Luther, vol. 6 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

It was to this hierarchy that, according to the Catholic theologians, the solemn words of Christ were spoken: “He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me” (Luke x. 16). “Go ye and teach all nations baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost … and lo I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. xxviii. 19 f.). The “Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven” are entrusted to them and they are told: “Amen I say unto you, whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matt. xviii. 18). They may “command” as Paul did, who journeyed from place to place and “commanded them to keep the precepts of the apostles and the ancients” (Acts xv. 41). Peter, moreover, and his successors, received the right and duty to feed “the sheep” as well as the “lambs” (John xxi. 16), besides the especial custody of the keys (Matt. xvi. 19); on him and on his God-given constancy the Church of Christ was built (Matt. xvi. 18).

The Holy Ghost “placed” the bishops “to rule the Church of God” (Acts xx. 28). Whoever “will not hear the Church” is shut out from salvation and is to be regarded “as the heathen and publican” (Matt. xviii. 17).

Nowhere in these passages, so it was pointed out, is there ever a word about the secular power having any hand in the growth of the great society of God upon earth. Nor could Christ, in view of the object to which He had founded His Church, without proving untrue to Himself, have left behind Him a helpless and unfinished work, dependent for its very life on the discretion of the secular authorities and taking its laws from the State. The Church’s four marks (above, p. 295) point to something higher.

Even did Luther wish to disregard the words of institution, he should at least, so it was urged, not shut his eyes to history; now, from the earliest historical times, the Church had always existed under the form of a society, i.e. divided into the two categories of the teachers and the taught. Even according to Protestant writers this form may be traced back at least as far as the 2nd century, and, to an unprejudiced eye, its traces will be discernible even earlier in the authentic sources, i.e. the Bible and history. None, however, was better fitted to bear witness to the earliest organisation of the Church than the Church herself, for she could do so out of the unbroken and untarnished consciousness of her existence; her testimony confirms her Divine appointment to be an independent society and a hierarchically governed institution.

Lutheranism, however, took scant notice of these Biblical and historical proofs.[1214] Its founder, at the end of his life, left it as his legacy a church, or rather churches, of a different structure. In the evening of his days, in spite of the hopeless and imperilled state of his congregations, he refused to admit any gleam of light that might have brought him back to the unwavering authority of the ancient Church which once, in the days of his crisis, he had extolled. By heavenly signs and wonders, so he had pointed out in his Commentary on Romans (1516), this Church was introduced into the world; she is the mother of those who teach; to her decision every doctrine must bow if it is not to become a heresy, “robbed of the witness of God and of that divinely authenticated authority” which “down to the present day supports the Roman Church.”[1215]

Since he had descended into the arena of controversy his attitude towards the dogma of the Church had become not so much a matter of doctrine (for the essential question was, as Köstlin aptly remarks, “very insufficiently grasped and explained by him”[1216]) as one of policy.

5. Luther’s Tactics in Questions concerning the Church

Both for Luther’s views on doctrine and for his psychology his tactics in his controversy about the nature of the Church offer matter for consideration.

Controversy, as we know, tended to accentuate his peculiarities. His talents, his gift of swift perception, his skill for vivid description, his art of exploiting every advantage to the delight of the masses were all of value to him. What he wrote when not under the stress of controversy lacked these advantages, advantages, moreover, which, for the most part, were merely superficial, and sometimes, when he was in the wrong, display a very unpleasing side.