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

by Martin Luther

In the first place Satan here imitates God. For as God had preached to Adam, so Satan now also preaches to Eve. For perfectly true is that saying of the proverb, "All evil begins in the name of God." Just therefore as salvation comes from the pure Word of God, so perdition comes from the corrupted Word of God. What I term the corrupted Word of God is not that only which is corrupted by the vocal ministry, but that which is corrupted by the internal persuasions of the heart or by opinions of the mind, disagreeing with the Word.

Moses implies all this in his expression, "He said." For the object of Satan was to draw away Eve by his word or saying, from that which God had said; and thus by taking the Word of God out of sight, he corrupted that perfection of will which man had before; so that man became a rebel. He corrupted also his understanding so that he doubted concerning the will of God. Upon this immediately followed a rebellious hand, stretched forth to pluck the fruit contrary to the command of God. Then followed a rebellious mouth and rebellious teeth; in a word all evils follow soon upon unbelief or doubt concerning the Word and God. For what can be worse than for a man to disobey God, and obey Satan!

This very same craft and malice all heretics imitate. Under the show of doing good, they wrest from men God and his Word. They take the Word away from before their eyes and set before them another, and a new word and a new god; a god which is nowhere, and no god at all. For if you examine the words of these men, nothing can be more holy, nothing more religious. They call God to witness that they seek with their whole heart the salvation of the Church. They express their utter detestation of all who teach wicked things. They profess their great desire to spread the name and the glory of God. But why should I enlarge? They wish to appear to be anything but the devil's teachers or heretics. And yet, their one whole aim is to suppress the true doctrine and to obscure the knowledge of God. And when they have done this, the fall of their listeners is easily enough effected.

For unwary men suffer themselves to be drawn away from the Word to dangerous disputations, Rom. 14:1. Not content with the Word, they begin to inquire why and for what reason these and those things were done. And just as Eve, when she listened to the devil, calling the command of God into doubt fell; so it continually happens that we, by listening to him, are brought to doubt whether God is willing that we, when heavily oppressed with sin and death, should be saved by Christ; and thus, being misled and deceived, we suffer ourselves to be induced to put on cowls and cloaks in order that we may be crowned of God with salvation on account of our works of perfection.

Thus before men are aware, another and a new god is set before them by Satan; for he also sets a word before us; but not that Word which is set before us of God, who declareth that repentance and remission of sins should be preached unto all men in the name of Christ, Luke 24:47. When the Word of God is in this manner altered and corrupted, then, as Moses says, in his song, "there are brought in among us new gods, newly come up whom our fathers knew not, and feared not," Deut. 32:17.

It is profitable to be well acquainted with these snares of Satan. For if he were to teach men that they might commit murder and fornication, and might resist their parents, etc., who is there who would not immediately see that he was persuading them to do things forbidden by the Lord? And thus it would be easy to guard against him. But in the case of which we are speaking, when he sets before us another word, when he disputes with us concerning the will and willingness of God, when he brings before our eyes the name of God, and of the church, and of the people of God, then we cannot so easily be on our guard against him. On the contrary there is need of the firmest judgment of the spirit to enable us to distinguish between the true God and the new god.

It is such judgment as this that Christ exercises, when Satan attempts to persuade him to command that the stones be made bread, and to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple. For Satan's aim was to persuade Christ to attempt something without the Word. But the Tempter could not deceive Christ as he had deceived Eve. For Christ holds fast the Word and does not suffer himself to be drawn away from the true God to the new and false god. Hence unbelief and doubting, which follow a departure from the Word, are the fountain and source of all sin. And it is because the world is full of these that it remains in idolatry, denies the truth of God and forms to itself new gods.

The monk is an idolator. For his imaginations are that if he lives according to the rule of Francis or Dominic, he shall be in the way to the kingdom of God. But this is making a new god, and becoming an idolator. Because the true God declares that the way to the kingdom of heaven is believing in Christ. When this faith is lost therefore unbelief and idolatry immediately enter in, which transfer the glory of God to works. Thus the Anabaptists, the Sacramentarians and the Papists are all idolators! Not because they worship stocks and stones, but because, leaving the Word of God, they worship their own thoughts.

The portion of the Scripture therefore now before us is designed to teach us that the beginning of original sin was this effectual temptation of the devil, when he had drawn Eve away from the Word to idolatry, contrary to the first and second and third commandments. Therefore the words stand here, "Yea, hath God said?" It is horrible audacity for the devil to represent a new god and deny the former true and eternal God with the utmost self-confidence. It is as if the devil had said, "Ye must be fools indeed if ye believe that God really gave you such a commandment. For God is by no means such a God as to be so greatly concerned whether ye eat the fruit or eat it not. For as the tree is 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;' how, think ye, he can be so filled with envy as to be unwilling that ye should be wise!"

Moreover this inexpressible malice fully proves that, although Moses makes mention of the serpent only and not of Satan, Satan was the real contriver of the whole transaction. And although these things had been thus involved in obscurity in this sacred history of them, yet the holy fathers and prophets, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, at once saw that this temptation was not the work of the serpent, but that there was in the serpent that spirit, which was the enemy of Adam's innocent nature; even the spirit, concerning whom Christ plainly declares in the Gospel, "that he abode not in the truth; and that he was a murderer and a liar from the beginning," Luke 8:44. It was left however, as we have said, for the Gospel to explain these things more clearly and to make manifest this enemy of God and of men. But the fathers saw all this by the following mode of reasoning: It is certain that at the time of the temptation all creatures stood in perfect obedience, according to the sentence of Moses, "And God saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very good." But here in the serpent, such a spirit manifests himself who proves to be the enemy of God and who corrupts the Word of God, that he might draw away man into sin and death.