Their inner self has this nature no matter how well their outer self does
impressions and pretends to be Christian. I know this is true, because I
have seen it and heard it.
[ 4 ] There are people who honor the Lord as their Redeemer and Sav-
ior with their mouth and lips alone but view him in their heart and spirit
as a mere human being. In every case, when these people speak and
teach, their mouth is like a jar full of honey but their heart is like a jar
full of bile. Their words are like pastries but their thoughts are like poi-
soned wine. They themselves are like cake rolls with little worms inside.
If they are priests, they are like pirates at sea who fly the flag of a peaceful
country, but when a nearby ship signals to them as allies, they replace
that flag with a pirate flag and capture the ship and its passengers.
They are also like serpents of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil who approach you as if they were angels of light. They hold apples in
their hand from that tree that have been painted with deep red colors as
if they were plucked from the tree of life. They offer them and say, “God
knows that on the day you eat these, your eyes will be opened and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3 : 5 ). When you eat,
you follow the serpent into some underworld and you make your home
with it. All around that underworld there are satans who ate the apples of
Arius and Socinus.
People like this are also meant by the person who came [to the wed-
ding] but was not dressed in a wedding garment and was thrown into
outer darkness (Matthew 22 : 11 , 12 , 13 ). The wedding garment is faith that
the Lord is the Son of God, is the God of heaven and earth, and is one
with the Father.
People who honor the Lord with only their mouth and their lips,
while in heart and spirit they regard him as a mere human being, and
who reveal their thoughts and convince others to believe those thoughts
are spiritual murderers. The worst of them are spiritual cannibals. Human
life comes from love and faith in the Lord. If this essential ingredient of
faith and love is removed—the recognition that the Lord is the human
God and the divine Human—our life becomes death; its removal kills
and devours us the way a wolf kills and devours a lamb.
(c) Hypocritical faith is no faith at all.We become hypocrites when we 381
think about ourselves a great deal and give precedence to ourselves rather
than others. By doing this we focus the thoughts and feelings of our
mind on our body and invest them there; we unite our thoughts and
§381 faith 459