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Luther: The Priesthood of All
Believers |
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| Most Import Event of the last 1,000 years? Poll results on 1000 to 2000 |
Luther and the Call to Ministry | |
| At
the beginning of the 3rd millennium the Protestant Reformation sparked
by Martin Luther in 1517 was named "the most significant religious
story" of the past 1000 years according to a survey of the Religion
Newswriters Association. The RNA members report religion
full time for the secular media.
In separate secular polls, Martin Luther came in third in "The Top 100 Most Influential People of the Past 1000 Years" as compiled by Life Magazine. (Thomas Edison, inventor, and Christopher Columbus, explorer, were first and second.) In
a similar poll compiled by the Arts and Entertainment cable network,
Luther was third only to Johannes Gutenberg, printing press inventor,
and Isaac Newton, mathematician and physicist. It is appropriate for Lutherans to recognize and appreciate the insights and leadership that Luther brought to the Church. The priesthood of all believers was one Biblical insight that Luther recovered for the Church. Another of Luther's insights is the nature of the church as a creation of God and brought into being by the declaration of the Word and the celebration of the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. This is set forth in the Augsburg Confession which is a basic doctrinal statement that defines who Lutherans really are. In the next column we have a quotation from Luther's works explaining the priesthood of believers and how these believers select one of their number to carry out the office of the ministry, that is preach and teach the Word of God and administer the Sacraments. Below we is a quote from the Augsburg Confession:
VII. THE
CHURCH To access the full text of the Augsburg Confession on the Internet click on the link below. (Use your browser "back" button to return to this page.) |
Luther
wrote: It is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are to
be called the "spiritual estate"; princes, lords,
artisans and farmers the "temporal estate." That is
indeed a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy.
Yet no one should be
frightened by it; and for this reason, which is, that all Christians are
truly of the "spiritual estate," and there is among
them no difference at all except that of office, as Paul says in I
Corinthians xii, We are all one body, yet every member has its own work,
whereby it serves every other, all because we have one baptism, one
Gospel, one faith, and are all alike Christians; for baptism, Gospel and
faith alone make us "spiritual" and a Christian people. But that
a pope or a bishop anoints, confers tonsures, ordains, consecrates, or
prescribes dress unlike that of the laity, this may make hypocrites and
graven images [German "Oelgoetze"], but never makes a
Christian or a "spiritual" man. Through
baptism all of us are consecrated to the priesthood, as St Peter says in
I Peter ii, "Ye are a royal priesthood, a priestly kingdom,"
and the book of Revelation says, "Thou hast made us by thy blood
to be priests and kings." For if we had no higher
consecration than pope or bishop gives, the consecration by pope or
bishop would never make a priest, nor might anyone either say mass or
preach a sermon or give absolution. Therefore
when the bishop consecrates it is the same thing as if he, in the place
and stead of the whole congregation, all of whom have like power, were
to take one out of their number and charge him to use this power for the
others ..... To
make it still clearer. If a little group of pious Christian laymen were
taken captive and set down in a wilderness, and had among them no priest
consecrated by a bishop, and if there in the wilderness they were to
agree in choosing one of themselves, married or unmarried, and were to
charge him with the office of baptizing, saying mass, absolving and
preaching, such a man would be as truly a priest as though all bishops
and popes had consecrated him.
Works of
Martin Luther - Philadelphia Edition - Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press,
1943 Vol II, p 66-67. | |