4 Chemnitz’s Works 8:838–46.
Fourth, the fathers of the Old Testament waited for the coming of the Messiah.
(IV) [They say:] “The fathers of the Old Testament awaited the promised coming of the Messiah. Therefore only hope should be attributed to them, not faith, or at least their faith was completely different from ours.”
We respond. Faith includes knowledge and taking hold trustingly [fiducialis apprehensio]. As regards knowledge, a kind of difference between the faith of the devout in the Old Testament and our faith can perhaps be established, for they looked to the promised Messiah who had not yet been revealed while we know and believe that He has been revealed in the New Testament. But taking hold trustingly [fiducialis apprehensio] is the same in both cases. By faith Abraham shared the fruit and efficacy of Christ’s merit no less than did the thief on the cross who looked upon Christ in his very presence. As for the fact that the expectation of the coming of the Messiah is clearly called “faith” (Rom. 13:11), Irenaeus (bk. 4, ch. 38) writes: “Abraham’s faith and ours are one and the same faith, for the former believes things to come as if they had already happened because of the promise of God while we in like manner also by faith search out the inheritance which is in the kingdom because of the promise of God.”
§ 39. Therefore it must remain firmly fixed that it is one and the same Gospel that has been sounding in the church ever since the first times of the fall of the human race, something which is proved by the many prophecies about Christ published in the Old Testament. Surely Christ is the kernel, so to speak, of the Gospel and of all of Holy Scripture. “It was written not only on account of Abraham but also for us. It will be reckoned to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead, who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:[23]–25). As a result it is called “the Gospel concerning the Son of God” (Rom. 1:3); “the Gospel of Christ” (Mark 1:1); “the testimony of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:6); “the mystery of Christ” (Eph. 3:4); “the word of the cross,” that is, about Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:18).
Although all the benefits of Christ without exception pertain to the Gospel so that renewal and the gift of the Holy Spirit are offered to us in the Gospel as benefits of Christ no less than regeneration and remission of sins, yet the same Gospel shows that we must not look for justification in the benefit of renewal, which is never perfect in this life, but in the free forgiveness of sins and imputation of the righteousness of Christ; more about this in its own place [On Justification through Faith (Commonplace XIX), §§ 195–248].
1 The 1545 German Bible reads: Ich habe den Man des HERRN [“I have the man of the LORD”], but the marginal note in the German Bible already points at a different reading: Da hab ich den HERRN den Man, den Samen [“Here I have the LORD, the man, the Seed”] (WA DB 8:47). Beginning in 1546, the text of Gen. 4:1 was changed to: Ich habe den Man, den HERRN [“I have the man, the LORD”] (see WA DB 3:174 n. 1), reflecting Luther’s own exegesis of this passage (cf. On the Last Words of David [1543], WA 54:71 [cf. AE 15:319]; Against the Roman Papacy [1545], WA 54:247).
2 On the Last Words of David (1543), WA 54:71 (cf. AE 15:319).
3 Read den Mann, den HErrn with Cotta instead of den Mann des HErrn.
4 Chemnitz’s Works 8:838–46.