Vol 98 Issue 03

Dear Friends: You heard yesterday the characteristics of a Christian  man, how his whole life is faith and love. Faith is directed  toward God, love toward man and one’s neighbor, and  consists in such love and service for him as we have  received from God without our work and merit. Thus there are two things: the one, which is the most  needful, and which must be done in one way and no other;  the other, which is a matter of choice and not of necessity,  which may be kept or not, without endangering  faith or incurring hell. In both, love...

The Diet of Worms was an imperial assembly of the  Holy Roman Empire convoked by Emperor Charles V.  It was held in the city of Worms located not far from  Heidelberg. An imperial ‘diet’ was a deliberative  assembly of the whole empire. This diet was conducted  from January 28 to May 25 of 1521, with Emperor  Charles V presiding. Other imperial diets took place at  Worms in different years (829, 926, 1076, 1122, 1495,  and 1545), but the diet in 1521 is the best known. In that day, the city of Worms had a population of  about 7,000. It is...

Several factors made it prudent for Emperor Charles V  to call the Diet of Worms. Two of them were Rome’s  attempt to quiet Martin Luther and Luther’s response  to these attempts. Background  On October 31, 1517, ten days shy of his thirty-fourth  birthday, a monk named Martin Luther nailed his  Ninety-five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. In  them Luther questioned Rome’s view of penance—that  one’s sins were forgiven when one verbally confessed  one’s sins to a priest, carried out the prescribed works  that supposedly showed sorrow for sin, and heard the  priest declare one to be forgiven. Even...

What happened at Worms in April of 1521 was decisive in the history of the Reformation, yea, in the history of  God’s church, the fruit of which reaches to the present  and, by God’s grace, will reach to the end of the world.  Martin Luther risked his life and dared an appearance before the emperor that we might have the gospel that  sets us free, the heavenly word that God kindled to light  afresh through the labors of a monk who said, “Here  I stand.” This sacred, precious, life-giving deposit  has been passed down to us, and we revisit Worms, ...

Martin Luther was not the first ‘heretic’ to stand before the collective might of church and state. He was just one of the few who lived to tell the tale. Already some one hundred years earlier, the Bohemian pre-reformer Jan Hus, who endearingly referred to himself as “the goose” (the meaning of “Hus” in Czech), was similarly summoned to the Council of Constance in Germany and condemned. Just before his burning on July 6, 1415, Hus made a stirring declaration: “Today you cook a goose, but in one hundred years you will hear a swan sing—and him you will have...

Introduction On April 18, 1521, Martin Luther stood for the second  day before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the  Diet of Worms. There in that small town of Worms  located in southwestern Germany by the Rhine River,  with a population of about 7,000, an imperial diet had  been convened that brought 10,000 visitors into town.  At stake before the diet was the ultimate control and  authority of Charles V and the peace of his empire,  which was being threatened by Luther and his teachings. The diet was waiting to hear Luther answer two  questions that had been put...

Let us begin by listening in on an eighth and ninth-grade Heidelberg Catechism class. The pastor, beginning the class as he often does with a time of review to drive deep in the students’ minds important facts and main ideas, asks about the history of the Heidelberg Catechism. The pastor asks, “When was the Heidelberg Catechism written?” A student answers, “1563.” The pastor asks, “By whom was the Heidelberg Catechism written?” A student answers, “Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus.” Along this line of questions, the pastor asks: “Who was Frederick III?” And the answer given by the student would be,...

Among the countless enemies of the Reformation, and therefore enemies of the gospel, two men hold a prominent place in the history of the Diet of Worms. One of them was used by God leading up to the Diet of Worms and the other used at the diet itself. Their names: Johannes Eck and Johannes von Eck. Johannes Eck was professor at Ingolstadt. He debated Luther at Leipzig, and actively opposed Luther’s doctrine in written works published prior to and following the Diet of Worms. The other, Johannes von Eck, was secretary to the Archbishop of Trier, and is best...

Classis East  September 8, 2021 The beginning of the meeting Classis East convened at 8:00 a.m. at Grandville PRC. Rev. Joe Holstege presided as chairman. Two delegates represented each of the eighteen churches of Classis East. Eight elders were present as delegates at classis for the first time and signed the Formula of Subscription. Rev. M. McGeown, pastor of Providence PRC, also signed the Formula. Providence PRC reported that Rev. McGeown was installed on September 5, 2021 as their pastor and thanked Classis East for sixteen months of pulpit supply for their congregation. The questions of Article 41 of the...