# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 12 23_S66
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

66

These are strange sayings! Yes, strange indeed.

But the Evangelist does not say simply, the Son; but the Word; although that would have been right. Yet he had to speak so. For at that time heretics arose who denied that Mary's Son was the Son of GOD; therefore he calls the Son the Word, who was in the beginning, before all creatures were made, and says: In the beginning was the Word, that is, when all creatures, heaven and earth and whatever is in them, began to be, which before were nothing. But outside the creature nothing can be but the Creator. For everything that is, is either the Creator or His creature. Thus the text here sharply distinguishes the Word from the creature. The Word is not among the multitude of those who have had a beginning, but has already been in His own being. Therefore the Evangelist concludes against Cerinthus and others who followed him, that their doctrine is false, and a blasphemous error and lie against the Son of GOD, of whom they said He was not the Son of GOD, but a mere, pure man. It would well be worth a whole sermon to treat of why the Evangelist calls the Son of GOD the Word; but it is too long for this time, and the text has often been treated before.

You simple ones, take heed when you hear: "In the beginning was the Word;" that you may know that it is as much as to say: In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with GOD, and the Son was Himself GOD also, and was in the beginning with GOD. So also: "The Word was made flesh," is as much as: The eternal Son has become a temporal Son; not two: and yet (as has been said) there are two kinds of births. Hence Luke, in chapter 2, verse 11, the Virgin's Son, who lay in the manger, is called by the angel the LORD, when he says to the shepherds: "Unto you is born this day a Saviour, which is Christ' the LORD." Our Saviour, not the angels', is He; but the angels confess together with us that He is also their LORD and GOD, and worship Him also.

But briefly you should know: that the Evangelist calls the Son of GOD the Word against the heretics, he does for Moses' sake, whom St. John follows, who speaks in just the same way as St. John, when he says: "When there was no light, but mere darkness, and also no other creature besides, God said: Let there be light, Genesis 1:9, that is, GOD let a Word go forth, that was a perfect Word, and the Word by which all things were made. Thus he concludes against the heretics, that the Word was before in the beginning, and yet was not the person who spoke; therefore the Word must needs be with the Speaker, not with the creature, which was not yet made, but was outside, above and before the creature with God.

Accordingly you might say: Are there two Gods? No. The Word is with GOD, but a distinct Person. Thus St. John strengthens and confirms our faith, that we are certain that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three distinct Persons; but not three distinct Gods, but there is one GOD. Therefore we Christians pray to only one single GOD, and have the advantage over all Jews, heathens, Turks, that we alone know GOD rightly and truly. They see only the creation, and not the Master. Hence Jews and Turks boast that they are the right people of GOD, because they worship only one GOD; they revile and slander us Christians as idolaters and senseless fools, who worship three gods. It is not true, they say such things of us behind our backs, among their pupils, they know not what they say, they are blind and leaders of the blind. We say and confess better than they, that there is no more than one GOD, who, reckoned over against the creature, has made all things.

Further we say that we Christians are not satisfied with how the Creator is to be reckoned and regarded over against the creature; but we know and teach out of the Scripture what GOD is in Himself, yea, that He has His divine being in Himself. There we confess that the one LORD, King, GOD and Creator, through His Son has so pictured Himself and given Himself to be known, that it stands thus in the Godhead, that the Word is spoken by the Father, and the Holy Ghost (as one says) consents thereto, so that there is a Third, and yet in Himself only one; reckoned over against the creature. Hence Augustine and other ancient teachers say: Opera Trinitatis ab extra sunt indivisa; that is: the works of the Holy Trinity are undivided outwardly; the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, is one single Creator, not three, over against the creature. So far Jews, heathens, Turks attain.

But we should not behold GOD only from without in His works; but He will also be known as to what He is inwardly. Inwardly there is one being, and three Persons, the Father, Son, Holy Ghost; not three Gods. We therefore pray to only one GOD.

How does this come about? It is unspeakable. The dear angels cannot sufficiently marvel at it for joy; to us it is put into the Word and preached. When we have laid aside the black, loathsome, foul, stinking bag of maggots, we shall see it with the dear angels, have our eternal joy and blessedness therein, and mock in return the Jews, heathens and Turks, who now regard us as blocks, as those who neither know nor understand that there is only one GOD. They, however, are exceedingly sharp, and marvel at their own high wisdom and understanding, that they confess and worship only one GOD; yea, the wretched devil in hell. Yet the heathen have caught it by natural reason, that there is only one GOD, have seen and observed it, as Paul says to the Romans in the 1st chapter, verse 10, "by the works which GOD does in the world, which He has so wisely made, that the sun has his course, also the earth her certain time, when one should plough, sow and reap" etc. Only we Christians are to be such blind, gross fools as not to understand that only one GOD is to be honored and worshipped, who has made heaven and earth.

This Jewish, heathen, Turkish faith and knowledge does not suffice; it is not enough for God that He is called Creator of heaven and of the earth. The Jews boasted highly of the GOD who had led them out of Egypt into the Promised Land; and to Christ they said, John 8:41: "We have one Father, even GOD. Whereupon the LORD Christ says, vv. 42, 43, 44: "If GOD were your Father, ye would love me; but ye know neither me nor my Father; yea, ye are of your father the devil. And in John, the 16th chapter, vv. 2, 3, He says to His disciples: "They shall put you out of the synagogues and kill you, and think that they do GOD service. But all this shall be done because they have not known the Father, nor me." Thus Turks and heathens boast much of the right knowledge and faith of GOD; but speak of it as a blind man of colors, yea, as raving, insane people, blinded and hardened by the devil.

In short, GOD will be known according to His Word, wherein He has revealed His divine being and will. "The world (says St. Paul, 1 Cor. 1:21) by wisdom knew not GOD in His wisdom; therefore it pleased GOD by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And to the Romans, in the 1st chapter, vv. 20, 21, St. Paul says that the heathen have seen from the works of creation that there is a GOD, but have not glorified Him as GOD, neither were thankful."

Therefore GOD has poured out His divine being, and shown it through the Gospel, that He has a Son; as He Himself cries from heaven above: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him, Mark 9:7. As though He would say: Him receive, hold Him for your LORD and GOD, honor and worship Him; or you shall not have me for GOD, though you boast still twice as loftily and gloriously that I am your GOD, whom you alone rightly know and worship. For "he that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent him, John 5:23. He that hath not the Son of GOD hath not life, 1 John 5:12. Likewise: "Whosoever abideth not in the doctrine of CHRIST hath not GOD: He that abideth in the doctrine of CHRIST, he hath both the Father and the Son, 2 John 9. This His divine will the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has sufficiently revealed to us, John 1:18, having instituted and ordained the office of preaching, Baptism, the Sacrament, and confirmed and established it with miraculous signs. In sum: He will be known, honored and worshipped in the Son alone; whoever does otherwise or knows otherwise, honors and worships not GOD, but the devil.

Therefore no one can rightly know GOD,