For what does such devilish, arrogant prayer do other than to give God’s word the lie, for God declares: Whoever is born and not circumcised shall not only he ignoble and worthless but shall also be damned and shall not be a part of my people, and I will not be his God. The Jews rage against this with their blasphemous prayer as if to say: «No, no, Lord God, that is not true; you must hear us, because we are of the noble lineage of the holy fathers. By reason of such noble birth you must establish us as lords over all the earth and in heaven too. If you fail to do this, you break your word and do us an injustice, since you have sworn to our fathers that you will accept their seed as your people forever.»
This is just as though a king, a prince, a lord, or a rich, handsome, smart, pious, virtuous person among us Christians were to pray thus to God: «Lord God, see what a great king and lord I am! See how rich, smart, and pious I am! See what a handsome lad or lass I am in comparison to others! Be gracious to me, help me, and in view of all of this save me! The other people are not as deserving, because they are not so handsome, rich, smart, pious, noble, and high-born as I am.» What, do you suppose, should such a prayer merit? It would merit that thunder and lightning strike down from heaven and that sulphur and hellfire strike from below. That would be just punishment; for flesh and blood must not boast before God. For as Moses says, whoever is born even from holy patriarchs and from Abraham himself stands condemned before God and must not boast before him. St. Paul says the same thing in Romans 3:27, as does John 3:6.
Such a prayer was also spoken by the Pharisee in the Gospel as he boasted about all his blessings, saying, «I am not like other men.» Moreover, his prayer was beautifully adorned, since he said it with thanksgiving and fancied that he was sitting on God’s lap as his pet child. But thunder and lightning from heaven cast him down to hell’s abyss, as Christ himself declared, saying that the publican was justified but the Pharisee condemned. Oh, what do we poor muck-worms, maggots, stench, and filth presume to boast of before him who is the God and Creator of heaven and earth, who made us out of dirt and out of nothing! And as far as our nature, birth, and essence are concerned, we are but dirt and nothing in his eyes; all that we are and have comes from his grace and his rich mercy.
Abraham was no doubt even nobler than the Jews, since as we pointed out above, he was descended from the noblest patriarch, Noah who in his day was the greatest and oldest lord, priest, and father of the entire world and from the other nine succeeding patriarchs. Abraham saw, heard, and lived with all of them, and some of them (as for instance Shem, Shelah, Eber) outlived him by many years. So Abraham obviously was not lacking in nobility of blood and birth; and yet this did not in the least aid him in being numbered among God’s people. No, he was idolatrous, and he would have remained under condemnation if God’s word had not called him, as Joshua in chapter 24:2 informs us out of God’s own mouth: «Your fathers lived of old beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him,» etc.
Even later, after he had been called and sanctified through God’s word and through faith, according to Genesis 15, Abraham did not boast of his birth or of his virtues. When he spoke with God (Genesis 18) he did not say: «Look how noble I am, born from Noah and the holy patriarchs, and descended from your holy nation,» nor did he say, «How pious and holy I am in comparison with other people!» No, he said, «Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes» [Gen. 18:27]. This is, indeed, how a creature must speak to its Creator, not for getting what it is before him and how it is regarded by him. For that is what God said of Adam and of all his children (Genesis 3:19 ), «You are dust, and to dust you shall return,» as death itself persuades us visibly and experientially, to counteract, if need be, any such foolish, vain, and vexatious presumption.
Chapter 2, Jewish ancestors
Now you can see what fine children of Abraham the Jews really are, how well they take after their father, yes, what a fine people of God they are. They boast before God of their physical birth and of the noble blood inherited from their fathers, despising all other people, although God regards them in all these respects as dust and ashes and damned by birth the same as all other heathen. And yet they give God the lie; they insist on being in the right, and with such blasphemous and damnable prayer they purpose to wrest God’s grace from him and to regain Jerusalem.
Furthermore, even if the Jews were seven times blinder than they are if that were possible they would still have to see that Esau or Edom, as far as his physical birth is concerned, was as noble as Jacob, since he was not only the son of the same father, Isaac, and of the same mother, Rebekah, but he was also the firstborn; and primogeniture at that time conferred the highest nobility over against the other children. But what did his equal birth or even his primogeniture by virtue of which he was far nobler than Jacob benefit him? He was still not numbered among God’s people, although he called Abraham his grandfather and Sarah his grandmother just as Jacob did, indeed, as has already been said, even more validly than did Jacob. Conversely, Abraham himself as well as Sarah had to regard him as their grandson, the son of Isaac and Rebekah; they even had to regard him as the firstborn and the nobler, and Jacob as the lesser. But tell me, what good did his physical birth and his noble blood inherited from Abraham do him?
Someone may interpose that Esau forfeited his honor because he became evil, etc. We must rejoin, first of all, that the question at issue is whether nobility of blood in itself is so valid before God that one could thereby be or become God’s people. If it is not, why then do the Jews exalt this birth so highly before other children of men! But if it is valid, why then does God not guard it from falling? For if God regards physical birth as adequate for making the descendants of the holy patriarchs his people, he dare not let them become evil, thereby losing his people and becoming a non God. If he does, however, let them become evil, it is certain that he does not regard birth as a means of yielding or producing a people for him.
In the second place, Esau was not ejected from the people of God because he became evil later on, nor was Jacob counted among the people of God in view of his subsequent good life. No, while they were both still in their mother’s womb the word of God distinguishd between the two: Jacob was called Esau was not, in accordance with the words, «The elder shall serve the younger» [Gen. 25:23]. This was not at all affected by the fact that they were both carried under the same mother’s heart; that they were both nourished with the same milk and blood of one and the same mother, Rebekah; that they were born of her at the same time. So one must say that no matter how identical flesh, blood, milk body, and mother were in this instance, they could not help Esau, nor could they hinder Jacob from acquiring the grace by which people become God’s children or his people; decisive here are the word and calling, which ignore the birth.
Ishmael, too, can say that he is equally a true and natural son of Abraham. But what does his physical birth avail him? Despite this, he has to yield up the home and heritage of Abraham and leave it to his brother Isaac. You may say that Ishmael was born of Hagar while Isaac was born of Sarah. If anything, this strengthens our argument. For Isaac’s birth from Sarah was effected by the word of God and not by flesh and blood, since Sarah
