We ought to obey God rather than men.
Acts 5:29
"Exsurge Domine!” “Arise, O God!” With that Latin phrase the Roman commission commenced the papal bull drafted to excommunicate the “heretic,” Martin Luther. The draft was delivered to Leo X on May 2, 1520 as he was at a hunting lodge retreating in pursuit of wild boars. The context was fitting, as the bull continued by pleading for God to arise and act “against the foxes and wild boar who are destroying the vineyard of the Lord, who had bestowed jurisdiction over it to Peter and his successors.”
For the Roman Curia, Luther and his writings had gone too far.
The bull was dated June 15th of 1520, and listed forty-one statements from Luther which it considered deviations from church doctrine.
These dealt with such sundry topics as penance, indulgences, sin remaining after baptism, confession, faith, the demand for both kinds in the sacrament, etc.
Likewise it also called for all of Luther’s books to be burned so as to prevent others from reading them and being infected by them. It also gave Luther sixty days to recant everything.
So, what did Luther do when the bull arrived in Wittenberg in October of that same year? Immediately he did nothing, at least not necessarily anything with the bull per se.
He continued to write and in his writings he persisted in professing the assumption that this bull was the work of his nemesis, John Eck.
However, when the sixty days came to an end, Luther did not stand idly by.
Making a great statement, one in direct reciprocation to the burning of his works, he gathered a crowd in Wittenberg and burned the canon law of the church.
This statement made the point that these teachings were the heretical ones. These teachings, not Luther’s writings, were in direct opposition to Scripture. In his great act of defiance, he then also set ablaze the bull, Exsurge Domine."
MatthewZickler
