It’s important to note that the emperor had extended an invitation. He had not issued a command under threat of punishment. In other words, Luther did not have to appear before the gathering of the Holy Roman Empire. In fact, a good argument could have been made that Luther should decline the invitation. Those who felt Luther should stay in Wittenberg pointed to what had happened to Bohemian reformer Jan Huss. A century earlier Emperor Sigismund had invited Huss to the Council of Constance, with the promise that he would be protected in his travels both to and from the Council. While in Constance, however, Huss was imprisoned. Some seven months later he was burned at the stake because he had been declared a heretic. Emperor Charles’ promise of safe conduct, then, could not be considered a guarantee of safety, particularly when Pope Leo X had already declared Luther a heretic. Traveling to Worms seemed unwise at best and foolish at worst, since there was so much work to be done in reforming the church and Luther’s leadership, humanly speaking, played a critical role.
In the months leading up to the Diet of Worms, Luther had been thinking about what he would do if he were called to appear. On behalf of Elector Frederick, Spalatin asked Luther that specific question in December 1520. Luther answered that he would undertake the long journey to Worms and offered several reasons for doing so. First, he recognized the authority of the emperor as God’s representative. If the emperor summoned him, he would hear the Lord’s voice behind it. Second, he trusted that though his enemies may plot evil and even seek to kill him, the Lord could protect him, just as he had done for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Third, he did not want to give the enemies of the gospel an opportunity to say, if he refused to travel to Worms, “He’s afraid to stand up for what he says he believes. If he’s not willing to suffer for it, he must not believe it.” Knowing that he did not, on his own, have the strength to confess in the face of danger, Luther prayed, “May the merciful Christ prevent such cowardice on our part and such boasting on their part. Amen.”[1] In the end, Luther recognized that people in Germany might be tempted to abandon the faith if he wavered in doubt concerning the teaching of the Scriptures: “You may expect everything of me except flight and recanting,” he told Spalatin. “I do not want to escape, much less recant; may the Lord Jesus strengthen me in this. I could do neither without endangering piety and the salvation of many.”[2] In the final analysis, it was his love for Christ’s gospel and his concern for all who hear the gospel that moved him to accept the invitation to appear before the diet.[3]
On March 19, 1521, about a week before he received the invitation from the emperor, Luther sent a letter to Spalatin in which he expressed his willingness to attend the diet, if Charles summoned. Only one thing would stop him from coming. It wasn’t concern for his life. In fact, if Charles called him to the diet to kill him, Luther was more than ready to make the trip. With Christ’s help, he would not flee the battle. The only reason he would decline to attend is if he were going to be called only for the sake of recanting what he had written. Making the trek to Worms would in that case be a colossal waste of time, because, he said, he could recant just as easily from Wittenberg.[4]
[1]. Luther’s Correspondence, 189.
[2]. Luther’s Correspondence, 190.
[3]. Here I might differ with Scott Hendrix, who suggests that, “One simple argument seems to have carried the day. If Luther did not go to Worms, his enemies might call him a coward.” Hendrix, 101. Hendrix gives the impression that Luther’s concern was primarily for how he might be viewed, rather than the gospel.
[4]. Robert Kolb, Martin Luther as He Lived and Breathed: Recollections of the Reformer (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2018), 93. Kolb offers a translation of sorts of Luther’s letter to Spalatin found in Weimarer Ausgabe (WA) Briefe 2:289, Nr. 389.