Between 1522 and 1530, Luther and his colleagues began to develop a new expression of Christianity, which they called Evangelical. The word comes from the Greek term for gospel, and reflects that Luther and his followers saw themselves as particularly focused on the gospel of Christ. The movement would, much later, become known as Lutheran. The Evangelicals had broken decisively with the Catholic Church over doctrine and were now developing their own distinctive institutions and practices. But they were convinced that they remained Christians—more truly Christian, in fact, than the Pope and the Catholic hierarchy.

Basic Themes in Luther's Theology

Because of the large number and diverse nature of Luther's written works, it is sometimes difficult to construct a general statement about the nature of Luther's theology. Certainly, however, there are several key themes which recur throughout his writings and it is worthwhile to pause for a moment to describe some of these main themes.

Justification by faith alone

When Luther looked back on his career at the end of his life, he identified the discovery of justification by faith as the decisive turning point in his career. Luther's conviction that humans were reconciled to God entirely through faith in Christ—rather than through their own efforts or their religious acts—is the central idea of the Reformation. “I teach,” Luther said, “that people should trust in nothing but Jesus Christ alone, not in prayers or merits or even in their own works.”

Luther starts with the observation that humans are incapable of living the kind of perfectly sinless life that the Bible seems to mandate. This is what gave him such a troubled conscience as a young man. He recognized that he couldn't live up to the high standards of righteousness that were outlined in the scriptures. The church had addressed this concern by instituting the sacrament of penance, by which people could atone for their sins. Even so, Luther saw little hope of anybody achieving the state of true repentance necessary for the sacrament to be effective. In practice, many believers, and Luther chief among them, participated in the sacrament of penance not because they actually repented of their sins, but rather because they feared divine punishment. In this case, Luther reasoned, the sacrament is done for a purely selfish motive.