It seems to reason that the prophets are of little use, especially when Master Klügel, who knows the holy scriptures by heart and on the nails, comes upon them; out of the great wealth of his mind, he regards them as vain, lazy, deadly laundry. This means that the history and the work are no longer before the eyes, and only the words or histories are heard. Which is no wonder that even now God's word is despised, although the signs and history, as well as the kingdom of Christ, still stand and walk daily before our eyes. How much more should it be despised if history and deeds were no longer present. Just as the children of Israel despised God and his word, when they still had before their eyes the bread of heaven, the fiery pillar and the light cloud, and both the priesthood and the principality etc.
2 Therefore, we Christians should not be such shameful, unthankful, ungrateful wretches.
but read and use the prophets with seriousness and benefit. First of all, they proclaim and testify to Christ's kingdom, in which we now live, and all believers in Christ have lived until now, and will live until the end of the world.
(3) And this is a great comfort and strength for us, that we have such powerful and ancient witnesses for our Christian life, by which our Christian faith is greatly comforted, that it is the right standing before God, against all other unrighteous, false, human holiness and cults, which for the sake of their great appearance and the multitudes who cling to them, again also for the sake of the cross and the few who hold to the Christian faith, greatly anger and challenge a weak heart. As in our time, the Turks, the Pabst and other mobs give us great, tremendous annoyances.
4. that the prophets are good for us, as St. Peter praises, 1 Petr. 1, 12. that the
*Apart from Walch, this preface is found in the collections only in the Leipziger, vol. XII, p. 13 and in the Erlanger, vol. 63, p. 42. It first appeared in 1532 in the fourth part of the translation of the Old Testament, which has the title: Die Propheten alle deutsch.
The prophets did not reveal to themselves what was revealed to them, but to us they revealed it. For they have thus ministered unto us in their prophecies, that whosoever would be in Christ's kingdom should know, and should walk according to it, that he must first suffer many things, before he come unto glory. That we may be assured of both these things, that the great glory of Christ's kingdom is certainly ours, and that it will come afterward; but that before it comes the cross, shame, misery, contempt, and all kinds of suffering for Christ's sake, so that through impatience or unbelief we may not be despondent, nor despair of the glory to come, which will be so great that even the angels will desire to see it.
(5) Secondly, they show us many and great examples and experience of the first commandment, and they expound it masterfully, both with words and examples, so that they may drive us mightily to the fear of God and to faith, and keep us in it. For after they have prophesied of Christ's kingdom, the other is all vain examples of how God has confirmed His first commandment so severely and harshly; that it is certainly no different to read or hear the prophets, than to read and hear God's preaching and comforting. Comfort the wicked, who are secure and proud, and where the comforting does not help, presses on with punishments, pestilence, destruction, war, until they perish, and thus makes His comforting in the first commandment true. But comfort the godly, who are in all kinds of trouble, and also press on with help and counsel, by all kinds of miracles and signs, against all the power of the devil and the world, and thus also make his comforting in the first commandment true.
With such sermons and examples the dear prophets serve us abundantly. That we should not be angry when we see how surely and proudly the wicked despise God's word, and give nothing at all for His forbearance, as if God Himself were nothing at all. For in the prophets we see how no one has fared well who has despised God's word, even if it were the most powerful emperors and kings, or the most holy and learned people, whom the sun had shone upon. And again, how no one is abandoned who relies on God's consolations and promises.
even if they were the most wretched and poorest sinners and beggars who came to earth; yes, even if they were Habet who was killed and Jonah who was devoured. For the prophets prove to us that God keeps His first commandment, and wants to be a merciful father of the poor and faithful, and none shall be too small nor too despised for Him; again, a wrathful judge over the wicked and proud, and none shall be too great, too mighty, too wise, too holy for Him, be He emperor, pope, Turk and devil to boot.
(7) And for this reason the dear prophets are useful and necessary for us to read in our time, so that we may be strengthened and comforted with such examples and sermons against the unspeakable, innumerable, and, if God wills it, the very last astonishments of the damned world. For how utterly nothing does the Turk consider our Lord Jesus Christ and his kingdom in comparison to himself and his Mahomet! How utterly despised on this side, among us and among the papacy, is the dear poor Gospel and God's Word, compared to the glorious appearance and riches of human commandments and holiness! How surely do the pagans, epicures, and others of their ilk, with their own conceit, go against the holy Scriptures! How very impudently and savagely everyone now lives according to his will, against the bright truth, so now in the day that it seems as if neither God nor Christ were anything, keep silent, that God's first commandment should be so strict.
(8) But it is said, Wait, wait; what matter if the prophets lie and deceive us with their histories and sermons? Mightier and more powerful kings have perished, and worse men have perished; neither shall they escape. Again, there have been poorer and more miserable people, who nevertheless have been wonderfully helped; we will not be abandoned either. They are not the first ones who have defied and throbbed. Neither are we the first to have suffered and been afflicted. Behold, therefore, let us make use of the prophets, and they shall be fruitfully read.
(9) But that there is more in it of forbidding and punishing, neither of comforting nor of promising, is
to reckon well the cause. For the wicked are always more than the pious. Therefore, the law must always be practiced much more than the promises, because the wicked are secure without it, and are almost quick to interpret the divine consolations and promises from themselves, and to interpret the pressure and punishment on others, and do not let themselves be turned away from such a wrong sense and false hope in any way. For their rhyme is: Pax et securitas, there is no need [1 Thess. 5, 3]. They stay there, and go along with it to destruction, as St. Paul says there: "Suddenly destruction comes upon them.
Idolatry among the Jews.
(10) Further, because the prophets cry out most about idolatry, it is necessary to know what form their idolatry took. For among us under the papacy many tickle themselves very gently, and think that they are not such idolaters as the children of Israel. That is why they do not pay much attention to the prophets, especially in this piece, as they are not concerned with their punishments for idolatry. They are far too pure and holy to practice idolatry, and it would be ridiculous for them to fear or be frightened by the chastisement and rebuke of idolatry. Just as the people of Israel also did, and would not believe that they were idolatrous, and the prophets' prophecies had to be all lies, and they had to be condemned as heretics. The children of Israel were not such great saints that they worshipped wood and stones, especially the kings, princes, priests and prophets, who were the most idolatrous. But this was their idolatry, that they abandoned the worship that had been established and ordered in Jerusalem (and wherever God wanted it more), and out of their own devotion and conceit, without God's command, they improved, established and organized it elsewhere, and invented other new ways, persons and times for it, which Moses had forbidden them quite severely, especially Deut. 12:4,8, and always pointed them to the place that God had chosen for His tabernacle and dwelling place. Such false devotion was their idolatry, and they thought it was delicious and relied on it,
as if they had done well, when it was all disobedience and apostasy from God and His command.
011 So we read in 1 Kings 12:28, that Jeroboam did not badly set up the two calves, but preached beside them unto the people, saying, Ye shall go up no more unto Jerusalem; but, behold, Israel, here is thy God, which brought thee out of Egypt. He does not say, Behold here, Israel, this is a calf, but: is your GOOD who brought you out of Egypt. Confess freely that the God of Israel is the true God, and that he brought them out of Egypt; but do not run after him to Jerusalem, but find him here in Dan and Bethel 1) among the golden calves. So that the opinion is that one can sacrifice and serve God before the golden calves, as before a holy sign of God, just as one served and sacrificed God before the golden ark in Jerusalem. Behold, this is to forsake the worship of Jerusalem, and to deny God, who commanded such worship, as if He had not commanded it?
012 And so they built upon their own works and devotions, and not upon God pure and alone. With such devotion they then filled the land with idolatry on every mountain, in every ground, under every tree, building altars, sacrificing and burning incense, and yet all had to be called serving God Israel. Whoever said otherwise was a heretic and a false prophet. For this actually means to commit idolatry, to perform a service without God's command, out of one's own devotion. For he wants to be unmastered by us, how to serve him. He wants to teach us and preach to us, his word should be there, it should shine and guide us. Without his word everything is idolatry and vain lies, however devout and beautiful it may be. We have often written about this.
Idolatrous among Christians.
(13) From this it follows that among us Christians all those are idolatrous, and the prophets' rebuke truly concerns them, who have invented or still hold new worship services,
1) In the original: Berseba. In the Weimar Bible: Bethel.
without God's command and commandment, out of their own devotion and (as they say) good opinion. For in this way they certainly put their trust in their own chosen works, and not only and purely in Jesus Christ. This is what the prophets call adulteresses, who are not content with their husband Christ, but go after others as well, as if Christ alone could not help us without us and our works, or as if he had not only redeemed us, but we also had to do it, knowing full well that we did nothing at all to help him die for us, take our sin upon himself, and bear it on the cross, not only before all the world could know it, but also before we were born: as little, and much less, did the children of Israel do to afflict Egypt and Pharaoh, and to set them free by the death of the first Egyptian birth, which God did alone, and they did nothing everywhere.
014 Yea, they say, the children of Israel served idols with their worship, and not the right God: but we serve the right God in our churches, and the one Lord Jehovah Christ; for we know of no idols. Answer: So said the children of Israel also, and said all together that all their worship was done unto the right God, and would not suffer it to be called serving idols, much less than our ministers would suffer it, and they also struck dead at it, and persecuted all true prophets. For they truly did not want to know about any idols, as the histories well indicate.
15 For so we read in Judges. 17:2 that Micah's mother, when he had taken from her the thousand and hundred pieces of silver and given them back, said to him, "Blessed be my son to the Lord! I have pledged such silver to the Lord," that my son should take it from me and make an idol and an image out of it etc. Here one hears clearly and certainly that the mother means the right God, to whom she has pledged such silver, that an idol and image would be made out of it. For she does not say, "I have pledged such silver to an idol," but "to the Lord," which word is known among all the Jews, that it means the one true
God is called. Just as the Turk does, and by his worship calls and means the right God, who created heaven and earth. Likewise the Jews, the Tatars, and now all unbelievers. Nevertheless, with them everything is vain idolatry.
Item, the great man Gideon, how strangely he fell. Judges. 8:23, who just as he said to the children of Israel (who wanted him and his children to be their lord), "I will not be your lord, nor will my children be your lord, but the Lord (that is, the true God) shall be your lord," nevertheless took the jewels 1) that they gave him, and yet made them neither image nor altar, but only priestly garments [v. 27], and also wanted to have a worship service in his city out of devotion. The Scripture still says that all Israel committed fornication with it, and that his hall perished because of it. Now the great holy man did not mean an idol, but the right and only God, as the fine, witty words testify, where he says: "The Lord shall rule over you, and not I," etc., so that he clearly gives the honor to God alone, and confesses and wants to have the right God alone as one God and Lord. Thus we have heard above that King Jeroboam did not call his golden calves idols, but the God of Israel, who had led them out of Egypt, which is the true one God; for no idol had led them out of Egypt. Nor was it his opinion that he wanted to worship idols, but because he feared (as the text says, v. 26, 27) that his people would fall away from him to the king of Judah, where they would worship at Jerusalem alone, he invented a worship of his own, so that he would keep them to himself, and nevertheless meant by this the right God who dwelt at Jerusalem, but it would not be necessary to serve God at Jerusalem alone.
(17) And what may it say? God Himself confesses that the children of Israel did not mean an idol by their worship, but Him alone. For thus he speaks Hos. 2, 16. f.: "Then, says the Lord, you will call me my husband, and you will no longer call me my Baal. For I will call the names of the Baalim
1) In the original: nevertheless he took the gems etc.
from their mouths, that such names of Baalim be remembered no more." Here one must confess that it is true that the children of Israel did not mean an idol by their worship, but the one true God, as here in Hosea God clearly says: "You will no longer call me my Baal." Now ever Baal was the greatest, meanest, most glorious worship in the people of Israel. It was still vain idolatry, regardless of the fact that they meant the right God by it.
(18) Therefore, it does not help our clergy to pretend that they do not serve any idols in their churches and foundations, but only God, the true Lord. For you hear here that it is not enough to say or think: I do it in honor of God; I mean the right God; item: I want to serve the one God, because all idolaters also say and mean this. It is not a matter of my opinion or of my own, otherwise they would also be God's servants, who martyred the apostles and Christians, because they also thought (as Christ says Joh. 16, 2.) that they were doing God a service; and St. Paul Rom. 10, 2. gives testimony to the Jews that they are jealous for God, and Apost. 26, 7. says that they hope with worship day and night to come to the promised blessedness.
(19) But let every man take care that he may be sure that his worship is instituted by the word of God, and not invented or well-meant out of his own devotion. For whoever worships without God's testimony should know that he is not serving the right God, but his own invented idol, that is, his own conceit and false thoughts, and thus the devil himself, and the words of all the prophets go against him. For such a God is nowhere, who wants to establish worship for him out of our own choice and devotion, without his command and word; but there is only One God, who through his word has abundantly established and commanded all kinds of stands and worship, in which he wants to have served him.
(20) We are to stay with this, and not turn from it to the right or to the left, neither doing more nor less, neither doing worse nor better. Otherwise there will be no end to idolatry, and no distinction can be made between what is right worship and what is idolatry, because they all mean the right God, and all need His right name. To the same one God be thanksgiving and praise, through Jesus Christ, His Son and our Lord, eternally given, amen.