Chapter 15: Luther, theologian in sheep's clothing. Today, many Christians mistakenly believe that the Reformation changed the whole mess. They think that the Reformation brought about a return to genuine Christianity, but in reality, the Reformation merely exchanged a new form of doctrinality in place of the old form. Martin Luther was totally blind to the real disease infecting the Church. He didn't recognize that the disease was doctrinality. Luther thought that the problem was simply wrong theology.
He imagined that if he substituted right theology for wrong theology, then Christianity would be back where it started. And he thought that apostolic Christianity would automatically be restored by the adoption of his new doctrines. As a result, the Reformation was merely a battle between old theology versus new theology. Neither the Catholics nor the Reformers taught a Christianity that required fruit. They both worshipped at the altar of doctrinality.
The English spiritual giant, William Law, described the kind of Christianity that such a focus on theology creates. He who places any value in theological arguments or opinions that are held about the biblical doctrines of faith, justification, sanctification, election, and reprobation depart from the true worship of the living God within him. In fact, he sets up an idol of ideas to be worshipped.
I believe that every group of Christians whose religion stands upon this ground, however ardent their zeal may seem to be in such matters, will sooner or later find that their evil, ungodly nature is at the bottom of it. They will soon enough discover a selfish, earthly, overbearing pride in their own definitions and doctrines. Luther the Arrogant. William Law's prediction of what would happen to persons who put faith in theological arguments was aptly demonstrated in the life of Martin Luther.
He undeniably had a selfish, earthly, overbearing pride in his own definitions and doctrines. Luther haughtily belittled anybody, ancient or contemporary, who disagreed with his novel doctrine of easy believism. Not only that, but he arrogantly sneered at Scripture when it dared to contradict him. He dismissed the Epistle of James as a gospel of straw.
Concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews, Luther said that the worthwhile teachings in it had wood, straw, or hay mixed in with them, and that we cannot put it on the same level with the apostolic epistles. As most Christians know, one of Luther's primary doctrines is that we're saved by faith alone. Yet the Scriptures never explicitly make that statement. So Luther arrogantly took it upon himself to insert the word alone into the Bible.
In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul wrote, "Therefore we can conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." Romans 3:28. Luther wasn't satisfied with that statement, so he changed it to say, "A man is justified by faith alone, apart from the deeds of the law." When the Catholics called his hand on this, Luther refused to admit that he had overstepped the proper boundaries. Instead, he arrogantly brushed his critics aside in a public letter.
"If your papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word alone, sola, say this to him: Dr. Martin Luther will have it so, and he says that a papist and an ass are the same thing." I will it. I command it. My will is reason enough, for we are not going to become students and followers of the papists. Rather, we will become their judge and master. We too are going to be proud and brag with these blockheads. And just as St. Paul brags against his madly raving saints, I will brag over these asses of mine.
They are doctors, me too. They are scholars, I am as well. They are philosophers, and I. They are dialecticians, I am too. They are lecturers, so am I. They write books, so do I. I will go even further with my bragging. I can exegete the Psalms and the Prophets, and they cannot. I can translate, and they cannot. I can read Holy Scriptures, and they cannot. I can pray, and they cannot. Coming down to their level, I can do their dialectics and philosophy better than all of them put together.
Plus, I know that not one of them understands Aristotle. If in fact any one of them can correctly understand one part or chapter of Aristotle, I will eat my hat. No, I am not overdoing it. Bribe and educate it in and have practiced their discipline since my childhood. I recognize how broad and deep it is. They likewise know that I can do everything they can do. Yet they handle me as though I were a stranger to their studies.
These incurable fellows, as if I had just arrived this morning and had never seen or heard what they know and teach. How they so brilliantly parade around with their knowledge teaching me what I graduated beyond 20 years ago. To all their shouting and screaming, I joined the harlot in singing. I have known for seven years that horseshoe nails are iron. So this can be the answer to your first question.
Please do not give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about the word sola than simply, "Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors." Let it remain at that. From now on, I will hold them in contempt. In fact, I have already held them in contempt as long as they are the kind of people they are. Asses, I should say. But there are brazen idiots among them who have never learned their own art of sophistry like Dr. Schmidt and snotnose and others like them.
Quite a humble man, wasn't he? Murdering Christ. Luther's zeal was not a zeal for the kingdom of God. Rather, it was a zeal for doctrines, his doctrines. William Law had noted, "A zeal based solely on doctrines can only do for Christians what it did for the Jews. It will murder the person and purposes of Christ." And that's exactly what Luther's zeal did. It murdered the person of Christ. Obviously, Luther didn't have the opportunity to murder Christ personally, but he did the next worst thing.
He murdered Christ's brothers, the kingdom Christians of his day. And as Jesus said, "Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40. Within a few years of Luther's rise to power, a rapidly growing group of earnest kingdom Christians rejected Luther's gospel of easy believism. That's because they realized from the Scriptures that Christ requires an obedient, love, faith relationship from his disciples.
These Christians taught that true followers of Christ must be children of the kingdom, living by Jesus' teachings, not in word, but in practice. They must follow him and produce real fruit because they baptized those believers who joined them. Luther and others called them Anabaptists, which means rebaptizers. The respected church historian, Roland Bainton, writes about the Anabaptists. They challenged the whole way of life of the community.
Had they become too numerous, Protestants would have been unable to take up arms against Catholics, and the Germans could not have resisted the Turks. And the Anabaptists did become numerous. They despaired of society at large, but they did not despair of winning converts to their way. The common people could see that the Scriptures didn't teach Luther's gospel of easy believism, and they flocked to the Anabaptists.
If people had been free to choose, perhaps the majority would have rejected Luther's interpretation of Scripture and returned to the historic faith. That is, they would have seen the necessity of maintaining an obedient, love, faith relationship with Christ. Dr. Bainton goes on to write, "At some of the communities of Switzerland and the Rhine Valley, the Anabaptists began to outnumber Catholics and Protestants alike.
Would not the growth of people with such views be even more of a menace to public security than the demolition of a city wall?" In 1529, the imperial meeting at Speyer declared, with the concurrence alike of Catholics and Lutherans, that the death penalty should be inflicted upon the Anabaptists. Menno Simons, one of their latter leaders, reported the outcome. Some they have executed by hanging, some they have tortured with inhuman tyranny, and afterwards choked with cords at the stake.
Some they roasted and burned alive, some they have killed with the sword and given them to the fowls of the air to devour, some they have cast to the fishes. In other words, neither Luther nor the Pope were ready for professing Christians to really start following Christ in life and to live by his teachings. They feared such genuine discipleship as much as they feared the Turks. They dreaded the children of the kingdom as much as the pagan Romans had dreaded them.
Like the pagan Romans, the only response they could come up with was to murder the children of the kingdom before they got any stronger. But it wasn't only the Anabaptists whom Luther hated. He was unwilling to allow any dissent from his teachings. Luther saw that too many people were rejecting his novel gospel and accepting the gospel of Jesus. So like the theologians before him, Luther decided to squash this dissent through the armed power of the state.
After all, the Lutheran Church was now the state church throughout most of the northern German states. Luther told the German rulers, "The fact that seditious articles of doctrine should be punished by the sword needs no further proof. For the rest, the Anabaptists hold tenets relating to infant baptism, original sin, and inspiration, which have no connection with the word of God, and are indeed opposed to it. Think what disaster would ensue if children were not baptized." Luther went on to complain.
The Anabaptists set up a ministry and congregation of their own, which is also contrary to the command of God. From all this, it becomes clear that the secular authorities are bound to inflict corporal punishment on the offenders. Also, when it is a case of only upholding some spiritual tenet, such as infant baptism, original sin, and unnecessary separation, then we conclude that the stubborn sectarians must be put to death.
Luther continued the same theme in his exposition on Psalm 82, saying, "If some were to teach doctrines contradicting an article of faith clearly grounded in Scripture and believed throughout the world by the whole church, such as the articles that we teach children in the creed, as for example, if anyone would teach that Christ is not God, but a mere man, like other prophets as the Turks and Anabaptists hold, such teachers should not be tolerated, but punished as blasphemers, for they are not mere heretics, but
open blasphemers, and rulers are in duty bound to punish blasphemers.
Moses in his law commands that such blasphemers, and indeed all false teachers, are to be stoned. So in this case, there ought not be much disputing, but such open blasphemers should be condemned without a hearing and without defense." Now, it was patently false that the Anabaptists taught that Christ was mere man and not fully divine. However, under Luther's policy, they were not allowed to defend themselves or even have a hearing. The rulers were ready to capture them and put them to death.
But it wasn't really the Anabaptists they were putting to death. It was Christ.