Lesson 12 Our highest privilege

Photo above by author taken in Wittenberg town square 2017 Reformation 500 anniversary celebration 
 Text below part of presentation to musicians, artists and worship leaders in Kyiv, Ukraine, May 2017

Lesson 12. The proclamation of the Gospel to all people is the Christian's highest privilege. 
Luther had a passion for missions and evangelism. To a great extent, all  his actions are typical missionary activity:
     —translation of the Bible into the language of the people
    —creating a body of songs in the language of the people for praise and instruction of scriptural truths
     —clear biblical teaching and education
     —discipleship and mentoring.

Luther was called to reach his large “Jerusalem”.  His faithfulness resulted in the Reformation spreading to the “Judea and Samaria” of his day and ultimately to the “ends of the earth”. His teaching helped give birth to Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. Zwingli, Calvin, Crammer, Tyndale, Cromwell are only a few of the many leaders impacted by Luther’s teaching.  Key figures of the Lutheran church include Gustavus Vasa of Sweden (1559) who founded a mission among the Laplanders; Heyling, of Lubeck, laboured alone as a missionary in Abyssinia; Frederick IV, of Denmark, established the East India mission at Tranquebar (1706) where one of the missionaries, Ziegenbalg, translated the New Testament into Tamil (1715). The list goes on and on. 

This is what Luther concluded from Col. 1:23, Mark 16:15 and Psalm 117:
the Gospel and Baptism must traverse the whole world."

From Haggai. 2 he concluded:
"God wants to bless not two or three nations but the whole world." The course of the Gospel to all nations is an act in progress in Luther's conception, "The Kingdom of Christ passes through the whole world." 

Luther thought of evangelism in very practical terms as a duty and obligation of every child of God. 
​"Christians should also bring forth much fruit among all the heathen by means of the Word, should convert and save many by eating about themselves like a fire that burns amid dry wood or straw; thus the fire of the Holy Spirit should consume the heathen according to the flesh and make room everywhere for the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ." 
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The priesthood of all believers resulted in Luther's high regard for missionaries and the mission calling of the church. The whole church was seen to have the responsibility to do mission work. All Christians are needed to witness and serve with their talents and gifts of grace. He was aware of the fundamental importance of the preaching and felt that the primary work was not to be done by societies or individuals but by the church:
"For if all the heathen are to praise God, it must first be established that He has become their God. If He is to be their God, they must know Him and believe in Him . . . . If they are to believe, they must first hear His Word . . . . If they are to hear His Word, preachers who proclaim God's Word to them must be sent to them."  

"The preaching of the Gospel was begun through the apostles and continues, and is carried farther through the preachers here and there in the world, is driven out and persecuted; yet it is made known farther and farther to those who have never heard it before. . . . Or, as the saying goes, when someone sends out a message, the message has gone out, even though it has not yet come to the intended place or the specified location but is still under way."

In Luther's theology this world is a battlefield with a battle between God and Satan. Missions means fighting. Man can never be in a neutral position in this world. He is either in God's kingdom or satan's. Preaching the gospel is not possible without cross and suffering. True knowledge about God is possible only through the word, the gospel. This is the fundamental basis and motivation for mission, evangelization, and reformation. For Luther, the proclamation of the Gospel is the Christian's highest privilege, and he should begin by exercising it in the normal situations of life. In a sermon he preached in his own home in 1533, he said: 
"The noblest and greatest work and the most important service we can perform for God on earth is bringing other people, and especially those who are entrusted to us, to the knowledge of God by the holy Gospel" (WA, 53, 415). 

If all the heathen are to praise God, He must first have been made their God. If He is to be their God, they must know Him and believe on Him and let go of all idolatry. For man cannot praise God with idolatrous lips and an unbelieving heart. If they are to believe, they must first hear His Word and thus receive the Holy Spirit, who purifies and enlightens their heart by faith. For one cannot come to faith or receive the Holy Spirit before one has heard the Word, as Paul says ( Rom. 10:14) : "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" (Gal. 3:2) ( WA, 31 I, 228f.). 

Luther also expressed his profound missionary vision in hymnody. He composed the hymn "Es woll uns Gott genädig sein” (May God bestow on us his grace) in 1524, based on Psalm 67, that is the evangelistic counterpart to the doctrinal song"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”   English translation follows (Original German at end of blog)
May God be gracious to us
and give us his blessing;
May his face with its clear radiance
enlighten us to eternal life,
So that we understand His works
and what pleases him on earth
and thestrength and salvation of Jesus Christ
may become known to the heathen
and they may turn to God

Then the heathen everywhere
praise and thank you, God,
and the whole world rejoices
and sings with great joyful noise
that you are judge on earth
and do not let sin prevail;
your word is the protection and pasture
that maintains all people
to travel on pilgrimage on the right way.

Let the people in their good deeds
thank you, God and praise you;
the land produces crops and is improved,
your word is well regarded.
May the Father and the son bless us,
May God the holy spirit bless us,
to him let all the world give honour,
revere him most of all. 
now from your heart say : Amen!

Luther was not perfect and in some areas did not go far enough down the path of biblical understanding.  Yet compared to where he was when he started, he journeyed far down the path. Although Luther did not live in a time or region of the world where overseas, cross-cultural mission was in vogue, he nonetheless had a passion for worldwide missions. As many have pointed out, it was not as well developed as ours today, nor as free of racial bias as we like to believe our perspective of missions is.  Yet, considering the cultural field in which he lived, his statements remain inspirational. 
I am by no means of one mind with those who set all their store by one language, and despise all others; for I would gladly raise up a generation able to be of use to Christ in foreign lands and to talk with their people. . . It is good that the youth be practised in many languages. Who knows how God will make use of them in years to come? It is for this end also that schools are established.

In a letter of March, 1522, Luther stresses the vital connection between missionary proclamation and the power of God's Word-in the threefold sense of Christ, His Gospel, and the Scripture that conveys it: 
"This noble Word brings with it a great hunger and an insatiable thirst, so that we could not be satisfied even though many thousands of people believe on it; we wish that no one should be without it. This thirst ever strives for more and does not rest; it moves us to speak, as David says: `I believed, therefore have I spoken' (Ps. 116:10 ). 
 
Here we have Luther's philosophy of missions, distilled in six scriptural words: "I believed, therefore have I spoken.”

And if we truly believe, then we consider it the highest privilege to speak at home and cross culturally through the creative gifts that we possess.
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Es woll' uns Gott genädig sein
Und seinen Segen geben;
Sein Antlitz uns mit hellem Schein
Erleucht' zum ew'gen Leben,
Daß wir erkennen seine Werk',
Und was ihm liebt auf Erden,
Und Jesus Christus Heil und Stärk'
Bekannt den Heiden werden
Und sie zu Gott bekehren. 
2
So danken, Gott, und loben dich
Die Heiden überalle,
Und alle Welt, die freue sich
Und sing' mit großem Schalle,
Daß du auf Erden Richter bist
Und läßt die Sünd' nicht walten;
Dein Wort die Hut und Weide ist,
Dei alles Volk erhalten,
In rechter Bahn zu wallen. 
3
Es danke, Gott, und lobe dich
Das Volk in guten Taten;
Das Land bringt Frucht und bessert sich,
Dein Wort ist wohl geraten.
Uns segne Vater und der Sohn,
Uns segne Gott der Heil'ge Geist,
Dem alle Welt die Ehre tu',
Vor ihm sich fürchte allermeist.
Nun sprecht von Herzen: Amen!