By making the Gospel the mark of the Church and faith the Gospel the badge of membership in the Church Luther has rendered an incalculable service to Christianity. This view of the Church shows the immense importance of a live, intelligent, and active personal faith. It puts a ban on religious indifference and mechanical worship. It destroys formalism, ceremonialism, Pharisaism in the affairs of religion. Justly Luther has ridiculed the implicit, or blind, faith of Catholics, when he writes: "The papists say that they believe what the Church believes, just as it is being related of the Poles that they say: I believe what my king believes. Indeed! Could there be a better faith than this, a faith less free from worry and anxiety? They tell a story about a doctor meeting a collier on a bridge in Prague and condescendingly asking the poor layman, 'My dear man, what do you believe?' The collier replied, 'Whatever the Church believes.' The doctor: 'Well, what does the Church believe?' The collier: 'What I believe.' Some time later the doctor was about to die. In his last moments he was so fiercely assailed by the devil that he could not maintain his ground nor find rest until he said, 'I believe what the collier believes.' A similar story is being told of the great [Catholic theologian] Thomas Aquinas, viz., that in his last moments he was driven into a corner by the devil, and finally declared, 'I believe what is written in this Book.' He had the Bible in his arms while he spoke these words. God grant that not much of such faith be found among us! For if these people did not believe in a different manner, both the doctor and the collier have been landed in the abyss of hell by their faith." (17, 2013.)
Luther's teaching regarding the Church leads to a proper valuation of the means of grace. Only through the evangelical Word and the evangelical ordinances is the Church planted, watered, and sustained. It is, therefore, necessary that the world be supplied in abundance with the Word through the missionary operations of Christians, and that the Christians themselves have the Word dwell among them richly (Col. 3, 16). "He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing," says the Head of the Church to His disciples (John 15, 5); and in His last prayer He pleads with the Father in their behalf: "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is truth" (John 17, 17). For the same reason it is necessary that the Word and Sacraments be preserved in their Scriptural purity, that any deviation from the clear teaching of the Bible be resisted, and orthodoxy be maintained. Errors in doctrine are like tares in a wheat-field: they are useless in themselves, and they hinder the growth of good plants. Error saves no one, but some are still saved in spite of error by clinging to the truth which is offered them along with the error. Luther believed that this happened even in the error-ridden Catholic Church.
Luther's teaching regarding the Church enables us, furthermore, to form a right estimate of the ministry in the Church. Christ wants all believers to be proclaimers of His truth and grace. The apostle whom Catholics regard as the first Pope says to all Christians: "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2, 9). To the local congregation of believers, which is to deal with an offending brother, even to the extent of putting him out of the church, Christ says: "If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." There is nothing that God denies even to the smallest company of believers while they are engaged in the discharge of their rights and duties as members of the Church; for Christ adds: "Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18, 17-20). All rights and duties of the Church are common to all members. All have the right to preach, to administer the Sacraments, etc. Over and above this, however, Christ has instituted also a personal ministry, men who can be "sent" even as He was sent by the Father (John 20, 21; comp. Rom. 10, 15: "How shall they preach, except they be sent?"); men who are to devote themselves exclusively to the reading of the Word (1 Tim. 4, 13), to teaching and guiding their fellow-believers in the way of divine truth (see the Epistles to Timothy and Titus). But the ministry in the Church does not represent a higher grade of Christianity,—the laymen representing the lower,—but the ministry is a service ordained for the "perfecting of the saints and the edifying of the body of Christ," viz., His Church (Eph. 4, 11. 12; 1, 23). Minister is derived from minus, "less," not from magis—from which we have Magister—meaning "more." The ministry of the Church of the New Testament is not a hierarchy, endowed with special privileges and powers by the Lord, but a body of humble workmen who serve their fellow-men and fellow-Christians in the spirit of Christ, who said: "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20, 28). Ministers merely exercise in public the common rights of all believers and are the believers' representatives in all their official acts. So Paul viewed the absolution which he pronounced upon the penitent member of the Corinthian congregation (2 Cor. 2, 10). When the Corinthians had begun to exalt their preachers unduly, he told them that they were "carnal." "Who is Paul," he exclaims, "and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed? . . . Let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours" (1 Cor. 3, 4. 5. 20. 21). And Peter, the original Pope in the Catholics' belief, says: "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock" (1 Pet. 5, 1-3).
Lastly, Luther's teaching regarding the Church affords a wealth of comfort and sound direction in view of the divided condition of the visible Church. Through the ignorance and malice of men and through the wily activity of Satan, who creates divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine of Christ, and is busy sowing tares among the wheat, there have arisen many church organizations, known by party names, differing from one another in their creedal statements, and warring upon each other. This is a sad spectacle to contemplate, and grieves Christian hearts sorely. But these divisions in the external and visible organizations do not touch the body of Christ, the communion of saints, the one holy Christian Church. In all ages and places the true believers in Christ are a unit. Among those who by faith have "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free; but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3, 10. 11). This is the true Catholic, that is, universal, Church. The visible society which has usurped this name never was, nor is to-day, the universal Church. Before Protestantism arose, there was the Eastern Church, which has maintained a separate organization. This holy Christian Church is indestructible, because the Word of Christ, which is its bond, shall never pass away, and Christ rules even in the midst of His enemies. Visible church organizations are valuable only in as far as they shelter, and are nurseries of, the invisible Church. Luther never conceived the idea of founding a visible organization more powerful than the Catholic; he did not mean to pit one ecclesiastical body of men against another. His single aim was to restore the purity of teaching and the right administration of the Sacraments in accordance with the Scriptures. That his followers were named after him, we have shown not to be Luther's fault: Luther did not form a Church, but reformed the Church; he did not establish a new creed, but reestablished the old. The visible society of Lutherans to-day does not regard itself as the alone-saving Church, or as immune from error, or as infallible, but it does claim to be the Church of the pure Word and Sacraments. It knows that it is one in faith with all the children of God throughout the world and in all ages.
20. Luther on the God-Given Supremacy of the Pope.
In the opinion of Catholics Luther's greatest offense is what he has done to their Pope. This is Luther's unpardonable sin. Luther has done two things to the Pope: he has denied that the Pope exists by divine right, and he has in the most scurrilous manner spoken and written about the Pope and made his vaunted dignity the butt of universal ridicule. The indictment is true, but when the facts are stated, it will be seen to recoil on the heads of those who have drawn it.
Luther denies that Matt. 16, 18. 19 establishes the papacy in the Church of Christ. He denies that this text creates a one-man power in the Church, that it vests one individual with a sovereign jurisdiction over the spiritual affairs of all other men, making him the sole arbiter of their faith and the exclusive dispenser of divine grace, and, last, not least, that it says one word about the Pope. Luther makes, indeed, a clean and sweeping denial of every claim which Catholics advance for the God-given supremacy of their Popes. Inasmuch as the papacy stands or falls with Matt. 16, 18.19, he has put the Catholics in the worst predicament imaginable.
Catholics believe that Peter was singled out for particular honors in the Church by being declared the rock on which Christ builds His Church, and by being given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Peter's supremacy as Primate of the World, they hold, passed over to Peter's successor and is perpetuated in an unbroken line of succession in the Roman Popes. Three questions, then, confronted Luther in the study of this text in Matthew. First, does the "rock" in Matt. 16, 18 signify Peter? The Lord had addressed to all His disciples the question, "Whom say ye that I am?" Instead of all of them answering and creating a confusion, Peter, the most impulsive of the apostles, speaks up and says, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." With these words Peter expressed the common faith of all the disciples. Not one of them dissented from his statement; he had voiced the joint conviction of them all. Peter was the spokesman, but the confession was that of the apostles. Any other apostle might have spoken first and said the same, had he been quicker than Peter. If there is any merit in Peter's confession of Christ, all other disciples, yea, all who confess Christ as Peter did, share that merit. In replying to Peter the Lord takes all merit away from Peter by saying to him: "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven." He addresses Peter by the name he had borne before he became an apostle: Simon, son of Jonas, and tells him that if he were still what he used to be before he came to Christ, he could not have made the confession which he had just uttered. In his old unconverted state he would not have formed any higher opinion concerning Christ than the people throughout the country, some of whom thought that Christ was John the Baptist risen from the dead; others, that he was Jeremias; still others, that he was one of the ancient prophets come back to life. The deity of Jesus and His mission as Christ, that is, as the Messiah, our Lord says, are grasped by men only when the Father reveals these truths to them. A spiritual nature, a new mind such as the Spirit gives in regeneration, is required for such a confession. The glory of Peter's confession, therefore, is the glory of every believer. To every Sunday-school child which recites Luther's explanation of the Second Article: "I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me," the Lord would say the same thing as He did to Peter: My child, yours is an excellent confession; there is nothing fickle or undecided in it like in the vague and changing opinions which worldly men form about Me. Thank God that He has given you the grace to know Me as I ought to be known.
But did not the Lord proceed to declare Peter the rock on which He would build His Church? That is what Catholics believe, in spite of the fact that this would be the only place in the whole Bible where a human being would be represented as the foundation of the Church, while there are scores of passages which name quite another person as the rock that supports the Church. Catholics read this text thus: "Thou art Peter, and on thee will I build My Church." That is precisely what Christ did not say, and what He was most careful not to express. The words "Peter" and "rock" are plainly two different terms and denote two different objects. That is the most natural view to take of the matter. In the original Greek we find two words similar in sound, but distinct in meaning for the two objects to which Christ refers: Peter's name is Petros, which is a personal noun; the word for "rock" is petra, which is a common noun. In the Greek, then, Christ's answer reads thus: "Thou art Petros, and on this petra will I build my Church." Catholics claim that Christ, in answering Peter, introduced a play upon words, such as a witty person will indulge in: Petros, the apostle's name, signifies a rock-man, a firm person, and from this meaning it is an easy step to petra, which is plain rock or stone. If this interpretation is admitted, the expression "upon thee" may be substituted for the expression "on this rock." Yet not altogether. By adopting the peculiar phraseology "upon this rock" in the place of "upon thee," Christ avoids referring to the individual Peter, to the person known as Peter, and refers rather to a characteristic in him, namely, his firmness and boldness in confessing Christ. This every careful interpreter of this text will admit. Christ could easily have said: Upon thee will I build My Church, if it had been His intention to say just that. And we imagine on such a momentous occasion Christ would have used the plainest terms, containing no figure of speech, no ambiguities whatever; for was he not now introducing to the Church the distinguished person who was to preside over its affairs? Catholics claim that when Christ spoke these words, "upon this rock," He had extended His hand and was pointing to Peter. That would help us considerably in the interpretation of the text. The trouble is only that we are not told anything about such a gesture of Christ, and if a gesture must be invented, it is possible to invent an altogether different one, as we shall see. But if Christ, by saying, "upon this rock," instead of saying, "upon thee," referred not to Peter as a person, but to a quality in Peter, namely, to his firm faith, then it follows that the Church is not built on the person of Peter, but on a quality of Peter. This is the best that Catholics can obtain from the interpretation which they have attempted. But if the Church is built on firm faith, there is no reason why that faith should be just Peter's. Would not every firm believer in the deity and Redeemership of Christ become the rock on which the Church is built just as much as Peter? Luther declared quite correctly: "We are all Peters if we believe like Peter." Really, the Catholics ought to be willing to help strengthen the foundation of the Church by admitting that the rock would become a stouter support if, instead of the firm faith of one man, the equally firm faith of hundreds, thousands, and millions of other men were added to prop up the Church. In all seriousness, it will be absolutely necessary to give Peter some assistants; for we know that the job of holding up the Church was too big for him on at least two occasions. What became of the Church in the night when Peter denied the Lord? In that night, the Catholics would have to believe, the Church was built on a liar and blasphemer. What became of the Church in the days when Peter came to Antioch and Paul withstood him to the face because he was dissembling his Christian convictions not to offend a Judaizing party in the Church? (Gal. 2.) Was the Church in those days built on a canting hypocrite?
But the greatest difficulty in admitting the Catholic interpretation is met when one remembers those Bible-texts which name an altogether different rock as the foundation and corner-stone of the Church. Paul says that in their desert wanderings the Israelites were accompanied by Christ. He was their unseen Guide and Benefactor. He supported their faith. "They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10, 4). At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord relates a parable about a wise and a foolish builder. The foolish builder set up his house on sand; the wise builder built on rock. By the rock, however, the Lord would have us understand "these sayings of Mine" (Matt. 7, 24). Paul speaks of the Church to the Ephesians thus: "Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone" (chap. 2, 20). Most fatal, however, to the Catholic interpretation is the testimony of Peter. Exhorting the Christians to eager study of the Word of the Lord, he goes on to say: "To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe He is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient" (1 Pet. 2, 4-8). Here Peter in the plainest and strongest terms declares Christ to be the rock on which the Church is built. The scribes and Pharisees rejected Him, as had been foretold, but the common people who heard Him gladly embraced His message of salvation, and rested their faith on what He had taught them and done for them. Peter evidently did not understand the text in Matthew as the Catholics understand it. Peter in his Epistle is really a heretic in what he says about the rock, and if the Catholics could spare him from under the Church, they ought to burn him.