Martin Luther & The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
In Martin Luther's treatise, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he writes on the Holy Sacraments according to his beliefs and interpretation of the Word of God. This treatise does not focus on inner freedom but looks towards outward captivity. The outward captivity Luther discuses is the corruption of the church's institutional life which "takes captive" the Sacraments (which are external signs). The Catholic Church practices seven sacraments. Luther throws out five of the Sacraments and keeps only baptism and the Eurachrist. Luther takes the Augustinian definition of sacrament which is an external sign of God's inner grace. The medieval Catholic Church adds to the definition stating that a sacrament has external signs that not only signify grace but confer, or give grace. Through this definition, Luther thought Christian piety might become externalized; that the inner gift from the Sacraments is something a person needs for salvation and is dependent on something external that can be controlled or held from one. Instead of the notion of priests being able to control external things, the Sacrament has it's power from the promise of Christ. The power of the Sacrament is from Christ alone and by faith alone.
The second Sacrament Luther kept was the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood, or the Eurachrist. The first was that when someone came for Mass they were given bread but not wine. Luther believed that Catholics had turned God's gift into man's work. Church law at the time, forbade the laity to receive from the cup as well as the host. In his view, penance is almost part of the Sacrament of baptism because what happens in penance is that one returns to baptism. Luther and Protestants belief is that Christ sacrificed His body once. Secondly, transubstantiation Catholic doctrine says the words of consecration that the bread becomes no longer bread, but is changed into the body of Christ and similarly the wine changes into the blood of Christ. The significance of baptism endures. One is free to do things that aren't in the Bible but Church is not free to make it a requirement. That's a sacrifice because priests are offering Christ's body to God. Much of Luther's criticism of the medieval church can be summed up this way: These are people trying to give things to God so as to earn a reward, rather than receiving from him what he has freely promised in Christ. Extreme unction came from the New Testament but it was not something done by Christ. The Catholic Church put shackles on the Sacrament which was wicked and unjustifiable to Luther. It was not an established move by Christ but a mere invention of the Church. To Luther, this is treating mass as a special kind of good work.
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