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Text preparation and translation by BackToLuther using DeepL, Google Translate, Microsoft Translate, Yandex Translate. All bold text is Pieper's emphasis. All highlighting, red text, and most text in square brackets [ ] is mine.
The Foundation of the Christian Faith.
Luther also reminds us that it was ever and always God's way to communicate with people by external means and signs, thus making them partakers of His grace and certain of it. Thus, in the time of the Old Testament, the people of Israel saw the light of God's grace in the temple of Jerusalem. “Therefore the holy prophets have written much about the tabernacle, the dwelling place and the tabernacle where God wanted to be present” In the New Testament, God's grace shines on us wherever we have the Word of the Gospel and the sacraments, no matter in which country and in which place we are.
In order to obtain complete satisfaction from all our sins, we do not need to wander to Rome or to other papist “places of grace”, nor to move to Palestine and Jerusalem, but our place of grace in the New Testament is wherever God gives His Gospel and His sacraments. There we shall keep ourselves, and there we shall be certain in the faith of the grace of God, and shall satisfy our conscience. On the words Exodus 15:17: “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in” remarks Luther: (St. L. III,924 f. [not in Am. Ed.?])
“Likewise he has also built for us Christians a temple where He will dwell, namely the oral Word, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are bodily things. But our false prophets, divisive spirits, and enthusiasts despise it and throw it away as if it were no good, saying, ‘Yes, I will sit and wait for a flying spirit and revelation to come from heaven.’ But beware of it! We also know that water, bread and wine do not save us; but how do you like that, that in the Lord's Supper bread and wine [page 252] or pure water in baptism are not bad, but God saith that He will be in baptism, that it shall cleanse us from sin, and wash us? And in the Lord's Supper under bread and wine is given the body and blood of the Lord of Christ. Will you then despise God and His sign here and look upon the water in baptism and keep it equal to the water that flows in the Elbe, or that you may cook with? Or do you want the Word of the Gospel equal to the words or speeches as peasants speak in a Kretschmar or tavern? For God said, When the Word is preached by Christ, then I am in your mouth, and I go with the Word through your ears into your heart. Wherefore we have a certain sign, and know that when the Gospel is preached, God is present, and He will be found there; there I have a bodily sign, and I may know and find God. So He is also at baptism and the Supper; for he hath joined himself to be there. But if I go to St. Jacob's or to the Grimmetal, go into a monastery and look for God elsewhere, I will miss Him. And if now the divisive spirits preached: Just as monastic life, invocation of the saints, the mass and pilgrimages are nothing, so Baptism and the Lord's Supper are nothing either: that will yet not work for a long time. For there is a great difference when God ordains and installs something, or when man creates something. Yes, you shall believe God's ordinances and foundations, worship them and hold them in great honour. So he also ordered Moses: Bring them into the land, that is, arrange, and make a certain place, that whosoever cannot worship thee there personally may return his body here, and turn his face to it, and pray. So I have God also in a certain place, here in the Word and sacraments, that though one be in Rome, or wherever else he may be, if he turn his face only to the Word and sacraments, and worship them, there he shall find our Lord God; and if he would also be found in a straw, there he should be sought and honored.”
Luther speaks particularly powerfully of the necessity of the means of grace as the foundation of faith in a sermon on John 17:1, (St. L. VIII, 749. [not in old series Am. Ed.]) in which he cites himself as an example. It is, as has been repeatedly mentioned, part of the nature of modern “experience theology”, denying the inspiration of Scripture, to make the “personal Christ” the foundation of faith. In contrast, Luther explains from his experience that salvation certainty and truth certainty disappeared from him as often as he thought about truth and salvation without the outer Word of Scripture. In this case "there was no [page 253] Christ at home”. He says in the sermon mentioned:
“I do not know how strong others are in the Spirit; but I cannot become so holy if I were learned and full of the Spirit as some would appear to be. It still happens to me at all times when I am without the Word, when I do not think of it or deal with it, there is no Christ at home, yes, there is no desire or spirit; but as soon as I take a psalm or passage of the Scriptures before me, it shines and burns in my heart that I may gain courage and meaning for others.”
= = = = = = = = = = continued in Part 15 = = = = = = = = = =Luther admits that he had no "Spirit", as the "so holy" enthusiasts claimed, without utilizing God's Means of Grace. — The next installment will introduce a surprising defender of the Means of Grace in Germany, from more modern times… a converted Jew! That comes in the next Part 15…
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