14/02/2024
Text from Sunday's sermon: Galatians 3:1
"O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified."
Commentary:
"Briefly, so great is the malice of this sorcerer, the devil, and his desire to hurt, that not only he deceiveth those secure and proud spirits with his enchantments, but even those also which are professors of true Christianity, and well-affected in religion: yea, as touching myself, to say the truth, he sometimes assaileth me so mightily, and oppreseth me with such heavy cogitations, that he utterly shadoweth my Saviour Christ from me, and, in a manner, taketh him clean out of my sight . . . Indeed we have been many times cast down, and yet still are cast down in this conflict, but we perish not; for Christ hath always triumphed, and doth triumph through us. Wherefore we hope assueredly, that we shall also hereafter, by Jesus Christ, obtain victory against the devil. And this hope bringeth unto us sure consolation, so that in the midst of our temptations we take courage, and say, behold Satan hath heretofore tempted us, and by his false ilusions hath provoked us to infidelity, to the contempt of God, despair etc. yet hath he not prevailed, nor shall he prevail hereafter. "Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4) . . .
Let no man think, therefore, that the Galatians only were bewitched of the devil: but let every man think that he himself might have been, and yet may be bewitched by him."
Martin Luther, 1483-1546, Commentary on Galatians, 164-165.
