THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

If we wish to stand upon the councils and counsels of men, we lose the Scriptures altogether and remain in the devil’s possession body and soul. He is Satan, and Satan is his name, i.e. an adversary. He must obstruct and cause misfortune; he cannot do otherwise. Moreover, he is the prince and god of this world,  so that he has sufficient power to do so. Since he is able and determined to do all this, we must not imagine that we shall have peace from him. He takes no vacation and he does not sleep. Choose, then, whether you prefer to wrestle with the devil or whether you prefer to belong to him. If you consent to be his, you will receive his guarantee to leave you in peace with the Scriptures. If you refuse to be his, defend yourself, go at him! He will not pass you by; he will create such dissension and sectarianism over the Scriptures that you will not know where Scriptures, faith, Christ, and you yourself stand. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

If the world lasts much longer, men will, as the ancients did, once more turn to human schemes on account of this dissension, and again issue laws and regulations to keep the people in the unity of the faith. Their success will be the same as it was in the past. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

Now in our day, having seen that Scripture was utterly neglected and the devil was making captives and fools of us by the mere straw and hay of man-made laws, we have tried by God’s grace to offer some help in the matter. With immense and bitter effort indeed we have brought the Scriptures to the fore again and released the people from man-made laws, freed ourselves and escaped the devil, although he stubbornly resisted and still continues to do so. However, even though he has had to let us go, he does not forget his tricks. He has secretly sown his seed among us so that they may take hold of our teachings and words, not to aid and assist us in fostering the Scriptures, but, while we were leading in the fight against human drivel, to fall upon our host from the rear, incite rebellion and raise an uproar against us, in order that caught between two enemies, we may be more easily destroyed. This is what I call throwing quicksilver into the pond! -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

This is the way the plot worked out for the fathers: Since they contrived to have the Scriptures without quarreling and dissension, they thereby became the cause of men’s turning wholly and completely away from the Scriptures to mere human drivel. Then, of course, dissension and contention over the Scriptures necessarily ceased, which is a divine quarrel wherein God contends with the devil, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 6[:12], “We have to contend not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the air.” . But in place of this, there has broken out human dissension over temporal honor and goods on earth, yet there remain a united blindness and ignorance of the Scriptures and a loss of the true Christian faith, i.e. a united obedience to the glosses of the fathers and to the holy see at Rome. Isn’t this also a piece of devilish craftiness? No matter what play we make, he is a master and an expert at the game. -Martin Luther

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS 1527

All heretics seek the aid of Scripture

Once Scripture had become like a broken net and no one would be restrained by it, but everyone made a hole in it wherever it pleased him to poke his snout, and followed his own opinions, interpreting and twisting Scripture any way he pleased, the Christians knew no other way to cope with these problems than to call many councils. In these they issued many outward laws and ordinances alongside Scripture, in order to keep the people together in the face of these divisions. As a result of this undertaking (though they meant well), arose the sayings that the Scriptures were not sufficient, that we also needed the laws and the interpretations of the councils and the fathers, and that the Holy Spirit did not reveal everything to the apostles but reserved certain things for the fathers. Out of this finally developed the papacy, in which there is no authority but man-made laws and interpretations according to the “chamber of the holy father’s heart.”

Fourth Sunday In Lent

The Lord be with you.

Greetings.
We have been “in, with and under” Psalm 69 for quit some time now. Especially pertaining to Martin Luther’s writing on such. I would enjoy discussing the direction in which “Wartburg Speaks” is heading concerning the next few months. First let me joy and ever give praise to Our Lord Jesus Christ for his work, his fulfillment, his doing and completing the Law of God, his giving all good things to us-ward who believe.
I’ve taken up a volume by John W. Kleinig. Mr. Kleinig writes and comments on the book of Leviticus. In his preface he writes: “…the main thing that jolted me to search the Scriptures to discover what they had to say about God’s holiness was my ministry to people under attack by Satan and the powers of darkness. That taught me much about the demonic use of impurity, the healing power of Christ’s holiness, and my own holiness in Christ as an armor of light against the powers of darkness.”
I am still working out of my Microsoft Word files which I’ve stored-up over time. I will be using the 55-volume American Edition of Luther’s Works. The special writing I want to present is found in volume 37. The title of the work is:

THAT THESE WORDS OF CHRIST, “THIS IS MY BODY,” ETC., STILL STAND FIRM AGAINST THE FANATICS (1527).

I hope you enjoy this section of Martin Luther’s vast knowledge concerning this subject.

Brother Salvatore Palamara

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

27. Add thou iniquity upon iniquity. This must be understood as I stated earlier; if they remain as they are. For in their present state they cannot enter into the righteousness of God, yet all the people of this sort presume to do so, thinking that they are offering homage to God in their very iniquity. For that reason this verse speaks against their proud presumption, as if to say: “Do not approve of their works, nor credit to them as righteousness whatever they do, but always impute it to them as iniquity through all their generations.” Thus God adds “iniquity upon their iniquity” when, in the same measure as to their fathers, He imputes iniquity to the descendants who imitate the works of their fathers; second, when He turns them over to a reprobate mind, so that they continually become worse in their perfidy and hatch ever greater plots against Christ. But this is understood mystically by adding to the preceding, “because they have persecuted Him whom Thou hast smitten,” for they tickle the contrite and humbled spirit and stir up sensual impulses and always attempt to destroy it. “And they have added to the grief of My wounds,” that is, “to My contritions with which I groan spiritually for sins,” and they even add their vexations of the troublesome feeling while they egg me on to gluttony, luxury, anger, pride, satiety, and the rest of the works of the flesh. [Then grief is added to grief when one sins again after grace. For since the members have been killed through the cross of Christ and condemned, to revive them is to renew the cause of Christ’s suffering.] “Add iniquity upon iniquity,” that is, add its punishment and loathing and scourging more and more, and impute and make me impute to the flesh even the faintest impulses to evil. Teach me to regard its suggestions as the greatest evil. And let them not come into Thy righteousness. Do not permit me to regard anything carnal as pleasing to Thee, as righteous and holy in Thy sight. Thus in Job 3:1 f. the flesh is cursed, and Job prays that it may not be numbered with his senses, so that the spirit might be saved. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living (v. 29), let them not appear as works of life and salvation. And let them not be written with the righteous, but let them be distinguished from them as thoroughly evil. But how rarely do we find such zeal over the flesh! We are in the habit of going easy on ourselves and more gently reproving the flesh with its desires, just as the children of Israel did not drive out the Jebusites and Canaanites from their borders, because they were not entirely displeased with them, but rather catered to them. Consequently they stayed and were intermingled with them (Joshua 15:63; Judg. 1:21). –Martin Luther

Psalm 69
1Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.
2I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
3I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
4They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.
5O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.
6Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord GOD of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.
7Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.
8I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children.
9For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.
10When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach.
11I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.
12They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.
13But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.
14Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.
15Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
16Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.
17And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
18Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.
19Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: mine adversaries are all before thee.
20Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.
21They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.
23Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.
24Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.
25Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.
26For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.
27Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness.
28Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
29But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.
30I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.
32The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
33For the LORD heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners.
34Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moveth therein.
35For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.
36The seed also of his servants shall inherit it: and they that love his name shall dwell therein.

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

The psalmist continues, And to afflict My wounded ones, they would tell, or They have added to the grief of My wounds. The wounded of Christ are all His saints, because they carry His cross. Tropologically, they have been wounded by the Word of the Gospel and smitten by the Lord (as their head) according to the flesh. For they mortify themselves, they chastise and afflict themselves perpetually in humility and the fear of God, in poverty and contempt. But this is a merciful and fatherly smiting on the part of God. The Jews, however, not only had no pity on such as were in this way the afflicted, humbled, and wounded of Christ, as was proper, but they persecuted them in addition, adding furthermore that God was persecuting them. So Job says: “Have pity on me, at least you, my friends, because the hand of the Lord has touched me. Why do you, like God, persecute me and glut yourselves with my flesh?” (Job 19:2–22), that is, by tearing me according to the flesh you are filling up your anger. So it is with any one of the saints that, his flesh having been consumed, his bone cleaves to his skin (Job 19:20), namely, through his being crucified and suffering with Christ. Thus they become “the curtains of Solomon” (Song of Sol. 1:5). Therefore killing those who are stricken in their heart is the reason why they cannot be converted and saved (cf. Ps. 109:1 ff.). Yet they might be converted if they would stop. Amos 1:13: “For three transgressions and for four I will not convert him, etc.” Nor can he [be converted], because he sins the sin unto death, namely, three times and four, that is, seven times, which is the number of universality, since they keep on sinning without end, just as the whole time rolls around by seven. The heretics imitate the designs of these people. Instead of having compassion and sympathy with the church, afflicted with evils and crucified with Christ in its sufferings, they further “rip and cut up the pregnant women of Gilead to enlarge their border” (Amos 1:13), and thus pile added grief on the wounded bride of Christ. But those people, too, imitate them who, while they are in sins, presumptuously intrude in holy things, and in general do all who sin knowingly. For in them all the church is afflicted over and above what it suffers according to the flesh. For its number grows less and weakens and is burned up. [And today the popes increase the grief of the Lord’s wounds.] –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

26. Him whom Thou hast smitten. Here the reason is given for so great a punishment. It is not precisely that they crucified Christ, because He did pray for them, and they could have been forgiven if they had been willing [according to Zech. 1:15: “I was angry a little, but they furthered the disaster”], but that they did not stop persecuting Him even when He was dead and rising again in His members. For He was smitten by the Father, according to Is. 53:4. But if they had stopped when the Father stopped smiting Him, and if they had glorified Him when the Father glorified Him, all would have been well with them. But now, while the Father is glorifying Him, they refuse to do so and keep on persecuting Him nonetheless. Hence He said to one who was one of the most distinguished among them (Acts 9:4): “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” Therefore the fact that punishment was upon them is due entirely to their own will, for God desired to save them. But since they are unwilling, God cannot save them contrary to their own will. Hence the punishment necessarily follows, because they do not change their will. From this it is clear that this punishment upon them is not definitive and absolute, but as long as their will remains what it is. So the apostle says, Rom. 11:23: “They also will be grafted in, if they do not persist in their unbelief. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

In saying “pour out Thy indignation” (v. 24), the psalmist is indicating the wrath of severity without any mercy. For the wrath of goodness is not wrath poured out, but scarcely trickled, because the pouring out of grace, which, according to the apostle, has been poured on us abundantly (Titus 3:6), softens the wrath. “Thy name is oil poured out” (Song of Sol. 1:3). But if all that the saints suffer, namely, death and every evil of this life, is called a trickle of God’s wrath, what will the pouring out be? Oh, oh, oh! Who knows the power of Thy anger compared with Thy fear? Thus Micah 2:11 says: “There will be one who will drip on this people,” that is, one who promises temporal goods. In the prophets the word “drip” is often used to express “to prophesy the evils of this world.” For just as the good things of the world (which are a trickle compared with eternal goods) were promised to the Jewish people, so also the evils of the world were threatened them. Therefore the prophets are said to “drip” on them. To the Christians, however, the promises are both eternal blessings and eternal evils. Therefore He does not drip now, but He pours out both, in Christ and His apostles, and He now thunders through waterfalls and through the heavens. [“And He opened the floodgates of heaven” (Gen. 7:11) and “Deep calls to deep” (Ps. 42:7).]29 As His name is poured out, so also His threat to forget. And as He emptied Himself of all goodness for us, so He empties Himself of all wrath upon us. The greatness of the evils always depends on the measure of the good. And the promises and threats mutually highlight and expose each other.
The same thing is expressed by the words “and Thy burning anger,” or “the wrath of Thy rage,” as it is put elsewhere, “the wrath of Thy indignation” (Ps. 85:3). It is pure wrath, without the admixture of mercy, not the wrath of goodness. It seizes people, that is, it totally envelops them, so that they cannot get out in any way whatever. For there is no redemption in hell. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

Unless a person always descends to hell in attitude and in fear, he will not be in a secure position. He who is secure is least secure, and he who is fearful and terrified is blessed, because he will be least afraid.
On the basis of this I believe that so great an abomination of guzzling and high living abounds because we are not afraid that either the spiritual or the physical table will become a snare for us. For since we do not eat the food in fear, it soon catches our soul and ensnares it in the tickling of the flesh, in talkativeness, in fickleness, and other monstrosities without number, that is, a retribution and a stumbling block. And then the eyes are soon darkened for seeing divine things. And the back, that is, the flesh, is bent down to its own lusts and other things that are in the world. But if this happens to all others with regard to their table, how much more does it happen especially to the clerics and the religious. Their table, since it is the sweat and the sins of others, must be feared with an incomparable fear, so that it does not become a snare. Truly, it will be not only a snare but rather snares. For they are entangled with both the sins of others and with their own. Oh, that we, too, would understand and be wise, and provide for our last end! For these imprecations are so abundant nowhere else, neither among the Jews nor among the Gentiles (as far as the physical table is concerned), as they are among the priests and the religious today. They, too, have been seized by the rage of God’s wrath that they neither see nor want to see that they are under God’s wrath. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

Let their eyes (namely of lust) be darkened, so that they do not see (v. 23) vanity but permit the spirit to see truth. And always bend down their back so that [the flesh] may not lift up the neck against the spirit nor raise the heel against it or bend it down.

And pour out Thy indignation upon them (v. 24), namely—by fasting, scourging, afflicting—cold, heat, hunger, thirst, nakedness, and men persecuting in word and deed. And let Thy burning anger overtake them, so that it cannot get away but is completely mortified and crucified.

May their camp be a desolation (v. 25), that is, let no sin, no enjoyment, nothing worldly or carnal in the senses remain, but let them be desolate. And let no one dwell in their tents. Let every lust of the flesh perish, and let no stimulus to sin remain in his members. This tropology the apostle describes very well in Rom. 6–8, where he says (Rom. 6:12): “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, etc.”
This can also be understood profitably in another way, namely, that such ungodly people might realize that such great punishments have come upon them and continue to threaten them and, indeed, that every saint might fear lest they be upon him. And thus, in the explanation of these verses, add knowledge to the ungodly and fear to the saints, so that “Let their table become” may mean: “If only they would realize, if only it would be revealed to them, if only they understood and knew that their table is a snare for them!” For thus it foresees the future for them, it wishes that they themselves might foresee the last things, according to the word of Moses in Deut. 32:29: “O that they would be wise and would understand and would discern their last end!” In this way their table becomes a stumbling block to them when it happens, and it happens to them when they understand. [As long as something is not known to have been done, it has not yet been done to him or with respect to him. But it happens with respect to him when it is known to have been done.] For, as I have often said, Scripture customarily speaks and makes itself known in the manner of those to whom it happens. Therefore here, too, he says, “Let it be,” since without doubt it is, or as it might be, so it will certainly have been. But it has not yet happened to them or been done to them. So we must deal in a similar manner with what follows. –Martin Luther

Third Sunday In Lent PSALM SIXTY-NINE

22. Let their table become a snare before them. Here a noteworthy teaching must be indicated. All the punishments, imprecations, and curses spoken of in the Scriptures, whether for the Jews or for others, are in a tropological sense of the most advantageous and desirable usefulness, as the apostle intimates in Rom. 11:25: “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren, that blindness in part has happened in Israel.” Behold, he says that this mystery is decidedly salutary, that is, for us, not for them. Thus such curses are not so much foretold out of wrath as they are caused by supreme love for us. Therefore let that curse, morally understood, be on me: Let the table, whether Scripture, or the Sacrament of the Altar, or bodily refreshment, become a snare, so that it may catch me according to the flesh and liberate me according to the spirit, so that the sinner may be seized in his works and for the purpose of repayment, that the flesh of sin, which had ruled over the spirit, might justly be made subject and humbled, and the spirit might do to the flesh what it had done to the spirit. For “O daughter of Babylon, you wretched one; blessed is he who shall repay you for what you have done to us” (Ps. 137:8). Thus we may say with Samson to these five senses, the satraps of Philistia (that is, the flesh): “As they did to me, so I did to them” (Judg. 15:11).
And a stumbling block, namely, that it may always cause offense and never make progress, but its power become worse and weaker. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

21. They gave Me gall for My food, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.

This is what the Jews did and do also allegorically when, after they have crucified the truth which is Scripture (namely, Christ Himself) and have twisted it to their own meaning and will, they try to mix bitter glosses with it, glosses that are hateful and blasphemous against Christ, as Moses prophesied, “Their wine is the gall of dragons” (Deut. 32:33). For the truth consumes us, and we consume it. It is our food, and we are its food. Therefore, when they should have been truth’s food which it would incorporate into itself, as Christ devours us and changes us into Himself, and we are His food, they were turned into the gall of the most bitter treachery instead, so that they could not be eaten, like that very bad fig in Jer. 24:2. Therefore the Lord also cursed the fig tree which had no fruit, and this He did not because of the fig tree but in order to give a sign of the synagogue that had to be cursed. Thereby the evangelists are showing us something, because they say that it was not the season for figs, as if to say: “That fig tree did not deserve the curse, but that which it signified, whose fruit He hungered for.” So also we are a drink for Christ and the truth, and, on the contrary, Christ and the truth are our drink, because we feast with the Lord in a mutual and exceedingly rich banquet, He with us and we with Him, as we are incorporated in each other. But the Jews have become vinegar and spoiled wine, of ancient vintage through unbelief. Behold, how great a sacrament these ungodly people unwittingly achieved against themselves! When the Lord tasted it, He did not want to drink it (Matt. 27:34). For the truth of the Scriptures and of faith does not receive them nor their glosses, but rather dies and is blotted out in them.
The heretics imitate the rage of these people in every respect. They likewise drink the truth with the gall of their own treachery and with the vinegar of their supremely arrogant understanding. But the tongue and the throat of Christ does not receive them. For the order of teachers tastes the bitterness of the dragon’s gall and therefore spits them out together with their own gall and vinegar. But all who sin with malice and presumption and partake of holy things while they are in sin act likewise. For they want to be incorporated with the Lord and drink Him, but they cannot. Today their number is very large. It includes all who purposely come to the church’s sacrament in pride and envy, in luxury and anger. Or they presume to be saved. But the Lord spits them out like the heretics and Jews, as long as they are such people. If they would mend their ways, He would assuredly drink them, and they Him. But there is no one like that among them. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

“When people say, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them.” So it happened to the Sodomites and the people at the time of the flood (Luke 17:26 ff.). So it happened later to the Jews when they were destroyed. Therefore the charge is made against the last of the seven angels, that of Laodicea, that he was neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm (Rev. 3:15–16), that is, secure in peace.

A person cannot finish one day unless he regards it as his last.

A person will not worthily finish one hour or moment, unless he seriously regards it as his last. Such a person will be humbled and will fear. And so God will give him His grace, and His Spirit will rest upon him.

No one can worthily pray the prayers of affliction unless, as I said above, he goes down to death and hell, so, on the contrary, no one can worthily and joyfully speak praises, unless he ascends to heaven with the attitude of hope and, as intensely as he can, think of himself as being in fact already in the midst of the angels and saints. So also no one can love (according to the spirit) worthily, except one who takes on the attitude of the Lord Jesus, that is, one who thinks as follows. If he were the highest, noblest, richest, most powerful, and filled with the greatest love, he would give himself over into every evil and death for his enemy or the most loathsome criminal. The more earnestly you do this, the more you will understand the love of Christ and ascend to love toward Him. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

Therefore go down with Jacob weeping to hell (Gen. 37:35). Mark this sign for yourself: When you are lukewarm and not in hell with your heart, know that there is danger for you, and peace and security are lying in ambush for you to bring you to destruction. For that reason you must not let your eyeball rest day or night, and you must not allow yourself any rest and peace (that is, security), because if you do, destruction will then unexpectedly come over you. Therefore Christ descended once, and all should follow Him wherever He might go, for He has commanded that we should follow Him. But if we are to do so in all other matters, why not also in this? Therefore, if you are looking for a sign of God’s grace, and whether Christ is in you, behold, no sign will be given you except the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matt. 12:39 f.). If, then, you have been three days in hell, this is a sign that Christ is with you and you are with Christ. Therefore you must be full of fear lest Ezek. 16:42 be cited to you: “My indignation shall rest on thee, and my jealousy shall depart from thee.” Nothing is worse than this wrath. For if jealousy is removed, love must at the same time be removed, since the two are inseparable companions. Ps. 4:1: “When I was in distress, Thou hast enlarged me.” So, on the contrary, “When I was in security, without doubt Thou hast constricted me and compressed me.” Ps. 17:36: “Thy discipline shall teach me.” Therefore, on the contrary, “My peace will unteach me.” –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

All the prayers of the Psalms which are uttered in the person of Christ as being in hell, are also uttered in the person of the saints, as descending to hell in their mind and heart. Thus “the wicked shall be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God” (Ps. 9:17). For that reason whoever does not die with Christ and descend to hell will never rise and ascend with Him. Therefore he prays here, “Draw Me out, set Me free.” All these are the most earnest prayers also of those who are occupied with meditating on hell, just as they are the prayers of Christ who was literally in hell. Therefore it follows that worldly men, since they live in their own goodness and do not descend to hell with the Lord, but rather ascend to the heavens, will themselves finally descend and not ascend. Thus is it said of the saints in Ps. 107:26: “They mount up to the heavens, and they go down to the depths. Their soul pined away in the evils.” –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

For he who is pleased with himself cannot stand in the fear of God and be without presumption. But what is worse than being without fear? Therefore every concern must be to strive for the supreme displeasure with ourselves, even in our good things.

The church is a kind of intellectual world.
Therefore without ceasing you receive life, feeling, being, understanding, food and clothing in spiritual things, the service of the sun of righteousness, of heaven and earth and of all the blessings in the church.

For at every moment endless benefits are offered you by the Lord. And as you cannot give proper thanks for one morsel of bread, neither can you for one word of truth. But one who thinks these benefits to be of little value and does not magnify those sins of omission will never be truly humble and displeased with himself, nor will he be fit to evaluate mercy and goodness.

How many are there who think everything is the result of chance, not knowing or not believing that they receive these things from the Lord! And this is only because of omitting the giving of thanks.

For when it comes to loving God and your neighbor, and so forth, how often have you offended?

Weigh the grace of God, who preserves you from damnation with the same measure as you would measure the grace of Him who snatches you out of the midst of hell. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

69:16 Hear me, O LORD; for thy loving kindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

Sweet and good is the mercy of God, namely, to those for whom their wretchedness is bitter and evil. But to those for whom their wretchedness is pleasing, the mercy of God is not good; indeed, it is useless, because they scorn it, and this is so because there is a relationship between the greatness and variety of the mercy of God and our wretchedness. For grace does not abound except where sin and wretchedness abound.

Peace and security do not let us see such things, let us labor and show what we ought to consider, that we may see many miseries, so that thus we may magnify and make propitious the mercy of the Lord. For it is not possible to make the mercy of God large and good, unless a person first makes his miseries large and evil or recognizes them to be such. To make God’s mercy great is not, as is commonly supposed, to think that God considers sins as small or that He does not punish them. Indeed, this especially means to reduce mercy. For how can one who regards evil as something small regard as something great the good by means of which the evil is removed? Hence our total concern must be to magnify and aggravate our sins and thus always to accuse them more and more, and earnestly judge and condemn them. The more deeply a person has condemned himself and magnified his sins, the more is he fit for the mercy and grace of God. –Martin Luther

Second Sunday In Lent PSALM SIXTY-NINE

10. I covered My soul with fasting, and it was made a reproach to Me. Although we do not read in the Gospel that they ridiculed Christ’s fasting and goat’s-hair garment, yet the fact that they ridiculed and despised everything else He said and did, and even blasphemed some things, leads to the conclusion that they also ridiculed Him in these matters. For when He preached poverty and said, “How difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of the heavens”, the Pharisees who were greedy heard this and mocked Him. They also mocked Him when He was raising the girl from the dead. Therefore, just as in this matter, so also in abstinence and in clothing and in all things He was their opposite. But they loved to fare sumptuously and be clothed expensively like that carouser (Luke 16:19). Therefore, being perverse, they perverted everything. But the same things happened and still happen to His members in our own time: they are regarded as fools by the world because they do not seek the things that are of the world, namely, feasting and a showy display of garments. “I covered My soul with fasting, and it was made a reproach to Me.” And St. Peter testifies that it happened also to the first Christians, saying in 1 Peter 4:4: “They are surprised that you do not now join them in the same wild profligacy.” They say, “You must conform. That’s the style now.”
But note that fasting should be arranged not for boasting, but He says: “I have humbled My soul.” The Pharisees and hypocrites fasted for the purpose of raising up their soul for a singular kind of glory and boasting (cf. Matt. 6:16). [They humble only the body.] –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

5. O God, Thou knowest My foolishness. He is saying this because when the Jews had crucified Christ, they thought that all had now been convinced that He was the worst kind of person and cursed by God and in every way ungodly and a deceiver. For the Law says, “Cursed by the Lord is he who hangs on a tree” (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13). Therefore they rushed to this kind of death, so that they might show Him to be hateful to God and might now conclude by authority of the Law that He could not have perished by means of such a death unless He were unrighteous before God. Therefore they said: “He trusted in God. Let Him deliver Him, if He wants to” (Matt. 27:43), as if to say: “It does not look as if He wanted Him or had any desire for Him. For ‘cursed by the Lord is he who hangs on a tree.’” Behold, then, the people who do not know how He was cursed. And it is indeed true that He was cursed by the Lord, for the Father made Him a curse for us, and He truly died because of sins. Yet they did not know that these were their own sins, but God knew. For that reason He says: They do not know My offenses, but You know them. That is, they do not understand how they are Mine, for I have made the sins of others Mine. Nor did they understand that that curse could not swallow up the whole person, but since God was not able to bring Him under any curse, only His flesh was swallowed up. Therefore He is at the same time cursed and blessed, at the same time alive and dead, at the same time grieving and rejoicing, so that He might absorb all evils in Himself and bestow all blessings from Himself. Blessed be our Lord, Amen! –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

He (Jesus) entered into hell, which opened its mouth, but it could not close its mouth on Him and hold Him. But the way out was entirely open to Him. The mouth of death received Him (Jesus) by the same death, but it could not shut Him up. So also the saints go into death, into the mouth of the deep, but they will not be shut up in it, because they will rise from the dead, and the pit of hell cannot swallow them up and shut them up like the ungodly, whom the tempest has overwhelmed a second time. For when the ungodly and the reprobate die, they die in both ways, with the body and the soul. Therefore the doubling describes them. But when the righteous die, they die only according to the flesh, according to which they will also finally walk out. Therefore they are stuck so that they might not be stuck, like Christ, their head. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

My eyes have failed, while I trust in My God.
This is a horrible word, and I cannot adequately express it, “My eyes have failed.” For one who does not fear everything from all sides does not look around. But he who is afraid will neglect nothing, because he is thoroughly alert and afraid of everything. Therefore, to fight that failure, the Lord so anxiously commands us to be watchful and always to have open eyes and wait for His coming. Therefore we need to fear Him who will stir up this lukewarmness and shake off this sleep, namely, that we may think and evaluate, since smugness is worse and more dreadful than all adversity. For that reason so fear and flee it, so hate it and consider it suspect, as if it were the greatest evil of all, because it lulls to sleep and causes the eyes to fail. And you must keep in mind that this is something you should be advised against, because prosperity is a double adversity and security is twice a danger. Just as there is no greater iniquity than the highest equity, no greater injustice than the highest justice, no greater loss than the greatest gain, so there is no greater adversity than prosperity and no greater danger than no danger at all. This is so because it makes people careless. “When they shall say, ‘peace and security,’ then shall sudden destruction come upon them” (1 Thess. 5:3). Nothing is safe where everything is safe, nothing so sick as when everything is healthy; there is no temptation when all is temptation, no persecution when all is persecution. Thus the devil now fights the church with the greatest persecution, because he fights with no persecution, but rather with security and idleness. Therefore woe to us, who are so snatched away by present things and foolishly do not see the devil’s trap! We act like the foolish heir who knew only how to squander the magnificent estate left by his parents and did nothing to build it up but always carried away from the pile. –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

3. I have labored with crying, My jaws have become hoarse. First, because the Word of God is being gospeled and shouted and toiled but is listened to so very little, it is so despised that one is thought not to shout it, but barely to grow hoarse. Indeed, according to blessed Augustine, the voice of the preacher is hoarse when he who hears it listens to it poorly, but it is clear and bright when it is heard clearly and brightly.
But now we pray in a hoarse and laborious way. For that reason this verse briefly depicts the labored, dry, and irreverent prayer of the church in our time, or in a time soon to be. Thus formerly out of a rich anointing there were joyful praises of God in their jaws, and their tongue rejoiced over the righteousness of Christ. But now, from a lack of fat and fullness the jaws of Christ are hoarse, and the rough voice grates and groans in a dry throat. Such a voice is not yet entirely ruined or silenced, like that of the unbelievers, who will not cry in their throat, because they have been made like their own images, because only a believer can speak. “I believed, therefore I have spoken” (Ps. 116:10). –Martin Luther

PSALM SIXTY-NINE

So it is also with the depth of the sea, that is, the pride of life which is in the world, for the sea is the world. And this is a threefold rope, which is so hard to tear that it will not be torn except by the Son, who was torn on the cross.
In Scripture the word standing (substantia) is used metaphorically both in a grammatical and in a physical sense. And it must properly be so taken here, not as the philosophers talk about it, but in the sense of a foothold or settled ground, on which a man can stand with his feet, so that they do not slip into the deep and are submerged. And thus Christ did not have such a foothold on life that would keep Him from falling altogether into death. But if He had only suffered without going into death all the way, He would assuredly have had a place on which to stand firmly…So, then, Christ is “stuck in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing.”
He is “stuck in the mire of the deep.” For those who have fallen into the luxury of the flesh tightly enough and are stuck in it are bound by the devil. Now the devil is satisfied, not when they have fallen, but when they persevere in the sins of the flesh.
He says, “I have come into the depth of the sea,” that is, into the midst of the world’s pomp and glory (the pride of life). –Martin Luther

Psalm 69

Saying “waters” in the plural indicates the plurality of Christ’s sufferings and of our sins. In the same way the mire of the deep (v. 2) is His punishment for our lust of the flesh, as the waters are the lust of the eyes. For iniquity is properly greed, and hence it is called “the mammon of unrighteousness” (Luke 16:9). And our flesh is truly mire made of mire, remaining as mire, and will be mire again in the future. But iniquity is the waters of riches, for just as the waters flow and do not stay, so it is similarly with riches. But the dirt is on earth even after this life. Therefore Christ was stuck in our mud, namely, in the lusts of our flesh, which leads Him into the deep and the abyss. And the sin of the flesh is properly compared to the deep, for among all things it especially blinds and makes us altogether a beast. Therefore there is no sure standing there. –Martin Luther

First Sunday In Lent PSALM SIXTY-NINE

This psalm speaks literally about the suffering of the Lord in His own person.
Save Me, O Lord, for the waters have come up to My soul (v. 1).
The waters were the sufferings, which the Jews inflicted on Christ.
Save Me. This general word gives expression to all misery. Therefore He seeks to be set free from all of them. It is to be noted, however, that Christ always has a simple response to us for our double request. For He was not in misery spiritually, but only literally; or, because He was never in the evil of guilt, but only in the evil of punishment, while we are in both in a double sense, namely, in the evil of guilt and punishment. Yet since He was innocent even of the punishment, His punishment was for our sin. Hence when He Himself prays to be freed from punishments, He is at the same time praying that we might be freed from sins and punishments, since He would have no punishments if it were not for our sins and our punishments. Thus the psalm is speaking about Him and about us at the same time, and it must be read with the most devoted love for Christ. Let us, I say, understand our sins and His punishment at the same time, expressed in the same words. –Martin Luther

Christ In The Psalms

Is. 53:6 says: “God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” These words must not be diluted but must be left in their precise and serious sense. For God is not joking in the words of the prophet; He is speaking seriously and out of great love, namely, that this Lamb of God, Christ, should bear the iniquity of us all. But what does it mean to “bear”? The sophists reply: “To be punished.” Good. But why is Christ punished? Is it not because He has sin and bears sin? That Christ has sin is the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Psalms. Thus in Ps. 40:12 we read: “My iniquities have overtaken Me”; in Ps. 41:4: “I said: ‘O Lord, be gracious to Me; heal Me, for I have sinned against Thee!’ ”; and in Ps. 69:5: “O God, Thou knowest My folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from Thee.” In these psalms the Holy Spirit is speaking in the Person of Christ and testifying in clear words that He has sinned or has sins. These testimonies of the psalms are not the words of an innocent one; they are the words of the suffering Christ, who undertook to bear the person of all sinners and therefore was made guilty of the sins of the entire world. –Martin Luther

Restored by Christ

You say: “Well, does not Christ Himself often frighten and threaten us in the Gospel? For example, when He says (Matt. 4:17): ‘Repent!’ Or in Luke 13:5: ‘I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.’ ” Why, these are Christ’s own words, and a faint and saddened conscience must constantly worry lest they pertain to it. It must declare: “Say what you will, Christ Himself makes this statement. Who can ignore it?”
I reply: This is why I said that we must become skilled artists and learn to distinguish well between Christ’s rebukes and His threats, and know where to apply His words.

Therefore even though Christ Himself does speak threatening and frightening words here and there, I am not to apply these words to myself. For they pertain only to the smug, impenitent, hardened, and wicked scorners of His Word and His grace. Therefore since I am a Christian and a disciple of my Savior, do not try to harass me with these verses. For even though they are Christ’s words, you are not quoting them at the right time and at the proper place; nor are you applying them to the person to whom they refer. You are not using the words as Christ does; but they are being perverted by that lying spirit, the devil, who diverts both the threatening and the comforting words from the group to which they apply, just as he perverts all God’s Words and transforms truth into a lie.”

It is indeed a real Christian art to distinguish in the heat of battle between the suggestions of Christ and those of the devil. Only one who is experienced will realize the difficulty. For, as I have said, the devil can so clothe and adorn himself with Christ’s name and works, and can pose and act in such a way, that one could swear a thousand oaths that it is truly Christ Himself, although in reality it is the archenemy and the true Archantichrist. Therefore if you are a Christian, you must learn to conclude from this that anyone who wants to terrify and dishearten you is surely the devil’s messenger. For whenever Christ frightens someone away from unbelief and a sinful life into penitence and conversion, it is of short duration. Thus He frightened Paul before his conversion, and thus St. Paul, in the name of Christ, frightened the Corinthians and the Galatians. (The reference seems to be to the following passages: Acts 9:3–5; 1 Cor. 5:1–5; Gal. 3:1.)
For it is not Christ’s purpose to keep you sad; no, in a short time He frees you from sadness and comforts you. The devil does not do this. He does not let a single proud and impenitent person despair; or when such a person finally does lapse into terror and fear, as happens in the end to all such, then he deserts him. Even then he does not put an end to his terrorizing but oppresses and distresses him so severely that he must despair eternally unless he is restored by Christ. –Martin Luther

His Message

Whoever believes in Him shall live eternally. He who believes and performs the duties of his office shall be a king and an emperor in heaven; he shall be like the angels. Thus Christ’s kingdom is to consist in His message.
But who can perceive this? You are not to see it. His rule and His sermon are a testimony. And now whoever wishes to be justified before God must hear this Witness, that is, the Preacher. His is a sermon that bears witness solely of things not seen and heard in law books or anywhere else in the world. It testifies of something that no one has seen. Here you find the Messiah portrayed and described as a Preacher, as all the prophets had foretold. Preaching is to mark His realm and rule. In His testimony we find all wisdom, life, and truth; for He bears witness of what He Himself has seen and heard. If He had not seen and heard this, He could not reveal it and bear witness. What He preaches is not a fiction or a figment of His imagination; it deals with the things He has seen, for He is God’s Son, and He knows the depth of God’s will and wisdom and of the Father’s counsel. To this He bears witness.The last time we heard why the sermon of the Lord Christ is called a testimony; it is a message not comprehended by reason. But reason must give ear and be informed. The kingdom of the Messiah is to be called a witness, which means that it is the Messiah’s office to preach. His sermons are to deal with matters never seen or heard before. –Martin Luther

A Christian

We conclude, then, that a Christian man does not live in and for himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor, or else is no Christian; in Christ by faith, in his neighbor by love. By faith he is carried upwards above himself to God, and by love he descends below himself to his neighbor, still always abiding in God and his love. –Martin Luther