Treasure in Weak Vessels
We have this treasure in jars of clay.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:7
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Treasure in Weak Vessels
Satan is raging so ferociously, filling everything with turmoil and scandals, and stirring up the whole world against us. Therefore someone may say that it would have been better to be silent [about the doctrine of justification], and that then none of these evils would have arisen. We ought to set greater store by the favor of God, whose glory we proclaim, than by the rage of the world, which persecutes us. For what are the pope and the whole world in comparison with God, whom we surely should praise and to whom we should give preference over all creatures? In addition, the wicked increase the uproar and the scandals which Satan arouses in order to crush or at least to distort our teaching. We, on the other hand, emphasize the comfort and the inestimable fruit of this doctrine; this we vastly prefer to all those turmoils, sects, and scandals. We, of course, are small and weak; and we are carrying a heavenly treasure in earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7). But though the vessels may be weak, the treasure is infinite and incomprehensible.
From Lectures on Galatians (1535) (Luther's Works 27:19)
2 CORINTHIANS 4:7
+
Treasure in Weak Vessels
Satan is raging so ferociously, filling everything with turmoil and scandals, and stirring up the whole world against us. Therefore someone may say that it would have been better to be silent [about the doctrine of justification], and that then none of these evils would have arisen. We ought to set greater store by the favor of God, whose glory we proclaim, than by the rage of the world, which persecutes us. For what are the pope and the whole world in comparison with God, whom we surely should praise and to whom we should give preference over all creatures? In addition, the wicked increase the uproar and the scandals which Satan arouses in order to crush or at least to distort our teaching. We, on the other hand, emphasize the comfort and the inestimable fruit of this doctrine; this we vastly prefer to all those turmoils, sects, and scandals. We, of course, are small and weak; and we are carrying a heavenly treasure in earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7). But though the vessels may be weak, the treasure is infinite and incomprehensible.
From Lectures on Galatians (1535) (Luther's Works 27:19)
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