Commentary on Genesis Part 25

(3) Man has no free will and without the grace of the Holy Spirit can do nothing 142-143.

(4) The reproving office of the Holy Spirit makes it clear that man has no free will 144.

(5) Whether there is hope, if a council be held, that the Papists will abandon their false doctrine of free will 145.

(6) How the true doctrine of free will leads us to a knowledge of sin and what we are to hold in reference to it 146.

(7) Why we should guard against the false doctrine concerning free will 147.

* The comfort for one who commits sins of infirmities 147.

* All endeavors without the Holy Spirit are evil 148.

(8) We are to distinguish in the doctrine of free will what is good politically from what is good theologically 149-150.

b. These words are wrongly understood by the Jews and sophists 151.

* How we should view the discussions of philosophers in regard to G.o.d and divine things 152.

c. These words should be understood as spoken not only of the people before the flood, but of all men 153.

2. The Words, "It Repented Jehovah."

a. How the repentance of G.o.d is to be reconciled with the wisdom and omniscience of G.o.d.

(1) The way sophists answer this question 154.

(2) Luther's answer 155-157.

* How man should treat questions which lead us into the throne of the divine majesty 158.

* How the pa.s.sages of Scripture are to be understood which attribute to G.o.d the members of a human body 159.

* Whether the Anthropomorphites were justly condemned 159.

* Why G.o.d is represented to us as if he sprang from the temporal and the visible 161-163.

* We cannot explore G.o.d's nature 163.

* In what pictures G.o.d reveals himself in the Old Testament, and in the New 164.

* The will of G.o.d in signs and the will of G.o.d's good pleasure, "signs" and "Beneplaciti."

(a) How we can know G.o.d's will in signs 165-166.

(b) Why we cannot know the will of G.o.d's pleasure, nor fathom it 165-166.

(c) What is really to be understood by the will in signs 167.

b. The way the schools explain these words 168.

c. How they are to be rightly understood 169.

* Disputing about G.o.d's majesty and omnipotence places man in a dangerous position 169-171.

* How man should hold to the signs by which G.o.d revealed himself 171.

* What the will of G.o.d's pleasure is, to what it serves and how it is revealed in Christ 172-176.

* The will of good pleasure of which the fathers speak cannot comfort the heart 175.

* The only view of the G.o.dhead possible in this life 176.

d. In what sense it can be said that "it repented Jehovah that he had made man" 177.

IV. THE REPENTANCE AND GRIEF OF G.o.d BECAUSE HE HAD MADE MAN.

A. The Repentance of G.o.d.

Vs. 5-6. _And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Jehovah that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart._

140. This is the pa.s.sage which we have used against "free will," of which Augustine writes that without the grace of the Holy Spirit it can do nothing but sin. The scholastics, however, the champions of free will, are not only hard beset by this clear pa.s.sage, but also by the authority of Augustine, and they sweat. Of Augustine they say that his language is hyperbolical, as Basil writes of one who in refuting the other side had gone too far, that he did like the farmers; they when trying to straighten out crooked branches bend them a little too far on the other side; and so Augustine, in beating back the Pelagians, is a.s.serted to have spoken more severely against free will in the defense of grace than the merits of the case warranted.

141. As far as this pa.s.sage is concerned, it is slandered when it is held that it speaks only of the evil generation before the flood, and that now men are better, at least some who make good use of their freedom of will. Such wretched interpreters do not see that the pa.s.sage speaks of the human heart in general, and that a particle is plainly added, _Rak_, which signifies "only." In the third place, they fail to see that after the flood the same declaration is repeated in the eighth chapter in almost precisely the same terms. For G.o.d says, "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," Gen 8, 21.

Here evidently he does not speak only of the antediluvians. He rather speaks of those to whom he makes the promise that henceforth another general flood of water shall never come, that is, of all the offspring of Noah. These are words of universal application: "The imagination of man's heart is evil."

142. We draw, therefore, the general conclusion that man without the Holy Spirit and without grace can do nothing but sin, and thus he unhaltingly goes forward from sin to sin. When in addition, he will not endure sound doctrine but rejects the word of salvation and resists the Holy Spirit, he becomes an enemy of G.o.d, blasphemes the Holy Spirit and simply follows the evil desires of his heart.

Witnesses of this are the examples of the prophets, Christ and the Apostles, the primeval world under Noah as teacher, and also the example of our adversaries today, who cannot be convinced by anything that they are in error, that they sin, that their worship is unG.o.dly.

143. Other declarations of Holy Scripture prove the same thing. Is not the statement of the fourteenth Psalm, verse 3, sweeping enough when it says: "Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there was any that did understand, and did seek after G.o.d. They are all gone aside?" Thus, Ps 116, 11, "All men are liars;" and Paul, "G.o.d hath shut up all unto disobedience," Rom 11, 32. These pa.s.sages are most sweeping, and emphatically force the conclusion that we all, without the Holy Spirit, whose dispenser is Christ, can do nothing but err and sin. Therefore, Christ says in the Gospel, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: ... apart from me ye can do nothing," Jn 15, 5.

Without me you are a branch cut off, dry, dead and ready for the burning.

144. And the very reason the Holy Spirit performs the office of reproving the world is that he may call the world back to penitence and the recognition of its derangement. But the world remains consistent with itself; it hears not and believes it can please G.o.d with forms of worship of its own choosing and without the sanction of the divine Word, and does not permit itself to be undeceived.

145. If ever a council should be held, the final declaration and conclusion with reference to this very point, the freedom of will, will be that we should abide by the decisions of the pope and the fathers. We may clamor until we are hoa.r.s.e that man in himself without the Holy Spirit is evil, that everything he does without the Holy Spirit or without faith is condemned before G.o.d, that his heart is depraved and all his thought; we shall effect nothing.

146. Therefore, the mind is to be grounded in this, and we are to hold fast the doctrine which lays before us our sin and condemnation. This knowledge of our sin is the beginning of salvation; we must absolutely despair of ourselves and give glory for righteousness to G.o.d alone.

Why does Paul elsewhere complain, and in Romans 7, 18 freely confess that there is nothing good in him? He says plainly, "in my flesh;" so that we understand that the Holy Spirit alone can heal our infirmity.

When this has been fixed in our hearts, the foundation of our salvation is largely laid, inasmuch as subsequently clear testimonies are given that G.o.d will not cast away the sinner, that is, one who recognizes his sin and desires to come to his senses and thirsts after righteousness and the remission of sin through Christ.

147. Let us, therefore, take care not to be found among those Cyclopeans who oppose the Word of G.o.d and proclaim their freedom of will and their own powers. Though we often err, though we fall and sin, still, upon yielding to reproof on the part of the Holy Spirit with an humble confession of our depravity, the Holy Spirit himself will be present, and not only not impute to us the sin we acknowledge, but the grace of Christ shall cover it and he will shower upon us other gifts necessary to this life as well as the future one.

148. But the words of Moses are to be more closely considered, for with a definite purpose he has used here a peculiar expression; he has not merely said, "The thoughts of man's heart are evil," but "the imagination of the thoughts of his heart." Thus he expresses the highest that man can achieve with his thoughts or with his reason and free will. "Imagination" he calls that which man with his strongest effort devises, selects, creates like a potter, and believes to be most beautiful.

But such imagination is evil, he says, and that not once, but always.

For our reason without the Holy Spirit is altogether without knowledge of G.o.d. Now, to be without knowledge of G.o.d means to be entirely base, to dwell in darkness and to deem that very good which, in reality, is very bad.

149. But when I speak of good, I do so from the standpoint of theology, for we must distinguish between the theological and the civil standpoints. G.o.d approves also the rule of the unG.o.dly; he honors and rewards virtue also among the unG.o.dly: but only in regard to the things of this life and in things grasped by a reason which is upright from the civil standpoint; whereas the future life is not embraced in such reward. His approval is not with regard to the future life.