The Church’s Lydian Stone

Luther’s stand at Worms and why God’s Word remains the church’s final authority.

Eugene Siberdt, “Martin Luther Translating the Bible, Wartburg Castle, 1521”

This article was originally written for the Brainerd Institute for Rural Ministry.

Every year on October 31, many gleefully enjoy a disruption of routine through costumes, candy, and all manner of ghoulish delights on Halloween. However, for the church, October 31 calls to mind a different sort of disruption, one that began with the echo of a hammer tapping the head of a nail into the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. Reformation Day, as it is now known, recalls the beginning of an era where some of the most beloved doctrines and cherished confessions of the church were recovered, in large part because of the steadfast conviction of its most feisty and reluctant reformer, Martin Luther. Among Luther’s myriad of theological one-liners, his famed confession at the Diet of Worms in 1521 endures as a monumental testimony upholding the sufficiency and authority of Scripture.

Faced with the prospect of either excommunication or execution, unless he recanted, Luther stood in the gap and declared that his conscience was “bound” to the Word. “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted,” he protested, “and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”¹ Whether or not Luther’s speech concluded with those legendary words, “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise,” is a matter for another time. The point remains that for Luther and the Protestant movement he largely epitomized, it wasn’t Rome or the papacy that authenticated what the church confessed. Rather, it was the Word of God alone that informed and confirmed the creeds and confessions of the church. To avow the opposite was to forfeit truth altogether.

This lets us understand that underneath the more familiar Reformation-era debate between faith and works and the nature of God’s justification of the ungodly was a more fundamental dissension over Scripture’s authoritative and interpretive capacity. “The sixteenth-century Reformation debate,” Mario M. C. Melendez notes, “primarily centered upon the interpretation of the Bible.”² From the Reformation’s “Morning Star” to the feisty Augustinian who unwittingly ignited the movement itself, God’s words persisted as the final and unassailable standard by which the church made sense of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). As pivotal as the orthodox creeds and councils are for the health and longevity of the church, therefore, no man-made conference or document can eclipse the Word’s jurisdiction over the heart and soul of humankind.

Accordingly, this is why Matthew Barrett refers to Scripture as “the church’s Lydian stone.”³ A Lydian stone, also known as a touchstone, was a flint-like stone used to verify the authenticity of other precious metals, especially gold and silver. The process involved rubbing the metal on the Lydian stone, and depending on the visible trace it left behind, one could discern if the alloy was genuine or counterfeit. “All doctrines that shine like gold,” Barrett continues, “are brought to the Lydian stone, which can alone decipher between the authentic and the fallacious. By the light of Scripture, the church is led by the Spirit, not vice versa.”⁴ Luther’s Scripture-bound conscience bears witness to the priority of God’s words over man’s as that by which the church is anchored.

The confrontation at Worms in 1521 is no mere historical flashpoint. Rather, it endures as a referendum on the church’s authority and where it comes from — it is a reckoning that still resonates today. In many ways, the church in 2025 finds itself at Worms all over again. Although we may not be faced with the onslaught of papal decrees and the decisions of cardinals that imperil our membership in the church, we are still bombarded by cultural pressures, political encroachment, and the subtle suggestion that casts a pall on Scripture’s sufficiency. As such, both those in pulpits and the pews must decide by what standard their faith will endure — whether by the fading proclamations of humankind or by “the word of our God,” which “will stand forever” (Isa. 40:8). Even as the truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Word is still thrown into doubt by skeptics and scholars alike, we are compelled to stand where Luther stood, with souls tethered to the Word.

1. Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (New York: Meridian, 1995), 144.

2. Mario M. C. Melendez, “Interpreting Faith in the Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Interpretations of Habakkuk 2:4b and Its New Testament Quotations,” Themelios 45.2 (2020): 312.

3. Matthew Barrett, “Scripture,” edited by Jason G. Duesing and Nathan A. Finn, Historical Theology for the Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2021), 201.

4. Barrett, 201.