The Babylonian Captivity of the Church Lesson 5 The Sacrament of Baptism Continued and Religious Vows

In this next section, Martin Luther is going to continue to explain the meaning of the sacrament of baptism. He is then going to turn his attention to a subject about which he both knows a great deal and has a strong opinion, religious vows. We will remember what Luther is doing in this writing. He is explaining the sacraments, not by church tradition, not according to the sayings of past theologians, such as those contained in Peter Lombard’s Sentences, nor is he using various statements about the sacraments from the great councils of the church. No, Luther thinks that all these have made mistakes and errors. They have gotten the church off base and off track, to the great detriment of the people of the church.

Now we can understand how people thought Luther brazen. Who was he, an insignificant , in an obscure town, in an out-of-the-way part of the empire, who was challenging all these things? Who was he to think he was smarter than all the theologians before him? Was he smarter than the great Thomas Aquinas? Or the eminent Jerome? Or other equally learned doctors of the church? And the on top of all these? Well, who was Luther to challenge all these illustrious authorities? He was just a monk in a small town who had been reading the Bible. He had been reading the Bible and thinking about it. In doing so, he had become convinced from it that the church was missing the mark.

The truth was that Luther was in a perfect position to make the critiques he made. For one thing he was, himself, a doctor of the church. He had studied all the literature all the saints of the church had studied. He was able to understand them and argue from them, just like the other scholars of his day. Luther was in no way inferior to any scholar of his day in terms of training and credentials, or even the great scholars of the past.

In addition, there was new information that had recently become available, that had not been available for a thousand years. The humanist scholar Erasmus had published his text critical edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516, just a year before Luther’s 95 Theses. By text critical I mean an edition that identified variant readings in the Greek, in the different New Testament manuscripts. These variant readings gave a translator the ability to determine which might be the original and best reading. The publication

1 of this was a significant event in the Christian Church because it gave people the chance to pore over the various Greek sentences in the New Testament. It gave them a chance to see whether Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation was truly accurate. In several important places, it was not. It also gave someone like Luther the ability to argue confidently about the Bible because he was reading it in the original language, not a translation, such as Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. It gave him confidence in what the Bible really said without having to rely on someone else’s authority and translation.

Luther was also simply the right man for the right moment. God had given him the intellectual capacity, the spiritual insight, and the proper temperament to enter such a battle. God also gave Luther a protector in Germany, Frederick, who gave him protection and enough sense of safety to be able to speak his mind, which he continued to do with increasing boldness. This work that we are examining is one of those moments in which Luther speaks his mind and from his heart in articulating what he believed to be the truth of God for the people of God.

In this section then, Luther makes a brilliant turn. He has talked about baptism up to this point as promise and sign. The promise is the promise of forgiveness. The sign is the washing of water. Now Luther is going to turn to another image given to us from scripture. If you want to truly understand the importance of baptism, he says, you need to think of it in terms of death and resurrection.

What does baptism signify? Death and resurrection, says Luther. When the minister dips the child in the water, it signifies death. When he raises the child up again, it signifies new life. And while we might think of these things as happening figuratively, they really do happen, through the Spirit. It isn’t just in name that they happen, but a real death and resurrection takes place. When we begin to believe, we start to die to the world and to live into that life we will live for eternity.

So then, says Luther, we have rightly said that baptism is a washing away of our sins. But this meaning is too small and weak to fully capture what baptism means. It is rather the symbol of our death and resurrection. This is the reason, he says, I would prefer that all those baptized be fully immersed. Not that this is necessary, but full immersion makes such a perfect symbol of death and resurrection. This was also certainly the way instituted the sacrament. For what is most important for a sinner is not merely to be

2 washed, but to die, so that he may be utterly transformed into another creation. This way of talking about baptism is much more powerful than just that it washes us from our sins.

The sacrament of baptism then is not something just for a moment, says Luther, though it only lasts a few moments. It is permanent because our death and resurrection in Christ lasts until the last day. As long as we live, we are doing what the sacrament signifies, dying and rising to new life. And by renouncing the sins and errors of this world, we do in fact begin to leave this bodily life and embrace our new life with the Father in heaven.

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We need to avoid the error, therefore, says Luther, of those who say that while we do receive grace in baptism, that grace can be covered up by our sin and then we must find our way to heaven another way, such as penance. Don’t believe this, Luther replies, because baptism is such that you can live and die in it. Even through penance, you only return to baptism and do what you were baptized to do, which is die to sin and live to God. Baptism never loses its power or becomes ineffectual. Indeed we need our baptism always because we must continually be baptized by faith, that is, die to sin and live to God. As you have gone down into the water in baptism, so your baptism ought to swallow up your entire life so that you might be raised up on the last day and clothed in glory and immortality. We are then never without the sign and the substance of baptism and we ought to be continually baptized again and again in our heart and spirit until its meaning is fulfilled in us on the last day.

What this means, he says, is that anything we do in this life that mortifies the flesh or allows the Spirit to live in us fulfills our baptism. In fact, the closer we are to death, the closer we are to fulfilling our baptism. In the same way, the more sufferings we endure, the greater this purpose of baptism, the mortifying of the flesh, is fulfilled in us. The truth is that the church was at its best when each day martyrs were being put to death because then the value of baptism was felt and experienced in the church. We have lost sight today of the fact that our entire life should be baptism, that is death to sin and a rising to new life.

Why then have we not been taught these things? Why are we held captive by arbitrary laws and decrees that obscure the meaning of baptism? The blame

3 falls squarely on the pope himself. He, as the chief shepherd, ought to have been the one to proclaim this good news to us. But it seems that his only goal is to oppress us with laws and commands that keep us under the control of his power. This is not to mention the fact that he does not teach us about these great mysteries of God. But who is it, Luther asks, that has given the pope these rights? Who said he could bind us in this way? Not a word comes from him about faith only endless ramblings about ceremonies and works to be done. The glory of our baptism is completely obscured and faith is impeded.

I declare therefore, says Luther, that neither the pope, nor any bishop, nor any person has the authority and right to utter even one syllable that would bind a simple Christian, unless that person gives his permission. Anything that does attempt to bind the ordinary Christian is tyrannical. Whatever special prayers, fastings, offerings, or whatever else the pope commands, which things these days are as numerous as they are iniquitous, are not rightfully ordained by him. In fact, he sins against the freedom of the church every time he attempts any such thing. So while the churchmen of today vigorously defend their freedom to own lands and fields and acquire money, they completely destroy the true liberty of the church, even more than the followers of Mohammed. The pope makes us into his servants for his personal gain when he subjects us to his tyrannical laws.

It isn’t just the pope who is at fault here but his followers and flatterers. They use the saying of Christ who said, “He who hears you hears me,” to justify themselves. We should “hear them,” they say, when they tell us about all sorts of works we must perform. But Christ said this to the apostles when they were going out to preach the gospel, not about human traditions. These wicked churchmen however forget about the gospel and use this word of Jesus in support of their traditions.

But Jesus said that his sheep would hear his voice but would not follow the voice of strangers. The are supposed to utter the voice of Christ for the people to hear, but they only speak with their own voice. Yet they require us to hear them as if they were the voice of Christ. Paul himself even says that he was not sent to baptize but to preach the gospel. From this we can learn that we are only commanded to hear the pope when he preaches the gospel, which he himself ought to teach and nothing else. But since Christ says, “he who hears you hears me,” the pope ought to listen to others as well. An

4 unbelieving pope would do well to hear a believing servant of his who has the word of faith. O how much blindness envelopes the popes today!

There are others who are completely shameless in giving the pope powers he does not have. They argue from the verse where Jesus says, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Christ here is talking about the binding and loosing of sins. He does not give the pope power to bring the entire church into bondage! But the pope acts tyrannically in all things and twists and corrupts the word of God. It is left to the church to endure this tyranny, for Christ commanded us to turn the other cheek to the one who would strike us. My complaint is that the popes claim they have a right to oppress us in this way as if their oppression was actually a benefit to Christendom. They seem to have convinced almost all people everywhere to agree with them. If we were being persecuted for our faith, then our persecutions would aid us in the mortification of the flesh. But as it is, these wicked men try to tell us that these things are their good gifts to us and we are wicked to complain against them. But they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They want to be honored like Christ but they are, in truth, Antichrist’s.

I am merely one, says Luther, who cries out for the sake of freedom and conscience, for no law ought to be imposed on a Christian, either by man or angel, except as they give their consent. We have the right to protest such laws, though we still bear them patiently. And while we do not murmur as the wicked do, we dare not justify these impious actions by the pope.

Since however, there are so few who understand these issues clearly, I, for my part, am compelled to speak my mind openly and honestly. Here is what I have to say. All popes and the pope’s supporters are guilty of the deaths of all the souls who are perishing under this terrible bondage. Unless they repent and change, we must say that the papacy is nothing other than the kingdom of Babylon and indeed the kingdom of the Antichrist himself. For who is the Man of Sin and the Son of Perdition other than the one who multiplies sins and increases the number of souls in hell, all the while sitting proudly as if he were God himself. All that the scriptures have foretold about the Man of Sin have been fulfilled in the pope himself. His corrupt office has destroyed faith, obscured the sacraments, and suppressed the gospel, while multiplying its own laws and traditions, which are not only wicked and unholy, but ignorant and offensive.

5 How terrible then is our bondage, says Luther. As Lamentations says, “How does the city sit empty that was full of people.” The church has filled our minds with so many works, satisfactions, and ceremonies, that we forget our baptisms. Because of this swarm of locusts, caterpillars, and cankerworms, no one is able to remember that he is baptized. O, that we would be like infants, who when baptized are not suddenly engaged with works and satisfactions, but who rest safe in the glory of their baptism.

Some would contest a central point in what I have said. Since I have mentioned infants, they would argue that infants cannot have faith because of their age. This must mean, in contradiction to what I have said, that either faith is not necessary, since infants do not have it, or else infant baptism is of no use. I would respond to this by saying that infants are helped by the faith of others, those who bring them for baptism and the church that baptizes them. Through the faith of others, the infant is changed, cleansed, and taught. The faith of the church is exhibited in its prayers, that are so powerful that even a wicked adult can be changed in baptism by the prayers of others.

We see an example of this in the gospels when the paralytic who was lowered through the roof was healed through the faith of his friends. In this sense, I do believe that the sacraments are vehicles of grace because the prayers of the people of God have great power. Even Paul may have been converted, in due time, by the prayer of Stephen, who prayed that God would forgive those who were executing him. But this benefit is not in the sacrament alone as if it had any power but by faith, from which the church offers its prayers to God.

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At this point, Luther digresses a bit, from our point of view, at least. He tries to deal with a question that sometimes got asked, and give some practical advice. Would it be right to baptize an infant, he asks, as it was being born, when only a hand or foot had appeared? Luther is talking about a practice that sometimes took place if a child was considered at risk in the birth process. Luther says, about this that he is not sure and does not intend to give an answer before he has carefully considered it. The legitimacy for baptizing an infant when only part of it has emerged is because, as they say, the whole soul of a person lives in every part of the person’s body. Yet it is not the soul of a person that is baptized but their body, he notes. He also

6 does not necessarily agree with those who say that an infant cannot be born again until they are fully born the first time. These things I will not attempt to answer at this point, says Luther, but leave to the Spirit. In the meantime, everyone should be allowed to have his own opinion on this matter. What we might take from this is simply to note that Luther does not think this a matter essential for salvation, so everyone should follow their conscience.

There is one more matter the that Luther wants to discuss. He says that he wishes that he could persuade the church to do away with the multitude of vows that people take, so they could remain in the freedom of baptism. Luther is talking here about the institution of the and on which there was great emphasis in the medieval world. This great emphasis on taking vows significantly detracts from the freedom we have in our baptism and brings people into many dangers, he says. We have become enamored with taking vows and rash in making them, much to our great harm. All the while our bishops and leaders sit idly by, the people God are being ruined.

I would wish, Luther says, that a general order would be issued that did away with all vows, or at least encouraged no one to take one rashly. In this section Luther may have his own vow in mind, in which he committed to become a monk in the midst of a thunderstorm. What I now wish is that for any that wish to make a vow, they ought only to be able to do so after many delays and examinations. The reason I say all this, he says, is that we all make a vow in baptism that is greater than we can fulfill. Why do we need another vow? It is plenty for us to do to try to fulfill this one and first vow. If we seek to fulfill this one vow, it will require all our time and effort!

As it is however we travel far and wide to make many proselytes so we can fill the entire world with priests, , and , and we lock them all up in perpetual vows. Some will argue the point by saying that a work performed under the authority of a vow is better than one performed independent of one and in heaven they will receive a greater reward. How much this sounds like the error of the Pharisees! They measured righteousness and godliness by the number of their works but God measures them by faith alone, since there is no distinction between works except as there is a difference in the faith by which they are done.

By lots of high-sounding words, says Luther, these wicked men, tempt and entice the easily-led crowds, who think to be saved by their works, down a

7 path that destroys their faith, makes them forget their baptisms, and brings them into captivity. Since vows are a type of work, as vows increase, so laws and works are multiplied, and the faith of people is completely extinguished. Others, not content to stop there, say that entrance into a is like a new baptism that can be often repeated, as often as one renews one’s commitment to the religious life. Because of this, these puffed up disciples, see themselves as the only ones who are righteous, the only ones saved, and full of glory. In their sight the average Christian is nothing in comparison. The pope, who is the source of all sorts of superstitions, approves all this and seeks to enhance the glory of the monastic life with great declarations. By all these lofty statements, gullible people are easily led into a whirlpool of error, so that, discarding their baptism, they come to believe that they can please God better by their works than their faith.

For this reason, God, who deals with the crooked according to their ways, avenges their pride by either allowing them to fail in their commitment or only to keep them with great effort. In the process however, they never come to know the grace and peace that are to be found in faith and baptism. Since their spirits are not right before God, he allows them to continue in their hypocrisy and become a laughing stock to all the world. For they follow hard after righteousness but never attain it. Thus they fulfill the words in scripture that say that the land is full of idols.

By saying all this, says Luther, I do not mean to condemn every vow that a person might privately choose to make. What I condemn is establishing the taking of vows as a public way of life. It is fine for a person to take a private vow, which he or she does at their own peril, but to develop a public system for making vows is extremely dangerous and harmful to the life of faith and to simple souls. The first reason I say this is that all vows are kinds of laws and merely human inventions, from which the church has been set free in baptism. Secondly, there is no example anywhere in scripture that anyone took a vow of perpetual , obedience, and poverty. And whenever we do something for which there is no example in scripture, it is a perilous thing, which should not be encouraged for anyone, must less made a public institution. It is true that God might call a particular person to a certain mode of life and empower him by the Spirit for it, but these extraordinary cases should not be made examples for how all of us are to live.

I am afraid, says Luther, that these monastic institutions are what Paul was talking about when he predicted that there would be times when people

8 would forbid marriage and make all sorts of human regulations as if they were from God. Let no one at this point bother me, he says, with the examples of St. Bernard or St Francis or St Dominic. Here Luther is referring to three Christians, Bernard of Clairvaux, St. , and Dominic who founded the , who were universally considered deeply devout and sincere examples of the Christian life. These were also people who supported and even founded religious orders. Luther continues. He says that God is terrible and wonderful in his dealings with people. He preserved Daniel and his companions holy and undefiled in the midst of a wicked nation. He may have also sanctified these three, Bernard, Francis, and Dominic, even in their dangerous way of life and sustained them by the special working of his . Yet God still would not have their choices be the example for all people. What is clear is that not a single one of these men was saved by their vows or being in a religious order, but only by their faith. What is also clear however is that religious orders work against a life of faith.

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Everyone can certainly have their own opinion on all this. For my part however, says Luther, I will be a proponent for the liberty of the church. I will declare what I have learned, which I believe has come from the tutelage of the Spirit. First I would counsel everyone in authority in the church to do away with all vows and the practice of living under them. If they will not do this, they should at least stop promoting them. If the church does not do this however, I would advise all, especially the young, to avoid these situations, particular life-long vows. I say this because there is no evidence of this practice in the scriptures, but it only comes from the decrees of popes who are only men.

Another reason I would discourage this way of life is that it leads to hypocrisy. It causes pride to rise up in those who take these vows and a disdain for the ordinary Christian life. And the most important reason and the one that is sufficient in itself for the abandoning of the institution is that by these life-long vows as works are glorified while faith and baptism are devalued. The evidence of what I say is that in the religious orders, there is hardly one out of a thousand that does not value their works more than their faith, so much so that they argue proudly over which of them keeps their works with greater austerity.

9 For my part, says Luther, I would discourage any person from entering a religious order unless they firmly understand that however lofty they think their works are, such as fastings and the like, they are no different in the sight of God than the farmer working in his field or the woman attending to her household. This is because God measures all things by faith. As it turns out, the work of common people is often more acceptable to God than all the fastings and works of a monk or priest, when those are done without faith. Since then vows only tend to increase people’s pride and self-righteousness, it is sadly to say that there is probably nowhere where less faith is found than among the priests, monks, and bishops. Sadly these men are really pagans and hypocrites, even while they consider themselves to the heart and core of the church. These really are people held captive, because the free gifts given to us in baptism have been brought into bondage so that they are of no use to them. Tragically these deluded souls look down on the slender remnant of God’s people who are scorned by them but precious in God’s sight.

There are then, from all this, says Luther, two glaring errors the pope makes. The first is to assume that he has the power to grant a “dispensation” or release from a vow. By what audacity does he assume this power? If there is such a power, to release someone from a vow, any Christian ought to be able to release another. Or one ought to be able to release oneself. If the ordinary Christian does not have this power, then neither does the pope. He will answer that this power comes from the power of the keys of the kingdom that God gave to him. But, replies Luther, these keys are given to the church, not just to the pope, and they are only power over sins not vows. The pope will answer that vows have what he calls a “divine right.” But if they have a divine right, says Luther, how can the pope simply do away with them?

Here in the last part of this section, Luther uses a wonderful wordplay. It has to do with the fact that the law allowed a person to exchange a firstborn donkey with a sheep. The firstborn of all animals was to be sacrificed to God in the Old Testament. But because of the value of donkeys, God allowed a sheep to be substituted in its stead.

Luther notes that the pope says that he can change a vow, just as in the Old Testament times a person could change a donkey for a sheep. The pope, says Luther, assumes in this that a vow is the same thing as exchanging a donkey for a sheep in the sacrificial ritual. But then if God, by his command, allows a donkey to be exchanged for a sheep, does it mean that a pope, who is not God, has the same power for a law which he says is not his but God’s? Can

10 the pope really change a law that is God’s? Then Luther delivers his punch line. He says that it must not be a pope who came up with this silly idea but a donkey exchanged for a pope, so utterly ridiculous and impious is this idea. In his wonderful way, Luther has just called the pope a donkey, or an ass, without actually technically doing so.

There is a second great error the pope makes, says Luther. It is when the pope says that a marriage vow can be broken, if it has not been consummated, if one or the other person wants to enter a , even if the one to whom the person was engaged does not wish it. What devil inspired this idea, asks Luther? God specifically commands us to keep faith with one another, especially in marriage. In fact this is a vow that cannot be broken by any means. Luther here is speaking from a culture in which the betrothal was just as binding as the marriage. Luther notes that, in marriage we no longer belong to ourselves but to the other. Why then, he asks, does the pope have the authority to annul this God commanded vow for the sake of a human invention, such as monastic vows?

If the pope can do this, then why don’t we also release a person from a monetary debt he owes if the enters a monastery? O, how blind you have become, says Luther. Which is greater, to keep a command that God has commanded or a vow invented by human decisions? O pope, says Luther, are you are a shepherd of souls? O doctors of theology, can you really teach these things? Why do you do this? Only because you glorify vows as a better work than marriage. It is too bad that you do not extol faith instead which alone is to our benefit. Instead you magnify works which count for nothing before God.

If there is such a thing as a valid vow, says Luther, then surely neither humans nor angels can give a dispensation from it. But I am not sure that any of the vows we make today are right ones, he says. Certainly it is foolish for a parent to dedicate a child to a religious order before they are born. They have no right to do this. And the more I consider the typical religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, says Luther, the less I understand where they came from or why they might be good for a person. It is also extremely unclear at what age a legitimate vow can be made. And though it is good that there is an age below which a vow cannot be made, I am not sure that any age is appropriate for making a vow that will bind your conscience as long as you live. We should not make vows until we have become fully mature in Christ but then we have no need of vows. For all

11 these reasons, it is dangerous to enter into religious vows. Rather we should live in the Spirit, as people did in former days, and not bind ourselves up by foolish vows.

This ends Luther’s discussion of baptism and a wonderful one it is. He reminds us that baptism is the work of a lifetime because it commits us to the ongoing death of the old life and resurrection to the new. This is enough to keep us all busy for the rest of our lives. Once again Luther not only has astute religious insights but good theological instincts as well. Luther now has finished his discussion of the two major sacraments. Next he will turn to the practice of penance. He thinks that it also is in serious need of reform.

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