Because Chapter 1 of Part One addresses the historical background for the Reformation and the ecclesiastical context in which Luther lived, it is instructive to examine how Luther himself viewed this background and context. By 1517 he knew that crucial changes needed to be made in the Church if she were to be faithful to Scripture and to its Gospel as he had come to understand and embrace that message. But what about the Church’s first fifteen centuries? How much of it was misguided? Did it need to be respected as God-directed and God-blessed? If not, how could that be justified?
In the early years of the Reformation, Luther did not address these and related issues in a major writing, but he did work out his responses through the next several years, and in 1539 he published his most considered judgments on church history. This work, On the Councils and the Church,1 addressed the role that the Councils have played and should play in the Church, but it did much more than that. It offered answers to such key questions as:
• Does the Early Church serve as the guide to how the Church should be?
• Can we look to the Church Fathers for definite truth and wisdom?
• Is there a God-given structure for the Church?
• Can the papacy serve God’s purposes for the Church?
And, of extreme importance for understanding Luther’s break with the Roman Church:
• Do Church Councils show the work of the Holy Spirit in properly guiding the Church?
For several years after 1517, Luther and the other leaders in the Reformation believed that a Church Council properly called and run would make the necessary modifications in the Church so that she would be more faithful to her God-given purpose. This was his position, for example, in his 1520 open letter, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation; in this work he laid out a number of particulars that a Council could and should address.2 The Augsburg Confession of 1530 offered a willingness to participate in a broad church council: “we obediently offer, in addition to what we have already done, to appear and defend our cause in such a general, free Christian Council.”3 Even Luther’s Smalcald Articles of 1536 listed items for a general council on which discussion “with learned and reasonable people” might be possible4—though by that time Luther had, no doubt, lost hope for a constructive ecumenical council.
On the Councils and the Church, written three years after The Smalcald Articles, begins on the point of that lost hope. Luther wrote of a trick that people played on a dog. The trickster would hold out a piece of bread on the tip of a knife and then as the dog bit for it would pull it back and spin the knife rapping the dog on its beak with the knife handle. This trick, he claimed, is exactly what the church leaders had done repeatedly in teasing the reformers and the political leaders with an offer to call a church council and then rescinding the call. This had happened frequently in the 1530s. Luther’s Smalcald Articles was written for The Council of Mantua, but that council never took place. When the Council of Trent was finally called and began to meet in 1545, one year before Luther’s death, it was soon obvious to him that there would be no reform or renewal based on Scripture and the Gospel. The council met periodically until 1563 (1545–49, 1551–52, and 1562–63), and Luther’s negative expectations were not wrong. In the end, the decrees of the council present virtually the complete antithesis to Luther’s positions on key Reformation issues.
On the Councils and the Church contains three major sections in addition to the introduction described above. In Part I Luther discussed the limited value of councils and the church fathers for reforming the church. Part II offered an examination of the Jerusalem Council recorded in Acts as well as of the major councils of early church history: Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451). In Part III Luther presented his views on the nature and marks of the church.
Luther cited several cases of the church fathers and the councils disagreeing with one another as well as of their many statements and ideas that had been totally disregarded. He could not see any of them, church fathers or councils, as a definitive voice of God guiding the Church in doctrine or practice. That voice, he argued vehemently, is to be found only in Scripture. “If it had not been for Holy Scripture, the church, had it depended on the councils and fathers, would not have lasted long.”5
But can church councils serve a useful function? Yes, they can, Luther judged, and he offered extensive analyses of the four major councils mentioned above to demonstrate this. They did not offer new articles of faith but reaffirmed established biblical teachings: “I think that my conscience is clear when I say that no council … is authorized to initiate new articles of faith, because the four principal councils did not do that.”6 Then he offered ten principles for a proper church council, beginning with a repetition of the above point:
1. “A council has no power to establish new articles of faith, even though the Holy Spirit is present.”7
2. “A council has the power—and is also duty-bound to exercise it—to suppress and condemn new articles of faith, in accordance with Scripture and the ancient faith.”8
3. “A council has no power to command new good works; it cannot do so, for Holy Scripture has already abundantly commanded all good works.”9
4. “A council has the power—and is also duty-bound to exercise it—to condemn all good works that oppose love, according to all of Scripture and the ancient practice of the church, and to punish persons guilty of such works.”10
5. “A council has no power to impose new ceremonies on Christians, to be observed on pain of mortal sin or at the peril of conscience—such as fast days, feast days, food, drink, garb.”11
6. “A council has the power and is bound to condemn such ceremonies in accordance with Scripture; for they are un–Christian and constitute a new idolatry or worship, which is not commanded by God, but forbidden.”12
7. “A council has no power to interfere in worldly law and government.”13
8. “A council has the power and is bound to condemn such arbitrary ways or new laws, in accordance with Holy Scripture, that is, to throw the pope’s decretals into the fire.”14
9. “A council has no power to create statutes or decretals that seek nothing but tyranny, that is, statutes on how the bishops should have the power and authority to command what they will and everybody should tremble and obey.”15
10. “A council has the power to institute some ceremonies, provided, first, that they do not strengthen the bishops’ tyranny; second, that they are useful and profitable to the people and show fine, orderly discipline and conduct.”16
As a capstone comment, Luther wrote, “Finally, a council should occupy itself only with matters of faith, and then only when faith is in jeopardy.”17
And what of the “Church” itself? How did Luther describe this sacred body? Surprisingly, Luther disdained the word “church” (“ecclesia”) because it suggested an institution rather than people.18 The Church is nothing other than people, he insisted. It is the people of God. Luther believed that a lot of trouble could have been avoided if the Creed had simply said, “I believe that there is a holy Christian people.” The Church is fundamentally not an institution with a structure, a head (other than Christ), a hierarchy, and the like. It is merely God’s people.
This holy, Christian people can be recognized by seven visible marks: first, by their possession of the holy word of God; second, by the holy sacrament of baptism; third, by the holy sacrament of the altar (holy communion); fourth, by the office of the keys exercised publicly (confession and absolution); fifth, by the fact that it consecrates or calls ministers; sixth, by prayer, public praise, and thanksgiving to God; and seventh, by the holy possession of the sacred cross (bearing suffering patiently). Luther called these the “seven principal parts of Christian sanctification or the seven holy possessions of the church.”19
In summary, the church is the people of God sanctified by the Holy Spirit and grounded in Sacred Scripture; the church displays the seven holy marks.
Luther answered all of the questions posed above.
1. Does the Early Church serve as the guide to how the Church should be today?
The Early Church also experienced disagreement and conflict. It only functioned as God’s people when it relied fully on Scripture to define doctrine and practice. It is a guide for us to the extent, but only to the extent, that it is based on a total reliance on Scripture.
2. Can we look to the Church Fathers for truth and wisdom?
The Church Fathers often disagreed with each other. There is much to admire in them when their views are based on Scripture but much also to reject when they are not. No less a figure than Augustine, Luther claimed, held this view—even about himself as a prominent theologian.20
3. Is there a God-given structure for the Church?
This question is answered by the fact that the church is people—not an institution. It has been given the seven visible possessions and is empowered by the Holy Spirit. So long as the people of God display these possessions and rely solely on God’s Word, there are no further structural requirements. There is no God-given structure.
4. Can the papacy serve God’s purposes for the Church?
No. The church functioned beautifully for centuries without any bishop having primary authority over all others. The papacy is a human invention that stands in the way of a primary reliance on God’s Word.
5. Do church councils show the work of the Holy Spirit in properly guiding the Church?
The councils show the work of the Holy Spirit if and only if they rely fully on Holy Scripture for guidance and limit themselves by the ten principles cited earlier. When they go beyond this, they are merely human assemblies with no special authority.
The canons and decrees of the Council of Trent present a strong contrast, even an antithesis, to Luther’s positions. Already in the first of the three Council of Trent periods, decisions were made on Scripture, original sin, justification, the sacraments in general, baptism and confirmation that defied the Reformers in the strongest terms.
• On the Church and Scripture: The Church is the official interpreter of Scripture. The Bible and official church tradition are equally authoritative. The deuterocanonical (apocryphal) books were officially included in Scripture. Thus, Scripture does not stand above the Church; rather, the Church, in its official decrees from the pope and from Councils, stands above Scripture.
• On Justification: Human cooperation with divine grace was affirmed. Salvation by grace alone and through faith alone were rejected.
• On the Sacraments: Seven sacraments were reaffirmed in contrast to the Lutheran position which emphasized baptism and holy communion as the visible means through which the Holy Spirit works.21
• On a few other disputed points (made in the third period): The doctrines of purgatory, invocation of saints, veneration of relics, and use of indulgences (with modifications) were all reaffirmed.22 This was the final “slap in the face” of Luther and his coworkers.
It is probably not an exaggeration to say that Luther’s worst fears about the harmful use of a church council were realized.
In conclusion, church history, according to Luther, shows the hand of God leading His people through the work of the Holy Spirit when those people rely on Scripture, make full use of the Sacraments, and display the other visible marks. But church history shows opposition to God when anything is substituted for Scripture and when the proper use of the Sacraments is lacking and the other marks are not displayed.
We may safely assert that Luther’s understanding of church history emboldened him to stand against the basic trends of the previous few centuries. His defiant reliance on Scripture gave him the confidence to stand up to the hierarchy of the Roman Church and to denounce it as in opposition to God’s Word. His conviction in Sola Scriptura made it possible for Luther to see himself as “on the right side of history.”