Luther and The Da Vinci Code!!??

In The Da Vinci Code controversies, a fascinating little anecdote was snuck in. In May of 2003, Time Magazine slips this statement in concerning Jesus and Mary, allegedly husband and wife.

But it fulfills a deep narrative expectation: for the alpha male to take a mate, for a yin to Jesus' yang or, as some neopagans have suggested, for a goddess to his god. Martin Luther believed that Jesus and Magdalene were married, as did Mormon patriarch Brigham Young.

Now I know that some Mormon’s teach Jesus and Mary are married, but Luther??!!

Then Entertainment Weekly gets in the act just this month.

Yes, a soupçon of research reveals that the Priory of Sion is a hoax invented in 1956, and surely it can't be proved that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were ever intimate (though Martin Luther believed so).

You have to be kidding. Yes, Luther said something like this sitting around talking to his students over a liter of Wittenberg’s finest. These conversations are recorded in Luther’s Works as Table Talks, and I am sure this is what these reviewers from Time and EW are referring to.

“Christ was an adulterer for the first time with the woman at the well, for it was said, ‘Nobody knows what he’s doing with her’. Again with Magdalene, and still again with the adulterous woman in John 8:2–11, whom he let off so easily. So the good Christ had to become an adulterer before he died.”

Luther's Works, v54, p154 © Concordia Publishing House.

As a member of the Luther team, I have to laugh. LOL. Hello, context is everything!! When considering Luther’s vast repertoire, filled with talk of Jesus’ perfection, a literally “sinning” Jesus would be impossible. So, what could he have meant?

Just a simple search on the net comes up with this Luther quote from his Galatians lectures.

But Christ took all our sins upon Himself, and for them He died on the cross. Therefore it was appropriate for Him to become a thief and, as Isaiah says (53:12), to be “numbered among the thieves.” And all the prophets saw this, that Christ was to become the greatest thief, murderer, adulterer, robber, desecrator, blasphemer, etc., there has ever been anywhere in the world. He is not acting in His own Person now. Now He is not the Son of God, born of the Virgin. But He is a sinner, who has and bears the sin of Paul, the former blasphemer, persecutor, and assaulter; of Peter, who denied Christ; of David, who was an adulterer and a murderer, and who caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord (Rom. 2:24). In short, He has and bears all the sins of all men in His body—not in the sense that He has committed them but in the sense that He took these sins, committed by us, upon His own body, in order to make satisfaction for them with His own blood.”

Luther's Works V.26 P.276-277

The biblical reference for this is Galatians 3:13.

13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."

Now you understand, but what about everyone who read EW and Time, and doesn’t know Luther? Send them this link, www.christcast.net Better yet, tell them yourself.