The central theme of the Three Ecumenical Symbols is Christ's person and
work, the paramount importance of which Luther extols as follows in his
tract of 1538: "In all the histories of the entire Christendom I have
found and experienced that all who had and held the chief article
concerning Jesus Christ correctly remained safe and sound in the true
Christian faith. And even though they erred and sinned in other points,
they nevertheless were finally preserved." "For it has been decreed,
says Paul, Col. 2, 9, that in Christ should dwell all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily, or personally, so that he who does not find or receive
God in Christ shall never have nor find Him anywhere outside of Christ,
even though he ascend above heaven, descend below hell, or go beyond the
world." "On the other hand, I have also observed that all errors,
heresies, idolatries, offenses, abuses, and ungodliness within the
Church originally resulted from the fact that this article of faith
concerning Jesus Christ was despised or lost. And viewed clearly and
rightly, all heresies militate against the precious article of Jesus
Christ, as Simeon says concerning Him, Luke 2, 34, that He is set for
the falling and the rising of many in Israel and for a sign which is
spoken against; and long before this, Isaiah, chapter 8, 14, spoke of
Him as 'a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.'" "And we in the
Papacy, the last and greatest of saints, what have we done? We have
confessed that He [Christ] is God and man; but that He is our Savior,
who died and rose for us, etc., this we have denied and persecuted with
might and main" (those who taught this). "And even now those who claim
to be the best Christians and boast that they are the Holy Church, who
burn the others and wade in innocent blood, regard as the best doctrine
[that which teaches] that we obtain grace and salvation through our own
works. Christ is to be accorded no other honor with regard to our
salvation than that He made the beginning, while we are the heroes who
complete it with our merit."
Luther continues: "This is the way the devil goes to work. He attacks
Christ with three storm-columns. One will not suffer Him to be God; the
other will not suffer Him to be man, the third denies that He has
merited salvation for us. Each of the three endeavors to destroy Christ.
For what does it avail that you confess Him to be God if you do not also
believe that He is man? For then you have not the entire and the true
Christ, but a phantom of the devil. What does it avail you to confess
that He is true man if you do not also believe that He is true God? What
does it avail you to confess that He is God and man if you do not also
believe that whatever He became and whatever He did was done for you?"
"Surely, all three parts must be believed, namely, that He is God, also,
that He is man, and that He became such a man for us, that is, as the
first symbol says: conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered, was crucified, died, and rose again, etc. If one small part is
lacking, then all parts are lacking. For faith shall and must be
complete in every particular. While it may indeed be weak and subject to
afflictions, yet it must be entire and not false. Weakness [of faith]
does not work the harm but false faith--that is eternal death." (St. L.
10, 998; E. 23, 258.)
Concerning the mystery involved in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the
chief topic of the Ecumenical Creeds, Luther remarks in the same tract:
"Now, to be sure, we Christians are not so utterly devoid of all reason
and sense as the Jews consider us, who take us to be nothing but crazy
geese and ducks, unable to perceive or notice what folly it is to
believe that God is man, and that in one Godhead there are three
distinct persons. No, praise God, we perceive indeed that this doctrine
cannot and will not be received by reason. Nor are we in need of any
sublime Jewish reasoning to demonstrate this to us. We believe it
knowingly and willingly. We confess and also experience that, where the
Holy Spirit does not, surpassing reason, shine into the heart, it is
impossible to grasp, or to believe, and abide by, such article;
moreover, there must remain in it [the heart] a Jewish, proud, and
supercilious reason deriding and ridiculing such article, and thus
setting up itself as judge and master of the Divine Being whom it has
never seen nor is able to see and hence does not know what it is passing
judgment on, nor whereof it thinks or speaks. For God dwells in a 'light
which no man can approach unto,' 1 Tim. 6, 16. He must come to us, yet
hidden in the lantern, and as it is written, John 1, 18: 'No man hath
seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared Him,' and as Moses said before this, Ex.
33: 'There shall no man see Me [God] and live.'" (St. L. 10, 1007; E.
23, 568.)