Again she does not see how much more stoutly she confutes herself by these carnal arguments, than she does me.
For what do these consequences prove, except that all attainable merit is by Freewill? What room will there be then for grace? Besides, if you say Freewill earns a very little, and grace earns the rest, then why does Freewill receive the whole reward? Will we also invent a very small degree of reward for her? If there must be a place for merit so that there may be a place for reward, then the merit should be as big as the reward. But why do I waste my words and my time about what is nothing? Even if all of what Diatribe is contriving were built up and could stand; and even if it were partly man’s work, and partly God’s work, that we have merit — still, they cannot define this work in which our merit consists, of what sort and how extensive it is — so that, we are disputing about goats’ hair. 593
Well then, she proves none of those things which she asserts — neither discrepancy, nor a qualified interpretation — nor can she exhibit a text of Scripture which ascribes all to man. Rather, all these things are phantasms of her own imagination. Paul’s simile of the potter and his clay therefore maintains its ground, unhurt and irresistible, a proof that it is not of our own will, what sort of vessels we are formed into. And those exhortations of Paul’s, “If a man purges himself,” and the like, are models to which we ought to be conformed, but they are no proofs of either our performance or our endeavour. Let this suffice with respect to those passages about Pharaoh’s hardening, about Esau, and about the potter.
SECT. 37. Gen. 6.3 maintained.
Diatribe comes at length to those passages which are cited by Luther in opposition to Freewill, intending to confute them also. The first of them is Gen 6.3, “My Spirit shall not always abide in man, because he is flesh.” She confutes this passage in various ways.
First, she urges that “flesh” does not signify ‘sinful affection’ here, but ‘infirmity.’
Secondly, she expands Moses’ text. Because his saying pertains to the men of that age, not to the whole human race, she would therefore say, ‘in those men;’ — yet again, she is not even applying it to all the men of that age, since Noah is excepted.
Lastly, she urges that this saying imports something else in the Hebrew language; that it refers to the clemency and not the severity of God, according to Jerome. Possibly she means to persuade us that, because this saying does not pertain to Noah but to the wicked, the severity and not the clemency of God therefore pertains to Noah; and the clemency and not the severity of God pertains to the wicked!
But we will pass over these fooleries of Diatribe’s, who everywhere tells us that she considers the Scriptures a fable. I do not care what Jerome says in his trifling way here. It is certain that he proves nothing. And we are not inquiring what Jerome thinks, but what the Scripture means. Let the perverters of Scripture pretend that the Spirit of God means his indignation. I affirm that she fails in her proof in two ways: first, she cannot produce a single text of Scripture in which the Spirit of God means God’s indignation; on the contrary, kindness and sweetness are everywhere ascribed to him; secondly, if she could by any means prove that it is somewhere or other taken for indignation, still she cannot directly prove that it necessarily follows that it must also be taken so here. Again, let her pretend that the flesh is taken for infirmity; in the same degree, she still proves nothing. For, though Paul calls the Corinthians carnal, he certainly does not mean to impute infirmity to them, but fault — complaining as he does, that they were oppressed with sects and parties. This is not infirmity, or incapacity to receive more solid doctrine, but the old leaven of malice, which he commands them to purge out.
Let us examine the Hebrew. “My Spirit shall not always be judging man, because he is flesh,’ This is word for word what Moses says. 594 And if we would give up our own dreams, the words are sufficiently clear and manifest, I think, as they stand there. But the words which go before, and which follow after, connected as they are with bringing on the flood, sufficiently show that they are the expressions of an angry God. They were occasioned by the fact that the sons of men were marrying wives through the mere lust of the flesh, and then oppressing the earth with tyranny. This compelled God to hasten the flood, through his anger, scarcely allowing Him to defer for an hundred years what he would otherwise never have brought upon the earth. Read Moses carefully, and you will see that he clearly means this. If you are free to sport with the Scriptures, as if you were looking for scraps and shreds of Virgil in them, 595 then what wonder is it that they are obscure, or that you set up not only Freewill, but even Divine will through them. This truly is untying knots and putting an end to questions by a “qualified interpretation”! Jerome and his friend Origen have filled the world with these trifling conceits, and have been the originators of this pestilent precedent, for not regarding the simplicity of Scripture. 596
It was enough for me, that it be proved from this text, that divine authority calls men flesh — and such a manner of flesh, that the Spirit of God could not continue among them, but at a fixed period must be withdrawn from them. He explains shortly what he means by declaring that his Spirit will not always judge among men, by prescribing the space of a hundred and twenty years, during which he would still judge. He opposes the Spirit to the flesh because men, being flesh, do not receive the Spirit; and He, being Spirit, cannot approve the flesh.
From this it would arise, that he must be withdrawn after a hundred and twenty years. Hence, we may understand the passage in Moses thus:
‘My Spirit, which is in Noah and my other saints, reproves those wicked men by the word they preach, and by the holy life they lead (for to judge among men is to exercise the ministry of the word among them 597 — to reprove, rebuke and entreat, in season and out of season). But it was in vain. For being blinded and hardened by the flesh, they become worse the more they are judged. This is just as it is whenever the word of God comes into the world: men are made worse, the more they are instructed. Rom 7.7 And this is the reason why the wrath of God is now hastened, just as the flood was also hastened in that day. Not only do men sin now-a-days, but even grace is despised, and as Christ says, ‘Light has come, but men hate light.” Joh 3.20
Therefore, since men are flesh, as God himself testifies, they can mind nothing but the flesh; so that Freewill can have no power but to commit sin: and since they grow worse, even with the Spirit of God calling among them and teaching them, what would they do when left to themselves without the Spirit of God? Nor does it address the purpose here, that Moses speaks of the men of that age. The same is true of all men, since all are flesh. As Christ says in Joh 3.6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” On the same occasion, he teaches us himself how great a malady this is, when he says, “No one can enter into the kingdom of God, unless he is born again.”
Let the Christian know, therefore, that Origen and Jerome, and all their tribe, are guilty of a pernicious error in denying that the flesh means ungodly affection in these places. For that expression in 1Cor 3.3, “you are yet carnal,” speaks of ungodliness. Paul means that they had ungodly persons still among them; and further, that the godly, so far as they mind carnal things, are carnal, even though they have been justified by the Spirit.
In short, you will observe in Scripture that wherever the flesh is treated in opposition to the Spirit, you may almost always understand that the flesh means everything that is contrary to the Spirit. For instance; “The flesh profits nothing.” But where it is treated absolutely, you may know that it denotes the bodily nature and condition: such as, “The two shall be one flesh.” “My flesh is food indeed.” “The word was made flesh.” In these places, you may change the Hebrew idiom and say ‘body,’ instead of flesh. The Hebrew language expresses by one word, ‘flesh,’ what we do by the two words ‘flesh’ and ‘body.’ I wish indeed that it had been so translated by distinct terms throughout the whole canon of Scripture, without exception. So that, my text from Gen 6.3 will maintain its place boldly, I think, as the opponent of Freewill, since it is proved that the flesh, as spoken of here, is that same substance of which Paul speaks in Romans 8: “neither can it be subjected to the
