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[[Image:Martin Luther.jpg|thumb|150px|<center>[[Martin Luther]]|right]]

[[Image:luther statue gg.jpg|thumb|150px|right|A statue of Martin Luther at [[Wittenberg]].]]

Luther refused to be silenced. He won over many Augustinians at the Heidelberg disputation in 1518. He argued, not incorrectly, that he was defying no dogmatic definition of the church. Pressed by Eck at the Leipzig disputation in 1519, he claimed the supremacy of the authority of Scripture over all ecclesiastical authority. Continuing his own preaching and teaching, he defended the theses in his Explanations (1518) and showed how the righteousness of sinners lies in the alien righteousness of Christ in his Two Kinds of Righteousness (1518). When Charles V, the newly elected emperor, stepped up the pressure, Luther responded in 1520 with three powerful works that have come to be called his primary treatises. In the Address to the German Nobility he appealed to the princes to throw off papal oppression. In the Babylonian Captivity he attacked the current sacramental system. In The Freedom of a Christian Man he expounded the complementary theses that the Christian is both a free lord subject to none and also a servant subject to all. The writings of this period also include his Treatise on Good Works, which shows how faith finds expression in works, and his Sermon on the Mass, which teaches the priesthood of all believers.

Able to return from the Wartburg in 1522, Luther turned his attention to the sphere of worship. The main step here, as in relation to Scripture, was to make the services understandable by putting them in the native tongue. Luther, indeed, had no wish to cause friction by unnecessary changes in liturgical structure. The spiritual and theological reformation formed the heart of the matter for him. He thus produced conservative orders for baptism and the mass in 1523. The order of 1526, which included collects, canticles, and a litany, brought some reduction in the baptismal service. Even more significantly, however, it introduced new paraphrases and hymns for congregational use. Luther’s own skill as a hymn writer and his musical interest and ability gave special importance to his work in this field, and even in translation some of his hymns—especially “A Mighty Fortress”—have been a constant source of spiritual strength and inspiration.

The work of reconstruction could hardly be completed without a doctrinal statement. Luther had not begun the reformation with a prepared and developed theological position. He saw his way clearly in the matter of justification by grace and faith. When his applying of this teaching to indulgences brought it under attack, he quickly saw that Scripture must be the supreme authority in the church. He then began to work out the ramifications of these basic tenets in other areas but not in a systematic way. His colleague and friend Melanchthon issued a first doctrinal presentation in his work Theological Common Places (1521). Later Luther himself had a hand in the framing of the articles discussed at Marburg (1529), which were then incorporated into the Confession of Augsburg (1530)—although in relation to the latter he played more of the role of a consultant, and Melanchthon acted as principal writer. In 1536 Luther accepted the agreement with the South Germans expressed in the Wittenberg Concord, and in 1537 he offered a restatement of his essential theology in the Articles of Schmalcald, which reaffirm the early creeds, condemn medieval abuses, and give positive teaching on sin, law and gospel, the sacraments, justification, and the church.

At the very same period Luther became entangled in an unfortunate if unavoidable controversy with the humanist scholar and reformer Erasmus. The two had much in common, sharing concerns for scholarship, for opening up the Scriptures, and for doctrinal and practical reform. Nevertheless, they differed sharply in character and also in theological approach. Under pressure to declare himself either for Luther or against him, Erasmus turned to the important issue of the freedom of the will and published a Diatribe on Free Will (1524). To this Luther made a sharp and almost scornful reply in his Bondage of the Will (1525). This work is a powerful statement of the Augustinian position that in matters of right conduct and salvation the will has no power to act apart from the divine initiative. Erasmus came out with a counter-reply, but Luther ignored this. Erasmus then aligned himself with the opponents of the Reformation, although still urging reform and maintaining friendly relations with various reformers.

Pressured by ill health and harassed constantly by political and theological problems, Luther tended to display in his last years the less pleasant aspects of his virtues. His courage increasingly appeared as pugnacity, his bluntness as crudity, and his steadfastness as obstinacy. Instead of mellowing with the years, his opposition to the papists, the radicals, and other reformers became even more bitter. Nevertheless, he continued to work for military peace in the empire—and it is a tribute to his underlying desire for peace and reconciliation that the aim of his final journey was to bring together the quarreling rulers of Anhaldt. As chance would have it, his itinerary brought him to the town of his birth, and it was in Eisleben that he died on February 18, 1546.