# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 12 23_S69
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

69

born.” Thus, that he was a true man, who made use of all manner of means for the preservation of this life, like any other man; only, that he was without sin. For the Person is at once true GOD and man. That is our Christian faith, our highest comfort and treasure.

And we beheld his glory.

Behold, how mightily he paints and impresses this article upon us. We have, he says, not only seen that he is a true man, who dwelt among us; but we have also certainly perceived that he is true GOD; for he raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, in short, did all with a single word. So that his deeds were divine, and his glory, which he showed forth through such miracles, was the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

This now is the fruit which we believers have from it, that the Son of God became man. He is not a sinner, as we are, who are conceived and born in sins, and are by nature children of wrath: wherefore there is nothing but lies and falsehood in us. But this could not happen in Christ, that he should have had a single sin; for he was the only begotten Son of GOD, wholly pure, innocent, holy. And although he took upon him human form, yet he was pure in the very same moment, conceived of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost. That is what the holy Evangelist means when he says: “Full of grace and truth.” And afterward, v. 16: “Of his fulness have all we received.” That is: The grace and truth overflow so in his Person, that all believers enjoy his grace and truth and become partakers thereof.

Therefore let us take good heed that we keep both, the kernel and the husks, that is, his Godhead and his manhood. For if he is only a mere pure man, then we are none the better for Easter and Pentecost, that is, he has not by his resurrection made us righteous and blessed, nor sent the Holy Ghost, who makes the hearts pure, that they also become gracious and truthful. Therefore we must lay the feast of the birth of Christ as the foundation, that we may rightly know what manner of Person JESUS Christ is, namely, that he is that which was in the beginning, by which all things were made, and which was soon promised to Adam, that the seed of the woman should tread the serpent’s head; therefore he had in time to be born of a woman, of the stock and blood of Adam, Abraham, and David.

There are indeed three Persons of the eternal divine Being; but only the middle Person, the Son, has become man. If thou believest this, thou wilt understand what Person hung on the cross on Good Friday, who was delivered into death for our sins, and raised again for our justification, and who in Baptism and the Sacraments makes us blessed.

Testimonies of Roman Catholic Writers concerning the Condition of the Church Corrupted by the Papacy before the Dawn of the Blessed Reformation, together with a Remembrance of this Dawn.

(Conclusion.)

From this time forth this pure doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God, kindled at the light of the Gospel — in opposition to the meritorious works of the law of the Papacy — became the inward light by which Luther, out of God’s Word, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, was ever more enlightened concerning the connection of Christian doctrine.

And since this was at the same time in him no outwardly learned school-faith, but a living faith of the heart, inwardly experienced, so there was fulfilled also in him what David testifies in Ps. 116: “I believed, therefore have I spoken;” for in sermons, letters and learned disputations he could not keep silent this enlightening and beatifying truth, this great deed of God the Holy Ghost, but had to confess it continually, directly and indirectly, with joyful courage.

Then it came to pass that the Papacy, with its shameful traffic in indulgences, came in his way. Near Wittenberg the Dominican monk Johann Tetzel presented himself as the Pope’s indulgence-seller, who in impudent and godless speeches about the glory of the papal indulgence, and in mountebank effrontery, left behind him everything that had hitherto been heard on the subject. Thus, for example, he maintained the following abominable articles:

“He had such grace and power from the Pope, that if a man had even violated the holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, he could forgive it, if the same put into the chest what was fitting.

Item, the red indulgence cross with the Pope’s arms, set up in the churches, was just as powerful as the cross of Christ.

Item, if St. Peter were here now, he would have no greater grace or power than he had.

Item, he would not share (divide) with St. Peter in heaven; for he had redeemed more souls with indulgences than St. Peter with his preaching.

Item, if one puts money into the chest for a soul in purgatory, as soon as the penny falls to the bottom and rings, the soul flies out to heaven.

Item, the grace of indulgence was the very grace by which man is reconciled with God.

Item, there was no need to have contrition or sorrow or repentance for sin, if one bought the indulgence or the letters of indulgence.”

Now it came to pass that some of Luther’s penitents came to Luther with the purchased indulgence-slips and made presumptuous speeches, that they would not cease from adultery, fornication, usury, etc. He therefore spoke in the confessional and from the pulpit at first only against the abuse of indulgence; and as this bore little fruit, he, with courageous spirit, in support of the truth, on the 31st of October 1517, caused to be posted on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg 95 Theses (propositions) against the abuse of indulgence, the most important of which read thus:

1. “Since our LORD and Master Jesus Christ saith: Repent, etc., he willed that the whole life of his believers on earth should be a constant repentance.”

5. The Pope neither will nor can remit any other penalties than those which he has imposed at his own pleasure or according to the canons (papal ordinances).

32. They will go to the devil together with their masters, who suppose that through letters of indulgence they are sure of their salvation.

33. Of those one should be very well on one’s guard and beware, who say that the Pope’s indulgence is the highest and most precious grace and gift of God, whereby man is reconciled with God.

41. Papal indulgence should be preached with caution, lest the common man falsely suppose that it is to be preferred and esteemed better than the other works of love.

47. Christians should be taught that the buying of indulgence is a free thing and not commanded.

62. The true and right treasure of the Church is the holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God.

71. Whoever speaks against the truth of papal indulgence, let him be accursed and anathema.

76. On the contrary we say, that the Pope’s indulgence cannot take away the least daily sin, as far as the guilt thereof is concerned.

94. Christians should be exhorted that they strive to follow their Head Christ through cross, death and hell.

95. And so enter into the kingdom of heaven rather through much tribulation, than become secure through the consolation of peace.

At the close Luther adds: “I beseech yet, for Christ’s sake, all and every one, that they either show me a better way, if the same has been revealed to any from above, or at least submit their opinion to the divine and the Church’s decision. For I am not so presumptuous as to wish my opinion to be preferred altogether to the opinion of all others; yet neither am I so unwise as to let the divine Word give place to fables which human reason has devised.”

Although Luther, urged only by his conscience, bore witness in these Theses against the abuse of indulgence, and was not yet fully clear from the Gospel concerning the nature of the same and related doctrines of the prevailing church doctrine — yea, although he did not yet doubt in them the authority of the Pope according to divine right: yet there were in them at the same time deep glimpses of evangelical truth, as for example in the above