As early as 1518 CE in his Heidelberg Disputation, Luther begins to outline a new program for theology:

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1 Martin Luther, continued Luther shared with his confessor an overwhelming concern that no matter what he did, it was not worthy of God s salvific gift, and that no matter how diligently he tried to confess all of his sins, he failed to confess them all. Hence, he suffered from intense scruples and an overwhelming sense of guilt. In 1508 CE, he was sent by the order to the new university in Wittenberg to get his doctorate (1513 CE) and to teach in Scripture. As he theologically matures, we begin to see the emergence of his own theological outlook, even before the polemical encounter with church authorities. Luther s Theology As early as 1518 CE in his Heidelberg Disputation, Luther begins to outline a new program for theology: Theology of Glory/Theology of the Cross In this work he juxtaposed two forms of theology: theology of glory and theology of the cross. Theology of Glory is concerned with seeing God manifested in works, discerning God via natural faculties, utilizing philosophy as a tool of theology (Scholasticism). In contrast, theology of the cross is an approach to theology which seeks God in the hiddenness and suffering of the cross of Christ. Rather than claiming to know God in and of Himself (ontology), this theology is content in knowing God as He reveals Himself in the cross of Christ (existential). Luther saw any attempt at a theology of glory as a futile undertaking for it failed to recognize that all human faculties bear the mark of the Fall and can no longer serve their proper function. Additionally, he characterized theology of glory as an exaltation of Aristotle (the rediscovery of Aristotle had informed the theological methodologies formulated in the medieval universities as represented by the Scholastics and St. Thomas Aquinas); whereas theology of the cross exalted the crucified Jesus. Furthermore, Luther maintained that the seeds for a work-based mentality were inherent to theologies of glory, for much emphasis was placed on the capabilities of human reason; whereas theology of the cross accentuated faith and categorical dependence upon the gratuity of Jesus. The Word For Luther, the Word is to be the starting point of theology. The Word is not just an act of self-disclosure, but also an action and a power of God through which the Holy Spirit works upon the heart of the hearer so as to transform the hearer. Here we see the Renaissance s appreciation for the classics of antiquity as sources for personal/spiritual transformation. As Luther later comes into increasing conflict with Church authorities, the primacy of Scripture as the supreme authority in the Christian life is increasingly accentuated. It should be noted that Luther was not a fundamentalist and did, indeed, recognize the need for a competent authority to interpret the meaning of Scripture (this would become an area of contention between him and other reformers).

2 For Luther, Scripture is the ultimate authority for it contains the Gospel, and the Gospel is what reveals to us our salvation and is what gives rise to the Church. Hence, his focus was on the dynamism of Scripture, not on the text per se. Law and Gospel As one studies the Word of God, one finds therein both Law and Gospel. The Law is the will of God which is meant to serve two functions: restrain our wickedness so as to ensure civic life and to lay bare before us the enormity of our sin. Although the Law is the will of God and, thus, a good thing, when juxtaposed to our fallen human nature, the Law becomes a word of condemnation as we are awakened to God s wrath. After the Fall, we have become incapable of living out the Law; hence this reality, which ought to be sweet and good, has become a word of judgment upon us. God can utilize the Law to bring us to the Gospel. Likewise, the Devil can use it to bring us to despair. The Gospel liberates us from the Law by declaring the Law fulfilled for us. For more, see The Freedom of a Christian. The Human Condition and Effect of Sin It is clear that a driving force operative in Luther s theological thought is the way in which he views human anthropology and the damning effects of sin. Luther believed that our entire nature is infected by sin at an ontological level. So damning are the effects of sin that our reason no longer remains capable of discerning and affirming the good, and our will is no longer free to choose to do the good. We can only will evil. There is nothing that remains within us that is pleasing to God or that inclines/predisposes us toward God. Man being a bad tree can only will to do evil. One must concede that the will is not free to strive toward that which is good. It is only when God communicates His grace to us that our will is moved in such a way that we become able to turn ourselves to God. This what God does for us in/through His Son, Jesus Christ (see Bondage of the Will). Anthropologically, Luther differs significantly from the Roman Catholic view which, while recognizing the ill effects of sin, nonetheless affirms our fundamental goodness of being the image and likeness of God, an image and likeness which remains even after the Fall. Sin does, indeed, impair and impede reason from discerning and affirming the good and the will from readily embracing it; however, this remains a possibility despite sin. Later in the module, in the section considering the Catholic Counter-Reformation, we will consider various Catholic responses to Luther which illuminate the Traditions varying anthropologies. Justification The central concept in Luther s soteriology is the doctrine of justification, the decree of absolution that God pronounces upon us, declaring us justified in spite of our sinfulness. This is so because Jesus imputes His righteousness to us when we unite ourselves to Him in faith.

3 I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely faith...the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith. See Two Kinds of Righteousness. Luther employed colorful images to help articulate the concept of imputed/foreign/alien righteousness: Jesus provides an umbrella against the heat of God s wrath. Jesus sprinkles snow over the dung heap that we are. Consequently, when God sees us, He now sees the righteousness of Jesus which has been gratuitously and mercifully given to us. God then considers us fully and perfectly righteous. In the Pauline sense, we become a new creation. It must be noted that the entire process lies in God s initiative and graciousness. Even our response to Jesus in faith is a gift from God by which the Holy Spirit works within us. Salvation can only come...unearned, by virtue of faith in Christ. Christ has earned it for us through His blood. For our sakes, He has become God s mercy seat, and so God forgives all the sins that we have committed in the past. In this way, God shows us that His own righteousness, which He confers through faith, is our only help (Preface to Romans). See Commentary On Galatians. Simultaneously Sinner and Justified Luther s notion of imputed righteousness asserts that one is at once justified and a sinner. Since justification does not in any way depend upon our own righteousness, but solely on the imputed righteousness of Christ, it follows that whoever is justified still remains a sinner. This will be a theological point of contention as well, for Catholicism will maintain that upon receiving the righteousness of Christ, the sinner is sanctified as well as justified; i.e., one s sins are absolved as part of the process of justification. Later in the module, we will consider the Catholic position more fully when we examine the teachings of the Council of Trent. Ecclesiology and Sacramentology Luther s insistence on the primacy of the Word (discussed earlier) led him to denounce the institutional Church s claims that it was the sole authority in interpreting Scripture. Roman Catholicism maintained that it was the Church s right to interpret the Scripture in light of apostolic succession, believing that the Scripture, itself, is a product of the apostolic tradition; i.e., out of the tradition came Scripture. Luther maintained that it was out of the Gospel that apostles responded and the Church emerged. Consequently, there should be no authority in the life of the Church that supersedes the Gospel. The community is to verify those in its midst who best articulate and interpret the Gospel. Another significant feature of Luther s ecclesiology was his notion of the universal priesthood of all believers due to the dignity of Baptism. Luther saw Baptism as bestowing upon each Christian the responsibility to be a priest to others.

4 From the Scholastic period forward, Roman Catholicism had accentuated the privileged and primary role of the ordained priest in light of the sacramental character communicated by the sacrament of holy orders. Catholicism maintains that, via the sacrament of orders, the ordained receives an indelible mark upon their soul which ontologically transforms them and affords them a charism which enables them to act in the person of Jesus on behalf of the Church. In light of this character, the ordained differs ontologically in nature, essence, and being from the non-ordained. Additionally, due to the charism which holy orders communicate, the ordained priest becomes the appropriate instrument through which the other sacraments are mediated. Later in the module, we will examine the teachings of the Council of Trent which articulate Catholicism s view of orders. As we will see more fully below, Luther will view ministry in functional terms rather than ontological terms; i.e., the minister is set apart from the wider community not because of ontological distinction but due to the function that one serves within the wider community and at the service of the Word. These differences continue to differentiate the respective traditions and shed light on the respective Catholic accent upon the clergy and sacraments and Protestantism s accent upon the preacher and the Word. The sacraments were physical acts which God utilized to be signs of His promises. They functioned as another medium through which the Word was to be heard. For Luther, to be considered a sacrament, the act must have been instituted by Christ and be bound to an explicit promise of the Gospel. He concluded that there were three sacraments: Baptism, Eucharist, and Penance. Although he denied that the Eucharist was a work and a sacrifice, he did maintain that it was the real presence of Christ (a point of contention with other Reformers). However, he denied transubstantiation maintaining that, although the body and blood of Jesus was present along with the bread and wine, the means by which this occurs is ultimately a mystery. That it is, indeed, the case is due to the fact that it is explicitly linked to the promise of Jesus in the Gospel. Luther s and the other Reformer s views of the Eucharist and other sacraments is more fully considered later in the module as is the Catholic response. Reformation/Schism It was not until the publication of his 95 Thesis (Disputations Against the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences) in 1517 CE that Luther came to be at odds with the institutional Church. His Thesis was critical of the Church s position that had been in place since 1343 CE when Pope Clement VI had officially sanctioned the view that Christ and the saints had left a treasury of merits that other members of the Church could draw upon for the remission of the temporal punishment due to their sins. One obtained a share in these merits by obtaining an indulgence from the Church, usually granted in exchange for some good work, often a donation of money to the Church. Eventually it became official doctrine (1476 CE) that indulgences could be applied to souls in purgatory. A cooperative effort between the bishop of Mainz, the Curia, and a banking firm (Fugger) to maximize profits from the sale of indulgences led Luther to call for a questioning of the practice. It should be remembered that St. Peter s was being rebuilt and that John Tetzel was generating much revenue in Mainz with his fancy marketing: When a coin into the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.

5 The pastoral abuses noted in the introduction at the beginning of this module are clearly illuminated here in these practices associated with the treasury of merits and selling of indulgences. Luther s intent was to call for debate (he published the Thesis in Latin), not schism. He rejected the notion that the Church had control over the merits of the saints and the souls in purgatory. However, his call for reform would cost the Church much revenue. A series of empty debates followed with no real meaningful outcome. Things intensify in 1519 CE when Luther, while debating the leading German Catholic theologian, John Eck, is led to declare that the authority of the bible is superior to that of popes and councils and that the latter had erred. Furthermore, in 1520 CE Luther published three works which only intensified the antagonism between him and church officials: The Address to the German Nobility denied the authority of the pope over secular authorities and Scripture (the Word/Scripture is to be ultimate authority); called upon secular authorities to convene a council to initiate reform efforts. The Babylonian Captivity attacked the sacramental system of the Church, reducing the number of sacraments to three; denied transubstantiation and the sacrificial nature of the mass (such notions are vestiges of a theology of glory and suggest a works-based approach); and insisted on the universal priesthood of all believers in lieu of Baptism (tempers the pervasive clericalism of Catholicism at the time which was informed by theology of glory and its ontological distinction of the ordained). The Freedom of a Christian In 1520 CE, Pope Leo X issued a Bull condemning Luther s positions. When the Diet of Worms was held in 1521 CE it was clear that restoration was not going to happen. Ministry in the Thought of Luther and the Reformation One of the key theological controversies which colored Luther s theology of ministry included the following: The faith/works controversy and its implications for the Eucharist understood as sacrifice coupled with increasing emphasis on created grace and merit, all of which ran the risk of Pelagian tendencies. Consequently, Luther rejected the notion of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, a position, as we will see later in the module, maintained by the Catholic Church. Central to Luther s understanding of ministry is the preeminence of the Word of God; specialized ministry within the Church was to revolve around the Word and be responsible for preaching and administering the sacraments (Large Catechism I, 86). Such an insistence on the primacy of the Word flows from Luther s understanding of faith; faith comes through encounter with the Word; we must hear the Word for God communicates therein. In and through the Word God takes the initiative to extend His grace to us transforming us into a new creation. In short, the Word creates faith, creates new life, creates the Church (Augsburg Confession 5-8).

6 Consequently, any specialized ministry must be a ministry of the Word! To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, He gives the Holy Spirit Who works faith, when and where He pleases, in those who hear the Gospel. And the Gospel teaches that we have a gracious God, not by our own merits but by the merit of Christ, when we believe this (Augsburg Confession 5). With the purpose being service of the Word directed toward the building up of the Church, Luther understood ministry as an essential function protected by the Christian community s proper call at a given time and place. We are all priests, as many of us are Christians. But the priests, we call them, are ministers chosen from among us, who do all they do in our name (Babylonian Captivity of the Church). It is true that all Christians are priests, but they are not all pastors. Over and above that he is a Christian and a priest, he must also have an office and a field of work that has been committed to his charge (Exposition of Psalm 82). For Christ instituted this sacrament as a public ministry so that there might be a memorial of Him and through it teaching and confession...christ wanted this sacrament to be a sign of public confession (Response to Zwinglian desires for House Presiders). Hence, Luther identifies a special ministerial office in the Church differentiated from the ministry of all the baptized, but this ministry is differentiated according to the function which it serves within the community, not because of a metaphysical/ontological distinction between the ordained and the baptized: There is no true, basic difference between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, between religious and secular, except for the sake of office and work, but not for the sake of status. They are all of the spiritual estate (via baptism), all truly priests, bishops and popes. But they do not all have the same work to do. In short, there is the common ministry of all the baptized and the special ministry carried out by those who are called to public office of the Word. Although Luther did much to accentuate the common priesthood of all believers via baptism vis-a-vis the Roman Catholic Church Whoever comes out of the water of baptism can boast that he is already a consecrated priest, bishop and pope (To Christian Nobility) He was

7 equally insistent upon the special office of ordained ministry vis-a-vis more radical reformers: The spiritual estate of the clergy has been established and instituted by God, not with gold and silver but with the precious blood and bitter death of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ....the fifth distinguishing mark of the Church (gospel, baptism, Eucharist, suffering)...and creating a new rite of ordination in 1539 CE. For Luther, baptism was the source of all priestly ministry. He did not speak of ministry in terms of transference; i.e., deriving special/public ministry from the common priesthood, nor did he embrace the notion of an order of priests ontologically distinct He maintained that there was a single ministry of the Word instituted by God, exercised by both the common and special priesthood. The authority of ministry is based on faithfulness to the Gospel and the sacraments. Luther and Melanchthon both retained the right of the Church to call, elect, and ordain ministers (Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope 67-69), seeing it as both an exercise of the common priesthood as well as a safeguard against crude installations. Hence we can see that Luther and Melanchthon did not oppose special ministries at the service of the Gospel. They even maintained that the existing canonical practice of episcopal ordination could be maintained so long as bishops exercised their duty in ordaining priests for the sake of love and unity (Smalcald Articles III 10:1), but this was to be balanced by the tradition of communal call and election: nobody should preach publicly in the Church or administer the sacraments unless regularly called (Augsburg Confession/AC 14). Additionally, Melanchthon expounded the Lutheran notion of the power of keys, seeing it as an episcopal power: According to the Gospel the power of the keys or the power of bishops is a power and a command of God to preach the Gospel, to forgive and retain sins, and to administer and to distribute the sacraments (AC 28:5). Furthermore, this power was differentiated as a spiritual, not temporal, power (AC 28:8-20). It is clear that Melanchthon accepted the medieval distinction between two kinds of episcopal power (AC 28:13-14): The power of order directed toward ministry of Word and sacrament The power of jurisdiction toward excommunication and absolution This office embodied in the episcopacy has the biblical promise to be the judge of what is and what is not gospel at any given time:

8 According to the Gospel, no jurisdiction belongs to the bishops as bishops except to forgive sins, to reject doctrine which is contrary to the Gospel, and to exclude from the fellowship of the Church ungodly persons whose wickedness is known, doing all of this without human power, simply by the power of the Word. Churches, are therefore bound by divine law to be obedient to the bishops...however, whenever bishops teach or ordain anything contrary to the Gospel, churches have a command of God that forbids obedience (AC 28:20-27f). Adherence to the Gospel was largely understood to mean respect for the fact that man is saved without any human merit. Hence, no bishop or priest could establish regulations aimed at earning grace. If we were to consider ministry as a service of the Gospel, meaning that the Gospel necessitates the presence of special/public ministers so as to facilitate response in faith to the Word, and see this special/public ministry as visibly facilitating this power of the Gospel in and to the community, then we could see the Lutheran concept of ministry as, indeed, a sacrament. Additionally, one can see that the public/special ministry has a logical succession independent of the community at large in that the very design of God s invitation to faith necessitates this perennially enduring office. Hence, we can rightfully speak of succession of ministerial function independent of the community; i.e., a succession of functionality perpetuated by the demand of the Gospel. The Lutherans viewed the papacy as going beyond the biblical power of keys with its claims of the following: Being by divine right over and above all bishops and priests (canon law) By divine right possessing both swords, i.e., spiritual and temporal authority, including the right to bestow and transfer temporal kingdoms (Unam Sanctam Bull of Boniface VIII) The tendency to elevate ecclesial doctrine over and above the Word of God: Other writings of both ancient and modern teachers, whatever, their names, should not be put on a par with Holy Scriptures. Every single one of them ought to be subordinated to the Scriptures and should be received in no other way and no further than as witnesses to the fashion in which the doctrines of the prophets and the apostles was preserved in post apostolic times (Summary of the Formula of Concord) Summation The Lutheran approach to ministry must be understood within the context of the Lutheran understanding of faith as a freely given gift communicated via the Holy Spirit through Word and sacrament received by faith. Ministry s existence is to solely serve this purpose. For the aforementioned purpose God instituted and commanded the office of public/special ministry. Hence, ordained ministry exists as a divine mandate and not simply as a practical arrangement. The main function of ministry is to facilitate the soteriological movement of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit by Word and sacrament. Additionally, these functions include jurisdictional powers of excommunication and absolution.

9 Ordination is the proper expression of ministry both communal and episcopal. There is a single ministry rooted in baptism, with multiple forms in light of functions served within the community. The episcopacy is legitimate so long as it serves the Gospel and is faithful to it. Ministry is primarily about service, not personal power and authority. There exists continuity in ministry.