Luc. 1, 57-80.
And Elizabeth's time came for her to give birth, and she gave birth to a son. And her neighbors and friends heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they rejoiced with her. And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the young child, and called his name Zacharias, after his father. But his mother answered and said, By no means; but he shall be called John. And they said unto her: Is there no one in your friendship whose name is like this? And they beckoned to his father what he would have him called. And he called for a piece of paper, and wrote, and said, His name is John. And they were all amazed. Immediately his mouth and tongue were opened, and he spoke and praised God. And fear came upon all the neighbors, and this story became notorious throughout all the mountains of Judah. And all who heard it took it to heart and said: What do you think will become of the child? For the hand of the Lord was with him. And Zacharias his father was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: for he hath visited and redeemed his people. And hath raised up for us a horn of salvation in the house of his servant David. When he spake in time past by the mouth of his holy prophets: That he would deliver us from our enemies, and from the hand of all them that hate us, and shew mercy to our fathers, and remember his holy covenant, and the Ew which he sware unto Abraham our father to give us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, should serve him without fear all the days of our life, in holiness and righteousness that is pleasing in his sight. And thou child shalt be called a prophet of the Most High; thou shalt go before the Lord, that thou mayest prepare his way, and give knowledge of salvation unto his people, who are in remission of their sins; through the tender mercies of our God, whereby he hath visited us from on high, that he may appear unto them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and direct our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the wilderness, until he should stand forth before the people of Israel.**)
1 This St. John has a different reason for celebrating his feast than the other saints; therefore, his legend is described in this gospel so beautifully than any other. The others are celebrated for the sake of their good life, and have come to be exalted higher than they should be. I said before that there is another thing, doctrine, and life. Therefore you should separate them well, for God does not care so much about life as about doctrine. That is why he often causes his own to stumble in life, as we read many examples of in the Scriptures: but as for doctrine, he has not let it fall a hair's breadth; for an evil life is nowhere as harmful as an evil doctrine. The evil life is never-
*) This sermon appeared in eight individual prints from 1522 and 1523, as well as in the 12 sermons from 1524. Cf. Erl. A. 15, 378 f. D. Red.
**Marginal gloss to B. 78: Christ according to the Godhead is the exit on high from the Father.
The pope's evil life is more harmful to him than to the one who leads it; but evil teaching often seduces a whole country. That the pope leads an evil life with whores, with avarice and other innumerable vices more, we can well credit him, and well throw the cloak and cap over it and help to cover; but that he washes evil doctrine into all the world and seduces everyone, that is death and in no way to tolerate. Therefore the saints are to be honored much more for the sake of doctrine than for the sake of their life.
(2) Reason, which cannot grasp it as the Holy Spirit does, turns around and looks at the glitter and the outward life and wants to follow it; then it becomes a monkey game. That is where the orders come from. St. Augustine led a fine life: they wanted to follow him, therefore they wrote his life into a rule and founded an order on his life. So also Franciscus, Dominic, and other saints; if it is the same with the
The life of a saint is not good, because one does not know whether God has spared them in their life. Therefore, nothing should be proved with their lives, as all monasteries founded on saints' lives do; for there is no saint's life so good that we should base and build our conscience on it. For they too were sinners, and had to pray as we do: Lord, forgive us our trespasses. From this we conclude that no saint's life is sufficient to confirm the doctrine; but their doctrine should be accepted as the doctrine of truth, and our conscience should be built on it, so that we do not stand on any creature, but only on the word of God, which remains forever, as Isaiah says Cap. 59, 21.
(3) Therefore the first abuse is, that we have made the lives of the saints an example to us, and have laid down rules for their doctrine, as the orders now proceed; after that, that we take comfort in the works and merit of the saints. And they have come to rely much more on the merit of the saints than on the merit of Christ. Now Christ alone is the one who speaks and promises for us; as St. Paul says to the Romans Cap. 3, 23-25: "They are all sinners, and lack the glory which they ought to have in God, and are justified without merit by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ; whom God has set up for a mercy seat through faith in his blood, that he might prove the righteousness that is before him." And afterwards in chapter 5, v. 1, 2, he says: "Now then we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand."
(4) Then you see and hear clearly that Christ has been made a mediator for us. If then I do not do this, but seek another means, I do dishonor to Christ and dishonor to his blood, and I push this means out of the way, without which I can never be saved. It is true that we should honor one another and consider ourselves God's children; we should do the same to the saints, but that I would humble myself in this way.
and not go to God, but put a saint as a means, that I should not do. For through Christ I have the same secure access to the Father as St. Peter or St. Paul: even if they were richer in faith than I, there is nothing the matter; for I have the Christ, the blood, the access, the food, just as well as they.
(5) Christ was made like a serious cruel judge; therefore no one wanted to go to him without a mediator, and came to the point that St. Peter, St. Paul and other saints were chosen as patrons, and thus confidence was turned away from Christ, placed on the saints, and said: I have St. Peter as a patron, St. Paul is my apostle, I think I will be saved through the intercession of him or the saint; as we, unfortunately, have all experienced and felt such seduction so far. Thus and in this way Christ is put out of the way. It is true, as they say, that we should not go to God without a means: but the means is Christ, as St. Paul says. Therefore we must honor our Christ, from whom we have our name, and certainly believe that I may go to God both through Christ and through St. Peter and Paul. Thus, the confidence of the saints falls away, because we have access to the Father only through Christ. Therefore, it has truly become a great idolatry, through no fault of the saints, that we have left Christ, the only means, and turned our hearts to them, and had our hope in them and hung on them.
(6) But the form of intercession is this, that the intercession of every man is, that I pray for thee, and thou for me, in life: but to pray for the dead, or to call upon them, we are not commanded; for we have nothing certain of it, as I have said more of it in another place. But how can one judge this idolatry? One should place one's trust in Christ alone; then all the saints' trust will fall away and be forgotten. Not that their images should be broken or shattered. For if one could rid the hearts of idolatry
the images would probably fall from themselves. This idolatry is destroyed by doing these two things: the first, by not accepting their lives as an example, for it is dangerous; the second, by trusting in them, for then we come to Christ alone and immerse ourselves in his blood. And where we have confidence in Christ, we shall well forget the saints.
7 You may now say: What then shall we do with the saints? You shall do to them what you do to your neighbor. Just as you say to your neighbor: Ask God for me; so you may also say here: Dear St. Peter, ask for me. You do not sin if you call upon them in this way: nor if you do not call upon them. But as I would advise, you should give yourself to Christ alone; otherwise there will always be one question after another, whether they can hear us, whether they are asleep, and what other such questions there are. And though one comes a long way, yet nothing is commanded us of it in the Scriptures. Therefore we are not to be anxious how they are, and where they are, and what they do; for it is enough that we know that they are in Christ, and Christ in them. But how this is done, we are to let God command us, and take care of the living saints whom we have before our eyes, so that we may help and counsel them, and consider it certain what we do to them, that we do it to God and to His Christ Himself; as He will testify of it at the last day, saying, "Truly I say to you, whatever you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did to me," Matt. 25:40.
(8) The other honor, that the saints may be honored, is that of doctrine. This is praised altogether in John, because he is the forerunner and proclaims the Lord. For this reason he is so highly esteemed, because of his ministry, which is the greatest thing that brings us to salvation. Now all this is so that he may be a teacher and show people the way to salvation and the kingdom of heaven. We let life go on.
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How he led a strict life both in eating and drinking and dressing is described by almost all the evangelists: but the teaching we want to see.
(9) The Scripture thus shows John to be in the middle of the Old and New Testaments, that is, that he is a mediator between Moses and Christ. This is a great thing and above all works; just as Christ did the greatest work with his teaching, for the miraculous signs are nothing compared to his teaching. But that John is a means of the New and Old Testament, Christ himself testifies, when he says of him in Matthew 11:12, 13: "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and those who do violence take it to themselves. For all the prophets and the law have prophesied until John." For John declares the law, and we see that we are nothing; and he shews us Christ our salvation, for whom the whole world is gathered together, as unto a treasure opened unto every man.
010 And for this cause John also is set between the Old and New Testaments, to bring men into heaven, and to abolish hell. For his voice hath quickened the letter, and hath brought the Spirit to the scriptures, and hath joined the law and the gospel together. And these are the two sermons of John: the first that lays low, the other that lifts up; the one leads to hell, the other leads to heaven; the one kills, the other makes alive; the one wounds, the other makes well. For he preaches the law and the gospel, death and salvation, the letter and the spirit, sin and righteousness.
(11) The first sermon he preaches is on the law, which, if the law is interpreted spiritually, is that all men's lives and works are sinful and worthy of eternal death. That is why he punished so severely the sinners who came and wanted to be lifted up to heaven because of their works; and the more pious they were, the more severely he attacked them, saying: "You vipers, who has made you so sure that you will be saved to the future?
2264 L. 15. 38S-S87. On the day of John the Baptist. W. n. M1S-3V172265
will you escape the wrath of God? Matth. 3, 7. Then he lays down all their works, and says that they are worthy of hellish fire, and says v. 8: "Watch, do righteous fruits of repentance. All the lives of the saints are cast down, all that seems to shine and shine, and to be great and holy in the sight of the world, for it is all false. As if it were now also said, All men's works are worthy of death and hellish fire; for the works enforced by the law must cease.
(12) But no man will receive the voice of John, neither can he come to his office, and prepare the people unto the Lord, as the angel said unto Zacharias, Luc. 1:16, 17: "He shall turn many of the children of Israel unto God their Lord, and shall go before his face in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the unbelievers unto the prudence of the righteous, to prepare a people ready unto the Lord." But whoever is struck by the voice of John, that is, to whom the law is rightly opened, says in his heart, "Yes, alas, it is true, I am of the devil, a child of wrath and hell; he then begins to pray and to tremble. Then John did his ministry and prepared the people for the Lord, which is St. John's first sermon. So the law endured until John, and the glare of the Pharisees also endured until John, who abolished it.
013 When this doctrine is lifted up, that I am now smitten in my conscience, that all my things are nothing, where will I go? The world will become too narrow for me. John must therefore begin his other preaching and the New Testament, and begin the right teaching, namely, that he is a right mediator, and say, "I baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is stronger than I, to whom also I am not sufficient to bear his shoes: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire," Matt. 3:11. 3, 11. Stretch out his fingers and point to the Lamb of God, saying, "Behold, this is the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," John 1, 29. As if to say:
Know him as a little lamb whose neck your sins are upon, that you may be saved, and you shall be saved. Here then is the teaching of the New Testament, which points to Christ the Savior alone, that he alone can counsel sinners, and no one else.
(14) Thus the heart must be killed beforehand and cast into hell, and afterwards it must be lifted up again and made alive, and put out of the troubled conscience, saying: The law does nothing for salvation; for we cannot do what the law requires: therefore you alone must fall on the little lamb and lie on its neck, which alone takes away sin, and nothing else either in heaven or on earth. The glory we must give to God alone, that he has taken away our sins through the blood of his Son, as you have heard from St. Paul; for we cannot atone for any sin, nor acquire any grace, that and no other.
(15) So in the law is death, but in Christ is life. The law plunges into hell and kills. Christ raises to heaven and makes alive; the law makes a stupid conscience, Christ a happy and blessed conscience. Christ gives the spirit, the law the letter; the law weighs down consciences and gives sin, Christ enlightens consciences and gives righteousness. These are the two sermons of John: for this reason he is held in such high esteem against God because of his teaching, and so highly praised that he makes God a prepared people. For when he has broken you with the word of the law, and taught you that you are nothing in your heart, and praises God's work, which makes you despair of yourself and build on Christ alone, then God comes into you with spirit and fire and makes you godly. All this is shown to us in the history of today's feast, which Lucas begins to describe at the beginning.
So God must have the forerunner, who comes in the spirit and power of Elijah, as Malachi proclaimed Cap. 3, 1. and Christ Himself pointed to John, when He said in Matthew Cap. 11, 14: "And if you will accept it, he is Elijah, who is to be the future." For as Elijah punished King Achab, and the more holiness he
The more Elijah flowed around, 1 Kings 18:18, so John must also do, he must bring to ruin all that is ours: Beware of the wrath to come, he must say, for you are condemned to death and hell; and preach that we must come to Christ alone. And this then is called coming in the power and spirit of Elijah. So you also understand what it means when the text says, "He will turn the hearts of the children to the fathers," that is, he stands in the Scriptures, looking at the faith of the fathers, and leads the children to the same faith of the fathers. So did St. Peter in the stories of the apostles, when he said to those who wanted to impose circumcision on the Gentiles: "Why then do you tempt God by putting a yoke on the necks of disciples, which neither our fathers nor we can bear? But we believe to be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as they also", Acts 15, 10. 11. 15, 10. 11. And St. Paul also draws on the saying of Abra-
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Ham's faith highly, since he says to the Romans Cap. 4, 3: "Abraham believed God, and this was counted to him for righteousness. This means to convert the heart of the children to the fathers.
(17) Let this be said enough of the praise of the doctrine of John; and see that ye distinguish well the doctrine and the life of the saints. The doctrine is the salvation of all the world, and helps the soul, giving it eternal life; but the life of the saints can be deceptive, and sometimes even fails. Now we should rejoice in this, and give thanks to God that he has given us such a man, who thus teaches us, and instructs us how to be saved; just as the neighbors and friendship of Elizabeth rejoiced over the bodily birth of John, as you have heard in the Gospel. What more is to be said here, we will deal with at another time. God now commands you to give us His grace to improve our lives and to continue in the faith we have begun.
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