LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

LEININGER: HOW LUTHERAN WAS WILLIAM TYNDALE 59
here, but it appears that English scholars have over-read Luther’s polemic
against Erasmus, while also neglecting Luther’s more mature, pastoral
theology found in his commentaries of Galatians, Genesis, or John, where he
consistently uses election as an assurance for the trouble conscience and to
repudiate salvation by works, and never to touch on reprobation. In fact,
Tyndale’s doctrine is indistinguishable from Luther’s: both reformers
regarded election as flowing from grace and justification, and only to be
used as an application of the Gospel.
But more importantly for our purposes, the passage concerning election
from Tyndale’s prologue (cited above) which Trueman uses to distinguish
Tyndale from Luther, in fact is a direct quotation from Luther:
In chapters 9, 10, and 11 he teaches of God’s eternal predestination—out of
which originally proceeds who shall believe or not, who can or cannot get rid
of sin—in order that our salvation may be taken entirely out of our hands and
put in the hand of God alone. And this too is utterly necessary. For we are so
weak and uncertain that if it depended on us, not even a single person would
be saved; the devil would surely overpower us all. But since God is
dependable—his predestination cannot fail, and no one can withstand him—
we still have hope in the face of sin. 20
Instead of contrasting Tyndale with Luther, Trueman is actually contrasting
Luther with Luther: pitting Bondage of the Will against the Preface to
Romans, as Tyndale translated it!
This is not meant detract from the general usefulness of Trueman’s
Luther’s Legacy, but rather to point to the larger difficulty which arises when
discussing Tyndale’s view of salvation: we have to be particularly
circumspect in determining precisely where Tyndale is elaborating or
detracting from Luther.
But a second and more fundamental difficulty arises as we try to contrast
soteriology in the two reformers: before we can ask, “How Lutheran was
Tyndale” should we not first ask, “How Lutheran was Luther” That is to
say, which Luther Tyndale uses will go a long way in determining the nature
of his theology. The young Luther–old Luther distinction is well known and
20 AE 35:378. The American Edition of Luther’s preface to Romans translates from his
complete Bible of 1546 (WA DB 7:2-27). Tyndale borrowed from the prefaces to Luther’s
“September Testament” of 1522, which the St. Louis edition follows:
Um neunten, zehnten und elften Capitel lehrt er von der ewigen Versehung Gottes,
daher es ursprünglich fleußt, wer glauben oder nicht glauben soll, von Sünden los
oder nicht los werden kann; damit es je gar aus unsern Händen genommen, und allein
in Gotttes Hand gestellet sei, daß wir fromm werden. Und das ist auch aufs
allerhöchste noth. Denn wir sind so schmach und ungewiß, daß, wenn es bei uns
stünde, würde freilich nicht Ein Mensch selig, der Teufel würde sie gewißlich alle
überwältigen. Aber nun GOtt gewiß ist, daß ihm sein Versehen nicht fehlet, noch
jemand ihm wehren kann, haben wir noch Hoffnung wider die Sünde (W 2 14:107 40 ).