ReformationUCC.org

(c) 2008 Dr. Phil Corr

In chapter seven of David Larsen’s The Company of Hope: A History of Bible Prophecy in the Church is entitled “Martin Luther–Shifting Currents in Millennial Thought.”

Here are the opening quotations– “Everything written in Scripture must be believed absolutely” –Martin Luther

“The theology of Luther is the purest and most truly living renewal of the eschatology of the New Testament.” –Paul Althaus

“I have done nothing. The Word did it all–my beloved Holy Scripture.” –Martin Luther

“Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead….” –1 Peter 1:3

Then Larsen writes, “Through the Middle Ages the Augustinian de-emphasis on the apocalyptic prevailed although the voices of Joachim of Fiore and others challenged the mutilation of the Christian hope of a coming golden age. We shall see that even in this bleak time significant seeds were sown which come to fruition in the theological revolution we call the Protestant Reformation.

“Central in this mighty spiritual upheaval was of course the Augustinian monk and professor, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Although early on in his ministry and calling Luther was typically Augustinian in his eschatology and had serious doubts about the book of Revelation, later on he became part of shifting currents. In this, Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, was quite similar in coming to a more positive view of history. Calvin on the other hand never moved far from the Augustinian discounting of anything significant in the course of history. He had little interest.

“For Luther, on the other hand, increasingly ‘eschatological tension pervaded his whole world.’ Luther was seen by many in his time and afterwards as an ‘apocalyptic figure’ in his own right…. Barnes… strongly urges us to come to terms with a growing apocalyptic in Luther’s own perspective and teaching. He focuses more and more on the Last Day. Barnes persuasively argues that we cannot ‘understand his Christ-centered theology without and apocalyptic.’”

“Luther as we shall see heard some earlier voices in the Middle Ages which pressed beyond Augustine’s narrow eschatology. But even more tellingly, Luther became an avid student of the Scriptures. At first he confessed of the book Revelation that ‘My spirit cannot make its way into this book.’ Remember that this was a man who did not see a Bible until he was twenty years of age. Then at Erfurt he discovered the Scriptures and was given his own copy of the Bible as he entered his novitiate. He proceeded to master the original languages and as he continued to read Holy Scripture the light began to dawn.

“Hereafter it was to SOLA SCRIPTURA. He rested his arguments upon the text of Scripture. He broke away from ‘the stranglehold of the four senses of Scripture’ to a more literal concern for the original text and the author’s intention. The Bible was to become ‘the people’s book’ in the Reformation and it was the Bible which was to be preached. This ‘surrender to the Word’ (the pure ‘Word’) was crucial in his eschatological journey.

“Wood shows how this ‘sure rule of God’s Word’ played out as Luther exegeted and interpreted Scripture. He protested against ‘spiritualizing’ Scripture and using it as a ‘waxen nose.’ His was a ‘kerugmatik exegesis’ with a radical Christo-centrism. He translated Scripture with the confidence that God cannot lie. Unlike Melancthon his cohort, he was not a systematic thinker. As in his preaching he gushed and erupted volcanically. He opened his assault upon error with a sermon and shows an emerging sense of firm expectation of eschatological reality.”