It feels like yesterday. I was sitting in my tenth-grade European history class, listening to the story of the Protestant Reformation unfold. Martin Luther was such a hero, I thought. He really stuck it to the Big Bad Catholic Church and saved true Christianity.
As a tenth-grader, I failed to understand the ramifications of this belief. If Luther was right, then the Catholic Church had been leading souls to commit idolatry for over a millennium, and Luther was a modern-day prophet of sorts, freeing millions from the lies and tyranny of the papacy.
Biblically, it is common for God to commission prophets in times where his people need to be shaken up and realigned with his will. So was Luther a prophet, sent to do the same?
In 2018, Protestant Arnold Wheeler dedicated an article to this question. His conclusion?
The answer is absolutely, yes. . . . He certainly had the Holy Spirit’s guidance in the things he taught, and there can be no question that God raised him up to carry out a very special work for him at a critical time in Christian history.
This is unsurprising. In fact, all Protestants ought to agree with the historical fact that the Reformation was a critical turning points in Christian history.
Wheeler continues with an important distinction: “However, I think nearly all Christians would agree that Luther’s prophetic gift was not the same as that of the biblical writers, who spoke and wrote with God’s authority.”
Could we agree with this claim? Well, we can certainly agree that Martin Luther was not a modern-day Moses or Elijah. But could he be even a lower-tier prophet?
For someone to be a prophet of God, he need to be speaking God’s words. After all, the word “prophet” comes from the Greek prophētēs, which can be translated as “spokesman.” A prophet is speaking on behalf of God.
Time does not permit a complete examination of all of Luther’s teachings and whether they align with the Word of God preserved in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. But what can be considered, and what is less subjective, is the markings of a prophet, and whether Luther possessed those.
Firstly, the Bible depicts prophets as being called directly by God. God appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush, conversing directly with him (Exod. 3:4). God calls Samuel’s name repeatedly in the Temple (1 Sam. 3:4). God speaks to Elijah in a whisper in a cave outside Horeb (1 Kings 19:12-13). Even in the New Testament, God appears to Paul and speaks directly to him (Acts 9:4-5).
Although having direct communication with God is not strictly necessary to be a prophet, it is a sure indicator that God is commissioning an individual to provoke change. Luther never speaks of any unique commission given to him by God. Instead, he bases his ministry in his conviction from simply reading Scripture.
Besides communication with God, prophets exhibited other signs—namely, public miracles. Moses parts the Red Sea in two (Exod. 14:21-22), Samuel calls upon God to make it thunder and rain (1 Sam. 12:17-18), Elijah raises the dead (1 Kings 17:21-22), and Paul heals a crippled man (Acts 14:10).
Even less significant prophets in the New Testament performed miraculous deeds. Take Agabus, for example, who foretells a great famine (Acts 11:28), which is fulfilled during the reign of the Roman emperor Claudius. He also prophesies later the arrest of St. Paul by the Jews (Acts 21:10-11).
God never expects his people to blindly trust that prophets are speaking the word of God. He accompanies their words with miraculous signs.
What miraculous signs publicly accompanied Luther’s ministry? Well . . . none.
According to Luther, for over a millennium, most if not all Christians fell into idolatry (at the very least, implicitly) due to Holy Mass: “This dragon’s tail, the Mass, has begotten a numerous vermin-brood of manifold idolatries” (Schmalkald Articles, Article II). He goes on, describing how the Mass’s connection with purgatory, relics, and indulgences is of the devil. But the beliefs and practices that Luther lists for condemnation were held explicitly by Christians from the beginning, with surviving written records to prove it from as early as the fourth century.
Regarding purgatory, Tertullian says, “We offer sacrifices for the dead”—that is, to expedite their progress to heaven, even after they have died (The Crown 3:3, A.D. 211).
Regarding relics, St. Basil the Great (329-379) describes how “he took up the relics with all becoming reverence, and has aided the brethren in their preservation. These relics do you receive with a joy equivalent to the distress with which their custodians have parted with them and sent them to you” (Letter 197, par. 2).Regarding indulgences and temporal punishment, St. Augustine (354-430) writes, “Almsgiving must be used to propitiate God for past sins, not to purchase impunity for the commission of such sins in the future. For he has given no man license to sin, although in his mercy he may blot out sins that are already committed, if we do not neglect to make proper satisfaction” (Enchiridion, ch. 70).
Considering this, if Luther’s theology is correct, then God allowed his Church to be steeped in idolatrous errors and practices for over 1,l00 years. This period is much longer than any other recorded span in biblical history where God fell silent while the Israelites persisted in idolatry. This seems out of character for the God we read about in the scriptures, who promises to send his Spirit to lead us into all truth (John 16:13) and to be with us always until the end of the age (Matt. 22:20).
And when God finally does speak after so long a silence, he uses someone who has no signs to show for it?
So what’s the final verdict? Martin Luther’s protest was fueled by spiritual forces, but these forces did not come from God. If he was a prophet, it must have been for someone else.