Heroes of Covenant Theology - Martin Luther
Martin Luther is looked upon as one of the great men in church history. He is seen as the figurehead of the Protestant reformation. Many people have heard and/or read about the torment in his soul in attempting to find peace with God.
Despite his failures and inabilities to reconcile himself to God, he tried all the more and caused himself further suffering. That kind of personal torture is something I have never experienced; I was saved by God earlier in my life than Luther was in his.
Martin Luther was so well respected in Germany that his thoughts on religion also made an impact on political events as well. He was one of if not the most read author in Germany as his books were available to the common folk.
Martin Luther's religious thoughts are embraced and held in high esteem by the reformed and covenantalists today. Many will appeal to his views for credibility and historical authenticity.
However, despite his near saintly status among covenantalists and the reformed community, Luther held to some odd and evil views. It is my hope that the reformed communtity stops making excuses for their hero and reject his sinful views for what they are:
Rascism - including the sanctioning of murder
He argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people, but were "the devil's people." They were "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."
The synagogue was a "defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut ..." and Jews were full of the "devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine." He advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, smashing up their homes, and ensuring that these "poisonous envenomed worms" be forced into labor or expelled "for all time."
He also seemed to sanction their murder, writing "We are at fault in not slaying them."
cited from Luther's "On the Jews and Their Lies" written in 1543, 3 years prior to his death. They were not his views as an unregenerate catholic. They were his views as a good, typical, reformed, amillenial, replacement theology advocate, supercessionist.
While Luther was quite correct that the Jews were no longer the people of God, and that their synagogues were a synagogue of Satan, and that their worship was not to the one true God, his notions of how to respond to them was just as sinful.
Adultery
Philip of Hesse, though married, was enamored of a girl of the nobility, and asserted that he was compelled by most urgent reasons of conscience to search for another wife. He conceived the idea of a double marriage, and as early as 1526 asked Luther's opinion on it, renewing his inquiries most urgently through. Butzer after 1539. Though Luther held that monogamy was the original institution of God, he nevertheless granted the possibility of cases in which a dispenantion was admissible, even among Christians, especially as such a double marriage was preferable to an illegal divorce. This dispensation, however, could be given only as confessional advice, and could not alter the law, which recognized only a single wife; and it must, therefore, remain absolutely secret to avoid scandal. While sharply admonishing Philip of his sins and his duty, Luther and Melanchthon granted that his was a case for a dispensation, and the wedding took place on Mar. 3, 1540. Luther insisted that the affair be kept secret, and that the new wife be represented to the emperor as a mistress, knowing that he could not justify his attitude to the world, though he thought he might to God.
Adding to God's word
Romans 3:28
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
Romans 3:28 in Luther's German translation
herefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith alone apart from the deeds of the law.
It is the duty of the translators to accurately translate what God actually said, not what he/they wanted God to say. It is the duty of the interpreter to understand what God said.
Thoughts on Anabaptists
"For thus do the Anabaptists teach, that baptism is nothing except the person do believe. Out of this principle must needs follow, that all the works of God be nothing if the man be nothing. But baptism is the work of God and yet an evil man maketh it not to be the work of God. Moreover, hereof it must follow, that matrimony, authority, liberty, and bondage, are the works of God; but because men are evil, therefore they are not the works of God. Wicked men have the sun, the moon, the earth, the water, the air, and all other creatures which are subject unto man; but because they I,: be wicked and not godly, therefore the sun is not the sun, the moon, the earth, the water, are not that which they are. The Anabaptists themselves had bodies and souls before they were re-baptized; but because they were not godly, therefore they had not true bodies and true souls. Also their parents were not lawfully married (as they grant themselves,) because they are not re-baptized; therefore the Anabaptists themselves are all bastards, and their parents were all adulterers, and whoremongers; and yet they do inherit their parents' lands and goods, although they grant themselves to be bastards, and unlawful heirs. Who seeth not here, in the Anabaptists, men not possessed with devils, but even devils themselves possessed with worse devils?"
Conclusion
This is only a handful of examples. One could examine Luther's entire works and find the bizarre to the outright evil. It is not my purpose to condemn the man for his foolish notions. My purpose is to point out that his theology had serious consequences in his day that has had lasting affects into today.
posted by James Kime @ 12:43 PM
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