Nitpicking Hymns: Lord, Thee I Love With All My Heart

I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies (Psalm 18:1-3).

So, I took a quick look at the first three lines of TLH 429, “Lord, Thee I Love With All My Heart.” After studying the German translations of other hymns, I wasn’t surprised to find, what is to me, a significant discrepancy between the author Martin Schalling’s German text, and the altered translation from Catherine Winkworth. As in every case, the German text is much more orthodox than its English counterpart.

In the first stanza, we sing:

Lord, Thee I love with all my heart;

I pray Thee, ne’er from me depart,

with tender mercy cheer me.

This raises the question for Lutherans: Can I love the Lord with all my heart? We are certainly commanded to do so. God commands His people to love Him will all their heart, soul, strength, and mind. Jesus tells the Pharisees that this is the greatest of God's commandments. 

Just because we are commanded to do something, however, does not mean that we are able to do it. 

In our fallen state, our sinful hearts are inclined away from God, not toward him. We cannot, by our own reason or strength, believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, or come to Him. 

For theological traditions which believe that they cooperate in their conversion and salvation, this line poses no problem. If I can decide to have faith in Christ by an act of my own free will, why wouldn’t I be able to decide to love Him with all my heart? It’s the same thing, isn’t it?

For the confessional Lutheran, however, we must take issue with this translation. There is no scriptural basis for saying that we regenerate humans, who are simultaneously sinner and saint, can love the Lord our God with our whole hearts. Indeed, we confess weekly that we have not loved Him with our whole hearts, and that we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.

Putting the best construction on the text, one could look at it as an expression of overwhelming thankfulness and joy. However, making such an expression is equivalent, as one of my pastor friends put it, to receiving a million dollars from a billionaire and then offering to buy him lunch as an expression of gratitude. 

 

Saying that I love the Lord with all my heart is a bit like deciding to respond to an altar call. Without the working of the Holy Spirit through the Word, you would not have been able to decide to follow Jesus, nor would you want to do so. The Holy Spirit already made you a Christian before you stood up, walked down the aisle, and said the Sinner's Prayer. You didn't decide to believe in Jesus. He chose you, even though it may look like you made a decision by an act of your will.

This issue, however, does not exist in the original language. This is what the author wrote originally:

Herzlich lieb hab' ich dich, o Herr,

Ich bitt' woll'st sein von mir nicht fern

Mit deiner Güt' und Gnaden.

Translated, this would be something like:

I love you dearly, oh Lord;

I beg you not to be far from me,

with your goodness and grace.

This is a much more orthodox, confessional Lutheran, English rendering of Schalling’s original text, though not poetic and singable.

According to the Handbook for the Lutheran Hymnal, “This hymn, a prayer to Christ, the consolation of the soul in life and death, after Psalms 18 and 73, is a treasure bequeathed to the Church from the heart of Schalling.” Indeed, the beginning of Psalm 18 sounds similar to the first stanza of the hymn:

I will love thee, oh Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies (Psalm 18:1–3).

David writes that he will love the Lord. He does not write he will love the Lord with all his heart.

One argument could be that the new man we are in Christ certainly loves the Lord with all his heart. It is the old man, whom we fight against daily, drowning him in the waters of our baptism, who doesn’t.

The idea that the new man cooperates with God, and does good works, while the old man remains is not contrary to scripture. It is affirmed in the Lutheran Confessions. All of Paul’s epistles recognize this tension between the Spirit and the Flesh, the chief passage being Romans 7. Paul continually exhorts Christians to abandon their pagan ways. He calls us to stop gratifying the flesh and its desires. He calls us to walk in the good works God has prepared for us to walk in. He calls us to walk according to the Spirit, to cultivate the fruits of the Spirit, and to turn away from the acts of the Flesh. Paul calls us to the lives of Christians, the new creations into which Christ has made us, by doing good. The good we do is not ours, nor does it save. It is a natural outgrowth of our faith in Christ and our regenerate state.

The good works which God gives us to do to benefit and serve our neighbor, as Schalling writes in stanza two of his hymn, praises God’s grace to us.

This is how David can say that he will love the Lord. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, this is how we can say we love the Lord. It may not be right, however, to say that we love the Lord with all our hearts. We can only do so properly if we project this phrase into the future. After Christ returns, and He destroys sin and death forever, and we live with Him with glorious bodies like His, in the new creation free from sin, we will indeed love him with all our hearts.

Personally, I would much prefer a more accurate poetic rendering of Schalling’s first three lines. That way, this whole issue is moot. 

In the meantime, in this fallen creation, while our new man struggles with our flesh constantly, we must be content to say by the Holy Spirit, as David did, “I will love thee, oh Lord, my strength.”

Regardless, this still remains one of my favorite hymns. ###

Though You Have Made Me See Troubles: Thoughts on Suffering

Though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, You will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up (Psalm 71:20).

Why me!? It’s the age-old question we ask ourselves when something bad happens to us, or to one whom we love. It’s a more personalized version of, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Well, the TL;DR answer to that question is simple: There are no good people. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No one is righteous, not even one. Whatever bad things happen to us, the one thing we can’t say is that we didn’t deserve them.

That’s pretty bleak, but it isn’t the whole story. A better question to ask would be, “Why is there suffering?”

Is God punishing me? Is the devil persecuting me? Is whatever happened simply the luck of the draw? Yes, but also no.

See, it depends on our perspective, and on God’s ultimate goal. God isn’t focused on giving us a comfortable and happy life here on earth. We are focused on that. God’s goal is to save us from sin, death, and the devil for eternity. He wants all men to be thus saved, and to come to a knowledge of the truth. This is why He sent His Son into the world, to die as a ransom for many.

If we try to see things from this angle, we might start to understand and to cope with the world as it is a little better.

We generally see things in a more pagan way. Now is the most important time. Here is all there is. We need to do whatever we can do to make our best life here and now. If I do this, god does that. If I do things to make god happy, god will do things to benefit me. Conversely, if I make god angry, he will punish me. It’s up to me to figure out what pleases god, so I can do those things. When I fail at this, things go badly for me. This all seems natural. That’s why it’s easily understood and accepted by human beings. It is, generally speaking, how we operate in our every day lives.

If this is our perspective, it’s only natural to try and guess what we did wrong whenever we face suffering, and try to correct or make up for it. It’s only natural to try and please god, or the gods, or the Universe, or fate, or whatever we believe has control over our lives. It is not natural, or easy for us to accept troubles from the One True God as well as good, to paraphrase Job.

So, we can either guess or we can accept. If we choose to guess about these hidden things, we can never be certain. God afflicts both to discipline His children and to punish the wicked. Which is it in my case? How would I know for sure if I am His child, or one of the wicked? The devil torments all humanity. Peter tells us that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. How do I know whether or not Satan is the cause of my suffering? Maybe I am just the random victim he happened to find to devour. How do I know?

This way of thinking leads to despair, hopelessness, and eventually to a loss of faith, which is spiritual death. It is one-dimensional thinking. It assumes that our current life and world is the most important thing. It assumes you are capable of pleasing God by what you do, and that He is waiting to punish you when you do bad. This is the way pagans look at their gods. It’s the way atheists think Christianity works.

God tells us, however, that this life is not all that there is. This corrupt world, tainted by sin and death, is passing away. Here we have no continuing city. If the pagan way of thinking was really the way things were, there would be no need for Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of the world. We would be left with the task of working things out on our own.

Good luck. Here’s hoping we make all the right decisions…

It’s far better to accept. It’s better to try and make sense of things from God’s perspective; to hold onto and believe His promises: God is the author of all good. Satan introduced sin and death into perfection. God cursed the creation and expelled man from the garden as part of a longer game. Rather than destroy it all and start again, God would instead redeem His creation.

But, because creation is cursed and man’s nature is corrupt, bad things happen. People lie, cheat, and steal. They misuse the things God has created in perverse and evil ways. They kill each other. They kill themselves. And, even when we don’t kill each other, we are all subject to physical death. So, rather than to go down the path of despair, hopelessness, and spiritual death, it is far better to believe God’s promise: At just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. He adopts us into His family and sanctifies us by the washing of water by the word, making us clean from our sin. He promises us that, even though we have trouble in this world, He has overcome the world by His death, and the proof of that is His resurrection from the dead. It means that Jesus is God in human flesh. And, when He returns we will be raised from the dead like Him. We will be raised to eternal life in a perfect, sinless body, in a perfect, sinless creation.

And, He promises us that, in the meantime here in this world, in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Nothing can separate us from this love of God in Christ Jesus.

“All things” includes all the bad things as well. It includes all the suffering we experience from things like war, famine, disease, crime, poverty, mental illness, and any other thing you can think of. It includes all the things the atheists point to, to prove that the idea of God is irrational. Why does God allow suffering? It is so He can use it for our eternal good.

God is omniscient. He sees the whole picture of space and time. We don’t, and neither does the devil, God be praised. But, because we are blind in this way, we have a hard time understanding how us suffering or dying is good for us. God, however, does not. That’s why there are times when He allows us to suffer, and there are times when He allows us to die. You might even say that there could be times when God kills us for our own good.

From His perspective, it is better to suffer physical death and remain a part of the Body of Christ, than it is to continue living on earth if the life path you were going down ends with you rejecting the faith. We can’t know those things, though. Only God can.

The barest level of grasping this concept is this: God the Father sent Jesus to die on the cross to solve the problem of mankind’s eternal survival. He uses our temporal suffering here during this relatively brief slice of eternity to shape who are will be. He refines us like gold in a refiner’s fire. And, He uses our physical death to make our adoption as God’s sons irrevocable; to confirm us into the new creation we became when we were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, and into which we will fully blossom when we are raised from the dead on the Last Day.

Though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, You will restore my life; from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up. ###

Thoughts on the Divinity of Christ

The Good Shepherd - Coptic Icon

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:11-16).

The confession of Christ's divinity is the rock upon which the Church is founded, the confession which gives eternal life (Pieper, 1951).

Rationalists deny the true deity of Christ. Jesus is God, they might argue, only in the sense that the Father's will was active in Him. Worship of Jesus as God, therefore, comes from "pious sentiment" rather than the scriptures, since Jesus didn't really claim to be God or command worship (Pieper, 1951). Rationalists, generally, object to the literal deity of Christ. This is because they generally discount anything supernatural or miraculous. And, if the deity of Christ is figurative, we don't have to accept the miracle of the God-man (Pieper, 1951).

But, Jesus does call Himself God.

We might not be able to recognize it immediately. Those people with whom Jesus directly interacted sure did. That's why the Jews wanted to stone Jesus to death when He told them, “I and the Father are one.” This is Jesus Himself claiming literal union with God the Father. Jesus says that He and the Father are made of the same material (Pieper, 1951). To claim to have a divine nature is to claim to be God. Scripture also calls Jesus God in other ways. It says that He is before all things. It says that Jesus is the creator of all things. It describes people worshiping Jesus as God, and He does not stop them. The opening verse of John's Gospel call Jesus God: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God (John 1:1). Jesus is the word of God incarnate. John says here that Jesus, the Word, was God. Whether or not you believe what John writes is another matter entirely. You cannot dispute the plain meaning of what he wrote.

In John 10, Jesus says, "I am the gate for the sheep," and "I am the Good Shepherd." Speaking in this way, Jesus intentionally applies God's name to Himself. This is a name so sacred to the Jews that they would not even say it out loud in order to avoid unintentionally misusing the name of Lord. It shocked them to hear Jesus describe Himself in messianic terms while using God's name.

He was essentially saying that the Messiah was God Himself, and that He, Jesus, was the Messiah (Baumler, 1997).

Jesus is simultaneously the Good Shepherd and the Passover Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (Baumler, 1997). If Jesus is just a man, His death can be described as a tragic but notable example of self-sacrifice for people to copy. If Jesus is God, then His death is the propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world. It is the Good Shepherd dying for His sheep.

Moreover, the title Good Shepherd says to us that Jesus is God. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God said that He Himself would rescue His sheep. When Jesus says that He is the Good Shepherd who will die for His sheep, He is making two very important statements. First, He is saying that He is the fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy. Second, He is claiming to be God and asserting His authority over all the earth (Englebrecht, et. al., 2009).

Jesus is also calling the Pharisees, the religious leaders of His day, the bad shepherds whom Ezekiel describes. They were being removed and replaced by God Himself (Englebrecht, et. al., 2009).

Ezekiel wrote that God would get rid of the bad shepherds who do not care for God's flock. God would not, however, replace them with earthly rulers, as the people of Jesus' day perhaps expected. Those bad shepherds would be replaced with David. God Himself would enter humanity to rescue His flock. He would lay down His life to redeem them. He would unite all His sheep into one fold. He would rule them by His servant David. All this was accomplished in Jesus, God in human flesh, great David's greater Son (Englebrecht, et. al., 2009).

Without the literal deity of Christ, Jesus becomes a mythological object lesson teaching people to be nice. Being nice is great, but if there are eternal consequences for our sin, then some more is necessary. Nice won't take away the guilt of our sin. And, Jesus' words can be twisted so that “nice” means whatever you want it to mean. It also means that nothing is required of us. Or, at least, we are able to do whatever God requires of us. Men like that idea. It makes them responsible for their own destiny. It makes us all our own god.

If, however, mankind's salvation can only be completed by God becoming human to be the propitiation for the sins of the world, then our own efforts to earn God's favor, or to appease His wrath are worthless.

Thanks be to God that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. ###

 

 

 

Works Cited

Pieper, Francis. 1951. Christian Dogmatics, vol. 2 of 3. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Baumler, Gary P., 1997. The People's Bible Commentary: John. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Englebrecht, Edward, et. al., eds. 2009 The Lutheran Study Bible. Notes on the Book of Ezekiel. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Thoughts on Death, the Soul, and Soul Sleep

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:20-28).

Watching TV the other day I saw a commercial for a religious program. One of the intriguing things the presenter said was, if you think you're destined to just go to heaven when you die, think again. He talked about the concept of "sleeping in death" and what this could possibly mean.

Doing a few minutes research on the internet, I found that the program, Beyond Today, is supported by the United Church of God. On their website, they say that those who have died are unconscious and in a dream state awaiting the resurrection, and that popular concept of hell where the wicked suffer eternal torment is not found in Holy Scripture (Beyond Today, 2022).

That got me thinking, "What does scripture say about the human soul, and death?"

The Athanasian Creed summarizes scripture's teaching about what a person is by saying that a man consists of a reasonable soul and human flesh.

God created man's flesh from the dust of the earth, and that He breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, thereby joining soul to flesh (Genesis 2:7). To tear apart this union of body and soul is unnatural (Pieper, 1953). When He created man, God did not intend for man to experience that separation of soul and body. Death was brought into the world as a result of man's sin (Genesis 3:17-19) (Pieper, 1953).

People are not reincarnated, or born again into other physical forms. Such teachings are contrary to God's word. The destiny of man since his fall into sin is to die once, and then to face the judgment of God (Hebrews 9:27-28) (Luther's Small Catechism, 1986).

At the time of physical death, the dust of the body returns to the ground. The body is buried and experiences decay. The spirit returns to God, who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7). The body "sleeps" while the soul goes to heaven to be with the Lord. Paul, writing to the Philippians, explains that his death is desirable to him, because it would mean that, though Paul would be away from the body and physically dead, he would be at home with the Lord in the heavenly paradise (Philippians 1:23-24). Jesus also promises the thief on the cross next to Him, not that his body and soul will lie dormant in the grave until the Judgment. Jesus assures the man, "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:42) (Luther's Small Catechism, 1986).

Jesus promises that if we keep His word, we will not see death. We will still, however, die physically, but not eternally. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus has removed the sting of death. Physical death is but a slumber to those who are connected to Jesus' death and resurrection by their baptism. Though our bodies will sleep for a while in the grave, our souls will be in Christ, and we will wake to eternal life on the Last Day at the resurrection.

Christ will return to raise the dead on the Last Day. He will raise the same bodies that went into the grave. This hope of the resurrection is taught throughout the scripture. Job says he will see God in his own flesh, and with his own eyes, even after Job's flesh has been destroyed (Job 19:25-27). Jesus explicitly says that, one day, the dead who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out (John 5:28-29). Paul explains to the Thessalonians that, when Christ returns, it is the dead Christians who will rise from their graves first (1 Thessalonians 4:16) (Luther's Small Catechism, 1986).

All people, however, will be raised and will stand before Christ on the Last Day. Christians will rise to eternal life. Christ will transform their bodies to be like His glorious body, though God's word does not give a lot of information about what that will be like. People who do not believe in Jesus will be told to depart to the eternal fire. Believers will experience life everlasting. Unbelievers will experience everlasting death (Luther's Small Catechism, 1986).

There are three types of death described in Holy Scripture: physical, spiritual, and eternal. Physical death is the separation of body and soul. Spiritual death is to be dead in sin and separated from God (Ephesians 2:1-10). It is not believing in God's words of promise. Eternal death is to be cast into hell and suffer eternal separation from God. Jesus, as part of His salvific work, suffered both physical and spiritual death for us (Petersen, 2021).

In spiritual matters, man does not have a free will. This is one of the results of the Fall, and Original Sin. This is part of the spiritual death Adam and Eve experienced when they disobeyed God and passed on to us (Pieper, 1950).

During the time between the death of a person and Christ's return, the souls of the unbelieving people are kept in "prison". This is clearly a place of punishment. Souls of believers are with Christ in paradise. Paul says that this "departing to be with Christ" is far better than our current state (Pieper, 1953).

Questions about such things as soul sleep can be a hindrance to the Gospel. Satan likes to tempt men into worrying about, and arguing over "useless questions" questions such as this. The more people become fixated on these secondary things, the easier it becomes to lose the primary things (Pieper, 1953).

The soul of the Christian, between that believer's physical death and bodily resurrection, is alive, it is at rest, and it is with Christ. That is what scripture says conclusively. We can talk of the soul of the departed being asleep, but such a sleep could not exclude the enjoyment of God (Pieper, 1953).

Scripture doesn't say a lot about what happens to the soul between physical death and the resurrection on the Last Day. Instead, scripture focuses us on that Last Day of judgment, and Jesus' return (Pieper, 1953). ###

Works Cited

Beyond Today, 2022. "What Happens After Death?" United Church of God. www.ucg.org/beyond-today/bible-study-aid/what-happens-after-death .

Luther, Martin. 1986. Luther's Small Catechism with Explanation. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. The Apostles' Creed: IV. The Resurrection of the Body, 187-189.

Pieper, Francis. 1950. Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1 of 3. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Pieper, Francis. 1953. Christian Dogmatics, vol. 3 of 3. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Thoughts on Psalm 50

Christ the Lightgiver

Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before Him, and around him a tempest rages. He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that He may judge His people: "Gather to Me My consecrated ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice." And the heavens proclaim His righteousness, for God Himself is judge (Psalm 50: 3-6).

Christ summons the earth from Zion (v. 2), that is, through His body the Church. Christ, the incarnate YAHWEH, calls the peoples of the world to take refuge in Him.

God took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary as the God-man Jesus. He came to earth to make a covenant, which He did by shedding His blood on the cross (v. 5). God Himself, Our Lord Jesus, is indeed judge.

Jesus proclaimed salvation to the people by God's grace through faith in Him rather than by sacrifice. He condemned the wicked, those who would despise God's word, who would praise God with their lips but whose hearts were far from Him.

In addition to describing Jesus' first coming and judgment, Psalm 50 also illustrates the judgment of the wicked on the Last Day.

God calls the wicked to repentance (v. 16-23). If the wicked continue to despise God's grace, they will be torn to pieces with no one to rescue them (v. 22). Those who honor God through faith in Christ will be shown the salvation of God (v. 23). Indeed, they have already been shown that salvation in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.

But He is also calling His own people to repentance (v. 7-15).

If trust in riches is useless, so is trust in empty ritualistic worship. The Psalmist is talking about people who think they have forgiveness, life, and salvation because of the ceremonies they perform.

(Or because their name is on a church membership roll because they were baptized there 45 years ago.)

This is the kind of religion or worship done out of habit to earn God's love and favor. God doesn't need our works. They are filthy rags to Him (Isaiah 64:4-7). He owns the cattle on 1,000 hills (v. 10). He doesn't need for us to feed Him (v. 12).

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). He is the one who, when He lifted up on the cross, would draw all men to Himself (John 12:32). No one comes to the Father except through Him, who is the exact representation of the invisible Yahweh in human flesh (Hebrews 1:3). The One who longed to gather Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks, but they would not (Matthew 23:37)

Worship that is true is to be joyful and willing service to God. After the Old Covenant, that looks like not despising preaching and God's word, but holding it sacred, and gladly hearing, and learning it. It looks like gathering together with God's people around His word to receive the gifts He gives to us through that word: forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27). ###

Thoughts on Psalm 11

In the Lord I take refuge. How then can you say to me: "Flee like a bird to your mountain. For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart. When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:1-3).

David is not afraid when the evil men of this world do evil. In Psalm 11, he appears to be answering those around him who lament their seemingly hopeless situation - righteous men in an unrighteous world. David reminds them that God is in charge when they say to flee to the mountains. God will destroy the wicked.

It doesn't look like that, though. David realizes that. He doesn't deny that evil is in the world, or that wicked men do wicked things and even prosper. David knows, however, that the wicked things they do, even if they harm him, will not go unnoticed by God.

In His discussion with the disciples about the signs of the end of the age, Jesus tells them that the temple will be destroyed. He tells them that they should leave Jerusalem when they see this thing about to happen. "...then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains..." But the foundation of those who believe in God. It is in Him they take refuge. This catastrophe that looks a lot like the end of the world will not destroy you, even if God allows it to kill you.

God is in His holy temple. The real one is in heaven. He is on His heavenly throne. God's kingdom is not of this corrupt and fallen world. And that God is the Lord Jesus.

God observes man from His throne in judgment. The Lord observes the righteous, but He hates the wicked. Who are the wicked? Who are the righteous? It is important because the wicked will be destroyed at the judgment on the Last Day. Upright men, however, will see God's face.

Jesus says that the pure in heart are blessed because they will see God. But we know that there are no pure in heart. There are none who are righteous, no, not even one. All have sinned. All have fallen short of the glory of God. So who will get to see God's face? Who will avoid the judgment of which David writes?

All of the people who saw Jesus when He declared, "Blessed are the pure in heart" saw the face of God because Jesus is God in human flesh. He is the image of the invisible God. He put on that flesh so He could rescue men from sin and death. He endured the punishment for our sin that we wicked men deserve so that we could see His face on the Last Day, and be saved from the fiery coals, burning sulfur, and scorching wind. ###

Thoughts on Psalm 46

The Last Judgment - Cranach the Elder

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging (Psalm 46:2-3).

God isn't going to stop the earth from giving way, or the mountains from falling. Not ultimately.

In fact, He is going to cause it to happen on the Last Day, when Our Lord Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. He will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God. The dead in Christ will rise first. Those who are alive at His coming will be caught up to meet Him in the air. "And so we will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

That's when the earth will melt, and the mountains will fall, and seas will foam, and why we won't be afraid.

We don't have to be afraid because we are in Jesus. We are part of His body. We are safely concealed inside the fortress, the God of Jacob, by our baptism into Christ.

This is the help God gives His people at break of day. His city, Zion, wherein He dwells is set apart. It is holy (v 4). When Jesus lifts His voice and the earth melts, the city of God's people will not fall. This is also how He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth (v. 9). He doesn't do it by diplomatic means. He doesn't put a magic spell on everyone to suddenly make them nice. He judges the wicked. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire.

Knowing the heavens will disappear with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare, we should look forward to this day of God. We should wait for it eagerly, living godly lives that are set apart from the unbelieving world (2 Peter 3:10-13).

But living life soberly isn't being afraid.

We don't need to be afraid. Not of the end of the world. Not of war. Not of economic collapse. Not of disease. Not of our death. Not of anything. We belong to Christ. He bought us with His holy, precious blood, and by His innocent suffering and death on the cross. We will live under Him in His kingdom. We will serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. No more sin, no more death, no more devil.

We will look on from inside His mighty fortress as He carries out His judgment, and throws the devil, death, and all the wicked into the lake of fire (Revelation 20: 7-15).

We will rejoice as He remakes creation anew. ###