This continues from Part 4 (Table of Contents in Part 1), a translation of Franz Pieper's essay on the foundation of the Christian faith ("Das Fundament des christlichen Glaubens"). — Luther's forcefulness in declaring the Pope, not just the "Papacy", to be the very Antichrist is largely downplayed in today's LC-MS. To compare the two, I offer the following quotes. Luther's Smalcald Articles, II, IV, 10:
“The Pope is the very Antichrist”.
In contrast, the new 2018 seminary textbook to replace Franz Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, Samuel Nafzger's Confessing the Gospel (CPH 2018) p. 1138, changes Luther's words to say this:
“[The papacy] is the true end-times Antichrist”.
Nafzger's textbook forces a substitution of the words "the papacy" onto Luther's actual words "the Pope". What this does for the LCMS is to be "Just Sayin'" on the doctrine of the Antichrist of the Lutheran Confessions, and avoids labeling the current officeholder, Pope Francis, as the very Antichrist. Note well: Pieper names the current sitting Pope of his day, Pius XI, and clearly identifies him as… the Antichrist in his day. The LCMS today will not do this for today. So how can they call themselves "Confessional Lutherans"? — But let us continue with the true Luther presented by Pieper below.
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Text preparation and translation by BackToLuther using DeepL, Google Translate, Microsoft Translate, Yandex Translate. All bold text is Pieper's emphasis. All highlighting, red text, and most text in square brackets [ ] is mine.
The Foundation of the Christian Faith.
Luther reports from his own experience: 24) “I once saw a monk who took a cross into his hand and, when the other monks praised all their works, said: ‘I know of none of my merits but only of the merits which died for me on the cross’ and in reliance on that merit he also died.” The Roman Church also has the right baptism, through which is always born spiritual children in Christ. And Luther comments: “Now if a baptized child lives and then dies in his seventh or eighth year, before he understands the whorelike church of the pope, he has in truth been saved and will be saved—of that we have no doubt.” 25) But then begins the spiritual killing of the souls who have been baptized into Christ's kingdom. Luther continues: “But when he grows up, and hears, believes, and obeys your preaching with its lies and devilish innovations, then he becomes a whore of the devil like you and falls away from his baptism and bridegroom—as happened to me and others—building and relying on his own works, … whereas, by contrast, the child is baptized to rely and build on his one dear bridegroom and Lord, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us!” And on this doctrine of works, through which is the apostasy from Christ, [page 81]
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the dear bridegroom of souls, furthermore the whole life is set under the papacy. Those who have fallen from baptismal grace (the lapsi) must not return to their baptismal grace in repentant faith, but instead are referred to their baptism on the “second plank” (secundam tabulam), namely on “penance”. (Council of Trent. Sess. XIV, de poenitentiae sacramento) By “penance” the Papists do not mean the knowledge of sins and faith in the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ and promised in the Gospel and in Baptism, but three human works: contritio cordis, confessio oris, satisfactio operis: self-made repentance, aural confession and satisfaction through one's own works. This is vain murder of the soul because it leads away from the foundation of the Christian faith, which is nothing other than divine grace and mercy, which forgives sins for Christ's perfect merit and does not require any merit or worthiness for the forgiveness of sins.
As far as the treatment of souls under the papacy is concerned, it has been compared with the result of when “the elephant gets into a china shop”. Luther in his writing against Duke Heinrich of Braunschweig recalls another but very old picture. He writes:
“When the painters of old painted the Last Judgment, they pictured hell as a great dragon’s head with vast jaws, in the middle of which, in the fire, stood the pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, emperors, kings, princes, all kinds of men and women, but never a young child. I really do not know how one should, or could, paint or describe the church of the pope better, more to the point, or more clearly. It represents indeed the jaws of hell, and through the mouth of the devil, that is, through its devilish preaching and teaching [of works righteousness], it swallows into the abyss of hell first and foremost the pope himself, and then all the world.” (St. L. XVII,1334. [Am. Ed. 41, 206])
Luther therefore says l.c.: “Thus it is time to hear the voice of the angel in Revelation 18:4–5, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven.’”
But what about our own time within Protestantism? We have repeatedly had to report in our synodical papers that some British and American Episcopals want to unite with Rome. They said that they no longer wanted to share in the sin of staying away from Rome. The Leipzig “A.E.L.K.” wrote last year regarding Germany: “It is now Catholic time.” “You can tell from the attitude of governments, you can tell from our literature.”
Such and similar statements have encouraged the present Pope, Pius XI, in [page 82] his Jubilee Bull of May 31 last year [1924], to also invite Protestants to Rome. He promises to welcome them lovingly, to forget their secession altogether and to rank them among his most faithful sons. He will grant them complete indulgence, remission and forgiveness of their sins when they receive the holy altar sacraments on ten days and visit the prescribed principal churches of Rome. In all those who feel inclined to follow this papal invitation, there is contempt for the divine work of the Reformation by Luther, the work through which God has shown, for the good of all Christianity and the whole world, that the Papal Church, which presents itself as the only blessed Church except for which no one can be saved, is completely detached from the foundation of the Christian faith and, under an external ecclesiastical appearance, is the greatest enemy of the Christian Church. F.P.
= = = = = = = = = = continued in Part 6 = = = = = = = = = =Enough of the Papacy!… a truly horrifying church body, even if the world today (and in Pieper's day!) does not believe this. — In the next Part 6, Pieper moves on to the next great division from the foundation of Christianity, the Reformed.
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