Luther's Tragic Mistake: Part Twenty-Two
NOTE: This installment is part of Dr. Luther's treatise which has been used for acts of hatred against the Jewish people. I am running this series that we may learn from Dr. Luther's tragic mistake and, hopefully, prevent a repeat in the future what has happened in the past.
I have covered the topic of "Who Killed Jesus of Nazareth" in a previous article. Please feel free to read that piece for my thoughts on the topic.
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the Discussion Forum. While Luther was a man of great importance and influence, not every thing Luther said, thought, or wrote is inspired by God. This treatise is definitely not from God, nor is it consistent with what God's Word says. Error needs to be pointed out where it exists--even if the error is made by an influential person.
The following is a verbatim reproduction of part of Dr. Martin Luther's treatise entitled On the Jews and Their Lies. It's source on the Internet is The Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Please note that the text is part of the public domain.
Though the Jews be as hard or harder than a diamond, the lightning and thunder of such clear and manifest truth should smash, or at least soften, them. But as I said before, our faith is cheered thereby, it is strengthened, it is made sure and certain that we do have the true Messiah, who surely came and appeared at the time when Herod took away the scepter of Judah and the saphra, so that David's house might be eternal and forever have a son upon his throne, as God said and swore to him and made a covenant with him. Some crafty Jew might try to cast up to me my book against the Sabbatarians, in which I demonstrated that the word "eternally," le-olam, often means not really an eternity, but merely "a long time." Thus Moses says in Exodus 21:6 that the master shall take the slave who wants to stay with him and bore through his ear with an awl on the door, "and he shall serve him eternally." Here the word designates a human eternity, that is, a lifetime. But I also said in the same treatise that when God uses the word "eternal," it is a truly divine eternity. And he commonly adds another phrase to the effect that it shall not be otherwise, as in Psalm 110:4, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind." Similarly in Psalm 132:11: "The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back," etc. Wherever such a "not" is added, this means surely eternal and not otherwise. Thus we read in Isaiah 9:7, "Of peace there will be no end." And in Daniel 7:14, "His dominion is an everlasting dominion... and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed." This is eternal not before men, who do not live eternally, but before God, who lives eternally.
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