Martin Luther: False Teacher?

[P_otto]

P_otto, said:

The Council of Trent reaffirmed the historic canon of the Bible after it had been challenged by Protestants in the 16th century. The same books Trent affirmed had been affirmed by councils and popes prior to Trent. The first council recorded as dealing with the canon was the Council of Rome, which convened in the year 382 under Pope Damasus I. The Canon of Scripture always included the seven deuterocanonical books: 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Wisdom, and Sirach—and rejected 1 and 2 Esdras. Far from being inconsistent; Trent reaffirmed what the Church had taught since the earliest centuries.

You may be thinking about 3 Maccabees, which the Catholic Church never included in the Canon of Scripture.

boink.

BNA, you are mentally sick. Get some help please.

Gregory the Great 590-604 A.D
"With reference to which particular we are not acting irregularly, if from the books, though not Canonical, yet brought out for the edification of the Church, we bring forward testimony. Thus Eleazar in the smote and brought down an elephant, but fell under the very beast that he killed (1 Macc 6.46)"

Also, no matter how much you want to deny. In the Septuagint, Esdras II is Ezra/Nehemiah. Council of Carthage and Hippo included Ezra I in the list of books, which Trent does not.
But you have a serious mental disability, I doubt these facts will get through your head. Sorry BNA, the RCC is a false church.

[Be Not Afraid]

Thomas said:
Martin Luther was not materially involved in matters of textual issues. While certainly he and many other's, including many Dr's of the Roman Church questioned the validity of some of the New Testament books, they are nevertheless contained within Luther's translation.

Luther removed the 7 Old Testament books and questioned the New Testament canon 1,200 years after the Canon was established. That's like if a false prophet came along 1,200 years from now in the year 3209 and removed books from the Bible and questioned others.

in the end he backed off those opinions.

In the preface of his Bible translation, Martin Luther said that "the epistle of St. James is an epistle full of straw, because it contains nothing evangelical." ('Preface to the New Testament,' ed. Dillenberger, p.19.)

"If nonsense is spoken anywhere, this is the very place. I pass over the fact that many have maintained, with much probability, that this epistle was not written by the apostle James, and is not worthy of the spirit of the apostle." ('Pagan Servitude of the Church)

the Protestant Bible is not missing 7 "Old Testament" books because those books were never Old Testament books.

The Deuterocanonical books were removed by the Jewish authorities decades after the crucifixion of Jesus because Christianity was spreading like wildfire and these books were used by Jews who converted to Christ. The majority of Old Testament references in the New Testament (quoted by Jesus and the Apostles) were from the Greek Septuagint, which includes the deuterocanonical books. The canonicity of those books was not doubted in the Church until it was challenged by the Jews after the year 100 AD. The Book of Wisdom has a shocking prophecy about the Messiah, a reason why post-crucifixion Jewish authorities wanted it removed:

"Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training. He professes to have knowledge of God and styles himself a child of the LORD. To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us, Because his life is not like other men's, and different are his ways. He judges us debased; he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father. Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him. For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. With revilement and torture let us put him to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him." These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them. --Wisdom 2: 12-21

[Thomas]

Luther removed the 7 Old Testament books and questioned the New Testament canon

You are making a textual claim. I've already stated in response to this claim prior that Luther did not materially work in the area of textual criticism. Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion that Luther materially worked in textual criticism?

In my understanding it is a mistake to view as contradictory tendencies in Luther's thought and the contrast between his statements on the infallibility of Scripture and his open approach to the problem of canon, especially as it relates to his negative comments on James. Luther defined canon consistent with that which was typical of Medieval scholastics, hence the canon was distinguished between homologoumena and antilegomena, even within the New Testament. Nevertheless, he was certain of the infallibility of all the books that were in the canon of Scripture (see, Mueller, Luther and the Bible, p 101)

Certainly, then, you can see that your approach of stripping his approach out of the Medieval context and making an anacronistic claim, in which you do not believe, against Sola Scriptura lends incredible weight to Jeremiah's allegations.

The majority of Old Testament references in the New Testament (quoted by Jesus and the Apostles) were from the Greek Septuagint, which includes the deuterocanonical books.

I don't take issue that the Apocraphyl books are contained in the Greek Old Testament, rather that is precisely why they are rejected by Protestants, it cannot be demonstrated to be an authentic text, either by external or internal evidences. I do take substantive issue with your claim that Jesus and the Apostles quoted the Greek Old Testament.

We know for fact that much of what we have of the Greek Old Testament was altered to match the New Testament around 250 AD, that is a settled matter (see, works of Professor Kahle, John Owen, Humphrey Hody and many more). To turn that around and make the claim that post-Apostolic alterations to a text are evidence of Apostolic quotations, that's just plain dishonesty.

[dlspence_58]

To BNA.

The first time I ever heard of Luther was when someone pointed out the hymn he wrote, "A Mighty Fortress is our God." Later, I learned that Luther confronted the abuses of the Catholic chuch in regard to indulgences and his 95 theses.

What I've never done is place my faith in Luther or Calvin or my pastor. You say you've placed your faith in Christ, but for you that is never enough...you must have faith in the RCC and the fallible popes. Paul would tell us in Galatians that this is another Gospel which is no Gospel at all. Study the Bible, let the Holy Spirit guide you, and quit reading so many extrabiblical sources to form your opinions.

[JTownsend]

Ms. BNA,
If nothing else, you sure are polite in a the face of current adversity. I admire that.
In response to your post to me,

I believe that his writings are proof that he was a false prophet.

I realize you don't care for Martin Luther and think him a false prophet because of some of the doctrines he professed. I think that is your right, especially as a Christian, to consider your salvation with fear and trembling. But you paint the whole man as "EVIL"... and this is wrong. Let me give you an example: Anyone can do a search on google and find plenty of reliable sources to talk about the utter sinfulness of the Catholic church and many Popes throughout history. Does the utter sinfulness of those individuals invalidate the good things the Catholic church has done? No. And neither do your arguments about Luther.

He denied the existence of man's free will, removed books from the Bible and taught that you could commit adultery and murder 100 times a day and not endanger your salvation. This is false teaching and I can prove it to you through Scripture,...

You rely heavily on proving everything from scripture. Good. But you also take much of Luther out of context. You do realize that you have taken some of his statements totally out of context, right? And what's worse, you can't even ask him to explain himself in case you misunderstood something.

Here is the context:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but
the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the
true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only
imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let
your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the
victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we
are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We,
however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new
heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that
through God's glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the
sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to
kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think
such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager
sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner. REF LINK

So you can see that Luther's emphasis wasn't on the sin, but on Christ's ability to forgive sin.

What's your opinion of false teachers?

For starters, I would be careful to say anyone is a false teacher - Deut 19:16-21

Let us build unity, not division.

[Be Not Afraid]

Hi JTownsend! You said:

But you paint the whole man as "EVIL"... and this is wrong.

I don't believe that Luther was evil in the sense that he found pleasure in committing evil acts--such as a serial murderer might. What I contend is that his actions were evil and qualifies him as one of the false teachers which Scripture warns about.

His call to set fire to Jewish synagogues and to destroy the homes of Jewish families do not help his case, nor does his call for the civil authorities to "drive the common people, whip, choke, hang, burn, behead and torture them." That aside, let us focus on him being a false teacher. We can begin by showing that in his German translation of the Bible he willfully falsified Scripture by consciously adding the word "alone" to Romans 3:28. He did this so scripture would FIT HIS doctrines. Luther contradicted the ONLY place where the Bible mentions being justified by faith alone: James 2:24 where it says the opposite: "man is justified by works and NOT BY FAITH ALONE."

Now, either the Book of James is the inspired Word of God or it is not. Luther's view was this:

"If nonsense is spoken anywhere, this is the very place." ('Pagan Servitude of the Church,' ed. Dillenberger)

Calling the Word of God "nonsense" does not help his case. His "Re-formation" movement laid the foundation of the Protestant tradition which has degenerated into the idea that you can continue being an adulterer and a murderer and that no sin can separate us from God as long as you have faith: A demonic deception.

Luther says:

"Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger"

Q. Where does the Bible tell us to be strong sinners?

Luther said:

"No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day."

My Bible says:
"Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

After healing the paralytic, Jesus said: "sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to you." John 5:14 After defending the adulteress, Jesus told her: "Go and sin no more." John 8:11 Paul said: "serve sin no longer." Rom. 6:6

You've put your faith in Luther. Your Bible is missing books because of him. You spread the lie that you can sin as much as you want and cannot lose salvation. Jesus said:

Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord...And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity...

[JTownsend]

Ms. BNA
First, you have accused me of the following:

You've put your faith in Luther. Your Bible is missing books because of him. You spread the lie that you can sin as much as you want and cannot lose salvation.

So feel free to present your evidence that I have put my faith in Luther, or that my Bible is missing books, or that I spread any such lies. I will gladly defend myself against your baseless accusations. Deut 19:16-21

As for Rom 3:28, the verse is not altered by adding the word "alone" to it. The meaning remains the same. Do you know anything about translation? Translators often rephrase things and add certain words to make the translation understandable in another language. Every translation does this - not just Luther. Your argument that Luther is a heratic because of this makes you look ignorant.

James talks big about acting out your faith... and that if you don't have deeds that it's a sure sign that you don't have faith. Luther does not contradict this. If in fact we take James 2:24 out of context like you have just done, then we end up saying that all salvation is based entirely on the works of man and not by Christ. Congratulations! You just destroyed the entire meaning of scripture because you don't read things in context.

So Luther had questions about James, and perhaps even considered it "Nonsense". So what! Did Luther say you can continue to live in sin? Is that what he taught? No. But you didn't notice any of that because you took his statements out of context. I even posted some of the context for you to make life easier... but you just keep pushing ahead without thinking. Are you purposely not looking at the information? Or is it too difficult for you to understand? By all means we will lend a hand in discussing things... but this is the third time in one post I have pointed out your doltish behavior and I begin to wonder if you are incapable of learning.

Paul said in 1 Peter 3:15 to be prepared to defend your faith, as though in a court of law. You have utterly failed. I have tried to encourage you with Paul's teaching in 1 Cor 1:10, but you have clung staunchly to your divisive and dullard ways. I have mentioned it more than once, but my cautions have not prevailed against your recklessness.

You are giving Christians, and Catholics in particular, a bad name because you have taken Luther's words out of the context they are written in. Staying in context is the basis for logical argument. If you did this once, people can forgive a mistake... but since you continue to do this, even when people have posted the actual context of his statements, what are we to think but that you either too dull to understand or willfully do not understand? I don't think the former is possible.

Work towards unity in the body of Christ. If you want to discuss AN issue, then bring them up to discuss, but stop your divisiveness.

[Be Not Afraid]

JTownsend, you said:

feel free to present your evidence that I have put my faith in Luther, or that my Bible is missing books, or that I spread any such lies.

The Bible is composed of 72 books, which was the case until Martin Luther came along. Your Protestant Bible has 66 books now. You've put your faith in Luther. You spread the lie of Sola Scriptura and dismiss the authority of the Church Matthew 16:18 when in fact the Church was teaching before the New Testament was written. You've put your faith in Martin Luther. You confirmed your faith in Martin Luther when you stated:

We are not required to keep the commandments to attain salvation. Salvation comes by faith alone.

When in fact the Bible states:

"You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone." James 2:20-24

You are holding on to the false concept that you are saved by faith alone, which is absolutely false. You claim that you are saved by your faith (something you do). On the contrary, I tell you that we are saved by Gods grace: A free gift which cannot be merited no matter how much you say you believe in God. If tomorrow you commit adultery you become an enemy of God. (James 4:4) Your "faith" won't save you unless you repent of your sin and change your ways.

You are giving Christians, and Catholics in particular, a bad name because you have taken Luther's words out of the context

I think the problem is that you don't know Martin Luther very well. His views are fundamentally opposed to Catholic teaching, thus his exhortation "Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong but let your trust in Christ be stronger" falls in line with his theology. Martin Luther, the father of the "Re-Formation of the Church" used the example of a heap of dung covered with snow to describe a saved sinner. The dung represents the sinner; the snow is the pure, white covering of Christ and God the Father ignores our sinfulness and sees only Christ. The Catholic view is that God transforms a sinner and through grace purifies a person into perfection, which finds complete union with God in heaven. 1 John 3:2-3 Mat. 5:20 Mat. 5:26 etc.

are we to think but that you either too stupid to understand or willfully do not understand? I don't think the former is possible.

It may be that you do not fully understand the roots of your Protestant interpretation of Scripture, which I contend to be in error.

[Thomas]

The Bible is composed of 72 books, which was the case until Martin Luther came along. Your Protestant Bible has 66 books now.

The question I have is will you discuss these continual misrepresentations of the facts or not?

You are holding on to the false concept that you are saved by faith alone, which is absolutely false. You claim that you are saved by your faith (something you do).

This is not true and very uncharitable of you to misrepresent our beliefs. The doctrine of Sola Fide concerns the conduit through which grace is manifest, faith certainly isn't something we do, but is a gift of God. Hence, our doctrine is salvation by Grace through faith - not salvation by faith as if the act of believing merits Grace. Your misrepresentation is silly.

There are five Sola's, ya' know.

On the contrary, I tell you that we are saved by Gods grace: A free gift which cannot be merited no matter how much you say you believe in God.

We agree that grace cannot be merited and have never believed otherwise. Which is precisely why we deny the Roman doctrine of meriting the merit of Christ. Hence, we believe that good works and obedience to the law are gifts of Grace that flow through faith, just as James teaches, but they do not preceed faith, but are evidences of it. We call this concept a credible profession of faith, one's true faith is manifested in their works, but their works don't necessarily manifest their true faith, precisely because the law, nor the Church, is a mediator of Grace, but Christ alone is the mediator between man and God.

[P_otto]

Luther removed the 7 Old Testament books

BNA, you are becoming quite the troll nowadays.
Let me show everyone who reads this thread, the only false teacher here is BNA.

From "The Old Testament Canon and the Aprocrypha" by William Webster. p 62.
Cardinal Cajetan (Tommaso de Vio Gaetani Cajetan), the great opponent of Luther in the sixteenth century.
"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the OT. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Aprocrypha"

Even the scholars during Luther's time were against the Aprocrypha being part of the canon. Luther was agreeing with all other scholars at that time.
But, BNA continues with her false teachings....

The Deuterocanonical books were removed by the Jewish authorities

Problem with that is the Jews NEVER accepted the Aprocrypha books as canon. So how could they remove something that was never there? In otherwords, BNA is deceiving you into thinking the Jews did at one time considered them canonical. Not true.

BNA, continues to distort truth.

the Greek Septuagint, which includes the deuterocanonical books.

Septuagint did, but which one? I mean each version we have in our possession today contains different books than another.
One will have some books missing and another will have more books. Enlighten us. Which Septuagint are you referring to? Evidence please. ( You have none, just more proof you are here to spout of RC talking points and is not here to learn )


From reading this thread, I gathered everyone is on to you. You don't correct yourself when proven wrong, and no one is buying into your crap. The only false teacher here is YOU.

[JTownsend]

Ms. BNA,
I agree with Thomas, your arguments are silly misrepresentations.

You have taken Martin Luther out of context AND the Bible out of context, and you put up these sort of straw men arguments.

My case was for you to present your evidence that (1) I have put my faith in Luther, or (2) that my Bible is missing books, or (3) that I spread any such lies.

(1) You have shown that I have read some stuff by Martin Luther. You have not showed that I put my faith in him. Since you have read things by Martin Luther you are equally guilty.

(2) You have stated that my Bible is missing books, but you have not proven it. You have only shown that there is a very limited difference between the two, and you have not shown how I discount anything in your Bible. You have failed again.

(3) I challenged you to show that I spread lies about salvation. First you must prove my view of salvation is a lie. You have only quoted me (again out of context like you are so infamous to do) and supported your argument with another out of context scripture.

I also agree with P_otto - you are trolling.

And as I have continually stated, you are only trying to bring division. I have warned you, now I ask God to correct you.

[Thomas]

Even the scholars during Luther's time were against the Aprocrypha being part of the canon. Luther was agreeing with all other scholars at that time.

This is true, and Luther's sentiments against the canonicity of many New Testament books echo's a strain of sentiment of the Roman scholar's of that day as well. Of course, this becomes a highly heated doctrinal issue, but at the time of Luther we aren't at that point. The same type of smear, though, is used by Protestants today to undermine Erasmus - these are agenda based attacks that rely upon the ignorance of their audience to establish their credibility. I believe we should strive to understand issues and people within their historical context, and not fashion history into weapons. There comes a point on every side where arguments surrounding textual issues becomes matters of faith, and that isn't wrong for either side, but if one isn't willing to recognize or admit that, then the discussion devolves rather rapidly.

I've tried in this thread and a couple of others to engage the Romanists in discussion of these matters and attempt to develop some type of meaningful discourse, but like this this thread, discussing these issues is not the purpose they are brought up.

Which Septuagint are you referring to?

This is an appeal to antiquity as an appeal to authority, but great antiquity does not establish authority, what we should be interested in is truth and authority is established by the truth. Of course, today, the problem is only exacerbated because most Protestants have accepted Richard Simon's major premise of enlightenment criticism and his approach to the texts and rejected the sacred criticism of the Reformation and the historic Reformed approach to the texts.

These are important and critical issues today precisely because modern Protestants have rejected the scholasticism of Beza, Owen and Turretin while introducing the critical methods of German rationalism and made it "respectable," in matters of textual issues. Before any community of Christians can have Confessional Unity they have to have agreement on what is the authentic ground of verbal inspiration, if we can't agree on that then ultimately we can't have true unity. Protestants today have rejected the historic Protestant scholastic approach to the texts, but have maintained the scholastic view of verbal inspiration, as a result the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is imbalanced premised upon a double mindedness and no longer has the same meaning. They are ripe to attack and generally can't defend themselves, because as it regards their approach to the texts they've accepted the presupposition of the Romanists - Romanists know that and attempt to exploit their weaknesses and ignorance and lead them back to Rome.

Romanist's know that because they are the one's who developed enlightenment criticism into a weapon to be used against Sola Scriptura.