The people at Wittenberg and in other cities of influence were gradually learning to think of the church as separate from the Roman hierarchy. Now there was need for reorganization. A steady supply of ministers was essential and arrangements had to be made for their training and support. A bond of some sort was necessary to establish unity of endeavor, and mission work was imperative in areas where conviction had lapsed into indifference.

Luther didn’t care for organizational work. The thought that the new church might degenerate into a system of laws and regulations haunted him. Although his revised order of worship was finding its way into use he felt that still more urgent matters demanded attention. Proper instruction of young and old was essential and to accomplish it there had to be some sort of oversight.

The bishops had neglected instruction of the laymen and the princes were loath to reinstitute it. Luther, therefore, laid the task directly upon the congregations and in some cases the city councils to select competent men as pastors, establish pastoral districts, and set up schools. To advise and assist in this work, visitation committees comprising learned laymen and theologians traveled throughout Saxony beginning in 1527. The visitation was carried on in other areas of Germany too, and in this way the groundwork for future organization began.

In the meantime two distinct factions had developed among the princes of Germany. One espoused the Roman cause, the other the Reformation. From 1525 to 1529 a series of diets and assemblies was held. The rival princes concerned themselves largely with attempts at, and opposition to, the invoking of the ban against Luther, his works, and his cohorts which had been executed at Worms. At Speyer in 1529 the Catholic princes, with the emperor’s backing, tried to force a resolution preventing the spread of Luther’s teachings in any new areas, but the Reformation princes protested. Matters concerning salvation were of an individual nature and could not be legislated. Conscience bound them to oppose the resolution. Principles which the Wittenberg monk had declared only eight years before were becoming the national mind.

The Augsburg Confession

Sparks of the Reformation had caught fire elsewhere in Europe developing into Reformed, Mennonite, Anabaptist, and other denominations. A major purpose of the diet called by Emperor Charles at Augsburg in 1530 was to harmonize these various groups and attempt a final reconciliation with Rome. To this end each body was to define its teaching in a statement or confession, but not all were represented at the diet and only three were actually submitted.

As usual the papists were laying for the Lutherans. They had prejudiced the emperor against a fair hearing and were reserving their best ammunition for the Saxon “heretics,” fully confident that a Lutheran defeat would speedily bring the downfall of the others.

Still under imperial ban, Luther could not attend the diet but stayed at a castle in Coburg from which he advised Melanchthon and others appearing before the emperor. The confession, a series of twenty-eight articles setting forth the Lutheran position, was read on June 25. The first twenty-one present fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures regarding God, Original Sin, the Son of God, Justification, the Church, the Sacraments, Civil Affairs, the Freedom of Will, the Cause of Sin, Good Works, and the Worship of Saints; while the last seven treat of Roman abuses which contradict the Word of God.

The emperor commissioned the Roman theologians to prepare a refutation. On the basis of it he rejected the Lutheran confession, ordered church property restored to Roman bishops, and forbade witnessing and the printing or sale of Lutheran writings.

Dejected by their failure to reform the church, the Lutherans went home in the fall of 1530 unaware that their confession would become a basic creed of the largest Protestant body in the world.

Threatened with coercion by the Romanists in Germany, they joined with other Protestants in 1531 to form the League of Schmalkalden. War was averted when the emperor enlisted both groups to meet the Turkish invasion of Austria, and armed conflict over religious principles was delayed until the summer of 1546. Luther didn’t see it. A few months earlier he went to stand before the Judge he had learned to love instead of fear.

Back to Eisleben

The circuit of Luther’s life was completed in Eisleben, his birthplace, where he had gone to mediate between the princes of Mansfeld. He died early on the morning of February 18, 1546, after fervently committing himself to God’s keeping and reaffirming the doctrines he had preached.

Luther’s lifetime was marked with concern—concern first about himself and God. It wasn’t selfish; a man has to find his treasure before he can share it. Luther had searched through lonely tormented hours in a monastery; he brushed aside centuries of proud speculation until he found the truth. It was written in a book, the record of God’s revelation of himself to man—the Bible. From it he learned that God is love instead of wrath; that no one, pope or king, can stand between man and that love, or gain it for another; that one can’t even win it for himself. It is God’s free gift.

Then his concern was for others. This treasure was too priceless to keep; he had to give it away. He preached it, though all the forces of evil railed against him. He printed it, though emperors ordered him to stop the press. He sang it and helped the church to sing—in tones so soft they lull a child to sleep; in battlecries resounding from the ramparts of his mighty-fortress God.

“The devil prefers blockheads,” he said, therefore, “the school must be the next thing to the church.” Concern led him to teach. Professor was the only job he held—but that for all his life. He hated those who arrogantly claimed sole right to knowledge. So that each might know the truth himself, and in that truth be free, he translated the sacred Scriptures. Matthew to Revelation first, and then the Old Testament were translated, not in high-sounding phrase or platitude, but in majestic simplicity—the words of Hans and Hilda. The lords and ladies would understand it that way too.

The principles of faith which Luther proclaimed, brought fame and the promise of power. But the words addressed to the nobles at Worms recount the humility of his service: “I seek nothing beyond reforming the church in conformity with the Scriptures. I reserve nothing but to bear witness to the Word of God alone.”