The Incarnation an Offense to Man!

 

We cannot bear to have God speak to us in His majesty with countless thousands of angels. Therefore the best procedure is to abolish our design to hear God speak in His majesty, for we cannot bear this language. But God says: Now I shall hide My majesty most thoroughly, shall allow My Son to become man, born of a virgin; let Him do good to men and preach them the forgiveness of sins. He shall act in the kindest manner possible; only bear in mind that this man is the same God who spoke in the desert at Mount Sinai to the Children of Israel. Believe, therefore, that it is He whom you are hearing. He has hidden His majesty in humanity, does not appear with lightining, thunder, or angels, but as one born of a poor virgin and speaking with men of the forgiveness of sins. But this makes men mad and irrational, and they nail Him to the cross. What shall we do? If God were to come with His angels, no one could listen to Him. Now He says: I will come in a simple and humble form, in the person of a man; therefore believe Me now. But we want to hear Him still less and despise Him. We hold He should by all means come in majesty, and yet we are unable to bear Him in this form. This we cannot bear, and that we do not want to bear. When He comes as the son of a poor virgin we say: Alas, this is to be the Messiah?

Martin Luther 

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YET, strange to say, this lowly form was and is an offense to man. In his introductory sermon to John 4 (March 6, 1540) Luther finds fault with man. When God speaks in His majesty, man cannot bear it; when He condescends to speak in human lowliness, man is not satisfied. What shall we do with such a creature?

 

Source: 

What Luther Says, pp. 154-155

Compiled by Ewald M. Plass 

 

The Devil Feared the Word Made Flesh

 

Faith in these words has been so powerful that it has overcome the world and the devil. Thus we read a story or legend that once upon a time, when this Gospel of John was being read from the beginning: In principio erat Verbum ("In the beginning was the Word"), the devil stood there motionlessly and listened till the words "And the Word was made flesh"; then he disappeared. Now whether this was invented or whether it actually happened, it at any rate is the truth that the devil must surely flee from the man who speaks these words from the heart in true faith. Otherwise the devil can very well put up with the fact that God's Son is the Light and Life of men and laughs in his heart because people do not accept this truth. 

Martin Luther

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AND, holds the Reformer, the devil sensed what the incarnation of the Son of God meant to him. When, in the seventh sermon of the series just referred to, Luther expounds John 1:14, he relates a popular legend to his effect.
 

Source: 

What Luther Says, p. 166 

Compiled by Ewald M. Plass