Martin Luther for the Win!

The following is excerpted from Luther's introduction to his commentary on the sermon on the mount. Somehow I fear that most of today's "Protestants," and even the more solid among Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, have lost sight of what the Reformation was all about, the gains that it made, and the Biblical "wrecking ball" that it indiscriminately brandished against all forms of man-made, Gospel-distorting doctrines. Something tells me we could use a few more Luthers in the church today. Notice, especially, that Luther recognizes an orthodox "middle ground" of balanced, Scriptural teaching, with heretical extremes on both sides, incorporating only a part of the Biblical doctrine while destroying the necessary balance. 

Here are the first few paragraphs from Luther:

"I am truly glad that my exposition of the three chapters of St. Matthew, which St. Augustine calls the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, are about to be published, hoping that by the grace of God it may help to preserve and maintain the true, sure and Christian understanding of this teaching of Christ, because these sayings and texts are so very common and so often used throughout all Christendom. For I do not doubt that I have herein presented to my friends, and all others who care for these things, the true, pure Christian meaning of the same. 

And it is hard to understand how the very devil himself has by his apostles so cunningly twisted and perverted especially the fifth chapter, as to make it teach the very opposite of what it means. And though Christ purposely intended thereby to antagonize all false teaching, and to exhibit the true meaning of God’s commands, as he expressly says: “I am not come to destroy the law;” and takes it up piece by piece to make it perfectly clear; yet the infernal Satan has not found a single text in the Scriptures which he has more shamefully perverted, and made more error and false doctrine out of, than just this one which was by Christ himself ordered and appointed to neutralize false doctrine. This we may call a masterpiece of the devil.

First of all there have fallen upon this chapter the vulgar hogs and asses, jurists and sophists, the right hand of the pope and his Mamelukes. They have sucked this poison out of this beautiful rose, and scattered it everywhere; they have covered up Christ with it and have exalted and maintained the antichrist, namely, that Christ here does not wish everything which he teaches in the fifth chapter to be regarded by his Christians as commanded and to be observed by them; but that much of it was given merely as advice to such as wish to become perfect, and any who wish may observe these parts; despite the fact that Christ there threatens wrathfully: — no one shall enter heaven who sets aside one of the least of these commands, — and he calls them in plain words commands.

Thus they have invented twelve gospel counsels [consilia evangelii], twelve items of good counsel in the gospel, which one may heed if he wants to be something over and above other Christians (higher and more perfect); they have thus made not only Christian salvation, yes even perfection also, dependent aside from faith upon works, but they have made these same works voluntary. That is, as I understand it, to forbid really and truly good works, which is just what these nasty revilers accuse us of doing. For they cannot deny this, and no covering and smoothing over will help them as long as this fifth chapter of Matthew abides. For their books and glosses are at hand, along with their former and present daily impenitent life that they lead in accordance with this their teaching. And the teaching of those twelve “evangelical counsels” is very common among them, viz., not to require wrong doing, not to take vengeance, to offer the other cheek, not to resist evil, to give the cloak along with the coat, to go two miles for one, to give to every one that asks, to lend to him who borrows, to pray for persecutors, to love enemies, to do good to them that hate, etc., as Christ here teaches. All this (they disgustingly say) is not commanded, and the monks at Paris honestly assign their reasons, saying, this Christian teaching would be much too hard if it were loaded with such commands as these, etc.

This is the way the jurists and sophists have hitherto ruled and taught the church, so that Christ with his teaching and interpretation, has had to be their fool and juggler; and they still show no signs of repentance for this, but are eager to defend it, and to put forward again their cursed shabby canons, and to crown again their cunning pope. God grant, however, that I may live and may have to give clasps and jewels for this crown; then he, God willing, shall be called rightly crowned.

Therefore, dear brother, if you please, and have nothing better, let this my preaching serve you, in the first place, against our squires, the jurists and sophists, I mean especially the canonists, whom they themselves indeed call asses, and such they really are, so that you may keep the teaching of Christ for yourself pure in this place of Matthew, instead of their ass’s cunning and devil’s dung.

In the second place also against the new jurists and sophists, namely, the factious spirits and Anabaptists, who in their crazy fashion are making new trouble out of this fifth chapter. And just as the others go too much to the left in holding nothing at all of this teaching of Christ, but have condemned and obliterated it, so do these lean too much to the right, and teach that one should have nothing of his own, should not swear, should not act as ruler or judge, should not protect or defend, should forsake wife and child, and much of such miserable stuff.

So completely does the devil mix things up on both sides, that they know no difference between an earthly and a heavenly kingdom, much less what is to be taught and to be done differently in each kingdom; but we, God be thanked, can boast that we in these sermons have clearly and diligently shown and exhibited it, so that whoever hereafter errs, or will err, we are freed from all responsibility on his account, having faithfully presented our opinion for the benefit of all. Let their blood be upon their own head; our reward for this we await, namely, ingratitude, hatred, and all sorts of hostility, and we say cleo gratias."

Editor's Inquiry: Does anyone know what cleo gratias means? I am admittedly weak in Latin (among other things), and this is a question for which even Google does not appear to have an answer. Please share your Latin interpretation skills with us if you know!

Agnosticism vs. the Ubiquitous, Invisible Presupposition

A dear friend of mine who has abandoned Christian belief to become an agnostic naturalist has challenged me to set forth an absolute Biblical ethic to counter his relative, culture-based ethic. He maintains that the Scriptures present a contradictory account of what is right and wrong, and that there are no truly absolute ethics - even if we look to the Bible as the standard. After I began to present an absolute Biblical ethic based on the Law/Gospel distinction and the twin concepts of love for God as the ultimate good and sin against God as the ultimate evil, and as I was building upon these ideas, my friend replied that if there is no God then this ethic is meaningless and useless. My reply to that:

Sure, but aren't you stating the obvious here? Either position is a matter of faith, or belief in something which can't be proven. You will say there is no proof for the God of the Bible. I will agree. But I will add that without Him there cannot even be the idea of proof or of proving things. Without Him there can be nothing to prove, no reality, no anything. He is the ubiquitous, invisible Presupposition you unwittingly presuppose even in your arguments against Him.

You have a competing presupposition that prevents you from acknowledging the logical necessity of God. It is the idea that you are a capable judge of what is real, or that all significant reality is perceptible to you via your senses (i.e., your perception of the natural world) and thoughts (or at least perceptible to another human who will relay his perceptions to you). You do not accept that there may be a sovereign Determiner and Creator of reality who alone is the true Perceiver of all that is actually "real" and "significant."

I don't know if my answers are any good for my friend, although I believe they reflect Truth. What would you say to a friend who has turned from the faith but still wants to talk to you about it?

The Famous "Shell Fish" Argument Refuted

There is an excellent article by Jeremy Pierce (a.k.a. Parable Man) refuting the famous "Shell Fish" argument - an argument which President Obama has notably repeated in defense of his pro-homosexuality policies (which just goes to show that a law degree from Harvard doesn't necessarily preserve one from presenting obviously fallacious arguments against clear Scriptural teachings).

If you've ever read the Pentateuch and wondered why homosexuality is still wrong, but eating shell fish is now okay - yet both are called an abomination in the Old Testament - you'll want to check out Jeremy's short but sweet article. He adds the missing element to the discussion: viewing the shell fish issue in its original historical context rather than from our 21st century cultural point-of-view. I added a little note in the comments.

Link: http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2010/09/abomination.html