ANADIAN LUTHERANISM TODAY - Lutheran Church-Canada

“A
current joke has to do with a new
Martin Luther doll,” writes John Warwick
Montgomery almost 40 years ago. “You
wind it up and it just ‘stands there!” Montgomery asks,
“Did Luther just stand there—at Wittenberg, at Leipzig,
at Worms, at Marburg—or did he move dynamically
with a sense of mission to the lost?”
Over the centuries scholars have suggested Martin
Luther had no interest in taking the Gospel to other
lands, but Montgomery, reacting to such assertions,
says that “to attribute such views to Luther is, however,
to fly directly in the face of the evidence.” You need
only read Martin Luther’s own writing: “In these New
Testament times,” he writes, “there is always a lack of
Christians; there never are enough of them. Therefore
we must not stop inviting guests to partake of this
Paschal Lamb. We must keep on preaching. We must
also go to those whom Christ has hitherto not been
proclaimed. We must teach the people who have not
known Christ, so that they,
too, may be brought to the
spiritual kingdom of Christ.”
Why must Christians
“go to those whom Christ
has hitherto not been
proclaimed?” Answer: Apart
from faith in Jesus Christ,
people cannot be saved.
As Luther explains in the
Large Catechism, “Outside
the Christian church (that
is, where the Gospel is not)
there is no forgiveness, and
hence no holiness.”
Luther goes on to explain
his concept of the Church’s
missionary role:
“He [the Holy Spirit] has a unique community in
the world. It is the mother that begets and bears every
Christian through the Word of God. The Holy Spirit
reveals and preaches that Word, and by it he illumines and
kindles hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it
and persevere in it …. Until the last day the Holy Spirit
remains with the holy community or Christian people.
Through it he gathers us, using it to teach and preach
the Word. By it he creates and increases sanctification,
causing it daily to grow and become strong in the faith
and in the fruits of the Spirit.”
Luther speaks in terms of this “unique community”
as a “profane church.” Not “profane” in the sense of
the church being crude or using gutter language, but
“profane” in the Latin sense of the term, meaning to
“move outside the temple.” There is a temptation for
Christians to insulate themselves from the evil world in
which they live or to make Sunday worship the end goal
of what they say and do, but Christians are to “move
outside the temple.” The Holy Spirit not only “calls,
6 THE CANADIAN LUTHERAN September/October 2012
We must also go to those
whom Christ has hitherto not
been proclaimed. We must
teach the people who have not
known Christ, so that they, too,
may be brought to the spiritual
kingdom of Christ.
gathers, enlightens and sanctifies” us by the Gospel, but
He sends us as His missionary people into the world.
Commenting on 1 Peter 2:9, Luther says, “We live on
earth only so that we should be a help to other people.
Otherwise, it should be best if God would strangle us
and let us die as soon as we were baptized and had
begun to believe. For this reason, however, he lets us
live that we may bring other people also to faith as he
has done for us.” Having been the recipient of God’s
overflowing love and forgiveness, the Christian delights
in sharing Christ with others. Luther says,
“Once a Christian begins to know Christ as his Lord
and Savior, through whom he is redeemed from death and
brought into His dominion and inheritance, God completely
permeates his heart. Now he is eager to help everyone
acquire the same benefits. For his greatest delight is in
this treasure, the knowledge of Christ. Therefore he steps
forth boldly, teaches and admonishes others, praises and
confesses his treasure before everybody, prays and yearns
that they too, may obtain such
mercy. There is a spirit of
restlessness amid the greatest
calm, that is, in God’s grace
and peace. A Christian cannot
be still or idle. He constantly
strives and struggles with all
his might, as one who has no
other object in life than to
disseminate God’s honor and
glory among the people, that
others may also receive such a
spirit of grace.”
For Luther, there is a
vital connection between
missionary proclamation
and the power of God’s
Word because God’s Word
provokes Christians to speak the Good News. Again,
Luther observes, “This noble Word brings with it a
great hunger and an insatiable thirst, so that we could
not be satisfied even though many thousands of people
believe on it; we wish that no one should be without it.
This thirst ever strives for more and does not rest; it
moves us to speak, as David says, ‘I believe, therefore
have I spoken’ (Ps. 116:10). And we have (says St. Paul,
II Cor. 4:13) ‘the same spirit of faith … we also believe
and therefore speak.’”
A Missionary in Action
Martin Luther’s lifelong body of work demonstrates
the connection between God’s Word and a Christian’s
insatiable desire to share God’s Word. According to
Lutheran missiologist, Eugene Bunkowske, Martin Luther
was a missionary in action. During his lifetime, Luther:
1. Published 350 works and penned 3,000 letters
to people.