4. The majesty and glory of the Christian Church.
The members of the Christian church, as a church, are subject only to Christ, but to no man, 1 Cor. 3:23: "Ye are Christ's," νμεϊς Χρίστον; Matt. 23:8: "One is your Master, Christ; but you are all brethren." Christians are strongly exhorted to maintain this sovereignty in the face of all claims to supremacy which may be asserted, 1 Cor. 7:23: "Ye are bought with a dear price; become not the servants of men." The Pope, who claims under Christ's name that all Christians are subject to him, is eo ipso the Antichrist, of whom 2 Thess. 2 is addressed, and against whose arrogance, covered with Christian pretense (lying powers, signs and wonders), Christians are still especially warned. It is true that Christ gives special gifts to individual members of His Church, and among these also the special gift of teaching and governing other Christians. But this does not make the members of the Church subject to men, because all doctrines and governance among Christians do not extend further than their one Master's word.1507) The teachers who want to teach beyond Christ's word consider them, according to the instructions of Scripture, to be puffed-up know-nothings,1508) and those who
1502) Acts 20:17. 28; Tit. 1:5 (coll. 7).
1503) Rom. 16:17; Gal. 1:6-8.<w:t>1504) Joh. 3:16-18, 36.
1505) Trid., sess. VI, can. 20.<w:t>1506) Gal. 3:10.
1507) 1 Pet. 4:11; Jer. 23:16, 18.<w:t>1508) 1 Tim. 6:3 ff.
476 > The Christian Church. [English ed. ~ 412-413.]
want to give them commandments beyond Christ's word, for example, those who prohibit people from getting married and dare to impose dietary and fasting laws see them as arrogant fraudsters and spreaders of doctrines of the devil.1509) The Pope can impose a fast on himself, but not on any other man in the world. Even the high apostles as human persons are not subject to Christians. The Smalcald Articles say, "Neither Peter nor other ministers of the Word may ascribe to them some power or supremacy over the Church," and they justify this correctly by 1 Cor. 3:21 ff: "All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos, whether Cephas or the world." True, Christians have the infallible word of Christ through the apostles, and to the word of Christ they are subject. But even in the infallible presentation of the Word of Christ, the apostles are only the servants of the believers. The believers are not there for the sake of the apostles, but the apostles are there for the sake of the believers, wherefore also Paul expressly says: "We preach not ourselves, but Lord Jesus as the Lord, but ourselves servants for Jesus' sake" (εαυτούς δε δονλονς υμών διά Ίησονν). It is not between the Christians and their God that Mary or Peter or the apostles or other men stand as mediators, but through faith in Christ all believers have immediate access to God.1510) They and no one else in the world and in the Church are the original possessors of the means of grace.1511) It does not stand that they have the means of grace only indirectly because Christ gave them to certain individuals in the church (pope, bishops, a preaching class) for original possession. And because they are in possession of the means of grace, they are also in possession of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.1512) They and no one else among men have the appointment of the public Ministry. Their confession of Christ as the Son of the living God, or what is the same: their proclamation of the Gospel in the world, is the rock on which Christ builds His Church.1513) Not only is the government of the world and the universe carried out in their interest,
1509) 1 Tim. 4:1 ff; Col. 2:20 ff.<w:t>1510) Eph. 3:12; Hebr. 4:16.
1511) 1 Pet. 2:9; Is. 40:9; Matt. 28:18-20 etc. All of these points will be discussed in more detail later.
1512) Matt. 16:19; 18:18; Joh. 20:23.
1513) Thus Luther correctly wrote in the marginal gloss to Matt. 16:18: " All Christians are Peter because of the confession that Peter
477 > The Christian Church. [English ed. ~ 413-414]
makes here, which [confession] is the rock from which Peter and all Peters are built." The relation of "rock" to the person of Peter, either as apostle primarius, or as representative of the apostles, is entirely excluded, 1. by the context, 2. by the wording. As for the context, neither the preceding nor the following speaks of Peter as an Apostle, but only of Peter as a faithful person. Christ asks his disciples what the audience, oi ανϑρωποι, thought of him. When the disciples report that the people were divided, but agreed that Christ was a mere man, Christ asks the disciples, not about their apostolate, but about their faith. And when Peter confesses the faith of the disciples with the words, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God," and this faith is acknowledged by Christ to be the right faith wrought by God, Christ speaks the words, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," and adds by way of explanation, "I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: all that thou shalt loose from the earth," etc. From the context it stands clear that nothing is said here about Peter as an apostle, but the whole statement goes to Peter, in so far as he believes rightly of Christ and confesses this faith. Furthermore: That the person of the apostle Peter is completely left out and only the believing and confessing Peter is taken into consideration, stands for the fact that Christ gives the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter in ch. 18:18 with exactly the same words to all believers: "What you will bind on earth" etc.. But also the wording: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my congregation" forbids to refer the "rock" to the person of Peter. That Peter and the rock find two quite different things is evident from the fact that — as Luther states it popularly but clearly — that Peter is a “der” (masculine), the rock a “die” (feminine) (XX, 282). In the German or English translation, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," the difference does not appear so clearly, because in German "Petrus" and "Fels" are both a "der," namely, both of masculine generation. In Greek, however, the rock is a "the" (feminine ) (ή πέτρα), while Peter (πέτρος) is a “the” (masculine). The difference comes out if we render the passage something like this: You are Petros (πέτρος), and on this Petra (επί ταντγι τί} πέτρα) I will build my church. So Luther also already in 1519 against Eck in his Epistola ad monachos conventus Iutterboccensis et defensio contra malignum Ioh. Eccii iudicium. Opp. v. a. II, 477 sqq;. St. L. XVIII, 1375 f. After Luther points out that otherwise in Scripture Peter is not called the Rock, he continues: "Also in this passage [Matt. 16:18] Christ clearly distinguishes Peter from petra. For if by petra he had meant Peter, he would have said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon thee will I build my church'; but since he puts the word petra the second time, he clearly indicates that another is Peter, another is petra, which he distinguishes from Peter by the pronoun hanc" (this, feminine) "from Peter. And so I will easily defend from the present text that Eck cannot show that Peter is the petra (the rock)." Meyer, too, contrary to context and text, relates the πέτρα to the person of the Apostle and therefore also wants to grant Peter a primacy among the apostles. Only he rejects the Roman consequences, namely the relation to
478 > The Christian Church. [English ed. ~ 414-415]
but insofar as they possess through faith everything that Christ possesses and do everything that Christ does,1514) they are owners of the universe, the world and all the conditions of the world, 1 Cor. 3:21 f.:"All things are yours …, whether Cephas or the world, whether life or death, whether things present or things to come: all things are yours." Meyer's restriction "in the future αίών" is entered. The text does not have this restriction. In short, Christians are the richest and most powerful society in the world. Through faith in Christ, the floodgates of grace and blessing of heaven have opened over them. The believers have everything, the unbelievers nothing.
the Pope, "since Jesus has no successors of Peter in mind, nor are the popes such successors". The latter is true, but the former is not. Christ does, however, have successors of Peter in mind, because what he states ch. 16 of Peter, ch. 18 he promises to all believers. If Meyer wants to be consistent with the context and text of Matt. 16:18, he must come back from Luther's explanation of the passage, namely, to the explanation": "All Christians are Peter because of the confession that Peter makes here, which is the rock from which Peter and all the Peters find themselves built." If Meyer thinks that in the Smalcald Articles Luther's explanation of xxxxx "generalized to the concept of verum ministerium," this is a mistake. The Smalcald Articles expressly declare verum ministerium to be ministerium illius professionis, quam Petrum fecerat. [Google] In the German text (333, 25 [Trigl. 511, ibid., 25 🔗]): "But that it standeth: 'And upon this rock I will build my church,' it must ever be confessed that the church is not built out of the power of any man, but is built out of the ministry which leads the confession which Peter makes, namely, that Jesus is the Christ and Son of God." "Christ, the Son of the living God," is a brief designation of the whole content of the Gospel which the Church has to confess or preach in the world, and on which at the same time the Church itself stands with its faith. A factual parallel is Eph. 2:20. But the apostle's word and confession to Christ and of Christ is no other word and confession than the one commanded to all believers. Luther's version of Matt. 16:18 is found not only among the old theologians (cf. Calov on the passage), but also among more recent ones (Lange, Ewald, Wieseler). Here, too, the bad habit of unnecessarily increasing the number of different expositions has crept into the commentaries. Thus, two different expositions of πέτρα are usually cited as 1. Christ, 2. the confession of Christ. In fact, we are dealing with only one exposition, since faith never stands directly, but always only indirectly on Christ, namely, on the Christ whom Peter, the apostles, and all Christians confess (profitentur, praedicant).
1514) Cf. the section "Value and Effect of the Prayer of Christians," p. 98 ff.
479 > The Christian Church. [English ed. ~ 415-416]