After you fight face-to-face with a fire-breathing dragon and overcome his wrath with nothing more than a broad-sword and shield, no other man or beast will ever frighten you again. No fear!

I have been diving deep into the life of Martin Luther through the pages of Eric Metaxas’ book by the same name. Wow, what a life! Luther was one of a kind, a warrior for the Gospel who truly lit the world on fire. Like the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther was uniquely called by God to inspire faith and challenge the rigid religious structures of his day that for centuries had barred the gate of heaven for millions.

He stood as a giant among the Protestant Reformers. And in my reading of this book, I am on a quest to find out what drove him. What was it that made this man so effective?

Yes, he was brilliant, witty and passionate. He was self-driven and tenacious. But it was his fearlessness that separated him from the others, for most of his life he simply didn’t care what other people thought. But something first had to make him fearless, for fearlessness doesn’t just come naturally for any person. I think I found the answer.

Early in his life, Martin Luther was aware of the fact that he was being pursued by a dragon of massive proportions – – a hungry terrifying beast armed with deadly talons and razor-sharp teeth. He was pursuing Luther with reckless abandon. And Luther knew that sooner or later a battle to the death with this ferocious foe was inevitable. What dragon you ask? Real dragons don’t hunt men. Metaphorically they do, especially when that dragon’s name is ‘Condemnation’.

This dragon is after all of us, whether you believe it or not. And that is where Martin Luther first distinguishes himself from those around him, he believed it!

His battle with this dragon really resonates with me. Like Martin Luther, I too was raised in a pious Roman Catholic home. I also respected the priests and honored the mass. But unlike Luther, I never took it quite as serious as he did, nor did any of my friends or family, and that is what made him so different. 

If you are not familiar with the Roman Catholic mass, there is a single event in the liturgy that everything is building towards. It is when the bread and wine that is presented to the priest on the altar is turned into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ himself. This is commonly known as communion, in Roman Catholic theological jargon it is known as transubstantiation. During this moment in the mass, the priest uses a Latin phrase, which is known as the Words of Institution where he says, “This is my body/This is my blood”, he then lifts the bread high, waits, and then when he brings the bread down it is transformed into the actual body and actual blood of Christ

Growing up, I watched this happen as an altar boy hundreds of times. I can remember kneeling in a white robe ringing a bell as the priest lifted the round Eucharistic wafer up into the air. But honestly, I didn’t really think much of it nor did I believe that the bread changed into the human flesh of the Savior. Nor did I believe that wine was changed into O+ blood. No Catholic really does, they just accept what is being taught as a sacramental mystery. So in response, they walk up the center aisle, receive the bread on their tongue or in their palm, do the sign of the cross and go sit back down. Very few even know what transubstantiation means.

But for Martin Luther, this moment in the mass was an earth-shaking and soul-shattering moment. The first time he had to perform this ritual as a priest it about killed him. Listen to Eric Metaxas explain, “he was about to handle the body and blood of the incarnate God, that he was about to address the Holy One in whose presence he should tremble or die. He knew that to do what he was doing now (holding the body of Christ in his hands) in a state of unconfessed sin was tantamount to stepping off a cliff…To look upon the living God, to stand in his presence, was something that was so awesome as to be terrifying.”

So there he stood as a priest getting ready to lift the bread, here is the description of what happened, “When it came time to life the host, he was frozen, unable to do that very thing for which he had prepared nearly two years…he was so paralyzed he wanted to run from the altar.”

Stop on that and think. Before you believe him to be crazy, or cowardly, or a bit paranoid, think again. In truth, Luther behaved the way a person would behave if they actually and whole-heartily believed in God. Holding the body of the Creator of the Universe in your hands while still stained with sin was a very dangerous proposition. Just the thought of it shook Luther to the core.

So for Luther, the dragon he was facing down was the wrath of the Holy God. He really believed the Biblical axiom, “The wages of sin is death.” And death included the torments of hell itself! Later in one of his writings, he says the fear of hell is worse than death itself.

For me, I never feared hell as a Catholic. I was told that baptism as an infant gave me “a-get-out-of-jail” free card from hell. So in nonchalance and pasted-on piety, I took the bread and wine for 23 years never once considering the enormous implications of ingesting the actual body of Christ. I would attend mass to just get it over with, to make my parents happy, or to keep God off my back so he would bless me. I never considered the idea that I was precariously close to falling off the cliff into hell if I was not first forgiven of my sin before I took the Eucharist. Religion was a duty, nothing more and nothing less. 

There is one time did I get reprimanded for behaving wrongly before mass. I said the Lord’s name in vain on a Saturday night and my Grandmother told me to watch it because I can’t have Jesus touch the same tongue I just cursed with. So in a small way, she understood the possible problem with eating a Holy God. But it wasn’t something to fear as much as it was something to just be more cautious about.

So here is my original point: Because Martin Luther took God so serious when it came to the fact that a Holy God would not suffer a person still in sin, he was desperate to find salvation. He knew he needed to find a way to be rescued from the anger of the dragon. His palpable fear of hell motivated him to find a promise that he could take refuge in. Fear of condemnation is necessary if people are going to treasure salvation.

I came to this point in my life after I left the church. Overtime the mass and liturgy became to me as nothing more than playing a series of religious games. No priest I ever knew trembled at the altar, no friend or relative ever quaked under the fear of hell, and I didn’t die because I ate the Eucharist wrongly. We went through the motions and survived. We were good and nice people, as if that is all it took to keep God happy. Be good and nice. He wasn’t a dragon at all, he was nothing more than a soft teddy bear. So why go to church when God is not a being to fear?

But then I opened the Bible and started reading it. I mean really reading it! I found passages that described God exactly as Martin Luther feared. He was an “all-consuming fire”, a “Holy God who could not look upon iniquity”, a God whose throne was circled by a “tempest of fire”. I wondered, “Was being baptized as an infant enough to escape the flames?” I started to take God at his word, I began to feel the fear. I too was being stalked by the same dragon! I had to know…

“How do you defeat him?”

The answer doesn’t matter if you don’t fear him. Condemnation must be allowed to simmer in your heart, if fear isn’t stoked salvation won’t be sought.

That is my point. The answer to defeat the dragon is simple, but you have to be desperate for it. Religion, like Roman Catholicism, has a way of drowning out the warnings that fear brings. There is some truth about it being an “opium for the masses.” But true belief, taking God at his word should shake you to the core. Martin Luther was not religious, he simply believed that a Holy God existed. And his belief led him to the cliff of desperation which then led him into the arena with the dragon of condemnation.

I write this hoping you will realize that condemnation is real. If you don’t believe it you will never search for salvation. You just won’t.