“After all, Christ must be everything: the beginning, the middle, and the end of our salvation. We must lay Him down as the first or foundation stone, rest the others and intermediate ones on Him, and also attach the rafters or the roof to Him.
He is the first, the middle, and the last rung in the ladder to heaven. Through Him we must begin, must continue, and must complete our progress to life.”
–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, comp. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), entry no. 545, p. 187. Luther was commenting on John 14:6.
