Please enjoy this week's article by Martin Luther.
May God Bless your week!
John
"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding
out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For
of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever.
Amen." Romans 11:33-36
This is the revelation and knowledge Christians have of God:
they not only know Him to be one true God, who is independent of and over all
creatures, and that there can be no more than this one true God, but they know
also what this one true God in His essential, inscrutable essence is.
The reason and wisdom of man may go so far as to reach the
conclusion, although feebly, that there must be one eternal divine being, who
has created and who preserves and governs all things. Man sees such a beautiful
and wonderful creation in the heavens and on the earth, one so wonderfully,
regularly and securely preserved and ordered, that he must say: It is
impossible that this came into existence by mere chance, or that it originated
and controls itself; there must have been a Creator and Lord from whom all
these things proceed and by whom they are governed. Thus God may be known by His
creatures, as St. Paul says: For the invisible things of him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power and Godhead... (Romans 1:20) This is the knowledge that
we have when we contemplate God from without (a posteriori), in His works and
government; as one, looking upon a castle or house from without, would draw
conclusions as to its lord or keeper.
But from within (a priori) no human wisdom has been able to
conceive what God is in Himself, or in His internal essence. Neither can anyone
know or give information of it except it be revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.
As Paul says, For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man
which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of
God. (1 Corinthians 2:11) From without, I may see what you do, but what your
intentions are and what you think, I cannot see. Again, neither can you know
what I think except I enable you to understand it by word or sign. Much less
can we know what God, in His own inner and secret essence is, until the Holy
Spirit, who searcheth and knoweth all things, yea, the deep things of God—as
Paul says above—reveals it to us: as he does in the declaration of this
article, in which he teaches us the existence in the divine majesty of the one
undivided essence, but in such manner that there is, first, the person which is
called the Father; and of Him exists the second person called the Son, born
from eternity; and proceeding from both these is the third, namely, the Holy
Spirit. These three persons are not distinct from each other, as individual
brothers or sisters are, but they have being in one and the same eternal,
undivided and indivisible essence.
This, I say, is not discovered or attained to by human
reason. It is revealed from heaven above. Therefore, only Christians can
intelligently speak of what the Godhead essentially is, and of His outward
manifestation to His creatures, and His will toward men concerning their
salvation. For all this is imparted to them by the Holy Spirit, who reveals and
proclaims it through the Word.
Further, we know, from the testimony of Holy Writ, that we
cannot expound the mystery of these divine things by the speculations of reason
and a pretense of great wisdom. To explain this, as well as all the articles of
our faith, we must have a knowledge higher than any to which the understanding
of man can attain. That knowledge of God which the heathen can perceive by
reason or deduce from rational premises is but a small part of the knowledge
that we should possess. The heathen Aristotle in his best book concludes from a
passage in the wisest pagan poet, Homer: There can be no good government in
which there is more than one lord; it results as where more than one master or
mistress attempts to direct the household servants. So must there be but one
lord and regent in every government. This is all rightly true. God has
implanted such light and understanding in human nature for the purpose of
giving a conception and an illustration of His divine office, the only Lord and
Maker of all creatures. But, even knowing this, we have not yet searched out or
fathomed the exalted, eternal, divine Godhead essence. For even though I have
learned that there is an only divine majesty, who governs all things, I do not
thereby know the inner workings of this divine essence Himself; this no one can
tell me, except, as we have said, in so far as God Himself reveals it in His
Word.
These Scriptures declare, concerning this article, that
there is no God or divine being save this One alone. They not only manifest Him
to us from without, but they lead us into His inner essence, and show us that
in Him there are three persons; not three Gods or three different kinds of
divinity, but the same undivided, divine essence.
Such a revelation is radiantly shed forth from the greatest
of God's works, the declaration of His divine counsel and will. In that counsel
and will it was decreed from all eternity, and, accordingly, was proclaimed in
His promises, that His Son should become man and die to reconcile man to God.
For in our dreadful fall into sin and death eternal, there was no way to save
us excepting through an eternal person who had power over sin and death to
destroy them, and to give us righteousness and everlasting life instead. This
no angel or other creature could do; it must needs be done of God Himself. Now,
it could not be done by the person of the Father, who was to be reconciled, but
it must be done by a second person, with whom this counsel was determined and
through whom and for whose sake the reconciliation was to be brought about.
Here there are, therefore, two distinct persons, one of whom
becomes reconciled, and the other is sent to reconcile and becomes man. The
former is called the Father, being first in that He did not have His origin in
any other; the latter is called the Son, being born of the Father from
eternity. To this the Scriptures attest, for they make mention of God's Son;
as, for instance, in Psalm 2:7: Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee;
and again, Galatians 4:4: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent
forth his Son... From this it necessarily follows that the Son, who is spoken
of as a person, must be distinct from the person of the Father.
Again, in the same manner, the Spirit of God is specifically
and distinctively mentioned as a person sent or proceeding from God the Father
and the Son; for instance, God says in Joel 2:28: I will pour out my Spirit
upon all flesh..." Here a spirit is poured out who is God's, or a divine
spirit, and who must be of the same essence, otherwise He could not say,
"my Spirit;'' and yet He must be a person other than He who sent Him or
who pours out. Again, because when He was sent He manifested Himself, and
appeared in His descent in a visible form, like that of a dove or tongues of
fire, He must be distinct in person from both the Father and the Son.
Martin Luther
Sermon for Trinity Sunday
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