The One Little Word That Fells the Devil

You know the hymn.  You probably sang it this morning:

Though devils all the world should fill
All eager to devour us.
We tremble not we fear no ill;
They shall not overpow’r us.
This world’s prince may still
Scowl fierce as he will,
He can harm us none.
He’s judged; the deed is done;
One little word can fell him.

So, what is that little word?  Well I always assumed that Luther intended that that word was the Word, Jesus.  And certainly this would be true theologically.  But apparently this is not the word Luther thought of when he penned the famous line. 

It seems we have taken a poet too literally.  The one little word is not one word as we might count it.  It is a phrase, a word, a truth to be spoken.  So what is the word?  Well read here as Luther tells us in response to a letter he thought was nothing more than a collection of deceptions,

“For all such books, even if there were as many as thousands of them written every day and every hour as von Wolfenbüttel has vices and lies, are very easily refuted with the single word, “Devil, you lie,” just as that haughty beggar Dr. Luther sings so proudly and boldly in those words of his hymn, “One little word shall fell him.” ((Luther, M. (1999). Vol. 41: Luther’s works, vol. 41: Church and Ministry III (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.) (185–186). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.))

The word that does the devil in?  “Devil, you lie.”  Yes, the devil falls when he is exposed.  He  falls when his nature is revealed.  He falls when we confess with Jesus, “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)

Our postmodern sensibilities tell us we can not speak this word to others.  Oh, we can proclaim our truth with fervor and regularity, but to call someone else’s belief a lie, that is forbidden.

Our modern sensibilities tell us that we can only speak this word when we have proven it.  We need statistics.  We need scientific studies.  We need case studies.  Them maybe we could proclaim it true over and against other beliefs.

I would suggest we need to go back to a pre-modern mindset that simply accepts the revealed words of God as truth and proclaims that anything that contradicts them is a lie.  Oh, people would probably say that to do it is downright uncivilized, backward, even barbaric.  But what if it is such uncivilized simplicity that the Church in our day needs most?

What if this one little word can fell Satan?  “Devil, you lie.”