Fundament 4: Papacy 2 – Lodge outdone by Papacy; Luther declares Antichrist

      This continues from Part 3 (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"). — The following teaching on the Papacy is considered to be a relic of the past by modern Lutheran teachers and scholars. More will be said about this later. But first we must hear what Pieper and Luther have to say about it.

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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.

Das Fundament des christlichen Glaubens.

The Foundation of the Christian Faith.

[by President Franz Pieper, Concordia Seminary; continued from Part 3 - page 78]

But this [page 78] outrage is outdone by the Papacy. 

The lodges do not claim to represent the Christian faith at all. On the contrary, they expressly reject it. The Papacy, on the other hand, claims to be the Christian Church, the Church, except for which there is no salvation, extra quam salus nulla est. The Pope sits down in the temple of God, in the Christian Church, and claims to be Vicar of Christ (vicarius Christi) on earth, to whom everyone who wants to be saved must be subjected. He also supports this claim with a tremendous expenditure of external Christian pomp, with the signs of the cross behind and in front and with all sorts of lying powers and signs and miracles. And in so doing he curses the Christian doctrine of justification, the doctrine by which alone the Christian church, the congregation of believers, comes into existence and is preserved in this existence. God in His Word praises the blessed, who believe, “that the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works”: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” (Rom.4:6-8) But what God blesses is cursed by the Church of the Pope, as we have already heard, in the Council of Trent, where the curse is pronounced on all who place their trust in the divine mercy, which for Christ's sake remits their sins without the condition of keeping the commandments of God and the Church. That is why Luther calls the Papacy and those who adhere to it “the highest enemies of the Christian Church, angrier and more harmful than any pagans or Turks are”. (St. L. XII, 496. Sermon on Easter Monday on Acts 10:34 ff. [Am. Ed. ?; Lenker v. 8, p. § 14])  Pagans and Turks—we add also the Unitarians and the Lodges—stand extra ecclesiam, they are enemies of the Christian Church from outside. 

The Papacy is the enemy from within, who has sat down in the temple of God and does his spiritual work of murder under Christ's name and Word. “The Pope”, says Luther, 

“confesses this word: ‘Christ is coming into the flesh’, but he denies its fruit.…  He denies the power of his future (his coming into the flesh), which is that our heart should place its trust in the righteousness of Christ alone and thereby become just. The Pope condemns this article in his bulls that we would be justified by the righteousness of Christ alone, which is nevertheless the effect of his Incarnation. . . . The Pope takes away the core of Christ and leaves only empty words. He leaves him the shell and takes out the core. For he confesses Christ's righteousness, but that our righteousness will not be abolished. And that's as much as confessing nothing… Nobody has the qualities of the Antichrist so cunning, so deviously [page 79]

fulfilled as the Pope. Manichaeus indeed, Marcion, Valentinus also came roughly when they said that the flesh (the body) of Christ was only a deception (φάντασμα) [“a ghost”, phantom Matt. 14:26] and had seemed only as if it were flesh; and the enthusiasts say: Christ's flesh is no good. But the Pope's spirit is the most subtle of all, as he, while confessing the future [the Incarnation] of Christ, and retains the apostolic words and apostolic sermons, has taken out the core which consists in Christ coming, in making sinners blessed.…

He left everything to appearances, but in fact he took everything. This requires art and deceit to stain everything under the best of appearances and to say that Christ suffered for us, yet at the same time teach that we must do enough. All other heretics are only in certain parts antichrists, but this one is the only and true Antichrist. He left everything to appearances, but in fact he took everything. This requires art and deceit to stain everything under the best of appearances and to say that Christ suffered for us, yet at the same time teach that we must do enough. All other heretics are only in certain parts antichrists, but this one is the only and true Antichrist.” (St. L. IX, 1472 ff. [Am. Ed. 30, p. 285-287]) 

This raises the question of how it is possible that even under the Papacy there are still true Christians, dear children of God. And yet this is a fact. Our Lutheran confession also repeatedly points this out. After the Apology of the Augsburg Confession characterized the papist mass as an abomination “against all Scripture, against all prophets and apostles”, it continues: 

“As in Israel a false divine service was done with Baal, also false divine services were under the glow of the divine service which God ordered, so the Antichrist in the church also made a false divine service out of the Supper of Christ. And yet, just as God under Israel and Judah has nevertheless kept his Church, that is, quite a number of saints, so God has nevertheless kept his Church, that is, quite a number of saints, under the papacy, that the Christian Church has not completely perished”. (M. 270, 98. [based on German text; Latin text base Trigl. p. 416, § 98, BoC here])  

And before that, according to the Latin text: 

“Even though Popes, or some theologians, and monks in the Church have taught us to seek remission of sins, grace, and righteousness through our own works, and to invent new forms of worship, which have obscured the office of Christ, and have made out of Christ not a Propitiator and Justifier, but only a Legislator, nevertheless the knowledge of Christ has always remained with some godly persons.” (M. 151, 271. [Trigl. p. 224, § 271-272, BoC here])

Luther's words are also well known: “I contend that in the Papacy there is true Christianity, even the right kind of Christianity”. Luther adds the reason: 

“Listen to what St. Paul says to the Thessalonians [2 Thess. 2:4): ‘The Antichrist takes his seat in the temple of God.’ If now the pope is (and I cannot believe otherwise) the veritable Antichrist, he will not sit or reign in the devil’s stall, but in the temple of God. No, he will not sit where there are only devils and unbelievers, or where no Christ or Christendom exist. [page 80] For he is an Antichrist and must thus be among Christians. And since he is to sit and reign there it is necessary that there be Christians under him. God’s temple is not the description for a pile of stones, but for the holy Christendom (1 Cor. 3:17), in which he is to reign.” (St. L. XVII, 2191. [Am. Ed. 40, p. 232])

But here it is to be noted that the official teaching and activity of the Antichrist is not aimed at the preservation but at the destruction of Christianity. “The Pope persecutes us, curses us, banishes us, chases us away, burns us, slaughters us and treats us poor Christians like a right Antichrist should treat Christianity.” His business is soul murder. As little as someone who believes the Unitarian religion can be a Christian, so little can someone who has the official Roman religion of righteousness from one’s own works in his heart be a Christian. 

There is no such Christian faith, which relies partly on Christ, partly on its own righteousness. This is the Christian psychology explicitly taught in Scripture: “But if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.” (Rom. 11:6)  But now all the religions of works have the characteristic that they refute themselves in the serious case, namely in the time when consciences are rightly struck by God's law. So there were and still are souls under the papacy who, in fear of conscience and death, oppose the prohibition of the sixth session, twelfth canon of the Council of Trident and trust only in divine mercy which for the sake of Christ forgives their sins. In the Papacy there is still the text of the Gospels and Epistles, as Luther often remembers. 

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      Modern Lutheranism says (or wants to say) that Vatican II changed the teaching in the Papacy.  But as blogged before, that is fiction. Wikipedia reports the following directions of the Pope  for the opening of Vatican II:

“…without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent…”. – Pope John XXIII, October 11, 1962

And even the great LC-MS "historian" Dr. Carl S. Meyer admitted that “the pope did not propose that the [Vatican II] council revise or change Roman Catholic doctrine.” (Meyer-Tjernagel, A History of Western Christianity – p. 271)  So far from being a relic of the past, the teaching above by Pieper and Luther is meant for today, here and now. What more can I say to this?  Back To Luther. — In Part 5...