That there is one and the same Gospel in the Old and New Testaments.
That there is one and the same Gospel in the Old and New Testaments.
§ 35. From the time when the first promise of the Gospel was revealed in Paradise through the Son of God, the word of the Gospel has always sounded in the church; it was repeated and declared through the patriarchs and prophets. Consequently, it is one and the same Gospel; it was not first born or produced in the New Testament but already was published from the first day of man’s fall. By the grace of God it is the Gospel by which one and the same remission of sins and salvation were declared and offered to all the saints. The following prove this.
(1) The summaries of the Gospel cited earlier from Moses and the prophets [§ 9]. For whatever prophecies exist in the writings of the Old Testament about the person, office, suffering, resurrection, and other works and benefits of the Messiah are nothing other than more detailed repetitions and declarations of that first message of the Gospel revealed in Paradise through the Son of God.
** The Jews take Genesis 3 to refer to “a mere serpent,” but we have demonstrated the opposite in our commonplace On Original Sin [Commonplace XII] (§ 8). Luther translates the passage (Gen. 4:1) correctly: “I have received the man Jehovah.”1 This translation is also acknowledged by Konrad Pellikan, a man very learned in Hebrew, who confirms it from the Cabalists. But Calvin declares that this is too subtle, and Paraeus follows him, because אֵת is often the mark of the ablative case (Gen. 5:22; 6:9; Exod. 1:1; etc.). Piscator and Tremellius say the same. We respond. (1) It cannot be denied that the particle אֵת is commonly the mark of the accusative. Therefore our interpretation flows from the usual meaning and characteristic of the word. (2) The particle אֵת is [one of two things]: either it is an emphatic demonstrative [δεικτικὴ ἐμφατική] and is the article of the accusative case constructed with active or transitive verbs, but with passives and intransitives it marks the nominative case; or it is the preposition “with.” Yet here it is not the preposition “with.” Therefore it is an emphatic demonstrative and, in fact, the article of the accusative. The minor premise is clear from the usage of the Hebrew language, which nowhere and never uses יהוהתא for “with God,” “through God,” “God willing,” but rather uses these words: בֵֹלהִים [or] בַיְהֹוָה (Ps. 60:12; 108:13; Jer. 3:23; Hosea 1:7; Isa. 45:17; Deut. 33:28). (3) The ordinary meaning of the particle אֵת ought to prevail unless the necessity of an extraordinary meaning is demonstrated. (4) This particle is found nine times in this and the preceding and the following verses. Eight of these without doubt indicate the article of the accusative, construed with active verbs. Therefore who would be so quick to assume so unusual a significance with an active verb? In the following verse the same usage of apposition occurs: “She bore his brother, Abel” [τὸν ἀδελφὸν τὸν Ἀβέλ]. (Compare Gen. 3:24 and 4:1–2.) (5) Jonathan, the Chaldean paraphrast, has clearly expressed not only the article of the accusative but also applies it to the “Angel of the Lord”—that is, to the Messiah, for He is “the Angel of the covenant” (Isa. 63:9; Mal. 3:1). The words read as follows: “And Adam knew Eve, his wife, who was desirous of that angel, and she conceived and bore Cain and said, ‘I have gotten by my man the angel of the Lord.’ ” (6) It was customary in the Hebrew language to express apposition in the accusative with אֵת placed between the two nouns (Gen. 4:2; Jer. 17:13; Gen. 26:34; Ezek. 4:1; 1 Kings 11:23; 1 Sam. 15:4, 18; Gen. 22:2; 2 Sam. 3:14; etc.). (7) Without compelling cause, we should not embrace the Jewish opinion and desert what illustrates the glory of Christ. Franciscus Junius and Tremellius say that there is an elision of the letter מ and therefore translate this as “from the Lord,” and they provide two examples (Gen. 44:4; Deut. 34:1). We respond. Why do they desert the ordinary meaning of the word and look for an elision, not to mention the fact that there is no elision in their examples? For the Hebrews say, “He left the city,” that is, “from the city.” In the other passage, אֵת can be translated correctly in such a way that it remains the article for the accusative. Paraeus (a) produces several passages in which אֵת is the mark of the ablative. We respond. The fact still remains that its proper and ordinary significance is to be the mark of the accusative. Thus necessity must be shown so as to abandon that meaning. But we have shown that it cannot mean “with.” (b) He draws his argument from v. 25: “God has placed to me another seed.” We respond. The interpretation [of Gen. 4:1] should be taken literally. She could be expressing the desire for the Messiah and then celebrating the goodness of God, not to mention the fact that Eve here is not looking back to the birth of Cain but rather mentions the slaying of Abel. (c) [They say,] “Eve knew that Cain was her husband’s seed; therefore she did not believe that he was a virgin’s seed.” We respond. Eve knew that the Messiah would be a woman’s seed because she had been misled by the serpent and had been opposed to the serpent in a judicial case. She thought that she was going to be the mother individually; and yet she also knew this: that the Messiah who would bruise the serpent would also truly be Jehovah. Therefore Eve was giving no thought to her virginity here. Luther translated this first as: “I have gotten the man of the Lord,” as the editions of the small German Genesis [commentary] [parva Germanica Genesi] show, which is found in vol. 4 of the German edition of Jena, at the year 1528: Ich habe überkommen den Mann des HErrn [“I have received the man of the Lord”]. Nevertheless in the marginal notes of the same volume in the same year, on the small Genesis [commentary], he still teaches in the orthodox way that Eve at that time thought nothing else except that this was going to be the Seed which the Lord had said would bruise the head, etc. He kept the same translation in the final edition completed in 1542. Yet, finally, as is clear from his treatise Super Postrema verba Davidis (vol. 8, German edition of Jena, f. 157b),2 he also changed his wording to: Ich habe bekommen den Mann, den HErrn3 [“I have received the man, the Lord”]. He also gave very serious reasons for this translation of his. **
(2) The entire Levitical priesthood and its entire worship, whose chief functions were the rituals for sacrifices, looked ahead to Christ and foreshadowed His benefits. Because the death due to a sinner would be drawn off into the animal to be sacrificed, it was a visible warning, so to speak, that sin and death cannot be abolished by our own strength but that there is a need for another sacrificial victim to be offered to God on behalf of our sins. It is this to which John the Baptist points when he calls Christ “the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).
(3) Christ declares clearly: “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he was glad” (John 8:56), obviously because the clear repetition of the Gospel promise was made to Abraham and the promise of the Messiah was restricted to his family. He declares: “Moses wrote of Me” (John 5:46) not only in clear prophecies but also with shadowy types. In general He shows that not only Moses but also all the prophets wrote about Him (Luke 24:27).
(4) In general the apostles declare: “We believe that we are saved through the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord, just as our fathers also” (Acts 15:11). Therefore it is one and the same Gospel, which teaches that the grace of God must be sought in Christ, the Mediator, by which all the saints of all times since the beginning of the world have been justified and saved.
(5) Peter expressly testifies: “And there is salvation in no one else except in Christ, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). And: “To Christ all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name” (Acts 10:43). Therefore the devout in the Old Testament were saved in no other way than by faith in Christ, who was preached through the word of the Gospel, about which salvation in Christ “the prophets searched and inquired” (1 Pet. 1:10); and they gave a brilliant witness.
(6) Paul declares that “the Law and the Prophets give testimony to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ in all and for all believers” (Rom. 3:21[–22]). He confirms that “Abraham was justified not by works but by faith in Christ” (Rom. 4:2–[3]). The judgment is the same concerning the rest of the elect of the Old Testament: “For this was written not for Abraham’s sake alone but also for ours. It will be reckoned to us who believe in Him who raised Christ from the dead” (vv. 23–24). Thus there is a universal rule that all the elect are justified and saved in one and the same way. It is shown that all the saints from the beginning of the world “have become heirs of righteousness through faith” (Heb. 11:4–[40]), the various exercises of which faith are described there. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Therefore it was the same Mediator by whom the devout of the Old Testament times (which are compared to “yesterday”) were saved no less than the devout of the New Testament.
(7) John calls the Gospel “eternal” (Rev. 14:6); thus it did not begin in the New Testament. He declares that “the Lamb of God was slain from the beginning of the world” (Rev. 13:8) not in actuality but in efficacy, for the suffering of Christ profited people already before it occurred.
§ 36. The very learned Dr. Chemnitz proves this very thing specifically (Loci, part 2, p. 579) and lists a four-part series of times during which especially outstanding repetitions of the Gospel were made and described: (1) from the fall of Adam until the flood, (2) from the flood until Moses, (3) from Moses until the prophets, (4) from the prophets until Christ. In learned detail he shows that in each of these times the Gospel promise about the woman’s Seed is repeated and explained more clearly.4 From this it is irrefutably concluded that there is one and the same doctrine of the Gospel, and by its knowledge and faith the saints of all time are saved. Thus let the opinion fade away (even though traces of it occur in the earliest ecclesiastical writers), [namely,] that people before Moses were justified and saved by the Law of nature alone; that after Moses [they were saved] by the Law of Moses alone; and that in the New Testament [they were saved] by the evangelical Law. The Scholastics have made this opinion their very own, [though] it was altogether condemned and refuted by Augustine in regard to Pelagius.
From these [Scholastics] the idea remains among the Romanists. They argue that in the time of the New Testament more perfect works were prescribed and taught in the Gospel to Christians, by which works they are thought to be justified before God and saved, though for members of the Jewish state the works prescribed in the Law of Moses were sufficient for righteousness and salvation. Furthermore, let this fade away [as well]: the false assertion that whatever was written in the writings of Moses and the prophets pertains to the Law and whatever is written in the books of the New Testament pertains to the Gospel. We noted this error earlier in Bellarmine (De justif., bk. 4, ch. 2), who declares with great confidence that the word “Gospel” nowhere means anything other than the teaching contained in the writings of the evangelists and apostles.
§ 37. Now aside from that, in order that our assertion about one and the same Gospel being preached in all times of the world may be more clear and may be bolstered against the attacks of contrary arguments, it is proper to observe these two points: (1) The word “Gospel” is used in two ways: first, as the doctrine of the promise of grace and of the remission of sins freely given for Christ’s sake; second, for the public message that the Messiah has come. Since the latter began in the New Testament, it is obvious that here “Gospel” must be taken in the prior sense. It is for this reason that in the Scriptures the doctrine of the future coming of the Messiah is generally called “the promise” (Rom. 15:8; Gal. 3:14). Indeed, these things were completed in the New Testament through the coming of Christ [but] were promises in the Old Testament. But when the doctrine of the Gospel is called “the promise” in the New Testament (2 Tim. 1:1; Gal. 3:14), it most probably refers not to Christ but to the future goods of eternal life, which we expect through Christ.
(2) The promise of the Gospel was immediately explained and revealed ever more clearly until its full light finally arose in the New Testament. Surely Isaiah had more of the light of its knowledge than we can notice in any who went before him. In fact, with respect to the light of the New Testament, the teaching of the Messiah in the Old Testament is compared to night and darkness, comparatively [κατὰ σύγκρισιν] (Rom. 13:12), for it was covered with figurative and shadowy language. When those wrappings were removed, the very brilliant radiance of its knowledge shown upon the New Testament, and thus it is compared to the day. Therefore just as the darkness is gradually dispelled by approaching day and the sky at dawn begins to become lighter and lighter until the splendor of the sun follows the morning star, so also in the Old Testament the Gospel was gradually revealed more clearly the nearer the time of the New Testament approached.