Posted on 12/08/2005 12:49:33 AM PST by HarleyD
One of the great phrases that came out of the Protestant Reformation is the phrase post tenebras lux.
Its Latin and it means, After darkness, light.
In fact, many Lutheran Churches to this day still hold tenebras services every year on Good Friday. Tenebras services are marked by solemnity and by silence as worshippers read and sing of Christs passion and ponder how their sin and disobedience led to His death in their place. The service is always held in a darkened chapel. At the end of the tenebras service, the few candles that are used are blown out as the congregation files out quietly in the darkness and head home without speaking to each other or fellowshipping with each other.
All of that is transformed, of course, two days later on Easter Sunday morning into joy and singing and light. The darkness is gone the light has come. Easter Sunday is filled with celebration as worshippers read and sing of Christs victory over death and the grave.
Tenebras means darkness. That darkness is observed on Good Friday.
Lux means light. That is what is pondered and celebrated on Easter Sunday After darkness, light.
Now when the phrase post tenebras lux is used, it is normally used in reference to the recovery of the doctrine of justification and to the principle of sola fide but there is a sense in which the phrase refers to other things associated with the Reformation as well. It refers to the reformation of worship and to the reformation of clerical orders. It refers to the accessibility of Scripture and to the reformation of the sacraments and it even refers to the reformation of the concepts of work and family.
You can see now, I think, how the phrase was used. That which was dark was illuminated by Scripture and by Christs great redemptive work by the gospel. People were no longer held in the bondage of superstition and idolatry. They were no longer held in bondage and ignorance of what Christ had accomplished on their behalf. They could see at last what Christ had accomplished on their behalf. They were a little like the man who had been born blind but who could now see for himself. They were like the people Isaiah described when he wrote:
In this way a man could be happy and of good cheer in all his trouble and labor; and if he accustomed himself to look at his service and calling in this way nothing would be distasteful to him. But the devil opposes this point of view tooth and nail, to keep one from coming to this joy and to cause everybody to have a special dislike for what he should do and is commanded to do. So the devil operates in order to make sure that people do not love the idea of work and at the same time to rob them of the joy they feel and to diminish their service to God.1
Now, I cant tell you what a revolutionary idea that was. The idea that common people should ever hope to view their common labor and their common vocation as a gift from God was revolutionary in every sense of the word. Up until Luther, the world thought that unless a man was a priest or a monk and unless a woman was nun, he or she was insignificant. But Luther said, No we are all priests. Your vocation and your contentment in your vocation should not be dependent upon your being in vocational ministry or in being a figure of public acclaim. If God wills that fine if He does not do that, you ought to still do what he has granted you to do to the glory of God.
Even today, it is a truth that is not proclaimed nearly often enough or loudly enough. As a result, lay people want to be ministers. Ministers want to be lay people rich, lay people but lay people. Women want to be men. Kids want to be adults and adults want to be kids. Everyone wants what they believe to be the principal place of honor and the end result is that even Christians grumble about being something other than what they are. That is why so many people today have so much leisure time and are yet so unfulfilled. That is why so many wives and children live lives of deep, abiding bitterness. Of course, many times husbands do not help the matter for they hold their wives and children in contempt in the name of the principle of submission. But the idea, Luthers idea the Reformation idea, that life and work are a gift from God militates against all that. In fact, in the Reformation, the underlying concept that life and work were a gift from God led to a transformation of how society viewed individual purpose and importance. It later found its ultimate expression in the rise of what was called the Puritan work ethic.
There is one particular story my personal favorite that especially illustrates the way Luther and the reformers looked at these things. Once Luther was asked by a shoe maker, Dr. Luther I am but a humble cobbler but I am grateful to God for Christs justifying work on my behalf what should I do in light of Christs great redemptive work?
Luther response, Make a better shoe.
You see, Luther believed that life ought to be lived in gratitude for what Christ had done. He believed in the worth of the individual not just because he had a sentimental view of man but rather because he saw man as a reflection of His creator and the instrument through which God accomplished His purpose. That was a theme that Luther hammered over and over again. Still it was not a reality that happened very quickly. It was certainly not a reality that happened with any sort of neatness or order. In fact, and I think we have to be honest here a Protestants, it only happened over a period of time and while it was happening there was a great deal of confusion and error.
What many common people thought they heard in Luthers teaching on the priesthood of all believers was that all authority was to be cast aside. What they thought they heard is that in the same way the church had overthrown the authority of Rome and replaced it with the authority of Scripture so the common man ought to overthrow the authority of governmental rule and replace it with his own individual freedom and self-rule. But that was not what Luther was saying at all. Luther was not a huge advocate of individual rights. He was not opposed to individual rights in principle but such rights were always relegated to a secondary position behind the proclamation of the gospel, the greater good of Christian society and the purpose and will of God.
Luther was not a modern day capitalist.
He was not a Republican.
But neither was he a communist.
He was most assuredly not a Democrat.
Luther was a medieval man struggling to live out the implications of the gospel. I think he was the last of the great medieval men and the first of the great moderns. And because he stood in the transition between those two great epochs life around Luther was sometimes very messy.
Life in the Reformation was sometimes messy.
That was especially true in Wittenberg while Luther was locked away in Wartburg Castle. He was there from May 4, 1521 till March 1, 1522. You will remember he was kidnapped by Frederick the Wise after the Diet at Worms and that he was kidnapped for his own protection. The Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, had both excommunicated him and ruled him to be an obstinate heretic. That meant that if they could find him and catch him, they could kill him. They wanted to kill him. But Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony and Luthers Prince and Protector did not want that to happen. So, he hid Luther out in the Wartburg Castle through the last half of 1521 and the first half of 1522 and waited.
Now where Luther was hidden and who had hidden him there was a great secret at the time. Not more than a half a dozen people in Germany knew the real truth the whole truth. It is said that not even Frederick the Wise knew where he was and that was true. He refused to let his aides tell him where they had hidden Luther. He wanted to be able to say to the other electors and to the Holy Roman Emperor that he honestly had no idea where Luther was.2
While Luther was in the Wartburg Castle, in order to disguise himself, he grew out his hair and his beard and laid aside his monastic robe and began to wear the clothes of a knight. He went by the name Junker George which meant Knight George.3
In the first weeks and months of his seclusion, there were many reports of his capture and death. Common people mourned the loss of Luther terribly. Even his bitterest enemies wished that whoever had taken him or whoever had killed him would just come out with it all. One Catholic leader fearing a revolt by the people wrote to Albrecht the Archbishop of Mainz saying, The only way of saving ourselves is to light torches and hunt for Luther through the whole world, to restore him to the nation that is calling for him.4 It was harder, it seems, for his enemies to deal with the ghost of a martyr than with a living legend. And then suddenly people began to receive letters from Luther. Still, he never revealed where he was. He signed his letters cryptically From Luther on the Isle of Patmos or From Luther in the Wilderness or something like that.5
Now the Reformation did not stop just because Luther went into hiding. While he was sequestered at the Wartburg Castle, the Reformation continued and it continued with great speed.6 In his absence, leadership fell to Philip Melanchthon the Greek professor at the university and to Carlstadt the archdeacon at the Castle Church and to Gabriel Zwilling an Augustinian monk who like Luther had a gift for preaching.
Of the three men Melanchthon, Zwilling and Carlstadt only Melanchthon remained resolutely loyal to Luther. The other two men and Carlstadt in particular were not only disloyal to Luther they wanted to replace Luther.
Carlstadt in particular and this is my own personal opinion, longed to be Luther. He wanted the relationship Luther had with the people of Wittenberg. He wanted the limelight Luther had and yet he was never really able to capture the hearts and minds of Luthers flock. Still, he was perfectly willing to step into Luthers place and position. He wanted to step into Luthers place and position. He wanted to drive the Reformation ahead in Luthers absence so that when Luther finally did return he would find that he had long since been left him behind.
Still, that is not quite how it worked out. But I am getting ahead of myself. As I was saying, in Luthers absence the Reformation pressed ahead, not so much theologically as it did practically.
In September 1521, Melanchthon offered communion in both kinds to the people that is, he offered them both bread and cup.
In November, at Zwillings urging an in light of Luthers rejection of the sacrament of Orders, thirteen monks of the Augustinian Order at Wittenberg revoked their vows and left the monastery.7
In Christmas Day 1521, Carlstadt officiated over the service at the Castle Church at Wittenberg. He wore no vestments only a plain black robe. He said the mass a scaled down version of the mass eliminating all references to Jesus being offered as a sacrifice in the mass. At the point of consecration, he switched from Latin into German. For the first time in their lives, the 2,000 people or so in attendance heard these words in their own language, This is the cup of my blood of the new and eternal testament, spirit and secret of the faith, shed for you for the remission of sins.
Carlstadt then offered the elements to the congregation without their having attended confession. In fact, he told them if they needed confession they were unworthy of the sacrament. What they needed, he argued, was faith in what Christ had accomplished on their behalf. Carlstadt distributed the elements in both kinds to the congregation. He actually placed the wafers into the hands of the congregants. One of the men who received the bread from Carlstadt dropped the piece h had been holding. Carlstadt told him to pick it up but the man who only moments before had been bold enough to come down to the front of the church and receive the bread and cup seeing the wafer on the floor was so terrified at seeing Christs body desecrated that he could not bring himself to touch it.
I want you to remember that picture. A man liberated on the one hand and yet still captive on the other. It is a wonderful picture of the state of the Reformation at that moment in time.
In the weeks that followed and at Carlstadts urging, the town council issued its first ordinance concerning the mass. From that point on, it was to be conducted about as Carlstadt had done in the Christmas service. The town council issued other ordinances as well at Carlstadts urging. Some of the ordinances were simply Luthers ideas put in effect. For example, begging was forbidden. The genuinely poor of the town were no longer permitted to beg but were provided for out of a general fund distributed by the council.8 Prostitution was forbidden.
But then Carlstadt went beyond Luther. He urged the council to outlaw the presence of images of any kind in the churches. Zwilling, in fact, led an iconoclastic riot in which the citizens of the town rushed into the churches and destroyed all the images, pictures, crucifixes and crosses they could lay their hands on. Zwilling led the party but it was Carlstadts doctrine.
Carlstadt took as his text, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
But Carlstadt was not relying on scripture alone. His understanding the 10th commandment was buttressed by the deep seated idolatry he had struggled with in first coming to the faith. He had been so deeply attached to images that they had diverted him from true worship. He had in fact worshipped them and now that he had come to faith he despised them all the more for the way he had been deluded. He wanted everything to go.
That included music.
Relegate organs, trumpets, and flutes to the theater, he argued. Better one heartfelt prayer than a thousand cantatas of the Psalms. The lascivious notes of the organ awaken thoughts of the world. When we should be meditating on the suffering of Christ, we are reminded of Pyrarnus and Thisbe. Or, if there is to he singing, let it be no more than a solo.9
Carlstadt wanted worship to be genuinely spiritual. He wanted it to not be tainted by anything materialistic. It is a wonder, I think, that he did not give up the sacraments themselves.
In January, Carlstadt took a wife.
Frederick the Wise was flabbergasted not with the reform but with the confusion. Finally, he issued his own instructions.
Storch, the leader of the three, claimed a direct and continual word from God. To that he added an extraordinary knowledge of the Bible and extraordinary knowledge of the Bible despite the fact that he was apparently illiterate. But Storch did not depend upon on his knowledge of the Bible. He claimed that God spoke to him in direct revelations and in dreams and in visions and he claimed that because God did, in fact, speak to him directly the Bible was no longer of very much importance.13 I love the way DAubigne summarizes their thought.
Stubner, the young man who had once been a student at Wittenberg, claimed that God had granted to him the ability to read other peoples minds. Later, and I have to tell you this one story, when Luther met with Stubner, Stubner told him that he could read his mind. Luther asked him what he was thinking. Stubner said, You are wondering whether or not what I said might be true. Luther responded by saying that yes that was indeed what he had been thinking. He then asked Stubner to tell him what Bible verse he was pondering Stubner vacillated. Luther told him, The Lord rebuke you, O Satan.
Melanchthon had been deeply impressed by Storch right from the beginning. He was worried that rejecting the Zickau Prophets outright might mean a rejection of Gods prophetic word. He wrote to Luther to ask him what to do and how he should respond. Luther replied that Melanchthon ought not worry very much about the Zwickau Prophets. He assured Melanchthon that they were frauds. He asked Melanchthon to ask them whether they had suffered in their revelations or whether their revelations had come easily. He assured Melanchthon that receiving Gods revelation was always painful and that their pride and arrogance demonstrated that they had never communicated with God face to face.
Luther moved to accommodate the weak in faith. He moved to go slowly in dealing with those who were unable to make the transition to the reformed view of things quickly.
Now about that same time another man from Zwickau, a man by the name of Thomas Muntzer began to preach the violent overthrow of government. He was like the Zwickau Prophets except educated. He set himself forth as the end time, great prophet of God and he charged the peasants to overthrow the nobility to indeed kill all but the faithful, the elect. He despised Luthers view of providing for the weaker brothers. He argued that those who were weak in faith were not in the faith and all and should be sacrificed. He called Luther and this is hard for me to imagine he called Luther Dr. Easychair and Dr. Soft-Life because of his concern for the weak and helpless.
Luther could see that the princes of Germany were going to have to act. Muntzer was willing to destroy everything to elevate himself. Frederick the Wise had had enough. The people of Wittenberg had had enough. They appealed to Luther to come home.
He did and when he did he put things right in Wittenberg. He restored order. He expelled Carlstadt. He admonished the people, encouraged the princes and blasted Muntzer and the Zwickau Prophets as devils and he did all of that by preaching. He preached eight sermons in a row when he returned and restored order and civility and peace almost instantly. Luther was a reformer, a prophet, and an educator but he was primarily a pastor. Luther shepherded his sheep.
Now I wanted to bring all of this up Carlstadt, the Zwickau Prophets and Thomas Muntzer to show you that the Reformation was not always neat and tidy. There were times of great confusion as people began to try to figure out the implications of the gospel. I also wanted to show you that Luther exercised great leadership and patience and a tremendous amount of endurance. Luther wrote against Muntzer and his followers and against the Prophets and yet the sway they had over the peasants was never completely wretched away. There remained a great deal of unrest and that unrest eventually worked itself out in the Peasants War of 1525. Around a hundred thousand peasants were killed the Prophets were banished Carlstadt was banished Muntzer was executed and many people, especially his theological opponents in the Roman Church blamed Luther. They accused him of going from nearly being a martyr to making martyrs. Luther always felt that he should have done more that he should have acted sooner that he had dawdled too long but that is a bit unfair.
It was a messy time and in light of the many forces coming into play at the time, I think Luther was one of the few men able to see the whole picture with any sort of clarity. He was able to discern who the real enemies were and he always exercised a shepherds heart toward the poor and the oppressed.
Now in the minute or two I have left. I want to just introduce to you to Luthers wife, Katie. Luther was married in June 1525 shortly after the peasant uprising. The woman that he married was named Katie von Bora. She and eleven nuns had escaped from a nunnery and yes she was held there against her will. They had escaped in the spring of 1523 and had been aided in their escape by a merchant who made deliveries to their convent. They escaped in a wagon containing empty barrels that had once contained pickled herring a fish that was preserved in a brine solution something like sardines. The popular story goes that the nuns actually got in the barrels and that the barrels stacked in the merchants wagon were covered over by a tarp. The barrels with the nuns in them were delivered after an insufferable two day ride to Luthers residence in Wittenberg. I think modern scholarship has determined that the women were not actually in the barrels more or less lined the edges of the wagon and that the tarp stretched over the top formed a sort of a tent in the merchants wagon and that the runaway nuns were all together in a clump in the middle.
Anyway when they arrived in Wittenberg they were a mess. One of the women was the sister of Luthers old prior von Staupitz.
Luther felt that the he was obligated to take care of the nuns and he did so. He also felt that since they had revoked their vows it was appropriate for them to get married if they wanted. Over the next two years, he and this is one of the wonderful quirks of history played the role of a matchmaker. In 1524, Luther found that he had three ex-nuns left. One of the nuns, Katie von Bora had agreed to marry one of the ex-monks and then changed her mind. She sent word to Luther that she didnt want to marry the man that had been arranged for her but that she was not against the idea of marriage and that she was willing even to marry Luther if he ever thought he might be so inclined. Luther dawdled. Frederick the Wises secretary Spalatin wrote Luther a letter and suggested that he give it some thought. Luther answered back.
He was not in love when he got married neither was his bride. No, there marriage was a statement an affirmation that marriage was a holy and righteous institution given by God to the comfort of his people. But something happened over the next twenty years of their marriage. They fell in love deeply in love. They had six children. Martin Luther learned to be mocked and laughed at because of his adeptness at both changing and washing diapers.
It was a messy time.
But well talk more about that next week. Lets pray.
You cannot point to infidelity of priests (if that is what you mean by "fruit of celibate priesthood") to malign the institution of priesthood any more than you can point to infidelity of men to malign the institution of marriage.
The commandment was given to Adam, he gave the commandment to Eve. She disobeyed them both.
That's a well-stated defense.
However, the true and beneficial nature of marriage was conceived by God for man and woman beginning with Adam and Eve in order to create the faithful. It is a human reflection of the marriage between Christ and His church.
Priests are a part of that creation.
The fruit of marriage is children.
The fruit of enforced celibacy can and often is grievous error.
... And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? 2 And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. 4 And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. 5 For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. 6 And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat.Eve, correctly, goes to the source of the commandment. She is aware of her disobedience to God as she does not even mention Adam, other than by the symmetrical "we" referring to the recipients of the command.
In Catholic ecclesiology celibacy reflects the marriage of Christ to His Church, and the fruit of that is the faithful to whom the priest ministers.
Eve had not yet been created when the command was given, she was commanded by Adam.
What would happen negatively if priest were to marry?
What article of God's grace would be denied? What part of Jesus' redemption would be nullified? What sheep would be lost whom God gave to Christ to return home?
Whether Adam taught Eve expressly, or God repeated the commandment to Eve, or Eve received that command as she was made form Adam in some nonverbal way is open to speculation. I am comfortable with the theory that she got the command from Adam. It is however clear that her defiance was of God, -- she said so, and her temptation was to be like God, and not like Adam, because Satan said so.
If you are looking into the origin of the notion that women want to be men, other than a broad disordered desires produced by the original sin, we should look into the modern times, I think. I understand that there were other forces shaping modernity beside Luther, but I still could not resist sneering.
Well, as a practical matter some priests do marry. The overall principle is that God wants our all, so naturally there are vocations that give their all in pursuit of a spiritual fruit.
This is what is denied the congregation of a married priest: the knowledge that he is there to serve God 24/7. If I need to see a priest because of some grave need, -- someone is dying for example, -- I can do so without the hesitation of thinking of a wife and children woken up by my call. Also, an example of dedication to God is denied. When a priest advises someone to abstain from premarital sex, it carries weight of his own abstinence.
We cannot delude ourselves that times or persecution of Christians are not going to recur. They happened on our memory; there are signs that they are to come. When my priest is facing tough times, I would like to think that he is not torn between Christ and his family, just as his predecessors were not.
It is important to point out that Eve was deceived into the fruit. Sin came into the world by ONE MAN-Adam. It did not come into the world by Eve even though she was disobediant first.
1Ti 2:14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
Three of us met today to read & discuss Part One. And in the process to thank God for the Reformation.
It is important, as it establishes the symmetry between Eve and Adam on one side and Mary and Christ on the other. Eve hesitates, then believes Satan; Mary hesitates, then beleives the Archangel. Adam is one flesh with Eve and Christ is one flesh with Mary. Adam sins and Christ redeems sin.
In all my years of church-going, I've never heard of a minister who was unable to fulfill his "obligations" to both his congregation and his family, i.e. when "someone is dying, for example."
When a priest advises someone to abstain from premarital sex, it carries weight of his own abstinence.
Certainly one can argue that a married priest would be better able to advise someone about sex and marriage and abstinence because he actually knows what he's talking about.
Neither of these reasons seems compelling enough to maintain the current situation which has spawned so much pain and distrust of the church in general.
Right. And we have married firefighters and emergency room workers. But you asked, what gift would be denied, and I answered: the grace of having a man out there whose only purpose is serve God (priests say Mass daily) and minister to you.
I alluded without elaborating on the gift denied the married priest. That is a chance to maximize the family income (honorably, of course). I am a computer engineer. If I see an opportunity to increase my salary by switching employees, or even the line of work, it is my duty to consider that for the sake of my family which I support. A priest goes where his conscience and his bishop sends him, and he is needed in poor parishes more than in well-to-do ones. If your minister were told to go and look after the lepers in Calcutta, what would his wife say, and what will it do to his children's college fund?
And again, your question needs to be seen in the marital context. I am sure many a husband, having cheated on their wives, inquired, what gift was denied the wife so long as the paycheck still arrives and the marital bed is still kept warm. A priest is a husband of one wife: my Church. That is enough trouble for him, usually. The fact that some could manage a family of flesh that predated the ordination and had an opportunity to voice their concerns, does not make it an ideal arrangement. Married priest is not unlike a sick priest, someone who has an additional burden. If he has it, that is God's will, but he should not look for it.
advise someone about sex and marriage and abstinence because he actually knows what he's talking about.
The advise that is needed is not a plumbing advice an adolescent receives from a parent. The advise a priest gives is on abstinence. That is something he is uniquely qualified to give.
the current situation which has spawned so much pain and distrust of the church
Allow me to venture a guess that you, a hardened Calvinist, would not trust the Church no matter what priests we have. As to the pederast priests scandal, I already addressed that: marriage of the flesh has instances of infidelity and marriage of the spirit has instances of infidelity. Yet people marry, in both senses, and they should.
It is interesting to note verse 6 of Genesis 3, "She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate." Adam had been present the whole time and had abdicated his authority to his wife and she ran with it.
Adam consciously, knowingly, willingly sinned - in more ways than just eating the forbidden fruit.
Confident, grateful, undeserving, Bible-believing Trinitarian Christian Calvinist by His will alone.
But never, ever "hardened."
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." -- John 16:33
Good. I will do more softening on you then, as opportunity arises...
Cheers.
Adam watching Eve fall into sin and not doing anything about it would have been sin. Consequently his sin wouldn't have been the taking of the fruit but of watching a "sister" stumble. Eve was confused as to what to do. I don't believe Adam was around to ask for advice. Consequently she was deceived and took the fruit. I believe "...with her" means that Adam was in the Garden but not necessarily right next to her.
The argument against my interpretation was the verse does sound like she took a bite and immediately gave it to Adam. However scripture is full of time lags so I don't think that is a very persuasive argument.
As I have stated on other posts I believe Adam and Eve's problem was that they lacked the wisdom from God. God told Adam what to do-not Eve. Adam must have communicated something to Eve because she had it almost right but we don't know if Adam didn't communicate it well to Eve or if Eve just failed to understand. Like God commands each of us, if any of us lacks wisdom we are to seek it from God who gives it generously. Eve didn't ask for wisdom when she was confused. Adam didn't ask for wisdom when he saw what had happened. This, of course was according to God's perfect plan.
This is off topic but I think Adam and Eve is extremely interesting. I will add that I don't know of a single commentary that has ever interpreted this event my way so take it for what's its worth. ($0.02) :O)
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