Posts tagged “Luther”

Jacob bears the sins of his sons

Posted on March 21st, 2013

When Jacob confronts his sons after their slaughter of the Shechemites (in response to the defiling of Dinah), the sons are unrepentant. This too, Luther observes, is part of the trial of the godly: bearing with the sins of others. Hear how the sons reply to their father, the high and mighty rascals! They do not acknowledge their sin; they are not sorry for the unjust slaughter and violence but defend it. It is as though they meant to say: “We have acted justly by killing the Shechemites because their atrocious sins deserve severe punishments.” Accordingly, they amplify the rape of Dinah in a dramatic manner, even though Shechem wished to have her as his wife and not as a harlot. Nor do they…

Categories: Theology

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Can a person believe and yet despair?

Posted on March 20th, 2013

After the slaughter of Shechem, Hamor, and the Hivites (when Shechem had defiled Dinah, Genesis 34), Jacob is filled with sorrow at the sins of his sons. Luther comments on this faith which struggles with despair in his Lectures on Genesis (AE 6): The holy man Jacob is again wrestling with a very great trial of the spirit and faith which is nearly extinguished. The flax is smoking, and the reed is bruised and nearly broken (cf. Is. 42:3). For they are not words of faith but simply Words of the murmuring flesh and struggling faith, and weak faith at that. He has almost lost those glorious promises: “I will surely bless you, etc.” Those suns and stars of the Word and promises were…

Categories: Theology

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When we are plunged into disasters

Posted on March 1st, 2013

Luther’s consolation when things are tough, especially in the church: When we are plunged into disasters and troubles and covered by darkness, things on account of which we cannot be sure that we are the church or pleasing to God, let us learn to take hold of the Word and let sink and fall what falls, and let us not be moved by the fall and defection of others. But let us reflect that we are in a dark place, with the lamp of the Word shining before us. “For he who believes and is baptized will be saved” ( Mark 16:16). For that light is the only one which the sun and human reason do not see; but it shines in the heart.…

Categories: Theology

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When things at your church are bad

Posted on February 28th, 2013

When things at your church are bad, and you are tempted to despair, consider these words of Luther: For if you carefully consider the state of our church, we seem to have nothing but the pure Word and the sacraments, and we have an infinite number of adversaries—princes, nobles, citizens, domestics, and pupils, and finally our own flesh which we carry about with us. For this is our glory, to be vexed and laughed at even by those from our own midst, by those in our own household. Those are our lids, on account of which we judge that God by no means wants to recognize and regard us as His own. For nothing becomes the church less than this picture, When I saw…

Categories: Theology

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How to conquer God

Posted on February 27th, 2013

God is conquered in this way as soon as He has surrendered Himself to us, so to say, and revealed Himself in His Word, promise, and Baptism. It remains that you should conquer those things which want to take this God away from you, namely, through the truth of the promises and faith. Or, if He pretends that He is unfriendly and angry with you inasmuch as He does not want to hear you and help you, then say: “Lord God, You have promised this in Your Word. Therefore You will not change Your promise. I have been baptized: I have been absolved.” If you persistently urge and press on in this way, He will be conquered and say: “Let it be done unto…

Categories: Theology

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Don’t make judicial sentences out of temptation

Posted on February 26th, 2013

For nature and weak faith cannot, indeed, abstain from these, just as it cannot easily divest itself of other emotions such as impatience, wrath, and concupiscence. But they should remain only thoughts; they should not become axioms that are fixed and speak the final word or are established by our judgment and conscience. I cannot prevent my heart from being disturbed by strange vexations. Hence one should follow the advice of the hermit to whom a youth complained that he rather often experienced imaginations concerned with lusts and other sins and to whom the old man replied: “You cannot prevent the birds from flying over your head. But let them only fly and do not let them build nests in the hair of your…

Categories: Theology

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The nun Mechtild was vexed by the devil

Posted on February 25th, 2013

More Luther on how to endure trials and temptations, especially to despair: This picture of the conflicts and struggles in the saints is full of consolation. Elsewhere the example of the nun Mechtild is recounted. She was vexed by the devil, because she knew or experienced absolutely nothing about faith. This was a temptation to unbelief, which is a most bitter grief and torment of conscience. For hearts are consumed by trepidation and doubt, and experience alone shows what this grief is; it cannot be declared in words. Nevertheless, that temptation was not yet equal to this struggle of Jacob. For it was not God who was fighting against her, as was the case here with Jacob, but the devil, who can drive men…

Categories: Theology

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God’s will regarding new forms of worship

Posted on February 23rd, 2013

This is true, indeed, that God is not bound, neither to Jerusalem nor to any other place, and that He is able to save also elsewhere. No one will deny this. But try it and see what you will get! If you invent forms of worship according to your own judgment, you will be in danger of God’s wrath. By His almighty power God could save the human race without Christ, without Baptism, and without the Word of the Gospel. He could have illuminated men’s hearts inwardly through the Holy Spirit and forgiven their sins without the ministry of the Word and of ministers. But it was not His will to do so. And God very strictly prohibited all erring forms of devotion and…

Categories: Theology

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A worthless life

Posted on February 22nd, 2013

The life of the godly appears to be an idle life and without any fruit and worth. But this is our great glory, that we know that our tears and each of the drops that fall from our eyes are numbered by God and that all things are written before the eyes of God and gathered in a golden vessel. Luther, AE 6 (on Gen. 32:22-23)

Categories: Theology

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What fantasies are you dreaming up?

Posted on February 18th, 2013

Luther on bearing patiently with others: Receive your disreputable and erring brothers and put up with them patiently and take on their sins as your own. And if you have anything that is good, let it be theirs. If you think of yourselves as being better than these brothers, then do not take yourselves so seriously as if anything good could only belong to you, but, instead, humble yourselves and be like one of them so that you can carry them along with you. For it is a wretched form of justice when Christians will not put up with people they regard to be worse than they are. And you take flight from them and go into solitude instead of being of immediate use…

Categories: Theology

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