Unknown His death His death Early in 1546, Luther wrote to a friend that he felt “old, spent, worn, weary, and cold, and had but one eye to see with.” Feeling this way, he left for Eisleben to try to help some people settle a dispute over land, despite the cold winter weather. On his journey he became sicker and lay suffering in his hometown for several days. His beloved Katie was far away. Only his sons Martin and Paul had accompanied him on his trip. He did have friends surrounding him, however, in his last days. One of his friends, Justus Jonas, asked Luther, “Reverend Father, will you stand by Christ and the doctrine you have preached?” The dying Reformer roused himself to firmly answer “yes.” His last words were, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” He died on February 18, 1546. His body was taken to Wittenberg and buried in the churchyard. This was the same church where Luther had posted his famous ninety-five theses for all to read. Luther was sixty-three years old when he died. He faced many trials and difficulties in his life; many times his enemies had tried to condemn him to death and silence him, but God enabled Luther to continue the blessed work of the Reformation. Many times he was sad and discouraged. The devil tried to make him fall and give up, but the Lord always helped Luther in his work so that he persevered until the end. Throughout his life, Luther maintained a very heavy workload: teaching, writing books, organizing the new Protestant church, and providing overall leadership for the German Reformation. Luther never viewed himself as the founder of a new church body, however. In 1522, when his followers first began to use his name to identify themselves, he was not pleased. He wrote: “Let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christians after Him Whose teaching we hold...I hold, together with the universal church,17 the one universal teaching of Christ, Who is our only master.” His goal was to reform and restore the church so that it would be true to the biblical teaching of salvation by gracious faith alone. Little could he realize the impact he would have on Protestantism around the world, and that more biographies—well over one thousand by now—would be written about his life than any other person in history except the Lord Jesus.