Luther’s Publications Mortally Wounded the Church of
Rome
Luther
and the printing press arrived so powerfully that the Church of Rome could not
kill, torture, imprison, and enslave Evangelicals fast enough to stop the
Reformation. The Beast of Revelation[1] was
mortally wounded and never recovered its full strength in promoting error in
the name of Mary, Purgatory, the Mass, and the infallibility of the pope. One
part of the Reformation miracle was the built-up hunger of people for God’s love,
grace, and forgiveness through the Savior. The instrument of communication was
the printing press, but the energy came from Luther’s writing. An expert in early
publishing stated:
Gutenberg
had produced an orthodox Latin Bible and he had taken advantage of a large
market of printed indulgences. Luther launched the Reformation by an attack on
indulgences and he dethroned the Latin Bible from the heart of Western
Christendom, but he used the printing press as no one had ever done before.
Over 3,700 separate editions of books and pamphlets by Martin Luther were
published in his lifetime, not including Bible translations. This is an immense
number for any one author, even by today’s standards. It is an average of
almost two publications a week for most of his adult life. In his time, Luther
was by far the most extensively published author who had ever lived.[2]
Luther, Melanchthon, and the Concordists
Luther attracted and worked with brilliant men who wrote
in harmony with the Reformer. Melanchthon was his younger associate from the
beginning, an acclaimed scholar and editor/author of the Augsburg Confession
and its defense – The Apology. Fifty years after Augsburg Confession, Martin Chemnitz
and others collected the Book of Concord, which included the Formula of Concord,
1580. Chemnitz was a student of Luther and Melanchthon, with the best qualities
of most men. The second generation of Biblical scholars dealt with issues about
false doctrine and defended clearly the Scriptural truths of the Reformation –
Justification by Faith, the efficacy of the Word and Sacraments, and the
inerrancy of the Scriptures. However, the Reformation and the Book of Concord
era have been neglected and supplanted by the insights of Zwingli, Calvin, and
Robert Schuller.
[1]
Revelation 13: 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding
count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is
Six hundred threescore and six.
[2]
Christopher De Hamel, The Book, A History of the Bible, p 236, 2001.
