Luther died on February 18 of 1546, 464 years ago yesterday. The news didn’t reach Wittenberg until the following day.
Heiko Oberman:
The town and university were totally unprepared for the news. It was early morning, and as usual during the semester Philipp Melanchthon, Luther’s longtime colleague and comrade-in-arms, stood in the hall explicating St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans for his students. In the middle of the lecture the messenger burst in with the news of Luther’s death. Melanchthon struggled for control, unable to speak, but finally – – his voice faltering—told his students what had happened, breaking out in anguish with Elisha’s horrified cry as he saw the prophet Elijah ascending to Heaven in the chariot of fire: “The charioteer of Israel has fallen”—“Alas, obiit auriga et currus Israel” (2 Kings 2:12).
I was listening to RC Sproul on the radio last night when I heard this – it made me consider what was Dr. Melanchthon’s position on Luther’s trenchant antisemitism. And what is the position on the Jewish State held by many modern evangelicals. My own development of the last seven years (as I have, not slavishly, followed the millennial reading schedule of all Jewish synagogues) has brought me to eschew the “replacement theology” that is at the basis of the typical Christian calendar year. I have an appointment with my close friend and pastor Kent Murawski (www.jcboston.org) to discuss my most recent discovery of the particular 40-day period that the Lenten season seems calculated to displace from the Jewish calendar.