Martin Luther's Writings: March 2004

March 22, 2004

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.

These introductory words to St. John's sermon about the eternal divinity of Christ, so wonderful and unprecedented, were also very strange and unusual to all wise and rational people. He affirmed clearly and distinctly that God is a Word and that this Word is with God, yes, is God Himself, as we shall hear later. John's expression on this subject is far more succinct and vivid than that of Moses, whose book begins with these words (Gen. 1:1–3): "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…. And God spoke a word, and there was light." St. John got the idea from Moses; but he is far more explicit in his statement that in the very be ginning—antedating the creation of the universe, of the heavens, of the earth, or of any other creature—the Word existed, that this Word was with God, that God was this Word, and that this Word had existed from all eternity. This, I repeat, is a peculiar doctrine; it is foreign and strange to reason, and particularly to the worldly-wise. No man can accept it unless his heart has been touched and opened by the Holy Spirit. It is as impossible of comprehension by reason as it is inaccessible to the touch of the hand.

Any attempt to fathom and comprehend such statements with human reason and understanding will avail nothing, for none of this has its source in the reason: that there was a Word in God before the world's creation, and that this Word was God; that, as John says further on, this same Word, the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, rested in the Father's bosom or heart and became flesh; and that no one else had ever seen or known God, because the Word, who is God's only-begotten Son, rested in the bosom of the Father and revealed Him to us. Nothing but faith can comprehend this. Whoever refuses to accept it in faith, to believe it before he understands it, but insists on exploring it with his reason and his five senses, let him persist in this if he will. But our mind will never master this doctrine; it is far too lofty for our reason. Holy Writ assures us that faith alone can appropriate it. Let anyone who refuses to believe it let it alone. In the end only the Holy Spirit from heaven above can create listeners and pupils who accept this doctrine and believe that the Word is God, that God's Son is the Word, and that the Word became flesh, that He is also the Light who can illumine all men who come into the world, and that without this Light all is darkness.

Furthermore, we must realize that this Word in God is entirely different from my word or yours. For we, too, have a word, especially a "word of the heart," as the holy fathers call it.4 When,for example, we think about something and diligently investigate it, we have words; we carry on a conversation with ourselves. Its content is unknown to all but ourselves until such Words of the heart are translated into oral words and speech, which we now utter after we have revolved them in our heart and have reflected on them for a long time. Not until then is our word heard and understood by others. St. Paul touches on this in First Corinthians (2:11): "No person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him." When a man has a thought, a word, or a conversation within himself, he speaks to himself incessantly and is full of words that suggest counsel as to what to do or not to do. He continually converses and deliberates on this within himself. And particularly when something is close to his heart and makes him angry or happy, his heart is so full of anger and so full of happiness that his emotions involuntarily spill over into his mouth. For a word is not merely the utterance of the mouth; rather it is the thought of the heart. Without this thought the external word is not spoken; or if it is spoken, it has substance only when the word of the mouth is in accord with the word of the heart. Only then is the external word meaningful; otherwise it is worthless. Thus God, too, from all eternity has a Word, a speech, a thought, or a conversation with Himself in His divine heart, unknown to angels and men. This is called His Word. From eternity He was within God's paternal heart, and through Him God resolved to create heaven and earth. But no man was aware of such a resolve until the Word became flesh and proclaimed this to us. This we shall see later in the words (John 1:18): "The Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed it to us."

But just as God, the Lord and Creator of all creatures, is immeasurably superior to poor, miserable man, who is earth and dust, so there is no analogy between the word of mortal man and the Word of the eternal and almighty God. There is a wide gulf between the thoughts, discussions, and words of the human heart and those of God. For God is not created or made as we human beings are; He is from all eternity. No one has given Him His speech, His Word, or His conversation. What He is, He is of Himself from eternity.5 But whatever we are, we received from Him and not from ourselves. He alone has everything from Himself.

Therefore this analogy of our word is very inadequate and vague. But although our word cannot be compared to His Word, it affords us a faint idea. Indeed, it impels us to ponder the matter and to obtain a better insight into its meaning, comparing the thoughts and speculations of the human heart with those of God and thus perceiving how God's Son is a Word. For as I hold secret and inaudible converse with myself, decide on future actions, debate about this or that within myself as I walk about, these secret and silent words of my heart, if freely and frankly released, would, I suppose, contain power sufficient for the ears of several thousand people. Yes, such words might fill every ear and every house. Nor can all the thoughts and the plans of heart and mind be fully uttered, especially if the heart bums with love or anger, with joy or sorrow.

If love is genuine, then the heart of that person is so full of thoughts of love that he sees, hears, and feels nothing else. In fact, he often scarcely knows where he is. Nor can you reason with such a person; for he is so fervently in love, and his heart is so filled and prepossessed by nothing but love, that not even a hairbreadth or a needle point could be squeezed into it. His thoughts of love are as large and as wide as his heart. Likewise, if anger is genuine, it occupies the heart so fully as to make a man insensible of himself. He argues and talks with himself, so that anyone who sees him and is ignorant of his emotions must assume that such a person is beside himself. He may say to him seriously: "Why do you carry on so? What is the matter with you?"

This same picture may be applied to God. God, too, in His majesty and nature, is pregnant with a Word or a conversation in which He engages with Himself in His divine essence and which reflects the thoughts of His heart. This is as complete and excellent and perfect as God Himself. No one but God alone sees, hears, or comprehends this conversation. It is an invisible and incomprehensible conversation. His Word existed before all angels and all creatures existed, for subsequently He brought all creatures into being by means of this Word and conversation. God is so absorbed in this Word, thought, or conversation that He pays no attention to anything else.

These words of the Holy Spirit, taken from Moses in the first chapter of Genesis (1:3), "Let there be light," are incomprehensibleto any human reason or wisdom, no matter how profound. Therefore we dare not consult reason here, but we must honor the Holy Spirit by believing His words and accepting them as the divine truth. To this end, the eyes of reason must be blinded, yes, gouged out, as it were. But he who refuses to believe, let him go; let him continue on this path and see how he fares.

Many and various heretics have stormed against this article and have attempted to fathom, comprehend, and master it with their reason; but they have perished in the attempt. The Holy Spirit has defended this article against them all, as God's Word continues to stand its ground against the very gates of hell (Matt. 16:18). Therefore let no man mistakenly assume that John the Evangelist terms the Son of God a Word in any simple or trivial sense. As already said, he does not have a word in mind such as emerges from my mouth, flits into the air, and soon fades out—an ordinary, simple word. Nor is he thinking of a word such as my heart addresses to me, which, to be sure, is greater and superior to the external word; the word of the heart is larger than the external word of the mouth. The former is often so big and strong that it occupies the entire heart and is, at the same time, incapable of expression. For it is impossible for a man to voice fully the thoughts either of an overjoyed or of a very wrathful heart.

Suppose it were possible to peer into each other's heart, I into yours and you into mine. If it were, we would either impart the whole content of our heart to each other out of love, or, to use a current expression, we would devour and choke each other out of anger. Now if it is true that I cannot fully express the thoughts of my heart, how many thousand times less will it be possible for me to understand or to express the Word or conversation in which God engages within His divine being, which He harbors in the shrine of His heart!If we reflect on the matter at all, we must concede that a man's word, especially that of a great and mighty prince or king, really carries weight. To be sure, he is a mortal being like any other person; nevertheless, the plain word of his mouth is carried to the ears of his subjects and proves so powerful that they do its bidding and are governed by what he says. One may say (Ps. 33:9): "He spoke and it came to be." And although the mouth from which the word or command emerged is only a few inches wide,8 still it has enough power to bring about the obedience of all. And when a lord speaks in anger, let them against whom his displeasure is directed beware. Their goods, honor, life, and limb are forfeit to him. In view of this, it is evident that heaven and earth, all creatures, both the visible and the invisible, come into being when the eternal, almighty, and divine Majesty speaks to Himself or carries on a conversation with Himself, as it is written in Ps. 33:6: "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the Spirit of His mouth." But since God has no mouth and does not utter any physical speech, the Word to which the evangelist refers must have existed before all creatures. St. John thus declares that there was in God a Speech or Word who occupied all of God, that He was God Himself, that He had preceded the existence of all creatures, even of the angels. No one saw or heard Him, not even the angels, since at that time they had not yet been created. Thus it must be a word or conversation, not of any angel or of any creature but of God Himself, the Creator of all creatures. This we here term "the Word," not any ordinaryword but a Word that is as great as God Himself. Indeed, the Word is God Himself. It is not customary among us to call the thoughts of the heart "word" or "speech." And yet we are often wont to use expressionssuch as "He is talking to himself" when we mean that a man is in deep thought either because of joy or sadness or because of love or anger. Or it is said: "My heart tells me that this good fortune or that misfortune will befall me." Such "telling" is the word of the heart. However, the thoughts of the heart, in their full meaning, significance, and extent are not accessible to the senses. One cannot fully and completely pour out one's heart. Yet a man often does express his thoughts, bare his heart, and reveal its content to others. Thus Christ the Lord declares in Matt. 12:34 that the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart. Then you can know and understand the heart of a man. You often say: "Didn't I have a presentimentof this? Didn't my heart tell me this? Didn't I sense this?" Butwhen God speaks a Word to Himself or carries on a conversation with Himself, we find that people refuse to grasp this; much less will they believe it, for it runs counter to reason. In fact, since the days of Moses, St. John the Evangelist is the only one to refer and point to this. Admittedly, the prophets,9 and particularly David in Ps. 33:6, also alluded to it; but their words lacked the lucidity and distinctness of Moses and of St. John in this passage, where he calls the Son of God "the Word." Therefore we should leave our reason at home, and we should not fall into the snares of idle speculation. Rather we must believe the Holy Spirit, who has declared through Moses and John that God had a Word all by Himself, apart from any creature. I have been obliged to say this on account of this mode of speech, to enable you to understand the meaning of the vocable "Word," and also to give it a more profound meaning than it has in its ordinary usage when you learn that God, too, has a Word or conversation within Himself.