In the early decades of his life, the young Martin Luther was exposed to powerful authorities. There was his strict father. There were the teachers who showed little understanding and were not stingy with punishment. And not least, there was God, whom Luther could only imagine as a "stern, angry judge." In order to stand up to these authorities and meet their expectations, Martin became an obedient son, a diligent student, and an exemplary scholar - and ultimately a model monk. In the experiences of the young Luther, everything that later characterized and motivated the reformer is already fundamentally present. To understand his great discovery of a gracious God, one must also comprehend what Luther sought to free himself from. This liberation was necessarily linked to the mission of denouncing abuses in the Church and opposing falsehood.