Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the CreationLuther, Martin
ReligionChristian
Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation
Luther, Martin
Bible. Genesis -- Commentaries
But consider the state of those inferior things to these that pertain
unto God himself. The marriage union of male and female is an
institution appointed of God. How is that union polluted by the fall
and by sin! With what fury of lust is the flesh inflamed! By means of
sin therefore this divinely appointed union has lost all its beauty
and glory as a work of God, and is defiled with pollutions,
corruptions and sins innumerable. In like manner also we have a body;
but how miserable, how variously deformed by sin. It no longer retains
the dignity of nakedness, but requires careful and perpetual coverings
of its shame.
So also we possess a will and a power of reason. But with what
multiplied corruptions are they vitiated! For as our reason is
beclouded with great and varied ignorance, so our will also is not
only greatly warped by self-will, and not only averse to God, but the
enemy of God! It rushes with pleasure into evil, when it ought to be
doing quite the contrary.
This multiform corruption of nature therefore ought not only not to be
extenuated, but to be as much as possible magnified. It ought to be
shown that man is not only fallen from the image of God, from the
knowledge of God, from the knowledge of all other creatures, and from
all the dignity and glory of his nakedness, into ignorance of God,
into blasphemies against God, and into hatred and contempt of God; but
that he is fallen even into enmity against God; to say nothing at the
present time of that tyranny of Satan to which our nature has by sin
made itself the basest slave. These things, I say, are not to be
extenuated, but to be magnified by every possible description of them;
because if the magnitude of our disease be not fully known, we shall
never know nor desire the remedy. Moreover the more you extenuate sin,
the less you make grace to be valued.
And there is nothing which can tend to amplify and magnify the nature
and extent of original sin more fully and appropriately than the words
of Moses himself, when he says, that Adam and Eve were both naked, and
were not ashamed. No polluted lust was excited by the sight of each
other's nakedness. But the one looking on the other saw and
acknowledged the goodness of God. They both rejoiced in God, and both
felt secure in the goodness of God. Whereas now, we not only cannot
feel ourselves free from sin; not only do not feel ourselves secure in
the goodness of God, but labor under hatred of God and despair of his
goodness and mercy. Such a horrible state of the fall as this clearly
proves how far nature is from being in any degree sound and whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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