–An Excerpt From Martin Luther’s Spiritual Last Will & Testament. CONFESSION CONCERNING CHRIST’S SUPPER (1528), Part 3 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546. Translation by Rev. Robert E. Smith from the German text in: DR. MARTIN LUTHERS WERKE: KRITISCHE GESAMTAUSGABE.(Weimar: Herman Boehlaus Nachfolger, 1909), pp.499-500.–
“Because I see that the mobs are always growing, the number of errors are always increasing and Satan’s rage and ruin have no end, I wish to confess with this work my faith before God and the whole world, point by point. I am doing this, lest certain people cite me or my writings, while I am alive or after I am dead, to support their errors, as those fanatics, the Sacramentarians and the Anabaptists, have begun to do. I will remain in this confession until my death (God help me!), will depart from this world in it, and appear before the Judgment Seat of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So that no one will say after my death, “If Luther was alive, he would teach and believe this article differently, because he did not think it through sufficiently,” I state the following, once and for all: I, by God’s grace, I have diligently examined these articles in the light of passages throughout the Scriptures. I have worked on them repeatedly and you can be sure that I want to defend them, in the same way that I have just defended the Sacrament of the Altar.
No, I’m not drunk or impulsive. I know what I am saying and understand fully what this will mean for me as I stand before the Lord Jesus Christ on the Last Day. No one should think that I am joking or rambling. I’m serious! By God’s grace, I know Satan very well. If Satan can turn God’s Word upside down and pervert the Scriptures, what will he do with my words — or the words of others?”
How interesting to think of this excerpt in light of how people have tried to pervert Luther’s words even to this day. I just thought this was quite a thinker. So, I wanted ot share it. =)
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