ut one saint
yet to be born, for the sake of that one the world must remain. For
God regards not the world nor has he need for it, except for the sake
of his Christians.

27. Therefore, when God enjoins upon us obedience to the emperor, and
godly, honest lives on earth, it is no warrant that our subjection to
temporal authority is to continue forever. Instead, God necessarily
will minister to, adorn and honor this wretched body--vile body, as
Paul here has it--with power and dominion. Yet the apostle terms
human righteousness "filth," and says it is not necessary to God's
kingdom; indeed, that it is condemned in the sight of God with all
its honor and glory, and all the world must be ashamed of it in his
presence, confessing themselves guilty. Paul in Romans 3, 27 and 4, 2
testifies to this fact when he tells how even the exalted, holy
fathers--Abraham, and others--though having glory before the world
because of their righteous works, could not make them serve to obtain
honor before God. Much less will worldly honor avail with God in the
case of individuals who, being called honorable, pious, honest,
virtuous--lords and princes, wives and husbands--boast of such
righteousness.

28. Outwardly, then, though your righteousness may appear dazzlingly
beautiful before the world, inwardly you are but filth. Illustrative
of this point is the story told of a certain nun regarded holy above
all others. She would not fellowship with anyone else, but sat alone
in her cell in rapt devotion, praying unceasingly. She boasted
special revelations and visions and had no consciousness of anything
but that beloved angels hovered about and adorned her with a golden
crown. But some outside, ardently desiring to behold such sights,
peeped through holes and crevices, and seeing her head but defiled
with filth, laughed at her.

29. Notice, the reason Paul calls the righteousness of the Law filth
and pollution, is his desire to denounce the honor and glory claimed
for it in God's sight; notwithstanding he honors before the world the
observance of the Law by styling it "righteousness." But if you
ostentatiously boast of such righteousness to him, he pronounces his
sentence of judgment making you an abomination, an enemy of the cross
of Christ, and shaming your boasted honor and finally casting you
into hell. Concerning the righteousness of faith, however, which in
Christ avails before God, he says:

"Our citizenship [conversation] is in hea