Life’s Progress

Ages 1–21

Doing what somebody tells you to.

Ages 21–65

Doing what you have to.

Ages 65 on

Doing what you want to.

The descendants of the well-respected patriarchs, and the patriarchs themselves, called to mind constantly how in the beginning a person had been created righteous and holy by God. They know that through the fraud of the Serpent, Adam transgressed God’s command, became a sinner, and corrupted and cast himself with all his descendants into death and eternal condemnation. They encouraged and comforted themselves again by the preaching about the woman’s seed, who would bruise the Serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15); Abraham’s seed, in whom “all the nations of the earth [will] be blessed” (Genesis 22:18); David’s Son, who should “bring back the preserved of Israel” and be “a light for the nations” (Isaiah 49:6; see also Psalm 110:1; Luke 2:32), and who “was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities … and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

We will now return to the Gospel, which does not give us counsel and aid against sin in only one way. God is superabundantly generous in His grace: First, through the spoken Word, by which the forgiveness of sins is preached in the whole world [Luke 24:45–47]. This is the particular office of the Gospel. Second, through Baptism. Third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar. Fourth, through the Power of the Keys. Also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren, “Where two or three are gathered” (Matthew 18:20) and other such verses [especially Romans 1:12].