“In the same way that a wife shares together in the wealth of her husband, so that what is the husband’s is also the wife’s and, on the other hand, what is the wife’s is the husbands, so also all believers are partakers of all the wealth of God. They have all that He has because we have been Named after Him. The Name gives us a new way of being when we are born anew. Previously, we were bereft of all His kindness as also we received our name from our father, Adam, who is called omnis homo mendax (“all men are liars”) and their names are not acknowledged by God. That is why God had not wanted to give the children their name beforehand, but in their circumcision. So we also do not give a child his name before his baptism, when he is united with Christ as His bridegroom.”
Martin Luther’s Festival Sermons, Circumcision of the Baby Jesus, p. 187.
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