Therefore God the Father adorned his Son, as the bride in the Song of Solomon says, "Go forth O daughters of Zion, and behold your King, Christ, with the crown and the ornament with which his mother adorned and crowned him on the day of his espousal and wedding and on the day of the gladness of his heart" [cf. Song of Sol. 3:11]. That is, because Christ was about to receive the kingdom and the power to reign, and be a king above all kings, he had the greatest honor and glory and joy in his heart when he died on the cross. This we do not see and therefore we are rightly called blind and foolish by Christ.
But we persist in our evil way of seeing things and see no difference whatsoever. Augustine says, "Christ speaks of the blind man and of birth, whereby he clearly indicates that this is what we are from Adam's birth and that blindness adheres to us by nature,"10 and this blindness can be taken away by none but Christ. Here is where all who undertake to do something of themselves are compelled to submit and be conquered. For the blind man did not imagine that he would be made whole, as the text says, "Never has it been heard that a blind man should receive his sight" [John 9:32]. We must despair of everything that we can do. But those who say: Ah, but I have done as much as I possibly can; I have done enough, and I hope that God will give me grace—they set up an iron wall between themselves and the grace of God. But if you feel within yourself the urge to call upon God and pray and plead and knock, then grace is already there; then call upon it and thank God. Grace can never forsake him who despairs of himself. For many passages declare: To the humble He gives grace, but He denies it to the proud [Prov. 3:34; Jas. 4:6; I Pet.
5:5]. The fact is that nobody can do anything except freely surrender himself to God no matter what happens, and despair of himself. But those who say: All right, then I'll wait until grace comes, are turning it around. Ah, you fool, when you feel what has been effected within you, then grace is already there; just go on and follow. Thus you retire and you no longer stand and walk by yourself. God cannot endure our wanting to see; we needs must be blind. For God is wholly present in all creation, in every corner, he is behind you and before you. Do you think he is sleeping on a pillow in heaven? He is watching over you and protecting you. But as soon as Christ anointed the eyes of the blind man with spittle his will concurred and desired what he had never dreamed of before, as the Evangelist shows. What the spittle is and the meaning of the washing in the pool of Siloam we shall save for another time. the Friday after Laetare, March 19, 1518
This sermon on the redeeming love of Christ, preached two days alter the preceding sermon, contains a miniature soteriology. God comes to us only in Christ, who alone is the Father's "epistle, book, and image," the "door, anchor, and path" to him; therefore works which we think we can perform and thus find the way to God are rejected. (Cf. Thesis 19 in the Heidelberg Disputation, which Luther debated in the following month, April 26, 1518, LW 31, 52.)
Text in German; WA 1,273–277, compared with MA3 1,113–124.
Dear Friends of Christ. I have told1 you the story of this Gospel in order that you may picture in your hearts and remember well that Christ our God, in all the Gospels, from beginning to end, and also all writings of the prophets and apostles, desires of us nothing else but that we should have a sure and confident heart and trust in him.
Augustine2 writes that we find in the Scriptures three dead persons whom Christ restored to life. First, a twelve-year-old girl, when he was alone in a house, behind closed doors, and in the presence only of the parents of the deceased girl and his intimate disciples [Matt. 9:18–26]. Second, the only son of a widow, who was being carried out through the gate in the presence of all the people [Luke 7:11–17]. Third,
Lazarus, of whom this Gospel tells us, is not raised by Christ privately in a house or at the gate, but one who had been in the grave for four days and is raised in the presence of many Jews and near Jerusalem.
According to Augustine's teaching, these three dead persons are to be understood as three kinds of sinners. The first are those whose souls3 have died. This is when temptation comes and conquers and captures the heart, so that one consents to sin. Then follows a sense of pleasure and the evil poison begins to work its way in, kills the soul, and subjects it to the devil. This is represented by the twelveyear-old girl.
This kind rises up without too much difficulty after a fall. With persons of this kind God deals in a very - 23 tender way. He speaks to them secretly, sends inward instruction to their hearts, which they alone hear and cannot evade, and prepares for them a rod of chastisement, which they must suffer to their grief.
The second dead person signifies those who have fallen into works, so that they have to be carried, since they cannot walk by themselves.4 These must take heed; otherwise, since one thing leads to another, they may, as St. Gregory says,5 be completely overborne by the weight of sins. It is the bier in which the dead person is carried.
Lazarus, finally, signifies those who are so entangled in sin that they go beyond all bounds; they drift into a habit [of sinning] which then becomes their very nature. They know nothing but sin; they stink and are buried in sin. It takes a lot of work [to save them]. This is shown by the fact that in the case of the maiden Christ had only to take her by the hand and she immediately became alive [Matt. 9:25]. The young man, however, sat upright, but not so easily as in the case of the maiden, for Luke writes that Christ first touched the bier and afterwards said, "Young man, I say to you, arise" [Luke 7:14]. This had to be accomplished through a command. But in this story, Christ looked up to heaven and said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me," and then cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, Lazarus, come out" [John 11:41,
43]. And he came out, bound hand and foot, and his face also, and the apostles had to unbind him. This is the grave, the tomb: habituation in sin.
A question. If it is true that Lazarus and the other dead persons must be understood as signifying sin, how does this accord with the Gospel when the evangelist says in the speech of Martha, "Lord, he whom you love is ill" and "See how he loved him"? [John 11:3, 36]. Is it not true that Christ does not love the sinner but rather the truth, as the Scriptures says, "You love righteousness and hate wickedness" [Ps. 45:7] and "In my sight the sinner is scorned"? [cf. Ps. 5:5]. The answer is this: My dear man, [comfort yourself with this saying,] "I came not for the sake of the righteous, but to make righteous what is unrighteous and sinful and to lead the sinners to repentance" [cf. Matt. 9:13].
The whole human race was worthy of hatred, and yet Christ loved us. For if he had not loved us, he would not have descended from heaven. For the prophet says in the psalm: "There is none that does good," except one; "they have all become corrupt and sinners" [cf. Ps. 14:3] except Christ alone. So Christ loves the sinner at the command of the Father, who sent Him for our comfort. So the Father wills that we should look to Christ's humanity and love him in return, but yet in such a way as to remember that he did all this at the bidding of Father's supreme good pleasure. Otherwise it is terrifying to think of Christ. For to the Father is ascribed power, to the Son, wisdom, and to the Holy Spirit goodness, which we can never attain and of which we must despair.
But when we know and consider that Christ came down from heaven and loved sinners in obedience to the Father, then there springs up in us a bold approach to and firm hope in Christ. We learn that Christ is the real epistle, the golden book, in which we read and learn how he always kept before him the will of the Father. So Christ is the "access to the Father" [Eph. 2:18] as St. Paul says. And John too bears witness that Christ said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" [John 14:6]. "I am also the door" [John 10:7] and "no one comes to the Father, but by me" [John 14:6]. Now we see that there is no shorter way to the Father except that we love Christ, hope and trust in him, boldly look to him for everything good, learn to know and praise him. For then it will be impossible that we should have a miserable, frightened, dejected conscience; in Christ it will be heartened and refreshed. But the Scriptures say concerning the sinners:
"The wicked shall perish and be driven away like dust" [cf. Ps. 1:4, 6]. Therefore the sinners flee and know not where to go; for when the conscience does not hope and trust in God it cowers and trembles before the purity and righteousness of God. It can have no sweet assurance; it flees and still has nowhere to go unless it finds and catches hold of Christ, the true door and anchor. Yes, this is the way that all
Christians should learn. But we go plunging on, taking hold in our own name, with our understanding and reason, and do not see or ever take to heart how kindly, sweetly, and lovingly Christ has dealt with people.
For the Father commanded him to do so. This tastes sweet to the faithful soul and it gives all the glory, praise, and honor to the Father through the Son, Christ Jesus. So God has nothing but the best and he offers it to us, weeds us, sustains us, and cares for us through his Son. That's the way our hearts are changed to follow Christ.
This is the way that Peter and Paul, the two leaders of the church, and all the other apostles taught with great diligence. Above all, they love the Father, as they declare in many passages: "Blessed be the Father, who has blessed us with every heavenly blessing through Jesus Christ" [Eph. 1:3]. Therefore, let no one
- 24 undertake to come to God except over this bridge. This is the path that does not lead astray. Christ says, "Everything that my Father commands me I do" [John 14:31], and "I thank thee, dear Father, that thou hearest me always; but not for my sake, but for the sake of those who are standing down here, that they may believe that thou didst send me" [John 11:41–42]. What he is saying is: If they see my love and my works, and that thou are effecting them, and that thou hast commanded me to do them, then they will be at one with thee and will know thee through me and my works; out of which then will grow thy love toward them, O Father. The reason why Christ loves sinners is that his Father commanded him to do so. For in Christ the Father pours himself out in his grace. And all this serves to the end that we freely hope in Christ and trust him unafraid.
Therefore, let the works go, no matter how great they may be, prayers, chants, yammering, and yapping; for it is certain that nobody will ever get to God through all these things. Besides, it is impossible. Rather the heart must have love for Christ, and through him, for the Father. It's all lost if the heart is not cleansed. It must all be left behind, and we must freely, boldly, and with sure confidence take the leap into God. That's what he wants of us.
But when we put forward our works, the devil will use them for his own end,6 and that's just what he does do with them. Let us therefore learn to know from the Gospel how kindly Christ deals with us; then we shall without a doubt love him and avoid sinning, and so see everything in a different light. See how kindly he draws our hearts to himself, this faithful God. He loves Lazarus, who was a sinner. He tolerates the timid faith of his disciples when they say, "Oh, Lord, don't go to Jerusalem, they will kill you" [John
11:8]. All this he would have condemned, if he had wanted to deal harshly. "Ah," said his disciples further, "if Lazarus is sleeping, as you say, then it isn't necessary for you to go there" [John 11:12]. And what about Mary and Martha? "Oh, Lord," they said, "if you had been here, our brother would not have died" [John 11:21]. And also they were earthly, so that they were unable to refrain from weeping and the people had come to them to console them because of the death of their brother, as the evangelist describes so skilfully. From this we learn that they were all in unbelief and sin. And then we see how kindly the Lord deals with them, praying and weeping with them, and all this at the behest of his Father. This is the true guidebook, from which we learn the will of the eternal Father.
Take note, then, all you who have a timid conscience, that you will not be saved by this or that work.
For it will fare with you as with one who works in a sandpit: the more sand he shovels out the more fails upon him. That's why many have gone mad, as John Gerson7 says, so that they began to imagine things, one that he was a worm, another that he was a mouse, and so on. Just commit it to God and say: "Oh, my dear God, I have sinned, but I confess it to thee, I pour it out to thee and pray thee for help; do thou help me!" This is what God wants of us.
That's why I should like sermons about the saints to be more moderate in the sense that we would also tell how they fell, in accord with the gospel, not the books of rhetoric. For there can be no doubt that they too tripped and stumbled over great humps. They were of one flesh with us, one faith, one baptism, one blood. But we have now set them so high above us that we must despair of imitating them. Thus, for example, the gospel speaks of Peter after his confession concerning Christ, when he said to him, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" [Matt. 16:16]. But soon afterwards he had to take these words: "Get behind me, Satan, you devil!" [Matt. 16:23] whereas just a while before he had been told, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona!" [Matt. 16:17]. Just look; first he is blessed and holy, and afterwards he topples into hell and is called a devil.
So it is: every one of us by himself is a devil, but in Christ we are holy. So when we thus connect the saints with Christ, they are Christ's true saints; but if we are not to despair, we must follow him.
This Gospel therefore expresses nothing but the sweetness of Christ in his obedience to the Father and that he bestows nothing because of merit. Therefore, when the devil assaults us with temptation, you say this: "Ah, even though I have done nothing that is good, nevertheless I will not despair, for He always dealt with men sweetly," and that is true. Only the damned must remain until they have paid the last penny
[Matt. 5:26]. This the Scriptures show again and again. In Ecclesiasticus [2:10] it is written, "Who was ever forsaken by God?" Jerome says, "Cursed be he who holds that Christ's power is flesh," and again,
"Blessed be he who hopes in God."8 And to Jeremiah9 God says, "Hear me, because you have hoped in me, I will deliver you with power, and even though the city go down, I will preserve you" [Jer. 39:16–18].
From this we should learn how Christ loves us, even though he might justly be angry, in order that we