Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the CreationLuther, Martin
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Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation
Luther, Martin
Bible. Genesis -- Commentaries
Since therefore, as the text shows, Adam alone heard this sermon from
God, it must have been preached to him on the sixth day, and Adam must
have afterwards communicated it to Eve on the same day. And if they
had not sinned Adam would have set this remarkable sermon or precept
before his whole posterity also; and by it they would have become the
most profound divines, the most learned lawyers and the most
experienced physicians. Now there exists an infinite number of books
by which men are trained to be theologians, lawyers and physicians.
But all the knowledge we can obtain by the help of all these books
together can scarcely be called the dregs of science, if compared with
that fund of wisdom which Adam drew from this one sermon of God. So
utterly corrupted are all things by original sin.
This "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," therefore, or this
place in which a number of trees like unto it were planted, would have
been, as we have said, a church, where Adam and his posterity, had he
and they continued in their innocency, would have assembled on the
Sabbath day; and Adam, after refreshment derived from the "tree of
life," would have preached God to those assembled, and would have
praised him for the dominion which he had given them over all other
creatures he had made. The 148th and 149th Psalms set forth a certain
form of such praise and thanksgiving, where the sun, the moon, the
stars, the fishes and the dragons are called upon to praise the Lord.
But there is no one psalm so beautiful, but that any one of us might
compose one far more excellent and more perfect, if we had been born
of the seed of Adam in his state of original innocence. Adam would
have preached that highest of all blessings, that he had been created
in and that his posterity bore the image and the similitude of God. He
would have exhorted them all to live a holy life without sin, to till
the garden in which God had placed them with all industry, to keep it
with all diligence, and to guard with all caution against tasting the
fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." This external
place, form, worship and preaching of the Word, man would most
certainly have observed on the Sabbath. Afterwards he would have
returned to his duties of laboring and guarding until the time
appointed of God had been fulfilled, in which he should be translated
without any death and with all sweetness to heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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