Luther

1
Luther the Pietists

• Christian Mysticism
• School of Prayer
• Presented by David Schütz

2
Theologia Germanica

• Luthers first published work was Eyn geystlich
  edles Buchleynn (1516), a German translation of a
  handwritten manuscript that came into his
  possession
• It was an anonymous work, which, Luther wrote in
  his preface almost resembles the style of the
  illumined Doctor Tauler of the Preaching Order.
• In 1518following the Ninety Five Theses and
  the outbreak of the dispute over indulgenceshe
  published a fuller version of the same work,
  having discovered a more complete manuscript in
  the library of the Erfurt Carthusian monastery.
• This time he called it Eyn Deutsch Theologia, and
  it has become known by its Latin title Theologia
  Germanica.
• The fuller version actually quoted Tauler, and so
  could not have been authored by him, but was
  obviously greatly influenced by his mystical
  theology and came out of the Friends of God

3
Theologia Germanica

• This little book warns all those who wish to
  read and understand its message, especially those
  of bright intellect and sophisticated reason,
  that they should not precipitately rush to swift
  judgement only because it appears awkward in its
  choice of words or speaks in the way of ordinary
  preachers and teachers. Indeed, this book does
  not float on top, like foam on water. It has
  rather been fetched out of the rock bottom of
  Jordan by a true Israelite whose name only God
  knows and whoever is informed about it by God.
  Be that as it may, here we have the true solid
  teaching of Holy Writ. One has to choose between
  calling it all a folly and becoming a fool, as
  the Apostle Paul indicates in 1 Cor 1 We preach
  Christ, a folly to the heathen but to those who
  are called, the wisdom of God.
• Martin Luther, Preface to Eyn geystlich edles
  Buchleynn (1516)

4
Theologia Germanica

• This noble little book, poor and unadorned as it
  is as far as wording an purely human wisdom are
  concerned, is all the richer and abundantly
  precious in true knowledge and divine wisdom. And
  , if I may speak with biblical foolishness Next
  to the Bible and Saint Augustine, no other book
  has come to my attention from which I have
  learnedand desired to learnmore concerning God,
  Christ, man, and what all things are.
• Martin Luther, Preface to Eyn Deutsch Theologia
  (1518)

5
From the Theologia Germanica

• Even if God would take to himself all humans in
  the world and become humanised in them and they
  would become divinised in him and this did not
  happen in me, my fall and my apostasy would never
  be amended. No, it must also occur in me. Ch. 3
• But if our inner being would make a leap into
  the Perfect, one would find and taste that the
  Perfect is limitlessly, endlessly, insuperably
  nobler and better than all imperfect and
  incomplete things. That inner being of ours would
  also find the Eternal above the transitory and
  the wellspring and origin underneath everything
  that flows from it and ever will flow from it.
  Ch. 6
• It should also be pointed out that eternal bliss
  is rooted in God alone and nothing else. And if
  man and his soul are to be saved, this one and
  only God must be in the soul. Ch. 9

6
The Traditional View

• Harold J. Grimm, Introduction to Preface to the
  Complete Edition of a German Theology (1518), in
  Luthers Works, American Edition (Fortress Press,
  1957)
• During his formative years, Luther was much
  impressed by the writings of the late-medieval
  German mystics, particularly by their emphasis
  upon the necessity of a spiritual rebirth of
  despair before one could be united with God.
• Like the mystics, Luther was most concerned
  that the sinner should find a way out of sin and
  to salvation in communion with God in other
  words, that he should annihilate his own
  personality and substitute Gods.
• Yet one looks in vain in Luther's writings for
  doctrines of the mystics. Unlike these, he never
  become subjective in his approach, but continue
  to emphasize at every step the doctrine which had
  resulted from his own experience and study,
  namely, justification by faith.

7
Hoffmans Revolution

• Thus the general view was that Luther abandoned
  the sapientia experimentalis of the German
  mystics for a more objective sapientia theologica
• Bengt R. Hoffman Luther and the Mystics
  (Augsburg, 1976) reissued as Theology of the
  Heart The Role of Mysticism in the Theology of
  Martin Luther. (Kirk House Publishers, 1998)
• Hoffman rejected the rather common supposition
  that Luther embraced mystical ideas in his youth,
  only to abandon all of them for a supposedly more
  evangelical reliance on outer signs and
  justification as imputation in his mature
  years.

8
Hoffmans Revolution

• Hoffman, Introduction, The Theologia Germanica of
  Martin Luther The Theologia Germanica, like
  many mystical writings in medieval and modern
  times, seems to lay little direct stress on
  Christs redemption, the for you of salvation.
  It is more interested in the other side of
  salvation, the Christ in you.
• Luther maintained a dialectic between the
  internal and the external, between the
  experiential and the objective, between Christ
  in us Christ for us that was lost by his
  later interpreters
• Following Hoffman, Scandinavian (especially
  Swedish and Finnish) Luther scholars began to
  emphasise Luthers Theology of the Heart

9
Luther the Mystic?

• Hoffman made use of Nathan Söderbloms
  distinction (1975) between personality-mysticism
  and infinity-mysticism.
• Infinity Mysticism an experience of the
  superhuman beyond the vicissitudes of life an
  immersion in nature and exercise according to
  technical patterns a dissolution of the person
  into the impersonal Beyond
• Personality Mysticism an experience of God in
  the midst of lifes problems an experience of
  the human I meeting the divine Thou trust
  and forgiveness in this life a relationship to a
  personal God
• Hoffman equated Eckhart with the former, and
  Tauler, the author of the TG, and Luther with the
  latter.

10
The Fate of the German Theology

• 20 editions in Luthers lifetime
• Popular among the radical reformers Anabaptists
  (eg. Schwenkfeldt) and the Schwärmer (eg.
  Carlstadt)
• Rejected by Calvin For although there are no
  outstanding errors in it, it contains
  frivolities, conceived by Satans cunning in
  order to confuse the whole simplicity of the
  gospel. And if you look deeper into it you will
  find that it contains a hidden deadly poison
  which can poison the church. Therefore, my
  brethren, shun like the pest all those who try to
  defile you with such impurities.

11
The Fate of the German Theology

• Because it was so highly valued by their master,
  it was accepted by Luthers 16th Century
  disciples despite their strong emphasis on
  objective, external, Christ for us
  justification, and their suspicion of the
  Schwärmer).
• Johan Arndt (a proto-Pietist?) issued new edition
  by at the beginning of the 17th Century
• Thereafter, Lutheranism was split into two camps
  
• Anti-Theologia Germanica The rationalist,
  systematic Orthodoxy which systematised
  Lutheranism
• Pro-Theologia Germanica The experiential and
  personal life of faith emphasis of the German
  Pietist movement

12
The Fate of the German Theology

• Philipp Jakob Spener, the father of German
  pietism spoke warmly of the TG in both his Pia
  Desiderata and in the foreword to his edition of
  Taulers works.
• Louis Bouyer (The Spirit and Forms of
  Protestantism 1954) Authentic Lutheranism is
  not a theological system. It is wholly a
  religious movement, single and wide-ranging,
  which follows not always logically but vitally
  from a few basic intuitions, or rather from one
  intuition viewed from every possible
  standpoint, quarried from every angle. Calvinism,
  on the other hand, is quite clearly a system as
  compact, perhaps more so, as Thomism before it,
  or Molinism or Jansenism later.

13
Louis Bouyers Thesis

• Although Paul V place the Theologia Germanica on
  the Index, its popularity among some Protestants
  shows that there is a form of reformation
  spirituality which shares a commonality with
  Catholic mystical tradition
• This fits well with a thesis put forward by Louis
  Bouyer in his 1954 work The Spirit and Forms of
  Protestantism, which predates but supports
  Hoffmans thesis

14
Louis Bouyers Thesis

• It is absolutely certain, as a matter of
  history, that the intuition of Luther, which we
  find to lie at the root of that of Calvin, takes
  us back directly to the Rhenish school of
  mysticism originated by Eckhart and Tauler.
• If Luther had no hesitation in acknowledging his
  debt to the Theologia Germanicaif he went so far
  as to translate it into German to popularise it,
  that shows that he recognised it as one of the
  sources of his conception. The God whose very
  light is a superessential darkness is the Deus
  revelatus, but revelatus as absconditus.

15
Louis Bouyers Thesis

• Both the Moravians of Zinzendorf, and even the
  first pietists (Luther too, for that matter), had
  recourse to the great medieval mystics, notably
  of the Rhenish School, as both sources and living
  examples of the Reformation and the Christianity
  it ought to produce. It is certain that the
  entire movement, pietist as well as Weslyan,
  which we have described, profited by the vast
  mystical trend apparent from the beginning of
  Protestantism, sometimes in anarchical forms, but
  often at the heart of the most conservative
  movements in thought and action.

16
Louis Bouyers Thesis

• Bouyer goes on to link together the succession
  of German mystics who, in the sixteenth and
  seventeenth century Protestantism, continued the
  teaching of Tauler, incluidng Sebasian Franck,
  Valentin Weigl, and Jacob Boehme
• In a sweeping vision, he follows the influence of
  these pietists, mystics and revivalists to the
  the Low Country Anabaptists, Rembrant, the Quaker
  George Fox, the Swedish visionary Swedenborg,
  English Evangelical turned Catholic John Henry
  Newman, Evangelical Bavarian Pastor Wilhelm Löhe,
  Danish Pastor Nicolai Frederick Severin
  Grundtvig, and English Archdeacon Frederick
  Denison Maurice.

17
Johann Arndt (15551621)

• A Lutheran pastor and theologian
• At Wittenberg in 1577 during the
  Crypto-Calvinist controversy (he sided with
  Melanchthon)
• In Strasbourg studied under a strong
  anti-Calvinist Lutherans
• In Basel studied under a more moderate teacher
  who sought to unite Lutherans and Reformed
  churches
• In Badeborn in 1583 served as a pastor tending
  more towards Lutheranism than Calvinism
• In 1590 deposed by the Calvinist authorities for
  retaining pictures in his church and using the
  baptismal exorcism.
• Worked in Brunswick, Eisleben, and (until his
  death in 1621) Celle as local superintendent
  (bishop).

18
Johann Arndt (15551621)

• Author of mystical and devotional works inspired
  by St Bernard, Johannes Tauler and Thomas Kempis,
  including a new edition of the Theologia
  Germanica
• Wahres Christentum (True Christianity) 1599
  published in many translations, becoming a model
  of devotion for both Catholics and Protestants.
• In it he asserts categorically that the true
  faith which justifies is that which bears fruit
  in justice and sanctity. (Bouyer)
• Arndt stressed in his teaching and preaching the
  Christ in us not to the exclusion of but in a
  justified reaction against the Christ for us
  theology of orthodox Lutherans. He represented a
  genuine Lutheran mysticism, orthodox with respect
  to pure doctrine, yet a proponent of inner heart
  theology. (Hoffman).

19
Philip Jakob Spener (1635-1705)

• Although Arndt predated the pietistic movement,
  they held him in high regard
• Spener is generally regarded as Father of German
  Pietism
• Bouyer Philip Jacob-Spener, president of the
  seminary of Frankfort on the Maine from
  1666,while maintaining his allegiance to Luther,
  called Arndt the father of the faithful, and
  considered him the real founder of pietism,
  placing him, for this reason, immediately below
  Luther. He declared his conviction that
  justification by faith in divine grace was the
  main principle, but he set himself against
  confusing it with extrinsic justification on the
  contrary, he put all the emphasis on its
  association with practical sanctity, expressly
  including voluntary effort.

20
Count Nicholas-Louis of Zinzendorf (1700-1760)

• Bouyer a strange figure, combining pathological
  traits with very pure flights of mysticism
• Joined efforts with the Moravian Brethren in
  1722, giving them property to establish their
  quasi-monastic commune, the village of
  Herrnhut.
• The ecclesiolae, or small churchesancestor
  of the small groups or base ecclesial
  communties of today
• A direct influence on John and Charles Wesley and
  Methodism
• Herrnhutter commune near Penshurst in Western
  Victoria (Dr. William Metcalf and Betty Huf, "In
  Search of Utopia - Herrnhut, Australias First
  Commune (Melbourne University Press)

21
Luthers Spiritual Heritage

• Luther was an Augustinian Monk. St Augustine had
  pride of place in his spiritual formation
• In 1508 Luther bought an edition of Taulers
  sermons which he thoroughly annotated in the
  margins
• Behind Tauler and the Theologia Germanica was the
  influence of the Friends of God movement.
• The Friends of God was an international network
  of those working for spiritual and moral renewal
  in the 14th and 15th centuries. They specifically
  opposed the radical movement which called itself
  the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit
• He rightly supposed the Theologia Germanica came
  from this tradition, but wrongly ascribed it to
  Tauler himself.

22
Luther and Bernard

• Luther, like many of his contemporaries including
  Erasmus, was schooled in the studia humanitatis,
  the via moderna, and the schola Augustiniana
  moderna
• He was a life-long anti-scholastic, completely
  rejecting Aristotelianism (Philosophy), and
  embracing a corresponding nominalism
• Thus it is not surprising to find that he was a
  keen admirer of St Bernard of Clairvaux, the foe
  of Peter Abelard (the pioneer of Scholasticism)
• Franz Posset, Bernard of Clairvaux as Luthers
  Source, Concordia Theological Quarterly,
  1990In Bernards time a new theology influenced
  by the ancient pagan philosophy of Aristotle
  arose in the form of what today is called
  Scholasticism. It was fostered and inspired by
  Peter Abelard, Bernards foe.

23
Luther and Bernard

• We must be selective because Luthers references
  to Bernard amount to more than five hundred, not
  counting allusions made in his table-talk and in
  his correspondence.
• If one compares Luthers allusions to the
  representatives of the so-called German
  Mysticism (such as Meister Eckhart, Johannes
  Tauler, and the anonymous Frankfurter who wrote
  the Theologia Germanica), one comes upon some
  surprising facts Luther never directly or
  indirectly quoted or mentioned Meister Eckhart by
  name and, compared with Bernard, Lutehr referred
  relatively rarely to Tauler and to the
  Frankfurter whose work he had edited. Luthers
  often literal quations from, direct references
  to, and indirect allusions to Bernard outnumber
  these others by the hundreds.

24
Luther and Bernard

• Luther said I love Bernard as the one who among
  all writers preached Christ most charmingly. I
  follow him wherever he preached Christ, and I
  pray to Christ in the faith in which he prayed to
  Christ.
• Posset Luther the preacher was most interested
  in Bernard the preacher, that is, the preacher of
  the crib and the cross of Christ, nevertheless,
  not only the preaching and teaching Bernard made
  a great impression on Luther, but also the
  praying Bernard.
• Still, Posset asserts that the Reformer was
  interested in Bernard as a biblical theologian
  a preacher of the gospel, not as a mystic in
  the sense in which the term is usually understood
  today The Reformer alerted his audience
  primarily to Bernards christocentric piety, that
  is, to meditation on the wounds of Christ, to his
  incarnational christology, to his theology of
  grace alone faith alone.

25
Key themes in Luthers Spirituality

• The dialectic of Law and Gospel
• Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, Solus
  Christus
• Theologia Crucis (vs. Theologia Gloriae)
• Deus Absconditus, Deus Revelatus and especially
  the God revealed in hiddenness
• The Incarnation finitum capax infinitum (contra
  Calvin who insisted on finitum non capax
  infinitum, leading later Lutherans to joke about
  the extra-Calvinisticum, the bit of God that
  didnt fit into Christ).
• Thus a Christocentricity which focused upon the
  crib and cross, as Posset puts it.

26
Law and Gospel

• Treatise on Christian Liberty (1520)
• Grace gives, faith receives. Thus, since all
  salvation is by grace, all salvation is by faith.
  
• The works of the Law have no part in this.
• In the scriptures, two things are to be
  distinguishedthe commands and the promises. If
  you desire to fulfil the law and overcome
  concupiscence, believe in Jesus Christ, in whom
  you are offered grace, justice, peace and
  liberty. By faith, you possess all these without
  it, you are a stranger to them all.
• A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all,
  subject to none a Christian is a perfectly
  dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

27
What is Faith?

• Bouyer summarises the doctrine of sola fide as
  follows
• The essential thing, for salvation, is to
  realise that God is its author that it depends,
  not on ones own strength, but on Gods. In this
  realisation, where a radical distrust of self is
  but the obverse of absolute confidence in God,
  consists faith nothing else can possibly replace
  it.
• Saving faith is fiducia (trust) not just belief
  (fides).
• Such faith is an affair of the heart, and not of
  the mind alone.
• In fact, Luthers understanding of faith included
  a large measure of what we would call caritas
• Cf. the explanation to the First Commandment in
  the Small Catechism We are to fear, love and
  trust in God

28
Grace in Luther

• Again, Bouyer describes the doctrine of sola
  gratia in Luthers theology as follows
• The point of departure for Luthers whole
  conception of grace was the positive certainty
  he at last attained that God, not ourselves, is
  the prime author of our salvation. Consequently,
  we have no call to be despondent at our
  powerlessness to save ourselves by our own
  exertions for it is just to this powerlessness
  that the Gospel gives the answer. What we could
  not do, God, in Christ, has done for us.
• This is Christ for us, but the experience of
  positive certainty points to something internal
  also, and not simply external.

29
Interior and Exterior in Luther

• The dialectic of the interior and the exterior
  justification lies at the heart of Luthers
  theology
• It is always grace alone that saves us, but
• when engaged in controversy, he stressed
  extrinsic justification, without any inward
  change to our nature
• whereas when speaking pastorally he stressed the
  inner experience of grace (referring to his own
  conversion experience) and the presence of Christ
  in the heart
• Bouyer As soon as he speaks as a religious
  guide or educator, he becomes anxious simply to
  give Christians, learned and unlearned alike, a
  statement of living Christianity as conceived and
  realised by himself.

30
The Theology of the Cross

• Heidelberg Disputation (1518) (more significant
  for later Lutheranism than the 95 Theses of 1517)
• Thesis 20. "The man who perceives the visible
  rear-ward parts of God Ex 3323as seen in
  suffering and the crossdoes deserve to be
  called a theologian" (Sed qui visibilia et
  posteriora Dei per passiones et crucem conspecta
  intellgit).
• The back and visible things of God are placed
  in opposition to the invisible, namely, his human
  nature, weakness, foolishness. (1 Cor 125) God
  wished to be recognized in suffering, it is not
  sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to
  recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he
  recognizes him in the humility and shame of the
  cross. Thus God destroys the wisdom of the wise,
  as Isa. 4515 says, Truly, thou art a God who
  hidest thyself.

31
The Theology of the Cross

• Thesis 21 A theologian of glory calls evil good
  and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls
  the thing what it actually is.
• This is clear He who does not know Christ does
  not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he
  prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross,
  strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in
  general, good to evil. God can be found only in
  suffering and the cross.
• Thus even when God reveals himself, it is in a
  hidden way (eg. In the babe in swaddling clothes,
  on the cross, in the bread and wine of the
  Eucharist)

32
Christology of the Crib and Cross

• Luthers Christocentric theology is distinguished
  from Calvinism and other forms of Protestantism
  primarily because it is profoundly Incarnational
• Bouyer It should be clear to anyone that the
  God of Calvin is, primarily, the God of Sinai,
  the God who makes himself manifest in a splendour
  and majesty inaccessible to man.
• Luthers God, on the other hand, is the God of
  the manger and of the cross, the God who makes
  himself accessible to man precisely by hiding
  himself in humility.
• For Luther, Finitum capax infinitum, but for
  Calvin, Finitum NON capax infinitum.

33
Luthers Hymns

• A Mighty Fortress Verse 2
• With might of ours can naught be donesoon were
  our fall effectedbut for us fights the valiant
  onewhom God himself elected.Ask ye Who is
  this? Christ Jesus it isof Sabaoth Lord, AND
  THERES NONE OTHER GOD.He holds the field for
  ever.

34
Luthers Hymns

• From Heaven above to Earth I come
• These are the tokens ye shall markthe
  swaddling-clothes and manger darkthere shall ye
  find the young child laid,by whom the heavens
  and earth were made.
• Ah, Lord, who hast created all, how weak art
  thou, how poor and small,that thou dost choose
  thine infant bedwhere ass and ox but lately fed.
• Ah, dearest Jesus, holy child,make thee a bed,
  soft, undefiled,within my heart, that it may
  bea quiet chamber kept for thee.

35
Luthers Hymns

• O Jesus Christ, all praise to thee
• He whom the world cannot enclose doth in Marys
  arms reposeto be an infant small he deignswho
  all things by his power sustains.Hallelujah.

36
The Small Catechism

• I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of
  heaven and earth.
• What does this mean?
• I believe that God has made me and all creatures
  that He has given me my body and soul, eyes,
  ears, and all my members, my reason and all my
  senses, and still takes care of them. He also
  gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink,
  house and home, wife and children, land, animals,
  and all I have. He richly and daily provides me
  with all that I need to support this body and
  life. He defends me against all danger and guards
  and protects me from all evil. All this He does
  only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy,
  without any merit or worthiness in me. For all
  this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and
  obey Him. This is most certainly true.

37
The Small Catechism

• I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of
  heaven and earth.
• What does this mean?
• I believe that God has made me and all creatures
  that He has given me my body and soul, eyes,
  ears, and all my members, my reason and all my
  senses, and still takes care of them. He also
  gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink,
  house and home, wife and children, land, animals,
  and all I have. He richly and daily provides me
  with all that I need to support this body and
  life. He defends me against all danger and guards
  and protects me from all evil. All this He does
  only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy,
  without any merit or worthiness in me. For all
  this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and
  obey Him. This is most certainly true.

38
The Small Catechism

• And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, etc.
  From thence He will come to judge the living and
  the dead.
• What does this mean?
• I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten
  of the Father from eternity, and also true man,
  born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has
  redeemed me, a lost and condemned person,
  purchased and won me from all sins, from death,
  and from the power of the devil not with gold or
  silver, but with His holy, precious blood and
  with His innocent suffering and death, that I may
  be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and
  serve Him in everlasting righteousness,
  innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen
  from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.
  This is most certainly true.

39
The Small Catechism

• I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian
  church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness
  of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the
  life everlasting. Amen.
• What does this mean?
• I believe that I cannot by my own reason or
  strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or
  come to Him but the Holy Spirit has called me by
  the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts,
  sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the
  same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and
  sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth,
  and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true
  faith. In this Christian church He daily and
  richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all
  believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and
  all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all
  believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.

40
The Small Catechism
Hallowed be Thy Name.

• Cyril of Jerusalem
• The Name of God is in its nature holy, whether we
  say so or not but since it is sometimes profaned
  among sinnerswe pray that in us God's Name may
  be hallowed not that it comes to be holy from
  not being holy, but because it becomes holy in
  us, when we are made holy, and do things worthy
  of holiness.

Augustine We ask that His name may be hallowed in
us for holy is it always. but He is always
holy, and His name always holy. It is for
ourselves, not for God, that we pray.
Martin Luther Gods name is certainly holy in
itself, but we pray in this petition that it may
be kept holy among us also.
41
The Small Catechism
Thy Kingdom Come

• How does Gods kingdom come?
• Gods kingdom comes when our heavenly Father
  gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we
  believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here
  in time and there in eternity.

42
The Small Catechism

• Posset Bernard of Clairvaux developed the
  concept of the three comings of Christ the
  first coming is the incarnationad homines,then
  there is the parousia, usually called the second
  coming, the advent on the day of judgmentcontra
  homines. The third advent is the spiritual birth
  in the soula mystical advent, in homines.
• Luther Christs face is triple firstly, in his
  first advent when he was made incarnate who as
  Son of God is the face of the Father secondly,
  in the spiritual advent whithout which the first
  is good for nothingand so one has to recognise
  his face through faith thirdly, in the second
  and last advent when his face will be fully
  visible.

43
The Small Catechism
Thy Kingdom Come

• How does Gods kingdom come?
• Gods kingdom comes when our heavenly Father
  gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we
  believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here
  in time and there in eternity.

44
A Simple Way to Pray (1535)

• The Catechism was the basis for one of Luthers
  best known works on prayer A Simple Way to Pray
  (1535)
• Peter Beskendorf, a Wittenberg barber, though a
  devout Christian, had killed his son-in-law in a
  drunken rage. By Luthers intercession he was
  exiled rather than executed.
• Peter the Barber asked Luther for help in how to
  pray.
• Luther responded I will tell you as best I can
  what I do personally when I pray. May our dear
  Lord grant to you and to everybody to do it
  better than I! Amen.

45
A Simple Way to Pray (1535)

• Some significant and practical pastoral advice
• when I feel that I have become cool and joyless
  in prayer
• my roomor where a congregation is assembled
• word-for-word the Ten Commandments, the Creed,
  some words of Christ or of Paul. or some psalms
• just as a child might do.
• the first business of the morning and the last
  at night
• Wait a little while. I will pray in an hour
  first I must attend to this or that. nothing
  comes of prayer for that day.
• St. Jerome He who works faithfully prays
  twice. Yet we must be careful not to break the
  habit of true prayer and imagine other works to
  be necessary which, after all, are nothing of the
  kind.

46
A Simple Way to Pray (1535)

• Luther then provides a series of model
  meditations on the Our Father, the Ten
  Commandments and the Creedliterally a prayed
  catechism.
• You should also know that I do not want you to
  recite all these words in your prayer. Rather do
  I want your heart to be stirred and guided
  concerning the thoughts which ought to be
  comprehended in the Lords Prayer. These thoughts
  may be expressed, if your heart is rightly warmed
  and inclined toward prayer, in many different
  ways and with more words or fewer. If an
  abundance of good thoughts comes to us we ought
  to disregard the other petitions, make room for
  such thoughts, listen in silence, and under no
  circumstances obstruct them. The Holy Spirit
  himself preaches here, and one word of his sermon
  is far better than a thousand of our prayers.

47
A Simple Way to Pray (1535)

• Priests Like the priest who prayed, Deus in
  adjutorium meum intende. Farmhand, did you
  unhitch the horses? Domine ad adjuvandum me
  festina. Maid, go out and milk the cow. Gloria
  patri et filio et spiritui sancto. Hurry up, boy,
  I wish the ague would take you!
• Barbers So, a good and attentive barber keeps
  his thoughts. attention, and eyes on the razor
  and hair and does not forget how far he has
  gotten with his shaving or cutting. If he wants
  to engage in too much conversation or let his
  mind wander or look somewhere else he is likely
  to cut his customers mouth, nose, or even his
  throat. Thus if anything is to be done well, it
  requires the full attention of all ones senses
  and members.How much more does prayer call for
  con-centration singleness of heart if it is to
  be a good prayer!

48
Oratio Meditatio Tentatio (1539)

• In the preface to the first edition of Luthers
  works, published in his own life time, Luther
  points out a correct way of studying theology
  with three steps Oratio, Meditatio, and
  Tentatio.
• What he describes is in fact a form of Lectio
  Divina
• This ancient practice, familiar to Luther from
  his monastic days, also fitted his sola scriptura
  spirituality
• John Kleinig "Everything centres around the
  practice of meditation, for prayer prepares for
  it and its results are confirmed in the
  experience of conflict. For Luther, meditation is
  the key to the study of theology. No one can
  become a true theologian unless he learns
  theology through it ie. through meditation."

49
Oratio Meditatio Tentatio (1539)

• Oratio
• Prayer, but prayer focused on the Scriptures,
  a book which turns the wisdom of all other books
  into foolishness (note similar theme in Preface
  to TG 1516)
• Prayer is the necessary preparation and method
  for reading the scriptures Teach me, Lord,
  instruct me, lead me, show me the prayer of
  an open heart
• Reason and understanding are useless and
  presumptuous humility and earnestness, with
  the gift of the Holy Spirit, are necessary for
  enlightenment

50
Oratio Meditatio Tentatio (1539)

• Meditatio
• Note the emphasis on meditating not only in your
  heart, but also externally, ie. reading the text
  aloud (or soto voce)
• Luther was a Hebrew scholar and knew that the
  word used in Psalm 119 for meditate carried the
  inherent notion of speaking or conversing aloud
  with someone if that someone was oneself it
  meant to ponder
• Thus one can hear the spoken Word, even when
  alone
• For God will not give you his Spirit without the
  external Word. This emphasis had grown in
  reaction to the radical reformers who emphasised
  interior revelation
• The necessity of repeated reading, hearing and
  speaking of the wordonce or twice is not
  sufficient

51
Oratio Meditatio Tentatio (1539)

• Tentatio
• But the late-Luther had by no means abandoned the
  emphasis of the early-Luther and the German
  mystics on the sapientia experimentalis
• For Luther the sapientia theologica could not be
  attained through oratio and meditatio without
  going on to the touchstone of tentatio
  (Anfechtung/trial/suffering)
• Only this experience was capable of teaching
  how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how
  mighty, how comforting Gods Word is, wisdom
  beyond all wisdom.
• Here too we can see the constant presence and
  life-long emphasis in Luthers spirituality of
  the Theology of the Cross and of the God who
  reveals himself in Hiddenness