¹ Christ’s “banner of blood” is the cross.

² The “Spirit of Christ” (and the “Spirit of God”) was traditionally understood to be the “Holy Spirit,” the third person of the Trinity. This line is an allusion to Romans 8:9, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich, sondern geistlich, so anders Gottes Geist in euch wohnt. Wer aber Christus Geist nicht hat, der ist nicht sein” (“You [plural], however, are not fleshly, but spiritual, if then the Spirit of God dwells in you. But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ [dwelling in him], he [that person] is not his [Christ’s]”).

³ The German text of this line is potentially confusing. It might seem straightforwardly to affirm that the divine image should “shine again/anew/renewed in me.” But the meaning is a bit different, and its biblical background is complicated. The wording of the cantata line reflects Luther’s subtle but theologically significant understanding of Colossians 3:9-11, which he rendered as “Lüget nicht untereinander; ziehet den alten Menschen mit seinen Werken aus und ziehet den neuen an, der da erneuert wird zu der Erkenntnis, nach dem Ebenbilde des, der ihn geschaffen hat: da nicht ist Grieche, Jude, Beschneidung, Vorhaut, Ungrieche, Scythe, Knecht, Freier; sondern alles und in allen Christus” (“Do not lie to one another; put off the old man [that is, the fallen Adam] and his works and put on the new [that is, the sinless Christ, who is the ‘new man’], which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who has created him: where there is no Greek, Jew, circumcision, foreskin, non‑Greek, Scythian, servant, free man; rather all, and in all, is Christ”). In Luther’s reading of Paul’s letter, a person who has “put on” the “new man” (Christ, the “new Adam”) is renewed according to the image of God. A person’s whole being as the “image of God” is restored by union with Christ (hence the talk of Christ’s secure bonding at the end of the previous movement in the cantata), and Christ is the very “image of the invisible God,” according to Colossians 1:15. So it is not God’s image itself that is renovated; more exactly, fallen human beings are made new into God’s image. The cantata line, then, would be speaking of a renewed person, not of a radiance anew or of God’s image being made new.

⁴ Christ’s “blood-tinged flag” is the cross.

⁵ The New Testament continually refers to the Christian community, or the church, as the “members” of “the body of Christ” (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12:27 ), such that Jesus is the “head” of this body (e.g., Colossians 1:18).

⁶ The word “auch” here apparently means not “also” but “even,” given that this line quotes from 1 Thessalonians 2:19, as explained in the note on the “crown [of glory],” immediately below.

⁷ The “crown of glory” is given to Christian believers at the End Time. This understanding is based on 1 Thessalonians 2:19, as rendered in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, “Wer ist unser Hoffnung oder Freude, oder Krone des Ruhms? Seid nicht auch ihrs vor unserm Herrn Jesus Christus zu seiner Zukunft?” (“Who is our hope or joy, or crown of glory? Will not there be even you [fellow believers] before [the face of] our Lord Jesus Christ at his parousia [Second Coming]?”).

⁸ Forms of the verb “ausfahren” are used in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day for the exorcising or casting out of demons (e.g., in Luke 8:29 and 14:11).

⁹ “The body that bore you, Jesus” refers not to the physical body of the human Jesus bearing in itself the divine nature of God (as the second person of the Trinity), but to the body of Jesus’s mother, Mary of Nazareth, who bore him as a baby in her womb. Line 1 of this movement derives from Luke 11:27, “Selig ist der Leib, der dich getragen hat” (“Blessed is the [mother’s] body that has borne you [Jesus]”).

¹⁰ With the word “erlegen” (“to slay”), the poet is playing on the word “legen” (“to lay”) in 1 Corinthians 15:25 (this verse, in turn, is quoting from Psalm 110:1), “Er muss aber herrschen, bis dass er alle seine Feinde unter seine Füsse lege” (“He [Jesus] must rule [the kingdom of God] until he may lay all his enemies beneath his feet”).

¹¹ Death is “der letzte Feind” (“the final enemy”), according to 1 Corinthians 15:26.

¹² Stanza 2 of “Ein feste Burg.”

¹³ Jesus, according to Christian reading of Psalm 110:1 (a verse quoted frequently in the New Testament) is now “at the right hand of God [the Father].” In Exodus 15:3, the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day read “Der Herr ist der rechte Kriegsmann” (“The Lord is the right[-hand] man of war”).

¹⁴ The set phrase that God “fights for [on behalf of]” his people, is frequent in the Bible. “Vor” and “für” were interchangeable in older German, and in this instance the “uns” in “vor uns” is to be understood as accusative, not dative. (A dative “streitet für uns” or “streitet vor uns” would mean “fights out in front of us [as our leader]”).

¹⁵ The “Lord of Sabaoth” (or “Lord of Hosts”) is an ancient title for God as divine warrior who leads the armies of Israel. Luther applies the army title to Jesus, who as the “second person of the Trinity,” is the same god as ancient Israel’s God (see the next line in this stanza).

¹⁶ That is, Jesus is God, but not a different god from ancient Israel’s God. Among the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:3 reads, in the Luther Bible’s of Bach day, “Du solt keine andere Götter neben mir haben” (“You shall have no other gods besides me [the God of ancient Israel]”). In Christian teaching, this was understood to mean no other gods than God who is one in “substance” but a Trinity of “persons”: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), God the Holy Spirit.