Day: August 29, 2024

Participation in the death of Christ is one of the highest honors that a Christian may share, and, as Christ destroyed the devil in His death, so Luther was permitted by God to destroy the papacy in his, thus making Luther one of the clearest types of Christ to appear in the pages, although not of Scripture, of history.

2024-08(Aug)-29(Thu)—1714EDT

No one dies better than the Lutheran, for we have years of the liturgy behind us and the fullness of the promises of God, and Luther himself was certainly no exception.

“Wir sind Bettler. Hoc est verum.”

In his death, Luther, by the grace of God, destroyed the papacy — even though they yet fail to recognize this today. For centuries, all Christians — even Emperors — had feared the supposed power of the pope, and then a German monk defied the entirety of the papacy, lawfully married a nun, raised Christian children, taught the faith over a course of decades, and died a peaceful, Christian death.

All the fury, rage, and malice of the popes could not bring Luther to an untimely or unnatural death. Instead, he died in his native land, secure in his faith and true in his confession. He left behind a legacy few others in the history of the Church could even approach, let alone match.

2024-08(Aug)-29(Thu)—1651EDT

Certain saints are of such importance to the history of the Church that they receive their own specific designations (‘on top of’ saint); in the case of Martin Luther, this is Teacher of the Church, for he restored the right teaching of the Gospel.

St. Martin Luther orat pro nobis.