"Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, and the same forever." *)
Translated from Latin.
1. The one and the same God has been worshipped in many ways through faith in the same Christ from the beginning of the world.
It is certain that Adam and Eve believed in the promised woman's seed, that is, in God who made the promise.
3. since Abel sacrificed, he pleased GOtte, the promise of the woman's name, in whom, or whose promise, he believed.
4 When Abraham was called out of Chaldea, he believed God, the Promiser of the name of the woman, who called him, and it was counted to him for righteousness.
(5) It is true that faith in the same promise has been renewed to other people and at other times.
6. not out of human sacrilege, but by the power (autoritate) of God, who has renewed the same promise for different times and persons.
(7) In short, all the virtues and deeds done by the godly before Christ were done by faith in his promise.
8. just as everything that has happened by the saints after Christ has happened by faith in the [already] fulfilled promise.
(9) The different ways of believing in the promised seed of the woman, or in the same Christ, have ceased over time.
(10) Just as even the Christian faith, which was renewed in the very last days of the gospel, will cease at the end of the world.
(11) So that the statement is completely true
remains standing: Christ Jesus, yesterday and today, and the same also for eternity. Hebr. 13, 8.
If Adam, Noah and other patriarchs had lived in Abraham's time and received the new promise, they would have had to believe that Christ would come from Abraham's seed, or they would have lost God, the Promiser of the woman's seed.
(13) If Abraham had lived in David's time, he would have had to believe that Christ would come from the fruit of David's womb, or he would have believed in the seed of the woman in vain.
14 If David had lived at the time of John the Baptist, he would have had to believe in Jesus, the seed of his daughter Mary, or he would have been lost.
(15) If John the Baptist had believed after the resurrection of Christ, even in his own time, that Christ would come or had not yet come, he would have been condemned.
16 Therefore the Jews now believe in vain in God, the Promiser of the Messiah, with which faith their fathers of old rightly believed.
17) The Turks and other peoples believe in God, the Creator of the world, in vain, because they do not know that He is the Promiser or rather the Giver of the seed, but rather blaspheme that He is not the Father of Christ, the only begotten Son.
The papists and sophists believe in vain God the Father and all the other articles of our faith, rejecting the work of Christ accomplished for us.
(19) For they deny that by faith alone, or, which is the same thing, by the
*) This disputation is found in the Latin Wittenberg edition, Doru. I, toi. 410; in the Jena (1579), Dorn. I, toi. 526 p and in the Erlangen, oxp. vur. urZ-, vol. IV, 452. Niederer in his "Nachrichten zur Kirchen-, Gelehrten- und Bücher-Geschichte", vol. IV, p. 402, reckons this disputation to the year 1540. We have translated according to the Jena.
1470 L. v.a. IV.453- 4SS. X. Luther's writings on the law and faith etc. W. XIX. 1784-1787. 1471
The work done by Christ alone can be done justice to.
20 For by faith alone in Christ alone, which was promised before and is offered now, the whole church is justified from the beginning of the world to the end.
21 We are justified by faith alone, so that neither reason, nor the law, nor even the fulfillment of the law, which is called love, contributes anything to justification.
(22) For faith alone, before hope and before love, obtains forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake alone, and through it [Christ] makes the person agreeable, before the merit of love and without it.
St. Paul does not say: faith makes righteous through love, but he says: faith is active or active through love [Gal. 5:6].
(24) Now, to be busy or active is something far different, and to justify or make righteous is another.
(25) First a person is made righteous for himself, then he proves himself active toward others, just as a tree first becomes good in itself, then shows itself active toward others through fruit.
(26) Idolatry or heresy is carried on by false doctrines and false worship; however, false doctrines and false worship do not make one an idolatrous or heretical person, but such is done by a person who was already heretical or idolatrous before.
(27) The sophists and papists do not understand sin, faith, Christ, law, love, or anything they say.
(28) They show this by admitting that faith can also be found in devils, and that faith, hope and love of God can also be found naturally in the ungodly.
(29) Yes, they add this blasphemy that man can love God above all things by mere natural powers and fulfill the commandments of God according to the essential nature of the deed, without the grace of God.
30. what is that different than you have Chri
stum and the Holy Spirit not necessary to fulfill the commandments of God?
That is, we can earn forgiveness of sins and eternal life from ourselves, as the Turks, Jews and Tartars believe.
They say that to the man who does as much as there is in him, grace will infallibly be given, which makes pleasant according to merit (merito congrui), which is a terrible blasphemy against Christ, which they have not repented of to this day.
(33) And this pleasing grace (that is what they call the infused love) deserves eternal life even in the lowest degree, according to the complete or sufficient merit (merito condigni).
34. they invent that by the power of the keys the half-repentance becomes a complete repentance (that is, one devil becomes another).
(35) And this may be so great as to merit the complete forgiveness of sins, so that one may immediately fly away to heaven without purgatory or satisfaction.
(36) These and such terrible things sufficiently show that there is no mere dispute of words between us and them, as some tiresome peacemakers now imagine.
(37) It is not a dispute of words if we say that everything in Matthew 5 is a commandment, but they claim that it is advice, or, as the Sorbonne in Paris put it in its condemnation of Luther, (1) make this Christian law too difficult.
(38) It is not a dispute of words when they say that we must doubt whether we are in grace; of this we say it is as much as denying Christ.
39. it is not a dispute of words, since they continue in security, wickedness and impenitence, after having shed so much blood to fortify their monstrosities and previously denounced blasphemies.
40 It is not a dispute of words that they consider monastic vows equal to baptism, or rather prefer them to it; we, on the other hand, call this very thing ecclesiastical and anti-Christian.
41. it cannot be denied that miraculous works are performed by the ungodly, who only have a dead
1) Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, 949.
1472 L V. s. IV. 4S5-457. 168. theological disputation on Heb. 13, 8. W. XIX, 1787-7789. 1473.
The following are examples of what can happen to people who have faith, especially if they are in a church office or in a church meeting.
42) Just as the sacrament and the word (that is, eternal life), which are higher than all miraculous works, are also distributed through Judas Iscarioth.
(43) And even if such people do not do themselves any good by such works, but rather harm themselves, what they do is still valid with God and man.
44 Thus Paul says in 1 Cor. 13:2 that it is of no help to those who can even move mountains with their faith.
And Christ calls those who would have done many deeds in His name to depart from Him as evildoers [Matth. 7, 22. f.].
(46) Rather, Paul thinks that those who boast falsely of faith do not demonstrate faith through love and seek only what is theirs.
Anno 1541.