Heavenly Springs

Holding Fast The Doctrines of Grace

Philip Melanchthon on the Death of Martin Luther

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When Martin Luther died his close friend, and leader of the Protestant Reformation, Philip Melanchthon, delivered a powerful eulogy.  In his tribute, Melanchthon addresses Luther’s well-known brashness and harshness of tone.  Indeed, it was no secret that Luther, for all his education, wasn’t one for refinement. In fact, his wife, Katharina, often chided him as being “too raw”. But during a time when preaching the Gospel could mean having your tongue cut out, it seems to me Luther was just the man for the hour.

Here’s Melanchthon giving glory to God alone for the life of a man who, for all his problems, was key to preserving a Gospel of grace for generations to come.

“Some by no means evil-minded persons, however, express a suspicion that Luther manifested too much asperity. I will not affirm the reverse, but only quote the language of Erasmus, “God has sent in this latter age a violent physician on account of the magnitude of the existing disorders,” fulfilling by such a dispensation the divine message to Jeremiah, “Behold I have put My words in thy mouth. See I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out and pull down, and to destroy and throw down, to build and to plant.” Nor does God govern His church according to the counsels of men, nor choose to employ instruments like theirs to promote His purposes. But it is usual for inferior minds to dislike those of a more ardent character.”

Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. – Psalms 115:3 (NIV)

Online Source:  On the Death of Luther by Philip Melanchthon

Click here to read some of the things that Luther actually said!

Luther on Trials and Tribulation

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martin-luther

“All heaviness of mind and melancholy come of the devil; especially these thoughts, that God is not gracious unto him: that God will have no mercy upon him. Whosoever thou art, possessed with such heavy thoughts, know for certain, that they are a work of the devil. God sent his Son into the world, not to affright, but to comfort. Therefore be of good courage, and think, that henceforward thou art not the child of a human creature, but of God, through faith in Christ, in whose name thou art baptized; therefore the spear of death cannot enter into thee; he has no right unto thee, much less can he hurt or prejudice thee, for he is everlastingly swallowed up through Christ.”

Luther, Martin (2012-09-21). The Table Talk of Martin Luther (pp. 160-161). Dover Publications. Kindle Edition.

Martin Luther on Extra-Biblical Revelation

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martinluther“I have made a covenant with God that he sends me neither visions, dreams, nor even angels.  I am well satisfied with the gift of the Holy Scriptures, which give me abundant instruction in all that I need to know both for this life and for that which is to come.”

Martin Luther

Quoted by Steven J. Lawson
Holman Old Testament Commentary: Psalms 76-150, Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2006 p234

HT: The Barnabas Files

Luther on God’s Word

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luther-w-bible“That the Bible is God’s word and book I prove thus:  All things that have been, and are, in the world, and the manner of their being, are described in the first book of Moses on the creation; even as God made and shaped the world, so does it stand to this day.

Infinite potentates have raged against this book, and sought to destroy and uproot it – king Alexander the Great, the princes of Egypt and of Babylon, the monarchs of Persia, of Greece, and of Rome, the emperors Julius and Augustus – but they nothing prevailed; they are all gone and vanished, while the book remains, and will remain for ever and ever, perfect and entire, as it was declared at the first.

Who has thus helped it; who has thus protected it against such mighty forces?  No one, surely, but God himself, who is the master of all things.  And ’tis no small miracle how God has so long preserved and protected this book; for the devil and the world are sore foes to it.  I believe that the devil has destroyed many good books of the church, as, aforetime, he killed and crushed many holy persons, the memory of whom has now passed away; but the Bible he was fain to leave subsisting.

In like manner have baptism, the sacrament of the altar, of the true body and blood of Christ and, the office of  preaching remained unto us, despite the infinitude of tyrants and heretic persecutors.  God, with singular strength, has upheld these things; let us, then, baptize, administer the sacrament, and preach, fearless of impediment.  Homer, Virgil, and other noble, fine, and profitable writers, have left us books of great antiquity; but they are nought to the Bible.

While the Romish church stood, the Bible was never given to the people in such a shape that they could clearly, understandingly, surely, and easily read it, as they now can in the German translation, which, thank God, we have prepared here at Wittenberg.”

Martin Luther, “The Tabletalk of Martin Luther”