Going back to Genesis and Luther’s Commentary has been a fun and fruitful thing to do. Checking him out with an early morning cup of coffee is always a treat but seeing how he does what he said he did with the scriptures is fascinating. He shook it like a tree until he got all the fruit that was ripe, then he went branch by branch and leaf by leaf until he had covered everything that it had to offer. In the story of Cain and Able Luther sees the beginning of two churches
“Moreover, here the church begins to be divided into two churches: the one which is the church in name but in reality is nothing but a hypocritical and bloodthirsty church; and the other one, which is without influence, forsaken, and exposed to suffering and the cross, and which before the world and in the sight of that hypocritical church is truly Abel, that is, vanity and nothing. For Christ also calls Abel righteous and makes him the beginning of the church of the godly, which will continue until the end (Matt. 23:35). Similarly, Cain is the beginning of the church of the wicked and of the bloodthirsty until the end of the world. “
