Jesus Christ for the sake of our salvation.
The Lutheran Reformation affects not only the Church, its theological views and practice, but community in general.
The Lutheran Reformation directly affected all the Western civilization — especially patterns and forms of society, human relationship, education, science and art development and other spheres.
Without the Lutheran Reformation the existence of the modern (enlightened), democratic and free world would not be possible.
