Reading the Book of Concord...

God's Word is the sanctuary above all sanctuaries.
(LC, I, 91, CPH's Reader's Edition, 1st Edition)

God's Word is the true "holy thing" [*Heiligtum*; relic] above all holy things.

(LC, I, 91, CPH's Pocket Edition, 1st Edition)

I was surprised to find this change when I was working on transferring my highlights from my reader's edition to the pocket edition. However, if you read the rest of the paragraph, the change makes perfect sense:

Yes, it is the only one we Christians know and have. Though we had the bones of all the saints or all holy and consecrated garments upon a heap, still that would not help us at all. All that stuff is a dead that thing can sanctify no one. But God's Word is the treasure that sanctifies everything. By the Word even all the saints themselves were sanctified. Whenever God's Word is taught, preached, heard, read, or meditated upon, then the person, day, and work are sanctified. This is not because of the outward work, but because of the Word, which makes saints of us all. Therefore, I constantly say that all our life and work must be guided by God's Word, if it is to God-pleasing or holy. Where this is done, this commandment* is in force and being fulfilled. (91-92, pocket edition)

[*You shall sanctify the holy day.]

However, to me, that first translation was just a wonderful sentence...one I savored and cherished and encouraged myself with it all the time. This is because I do find the Living Word to be a sanctuary, a place of safety, a place where you can rest and be fed and cared for, a place where you will be refreshed and renewed no matter how weary or worried, how desperate or doubting you may be. Plus, since this sentence is situated in the commandment, best known to me as "keep the Sabbath holy," or simply "keeping the Sabbath," the translation was especially apt. For Jesus Christ has fulfilled this commandment for us. He is our Sabbath (I learned this from Michael Card as an evangelical). Moreover, He is our holiness; we are holy because we are clothed in His righteousness in our baptism. So, finding refuge in the Living Word fit, letting the Living Word be my sanctuary made sense.

In the past two years, especially, I have come to see the Psalter as a true Sanctuary...as anyone who knows me has heard repeatedly by now. But any part of the Living Word brings that same safety, brings comfort and stillness and a respite from the battles of the world. For example, lately I have been hungering to hear John, so a friend is reading it aloud to me, chapter by chapter, with John 1:1-5 as an antiphon for each reading. I literally hide from my life, my day, all my tangled thoughts and worries, as I listen. I rest in hearing, in knowing, that Jesus comes to me and in Him there is no darkness. And each chapter is read, each deepening of the Gospel message, I find peace. For me, the same way I feel walking into a church building, I feel *walking* into the Living Word. It may sound silly to admit this, but when I read the sentence, I thought that I was no longer weird for loving the Living Word so much, for finding such comfort and safety there.

After discovering the change, I asked my dear friend, who is German and knows Latin, to look at her triglotta. She said, in translating for me, a compromise could be that God's Word is the holiest of holies. For me, that would work, thinking about how Jesus, the Living Word, rent the curtain, brought us all into that inner sanctum of the temple/sanctuary.

However, the rest of the paragraph is speaking of relics, of things, of outward means we erroneously seek to find holiness in owning, touching, things we wrongly imbue with having any power of sanctification. Clearly, the new-to-me translation is the better one to have.

And I do very much savor the end of the paragraph: "Whenever God's Word is taught, preached, heard, read, or meditated upon, then the person, day, and work are sanctified. This is not because of the outward work, but because of the Word, which makes saints of us all."

However, when reading the pocketbook edition, I still find myself missing that first sentence as I first learned it: God's Word is the sanctuary above all sanctuaries. For it is my sanctuary above all other sanctuaries.

Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!