Beeson Podcast, Episode 362 Heiko Oberman October 17, 2017 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. Each year here at Beeson Divinity School, we sponsor an endowed lectureship, we call it the Reformation Heritage Lectures, on some aspect of the Protestant Reformation. And it always takes place during Reformation Week. Well today, we're reaching back to 1999, and we're going to listen to a lecture given by the late Heiko A. Oberman. Heiko Oberman was one of the truly outstanding historians of the 20th and early 21st century, and he gave this lecture just a couple of years before he passed away, called “Luther, Kepler, and the Chicken Bone.” I introduce him right before he speaks, so let's go to Hodges Chapel and listen to Heiko Oberman, Reformation Week 1999, “Luther, Kepler, and the Chicken Bone.” Timothy George: I have the great honor to present to you our distinguished lecturer today, Professor Heiko Augustinus Oberman. A native of the Netherlands, Professor Oberman has held professorships at Harvard Divinity School, at the University of Tübingen in Germany and for several years now at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He himself was trained in history at the University of Utrecht in his own native Netherlands and at Oxford University. It's seldom you can say that one individual has had such a catalytic influence on a single discipline as Professor Oberman. He's the author of 30 books, about which I will mention only two. One, “The Harvest of Medieval Theology,” a book which in itself set out a new trajectory of Reformation scholarship which continues to this very day redirecting an entire field of study. And more recently his book on Luther, "Man Between God and the Devil,” which I think is the very best book on Martin Luther in the last 50 years. Many other books and writings he writes, whether it’s about witchcraft or predestination or whether about ecumenism or the Copernican revolution. He writes with verve and sensitivity of a master scholar who is also at once a master teacher. I had the distinct privilege of working with him as a teaching fellow some years ago when I myself was a student at Harvard University, and it was one of the great influences and blessings on my life. In addition to being a marvelous scholar he also is a committed preacher and person of the church. Ordained to the ministry in the Dutch Reform tradition and a Protestant observer in the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and we hear him with gratitude and expectation. Heiko Oberman: I asked how long I would have for my lecture this morning, and said as long as you need. So I hope you packed a good, hearty luncheon. My lecture has three parts, and the first part has the heading “Luther: A Heritage Larger Than Its Impact.” My goal this morning is ambitious, to reach well beyond what is received from Luther. To reach beyond books about Luther, to Luther's legacy itself. Though I shall concentrate on Luther and the devil, this is not a retake of my book Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. Rather building on some of its surprising findings, I venture a fresh turn and return to Luther. My goal is not the whole Luther, but the essential Luther. The essential Luther needed most for the renewal of Christianity today. There is a fourth century proverb circulating among the neoplatonist, let's say the systematic theologians of those days. And very critical ___ directed against ___ and a whole series of others, famous Greek historians. And that word sounds very simple, but has it in it, people forget whole centuries, they remember moments. In Greek it says they forget whole epochs, they remember episodes. It is very interesting, revealing for the western tradition that the same proverb re-emerged ten centuries later in the middle ages. Now assigned to the great Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, who died in 1204. And if you listen carefully, the whole proverb has not been put topsy-turvy, upside down. It says "Wise people forget whole centuries, and remember moments." And it is in this tradition that I dare in a lecture for one morning to try to achieve that wisdom that in such a limited time, I can present to you this diversity as if you had been present there yourself, episodes of the past, there's a voice that penetrates your heart and mind today. A third preliminary comment deals with the story that I bet you have never heard of. It is the story of Kepler and the chicken bone. I don't know how many of you have heard of Johannes Kepler, the great German astrophysicist. The greatest advance in the knowledge of space between Copernicus and Newton, that are really the three great scientists that brought modern and light and concept of the space around the world. This Johannes Kepler, he died in 1630, you don't have to note all those details, but just to place him in the century, was famous in this day for advancing the most daring, proof. Actually he was the one who proved the hypothesis of Copernicus. Though in his time, the good scholars were critical of Copernicus because Copernicus had not brought any proof. He did. In times of intense flu epidemics and of the plague, when it hit Stein am Rhein where he was living. He would put a chicken bone under his pillow. Kepler and the chicken bone. It alerts us to the fact how there is an advance and breakthrough on one level, and on other levels we are rooted in the past, we bring that past with us. In the case of Kepler and then we will pass on, it is a help for you to know that his mother ... He's dedicated the last year of his life to defend his mother, who had been condemned to the state for witchcraft. So probably that medicine, medicine helped of the chicken bone under the pillow, he got at from his mother's feet. Now that is important for us, for me this morning, that I bring you what I claim to be a Luther that is ahead of our times, far more than just the modern Luther, that I am myself living, there's a number of chicken bones under my pillow. I like to present, I love all those introductions, they could go on endlessly because it shows what you have achieved, and they did not even mention all my honorary doctorates and all these other paraphernalia. But there's a chicken bone under my pillow. That is the way you should always listen to every speaker, to every lecturer that comes with the claims of knowledge, that it is always an ___. Now in Luther's case ... And I will try to come to a conclusion of my introduction, but it is very important for you when you want to sit at Luther's feet. In Luther's case, he was aware of the chicken bone, that I find so amazing. The scary thing about me is in 10, 20, 30 years when they read my books at all, they will say how is it possible that he missed out on ... And then dot-dot-dot, I have no idea what my chicken bone is. But in Luther's case, the last note that was found on his bed when he died, when he died was a little note, probably known to you from the first statement. It says "We are beggars, that is true." But that it is introduced, that little note, with a very important other observation. If we have not guided past it, the Christian churches with the apostles for 100 years, we will not be able to fathom the riches of Scripture. That means that there are in Scripture dimensions, that there is so much more to be said about God than we can fathom in even the best of theology. There's even more to be said than I can say. Now that's quite a claim. And behind it stands ... And I just want to touch on it because it deserves a lecture itself… that is the theology of the cross. In the 1518 in the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther advanced the thesis of the theology of the cross that stands against the theology of glory. And what does that mean? That the theology of glory constructs about on the basis of some data from Scripture, and on data from our experience, and they will fill out who God is, the essence of God. And the theology of the cross knows that we are given a God who has revealed Himself and said "This is what you need to know about me." And the whole history of theology is the pursuit, looking back is the pursuit of the theology of glory that always wants to know more how God is, His attributes. From the philosophical assumption that God must be higher than anything we can achieve, can imagine. And so you start to construct a God, there He is. And we will encounter Him again today in the lecture, therefore it was so important to bring in these few comments on we are beggars. Why are we beggars? Not only because we are limited in our understanding and limited in our experience ... I should have been stuttering about Scripture, unless I have guided to churches for 100 years with the apostles. But also because God says this is what you need, that is the ___, the God who reveals Himself in Jesus Christ. He does not reveal His being, all His mysteries, all that will come. The New Heaven and New Earth, the feast that we expect at the end of time. Part of the feast is that we will know the mysteries of God, we will be amazed but this is what we have now in the scriptures, in the sacraments, in the preaching. This is what we need now in this world. The final comment, and then I start to count ... The introduction is never allowed to count against the time that the speaker has. One more point. The good historian is bilingual. That does not mean that he is good in Dutch in English, or in Latin and Greek. The bilingual that he knows the language of the period he studies, and for our purposes this morning that is the late to middle ages, early modern times, let's say the 14th, 15th, 16th century. And that he knows the language of his own time, that he is able to translate the experience of the past into a language of today. Now, I have been brought up with the ideal that what you find in the past, you translate so that people can listen to it, understand it today. That is what makes history relevant. But today, I want to go the risky path of not only going from the past to the present, but I also want to take you, and I want to see what we discover there. That will be my second part. And then we got track back out of the past to the present, and that will be our third part. So to conclude my introduction, the good historian is bilingual. He will be able when he tracks into the past to leave modern assumptions behind. It's very difficult. Think of a capless chicken bone; this time, it works the other way around. The chicken bone is now, if you can make this many descriptions, through the small discreet change, the chicken bone is now the understanding that the earth is just a planet around the sun, and when you go to the past the chicken bone is exactly the opposite of what you have under your pillow. It does not work to make Luther the first modern man, as so many Luther scholars do. They present and they make him attractive by showing he is the first modern, as if that is a very high praise. Luther is not even ... And then I must conclude, but I quickly can get it in on your time and not on mine. Luther is not even the first Protestant, as I see it Calvin is much more entitled to be called the first Protestant. Luther is not the first Protestant. Protestants have chosen the side of Carlstadt in their understanding of baptism. There's no understanding that with the water of the Jordan, the devil is exorcized. Have you seen all these Protestant ministers that take a little bit of water and then quickly have, and quickly take the water away? Protestants stand with Erasmus on the issue of free will, they are not celebrating daily confession which is so essential for Luther that the word of absolution is spoken to you from the outside, so that it is not dependent on your pious emotions, but that it is said to you in the name of God wherever you are, whatever you feel at that moment. And that we celebrate the Eucharist. We don't hold that dead Christ himself is present, the real present. No, Luther is not the first Protestant, but he is not the first modern man either. We have to know that, and to realize that when I now take you on the trek to the 16th century. My second part. And there are three surprising discoveries. Surprising for me because I was already a well-established Luther scholar, I had already written many articles on Luther till I made these discoveries. In the first place, Luther never refers to himself as reformer, nor to the movement that issued from him, as the Reformation. That takes a long time to dawn upon you that when your whole library is full of his books on the Reformation, and Luther the reformer, and when the Reformation was introduced, in Brandenburg or in Wittenberg, or in Heidelberg. All these books, they make you not even ask the question, you always fill in the lines. It is parallel to that other discovery, not important for our lecture this morning, that I always demontologized the devil. When Luther speaks about the devil, I said that means he wants to indicate how powerful sin is over us. I did not even think about it automatically. For me Luther was the first modern man, he was the reformer, and of course he doesn't believe in the devil. And it takes a long time before you allow the text to speak to you, because our own reading eyes are so ... Shouting so loud, they overshout always the text. If I would eliminate ... Now Luther's works in the critical edition of his main works, not even the letters and his beautiful commentaries, his main works which is about 102 volumes, large volumes of the __. If I would throw out those pages of which Luther mentions the devil more than five times, I am perhaps left with two volumes. Five times per page. So often ... And I've been reading Luther for years, intensely. And I did not, because I knew that that could not be there. Luther never refers to himself as reformer. Is that a matter of humility? No, that is not a vice you can accuse Luther of very easily. He does not hesitate to call himself a prophet, or an evangelist, or even the apostle. Whereas in the old middle ages, apostles, the apostles is always St. Paul, like philosophers is always Aristotle. He doesn't hesitate to call himself apostle. So it is not humility. But it is inconceivable for him because ___, the reformer, that is Jesus Christ. And the Reformation is the movement that He brings when He returns, His second coming, and when He wipes away all the tears, that is Reformation. Eradicating evil, that is Reformation. And that He makes everything new, that is the Reformation movement. So it would be inconceivable for Luther to call himself reformater. As a matter of fact, that movement that started in Wittenberg, that are green branches on the church, on the tree of the church. And they are for the devil very smelly. The devil has a fine nose, and he smells where these green branches are being sprouting. And he attacks them immediately, so the time we live in now is the time of the plant Reformation, and the counter Reformation is not just before the Jesuits at the Council of Trent, is not a Roman Catholic affair, but that is the first ecumenical movement. The counter Reformation, the resistance against the green branches that are sprouting. Only at the end of that you get a Reformation. It is a complete reversal from when you go to whatever university in this country, or abroad, and you go to a night course on the history of western civilization, you would get the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, counter Reformation. But what the ___ of the sins of time, to have to counter Reformation preceding the Reformation. And that the Reformation as your expectation in the future, the New Heaven and the New Earth. Second surprising discovery: Luther's real and not medieval belief in the devil. Real, but not medieval. Luther was trained for his ordination for the priesthood, with a text book, a commentary on the Mass, on the Canon of the Mass written by Gabriel Biel (?), who died in 1489, late 15th century theologian, who wrote a text book that was used by priests to be ordained, particularly in Germany, and the large parts of France, and in England. And there, we have an extensive part on the devil, where Gabriel Biel says, I can be brief and then follow 69 large ___the German professors continue to be the same. They can never put things in a very brief, concise ___, the promise of German language I believe. But there he has an extensive diffluent of this long disquisition on the devil itself. At the end he says, it is ridiculous to believe that the devil can become God. And therefore, that is the end of it, therefore it is nonsense to take the devil seriously. And Luther, reading this already on his way to Reformation, makes the comment, "The real point is that it is ridiculous to believe that the devil can become man." That is in the superstition, an medieval superstition about the devil that makes the devil become man. It may give him aloof, and it may give him all kind of ... Luther says, that is now exactly what makes the devil so furious. That is the mystery to incarnation. Only God can become man, and the devil would like to become man, and he has his victory, and his satisfaction, where people believe that he can do it. But Luther is very medieval, in the sense that he will deal with the devil in all kind of life contexts, in where we don't speak about the devil anymore. Perhaps the prayer he preaches that I watch on T.V. from the faith network, that sell the devil. They make a lot of money out of the devil because they make the devil scary. Luther never makes the devil scary, the devil is scary. And it doesn't help you to pay on a certain bank account, so much dollar to be protected against him. As a matter of fact, when I see this faith network I realize that whereas Luther attacked the late medieval indulgence preachers, these indulgence preachers only sold access to earth to the heaven. Whereas these prairie preachers also promise me the riches of this earth. So they really outdo the later Middle Ages significantly. But when you talk about the impact of Luther, then you should not mention this particular form of religiosity at all. I want to tell you, share with you an anecdote that you will not find in Luther scholarship, because it is too embarrassing for the Luther scholars that want to make the point that Luther is the first modern man. As a matter of fact, it is not an anecdote at all. The word anecdote we historians use when we are too embarrassed by particular events in the past. Luther reports about ten years later. So ten years ago, and by my reconstruction, it is the winter of the year 1514/1515. Ten years ago, I was writing my commentary for the lectures that I was giving in Wittenberg. I was given special permission not to attend the first hours of the day, the first morning prayers, so that I could write on in the night. And there I was, sitting in the refectorium, that means the eating, dining hall of the monastery. Beautifully reconstructed, you can now go and visit it again in Germany. And there I was, sitting in the refectorium, and was writing for the next morning this enormous speech. I have still that manuscript, that has been preserved. And modern hand writing specialists tell you that you can see what an enormous intelligence is at work, because the very profound thoughts are obviously written there with great speed. These interpreters don't know the life of a young professor who has to give a course for the first time and never knows if he has sufficient material. And therefore, Luther is writing like crazy. And he's sitting there, close to the heater, where wood is piled up. And while he is writing, he suddenly hears that there is movement there. The blocks of wood that are being half burnt suddenly tumble over, that he can understand that must be the firepit, the wood piled up behind also starts to make noise. And then he knows that it is the devil. The devil, who wants to break his concentration in presenting the Word of God for his students the next morning. And Luther closes the manuscript, goes up the steps to his little cell, and says, writes it down, and I could fall asleep immediately, knowing that I was in the shadow of the Most High, the illusion to ___. Now this is now Middle Ages and Reformation at the same time. Here in this experience, day after devil, and that you can close your books and go up, that you know that you are in the shadow of ... That is now the doctrine of justification by faith. The sense that it must have been the devil with the noise, we modern people would have said rats. If Luther had thought it were rats, just three years before in Wittenberg there was the first medical thesis developed that said that the rats are the carriers of the black death, of the plague. So if Luther had thought it were rats, he would have been scared. No, it was the devil. There he was, under the protection of God. We talk a lot about single users at ___, that it is this discovery that we are at once saint and sinner. But here you have an obvious move of the Middle Ages and Reformation, all in the same what we call anecdote, that Luther tells to his students ten years ago. I would like to know you are now used to that Reformation, what it meant for me and how I experienced it for the first time. The devil is very real. The third discovery, Luther's apocalyptic view of the present. Luther assumes with the whole of the Middle Ages that there are three advents of Christ. The first advent of Christ is in Incarnate, is in the flesh. The second is in Gratia, that is in justification, when he makes His abode in us, when He has reconquered us from the power of the devil and from the exorcism of baptism. And a third one that is the Adventus in Gloria, when He comes in glory. And we are living between these advents. We are protected by the advent of Christ in us, to survive in a time where the devil is loosed, Revelations 20. We are now living in that time, where the devil is loose. And this is the apocalyptic vision, where the good theologian is not just the one who is a good biblical exegete, or who is a good historian. But he is a speculator. Now we only know that in its negative sense of speculation, that the speculator is the one who can look at the times as in a mirror. And is attuned to the signs of the time. How late is it? How far along? When will he be there? How long, O Lord? That is the sense of Christian living. That is what is intended when I say that Luther is an apocalyptic Christian. You may know a lot about dispensations, and premillennial, and all that you can have, but how long that stands against a number of assumptions. One is, and I must mention it today to have tomorrow abridged, the precariousness of sanctification, if we are living in a time that the devil is loosed, and that he smells, he has an enormous nose. And the true Christian is ___, is a rare bird. The true Christian is who can survive the onslaught of the devil, who's out almost drowning. All of us will be almost drowning. If you are not supported by the sacraments, and by the preaching of the Word of God. If Christ was not living in us, you would not have a chance. That is the sense of glory of being a Christian, if it is all a matter of persuasion and you have this view, and I'm okay, and if you're okay. If there is no fret, if there is no salvation, then there is not a jubilation either. But there's jubilation, we are being saved, we are being salvaged. Saved has become too spiritual for me in the Christian vocabulary. We are salvaged, body and soul. Just like we die as body and soul, that is not prepared, I must make that point, that heresy of immortality of the soul has very widely spread in Christianity. The first Lutheran Council made it a dogma, the Roman Catholics have to believe it. You don't have to believe it, but you do. You die body and soul, and you are resurrected body and soul. And the continuity between the one and the other, that is the fidelity of God. You are in His hands. So it is the precariousness of sanctification that is very different from what you will hear tomorrow with Calvin. There is much more with Calvin the confidence of progress. Luther lives in the endtime, Calvin lives at the beginning of modern times. With his sense of time and a sense of salvation, justification, sanctification, all these themes are being touched upon. But more generally, they are Calvinist. Also, those of us that are not Calvinist at all are ___. We believe in the progress. I've now been on a number of millennial panels, and I am very much impressed by hearing how my colleagues from all different fields are feeling, just give us time, there is no problem we can't solve. Just give us money, and there is no problem we can't solve. That is the dream of progress, which gives you a very different sense of time from the apocalyptic version of the scriptures and of Luther. This is a complete part two, the three surviving this surprising discoveries. Luther is not a reformer, a real but not medieval belief in the devil, and the apocalyptic view of the present. Now I want to go in my concluding part, it's the first time that I look at my watch. And you always advise good speakers never to look at their watch, because that makes the audience aware of time. But then to mention time, it's already wrong. But this business this morning is so much a lecture on time, and eternity, that we can't afford to be aware of the spectrum that we have in our watches. The third part I've called Luther Discovers Satan, and seemingly we are still in the past, but we are bilingual, we historians. And now we are going to listen to Luther and see what pleasures I can bring from the past to the present. And I do that by distinguishing four titles that Luther has given the devil. That's the way I will divide this chapter, four titles. The first title that Luther gave to the devil is Dr. Consolaturius, quite surprising, it is doctor comforter. The Comforter, that's the Holy Spirit. But Luther called to the devil in that medieval tradition where you honor a great thinker by giving him a name, Augustine said Doctor Gracia, and Scottish tradition, Doctor Comonus. And the devil you call the honor by calling Doctor Consolaturiusr, doctor comforter. There's not one of the few things that I have already discovered when I wrote my book Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. When the devil attacks you, do remember his very fine nose, he only attacks you because he has smelled Christ in you. When the devil attacks you, he witnesses to the fact that you are a child of God. He is ___ as a billion, he is forced to be a prophet of God, though he doesn't want to do it. The best illustration that I can find, I only found recently. Looking at the Tympanum, at Romanesque churches in France, if you look in the Romanesque churches in conquered Avignon, or in Autun in the Burgundy, you will see that on Tympanum that is in the middle is Christ. Christ in ___ it is the last judgment. And to the right, He has the saints and to the left He has the sinners. To the right there is hardly any action at all, there are three people sitting on stools without any movement or mobility, and there it is written the sanctity. And all the action is at the other side, at the left. It says ___, which you don't need Latin to know that are the sinners. Because there in the corner is the devil, this is all his teeth. And the devil's helpers that bring in men and women, and you can see how the Romanesque painters were convinced that all sins are basically sexual because the men are brought in by their penis and the women are brought in with their breasts. And they are brought ___. And all the tourists, all the Japanese stand there to take pictures at the left because there is the action. If Luther would have been the one who had been assigning this piece of art, and had given the directions, you know that would be exactly inverted. All the action would be to the right, all the diabolical devils, attacks would be ___, they would not sit back silently on their stools. He is not interested in the pecatories, he has them anyway. But that is where the action is. Do you see this is example of the tympanum of the Romanesque churches? What a revolution in Christian ethics. This simple view all summarized in the simple title. Doctor Consolaturius, the second title, quite surprising. He calls the devil Magesti Conscientia, master of the conflict. It is a lower grade, not as high as a doctor, tis only a master. But the medieval master is a doctor. He's the doctor, the master of the conscience. How do I understand that from the whole? I would say where in my mouth the word liberal is more positive than in the mouth of many of you. But the whole provision of liberal Lutheran interpretation makes quite a lot of the fact that Luther is the discoverer of the conscience. And here I stand. And hasn't he stood up in Worms, and stood up for the free conscience? No. My conscience, he says in Worms, is captivated in the Word of God. That meant in bondage. Luther does not believe in the free conscience, and certainly not that the free conscience is that little spot in me that is protected against the impact of original sin, and that is the one spot that always is directed to God. Do you notice this kind of needle compass that is always going north, this human dream that there is something in me that is untouched? There are modern developments among neuroscientists, and I want to particularly call your attention to William H. Calvin, who only has his last name in common with the great reformer, who wrote the cerebral code, the cerebral code. And now most recently two months ago, Antonio De Mazio, the feeling of our habits, body and emotion in the making of consciousness. I'm following the suspense, what neuroscientists are doing, in reveling what is consciousness and what is conscience. And reducing that to biological components, and tracking exactly what happens with people who are losing their conscience and regaining it in all the stages in between are measured. Strangely enough, what Luther is saying about the conscience is far closer to this modern neuroscientists that seems so threatening, because they seem to reduce us, though they do it in a very respectful way particularly the two others I mentioned to you, Calvin and De Mazio, because they even used biblical imagery to understand what mysteries there are in us in our conscience, that when it lasts long enough creates conscience. But that conscience is a product of education and experience. And that it is as much involved in the evil forces of history, and the evil stories we participate in ourselves. That is something that Luther discovered, by very carefully listening to his parishioners, and listening to his own heart. He gave perhaps so much more on this second title. He will use, for his students, to say you will soon be dealing with parishioners, and I want you to know how much the devil is the Magesti Conscientia, because the devil comes at night. He always comes about two o'clock. That is the time that I have to take my Alka Seltzer. He comes at two o' clock, when you have not said your evening prayers and have not been absolved from your the sin that you have committed that day, he will come to you and say "You are mine." "No, I'm a Christian." "Do you know the Ten Commandments?" "Yes." "Let's go through the Ten Commandments." And then the Christian never has to go to the second commandment, already the first commandment will convict his conscience. And his conscience will witness with the devil that the devil is right. You see where the conscience stands? Very different from what the whole western of the ___. And the conscience will witness with the devil that you are his. And then your Christian, you may appeal against the devil and your conscience, and may remind the devil that you were baptized into baptism, that you were baptized before you ever knew the difference between good and evil. You were already placed in the hands of the almighty. If that vision of baptism would be regained again, then Luther perhaps could be made into a first Protestant. As I see it he is not a first Protestant at this point. The third title, the devil is Prince Sepsmundi, the lord of this world. So we have had already the Doctor Consolaturius, the doctor comforter, the Magesti Conscientia, the means the master of the conscience. And now we have the Prince Sepsmundi, the lord of this world. That's not an image for Luther that you can use nicely in some kind of sermon and meditation. I bring you two quotes. "It cannot be denied," Luther says in the Galatians commentary, one of the few books that he said that it should not burn at the end of his life, he said my books you can burn, but not the Galatians commentary. It cannot be denied that the devil lives, and reigns in the whole world. It has taken me a long time to discover, if you make any notes of this lecture, then don't make notes of what I said, but this is about a precious Luther quote. "It has taken me a long time to discover that it is an article of faith that the devil is the ___ the god of this age, deus ___ sacrum." The article of faith, that means the 13th article. It's taken him a long time, so it is the middle and the older Luther that couldn't jive with my findings. In his understanding of the omnipotence of God, because that is immediately what you have to ask yourself, is the devil, the Prince Sepsmundi, ruling this world? What then would happen with the omnipotence of God? In his understanding of the omnipotence of God, Luther has gone in the best of tradition, the furthest in the direction of dualism, of that kind of dualism that you can still sustain together with the omnipotence of God. What do we mean with dualism? That there are two powers, God's omnipotence you have heard about yesterday in the festivals ... What is it? A Mighty Fortress of Our God. One word will stop him. But when God calls time, until this time the devil is the Prince Sepsmundi, that stands so against all the adventus in gloria which I have been trained, where you have dogmatics, ___ about to triune God, and then you have a part on the existence of God, and then you have a part on the attributes of God. Have you read those horrible works? And one of the attributes of God is His omnipotence. And do you see how that is developed in speculation out of the concept of God? That is ___, theology of glory. Luther says ___, so only Latin that I will use today. Only ___sola fide ___, the omnipotence of God is belief by faith alone. You hang in there, against all the evidence. Sola fide, that is belief. And we trust that soon it will be over. He calls time, one little word will do it. That is so different an understanding of time and Christianity than what is shaping the religious moods of this country, in all denominations. And I believe that it is a treasure that you bring with you when you have listened to Luther in the past, and as a bilingual historian come now back to the present. And I believe that this vision of reality, it is the biblical vision, and it is an interpretation of reality that will protect you against the winds of unbelief and atheism that will follow because you can't make true on all your promises of conquering the world and winning it for Christ. You can't make it true in your own life, because you are miserable sinners. You a little bit more than I, but that is another point. The fourth and last ... Or perhaps I should stop here. Do I still have time for a fourth one? That is not a Latin title, but a German one. I can't help it, he did not put it in Latin. The ___, the devil is, and it's almost a German translator, is a fierce power. No, he is a sour dour, is that a word in English? Yeah, a dour power. That opens up a whole other dimension of Luther. The devil is the God of depression. Sour. ___. Now we think of depression of an illness, of a mental illness that you have to look after, otherwise it will lead to suicide. For Luther, it is the consequence of original sin. We have lost the joix de vive, that joy of life that was Adam's. Adam not only lost immortality but he lost that joix de vive, that he has to pep up and that we only get in glimpses. We need pills for ___, whatever you use in this part of the country. The devil, Luther said, you have to realize that depression is so much in us, that you cannot avoid that it is ruling over your head. It is with all of us. It makes you, and then he uses for his students an exemplar examples that my students immediately understand wherever I teach them about Luther. But it may give you the sense that life is soulless. You don't want to get out of bed in the morning, because there's nothing out there to motivate you. Something is dying in your soul, that takes away the joy, you can't even accept love of others because you can't believe it, you can't love yourself. There is a chill in your heart. And then Luther says get out of bed. Seek community. Very good is music, biblical verses which music is powerful and dancing. Dancing is excellent. And beer, and wine, there are whole areas in this country where you can't say that I can't bring this kind of Luther to the Missouri Lutherans. And he goes further. He has also the vision that the devil hates the joy that goes from dancing, that comes from beer and wine. The devil hates sex, that doesn't fit in our, we think that particularly when we are pious, we associate sex and the devil very closely. But there is another anecdote, that is the devil? There is another anecdote. Again, not an anecdote at all because it's very well documented. On December 10, 1525, Luther writes to his good friend Sparlatin, George Sparlatin, the go between, the elector and the head of the library, and a very good friend of Luther. He is going to marry also a Katie, a Katerina. The letter of Luther was immediately found to be so embarrassing that it was not published in any of the Luther editions. Only the most modern edition has it. But of course, by that time our mind has been set and we know already our Luther and we don't have to read him anymore. There he writes to Sparlatin, that sentence is still in all the editions: “Unfortunately I can't attend your wedding, but I send you a present. The water on the River Zalle is rising so fast, I would not be able to be back for my lectures at the university.” Now, how many professors really stick to this rule? In Stanford, we always said that one third of the professors is like the strategic Air Force. One third of the professors are always in the air. But I can't attend it because I have my lectures, the water is too high. And now comes the part that has been cut off. “I've carefully calculated how many hours the courier will take to bring you this letter. And that the moment you receive this letter, take your Katie, go upstairs, and sleep with her.” Now of course he did not say sleep with her, that is our nonsensical, embarrassing. He was far more graphic, far more joyful. And at that same moment, I will take my Kate and invite her upstairs and sleep with her. And at that moment, we know we will be united in love for Christ. Is he a first Protestant? Now I come to my conclusion. What does that mean, that sense of the end time? First of all, wasn't he wrong? Yeah, he was wrong. He expected that many of the students of his disciples would still be alive when the Lord would return. St. Paul was wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was wrong, and I submit to you that all true Christians are wrong. Dare to be wrong. Go out on this limb, go out on the green limb, on the limb of faith. You live as if this is the end time, and I mean end, end time, and that will inform and shape your soul, your piety, your action. And that is my second and final point, actually what does that mean for Luther? Do you know that word of Luther, that even if I knew that the Lord would come tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree today? It can't be found in Luther, I've not found it anywhere, it is apocryphal. But it is so precisely. There's one of his apocryphal statements that could not been more genuine and authentic. That means that you are active till the very last. It is a Jewish work of Rabbi ___, who said in the third century, if you are planting a sapling, and you hear the Messiah has come, first plant the sapling, and then go to the Messiah. If Luther had known that it wasn't Talmudic, a rabbinic statement, he probably would not have wanted to use it, and there is that we touch on one of the darkest chapters of Luther's life and fault, the anti-Semitism. That his anti-Semitism in the first place was not a chicken bone, it has carried with us in the most modern times. But above all, it reminds us of the fact that this unbelievable man who makes these kinds of discoveries, that almost 500 years later, I can come and report to you amazing dimensions of faith, was a true saint. That means he was ___, he was saint and sinner. And none of us, tracking with us. And God gave that we all dare to be wrong about the return of the Lord soon. Thank you. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website, beesondivinity.com. 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