from the power of the Ascension of Christ.*)
Held on the day after the Ascension, May 31, 1527. Printed 1527.
At this time, the feast of the Ascension of the Lord Christ is celebrated, which is a high article of our faith, and so high to human reason that the more it is contemplated and remembered, the more it seems that it is not true. For reason cannot comprehend that a man, having flesh and blood, should have ascended into heaven and become lord over all creatures, having equal authority with God, when it can scarcely have heard such a thing from
God Himself believes, will keep silent about a human being. Therefore, God has commanded us to close our eyes, ears, and all our senses, and to wrap ourselves up in His word, not to fall into it with our reason, or else we will certainly be like the man who wants to look straight into the sun with stupid eyes: the more and longer he looks into it, the more damage it does to his face. So it is here, too: the more one looks at the and other articles uu-.
*This sermon was first published in Wittenberg by Nickel Schirlentz in 1527 under the title: "Ein gute predigt, Von der Himelfart Christi. Interpretation of the saying from the lxviij Psalm, Du bist ynn die Höhe gefaren vn hast das gefengnis gefangen, du hast gab entpfangen für die Menschen. Mar. Luth. Wittemberg." I" the same year, a reprint was published by Friedrich Peypus at Nuremberg, which differs on the title only by different orthography. Only in the second edition of the Erlangen edition, Vol. 17, p. 287, is this, the original relation of the sermon, printed; the following number in this volume (No. 35 ds, which is found in the collective editions, is a revision of the same, probably somewhat smoother in expression, but weakened and prolix. To what extent this is the case, the reader can judge for himself, since we, as well as the Erlangen, bring both relations. The Erlanger offers as time determination: "Held on Ascension Day, May 30, 1527", but we see from the index in Buchwald's "Poach", Vol. I, p. XXVII, that this sermon was held on the day after Ascension Day, May 31, 1527. After that our correction.
The more he tries to fathom and measure the truth of our faith with reason and human wisdom, the more he becomes blinded and foolish. As the spirits of the mob do in our lines, they are not to be advised or helped.
So it is with this article of the Ascension of Christ also. Who wants to stay inside, let him grasp the sayings of this article. But the Holy Spirit wrote this article long before in the 68th Psalm, v. 19: "Thou hast ascended on high, and hast taken the prison, and hast given gifts among men. The dear prophets spoke of this and other articles of the Christian faith so confidently and undoubtedly that they believed them to be true, even though it would not come to pass until long afterward, as they believed. Again, we who see that such things have happened, and read and hear the scriptures of the evangelists and apostles who have seen them, place ourselves thereunto, as though we thought them lies, or else hear them as other stories and tales, and when they come in at one ear, they go out at the other. The dear apostles, however, looked at the sayings of such stories with sharp eyes and drew them out; as Paul to the Ephesians on the 4th [v. 8] looked at this saying from the 68th Psalm: "You have ascended on high" etc., in which the ascension of Christ is finely described, as we will hear.
Many a learned man has read this saying, but no one has understood it except the Christians. They also preached yearly how Christ had gone to heaven, but they did not know what he had done for us, namely, that he had caught the prison etc. It is a mighty saying, therefore let us see what he has in it.
First of all, the saying is: "You have ascended on high" etc. The prophet often calls the Lord Christ, who ascended on high, "God" in the same psalm. But how does it rhyme with God that he should ascend on high, because he is so high that nothing can be higher than he, and everything is subject to him, and is called in the Scriptures the Most High; how then did he ascend on high?
With the short word: "You have gone up on high" the prophet indicates that the person is
Christ is true God and man. For if he ascended, then he must have been down below, as St. Paul finely indicates to the Ephesians in the 4th chapter, where he says: "That he ascended, what is it but that he first descended into the lowest parts of the earth? He that descended is he that ascended above all heavens, that he might fill all things." He descended first, that is, he became the lowest and most despised, so that he could not have descended lower; nor did any man descend lower than he, so that the word of St. Paul, "He descended," would stand firm and remain true. For he has given himself down to the lowest depths, under the law, under the devil, death, sin and hell. That is, I think, the last and lowest depth. Therefore, this saying demands that the person who descended and ascended is not only true God, but also true man.
But what is the cause that he has gone down so low? Isaiah the prophet shows it in the 53rd chapter, v. 5: "For sin's sake," he says, "I have smitten him of my people." Read the whole chapter. And John at the first, v. 29: "Behold, this is the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." There you hear that the world is in sins and condemnation; the same sin Christ takes upon Himself, it lies on His neck, and what the world has done oppresses Him. So also, because the whole world was guilty of death because of sin (for death, says St. Paul Rom. 5, 12, came into the world through sin), He threw Himself under the feet of death, died and was buried, and also went down into hell under the devil (no man has ever gone down so deep). But because it was impossible that he should be held by death, he had to go up again from this depth, that is, to the right hand of God, where no higher thing can be. He could not descend any lower, nor could he ascend any higher; for nothing is lower than hell, nothing higher than the right hand of God. Both he has tried; both we will also have to camouflage and try, where we want to follow him differently. He has gone through it all, so that
He occupies everything and, as Paul says [Eph. 4:10], fills everything. He wants and must be in all places. Therefore it follows that the God described in the 68th Psalm must also be man, and is described in this short verse: "You ascended on high and captured the prison" etc., that God became man, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, died, rose again from death, ascended to heaven. For if he is to ascend, he must descend, that is, as has been said, he must become man, take upon himself the sin of the world, suffer death etc. Again, if he should ascend again, take prison captive, distribute gifts among men, and rule over sin, death, devil, hell and all creatures as God, then he must be more than a man, yes, must be true God, because such are not works of a creature, but of the Creator himself etc. Thus St. Paul looked with sharp eyes at this saying in the epistle to the Ephesians, as it is said that it contains the birth, death and resurrection of etc. Christ.
Now that he has gone up, what is he doing? What is his office? Is he sitting up there on a golden chair, with angels courting him, or is he idle? No. Hear what St. Paul says from the prophet: "Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast caught the prison, thou hast given gifts among men." There you hear what his office is. He judges two things: He has caught the prison, he does not stop yet, he keeps it caught without ceasing. That is one piece. The other: He has given gifts among men, gives them 1) also to the end of the world among his Christians.
And it is sweetly spoken, "Thou hast caught the prison." Scripture also has other such ways of speaking as: Law makes free from the law, law tears up the law, sin takes away sin, death overcomes death, poison drives out poison, a strong man beats another strong man. So here also: "You have caught the prison"; do not say: You have taken away the prison; otherwise it might be said about some people.
1) In the original: gibts.
years return; but: has caught it, that [it] hinhort no one may take captive.
What then is the prison that Christ has caught? Some have drawn this prison to mean that Christ, having ascended to heaven, delivered the holy ancients from the outer castle of hell. But that this is not the opinion is indicated by the words themselves, which hold up to us another song that captures me and you and all men, namely a spiritual one, by which the soul is captured, and is thus held captive like a thief or murderer to death. So then, as I said, this prison that imprisons us is the law, sin, death, the devil and hell. There the law stands, urging and commanding us to be pious, to love God with all our heart and our neighbor. We do not do this, and it is impossible for us to do it. But because we do not, it takes us captive and passes judgment on us that we are guilty of eternal death and damnation, saying [Gal. 3:10]: "Cursed be every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them! Oh Lord God! A horrible, terrible judgment this is! So I hear that if a man kept the whole law, and lacked only one thing, he would still be accursed? Yes, indeed, accursed! This is also what St. Jacob means when he says [Cap. 2, 10]: "If anyone keeps the whole law, and sins in one thing, he is guilty of it. Yes, you cannot keep the least bit of the law, you may be outwardly so pious, how would you keep it completely? Nor was it given by God to be kept by human power in order to make people blessed, for if it were able to do so, we would not be able to do anything for Christ; rather, it was given so that people would recognize their sin, inability and condemnation in it, and thus learn to despair of themselves through the law and seek help and counsel elsewhere.
Therefore do as you will, the law takes you captive. If you do not feel it now, the hour will come when the world will be too tight for you. How can I get out of this prison? Despair of you and of
If you do not, you will be stuck in this prison forever; no creature, no saint, nor angel will be able to help you out; but if you cling to him, you will be helped, because Christ has caught the law, which cannot escape us if we believe in him.
How did it happen that Christ caught the law? St. Paul teaches it to the Galatians [Cap. 4, 4]. "The Son of God," he says, "was born of a woman, and was put under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption." Item [Cap. 3, 11. ff.]: "By the law no one is justified before God," yes, it only makes the transgression greater. [But Christ redeemed us from the malediction of the law, being a malediction unto us (for it is written, Every man that hangeth on the wood is maledicted), that the blasphemy of Abraham might come among the Gentiles in Christ Jesus.
Then you hear that Christ crawled into the prison in which we all are, put himself under the law, was a man of all graces, righteousness etc. full, worthy of life, yes, was life itself; the law comes here, addresses itself to him, wants to deal with him as with all other men; Christ looks on, lets the tyrant rule over him, lets himself be scolded by him without any guilt as a malediction, yes, bears the title that he is the malediction himself, and goes over it in ruins, dies and is buried. Now won! means the law. But it did not know that it had so shamefully transgressed, and condemned and strangled God's Son. Because it has now condemned and condemned the one who was innocent, and to whom it had no right, it must again stand, be captured, crucified, lose all its power, and lie under the feet of the one it condemned.
Now if you want to have a free, good, safe conscience, and be delivered from the prison of the law, hold on to Christ; he has become a master of the law and has caught it. If you believe in him, you have safe, free conduct, because Christ has caught it for you,
that you not only be free from the law, but also rule over it through and in it. This is what St. Paul means when he says: "Christ redeemed us from the malediction of the law, being a malediction to us" etc.
As the law takes us captive, so sin also takes us captive, making us a despondent, stupid conscience, so that we are afraid of a rustling leaf. How then shall we do to it, that we may be loosed from it? Look at Christ; he has caught the prison, has taken away one sin by another 1). How so? He became a sinner, yes, sin itself, and thus took away the sin of the world through his sin. Of this St. Paul to the Romans, cap. 8 [v. 3.] says: "God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and condemned sin in the flesh by sin, that righteousness, required by the law, might be fulfilled in us." And 2 Cor. 5:21: "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become in him the righteousness that is before God."
There you hear that Christ by his sin takes away sin from the world and condemns it. But a strange, whimsical speech is this: sin takes away sin, sin condemns sin. Would it not be said of his: righteousness takes away sin, and Christ by his righteousness took away sin from the world and condemned it? No. Why? Because the sin and punishment of the whole world is on Christ's neck; John 1:29: "Behold, this is the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!" There he is under sin, counted out of the law of Moses for a man who has sinned, and considered the worst of sinners, hanging between two murderers as an arch-robber. There the saying from the 69th Psalm, v. 10, has been fulfilled: "The reproach of them that reproach thee is fallen upon me." And in the 32nd Psalm, v. 5, it says: "I make known my sin and do not hide my iniquity." These same words are spoken by Christ, and he speaks them like a sinner.
If Christ has committed no sin, neither is there any deceit in his mouth: as
1) Erlanger: andern.
is he then a sinner? Because of his person he is not a sinner, but pure, holy, righteous, yes, the righteousness itself etc. But he is the Lamb of God who took upon himself my sin and your sin and the sin of all the world, and, to atone for it, shed his own blood. So Christ with his sin, which he took upon himself, has torn asunder and cast out all sin in the world. If you believe in him, his sin is so powerful that it tears away and condemns your sin.
Therefore, if your sin weighs you down and weighs you down, see to it that you do no work to subdue and quench it, or you work in vain, but hold fast to Christ, from whom sin is imprisoned and has received its judgment, like a murderer who receives his judgment for his wrongdoing; he sees certain death before his eyes, for the judgment has already passed over him; what life can he have? His life is nothing but a walk to death. So sin is still stirring in us, but it has already passed its judgment, is now completely weak and powerless, and can never condemn us, because it has been defeated and captured by Christ, and the more it looks at the Christians, the less it judges them, and only gives the Christians greater cause through their temptation to cry out to their Lord Christ for help. So Christ is there, and says: "Dear sin, you may well press my Christians, but you shall not gain anything from them; you shall be condemned, and not make them guilty before me. Therefore, what sin does in the conscience of Christians has no power, for the sin of Christ has overcome sin. That means that sin is expelled with sin. You see, dear man, that Christ does not sit idle up in heaven, but strikes at our enemies without ceasing, and takes them captive so that they cannot harm us.
Death is also one of our enemies, before whom all the world is terrified and frightened, nor is there an emperor so strong and powerful who could resist him; they all have to stand their ground, they may be great or small, young or old, rich or poor, noble or ignoble, and they all have to be protected from death.
1) Erlanger: the same.
He will be strangled and devoured; there is no remedy, help or advice. How do you do that you can escape from him? If you want to escape from him, leave your works alone, for you will not and cannot do anything with them (the sneeze is too strong; it cannot be beaten with caps or with shaven heads), and see what works Christ has done; he is the devourer of death and has overcome our death with his death.
How did this happen? Death came upon Christ, once wanted to eat a sweet morsel, opened his jaws wide, ate him up like all other men. Christ let death eat him, remains stuck in his throat until the third day. But the cute little bite did not want to get death, could not digest it, because it was too strong for him, must spit it out again, and thus strangle himself on it.
Therefore Christ has overcome all death by his innocent death. If we believe in him, we must die, be scarred and rot; but we have the advantage that our temporal death is a passage to eternal life. Thus the death we must suffer is no longer a real death, but only a painted death, and this is made by the death of Christ, who has caught our death. This means to overcome death with death, and to expel poison with poison. Of this miraculous overcoming of one death against another, Hosea the prophet says on the 13th [v. 14.) in the person of Christ: "Death, I will be your death"; as [if] he wanted to say: Thou slayest the whole world, thou shalt again be slain unto me, that all they which believe on me may tread thee under foot, and lords through me may rejoice over thee.
There you can see how blessed and superior the death of our Lord Christ is, how he bites down shamefully and does not allow our death to harm us, yes, it must benefit us and be an entrance to blessedness and eternal life. So Christ has gone to heaven, sits at the right hand of God, and his office is to set souls free from the law, sin and death.
2) "More excellent" is given in the other relation by: "more wholesome and powerful".
Therefore we must not be afraid of him, as of a severe judge, but we must do all that is good to him, as of our most gracious Savior and Advocate, who not only has overcome sin, death and all misfortunes for our good, but who helps us without ceasing, so that such things may not harm us, and where we lack, he represents us to the Father. O, he is a friendly king, if only we could believe it! If we believed it, we would be in good spirits and cheerful, and our hearts would laugh that we had such a man for God, who would take care of our needs and help us out of all misfortune. We would not become monks, priests and nuns, run to Rome, offer masses, call on St. Barbara and other saints as mediators and think that we would get to heaven through them, but would hold on to this Christ, who became man for our sake, died and rose again, so that we, saved from sins and death, would live forever through him.
If our sin, as has been said, is taken away by Christ, then the law cannot condemn us, nor does death have any more right and power over us, for the law cannot convince us that we are sinners, because Christ has crucified and taken away the same. So it follows that the devil can also create nothing against us. For through Christ we are delivered from the power and kingdom of the devil, which is a kingdom of darkness, error, sin and death, and transferred into his kingdom, which is a kingdom of light, right understanding, righteousness and life. So we must not be afraid of hell either, for hell and all other enemies of ours Christ has captured. This is what St. Paul means when he says to Corinthians [1 Ep. 15, 54. f. 58.]: "Death is swallowed up in victory! Death, where is your sting? Hell, where is your victory? Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Let this be said of the first part, that Christ ascended on high and caught the prison, that is, he overcame sin, death, the devil, hell, and opened the way to heaven for us who believe this to be our good. These are
all unbelievable 1) words before our eyes. But the prophets and apostles speak of it in this way, that they believed it to be certain and true, and felt it in their hearts. But we, because we do not see how sin and death are imprisoned, do not believe it, nor do our hearts feel it. For when we see that death wants to come, it is evident how we believe this; indeed, if we could crawl into a mouse hole and thus escape death, we would do so. Nevertheless, if you want to remain otherwise unentangled by death, you must believe that Christ is above and has caught death, so that it must leave you uncaught. This will remain, so that sin will attack you, death will frighten you, God's judgment will touch your conscience. But how shall you do to him? You certainly do not have to act as you feel. You do not have to say: O woe, death wants to devour me! O woe, hell hath opened wide its harbor, and will devour me! but take courage, and tread such thoughts under foot, and say, It is not, O woe, death will devour me; it is, Thou hast ascended on high, and hast caught the prison." The "going up" will forbid you, O death, to leave me devoured. I shall be free, and am free, because of him that ascended on high.
So a Christian overcomes death etc. What weapons does he use? Letters of indulgence, caps, rosaries etc.? No. What then? He grasps the word that Christ has gone to heaven and has the prison etc., or another, by faith, and clings to it firmly, and thus passes through death into life. But it truly requires faith that can believe such things. He who believes cannot despair; indeed, he must rejoice that Christ has caught the prison. Therefore, he knows well that he is and remains uncaught, and thinks to himself: "Oh, merciful God, how sweet and sweet a father you are, that you deal so fatherly and warmly with us poor, condemned sinners, that you throw your only Son, Jesus Christ, your most precious possession, into the hands of death, the devil etc. and the devil into the hands of the Lord.
1) Thus in the second redaction. Erlanger: "unbelieving".
The Lord has given us a joy that is not felt by the heart, but is a sign that it is without faith. Where the heart does not feel such joy, but is tight and afraid, it is a sign that it is without faith. Therefore, as I said in the beginning, this thing is so high that one cannot preach enough about it, indeed, no human heart can ever comprehend it sufficiently here on earth; it must be saved for that life, otherwise a man would die of joy.
Now let us also speak a little of the other piece, "Thou hast given or received gifts among men."
I have said that Christ has two offices, which he handles without interruption. The first is that he has caught all the calamities that afflict us and make us despair, so that they may afflict us, but they cannot harm us; the second is that he rains down 1) and sends gifts among men, that is, the Holy Spirit with his gifts, as St. Paul interprets it to the Ephesians [Cap. 4:11, 12]. "Christ," he says, "appointed some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, that the saints might all be knit together in common ministry, for the betterment of the body of Christ." etc. That is, he did it so that in the congregation of his Christians there would be various gifts for the preaching of the gospel, for the conversion of unbelievers, for the enlightenment of men, for the interpretation of the Scriptures by one, for the testing of the spirits by another, for the knowledge of various languages by a third, and for the interpretation of others, and so on.
Once, on the day of Pentecost, Christ visibly gave the Holy Spirit with His gifts to the apostles, so that they spoke with many tongues, cast out devils, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, etc., which happened because the apostles' preaching was new and unheard of; if it was to be accepted, Christ had to confirm it with such miracles and gifts. But now until the end of the world he gives the Holy Spirit.
1) Erlanger: reget.
and the gifts secretly and invisibly to his Christians.
But, as I said, just as it is unbelievable to reason that Christ overcame all calamities and caught them, so it does not believe that Christ distributes gifts among men. For when the apostles received the Holy Spirit, spoke with new tongues, passed through Judea and Samaria, and preached the gospel, and afterward 2) passed through the Roman empire, and confirmed their preaching with signs and wonders: who perceived it? who believed that they were right? Yes, they had to hear from their own Jews that they were raving and drunk, item, that they were possessed by the devil, yes, full of devils, and were executed as seducers and rebellious evildoers, both by Jews and Gentiles.
Therefore one does not see and recognize the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but rather condemns them 3). For everything that our Lord God speaks or does is not and must not be right for the world. It takes His word for the devil's word, and the devil's teaching for divine teaching; God's work must be devilish to it, and again the devil's work must be divine to it. But the Christians alone think of God's word and works what they should think, but still not perfectly.
As it happened to the apostles, so it happens to us now: princes and lords consider us heretics, seducers, rebellious, devilish people. Thus they praise our gifts, which our Lord Christ distributes among us! The same thing is done by the spirits of the pagans, who do not see any gifts in us either. What they speak and do is spiritual, yes, the spirit itself; but what we poor sinners do is fleshly and devilish, yes, the devil himself. Still, the verse stands firm: "Thou hast given gifts among men." He also always finds those to whom he gives his spirit, who recognize, and no one else, what gifts they receive from him. In the papacy, which is the cause of all heresy of this last time, he has nevertheless had his own, on whom he has poured out his gifts; they have well seen that the pope is the right one.
2) "they" seems too much.
3) In the original: "evaporates", that is, damn them.
The people who said that the Antichrist and his doctrine were devilish doctrine, also spoke out against the Pabst and his doctrine. But what they did, they had to do secretly, were not allowed to make a fuss, or it would have cost them their necks. Nor was it yet time for the right light to shine and expose the Pabst's deception; but now that it has appeared by God's grace, one can see before one's eyes what Pabstianism is.
You have now heard from this verse that Christ has ascended on high and has assumed the dominion and authority of God to rule over all things, and that he does not sit idly above, but has to do with us here below without ceasing, namely, that he first saves us from sins and makes us more godly day by day; Secondly, that he is a kind, merciful Lord, who demands nothing of us, but richly showers us with abundant, unspeakable holy goods and gifts, so that we may become brave and defiant, and fear no one, whether it be tyrants, the spirits of the wicked, sin, death, the devil, or hell. You have also heard how the world does not recognize or believe in the ministry of Christ, and even condemns it and makes a mockery of it, and how it alone is the only thing that can be done.
Christians recognize and believe, and yet not enough, for they are sometimes, yes, often deceived, that they are annoyed at other Christians when they see their infirmity and do not live fully of all things, and that the dear prophets could have spoken much better of these things before they happened, than we who hear, read and also believe that they happened.
Thus, in these short words, the ascension of Christ is finely depicted, that he has gone up for our good (as in all other things), and therefore sits above, that he may help us and comfort us with his gifts. Whoever knows and believes this, the ascension of Christ is comforting and useful to him, who goes to God with an undaunted heart and says: Dear Father, here comes a poor sinner, give piety; a wretched man who is afraid of death, give bold courage etc. An unbeliever cannot have such confidence in God; indeed, he is frightened when he hears the name of God mentioned, not to mention that he should do good to God through Christ, as to a father. Let us leave it at that, God grant us His grace, amen.