אבנימ

This is on my all-time top-ten list, and close to the top. Apart from the Holy Scriptures, it may be the most important book I have read in my short life. In this consideration, I am in the good company of many others, including John Bunyan:

“I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians, excepting the Holy Bible, before all books that I have ever seen.”

Luther, after years of personal agony and torment in his quest for God, had at last been liberated from the death of salvation by works into the glorious freedom of the true gospel — salvation by grace alone through faith! As the new man in Christ, he writes with keen insight, fearless passion and penetrating spiritual power. Remember that the Church of Jesus Christ had been mired in theological confusion and ignorance for hundreds of years, when at this signal moment in history, the Doctor of Wittenberg took quill in hand to write. He knew what he was doing was monumental and would affect many souls. As you read, you can sense the cataclysm being unleashed in the heavenly places, as the long-standing walls of deception and darkness come tumbling down. And so, if you are in a spiritual muddle, and yearning to be renewed in the simple and pure gospel of Christ, at which the demons tremble, this is the book for you.

If you should take this treasure in hand, then I earnestly urge you to find an unabridged edition. Typical of the dumbing down of our times, modern editors want to shorten and simplify, and “make accessible.” But you want Luther as Luther wrote Luther, not Luther cut up, sliced and diced, thinned and simplified. They protest that he repeats himself. And I say yes he does, to good purpose, as did the apostle Paul. There may not now be any unabridged editions in print, so search the used bookstores. It will be well worth your trouble.