Brad Cole's fanciful explaination for Haiti's disaster

Both Adventist Today and the Spectrum Website referenced an article by Brad Cole in regard to Haiti and Steven Wohlberg’s recent comments so I finally got around to reading Dr. Cole’s article. It is to say the least a sad commentary upon the way some Adventists use and misuse Ellen White and the Bible to support themselves and negate others. A very interesting case study because of how Dr. Cole edited out Wohlberg’s reference to the Ellen White quote which Wohlberg used as his supporting idea. Notice what Dr. Cole says:

The fact is that more than half of Haiti’s 9 million inhabitants practice Voodoo, Haiti’s dominant religion, and that some of the grossest forms of immorality are rampant. Significantly, much of Haiti’s dark Voodoo previously migrated to New Orleans--a city mostly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina….Evidence indicates that Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, fits the category of a city ‘full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme.’ On January 12, at 4:53 pm, it was virtually ‘destroyed’ by an earthquake. On the morning of August 29, 2005, New Orleans experienced its own disaster from the sky.

Dr. Cole makes no attempt to cite the quotation that Wohlberg uses when he says: ‘full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme.’ He linked to the Adventist Today news article which used the Ellen White quote but in his response he seems to have forgotten why Wohlberg says what he says. It is because Ellen White says God will destroy things:

"I am bidden to declare the message that cities full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme, will be destroyed by earthquakes, by fire, by flood. All the world will be warned that there is a God who will display His authority as God. His unseen agencies will cause destruction, devastation, and death." Evangelism, p. 27

Dr. Cole continues:

Should we be concerned with this statement? I believe so. One of the fundamental beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists is the concept of a great controversy between God and Satan, and that this controversy revolves around God’s character. Ellen White’s “Conflict of the Ages” series highlights the actions of God and Satan from the beginning of the rebellion in heaven, to the events of Gethsemane and the Cross, and to the final end of sin and sinners. It seems to me that to leave Satan entirely out of the equation in an event that ended the lives of so many is a sad omission and puts God in a very bad light.

It seems that our natural instinct is to believe that bad things happen as a result of God’s punishment for sin. Several years ago I heard the story of an entire family who was killed in a car accident while on their way to church. At the funeral people were discussing how something like this could happen until finally it was suggested, “There must have been an Achan in the car.”

Our natural instinct? Wohlberg introduced it not with our natural instinct but with reference to his authoritative prophet. Wohlberg is aside from following Ellen White following the Old Testament concept of God as destroyer. After all if you are of the presupposition to take the Bible literally as so many fundamentalists and traditional Adventists do then God does a lot of punishing with death disobedient or non Israelite people.

Dr. Cole then writes:

This concept is frequently addressed in the Bible as well. When Satan left God’s presence to punish Job and his family, the servant who witnessed the destructive event (that we know was caused by Satan) exclaimed, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them” (Job 1:16). When the “friends” of Job came along, they also could only make sense of his fate by invoking God as the punisher for some sin that Job had committed. It isn’t until the end of the book that God comes on the scene to direct Job’s attention to a beast called Leviathan who had these descriptive attributes:

It is striking how many people get their theology from the book of Job. Satan there is not used about the person we later came to call as Satan and the satan in Job is not seeking to punish Job but to test him to see if he can remain righteous. Satan in Job is acting not on his own but on the authority of God:

But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger." Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. (Job 1:11-12 NIV)

Dr. Cole then takes a page from the colorful early Christian Father Origen to whom much of the credit for the Lucifer myth goes, by trying to pretend that Leviathan of Job 41 is Satan. The idea that Origen held but even though the Christian church accepted the Lucifer as Satan part they generally did not accept Leviathan as Satan.

Cole continues:

Elsewhere in scripture, this same beast is described with these words: “On that day the LORD will use his fierce and powerful sword to punish Leviathan, that slippery snake, Leviathan, that twisting snake. He will kill that monster which lives in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1 GW).

How many other “slippery” and “twisting” snakes does the Bible describe? What we see in the book of Job, one of the earliest writings in scripture, is God beginning to paint the picture of a proud enemy who is responsible for suffering.

In Isaiah 14, Satan is described as being unveiled for who he is which prompts the surprised response:

To begin Isaiah 27:1 is a reference to a mythological creature. As the Expositor’s Bible Footnote reads:

1 liveyathan (liwyatan, "Leviathan") appears in several OT passages Job 3:8; Pss 74:14; 104:26), where it is clear that a great sea creature is being described. Most scholars consider the creature described under that name in Job 41:1-9 (40:25-29 MT) to be the crocodile. The implication of a plurality of heads in Ps 74:14, however, certainly suggests a mythical creature; and the term as used here is normally linked with Ugaritic Lotan, the chaos monster destroyed by Baal in the Canaanite creation myth. As indicated in the commentary, the use of such a term does not imply acceptance of Canaanite mythology but simply the knowledge of it, so that the term may be applied figuratively to monstrous enemies of Israel and of God.

Of course Isaiah 14 is not about Satan it is in the series of chapters dealing with the surrounding nations of Israel and is specifically about Babylon: On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended! (Isa 14:3-4 NIV)

Dr. Cole then tries to show that Satan causes natural disasters, but fails miserably. His best effort is this quote after Jesus heals a woman: Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?" (Luke 13:16 NIV) That diseases were long attributed to demons goes back into the earliest times of humanity and ancient Israel but that still does not indicate that such things as earthquakes and floods etc are caused by Satan.

Returning to the issue at hand Dr. Cole writes:

While we may not be able to say that every disaster is a direct action of Satan, the “powers that rule this world” (1 Corinthians 2:6) are those of Satan’s kingdom, not God’s. When we watch people trying to dig themselves out of rubble, our minds should be repulsed at the nature of Satan’s kingdom rather than reflecting on God as a punisher.

Though he has never made a reasonable case that any natural disaster is caused by Satan he assumes that he has. In fact he moves from the scientific age to the pre-scientific age with his assumption that natural disasters are caused by either God or Satan. Neither of which are true. At best one could argue that the natural laws were set up by God and therefore ultimately they function upon the physics of God’s laws but even that would not attribute such disasters as punishments of God and as Dr. Coles attempts have shown us there is no Biblical reason to grant to Satan the ability to cause a natural disaster, whether it be a rain cloud, flood or earthquake. It is simply not a part of the Biblical record. The stretches that one tries to make it appear that Satan can, appear almost laughable.

Dr. Cole continues:

Satan is the destroyer, not God, and we do great damage to God’s reputation when we label the slaughtered Lamb as the destroyer. It’s true that many see the destructive acts in Revelation as the judgments of God and interpret end time events in that light, but I have greatly appreciated the wisdom of those who see this book not only as a revelation of Christ, but also of the Adversary [he then quotes Sigve Tonstad, Saving God’s Reputation]

This is what is so very interesting. Dr. Cole has completely ignored Ellen White’s statement that Steve Wohlberg built his case upon. He completely ignores the numerous other Ellen White statements of God caused destruction as well as her statements about the plagues and trumpets and seals of the book of Revelation. It is not that he ignores Ellen White for he begins his presentation referencing her and her Great Controversy views. But he has completely ignored the real question which is what do Adventists do with such quotes of Ellen White? After all, the quote that Wohlberg uses is not abnormal for Ellen White. She thought that the 1906 San Francisco was designed by God to close down the Saloons.

In the calamity that befell San Francisco, the Lord designed to wipe out the liquor saloons that have been the cause of so much evil, so much misery and crime; and yet the guardians of the public welfare have proved unfaithful to their trust, by legalizing the sale of liquor. Those who have been placed in positions of official responsibility, and who in the recent past have become thoroughly familiar with the advantages of the closed saloon, now deliberately choose to enact laws sanctioning the carrying on of the liquor traffic. They know that in doing this, they are virtually licensing the commission of crime; and yet their knowledge of this sure result deters them not. (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 1906-10-25.006)

In fact it was God’s destroying angels that wrecked the city in Ellen White’s view:

Retributive Judgments "While at Loma Linda, Cal., April 16, 1906, there passed before me a most wonderful representation. During a vision of the night, I stood on an eminence, from which I could see houses shaken like a reed in the wind. Buildings, great and small, were falling to the ground. Pleasure resorts, theaters, hotels, and the homes of the wealthy were shaken and shattered. Many lives were blotted out of existence, and the air was filled with the shrieks of the injured and the terrified

"The destroying angels of God were at work. One touch, and buildings so thoroughly constructed that men regarded them as secure against every danger, quickly became heaps of rubbish. There was no assurance of safety in any place. I did not feel in any special peril, but the awfulness of the scenes that passed before me I cannot find words to describe. It seemed that the forbearance of God was exhausted, and that the judgment day had come.

"The angel that stood by my side then instructed me that but few have any conception of the wickedness existing in our world to-day, and especially the wickedness in the large cities. He declared that the Lord has appointed a time when He will visit transgressors in wrath for persistent disregard of His law. (Life Sketches of Ellen White 1915 page 407)

As long as Adventists like Brad Cole refuse to deal with the real problem that Ellen White presents they will end up the losers in the battle for a rational religion.

Haiti and Wohlberg et al and their God

Adventist Today Website has a good article on one of the problems that haunt many traditional Adventists. Some excerpts from the article:

Television producer, radio host and author Steve Wohlberg directs White Horse Media—an independent Adventist media ministry based in Newport, Washington. In his most recent newsletter sent by e-mail, Wohlberg made comments that has drawn comparisons to Pat Robertson's now infamous quote, in which he blames the recent earthquake on a pact Haiti made with the devil centuries ago.

[After quoting Ellen White]

Evidence indicates that Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, fits the category of a city "full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme." On January 12, at 4:53 pm, it was virtually "destroyed" by an earthquake. On the morning of August 29, 2005, New Orleans experienced its own disaster from the sky. Now notice how Jesus Christ puts both earthquakes and sky events together as clear "signs" of His approaching return. …

Yes, God is speaking to His world through these disasters. Whether He directly causes them, or merely allows them, nevertheless, they can be biblically classified as divine "judgments" to be taken seriously. No one knows how much longer God will continue to tolerate sin on planet Earth. Soon, "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night" (2 Peter 3:10), and Jesus Christ will come suddenly to rescue those who have repented of their sins, have accepted His gospel, and become loyal to their Maker.

It does seem that Wohlberg and Robertson have a similar view of God. Robertson believes that Haiti made a pact with the Devil and has been cursed ever since and the earthquake is another manifestation of the curses. Wohlberg that the earthquake is biblically classified divine judgment. The difference it appears to be only in the semantics divine judgment vs. curse. But of course it is not only the fundamentalist Christians who seem to hold such ideas. Famed actor Danny Glover said of the Haiti earthquake:

“And I hope we seize this particular moment because the threat of what happens in Haiti is the threat that can happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know?

They're all in peril because of global warming; they're all in peril because of climate change. When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I'm saying?”

I am not sure if the climate summit results which caused the response of the earthquake is from God or from Gia or Mother Nature apparently the concept is still the same. A powerful knowledgeable force punishing people for their actions through an earthquake.

That leads us to the problem of why this powerful force…this deity, would use such indiscriminant force to cause such destruction. Rather haphazardly destroying the bad people and the good people; the servants of voodoo and the servants of God, the voodoo priest and the Christian missionary. What about all those Traditionalists who use (actually misuse) this quote from Amos: Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7 KJV) Wouldn’t it be nice if God was to inform somebody about such a judgment as an earthquake, maybe like a location and a date or maybe just a specific reason announced so that maybe like Nineveh some could repent? Wohlberg of course seems to think that if Ellen White said a hundred years ago that “…cities full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme, will be destroyed by earthquakes, by fire, by flood, that is all we need to know. That pretty well covers them all however, so the question is when and where and what size makes a city. Not particularly helpful in any way without some real specifics, it is rather like the false prophets that Jeremiah had to deal with: The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. (Jer 28:8 KJV) Because so far on this world if you predict there will be a war, or evil, or pestilence you will always be right. It always happens at some time and if you don’t have to say when or where or what type of evil or what type of pestilence or who will be at war with whom your prophecy is useless but always correct. But to attribute that prophecy to God is the error.

The good news is that we don’t have to listen to the foolishness of the Pat Robertson’s, Danny Glover’s and Steve Wohlberg’s of this world. There are far more sensible voices such as these people who spoke on the subject of the Haiti earthquake, they may be wrong in other things but at least here they have it right:

. . . if God merely hated Haiti, there would be no missionaries there; there would be no aid streaming to the nation; there would be no rescue efforts -- there would be no hope. . . .

Everything about the tragedy in Haiti points to our need for redemption. This tragedy may lead to a new openness to the Gospel among the Haitian people. That will be to the glory of God. In the meantime, Christ's people must do everything we can to alleviate the suffering, bind up the wounded and comfort the grieving. If Christ's people are called to do this, how can we say that God hates Haiti?

-- R. Albert Mohler Jr., president, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

I am a believer in God, and that God exists independent of the natural world. I do not believe in a petty god who chooses random moments to selectively lash out at individuals or groups who have transgressed. . . .

-- Jack Moline, director of public policy for the Rabbinical Assembly

Dispensationalists believe that God favors some countries and people over others and that he rewards and punishes those who please or displease Him. That false belief is the source of the outrageous Pat Robertson statement. . . . God sent His Son to die for us. If God could commit such a gracious act for our redemption when we had no concern for Him, why would he rain down judgment on Haitians and not on Saudi Arabians, whose extreme religion supports terrorism around the world?

-- Cal Thomas, syndicated political columnist

[Quotes taken from the Washington Post “On the Panel”]

Another SDA Prophet?

My last post dealt with how the Adventist church has removed any semblance of reason when they purport to analyze Ellen White as a prophet. It is rather telling that in the last weeks lesson they address the fulfillment of prophecy yet don’t give a single prophecy that Ellen White gave that was fulfilled and address a false prediction explained away by saying it was conditional and that God would have come if people did what they were supposed to do; in essence making the testing of a prophet meaningless. So what is the effect of the traditional Adventist teaching doing to traditional Adventists?

I just saw some discussion of a new prophet in the Adventist church someone named Ernie Knoll. He as a website entitled 4hispeople.com On the site is a commission of anonymous people who as an anonymous group sought to investigate whether Knoll was a prophet or not. Here are a few excerpts with a few comments I inserted in red:

With this document we want to share the united opinion of many who have studied and compared the dreams of Ernie Knoll against the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. However, a little background on who we are and the process is in order.

Does the Bible ever suggest that we test a prophet by the writings of Ellen White (Spirit of Prophecy being the euphemism for EGW’s writings)? Hardly but what this so called commission has done is to elevate EGW to the level of the Bible.

It was also decided as we studied to keep our findings to our self as to not promote a fore or against decision. As time went and additional dreams came we decided to broaden our group study. Invitations were sent out to 'select' individuals to participate in an in depth study of the dreams. The stipulation was set forth that the invited individual would remain anonymous along with the rest of the established group and that their name would never be shared.

Did you get that “never be shared” we have a truly forever and always anonymous select commission. Sounds promising doesn’t it?

As the group grew the group moved to an email discussion in a closed online forum. The men in this now large study group are made up of the following individuals. Active and retired pastors from the General Conference. Select leaders from different Unions. Active and retired pastors from select Seventh-Day Adventist churches. Active and retired teachers and professors from different academies, colleges and universities. Literature evangelists. Attorneys from private as well as firm based. Select ardent students of the Bible. It was this large group that we began an ardent and exhaustive study of the dreams of Brother Ernie Knoll.

Did you catch that part? “The men” only men are involved, and now it is a large group of ardent students of the Bible cowering in a group who is promised they will remain anonymous. You get the feeling right away that you can trust this group don’t you?

We set forth to either prove or disprove these messages. They were either from God or from Satan. It was decided early on that we would not rush forward with our findings. We have seen many others who have done this and we as a group will address these as well.

Either God or Satan, no other possibility, similar to claims by EGW that her writing are either inspired by God or Satan. She can’t fit any opinions in there, none of her own thoughts…well that is until people start looking at comments about amalgamation of man and beast and coal fired volcanoes etc. Anyway this group of anonymous people or person because how do we know there is really more than one person involved, is not going to rush their anonymous findings.

They begin the test by tracking down the person who was a former prostitute who life was changed. They tracked her down and witness some prophetic miracles and conclude:

At the end of the meeting Candace requested that the three pastors never disclose where she lives nor her real name. On behalf of the group that sent the three pastors a request was made that she not disclose the names of the three pastors.

Impressive the anonymous commission tracks her down and she requests to be anonymous and the three pastors who visit her remain anonymous. How convenient, but apparently very convincing to the commission of anonymous Adventist leaders both former and current.

They then deal with some critics of Knoll:

…Not long after this comment Brother Wohlberg states that 1^st John 4 1-3 is not a valid test. The entire study group had a problem with this comment from brother Wolhberg. Another item was the fact that he denies that Jesus came in the flesh as Adam after sin without the propensity to sin. This setup another red flag to the study group as to the validity of his thinking. When we studied in the April 12, 2008 dream titled Love and Rebuke, we quickly realized that this was addressing Steve Wolhberg and White Horse Media.

That verse is summed up:

(1 John 4:2 NIV) This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

It can hardly be a valid test if anyone accepts that even the Devil can appear as an angel of light, funny also because Adventist history says the Pope is anti-Christ yet they all agree that Jesus came in the flesh. It might work as a test to winnow down the possible prophets if they did not Believe Jesus Christ came in the flesh but not much else. Then we see the thinking of the group because they can’t trust Wolhberg because he does not believe in their Post lapsarian view. So now we can see what kind of people make up this select group of ardent and anonymous students of the Bible. They then interpret a really vague dream as a prophecy of financial trouble to Steve Wolhberg’s ministry. As if there is not enough ministries out there in fear of loss of funds.

I will let those of you read the Great Commission Council findings (yes that is really what they call themselves) and you can see the type of strangeness that traditional Adventism can produce. By the way this all seems to be summed up in the need for Adventist to read the old book by Joe Crews "Creeping Compromise". Only now it is directly a message from God. I think that is one of the books my church has in the foyer. One of those books of the last generation perfectionists who are a bane to the Adventist church, the predecessor of Doug Batchelor.

Garbage in Garbage out!

Adventists, Martin Luther and Quotations

There is an interesting phenomenon one can see on the internet among Adventist websites. As most of us know the Adventist church feels a special affinity for the Ten commandments because as the Seventh-day Adventist name indicates we hold to the Seventh day Sabbath as a continuing part of the law. In order to bolster this idea many Adventists have taken to using an article written by Steve Wohlberg entitled Protestants Testify about the Ten Commandments. The article begins with a “quote” from Martin Luther and follows with some other famous Protestant quotes. I am only going to deal with the first quote because I think it demonstrates all that is needed in regard to this type of Adventist use of sources. While you will find this quote used on many Adventist sites I am using Steve Wohlberg’s Whitehorsemedia.com website. The quote is as follows:

I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments....Can anyone think that sin exists where there is no law?...Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity, abrogate sin also. Martin Luther, Luther's Works (trans., Weimer ed.), Vol. 50, pp. 470-471; originally printed in his Spiritual Antichrist, pp.71, 72.

The implication for Adventist use is that the Law specifically the ten commandments are to be continually kept by Christians and even the Protestants agree with that idea. For those who know anything about Martin Luther they know that Luther had a lot to say about the law and this simplistic quote seems contrived. In fact when you look at the ellipses you immediately should become suspicious. One website which offers Ten Martin Luther Myths presents Luther’s view of the law very succinctly:

7. Luther Was an Antinomian and Hated the Law of God
Recently a friend wrote me and said charges about Luther being an antinomian were circulating in his church. Luther's theology indeed has a place for the law of God and its use in the life of a Christian. The law for Luther was dual purposed: it first drives one to see their sin and need for a savior; secondly it functions in the life of a Christian to lead one to a correct understanding of the good one ought to do. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Luther knows how important Moses and the law was in his theology. In Luther's Small Catechism the Ten Commandments were placed first because he wanted people to understand that God is wrathful against sin. The negative prohibitions in the Ten Commandments clearly showed our need for a savior. Also in his Small Catechism, Luther suggests a daily regiment of prayer and includes a verbal reading of the Ten Commandments.

The quote that Steve Wohlberg used is in fact in the context of this Antinomian charge and actually represents a very small fraction of the paragraph that Luther wrote. After we look at the full statement of Luther we will see what he had to say about the law with reference to the Sabbath as that is the reason these various websites have posted Wohlberg’s list of “quotes”. I keep putting the word quotes in parenthesis because I am not convinced what Wohlberg does in the list with Luther’s words is really a quote. Fortunately for us there is an website which has given us the article Luther wrote. A Treatise against Antinomians written in an Epistolary way, by D. Martin Luther, translated out of the high Dutch original; containing the mind of Luther against Antinomians and a recantation of John Agricola Eislebius their first father.

As the first footnote indicates this is the same material that Wohlberg is referencing.

1. This edition of Luther's treatise "Against the Antinomians," is excerpted from Samuel Rutherford's "Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist," (1648), part II, chapter XI, pages 69-80, where it is translated from the High Dutch in its entirety. The reader may wish to compare the text to a more recent translation available in Luther's Works (American Edition), volume 47, pages 107-119, the text of which he will find to be in agreement with that which is provided here.

The paragraph in question reads as follows, I have highlighted in red those portions that Wohlberg excerpted as the quote above:

And truly, I wonder exceedingly, how it came to be imputed to me, that I should reject the Law or ten Commandments, there being extant so many of my own expositions (and those of several sorts) upon the Commandments, which also are daily expounded, and used in our Churches, to say nothing of the Confession and Apology, and other books of ours. Add hereunto the custom we have to sing the Commandments in two different tunes;³ besides the painting, printing, carving, and rehearsing them by children, both morning, noon, and evening; So that I know no other way than what we have used, but that we do not (alas!) as we ought, really express and delineate them in our lives and conversations. And I myself as old as I am, use to [have it for my custom to] recite them daily, as a child, Word for Word; so that if any should have mistaken, what I had written, he might (seeing and feeling as it were, how vehemently I use to urge these Catechetical exercises) in reason have been persuaded to call upon me, and demand these or the like questions. What? Good Doctor Luther, dost thou press so eagerly the ten Commandments, and yet teachest withal, that they must be rejected? Thus they ought to have dealt with me; and not secretly undermine me behind my back, and then to wait for my death, that so they might afterwards make of me what themselves pleased. Well, I forgive them, if they leave these courses. Verily, I have taught and still teach, that sinners must be moved to Repentance by the preaching & pondering of the sufferings of Christ, that they may see how great the wrath of God is against sin: and that it cannot be otherwise expiated but by the death of the son of God: Which is not mine, but Bernard's doctrine. But why doe I mention Bernard? It is the doctrine of the whole Christian world, and which all the Prophets and Apostles have delivered. But how doth it hence follow,⁴ that therefore the law must be taken away? I find no such inference in my Logick; and I would gladly see or hear that Logician, that would demonstrate the truth of this conclusion. When Isaias saith, chapter 53, I have smitten him for the sins of my people; I pray tell me; here Christ's sufferings are preached, that he was smitten for our sins: Is the Law hereby rejected? what is the meaning of these words: For the sins of my people? Is not this the sense of them: Because my people have sinned against my law, and not kept the same? Or can it be imaginable, that there should be any sin, where there is no law? Whosoever abrogates the law, must of necessity abrogate sin also.⁵ If he must suffer sin to be, he must much more suffer the being of the law. For the Apostle saith: Rom. 5: Where no law is, there is no sin. If there be no sin, then Christ is nothing. For why died he, if there were no law nor sin, for which he ought to die? Hence you may see, that the Devil intends, by this Ghostly Gambold to take away, not so much the law, as Christ, the fulfiller of the law.

That is a Word count of 557 words in this paragraph of which Wohlberg’s quote of 39 words, which makes it about 7% of Luther’s actual statement.

Now let us look at more a more specific statement of Luther.

This calls for a wise and faithful father who can moderate the Law in such a way that it stays within its limits. For if I were to teach men the Law in such a way that they suppose themselves to be justified by it before God, I would be going beyond the limit of the Law, confusing these two righteousnesses, the active and the passive, and would be a bad dialectician who does not properly distinguish. But when I go beyond the old man, I also go beyond the Law. For the flesh or the old man, the Law and works, are all joined together. In the same way the spirit or the new man is joined to the promise and to grace. Therefore when I see that a man is sufficiently contrite, oppressed by the Law, terrified by sin, and thirsting for comfort, then it is time for me to take the Law and active righteousness from his sight and to set forth before him, through the Gospel, the passive righteousness which excludes Moses and the Law and shows the promise of Christ, who came for the afflicted and for sinners. Here a man is raised up again and gains hope. Nor is he any longer under the Law; he is under grace, as the apostle says (Rom. 6:14): “You are not under law but under grace.” How not under law? According to the new man, to whom the Law does not apply. For the Law had its limits until Christ, as Paul says below (Gal. 3:24): “The Law, until Christ.” When He came, Moses and the Law stopped. So did circumcision, sacrifices, and the Sabbath. So did all the prophets. (Lectures on Galatians, Works Vol. 26 page 6-7 Edited Pelikan, translated Caemneyer, Concordia Pub. House St. Louis 1960)

Speaking of images in his Deuteronomy Commentary Luther writes:

Therefore let us avoid these men of blood and not allow them to draw us into Judaism. Paul says to us (1 Cor. 8:4): “We know that an idol is nothing in the world,” and all those external things are free, even if they are images assigned to some divine worship. Let us remove such external things through the Word or do away with them with the common consent of the government and of those under whose power they are. Those things, however, which we have only for as sign and memorial, let us have freely, so that we ourselves do not finally also succumb to the spirit of bloodshed and sedition might somehow be tolerable if they only destroyed images and did not also bind conscience by calling this a necessary work, put us under the wrath of the Law, and robbed us of freedom. But since one must now affirm the liberty given by God, let us tell them that Moses in no wise pertains to us in all his laws, but only to the Jews, except where he agrees with the natural law, which, as Paul teaches, is written in the hearts of the Gentiles (Rom. 2:15). Whatever is not written there we should include among the ceremonies that were necessary for the people of Moses but free for us, as also the Sabbath is, as Paul (Col. 2:16) and the last chapter of Isaiah (66:23) bear witness. ( Lectures on Deuteronomy, Works Vol. 9 pages 81-82 Edited Pelikan, translated Caemneyer, Concordia Pub. House St. Louis 1960)

I have many differences with Martin Luther, the above does not endorse his positions it is only to correct the inaccurate material that is being spread by certain Adventists.