The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 79

Constantine’s Protestant Church

Martin Luther didn’t really mean to start the Protestant Reformation. He only wanted to help his Church. After all, he was one of their priests. And he wanted to help the Roman Church by pointing out ways it could improve.

He actually pointed out 95 ways it could improve.

History.com
Luther spent his early years in relative anonymity as a monk and scholar. But in 1517 Luther penned a document attacking the Catholic Church’s corrupt practice of selling “indulgences” to absolve sin. His “95 Theses,” which propounded two central beliefs—that the Bible is the central religious authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds—was to spark the Protestant Reformation.
history.com/topics/reformation/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses

Indulgences are purchased permission to sin.

Sinola.

Years ago singers paid disc jockeys to play their records on radio. That was called payola. Roman Christians paid priests to let them sin.

Sinola.

It started on All Saints’ Eve, 1517, when Luther publicly objected to the way preacher Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences. These were documents prepared by the church and bought by individuals either for themselves or on behalf of the dead that would release them from punishment due to their sins. As Tetzel preached, “Once the coin into the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory heavenward springs!”
christianitytoday.com/history/people/theologians/martin-luther.html

Luther made his move on All Saints’ Eve, later known as Halloween, one of the pagan holidays that Rome Christianized, but Luther did not protest against that. He also did not protest against the Inquisition, and later he would face his own inquisition. Luther protested about indulgences.

The Roman Church presumed they had the authority to forgive sins. That led to the natural progression of paying the Church to forgive your sins — indulgences.

Notice that the Inquisition and the indulgences were based on the premise that God gave unlimited authority to His Church, and Rome was that Church. With that premise established, it was only a question of how far the Church would go with this “authority.”

What is the Church?

The Church is just a whole lot of people with a whole lot of human nature. And when Luther tacked up his discussion of how tacky the Church was, he was about to run into that human nature.

Theirs.

And his.

Paul corrected Peter, the supposed first pope, in Antioch –

Gal 2:11-12
11) But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned.
12) For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.

When Paul corrected Peter, what did Peter do?

2Pet 3:15-16
15) Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you;

In spite of being corrected by Paul, Peter called Paul a beloved brother, and spoke of his wisdom. You would think, then, that popes would want to copy the “first pope’s” example of being correctable.

Not so. When Martin Luther posted his 95 suggestions for discussion, the pope tried to have him killed.

When the Church tried to kill him, you would think Luther’s resolve to go only by the Bible and not by that Church would have been hugely reinforced. Surely, Luther would not want to retain any non-Biblical traditions of his potential executioner!

Not so.

It is said that Luther had two main points of belief.

1. sola scriptura – solely scripture, go only by the Bible and not by the Church.
2. salvation is a gift from God and can never be earned by human works.

Both those beliefs were diametrically opposed to Roman Church teachings, but Luther still tried to balance the Bible with the Church, as if both came from God. He still saw the Roman Church with its pontifex maximus, fanciful vestments, indulgences and inquisitions as Christ’s church, instead of Constantine’s Church.

Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt was an early colleague of Luther in the Reformation. Luther thought that Carlstadt was too radical in his reforms of Church practices. So when Carlstadt rejected the Church’s adoration of images, Luther urged him to back off.

But, because of his iconoclastic tract Von Abtuhung der Bylder (1522; “On the Rejection of Images”), Carlstadt was called in February by the elector Frederick the Wise to account for his part in the prevailing ferment. Luther, who during the turmoil had been at Wartburg Castle, came out of hiding to urge restraint. In a series of masterful sermons stressing the need for care of the weaker brethren, Luther disputed Carlstadt’s impatience for further reform.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Andreas Rudolf Bodenstein von Carlstadt.

“stressing the need for care of the weaker brethren” — That Britannica article emphasizes the oft used point that since brethren are weak, they need to be allowed to continue to sin. That was how the Roman holidays became Christian, because the pagans were just too weak to give them up. However, spiritual strength grows by obedience, not disobedience. Allowing disobedience for weakness only yields more weakness.

So Luther gave what Britannica called masterful sermons stressing the need to keep sinning, by adoring icons/idols.

Luther, then, was not going by what the Bible clearly teaches in both Hebrew and Greek testaments, and in the Ten Commandments.

Exod 20
4) “You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

Luther had a contradiction with the Ten Commandments. On the one hand, he said he upheld them.

“I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of ten commandments. Can it be imaginable that there should be any sin where there is no law? Whoever abrogates the law, must of necessity abrogate sin also. “
Luther, Against the Antinomians, Translated from Luther’s Works (Weimar ed.).

On the other hand, he taught against them, as with the images.

This was also true with the fourth commandment, the weekly Sabbath. Carlstadt and some anabaptists, upon studying the Bible apart from the Church, learned that the Bible commands to keep the seventh day holy and no where commands the Roman day of the sun. Again, Luther went with the Church, and not the Bible.

“But whoever wants to make a necessary command of the Sabbath as a work required of God, must keep Saturday, and not Sunday; for Saturday was enjoined upon the Jews, and not Sunday. But Christians have thus far kept Sunday, and not Saturday, because Christ arose on that day. This is a certain sign that the Sabbath, and the whole of Moses, do not concern us in the least; otherwise we ought to keep Saturday.”
Erlang, Augs., cited in History of the Sabbath and First Day of the Week, Andrews, Conradi.

Notice that Luther clearly said that if we go by the Bible, we ought to keep Saturday. He chose not to go by the Bible.

His reason for keeping Sunday is that Christians kept Sunday, but that was Constantine’s Christians, who enforced the day with Roman might. Constantine’s Sunday law was for Roman Christians and sun worshipers. Wishful theologians have searched from Genesis to Revelation, but there is no Bible commandment to keep Sunday holy. The Sunday commandment is from Constantine, not God. When they kept the day of the sun, was the Roman Empire accidentally keeping God’s holy day?

Of course not. Constantine’s Church absorbed that weekly day from Rome, as they did the yearly pagan festivals.

Christ’s flock that began on Pentecost kept the Sabbath and the rest of the Ten Commandments. They were gathered at Pentecost in Jerusalem only because they kept the Bible Feasts, of which the Sabbath is first in Leviticus 23. In Acts 15 James mentioned that Christians would hear Moses read in the synagogues every Sabbath, and Paul customarily taught on the Sabbath. The spiritual descendants of the first flock fled Hadrian’s city of Jupiter in 135, rather than conform to his banning of Bible teaching. Gentile Christians, however, wanted to be in Hadrian’s city dedicated to Jupiter. So in the starkest contrast with the first flock, Hadrian’s Christians chose Rome over the Bible.

As did Luther.

“They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, as having been changed into the Lord’s Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments.”
Augsburg Confession of Faith, Article 28 written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther, 1530.

But Luther accepted that power about the Sabbath day.

On the other hand, Karlstadt wrote:
“When servants have worked six days, they should have the seventh day free. God says without distinction, ‘Remember that you observe the seventh day’… Concerning Sunday it is known that men have instituted it… It is clear however, that you should celebrate the seventh day.” Concerning the Sabbath and Commanded Holidays, 1524, chap. 4.

Luther wanted to keep as much of the Roman Church as he could, undoubtedly thinking that Rome was the real Church that had gotten off track. He did not realize that the Church of indulgences and inquisitions was the Roman Empire, which had gotten control of the Roman Church.

Martin Luther is called the father of the Reformation. His rallying cry was sola scriptura, yet his practice was partim scriptura – take some, leave some. When he said that “the whole of Moses” did not concern him in the least, he was throwing away the Ten Commandments. That’s why he gerrymandered the book of James, redistricting it to the end of his Bible translation because James upheld the Ten Commandments.

Carlstadt rejected the mass, adoration of images, and “celibate” priests, among other Roman practices. None of that is taught in the Bible, yet Luther opposed Carlstadt on all those points. Like Luther, Carlstadt said to go by scripture but Luther said to also go by the Church.

The Bible principle is not to add to or take away from the Bible. Carlstadt wanted to reject everything in the Roman Church not taught in the Bible, and Luther wanted to keep everything in the Church not specifically forbidden in the Bible. Again, Luther claimed sola scriptura, but practiced partim scriptura. And that was extremely important because —

When Luther did not follow his claim of sola scriptura, and when he clung to Roman Church traditions –

He set the pattern for most Protestants from that time on.

Luther valued the written Word of God, even as he did not strictly go by that Word. He felt it was important for people to have a good Bible translation in their own common language, so he produced a German translation that is still widely used. That translation, made widely available by the new printing press, was revolutionary in spreading the Word of God.

Later Protestants also greatly valued the Bible. They rejected the Roman Church as religious authority, and instead looked to the Bible alone as religious authority. Each Christian has the personal responsibility to search that Word of God. Therefore, all must be able to have a Bible to read. This belief in individually knowing God led to a tremendous drive to translate the Bible into the common languages of the people.

This also was opposed by the Roman Church. Having a personal Bible meant rejecting the Church as ultimate religious authority.

John Wycliffe produced an English Bible translation before Luther’s German Bible, and before the advent of the printing press. Although each Wycliffe Bible was copied by hand, the hunger for it was so great that thousands were produced.

John Wycliffe and his followers produced full English versions of the Old and New Testament in the late 14th century…These translations are part of the radical impulse for reform within the church. Indeed the issue of vernacular Bibles becomes one of the contentious themes of the Reformation.
historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac66#ixzz6QExcSGoX

The Protestants wanted people to have the Bible. The Roman Church did not. Wycliffe said they did not deserve to be listened to.

Those Heretics who pretend that the laity need not know God’s law but that the knowledge which priests have had imparted to them by word of mouth is sufficient, do not deserve to be listened to. For Holy Scriptures is the faith of the Church, and the more widely its true meaning becomes known the better it will be. Therefore since the laity should know the faith, it should be taught in whatever language is most easily comprehended… [After all,] Christ and His apostles taught the people in the language best known to them.
bible.org/seriespage/1-wycliffe-king-james-period-challenge

Wycliffe’s hand copied Bibles had an effect far beyond their numbers.

His followers, known as Lollards, were poor Oxford scholars who preached the Word. They had a huge impact on the common folk, largely because they counted their own lives as nothing for the cause of Christ. In the two decades after Wycliffe’s death, many Lollards were burned at the stake, some even with their Bibles hanging from their necks to be burned with them, ibid.

Those are Roman ways, with its Roman papal emperor, its Roman days, and its Roman persecution of Christians. That’s the old Roman Empire, masquerading since Constantine’s time as the new Christian Church.

The Wycliffe Bible of 1382 was the first complete Bible in English, or in any modern European language. It greatly reduced the power of the Roman Church, because people could check up on the Church.

After Wycliffe’s death from natural causes, owning his Bible or even reading it was outlawed by the church. And in 1415, by a papal decree, Wycliffe’s bones were dug up and burned.

William Tyndale came along after the printing press came into use, at the same time as Luther, early 1500’s.

Soon after the publication of Luther’s New Testament, an English scholar, William Tyndale, is studying in Wittenberg – where he probably matriculates in May 1524. Tyndale begins a translation of the New Testament from Greek into English. His version is printed at Worms in 1526 in 3000 copies. When they reach England, the bishop of London seizes every copy that his agents can lay their hands on.
historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac66#ixzz6QEy7ejcb

The bishop of London was so good at destroying those Bibles that only a few copies of Tyndale’s Bible exist today.

Tyndale worked in hiding, but was burned at the stake in 1536 by the Anglican Church, which King Henry VIII of England began shortly before that. However, Tyndale’s version became the basis of succeeding English Bibles, including the King James Version.

The Bible in vernacular languages, a central demand of the Protestant Reformation, subsequently becomes the main weapon in the armoury of Protestant missionaries. Spreading around the world, along with the traders and administrators of the expanding European empires of the 19th century, these missionaries encounter more and more languages into which the holy text can be usefully translated.
historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac66#ixzz6QEyu1AvU

Wycliffe Bible Translators says the whole Bible is now available in about 700 languages. Another 2600 languages have a Bible translation in process.

Having a personal Bible was perhaps the main point of contention between Protestants and the Roman Church, because it meant looking directly to God instead of looking to Rome. Rome could not then sell indulgences because Rome could not forgive sins. Rome could not order priests to be celibate because the Bible does not say that. Rome could not support the adoration of images because the Bible condemns that. Rome could not enforce the worship of Mary, absorbed from pagan, mother goddess worship, because the Bible never remotely shows that.

Since having the Bible was the main focus, it might be better to not call them Protestants or protesters, but to call them Bible People. That made the Roman Church anti-Bible.

The Word of God meant enough to dedicated Protestants like the Lollards and Tyndale that they died for it.

However, once Protestants had the Word of God, most — like Luther — maintained teachings of the Church that forbade people from even reading the Word of God. They rejected the Roman Church as God’s authority and accepted the Bible as God’s authority. Yet they kept the religious days that rest only on the authority of the Roman Church. This fact is sometimes admitted, but seldom faced.

“The day is now changed from the seventh to the first day…but as we meet with no Scriptural direction for the change, we may conclude it was done by the authority of the church.” Episcopal Explanation of the Catechism

Further Protestants quickly set up their own church denominations, which then often became their religious authority. Those Christians who would still try to go solely by the Bible are castigated by the churches because they are unorthodox; which is to say, they do not yield to the churches’ authority.

Once Rome realized that Bibles were flooding the world and were available to their own people, they then produced Catholic Bible versions. However, people often study the Bible, if they read it at all, just to back up their church’s doctrines and not to see what God really says to them.

Today, Christians are trying to make the Bible available to every person in his native language.

Why?

Because the Bible-people want Christians to go solely by the Word of God.

When Luther posted his 95 points against the Roman Church, he ran into their human nature. They tried to kill him. And he ran into his own human nature. He refused to give up unscriptural traditions of Constantine’s Church. He did not go by sole scriptura, but only by partim scriptura.

And since Luther’s time, most Protestants have done the same.

They keep the weekly high day of Rome, the day of the sun. They keep the festivals of Rome, Halloween, Christmas and Easter, and they would be allowed to enter Hadrian’s city of Jupiter because of forsaking the Bible Feasts, those “Jewish feasts.” They copied the custom of deleting the Third Commandment name Yhwh out of their Bibles, also considered “Jewish.” They even copied the Roman type government, with its one man rule. Within a couple decades after Martin Luther’s 95 points, the Protestant pastor system came out of Geneva, to copy and counter the Roman system of priests, with one man ruling a congregation and area. That’s not God’s type of government. That’s Rome’s type of government.

The Protestants valued the Word but did not go solely by that Word. Many died for the Word that today is seldom read. Most Protestant Christians have never read through the book they symbolically carry to their services. They have unquestioningly accepted the traditions received from Rome, without scrupulously checking those against the Word of God. Moreover, most Protestant Christians today are sliding right along with the worldwide anti-Christ movement, which claims that the Bible teaches the morals of the five cities of the Jordan plain. This is the natural extended result of the teaching that the law of God is done away in whole or in part, which almost all Protestants believe.

Protestants have adamantly refused to be under the Pope and exist in countless denominations. Rome says this proves that Rome is the true church, because they are still monolithic Rome, from which others were born. It actually proves that the Roman Church is still old Rome, and as always their goal is to unify the whole world under one religion.

Just as Constantine wanted, only not just an empire, but the whole world.

Constantine’s Church still exists, and Constantine’s method still exists. Unify the whole empire under one religion. This movement — ecumenicalism — is nascent but unnerving.

Rev 13
7) It was given to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. Authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation was given to him.

Authority over every nation —

Can you imagine a worldwide Council of Nicea?

With a modern Constantine ruling over the feted bishops?

In a religion that accepts all religions and all beliefs, where all must be in, and all must approve all others?

And the rallying cry will not be to live by every word of God, as Christ said, but will be —

Unity in the Empire!

Who will not submit to this modern Roman religion?

Only those who go solely by the Word of God.