The Strong Man and the Star

Now that this slander of theirs has been put down, it is clearly proved that neither the prophets nor the apostles ever named another God, or called anyone else Lord, except the true and only God. Much more is this true of the Lord himself, who told us to “give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and God what belongs to God” — naming Caesar as Caesar, but confessing God as God. In the same way, when he says, “You cannot serve two masters,” he interprets his own words: “You cannot serve God and mammon.” He acknowledges God as God, but mentions mammon as a thing that also has an existence of its own. He does not call mammon Lord when he says, “You cannot serve two masters.” He is teaching his disciples, who serve God, not to be subject to mammon and not to be ruled by it. For he says, “Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.” Now since he calls those who serve sin “slaves of sin” while certainly not calling sin itself God, in the same way he calls those who serve mammon “slaves of mammon,” without calling mammon God. For mammon, in the Jewish language, which the Samaritans use as well, is a greedy man, one who wants to have more than he ought to have. But in Hebrew, with a syllable added on, it is called Mamuel, and it means gulosus, that is, a man whose gullet is never filled. So on both of the meanings pointed to here, we cannot serve God and mammon. [a]

Again, when he spoke of the devil as strong, he did not mean strong in an absolute sense, but strong in comparison with us. In every respect the Lord showed that he himself is truly the strong man, when he said that there is no way to “plunder a strong man’s goods unless you first bind the strong man himself; then you will plunder his house.” We were the vessels and the house of that strong man while we were in the state of apostasy, for he put us to whatever use he pleased, and the unclean spirit lived inside us. He was not strong against the one who bound him and plundered his house; he was strong against the men who were his tools, since he made their thinking wander away from God. It was these that the Lord snatched out of his grip. As Jeremiah also declares, “The Lord has redeemed Jacob, and has snatched him out of the hand of one stronger than he.” If the Lord had not pointed to the one who binds him and plunders his goods, but had only spoken of him as strong, then the strong man would have been left unbeaten. But he added the one who takes possession and keeps it; for the one who binds is the one holding, and the one who is bound is the one held. And he did this without drawing any comparison, so that the devil, an apostate slave, should not be set beside the Lord to be measured against him. Not the devil, and not one single created and subject thing, will ever be compared with the Word of God, by whom all things were made, who is our Lord Jesus Christ.

That all things — angels, archangels, thrones, dominions — were both established and created by the one who is God over all, through his Word, John pointed out in this way. After speaking of the Word of God as having been in the Father, he added, “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” David too, when he had run through God’s praises, adds by name all the things I have just mentioned, both the heavens and all the powers in them: “For he commanded, and they were created; he spoke, and they were made.” Whom, then, did he command? The Word, of course — “by whom,” he says, “the heavens were established, and all their power by the breath of his mouth.” And that God made all things freely and as he pleased, David says again: “But our God is in the heavens above, and in the earth; he has made all things, whatever he pleased.” But the things established are not the same as the one who established them, and the things made are not the same as the one who made them. He himself is uncreated, without beginning and without end, and lacking nothing. He is sufficient for himself; and beyond that, he grants to everything else this very thing, existence. The things made by him have received a beginning. And whatever things had a beginning, and can be dissolved, and are subject to the one who made them and stand in need of him, must necessarily be given a different name in every respect — as even people with only a moderate ability at telling such things apart can see. So the one who made all things can alone, together with his Word, properly be called God and Lord; but the things that have been made cannot have that word applied to them, and they have no right to take for themselves the title that belongs to their Maker.

This, then, has now been clearly demonstrated — and it will be shown still more clearly further on — that neither the prophets, nor the apostles, nor the Lord Christ in his own person acknowledged any Lord or God except the supreme God and Lord. The prophets and the apostles confess the Father and the Son, and they name no other as God and confess no other as Lord; and the Lord himself hands down to his disciples that the Father is the one God and Lord, who alone is God and ruler of all. So if we are really their disciples, we are bound to follow the testimony they gave about this. Take Matthew the apostle. He knew as one and the same God the one who gave Abraham the promise that he would make his offspring like the stars of heaven, and the one who through his Son Christ Jesus has called us out of the worship of stones into the knowledge of himself, so that people who were not a people were made a people, and she who was not loved was made beloved. And Matthew tells how John, while preparing the way for Christ, spoke to men who were boasting of their descent from Abraham according to the flesh, though their minds were stained and stuffed with every kind of evil. Preaching to them the repentance that would call them back from their evil deeds, John said, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath that is coming? Then produce fruit worthy of repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, We have Abraham for our father; for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham out of these very stones.” So John preached to them repentance from wickedness, but he did not announce to them a different God from the one who made the promise to Abraham. He was Christ’s forerunner, and about him Matthew says again, and Luke likewise: “This is the one who was spoken of by the Lord through the prophet: The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make the paths of our God straight. Every valley will be filled in, and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked will be made straight, and the rough places into smooth roads; and all flesh will see the salvation of God.” There is therefore one and the same God, the Father of our Lord, who both promised through the prophets that he would send his forerunner, and made his salvation — that is, his Word — visible to all flesh, the Word himself becoming flesh, so that in all things their King might be made plain. For those who are judged have to see the judge and know the one from whom they receive their judgment; and it is right as well that those who go on into glory should know the one who gives them the gift of glory. [j]

Then again, when Matthew speaks of the angel, he says, “The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.” Which Lord he means, he explains himself: “so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I have called my son.” And: “Look, a virgin will conceive and will bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel” — which, translated, is “God with us.” David likewise speaks of the one who is Emmanuel, born of the virgin: “Do not turn away the face of your anointed. The Lord swore a truth to David and will not turn back from it: Of the fruit of your body I will set one on your throne.” And again: “In Judea God is known; his place has been made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion.” So there is one and the same God who was proclaimed by the prophets and announced in the good news; and his Son is the one who came of the fruit of David’s body — that is, of the virgin descended from David — and is Emmanuel. Balaam prophesied his star in these words: “A star will rise out of Jacob, and a leader will stand up in Israel.” And Matthew says that the Magi, coming from the east, exclaimed, “For we have seen his star in the east, and we have come to worship him”; and that when the star had led them into the house of Jacob, to Emmanuel, they showed by the gifts they offered who it was they were worshiping. Myrrh, because it was he who would die and be buried for a mortal human race; gold, because he was a King, “of whose kingdom there is no end”; and frankincense, because he was God, who also “was made known in Judea” and “was revealed to those who were not looking for him.”

And then, speaking of his baptism, Matthew says, “The heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down on him like a dove; and there was a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Christ did not come down on Jesus at that moment, and Christ was not one being and Jesus another. The Word of God — who is the Savior of all and the ruler of heaven and earth, who is Jesus, as I have already pointed out, and who also took flesh upon himself and was anointed by the Spirit from the Father — was made Jesus Christ. Isaiah says as much: “A shoot will come out of the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise from his root; and the Spirit of God will rest upon him — the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety; and the spirit of the fear of God will fill him. He will not judge by reputation, nor convict on hearsay; but he will deal out judgment to the humble man, and convict the proud of the earth.” And again Isaiah, pointing out ahead of time his anointing and the reason he was anointed, says himself: “The Spirit of God is upon me, because he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the lowly, to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim freedom to the captives and sight to the blind, to announce the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance, to comfort all who mourn.” For as the Word of God was a man from the root of Jesse and a son of Abraham, in that respect the Spirit of God rested on him and anointed him to bring good news to the lowly. But as he was God, he did not judge by reputation or convict on hearsay; for “he needed no one to testify to him about man, since he himself knew what was in man.” He called everyone who mourns; and by granting forgiveness to those who had been carried off captive by their sins, he loosed them from their chains — the people Solomon speaks of when he says, “Everyone will be held fast by the cords of his own sins.” So the Spirit of God came down upon him: the Spirit of the one who had promised through the prophets that he would anoint him, so that we, receiving out of the abundance of his anointing, might be saved. So much, then, for the witness of Matthew.