All Are Not Treated Alike
With the pure Thou dost show Thyself pure; and with the crooked Thou dost show Thyself perverse.
PSALM 18:26 (RSV)
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All Are Not Treated Alike
The persons of the saints need to be distinguished from those of the perverse. For since the saints live uprightly in faith toward God and in love toward their neighbor, all that they do therefore is pleasing as well, whether sacrifices or the work of their hands, etc. Indeed, God is so well-pleased with His people that even their sins and errors do them no harm, and God is holy together with His saints even amid their sins. On the other hand, since the godless live perversely, caring nothing about faith toward God and mercy toward their neighbor, but boasting about their sacrifices and works and reveling in them, God also along with them makes Himself perverse and becomes perverse also to them. It is as if He were saying: "Since you reject My commandment about faith and mercy and do not deign to give it any place, I, in turn, will have no regard for your most sublime work of sacrifice—or, rather, to put it plainly, I do not want it! So far are your sins from being harmless to you that even your greatest merits are, for you, the greatest sins."
From Annotations on Matthew 1-18 (Luther's Works 67:70)
March 9
PSALM 18:26 (RSV)
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All Are Not Treated Alike
The persons of the saints need to be distinguished from those of the perverse. For since the saints live uprightly in faith toward God and in love toward their neighbor, all that they do therefore is pleasing as well, whether sacrifices or the work of their hands, etc. Indeed, God is so well-pleased with His people that even their sins and errors do them no harm, and God is holy together with His saints even amid their sins. On the other hand, since the godless live perversely, caring nothing about faith toward God and mercy toward their neighbor, but boasting about their sacrifices and works and reveling in them, God also along with them makes Himself perverse and becomes perverse also to them. It is as if He were saying: "Since you reject My commandment about faith and mercy and do not deign to give it any place, I, in turn, will have no regard for your most sublime work of sacrifice—or, rather, to put it plainly, I do not want it! So far are your sins from being harmless to you that even your greatest merits are, for you, the greatest sins."
From Annotations on Matthew 1-18 (Luther's Works 67:70)
March 9
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