Funny thing is, Catholics like to portray Luther as a Protestant from the start who intended to start his own religion.
They conveniently over look the fact that he WAS indeed a Catholic priest. His wanting to see the Catholic church cleansed from the corruption that infested it in his day is not much different than those Catholics here on FR who want to see the Catholic church cleansed from the corruption which is infesting it today.
metmom wrote:
“Funny thing is, Catholics like to portray Luther as a Protestant from the start who intended to start his own religion. They conveniently over look the fact that he WAS indeed a Catholic priest. His wanting to see the Catholic church cleansed from the corruption that infested it in his day is not much different than those Catholics here on FR who want to see the Catholic church cleansed from the corruption which is infesting it today.”
This is correct.
Luther, upon his coming to understand what the Holy Scriptures were really saying about the righteousness of God and how it comes to be ours - by faith - recognized that the ship, or ark if you like a little more biblically attuned analogy, that is the church of our Lord Jesus Christ, had broken free of its moorings and was adrift on the perilous sea of human wisdom/tradition/superstition/experience/habit/arrogance/whim. It had to be brought back to its proper and godly moorings, that is, secured to the unchanging and inerrant Holy Scriptures, the written Word of God. To put it another way, the Roman-ness that had crept into the church over many centuries had to be purged from it, leaving it simply catholic - small “c” catholic - and thus simply Christian and truly apostolic. It needed the same treatment Josiah gave to the temple and priesthood of his time.
With such purging would and should go purgatory, Mariolatry, intercession of the saints, works righteousness, supererogation and the whole corrupt and misguided monastic/sacramental system that goes with it, the improper mixing of the two kingdoms (i.e. church and state), the soul-destroying confusion of Law and Gospel - in essence everything for which the so-called infallible magisterium stood for and defended with all its might. What would be left would be the ministry of reconciliation, that is, the ministry of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament as instituted by Christ, whose prime directive was to bring the Good News to all nations and to serve the royal priesthood that is the people of God, the disciples of Jesus Christ. Christ Himself, who never left His church, see Matthew 28:20, would be acknowledged once more as the only Head of the church, and thus there would be no need of a so-called vicar of Christ (there never had been such a need).