Did Martin Luther believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary? (Tipping R.C. Straw men)

Did Martin Luther believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary? According to Patrick Madrid and Taylor Marshall, he did. Madrid says this question will "likely raise a few eyebrows, pique a few sensitivities, and elicit a few comments around Christian blogdom, from both sides of the Tiber." It appears Madrid thinks Taylor Marshall posted some new controversial tidbit of historical research finally making its way to the Internet. Actually, Marshall's alleged information has been surfing around for over ten years, cut, pasted, and rehashed- taken from one specific Romanist layman with a blog.

Contrary to Marshall's blog entry, it is not a clear cut case as to what Luther's view was. Romanists typically ignore anything about Mary that doesn't support Romanist Mariology. The same goes for Luther's Mariology: when Romanists find a Luther tidbit about Mary that seems to support Mariolatry, they run with it, even if other evidence contradicts the evidence they're using. So, here's a closer look at Taylor Marshall's facts about Luther and the immaculate conception.

1.The eminent Lutheran scholar Arthur Carl Piepkorn

The first tidbit used by Marshall is that "The eminent Lutheran scholar Arthur Carl Piepkorn (1907-73) has also confirmed that Luther believed in the Immaculate Conception even as a Protestant." No quote, research finding, or documentation from Piepkorn are presented by either Marshall or Madrid. That doesn't surprise me, because the only material from Piepkorn on this subject that I know of comes from The Church: Selected Writings of Arthur Carl Piepkorn, (New York: ALPB Books, 1993). This is typically the source Romanists use.

Piepkorn makes a comment in passing on page 275, leaving the discussion at Luther “seems” to have had a lifelong belief in the Immaculate Conception. He neither discusses the content of Luther’s opinion, nor does he offer any indication if the 1854 dogma is in question. Then on page 289 Piepkorn states:

Yet three years before his death [Luther] was still affirming in print the opinion that he had worked out in detail with considerable theological ingenuity twenty five years earlier [#12], namely that through the merits of her Son -to-be the Blessed Virgin was marvelously preserved from the taint of sin from the first moment of her existence as a human being [#13].

footnote #12. Sermon on the Gospel for the Feast of the Conception of the B.V.M. (1517), Weimar edition 17/2, 288.

footnote #13. Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlect Christi, 1543, Weimar edition, 53,640. compare for the year 1553, 37, 231, where he describes the B.V.M. as an sund (i.e. ohne Sünde, "without sin").

Footnote #12 is actually an error. The sermon Piepkorn's referenced was preached in 1527, and begins on page 280 in WA 17.2. This sermon will be discussed below in point #2, because later printed copies of the sermon (from Luther's lifetime) delete the sole passing comment to Mary's immaculate conception. The error makes Piepkorn's "twenty five year" comment inaccurate. That is, the sermon he based his comment on was actually preached ten years later.

Footnote #13 refers to one of Luther's later anti-Jewish writings, not a treatise on Mariology. Luther does not launch into any full discussion of Mary's Immaculate Conception. Luther does state, only in passing that it was necessary for Mary to be a young holy virgin freed of original sin and cleansed by the Holy Ghost to be the mother of Jesus Christ. This statement comes after argumentation for Mary's perpetual virginity. What the statement from Luther doesn't say, one way or the other, is if Mary lived a completely sinless life. I've documented a number of times in which Luther says the cleansing of Mary by the Holy Spirit happened at the conception of Christ, not at Mary's conception.

Piepkorn presents no argumentation or analysis. Why would Piepkorn takes vague statements and put forth strong conclusions? I can only speculate, but Piepkorn had interest in ecumenical dialog with Rome. He was involved for multiple years with Lutheran-Catholic dialogue. Catholic scholar Raymond Brown praised Piepkorn and commented that it would be preposterous to doubt the validity of his priestly orders. Piepkorn's romance with Rome seems to have molded his interpretation of Luther's Mariology.

2. On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God, 1527

The next tidbit offered by Marshall is the following Luther quote:

"It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin" - Martin Luther's Sermon "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," 1527.

The sermon this quote was taken from is not included in the English edition of Luther’s Works, and to my knowledge, the complete sermon has not been translated into English. This quote made its way into a cyber space when a Romanist about 10 years ago began posting it after he took it from Roman Catholic historian Hartmann Grisar's book, Luther Vol. IV (St Louis: B. Herder, 1913). Grisar uses this quote, but what my Romanist friends typically leave out is his analysis:

The sermon was taken down in notes and published with Luther’s approval. The same statements concerning the Immaculate Conception still remain in a printed edition published in 1529, but in later editions which appeared during Luther’s lifetime they disappear.

The reason for their disappearance is that as Luther’s Christocentric theology developed, aspects of Luther’s Mariology were abandoned. Grisar also recognizes the development in Luther's theology. In regards to the Luther quote in question, Grisar says (from a Roman Catholic perspective):

As Luther’s intellectual and ethical development progressed we cannot naturally expect the sublime picture of the pure Mother of God, the type of virginity, of the spirit of sacrifice and of sanctity to furnish any great attraction for him, and as a matter of fact such statements as the above are no longer met with in his later works.

The most one can conclude from this Luther quote is that Luther held to some form of Mary's sinlessness in 1527. According to Grisar, the comment was stricken from the sermon, and Luther abandoned his earlier view.

3. Martin Luther's Little Prayer Book, 1522

Marshall then uses another Luther quote to prove his case:

She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin—something exceedingly great. For God’s grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil. - Martin Luther's Little Prayer Book, 1522

"Martin Luther's Little Prayer Book" refers to the Personal Prayer Book of 1522. Here Luther does treat the subject of Mary. He states, "In the first place, she is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin—something exceedingly great. For God’s grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil" (LW 43:39).

This quote indeed appears to treat Mary as entirely sinless. This statement was made in 1522. If Grisar is correct, Luther's later view does not reflect such sentiment. Even in this early Reformation writing, Luther began changing the emphasis on Mary, and de-emphasizing the importance of her attributes:

“Take note of this: no one should put his trust or confidence in the Mother of God or in her merits, for such trust is worthy of God alone and is the lofty service due only to him. Rather praise and thank God through Mary and the grace given her. Laud and love her simply as the one who, without merit, obtained such blessings from God, sheerly out of his mercy, as she herself testifies in the Magnificat.”

“Therefore we should make the Hail Mary neither a prayer nor an invocation because it is improper to interpret the words beyond what they mean in themselves and beyond the meaning given them by the Holy Spirit.”

“…her giving birth is blessed in that it was spared the curse upon all children of Eve who are conceived in sin and born to deserve death and damnation. Only the fruit of her body is blessed, and through this birth we are all blessed.”

“…in the present no one speaks evil of this Mother and her Fruit as much as those who bless her with many rosaries and constantly mouth the Hail Mary. These, more than any others, speak evil against Christ’s word and faith in the worst way.

“Therefore, notice that this Mother and her Fruit are blessed in a twofold way—bodily and spiritually. Bodily with lips and the words of the Hail Mary; such persons blaspheme and speak evil of her most dangerously. And spiritually [one blesses her] in one’s heart by praise and benediction for her child, Christ—for all his words, deeds, and sufferings. And no one does this except he who has the true Christian faith because without such faith no heart is good but is by nature stuffed full of evil speech and blasphemy against God and all his saints.”

It makes a lot of sense that by 1530 or so, Luther's views on Mary would shift even more away from Romanism.

Luther's view?
Luther's later view appears to be that at Christ's conception the Holy Spirit sanctified Mary so that the child would be born with non-sinful flesh and blood. For an example of Luther's argumentation, see: Luther and the Immaculate Conception? The 1540 Disputation On the Divinity and Humanity of Christ.

There are many other statements about Mary from Luther Romanists ignore. Most of these are post-1527.

In this sermon Luther states, " although she had been sanctified by the Holy Spirit; yet he permitted her at times to err, even in the important matters of faith." He says also:

Be they called holy, learned, fathers, councils, or any other name, even though they were Mary, Joseph and all the saints it does not follow that they could not have erred and made mistakes. For here you learn that the mother of Christ though she possessed great intelligence and enlightenment, showed great ignorance in that she did not know where to find Christ, and in consequence was censured by him because she did not know what she should have known. If she failed and through her ignorance was brought to such anxiety and sorrow that she thought she had lost Christ, is it a wonder that other saints should often have erred and stumbled, when they followed their own notions, without the guidance of Scripture, or put their own notions into Scripture.

See also selections from this blog entry, documenting the same position from Luther.

Rather than discussing Mary’s sinlessness, Luther's later writings insist Christ’s sinlessness was due entirely to the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit during conception. In 1532 he preached:

Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are…For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person [Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 3, ed. John Nicholas Lenker. ( Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 291].

In 1534 Luther explained that Christ was “born of a young maiden, as you and I are born of our mothers. The only difference is that the Holy Spirit engineered this conception and birth, while in contrast we mortals are conceived and born in sin.”[Ibid., 294.]. As Jaroslov Pelikan has noted, Mary functioned in Luther’s theology as “the guarantee of the reality of the incarnation and of the human nature of Christ.” With the doctrine of the immaculate conception, one sees a clear change in Luther’s thought. The theologian, who had at one time praised both mother and child for their purity, now praised only the Son.

Conclusion
This is only a brief look at a subject I've spent considerable time on over the years. I would never be dogmatic (for lack of a better word), but I've never found any conclusive quotes from Luther (with a context!) after 1527 that reflect his earlier position.

There's one Romanist who thinks simply doing a scholarly head count (which scholars think Luther believed in the immaculate conception, and which do not) is the means of determining Luther's view. This isn't my way of determining truth. I like to look at quotes and look up contexts, especially on an issue that has some uncertainty about it. Simply consider the errors I located in Piepkorn's view detailed here, and also in this previous entry. Those who think simply counting heads determines truth are typically those who really don't care about the truth.

I'm sure Patrick Madrid could care less. I don't know anything about Taylor Marshall- perhaps he's a guy interested in history and truth and will revise his blog entry. Marshall concludes his article stating,

Far be it from me to approve of Luther. I only list these quotes to show how far Protestantism has come from it's quasi-Catholic origin. If only Lutherans would return to this single doctrine of their founder; how quickly our Lady would turn them into true Catholics! Queen conceived without original sin, pray for us!

Even if Martin Luther believed in Mary's immaculate conception, the Reformation does not suffer loss. Neither myself nor the Lutheran church considers Luther to be an infallible source of either interpretation or revelation. However, my Romanist friends need to do a little better at proving Luther believed in the immaculate conception of Mary.

So ... is Paul's meaning that God has sinned? Or not?

If you (rightly) answer "Paul did not mean to say that God had sinned", then why didn't he say that?

If you (rightly) answer "but his readers knew what he meant: he didn't need to list the exceptions" then - aha! We have finally got to the point.

Paul's text is not to be used as a delete *.* command.

Paul's words cannot be taken to mean that Mary had sinned, anymore than they can be taken to mean that Jesus had sinned.

Paul knew the awesome title given to Mary by the Angel Gabriel, just he knew the titanic reality of Jesus Christ, her Son.

His context in the passage is that we all need the Salvation of God. The difference between the rest of mankind and Mary is that she received God's salvation from the moment of her conception.

She needed it. And because of her vital role in God's plan of salvation, she was given it at the moment of her creation.

Hope this was helpful.

Paul knew the awesome title given to Mary by the Angel Gabriel, just he knew the titanic reality of Jesus Christ, her Son.

Proof? Links?

His context in the passage is that we all need the Salvation of God. The difference between the rest of mankind and Mary is that she received God's salvation from the moment of her conception.

And I received my salvation about 35 years ago when I was 22. I've sinned since then.

Likewise, I don't doubt that Mary received her salvation at some point, but that doesn't mean she never sinned. Nor is there any indication that she was conceived without sin. It simply isn't and wasn't necessary to fulfill God's plan of redemption. There is nothing in Scripture that alludes to it, nor was there any OT prophecy concerning it.

She needed it. And because of her vital role in God's plan of salvation, she was given it at the moment of her creation.

Why? All Scripture required was that the mother of the Messiah be a virgin and of the house and linage of David.

Context is your friend.

Paul establishes here EXACTLY who he is talking about.

Romans 3:9-31 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

There is nothing in Scripture that alludes to it, nor was there any OT prophecy concerning it.

Genesis

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

Who is the offspring who will crush Satan's Head? Christ.

Who then is the woman, who's offspring is Christ? Mary.

In Genesis God states that there will be enmity between Satan and Mary, and between Satan and Christ.

Now that's support for Mary's sinlessness. But the most telling words are spoken by Gabriel, messenger of God at the Annunciation.

He gave Mary the title "Full of Grace". Chaire, Kecharitomene

Full of Grace. No sin at all.

Hope this is helpful.

It’s beyond the comprehension of virtually every Catholic I’ve ever met that I don’t follow some human leader. They just can’t wrap their minds around it, which is why Catholics are always throwing out quotes from Calvin and Luther as if it means anything to most of us.

Indeed, and often parroting dubious or out of context quotes - as if we followed a pope who spoke infallbly.

And or they are criticizing us as having no pope, while dismissing many views of their own pope as simply those of a "private theologian."

While also criticizing us for engaging in private interpretation, which they (as seen recently) have no problem engaging in.

Yet the church began because souls engaged in such, dissenting from those who sat in the seat of Moses.

Now that's support for Mary's sinlessness.

No it's not. It doesn't say one thing about Mary or her sin or alleged sinlessness.

Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. No sin = no grace needed.

If Mary was full of grace, she HAD to have sinned. Otherwise grace could not have been given her. It would have been wages due.

FWIW, there's enmity between Satan and EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. He's at odds with all creation.

And the only conditions for not deserving it as because one sinned.

Ah, but you cannot deserve grace because - as you so rightly said - grace is undeserved. If it was deserved it would be called something like 'payment'.

Mary didn't deserve grace. She received her sinless state as a free gift: a miraculous exception to original sin.

In any case: she couldn't have sinned before being created sinless. For the simple reason that she didn't exist before being created.

Even if grace were given as just deserts - which it is not - Mary could not have been either undeserving nor deserving at a moment that she did not exist.

Hope this was helpful.

>> Remember the words spoken to her by the Angel Gabriel.<<

Yes let’s! The words spoken to her were “Greetings you favored with grace”. That same word is used twice in scripture.

Luke 1:28 does use the word kecharitomene, which literally means "one who has been graced" or “I favor, bestow freely on”.

Acts 6:8 refers to Stephen as plErEs charitos, which literally means "full of grace" and just the same as the description used of Jesus in John 1:14.

So if Catholics insist that Mary was sinless because of the use of kecharitomene they must also believe that Stephen was also sinless since the version of the word charitos along with the word plErEs gives Stephen the same “full of grace” as Jesus but does not give that to Mary. And also here.

Ephesians 1:6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

So it would appear that we as well have that same grace. Now before you go and say something like “she was more highly favored” let’s look at the rest of that verse.

Luke 1:28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

Blessed among women. Let’s see how that compares to other scripture.

Judges 5:24 Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,

Jael was called blessed above women. Mary was called blessed among women.

Those words were also spoken of Noah, Moses, and David.

I would like to suggest that all this finger pointing between religious groups is part of an organized effort to get us fighting each other. This is getting silly!

I try to avoid the threads on Mary the mother of Jesus Christ. After the first few posts no matter what doctrine is held on her, she is dragged through the mud. I remember growing up in the era of the playground and the "your mama!" jokes and jabs that started fights. I will not brawl like a youth in a playground at recess on mothers. She is Jesus' mother, let her alone. She has the same promise we do of eternal life with Him.

Jesus never commanded us to put Mary on a pedestal and pray to her, nor did He want us to ignore her given Luke 1 has loads on His mom. Why can't we all follow her example and adore, worship and look upon the face of Jesus Christ? It is all about Him and not us.

God Bless!

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