Luther, James, Canon and the Authority of Scripture

Every so often Luther’s view concerning James comes up and scandalizes Bible believing
Christians everywhere, including many Lutherans. In our day the Bible is the Bible, but
understanding of its history and making is little. For that matter, many people that claim
to believe the Bible, are scandalized by Luther’s dismissal of James, and have never
themselves read the Bible. And it is the irony of ironies to many that Luther who stood so
firmly on the idea of Sola Scriptura, or scripture alone, would to the very end of his life
never change his view.1 I can sympathize with that. I grew up with many of the same
views and was scandalized for a few weeks in college trying to reconcile the Lutheran
view of the canon with that which I had been taught by countless well meaning Sunday
School teachers, teachers and friends through the years. It took some time, but the more I
look into it the more I am disinclined to apologize for Luther, and the more inclined I am
to champion him on this issue. The more I see that this is really a matter of the authority
of Scripture, and only Luther’s view preserves the authority of scripture over that of the
church or tradition.
Luther at the Diet of Worms, did not appeal to the “Bible” alone, but to scripture alone,
and with good reason. There is a bit of a difference. There was especially a difference in
Luther‘s day. Now to be fair, all that there is as far as Holy Scripture goes is to be found
in the Bible, the question is whether there is more in the Bible than can rightly be
considered scripture. In Luther’s day there were many books in the Bible that were not
considered scripture, or at a minimum were suspect and therefore not deemed sufficient
for deciding doctrinal controversy. Some of those books still remain in the modern
English Bibles. After all, no one winces that the Old Testament Apocrypha, books like
first and second Maccabees are no longer included in protestant Bibles. (Though in
Lutheran countries this too is a modern development. Even in the Nineteenth Century it
was common for Lutherans to read the apocryphal literature as devotional material.) The
only books Luther gets chastised for questioning today, are those books of the New
Testament that were open for question by all in his day.
It should be noted here that Luther whatever his distaste for what these books said would
never have questioned them for that reason alone. He had good reason, it was not a matter
of “I don’t like that,“ an attitude adopted by too many today, who still think they can
criticize Luther for rejecting James. The question of canonicity or whether scripture was
God’s word or not, was never a matter of Luther’s own taste, likes or dislikes. His
questioning of James is in no way the same as the pastime of higher critics today who
wonder whether or not “Jesus really said that.” Or the liberal churches who like to
mistake warm fuzzy feelings for the Holy Spirit guiding them as to what is and isn’t
God’s word in scripture. Where Luther was convinced of the Apostolic origin, or
approval of a book there Luther was subject to what it said, no matter what it said. This is
more than I can say for many “fundamentalists” today who uncritically accept all 27
books of the New Testament as canon, and yet deny virtually all of what they have to say
concerning Baptism or the Lord’s Supper.
Many claim that Luther questioned James purely on subjective grounds. Even J.A.O
Preus II claims that Luther’s “Christological criterion” is rather subjective. 2 That is that

1 M Reu, Luther and the Scriptures (Columbus, The Wartburg Press, 1944) Pgs 42-44
2 JAO Preus, “The New Testament Canon in the Lutheran Dogmaticians” Concordia Journal Volume 36
Luther would judge the canonicity of the particular scripture in question based on
whether or not it testified to Christ. Given Christ’s own words in John 5:39, I’m not sure
that is as subjective as many would make it out to be. It seems to be Christ’s own
principal. Yet this was hardly Luther’s only reason for questioning James and other books
in the New Testament.
The truth is that in Luther’s day Luther’s view of the canon was quite common if not
freshly dug up with a renewed interest in Scripture that had long been dormant.3 They
were even shared by many of Luther’s opponents including Erasmus and Cajetan. Not
until Rome decided that a room full of the Anti-Christ’s representatives could take a vote
to decide whether a book was apostolic and therefore canonical in 1546 was the canon
officially shut for them. To many this would look like Rome champions scripture even
more than Luther, but that would be false. In doing this they have not granted scripture
authority, but the church authority to decide what is scripture. Scripture then becomes
subservient to the Church and tradition. You really can’t have all three on the same level.
The reformed churches since Calvin have more or less let the tradition of 27 New
Testament books hold sway, and see no reason to investigate the origins of Canon. For
them it is Bible alone, putting the New Testament antilegomena on fairly the same level
as the legoumena seeing little if any distinctions, despite the fact that even Zwingli ,
Calvin, Beza and other recognized that there was a distinction4, and despite all the
evidence that there is a distinction to be made. Here it isn’t so much the authority of the
church that takes precedence over scripture, but perhaps a blind trust in tradition. The
fallout from this approach seems to be that rather than having 27 books of the New
Testament, they have two, James and Revelation. (The two most hotly contested of the
antilegomena.) Rather than reconcile James to Paul, Paul and James are pitted against
each other. Perhaps Luther was right to suspect that James and Paul could not really be
reconciled. 5 A view he held despite the fact that he thought James still had a lot of good
to say to the Christian. Luther may have been a bit flamboyant in what he said concerning
the canonicity of James, but in principle his thoughts were more or less accepted by all
who had studied the matter.
But why James? Why did Luther have such a problem with James, and why is he so
vilely attacked for this view? Perhaps here it would be good to read what Luther has to
say in his famous preface to the book of James so often referenced and rarely quoted:

“Though this Episle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it
and regard it as a good book, because it sets up no doctrine of men and
lays great stress on God’s law. But to state my own opinion about it,
though without injury to anyone, I consider that it is not the writing of any
apostle. My reasons are as follows:
“First: Flatly in contradiction to St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture it
ascribes righteousness to works and says that Abraham was justified by his
works in that he offered his son Isaac, though St. Paul, on the contrary,
teaches, in Romans 4 that Abraham was justified without works, by faith
alone, before he offered his son and proves it by Moses in Genesis 15.
number 2 Spring 2010, pg 134
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid Pg.135
5 Reu, Pg. 42
 Now, although this Epistle might be helped and a gloss be found for this
work-righteousness, it cannot be defended against applying to works the
saying of Moses in Gen. 15, which speaks only of Abraham’s faith and not
of his works, as St. Paul shows in Romans 4. This fault, therefore leads to
the conclusion that it is not the work of any apostle.
“Second: its purpose is to teach Christians, and in all its teaching it does
not once mention the passion, the Resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ. The
Writer names Christ several times but teaches nothing about Him, and
only speaks of common faith in God. But it is the duty of a true apostle to
preach about the foundation of faith, as He Himself says, in John 15, ’Ye
shall bear witness of me.’ All the genuine sacred books agree in this that
all of them preach Christ and deal with Him. That is the true test by which
to judge all books when we see whether they deal with Christ or not, since
all the scriptures show us Christ (Romans 3), and St. Paul is determined to
know nothing but Christ (1 Corinthians 15). What does not teach Christ is
not apostolic even though St. Peter or Paul taught it; again, what preaches
Christ would be apostolic even though Judas, Annas, Pilate and Herod did
it.
“but this James does nothing more than to drive to the law and its works;
and mixes the two up in such disorderly fashion that it seems to me he
must have been some good, pious man, who took some sayings of the
apostles’ disciples and threw them thus on paper; or perhaps they were
written down by someone else on the basis of his preaching. He calls the
law a ’law of liberty’ though St. Paul calls it a law of slavery, of wrath, of
death, and of sin (Galatians 3, Romans 7).
“Moreover, in chapter 5 he quotes the sayings of St. Peter, ’love covereth
the multitude of sins’ (I Peter 4) and, ’Humble yourselves under the hand
of God’(I Peter 5) and of St. Paul (Galatians 5) ’ The spirit lusteth against
hatred,’ and yet in point of time, St. James was put to death by Herod, in
Jerusalem, before St. Peter. So it seems that he come after St. Peter and
Paul.
“In a word, he wants to guard against those who relied on faith without
works and is unequal to the task in spirit, thought and words, and wrests
the Scriptures and thereby resists Paul and all Scriptures and would
accomplish by inciting men to love. Therefore I cannot put it among the
chief books though I would not thereby prevent anyone from putting it
where he pleases and regarding it as he pleases; for there are many good
sayings in it.”6

Luther had other things to say about James elsewhere which were harsher than this
particular preface of 1522, in which he tried best he could not to scandalize the hearts of
many who perhaps already want to equate Scripture with the Bible and the Bible with the
word of God. Most Lutheran theologians throughout the ages have been careful not to do
this. Even the ordination vows of Lutheran Pastors have them only swear to canonical
books, leaving open which books those are.

6 M. Reu Pg. 40
It is true, as J.A.O. Preus II points out, that overtime the distinction amongst the books
has dwindled. Even Chemnitz was careful not to be as bombastic as Luther over the issue
when he took the Council of Trent to task for pronouncing anethema on all who rejected
the 39 canonical books of the O.T. the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, and the 27 books
of the New Testament, thereby anathematizing not only Luther and Chemnitz, not only
Eusebius, Augustine, Jerome, Origen and a host of others from the early church, but even
the most vehement defenders of the Roman Catholic Church and its dogma during the
reformation including Erasmus, and Cajetan.7
There are many reasons given for this. Gerhard seems to believe that no matter who
wrote James it is the work of the Holy Spirit, and takes this attitude with all the
antilegomena.8
I fail to see how this can be. It certainly does matter who wrote what. If it was not written
or approved by an Apostle sent by Christ, and given the direct promise of the Holy Spirit
to guide them in John 16, then how can we be certain it has the Holy Spirit as its primary
author? If the books did not have the necessary provenance to be accepted by the church
in the fourth century, by the leading theologians of that century, as unqualifiedly
canonical as Eusebius makes abundantly clear was the case,9 what new evidence is there
today by which these books can bind the consciences of Christians? And why should a
generation that thinks it no big deal what is and isn’t scripture as long as it is in the Bible?
It should be the other way around. Christians are called to test the Spirits (1 John 4:1: 1
Tim.4:1; Col.2:8) at least Luther was willing to do that! We are not at liberty to say any
more or any less than Holy Scripture. How then can we be at liberty to arbitrarily decide
that which is and isn’t Scripture concerning books that fail to meet the criteria?
Some argue that James and Paul are easily reconciled, and that James can be given a
gospel interpretation. My sermons can be given a gospel interpretation. That does not
mean they are thereby given apostolic authority, and made scripture. What is worse is the
abuse and torture of souls subjected to the preaching and interpretation of James that see
no reason to bother reconciling him to Paul.
What’s more if there is no contradiction between Paul and James, why not just make
one’s argument from Paul and the rest of the scripture we can be certain of? I like Luther
would not take James from anyone. If they want to use it in their private devotions, or
perhaps even study it with others. Luther quotes from it even in the Catechism with the
self evident truth that “God tempts no one.” It does have some good things to say. The
moral teachings it has are good. But this does not make it Scripture, or the word of God.
It definitely does not make it gospel.
So it becomes problematic, unqualifiedly recognizing the antilegomena including James
as scripture. In fact it erodes the authority of scripture, yes even the Bible. For if absent
the meeting of canonical criteria, apostolic authorship, and not just apostolic doctrine,
being chief, a book can be declared by some entity, whether individual, church, or a
neglect of thoughtful consideration to be scripture, then any book can be declared
scripture, and there is nothing left by which to test spirits, but the warm fuzzies of
liberals, and the burning bosoms of Mormons.

7 Preus pg. 135.

8 Preus Robert, “The Inspiration of Scripture” (Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1957) Pg. xi
9 Eusebius , The Church History translated by Paul Le Maier ( Grand Rapids, Kregel, 1999) pg. 115