"In theology one must simply hear, believe, and hold firmly in his heart: God is faithful, no matter how absurd what He says in His Word may appear to our reason.”

Psalm 45:11b: Since He is your Lord, bow to Him

AELW 12:287-288

"Therefore you who devote yourselves to Holy Scriptures should above all be sure of what you must believe in the Christian religion, that you may have the articles of faith defended with good texts of Holy Scripture and have considered them well. Then when either Satan or his instruments, the heretics, wish to dispute with you, hold these texts up to them and let them go, saying: “I do not wish to hear your sophistries and speculations. For this is what the Holy Spirit says. He has warned me to hear and incline my ear. A new and powerful teaching is coming, at which many will be offended:   that we must let all righteousness go and simply confide and depend on Christ alone and His righteousness; moreover, that this Christ is by nature God and must be adored. So I am certain I do not err, and the argument is refuted that is raised from the First Commandment and the Prophets regarding one God.” If they object: “Then you make many gods,” I reply: “I do not make another or many gods, but I say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and the same God. There is a unity of substance and one Essence though there are three Persons. I do not want to have many gods, because many gods contend among themselves. Nor can there be many gods. But here is unity. If I do not understand how the Persons are differentiated, it is enough for me that Holy Scriptures say this and call Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by name (Matt. 28:19). If I could grasp this with my reason or senses, what need would there be for faith? Of what use is Scripture revealed by God through the Holy Spirit? If I believe nothing but what I can comprehend by my reason, I must reject Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Word, grace, original sin, and everything. Reason understands none of these things.” So we see that the Sacramentarians and Anabaptists have given up an of these, for they understand none of them correctly. For that reason this should be the first concern of a theologian: that he be a good textualist, as it is called, and that he hold fast to the first principle of not disputing or philosophizing about sacred things. If reasonable or apparent arguments were in place here, I could distort every article of faith as well as Arius, the Sacramentarians, and the Anabaptists. But in theology one must simply hear, believe, and hold firmly in his heart: “God is faithful, no matter how absurd what He says in His Word may appear to our reason.”