Walther on the Apocrypha: "bad crumbs" (Purgatory)

      The subject of the Apocrypha books comes up at times. If one queries the search engines one is faced with much secondary information, opinions, and confusion among the populace. On the teaching of the Catholic Church Wikipedia reports: 

"Many of these texts are considered canonical Old Testament books by the Catholic Church, affirmed by the Council of Rome (382) and later reaffirmed by the Council of Trent (1545–1563)". 

So when I ran across C. F. W. Walther's comments on this subject, I took note of it. This was included in his essay to the 1873 Western District and his comments are most instructive. In this essay, Walther quotes John Gerhard as he refutes the pope's disrespect of the sacred Scriptures. Walther's comments are in parentheses. Gerhard points out how the popes achieve this (from page 46): 

"2. By appending to the certain and immovable Word of God presented in the canonical books the apocryphal writings, which contain uncertain and false assertions".

(This is very important. We also have the apocrypha in our Bible book, e.g. Jesus Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Maccabees, etc.; but it is stated above that they are not to be regarded as Holy Scripture, but only to be read carefully. From them we can read what the Jewish church believed after the appearance of the prophets up to the time of Christ, which otherwise the common people would not know at all. But they also contain many falsehoods. It says that the witch of Endor brought the real Samuel out of death, that a certain Rhazis performed a great heroic deed with his suicide, that Judas Maccabeus did well to send two thousand drachmas to Jerusalem as a sin offering, and that it was a good and holy opinion to pray for the dead that their sins might be forgiven. Of course, when the Roman priests read about the 2,000 drachmas, they thought: "This is a good passage, we must not delete it from the Bible," and they looked at the 2,000 drachmas with one eye and at purgatory with the other. The Book of Tobit then also condones shameful sorcery. Even though the Apocrypha contains a lot of valuable things, these are still very bad crumbs. The Roman Church, however, insists as much on the acceptance of the Apocrypha as on that of the Book of Isaiah or the Psalter, because it thinks it can prove purgatory, its sorcery at their consecration and the like; whereas anyone who knows history knows that the Apocrypha was never recognized by the Church of the Old Covenant. We have received the Old Testament from the Jewish orthodox Church, but in this Testament there is no Jesus Sirach, no Book of Tobit, no Books of the Maccabees, and so on. The Old Testament church already had these books, but they were not recognized as divine books. They were not originally written in Hebrew, but in Greek, and some of them only exist in Latin. In short, the papists are lying when they say that the Apocrypha is as good a word of God as the other books. We do not recognize them and give God the glory by not imputing to Him books that He did not make. For it is a great ungodliness for someone to write a book and put another name on the title, such as "Luther". But it is a small sin to write on it: "This book is from God", when it was written by men from their own spirit.) 

It was most instructive that Walther gives examples of falsehoods in the Apocrypha.

Does the Roman Catholic Church still teach Purgatory? 

• Yes, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 268 (see here, sections 1030-1031). 

Do they still use the Apocrypha to justify this doctrine? 

• Yes, see section 1032 here., p. 269.

Do they also use Holy Scripture to justify this doctrine?

• Yes, falsely using 1 Cor 3:15 and 1 Pet 1:7 (see here). These do not speak of an intermediate period after death for "purification". Papists use the Apocrypha against Holy Scripture.

Does the Roman Catholic Church teach that the Apocrypha are inspired?

• Yes, section 1032 explicitly states "…Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead" (Footnote 609: 2 Macc 12:46). The Apocrypha is identified with "Sacred Scripture".

      Many within the LC–MS attempt to soften the view of today's Roman Catholic Church, that it has changed for the better since the days of the Reformation. But we can see by the above that it has only become more deceitful by attempting to mask their doctrine by mixing false Apocrypha teaching with Holy Scripture. — May Walther's clear instruction provide Christians with the tool that they need to refute all false doctrine:

Sola Scriptura!

Pieper: "intelligent silence"

      This was a phrase attributed to Dr. Franz Pieper for which I had lost the source. Now I have discovered that source, and want to publish the phrase.  It is very short, but with a powerful message. 

      In Ludwig Fuerbringer's well-known book 80 Eventful Years, on page 169, he relates the following account:

“At  that  time  Dr.  Pieper  had  not  as  yet  coined  an  expression  which  I  have  since  then  quoted  a  number  of times,  that  there  is not  only,  and  should  not  only  be,  intelligent  speaking,  but  also  an  intelligent  silence,  'intelligentes  Schweigen,'  referring  to  Acts  15:12.”

What does Acts 15:12 say? 

"Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them."

There was no babbling, no opinions given, just silence so that one could hear God's message, keep silence so that one can hear God's voice in His Word. That is "intelligent silence". I have never forgot that phrase.

What is Christmas? Walther on Jn 1:14; why this is important (for Advent season)

      While working on a re-translation of Walther's 1882 essay to the Western District, I ran across a timely section that would be appropriate for this Advent season. Walther was covering the question of who our prayers are to be addressed. After defending against the papal church's worship of the past saints, he moves on to the pernicious error of the Reformed and the papists. We pick up on what he has labeled as his "Thesis II", p. 44-45:

Thesis II.

Our church teaches that Christ, God and man in one person, is to be invoked and worshipped, not his divinity alone.

When considering this thesis, one would naturally like to delve deeply into the wonderful doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, of the personal union of both natures in Christ, and of the communication of attributes. But here we must content ourselves with the simplest explanation.

The Gospel of John begins with the mysterious and sublime words: 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-4, 14).

With these words, the Holy Spirit reveals to us that the eternal personal Word, through whom all things were made, that is, the true, living God Himself, became man. He, the only begotten Son of God, did not merely take up residence in the flesh; that could be an indwelling of God, as every believing Christian may experience. No, it says: “The Word was made [or became] flesh!” This is the greatest, highest, deepest, most wonderful, most worshipful mystery of divine wisdom and mercy among all those that God has revealed to us in His Word. Even the apostle Paul, filled with admiration through the Holy Spirit, must exclaim: "Great indeed is the godly mystery: God is revealed in the flesh! " (1 Tim. 3:16). Yes, even the holy angels desire to look into this depth, as Peter writes in the first chapter of his first letter, 1 Pet. 1:12.

However incomprehensible this mystery is, Holy Scripture speaks of it in very unambiguous terms. In Col. 2:9, Paul says: “In Him (in Christ) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (σωματιχώς), that is, just as the soul dwells in the human body, so that both constitute a spiritual-physical human person, so the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ's human nature, so that Godhead and humanity are one divine-human person. As it says in the Athanasian Creed: “Just as body and soul are one human being, so God and man are one Christ.”

Therefore, Holy Scripture also calls the God-Christ as Man and the Man-Christ as God, and speaks of human things concerning the God-Christ and divine things concerning the Man-Christ. It says, <page 45> for example: “The Prince of Life” — that is, the true God — “you have killed”; “the Lord of Glory” — that is, the true God — “you crucified.” (Acts 3:15, 1 Cor. 2:8) “Christ comes from the fathers according to the flesh, who is God above all, blessed forever” (Rom. 9:5), so the true God has a human lineage. “God acquired the church through His own blood.” (Acts 20:28). “The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7). Here, Holy Scripture attributes something purely creaturely and human to God, namely that He has blood. But again, Scripture speaks of divine things concerning Christ, who is human. It says: “The holy one to be born of you” — that is, the true man — “will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35), that is, He will be the Son of God. “The second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). Christ himself, in his state of humiliation, calls Himself “the Son of Man who is in heaven” and “ascends to heaven” as the one who came down from heaven. (John 3:13). Yes, when He once asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Christ does not reject this answer as blasphemy, but on the contrary praises Simon Peter, because this was not revealed to him by flesh and blood, but by His Father in heaven. (Matthew 16:13, 16)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It there ever was a teaching to explain the spiritual importance of Christmas, this is it. Lutherans pray to the Christ who was both God and Man in One Person. Other churches avoid the humanity of Christ when praying to him. — A translation of the full essay will be forthcoming in some weeks. —

(A previous translation of the above was done for CHI Director August Suelflow in the 1990s,  and was most recently published in the 2016 CPH book All Glory to God, pp. 389-390.)