When a young college professor named Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517 in hopes of opening the door to debate over a variety of perceived abuses within the Catholic Church, no one knew that, in actuality, he had opened the floodgates to a whole lot more. Now, what lay at the heart of Luther’s objections to the Catholic Church of his day were the very real abuses that were going on at the behest of the Pope in the name of Christ, namely the sale of indulgences in order to raise money for St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, along with the unbiblical doctrine of Purgatory.
Luther was entirely justified in his revulsion of the manipulative practices of men like Johannes Tetzel, who preyed upon the ignorance and fear of the common peasant, in order to squeeze out a little more money for the Pope. In his panhandling speeches, Tetzel famously said, “Do you not hear the voices of your dead parents and other people, screaming and saying, ‘Have pity on me, have pity on me…. We are suffering severe punishments and pain, from which you could rescue me with a few alms, if you would.’” Such abuses no doubt infuriated Luther, especially given the fact that a mere seven years before, in 1510, when Luther had made a pilgrimage to Rome, instead of finding Rome to be a holy city, he found nothing but debauchery, avarice, and greed.
Luther’s proposed changes to Catholicism, though, went far beyond addressing indulgences and Purgatory. Among other things, he wanted to eliminate all holy days except for Sunday; he wanted to let the entire congregation drink the wine at communion; he thought priests should be allowed to get married; and he wanted all religious orders done away with. Some of his proposed changes involved valid critiques of church abuses and valid reforms; others were perhaps an over-reaction. But what made Luther a Protestant revolutionary, and not merely a reformer, was what he taught about (a) Scripture, and (b) salvation. Over these next few posts, we will focus on Luther’s view of each one.
The Problem with Sola Scriptura
In what was a clear over-reaction to the corruption within the Catholic Church, Luther claimed that the sole source for authority was the Bible: Sola Scriptura. Although this slogan has achieved almost an infallible quality to it in Protestant circles today, the fact is that the slogan is deeply problematic. In order to see just how problematic it is, we must first take a few steps back to address a number of wrong assumptions both Luther and Protestants today often make.
In How Should We Then Live, Francis Schaffer made the claim that the early Church stood under the authority of the Bible, and the Bible alone. Then during the Middle Ages, the Church slowly distorted that original pristine Christianity by incorporating humanistic elements into its teaching. It was then Luther and the Protestant Reformation that attempted to right those wrongs and get back to the early Church.
The problem with that assessment is that it simply isn’t true. First off, there never was a time of “pristine Christianity.” A simple reading of Paul’s letters testifies to the fact that there were controversies, debates, and problems from the very beginning of the Church. Secondly, for the first 300 years of Church history, there was no such thing as a New Testament. On top of that, the “authoritative” Scriptures that the early Christians did use was, in fact, the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, a version of the Old Testament that Protestants simply do not use anymore. Therefore, it is simply wrong at virtually every level to claim that there ever was a “pristine” Church that unambiguously stood under the “authority” of the Bible. Therefore, Luther and his other revolutionary/reformers were on a fool’s errand—they were trying to “restore” the Church to something that it had never been in the first place.
Still, Luther Had a Point…
Now, one can understand the motivation behind Luther’s call—the Catholic Church of his day really was incredibly corrupt. Much of the tradition that had developed within the Catholic Church was, in fact, based on numerous unbiblical (and unchristian) teachings. One need to look no further than the Catholic Church’s resistance to allow the Bible be translated into the common languages of the people, and its insistence that Church tradition and the word of the Pope took precedence over the Bible. That is why the Pope did not want the Bible translated into the common tongue—he basically wanted to be the one who told people what the Bible said.
Simply put, since the Catholic Church of Luther’s day was dogmatic on its insistence that Church tradition was, in fact, over the Bible, and that the Pope wielded supreme authority in matters of faith, Luther responded by claiming that it was the Bible, and the Bible only, that wielded supreme authority, and may the traditions of the Church be damned…literally! They were simply “traditions of men” that had usurped the authority of God’s Word.
Well, the problem with Luther’s claims was that while he correctly rejected those claims of the Catholic Church, he still nevertheless built his theological edifice based on the same faulty blueprints, namely a faulty understanding of “authority.”
Now, in regards to the Bible itself, Luther was absolutely right in his insistence that the Bible be translated into the language of the people; the Catholic Church was simply wrong to oppose that. It had been the practice of the Orthodox Church from the very beginning to translate the Bible into the languages of the people to whom they brought the Gospel. The original Bible of the early Church was, in fact, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The Cyrillic alphabet of Russia and other Slavonic countries, for example, was invented by St. Cyril, an Orthodox missionary who evangelized the Slavs.
The Concept of “Authority”: Whose Authority? Authority for What Purpose?
That fact alone regarding the openness to translations should tell us something very important regarding the concept of “authority”—namely, that the early Church, and the Orthodox Church that grew out of it, did not consider the Bible as the holding sole authority in the Christian life. If one takes a few moments to reflect on this, one should be able to see the point. First off, consider II Timothy 3:16-17: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Notice, that nowhere does it say, “Scripture is the sole authority and should be put on a pedestal, venerated, and blindly obeyed.” In fact, it says that all scripture is useful…for a variety of things: reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.
Secondly, consider Jesus’ own words to his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
All throughout the gospels we find that what astonished his fellow Jews more than anything else was Jesus’ authority in what he taught. He displayed an authority over sickness, demons, and even death. In addition to that, he displayed an authority to reinterpret the Torah in light of his own ministry, death, and resurrection. And in Matthew 28:18-20, we find that Jesus tells us that all authority has been given to him, and that he in turn has given that very authority to those who follow him—the Church (Matthew 10:1; 16:18-19).
Therefore, the kind of authority that the very Bible bears witness to is not some sort of authoritarian, top-down hierarchical dictator. Rather, the kind of authority that the Bible bears witness to is the living, dynamic authority found in Christ and embodied in his Church. And that authority should not be seen in terms of some sort of “objective/absolute moral standard” (i.e. a divinely dictated rule book) that we must blindly obey and follow if we are to be saved. Rather, the authority that was given to Christ, which he in turn gave to the Church, is the authority to proclaim, incorporate, and translate the resurrection-reality of the Kingdom of God into this current age of sin and death, thereby being the agents by which the Holy Spirit transforms this old creation, in bondage to corruption and death, into the new creation.
It is this authority, bestowed upon the Church by Christ, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, that the Bible bears witness to. In fact, in light of this, the Bible must be understood to be the primary tool used by the Church to exercise this Christ-given, Spirit-empowered authority to transform all creation. When the Church exercises this authority for this purpose, we begin to truly understand verses like, “The Word of God is living and active.” It is an authority to transform creation and to live out our vocation as king-priests of God’s creation. Therefore, what individuals do—indeed, what the Church does—cannot be disregarded or rejected as being mere “traditions of men” that are in opposition to the Bible.
In any case, we must remember that the “tradition” that men like Luther were rejecting was the abusive, authoritarian “tradition” of the Catholic Church at that time, which the Orthodox Church had rejected long before Luther. On that point, both the Reformers and the Orthodox Church agree. But unfortunately, in his zeal for the Bible and his hatred for the Pope, Luther ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Within a few short years after Luther began his verbal assault on the Catholic Church (and the entirety of Church tradition, for that matter), people came to think they didn’t have to consider the early Church Fathers, or traditional Church teaching at all.
In a reaction against the Catholic Church putting the Pope on a pedestal, the Protestant revolutionaries ended up putting the Bible itself on a pedestal, and started equating all the rich history of Church teaching for over 1500 years as “the traditions of men,” and thus rejected all of it. Yet such a move was something Luther never intended. As a matter of fact, Luther regularly read and consulted the writings of the early Church Fathers in his study of Scripture. He knew they were beneficial and good, yet we must admit that it was precisely his fiery rhetoric that no doubt inflamed other revolutionaries to go much further than he envisioned, and ultimately reject all of the historical teachings and insights of the Church.
Tomorrow, more Luther–specifically his concept of salvation (and perhaps a few other things).
