He continues to comfort the church gathered from the rest of the synagogue, which has departed from the law and followed the righteousness of faith, which the prophet has treated in various ways. But just as above [Cap. 42 1) he comforted the church against the special and public temptations into which Satan and the world plunge her, so now he actually comforts her against the distress that there are so few of them. Paul also takes a lot of trouble with this reason, because it seems to be inconsistent that God rejected the whole people and chose a few, even the most despised ones, especially since the promises were made to the whole people [Rom. 15, 8. 9, 4. 5.]. And this example terrifies the weak souls. For when they see that the synagogue is rejected, they think that he will use the same wrath against them.
V. 1. And now says the LORD who created you, Jacob.
2 These are fervent words with which he comforts his church, and especially the apostles with the rest of the Jews. "I have comforted you
I created you, I made you, 1) do not fear"; everything you teach, do, believe is my gift and my work. "I have redeemed you," since you were imprisoned under Moses and under the law. This oppose the reasons of those who call you a creature of the devil and rebellious. But these words will have a right emphasis only when you look at the person who speaks this.
I have called you by your name.
3. he distinguishes the synagogue from the church. As if to say: I have set you apart from the unbelieving synagogue to a new people of faith.
You are mine. 2)
I take you into my possession, that all you are and do may be mine. Thus, when the church teaches, baptizes, Christ teaches and baptizes. When she suffers, Christ suffers, as he says in Acts Cap. 9, 4. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
1) In the editions: ürrnavi, for which with the Vulgate Lornaavi will be read. After that we have translated.
2) Erlanger: mons instead of: msus. This is not a misprint, but the correct reading is given as a variant of Jena.
V. 2: For if you pass through the water.
(5) These are excellent consolations, which I generally take from all afflictions. You must not think that you are alone and abandoned; I will be with you in all adversity; I will comfort, strengthen and protect you. That is why the church suffers wherever it wants. Therefore, it is easy to see that the pope and his followers are not the church, because they do not cry from anything but the temporal cross.
(6) But the prophet also covertly indicates the effort and the devilish hatred of the wicked, with which they are inflamed against the church, that they wish and strive to flood it as with a flood of sin, and to consume it completely as with a conflagration. But here we have a good comfort against such threats, that we will be preserved, although there is no way to escape. And certainly, this promise has made all the attempts of the adversaries fruitless, destroyed so many imperial diets, even the last one at Augsburg, which seemed to be the most terrible. But if we cling to such promises with firm faith and add to them prayer, we will also experience that we will be safe from all violence and injustice.
V. 3. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel.
7 He adds: "I am the Holy One in Israel. As if he wanted to say: I am the same God that I have always been; I have not changed, as you judge. I am with you, not with the unbelieving synagogue. For the apostles to separate themselves from the synagogue has the appearance of apostasy and rebellion. For they hold that they are God's people, and that the synagogue is not God's people. Here the heart must necessarily be challenged more often: How if you err? How if you were rejected and they were preserved? For it is not likely that God should reject so great a multitude, and hold two or three fishermen higher than a whole people.
8 It is the same with us now. We separate ourselves from the pope because he denies and persecutes the word, and we
boast that we are Christ's church, but the pope and his followers are the church of the Antichrist. Therefore, the pope judges us to be rebels and heretics, since we have fully separated from the church in which we were baptized and taught. But the fault is not ours. We have not separated from them, rather they are separating from us; indeed, they are pushing us and our word out of their church. Here we too must necessarily conclude that the Holy One in Israel is with us, and not with the pope.
I have given Egypt, Moor and Seba in your place for atonement.
To give credence to his words, he repeats the past benefits. This great change in the synagogue and the church is just as if I were a different God now than I was before. But do not be offended by it, you small flock; for I am the same God who has often turned the punishment you deserved upon your enemies, and given your enemies in your place. I will do the same now, no matter how much you are a small and oppressed herd. Therefore do not let your small number or the great multitude of your enemies trouble you. For if they seem to plunder thee, they themselves shall be plundered and spoiled. Furthermore, Seba is the capital of the land of the Moors.
V. 4. Because you are so esteemed in my sight, you must also be glorious.
He calls the church "glorious. Where? "Before me." For both our conscience, and the thing itself, and the whole world say the contrary. Therefore, when we see that everything looks as if it were lost, that nothing in the whole world is less and more despised than we are, that we are weighted down with our own sins and the sins of others, that we are weak in faith and walk, that we are also sometimes unclean in the eyes of our brethren, if they have anything to reproach in us; when we see these things, I say, we must turn our eyes from the outward appearance, and fix them on such promises as will show us, not what the world or
Our brothers or we ourselves think of us, but what God thinks of us sorrowful sinners; namely, that as despised as we are in the world, as desperate sinners as we are in our eyes, as weak as we are in the eyes of our brothers, we are nevertheless worthy and the most glorious before the face of the one who speaks here 2c. And indeed, this outward appearance that we see is the true mortification, the true lowliness and contrition.
And I love you.
11 All this serves to comfort the inexpressible groaning of the heart, of which Paul speaks Rom. 8:26. "I love thee," saith he; that is, if thou goest by thy sensation and outward appearance, it seemeth as if I hated and condemned thee greatly. For so says my conscience in temptation, and considers GOD an executioner and tyrant. Therefore, we should learn not to judge according to our feelings, but according to the word of God.
That is why I give people in your place.
(12) If you follow the sentiment, the opposite is true. For the Christians alone are afflicted, the others are unharmed and well. But it is a general promise. If other men shall seem more righteous, mightier, holier 2c. than thou, but thou shalt be condemned of all as a dead and heretical member, arise, and look unto me, because thou art a precious jewel in my sight, because thou shalt be glorified, and men shall be given in thy stead.
V. 5. Fear not therefore, for I am with you.
13 He continues to comfort the church, which is troubled by the small number of believers and the great multitude of unbelievers. "Fear not," he says, "you will be fruitful and have many children. "I will bring your seed from the morning, and gather you from the evening," that is, from all parts of the world. There will be people everywhere who will confess my name and my religion. But that he adds the words of command:
V. 6. do not resist 2c.,
14 In this way, he covertly indicates that the wicked oppose it with force and cunning, so that the church does not grow and the word is not spread further. We see more examples of this today than we would like.
V. 7. All those who are called by my name.
15 [Instead of: Et omnem, qui invocat nomen meum translate, "All who are called by my! Names are called." But it is as it were a description of a Christian. For they have the name of Christ, and are called by the name of Christ, not by their name. Therefore they are also something by the righteousness of Christ, and not by their works or doings.
Namely, whom I have created for my glory.
(16) Before, by natural birth, he sought his own glory; but now, having become a new creature by the Holy Spirit, he does nothing, suffers nothing, hears nothing, speaks nothing, but what relates to the glory of God. Thus the gospel condemns all human deeds and works, and preaches the righteousness of the one Christ. Whoever can say, do and live all these things from the heart is created for the glory of God and is a new creature of God.
17 Furthermore, here too the world judges the opposite, and calls the godly a devil's work, condemning them as heretics. Therefore, this consolation is necessary.
(18) If anyone wants to carefully distinguish these three words, "to create" is as much as to make a godly person out of an ungodly one; "to prepare" is as much as to adorn with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, namely with faith, which alone prepares a new creature; "to make" is as much as to complete the work, that everything a Christian speaks and does is God's work and pleases God. Thus, all Christianity lies apart from us, in the righteousness of Christ and the mercy of God.
V. 8. 9. Let the blind people come forth.
19. he calls on the saints of works, as he has already done above [Cap. 41, 21. ff.], and
calls them a blind people, because they are not certain about anything, because they cannot predict or teach anything certain.
V. 10 But you are my witnesses, 1) says the Lord.
20 He is actually speaking to the apostles, whom he comforts and strengthens, so that they will not be offended by the fact that so few follow Christ and the majority of the people are rejected. Do not be offended, he says, that there are so few of you. For you are my witnesses and witnesses of my words. It is my word that you teach; therefore it is certain, and you have no reason to think that I have now become another God, because I have abolished the word of the law and commanded to preach the gospel. Your word and your teaching pleases me; the teaching of the unbelieving synagogue does not please me.
This is a great comfort for the apostles and bishops. But as in the preceding 10 ff], so also here the opposite is before the world. For our doctrine is condemned as heretical and detestable to God.
V. 11-13. Thus I am God. Also I am before, for never was no day.
22. All this is said for the comfort of the church, which was established from the remnant of the Jews and the Gentiles, so that it would not think that God is now a different God than He was before. For he has not been changed, but only the word has been changed. Just as he stood by the old people, he also wants to stand by the new people; they should only not despair, or, moved by the aversions of the Gospel, fall away from the word of the Gospel.
And is no stranger among you.
(23) Namely, not a foreign god. As if he wanted to say: If you have accepted this word of the gospel, do not doubt that you have and worship the true and one God, who has always been. For because the Jews take the promises carnally, when they see that Christ is in such
1) In the editions estis, for which the Vulgate reads töstes.
great weakness, the conclusion: Either this is not Christ, or God is not God. For he has promised another Christ; not one crucified, but a glorious one. Against these ungodly opinions he strengthens the hearts of the godly at this point.
You are my witnesses, says the Lord.
(24) He repeats these words as if to say, "Make your hearts firm and believe that you are my people and that I am your God, even though the synagogue contradicts this and says that they are my people and condemns you as apostates and heretics.
And is no one who can save from my hand.
25. I am the same God that I have always been, so I will preserve and protect you, my people, however few and despised you may be. But your adversaries I will condemn and destroy, so that they shall not be able to hinder you when you spread my word into the whole world. For he indicates here that the adversaries of his people are many, against whom he promises his protection.
V. 14. Thus says the Lord your Redeemer.
(26) He continues to clear away the trouble, as if God and religion had been changed, and proves with the previous deeds that he is the same God that he has always been. I, he says, am the same God who gave Cyrus to redeem you. I am the same God who drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea and led you through the sea unharmed.
27 Furthermore, the consideration of time makes this passage obscure. For he speaks as if he were in the New Testament, and lists the benefits of the Old Testament, and the return that happened through Cyrus, as already past, while it happened a long time after Isaiah.
(28) But actually by these examples he gave to understand the thoughts of the ungodly synagogue. For they said thus: I will follow the God of my fathers, who brought us back from Egypt and Babylon.
I do not want to follow Christ. Therefore Christ answers: I am the same who did all these things; therefore believe in me and do not think that I am a foreign god. I am your Redeemer, who on the cross, by my death, redeemed you from the bondage of sins and death. I am the Holy One in Israel, who sanctifies the believers; as Paul calls the church "the sanctified in Christ JEsu", 1 Cor. 1, 2. Therefore, if you believe in God, believe also in me.
For your sake I have sent to Babylon.
He tells the future history as a past one. For he speaks to the church of the New Testament. I am the one, he says, who awakened Cyrus, that he should destroy the monarchy of the Babylonians and bring you back.
30 Furthermore, this passage contains a theological sentence that the Assyrian empire was destroyed not only because of its sins, but primarily for the sake of the people of God, who were to be liberated. Therefore, Cyrus with his entire monarchy was a servant and bondservant of the people of God. In the same way, the Roman Empire under Augustus served the Church, so that after peace was established, the Gospel could be spread among all nations without hindrance. This is a great glory of the Church, that she has such great monarchs for servants. But who sees this glory? For it is hidden from the eyes of the world.
31 He calls the princes of the Assyrian monarchy, which Cyrus suppressed, "bars.
V. 15-17: He who makes way in strong waters.
32. it is I who brought you through the red sea unharmed, and drowned Pharaoh your enemy, as when someone extinguishes a wick in water.
V. 18. Do not remember the old.
Here he concludes: "Since I, Christ, am the same God who did all these things, forsake the law, accept the new word of the gospel, and believe that you have and worship the true God who was from the beginning. But it is clear,
that this passage is about the law, which is exalted at the same time as the priesthood and the kingdom of the law. Furthermore, although the promises are in the law, they do not belong to the law. Therefore, he does not abolish them in the New Testament, but gives them and fulfills them through Christ, his Son.
V. 19. 20. That I may make ways in the wilderness.
(34) I opened a way in the sea in the past; I will do the same now, so that you may know that I am the same God; but I will do it in a way. The church has a way in the wilderness. For she is plagued by the flesh, by Satan, and by the world in many ways; she walks in the dry land, she suffers hunger and thirst, as it says in 1 Cor. 4:11. This is the sea, this is the desert of the church in which it walks, and yet it finds a way through the sea. For she breaks through all these adversities in divine power. In the desert she finds water. For Christ comforts and strengthens her with his spirit and word.
35 He calls the princes of the world "beasts of the field," many of whom will be converted. Notice that he does not say that he will take away the beasts of the field and the wilderness, but he promises that they will have comfort and happiness in the midst of all these things, and that they will break through the tribulations.
V. 21: This people I have prepared for myself.
Here he begins to distinguish one people from another, and the Jewish people from the believing church. At the same time, he abolishes all the sacrifices of the Old Testament and establishes new ones. Those sacrifices of yours, he says, were preludes to those to come, and did not make righteous. But the true sacrifices that please me are: to tell my praise, to glorify me. This cannot be done unless you condemn yourselves and all your doings 2c.
There is a great emphasis in every word. It is a people who do not dress themselves, like the works saints, but are dressed by Christ. And it is made ready, not for its own praise, but for the praise of Christ. These are the true
Sacrifice, preaching Christ and praising him, condemning our own righteousness and doings. This is the true burnt offering, this is slaughtering animals and burning them completely with fire, so that nothing remains of our powers and deeds.
V. 22. 23. Not that you would have called me 2c.
The pronoun "me" and "to me" must be diligently observed throughout this passage. You have called, you have worked, you have sacrificed 2c., but not "to me." For all works, even if they are commanded and holy by GOD, if they are done in the opinion of becoming righteous thereby, are an ungodly service. Therefore he repeats again and again the pronoun with the negation: Not to me or me. For this is idolatry, to hope for righteousness by works, which is obtained only by faith in Christ's death.
(39) What then do the papists say to this passage? If the services instituted by God Himself, if the works commanded by God Himself have not helped righteousness, what will the monastic orders, the caps, the mass, the vows, and all the exceedingly foolish antics of the entire papacy, which they have undertaken without God's word, help? It is a desperate blindness if they do not fall silent at the mention of this passage and recognize their errors.
V. 24. You have not satisfied me with the fatness of your sacrifices.
40 That is: I cannot be reconciled by all your works, none of them is sufficient for me.
Yes, you have made work for me in your sins.
41 [Instead of: Veruntamen servire me fecisti] translate better like this: "You have done me work. This is an excellent passage, that all the righteousnesses of the law, all the works, no matter how great, no matter how holy, no matter how apparent, are of no help in attaining righteousness before God, but are only sins for which Christ had to do enough and take pains. But this is our
Justice, that Christ has had work. And this article has only our faith and our religion; the whole world knows nothing about it. For all other doctrines judge thus: He who has sinned shall be punished. But this article teaches the contradiction, namely, that we sin, and another is sufficient for sin, and takes the punishment of sins upon himself; as John says, "Behold, this is the Lamb of God, which bareth the sin of the world" [John 1:29]. Therefore, no punishment that is upon us is enough, not even for the smallest sin. But the punishment of the only Christ was enough for all sin.
Therefore, because this doctrine does not agree with reason, so many sects, so many kinds of atonement, so many works have been invented by which men strive, but in vain, to do enough for their sins. Therefore, this passage must be diligently considered. For it contains the most important articles of our faith. He says that he was worshipped by the nations, therefore he indicates that he is God. Likewise, he says that he worked, therefore he became man and died for our sin. However, he is not overcome, but he only has trouble, therefore he rises again from death 2c.
V. 25. I, I blot out your transgression for my own sake.
The text not only teaches, but also refutes. For it contains very important contrasts. "Oh, I," not you; "for my sake," not for your sake, or for your works. Thus he abolishes all works and all doings by which men want to redeem their sins.
V. 26. Declare how you will be righteous.
44. He challenges the works saints who dared to be justified by the works of the law. Now, if you know any other way by which you may be justified, tell it. For that you boast that you received your rules of life and laws from your fathers, I am not interested in that. For your fathers also were sinners. Because ye now execute a more arid righteousness, therefore will I reject you with all your righteousness and works. He just says
What is written in the Acts of the Apostles [Cap. 4, 12, Vulg.]: "There is no other name under heaven in which we can be saved. Now whatever you bring forward to establish your righteousness apart from Christ and without Christ is condemned, ungodly and blasphemous.
V. 27. Your forefathers sinned.
I do not understand it of Adam and of original sin, but I generally take the singular for the plural, that with it he wants to refute the common reason of proof that has been used for all lines, since they hold up to us the reputation of the fathers; as they say today: I want to follow the faith of my ancestors. Is it likely that so many centuries should have been mistaken, and so many holy men should not have known the way of truth? 2c. He says, "Your forefathers also sinned."
46 But this passage is well to be remembered. For this is how it generally happens that the descendants of the body and the outward appearance do not follow the deeds or the faith of the fathers, as we can see what great trouble followed the example of Abraham, when he was commanded to sacrifice his son. For they looked only at the work in and for itself; but at the command which preceded the work, and at the faith in which Abraham wished to carry out the command, they did not look. Therefore, they left the kernel and kept the shell of the nut, just as our papists do, who do not follow the rules and orders of the fathers.
and then, out of great and special wisdom, say that they were not evil men, but that they deserved that we should also follow their lives. But the faith, which should be the same for all the saints, and the word, which is the leader and teacher of faith, they abandon.
And your teachers have mistreated me.
He speaks of the doctrine and the rules of life. He says: "In all that they teach, they do not look at the core of the law, that is, at the promises of Christ; but in the meantime they make much for themselves with the outward veneer of works and sacrifices. Thus he rejects both the teachers of the people and the fathers who instructed them.
V. 28. Therefore I have desecrated the princes of the sanctuary.
48 He calls them "princes of the sanctuary", as it says of them in Romans 9:4, 5: "To whom belongs the adoption, and the glory, and the covenant, and the law, and the service, and the promises; to whom also belong the fathers, from whom Christ came according to the flesh" 2c.
And have made Jacob a ban.
(49) That is, to utterly reject the people, together with all the law and all the worship of the law, so that they, with all their doctrine and life, become a reproach and an abomination, and not righteousness, as they think they are. We say the same of the papacy today.