Bulletin 5.11.25

This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian’s while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes. 

Martin Luther, Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans (1522) 

Trans. Bro. Andrew Thornton, OSB, 

for the Saint Anselm College Humanities Program. (c)1983 

It is necessary that Christ should come to our aid; who, being alone just, can render us just by transferring to us his own righteousness. You now see how the righteousness of faith is the righteousness of Christ. When therefore we are justified, the efficient cause is the mercy of God, the meritorious is Christ, the instrumental is the word in connection with faith. Hence faith is said to justify, because it is the instrument by which we receive Christ, in whom righteousness is conveyed to us. Having been made partakers of Christ, we ourselves are not only just, but our works also are counted just before God, and for this reason, because whatever imperfections there may be in them, are obliterated by the blood of Christ; the promises, which are conditional, are also by the same grace fulfilled to us; for God rewards our works as perfect, inasmuch as their defects are covered by free pardon.

~John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle 

of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, 138–139.

Psalm 95.1-7

O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD, 

Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. 

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, 

Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. 

For the LORD is a great God 

And a great King above all gods, 

In whose hand are the depths of the earth, 

The peaks of the mountains are His also. 

The sea is His, for it was He who made it, 

And His hands formed the dry land. 

Come, let us worship and bow down, 

Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. 

For He is our God, 

And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. 

(Prayer)