Martin Luther

MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY
PROF. M. M. NINAN
But he is equally opposed to those whom he calls fanatics. They held that it is the Christian's task to
seek to rule society by the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, and that evil should not be
resisted, but all earthly law and power abolished.
It is contrary to the will of God to try to rule the world through the Gospel. God has ordained an
entirely different authority to rule the world. It is in accordance with His will that power and
the sword are used to that end, and the world is under the sway of that authority, and
not of the Gospel.
The Two Kingdoms and the "Autonomy" of Worldly Life
Since the power in the hands of an individual can be miused how can it be corrected?
Luther’s answer is
‘It is not the business of the spiritual ministry to bear the sword,
but it must demonstrate the Christian way of bearing it.’
In his "Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount," Luther remarks that :
"anyone who claims to be a Christian and a child of God, not only does not start war or unrest;
also he gives help and counsel on the side of peace wherever he can, even though there be a just
and adequate cause for going to war.”
Romans 13:1 - 2 - Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority
except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those
who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
1 Peter 2:13 - 14 - Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men:
whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who
do wrong and to commend those who do right.
Jesus calls us to love our enemies—that means we can’t take up arms against them.
The Church is betraying an essential part of its mission if it does not continually, exhort, warn, and
remind those in earthly authority of the Law of God to which they are subject.
It might be concluded that since the new age has come, we are to be freed from the old. But this is
not wholly true. He who has come to faith through Christ has not ceased to be a child of Adam; he
who has been justified through Christ has not ceased to live in this world of sin and death. .
“A Christian, is at the same time justified and still a sinner. This dualism arises from his allegiance
to ‘two kingdoms, God's and the world‘s. He not only owes allegiance to this world, his whole being
is firmly knit with it and into it.”
The relation in which the two ages stand to one another is not such that the new has supplanted the
old. The old lives on, and continues to exercise its authority over the Christian. He is a dweller in
two worlds, and St. Paul's words in Romans XII speak out directly to him, "Be not conformed to this
world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."
The error of the fanatics is clear.
They do not take the present world with due seriousness. They seem to imagine that the kingdom
of God has come in the fullness of its majesty. The Gospel applicable to the new world they make
into a law applicable to the old. They do not face the reality of the old world, and thus they
falsify the Gospel.
But God has one order for this world and another for the new, and we may not confuse the two with
impunity.
It is equally clear where the secularists have gone astray.
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