Wednesday, February 25, 2009

AELW Volume 10 - First Lectures on the Psalms I - Psalms 1-75

LUTHER’S
WORKS
VOLUME 10
FIRST LECTURES
ON THE PSALMS
I
Psalms 1–75

The great Law gives way to the even greater Gospel

AELW 9:311

"It remains true, as is said in chapter 18:18, that after Moses Another was to be raised up like Moses, namely, Christ; to Him the great Moses yielded, as to One far greater in worth and power, as we saw there. It also signifies this, that nothing greater can be taught and transmitted, so far as laws are concerned, than the Law of Moses. For all things reach their climax in him, except that the great Law was to give way to the even greater Gospel."

God is left behind

AELW 9:294

“They sacrificed to demons which were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come in of late, whom your fathers had never dreaded” (v. 17), that is, to the idols of the field, namely, in groves, in valleys, and on mountains, about which nothing had been said to them in the Law and they had heard nothing; but since their ears itched when someone brought up some new worship, they streamed up mightily and left behind the God whom they had learned from their fathers."

He who serves this God is safe

AELW 9:291

“All His ways are justice” (Deut. v. 4); that is, the whole life of His believers is right and true, going forward in the Word and commandment, not in their own ways and ideas. So God is faithful, without sin, righteous, and true. All this he says about God as He is worshiped and believed, not only about the nature of God; as if he declared against false gods and worshipers: He who serves this God is safe; he has a faithful God, with whom he is at peace. In this worship there is no sin, but there is pure righteousness and uprightness; and all these things are faithful, certain, and solid. On the other hand, for idol-worshipers nothing is secure, nothing is faithful and certain; but their wandering and uncertain conscience always shifts, and whatever they do in their life is sheer iniquity and evil, however they seem to themselves to be otherwise."

One God alone....All other gods are empty, false, and worthless

AELW 9:290

“For I will proclaim the name of the Lord” (v. 3); that is, I will sing that the one God alone should be invoked and worshiped, against the idolaters who will be among my people, “Ascribe greatness to our God’; that is, do not desire to worship any other God or to ascribe any majesty or power to anyone except our one God” for His alone is the majesty, greatness, and power. All other gods are empty, false, and worthless."

Doctrine be healthful and that the hearer be teachable

AELW 9:290

"He desires, however, that his teaching drip down and flow like the rain and dew (v. 2), just as drops and a shower over herbs and grass, that is, that it be strong and fruitful. He does not want to sing in vain and tell the story to a deaf person when he sings of great and necessary things, that is, concerning the true God who is to be worshiped, and of the danger to those who forsake God and turn to idols. Drops, rain, and dew he contrasts with clouds without water, which are human teachings that do no good. Therefore he wants his word to be a rain, not an empty cloud. And herb and grass he contrasts with stones, sand, and similar barren things, on which the rain fails in vain, even though rain is healthful; that is, he wants hearers in whom the Word brings fruit. For both are required: that the doctrine be healthful and that the hearer be teachable."

Ash Wednesday - I wound and I heal - 02-25-09

Deuternomy 32:36-39

"For the Lord will vindicate His people
and have compassion on His servants,
when He sees that their power is gone,
and there is none remaining, bond or free.
Then He will say: Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,
who ate the fat of their sacrifices,
and drank the wine of their drink offering?
Let them rise up and help you,
let them be your protection!
See now that I, even I, am He,
and there is no god beside Me;
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of My hand."

Monday, February 23, 2009

Sin and death draw back and yield to grace

AELW 9:284

"Moses is the minister of the Law, which does not lead to fulfillment, that is, to righteousness, but shows sin and demands grace, which it does not confer. Therefore he dies and stays on this side of Jordan in the land of Moab, that is, in the righteousness of works. Joshua succeeds him as leader; this is the ministry of grace. He leads the people into the Land of Promise, that is, to true righteousness in Christ; and the Israelites cross over the Jordan dry-shod, that is, as both sin and death draw back and yield to grace."

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Thundering against the work-righteous

AELW 9:279

Deuteronomy 30:11 " For the commandment is not too hard for you. "

"Paul’s play on the words of Moses—“Do not say in your heart: ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down, etc.)”—thunders against the work-righteous. For when they fulfill the commandment by works and by their own powers, they deny that Christ ascended into heaven or descended into hell; that is, they deny that He died for us and rose again that we might be justified by the Word of faith and fulfill the Law. For he looks to their inner self when he says: “Do not say in your heart: ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” It is as though he were saying: The ungodly does not believe that Christ ascended into heaven; he leads Christ down from heaven, since he does not believe that the faith which fulfills the Law is granted through His resurrection."

February 18 - Martin Luther - Doctor and Confessor

AELW 9:9

Going backwards a few pages but appropriate on this day...

(written to the reverend father and lord in Christ, Sir George von Polenz, lawful bishop of the church at Samland, to his father honored in Christ the Lord, grace and peace.)

The Lord, however, who works all in all (1 Cor. 12:6) and who has also begun His good work in you (Phil. 1:6), keep and prosper you, that in this life too you may become a truly great bishop in the Word of God, and that in the life to come, when the chief Shepherd and Bishop will appear, you may receive an unfading crown (1 Peter 5:4). To Him, I pray, commend me in your holy prayers; and in His grace farewell. Amen. Wittenberg, 1525.
Your Doctor Martin Luther

Monday, February 16, 2009

FOR US

AELW 9:215-216

Deuternomy 21:22-23

"And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance."

"But what shall we say about Paul? In Gal. 3:13, he applies this passage to Christ, saying: “Christ became a curse for us. For it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree.’” Jerome is strangely confused by the same passage when he argues that Moses speaks of a hanged evildoer, but that Christ never committed a sin. But he does not see that Paul speaks most simply and that Paul understands Moses to be enunciating a general rule that applies to Christ directly and according to the literal sense, without any allegory. For if every hanged person is cursed by God, as Moses teaches, then Christ, too, is cursed of God. And if every hanged one is an evildoer, then Christ, too, is an evildoer. Therefore the issue was not in what sense Christ was without sin but in what sense He had sin. Nor was this the issue, how He was blessed and therefore not subject to this hanging, but how He was or could be subjected.


Here Paul solves the whole difficulty with one word, saying (Gal. 3:13): “He became a curse FOR US.” For Us, I say, not for Himself. With this word he plainly teaches that someone has twofold sin, and that a hanged person will be a curse of God: once for Himself and for His own sin, like all others; at another time for others and for the sin of another. That applies only to Christ, who says in Ps. 69:9: “The insults of those who insult Thee have fallen on Me”; and Is. 53:4: “He carried our sins”; and again (Is. 53:8, 10): “For the sins of My people I struck Him, and the Lord wished to bruise Him because of Our sins.” Whether, therefore, one is hanged for himself or for another, the simple sense of the Law remains: everyone hanged for sin is a curse before God. Therefore in bearing our sin for us Christ was indeed made a curse, just as the text literally states. As He was also circumcised and put under the whole Law because of us, while on His part He was free from all Law. So He who knew no sin was made sin, that we should be the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). So He was made a curse, who knew no curse, that we should be a blessing of God in Him.

To remove this curse of God from the wood, lest the land be defiled, means to preach and believe the Gospel of the cross, namely, that the cross is glory, death is life, sin is righteousness, curse is blessing, destruction is salvation; or, as Paul says (Gal. 6:14), “to glory in the cross of our Lord, that the world be crucified to us, and we to the world,” according to the saying (Matt. 5:10): “Blessed are they who endure persecution, etc.” Otherwise, unless this is preached and believed, there is nothing more evil, nothing more abominable, than the cross and death. By this false assumption and scandal of the cross the whole world is defiled, since to the unclean nothing is clean, to the clean all things are clean (Titus 1:15). The one effect occurs through the Word; the other, without the Word."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Of Faith and Works

AELW 9:184-85

"First and foremost, the Prophet of whom Moses speaks here must be heard; that is, our salvation begins, not with any work of ours but with the hearing of the Word of life. Hence also the Law precedes, to humble, to reveal sin, and to teach that we can do nothing by our own strength. Rom. 4:15: “The Law brings wrath,” and brings it so completely that the people not only do not do the Law but will not even hear it, for it kills them. For this reason they seek another Word, one which can make us alive before we do any works, as you have seen here. Through the hearing of the Word the Holy Spirit is given; by faith He purifies the heart. Rom. 10:17: “Faith comes from what is heard,” not indeed to all who hear but to whom God wills. For the Spirit blows where He wills (John 3:8), not where we will. But when the Holy Spirit is received by faith, then we are justified by Him without any work of our own, only by the gift of God, and we experience peace and a good conscience toward God (Rom. 5:1), and joyfully and confidently we cry: “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). Now there is no more fear or slavish flight from the face of the wrath of God; there is childlike access to God through grace, in which we stand and boast (Rom. 5:2–3).

But when the heart is inwardly justified and at peace through faith in the Spirit, then outward actions soon follow in various ways. First there is confession by the mouth to salvation (Rom. 10:10), and the Word is outwardly preached. By this we are inwardly saved, and others are saved through us, just as we are saved through those before us, that the kingdom of Christ may increase. This is the source of persecution, the cross, and trouble over the Word in the world, which hates light and life because it loves darkness (John 3:19). Thus faith is tested and perfected till hope is made perfect, which makes us sure of our salvation. Secondly, that old man of ours in whom there are the remnants of sin which fight against the Spirit with the law in his members (Rom. 7:23), is attacked, so that we do not do what the Spirit wishes. Here the mortification of the flesh takes place. Thirdly, good works are produced, witnesses of faith and the Spirit toward one’s neighbor in love, kindness, peace, goodness, etc. (Gal. 5:22). This is the summary and the true order of Christian life, which depends on the Word and begins with it, and extends to the works of love toward one’s neighbor."

Monday, February 9, 2009

Not ABLAZE®, but CONSUMED® like a fire

AELW 9:181

Dt. 18:16. Just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb.

"In this passage Moses shows with what fervor and longing of the heart the Word of grace should be desired. It is truly that gift of God about which Paul seems especially to be speaking when he says to the Ephesians (
3:20): “God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” He hates lazy and cold petitioners, who hope to gain their end through much speaking (Matt. 5:7); he wants sighings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). Certainly no one can have all this who spends his days in a good life and dwells in the land of luxury. This is only for those who are moved to despair by the feeling of death and the bite of sin, so that, like the people of Israel, they refuse to go on hearing the voice of God or seeing the mighty fire, that is, the power of the Law and the prick of sin, namely, death and the wrath of God, which already consumes them like a fire, so that they long to hear the Word of life."

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Prophet is Christ Himself

AELW 9:178

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—Him you shall heed."(Dt 18:15)

"In this passage we have those two ministries of the Word which are necessary for the salvation of the human race: the ministry of the Law and the ministry of the Gospel, one for death and the other for life. They are indeed alike if you are looking at their authority, but most unlike if you are thinking about their fruit. The ministry of Moses is temporary, finally to be ended by the coming of the ministry of Christ, as he says here, “Heed Him.” But the ministry of Christ will be ended by nothing else, since it brings eternal righteousness and “puts an end to sin,” as it is said in Dan. 9:24. Therefore the Levitical priesthood is wholly ended here and set aside, because it was established to teach Moses. But if the priesthood is ended, the Law is also ended, as it is said (Heb. 7:12): “When there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the Law as well.” Thus this Prophet can be none other than Christ Himself."

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Not Luther, but a good quote

"The latest assaults upon the old-fashioned denominationalism are made, every now and then, by some new church,the statistics and leading features of which are somewhat as follows:

ministers, one;

members, intermittent from the sexton up to a moderate crowd, according as the subject of the sermon advertised on Saturday takes or does not take the fancy of those who spend the Lord's day in hunting lions;

churches, one (over, if not in, a beer saloon;)

creed, every man believes what he chooses;

terms of membership, every one who feels like it shall belong till he chooses to leave."

(pagination mine)


From...."The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology"p. 123, Charles P. Krauth, 1871

Monday, February 2, 2009

Strange gods, false gods...

AELW 9:130-131

"Strange gods, we have often said and say again, are not only an external idol but much rather an erring notion or conscience devised about the true God. For as the conscience is, so is God. If you believe that God is worshiped by sacrifices of this or that kind, in this or that place, and that without a Word of God, then you have already lost the true God; and that notion concerning sacrifice to which you cling under the name of the true God is your god. If you believe that God is worshiped through cap and tonsure, poverty, obedience, fasting, food, or drink (since here you do not have a Word of God), then cap and tonsure, or that notion about cap and tonsure, is your god. Therefore just as you have an inner assumption about the cap in place of God, so you extend this outwardly and set up, wear, honor, worship, and value the cap as an external idol according to the likeness of the inner notion.

See, this is what it means to make and follow other gods; it means to worship gods whom you do not know, because you do not feel or understand that in the place of the true God you worship a notion and an idol. Nor do you notice how uncertain you are in that worship, and how you think or know nothing concerning the true God, since you think about Him without His Word. But He cannot be known or thought of except through His Word. So you see that every way of inventing and worshiping strange gods is nothing else than that godless notion by which we choose and believe that we can please God without the Word of God, by this or that work, at this or that place, by this or that rite, when He is not of that sort and yet under His name another is falsely concocted in the heart. From this follow various names just like those of the idols. Thus one is called Baal, another Ashtaroth, another Dagon, another Moloch, Peor, Camos; and there are other names. Just so our monks are named, one from white clothing, another from black; and by his name and work each is outwardly different from the others. These all are prophets whom their dreams deceive. They say: “Let us go and worship strange gods.” That is, “Let us choose new rites without the Word, under the name of the true God.”