Robert Smith – Page 39 – What Does This Mean?

A Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church

Over the two years since he posted the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther frequently preached and wrote about the sacraments, especially Penance, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The engagement with theological opponents and the encouragement of friends and admirers drove him to study the scriptures to determine what the sacraments were and what God had to say about them. Gradually he began to see that the church had drifted away from the Biblical understanding of the sacraments as gifts that offer grace. Once bull Exsurge Domine was published against him, Luther felt free both to address his opponents and to fully explore the nature of the sacraments according to the Scriptures.

At the time of the Reformation, the Church in the West saw salvation as a balancing act. They believed that when a person sins, he or she adds to the debt of guilt which must be paid if he is to enter God’s presence. When a person receives a sacrament or does a good work, it pays off some of that guilt. If a person sins with some of that guilt left to be paid, he or she must go first to purgatory to pay it off. If a person died with more grace than sins, the merit goes into the treasury of the saints, which the church can give to people through indulgences. The chief means by which grace is given to believers is through sacraments (Latin for “holy things”) which Christ entrusted to the priests of the Church. So, through the seven sacraments, the Church had control over the everyday life of believers. In The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther destroys the whole system.

Luther began work on the Babylonian Captivity in August and completed it on October 6th, 1520, five hundred years ago. It came off the press on October 8th. In it Luther defines a sacrament as God’s Word combined with a physical element, by which God gives his grace and promises the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Using this definition, he argues there are two, maybe three sacraments, which we call: baptism, confession and absolution and the Lord’s Supper. A Christian who believes the promises of God’s word in the sacrament, receives what its promises. The power, then, resides in God’s word, not in the priest offering it or the work of performing the rite.

The impact of this work was felt immediately. Humanists distanced themselves from Luther. Others were moved by the clear, simple and Biblical presentation to join the Reformation movement. The outlines of Lutheran theology were now in place and the breach with Rome unrepairable.

Translation is Tradition — Treason?

Encore Post: 1600 years ago, a respected, old monk lived in a cave in Bethlehem said to be the birthplace of Jesus. We know him as Saint Jerome, the father of translation, one of the greatest scholars of church history, standing only in the shadow of his contemporary, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. We give thanks for him and all translators on September 30. In medieval times, the church assigned him to the role of patron saint of libraries. His symbol in Christian art is the lion, after the legend that he pulled a thorn out of the paw of a lion cub, who followed him the rest of his life. A large version of the classical painting of him in his study hangs opposite my desk in the Walther Building of the Wayne and Barbara Kroemer Library Complex.

Jerome is said to have written the latin pun: translatio traditio est. It means both: “Translation is Tradition” and “Translation is Treason.” It captures perfectly the two forces that pull at faithful translators. You can either perfectly rewrite the meaning of the text in the new language or reproduce each word with the one or two words in the new language that are closest to the original. If you do the first, the result is more a commentary — what the scholar believes from his or her theological viewpoint. If you do the second, people reading the translation have a very hard time understanding what it means.

Most translations lean towards one or the other, but try to do both. If they succeed — like St. Jerome’s Vulgate, Luther’s German Bible and the King James Version — generations will come to love the language of these version and at the same time hear God’s Word. It passes down the faith to the next generation. When they do not, it distorts God’s word at best and betrays it at worst. So, translation is both tradition and treason. For those of us who speak English, we are blessed with dozens of translations. Taken together, they open to us the treasures of Holy Scripture. For this reason, we thank God for Jerome — and all translators!

Sunday School: Samson

Samson’s mother was unable to have children until God came to visit her and her husband Manoah. He came in the form of the Angel of the Lord. (Many Christians believe this messenger is the Son of God appearing to people. The Angel always speaks as if He is God. Yet the people who see Him do not die, as unholy people do when they see God) God promised she would have a son. He was to be a Nazirite, a man who never cut his hair or drank wine. These were signs that Samson was to be fully dedicated to God.

Samson was the second-last judge of Israel, one of the leaders God raised up to defeat their enemies. He was from the tribe of Dan and lived in their southern territory near Jerusalem and bordering Philistine cities. The Philistines were moving into their territory peacefully and inter-marrying with God’s people, threatening to absorb them. God would use Samson’s disobedient nature to provoke conflict with the Philistines and lead to eventually defeating them.

God gave Samson miraculous strength. He would use it to defeat wild beasts and repeatedly to kill Philistines. He desired a Philistine woman for his wife. During the wedding, he made a bet with some Philistines, who cheated to win the bet. Samson killed thirty Philistines to repay the bet. This escalated into one reprisal after another.

Samson’s downfall came when he fell in love with another gentile woman, Delilah. The Philistines bribed her to try and learn the secret of his strength so they could defeat him. Three times he lied to her and defeated the Philistines who came for him. The fourth time he told her it was in his hair, which by his Nazirite vow, he was to keep uncut. This time his strength left him. In captivity, when his hair regrew, he prayed that he would have his strength back to defeat Philistines one more time. God granted it, and Samson pulled down the pillars of the temple of the Philistine god, killing them and himself.

Samson isn’t the kind of role model that we want to have our children follow. He was violent, mean and vindictive. He was the kind of man you didn’t cross. Samson, in spite of his sinfulness, relied on God for his strength. For this reason, God used him to defeat the Philistines. Even after Samson’s vow was broken, Samson remembered to turn to God for strength.

Read, Mark, Learn and Take God’s Word to Heart

Encore Post: So, you want to study God’s word, but you’re kind of afraid to do so. You remember all those “begats” and difficult words, long, boring lists of names and places you only half understand. It doesn’t help that you haven’t much cracked the book open since college or even confirmation class. Then the pastor pours on the good old Lutheran guilt. So… you go to the store and see rows and rows of Bibles of all sizes, shapes, colors, translations and types. Makes you think you really can’t do it, doesn’t it?

Well, you’re not alone. Many people find it hard to approach the Bible, even though they know it is good for them. There are lots of barriers to understanding the Scriptures. But there also is much that even the smallest child can understand. After all, God knows you and knows you need help. That is why he takes the initiative and spoke to us though first prophets, and then, in these last days, though his Son.(Hebrews 1:1-2) God’s nature is impossible for us to understand in the end, but a man — just like us — now that we can understand.

One classic analogy tells us the Bible is like an ocean. At the shore, it is shallow and inviting, a place even a toddler can enjoy. Yet it is so deep and challenging that the most experienced diver cannot exhaust its mysteries. The great fathers and theologians have spent a lifetime exploring it, and yet always found more to challenge them.

So, don’t be afraid of it. Wade in — the water is fine! To help you find your way, we’ll explore some rules you can use and strategies you can take to learn much. You may be pleased to discover that most of them are common sense.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Eck Publishes Bull Exsurge Domini

After the bull Exsurge Domine was formalized in Rome, Pope Leo X appointed Johann Eck and Aleander as Nuncios to proclaim the bull in Germany. Eck was reluctant to do this with good reason — he himself was very controversial in Germany and it hurt the credibility of the bull to have him put it into effect. Aleander was a respected humanist and given the task to deliver the bull to the emperor, Frederick the Wise and other rulers. Eck went first to his parishes in Ingolstadt, where he had the bull printed. He had no difficulty issuing it where the Pope’s loyal supporters were in power. In Mainz, Cologne, and Louvain, it was proclaimed and Luther’s books burned. That was where his good fortune ended.

In Northern Germany, the bull was greeted with hostility. It was posted in Meissen five hundred years ago on September 21, in Merceburg on 25 September and in Brandenburg on 29 September. Eck remained in Leipzig until 3 October. Not risking entering Wittenberg or Electoral Saxony personally, he sent copies to the University of Wittenberg in the hands of militiamen. Although Duke Georger favored the bull, the people reacted angrily, vandalizing the proclamation, circulating pamphlets against him and sending him death threats. He had to stay in the Dominican monastery for protection. Students from Wittenberg engaged in these and other violent activities against him. On October 4, Eck returned to Ingolstadt.

Bishops, rulers and universities by and large stalled, made excuses and attempted to dodge proclaiming it.

Why You Do Not Want God to be Fair

Encore Post: You are a good Lutheran. Really! You are a committed Christian. You go to church every Sunday, give 10% of your income to church and care for anyone in need you meet. You study the scriptures, go to Bible Study and serve in one church position after another. You even read this blog every time we post! So, when you get sick, when you are in an accident, when a flood or tornado hits your home, you cry out to God, “It isn’t fair!” And you are right — but in a way you do not expect.

When we try to be fair to others, we’re trying to do a number of things. To be fair, we strive to treat everyone the same. We try to be consistent, acting the same way every time. We give people what the rules say they deserve — no more or no less. Yet we cannot know all the factors that should influence our decision. We are, after all, human. We expect better from God.

The Scriptures tell us that God is just, righteous and even-handed. And he is God expects us to be holy in thought, word and deed. He shows no partiality.

Sihler, Wyneken and the Sendlinge Leave Their Synods

Friedrich Wyneken‘s call for pastors to serve in America was very successful. From the beginning of his missionary work in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, Wyneken wrote one letter after another to friends in Germany, church newspapers and anyone who would listen. A few pastors joined him on the frontier, but not nearly enough to meet the needs of the ceaseless flood of immigrants settling there. In 1841, one of these pastors came to Fort Wayne and Decatur to care for his parishes. He decided he needed to press the case in person. The General Synod agreed to send him home to do this and seek treatment for a throat ailment.

From October 20th, 1841 to July 5th, 1843, Wyneken met with people throughout Germany, raised funds, and recruited missionaries. He met with Wilhelm Löhe, who had already been working to send men to America, nicknamed Sendlinge (Sent ones) and Nothilfer (emergency helpers). They formed a friendship that shaped Löhe’s strategy, who would prepare second career men for service in America and send them to an American seminary to round out their education in country. He also helped Wyneken polish his appeal into the very successful Distress of the German Lutherans in North America. The first seminary to benefit from these students was the Ohio Synod’s german language institute in Columbus, Ohio.

175 years ago, Wilhelm Sihler, Friedrich Wyneken and the Sendlinge met in Cleveland. The American Lutheran church bodies were proving to be not very true to Lutheran doctrine and practice. Of special concern was the form of the words of institution used by the Ohio Synod (“Jesus said, “take, eat…”), which allowed for Reformed tradition Christians to commune with Lutherans, and that the Columbus seminary would not exclusively teach in German. In addition, the first issue of C. F. W. Walther’s Der Lutheraner indicated there were other confessional Lutherans in America. The wrote a joint letter, the Document of Separation, in which they all resigned from their respective Synods. They agreed to reach out Walther and the Saxons about the possibility of forming a new synod and to Löhe to found a seminary in Fort Wayne.

Tested in Every Way as We Are

Encore Post: After Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit sent him into the desert alone for forty days to fast and pray prior to beginning his ministry. The number forty was important to the Jewish people. Their ancestors wandered in the desert for forty years. Moses and Elijah fasted for forty days in the desert. God kept Noah and his family safe in the ark for forty days. For them, the number forty stood for a period of testing. The church took its cue from these periods of testing when it chose to make the season of Lent forty days long.

After the forty days were over, Satan appeared to test him. He said: Why not turn stones into bread? Why not prove to everyone you are the Christ by jumping off the temple so that angels will catch you? You can avoid the cross by worshipping me? After all, I can give you the world!

Jesus could have blown Satan away, but He chose to face temptation in every way that we are tempted, but he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15) He quoted the will of God from the Scriptures instead. In God’s Word is the power to overcome the Devil — and the world and our flesh, too.

Satan gave up for awhile. He knew he would have other opportunities. Ahead of Jesus was still his sufferings and death for our sins. Because He faced temptation as a human, we know He understands us and is ready to help. So, we go with him this Lent, walking with him to Jerusalem, to and through Good Friday and on to Easter.

Church Words #30: Sin

Encore Post: Sin is one of those church words everyone knows. After all it is what is wrong with the world. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just move to a remote place with just Christians. Then we would be in a good place (a utopia), where there is no sin — or where sin is manageable — right? Then we would be with only people who try to be good. That is what many Christians have thought in the last two thousand years. Yet it never works. Why? Because Christians, even the best of us, are still sinners. We can’t leave it behind because we bring it with us. There is no place that is “the good place” — at least not in this life!

At it’s basic level, sin is breaking God’s law. It may be by not meeting its standards (being good, but not good enough, like not lifting a hand in anger ever, but swearing at people under our breath or behind their backs). It may be by transgressing his law, going over the bright lines it lays down, or being lawless, living as if we can do anything we wish, as if there was no law. We invent good deeds that impress us to do — we fast, we go on pilgrimages, we create rituals and perform them, we advertise donating to the poor. We will do anything, except follow God’s word. Yet actual sins, things we think or do, is not the root of the problem. It is not what do, but who we are.

Since Adam and Eve committed the original sin, we have all been born as sinners. In trying to be like God, our first parents stopping being righteous, like God. Now we are all born as slaves to sin. Just like a slave cannot free himself, we can not free ourselves. Our thoughts are curved in on themselves, even what we think are good thoughts and deeds are colored by self-interest. Because he is holy, God cannot tolerate this. So we are destined to live separated from God forever. And so we die. So, someone must set us free.

That is why the Son of God was born of a virgin. As God, he was (and is) without sin. As a human, he is able to die, taking our place in paying the full price of our freedom on the cross. When he died, we died to sin. When he rose, we rose from death with him as a child of God. In baptism, he sets us free from sin and the compulsion to sin. Now we are free people, Children of God. Sin’s power over us is broken. Now we can live a new life in him.

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Author: Robert Smith