Saturday, November 6, 2010
1 John 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
THE STANDARD: SCRIPTURE ALONE
When Luther got to study the Scriptures for himself, he was delighted to find they were not hard to understand. If faithfully translated, the Scripture's chief teachings were easily understood, even by a child!
He also discovered that not only had past church councils disagreed and contradicted each other in their official pronouncements, these church councils had also contradicted God's Holy Word. God pushed Luther to see this through the Leipzig debate.
At the debate, Luther was accused of being a "Hussite." Huss was teacher in the church from years past. Luther insisted he was NOT a follower of Huss. Then Luther's accuser asked why Luther didn't publicly speak against Huss' writings. Luther said that was because much of what Huss said was exactly right according to the Bible! How can you condemn stuff like that!
But the Catholic church HAD condemned Huss' writings at the Council of Constance. Now Luther was in a sticky spot. He had said writings condemned by the church were actually GOOD! Finally, Luther simply said, well, councils can make mistakes -- and they had when it came to Huss.
Through continual contact with Scripture, Luther completely abandoned his deference to councils, popes and anything other than the Word of God.
"It is a horrible and great insult to, and crime against, Holy Writ and all Christendom to say that Scripture is dark and not clear enough for everyone to understand, so that he might be instructed by Scripture what to believe and might prove his faith by quoting it" ("This is Luther," Plass).
Luther insisted that all things should be tested by the Scriptures to find their truth and worth. This included traditions, councils, popes, cardinals, monks -- EVEN an individual's own thoughts and opinions.
