To Know God
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
2 JOHN 9
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To Know God
[The Turks, Jews, and all the heathen] imagine that He is a God who has neither a Son nor a Holy Spirit in His Godhead, and thus what they esteem and worship as God is nothing but an empty dream. Indeed, they extol lies and blasphemies as the knowledge of God because they presume, without divine revelation (that is, without the Holy Spirit), to know God and to come to Him without a mediator (which must be God's only Son). And thus, at bottom, they are without God. For, in truth, there is no other God than the one who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, both of whom reveal Themselves through the Holy Spirit to His Church and who work and rule in the hearts of the faithful. As 2 John 9 says, "Whoever does not believe and abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God." And Christ says in John 5:23: "Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father as well," or John 14:6: "No one comes to the Father except through Me."
From Four Sermons Preached at Eisleben (Luther's Works 58:414-15)
2 JOHN 9
+
To Know God
[The Turks, Jews, and all the heathen] imagine that He is a God who has neither a Son nor a Holy Spirit in His Godhead, and thus what they esteem and worship as God is nothing but an empty dream. Indeed, they extol lies and blasphemies as the knowledge of God because they presume, without divine revelation (that is, without the Holy Spirit), to know God and to come to Him without a mediator (which must be God's only Son). And thus, at bottom, they are without God. For, in truth, there is no other God than the one who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, both of whom reveal Themselves through the Holy Spirit to His Church and who work and rule in the hearts of the faithful. As 2 John 9 says, "Whoever does not believe and abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God." And Christ says in John 5:23: "Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father as well," or John 14:6: "No one comes to the Father except through Me."
From Four Sermons Preached at Eisleben (Luther's Works 58:414-15)
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