Gift after Gift

Old:

Although our sins have separated us very far from God, so that we have been alienated from the grace, righteousness, and life of God, yet the Son of God has brought very close to us those heavenly blessings which had been removed far from us, laying them before us through the incarnation in the flesh which is of the same substance with our own, so that of His fullness we have received grace for grace.

New:

Yes, our sins have separated us very far from God, and yes, this means we are cut off from all the good things that come from Him: grace, rightness, life...; but those heavenly blessings which had been taken away from us (in the Fall into sin), God's Son has brought to us, laying them at our feet when He took on a body, a body which is made up of the same stuff as we are, so that from His whole and full perfection we have gotten gift after gift.

-Martin Chemnitz, from the Two Natures of Christ

Sir John Cheke on ἐγένετο

New:

ἐγένετο: Whatever God does in his givefulness. God calls all the shots and His reason and wisdom is neither seen nor known by us. We use the word "luck" or "chance," when really nothing is done without God's knowledge: no, not even the falling down of a little bird or the hair on one's head fares over God, Who works all things in all people.

-Sir John Cheke in his "The Gospel According to St. Matthew," made new by the blogger

Free Will

Old:

Man's will hath some liberty to work civil and outward righteousness, and to choose out as reason can reach unto, but it hath not might without the Holy Ghost to work the righteousness of God, spiritual righteousness. For a man left to the power of his own soul (whom Paul calleth animalem hominem) perceiveth not the things that be of the Spirit of God, but this righteousness is framed and made in the heart, when the Holy Ghost is conceived by the Word.
-Augsburg Confession, tr. Richard Taverner

New:

While our will has some freedom to do outward good works and to make decisions as far as our reason will let us, our will cannot, except by the Holy Spirit, do the works of God. You see, "the natural human, left to its own spirit, neither sees nor understands the things that are of God's Spirit." (I Corinthians 2:14) Only when we hear God's Word and receive His Spirit is the seed of good works born in our hearts.

(See also, Psalm 1:1-3 and Mark 11:12-26, Luther's Bondage of the Will, and William Tyndale's Wicked Mammon)

William Tyndale to His Readers

Old:
"The grace of oure lord / the light of his spirite to se and to iudge / true repentaunce towardes goddis lawe / a fast faith in the mercifull promises that are in oure savioure Christ / fervent love towarde thy neyghboure after the ensample of Christ and his sayntes / be with the o reader and with all that loue the trouth and longe for the redempcion of goddis electe. Amen."
-William Tyndale 1536, from "An answere unto Sir Thomas Mores Dialoge"


New:
May the grace of our Lord,
the light of His Spirit to see and to judge,
true repentance towards God's Law,
a firm trust in the kind Promises that are in our Healer, Jesus Christ,
& an earnest love for your neighbor like Christ & His saints have shown
be with you, dear reader, and with all who love the truth and yearn for when God's chosen people are made new. Amen.