Luther vs. Rome

Praise God, that we are saved by grace alone. Works without faith are utterly without merit. This is not merely a Protestant notion.

Such has been the persistent teaching of the saints throughout the ages. Yet a whitewashing of Martin Luther has led to many people, even Catholics, fundamentally misunderstanding the Catholic Church's criticism of him.

Please understand that what I write here is no ad-hominem attack on Luther for any purpose, including the slander of Protestantism. Attacking the moral character of Martin Luther is gainless, for no-one supposes Luther to be imbued with the gift of infallibility. But when the counter-reformation is known by most people only by what it opposes, it becomes necessary to clarify what it was that it opposes. Further, given the whitewashed history of Martin Luther, it is imperitive to remember the context of the Catholic Church's language and actions, which seem terribly strident, presented out of the context.

The Catholic Church does not believe that one could merit salvation by doing good works. Nor could one avoid sin by one's own strengths. In fact, the Catholic position is one held by most people who believe they follow Luther's principle of sola fides. We are saved by grace alone, by which we have faith, which necessarily leads us to righteous works, and the avoidance of sin.

This is not Luther's position. Luther held that it was impossible to avoid sin. “As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin.” (Letter to Melanchthon, 1521) "They are fools who attempt to overcome temptations by fasting, prayer and chastisement. For such temptations and immoral attacks are easily overcome when there are plenty of maidens and women" (Luther's Works, Jena ed., 1558, 2, 116; cited in P. F. O'Hare, "The Facts About Luther", Rockford, 1987, 311).

As such, it was not necessary to avoid sin. “If grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.” In fact, the way to conquer sin, he taught was to indulge it: “The way to battle a tempting demon was to “in-dulge some sin in hatred of the evil spirit and to torment him.” Even the greatest sin was permissible, so long as one believed in Christ.: “Sin shall not drag us away from Him, even should we commit fornication or murder a thousand times a day. (all quotes from Letter to Melanchthon, 1521)

These quotes are often brushed aside as being hot-headed rhetoric. (Ironically, one passage to suggest that such intemperate statements were righteous is Jesus' warning that should one's eyes cause him to lust, he should cast the eye into Gehenna. How diametrically opposed to Jesus' teaching is Luther's!) But they were not said in a harmless context. Luther counseled Prince Phillip that it would be fine to take a mistress. And his comments that peasants were born to be cannon fodder is horrific in light of the deaths of 100,000 peasants in a rebellion of which he spoke, “I said they should be slain; all their blood is upon my head... My little book against the peasants is quite in the right and shall remain so, even if all the world were to be scandalized at it.” (Luther's Works, Erlangen ed., 24.299)

Such beliefs are not incidental to Luther; they are a major part of the reason for many princes siding with him against the Catholic church. Without such support, his movement would have no base. But he also appealed to their financial motives, arguing that they had no obligation to fight Muslims. In fact, Luther preached that Islamic domination was superior to Catholicism. His horrors at the excesses of Rome were pure fiction, aimed at weakening Rome's military strength. His lies are betrayed by his ignorance of Rome's geography. (He mistakenly thought that the Vatican was built on one of the seven hills of Rome, an assertion he'd make time and time again in asserting that the Papacy was Babylon.) Again, the context is horrifying: Belgrade fell in the very same year as the Council of Worms, 1521. By 1529, the Islamic horde had reached Vienna.

Luther even attacked the Holy Bible, itself. Nowhere does the bible say we are saved by “faith alone.” In fact, those words exist only in the Letter of James. So, Luther sought to have that book struck out of the bible. At the Council of Worms, he was shown how the 1st Letter of Peter refers to purgatory, how Revelations depicts the saints in Heaven praying for the souls below, how James explicitly states that “faith alone is dead, if it has not works.” Later Protestant apologists offered alternate explanations for these difficult passages, but Luther simply declared that they were false: “Many sweat to reconcile St. Paul and St. James, but in vain. 'Faith justifies' and 'faith does not justify' contradict each other flatly. If any one can harmonize them I will give him my doctor's hood and let him call me a fool “

His violence to the Word of God was worse still regarding the Old Testament. In condemning the Ten Commandments, he said Moses should be “damned and excommunicated; yea, worse than the Pope and the Devil.” Yet this man argued that the bible alone was authoritative?

When confronted by the Catholic church over his statements, Luther never disavowed these statements, or claimed they were exaggerations, or apologize for putting his foot in his mouth. Instead, he boasted, “Not for a thousand years has God bestowed such great gifts on any bishop as He has on me.”

Thus, the Catholic church was in the position of defending Western Civilization militarily against the Islamic horde, when an outrageous heretic preached all manner of hatred against it, instigating insurrection, and leading political forces to align against it. In doing so, he attacked not only the Church, but the historical and biblical under-pinnings of the bible. Could there be any wonder that the church responded harshly? Luther is dead, and he has never been held to be infallible or sinless. This is not an attack on him, but a defense on the Catholic Church, which he assailed.

It's 1529. The Muslims are in Bavaria. There's a madman boasting that he's responsible for 100,000 dead peasants, and he sides with the Turks. Can you really say that the Church treated him too harshly?

You wrote:

“Sure it is!”

No, it is not. When Jesus said He was the sheep gate did He mean that He was really a sheep gate? Think about it. Can you?

“When a bunch of words are spun to say that ALL does not mean ALL; then the CLAIM IS MADE that the Book is in Error.”

Not at all and I think you know that Jesus is not a sheep gate, but according to your reasoning if you say He isn’t a sheep gate then you’re saying John 10 is in error. Your idea is simply nonsensical.

“Word games and sematic differences ain’t getting the job done.”

So Jesus is a sheep gate? Jesus really is a vine? Gee, and here all this time I thought those were metaphors! But no, to say they are metaphors or anything else than just literal readings is to say the Bible is in error - that’s what you’re saying.

“The Bereans’s did NOT refer to what other folks thought about what Paul was teaching; they looked it up in SCRIPTURE for themselves.’

No. That is a common misconception Protestants have. The Bereans checked out what Paul was saying and compared as best they could to what scriptures they had. They had, however, only the Old Testament. They did not have a single New Testament book - for then they would be Christians already if they possessed it for why else would they possess it? Thus, how did they compare what Paul was saying to the Old Testament when the Old Testament taken literally would mean that the Messiah would have been thought of differently than Jesus actually was (i.e. a warrior king who freed Israel from foreign pagan enemies rather than a carpenter’s son who died on the cross but was really the Son of God)? It was Jewish oral tradition that saved the day because it was used to aid the Bereans’ understanding of the Old Testament to where they could see the metaphors and allegories and spiritual understandings that make Jesus an obvious candidate for Messiah.

Today, when you approach Jews, who have lost most of those old extra textual oral teachings about the Old Testament in regard to the Messiah you get many fewer conversions. This whole thing is reflected in the New Testament itself. Want proof? Look at Matthew 2:23. Show me where in the Old Testament it says that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene. You can’t do it because it shows up no where in the Old Testament. NO WHERE. There are two possible explanations that can be used from scripture but both of them are tenuous at best. The most obvious explanation is simply that there was a strong inter-testamental oral tradition that the Messiah would be from Nazareth. That’s the sort of thing Paul could explain to Bereans until he was blue in the face, but unless they had that oral tradition to guide their understanding he would have gotten no where.

“I do the same.”

I see no evidence of that at all. You seem to pick and choose what you believe and how you believe it based on feelings or what you’ve been taught elsewhere. Jesus says He gives us His flesh to eat, but you deny it. And now you’re stuck with the idea that Jesus is a sheep gate!

“Sorry; but I am not buying your private interpretation of it.”

It isn’t my private interpretation of it. I never present my private interpretation of scriptures. It’s not worth my time.

“And neither does the REST of Protestantism.”

Not true. There are Anglicans and even some Lutherans who believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary or at least her cleansing within the womb. More Protestants than you think have historically believed Mary was born sinless. Again, you are simply wrong.

“Study to show thyself approved; RIGHTLY dividing the Word of God.”

I have no reason to believe you study with any great effectiveness. Is Jesus a sheep gate? Did He give us His flesh to eat? If you say no to either of those questions are you claiming scripture is in error or are you interpreting it?

I think you were replying to someone else. Faith - if there are no works that spring from it - is a dead faith. You cannot just say, “I have faith” and then go live the rest of your life ignoring God, and then claim to be one of His own.

However, if you are sincere in turning to Jesus, and accept grace through faith, then at that moment, ALL your sins are forgiven - including future sins. You are a new creation - a child of God.

Like a child, you will often do what is wrong - and like a child, you remain a part of the family.

I like what the Baptist agreed on in the 1600s as a summary of what good works are & do:

http://www.grbc.net/about_us/1689.php?chapter=16

A sample:

“16.3 Their ability to do these good works does not in any way come from themselves, but entirely from the Spirit of Christ. To enable them to do good works (besides the graces they have already received) they require the actual influence of the Holy Spirit to cause them to will and to do his good pleasure. Yet are they not on this account to become negligent, nor to think that they are not required to perform a duty unless given a special impulse of the Spirit; rather, they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them.”

There are no good works, apart from the Holy Spirit. No number of ‘good works’ can save us. But once saved, the Holy Spirit leads us to do good works.

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