Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation

by Martin Luther

The church was originally instituted, as I have observed, before there was any house or family or domestic government. For the Lord, we here find, preaches to Adam and sets before him the Word. On that Word, though so short, it highly becomes us here to pause awhile and dwell. For this sermon of God to Adam would have been to him and to us all, his posterity, had we continued in the original innocence, a whole Bible as it were. And did we, or could we, possess that sermon now we should have no need of paper, ink and pens, nor of that infinite multitude of books, which we now require to teach us knowledge and wisdom. The whole contents of these books put together, could we grasp them in our minds, would not put us in possession of one-thousandth part of that wisdom, which Adam possessed in paradise. Could we attain to the sum of all the wisdom in all the world, this short sermon would swallow up and overflow the whole. It would show us in all plainness and fullness, as if painted on a tablet, that infinite goodness of God which created this nature of ours pure, holy and perfect; and it would show us with equal plainness all those impurities, calamities and sorrows, which have since overwhelmed us by the inbursting of sin.

Since therefore, as the text shows, Adam alone heard this sermon from God, it must have been preached to him on the sixth day, and Adam must have afterwards communicated it to Eve on the same day. And if they had not sinned Adam would have set this remarkable sermon or precept before his whole posterity also; and by it they would have become the most profound divines, the most learned lawyers and the most experienced physicians. Now there exists an infinite number of books by which men are trained to be theologians, lawyers and physicians. But all the knowledge we can obtain by the help of all these books together can scarcely be called the dregs of science, if compared with that fund of wisdom which Adam drew from this one sermon of God. So utterly corrupted are all things by original sin.

This "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," therefore, or this place in which a number of trees like unto it were planted, would have been, as we have said, a church, where Adam and his posterity, had he and they continued in their innocency, would have assembled on the Sabbath day; and Adam, after refreshment derived from the "tree of life," would have preached God to those assembled, and would have praised him for the dominion which he had given them over all other creatures he had made. The 148th and 149th Psalms set forth a certain form of such praise and thanksgiving, where the sun, the moon, the stars, the fishes and the dragons are called upon to praise the Lord. But there is no one psalm so beautiful, but that any one of us might compose one far more excellent and more perfect, if we had been born of the seed of Adam in his state of original innocence. Adam would have preached that highest of all blessings, that he had been created in and that his posterity bore the image and the similitude of God. He would have exhorted them all to live a holy life without sin, to till the garden in which God had placed them with all industry, to keep it with all diligence, and to guard with all caution against tasting the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." This external place, form, worship and preaching of the Word, man would most certainly have observed on the Sabbath. Afterwards he would have returned to his duties of laboring and guarding until the time appointed of God had been fulfilled, in which he should be translated without any death and with all sweetness to heaven.

We must now speak of all these blessings however as a lost treasure, and we are deservedly left to sigh for that day, when all these things shall be restored. It is nevertheless most profitable to remember the blessings we have lost, and to feel the evils we suffer and in the midst of which we live, in so much wretchedness that we may be thereby stirred to look for that redemption of our bodies, of which the apostle speaks, Rom. 8:23. For as to our souls we are already freed and delivered by Christ; and we hold that deliverance in faith until the "end of our faith" shall be revealed, 1 Pet. 1:19.

It is moreover very profitable to consider from this text that God gave unto Adam a Word, a worship and a religion, the most simple, most pure and most disencumbered of all laborious forms and sumptuous appearance. For God did not command the sacrificing of oxen, nor the burning of incense, nor long and loud prayers, nor any other afflictions or wearyings of the body. All that he willed was, that Adam should praise him, should give him thanks, and should rejoice in him as the Lord his God; obeying him in this one great thing that he ate not the fruit of the forbidden tree.

Of this worship we have indeed some remnants restored to us in a certain measure by Christ, even amidst all this infirmity of our flesh. We also are enabled to praise God and to give him thanks for every blessing of the soul and of the body. But too true it is, that these are but very remnants of the original worship of Eden. But when, after this miserable life, we shall come among the company of angels, we shall then offer unto God a purer and holier worship. And there are also other remnants of this original felicity still vouchsafed unto us; that by the blessing of marriage we avoid and prevent adulteries; that this corporeal life has not only food, though procured with infinite labor, but a protection and a defense of that which we possess, secured unto us against all the evils and dangers which surround us on every side. These are indeed merciful remnants, still they are but miserable remnants if compared with the original blessedness and security.

Moreover, brethren, ye are here to be admonished against false prophets, through whom Satan endeavors by various means to corrupt sound doctrine. I will give you an example of this in my own case, and just show you how I was tormented by a fanatical spirit when I first began to preach this doctrine, which I am now setting forth in my Comments on the passage before us. The text indeed uses a Hebrew verb signifying "to command;" "And Jehovah God commanded the man." Yet this agent of Satan argued, and drew his conclusion thus:—"The Law is not made for a righteous man." Adam was a righteous man; therefore, the Law was not made for Adam; because, he was a righteous man. Upon this argument he immediately pinned another; that this sermon of God therefore was not a law but an admonition only; and that, consequently, "where there was no law there was, as Paul affirms, no transgression." And from this argument, that "where there is no law there is no transgression," he crept on to the conclusion, therefore, there was no original sin; the truth of which doctrine he consequently denied. By thus connecting together these two passages of Scripture he gained, as he considered, a marvelous victory, and he publicly displayed his triumph as if he had discovered a treasure hitherto unknown to the world. Now it is profitable thus to mark the mighty attempts of Satan, that we may learn to meet them with wisdom and skill.

Both the above passages, that the "Law is not made for a righteous man;" and that "where there is no law there is no transgression" are found in the Epistles of Paul, 1 Tim. 1:9, and Rom. 4:15. And it is the business of a sound and skillful logician in divine things, to mark carefully the aims and the devices of the devil; because our sophistical reasoners, his miserable slaves, use them after him. They pretend indeed to found their arguments on Scripture. For they know that it would appear perfectly ridiculous to thrust upon men's minds nothing but their own dreams. But they do not cite Scripture wholly and honestly; they seize upon those parts of it only which seem at first to make for them; but those portions which stand against them, they either craftily pass over or corrupt by cunningly devised interpretations.

Thus when Satan found that Christ trusted in the mercy of God under his great hunger, he attempted to draw him into a forbidden confidence, Math. 4:3, 4. And again, in the matter of his standing on the pinnacle of the Temple, the devil tried to make him tempt God; by quoting to him a passage seemingly adopted for his purpose, Ps. 91:11-12, "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

Now that portion of the passage in the psalm, which was contrary to his purpose, Satan craftily passed over, "to keep thee, in all thy ways." Here lies the whole force of this Scripture, that this guardianship of angels is promised to us "in all our ways" or "in our lawful calling" only. Christ in all divine wisdom sets before Satan this as the true meaning of the sacred text, when he replies to his face in this precept, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." By this Christ signifies that the "way" of man is not in the air, but that was the "way" of the flying fowls; but that the "way" of man was the steps which led from the roof of the temple to the ground; and which were made for the end that there might be a descent from the top of the temple to the bottom, easy and without peril. When therefore we are in our lawful calling and duty, whether that duty be commanded of God or of men, which latter have a right to prescribe the duty of our calling, while we are thus "in our ways," then we may assuredly believe the guardianship of angels will not fail us.