Did You Miss Chemnitz' Birthday, Too?

09 November 2007
+ Martin Chemnitz +
9 November AD 1522 – 8 April AD 1586

From Aardvark Alley

Today marks the birthday of Martin Chemnitz, Pastor and Confessor. We regard him as, after Martin Luther, the Lutheran Church's most important theologian. He possessed a penetrating intellect and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture and the Church Fathers combined with a genuine love for the Church.

Doctrinal quarrels after Luther's death in 1546 led Chemnitz to give himself fully to the restoration of unity in the Lutheran Church. He became the leading spirit and a principal author of the 1577 Formula of Concord, which settled the doctrinal disputes on the basis of the Scriptures and largely succeeded in restoring unity among Lutherans. Work on the Formula led Chemnitz and others to gather all the normative doctrinal statements confessed by the Lutherans, from the ancient creeds through the Evangelical writings of the 16th Century, into one volume, the Book of Concord.

Chemnitz also authored the four volume Examination of the Council of Trent (1565-1573). This monumental work saw him rigorously subjecting the pronouncements of this Roman Catholic Council to judgment by Scripture and the Church Fathers. The Examination is the definitive Lutheran answer to the Concilium Tridentinum and an outstanding exposition of the faith of the Augsburg Confession.

While he was an outstanding academic, Chemnitz also ably served in church administration. He joined the Wittenberg University faculty in January 1554 and was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry by Johannes Bugenhagen in November of that same year. Then, after serving for several years as co-adjutor of the churches in the region of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, he became Superintendent (ecclesiastical supervisor), holding the post until his death. In this capacity, he worked diligently to balance the congregations' autonomy, particularly in calling pastors, with input and oversight by the the area ministerium.

As theologian and a churchman, "the Second Martin" was truly a gift of God to the Church. This is why the expression was coined, Si Martinus non fuisset, Martinus vix stetisset. ("If Martin [Chemnitz] had not come along, Martin [Luther] would hardly have survived.")

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GJ - The Lutheran Reformation was not only blessed with Luther and Melanchthon, but also with Chemnitz and the Concordists (fellow editors of the Book of Concord). ELCA and its predecessor bodies cleverly avoided mentioning anything after 1530, so those pastors have almost no knowledge of the Book of Concord.

When I was doing my doctoral dissertation at Notre Dame, I realized that the Lutheran Church in America had more in common with liberal Baptists like Rauschenbusch than with Luther and Chemnitz. My real education in the Book of Concord came from being surrounded by Church Growth robots in WELS. Every aspect of Biblical, Lutheran doctrine was constantly under sttack by these self-inflated gurus.

I created Martin Chemnitz Press to honor the Second Martin and to generate a little more knowledge about this great theologian. I confess to being a complete failure among fellow Boomers: I cannot convert Lutheran pastors to Lutheran doctrine. They bow either to Fuller Seminary, the Antichrist in Rome, or his clone in Constantinople. However, there is hope among the younger pastors and laity.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Did You Miss Chemnitz' Birthday, Too?":

I just finished reading a 24 page paper on Chemnitz yesterday! Very good and interesting. Most of the material in it came from J.A.O. Preus's book. I wonder though how Chemnitz justified to himself the doing of personal horoscopes for the Duke? We all have our faults I suppose. His expertise in Astrology is curious and it seems as though he himself doubted the believability of it. What do you make of this area of interest on his part? But still he was magnificent and as you point out, the Romanists even admit if it were not for MC the work of ML would have barely survived. Thanks to God for such an incredible gift to the Church and Lutheran teaching and for a great defender against false teachers.

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GJ - God works in mysterious way, His wonders to perform. Astrology got Chemnitz into a fabulous library when books were still expensive. That gave Chemnitz a remarkable education in the Church Fathers. He took notes. He also saw the emptiness of astrology. Melanchthon believed in signs and omens. We have to remember that the Reformers were Medieval men, raised in that nonsense. Look at the Medieval focus on Mary and Purgatory. That they overcame those illusions is quite remarkable.

Here is one source on that topic.

The Jack Preus bio of Chemnitz is worth owning and reading.

Chemnitz is not the only one who saved the Lutheran Reformation. God had a deep bench in that era. However, he was clearly the best of the theologians after Luther.