The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VI. The Final Rupture With Rome

1. ROME’S ENDEAVOR TO SILENCE LUTHER

In the mean time the papal court was at work. On June 15 the notorious bull Exsurge Domini was issued in Rome ³⁵ condemning Luther’s theses and ordering him to retract his errors within sixty days or be seized and carried as a prisoner to Rome. (Reproduced on page 250.) It was the last bull addressed to Latin Christendom as an undivided whole, and the first one to be disobeyed by a large part of it. It took three months before the bull was published in Germany, and when Dr. Eck came to Leipzig he was ridiculed and the bull defied and torn to pieces. In Erfurt the bull was even thrown into the river. ³⁶ Instead of crushing Luther, it rallied Germany to his side. ³⁷ PFF2 258.2

2. POPE’S BULL BURNED AS BULL OF ANTICHRIST

Finally, on December 10, 1520, responding to a call to gather outside the walls of Wittenberg’s Elster Gate, a concourse of several hundred assembled to witness the burning of the papal bull. ³⁸ Curiously enough, this was near the place where the clothing of those who had died of contagious diseases was burned. A pile of wood was placed near the base of an oak tree. One of the oldest professors on the university faculty lighted the wood. PFF2 258.3

As the flames arose, Luther advanced in frock and cowl. Amid bursts of approbation from the doctors, professors, and students, he cast the bull into the fire along with the canon law and the decretals, declaring, “As thou hast vexed the Holy One of the Lord, may the eternal fire vex thee.” ³⁹ Thus he sealed the rupture with Rome by burning the bull that demanded his recantation, and proclaimed his determination to wage a ceaseless warfare against the papal Antichrist. Students, marching in procession through the town, collected papal books, and returning, threw them on the pile. ⁴⁰ The next day Luther warned the students against the Roman Antichrist, realizing full well the seriousness of the struggle ahead. ⁴¹ PFF2 259.1

Whereas Luther had at first trembled at the step, now, after the deed was done, returning home together with Melanchthon and Carlstadt, he felt more cheerful and confident than ever. They regarded the excommunication as emancipation from the bonds of the Papacy. Luther then publicly announced his stand in a treatise in Latin and Greek, “Why the Books of the Pope and His Disciples Were Burned by Dr. Martin Luther.” ⁴² Calling the canon law the “abomination of desolation,” and anti-christian, Luther planted himself stanchly on the Book of Scripture. In his published statement he wrote: PFF2 259.2

“I think, that whosoever was the author of this Bull he is very Antichrist.... But I tell thee, Antichrist, that Luther, being accustomed to war, will not be terrified with these vain Bulls, and has learned to put a difference between a piece of paper and the omnipotent Word of God.” ⁴³ PFF2 259.3

Picture 3: HISTORIC SCENES IN LUTHER’S EARLY LIFE
Nailing the theses to the castle church door (upper left); luther, the driving force of the german reformation (upper right); luther’s room in the lutherhaus and the table at which He penned the ninety-five theses (Center right); burning the papal bull as the “bull of antichrist” outside of wittenberg’s east gate, under the famous luther oak (lower)
Page 259

Such was the remarkable act that launched the Reformation. The issue was Christ versus Antichrist! And it is to be remembered that the subject of Antichrist and the time of the last judgment were then sternly forbidden subjects. ⁴⁴ PFF2 261.1

The first bull had anathematized forty-one of Luther’s theses. Now the second (Damnatio et excommunication Martini Luther ...), dated January 4, 1521, placed Luther and his adherents under the actual ban of excommunication. ⁴⁵ While negotiations were going on, he worked incessantly. Besides several exegetical works, he wrote also an exhaustive reply to the Dominican Catharinus, of Rome, in which he declared that Christ and not Peter was the Rock upon which the church rests, and that the Roman church lacks the seal of the true church. This he proceeded to prove from Daniel and Paul, declaring that Antichrist is not a single person but the whole body of wicked men in the church, and the succession of their rulers. The Papacy was that king in the latter times of the fourth, or Roman, empire, originating out of imperial Rome, which hampering power would first be removed ⁴⁶ PFF2 261.2

3. PROPHECIES USED TO SUPPORT ARGUMENT

Luther then focused the prophecies of Daniel, Christ, Paul, Peter, Jude, and John upon the Roman Babylon. His main interest was centered on the prophecy of the Little Horn in Daniel 8:9-12, 23-25, ⁴⁷ and 2 Thessalonians 2 was identified as the antichristian power of the Papacy, or even the pope of Rome himself. Likewise the Little Horn of Daniel 7, coming up among the divisions of Rome, received explicit application. ⁴⁸ This is Luther’s first work to deal largely with prophecy, in which he broadens the foundations of the Reformation and places them on the sure ground of prophetic faith. PFF2 261.3

4. STAND AT DIET BASED ON DANIEL’S PROPHECIES

These refutations had just been completed when an imperial herald from Charles V arrived, on April 2, and summoned Luther to the Diet of Worms. With mind convinced of the papal fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecies in chapters 8 and 11, he went to give an account of his position and to hold his ground before this great assembly. Such is the fundamental part prophecy played in building the foundations of the great Reformation. PFF2 262.1

On April 18 Luther testified before the diet that he could not retract. PFF2 262.2

“Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear arguments (since I believe neither the Pope nor the councils alone, it being evident that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my conscience is bound in the word of God. I can not and will not recant anything, since it is unsafe and dangerous to do anything against the conscience.” ⁴⁹ PFF2 262.3

Then follow the familiar words, “Here I stand, God help me!” The moral courage involved in thus standing alone before such a brilliant assembly—vindicating long-lost truth against the ancient and almost universal opinion of mankind, fearless of any reproach but his own conscience, and unafraid of any disapproval but that of God-is truly imposing. It is one of the heroics of history. Verily Luther was God’s chosen instrument for the time. PFF2 262.4

5. WARTBURG EXILE RESULTS IN GREATEST GIFT

As the prophet of old was hid from the wrath of Ahab, so the German Reformer, now under the ban of the empire, was seized by his friends and conveyed to the Wartburg fortress, on the wooded heights south of Eisenach. Here he had safe refuge for a time from the storms that sought to break over him, allowing his beard and his hair to grow long, and donning the costume of a knight. Hidden from his persecutors in the lonely castle, Luther translated the Bible into the vernacular. Though Luther was a prolific writer, and published about 350 treatises, ⁵⁰ this German Bible, translated during his exile, was Luther’s greatest gift—seventeen editions and fifty reprints being issued subsequently in twelve years. Lufft, of Wittenberg, alone printed 100,000 copies of it within forty years. ⁵¹ PFF2 262.5