ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
OF FIRST IMPORTANCE: A CASE STUDY ON LUTHER & THE WITTENBERG
MOVEMENT
SUBMITTED TO DR. CHRIS FLANDERS
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF BIBM 679
BY
M. BARRETT DAVIS
10 FEBRUARY 2015
It is a period of ecclesial reform. A new movement of “prophets,” based in
Wittenberg, has made its first radical reforms against Catholic tradition. Pursued by
church agents denouncing him a heretic at the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther
watches the movement he generated from hiding. His friends and associates, like
Carlstadt and Melanchthon, agree with Luther’s stance on being “saved through
grace by faith,” on indulgences, and on appeal to Scripture. Yet they have since
fallen in with the new “prophets” of Zwickau, disciples of Thomas Munzer. Now, lay
people take communion from the altar themselves, confession goes unconfessed,
leaders burn icons to the dismay of the townspeople, and monks lay aside their
vows. If these actions continue unchecked, they will polarize Western Christianity
until it rips violently apart.
The problem of authority underlies the major questions of this case: What
authority does the pope have to issue indulgences? Does he have authority at all? Is
the Bible a Christian’s “prime authority”? Is Luther’s “Biblical instance of grace over
free will” “obvious”? Does tradition hold any authority? Based on what “authority”
can any such claims be held? On what basis—like “mere revelation”—can one claim
the Anabaptists’ “prophecy” to be valid or not? Finally, should Luther return as an
authoritative leader to Wittenberg to “re-seize the reins of the movement”? To sort
through the various questions implied by the characters in this case, Luther must
first deal with this issue of authority.
Luther has a position from which he can influence reform at large, establish
good relations with the Catholics, and guide the radical changes of the reformers
and Anabaptists, should he so endeavor. His stance on Biblical primacy carries
much weight in all groups. I intend to show that Luther ought to return to the
reform movement as a leader, using his unique authority to mediate the deep
divisions forming from these earth-quaking reforms. He will need as well a
Eucharistic ecclesiology and pastoral tools that can both be a balm to agitated
Catholics and a tempering agent on the enthusiastic reformers. Scriptural passages
from Paul’s first letter to the fractious Corinthian church will illuminate how a
minister wields a position of authority among a divided people, and Second Isaiah
will speak prophetically regarding idols and God’s Spirit doing “new things” among
God’s people. Before we reach the climax of this story, however, I am compelled to
set the stage.
Dramatis Personae
Historical Setting
The case involves a number of influential European Christian leaders of the
time. John Eck, introduced as a “champion of the papal forces,” debated Luther and
his “senior colleague” Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt in Leipzig in the year 1519.
Pope Leo X then declared Luther a heretic in 1520, while Elector Frederick of
Saxony provided for Luther’s safety. Obviously, the case reaches to the heights of
Western Christianity in the 16th century. Yet the major characters are the allies of
Luther in the reformation movement.
I consider Luther below, so for now I focus on his colleagues. He in a way
converted Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt through a 1516 debate, leading Carlstadt
to defend Luther’s views of Scripture—a significant coup, as Carlstadt was dean of
the Wittenberg faculty when Luther received his doctorate in 1512.1 Eck named
Carlstadt as the primary opponent for the Leipzig debates, showing Carlstadt’s
visibility and influence within the church in that region. Named a heretic alongside
Luther, Carlstadt remained in Wittenberg to enact reforms. Though his theology
closely resembled Luther, Carlstadt was more heavily influenced by Augustine’s
dualistic separation of “spirit” and “letter,” and so when the “prophets” of the
“radical reformers” (disciples of Thomas Munzer, discussed below) came to
Wittenberg, he was convinced of the new “spirit” of their prophecy alongside their
knowledge of Scripture.2
Luther’s compatriots included also Justus Jonas, Philip Melanchthon, and
Gabriel Zwilling. Zwilling was, like Luther, a member of the Augustinian order, but
by 1521 had left and urged other Augustinians to throw off their vows. He would
also lead the iconoclastic movement among the people of Wittenberg.3 Melanchthon
was Luther’s closest friend of the group. A Humanist, he helped Luther translate the
Greek text of the Scriptures. He even composed the first systematic Reformed
theology, loci communes.4 Melanchthon at one point wrote of the radical reformers
that “I can hardly tell you how deeply I am moved” by their words and works.5 Yet
he later became dismayed at the disorder that the reformers brought to Wittenberg,
1
Hans J. Hillerbrand, “Andreas Bodenstein of Carlstadt, Prodigal Reformer” (Church
History: Studies in Christianity & Culture vol. 35 no. 4, Dec 1966; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), 380.
2 Hillerbrand, 384.
3 Paul L. Maier, “Fanaticism as a Theological Category in the Lutheran Confessions”
(Concordia Theological Quarterly 44 no. 2-3, 1980), 174.
4 Philip Melanchthon, Orations on Philosophy and Education (ed. Sachiko Kusukawa,
Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), xi.
5 Maier, 174.
and he (along with Zwilling) supported Luther when he returned to resume control.
He would also side with Luther’s stance that reforms ought to come from governing
bodies and not the populace.6 Jonas came to Wittenberg from Erfurt to pursue law,
yet he became a “teacher of God’s Word.”7 Following Carlstadt’s radical reforms at
first, he would later revert to Luther’s direction when the Wittenberg movement
turned violent.8
Thomas Munzer, a key leader of the “radical reformers” in this case, also
supported Luther’s reforms at first. They in fact inspired Munzer to himself become
a reformer. However, he developed his own theology in which the “inner light” of
revelation was the true authority for Christians, at the expense of Scripture. His
disciples, well versed in Biblical knowledge, brought this theology to Wittenberg.9
They even go so far as to claim that they had entered the “third heaven” to receive
revelation directly from God.10
All of these characters can be grouped into three somewhat-distinct camps—
Catholics, reformers, and radical reformers. Each of the groups involved hold their
own claims to authority for the Christian faith: Catholics have the papal succession
and traditions of the church, the reformers have sola scriptura, and the radical
reformers have their “prophecy” of “inner light.” Luther has direct influence, or at
6
Melanchthon, xiv.
M. E. Lehmann, “Justus Jonas—A Collaborator with Luther” (Lutheran Quarterly 2 no. 2,
May 1950), 192-193.
8 Lehmann, 193.
9 “Thomas Munzer” (Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia; Chicago: World Book, Inc.).
10 Maier, 175. Maier’s article also briefly acknowledges the late Medieval mystics like
Meister Eckhart who, through pursuing direct union with God, set the theological stage for a
move like Munzer’s in this time ripe for reformation.
7
least some conceptual influence, with all of these groups. How he responds to them
will prove a decisive moment in the struggle for ecclesial reform in Germany.
Luther’s Unique Authority
Luther undoubtedly held the prime position among these reformers, as many
either were swayed by his teachings or took their cue directly from his leadership.
The circumstances of this case, however, call into question whether he will remain
chief among all reformers. Historically, he did for most. Melanchthon, Jonas, and
Zwilling all would admit their “errors” in following the spirit of reform in
Wittenberg, deferring to Luther’s judgment after his return. Yet Luther would never
reconcile with Carlstadt. When once they had preached similar understandings of
justification by grace, “the basic orientation of the two Wittenberg colleagues… was
not fully identical, and carried the seed of a subsequent parting of ways.”11 Luther’s
central orientation was the gospel (as opposed to the law), and Carlstadt’s the
“spirit” (as opposed to the “letter” of the law). When the peasant revolts broke out
and Carlstadt remained a spokesperson for the radical reformers, Luther would
even call him “the devil incarnate.”12 The radical enthusiasts would have no place in
the new magisterium of Lutheran Protestantism.
Ideally, Luther and the radicals could find common ground on which to base
their reforms. Luther also has begun to lean toward conservative politics,
influenced by the Elector of Frederick who provides him with safe haven. This
places him at a point between the radicals and Catholics. Full reconciliation and
reunion—with necessary reforms—likely lie out of reach, yet are goals by which the
11
12
Hillerbrand, 384.
Ibid., 379.
action I prescribe for Luther ought to be guided: “For in the one Spirit we were all
baptized into one body” (1 Cor. 12.13). Most of the points of conflict revolve around
concrete ecclesiastical reforms, but these stem from differences in theological
orientation.
Theological Concerns
Order and Orientation
The events of this case lie at the origin of the Protestant Reformation, and the
form of the church functions as the pivot of contention. Yet the extant form of the
church derives itself from the church’s central orientation, because orientation
assumes direction, and direction assumes order. In mathematics, a “vector”
(symbolized by an arrow) requires both magnitude of force and direction. The
church is like a vector in that it has a magnitude, a substance consisting of its people,
teachings, traditions, and their interrelatedness, as well as a point toward which
they continually draw and, therefore, gain the order and context that provide them
with meaning. Any given section of the line constituting a vector only exists as such
a line if the individual points of the line are in order relative to each other. The
church, even Creation itself, as works of God, were “created in order to go
somewhere.”13 The space between the church’s origin and ultimate orientation,
constituting its order, is defined primarily by those two points.
But what if two vectors collide? In mathematics they merely are added
together (even when subtracting), becoming one vector. Unfortunately, the analogy
13
N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York:
HarperCollins, 2010), 74.
breaks down at this point because, while groups of humans can be like vectors, there
is no predetermined mathematical law requiring human groups that interact to
synthesize. The reform movement from this case is a second vector to that of the
Catholic Church: It is also a group of people with certain teachings and communal
actions pointing toward a certain orienting point. The issues which pit these groups
against each other derive themselves from differences of liturgical practice (serving
communion in both kinds, allowing laypeople to take the Eucharist from the altar
itself) even though each group seeks the same end—embodying the Kingdom of God
in this world. But how each group approaches this end is causing a definitive split.
The source of their differences lies in each Christian group’s locus of authority.
Whatever ultimately orients a person determines what will be authoritative
for her. For example, to make “doing good for others” the central orientation of
ministry necessarily places the needs of any “other” over those of the minister;
“meeting needs” takes the position of first importance instead of, say, the gospel of
Christ. The health of the minister will suffer as her finite resources are extinguished
by “helping others.” So too will her family and, eventually, her ministry suffer
without being grounded in, say, the infinite resources of a divine Lord. The
minister’s work falls into disarray. To take an example from the case, it is Luther’s
orientation toward sola scriptura as authority (over against recognizing papal
authority) that leads him to become dis-ordered from the Catholic Church. Further
complexifying the issue, a new, prophetic reform movement usurps the reform
momentum from Luther while he remains in hiding. The reform Luther begun has
become disordered within itself as the radical reformers orient to their own
prophecies over Scripture. The groups involved in this case battle for the same
elements, same people, and the position that belongs to the true Kingdom of God on
earth. Their vectors are different but not separate, nor do they merely intersect for
a moment without any interaction, each continuing along its course unaffected.
They could eventually separate fully, subtracting themselves from each other, and I
contend that the Kingdom of God would be diminished for it.
So I propose another solution. This solution involves grounding the primary
orientation of all Christians, so also any Christian group, in the activity of Christ.
From that orientation will follow the necessary ecclesial order. Finding the best
point of orientation for the church will illuminate its proper authority and order.
Ultimately, this order will allow for greater freedom of interpretation and
expression than “necessary ecclesial order” implies, thanks to the church’s
formation around the Eucharist. The grace of God given to people will take on flesh
in more than one iteration.
How does order imply greater freedom of interpretation or expression? The
answer lies in the nature of authority: “Authority authorizes; it grants freedom to
act within boundaries.”14 Wright pictures here the “authority” granted by a driver’s
license, which authorizes one to drive wherever and whenever one might wish,
within the bounds of the law. The reality of the law in his culture and its real
consequences legitimate the authority of his license. Brueggemann will similarly
use the word “permit” for this operation of authority. He of course refers to biblical
authority, but if the authority of scripture can function in this way, then authority in
14
Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006),
53.
general ought to include the same functionality. Yet Brueggemann also ties
permission with requirement: “The authorizing power of the text is evident through
both its demand for obedience and its grant of permission to act in new ways
against both accommodation and oppression.”15 So biblical authority synthesizes
the injunction of command with the liberation of permission. Order follows
authority, and that order ought to legitimate a range of activity.
Paul illuminates just these characteristics of authority in his first letter to the
Corinthian church. The text shows a fractious group, much like the contentious
groups of Luther’s time: “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that
there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of
you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas…’” (1 Cor.
1.11-12). Each group claims its own leader of origin, its own person toward which
they are oriented, its own authority. The entire letter shows the importance of
division, as Paul references it at least eight times.16 Paul decides to remedy this
division through its opposite, unity: “Now I appeal to you brothers and sisters, by
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be
no divisions among you, but that you be united, in the same mind and the same
purpose” (1.10).
Yet Paul cannot unite this church under his own banner, trumping the
authority of Apollos and Cephas. He must make a more foundational appeal, and
15
Walter Brueggemann, The Book That Breathes New Life: Scriptural Authority and Biblical
Theology (ed. Patrick D. Miller; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 16.
16 1 Cor. 1.11-13, 3.3, 6.1-8, 7.10-13, 10.17, 11.18, 11.33, 12.14-27; I include here some
references Paul makes to being together, being one instead of many, and others, though I
suspect there may be a better way to count these.
that appeal is Christ. Immediately after naming the factions in the church, he asks,
“Has Christ been divided?” (1.13). He removes the locus of authority from “human
leaders” (cf. 3.21) and restores it to its rightful place in the church, “our Lord Jesus
Christ.” Even Paul claims that he came not with human power “but with a
demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (2.4b). That demonstration became the
foundation of their faith, for it was purposed “so that your faith might rest not on
human wisdom but on the power of God” (2.5). “Consider your own call, brothers
and sisters,” Paul urges, reminding the Corinthians that their call has always been
“into the fellowship of [God’s] son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1.26; 1.9). Christ is prime
for every Christian and, therefore, for every church, and so God’s call into fellowship
with his Son is binding (as command).
The primacy of Christ comes from Christ himself. I am assuming here that
Jesus is the divine Son of God. When two disciples walking to Emmaus encountered
the risen Christ, Jesus made him the authoritative understanding of Scripture: “‘Was
it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his
glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the
things about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24.26-27). Jesus, as God, can
subordinate the words inspired by God to himself. Christ also makes the move to
embody Israel and its rightful place in God’s salvific work in himself. He claims the
fulfilling of prophetic scripture in his ministry (Luke 4.21), and the healing of the
lame, bringing sight to the blind, “and singing of the dumb are an integral part of
Israel’s eschatological restoration.”17 Jesus even named twelve disciples as the
Twelve, which in light of Matthew 19.28 (cf. Luke 22.30)—“You who have followed
me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel—“shows
conclusively that the Twelve can only be understood as a sign for the people of
God.”18
The event of Jesus had become the prime authority for Christians, and they
bound themselves to this teaching regarding all aspects of Christian life so that they
might be that people of God. Because the Christians “were grafted in among” the
vine of Israel (Romans 11.17), they share Israel’s story. Indeed “the story is logically
prior” to the church.19 Being logically prior, the story will determine the order of
the church. And the text of that story, to which the early Christians added their own
writings, “derives its authority from the events to which to it is the indispensible
witness and interpreter: the presence of God in Jesus Christ as the summation and
climax of God’s covenant with Israel.”20 Heim will claim that the very “essence of
Christianity” comes from the historical fact that “a small but gradually growing
group of people arrived at the certitude that there is a way in which we can be
delivered of all vague notions of God... [by] resolutely submitting to the guidance of a
Man whom God has destined to be the ‘Lord’ of all of us who live after his
17
Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith (trans.
John P. Galvin; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), Kindle location 185.
18 Lohfink, Kindle loc 299.
19 George Lindbeck, “The story-shaped church: critical exegesis and theological
interpretation,” (Scriptual Authority and Narrative Interpretation ed. Garrett Green; Eugene:
Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), 165.
20 Gene Outka, “Following at a distance: ethics and the identity of Jesus” (Scriptural
Authority and Narrative Interpretation ed. Garrett Green; Eugene: Wipf and Stock
Publishers, 2000), 145.
appearance. This Man is Jesus of Nazareth.”21 “All vague notions” claims more than
I wish in this paper, but the point of origin for the Jesus Movement was clearly the
moment of Christ himself.
N. T. Wright states the end of this orientation of church to Christ and its
appropriation of scripture plainly:
“The gospels, the epistles, and Revelation itself ‘work’ only when you
see them as detailed elaborations of the large, complex, but utterly
coherent story we sketched earlier: the call of Human to be God’s
image-bearer into creation, the call of Israel to be the rescuer of
Human, and the vocation of Jesus to be the on who, completing Israel’s
task, rescues Human so that, through redeemed humankind, the
whole creation can be liberated from its corruption and death and the
project of new creation decisively launched.”22
The witnesses of the New Testament and of Christ’s people “want to bear witness to
an event which happened at this single point of time and which once and for all
changed the whole face of the earth, the entire relationship between time and
Eternity.”23 Locating authority in Christ is not merely a social or political power
play, as it seems some in the Corinthian church may be making, but a transcendent
one. There is a “cosmic scope” to Christ’s “redeeming activity.”24 Naturally, the
person of Christ together with his message of the “Kingdom come near” became the
authoritative orientation of all those following Christ.
Paul calls that message “gospel.” It is that which Christ sent him to proclaim,
the “message about the cross” which is “to us who are being saved the power of
God” (1 Cor. 1.17-18). The gospel is that “through which you [the Corinthian
21
Karl Heim, Jesus the Lord: The Sovereign Authority of Jesus and God’s Revelation in Christ
(trans. D. H. Van Daalen; Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1961), 43.
22 Wright, After You Believe, 112.
23 Heim, Jesus is Lord, 144.
24 Outka, “Following at a distance,” 146.
Christians] are being saved,” which Paul “handed on as of first importance what I in
turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
was buried, and was raised on the third day…” (15.1, 3-4). The resurrection body
caps Paul’s teaching in this letter. He reminds the church that their hope lies both in
this life and the next, that Christ was physically resurrected and so too will they be
(15.12, 19, 22). Yet he also uses this teaching to reinforce the likeness of the church
body to that of Christ: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will
[or “let us”25] also bear the image of the man of heaven” (15.49). So the gospel ought
to lead the church into a new reality that looks like Christ. “The goal is God’s
Kingdom,” Wright continues; it “has arrived in the present, now that Jesus is here,”
and now “those who follow Jesus can begin to practice in the present the habits of
heart and life which correspond to the way things are in God’s kingdom.”26
Granting the ultimate authority of Christ to orient the church, now Paul faces
the challenge of defending his own authority to order the Corinthians. Otherwise,
why would they listen to him regarding the gospel? Why not listen to those who are
spiritually superior because of their gift of tongues and revelations from God (cf. 1
Cor. 12.4-11, 28-31)? Paul chooses not to undermine Apollos and Cephas, nor to
diminish the gifts of tongues among the church. He will claim authority based on his
imitation of Christ: Paul was the one who brought the gospel (1.17), who “laid the
foundation” which is Christ (3.10), who “in Christ Jesus became [their] father
through the gospel” (4.15b), who has the rights of an apostle, and who has even seen
25
The majority of uncial texts in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graecae 27th ed.
have this verb in the subjunctive, although the editors favor the future.
26 Ibid., 105.
Christ (9.1). Paul will even make Christ’s appearance to him and his subsequent
naming as an apostle as the final piece of his teachings of “first importance” (15.8).
Because he has seen Christ, he can imitate Christ (cf. 4.17, 11.1). The Corinthians,
who have not seen Christ, must then imitate Paul if they wish to live in Christ. Paul,
in humble language, has tied himself to the authority of the gospel witness, so as to
defend his own authority to teach and to lead the Corinthian church. He has
successfully removed the argument regarding authority from human leaders,
located it in Christ, and tied himself and his teachings to Christ’s authority.
If Christ is then the authoritative orientation of the church, what then will be
its necessary order? I propose Christ’s Eucharistic body. Paul makes his first appeal
to the Corinthians one of unity, “that there be no divisions among you, but that you
be united in the same mind and the same purpose” (1.10). This becomes an
iterative point in the letter: “Learn through us… so that none of you will be puffed
up in favor of one against another” (4.6); “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized
into one body… Indeed the body does not consist of one member but of many… If
one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice
together with it” (12.13a, 14, 26). Paul utilizes the metaphor of body (soma) as his
major appeal to ecclesial unity. While in the Greco-Roman world “body” rhetoric
was utilized to enforce order and peace under the rule of Augustus, its head,27 Paul
may here have been co-opting that metaphor both as an appeal to unity as well as an
acknowledgement of the importance of even the lowest member: “On the contrary,
the members of the body that seem to be weak are indispensible, and those
27
Yung Suk Kim, Christ’s Body in Corinth: The Politics of a Metaphor (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2008), 45.
members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor” (1
Cor. 12.22-23). No divisions can exist in the body, whether socioeconomic or
spiritual or anything else.
The church is one body because of the Eucharist. In the midst of his specific
ecclesial teachings to the Corinthians, Paul reminds them, “The cup of blessing that
we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not
a sharing in the body of Christ?” (10.16). In fact the bread that is a sharing of
Christ’s body is the foundation for ecclesial unity, and so too its incorporation:
“Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of
the one bread” (10.17). As the letter approaches its climax in chapter 13, he invokes
also the origin of the Eucharist in the authority of Christ:
“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the
Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body
that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (11.23-24)
If the Eucharist is Christ’s body, then it operates as “a literal re-membering of
Christ’s body, a kitting together of the body of Christ by the participation of many in
His sacrifice.”28 The church participates in Christ’s sacrifice and so shares in it. The
relationship of each Christian to the others transcends even the physical, as people
are empowered to share pain—something physically impossible to communicate.
In this way Paul is proved true when saying, “If one member suffers, all suffer
together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Cor.
12.26). This practice, founded by Christ himself according to the tradition received
28
William Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (Challenges in
Contemporary Theology, eds. Gareth Jones and Lewis Ayres; Blackwell Publishing: Malden, Mass.,
1998), 229.
at Corinth, becomes an authoritative source for ordering the ekklesia as one body
because it is the direct sharing of Christ himself.
The church enters into the life of God by the Eucharist and subsequently
embodies salvation. The Triune God exists as “an act of communion” (koinonia)
based upon the free choice of the person of the Father.29 Thus, “the life of the
Eucharist is the life of God Himself” in that it “is the life of communion with God, such
as exists within the Trinity and is actualized within the members of the Eucharistic
community.”30 The giving of the life of God is so complete in the Eucharist that
“every communicant is the whole Christ and the whole Church.”31
The importance of this communion with God cannot be understated
salvifically. While it is good that the Corinthians received the tradition handed
down by Paul, that tradition has no power in itself. “After all, stories do not save.
God saves.”32 By communing with God thusly, Christians enter a certain type of
communal life: Their relationships transcend the merely physical, so that “brother”
and “sister” apply beyond blood relations; they are empowered to exercise free and
universal love, previously unattainable; and they gain the inherent momentum of
the Eucharist toward the “eschatological existence of man.”33 This communal life is
the end of the gospel, for “God saves by making possible the existence of a people…
29
John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood:
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 44.
30 Ibid., 81.
31 Ibid., 60-61.
32 Stanley Hauerwas, “The church as God’s new language” (Scriptural Authority and
Narrative Interpretation ed. Garrett Green; Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), 179.
33Zizioulas, 61.
that invites each person to become part of a time that the nations cannot provide.”34
If this were not so, then why else would Paul pontificate on agape love as “a still
more excellent way” to the Corinthians? Bound to the Eucharist, Christians are
bound into liberating love, and this love frees temporal humanity to embody the
eternal life of Christ’s kingdom.
Pastoral Implications of Eucharistic Ecclesiology
Luther holds a similar position to Paul with respect to the reform movement.
He laid its foundation and is still seen by some as a leader, yet other factions are
asserting new authority and teachings on his friends and followers. He must make a
similar move to Paul’s in 1 Cortinthians, claiming his own authority to lead the
reformers by first asserting the primacy of Christ and then imitating Christ through
practices of Eucharistic community.
To be liberated into Eucharistic community is to imply certain things about
Christian behavior. N. T. Wright calls 1 Corinthians “a lesson in the habits of mind
and heart necessary to attain and maintain a rich, diverse unity.”35 Faith, hope, and
love constitute the very language of the Kingdom because they all abide into the
eternal kingdom, even when all other things “cease” (cf. 1 Cor. 13).
This love must cross barriers. Division is literally heresy (haeresis) in
Corinthians, and it manifests as an expulsive boundary psychology.36 Beck sets as
its opposite “hospitality,” which is “fundamentally an act of human recognition and
34
Hauerwas, 180.
Wright, After You Believe, 211.
36 Richard Beck, Unclean: Meditations of Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality (Eugene: Cascade
Books, 2011), 15-16.
35
embrace.”37 Luther will need this predisposition to appropriately approach both his
Catholic critics and the radical reformers in Wittenburg, otherwise he may call
others (as he did Carlstadt) “the devil incarnate.” He himself will recognize
incurvatus in se, self-absorption, as root of human sinfulness, so he ought to avoid
such sinful engagement of his enemies in favor of the hospitable disposition of
Eucharistic community.38
Specifically regarding the radicals and their “new prophecy,” Scripture can
further instruct Luther in the response of Eucharistic community. Paul encourages
their use by referencing Isaiah—“By people of strange tongues… I will speak to this
people”—reminding the Corinthians that they are a sign for the building up of God’s
people. Later in Isaiah, in the section often labeled as Second Isaiah, the prophet
speaks to the people of God of their restoration. This scripture, taken from the story
that the church shares with Israel, can guide Luther as a leader of reform in the
midst of new things.
Luther himself, as stated in the case, recalls the words of Gamaliel to his
friend Melanchthon in Wittenberg regarding the new prophets. “Spirits are to be
tested,” he wrote. And he will find a similar teaching in Isaiah 41.22: “Let them
bring them [proofs, idols], and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things…
or declare to us the things to come.” Isaiah here, and throughout Second Isaiah,
refutes the legitimacy and power of idols by this teaching, but the disposition is key
here for Luther. Perhaps they are from God: God declares “new things” to Israel
(42.9), which are “created now… so that you could not say, ‘I already knew them.’”
37
38
Ibid., 122.
Ibid., 130.
(48.7). If this new prophecy in Wittenberg is from the mouth of God, “it shall not
return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the
thing for which I sent it” (55.11b). Let the prophets make their prophecies plain and
set them out in the open, so that the prime authority of Christ may judge them.
For this to happen, Luther must return to Wittenberg, braving the danger
from which he has been hiding. “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a
teacher,” says Isaiah. Therefore, “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my
cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and
spitting” (50.4a, 6). Yet Isaiah brings comfort for Luther here: “Listen to me, you
who know righteousness, you people who have my teaching in your hearts; do not
fear the reproach of others… for the moth will eat them up like a garment” (51.7-8).
Prescription
Martin Luther faces a “shatterpoint” of events surrounding his reform
movement. Apply pressure in the right way, to the right position, and the whole
western Christian world may crash into innumerable divisions. In the end, the
continuation of different, separate communities of Christians does not threaten the
Kingdom of God. They are merely different builders on the same foundation,
different instantiations of the same grace given to all through Christ’s body. Yet
their interaction will lay a different kind of foundation. These groups, at the onset of
a Reformation both ecclesial and political, spanning countries and empires, will set
the tone of Christian ecumenism—the corporate interaction of Eucharistic
community—in Europe (or its lack) for centuries to come.
If Luther would meditate on these teachings, and indeed seek to have God’s
teaching on his heart, he will be better prepared as a leader of the people of God.
First, he would embody the sacrificial offering of Christ’s body by placing his life at
risk for the people. His leadership would provide the opportunity for Eucharistic
community to define the reformers, not merely their own protestations. Habits of
heart and mind that are based upon Christ’s sacrifice and inspired by the hope of his
resurrection will be the norm of this new Christian body. Luther would offer grace
to those deemed radical, make space for the Spirit of God to reveal what is true and
what is not (in this case, what is of God and what is not). And by making space for
God to reveal what is true (namely, himself), Luther reinforces the prime authority,
not of humans or traditions or writings or institutions, but of Christ.
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