Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet by Lyndal Roper

Vintage, 2017, 577pp

"Never meet your heroes" says the old adage. The Martin Luther we 'meet' through the pages of Lyndal Roper's biography is not the heroic figure of popular Protestant folklore. At least, while he was capable of great heroism, Dr. Luther could also be something of a villain. At the heart of the Reformer's teaching was the idea that the believer is at one and the same time 'justified and yet a sinner'. Luther  was certainly both right with God and terribly wrong in many ways. As are we all.

His was not a 'theology of glory' based on human effort to merit God's favour, but a 'theology of the cross' that looked to God alone in Christ for salvation. This was Luther's decisive breakthrough. He came to understand that the 'righteousness of God' by which the 'just shall live by faith' (Romans 1:16-17) is not the righteousness that God is, or demands of us, but the gift of saving righteousness received by faith in Christ. This shaped Luther's reading of the Bible and informed his critique of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church. If we are justified by faith, we have no need of popes, the priestly sacrifice of the Mass, indulgences, and so on.  

Germans seem to have a knack of coming up with a single phrase that says what it would take several words to express in another language. Schadenfreude is one - a malicious glee in the suffering of others. Luther's 'say a lot of stuff in one word' thing was, Anfechtungen. It could mean a sense of terror the sinner experiences in the presence of a holy God, or the trials the believer suffers in this life. The devil may be the immediate cause of many Anfechtungen, but behind the devil is God putting his servants to the test. Let's just say Luther was not an early advocate of prosperity theology. 

Lyndal Roper sets Luther life against the backdrop of his times. She provides a richly detailed picture of the commercial, religious, academic, political and cultural aspects Luther's Germany. There's a wealth of information here. Roper draws on the Freudian Oedipus complex theory as key to understanding Luther's personality. According to the Greek tragic tale, poor old Oedipus unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. On discovering his monstrous error he then poked his own eyes out. Roper detects Oedipal tendencies in Luther's rejection of his father's plan that he should become a lawyer, when he jacked in his legal training to become a monk. But I wonder whether that course of action had more to do with Luther's sense of himself as a sinner before a just God. It was the thunderstorm event that drew out of him the vow, 'Help me St Anne and I will become a monk'. It was only when Luther discovered justification by faith that he understood that the just God is also a gracious Father. 

In the film Darkest Hour, Clemmie encourages Winston to 'just be yourself' when he accepted the role of Prime Minister. Churchill responded, 'Which self shall I be today?' For he was a multi-faceted man. Something similar could be said of Luther. You could almost say there were three of him. The God-terrified monk, the bold 'Here I stand' Reformer of the Diet of Worms, and the somewhat grouchy and paranoid Luther of  his mature years. We sympathise with Luther I, admire Luther II, but find Luther III a bit more difficult to like. 

Luther III is a complex figure. He could be imperious in asserting his leadership of the German Reformation and a temporiser, slowing the pace of reform to keep the Elector of Saxony on side. He could be welcoming and magnanimous, a warm friend, and excluding and vengeful, an implacable enemy. Luther in turns coddled and bullied Philip Melanchthon. They remained 'best friends for ever'. He fell out catastrophically with Andreas Karlstadt, goaded him into making his private criticisms public, and then treated him as the worst of foes. 

I would have liked to have seen more attention given to Luther as a pastor and preacher. Would have made for a more rounded portrait of his life. The focus here is more on Luther as Reformation leader. In that role he had strengths and weaknesses. His courage, conviction and clarity of vision were massive strengths. But Luther's weaknesses were also glaring. His intransigence stopped him being a unifying figure among the Reformed. His view of the Lord's Supper, for example, just had to prevail over and against 'Sacramentarians' such as Zwingli, Bucer and the later Calvinists. Baptists, let's not even go there. 

Perhaps a better key to understanding Luther is not Oedipal tendencies, but  'Founder's Syndrome'. This malady presents itself when the powerful founder of an organisation surrounds themselves with 'yes men and yes women'. The over-mighty founder brooks no rivals and accept no accountability. Their will must prevail at all costs. Think of  Camila Batmanghelidjh of the Kids Company. Luther often reminded those who had the temerity to argue with him that he was the one who stood alone at the Diet of Worms. The Reformation was his. Any threat to it, whether from Karlstadt's hastily implemented reforms at Wittenberg, or the peasants taking his message of freedom as inspiration for revolution had to be stamped out. 

Roper comes down hard on Luther for his antisemitism. Some have tried to suggest that what he was against was Judaism, because as a religion it taught salvation by works, rather than grace. But the statements quoted by Roper from all periods of the Reformer's life reveal a disturbing prejudice against Jewish people. Luther can sometimes be intemperate and potty mouthed when engaging with theological opponents. 'Speaking the truth in love'? Not always. But I question whether Roper is being entirely fair in suggesting he was quite so fueled by hatred and anger. Even in his 'Luther III' Grumpy Old Man phase. 

As I say, Luther was a justified sinner, a flawed characher whom God used to accomplish tremendous things. Among them: the reassertion of the authority of Scripture over and against the church, the translation of the Bible into German, the rediscovery of justification by faith alone, steps towards reforming the church as a priesthood of all believers, marriage and family life as an honourable estate for pastors and people. Luther's ideas had a transformative effect on German politics, culture and national identity. The Reformation he started needed to be taken further. Much further, but it was Luther who ignited the flame of Protestant reform that would engulf first Europe, and then the world. There is no denying he was a great man. But we cannot deny that he also had great faults. 2 Corinthans 4:7. 

Herman Bavinck on the essence of error

In the light of reading Alister McGrath's book on Heresy (see my review), I was interested to come across this thought from Herman Bavinck,

Now in the confession of the Trinity we hear the heartbeat of the Christian religion: every error results from, or upon deeper reflection is traceable to, a departure in the doctrine of the Trinity. (Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2: God and Creation , Baker Academic, p. 288, 2006

According to Luther, "The cross tests everything".  But the cross only functions as the definitive revelation of God and an act of redeeming grace in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity. If Christ was not God the Son, his sacrificial death did not disclose the fullness of God's love for the world. If Christ was not God the Son, his sacrificial death would not have been sufficient to atone for the sins of the world.

As the New Testament bears witness, Calvary involved the whole Trinity. Christ the Son offered himself to God the Father through the eternal Spirit (Hebrews 9:14). As such the cross tests everything. 

What we believe concerning God and ourselves must be assessed in the light of the saving work of the triune God at the cross. Arguing from resolution to plight, that it took the death of the Son of God in his humanity to save us demonstrates how how seriously God takes sin. Arguing from plight to resolution, that for us to be saved the Son of God had to take a human nature and die demonstrates that we could never hope save ourselves. God commends his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and God's love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us, Romans 5:8, 5. 

Heresy distorts the doctrine of God and devastates the doctrine of salvation. A low view of Christ will lead to a light view of sin and a light view of sin will lead to a low view of Christ. As John Owen once wrote, "A Socinan Christ for a Pelagian man". We believe in nothing less than a Nicean Christ for an Augustinian man. 

The Word of God did it?

“I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all. Had I wanted to start trouble . . . I could have started such a little game at Worms that even the emperor wouldn’t have been safe. But what would it have been? A mug’s game. I did nothing: I left it to the Word." Martin Luther

According to Stuart Olyott, writing in the December 2009 edition of The Banner of Truth magazine, Luther got it wrong in the statement quoted above - and we need to know why. I am in broad sympathy with the drift of Olyott's article. He is right to say that the Word alone can accomplish nothing and that the power of the Spirit is needed to make the Word effective. But I don't believe that Luther was incorrect to speak as he did. The first thing to remember is that what we have here is not a piece of dogmatic theology where Luther was attempting to capture all the nuances of biblical teaching in one statement. It was a quickfire response to someone who asked him how the Reformation happened. We don't need to include everything the Bible teaches on a subject in order to say something meaningful and true. To suggest that we do is to go beyond the pattern of Scripture itself.

Luther's words are comparable with what Luke says in Acts where he attributes the growth of the church to the Word of God (Acts 6:7, 12:24, 19:20). Now, Luke sets such statements in the context of the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5-8, 2:1-4). He makes it clear that preachers need to be filled with the Spirit to empower them to proclaim the word boldly and effectively, (Acts 4:31). But he did not feel the need to qualify what he said in Acts 6:7 in order to bear this out by saying something like, "Then the word of God spread by the power of the Holy Spirit and the number of the disciples were multiplied greatly". Where the agency of the Word alone is mentioned in Scripture it is assumed but not always stated that it was the Holy Spirit who made the word effective in the salvation of sinners. Often Scripture explicitly links Word and Spirit together (1 Corinthians 2:1-5, 1 Thessalonians 1:5), but not in every case. This is analogous to Calvin's point that whenever Scripture attributes salvation solely to the cross of Jesus, his resurrection is always assumed and when salvation is attributed solely to his resurrection, the cross is always assumed.

Luther knew very well that the Reformation was not the product of the bare Word of God. He would have agreed entirely with Olyott that, "the Word, on its own, did nothing." The Reformer taught clearly that the Holy Spirit enables us to savingly believe the Word. In his Small Catechism he asks,

Why do you need the Holy Spirit to begin and sustain this faith in you?

By nature I am spiritually blind, dead, and an enemy of God, as the Scriptures teach; therefore, I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.

What has the Holy Spirit done to bring you to faith?

The Holy Spirit "has called me by the Gospel," that is, He has invited and drawn me by the Gospel to partake of the spiritual blessings that are mine in Christ.

When we bear this in mind, Luther wasn't wrong to say, "I did nothing: I left it to the Word", unless we are willing to charge Luke and other biblical writers with a similar error. In a future post I hope to reflect on what Olyott had to say in his article concerning "mediate regeneration" .