More of Luther's comments on Galatians 1:3 ("Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ")...
The Apostle wishes for the Galatians grace and peace, not from emperors
or kings, for these do commonly persecute the godly, nor from the world (“for
in the world,” said Christ, “you shall have tribulation”);but from God the
Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. So Christ said: “My peace I give unto
you, not as the world gives.” The peace of the world grants nothing but the
peace of our goods and bodies. But in affliction, and in the hour of death, the
grace and favor of the world cannot help us. The peace of God is not given to
the world, because the world never longs after it, but to them that believe.
And this comes to pass by no other means than by the grace of God.
Why does the Apostle add in the salutation, “And from our Lord Jesus
Christ”? Was it not enough to say, “from God the Father”? It is a rule and
principle in the Scriptures, diligently to be marked, that we must abstain from
the curious searching of God’s majesty, which is intolerable to man’s body, and
much more to the mind: “No man (saith the Lord) shall see me and live” (Exodus
33:20). Those who trust in their own merits regard not this rule, and therefore
remove Christ the Mediator out of their sight. They speak only of God, and
before Him only they pray, and do all that they do. They who know not
justification take away Christ the mercy seat and seek to comprehend God in His
majesty by the judgment of reason, and pacify Him with their own works.
But true Christian divinity commands us not to search out the nature of
God, but to know His will set out to us in Christ, whom He willed to take upon
Him flesh, to be born, and to die for our sins; and that this should be
preached among all nations. “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). When your conscience stands in
conflict, wrestling against the law, sin, and death in the presence of God,
there is nothing more dangerous than to wander with curious speculations in
heaven, and there to search out God in His incomprehensible power, wisdom, and
majesty, how He created the world, and how He governs it.
If you seek thus to comprehend God, and would pacify Him without Christ
the Mediator, making your works a means between Him and yourself, you will fall
into despair and lose God all together. As God is in His own nature
unmeasurable, incomprehensible, and infinite, so He is to man’s nature
intolerable.
So seek God as Paul teaches: “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews
a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God”
(1 Corinthians 1:23, 24). For to this end Christ came down, was born, was
conversant with men, suffered, was crucified, and died, that by all means He
might set forth Himself plainly before our eyes, and fasten the eyes of our
hearts upon Himself, that He might thereby keep us from climbing up into heaven
and from the curious searching of the Divine Majesty.
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