V. 1. 2. But I say, as long as the heir is a child, there is no difference between him and a servant, though he be lord of all the goods, but he is among the guardians and custodians, until the appointed time of the father.
You see how Paul is fired up and in the heat to set the Galatians right again, and how he deals with the matter with the strongest grounds of proof taken from experience, from the example of Abraham, from the testimonies of Scripture, from time and from parables, so that you see that he often starts the whole thing over again. For above he had brought the business of justification to an end, as it were, since he concluded that men are justified before God by faith alone. But because he remembered the worldly (politicum) example of the heir, who is still a child, he also adds this to strengthen his case.
2 So he sets about it all he can, and with a kind of holy cunning sets after the Galatians, that he may catch them, as he says elsewhere [2 Cor. 12:16.), "Because I was deceitful, I caught you with guile." For the people will
by parables and examples more easily than by difficult and sharp disputations. It prefers to see a well-painted 1) picture than a well-written book.
(3) Therefore, after the parable of the testament of a man, of the prison, and of the disciplinarian, he takes also this very well-known parable of the heir, that he may move them. It is very useful to have parables and examples ready when teaching; not only Paul, but also the prophets and Christ himself used them very often. Afterwards, until the end of the letter, he proceeds oratorically.
You see, he says, that it is established in the civil laws that an heir, although he is a lord over all paternal goods, is nevertheless a servant. He has a certain claim to the inheritance, but in the period preceding the period of fine maturity ([emancipationis] as the jurists call it), the guardians and custodians keep him imprisoned and decided, like a disciplinarian his pupil. They do not hand over to him the administration of the goods nor
1) Wittenberger: pentzäietairt instead: Ucnc pietam.
the dominion, but force him to serve, so that he lives and is maintained in his own goods like a servant. So there is no difference between him and a servant as long as the time of imprisonment and captivity lasts, that is, as long as he is under the caretakers and superiors. And this subjection and imprisonment is very useful to him, because otherwise he would waste the goods in ignorance, and this imprisonment is not a permanent one, but comes to an end at the appointed time, which the Father has prescribed.
V. 3. So also we, being children, were captives under the outward statutes.
5 So we also, being children, were indeed heirs who had the promise of the future inheritance to be given to us through the seed of Abraham, Christ, through whom all nations would be blessed. But because the fullness of time had not yet come, .our guardian, steward and disciplinarian Moses came, kept us shut up and imprisoned, so that, our hands being bound, we could not rule and possess the inheritance. But as meanwhile an heir is comforted (lactatur) by the hope of future freedom, so Moses comforted us by the hope of the promise that was to be revealed in their time, namely that Christ would come, who by his coming would put an end to this time of the law, which lasted as long as the regiment of Moses existed, and bring the time of grace.
Now the time of the law comes to an end in two ways: first, as I have said, by the coming of Christ in the flesh at the time appointed by the Father. For Christ became man once in time, "born of a virgin, and was put under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law" [Gal. 4:4, 5]. "He entered once into the Holy by His own blood, and invented an eternal redemption" [Heb. 9:12].
7 Then the same Christ who came once in time comes to us in spirit every hour of every day. Once he has given us through his own blood
We are redeemed and all sanctified, but because we are not yet completely pure, for the remnants of sin still cling to our flesh, which contends against the Spirit, he comes daily in a spiritual way, and day by day completes more and more the time predestined by the Father, abolishing and canceling the law.
(8) So also to the fathers in the Old Testament he came in the spirit before he appeared in the flesh. They had Christ in the spirit, in whom they believed as in him who was to be revealed, as we believe in him now that he is revealed, and they were saved through him just as we are, according to this word [Heb. 13:8]: "Jesus Christ yesterday and today, and the same forever." "Yesterday" is the time before he came into the flesh, "today," since he is revealed in time. It is therefore the same Christ now and forever, through whom alone all believers in past, present, and future time are delivered from the law, justified, and saved.
9 "So also we," he says, "being children, were imprisoned under the outward statutes," that is, the law ruled over us, oppressing us as servants and prisoners with hard bondage. First of all, it kept the rough and carnal people in civil restraint, so that they would not fall impetuously into all kinds of shameful deeds. For the law threatens the transgressors with life punishment; if they did not fear this, they would practice all kinds of evil. Those whom the law thus keeps in check, it rules over.
10. secondly, spiritually or theologically, it accused, terrified, killed and condemned us before God, and this was the main dominion of the law over us. Thus, as an heir subject to guardians is beaten by them, forced to obey their laws and diligently carry out their commands, so consciences, before Christ came, are oppressed by the harsh tyranny of the law, that is, they are sued, terrified, and condemned by the law. But this rule or rather tyranny of the law is not eternal, but is to last only until the time of grace. Therefore the office of the law is to punish and to multiply sins, but for righteousness,
that it kills, but to life. For the law is a disciplinarian of Christ.
(11) Therefore, just as the guardians treat the heir who is a child harshly, rule over him and command him as a servant, and he is forced to be their subject, so the law accuses us, humiliates us and makes us servants, so that we are servants of sin, death and the wrath of God, which is certainly the most miserable and harshest servitude. But as the rule of the guardians and the subjection and bondage of the heir who is a child is not an eternal one, but lasts only until the time appointed by the father, and when the time is completed he no longer needs the guardianship of the stewards, nor remains subject to them henceforth, but enjoys at his pleasure the paternal inheritance, so the law rules over us, and we are forced to be servants and captives under its rule, but not forever. There must also be added the piece which follows: "Until the appointed time from the Father." For the promised Christ has come and redeemed us who were oppressed by the tyranny of the law.
(i)12. On the other hand, the coming of Christ is of no use to the sure hypocrites and the obviously godless despisers, even to the despairing ones who think that there is nothing left but the terror of the law that they feel. It is only of use to those who have been troubled and frightened by the law for a while, that is, to those who do not despair in the serious terror that the law arouses, but who confidently approach Christ, the throne of grace, who has redeemed them from the curse of the law, since he has become a curse for them: these will find mercy and grace etc.
13 There is therefore a special emphasis on the word: "We were imprisoned", as if he wanted to say: Our conscience was subjected to the law which kept us locked up and imprisoned, which, like a tyrant to his captive servant, scourged us and made us lose all our freedom.
1) This paragraph is used by Aurifaber for § 61 of the 7th chapter of the Tischreden. It should be deleted there, also in our edition (Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 303).
It made us fearful, sad, pale, desperate, and threatened us with eternal death and damnation. This theological bondage is the hardest, but, as I said, not eternal, but lasts only as long as we are children, that is, as long as Christ is not there. When He is not here, we are servants, shut up under the law, without grace, faith, and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But after Christ has come, this imprisonment and bondage of the law ceases.
Among the external statutes (sub elementis mundi hujus).
Some have thought that Paul is talking about the earthly elements, fire, air, water and earth. But Paul has his peculiar way of speaking and speaks here just in front of God's laws, which he calls in a diminutive way (per tapinosin) "the elements of this world", and his words are very heretical. Also elsewhere [2 Cor. 3, 6. 7.Paul uses to diminish the law very much, calling it a letter that kills, a ministry of death and condemnation, the power of sin, and these exceedingly hateful names, which clearly and actually indicate the power and custom of the law, he chooses deliberately to remind us, that in the terrors of sin, wrath, and the judgment of God, one must not rely on one's own righteousness or the righteousness of the law, since the law in its best use can do nothing but make consciences guilty, increase sin, and threaten death and eternal damnation. Therefore, these reductions of the law are spoken only for those who are in distress of conscience, not in relation to civil life and for safe hearts.
(15) Thus he calls the law "elements of the world," that is, external letters or statutes written in a certain book. For though the law civilly restrains from evil, and urges to do good, yet, if it is kept in the proper way, it does not therefore deliver from sins, it does not justify, it does not prepare the way to heaven, but it leaves men in the world. For this is why I do not attain righteousness.
I will not die, I will not commit adultery, I will not be guilty of theft etc. These outward virtues and an honorable conduct are not Christ's kingdom nor heavenly righteousness, but are a righteousness of the flesh and of the world, which also the heathen have, not only the works saints, as at the time of Christ the Pharisees, and our monks etc. Some allow themselves to be in this worldly righteousness in order to avoid the penalties of the law, others in order to be praised by men as steadfast, righteous, patient people etc. Therefore, it should be called appearance and hypocrisy rather than righteousness.
1Furthermore, the law, even in its best use and highest power, can do nothing but accuse, terrify, condemn and kill. But where there is fear and feeling of sin, death, wrath and judgment of God, there is certainly no righteousness, nothing heavenly, nothing divine, but all these are only things of the world, which is nothing else, since it is the devil's kingdom, but a right confluence of the filth of sin, death, hell and all evil, which the fearful and frightened feel, the secure and despisers do not feel. Therefore, even in its proper use, the law only reveals and increases sin and instills fear of death; these are certainly worldly things. Therefore it is obvious that the law does not give life, salvation, heavenly or divine things, but only worldly things; therefore Paul rightly calls it "an element of the world".
17 Although Paul calls the whole law elements of the world, as can be understood from what has already been said, it is mainly the ceremonial laws that he speaks so contemptuously of, which, he says, though they accomplish much, yet only order something in certain outward things, such as food, drink, clothing, place, time, temple, feasts, ablutions, sacrifices, etc. which are merely worldly, and ordered by God only for the custom of the present life, not that they should be kept from the world.
1) This paragraph is used by Aurifaber (in the translation of Menius) for s 10 of the 12th chapter of the Table Talks. In our edition of the Table Talks, this paragraph is omitted.
God righteousness and salvation. Therefore, by this little word "elements of the world" he rejects and condemns all the legal righteousness that lay in these outward ceremonies, although they were ordered and commanded by God to be kept for a time, and calls them by the most contemptible name "elements of the world".
Thus the imperial laws are elements of the world, for they deal with things of the world that belong to this life, such as money, possessions, inheritance, murder, adultery, robbery, etc., of which the second tablet of the holy ten commandments deals. But the decrees and the papal laws, which forbid marriage and food, Paul calls elsewhere [1 Tim. 4, 1.] "doctrines of devils", which are also elements of the world, only that they put against the word of God and the faith from external things to the most ungodly commandments.
2Therefore, the law of Moses does nothing but worldly things, i.e., in civil and theological terms it only shows the evil that is in the world. But when it is in proper use, it urges the conscience with its terrors to thirst and seek the promise of God, and to look to Christ.
(20) But for this the grace of the Holy Spirit is necessary, who says in the heart: It is not the will of God, after the law has done its work on you, that you should only be frightened and killed, but since you have known your misery and ruin through the law, you should not despair, but believe in Christ, who is the end of the law; "he who believes in him is righteous. Here nothing worldly happens, but here all worldly things cease, all laws, and the divine begins. So long as we are under the elements of the world, that is, under the law, which only indicates and increases sins and incurs wrath, but does not give justice and peace to the conscience, we are servants, subject to the law, although we have the promise of future blessing. True, the law says: "You shall
2) This paragraph and half of the following are used by Aurifaber (in the translation of Menius) for the conclusion of § 10 and for s 11 of the 12th chapter of the Table Talks. In our edition of the Table Talks this is omitted.
love God your Lord", but it cannot do that I do this or that I obtain Christ.
1(21) I do not say this with the intention that one should despise the law, nor does Paul have this in mind, but one should hold it very dear and valuable. But since Paul is dealing here with the article of justification (the business of justification is far different from that of the law), necessity required that he speak of the law as a very contemptible thing, and even we, when we speak of this matter, cannot speak of it lightly and spitefully enough. Therefore the conscience, when it is in real distress, must think and know nothing but Christ alone, and make every effort to put the law out of sight as far as possible, and take hold of nothing but the promise of Christ.
22. This is easy to say, but to do so in temptation, when the conscience deals with God, is the most difficult thing, namely, that even when the law terrifies you, accuses you, shows you sin, threatens the wrath of God and death, you should be of the same mind as if there had never been a law or any sin, but only Christ, only grace and salvation, or, even if you feel the terror of the law, you should still say: Law, I will not hear thee, for thou hast an impeditam and heavy tongue. Then also the fullness of time has already come, therefore I am free. I will therefore no longer suffer your dominion etc. There one sees that it is the most difficult thing to distinguish the law from grace, how it is a completely divine and heavenly gift, that here, since nothing can be hoped for, one believes in hope, and that this saying of Paul, that we are justified by faith alone, is completely true.
23 Therefore learn from this that in the trade of justification according to the apostle's example you are most contemptuously speaking of the
1) The following five paragraphs W 21-25) were used by Aurifaber (in the translation of Menius) for the Table Talks, Cap. 12, s 12 to s 16. These five pararagraphs are omitted in our edition of the Table Talks.
Laws, since he calls the law elements of the world, death-bringing statutes, the power of sin etc. For if you allow the law to rule in your conscience, if you have to deal with overcoming sin and death before God, then the law is in fact nothing but a cesspool of all evils, heresies 2) and blasphemies, for it only increases sin, accuses, terrifies, threatens death, shows God as an angry judge who condemns sinners. Therefore, if you are wise, reject here the babbling and stammering Moses with his law as far as possible, and his terrors and threats shall not move you in any way. Here, he shall be absolutely suspicious to you as a heretic, 3) a banished one, a damned one, who is worse than the pope and the devil, who therefore should not be heard at all.
(24) By the way, outside the article of justification, we should, like Paul, hold the law in great honor and praise it exceedingly highly, calling it holy, righteous, good, spiritual, divine etc. Outside the conscience we must make a god out of it, but in the conscience it is in truth a devil, because it cannot raise and comfort the conscience even in the slightest challenge, but does just the opposite, frightens and saddens it, and tears it away from the confidence that it will attain righteousness, life and all good. Therefore Paul calls the law afterwards [v. 9] "weak and meager statutes". Therefore we should not let it rule our conscience in any way, especially since it cost Christ so much to remove the tyranny of the law from our conscience. Therefore he became a curse for us, that he might redeem us from the curse of the law.
(25) Therefore let a godly man learn that the law and Christ are two mutually repugnant and wholly incompatible things. Where Christ is, the law cannot rule in any way, but must depart from the conscience and leave the bed to Christ alone (which is too narrow for two people to occupy).
2) Jenaer and Erlanger: kaeresnM instead of kasresinrü in the Wittenberger.
3) We have assumed a comma here with the Wittenberger, which is missing in the Jenaer and the Erlanger.
(Is. 28, 20.). He alone shall reign in righteousness, safety, joy and life, so that the conscience can happily fall asleep in Christ without feeling the law, sin and death.
(26) And Paul makes careful use of this figure of speech, "elements of the world," by which, as I have said, he greatly diminishes the prestige and glory of the law, that is, in order that he may cheer us up. For when an attentive reader of Paul's writings hears that the apostle calls the law a ministry of death, a letter that kills, etc., the thought immediately comes to him why Paul attaches such hateful and, as it seems to reason, blasphemous names to the law, which is a divine teaching revealed from heaven. To him who labors and seeks to know the reason of these names, Paul answers: the law is both holy, righteous, good etc., and an office of sin and death, but with respect to different things. Before Christ it is holy, after Christ it is death. Therefore, when Christ has come, we must know absolutely nothing of the law, except in so far as it is to have its dominion over the flesh, which it holds in check and oppresses. Therefore the law and the flesh (to whom the dominion of the law is a heavy one) fight together until we die.
27 Paul is the only one among the apostles who calls the law of God the elements of the world, weak and meager statutes, the power of sin, a letter that kills etc. The other apostles did not speak of the law in this way. Therefore, every one who is studious of Christian theology (studiosus) should pay careful attention to this way of speaking of Paul. Christ calls him a chosen instrument [Apost. 9, 15], therefore he also gave him a chosen mouth and a special way of speaking before the other apostles, so that he as a chosen instrument laid the foundations of the article of justification most faithfully and taught it most clearly.
1) Jenaer and Erlanger: leetissirnum instead of eleetisslmuru in the Wittenberger. Menius: "chosen".
V. 4. 5. But when the time was fulfilled, God sent His Son, born of a woman, and put under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.
28 That is, after the time of the law was fulfilled, and Christ was now revealed, and had set us free from the law, and the promise was proclaimed among all the Gentiles etc.
29 Pay attention to how Paul describes Christ here. Christ, he says, is the Son of God and of a woman, who was put under the law for us sinners, so that he might redeem us who were under the law. With these words he summarized both, the person and the ministry of Christ. The person consists of the divine and the human nature. This he clearly indicates, since he says, "GOtt sent His Son, born of a woman." Thus, it is Christ true God and true man. But His ministry He describes with these words: "Put under the law, that He might redeem them which were under the law."
(30) And Paul, as it seems to be a disgrace, calls the virgin, the mother of the Son of God, only a woman, which also displeased some of the old fathers, who would have preferred that he had used the name "virgin" as "woman" in this place. In this epistle, Paul deals with the most important and highest matter, namely, the gospel, faith, and Christian righteousness; likewise, what kind of person Christ is, what his ministry is, what he has taken upon himself and done for our sake, what good deeds he has done for us poor sinners. That is why it is about such astonishingly great things that he did not pay any special attention to virginity. It was enough for him to praise the abundant and infinite mercy of God, that God condescended to let His Son be born of the female sex. Therefore, he did not mention the worthiness of this gender, but only the gender itself, and by naming the gender, he indicates that Christ himself became a true man from the female gender, as if he wanted to say: "He is not of man".
and woman, but only of the female sex. Therefore, since he mentions only the female gender, saying that he was born of a woman is the same as saying that he was born of a virgin. Since the evangelist John describes that the Word, which was in the beginning, etc. became flesh, he also does not remember the mother with one word.
31 Furthermore, this passage also testifies that Christ, when the time of the law had expired, took it away and freed those who were oppressed by it, and that he did not give a new one after the old one and above the old law of Moses. Therefore the monks and sophists do not err less corruptly, nor do they do less dishonor to Christ, because they imagine that he has given a new law, above Moses, than the Turks, who boast that their Mahomet is a new and better lawgiver than Christ. He did not come to abolish the old law in order to give a new one, but, as Paul says here, he was sent into the world by the Father so that he might redeem those who were held captive under the law.
32 These words depict Christ rightly and actually, giving Him not the office of giving a new law, but of redeeming those who were under the law, and Christ Himself says John 8:15: "I judge no man"; and elsewhere [John 12:47]: "I am not come to judge the world, but to make the world blessed." That is, I have not come to give a law, and by the same judge men, as Moses and other lawgivers, but I administer a higher and better office. The law killed you; I, on the other hand, judge, condemn, and kill the law, thus freeing you from its tyranny.
We, the ancients, who were immersed in the pernicious papist doctrine, which we imbibed into our bones and innermost marrow, received a completely different conception of Christ than Paul presents here. For as much as they professed with their mouths that Christ had redeemed us from the bondage and tyranny of the law, they in fact believed in their hearts that he was a lawgiver, tyrant and judge, who was even more terrible than Christ.
than Moses himself. And this pernicious opinion, even nowadays, when the light of truth shines so brightly, we cannot completely cast out of our hearts; so firmly do we cling to what we have been accustomed to from our youth.
You young people, who are still new vessels and not yet infected by this ungodly opinion, can learn to recognize Christ more easily than we old people can put these blasphemous ideas of him out of our minds. But because of this you will not completely escape the cunning attempts of the devil. For even though you are not yet tainted with this ungodly delusion that Christ is a lawgiver, you still have everything that can serve this purpose (ipsa materialia), that is, the flesh, reason and corrupt nature, which cannot judge Christ differently than that he is a lawgiver. Therefore, you must strive with the greatest effort to learn to recognize and look at Christ as Paul depicts him here. But if ungodly teachers, of whom the world is always full, are added to this corrupt nature, they strengthen the wickedness of nature, so that a twofold evil arises, that is, the evil instruction increases and strengthens the harmful error of blind reason, which by nature judges that Christ is a lawgiver, and impresses this error on the minds so powerfully that it cannot be cast off without great effort and exertion.
(35) It is therefore very useful to keep in mind and always keep in mind this very sweet and comforting saying and similar sayings that describe Christ actually and clearly, so that in all of life, in all dangers, in the confession of faith before tyrants, at the hour of death, we may be able to say with certain and constant confidence: Law, you have no right to me, therefore you accuse and condemn me in vain. For I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom the Father sent into the world to redeem us wretched sinners, oppressed by the tyranny of the law. He laid down his life and gave it most generously for me. Therefore, when I see your terrors and
If I feel threats, O law, then I sink my conscience into Christ's wounds, blood, death, resurrection and victory; apart from Him I want to see and hear nothing at all.
This faith is our victory [1 John 5:4], through which we overcome the terrors of the law, sin, death and all evil, but not without great struggle. The truly godly, who are daily plagued by severe temptations, have great difficulty here. It often occurs to them that Christ wants to confront us and demand an account of how we have spent our lives, that he wants to accuse and condemn us. They cannot certainly insist that he is sent by the Father to redeem us who are oppressed by the tyranny of the law. This is because the saints have not yet completely put off the flesh, but the flesh is contrary to the spirit. Therefore, the terrors of the law keep returning, the fear of death and other sad images (spectra) that hinder faith from grasping with as much certainty as it should the benefits of Christ who redeemed us from the bondage of the law.
But in what way or manner did Christ redeem us? This has been the way of redemption: "He is put under the law." When Christ came, he found us all as prisoners under the disciplinarians and guardians, that is, shut up and kept under the law. What did he do? He is the Lord of the law, therefore the law has no right over him, it cannot accuse him because he is the Son of God. Since he was not under the law, he voluntarily submitted to the law. Then the law exercised all tyranny over him, just as it does over us. 1) But it accuses us and terrifies us, throws us under the sin, death and wrath of God and condemns us by its judgment, and does this rightly, because we are all sinners and by nature children of wrath.
. 38. Christ, on the other hand, has not committed any sin, nor is there any deceit in his mouth.
and the Erlanger lacks Unbuit. We followed the latter reading.
Therefore he owed nothing to the law, and yet the law raged against this so innocent, holy, righteous and blessed one just as against us cursed and damned sinners and 2) even more cruelly. For it accused him as a blasphemer and rebel, made him guilty before God of all the sins of the whole world, yes, it grieved and distressed him so much that he sweated blood and finally condemned him by its judgment to death, namely to death on the cross.
(39) This is indeed a strange duel, where the law, a creature, thus fights with the Creator and, against all law, exercises all the subtle tyranny over the Son of God, which it has exercised over us, who are children of wrath. Now, because the Law has sinned so terribly and ungodly against its God, it is rightly required and accused. Then Christ says: "Lady Law, you most powerful and cruel ruler and queen of the whole human race, what have I done that you have accused, terrified and condemned me, an innocent man? Here the law, which before had condemned and killed all men, having nothing with which to defend or purify itself, is again so condemned and killed that it loses its right, not only against Christ (against whom it unjustly raged and killed him), but also against all who believe in him. For to these Christ says [Matth. 11, 28.]: "Come unto me all ye that labor" under the yoke of the law. I could have overcome the law with the highest right without suffering evil, for I am the Lord of the law, and therefore it has no right to me. But for your sake, who were under the law, I have taken your flesh and submitted to the law, that is, out of exceeding kindness I have placed myself in the same prison, tyranny and bondage of the law, under which you were slaves as captives. I have suffered the law to rule over me, its Lord, to terrify me, to throw me under sin, under death and the wrath of God etc., which it should not have done. Therefore
2) Erlanger: ut instead of st.
I overcame, threw down and killed the law with a twofold right: firstly as the Son of God, as the Lord of the law, secondly in your person, in whose place I have taken over, which is just as much as if you yourselves had overcome the law, for my victory is your victory.
In this way, Paul speaks everywhere of this strange duel, and in order to make the matter more sweet and clear, he uses to represent the law as a living being (pingere solet per prosopopoeian), as if it were an exceedingly powerful person who had condemned and killed Christ, whom he, after overcoming death, had again conquered, condemned and killed, Eph. 2, 16: "He has killed the enmity by Himself," and Cap. 4,' 8. from the 68th Psalm, v. 19.: "He ascended on high, and caught the prison." He used this personal poetry also in the Epistles to the Romans [Cap. 8, 3.], to the Corinthians [2 Cor. 5, 21.sj and to the Colossians [Cap. 2, 14.]: "He condemned sin in the flesh by sin."
41 By this victory Christ has driven the law out of our conscience, so that it can no longer shame us in the sight of God, no longer drive us into despair and condemn us. It does not refrain from denouncing, accusing and terrifying sin, but by grasping the apostle's word: "Christ has redeemed us from the law" [Gal. 4:5, 3:13], the conscience is raised up by faith and grasps the consolation. Yes, with a holy pride it defies the law, saying: "I do not care for your terrors and threats, for you crucified the Son of God, and indeed you crucified him with the greatest injustice. Therefore the sin which you committed against him cannot be forgiven, you have lost your right, and are now in the future not only overcome and strangled with respect to Christ, but also for me who believe in him, because he has given me this victory. Thus the law has died for us forever, if only we abide in Christ. Therefore, thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
42. this also belongs here, that we alone
Since this duel between the law and Christ took place, there were no works or merits on our part, but Christ alone, who in our place (induta nostra persona) submitted to the law and in the highest innocence endured all its tyranny. Therefore, the law, as a robber, thief of God and murderer of the Son of God, loses its right and deserves to be condemned, so that wherever Christ is, or is even mentioned, it must depart far from it and flee this name, as the devil flees the cross. Therefore, through Christ we who believe are free from the oppressor, who has made a triumph of it through Himself [Col. 2:14]. Therefore this glorious triumph, which Christ has obtained for us, is not obtained by any works, but by faith alone. So faith alone justifies.
(43) As these words, "Christ was put under the law," contain much, they should be carefully considered. For they indicate that the Son of God, who is under the law, has not only done one or the other work of the law, that is, that he was not merely circumcised, presented in the temple, gone with others to Jerusalem at the appointed times, etc., or that he was only civilly under it, but that he endured all the tyranny of the law. For the law in its highest use attacked Christ, frightened him so terribly that he felt such great fear as no man on earth has ever felt. This is sufficiently testified by his bloody sweat, that he was strengthened by the angel, and his earnest prayer in the garden, finally his pitiful cry at the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!" [Matth. 27, 46.]
44. But he endured this "so that he might redeem those who were under the law," that is, those who were sorrowful, fearful, and in despair, whom sins weighed down, as they certainly still weigh down all of us. For according to the flesh we still sin daily against all the commandments of God, but Paul urges us to be of good cheer, saying, "God sent His Son."
1Thus Christ, true God and man, born of God in eternity, born of the virgin in time, did not come to give a law, but to feel the snail of it in the highest degree and thereby to overcome and abolish it. He did not become a teacher of the law, but a disciple who was obedient to the law, so that by this obedience he might redeem those who were under the law. This is quite different from the teaching of the papists, who made Christ a lawgiver and a stricter one than Moses was. Paul teaches here completely the opposite, namely, that God threw His Son under the law, that is, that He made Him suffer the judgment and the curse of the law, sin, death etc. For Moses, the minister of sin, wrath and death, caught, bound, condemned and killed Christ; this he suffered. So Christ 2) behaved suffering (passive) against the law, not active (active). He is therefore not a lawgiver or a judge according to the law, but by submitting to the law and bearing its condemnation, he has freed us from its curse.
46 But that Christ in the Gospel gives commandments and teaches the law, or rather interprets it, does not belong to the locum of justification, but of good works. Furthermore, it is not Christ's actual ministry, for which he came into the world in the first place, that he teaches the law, but this is something accidental, just as it was that he healed the sick, raised the dead, did good to those who were not worthy of it, comforted the afflicted etc. These are indeed glorious and divine works and benefits, but not the actual works of Christ. For the prophets also taught the law and performed miracles.
47. but Christ, true God and man, who, contending with the law, suffered its utmost fury and tyranny,
1) Aurifaber used the first half of this paragraph for s 59 of the 7th chapter of the Table Talks (in the translation of Menius). In our edition of the Table Talks, this paragraph is omitted.
2) Wittenberger: trabst instead of: bubuit in the Jena and Erlanger.
Just by doing and suffering the law, he overcame it through himself, and after that, when he rose from death, he condemned the law, our most bitter enemy, and did it out of the means that it can no longer condemn and kill believers.
3For this reason Christ's right and proper office is to contend with the law, sin and the death of the whole world, and to contend in such a way that he takes these things upon himself and by bearing them overcomes them through himself, and in this way frees the faithful from the law and all evil. Therefore these are the special benefits of Christ, that he teaches the law and performs miracles, for which he did not actually come. For the prophets and especially the apostles performed greater miracles than Christ Himself, John 14:12.
(49) Since Christ overcame the law in his own person, it necessarily follows that he is God by nature. For no one, be he man or angel, is above the law, but God alone. But Christ is above the law, because he overcame it and killed it, so he is the Son of God and God by nature.
If you grasp Christ in this way, as Paul depicts him here, you will not err nor be put to shame. Then you will also be able to judge easily about all classes, about the religion and the services in the whole world. But if this right image of Christ is gone or even obscured, confusion will surely follow in all things, because the natural man cannot judge the law of God. Here the art of the worldly wise, the legal scholars and all men fails, because the law rules over man, therefore it judges man, not man the law.
(51) Only a Christian has a reliable judgment about the law. In what way? That it does not justify. What is it kept for?
3) The following three paragraphs are used by Aurifaber (in the translation of Menius) for the Table Talks. From § 48, K 60 of the 7th chapter of the Table Talks is taken; on the other hand, § 49 and § 50 are introduced with the words: "So gedachte sein abermal D. M. Luther", and interwoven in Z1 of the 7th chapter of the Table Talks. In our edition of the Table Talks, these sections are omitted.
if it does not make righteous? The final cause (finalis causa) why the righteous obey the law is not that they attain righteousness before God, because this is received by faith alone, but worldly peace, gratitude to God, and a good example by which they cause others to believe the Gospel etc. The pope mixed the ceremonies, the moral law (moralia) and the faith in such a way that he made no distinction between these things, until he finally preferred the ceremonies to the moral law, and the latter to the faith.
That we received the filiation.
That is, the filiation of God. Paul interprets this passage Gen. 22, 18: "Through your seed" etc. expansively and gloriously. Above he called the blessing of Abraham's seed righteousness, life, the promised spirit, redemption from the law, a testament etc. Here he calls it the filiation and the inheritance of eternal life. All this comprehends the word "blessing" in itself. For since through this blessed seed the curse is taken away, which is sin, death etc., so in its place followed blessing, that is, righteousness, life and all good. So you see that Paul could have presented a thing richly and adorned, if he only wanted to.
(53) But by what merit have we received this blessing, that is, filiation and the inheritance of eternal life? By no merit. For what should men be able to merit who are shut up under sin, subject to the curse of the law, and guilty of eternal death? So we receive it for nothing and as unworthy, but not without merit. What then is this merit? Not ours, but Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was put under the law, not for himself, but for us (as Paul said above [Cap. 3:13] that he had become a curse for us), who redeemed us who were under the law.
54. therefore we have this adoption only through the redemption of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is our abundant and eternal merit, whether according to equity or according to the law.
(sive de congruo, sive de condigno). 1) At the same time, however, with this filiation conferred by grace, we have also received the Holy Spirit, whom God has sent into our hearts through His Word, calling out, "Abba, dear Father," as follows.
V. 6. Because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts.
The Holy Spirit is sent in two ways. In the first church he was sent in public (manifesta) and visible form, as he descended on Christ at the Jordan in the form of a dove on the apostles and other believers in the form of fire. This was the first sending of the Holy Spirit, necessary in the first church, which had to be established by perceptible (manifestis) signs, for the sake of unbelievers, as Paul testifies in 1 Cor. 14:22: "Tongues," he says, "are not for a sign to believers, but to unbelievers." But afterward, when the church was gathered together and confirmed with these signs, it was not necessary that this visible mission of the Holy Spirit should still continue.
The other consecration is when the Holy Spirit is sent into the hearts of believers through the Word, as it is said here: "God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts" etc. This happens without visible form, namely when we receive warmth and light through the verbal word, whereby we become different and new people, a new judgment, a new sense and new impulses arise in us. This change and the new judgment is not a work of human reason or power, but a gift and effect of the Holy Spirit, who comes with the preached word, purifies the hearts through faith, and produces spiritual stirrings in us.
Therefore, there is a very great difference between us and those who persecute the teaching of the gospel by force and elevation. We can, by the grace of God, from the word
1) The sense is: Christ is our only merit, may the merit have a name as it likes, may it be called äs eou^rno or äs eouäiAuo. Menius wrong: "Therefore we further need no merit, neither äs oouAruo nor äs eouäiAuo." Compare ? 58.
We can conclude and judge with certainty what God's will is toward us, as well as about all laws and teachings, about our and other people's lives. On the other hand, the papists and the enthusiasts cannot make a certain judgment about any matter. For these distort and pervert the word, and those persecute and blaspheme it; but without the word there can be no certain judgment about any matter.
(58) Although it is not evident to the world that we are renewed in mind and have the Holy Spirit, yet our judgment, speech and confession convince them sufficiently that the Holy Spirit and His gifts are in us. For before, we could not judge rightly about anything. For we did not speak and confess that all that is ours is sin and condemnation, that Christ is our only merit according to equity and dignity (congrui et condigni), as we do now that the sun of truth shines.
(59) Therefore, we should not be moved by the fact that the world, of which we testify that its works are evil, judges us to be the most harmful heretics and seditious people, destroyers of religion and public peace, possessed by the devil, who speaks out of us and governs all our actions. Against this wrong judgment of the world, this testimony of our conscience should be enough for us, by which we know for certain that it is God's gift that we not only believe in Jesus Christ, but also preach and confess him publicly before the world. As we believe with our hearts, so we speak with our mouths, according to this word of the Psalm [116:10]: "I believe, therefore I speak. But I am greatly afflicted" etc.
(60) Then we also practice godly living and avoid sins as much as we can. When we sin, we sin not deliberately, but out of ignorance, and we are sorry. We can fall because the devil pursues us day and night, and the remnants of sin still cling to our flesh. Therefore, as far as the flesh is concerned, we are sinners even after we have received the Holy Spirit, and there is not much difference between a Christian and a civilly good person. For
The works of a Christian are, on the face of it, small; he carries out his office as his profession requires, governs the state, rules his house, builds the field, gives advice, shares with his neighbor [of his own] and serves him. A carnal man does not hold these works in high esteem, but thinks that they are quite ordinary (vulgaria) works and of no value, since laymen, even pagans, can do them.
For the world hears nothing of the spirit of God, therefore it judges wrongly the works of the godly. The abominable (monstrous) superstition of the hypocrites and their self-chosen works it not only admires, but also considers them a service to God and promotes them at great expense. But far from recognizing the works of the godly (which are bad and small in appearance, but in truth good and pleasing to God, since they are done in faith, with a cheerful heart, in obedience and gratitude to God) as good works, it censures and even condemns them as the highest ungodliness and unrighteousness.
(62) Therefore the world believes nothing less than that we have the Holy Spirit. However, at the time of tribulation or the cross, and when one must confess the faith (which is the proper and noblest work of believers), when one must leave wife, children, goods and life, or deny Christ, then it becomes evident that in the power of the Holy Spirit we confess the faith, Christ and His Word.
Therefore we should not doubt that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, but we should certainly believe and recognize that we are, as Paul says [1 Cor. 6:19], a temple of the Holy Spirit. For if anyone feels love for God's word, and loves to hear, speak, think, teach (dictat), and write about Christ, let him know that this is not a work of human will or reason, but a gift of the Holy Spirit. For it is impossible for this to happen without the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, where there is hatred and contempt for the Word, the devil, the god of this world, reigns, blinds the hearts of men and holds them captive, so that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ cannot shine on them. We see this today
on the rabble, who cannot be moved by the word, but quite certainly despise it, as if it were none of their business.
(64) But those who have any love and desire for the Word recognize with gratitude that this attitude is infused into them by the Holy Spirit. For we are not born with such a mind, nor can we be led by any laws to attain it. This change is completely and utterly in the hands of the Most High. Therefore, if we like to hear preaching about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man for our sake and submitted to the law in order to redeem us, then God certainly sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts through this sermon and with it. Therefore, it is very useful for the godly to know that they have the Holy Spirit.
(65) I say this to refute the harmful doctrine of the Sophists and the monks, which they taught and held, namely, that no one can know for certain whether he is in grace, even if he does good works to the best of his ability and lives blamelessly (inculpate). And this opinion was generally and everywhere accepted in the whole papacy as a main and a kind of article of faith, by which they completely suppressed the doctrine of faith, destroyed the faith, troubled the consciences, took Christ away from the church, obscured and denied all the benefits and gifts of the Holy Spirit, deprived the true worship of God, caused idolatry, contempt and blasphemy against God in the hearts of men. For whoever doubts God's gracious attitude toward him, and does not believe that he is in grace, cannot believe that he has forgiveness of sins, that God will take care of him, and that he can be saved.
66 Augustine said rightly and Christianly: He who has faith sees it most certainly. To this they say, "No. Far be it from me," they say, "to believe that I am in grace, that I am holy, that I have the Holy Spirit, even though I live holy and do everything. This ungodly opinion, on which the entire papacy is based
You young people should flee and abhor it as the most harmful plague, because you have not yet been infected by it. We, the elderly, have been raised in it from our youth and have absorbed it so much that it is deeply ingrained in our hearts. Therefore, it will be as difficult for us to unlearn it as to learn the right faith.
67 We must therefore be absolutely certain that we are in grace, that we are pleasing to God for Christ's sake, that we have the Holy Spirit. For "he that hath not the Spirit of Christ is not his" [Rom. 8:9]. Then also all things are sin which he that thinketh, speaketh, and doeth, who is in doubt; for all things "that proceed not from faith are sin." Therefore, whether you are a minister of the Word or govern the state, you should certainly believe that your office is pleasing to God. But you will never be able to come to this certain conviction if you do not have the Holy Spirit.
68 But you say: I do not doubt that my office pleases God, for it is God's order, but I doubt whether the person pleases Him. Here we must consult theology, which is mainly concerned with making us certain that not only the office a person holds, but also the person himself is pleasing to God. For the person is baptized, believes in Christ, is cleansed from all sins by his blood, lives in the fellowship of the church; likewise, he not only loves the right doctrine of the Word, but also rejoices greatly that it is spread and the number of believers is increased; on the other hand, he hates the pope and all the fanatics with their ungodly doctrine, according to the words [Ps. 119, 113]: "I hate the fanatics and love your law."
(69) Therefore, we should certainly consider that not only our ministry, but also our person is pleasing to God. For everything that this person says, does, thinks outside of his office (privately) is pleasing to God, not for our sake, of course, but for the sake of Christ, whom we believe was put under the law for us. But we are quite sure that Christ pleases God, that he is holy etc. Inasmuch then as Christ pleases God and we cling to him, we also please God and are holy.
Although sin still clings to our flesh and we also fall daily, grace is richer and more powerful than sin. The mercy and truth of the Lord reigns over us forever [Ps. 117:2]. Therefore, sin cannot frighten us or make us doubtful about the grace of God in us. For Christ, the mightiest hero (gigas), has abolished the law, condemned sin, and done away with death and all evil. As long as he is at the right hand of God and represents us, we cannot doubt the grace of God toward us.
Then God has also sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, as Paul says here. But Christ is quite sure in his spirit that he pleases God etc. Therefore we also, since we have the same Spirit of Christ, must be sure that we stand in grace, etc., for his sake, who is sure of it. Let this be said of the inward testimony, by which the heart must be quite sure that it is in grace and has the Holy Spirit.
The outward signs are, as I said above, to hear gladly of Christ, to teach, to give thanks, to praise, to confess him, even at the cost of life and limb; then, according to his calling, to do his work with all his might, in faith, with gladness, etc. not to take pleasure in sins, not to take hold of another's office, but to wait for his own, to help the needy brother, to comfort the afflicted etc. By these signs, if they follow faith (a posteriori), we become certain and sure that we are in grace. The wicked also imagine that they have these signs, but they have none (nihil minus habent).
From this it is sufficiently obvious that the pope with his teaching only confuses the consciences and finally leads them into despair, because he not only teaches, but even commands to be uncertain etc. Therefore, as the Psalm [5:10] says, "in his mouth there is nothing certain," and elsewhere [Ps. 10:7] it is said, "His tongue causes trouble and labor."
But here we see how great the weakness of faith still is among the godly.
For if we could hold on to the fact that we are in grace, that our sins are forgiven, that we have the Spirit of Christ, that we are children of God, then we would truly be joyful and grateful to God for this unspeakable gift. But because we feel the opposite emotions, fear, doubt, sadness, etc., we do not dare to hold this as certain. Indeed, conscience judges it to be great presumption and arrogance to presume upon this honor. This is why this thing is only properly understood when it is put into practice, for it is never learned without experience.
(75) Therefore, let each one get into the habit of believing that he is in grace and that his person and works are pleasing to God. But when he feels that he doubts, he exercises himself in faith and fights against doubt, and strives to attain certainty, so that he can say: I know that I am acceptable to God, that I have the Holy Spirit, not because of my worthiness or merit, but because of Christ, who for our sake submitted to the law and bore the sins of the world. In Him I believe. If I am a sinner and err, he is righteous and cannot err. Then I love to hear, read, sing and write about him, and desire nothing so much as that his gospel may be made known to the world and that many may be converted.
This is a certain testimony that the Holy Spirit is there. For this does not happen in the heart through human powers, nor is it obtained through any kind of exercise or effort, but it is given to us through Christ, who first justifies us through his (sui) knowledge, then creates a pure heart, brings forth new impulses, and gives the certainty by which we certainly believe that we please the Father for Christ's sake, likewise gives us a certain judgment by which we now approve of that of which we knew nothing before or completely despised it.
We must therefore strive more and more every day to move from uncertainty to certainty, and strive to overcome this most harmful delusion (that man is a
We have to doubt the grace of God), who has possessed the whole world (devoravit), from the bottom up. For if we doubt whether we celebrate in grace, whether we please God for Christ's sake, we deny that Christ has redeemed us, deny all His benefits. You young people can easily take hold of the pure teaching of the gospel and avoid that harmful delusion, because you have not yet been infected by it.
He cried out: Abba, dear Father!
Paul could have said: God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, who cries out: Abba, dear Father! but intentionally he says: "who cries out" to indicate the challenge of the Christian who is still weak and weak in faith. Rom. 8, 26. He calls this crying "an inexpressible groaning". "The same also the Spirit helpeth up our weakness," he says. "For we do not know what we ought to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself represents us in the best way with inexpressible groaning. "etc.
It is a great comfort that Paul says that the Spirit of Christ is sent by God into our hearts to cry out: Abba, dear Father etc.; likewise Rom. 8, 26. that he helps our weakness and represents us with unspeakable groaning. Whoever believed this would not fall away in any tribulation, no matter how great it might be. But many things hinder this faith. First, that our hearts are born in sins, then that this evil clings to us by nature (ingenitum est), that we doubt God's gracious will toward us, not thinking with certainty that we please God etc. Moreover, our adversary, the devil, goes about, emitting a terrible roar and saying: You are a sinner, therefore God is angry with you and will condemn you eternally.
(80) Against this exceedingly great and unbearable clamor, we have absolutely nothing by which we can raise ourselves up and sustain ourselves, but the mere word, which holds Christ up to us as the victor over sin, death and all evil. But to firmly cling to this in this struggle and fear of conscience is effort, it is work. Then Christ is not perceived with any of our senses; for
we do not see him, our heart does not feel his presence and help in the temptation, yes, then Christ seems to be angry with us and to leave us. Then, in temptation, man feels the power of sin, the weakness of the flesh, doubt, he feels the fiery darts of the devil, the terror of death, he feels the wrath and judgment of God. All this raises a very strong and terrible cry against us, so that there seems to be nothing left but despair and eternal death.
But in the midst of these terrors of the law, thundering of sin, shaking (concussionibus) of death and roaring of the devil, the Holy Spirit begins (says Paul) to cry out in our heart: Abba, dear Father! And his cry is far stronger and drowns out (perrumpit) the exceedingly strong and terrifying cry of the law, sin, death, the devil etc., penetrates through clouds and sky and reaches the ears of God etc.
With these words Paul shows that there is still weakness in the godly. He teaches the same thing in Rom. 8, 26, when he says: "The Spirit helps our weakness." Since we strongly feel the opposite, that is, since we feel more that God is angry with us than that He is merciful to us, the Holy Spirit is sent into our hearts, who not only sighs and cries out, but cries out most strongly: Abba, dear Father! and represents us according to the will of God with inexpressible groaning. In what way?
In serious terror and struggle of conscience we take hold of Christ and believe that he is our Savior. But then the law terrifies us exceedingly, and sin causes us consternation; the devil also challenges us with all his attacks and fiery darts, and strives with all his strength to snatch Christ from us and to take away all our comfort. Then there is little lack of our succumbing and despair. For then we are a crushed reed and a smoldering wick [Matth. 12, 20]. But in the meantime, the Holy Spirit helps our weakness and represents us with inexpressible groaning and "bears witness to our spirit that we are God's
Children are". In this way the mind is raised up in terror, sighs to its Savior and High Priest Jesus Christ, overcomes the weakness of the flesh and receives comfort again, saying: Abba, dear Father! Now this groaning, which we hardly feel, Paul calls a cry and an inexpressible groaning, which fills heaven and earth. Then he also calls it a crying and groaning of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit, when we are weak and challenged, produces this crying in our heart.
(84) However great and terrible the cries of the law, sin, and the devil may be against us, so that they seem to fill the whole heaven and earth and far drown out the groaning of our hearts, they cannot harm us. For the more these our enemies persist, accuse, and afflict us with their cries, the more we groan and take hold of Christ, call upon him with heart and mouth, cling to him, and believe that he was put under the law for us, that he might redeem us from the curse of the law, and so destroy sin and death. And having thus taken hold of Christ in faith, we cry out through him: Abba, dear Father! and this cry of ours is far stronger than the cry of the devil etc.
But we do not believe that this groaning, which we bring before God in this terror, in this weakness of ours, is a cry, that we hardly realize that it is a groaning. For our faith, which sighs to Christ in this way in the midst of our temptation, is very weak as far as our feelings are concerned. That is why we do not hear this cry. We have only the Word; when we take hold of it in this struggle, we breathe a little and sigh. And this our sighing we feel to some extent, but a cry we do not hear. But he, says Paul, who searches the hearts, understands what the Spirit desires etc. For this investigator of hearts, this groaning, which seems to us to be small, is the strongest cry and an inexpressible groaning, against which the exceedingly strong and horrible roar of the law, of sin, of death, of the devil, of hell are nothing at all and cannot be heard. Dar
um Paul does not call the groaning of a sorrowful Christian heart a cry and an inexpressible groaning of the spirit in vain. For it fills the whole heaven and cries so strongly that the angels make believe that they hear nothing else than this cry everywhere.
But we feel just the opposite. It does not seem to us that this weak sigh of ours can penetrate through the clouds in such a way that it should be heard in heaven by God and the angels alone, yes, we think, especially as long as the temptation lasts, that the devil will roar horribly against us, that heaven will crack, the earth will shake, that everything will collapse, that all creatures are threatened with disaster, that hell will rise up and want to devour us. This is what we feel in our hearts, these horrible sounds, this terrifying sight we hear and see. And this is what Paul says in 2 Cor. 12, 9, that the power of Christ becomes mighty in our weakness. For Christ is then in truth omnipotent, then He truly reigns and triumphs in us when we are so weak that we can hardly sigh. But Paul says that this groaning is a very strong cry in the ears of God, which fills the whole heaven and earth.
In the parable of the unjust judge, Christ also calls this sighing of a godly heart a cry, and such a cry that continually cries out to God day and night, saying: "Hear what the unjust judge says. But should not God also save His elect who cry out to Him day and night, and should have patience over them? I tell you, he will save them in a short time."
Today, with so much persecution and opposition from the pope, tyrants, and the spirits of the swarm, who challenge us on the right and on the left, we can do nothing but let out such sighs, and these have been our heavy weapons and tools of war, with which we have thwarted the attacks of the adversaries for so many years, with which we have begun to destroy the kingdom of the Antichrist. For these sighs will 1) Chri-
1) Thus the Wittenbergers (and Menius): provocabunt. Jenaer and Erlanger: provocabant.
stum to hasten the day of his coming in glory, when he will abolish all principalities, power and authority, and put all enemies under his feet, amen.
(89) Similarly, in Exodus 14:15, the Lord spoke to Moses at the Red Sea and said, "Why are you crying out to me? Moses certainly did not cry out, but trembled and almost despaired, for he was in the greatest fear. Unbelief seemed to rule in him, not faith. For he saw that the people of Israel were so enclosed by mountains, the army of Egypt and the sea that they had nowhere to escape. Here Moses did not even dare to shout, how could he have shouted? Therefore, we must not judge according to the feelings of our heart, but according to the word of God, which teaches that the Holy Spirit is given to the afflicted, the brokenhearted, the despairing etc. so that he may straighten them out and comfort them, so that they may not succumb to temptations and all misfortunes, but overcome them, but not without great fear and effort.
The papists dreamed that the saints had the Holy Spirit in such a way that they never felt or had a challenge. They speak of the Holy Spirit only according to their thoughts (speculative), as do the enthusiasts today. But Paul says that the power of Christ is mighty in our weakness, likewise that the Holy Spirit helps our weakness and represents us with unspeakable groaning etc. So then we are most in need of the help and comfort of the Holy Spirit, then He is most with us, when our inability is greatest and we are closest to despair. When someone endures adversity with strong and cheerful courage, the Holy Spirit has already done his work in him. But in those the Holy Spirit actually does his work, who are terrified and, as the Psalm [9:14] says, have come close to "the gates of death", as I have already said about Moses, who saw death before his eyes in the water, and wherever he turned his gaze.
91. Moses was thus in the highest fear and despair and no doubt felt
in his heart an exceedingly strong cry of the devil against him, who said: All this people will perish today, for they have nowhere to escape. You alone are the author of this exceedingly great evil, for you led the people out of Egypt. In addition, there was the cry of the people, who said [Ex. 14:11, 12]: "Were there not graves in Egypt, that you had to take us away, that we should die in the wilderness? Would it not have been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die here miserably in the wilderness?" Then the Holy Spirit was not merely in the thoughts of Moses (speculative in Moses), but in fact represented him with inexpressible groaning, so that he groaned again to God and said: "Lord, at your command I have carried out the people, therefore help. This groaning is called a cry in the Scriptures.
I have treated this more extensively in order to show clearly what the office of the Holy Spirit is and when He exercises it primarily.
Therefore, we should not judge this matter in any way according to our feelings or according to the cries of the law, of sin, of the devil etc. If we want to follow our feelings and believe this cry, then we must judge that we are forsaken by all help of the Holy Spirit and completely rejected from the face of God.
94. But rather, we should then remember that Paul says: the Spirit helps our weakness etc., likewise, he cries out: Abba, dear Father, that is, if he causes even the slightest groan or sighing of the heart, as it seems to us, this is nevertheless a very great cry and an inexpressible groaning before God. Therefore, in all your temptation and weakness, cling only to Christ and sigh. He gives the Holy Spirit, who cries out: Abba, dear Father! And this little groaning is an exceedingly strong cry in the ears of God, and it fills heaven and earth in such a way that God hears nothing else besides it; moreover, it drowns out all cries that may be raised against us from any other side.
95 You must also notice that Paul says that the Spirit represents us in temptation.
not with many words or long prayers, but only with sighing, and that with inexpressible sighing, that he also does not raise a strong cry with tears and say: God, have mercy on me etc., but that he only brings forth the little word by which the crying and sighing is expressed, namely: Oh Father! This is indeed a very short word, but it comprehends everything in itself. Not the mouth, but the heart speaks in this way: Although I am afraid on every side, and seem to be abandoned and completely rejected by you, yet I am your child, you are my Father for Christ's sake, I am loved for the sake of the Beloved. Therefore, when the little word "Father" is spoken in the heart, as it is by its very nature (formaliter), there is an eloquence in it such as Demosthenes, Cicero, and all the greatest orators who have ever been in the world could not have expressed. This thing is not expressed by words, but by sighs, which cannot be expressed by all the words of all orators, because they are inexpressible.
With many words I have indicated that a Christian man must certainly believe that he is in the grace of God and has the cry of the Holy Spirit in his heart. I have done this so that we may learn to absolutely reject the exceedingly pernicious delusion of the whole realm of the pope, namely, that he has taught that a man must be uncertain about the grace of God toward him. If this delusion is maintained, Christ is of no use at all. For whoever doubts God's grace toward him must necessarily doubt God's promises, consequently also God's gracious will, Christ's benefits, that he was born for us, suffered, died and rose again etc. But there is no greater blasphemy against God than to deny His promises, to deny God Himself and Christ etc.
Therefore, it has not only been an exceedingly great foolishness, but also the utmost impiety, that the monks have treated the young people of both sexes with such great
1) Erlanger: anZustas instead of antzustias.
They were zealous in attracting people to the monasteries, to the religiones and holy orders, as they called them, as the most certain state of blessedness, and yet afterward ordered those whom they had thus attracted to doubt the grace of God.
Then the pope called upon the entire human race to obey the holy Roman church, as if by doing so they would enter into a holy state in which they could certainly attain blessedness, after which he nevertheless commanded those who rendered such obedience to doubt [their blessedness] by his laws. Thus the kingdom of Antichrist first boasts and exalts the holiness of its laws, orders, rules etc., and promises eternal life with certainty to those who keep them, but afterwards, when these quite miserable people have long martyred their bodies with vigils, fasts etc. according to the prescription of their human statutes, they have this gain from it, that they do not know whether this their obedience pleases God or not. Thus, Satan has played his game of murdering souls in a terrifying way through the pope, and that is why the pope's office is a real torture chamber of consciences and the devil's real kingdom.
In order to establish and strengthen this harmful error, they have used the saying of Solomon, Cap. 9, 1: "There are the righteous and the wise, and their works are in the hand of God, and yet man does not know whether he is worthy of love or hatred2. This saying some understand by the future, others by the present hatred of God, but both do not understand Solomon, who at this point does not at all say what they dream. Next, the whole of Scripture deals mainly with the fact that we should not doubt, but certainly hope, trust and believe that God is merciful, kind, patient, does not lie and deceive, but is faithful and true, who keeps his promises, yes, who has now fulfilled what he promised by giving his only begotten Son to die for our sins, "so that all who believe in him may not be lost.
2) According to Luther's translation, Menius cites this saying in the Bible, which, however, does not fit into the context.
but have eternal life". There can certainly be no doubt that God is reconciled and gracious to us from the heart, that God's hatred and wrath are gone, since He sent His Son to die for us sinners.
(100) Although the whole Gospel reproaches this everywhere and frequently inculcates it, it has not availed. This few sayings of Solomon, [however] misunderstood, have been more valid, especially among those who pretend to great devotion (devotarios), and the monks of stricter religious life (religionis), than all the promises and consolations of the whole Scripture, nay, than Christ himself. They have thus misused the Scriptures to their own destruction and suffered the just punishment for their contempt of the Scriptures and neglect of the Gospel.
(101) It is useful that we know this, first, because the papists nowadays adorn themselves as if they had never committed anything evil; therefore they must be convicted with their own abominations, which they have spread without number in the world, as their own books testify, of which there are still innumerable that concern this matter; secondly, so that we may be made certain that we have the pure and right doctrine of the Gospel; this certainty the papacy cannot possibly boast of. For even if all things were right in it, this abomination (monstrum), that one should be uncertain [of his state of grace], is greater than all abominations. And even though it is evident that they, as the enemies of Christ, teach what is uncertain, for they command the consciences to doubt, they are nevertheless so full of satanic rage that they quite certainly condemn us, who deviate from them and teach what is certain, as heretics and kill us, as if they were completely certain of their doctrine.
Therefore, let us give thanks to God that we are freed from this abomination of uncertainty, and now we can surely believe that the Holy Spirit cries out in our hearts and brings an unspeakable groaning before God. And this is our foundation: the Gospel does not call us to look at our good works (benefacta) and our perfection, but to look at God Himself, who gives the promise, and at Christ Himself, our Mediator. On the other hand, the Pope commands that one should not look at God who gives the promise, not at Christ,
the high priest, but our works and merits. Doubt and despair inevitably follow, but on our side there is certainty and joy in the Holy Spirit, because I cling to God, who cannot lie. For he says: Behold, I give my Son to die, that by his blood he may redeem you from sin and death. I cannot doubt this unless I want to deny God completely.
And this is the reason that our theology is certain, because it makes us not see from ourselves, but bases us on what is outside of us, that we do not rely on our powers, conscience, feelings, person and works, but rely on what is outside of us, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot be lacking. This the pope does not know, that is why he chats so ungodly with his nonsensical followers (furiis), that no one knows, not even the righteous and the wise, whether he is worthy of love [or hate] etc. Rather, if they are righteous and wise, they truly know that they are loved by God, or they are not righteous and wise.
Furthermore, this saying of Solomon does not speak of God's hatred or benevolence toward men, but it is a worldly (politica) saying that punishes the ingratitude of men. For the ingratitude of the world is so great that it often pays evil tribute to those who have done well for it, and sometimes treats them with complete iniquity. On the other hand, it exalts the bad guys and pays them honor. Thus David, a holy man and a very good king, was driven out of his kingdom, the prophets, Christ, the apostles were killed; yes, also the histories of all the heathen testify that many men, who have done very well for the fatherland, have been sent into exile by their own fellow citizens, and have lived miserably there, that some have also perished ignominiously in prison.
Therefore, Solomon is not speaking here of the conscience that deals with God, or of the gracious disposition and judgment of God, but of the judgment and expression of the wills of men among themselves, as
whether he wanted to say: There are many wise and just people through whom God works much good and brings peace to people, but far from people acknowledging this, they often repay such men for their best good deeds with the most shameful thanks. Therefore, no matter how well a man has done, he does not know whether his diligence and faithfulness will earn him hatred or favor from men.
106 Thus, today we too, thinking that we would find favor with our Germans for preaching to them the gospel of peace, life and eternal bliss, find instead of favor the most bitter hatred. In the beginning, our teaching pleased many, and they eagerly accepted it. We thought that they would become friends and brothers who would plant this doctrine with us in the same spirit and spread it to others: But now we learn that they are false brethren and our worst enemies, who spread error, and counterfeit and overthrow what we teach rightly and Christianly, and excite the worst vexations in the churches. Therefore, let no one who performs his ministry godly and faithfully, be he in whatever state he may, and has to accept the ingratitude and hatred of men for his good deeds, harden himself to death over it, but let him say with Christ [Ps. 25:19, Jn. 15:25], "They hate me without a cause," likewise [Ps. 109:4, according to the Vulgate], "For that they should love me, they were against me; but I prayed."
Thus, by this ungodly teaching, that he makes people doubt whether God is gracious to them, the pope has taken God and all promises away from the church, obscured the benefits of Christ, and taken away the whole gospel. This damage must inevitably follow, because people do not rely on God's promise, but on their works and merits. Where this happens, it is impossible for man to be certain of God's gracious disposition, but he must always be in doubt about it and finally despair. For one cannot see anywhere else than in God's words what God wants and what pleases Him. This makes us certain that God will reject all anger and hatred against
He gave His only begotten Son for our sins etc. Likewise, the sacraments, the office of the keys etc. make us certain that God would not have given us if He did not love us. With innumerable testimonies of the kind in which He assures us of His gracious disposition, God has showered us.
(108) Therefore, since this harmful doctrine of uncertainty, which has infected the whole Church of the Pope, has come to an end, we should certainly believe that God is gracious to us, that we please Him, and that He takes care of us for the sake of Christ, that we have the Holy Spirit to represent us with cries and inexpressible groans.
But this crying and groaning is in its proper nature (formaliter), that you call upon God in anguish, not as a tyrant, not as an angry judge or tormentor, but as a Father, even if this groaning should be so small and hidden that one can hardly become aware of it. For in real terror, when the conscience fights with the judgment of God, it does not call God a father, but an unjust, angry and cruel tyrant and judge, and this cry, which Satan raises in the heart, is far stronger than the cry of the spirit, and is felt most strongly. For it then seems to us as if God has abandoned us and wants to cast us into hell.
Thus the saints often lament in the Psalms [Ps. 31, 23]: "I am cast out from the eyes of God", likewise [v. 13]: "I have become like a broken vessel" etc. This, of course, is not the sighing that says: Dear Father, but a roar that hatred of God emits, crying out violently: You severe judge, you cruel tormentor etc. Here it is time for you to turn your eyes away from the law, from your works, from what the conscience feels, and in faith take hold of the promise, that is, the word of grace and life, which in turn directs the conscience to begin to groan and say: "As much as the law accuses me, sin and death terrify me, yet you promise, O God, grace, righteousness, and eternal life for
Christ's sake; and so the promise brings about the groaning that cries out: Abba, dear Father!
I do not dislike that some in their interpretation point out (expound) that one word is Greek, the other is Hebrew, and that Paul intentionally wanted to use both to indicate the twofold church, both gathered from Gentiles and Jews, and that although Gentiles and Jews call God their Father in different languages, both have one and the same groaning, because both cry out: Abba, dear Father!
V. 7. So now here is no longer a servant, but vain children.
This is an exclamation (epiphonema) and a conclusion (conclusio), as if to say: If this is established, that through the Gospel we have received the Spirit by whom we cry out: Abba, dear Father! then it is certainly established in heaven that there is no longer bondage, but only freedom, gracious acceptance (adoptio) and filiation. Who generates these? This groaning. In what way? The Father offers me his grace in his promise and that he wants to be my father; so it only remains that I also accept this. This happens when I cry out in such groaning and with a childlike heart agree with this word: "Dear Father!" Then father and child come together, and a marriage vow is made without all pomp and splendor, that is, nothing at all is added, no law, no work is required here (for what could a man do in this terror and the terrible darkness of the temptations?), here is only the Father who gives the promise and calls me his child for Christ's sake, who is put under the law etc., and I who accept it and answer by this groaning, saying, "Dear Father!" Here, then, nothing is demanded, but there is only this sighing of the child, which draws confidence in the tribulation, and says, Thou givest me the promise, and callest me thy child for Christ's sake; and I accept this, and call thee Father. This is, of course, "becoming children" without works. This cannot be understood without experience.
Here Paul uses the word "servant" in a different way than in the third chapter, v. 28, where he says: "Here is no servant nor free" etc. Here he speaks of a servant of the law, subject to the law, as he said just before, v. 3. "We were captives under the outward statutes." Therefore, in Paul's opinion, to be a "servant" in this passage is to be guilty of the law and to be captive under the law, under the wrath of God and death; to regard God, not as a merciful Father, but as a tormentor, enemy, and tyrant. This is in truth living in bondage and Babylonian captivity and being cruelly martyred in it. For the law does not make free from sin and death, but reveals sin and increases it and incites wrath. This bondage, he says, has ceased, oppresses and grieves us no more.
114 Paul speaks as of a person (in concreto): "Here can be no more servant." But this saying becomes somewhat clearer if instead of the person we put the term derived from it (in abstracto), in this way: There can be no bondage in Christ, but only filiation. For when faith comes, bondage ceases, as he also Cap. 3, 28.
But if we are children through the Spirit of Christ, who cries in our hearts, "Abba, dear Father! we are children and no longer servants, then it certainly follows that we are freed not only from the abominations of the pope and from the predatory human statutes, but also from all the dominion and rights that the law of God has over us. Therefore, we must in no way allow the law to rule in our conscience, much less the pope with his futile threats and terrors. He does roar like a lion: that all who do not obey his laws would incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the holy apostles, but Paul fortifies and comforts us against this roar, because he says: "Here is no servant", but a freeman.
116. take this comfort in faith, and say: law, your tyranny cannot be on the throne where Christ my Lord sits.
Instead of having. Here I do not hear you (much less, O Antichrist, do I hear your abominations), for I am free and a child who need not be subject to bondage or servile laws.
Let Moses (much less the pope) with his laws not enter the bridegroom's bed to rest there, that is, to reign in the conscience, which Christ freed from the law so that it would not be subject to bondage. The servants with the donkey are to remain in the valley, but Isaac is to go up the mountain with his father Abraham, that is, the law is to rule over the body and the old man, but he is to be under the law and have a burden laid upon him, he is to be tormented and afflicted; Let the law dictate to him what he shall do, what he shall suffer, and how he shall walk among men, but let it not defile the bridal bed in which Christ alone is to rest and sleep, that is, let it not trouble the conscience. For the conscience alone should live with Christ, his bridegroom, in the kingdom of freedom and filiation.
If then, he says, you cry out through the Spirit of Christ, "Abba, Father," then you are certainly no longer servants, but free and children, so you are without law, without sin, without death, that is, you are blessed and have no more evil. Therefore, childship brings with it the eternal kingdom and the whole heavenly inheritance.
(119) How great and glorious this gift is, the human mind cannot even comprehend in this life, much less express. Meanwhile, we see this in a dark word; we have this weak sighing and little faith, which is based only on the preaching and the sound of the voice of Christ, who gives us his promises. Therefore, according to our feeling, the greatness and glory of this gift (res ista) is only the center, but in itself it is an exceedingly great and infinite circle.
Thus a Christian has in himself a good (rem), which in itself is exceedingly great and immeasurable, but according to his seeing and feeling is very small and narrowly circumscribed.
121 Therefore, we must measure this good, not according to human reason and feeling,
but according to another area (circulo), namely the promise of God. As God is infinite, so is His promise infinite, even though in the meantime [in this life] it is enclosed in such a narrow circle (has angustias) and, that I say so, in the word that forms the center (verbum centrale). So now we see the center, one day we will also see the circumcircle. Therefore, nothing is left now that could accuse, frighten and bind the conscience. For there is no longer bondage, but filiation, which brings us not only freedom from the law, from sin and death, but also the inheritance of eternal life, as follows:
But if they are children, they are also heirs of God through Christ.
For whoever is a child must also be an heir. For by the very fact that he is born, he has the right (meretur) to be heir. No work, no merit procures him the inheritance, but only the birth. And so the inheritance is conferred on him in a merely passive, non-active way, that is, that he is born, not that he acquires (gignere), not that he works, not that he provides etc., makes him an heir. For the fact that he is born, he does nothing, but behaves only suffering.
Therefore, it is only in suffering, not in action, that we attain these eternal goods, forgiveness of sins, righteousness, the glory of the resurrection and eternal life. There is nothing else that can help us here, but only faith takes hold of the promise that is offered. Just as a child in the world and in the house becomes an heir only by being born, so here faith alone makes children of God, who are born from the Word, which is the divine mother, in whom we are conceived, carried, born, raised up [Is. 46:3]. So by this birth, by this suffering behavior, in which we suffer to become and be formed into a new creature through faith in the Word, we become Christians, children and heirs of God through Christ. But if we are heirs, we are free from death, devil etc., and have righteousness and eternal life.
But this is beyond all human comprehension, that he says: "Heirs", not of a very rich and powerful king, not of the emperor, not of the world, but of the almighty God, the creator of all things. Therefore this inheritance of ours, as Paul elsewhere Cor. 9, 15.] also says, is ineffable. And if someone with certain and constant faith could believe and understand the greatness of the good that he is a child and heir of God, he would consider all the power and treasures in all the kingdoms of the world as filth and dung compared to his heavenly inheritance. Everything that the world has in high and glorious things would be disgusting to him, and the greater the world's glory and splendor, the more he would be disgusted with it: in short, everything that the world admires and praises highly would be ugly and void in his eyes. For what is the whole world with its power, wealth and glory compared to God, whose heir and child he is?
After that, he would also have a heartfelt desire, like Paul, to depart and be with Christ, and nothing could be better for him than an early death, which he would seize as if it were the most joyful peace. For he would know that death would be the end of all his evil, and through it he would attain to his inheritance. etc. Yes, the man who believed this completely would not remain alive long, but would be immediately dissolved with excessive joy.
But the law in the members, which is contrary to the law of the mind, does not make faith perfect. Therefore we need the help and comfort of the Holy Spirit, who represents us in our distresses with inexpressible groaning, as was said above. Sin still clings to the flesh, which continually troubles the conscience and thus hinders faith, so that we cannot fully enjoy looking at and desiring these eternal treasures that God has given us through Christ. Since even Paul felt this struggle of the flesh against the spirit, he exclaimed [Rom. 7, 24.]: "I wretched man, who will deliver me from the body of this death?" He accuses his body, which after all he should have loved, with a
exceedingly evil name, calling it his death, as if to say: My body troubles and weighs me down more than death itself. For it also clouded this joy of the spirit for him; he did not always have lovely and pleasant thoughts of the future heavenly inheritance, but also felt sadness of spirit, horror etc.
From this it is sufficiently evident how difficult faith is, which is not easily and quickly learned and grasped, as the full and weary spirits dream, who devour at once everything contained in the Scriptures in one bite. The weakness and the struggle of the flesh with the spirit in the saints is sufficient proof of how small faith still is in them. For perfect faith would soon produce perfect contempt and disdain for this temporal life.
If we could understand and be certain that God is our Father, and we are His children and heirs, then the world would truly become small to us, with all its glory, righteousness, wisdom, power, with all its royal crowns, treasures, pleasures etc. We would not be so anxious about our livelihood, we would not be so attached to earthly things with our hearts, and have good courage when they are there, but when they are not there, let our courage sink and despair, but we would do everything in the highest love, humility and patience (of which the heretics also boast, but in truth no one is more cruel, no one more arrogant, no one more impatient than they). Now we do the opposite, for the flesh is still strong, but faith is small and the spirit weak. Therefore Paul rightly says that in this life we have only the firstfruits of the Spirit, but there we will have it completely.
Through Christ.
Paul always has Christ in his mouth, he cannot forget him. For he foresaw that nothing would be less known in the world than Christ and his gospel, even among those who professed to be Christians. That is why he constantly teaches about him and puts him before us, and as often as he speaks of grace, righteousness,
He always adds "in Christ" or "through Christ" to the promise, filiation and inheritance. Incidentally (obliquely), he also refers to the law, as if he wanted to say: This can be given to us neither by the law nor by the works of the law (much less by our powers or works of human statutes), but only through Christ.
V. 8. 9. But at the time when you did not know God, you served those who are not gods by nature. But now that you have known God, or rather are known by God, how do you turn back to the weak and meager statutes, which you want to serve anew?
130 This is the conclusion of Paul's dealings [with the Galatians]. After this, until the end of the epistle, he does not dispute much, but gives commands concerning life. But before that he chides the Galatians, being very displeased that this divine and heavenly doctrine should have been so suddenly and easily thrust out of their hearts, as if to say: You have teachers who want to bring you under the bondage of the law; I did not do that, but by my teaching I 1) brought you out of darkness and ignorance about God into the wonderful light and knowledge of God. I have set you free from bondage and set you free as children of God, not by preaching to you the works of the law and the merits of men, but the grace and righteousness of God, and that the heavenly and eternal goods are given to you through Christ. Since this is the case, why do you so easily abandon the light and return to darkness? Why are you so easily led back from grace to law, from freedom to bondage?
Here we see again, as I also reminded above, that one can easily fall in faith, which is proven by the example of the Galatians. The same is witnessed today by the example of the Sacramentarians, Anabaptists etc. We constantly and most diligently inculcate the doctrine of the faith, we penetrate and tread...
1) Wittenberger: vooavit instead of: voonvi.
We distinguish the gospel from the law in the purest way, and yet we accomplish very little. This is the fault of the devil, who is a marvelous artist in seducing people. He can suffer nothing less than the right knowledge of grace and faith in Christ.
For this reason, in order to take Christ out of our eyes and hearts, he presents us with other deceptive images, by which he gradually leads people away from faith and the knowledge of grace, so that they argue about the law. When he has brought them to that point, Christ is taken away. It is therefore not in vain that Paul tries to impress Christ on us in almost every line, not in vain that he presents the doctrine of faith so purely, to which alone he ascribes righteousness, but denies it to the law by showing that it has just the opposite effect, namely, that it works wrath, increases sin etc. For he would like to persuade us not to let Christ be torn from our hearts, so that the bride will not let her bridegroom be torn from her arms, but will always cling to him. As long as he is present, there is no danger, but then there is groaning, the gracious Father (paternitas), filiation and inheritance.
But why does Paul say that the Galatians turn to the weak and meager statutes, that is, to the law, since they never had the law, because they were Gentiles (although he also writes this to the Jews, as we will say later)? Or why does he not rather speak like this: "In the past, when you did not know God, you served those who were not gods by nature. But now that you know the true God, why do you forsake the true God and turn again to the service of idols? Is it one and the same for Paul to fall away from the promise to the law, from faith to works, and to serve gods who are not gods by nature? I answer: Anyone who falls away from the article of justification does not know God and is an idolater. Therefore, if someone turns back to the law afterwards, it is the same as if he turns back to the gods.
It does not matter whether someone calls himself a monk or a Turk, a Jew, an Anabaptist etc. For when this article is gone, nothing remains but pure error, hypocrisy, godlessness, idolatry, however much it may appear to be the highest truth, as service to God, holiness etc.
The reason is that God cannot and will not be known in any other way than through Christ, according to this word, John 1:18: "The Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared it to us. He is the promised seed of Abraham, on whom God has based all fine promises. Therefore, Christ alone is the means and, I say, the mirror through which we see God, that is, recognize His will. For we see in Christ that God is not an angry driver and judge, but a benevolent and exceedingly kind Father, for in order that He might bless us, that is, free us from the law, sin, death and all evils, and give us fine grace, righteousness and eternal life, He did not spare His own fine Son, but gave Him up for us all etc. This is the certain and right knowledge of God, and the divine teaching (persuasio), which does not deceive, but actually portrays God in a certain form, apart from which God is not (extra quam non est Deus).
Whoever falls from this realization must fall into such a conceit: I will establish this service, I will accept that order, I will choose this or that work, and thus I will serve God. But there is no doubt that God will look at this and accept it and give me eternal life in return. For He is merciful and kind, since He gives all good things even to the unworthy and ungrateful; much more will He give me His grace and eternal life for so many and such great good works and merits.
This is the highest wisdom, righteousness and worship, as far as reason can judge, and this is what all men have in general, as they are by nature (omnes gentes), Papists, Jews, Muhamedans, heretics etc. They cannot get any higher than that Pharisee in the Gospel [Luc. 18, 11. f.], they do not recognize the Christian righteousness.
or that of faith. For the natural man hears nothing of what is of God [1 Cor. 2:14], likewise [Rom. 3:11]: "There is none that understandeth, there is none that asketh after God" etc. Therefore there is absolutely no difference between a Papist, a Jew, a Turk, a heretic etc. The persons, places, customs, services, works, worship practices are indeed different, but they all have the same reason, the same heart, the same delusion and thoughts. A Turk has exactly the same thoughts as a Carthusian, namely: If I do this or that, I have a gracious God, if not, He is angry with me. There is no middle ground between human workmanship and the knowledge of Christ; if this is obscured, then it does not matter whether you are a monk or a pagan.
Therefore it is the utmost folly that Papists and Turks argue with each other about religion and worship, that both claim to have the true religion and the right worship. etc. Even the monks themselves do not agree among themselves; one wants to be considered holier than the other, because of some outward silly ceremonies, while in the heart the opinion of all is so equal that one egg cannot be so equal to the other. For they all have this conceit: If I do this work, God will have mercy on me; if I do not, he will be angry with me. Therefore, every man who falls away from the knowledge of Christ inevitably falls into idolatry, for he must invent such an image (formam) of God for himself, which does not exist anywhere, as a Carthusian for the sake of keeping the fine rule, a Turk because of the observance of the alcoran etc. has the confidence that he pleases God and will receive from him the reward of his sour work.
Such a God, who forgives sins and makes righteous in this way, can nowhere be found, therefore it is a vain thought and a dream, and the erection (confictio) of an idol in the heart. For nowhere did God promise that He would make men righteous and blessed for the sake of such services, rules (observationes) and practices (cultus) that are devised and instituted by men; indeed, God has no greeting in anything.
The Holy Spirit, as all Scripture testifies, is not interested in such self-chosen works and worship, for the sake of which he destroyed kingdoms and empires.
Therefore, all those who trust in their own powers and righteousness serve a god who is God only in their delusion (opinabiliter), but not in his essence (natura). For the true and essential God speaks thus: No righteousness, wisdom and worship pleases me, except this one, through whom the Father is glorified in the Son. Whoever takes hold of this Son in faith, and of me or of my promise in him, to him I am God, to him I am Father, him I accept, making him righteous and blessed. All others remain under wrath, because they worship him who is not God by nature.
(140) Anyone who does not adhere to this doctrine inevitably ends up not knowing God correctly, not understanding what Christian righteousness and wisdom are, what the right services of God are; he is an idolater who remains under the law, sin, death and the dominion of the devil, and everything he does is lost and condemned.
141. Therefore, if an Anabaptist imagines that he pleases God, if he lets himself run again, if he leaves his house, wife and children, if he kills his flesh, if he endures much hardship and finally suffers death, in him there is already no longer a spark of the knowledge of Christ, but after Christ is excluded, he is caught in his dreams of works, abandonment of goods and killing [of the flesh^, and there is now no difference in mind or heart between him and a Turk, Jew or Papist, except as to the outward livery, ceremonies or works he chooses for himself. In this way all monks have the same reliance on works, but in dress and other outward things they differ.
There are many others like them today, who nevertheless want to be counted among the evangelical teachers and, as far as the words are concerned, teach that men are freed from sin through the death of Christ. But because they deny the faith in such a way
If they ascribe more to love than to faith, they do Christ the greatest dishonor and pervert His word in a wicked and ungodly way, since they dream that God is pleased with us and accepts us for the sake of love, through which we, already reconciled, 1) love God and our neighbor. If this is true, then we have no need of Christ at all. Such people do not serve the true God, but the idol of their heart, which they have invented for themselves. For the true God is not pleased with us and does not accept us for the sake of our love, our virtues or our newness of being, but for the sake of Christ etc.
But they reply: The Scripture commands that we love God with all our heart etc. Quite right, but therefore it does not follow: God commands, therefore we also do it. If we loved God with all our heart etc., then we would certainly be justified and gain life for the sake of this obedience, according to the words [Deut. 18:5]: "The man who does these things will live by them." But the gospel says, Thou doest not this, therefore thou shalt not live thereby. For this saying: "You shall love God your Lord" etc. requires perfect obedience, perfect fear, trust, love towards God. This man in his finely depraved nature does not accomplish, nor can he. Therefore this law: "You shall love God your Lord" etc. does not make righteous, but accuses all men and condemns them, as the Scripture testifies [Rom. 4, 15.]: "The law only causes wrath" etc. On the other hand [Rom. 10, 4.], "Christ is the end of the law; he that believeth on Him is righteous." Enough has been said about this above etc.
(144) In the same way, a Jew who keeps the law, thinking that by obeying the law he will please God, does not serve the God of his fathers, but is an idolater who worships the dream and the idol of his heart, which is nowhere. For the God of his fathers, of whom he boasts that he serves Him, promised Abraham a seed through which all nations should be blessed. Therefore, it is not through the Ge-
1) Wittenberger: reeoneiliari instead of reeonoiliati.
The Gospel of Christ is the only way to know God and to receive the blessing.
Although Paul actually speaks these words: "At the time when you did not know God, you served Him" etc. to the Galatians, who were Gentiles, he also attacks the Jews with the same words, who, even though they had outwardly abandoned idols, nevertheless inwardly "worshipped" them more than the Gentiles, as he says of them in Rom. 2:22: "You abhor idols, and rob God of what is His." The Gentiles were not the people of God, they did not have the Word, therefore their idolatry was a gross one. But the idolatrous Jews adorned their ungodly worship (cultus) with the name of God and His Word (as all works saints are wont to do), and deceived many by this pretense of godliness. Therefore, the more holy and spiritual an idolatry is according to its outward appearance, the more harmful it is.
But how can these two contradictory things that Paul exhibits here: "You did not know God" and "You served God" be united with each other?
147 I answer: All people have by nature the general knowledge that there is a God, according to the words Rom. 1, 19. 20. As far as God can be known, he is apparent to them. "For it is known that God is invisible" etc. Furthermore, the worship and religions that have existed and remained among all pagans sufficiently testify that all men have had a certain general knowledge of God. But whether they have received this by nature or by tradition from their parents, I do not want to argue about that now.
But here again someone would like to interject: If all men know God, why then does Paul say that the Galatians did not know God before the preaching of the Gospel?
I answer: There is a twofold knowledge of God, the general and the actual. All men have the general one, namely, that there is one God, that he created heaven and earth, that he is righteous, that he punishes the wicked etc. But what God has in mind for us, what He wants to give and do, how we can be free from sins and death and become blessed (which is the real and true
I do not know how it can happen that someone is known to me face to face, whom I do not really know, because I do not know how he is disposed toward me.
Therefore, people know by nature that there is a God, but what He wills or does not will, they do not know, for it is written [Rom. 3:11, Ps. 53:3]: "There is no one wise who asks about God," and elsewhere [Jn. 1:18]: "No one has ever seen God," that is, no one knows what the will of God is. But what good is it if you know that God is, and yet you do not know what His will is toward you? Here one dreams this, the other that. The Jews imagine that this is the will of God, that they should serve God as prescribed by the Law of Moses, the Turks that they should keep their Alkoran, a monk that he had his rule and his vows. But they all err and "become vain in their thinking," as Paul says Rom. 1:21, because they do not know what pleases or displeases God. Therefore, instead of the true and essential God, they worship the dreams of their heart, which are nothing in their essence (natura).
1This is what Paul indicates when he says: "Since you did not know God," that is, since you did not know what the will of God was, "you served those who are not gods by nature," that is, the dreams and thoughts of your heart, through which you fabricated without the Word that one must serve God with this or that work or ceremony (ritu). For from the fact that people by nature hold this sentence: There is one God, all idolatry has arisen, which would not have come into the world without knowledge of the Godhead. But because men had this natural knowledge of God, they formed, apart from the word and in contradiction to it, void and ungodly thoughts of God, which they assumed to be certain truth, and thus imagined God to be different from what He is by nature.
1) This paragraph is used by Aurifaber (in the translation of Menius) for § 8 of the 5th chapter of the Table Talks, and § 153, according to its larger part, for s 9 there. In our edition of the Table Talks, these two paragraphs are omitted.
Thus, a monk invents such a God who forgives sins, gives grace and eternal life for the sake of keeping his rule. Such a God is nowhere, therefore he does not serve the true God, nor does he worship Him, but such a God who is not God by nature, namely a delusion and idol of his heart, that is, his false and void opinion of God, of which he dreams that it is the most certain truth. But now even reason must admit that a human delusion is not God. Therefore, he who wants to honor or serve God without the word, as Paul says, does not serve the true God, but the one who is not God by nature.
Therefore, it matters little whether he 1) uses the name "statutes" to refer to the law of Moses or to any statutes of the Gentiles (although he actually and primarily speaks of the Mosaic statutes). For he who falls back from grace into the law does not fall more gently than he who falls from grace into idolatry. For apart from Christ there is nothing but idolatry, an idol and a false poem of God, whether it be called the Law of Moses, or the Law of Pabst, or the Alkoran of the Turk etc. Therefore he says with a certain astonishment:
But now you have recognized God.
As if he wanted to say: It is very surprising that you, who have known God from the preaching of faith, now so suddenly fall away from the right knowledge of His will (which I thought you had kept so securely and firmly that I feared nothing less than that it could be so easily overthrown [among you]) and turn again, since the false apostles call you to it, to the weak and meager statutes, which you want to serve anew. But you have received from my preaching that this is the will of God, that he wants to bless all nations, not through circumcision or the keeping of the law, but through Christ, who was promised to Abraham. Those who believe in him will be blessed with the faith of God.
1) Instead of ÄpptzUkk in the outputs we have assumed ÄpxsNkt.
Those who receive the blessing from Abraham are children and heirs of God. Thus, I say, you have known God.
Yes, rather, you are recognized by God.
Here Paul punishes the Galatians in an oratorical way, because he improves his previous statement "You have now known God", or rather, he turns it around in this way: "yes, rather, you are known by God", because he fears that they might have lost God completely, as if he wanted to say: Alas, the matter has already come to such a pass that you now do not know God properly, because you have returned from grace to law 2); yet God still knows you. And indeed, our knowledge is more a suffering than an active one, that is, we are rather recognized than we recognize. Our activity (nostrum agere) is that we suffer, that God works in us. God gives the Word; if we take hold of it through the faith that God gives, we become God's children.
It is therefore the opinion of the word: "You are known by God", that is, you have been visited by the word, you have been endowed with faith and the Holy Spirit, by which you have been renewed etc. Therefore, with these words, "You have been known by God," he denies the righteousness of the law, and he denies that the knowledge of God is granted to us because of the worthiness of our works. For [Matth. 11, 27.] "No one knows the Father, except the Son, and to whom the Son wills to reveal it. Likewise [Isa. 53, 11]: "By his knowledge he will make many righteous, because he bears their sin. Therefore, our knowledge of God is a purely suffering one.
157 He is therefore very surprised that they, after they have rightly known God through the gospel, seduced by the false apostles, so quickly turn back to the weak and meager statutes, as it would certainly also seem strange to me if our church (which by God's grace is very beautifully ordered in pure and wholesome doctrine and faith) were so perverted by a fanatical man through one or two sermons.
2) Wittenberg ocNtis instead of rküitis.
that she would no longer want to recognize me as her teacher. This will happen in time, even if not while we are alive, but when we are gone. For then many will arise who want to be masters, who teach perverse things under the appearance of godliness, and in a short time will overthrow everything that we have built with the greatest effort in a long time.
We are no better than the apostles themselves, who had to see with great suffering during their lifetime that the churches they had planted through their ministry were perverted. Therefore, it is not surprising if we also have to see the same evil in the churches today, in which the spirits of the rotten reign, which after our death will take over the churches prepared by our ministry, infect them with their poison and pervert them. But Christ will remain and reign until the end of the world, but miraculously, as under the papacy.
But Paul speaks very shamefully of the law, since he calls it "statutes" (elementa) (as also above in the beginning of the fourth chapter [§ 14 ff.]), then also not only statutes, but "weak and meager statutes". Is it not blasphemy that he calls the law of God such shameful names? The law in its proper use should serve and stand for the promises and grace. But if it is contrary to this, it is no longer God's holy law, but a harmful and devilish doctrine that only leads to despair. Therefore, it must be rejected and banished.
Therefore, when he calls the law "weak and meager statutes," he is speaking of the law according to the opinion of the proud and presumptuous hypocrites who want to be justified by it, not of the law according to its spiritual meaning, which causes wrath. For the law, as we have often said, when it is in proper use, accuses and condemns the old 1) man. Here it is not only a mighty and rich element (elementum), but also omnipotent and exceedingly rich, yes, it is an insurmountable omnipotence and richness, in the con-
1) vytsrem is missing in the Wittenberg.
The conscience is exceedingly weak and poor. For it is something so delicate that it becomes so frightened and pale at the slightest sin that it despairs if it is not raised up again. Therefore the law in its right use has more strength and power than heaven and earth can hold, so that even one tittle or letter of the law could kill the whole human race, which the history of the proclamation of the law testifies, Ex. 19, 16. 20, 18. 19. This is the right and theological use of the law, of which Paul does not speak here.
161 Thus he is speaking here of the hypocrites who have fallen from grace or who have not yet attained to it. Those who abuse the law, seek to be justified by it, toil and labor with its works day and night, as Paul testifies of the Jews, Rom. 10:2, 3: "I bear them witness," he says, "that they strive for God," that they labor day and night, "but with ignorance. For they do not know the righteousness that is before God. "etc. Such people have the confidence that they will become so strong and rich through the law that they can oppose their power and the wealth of righteousness, which they have from the law, to the wrath and judgment of God, that they can thereby propitiate God and become blessed. In this respect, one can rightly say that the law is a weak and meager statute, that is, that it cannot help, that there is no counsel nor ability in it.
And he who would use the art of speech here, could act and magnify these words very broadly, in an active way, in a suffering way, and in the middle position between the two (active, passive et neutraliter). In the active way, the law is a weak and meager statute, because it makes men weaker and more meager; in the suffering way, because it does not have in itself the strength and power to bestow or bring righteousness; in the middle position, it is weakness and meagerness itself. How, then, should it make men strong and rich who were weak and scanty before? Therefore, if one wants to become righteous through the law, it is just as much as if one who is otherwise already weak and poor were to become rich and strong.
If a man is sick and diseased, he would seek another greater evil by which he could dispel his weakness and poverty, while it would plunge him into certain destruction. As if one who suffers from falling sickness were also to catch the plague, or a leper were to come to a leper, a beggar to a beggar, in order to bring help to the other and enrich him. Here, as the saying goes, one would milk a goat and the other would hold a sieve under it.
163. this is a beautiful diminutive speech (tapinosis = ταπεΐνωσις), with which Pau
This is to show that those who seek to become righteous by the law have the advantage of becoming weaker and weaker day by day, because they are already weak and meager, that is, they are by nature children of wrath, guilty of death and eternal damnation, and they take hold of what is only weakness and beggary, by which they seek to become strong and rich. Therefore, every man who falls away from the promise to the law, from faith to works, does nothing but, being weak and meager, lays upon himself an unbearable yoke, Acts 15:10. 15:10, from whose burden he becomes ten times weaker and more meager, until he finally despairs, unless Christ comes and delivers him. The same is testified by the gospel of the woman who had been in the throes of hemorrhage for twelve years, and had suffered much at the hands of many physicians, and had consumed all she had, and yet nothing helped her, but the longer she was cured, the worse she became etc. [Therefore, all who do the works of the law with the intention of becoming righteous are not only not righteous, but twofold unrighteous, that is, as I said, they become weaker and more unskilled in every good work through the law etc.
I have experienced this myself and in many others. In the papacy I have seen many monks who with the most ardent zeal did many and great works to attain righteousness and blessedness, and yet no one was more impatient than they, no one weaker, more miserable, no one more faithless, more fearful and more in despair. The people in secular authority, with the greatest and most
They were not so impatient and so womanishly impotent, they were not so superstitious, unbelieving, fearful etc. as such work saints.
Therefore, anyone who seeks righteousness through the law does nothing but accustom himself, through repeated actions, to insist on his first intention, namely, that the angry and terrifying God must be reconciled through works. In this preconceived opinion, he begins to do works. But he can never find so many works as to satisfy his conscience, but desires more and more of them; indeed, even in those he has done he finds sins. Therefore, his conscience can never be made certain, but must necessarily always be in doubt, thinking: You did not say mass properly, you did not pray properly, you omitted something, you committed this or that sin. Then the heart trembles and finds itself always laden with many cargos full of sins, which increase without end, so that he falls further and further away from righteousness, until finally despair becomes a permanent condition (habitum) with him.
For this reason, many have uttered such lamentable words in despair in their death throes: I wretched man, I have not kept my order; where shall I go before the face of the angry judge of Christ? Would God that I had been a swineherd or the least of all men on earth. Thus, a monk at the end of his life is weaker, more meager, more faithless and more fearful than in the beginning when he accepted his order. The cause is that he has sought to strengthen himself through weakness and to become rich through poverty. The law, or human statutes, or the rule of his order should have made him, who was sick and poor, healthy and rich, but he has become weaker and poorer than publicans and harlots. For these have not that unfortunate habitual inclination (xxxx) to works, on which they rely, as a monk does, but, however much they may feel their sins, they can say with the publican [Luc. 18, 13.], "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"
On the other hand, a monk who works with the weak
The one who has constantly dealt with the poor and meager statutes has acquired this way of thinking (habitum): If you keep your rule, you will be blessed etc. Through this false conviction he has become so nonsensical and so caught up in it that he cannot grasp grace before it, indeed, he cannot even think of grace. Therefore, neither his past nor his present works, however many and great they may be, are enough for him, but he always looks out and searches for others and others with which he strives to appease the wrath of God and to justify himself, until he finally has to despair. Therefore, he who falls from faith and pursues the law, like the dog in the fable of Aesop, 1) loses the flesh and seeks after the shadow.
Therefore, it is impossible for people who want to establish counsel for their happiness through the law (as we all are by nature) to ever become calm (in their consciences, indeed, they do nothing but heap laws upon laws, with which they torture themselves and others and weigh down the consciences so miserably that very many die before time from excessive grief of the soul. For one law always draws ten others after it, until they finally grow to infinity. This is sufficiently testified by the innumerable collections (summae) (especially the diabolical one, to which they have given the title "the angelic" 2)), which have brought together and interpreted such laws.
In short, he who undertakes to become righteous by the law subjects himself to what he can never accomplish. Here may be drawn what, I see, the fathers also did, namely, the sayings of learned and wise men about futile toil, as, rolling a stone, drawing water with a sieve etc., and I believe that by such poems and parables the fathers wished to remind their disciples of the difference between the law and the gospel, so that they might show them that those who have fallen from grace, though they labor and are weary with constant and very arduous toil, are toiling in vain.
1) Phaedrus, lib. I, fab. IV.
2) For the summa angelica, see our edition, Vol. XIX, 97.
make. That is why it is said of such people that they roll a stone, that is, they toil in vain, as the poets write of Sisyphus in the fable that as often as he rolled a boulder to the top of a mountain in the underworld, the same boulder rolled back again and again; Likewise, to draw water with a sieve, that is, to toil with inexhaustible and useless labor, as the poets write that the daughters of Danaus in the underworld must pour water into a holed barrel with perforated ladles etc.
170. And I wish that you students of theology would collect more such parables, so that you might better remember the difference between the Law and the Gospel, [for example] that if one wants to be justified by the Law, this is just as much as if one wants to count money out of an empty box, eat out of an empty bowl and drink out of an empty pitcher, to seek strength and wealth where there is only weakness and poverty, to make a heavy burden even heavier for one who sighs and succumbs under it, to want to pay a hundred gold florins and not even have one lighter, to strip a naked man of his garment, 3) to oppress a sick and needy man with greater weakness and lack etc.
Who could have ever believed that the Galatians, who had learned the pure and certain truth from such a great apostle as their teacher, could so soon have been turned away from it and completely perverted by the false apostles? For it is not for nothing that I so often point out that it is very easy to fall away from the truth of the Gospel. The reason for this is that even godly people do not sufficiently consider how precious and necessary the right knowledge of Christ is. Therefore, they do not strive with such great care and diligence to attain and retain it surely and firmly.
The greater part of those who hear the Word are not exercised by the cross; they do not struggle with sin, death and the devil, but live securely without all strife. Because such people are not exercised by God's Word
3) nudo vestem exuere is missing in the Wittenberg.
If they are fortified against the cunning attempts of the devil, they are not exercised and proved by temptations, therefore they never experience the custom and the power of the word. Indeed, as long as godly teachers are with them, they repeat them, and are certainly convinced that they have the best grasp of the matter of justification. But as soon as they are gone, and wolves in sheep's clothing come, they are like the Galatians, that is, they are soon and easily seduced and turn back to the weak and meager statutes.
Now Paul has his own peculiar way of speaking, which the other apostles did not use. For none of them calls the law by such names, namely, that it is a weak and meager element, that is, more than useless for the attainment of righteousness, than Paul alone. Nor would I dare to call the law so, but would think that this would be the highest blasphemy, if Paul had not done it before. But I have spoken about this in more detail above, when the law is weak and meager, likewise when it is exceedingly strong and rich etc.
If the law of God is weak and not useful for justification, much more are the laws of the pope weak and not useful for justification; not that I condemn and condemn all his laws in general, but I say that very many are useful for outward discipline, so that everything in the church is done properly, and division and enmity do not arise, just as the imperial laws are useful to govern the countries well, etc.
The pope is not satisfied with this praise and use of his laws, but demands that we believe that by keeping them we will be justified and attain salvation. We say no to this, and with the same confidence and certainty as Paul against the law of God, we pass this judgment against the decrees, statutes and laws of the pope, that they are not only weak, meager statutes and of no use for righteousness, but statutes worthy of condemnation, cursed and devilish, because they blaspheme grace, pervert the gospel, deny faith, and take away Christ etc. Therefore, insofar as the pope requires that they be condemned
He is the Antichrist and the governor of Satan, and all those who follow him and confirm his abominations and blasphemies, or think that they want to earn forgiveness of sins through them, are servants of the Antichrist and the devil.
But the whole papal church has taught and held it for many centuries as necessary for salvation. Therefore, the pope sits in the temple of God, pretends to be God, but is an offender against God, and exalts himself above all that is called God or worship, etc., 2 Thess. 2, 4. and the consciences have feared the laws and ordinances of the pope more and held them in higher honor than the word and ordinances of God. And therefore he has become the Lord of heaven, earth and hell, and has worn the triple crown; therefore the cardinals and bishops, his creatures, have become kings and princes of the world; and therefore, if he did not weigh down the consciences with his laws, he would not keep this terrible power, dignity, wealth etc. for long, but his whole empire would fall immediately.
This doctrine, which Paul treats, is a very important one, therefore it must be noted that those who fall away from grace back to the law completely lose all knowledge of the truth, do not see their sin, know neither God, nor themselves, nor the devil, and even do not understand the law in its power and use, even though they boast of observing it to the highest degree. For without knowledge of grace, that is, of the gospel of Christ, it is impossible for a man to understand that the law is a weak and meager element, which is of no use for righteousness, but he judges of the law just the opposite, namely, that it is not only necessary for salvation, but that it also makes the weak and meager strong and rich, that is, that those who do it deserve righteousness and eternal salvation.
178. if this delusion endures, the promise of God is denied, Christ is taken away etc., it becomes the lie, the God-.
The pope with all the bishops, high schools and his whole synagogue taught that his laws were necessary for righteousness. The pope with all the bishops, high schools and his whole synagogue taught that his laws were necessary for righteousness. Therefore he has been a teacher of weak and meager statutes, by which he has made the church of Christ exceedingly weak and poor throughout the earth, that is, he has burdened it with his ungodly laws and made it utterly miserable, while Christ has been obscured and his gospel buried and buried. Therefore, if you want to keep the laws of the pope without violating the conscience, keep it without the delusion of obtaining righteousness through it, for it is given through Christ alone.
Whom you want to serve anew.
He adds this to show that he is speaking of the arrogant and presumptuous hypocrites who seek to be justified by the law, as I have often indicated above. Otherwise he calls the law holy, good etc., as 1 Tim. 1, 8: "We know that the law is good, if anyone uses it rightly," namely, worldly, to keep the wicked in check, theologically, to increase sins. But he who uses the law to attain righteousness before God does not know what he is saying or what he is doing, and makes the good law harmful and damning to himself.
180 He therefore punishes the Galatians for wanting to serve the law anew, which does not free them from sin, but only increases it. For if a sinner, weak and meager in himself, seeks to be justified by the law, he finds nothing in it but weakness and meagerness. For two sick and beggars come together, one of whom only burdens the other more, but does not help.
We, who are strong in Christ, desire to serve the law, not the weak and scanty law, but the strong and abundant law, that is, in so far as it is effective, having dominion over the body etc. For then we serve the law only with the body and members, not with the conscience.
But the pope demands that we serve his laws with this opinion: If you do, you are righteous, if not.
then you are damned. There the law is more than a weak and meager element etc., because as long as this bondage of the conscience under the law lasts, it can be nothing but pure weakness and meagerness. That is why all the emphasis is on the word "serve". Paul is therefore saying that the conscience should not serve as a prisoner under the law, but should be free and the mistress of the law. For through Christ it has died to the law, and the law has died to it, which is spoken of in more detail in the second chapter above.
V. 10. You keep days and moons, and feasts and seasons.
With these words he clearly shows what the false apostles taught, namely, that one must keep days and months, feasts and seasons. Almost all teachers have interpreted this passage from the astrological days of the Chaldeans, that the pagans observed certain days, months etc. in their undertakings, in the expectation of events in their lives and in their business, and that the Galatians, at the instigation of the false apostles, had done the same. And Augustine, followed by the later ones, interpreted these words of Paul also from this pagan custom (ritu), although he interprets it later also from the days, months etc. of the Jews. About this in the decrees etc. is a confused talk (disputatio).
184 But Paul instructs the conscience, therefore he does not speak of the pagan custom of choosing days etc. which concerns only the body, but he speaks of the law of God and of the observance of days, months etc. according to the law of Moses, that is, of worship (religiosis) days, months and times, which the Galatians kept according to the instruction of the false apostles, in order to become righteous. For in Moshi's writings the Jews had been commanded that they should conscientiously keep the day of Sahbath and the new moons, the months, the first and the seventh, three appointed times or feasts, namely the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles, the year of Jubilee and Jubilee. These habits (rite) they also kept, forced by the false apostles, as
necessary to righteousness. Hence he says that they have lost grace and Christian liberty, and have returned to the bondage of weak and meager statutes. For they had been persuaded by the false apostles that these laws must necessarily be kept, and if one kept them, they would make one righteous; if one did not keep them, one would be damned.
In contrast, Paul in no way allows consciences to be bound by the Mosaic law, but makes them free from the law everywhere. "Behold, I Paul say unto you," he says below Cap. 5, 2, "where ye are circumcised, Christ is of no profit unto you," and Col. 2, 16: "Let no man therefore make you conscience about meat, or about drink, or about certain feasts, or new moons, or sabbaths. "etc. So also Christ says [Luc. 17, 20.]: "The kingdom of God does not come through the outward keeping of the law" (cum observatione legis) 1) Much less should the consciences be burdened and entangled with human statutes.
Here someone might say, "If the Galatians sinned by keeping days and feasts, why is it not sin for you to do the same?
187 I answer: We keep Sunday, Christmas Day, Easter and similar feasts quite free, we do not trouble the consciences with these outward customs (ritibus), nor do we teach, as the false apostles and the papists did, that they are necessary for righteousness, or that by them we can do enough for sins, but [keep them,so that everything in the church may proceed in an orderly manner and without unrest, and that the outward unity (for in the spirit we have a different unity) may not be torn apart, as once happened when the Roman pope Victor put all the congregations in Asia under ban for no other reason than because they celebrated Easter at a different time than the Roman church was accustomed to do. Irenaeus punished Victor for this, as it was certainly reprehensible. For it was utter foolishness to hand over the churches of the East to the devil because of such a trivial matter. Therefore
1) In the Vulgate: cum observatione, with omission of.
the right knowledge of keeping days and times was rarely found, even among the greatest men. Jerome did not have it, and even Augustine would not have understood it properly if he had not been plagued by the Pelagians and practiced by them.
But especially do we keep such feasts, that the ministry of preaching may flourish, that the people may come together on certain days and at certain times to hear the word, that they may learn to know God, use the sacrament, pray publicly for all kinds of need, likewise, give thanks to God for His spiritual and bodily benefits; and I believe that it was primarily for this reason that the keeping of Sunday, Easter, Pentecost etc. was instituted by the Fathers.
V. 11. I fear you, lest perhaps I have labored with you in vain.
With these words, he indicates that the apostasy of the Galatians has gone very much to his heart and that he would have liked to scold them more severely, but he fears that by punishing them too harshly he would not improve them, but only irritate them more and alienate them completely. Therefore he changes and softens the words while writing, and now speaks as if he almost alone had the damage, saying: "I fear for you that I have not perhaps labored in vain with you," that is, "It grieves me that I have preached the gospel with such great diligence and faithfulness among you, and yet it has gone without fruit.
(190) Yet, although he treats them with the utmost gentleness and true fatherly care, at the same time he scolds them rather harshly, but in a hidden way. For since he says that he labored in vain, that is, that he preached the gospel to them without fruit, he secretly indicates that they were either obstinately unbelieving or that they had fallen away from the doctrine of faith. Both the unbelievers and the apostates are still sinners, ungodly, unrighteous and condemned. Therefore, such people are also obedient to the law in vain, keeping the days, moons etc. in vain.
191. and in these words: "I fear yours, that I have not perhaps worked on you in vain", is a kind of secret spell.
contain. For the apostle implies that the Galatians are thereby separated from Christ and excluded if they do not return to the right doctrine. But he does not pronounce this judgment publicly. For he believed that he would not achieve anything by punishing them more severely. That is why he changes his spelling and speaks to them in a very kind way:
V. 12. Be like me, for I am like you.
This passage is not one in which Paul teaches (dialecticus), but full of emotions, which must be treated rhetorically. Up to this point, Paul has been teaching, and while teaching, moved by the great impropriety of the matter, he has become very heated against the Galatians, and has scolded them with very harsh words, calling them unintelligent, charmed, people who do not believe the truth, crucifiers of Christ etc. Now that the greater part of the epistle is almost finished, he begins to realize that he has treated them too harshly. Since he is therefore concerned that he might have done more harm than good by his severity, he indicates that this harsh scolding came from a fatherly and truly apostolic spirit, and uses miraculous oratory and overflows with loving and gentle speeches, keeping in mind that if perhaps some (of whom there were undoubtedly many) had been offended by his harsh scolding, he would like to pacify them again by his gentle words.
At the same time he reminds the shepherds and bishops by his example that they should also have a fatherly and motherly heart, not against ravening wolves, but against the wretched, deceived and erring sheep, that they should bear their weakness and fall patiently and treat them with the utmost gentleness. For they cannot be brought back to the right way in any other way; for by scolding them too harshly they are moved to anger, or even to despair, not to repentance.
194 And that I also remind you of this in passing is the essence and fruit of the wholesome doctrine, that when it is well taught and recognized, it unites hearts in the highest harmony. But when people abandon the doctrine of godliness and fall into the trap of error
If they adhere to the law, this unity of hearts will be torn apart. Therefore, as soon as you see that brothers or disciples, seduced by spirits, fall away from the article of justification, you will soon find out that they persecute the godly with the most bitter hatred, whom they loved very much before.
We experience this today in our false brothers, the Sacramentarians and Anabaptists, who, when the cause of the Gospel was at stake, listened to us gladly and read our writings eagerly, recognized the gift of the Holy Spirit in us and therefore honored us as God's servants. Some of them also lived with us for a while in intimate contact and behaved extremely modestly among us. But after they went out from us and passed away through the swarming spirits, no one is more devoted to our teachings and our name than they are. They also hate the papists, but not as bitterly as us.
196. I often wonder very much where such a raging and frightening hatred could have come into their hearts so suddenly, since they loved us so warmly before, since we did not offend them in the least or give them a reason to persecute us with hatred; Indeed, they must confess that we seek only that Christ's good deeds and glory may be praised, that the truth of the Gospel may be taught purely, which God has revealed anew through us to the ungrateful world in this last time, which should have stirred them rather to love than to hate us. Therefore, I am rightly wondering where this change might come from. But it is no other cause than that they have heard new masters. Infected by their poison, they are so inflamed that they work against us in such an irreconcilable way and are so fiercely bitter against us (ardeant).
And I see that this is the fate of the apostles and all godly ministers of the word, that their disciples and hearers, infected by the godless opinions of the enthusiasts and perverted by them, burn with anger and hatred against their teachers. Very few among the Galatians remained steadfast to Paul's teaching. All the others, who were seduced by the false apostles, no longer recognized Paul as their teacher.
Indeed, nothing was more detestable to them than the name and teaching of Paul, and I fear that through this epistle he has freed very few from their error and brought them to their senses.
If the same were to happen to us, that is, if in our absence our church were to be perverted by the enthusiasts, and we were to write here not just one or two, but many letters, we would achieve little or nothing. Our people, with the exception of a few who are more firmly grounded in doctrine, would behave no differently toward us than those are behaving toward us today who are seduced by the sectarians, who would rather worship the pope than obey our exhortations or approve of our teaching. No one will be able to persuade them that they have lost Christ and now serve again the weak and meager statutes and those who are not gods by nature. They can hear nothing less than that their teachers, by whom they are deceived, are perverters of the gospel of Christ and confounders of consciences and churches. 1) The Lutherans, they say, are not alone wise, do not alone preach Christ, do not alone have the Holy Spirit, the gift of prophecy and the right interpretation of the Scriptures. Our teachers are in no way inferior to them; indeed, in many respects they are superior, for they follow the Spirit and teach spiritual things. On the other hand, those [the Lutherans] have never touched true theology, but cling to the letter, and therefore they teach nothing but the catechism, faith, love etc.
Therefore, as I often say, fo easy a fall is in faith, so dangerous it is also, namely from high heaven down into the deepest abyss of hell. It is not a human fall, like murder, adultery etc., but a diabolical fall. For those who fall in this way cannot be easily restored, but usually persist stubbornly in their error. Therefore they become worse than they were before, as Christ testifies when he says (Luc. 11, 24. ff.): "When the unclean spirit comes out of his crowd, he will become a devil.
1) et ecclesiarum is missing in the Wittenberg.
is thrown out, when he returns, he does not go into it alone, but he takes seven other spirits with him that are worse than himself, and dwells there etc.
200 Since Paul now realized, as the Holy Spirit told him, that by this severe punishment the hearts of the Galatians, whom he in godly zeal had called unintelligent etc., would be more embittered than improved (especially since he already knew that the false apostles were doing their business among them, who would interpret this punishment coming from a fatherly heart in the worst way, and would cry out: Now Paul, whom some among you praise so much, gives himself to the day fund shows) by what spirit he is driven. When he was present, he wanted to be regarded as your father, but the letters he writes in his absence sufficiently testify that he is a tyrant etc.) Therefore, out of godly emotion and fatherly concern, he is so distressed that he does not know what or how to write to them. For it is very dangerous to put a matter in writing to people when one is not present with them, and they have already begun to hate the writer, and have been persuaded by others that he has no good cause. Therefore, he is very upset and soon after says fV. 20): "I am wrong about you", that is, I do not know what I am doing or how I should deal with you etc.
Be like me, for I am like you.
These words must be understood not from the doctrine, but from the attitude (aüaetibus). Therefore the meaning of these words: "Be like me" is not this: Hold of the doctrine as I do, but: be minded toward me as I am toward you, as if he meant to say: I may have punished you too harshly, but hold this severity against me, do not judge my heart by these words, but receive the words according to the disposition of my heart. Though the words seem harsh and as a sharp rod, yet my heart is mild and fatherly. Therefore, my dear Galatians, receive this punishment of mine with such a heart as I had when I punished you. For the cause required that I should show myself so severe toward you.
Our punishment is also harsh and the writing is violent, but truly the heart is not bitter, not spiteful, not vengeful against the adversaries, but there is a godly sorrow and grief of spirit in us. I do not hate the papists and other erroneous spirits in such a way that I should wish them evil and desire that they come to ruin, but rather I would like them to get back on the right path and become blessed with us.
A disciplinarian punishes his pupil not for his own destruction but for his own good. The rod is sharp, but the chastisement is very necessary for the child, and the heart of the chastiser is kind and sincere. Thus a father chastises his son, not to spoil him, but to make him better. The blows are hard and burdensome for the son, but the father's heart is without deceit and kind, and if he did not love the son, he would not chastise him, but would push him away and despair of his salvation, and would let him perish. But that he chastises him is a sign of the father's affection for the son, and is very useful to the son. So you also, my dear Galatians, should look at my punishment, and then you will not judge that it is severe, but that it is beneficial. Hebr. 12, 11: "All chastening, when it is, seems to us not to be joy, but sorrow; but afterward" etc. Therefore let there be with you the same disposition toward me as I have toward you. I have a kind heart toward you; I require the same of you.
In this way, Paul gives good words to the Galatians and lays great stress on his kindness, so that he may soothe and restore their tempers, which were irritated by his harsh punishment. But he does not retract his words with which he punished them; he does confess that he was harsh and sharp, but necessity, he says, forced me to scold you somewhat harshly. But with this I mitigate my rebuke, that [I tell you that] it was done out of a well-meaning and altogether kind heart. A physician gives a sick person the most bitter potion, not because he wishes the sick person ill, but because he wants to help him in this way. Therefore, if something is given to a sick person
If bitter is given, one must not blame the physician, but the medicine and the disease. You should judge the same of my severe punishment.
Dear brothers, I beg you, you have done me no harm.
205 Does Paul's "asking" mean that he calls the Galatians enchanted, disobedient to the truth, crucifiers of Christ? I would rather call it an abuse. On the other hand, he says it is not an insult, but a plea, and in fact it is like that, as if he wanted to say: It is true that I have scolded you a little too harshly, but only take it in the right way, and then you will find that my scolding is not a scolding but a pleading. Thus, when a father chastises his son, it is just as much as if he said to him, My dear son, I beseech thee, be righteous etc. It may seem to be a chastisement, but if you look at the father's heart, it is the kindest plea.
I did not feel sorry for you.
206 As if he wanted to say: Why should I be angry with you or revile you out of displeasure, since you have done me no harm? - Why then do you say that we are reprobates, apostates from your teaching, unintelligent, enchanted? This testifies sufficiently that we must have harmed you. - Rather, you have not harmed me, but yourselves, and that is why I am so distressed, not for my sake, but for yours. So do not think that my rebuke has come from an angry heart, from hatred or any other sinful impulse (vitio). For I call God to witness that you have done me no harm at all, but on the contrary have shown me many benefits, as follows.
By speaking kindly to the Galatians in this way, he prepares their hearts to bear his fatherly chastisements in a childlike spirit, that is, to season the wormwood and bitter drink with honey and sugar so that it becomes sweet again. In this way parents act kindly with their children: when they have chastised their children well, they give them baked goods,
Cakes, pears, apples etc. and such small gifts by which the children realize that the parents have the greatest goodwill towards them, however severe the chastisement may have been.
V. 13, 14: For ye know that in weakness according to the flesh I preached the gospel unto you the first time. And my trials, which I suffer according to the flesh, ye have not despised nor scorned; but as an angel of God ye receive me, even as Christ Jesus.
Now he explains what kind of benefits he received from the Galatians. The first benefit, he says, which I esteem most highly of all, is this: When I first began to preach the gospel among you, and that in weakness of the flesh and great temptations, my cross did not vex you, but you were so good, kind, favorable, and loving toward me, that not only were you not vexed by this weakness of the flesh, nor by the temptations and dangers with which I was almost overwhelmed, but you treated me with the highest love, and received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
209 This is certainly high praise for the Galatians that they accepted the gospel from such a despised and afflicted man as Paul was. For he preached the gospel among them, while Jews and Gentiles raged and raged against it. For all that was mighty, wise, learned, and spiritual (religiosum) hated, persecuted, ate up Paul, trampled him under foot, and blasphemed him. In all this the Galatians took no offense, but putting what they saw, this weakness, temptations and dangers out of their sight, not only heard the meager, despised, miserable, afflicted Paul, and professed to be his disciples; but also above as an angel of God, yea, as Christ JEsum they received him and heard him. This is a glorious praise and virtue of the Galatians, and of course he never gave such great praise to any of those to whom he wrote as here to the Galatians.
210. Jerome and certain other fathers
from the number of the ancients say that the weakness of the flesh in Paulo was a bodily disease or a challenge to pleasure. These good fathers lived at a time when the church was doing well, without cross and persecution. For the bishops had already begun to grow and increase in wealth, esteem and honor among the race, and most also exercised tyranny over the people over whom they presided, as church history testifies. Few of them directed their office, and those who wanted to be respected for it, as if they did, left the teaching of the Gospel pending, and presented their decrees to the people. But if the pastors and bishops lack the knowledge, the practice and the right handling of the pure word, they must become secure, for they are not exercised by temptations, crosses and persecutions, which are quite certain to follow the pure preaching of the word. Therefore, it was not possible for them to understand Paul.
211. But we have, by the grace of God, the pure doctrine, which we also freely confess. Therefore, we must also suffer the most furious hatred and persecutions of the devil and the world, and if we were not plagued with violence and cunning by tyrants and heretics, and in our hearts by the fiery darts of Satan, Paul would be as obscure and unknown to us as he was to the whole world in earlier centuries and still is to our adversaries, the papists and fanatics. Therefore, the gift of prophecy and our study, together with the inward and outward temptations, open to us the mind of Paul and all Scripture.
Now Paul does not call "weakness according to the flesh" a disease or the air of well-being, but sufferings or afflictions that he had to endure in his body, so that the contrast is against the power or strength of the Spirit. But lest we seem to do violence to Paul's words, let us hear him for ourselves. In the second letter to the Corinthians, Cap. 12, 9. 10., he says: "I will most gladly boast of my weakness, that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore I am of good courage in weakness, in trouble, in distress, in persecution, in anguish for Christ's sake. For when I am weak.
I am strong." And Cap. 11, 23-25: "I have worked more, I have suffered more blows, I have been imprisoned more often, I have often been in mortal peril. From the Jews I have received five times forty strokes less one. I have been beaten three times, stoned once, shipwrecked three times" etc. These sufferings that he had to endure in his body, he calls weakness according to the flesh, not a bodily malaise, as if to say: When I preached the gospel among you, I was overwhelmed with various plagues and afflictions, threatened on every side with persecutions and dangers from Jews, Gentiles, and false brethren etc. I suffered hunger and lack of all things, I was a curse of the world and a fegopfer of all people. He mentions this weakness of his everywhere, as 1 Cor. 4. 2 Cor. 4. 6. 11. 12. and elsewhere.
It is therefore quite clear that Paul refers to "weakness according to the flesh" as the afflictions which he suffered according to the flesh, and which he had in common with the other apostles, prophets and all the godly; but in the spirit he was strong. For the power of Christ dwelt in him, which always reigned and triumphed through him, as he testifies in 2 Cor. 12:10, "When I am weak, then am I strong"; likewise, v. 9, "I will most gladly boast of my weakness, that the power of Christ may dwell with me"; and Cap. 2, 14: "Thanks be to God, who always gives us victory in Christ," as if to say: "The devil rages against us in a cruel way, the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles rage against us, yet we stand firm and unconquered against their attempts, and our doctrine breaks through and triumphs, whether they want it or not. This was the power and strength of the Spirit in Paul, which he contrasts here with his weakness and bondage according to the flesh.
But this weakness according to the flesh in the godly is very annoying to reason. Therefore Paul rightly praises the Galatians so highly that they did not take offense at this extremely annoying weakness and the contemptible figure of the cross, which they saw in him, but received him as an angel, yes, as Christ. And Christ himself fortifies his own against
this lowly figure of the cross, in which he himself appeared, saying [Matt. 11:6.], "And blessed is he that taketh not offense at me." And it is certainly something great that those who believe in Him acknowledge Him as the Lord over all things and the Savior of the world, of whom they hear that He is the most wretched, the most unworthy (novissimum) among all men [Isa. 53, 3.], a mockery of the people and contempt of the people [Ps. 22, 7.], in short, hated by all, yes, condemned to death on the cross, and that by his own people and especially by those who were the best, wisest, holiest people etc. It is a great thing, I say, that one should not be moved by these tremendous aversions, and should not despise all this alone, but should esteem this scourged, scourged and most shamefully crucified Christ more highly than the treasures of all the rich, than the power of all the mighty, than the wisdom of all teachers, than the crowns of all kings, than the worship of all the saints. Therefore, Christ rightly calls blessed those who do not take offense at him.
Now Paul had not only the outward temptations, of which we have already said, but also inward and spiritual ones, like Christ in the garden, when there was the stake in the flesh and Satan's angel beating him with fists, about which he complains 2 Cor. 12:7. He who is afflicted with these spiritual temptations cannot possibly be afflicted with [temptation to] unchastity. I mention this in passing because the papists, seeing that the Latin translation had stimulus carnis, interpreted this "sting" to have been a temptation (motus) to unchastity. But in the Greek there is σχόΛο^, which means a stake or a very sharply pointed rod (sudem). So this has been a spiritual challenge. This is not contradicted by the fact that he adds the word "flesh," since he says, "A stake is given to me in the flesh." Yes, intentionally he calls it a stake in the flesh, because the Galatians and others with whom Paul had dealt had often seen him suffering from great sadness, trembling, terrified, and tormented by inexpressible pain and sorrow (moestitia).
216 Therefore the apostles had not only bodily but also spiritual temptations, which he also expresses in 2 Cor. 7, 5. with these words: "Inward fear, outward strife." And Lucas in the Acts of the Apostles in the last chapter [27, 15.] says that Paul, after he had long been tossed about in the storms of the sea, so that he fell into great sadness of spirit, was refreshed again and gained a confidence, seeing that the brethren of Rome met him as far as Appifer and Tretabern; 2) likewise Phil. 2, 27. Paul confesses that God had mercy on him, because he made Epaphroditus, who was sick and already close to death, well again, so that he [Paul] would not have one sadness over the other. Therefore, the apostles suffered spiritual afflictions in addition to the outward physical afflictions.
But why does Paul say that he was not despised by the Galatians? Certainly they despised him, because they had fallen away from his gospel. Paul explains himself. He says: "When I first preached the gospel to you, you did not do as most other people did, who, angered by this weakness and temptation of mine according to the flesh, despised and rejected me. For human reason is easily angered by the smallness of the cross, and considers those nonsensical who want to comfort others, help others and advise others, likewise, who boast of great treasures, of righteousness, of strength, of victory over sin, death and all evil, of joy, of blessedness and eternal life, and yet are themselves meager, weak, sad and despised, are treated most shamefully and killed as the most harmful pestilence for the state and the service of God, and that not by the rabble, but by the nobles who have the administration of state and church; and these think that they are doing God a service by it [Joh. 16, 2.].
Therefore, since they promise eternal goods to others and themselves perish so miserably before the world, they are ridiculed and must hear: "Physician, help yourself" [Luc. 4:23].
1) spostoN is missing in the Jena and Erlanger.
2) Latin: Appii forum et Tres tabernas, four
Miles from Rome.
Therefore these laments are everywhere in the Psalms [Ps. 22, 7.]: "I am a worm and no man" etc. [Ps. 22, 12.): "Do not be far from me, for fear is near; for there is no helper here" etc.
This, then, is a glorious glory and praise for the Galatians, that they did not take offense at this weakness and challenge of Paul, but received him as an angel of God, yes, as Christ Jesus. It is certainly a great and excellent virtue to give ear to an apostle, but it is a greater and truly Christian virtue to hear such a miserable, weak and despised man (as Paul here testifies of himself that he was with the Galatians) and to receive him as an angel from heaven and to give him such honor as if he were Christ Jesus, and not to be vexed at his so great and many tribulations. Therefore, with these words he praises the virtue of the Galatians to the highest degree, of which he says that he will always remember it, and that it is so pleasing to him that he wishes it to be known to all men.
But in the meantime, since he praises their good deeds and praiseworthy behavior so gloriously, he covertly shows how much they loved him before the false apostles came, and at the same time reminds them that they want to follow him as their apostle with the same love and reverence as before. etc. And even from this it can be seen that the false apostles, as far as could be seen, had a greater reputation among the Galatians than Paul. For moved by this, the Galatians preferred them far above Paul, whom they had not only loved very much before, but had also received him as an angel of God etc.
V. 15: How blessed you would have been at that time!
As if he wanted to say: How blessed you were praised, how you were praised and esteemed happy at that time! It is a similar way of speaking in the hymn of Mary [Luc. 1, 48.): "Blessed shall I be praised," that is, happy shall I be esteemed "by all the children's children." And these words, "How blessed you would have been then!" are very emphatic,
as if he wanted to say: You were not only praised in general, but praised in all things and praised to the highest.
In this way, he tries to soften the bitter drink, that is, the severe punishment and others, because he fears that the Galatians would take offense, especially since he knew that the false apostles would slander his words and interpret them maliciously. For this is the virtue and the manner of such vipers, that they suspect the words which have come from a godly and sincere heart, and cunningly and deceitfully turn them to the very opposite opinion than they were spoken. In this they are marvelous masters, far surpassing the gifts (ingenium) and skill of all orators. For they are driven by the spirit of malice (spiritu maligno), which makes them so nonsensical that, inflamed by satanic bitterness against the godly, they must interpret their words and writings maliciously. Therefore they do just like spiders, which suck poison from the most beautiful and best flowers, which is their fault, not the flowers'. That is why he wants to anticipate with his honey and friendly treatment (blanditie), so that the false apostles will not have the opportunity to slander and to pervert his words captiously in this way: Paul treats you unkindly; he calls you unintelligent, bewitched, disobedient to the truth, which is a certain sign that he does not seek your blessedness, but considers you to be people who are condemned and rejected by Christ.
I am your witness that if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.
He praises the Galatians beyond measure. He says: "You have not only treated me with the greatest kindness and reverence, receiving me as an angel of God, etc., but if the circumstances and the need had required it, you would also have plucked out your eyes and given them to me, yes, you would also have risked your life for me. And surely the Galatians would also have risked their lives for him. For since they received Paul and kept him, whom the whole world considered to be the most wicked, accursed, and wicked of all men, they would not have given their lives for him.
As people who accepted and defended Paul, they incurred the displeasure and hatred of all Gentiles and Jews.
Thus, the name of Luther is the most hated in the world today. He who praises me sins more grievously than any idolater, blasphemer, perjurer, fornicator, adulterer, murderer, thief etc. Therefore, the Galatians must have been well grounded in the doctrine and faith of Christ, since they accepted Paul and stood by him, even though he was hated by the whole world, and thus exposed themselves to great danger. Otherwise they would not have incurred the hatred of all men etc.
V. 16. Have I then become your enemy, to reproach you with the truth?
Here he shows the reason why he gives the Galatians such good words. For he assumes that they consider him to be their enemy because he has punished them so severely. I beg you, he says, separate my punitive words (convicia) from my teaching, and you will find that I did not go about heaping reproaches on you, but teaching you the truth. I confess that my epistle is sharp, but the purpose of this sharpness is to bring you back to the truth of the gospel, from which you have been led astray, and to keep you in it. Therefore, do not take this sharpness and bitter drink to your persons, but assume that it is directed against the disease, and do not consider me your enemy because I have scolded you a little harshly, but your father. For if I did not love you very much as my children, and if I knew that I had been very dear to you, I would not have scolded you so harshly.
226 It behooves a friend to admonish his friend freely when he acts wrongly in something; and he who is admonished when he is otherwise sensible does not resent the other for admonishing him kindly and telling him the truth, but is and proves grateful. In the world it is quite common to be hated for telling the truth, and he is considered an enemy who does not know the truth.
truth. This does not happen among friends, much less among Christians.
227 Since I have punished you out of pure love to keep you in the truth, you must not be angry with me, nor forsake the truth for the sake of my fatherly punishment, nor suspect that I am your enemy etc. All this Paul says to confirm the word: "Be ye even as I am; ye have done me no hurt" etc.
V. 17. They are not jealous of you.
Here Paul attacks the flattering nature of the false apostles. For with wonderful art and cunning Satan uses his servants to deceive the simple, as Paul says Rom. 16, 18, by sweet speeches and glorious promises. First, they swear by all that is holy that they seek nothing else than to promote the glory of God; likewise, that they are driven by the Spirit, because they see that the poor people are neglected, or at least not properly taught by others in word, to teach the very certain truth, so that the elect may in this way be freed from error and come to the true light and knowledge of the truth. Then they promise blessedness to those who accept their teaching etc. Through this pretense of godliness and the sheep's clothing, the ravening wolves do great harm to the congregations, unless vigilant and faithful shepherds resist them.
229. Paul uses here the figure of speech of anticipation (occupatione) [of the objections of the opponent). For the Galatians could have said: Why do you attack our teachers in such a way that they seek to draw us to themselves (nos ambiunt), since they do this out of a godly zeal and out of pure love? surely you should not be angry at this etc. On the other hand, Paul says: They seek to win you to themselves, but not in good opinion (bene).
230 So nowadays we have to hear from the Sacramentarians that we separate the love and unity of the churches by our stubbornness, by rejecting their doctrine of the Lord's Supper. They say that it would be better for us to be a little lenient (especially since there is no danger here), rather than to fight for
for the sake of this single article, which, moreover, would not be a main article, caused such great discord and strife in the church, especially because they did not differ from us in any other article of Christian doctrine than in this alone of the Lord's Supper. To this I reply: Cursed be love and concord, because of which God's word is given (periclitatur) to preserve them.
Thus the false apostles pretended that they loved the Galatians very much and cared for them with a certain godly jealousy. But the zeal is actually an enraged love, or, that I say so, a godly friction. In the first book of Kings, Cap. 19, 14, Elijah says: "I have been jealous for the Lord" etc. In this way a husband is jealous for his wife, a father for his son, a brother for another, that is, he loves him very much, but in such a way that he hates the faults in him and seeks to correct them. The false apostles also feigned such zeal against the Galatians.
232 Paul admits that they have an excessive love for the Galatians, that they are zealous and concerned about them, but not in good faith. And by this pretense and pretense the simple are deceived that these deceivers pretend a burning love and concern for others. So here Paul reminds us to make a distinction between a good zeal and an evil zeal. A good zeal is certainly praiseworthy, but not in the same way an evil one. I, says Paul, am as zealous for you as they are. Now judge which zeal is better, mine or theirs, which of the two is good and godly, which is evil and carnal. Therefore, let not their zeal move you so easily, for:
They want to make you disparaged by me, that you should be jealous for them.
233 As if to say: They are burning with too much zeal and love for you, but by this they seek that you in turn should be jealous for them and become disgusted with me. If their zeal were godly and sincere, they would certainly suffer us to be loved by you at the same time as them. But they hate our doctrine, therefore they desire that the same be destroyed among you in every way, and that their doctrine be spread among you, and for the sake of
To accomplish this the more conveniently, they endeavor to alienate you from us by this zeal and to make you hostile, so that you may hate us at the same time as our doctrine and direct your zeal and endeavor toward them and love them alone and receive their doctrine. Thus he makes the Galatians suspect the false apostles, precisely by saying that they are pursuing them under the most beautiful pretense and deceiving them. Thus Christ warns us by saying [Matth. 7, 15.]: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing" etc.
234 Paul suffered the same challenge that we suffer today. This disorderly nature (indignitas) hurt him very much, that he had to see that his exceedingly good teaching was followed by so many mobs, so many rebellions, disruption in the world order, change of the kingdoms etc., from which innumerable troubles and annoyances arise. He is accused by the Jews in the Acts of the Apostles [Cap. 24. 5.), that he is a harmful man, who causes turmoil for his people on the whole earth, and that he is a prominent one of the sect of the Nazarenes, as if they wanted to say: He is a rebellious and blasphemous man, who preaches such things, by which he not only reverses the Jewish state, which is best ordered by divine laws, but also abolishes and tears apart even the holy ten commandments, religion, worship and our priesthood, and he spreads in the world the gospel (as he calls it), from which innumerable evils have arisen, riots, agitations and sects. He has to hear the same from the Gentiles who are crying out in the city of Philippi [Apost. 16, 20. f.] that he is misleading their city and proclaiming a way that is not appropriate for them to accept etc.
(235) Such disruptions in the world order and other calamities, famine, wars, discord and sectarianism, were then imposed by Jews and Gentiles on the teaching of Paul and the other apostles, and therefore they persecuted them as detrimental to peace and religion. But because of this, the apostles did not abandon their ministry, but carried it out courageously (strenue), preaching and confessing Christ. For they knew that one must obey God more than men.
Apost 5:29], and that it is better for the whole world to be broken up and thrown into a heap than for Christ not to be preached or for even one soul to be neglected and lost.
In the meantime, however, the apostles must have been extremely grieved by these astonishments, for they were not of iron. They were very concerned that the people, for whose sake Paul wanted to be banished from Christ, should go to their doom with all their adornment. They saw that great unrest and changes in all kingdoms would follow this teaching of theirs, and what was more bitter to them than death, especially to Paul, they saw that countless sects would arise during their lifetime. It was sad news for Paul when he heard that the Corinthians were denying to keep quiet about other things, that the dead were rising again, when he heard that the churches prepared by his ministry were being disrupted, that the gospel was being perverted by false apostles, that all of Asia and some great men were falling away from him.
237 But he knew that his teaching was not the cause of these aversions and sects. Therefore, he did not lose heart, did not run away from his profession, but continued, knowing that the gospel he preached was the power of God to save all who believe in it [Rom. 1:16], even though it was considered a foolish and annoying doctrine by pagans and Jews. For he knew that those were blessed who did not take offense at this word of the cross, whether they were teachers or hearers, as Christ also says [Matt. 11:6], "Blessed is he who does not take offense at me." Again, he knew that those who judged this teaching to be foolish and heretical were damned. Therefore, trusting in his certainty of faith, he said with
Christ against the Jews and Gentiles enraged by his teaching [Matth. 15, 14.]: "Let them go, they are blind guides for the blind."
238 The same thing that once Paul and the other apostles have to hear, we also have to hear today, that the teaching of the gospel, which we confess, is the cause of many evils, as riots, wars, sects and innumerable troubles,
Yes, all the disorder that now exists is laid upon us. We certainly do not sow heresies and ungodly teachings, but preach the gospel of Christ, who is our high priest and redeemer. Furthermore, our adversaries, if they only want to confess the truth, must concede to us that through our teaching we have not given rise to uprisings, riots, wars, etc., but that we have taught that the authorities are to be served conscientiously for the sake of God's commandment and that they are to be held in all honor. Nor are we the cause of trouble, but the trouble of the wicked is not our fault, but theirs. We have the commandment of God that we should preach the doctrine of the gospel without regard to whether people are angry. Because the same condemns the ungodly doctrine and idolatry of the adversaries, they become irritated and produce from themselves arousal, which in the schools was called "accepted arousal" (scandala accepta), of which they said that one should not beware nor could beware.
239. Christ taught the gospel and did not mind that the Jews were angry. "Let them go," he said, "they are blind. "etc. The more the chief priests forbade the apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus, the more they testified that this Jesus, whom they had crucified, was the Lord and the Christ, and that all who called on him would be saved, and that no other name under heaven had been given to men so that they could be saved etc. [Acts 4:12.]
240. In the same confidence we preach Christ today and do not turn to the cries of the godless papists and all our adversaries who complain that our doctrine is seditious and blasphemous because it endangers the existence of the commonwealth, overturns religion, sows heresies, and is, in short, a cause of all evil. When Christ and the apostles preached, the same cry was raised against them by the godless Jews. Not long after that the Romans came and took away their land and people, as they themselves had prophesied [John 11:48]. Therefore, the enemies of the gospel today may be
They must see to it that the evil they prophesy for themselves does not come upon them one day.
241. they make these aversions exceedingly great, that the monks and priests take wives, that we eat meat on Friday etc., But that they themselves with their ungodly doctrine daily deceive and corrupt innumerable souls, that they vex the weak with evil examples, that they blaspheme and condemn the gospel of the glory of the great God, that they persecute and kill those who practice the wholesome doctrine, this is no offense to them, but they consider it a service exceedingly pleasing to obedience and to God. Therefore let them go, for they are blind and blind guides. "Let him that is evil be evil continually, and let him that is unclean be unclean continually" [Revelation 22:11.]. But we will speak, because we believe, as long as there is breath in us, and will endure the persecutions of the adversaries until Christ our High Priest and King comes from heaven, which we hope will shortly come to pass, who as a righteous Judge will repay those who disobey fine Gospel, Amen.
242 The godly do not contest these aversions to which the wicked refer. For they know that the devil hates the doctrine of godliness to the utmost and therefore disfigures it with innumerable aversions in order to completely eradicate it on this occasion. In the past, the devil did not rage like this when human statutes were taught in the church. For when the strong-armed man kept his palace, all that he possessed was in peace. But now, when a stronger one comes over him, who overcomes or binds this strong one, and snatches his house from him, he begins to rage and rage to the utmost. And this is the most certain sign that this doctrine which we profess is divine; otherwise the Behemoth would probably sleep and hide under the shadow, hidden in the reed and in the mud, Job 40:16. But now that he goes about like a roaring lion, and rages so much, it is a sign that he feels the power of our doctrine.
243 Since Paul says, "They are jealous for you, but not in a good way," etc. he indicates in passing which are the originators of the sects, namely, the jealous spirits, which at all times have been the
and disturb the public peace. For these, driven by a foolish zeal, dream that they have a peculiar holiness, a more suitable conduct (modestiam), greater patience and higher learning than other people, and therefore they have the confidence that they can help all men to blessedness, that they can teach higher and more wholesome things, establish better services and ceremonies than other teachers, whom they hold in low esteem, exalting their own reputation, and corrupting what those have taught in the right way. Driven by such foolish zeal, the false apostles set up mobs not only in Galatia, but everywhere where Paul and the other apostles preached, which were followed by countless uproars and very great disturbances. For the devil, as Christ says, is a liar and a murderer [Joh. 8, 44], therefore he not only uses his servants to confuse the consciences with false teachings, but also to stir up riots, wars etc.
Germany has a large number of such zealots today, who feign the greatest godliness, modesty, scholarship, patience, and yet in truth are ravening wolves, who intend nothing else with this hypocrisy of theirs than that we be put in the shadows and completely pushed aside, and that the people alone hold them in honor and hear and praise their teachings. Because they admire only themselves and despise other people, it cannot be otherwise than that mobs, quarrels, discord, riots etc. must follow. But what shall we do? We cannot prevent this, any more than Paul could. Yet he won some who obeyed these exhortations of his. So I hope that also through our exhortations some will be brought out of the error of the etc.
V. 18. Zeal is good when it is always for good, and not only when I am present with you.
245 As if to say: I have given you praise because you were most zealous for me and loved me very much, while I preached the gospel among you in weakness of the flesh. With the same love and
You should have attached the same zeal to me even now that I am not with you, as if I had never left you. For even though I am absent in body, you still have my teaching. Since you have received the Holy Spirit through it, you must keep this teaching and think that Paul is always present with you as long as you have his teaching. Therefore, I do not rebuke your zeal but praise it, but I praise it only if it is a divine zeal or a zeal of the Spirit, not a carnal zeal. But the zeal from the spirit is always good, because it zeal for the good, but the carnal zeal does not.
So he praises the Galatians' eagerness to appease their hearts so that they would patiently accept his punishment, as if he wanted to say: Receive my punishment for the best, for it does not come from an evil or angry heart, but from a sorrowful heart anxiously concerned for you.
Here, too, is an example from the art of oratory (rhetoricum exemplum), from which we are to learn that a godly shepherd should be concerned about his sheep and make every effort to keep them in the salvific doctrine and turn them away from the deceivers by means of bells, good words, and supplications. etc.
V.19. My dear children, whom I bear again with fears until Christ takes form in you.
248 This is also an oratorical saying to soothe the minds of the Galatians with sweet and lovely words, which he caresses (δποκορίστικώς) "little children" (filiolos).
calls. All words are chosen to soften hearts and win their goodwill.
The words: "which I give birth to again" are a simile. The apostles (as well as the schoolmasters, but in their own way) stand in the place of the parents. For just as the form of the body comes from them, so they form the form of the soul. But the form of the Christian heart is faith or the confidence of the heart, which grasps Christ and clings to him alone and to no other thing. A heart that has this confidence, that we are righteous for Christ's sake, has the proper character of Christ.
250 This form is prepared by the ministry of preaching, 1 Cor. 4, 15: "I have begotten you through the gospel," that is, in the Spirit, so that you might know Christ and believe in Him; likewise 2 Cor. 3, 3: "You are an epistle of Christ, prepared by our ministry and written by us, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. For the word goes forth from the mouth of the apostle or preacher and comes into the heart of the hearer. There the Holy Spirit is present and impresses the word on the heart so that it agrees with it. In this way, every godly teacher is a father who, through the service of the word, begets and forms the right shape of the Christian heart.
251 Furthermore, with these words: "Which I give birth to again with fears", he also gives a side blow to the false apostles, as if he wanted to say: I have begotten you rightly through the gospel, but those corrupters and transgressors have come and made a new image in your hearts, not of Christ, but of Moses, so that your confidence is no longer in Christ, but in the works of the law. This is not the right form or the form of Christ, but a strange and completely devilish form.
252 And he saith not, I bear you again, till my likeness be formed in you; but, Till Christ be formed in you. That is, I labor so that you may again obtain the likeness and image of Christ, not that of Paul. With these words he again aims at the false apostles. For after the likeness of Christ was blotted out in the hearts of the faithful, they formed a foreign likeness into it, namely, their own. "They desire," he says Cap. 6:13, "that ye should be circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh."
He also speaks of this form of Christ in Col. 3, 10: "Put on the new man, who is being transformed into knowledge in the image of the one who created him. Paul wants to restore the likeness of Christ in the Galatians, which has been distorted and corrupted by the false apostles, which consists in the fact that they hold, think and want the same things that God, whose thought and will is that we should have forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
through Jesus Christ, his Son, whom he sent into the world to be the propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world, so that we might know through him that he is a reconciled and merciful Father. Those who believe this are like GOtte [Gen. 1, 26.], that is, in all things they think of GOtte as he is minded in his heart, for they have the same form in their hearts as GOtte or Christ. This means, as Paul says, to renew oneself in the spirit of one's mind and to put on the new man, who is created after God, Eph. 4, 23. 24.
He says that he will give birth to the Galatians again, but in such a way that the form of the children is not that of the apostle, so that the children do not bear the image of Paul, Cephas 2c, but of another father, namely Christ. This, he says, I will form in you, that in all things you may be minded as Christ himself is minded. In short, I give birth to you, that is, I labor again with anxieties to bring you back to the former faith, which you, deceived by the wiles of the false apostles, have lost, and you have fallen back into law and works. Therefore a new and hard work is now upon me, to bring you back from the law to faith in Christ. This he calls giving birth etc.
V. 20. But I would that I were now with you, and that my voice might walk.
These words are all expressions of the apostle's sorrow. It is commonly said that a letter is a dead message, because it cannot give more than it contains, and no letter is written so precisely that one should not still miss something in it. For there are different circumstances, and the things that matter (momenta) according to time, place, persons, customs and attitudes, are various, so that they cannot be described in any letter, and therefore a letter makes a different impression on the reader; sometimes it makes him sad, sometimes it makes him happy, depending on the reader's mind. But when one acts verbally, what has been spoken too harshly or carelessly can be interpreted, soothed and improved.
256. therefore, Paul desires that he should have many-
He would like to be more present, so that he could moderate his voice and change it, depending on what he saw that the different attitudes of the people (circumstantias affectuum) required, so that if he saw that some people were in too much consternation, he could moderate his speech so that he did not make them too sad, and on the other hand, if he found arrogant people, he could punish them more severely, so that they would not become too sure and finally despisers.
Therefore he does not know how to act as an absentee with absentees by letter, as if he wanted to say: If the letter is a little 1) too harsh, I fear that it will offend some of you more than better ones; if it is too mild, it will do nothing with some harsh and unintelligent people, because the dead letters and syllables only give what they contain. On the other hand, compared to a letter, the living voice is a queen, which can take away and add and direct itself according to every kind and condition of sentiments, times, places and persons. In short, I would like to convert you by letter, that is, to bring you back from the law to the faith in Christ, but I fear that I cannot accomplish this by dead letters. But if I were there in person, I could change my voice, rebuke the hard, speak kindly to the weak, according to all circumstances.
For I am mad about you.
That is, I am so distraught in my mind that I do not know what and how to do with you by letter, since I am absent.
259 Here the right apostolic attitude is described. He does everything he can; he chides, he pleads with the Galatians, he gives them good words, he praises their faith with glorious words, and he acts with the greatest care and fidelity in this matter (that is, using the art of oratory correctly [rhetoricari]) in order to bring them back to the truth of the gospel and to turn them away from the false apostles. The words are not cold, but warm and fiery, therefore they must be carefully considered.
1) Wittenberger; "kanlo" instead of: xanlo.
V. 21. Tell me, you who want to be under the law, have you not heard the law?
Paul wanted to close this letter, because he did not want to write any more, but rather to be there personally and talk to the Galatians. But since he is distressed about this matter in his heart, he still makes use of this figurative speech (allegoria), which perhaps just occurred to him at that time. For by figurative speeches (allegoriis) and parables (parabolis) a great impression is made on the common man. Therefore, Christ also used them frequently. For this is like paintings, which show things to the simple, as it were, before their eyes, and therefore move the hearts very much, especially of ignorant people. So first he brings the matter to the Galatians (ferit aures Galatorum) by words and scripture, then he paints it before their eyes by this very impolite figurative speech.
Paul, however, is a very good master in the art of treating spiritual interpretations (allegorias) correctly, for he tends to refer them to the doctrine of faith, to grace and to Christ, not to the law and works, as Origen and Jerome do. These are rightly censured because they have turned the simplest sayings of Scripture, in which spiritual interpretations do not take place, into inappropriate and unrhymed figurative speeches. Therefore, it is not good to imitate them in the treatment of spiritual interpretation, and in most cases it is even dangerous. For if someone does not have a perfect knowledge of Christian doctrine, he will not deal with spiritual interpretations in a profitable way.
But why does Paul call the first book of Moses, from which he gives the history of Ishmael and Isaac, a law, since this book is not a law, and especially the passage he refers to does not contain a law, but only a simple narration of the history of the two sons of Abraham? According to Jewish custom, Paul used to call the first book of Moses a law, even though it contains no other law than that of circumcision, and teaches primarily faith, testifying that the patriarchs pleased God for the sake of faith. Nevertheless
The Jews called the first book of Moses together with the other books of Moses the law because of this one law of circumcision. The same was done by Paul, who was also a Jew; and Christ understands under the name "law" not only the books of Moses, but also the Psalms, Joh. 15, 25: "But that the saying might be fulfilled which is written in their law, They hate me without a cause." [Ps. 35, 19. Ps. 69, 5.]
V. 22, 23 For it is written, Abraham had two sons; one of the bondwoman, and the other of the free woman. But he that was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh: but he that was of the free woman was born by promise.
263 As if he wanted to say: You forsake grace, faith and Christ, and fall away to the law. You want to be under it and be wise from it, so I want to talk to you about the law. Therefore, I ask you to look at it carefully. You will find that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael by Hagar, Isaac by Sarah. Both were true sons of Abraham; Ishmael was no less a true son of Abraham than Isaac. For both were begotten of the same father, flesh and seed. So what is the difference? The difference is not, says Paul, that the one mother was free, the other a maidservant (although this is useful for the spiritual interpretation), but that Ishmael, who was born of the maidservant, was born according to the flesh, that is, without promise and God's word, but Isaac was born not only of the free, but also through the promise.
How is this? Isaac is born from the seed of Abraham in the same way as Ishmael. I admit that, both are children of the same father, and yet there is a difference. For although Isaac is produced from the flesh, nevertheless the promise and naming by God preceded it. No one would have noticed this difference if Paul had not indicated it. But he has taken it from the text of the first book of Moses in this way: The fact that Hagar conceived and gave birth to Ishmael was not the voice of God or His word, which was not the voice of God.
But with the permission of Sarah, Abraham goes in to the maid Hagar, whom the barren Sarah, as the 1st book of Moses testifies, had given to him as a wife. For Sarah had heard that Abraham, according to God's promise, should have a seed from his womb. She hoped to be the mother of this seed. But since she had waited anxiously for many years after the promise, and saw that the matter was delayed, she thought she had been deceived in her hope. Therefore, the holy woman renounced the honor that was hers from her husband and her right, and entrusted this to another, namely her maid. But she does not allow him to take a wife outside of her house, but gives him her own maid in marriage, so that she would be built up from her. For so the history reports Gen. 16, 1. 2.: "Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him nothing. But she had an Egyptian maid, whose name was Hagar. And she said unto Abram, Behold, the Lord hath shut me up, that I should not be able to bear. Dear, lie with my maidservant, whether I may build myself of her" etc.
It is a great humility that she let herself be brought down like this and bore this challenge to her faith with equanimity. She thought: God is not a liar; what He has promised to my husband, He will surely keep. But perhaps God does not want me to be the mother of this seed. I will not begrudge Hagar this honor; may my Lord come in to her, perhaps I can build myself from her.
266 Ishmael is thus born without the word, only at the request of Sarah herself. For there is no word of God that would give Abraham the command or promise the son, but everything happens by chance. This is also indicated by the words of Sarah, who says, "Whether I may build myself out of her." Since therefore no word of God to Abraham preceded, as it happened when Sarah was to bear Isaac, but only the word of Sarah preceded, it is sufficiently indicated that Ishmael was the son of Abraham only according to the flesh, without the word, and therefore was expected and born by chance, like another child. Paul recognized this and carefully considered it.
Paul strongly emphasizes the same reason for proof, Rom. 9, 6-9, which he repeats here, disguised under the figurative speech, and concludes powerfully that not all of Abraham's children are also God's children. Abraham, he says, has two kinds of children; some are born of his flesh and blood, but with the word or promise of God preceding them, like Isaac; others without promise, like Ishmael. So, he says, the children according to the flesh are not God's children, but the children of the promise etc.
268 And with this evidence he, like Christ Matth. 3, 9. and Joh. 8, 39. f., shut the mouths of the arrogant Jews who boasted that they were the seed and children of Abraham, as if he wanted to say: It does not follow: I am the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, therefore I am God's child; Esau is a natural son, therefore he is the heir. Yes, he says, those who want to be the children of Abraham must, in addition to being born according to the flesh, also be children of the promise and believe; and those who have the promise and believe are the true children of Abraham alone, and consequently also children of God.
Because Ishmael was not promised by God to Abraham, he is a child only according to the flesh, not a child of promise, and therefore he was expected and born by chance, like other children. For no mother knows whether she will have children [or not], or if she feels that she is already with child, she does not know whether it will be a boy or a girl. But Isaac was most certainly named, Gen. 17:19: "Sarah thy wife," saith the angel unto Abraham, "shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac." Here the son and the mother are expressly named. Thus God repays Sarah for her humility in forsaking her right and suffering the contemptuous treatment of Hagar, Gen. 16:4, with this honor that she herself shall be the mother of the promised son etc.
V. 24. The words mean something.
270. the spiritual interpretations (allegoriae) do not provide solid proofs in theology, but decorate and explain a thing.
as it were as a painting. For if Paul had not fortified the righteousness of faith with stronger grounds against the righteousness of works, this spiritual interpretation would be of no avail. But since he has fortified his cause above with the firmest grounds of proof, which are taken from experience, from the example of Abraham, and likewise from the testimonies of Scripture and parables, he now adds a spiritual interpretation as a kind of decoration at the end of the argument. For it is nice, when the foundation has already been laid in a reliable way and the matter has been firmly proven otherwise, that one still adds a spiritual interpretation. For as a painting is an ornament to a house already built, so the spiritual interpretation is a light for a speech or a thing already proved elsewhere.
V. 24. 25. For these are the two testaments, one from Mount Sinai, which is born to bondage, which is Hagar. 1) For Hagar is called Mount Sinai in Arabia.
Abraham is a figure of God; he has two sons, that is, two nations, signified by Ishmael and Isaac. These are born to him by Hagar and Sarah, who signify the two testaments, the old and the new. The old, which gives birth to bondage, is from Mount Sinai, which is Hagar. For the same mountain, which the Jews call Sinai (it seems to have this name from the brambles and thorn bushes), the Arabs call Hagar in their language. This testifies besides Paul also Ptolemy and the short notes (scho- lia) of the Greeks. In the same way also other mountains have other and different names with different peoples. Thus the mountain, which Moses calls Hermon, is called Sirion by the Sidonians, Senir by the Amorites.
272. it agrees however beautifully together that the mountain Sinai according to the language of the Arabs
1) Agar and Hagar is the same name. The difference of the spelling in the Old Testament (Gen. 16, 1. etc.) and here (at least in many Bible editions) is due to the fact that the name is written "XXX" in Hebrew, but in Greek. Also in the Arabic root word (from which Hedschra or Hegira, Muhammed's flight, is derived) H is the initial letter.
has the same name as the maid, and I believe that this similarity of the name brought Paul to it (dedisse lucem) and gave him the cause to look for this spiritual interpretation. Just as Hagar the maid bore Abraham a true son, who nevertheless was not an heir but a servant, so Sinai, who means Hagar (allegorica Agar), bore GOtte a true son, that is, a people according to the flesh. Likewise, as Ishmael was a right son of Abraham, so the people of Israel had the true God for their father; God gave them His law and entrusted His word to them, the religion, the worship, the temple, as the 147th Psalm says [v. 19.]: "He shows Jacob His word" etc.
But there was this difference: Ishmael was born of the maid according to the flesh, that is, without promise, and therefore he could not be heir. In this way, the symbolic Hagar (Agar mystica), that is, Mount Sinai, from which the Law was given and the Old Testament was established, gave birth to a people for God, the great Abraham, but without promise, that is, a carnal and servile people, who are not God's heirs, because the promises are not added to the Law, namely, from the blessing giver Christ, from the deliverance from the curse of the Law, from sin and death; Likewise, that our sins may be forgiven freely by grace, and that we may be given righteousness and eternal life. 18:5), "He that doeth these things shall live thereby."
The promises of the law are therefore conditional, not promising life by grace, but to those who keep the law; therefore they leave consciences in doubt, because no one keeps the law. But the promises of the New Testament have no condition attached, nor do they demand anything of us, nor do they depend on the condition of our worthiness, but bring and give us free forgiveness of sins, grace, righteousness, and eternal life for Christ's sake. This is more widely done by us elsewhere.
275 Therefore, the Law or the Old Testament contains only conditional promises, because it
such a condition is always added to them: "If you will hear my voice", "if you will keep my covenant", "if you will walk in my ways", you shall be my people etc. Not heeding this, the Jews seized upon these conditional promises and made them unconditional (absolutas) and pure promises, which God, they thought, could never revoke but must keep. Therefore, when they heard that the prophets (who could make a proper distinction between the physical promises of the Law and the spiritual ones of Christ and His kingdom) foretold the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, the Temple, the Kingdom and the priesthood, they persecuted and killed them as heretics and blasphemers against God, because they did not see the condition attached: If you will keep my commandments, it shall be well with you etc.
Therefore, the slave Hagar does not give birth to anything but a slave. Therefore Ishmael is not an heir, although he is the natural son of Abraham, but remains a servant. What is lacking? The promise and the blessing of the word. Thus the law given on Mount Sinai, which the Arabs call Hagar, produces only servants, because the promise of Christ was not added to the law. Therefore, O Galatians, if you forsake the promise and faith and fall away to the law and works, you will remain slaves forever, that is, you will never become free from sin and death, but will remain under the curse of the law. For Hagar does not give birth to the seed of promise and heirs, that is, the law does not justify, does not bring the childship and the inheritance, but rather hinders it and causes wrath.
And tarry unto Jerusalem, which is at that time, and be servant with his children.
This is a wonderful spiritual interpretation. As Paul made Hagar out of Sinai above, so now he would have liked to make Sarah out of Jerusalem, but he does not dare to and cannot, but he must connect Jerusalem with Mount Sinai, because he says that it [namely Jerusalem] is the
Hagar, since the mountain Hagar extends up to Jerusalem. And it is certainly true that there is a continuous mountain range from stony Arabia (Arabia petraea) to Kadeshbarnea in Judea. Therefore he says: The Jerusalem which is at this time, that is, the earthly and temporal, is not Sarah, but it belongs to Hagar, because in her the rule of Hagar is exercised. For in her is the law, which gives birth to servitude, in her is the worship, temple, kingdom, priesthood and everything, which is produced on Sinai from the Gefetz as a mother (ordinatum est), which goes to Jerusalem in the swing. Therefore I connect the same with Sinai and understand both under the same word, namely Sinai or Hagar.
I would not have dared to treat this spiritual interpretation in this way, but would rather have said that Jerusalem is Sarah or the New Testament, especially since in this city the preaching of the Gospel began, the Holy Spirit was given, and the people of the New Testament were born, and would have thought that I had made out a very appropriate spiritual interpretation. Therefore, not every art expert can play with spiritual interpretations, because some beautiful appearance easily deceives someone into going astray, so that here none of us would not have thought it very appropriate that Sinai be called Hagar, and Jerusalem Sarah. But Paul makes Jerusalem Sarah, but not this physical one, which he assigns to Hagar, but the spiritual and heavenly one, in which the law does not reign, nor even a carnal people, as in Jerusalem, which is servile with its children, but in which the promise reigns and is a spiritual and free people.
And so that the law and the whole kingdom, which was ordered on Hagar 1) would be completely taken away, the earthly Jerusalem with all its adornment, temple, worship etc. was terribly destroyed under God's permission. But although there the New Testament took its beginning and from there went out into the whole world, it was not possible for the
1) from Hagar - on Mount Sinai.
Nevertheless, it belongs to Hagar, that is, it is a city of law, worship and priesthood established by Moses. In short, it is born of the handmaid Hagar and therefore servile with its children, that is, it walks in works of the law and never comes to the freedom of the spirit, but remains constantly under the law, sin, evil conscience, wrath and judgment of God, under the guilt of death and hell. It has indeed freedom according to the flesh, it has authority, wealth, possession etc., but we are talking about the freedom of the spirit, where we, having died to the law, sin, death, live and reign freely in grace, forgiveness of sins, righteousness and eternal life. The earthly Jerusalem cannot achieve this, therefore it remains with Hagar.
V. 26. But the Jerusalem that is above is the free one, the mother of us all.
280 The earthly Jerusalem, he says, which is below and has a legal government (politiam), is Hagar, and is servant with her children, that is, is not freed from the law, from sin and from death. But the Jerusalem that is above, that is, the spiritual, that is Sarah (yet Paul does not add the proper name [nomine proprio] Sarah, but calls her by a generic name [appellative] "the free one"), that is, the right mistress and the free one and our mother, who gives birth, not to bondage, like Hagar, but to freedom. But it is the heavenly Jerusalem that is above, the Church, that is, the faithful scattered throughout the earth, who have the same Gospel, the same faith in Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and the same Sacraments.
281 Therefore you do not have to understand the word "above", as the sophists do, from the ultimate goal (άναγωγιχως), 2) from the trium
The church in heaven is said to be the church in heaven, but the church on earth is said to be the church on earth. And it is not to be wondered at that it is said of the godly that they have their walk in heaven, as it is said Phil. 3, 20.: "Our walk is in heaven"; not to the place
2) Cf. Tischreden, Cap. 52, § 5 at the beginning. Walch, St.. Louis edition, vol. XXII, 1341.
after, but, inasmuch as a Christian believes, inasmuch as he takes hold of the unspeakable, heavenly, and eternal gifts, inasmuch is he in heaven, Eph. 1:3: "Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things through Christ."
Therefore, the spiritual and heavenly blessing must be distinguished from the earthly blessing, which consists in having a good world and house government, having offspring, peace, goods, food (fruges) and other bodily necessities. But the heavenly blessing is that one may become free from the law, from sin and death, become righteous and alive, have a reconciled God, have a confident heart, a joyful conscience, spiritual comfort, that one may have the knowledge of Christ, the prophecy and revelation of the Scriptures, that one may have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, rejoice in God etc. These are the spiritual blessings that Christ bestows upon His Church.
283 Therefore, "the Jerusalem that is above," that is, the heavenly Jerusalem, is the church at this time; not that to which it shall eventually come (άναγωγικώς), the fatherland in the
future life or the triumphant church, as the idle and unlearned monks and the scholastic teachers have fooled.
284. They have taught that the Scriptures have four kinds of meaning: The literal, the moral (tropologicum), the allegorical (allegoricum) and the deeper (anagogicum) sense, 1) and according to this they have interpreted almost every word of Scripture in an inconsistent manner; as, Jerusalem in the literal sense meant to them the city of that name, in the moral sense a pure conscience, according to the spiritual interpretation the contending church, according to the deeper sense the heavenly fatherland or the triumphant church. By these tasteless and foolish fables, with which they led and tore apart the Scriptures in so many ways, they made it so that the consciences could not be properly instructed in any matter.
284 But Paul says here that the old and earthly Jerusalem belongs to Hagar and serves with its children and is finished, but the new and heavenly Jerusalem, which is the
1) Cf. Tischreden, Cap. 52, § 8. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 1344, and ibiä. K 5, col. 1541.
Let our Mother, the Lady and the Free One, be appointed by God, not in heaven, but on earth, so that she may be the mother of all of us, from whom we were born and are still being born every day. Therefore, this mother of ours, as well as her offspring, must necessarily be on earth among men. But she gives birth spiritually through the service of the Word and the sacraments, not according to the flesh.
I say this so that we may not be led by our thoughts into heaven, but know that Paul contrasts the Jerusalem which is above with the earthly, not in place (localiter), but in spirit (spiritualiter). For there is a great difference between spiritual and bodily or earthly things; the spiritual are "above," the earthly below. Thus the Jerusalem which is above is distinguished in contrast to the carnal and temporal Jerusalem which is below, not according to place, as I have said, but spiritually. For the spiritual Jerusalem, which had its beginning in the physical Jerusalem, does not have a certain place, like the one in Judea, but is spread over the whole earth and can be in Babylon, in Turkey, in Tartary, in Scythia [Russia], in India, in Italy, in Germany, on the islands of the sea, on mountains and in valleys, and everywhere on earth where there are people who have the gospel and believe in Christ etc.
Therefore, Sarah or Jerusalem, our free mother, is the Church, Christ's bride, from whom we are all born. She gives birth to children without ceasing until the end of the world by carrying out the ministry of the Word, that is, by teaching and propagating the Gospel, for that is to give birth. She teaches the gospel in such a way that we are set free from the curse of the law, from sin, death and all evil, not through the law and works, but through Christ. So the Jerusalem that is above, that is, the Church, is not subject to law and works, but is free and a mother without law, sin and death. Of the same nature as she, the mother, is, so are the children she gives birth to.
This spiritual interpretation therefore teaches very beautifully that the church should do nothing but that.
teach the gospel rightly and purely, and thus give birth to children. Thus we are all fathers and children among ourselves, for we are born one of another. I, who am born of others through the gospel, now give birth to others, who then give birth to others, and so this giving birth will continue until the end of the world.
But I speak of birth, not of Hagar, the maidservant, who through the law gives birth to servants, but of Sarah, the free woman, who gives birth to heirs without law, without works and own efforts. For that Isaac, not Ishmael (although both were sons of Abraham in the flesh), is heir, he has by the word of promise, namely [Gen. 17:19, 1: "Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac. "etc. And Sarah understood this very well, and for this reason says [Gen. 21, 10.], "Drive out this maid with her son" etc., and Paul also cites these words afterwards [Gal. 4, 30.]
Therefore, just as Isaac has the inheritance of the Father by promise and birth alone, without law and works, so we are born heirs through the gospel, of Sarah the free, that is, of the Church. For she teaches, nurtures and cares for us, carries us in her womb, in her womb and in her arms, forms and perfects us into the likeness of Christ, until we grow into a perfect man etc. This is how everything happens through the ministry of the Word. Therefore it is the duty (officium) of the free woman to bear children to her husband, God, without ceasing, that is, such children as know that they are justified by faith, not by law.
027 For it is written, Be thou merry, thou barren that bearest not, and break forth, and call, thou that conceivest not: for the lonely woman hath many more children than she that hath the man.
291 Paul quotes this saying from the prophet Isaiah, which is entirely figurative. Thus it is written, he says, that the mother of many children, and she that hath one husband, shall decrease and perish; but she that is barren, and she that beareth not, shall have many children. In the same way
Hanna also sings [1 Sam. 2, 4. f.] in her song of praise, from which Isaiah took this prophecy: "The bow of the strong is broken, and the weak are girded with strength. They that were full were sold for bread, and they that famished hungered no more: until the barren woman bare seven, and she that had many children was diminished. "etc. It is a wonderful thing, he says, she who was fruitful will be barren, and she who was barren will be fruitful. Likewise, they that were strong, full, living, righteous, blessed, rich, and glorious, shall be weak, scanty, subject to death, sinners, damned, poor, and without glory; and again, the weak and hungry etc. shall be strong and full etc.
By this figurative speech of the prophet Isaiah, Paul shows the difference between Hagar and Sarah, that is, between the synagogue and the church, or between the Law and the Gospel. The law, the man of the fruitful, that is, the synagogue, begets very many children. For men at all times, not only the ignorant, but also all the exceedingly wise and the best of men (that is, the whole human race with the exception of the children of the free) do not see or recognize any other righteousness, much less a more excellent one, than that of the law (but I understand by the name "law" all laws, human and divine). Therefore, when they follow the law and outwardly do its works, they make themselves believe that they are righteous. Although these are fruitful, have many disciples, and can show much in righteousness and apparent works (floreant), they are not free, but servants, because they are children of Hagar, who gives birth to servitude. But if they are servants, they will not be able to share in the inheritance, but will be cast out of the house, because servants do not remain in the house forever, indeed, they are already cast out of the kingdom of grace and freedom. For he who does not believe is already judged. So they remain under the curse of the law, under sin, death and the power of the devil, under God's wrath and judgment.
But if even the moral law of God, or the holy ten commandments, are only servants
that is, does not justify, but only terrifies, accuses, condemns, and drives the consciences into despair, how, I pray you, could human statutes and the laws of the pope, which are doctrines of the devil, make righteous? Therefore, all those who teach human statutes or the law of God and insist on them as necessary for righteousness before God, do nothing but witness servants etc. And yet such teachers are considered the best, they reap the applause of the world and are very fruitful mothers, for they have disciples without number. Since reason does not understand what faith and true godliness are, it neglects and despises them and naturally takes pleasure in superstition and hypocrisy, that is, in the righteousness of works. Because this shines the most and goes in the swing, she is the most powerful empress on earth. Thus those who teach the righteousness of works from the law beget many children who, though outwardly they appear to be exceedingly free and lean on various kinds of purity, are in conscience bound and servants of sin; therefore they must be cast out of the house and condemned.
On the other hand, the free Sarah, that is, the true church, seems to be unfruitful, because the gospel, which is a word of the cross that the church teaches, does not shine as brightly as the doctrine of the law and of works, and therefore it has few disciples who adhere to it. Then this title is attached to it, that it forbids good works, that it makes idle and sluggish men, that it stirs up heresies and sedition, and is a cause of all evil; and therefore it seems to have no success or prosperity, but is all full of barrenness, abandonment, and despair.
Therefore, the wicked are firmly convinced that the church cannot last long with its doctrine. The Jews were quite sure that the church, which the apostles had planted, would soon collapse, which they called by the hateful name "sect" [Acts 28:22]; for this is what they said [to Rome] against Paul: "Of this sect we know that it is contradicted at all ends."
296 So also nowadays our adversaries; Dear, how often have they made themselves with their
What hope did they have for the best, since they boasted that we would soon be oppressed at this time and soon at that time? Christ and the apostles were oppressed, but since they died, the teaching of the gospel spread further than when they lived. So the adversaries can also oppress us, but the word of the Lord will stand forever.
297. Therefore, as much as the Church of Christ seems to be barren and abandoned, weak and despised, and suffers persecution from without, and has to hear that its doctrine is heretical and seditious, it alone is the fruitful one before God, which through the ministry of the Word gives birth to innumerable children, the heirs of eternal righteousness and life, who suffer outward persecution, but are completely free in spirit, and are not only judges over all doctrines and works, but also glorious victors over the gates of hell.
Thus, the prophet [Isaiah] admits that the Church is struggling, otherwise he would not call her to be joyful. He admits that she is barren before the world, otherwise he would not call her a barren and lonely one who does not give birth; but before God, he says, she is fruitful, and for this reason he urges her to rejoice, as if to say: Though you are lonely and barren, and have not the law for a man, therefore you have no children. But rejoice, for although you are without the man, the law, like a manly virgin who has been abandoned (for he does not want to call her a widow), who would have a bridegroom if she had not been abandoned by him, or if the bridegroom had not been killed to her, - you lonely one, I say, and who are abandoned by your husband, the law, and are not subject to the marriage of the law, you will be a mother of innumerable children.
Therefore, the people or the church of the New Testament is entirely without law (as far as the conscience is concerned), and therefore it seems to be abandoned before the world. But as much as it is apparently barren, without law and works, it is exceedingly fruitful before God and bears children without number, and free ones at that. By what? Not
by the man, the law, but by the word and the Spirit of Christ, which is given through the gospel, she conceives and bears children and raises them.
With this figurative speech Paul shows most clearly the difference between the law and the gospel; first, by calling Hagar the old testament, but Sarah the new; second, by calling the one the maidservant, the other the free woman; likewise, by saying that she who has a husband and is fertile will lose weight and be cast out of the house with her children, 1) whereas the barren and forsaken one will become fertile and bear children without number, namely heirs. These are the essential differences between the people of faith and the people of law. The people of faith does not have the law for a man, is not servant, is not born of Jerusalem, which is at this time, as its mother, but has the promise, is free and is born of the free Sarah.
301 Thus he separates the spiritual people of the New Testament from the people of the law, saying that it is not the offspring of Hagar who has the man, but of free Sarah, who knows nothing of the law, and thus creates a people of faith, which is far above and apart from the law. If it is above and apart from the law, it follows that it is not justified by law and works, but only by spiritual birth, which is nothing other than faith. But as the people of grace have no law, nor can they have it, so the people of the law have not grace, neither can they have it.
302 For it is impossible for the law and grace to exist at the same time. We must therefore either be justified by grace and forsake the righteousness of the law, or by the law and forsake grace and the righteousness of faith. It is a shameful and unfortunate loss if we lose grace and keep the law, but a blessed and salvific loss if we lose the law and keep grace.
1) The Jenaer and the Erlanger have erroneously "fielt instead of: "fiei in the Wittenberger.
We take all possible pains (because we see that Paul did this with the utmost diligence) that we may clearly indicate the difference between the Law and the Gospel. This is very easy as far as the words are concerned. For who does not see that Hagar is not Sarah, and that Sarah is not Hagar? Likewise, that Ishmael is not or has not what Isaac is or has? This can be easily distinguished. But in serious terror and in the battle of death, where the conscience has to wrestle with the judgment of God, that one can then say with firm confidence: I am not a child of Hagar, but of Sarah, that is, the law does not concern me, because Sarah is my mother, who does not give birth to servants, but to free ones and heirs, that is the most difficult thing.
Thus Paul proved with this testimony of Isaiah that Sarah, that is, the church, is the right mother, who gives birth to freemen and heirs, whereas Hagar, that is, the synagogue, gives birth to many children, but to servants, who must be cast out of the house etc.
(305) Further, since this passage also speaks of the putting away of the law and of Christian liberty, careful attention must be paid to it. For as it is the highest and noblest article of Christian doctrine that we know that we are justified and saved through Christ, so it is important, in opposition to this (per anti-thesin), that the doctrine of the abolition of the law be held in the right way (probe). For this is very useful to fortify our doctrine of faith and to give our consciences a firm and reliable comfort, especially in serious terror, when we know that the law has been abolished.
306 I have often said above, and now I repeat it again (for this cannot be sufficiently emphasized), that a Christian who takes hold of the benefits of Christ in faith has no law at all, but that the whole law is taken away from him, with its terrors and plagues. The same is taught here in the passage from Isaiah. Therefore, this is a glorious and comforting passage, which calls upon the barren and lonely to be joyful, who, according to the law, should have been laughed at or rather mourned.
For the barren were cursed according to the law. But the Holy Spirit reverses this judgment and proclaims that the barren should be praised and blessed, and on the other hand the fruitful, and she who gives birth, cursed, saying, "Be glad, barren," etc., "for the barren has many more children than she who has a husband." Therefore, as much as Sarah, that is, the Church, appears forsaken and barren before the world, not having the righteousness of the law and works, she is nevertheless before God, as the prophet testifies, an exceedingly fruitful mother of innumerable children. On the other hand, although Hagar appears to have the most abundant fertility and multiple childbearing, there is no offspring, because the children of the maidservant are expelled from the house together with their mother, and do not receive the inheritance with the children of the free, as Paul says afterwards.
308 Because we are now children of the free, the law is done for us, our old husband, Rom. 7, 3. ff. While this was lord over us, it was impossible that we could have borne children in the Spirit who knew grace, but we remained servants with them. When the law rules, people are not idle, but they work hard, bear the burden and heat of the day, give birth and produce many children. But both the begetters and the begotten are bastards who do not belong to the free mother, therefore they are finally expelled with Ishmael from the house and inheritance, die and are condemned. It is therefore impossible for people to attain inheritance, that is, to become righteous and blessed, through the law, no matter how much work and childbearing there may be in it. Cursed, therefore, be every doctrine, life and religion that presumes to bring about righteousness before God through the law or through works. But we will continue to talk about the abhorrence of the law.
309 Thomas [Aquinas] and other scholastics, when speaking of the abdication of the law, say that the laws concerning judicial acts and ceremonies (judicialia et ceremonialia), after Christ's coming, are fatal and for that reason are now
but not equally the moral laws (morally These do not know what they are talking about.
(310) But you, when you speak of the abolition of the law, speak first of all of what is actually called the spiritual law, and understand by it the whole law at once, and make no distinction between the judicial, the ceremonial, and the moral law. For when Paul says that through Christ we are freed from the curse of the law, he is certainly speaking of the whole law and especially of the moral law, which alone accuses, curses, and condemns the conscience; the two other kinds of law do not do this in the same way.
Therefore we say that the law of the ten commandments has no right to accuse and terrify the conscience, in which Christ reigns by grace, because Christ has made that law obsolete (antiquavit), not as if the conscience did not feel the terrors of the law everywhere, for it certainly does, but that it can no longer be condemned by them and be thrown into despair, because, Rom. 8:1, "Now there is nothing condemnable in those who are in Christ", likewise, "If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed", John 8:36. Therefore, as much as a Christian is terrified by the law, which indicates sin, he does not despair because he believes in Christ, in whom he is baptized and has forgiveness of sins, cleansed by His blood. Since sin has been forgiven through Christ Himself, the Lord of the law (but forgiven in such a way that He gave Himself for it), the law, the handmaid, no longer has the right to accuse us of sin and to condemn us because of sin, since it has been forgiven, and we have now become free, since the Son makes us free. Therefore, for those who believe in Christ, the whole law is done away.
312 But [you object] I do nothing. You can do nothing to become free from the tyranny of the law, but hear this joyful message which the Spirit brings you in the prophet: "Be joyful, you fruitless one.
bare that you do not give birth" etc., as if he wanted to say: Why are you so sad, since you have no cause to be sad? But I am barren and forsaken etc. As much as this may be the case, since you do not have righteousness from the law, Christ is your righteousness. He became a curse for you and redeemed you from the curse of the law. If you believe in him, the law is dead to you, and as much greater is Christ than the law, so much better is your righteousness than the righteousness of the law. Then you are also fruitful, not barren, because you will have more children than the man has.
The other abdication of the law is external, namely, that the secular (politicae) laws of Moses do not concern us, and therefore we do not have to bring them back on track (revocare in forum), nor bind ourselves to them in a kind of superstition, as some in earlier years wanted, who did not know this freedom.
By the way, even though the gospel does not subject us to the judicial laws of Moses, it does not completely exempt us from obedience to all worldly laws, but subjects us in this bodily life to the laws of the government (politiae) under which we live, that is, it commands that each one obey his authorities and their laws, not only for the sake of punishment, but also for the sake of conscience. 13, 5. 1 Petr. 2, 13. f., and the emperor would not sin if he used some laws from the judicial laws of Moses, yes, he could use them freely. That is why the sophists are mistaken who say that the worldly laws of Moses are fatal according to Christ.
(315) Nor are we bound to the ceremonies of Moses, much less to those of the pope. But because this bodily life cannot be entirely without ceremonies or customs, for there must be a certain outward discipline (paedagogia), the gospel permits that ordinances be made in the church about feasts, about times, about places etc., so that the people may know on what day, at what hour, in what place they are to come together to hear God's word etc. It allows that
The lessons are arranged as in a school, primarily for the sake of children and the simple, so that they can be taught all the better.
But it [the gospel] allows this for the purpose that everything in the church may be done honorably and properly, 1 Cor. 14, 40, not that those who keep such ordinances may thereby earn forgiveness of sins etc. Above this, they can also be omitted without sin, if only this is done without the annoyance of the weak. Therefore it is an error to say that the Mosaic ceremonies are fatal after Christ is revealed; otherwise the Christians would have sinned by keeping the Feast of the Feast of the Feast and the Feast of Pentecost, which the ancient church ordered to be celebrated according to the model of the Mosaic law (although in a completely different way and for a different purpose).
But Paul is speaking here primarily of the abhorrence of the moral law, to which one must pay attention. For he acts against the righteousness of the law in order to justify the righteousness of faith, and thus concludes: If grace alone, or faith in Christ alone, justifies, it follows that the whole law is utterly done away; and this he confirms with the testimony of Isaiah, in which he exhorts the barren and forsaken church to be joyful. For she seems to have no children born of her, nor any hope of having children, that is, she has no disciples, she is not applauded for preaching the word of the cross of Christ crucified, etc. against all wisdom of the flesh.
(318) But this, says the prophet, should not move and grieve you who are barren, but rather rejoice and be glad, because the lonely one has many more children than the one who has a husband. That is, she who has a husband and is multiplied by numerous offspring will decrease, but you, barren and lonely, will have children in abundance.
319 But he calls the church barren, because her children are born, not by the law, works, or any human effort or power, but in the Holy Spirit through the word of faith. Since
is nothing else than a mere birth (pascentia), no work (operativ). The fertile, on the other hand, exert themselves and toil too much with the labor of childbearing (parturiendo), and there is only labor, not birth. But because they strive to attain the right of children and heirs through the righteousness of the law or through their own righteousness, they are servants who never attain the inheritance, although they tire themselves to death with too much work, because they want to attain with their works, against the will of God, what God wants to give to the believers out of mere grace for the sake of Christ. The believers also do truly good works, but they do not become children and heirs through them, for this is granted to them by birth, but so that they, having already become children through Christ, may praise God and help their neighbor through their good works.
But we, brethren, are the children of the promise according to Isaac.
That is, we are not children according to the flesh like Ishmael and all Israel according to the flesh, who boasted that they were the seed of Abraham and the people of God, but had to hear about Christ, John 8:39 ff: "If you were Abraham's children, you would not seek to kill me who told you the truth"; likewise, "If God were your Father, you would love me and know my language", as if he wanted to say: Brethren born and raised in One House, knowing one another's language, "ye are of the Father the devil" etc. Such children, he adds, we are not, like them, who remain servants, and are finally cast out of the house, but we are children of the promise, like Isaac, that is, of grace and faith, born of the promise alone. About this matter, see above Cap. 3, 8. in the words: "In your seed shall all the Gentiles be blessed". So it is not by the law, works or our own righteousness that we are declared righteous, but by pure grace. Paul insists on this promise, which can only be grasped through faith, and often emphasizes it, because he sees that it is highly necessary.
321 He has made it this far with the figurative
He had to do with the first speech, to which he added the saying of the prophet Isaiah as an interpretation. Now he uses the story of Ishmael and Isaac as an example and for comfort.
V. 29. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.
This passage contains a very important consolation. All those who are born of Christ and live in Christ, and who boast of this birth and that they are God's heirs, have Ishmael as their persecutor. This is what we learn from experience nowadays, because we see that everything is full of turmoil, persecution, mobs and uproar. Therefore, we would not be able to endure the power and cunning plots of Satan if we did not fortify our hearts with this comfort of Paul and the like, and hold fast the article of justification without wavering.
For who should not be offended by the cruel persecutions of the adversaries, and by the mobs and innumerable uproars which the zealots are stirring up today? It truly grieves us to hear that before the gospel began, everything was calm and at peace, but now that it has been proclaimed, everything is confused, the whole world is moved, and it collapses in on itself. When a man who does not have the Spirit hears this, he immediately becomes angry and judges that the disobedience of the subjects to the authorities, uprisings, wars, pestilence, famine, upheavals in the state, countries and kingdoms, mobs, upheavals and such like evils are without number and originate from the teaching of the Gospel.
324 Against this exceedingly great trouble we must align ourselves and strengthen ourselves by this exceedingly sweet consolation that the godly must bear this name and title in the world, that they are rebellious, cause division (schismatici) and cause innumerable misfortunes. Hence it is that the adversaries think they have quite just cause, indeed, they are doing God a service by hating, persecuting and killing us. Ishmael therefore cannot do otherwise, he must persecute Isaac; but Isaac does not repay Ishmael like with like. He who persecutes
If you don't want to suffer the punishment of Ishmael, don't pretend to be a Christian.
But, I beg you, let the adversaries, who exaggerate and exaggerate these evils today, tell us what good has followed the preaching of Christ and the apostles? Was it not followed by the destruction of the Jewish Empire, the disruption of the Roman Empire and disorder in the whole world? Not through the fault of the. Not through the fault of the Gospel, which Christ and the apostles taught for the salvation, not for the destruction of men, but, as the second Psalm says, through the fault of the Gentiles, the nations, the kings and the lords, who, because they were possessed by the devil, did not want to hear the word of grace, peace, life and eternal bliss, but abhorred and condemned it as a doctrine harmful to religion and the state. And that this would happen, the Holy Spirit, who was in David, prophesied long before, when he speaks [Ps. 2, 1. ff.]: "Why do the Gentiles rage" etc.
326 Such unrest and disruption of things is also seen and heard today. The adversaries put the blame on our teaching. But the doctrine of grace and peace does not stir up these disorders, but the heathen, the nations, the kings of the land, and the lords, as the second Psalm says, rage, speak in vain, rebel, and counsel, not against us, as they think, and 1) against our doctrine, which they accuse of being erroneous and seditious, but against the Lord and his anointed, and therefore all their counsels and undertakings are in vain, and shall be so henceforth. "He that dwelleth in heaven laugheth at them, and the Lord mocketh at them.
327 Therefore, they may cry out as long as they want those movements to be stirred up by us, but the psalm comforts us and says that they themselves are the originators of such movements. They do not believe this, much less do they believe that they are raging, rebelling and counseling against the Lord and his anointed, but rather they make themselves believe that they are standing up for the Lord, defending his honor and rendering him a service by
1) Wittenberger: ant instead of: ae.
pursue. But the psalm does not lie, and the outcome of the matter will prove this. We do nothing here, but suffer only because our conscience bears witness to us in the Holy Spirit. Then the doctrine for the sake of which such disturbances and upsets are caused is not our doctrine, but Christ's. We cannot deny this doctrine. We cannot deny it nor refrain from protecting it (patrocinium ejus deserere), since Christ says [Marc. 8, 38.]: "But whoever is ashamed of me and my words among this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him" etc.
328 Therefore he that will teach Christ, and confess that he is our righteousness, must straightway hear that he is a pernicious man, which destroyeth all things. "These, who have stirred up the whole world (said the Jews about Paul and Silas Apost. 17, 6. 7.), have also come here, and act contrary to Caesar's commandment"; and Cap. 24, 5: "We have found this man harmful, and the sedition aroused all the Jews on the face of the whole earth, and a chief of the sect of the Nazarenes" etc. In the same way the Gentiles complain Apost. 16, 20: "These people are making our city go astray" etc.
In this way they accuse Luther today of being a disturber of the papacy and the Roman Empire. If I were to keep silent, everything that that strong-armed man possesses would be at peace, and the pope would no longer persecute me. But in such a way the gospel of Christ would be obscured. But if I speak, the pope will be disgraced and fall away. I must lose either the pope, who is a mortal man, or the Lord Christ, who is eternal, and with him eternal life. But of two evils one must choose the least. Let the earthly and mortal pope fall rather than the heavenly and eternal Christ.
Since Christ saw in the spirit beforehand that a very great change of conditions and a shaking of the world would follow from his preaching, he comforted himself in this way [Luc. 12:49]: "I have come to light a fire on the earth; what would I rather, for it was burning already! Thus we see that today the preaching of the gospel will be followed by many evils, because of the persecution of the people.
We are so afraid of the blasphemy of the adversaries and the contempt and ingratitude of our people. This frightens us so much that we often think, according to the flesh, that it would have been better not to preach the doctrine of godliness, because then peace would have remained, than that now, when it has gone out, the public peace is disturbed. But according to the spirit we speak fearlessly with Christ: "I have come to light a fire on earth; what would I rather, for it was already burning!"
331 But out of this kindled fire immediately arise exceedingly great movements, because not any king or emperor is challenged, but the God of this world, who is the most powerful spirit and the Lord of the whole world. This great opponent is attacked by this weak word that preaches Christ, the crucified. The Behemoth feels his divine power, stirs all his limbs, moves his tail and makes the deep sea boil like a pot, Job 41:23. This is where the raging and fury of the world comes from.
332 Therefore, we must not allow ourselves to be challenged by the fact that the adversaries are angry and cry out that nothing good comes from the preaching of the gospel. They are unbelieving, blind and obdurate, so it is impossible for them to see any fruit of the gospel. On the other hand, we who believe (even though for a time we are oppressed by innumerable evils: we are despised, we are robbed, we are blasphemed, we are condemned, we are the sacrifice of all people, we are killed; and inwardly we are troubled by the [evil] conscience about sin and are tormented by the devils) see the immense and innumerable benefits and fruits of the gospel. For we live in Christ, in whom and through whom we are kings and lords over sin, death, the flesh, the world, hell and all evil, through whom we finally trample underfoot that dragon and basilisk who is the king of sin and death. In what way? By faith, because our treasure (bonum) is not yet revealed, which in the meantime we await in patience, and yet we already possess it with certainty through faith.
333. that is why you have to change the article from the
Learn justification carefully. He alone can raise us up against those innumerable vexations and comfort us in all temptations and persecutions. For we see that it cannot be otherwise than that the world is vexed by the doctrine of godliness and constantly cries out that nothing good comes from it, for "the natural man hears nothing of the Spirit of God, for it is foolishness to him," 1 Cor. 2:14. He sees only outward evil, the overthrow of things, riots, murder, mobs etc. He is angered by these spectres, becomes blind, and comes to despise and blaspheme the word.
We, on the other hand, must fortify ourselves, because the adversaries do not accuse and condemn us because of obvious shameful deeds, such as adultery, murder, robbery, etc., but because of our teaching. What do we teach? That Christ, the Son of God, redeemed us from our sins and from eternal death by dying on the cross. So it is not life, but our doctrine, yes, not our doctrine, but Christ's doctrine that they contest. So it is Christ's fault that they dispute us, and the sin for which the adversaries persecute us was not committed by us, but by Christ. But whether they will cast Christ out of heaven because of this sin (yes, that would please God!), that he alone is our justifier and redeemer, and condemn him as a heretic and rebel, let them see for themselves. We command him this cause of his, and in the meantime we will cheerfully and safely watch which of the two will retain the victory, whether Christ or they.
Though it grieves us in the flesh that our Ishmaelites hate and persecute us so fiercely, yet in the spirit we glory in our tribulations, both because we know that we suffer them, not because of our sins, but for the sake of Christ, whose benefits and glory we praise, and also because Paul has here previously armed us against this, saying that Ishmael must mock Isaac and persecute him.
The Jews explain the passage of Ishmael, which Paul cites from the 21st chapter [v. 9] of the first book of Moses, that he was a mocker and persecuted Isaac.
in this way, namely, that Ishmael forced Isaac to idolatry. I do not reject this interpretation of theirs, but I do not believe that it was such a gross idolatry as the Jews dream, namely that Ishmael, after the manner of the pagans, made images of clay and forced Isaac to worship them; this Abraham would not have suffered in any way.
Rather, I believe that Ishmael was a holy man on the surface, like Cain, who also persecuted and finally killed his brother, not because of any physical matter, but because he saw that he was preferred to him by God. Thus Ishmael also diligently embraced religion, offered sacrifices and practiced good works, and therefore mocked his brother Isaac, and wanted to be better than him in two ways; first, in religion and worship, secondly, also in civil rule and inheritance. And he thought he had a right to these two things, because he thought that he, as the firstborn, was entitled to the priesthood and the temporal rule (regnum) according to divine right. Therefore, he persecuted Isaac spiritually, for the sake of religion, and physically, for the inheritance.
This evil is always found in the church, especially when the doctrine of the gospel is in progress, namely, that the children of the flesh mock and persecute the children of the promise. The papists and the fanatics persecute us today for no other reason than because we teach that righteousness is given to us through the promise. For it grieves the papists that we do not worship their idols, that is, that we do not preach that the man-made means of acquiring righteousness (justitias), works and worship, do not serve to obtain grace and forgiveness of sins, and therefore they seek to cast us out of the house, that is, they boast that they are the church, children and people of God, to whom belongs the inheritance. etc. They banish us as heretics and rebels, and if they can, they kill us in order to serve God etc. As much as there is in them, they reject us badly.
However, from this life and the life to come. The enthusiasts hate us in the most hostile way, because we dispute and detest their errors and heresies, of which they continue to sow new ones in the church, and for this reason they judge that we are far worse than the papists, and therefore hate us more bitterly than the latter. etc.
Therefore, as soon as the word of God comes to light, the devil is enraged, and in his wrath he uses all power and deceit to persecute and completely eradicate it. Therefore, it cannot be otherwise, he must cause countless hordes and aggravations, also persecutions and murder. For he is a father of lies and a murderer. He spreads the lie in the world by godless teachers, by tyrants he kills the people. Thus he occupies both kingdoms, the spiritual and the corporal; the former by the lie of ungodly teachers (not to speak of the fact that he constantly incites each one in particular to heresies and ungodly opinions by his fiery darts), the latter by the sword of tyrants, and thus the father of lies and murder stirs up persecution on both sides, spiritual and corporal, against the children of the free.
The spiritual persecution that we have to suffer today from the enthusiasts is very burdensome and quite unbearable for us because of the aversions with which the devil defaces our doctrine. For we have to hear that the sects of the Anabaptists and the Sacramentarians and all evil has arisen from this teaching of ours. The bodily persecution, in which the tyrants stand against us according to good and life (corporibus), is more bearable, because it does not happen because of our misdeeds (peccata), but because we confess God's word.
We should learn from the title of the devil, "father of lies and murder", which Christ gives him Joh. 8, 44, that when the gospel is in progress and Christ reigns, corrupt sects inevitably arise and everything is full of the rage of murderers who persecute the truth. And Paul says [1 Cor. 11, 19.), "There must be sects." Whoever does not know this is very easily angered and falls to
The people leave their old God and faith, but they leave the true God and right faith.
342 So Paul prepares the godly beforehand, so that they will not also be offended by these persecutions, sects, and aversions, by saying: "Just as at that time he was born according to the flesh," etc. as if he wanted to say: "If we are children of the promise, born according to the Spirit, then we must in all certainty expect persecution from our brother who was born according to the flesh: If we are children of promise, born after the Spirit, then we must most certainly expect persecution from our brother who was born after the flesh, that is, not only the enemies who are openly ungodly will persecute us, but also those who were first our dear friends, with whom we were on intimate terms and lived in the same house, who received the teaching of the gospel from us, will later become our bitterest enemies, persecuting us most fiercely because they are brothers according to the flesh, who must persecute the brothers who are born according to the spirit. Thus Christ Ps. 41, 10. complains of Judas: "My friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, tramples me underfoot." But this is our comfort, that we have given no occasion to our Ishmaelites to persecute us. For the sake of the doctrine of godliness, the papists persecute us; if we recanted it, they would soon cease to persecute us. Likewise, if we approved the pernicious errors of the swarm spirits, they would praise us. But because we abhor the ungodly nature of both, they cannot help but hostilely attack and persecute us.
343 But against this persecution and these vexations not only Paul, as I have said, prepared us beforehand, but also Christ himself, John 15:19 ff, comforts us most sweetly: "If ye were of the world," he says, "the world would have loved its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you," etc. as if he wanted to say, "I am the cause of all the persecutions which ye suffer: I am the cause of all the persecutions which you suffer, and if you are killed, I am to blame for your loss of life, for if you did not preach my word and confess me, the world would not persecute you. But this is how it is with you: "The servant is not greater than his master.
If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you for my name's sake" etc. With these words, Christ lays all blame on Himself and frees us from all fear, as if to say: Not you, but my name, which you have preached and confessed, is the cause why the world persecutes you with violence and guile. "But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" [Jn 16:33].
344 By this confidence we are sustained, not doubting that Christ is strong enough not only to endure all the violence of tyrants and all the wiles of heretics, but also to overcome them; and this he proved sufficiently in the case of the Jews and the Romans, whose tyranny and persecutions he endured for a time, and also endured the wiles of the heretics, but in his own time he overthrew and exterminated them all, and remained king and victor. Therefore, no matter how much the papists may rage nowadays, no matter how much the heretics may falsify and pervert the gospel of Christ, Christ will remain King forever, and the word of the Lord will endure forever, after all his enemies have been destroyed. Then, which is very comforting, the persecution of Ishmael against Isaac will not last forever, but only for a little while; when it is over, the verdict will be given as follows:
V. 30. But what does the Scripture say? Cast out the maid with her son; for the son of the maid shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.
345. This word of Sarah was very painful to Abraham, and when he heard this judgment, no doubt the fatherly love he had for his son Ishmael was very much opposed to it, because he was born of his flesh; and this is clearly testified by the Scripture Gen 21:11, when it says: "The word pleased Abraham very much, because of his son. But God confirmed the judgment that Sarah had made, and said to Abraham, "Do not let it displease you because of the boy and the maid. Obey all that Sarah has said to you. For in Isaac shall the seed be called unto thee."
346 Here the Ishmaelites hear the verdict,
This judgment has destroyed the Jews, Greeks, Romans etc. who persecuted the Church of Christ. It will also destroy the papists and all the works saints, whoever they may be, who today boast that they are God's people and the Church, and hope that they will certainly receive the inheritance, and consider us, who base ourselves on the promise of God, not only barren and lonely, but also heretical people who have been cast out of the Church, who could not possibly be children and heirs. But this judgment of theirs God reverses and passes judgment against them, that because they are children of the handmaidens and persecute the children of the free, they should be cast out of the house and have no inheritance with the children of the promise, to whom alone belongs the inheritance as children of the free.
This judgment is firm 1) and irrevocable, because the Scriptures cannot be annulled. Therefore it will certainly happen that our Ishmaelites will not only lose the worldly and ecclesiastical dominion they have, but also eternal life, because the Scripture has foretold that the children of the handmaid shall be cast out of the house, that is, out of the kingdom of grace, because they cannot be heirs with the children of the free.
348. But it is to be noted that the Holy Spirit, as it were, to shame, calls the people of the law and the doers of works "the son of the handmaid," as if to say: Why do you boast of the righteousness of the law and of works, and for this reason make yourselves out to be God's people and children? If you do not know from whom you were born, I will tell you: you were born of a slave girl as servants. What kind of servants? Servants of the law, therefore also servants of sin, death and eternal damnation. But a servant is not an heir, but is cast out of the house.
Therefore, the pope with his entire kingdom and all other saints of works, however holy they may appear to be, who have the confidence that they are governed by laws, whether they be human or divine,
1) rata - having become final.
Grace and blessedness obtain, children of the handmaid, who do not obtain the inheritance with the children of the free, but are cast out of the house. And now I am not talking about the godless popes, cardinals, bishops and monks who have worshipped the belly as their god and committed terrible sins, which I do not like to name, but about the best ones, such as I have been, and many others who have lived holy lives and strived with the greatest work and effort to appease the wrath of God by keeping their order and to earn forgiveness of sins and eternal life. These hear here the verdict that they are children of the handmaid and are to be cast out of the house with their mother, the handmaid.
(350) If we carefully consider such sayings, they make us certain of the doctrine and righteousness of faith and confirm us in it against the doctrine and righteousness of works, which the world accepts and esteems, while it despises and condemns the other [doctrine of faith]. This certainly moves and angers the faint of heart. Although they publicly see the impiety and unspeakable shameful deeds of the papists, they cannot easily be persuaded that so great a multitude, bearing the name and title of the church, should err, and only a few should stand right in the doctrine of the faith.
351. And if the papacy still had the holiness and severity of life that it had in the time of the fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and others, when the clergy (clerici) were not yet notorious for their trade in ecclesiastical offices (simoniam), for their splendor, their wealth, their treasures, their fornication, their sodomy and other sins without number, but lived according to the rules and regulations (canones et decreta) of the fathers, outwardly in a spiritual state (religiose) and holy, then also in a celibate state. Dear, what could we then do against the papacy?
The celibate state, which the clergy strictly observed in the times of the Fathers, is something exceedingly glorious in the eyes of the world, for it makes a man an angel.
Therefore, Paul calls it Col. 2, 18. "spirituality of the angels" and the papists sing about the virgins: She led a life in the flesh like the angels, since she lived without flesh. 1) Then also the life, which they called a contemplative one, to which at that time the clergy gave themselves before all things, and did not take care of all worldly and domestic affairs, has a great appearance of holiness. Therefore, if the papacy today still had the same outward form (facies) as the old papacy, we would perhaps accomplish very little against it with our doctrine of faith, especially since we accomplish little now, when the old apparent godliness and strict discipline has long since vanished and one can see nothing in the papacy but a veritable cesspool and dung puddle of all vices.
But even in the case that the old spiritual life (religio) and the discipline of the papacy still existed, we would still have to fight and speak against the works saints of the papal realm according to the example of Paul, who attacks the false apostles, who seem to be the holiest and best people: Even though you may lead a life of celibacy, and afflict your bodies with frequent mortifications, and even walk in the humility and spirituality of angels, you are still servants of the law, of sin, and of the devil, who must be cast out of the house, because you seek to attain righteousness and salvation through your works and not through Christ.
For this reason, we must not turn our eyes both to the shameful life of the papists and to their ungodly doctrine and hypocrisy, which we also primarily condemn. We want to shred altogether that the spiritual life (religionem) and discipline of the old papacy would still be going on, and would be kept with the strictness with which the hermits, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Franciscus, Dominic and many others observed it, we must nevertheless say: If you have nothing else to oppose the wrath and judgment of God, but holiness and chastity, then you must not be afraid of the wrath and judgment of God.
1) Angelicam vitam duxerat in came, dum praeter carnem vixerat. As Menius indicates, sung "in sequence". On Sequenz, compare Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. X, 657.
If you do not live a life of peace, you are clearly only children of the handmaid, who must be cast out of the kingdom of heaven and condemned.
Even they themselves do not now defend their shameful life, which those who are the more intelligent among them abhor, but they fight to defend and preserve the doctrine of the devils, hypocrisy and righteousness from works. Here they claim the prestige of the concilia and the examples of the holy fathers, of whom they claim to have been the founders of the holy orders and rules (statutorum) etc.
Therefore, we do not fight against the papacy, which today is publicly ungodly and shameful, but against its most brilliant saints, who think that they lead a life like the angels, dreaming that they can not only keep the commandments of God, but also the counsels of Christ, and perform the works that they are not obliged to do, or superfluous good works (supererogationis). Of these we say that they lose effort and work if they do not take hold of the one thing that Christ says is necessary alone, and choose with Mary the good part that cannot be taken from them [Luc. 10, 42].
This was done by Bernard, a very godly, holy and chaste man, so that I think he is rightly preferable to all monks. Once, when he was seriously ill and had already despaired of his life, he did not put his trust in his celibate state, which he had led in complete chastity, or in his good works and godly deeds, of which he had done many, but put these far out of sight, took hold of Christ's good deeds in faith, and said: I have lived condemned, but thou, O Lord Jesus Christ, hast the kingdom of heaven by a twofold right; first, because thou art the Son of God, and secondly, because thou hast obtained it by thy suffering and death. This you keep for yourself according to the right of birth; this you give to me, not according to the right of works, but by grace.
He [St. Bernard's] did not oppose the wrath and judgment of God with his monasticism and his angelic life, but rather he
He took hold of the one thing that is necessary, and thus became blessed. I believe that Jerome, Gregory and other fathers and hermits were saved in the same way, and there is no doubt that also in the Old Testament many kings of Israel and other idolaters were saved in such a way, namely, they threw away their vain trust in idols at the hour of death and took hold of the promise of God in Christ, the future seed of Abraham, who would bless all nations. And if today some of the papists are to be saved, they must base themselves absolutely, not on their good works and merits, but solely on the mercy of God, which is offered to us in Christ, and say with Paul [Phil. 3, 9.]: "I have not my righteousness which comes from the law, but which comes through faith in Christ."
V. 31 So then, brethren, we are not the children of the handmaid, but of the free.
Here Paul concludes the figurative speech of the unfruitful church and the fruitful people of the law. He says: "We are not children of the bondwoman," that is, we are not under the law, which gives birth to bondage, that is, which terrifies, accuses and drives to despair, but we are free from it through Christ, so it cannot terrify and condemn us, etc. of which enough has been said above [§ 31 ff]. Then, as much as the children of the handmaid persecute us for a time, this is our consolation, that they are finally thrust out into the utter darkness and leave us the inheritance.
which is due to us as children of the free.
Thus, as we have heard, Paul took the opportunity from the words "maidservant" and "free" to refute the righteousness of the law and to strengthen the article of justification. And with special diligence he took this word "the free" before himself, which he also still drives and makes great in the beginning of the following chapter, and thereby gets the opportunity to deal with Christian freedom, the right knowledge of which is very necessary. For the pope has completely eradicated it, and subjected the church to the most miserable and shameful bondage through human statutes and ceremonies.
This freedom, which Christ has acquired for us, is today our strongest bulwark (praesidium), by which we defend ourselves against the tyranny of the pope. Therefore, the doctrine (locus) of Christian liberty must be carefully considered, both to fortify the doctrine of justification, and to raise and comfort consciences against so many turbationes and aversions, which, as the adversaries say, derive from the Gospel. But Christian liberty belongs to a great extent to spiritual things (est valde spiritualis res), which the natural man does not hear; indeed, those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, and can teach about them in many words, hardly keep them in their hearts. Reason seems not to care much about it; therefore, unless the Holy Spirit makes it great and important, it is despised.