Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 05:4 (Fall 1996)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

RAR 5:4 (Fall 1996) p. 165

Book Reviews

Ministry, Word, and Sacraments: An Enchiridion, Martin Chemnitz. Translated by Luther Poellot St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia (1981). 173 pages, cloth, $19.25.

Martin Chemnitz (1522–86) was the Lutheran divine who wrote the definitive rebuttal to the Council of Trent. He also collaborated with several other Lutheran theologians to write the Formula of Concord.

So why review a Lutheran doctrinal treatise from 1569 in a Reformed journal? Should we continue to pick at the scabs of that horrible meeting between Luther and Zwingli in 1529? By no means! Indeed, I suspect—perhaps through rosy lenses—that had Calvin and Chemnitz spent much time in conversation and correspondence, we would not have separate mudslinging Lutheran and Reformed communions, but rather, one Reformation church. Reformed people with a wholesome yearning for a true ecumenical bridge to Lutheranism often appeal to the affectionate relationship between Calvin and Melanchthon. This will not, however, win the true confessional Lutherans. It is true that Melanchthon wrote major portions of the Lutheran confessional documents. But he was gentle and winsome to a fault, a man of wavering convictions and timidity in an age which called for strong stomachs.

Chemnitz, on the other hand, had Luther’s firmness of conviction together with Melanchthon’s patience and gentleness of speech. He commands the respect of Lutherans down to this day and is spoken of as “the second Martin.”1 Indeed, the Tridentine papists believed they would have eradicated Lutheranism had it not been for Chemnitz.

I think there is strong reason in our time for Reformed

RAR 5:4 (Fall 1996) p. 166

people to poke around the fringes of Lutheran orthodoxy because the Lutherans actually have a higher view of the sovereignty of God in Sanctification, though I hasten to add that Lutherans squirm in discomfort over “sovereignty” as a topic for open discussion.

This high view of God’s sovereignty in Sanctification works out profoundly, of course, in the way Lutherans approach gathered worship forms, and it is precisely at this point that Reformed people may benefit some from Lutheranism. A small number of Reformed people are able to maintain the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries within the four walls of their local church buildings. The rest of us are beset by the virulent worldliness of the broad visible church, all those technique-oriented semi-Pelagian ways of approaching God and viewing ourselves.

To be sure, the Lutherans are bedeviled by the same societal undercurrents. Still, their worship forms are so tightly married ...