Confident in the Truth

We dislike a dogmatic spirit. We don’t want a minister to offend anyone by coming across as so sure of his own position that he implies the opposite position must be wrong. Thus, many ministers are hesitant to take strong stands. However, Martin Luther declared that the minister must be sure of his doctrine. He was not advocating a certitude born of arrogance. Rather, he was saying that the minister is to manifest a certainty that comes from the text of Scripture itself.

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam originally applauded Martin Luther’s challenge to the church. But he later came to believe that Luther had gone too far and became a sharp critic, writing his Diatribe against the Reformer’s work. Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will in reply. In that book, he quoted Erasmus as saying that on difficult doctrines, the proper academic posture of the scholar is to suspend judgment, be cautious, and hesitate to come to firm conclusions. According to Luther, Erasmus even said that he preferred not to make assertions. Luther went apoplectic over that. Take away assertions, he declared, and you take away Christianity, for the mark of the Christian is the making of bold assertions before the world. He said, “The Holy Spirit is not a skeptic,” for the things He reveals to His church are more certain than life itself. Luther’s desire was that the ministers of the gospel would be like the leaders of the early church, men who knew what they believed, not like those described by Paul—“always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7b).

The certainty of which Luther was speaking is a certainty grounded in the Word of God. Ministers are to labor to master their material. It is their task to wrestle with the Scriptures until they come to understand them, and then to teach that material with clarity and boldness. People come to worship services to hear a word from God; they do not need the opinions of men. Thus, the minister must teach the contents of Scripture authoritatively, reminding himself that he is exercising the prophetic ministry of “Thus saith the Lord.” If he will do his work well, the sheep will be fed. Furthermore, God will speak through the words to those who do not know Christ, causing some to hear, believe, and call upon the name of the Lord.