Part 32 (1/2)
[Song of Sol 2:16] This is what Paul means when he says, in I Cor
xv, ”Thanks be to God, Which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,”[1 Co4 15:57]--that is, the victory over sin and death, as he there says, ”the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law” [1 Cor 15:36]
[Sidenote: Faith the Fulfilment of the Law]
From this you see once more why so much is ascribed to faith, that it alone may fulfil the law and justify without the Laorks You see that the First Commandment, which says, ”Thou shalt worshi+p one God,”
is fulfilled by faith alone For though you were nothing but good works from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head, yet you would not be righteous, nor worshi+p God, nor fulfil the First Commandment, since God cannot be worshi+ped unless you ascribe to Hioodness, which is due Him And this cannot be done by works, but only by the faith of the heart For not by the doing of works, but by believing, do we glorify God and acknowledge that He is truthful Therefore, faith alone is the righteousness of a Christianof all the commandments For he who fulfils the First, has no difficulty in fulfilling all the rest But works, being insensate things, cannot glorify God, although they can, if faith be present, be done to the glory of God At present, however, we are not inquiring orks and what sort of works are done, but who it is that does thes forth the works This is faith which dwells in the heart, and is the head and substance of all our righteousness
Hence, it is a blind and dangerous doctrine which teaches that the commandments must be fulfilled by works The commandments must be fulfilled before any works can be done, and the works proceed from the fulfilment of the commandments [Rom 13:10], as we shall hear
[Sidenote: Old Testarace which our inward man has in Christ, we must consider that in the Old Testament God sanctified to Hihly prized, having a two-fold honor, that of priesthood, and that of kingshi+p For the first-born brother was priest and lord over all the others, and was a type of Christ, the true and only First-born of God the Father and of the Virgin Mary, and true King and Priest, not after the fashi+on of the flesh and of the world For His kingdons in heavenly and spiritual things and consecrates thehteousness, truth, wisdos on earth and in hell were not also subject to Him--else how could He protect and save us frodom consists neither in them nor of them Nor does His priesthood consist in the outward splendor of robes and postures, like that human priesthood of Aaron and of our present-day Church; but it consists in spiritual things, through which He by an unseen service intercedes for us in heaven before God, there offers His a priest should do, as Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews describes him under the type of Melchizedek [Heb 6 f] Nor does He only pray and intercede for us, but within our soul He teaches us through the living teaching of His Spirit, thus perfor the two real unctions of a priest, of which the prayers and the preaching of human priests are visible types
Now, just as Christ by his birthright obtained these two prerogatives, so He imparts them to and shares the to the law of the aforesaid s to the husband Hence we are all priests and kings in Christ, as many as believe on Christ, as I Pet ii says, ”Ye are a chosen generation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood and priestly kingdom, that ye should show forth the virtues of Hiht” [1 Pet
2:9]
[Sidenote: The Kingshi+p of the Christian]
This priesthood and kingshi+p we explain as follows: First, as to the kingshi+p, every Christian is by faith so exalted above all things that by a spiritual power he is lord of all things without exception, so that nothing can do his are made subject to him and compelled to serve his work together for good to thes are yours, whether life or death, or things present or things to come, and ye are Christ's” [1 Cor 3:22 f] Not as if every Christian were set over all things, to possess and control them by physical power,--a madness hich sos, princes and men on earth Our ordinary experience in life shows us that we are subjected to all, suffer s and even die; nay, the s and deaths is he made subject to, as we see in Christ the first-born Prince Himself, and in all His brethren, the saints The power of which we speak is spiritual; it rules in the hty in the th is s I can find profit unto salvation, so that the cross and death itself are coether with ative and hard to attain, and a true omnipotent power, a spiritual do so evil, but that it shall work together for good to me, if only I believe And yet, since faith alone suffices for salvation, I have need of nothing, except that faith exercise the power and dominion of its own liberty Lo, this is the inestimable power and liberty of Christians
[Sidenote: The Priesthood of the Christian]
Not only are we the freest of kings, we are also priests forever, which is far s, because as priests we are worthy to appear before God to pray for others and to teach one another the things of God For these are the functions of priests, and cannot be granted to any unbeliever Thus Christ has obtained for us, if we believe on His with Him, but also fellow-priests with Him, who may boldly come into the presence of God in the spirit of faith and cry, ”Abba, Father!” [Heb 10:19, 22] pray for one another and do all things which we see done and prefigured in the outward and visible works of priests But he who does not believe is not served by anything, nor does anything work for good to his become evils to him, because he wickedly uses thelory of God And so he is no priest, but a profane man, whose prayer becomes sin and never comes into the presence of God, because God does not hear sinners [John 9:31] Who then can coly power he rules over all things, death, life and sin, and through his priestly glory is all powerful with God, because God does the things which he asks and desires, as it is written, ”He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him; He also will hear their cry, and will save thelory a man attains, surely not by any works of his, but by faith alone
[Sidenote: Distinctions a Christians]
From this any one can clearly see how a Christian s, so that he needs no works to hteous and to save his abundantly But should he grow so foolish as to presuhteous, free, saved and a Christian by ood work, he would on the instant lose faith and all its benefits: a foolishness aptly illustrated in the fable of the dog who runs along a stream with a piece of meat in his mouth, and, deceived by the reflection of the meat in the water, opens his mouth to snap at it, and so loses both the meat and the reflection You will ask, ”If all who are in the Church are priests, how do thosecall priests differ from laymen?” I answer: ”Injustice is done those words, 'priest,' 'cleric,'
'spiritual,' 'ecclesiastic,' when they are transferred from all other Christians to those feho are now by a e called 'ecclesiastics' For Holy Scripture ives the name 'ministers,' 'servants,' 'stewards,' to those who are now proudly called popes, bishops, and lords and who should by the ministry of the Word serve others and teach them the faith of Christ and the liberty of believers For although we are all equally priests, yet we cannot all publicly ht we if we could” Thus Paul writes in I Cor iv, ”Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God” [I Cor 4:1]
But that stewardshi+p has now been developed into so great a pomp of power and so terrible a tyranny, that no heathen empire or earthly power can be compared with it, just as if layh this perversion the knowledge of Christian grace, faith, liberty and of Christ Hiether perished, and its place has been taken by an unbearable bondage of human words and laws, until we have become, as the Lamentations of Jeremiah say, servants of the vilest men on earth, who abuse our misfortune to serve only their base and shameless will [Lam 1:11]
[Sidenote: How Christ is to be Preached]
To return to our purpose, I believe it has now becoh nor is it Christian, to preach the works, life and words of Christ as historical acts, as if the knowledge of these would suffice for the conduct of life, although this is the fashi+on of those who arded as our best preachers; and far less is it enough for Christian to say nothing at all about Christ and to teach instead the laws of men and the decrees of the Fathers And now there are not a feho preach Christ and read about Him that they ainst the Jews and such like childish and woht Christ to be preached to the end that faith in Him may be established, that He may not only be Christ, but be Christ for thee and for me, and that what is said of Him and what His Name denotes may be effectual in us
And such faith is produced and preserved in us by preaching why Christ caht and bestowed,[13] what benefit it is to us to accept Him This is done when that Christian liberty which He bestows is rightly taught, and we are told in e who are Christians are all kings and priests and so are lords of all, andand acceptable in the sight of God, as I have said
[Sidenote: Effect of such Preaching]
What s, will not rejoice to its very core, and in receiving such corow tender so as to love Christ, as he never could be made to love by any laws or works?
Who would have power to hare of sin for the fear of death break in upon it is ready to hope in the Lord; it does not grow afraid when it hears tidings of evil, nor is it disturbed until it shall look down upon its enehteousness of Christ is its own, and that its sin is not its own, but Christ's; and that all sin is sed up by the righteousness of Christ is, as has been said above, a necessary consequence of faith in Christ So the heart learns to scoff at death and sin, and to say with the Apostle, ”Where, O death, is thy victory? where, O death, is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” [1 Cor 15:55 ff] For death is sed up not only in the victory of Christ, but also by our victory, because through faith His victory has become ours, and in that faith we also are conquerors
Let this suffice concerning the inward hteousness of faith,[14] which needs neither laws nor good works, nay, is rather injured by them, if a man trusts that he is justified by them
[Sidenote: The Outward Man]