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Tuesday, July 25, 2023

M28: Impossible!; Walther over Drs. Kolb and Green

       This concludes from Part 27 (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series presenting an English translation of C. F. W. Walther's 1876 essay “The ‘Carrying’ of Melanchthon on the Part of Luther.” — Walther shows this essay was a difficult work of scholarship, that cost him "no small effort". The result? Walther presents his summation so that all who would know the answer to the question "Did Luther carry, or bear with, or "tolerate" Melanchthon errors?" — This concluding portion from LuW, 22, pp. 372-373 [EN]: 
 - - - - - - -  “Luther's ‘Carrying’ of Melanchthon?” by C. F. W. Walther — Part 28 of 28  - - - - - - -
 

But let this be as it may, we ask finally: Can those who cultivate church fellowship with notorious false teachers, if they profess themselves in the main to the teaching of our church, rightly refer to the fact that Luther too carried a Melanchthon? — We answer: Impossible! It is true, if one goes a little deeper into the history of Melanchthon's behavior during the last ten years of Luther's life, such a bleak picture of Melanchthon presents itself to the eye that one must ask oneself with astonishment how it was possible that there was no decisive break between the two men. And we confess that it cost us no small effort, and that it was only our duty not to let our Luther be defiled without contradiction while still in his grave, and to prevent soul-destroying abuse of his name, that prompted us to collect and add one train after another to the drafting of that picture


How much would we have preferred to be able to help that only the memory of Melanchthon should be kept alive from the time of his faithfulness and blessed efficacy, but that the memory of him from the time of his softening and falling should be wiped out and buried forever! May those who, instead of seeking consolation for their syncretism in the Melanchthon who once faithfully stood by his teacher Luther, seek consolation in the Melanchthon who secretly machinates against Luther but publicly professes his faith in him and his teaching, take responsibility for forcing faithful disciples of Luther to draw to the light what they would so gladly see covered up. Luther “carried” Melanchthon with a love that turned everything for the best and hoped for everything, as it is rarely found among Christians. [But Walther had this same love, also Pieper!] But to say that Luther carried Melanchthon as a false teacher who had been revealed before him is contrary to all historical, actual truth and a cruel blasphemy of Luther, the faithful confessor of the pure truth and unbending fighter of any falsification of it until his death


  • Of a man like Melanchthon, who continuously did everything to make Luther believe that he agreed with him in doctrine, 

  • of a man whom, as often as his deviations became apparent to him, Luther seriously reproached,  

  • of a man who, as often as he was reproached, gave way, 

  • of a man who himself lamented, time and again at that time, that he must go forth next to Luther as if under a threatening thunderstorm gathering over his head (page 373), who always feared that he had betrayed himself, to be called to account by Luther and, when Luther polemicized from lectern and pulpit, to be the target,

  • finally, of a man who, even after Luther's death, told Carlowitz what an unbearable “almost shameful servitude” he had endured under Luther — 


to say of such a man, that Luther had carried him as a false teacher who had become obvious, to make him an example for us “from the fundamental time of the Reformation”, would be downright ridiculous, if it were not so sad.  But it is to be ascribed to Luther, the Reformer awakened and sealed by God, that he boldly condemned all others who harbored Melanchthon's errors as false prophets and therefore as ravening wolvesBut that he “carried” and overlooked these same errors in Melanchthon out of special friendship, from which God graciously preserves every Lutheran — to him who does such, God grant sincere repentance.                            W. [C. F. W. Walther]

- - - - - - - - -   End of Essay  - - - - - - - - - -
 
Dr. Robert Kolb
      How should I conclude this monumental essay by Walther?  I would point out that Dr. Robert Kolb essentially called for this study when he stated, in his (mostly critical) 2001 essay on Walther's history of the Formula of Concord, that when Walther noted Melanchthon's confusion of the distinction between the Law and the Gospel, he did it 
"without addressing the historical problem involved in Luther's toleration of such [confusing] expressions". 
Dr. Kolb appears, in this sidebar remark, to assume that Luther "tolerated", or carried, Melanchthon's errors, a position that Walther thoroughly refutes, as did also Prof. Bente. Luther did not tolerate or "carry" or "bear with" Melanchthon's errors.  He could not.  Bente said it well in 1908 (LuW 54, p. 68) that "Luther was not unionistic and indifferentistic in matters of doctrine even towards his best friends". Dr. Kolb needs to sit down and carefully read and digest Walther's essay. But even if he does not change his opinion, that does not mean readers, like me, should blindly follow modernism's so-called "much greater precision", for even Melanchthon said of Luther, when the Evangelicals were under "terrible pressure" from the Catholics,
"The misfortune of the change of doctrine would not threaten us 
if… (Luther) were still alive
but now that there is 
no longer anyone who has his reputation
now that no one warns as he did…"
                                   — Philip Melanchthon, 1548 (Kern und Stern, p. 21)

Melanchthon essentially admitted in this statement that Luther was the better, stronger theologian. He confirmed it in his funeral oration for Luther. —  Who were the greatest defenders of Philip Melanchthon? They aren't today's Philippists, who blindly whitewash his later errors, e.g. Drs. Lowell Green and Robert Kolb, or their followers in the LC-MS such as the "1517." organization leaders (Drs. Keith, Francisco and Rosenbladt), and pastors (Riley and Gillespie [Part 15]), they were the ones who warned against his errors: C. F. W. Walther, Prof. Friedrich Bente, Martin Chemnitz, and Prof. Franz Pieper, who stated (CD I, 30): “Melanchthon never really believed his synergistic theory.”

Luther carried a Melanchthon? — Impossible!

[Further readings on this subject: Walther's 1877 book Kern und Stern (Core and Star), now in English for free; Bente's essay "Did Luther subscribe to Melanchthon's synergism?" (LuW vols. 53, 54, #1, 2, 34, 5, 6, 7, vol. 55, full text Gdoc), Bente's essay "The Apology of the Formula of Concord" LuW 48 p. 171, 221; John Drickamer's essay "Did Melanchthon become a Synergist?", The Springfielder April 1975 p. 95 ff., text here and here; Walther's footnote to his "Foreword" to LuW 28 (1882), pp. 99-103]

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