Luther's Reformation Discovery

Bayer writes of Luther:

His "Reformation discovery" happened in the wake of a deeply profound reflection on the sacrament of penance, which had been required of him by the monstrosity of indulgences. At first, Luther understood the priestly word of absolution: "I absolve you of your sins!" as an activity of declaration, which states something already present. The priest sees the remorse, takes it as a sign of the divine justification - the divine absolution occurring already in the one being absolved but unknown to him - and lets this appear as such. He states it or the assurance of the one being absolved. By this means the word of absolution is understood as a judgment in the sense of a statement.

The result of Luther's Reformation discovery was that language is no longer to be viewed solely as a system of signs "that refer to objects or situations or of signs that express an emotion. In either case the sign is - as a statement or as an expression - not the reality itself. In other words, the linguistic sign is itself the reality; that it represents not an absent but a present reality was Luther's great hermeneutical discover, his 'Reformation Discovery' in the strict sense." It can be classified as a speech act that is an "effective active word that establishes community and therein frees and makes certain. It does what it says. It says what it does."

(p. 152, Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology)