36. The true meaning is that Moses calls those men the sons of God, who had the promise of the blessed seed. This is a New Testament phrase and signifies the believers who call God, Father, and whom, God in turn, calls sons. The flood came not because the generation of Cain was corrupt, but because the generation of the righteous who had believed God, had obeyed his Word, and had possessed the true worship, now had lapsed into idolatry, disobedience to parents, sensuality, oppression. Even so the last day shall be hastened, not by the profligacy of Gentile, Turk and Jew, but by the filling of the Church with errors through the pope and fanatical spirits, so that those very ones who occupy the highest place in the Church exercise themselves in sensuality, lust and oppression.
37. It is a cause of fear for us all, that even those who were descended from the best patriarchs, began to grow haughty and depart from the Word. They gloried in their wisdom and righteousness, as later the Jews did in circumcision and Father Abraham. So did the popes glory in the title of the Church only to replace gradually their spiritual glory by carnal indulgence after forfeiting the knowledge of God, his Word and his worship. The Roman Church was truly holy and adorned by the grandest martyrs. We, at this day, however, are witnesses how she has fallen.
38. Let no one, therefore, glory in his gifts, however splendid! The greatest gift is to be a member of the true Church. But take care not to become proud on that account, for you may fall, just as Lucifer fell from heaven and, as we are here informed, as the sons of God fell into carnal pleasures. They are, therefore, no longer sons of God, but sons of Satan, having fallen alike from the first and the second table of the Law. So in the past, popes and bishops have been good and holy, but today they are of all men the worst and, so to speak, the dregs of all classes.
39. Among this rabble of decadent men who had departed from the piety and virtues of their ancestors, godly Noah lived in the greatest contempt and hatred of everybody. How could he approve the corruption of such degenerate progeny? And they themselves were most impatient of reproof. While, therefore, his example shone and gleamed, and his holiness filled the whole earth, the world became worse from day to day, and the greater the sanctity and chastity of Noah, the more the world reveled in lust. This is the beginning; it invariably introduces ruin.
40. When God arouses holy men, full of the Holy Spirit, to instruct and reprove the world, the world, impatient of sound doctrine, falls with much greater zeal into sin and plies it with much greater persistency. This was the situation at the beginning of the world, and now, at the end of the world, we realize it is still the case.
| II. | GOD'S JUDGMENT AND GRIEF OVER THE FIRST WORLD; NOAH AND HIS PREACHING. | ||||
| A. | GOD'S JUDGMENT AND LAMENTATION OVER THE OLD WORLD. | ||||
| 1. | The words of the lamentation. | ||||
| a. | Interpreters have shamefully perverted these words [41]. | ||||
| b. | The Jewish interpretation, which Jerome follows [42]. | ||||
| c. | The Jews' interpretation refuted [42-43]. | ||||
| d. | The interpretation of Rabbi Solomon [44]. | ||||
| e. | The interpretation of others, especially of Origen [45]. | ||||
| * | Why Augustine was especially pleased with the doctrine of the Manicheans [45]. | ||||
| f. | Rabbi David's explanation [46]. | ||||
| * | The false idea of the Jews and some Christian interpreters that the true sense of Scripture is learned from grammar. | ||||
| (1) | Thus ideas most foreign to the sense of Scripture are defended [46-47]. | ||||
| (2) | This method is false and led the Jews into many fantasies [47]. | ||||
| g. | The source of Rabbi David's awkward interpretation of these words [48]. | ||||
| * | Why Luther has so much to say about the false interpretation of Scripture [49]. | ||||
| * | What is necessary to interpret Scripture [50]. | ||||
| h. | The true sense of these words [51]. | ||||
| * | Scripture definition of "to judge" [51]. | ||||
| 2. | The author of this judgment and lamentation [51-53]. | ||||
| * | Man's conduct upon hearing God's Word preached [54]. | ||||
| 3. | From what kind of a heart does such judgment and lamentation spring [55]. | ||||
| * | What kind of grief is the grief of the Holy Spirit [56]. | ||||
| * | God's severest punishment [57-59]. | ||||
| * | What follows when man does not possess God's Word [57-58]. | ||||
| * | Why the heathen are so carnal [58]. | ||||
| 4. | The nature of this judgment and lamentation [59]. | ||||
| * | The lamentation and judgment of Luther over Germany because it lightly esteemed God's Word [60]. | ||||
| * | The spirit of grace and of prayer [61]. | ||||
| * | The office of the ministry. | ||||
| a. | It requires two things [62]. | ||||
| b. | It is the greatest blessing of God [63]. | ||||
| c. | To despise it is a great sin, and what follows when it is taken from a people [63]. | ||||
| d. | A complaint of its neglect [64]. | ||||
| e. | This office is explained by the expression "to judge" [65]. | ||||
| * | Every godly preacher is one who disputes and judges [65]. | ||||
| * | Luther's grief because of the stubbornness of the world [66]. | ||||
| * | Why Ahab called Elijah a troubler of Israel [67]. | ||||
| * | Why the world resents being reproved by sound doctrine. It is a good sign if a minister is reviled by the world [68]. | ||||
| * | The glory of people who boast of being the Church. | ||||
| a. | Such glory avails nothing before God [68-70]. | ||||
| b. | Papists wish by all means to have this glory [68-70]. | ||||
| c. | Papists need this glory to suppress the Protestants [71]. | ||||
| d. | Christ will decide at the judgment day to whom this glory belongs [71]. | ||||
| e. | Although the first world adorned itself with this glory, it did not save them [72]. | ||||
| 5. | How and why this judgment and complaint are ascribed to God [73-74]. | ||||
| 6. | How they were published to the world by the holy patriarchs [75]. | ||||
| 7. | Why they were made [76]. | ||||
| 8. | In what way they have been published to the world [77]. | ||||
| 9. | How the world resented this judgment and complaint [78]. | ||||
| * | Time given to the first world for repentance. | ||||
| a. | We are not to understand the 120 years as the period of a man's life [79]. | ||||
| b. | The 120 years the time given these people in which to repent [80-81]. | ||||
| 10. | Whether and to what end this time was necessary [82]. | ||||
| 11. | How the old world felt upon hearing this [83]. | ||||
| * | The complaint and judgment of the last world [84-86]. | ||||
| * | The nearer the world approaches its destruction the less it thinks of it [86]. | ||||
| * | How the time of the flood is to be compared with the time God gives man to repent [87]. | ||||