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CHAPTER 1

Martin Luther

(1483–1546)

Because so much has been written about Martin Luther, and so much is known, we will confine our biographical comments to providing an introductory context for the work excerpted below.

Luther was born in Eiselben, Germany, in 1483 and died in the same city in 1546. Well educated and destined, according to his father's wishes, for a career in law, Luther changed his course in 1505 when a terrifying experience caused him to commit himself to the ministry. In that year, he entered the monastery of the Augustinian Hermits in Erfurt and was ordained a priest in 1507. By 1511 Luther became a doctor of theology. Having previously lectured at the (then new) University of Wittenberg, Luther became a professor of that institution, and he maintained that post until his death.

It was the Peasants' War that changed the way many would understand the Reformation. Because of the war, Erasmus turned against Luther. Luther responded with perhaps his best theological treatise, The Bondage of the Will (1525). During the course of his life Luther completed a translation of the entirety of Scripture and wrote biblical commentaries, theological works, and the Great Catechism for pastors, as well as a Short Catechism for broader use.

In 1546, nearly thirty years after nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door at Wittenberg, Luther was buried at that same church. His influence cannot be overestimated, both in Catholic and Protestant circles.

Luther is best known as the man who sparked the Protestant Reformation. Dissatisfied with the corruption of the church that he witnessed as a pastor, he determined to challenge many of its practices, initially, by nailing Ninety-Five Theses to the castle church door of the University of Wittenberg. The castle church door was the standard location for announcements and for disputations such as this to be posted. Luther also sent the theses to the archbishop, who, together with his councillors, reviewed them. The councillors concluded that elements of Luther's theses were in direct opposition to church teaching and thus were heretical. Their report, together with Luther's theses, was then sent to the pope. Following this conciliar judgment, a series of debates, disputations, and councils ensued in which Luther's challenges to the church were taken up. Facing some of the most formidable theologians of his time, Luther was ordered to recant his views and to submit himself to the authority of the church.

While debates are ongoing as to the exact time of Luther's "conversion," there is little doubt that his definitive break with Rome took place over the course of the year 1520, in which the work excerpted below was written. During that year, Luther wrote three works that move definitively toward a Reformation of the church. The first is an appeal to the emperor (also meant to stir the laity) to do away with the authority of the pope, masses for the dead, and other Romanist teachings. The second work, addressed primarily for the clergy, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, is Luther's exposition and denial of the efficacy of the Romanist sacramental system, particularly focused on the Romanist view of the sacrament of communion. Luther denies transubstantiation and argues for communion in "both kinds," that is, partaking of both bread and wine (in the Romanist system, only the priest partakes of the wine).

Luther's third work, Concerning Christian Liberty (or On Christian Freedom), written in the fall of 1520, is the one we have included here. It extols one of Luther's central theological themes — justification by grace through faith, and not by works. Though, as we have said, these three works mark Luther as a Reformer, it will become clear below that Luther does not envision himself, at this point, as anything but a priest of the church. He is in no way hostile toward Pope Leo X, to whom this work is addressed, and he seeks to argue as one whose allegiance is still within the Romanist church. Note, for example:

Wherefore, most excellent Leo, I beseech you to accept my vindication, made in this letter, and to persuade yourself that I have never thought any evil concerning your person; further, that I am one who desires that eternal blessing may fall to your lot, and that I have no dispute with any man concerning morals, but only concerning the word of truth. In all other things I will yield to any one, but I neither can nor will forsake and deny the word. He who thinks otherwise of me, or has taken in my words in another sense, does not think rightly, and has not taken in the truth.

The context for Concerning Christian Liberty includes the fact that, in June of the same year, Luther was already censured by the pope as heretical. His books were ordered burned and he was given sixty days to recant his views. Though he appeals to Pope Leo in this work, it is clear that the relationship between him and the pope is all but broken. Luther has not recanted his views, and instead of burning his works, he later (in December) burns the papal bull that declares him a heretic. Clearly, Luther's goal in all of his writings to this point was to reform the church, not to conform to what he saw to be unbiblical teachings propagated within it.

As Luther explains to the pope, he is not interested in attacking the pope's person. He is, however, concerned with the deep and abiding corruption that seems to persist in the church over which this pope is the head. Luther, in other words, distinguishes between the person of the pope and the church, which is itself, according to Luther, corrupt.

Your see, however, which is called the Court of Rome, and which neither you nor any man can deny to be more corrupt than any Babylon or Sodom, and quite, as I believe, of a lost, desperate, and hopeless impiety, this I have verily abominated, and have felt indignant that the people of Christ should be cheated under your name and the pretext of the Church of Rome; and so I have resisted, and will resist, as long as the spirit of faith shall live in me. Not that I am striving after impossibilities, or hoping that by my labours alone, against the furious opposition of so many flatterers, any good can be done in that most disordered Babylon; but that I feel myself a debtor to my brethren, and am bound to take thought for them, that fewer of them may be ruined, or that their ruin may be less complete, by the plagues of Rome. For many years now, nothing else has overflowed from Rome into the world — as you are not ignorant — than the laying waste of goods, of bodies, and of souls, and the worst examples of all the worst things. These things are clearer than the light to all men; and the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.

Clearly Luther sees himself as a reformer at this point, and he is convinced that the church needs significant reform.

Is it not true that there is nothing under the vast heavens more corrupt, more pestilential, more hateful, than the Court of Rome? She incomparably surpasses the impiety of the Turks, so that in very truth she, who was formerly the gate of heaven, is now a sort of open mouth of hell, and such a mouth as, under the urgent wrath of God, cannot be blocked up; one course alone being left to us wretched men: to call back and save some few, if we can, from that Roman gulf.

In August of 1518, Luther met with Cardinal Cajetan, the papal legate in Wittenberg. Cajetan had established himself as an able Romanist theologian. He had been given the task of meeting with Luther in Augsburg in order to convince him to recant those teaching which opposed the Romanist church. Luther describes his discussion with Cajetan to the pope this way:

I believe it is known to you in what way Cardinal Cajetan, your imprudent and unfortunate, nay unfaithful, legate, acted towards me. When, on account of my reverence for your name, I had placed myself and all that was mine in his hands, he did not so act as to establish peace, which he could easily have established by one little word, since I at that time promised to be silent and to make an end of my case, if he would command my adversaries to do the same. But that man of pride, not content with this agreement, began to justify my adversaries, to give them free licence, and to order me to recant, a thing which was certainly not in his commission.

Included in Luther's introductory letter to Pope Leo is his assessment of some of the discussions and debates that preceded the writing of this work. John Eck, an able and astute Romanist theologian, had studied and critiqued Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in some detail. By the summer of 1519, Eck and Luther were engaged in an official debate, the Leipzig Disputation, wherein they discussed such matters as penance, purgatory, and papal authority. So, according to Luther:

While I was making some advance in these studies, Satan opened his eyes and goaded on his servant John Eccius, that notorious adversary of Christ, by the unchecked lust for fame, to drag me unexpectedly into the arena, trying to catch me in one little word concerning the primacy of the Church of Rome, which had fallen from me in passing. That boastful Thraso, foaming and gnashing his teeth ...

Luther's Concerning Christian Liberty is an apologetic work. There are two important aspects about this apologetic that should not escape our attention. First, it is a theological apologetic. Luther is not engaging discussions such as the existence of God or the possibility of miracles. Rather, he is attempting to purify, to reform, that which calls itself the church of Jesus Christ. Second, we should note that there is, always and everywhere, a need for apologetics within the church. While much of apologetics deals with rank unbelief, that unbelief, even if in nascent form and shrouded in Christian terminology, can take its place within the church itself (since elements of unbelief remain within every Christian) to such an extent that the urgent need of the hour is to expunge such teaching from Christ's church.

Luther was a pastor-theologian, concerned to stand on the authority of Scripture alone in order that his sheep might grasp the centrality of grace in the gospel of Christ. This work is a defense of that grace-soaked gospel against all attempts to mix with it the vinegar of the Christian's own sin-tainted efforts.

Concerning Christian Liberty

Part 2 Beginning of the Treatise

Christian faith has appeared to many an easy thing; nay, not a few even reckon it among the social virtues, as it were; and this they do because they have not made proof of it experimentally, and have never tasted of what efficacy it is. For it is not possible for any man to write well about it, or to understand well what is rightly written, who has not at some time tasted of its spirit, under the pressure of tribulation; while he who has tasted of it, even to a very small extent, can never write, speak, think, or hear about it sufficiently. For it is a living fountain, springing up into eternal life, as Christ calls it in John iv.

Now, though I cannot boast of my abundance, and though I know how poorly I am furnished, yet I hope that, after having been vexed by various temptations, I have attained some little drop of faith, and that I can speak of this matter, if not with more elegance, certainly with more solidity, than those literal and too subtle disputants who have hitherto discoursed upon it without understanding their own words. That I may open then an easier way for the ignorant — for these alone I am trying to serve — I first lay down these two propositions, concerning spiritual liberty and servitude: —

A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

Although these statements appear contradictory, yet, when they are found to agree together, they will make excellently for my purpose. They are both the statements of Paul himself, who says, "Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all" (1 Cor. ix. 19), and "Owe no man anything, but to love one another" (Rom. xiii. 8). Now love is by its own nature dutiful and obedient to the beloved object. Thus even Christ, though Lord of all things, was yet made of a woman; made under the law; at once free and a servant; at once in the form of God and in the form of a servant.

Let us examine the subject on a deeper and less simple principle. Man is composed of a twofold nature, a spiritual and a bodily. As regards the spiritual nature, which they name the soul, he is called the spiritual, inward, new man; as regards the bodily nature, which they name the flesh, he is called the fleshly, outward, old man. The Apostle speaks of this: "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. iv. 16). The result of this diversity is that in the Scriptures opposing statements are made concerning the same man, the fact being that in the same man these two men are opposed to one another; the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Gal. v. 17).

We first approach the subject of the inward man, that we may see by what means a man becomes justified, free, and a true Christian; that is, a spiritual, new, and inward man. It is certain that absolutely none among outward things, under whatever name they may be reckoned, has any influence in producing Christian righteousness or liberty, nor, on the other hand, unrighteousness or slavery. This can be shown by an easy argument.

What can it profit the soul that the body should be in good condition, free, and full of life; that it should eat, drink, and act according to its pleasure; when even the most impious slaves of every kind of vice are prosperous in these matters? Again, what harm can ill-health, bondage, hunger, thirst, or any other outward evil, do to the soul, when even the most pious of men and the freest in the purity of their conscience, are harassed by these things? Neither of these states of things has to do with the liberty or the slavery of the soul.

And so it will profit nothing that the body should be adorned with sacred vestments, or dwell in holy places, or be occupied in sacred offices, or pray, fast, and abstain from certain meats, or do whatever works can be done through the body and in the body. Something widely different will be necessary for the justification and liberty of the soul, since the things I have spoken of can be done by any impious person, and only hypocrites are produced by devotion to these things. On the other hand, it will not at all injure the soul that the body should be clothed in profane raiment, should dwell in profane places, should eat and drink in the ordinary fashion, should not pray aloud, and should leave undone all the things above mentioned, which may be done by hypocrites.

And, to cast everything aside, even speculation, meditations, and whatever things can be performed by the exertions of the soul itself, are of no profit. One thing, and one alone, is necessary for life, justification, and Christian liberty; and that is the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ, as He says, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me shall not die eternally" (John xi. 25), and also, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John viii. 36), and, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. iv. 4).

Let us therefore hold it for certain and firmly established that the soul can do without everything except the word of God, without which none at all of its wants are provided for. But, having the word, it is rich and wants for nothing, since that is the word of life, of truth, of light, of peace, of justification, of salvation, of joy, of liberty, of wisdom, of virtue, of grace, of glory, and of every good thing. It is on this account that the prophet in a whole Psalm (Psalm cxix), and in many other places, sighs for and calls upon the word of God with so many groanings and words.

Again, there is no more cruel stroke of the wrath of God than when He sends a famine of hearing His words (Amos viii. 11), just as there is no greater favour from Him than the sending forth of His word, as it is said, "He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions" (Psalm cvii. 20). Christ was sent for no other office than that of the word; and the order of Apostles, that of bishops, and that of the whole body of the clergy, have been called and instituted for no object but the ministry of the word.

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Excerpted from "Christian Apologetics Past and Present"
by .
Copyright © 2011 William Edgar and K. Scott Oliphint.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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