November 9, 2010

• "Dear Christian People, Now Rejoice!" Luther's assurance expressed! (letter 88 on assurance & joy)

  Today's post is a follow-up from yesterday's post, "The just person lives by faith." Luther's assurance received! and is another letter in my series of letters on assurance and fighting for joy. (If you've not done so already, I'd encourage you to read that post as background to this one.)
  
  Luther's second hymn "Dear Christian People, Now Rejoice!" expresses the joy, freedom and assurance Luther came to have because the Holy Spirit imparted to him an understanding that his salvation was all of faith and not of works.

  As you read the hymn below, look at some of Luther's words that expressed his state before he received assurance of forgiveness of sins,

  My sins oppressed me night and day...
  My life had neither joy nor love,
  So sore had sin possessed me.

  My anguish drove me to despair,
  For Death I knew was waiting there,
  And what but Hell was left me?
  

  
  Perhaps you've felt like that. Perhaps you feel like that today.

  But then notice the transformation after God spoke assurance to Luther's soul:

  Dear Christian people, now rejoice!
  Our hearts within us leap,
  While we, as with one soul and voice,
  With love and gladness deep,
  Tell how our God beheld our need,
  And sing that sweet and wondrous deed,
  That hath so dearly cost Him.

  
  Which words describe your experience of salvation?
  
  God can work in your soul so you might receive assurance of salvation and be able to rejoice with great joy like Luther.

  One more thing: as you read through the whole hymn, please notice this joy is not based on emotion (though, yes, we will be express emotion as we reflect on God's great love, mercy and grace showered on us through Christ - consider the Psalmists), but this joy is rooted rightly in the historical facts of Christ's virgin birth/incarnation, His sinless life, His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension (I Cor. 15:3-8) as well as in the knowledge of the work of Christ on his behalf (penal substitution - Christ dying in our place, the gift of eternal life and the gift of the Holy Spirit after Christ's ascension to assure and guide us into all truth).

  So many Christians have "experiences" at concerts or large gatherings or by listening to music or by watching videos on the internet and so forth, but before they know it they find they are worse off than before. That's often because the joy they've experienced during those times is incomplete (or even counterfeit) because it's fueled primarily by human emotion. True joy is not something we can work up. True joy is supernatural gift of God, therefore it must come from a sovereign movement of the Holy Spirit to our souls to speak to us of the work of Christ on our behalf. Yes, it's true we can and must put ourselves into the Word and be in prayer and in fellowship with other believers for those are certainly means God uses, but how and when He might choose to come to us is all up to Him. Like the wind, the Spirit blows where He wishes. I want to be clear about this:  we should experience God's love and joy deeply (love the Lord your God with all...), but let's not confuse an emotional high with a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit's joy comes to you, He will come along with a greater experiential understanding of God Himself. He will make what was written on the pages of the Bible become a living reality in the depths of your soul.

  God the Father wants each and every one of His children to rejoice, to experience the same joy and deep love and gladness that Luther experienced, to have our hearts within us leap because we are sure of our salvation for it rests securely in and with Christ and Christ alone.
  
  (Luther's hymn and the historical background to it are included in Catherine Winkworth's Christian Singers of Germany. Winkworth lived in the 1800's; she translated this hymn along with many others. The book includes German hymns from the years 800 - 1850.)

  * * *

  Still more popular in its own day was the second hymn that Luther ever wrote; no doubt from its containing in short compass a complete epitome, at once of the reformed doctrine of salvation, and of the actual experience of those who had passed through the same conflicts as Luther himself. An eye-witness of the Reformation says: "Who doubts not, that many hundred Christians have been brought to the true faith by this one hymn alone, who before, perchance, could not so much as bear to hear Luther's name. But his sweet and noble words have so taken their hearts that they were constrained to come to the truth." A curious use was made of it in the year 1557, when a number of princes belonging to the reformed religion being assembled at Frankfort, they wished to have an evangelical service in the church of St. Bartholomew. A large congregation assembled, but the pulpit was occupied by a Roman Catholic priest, who proceeded to preach according to his own views. After listening for some time in indignant silence the whole congregation rose and began to sing this hymn, till they fairly sang the priest out of church. Its tune is that known in England as Luther's Hymn, and tradition says that Luther noted it down from the singing of a travelling artisan. Luther's own title to it is--

  A THANKSGIVING FOR THE HIGHEST BENEFITS WHICH GOD HAS SHOWN US IN CHRIST

  Dear Christian people, now rejoice!
  Our hearts within us leap,
  While we, as with one soul and voice,
  With love and gladness deep,
  Tell how our God beheld our need,
  And sing that sweet and wondrous deed,
  That hath so dearly cost Him.

  Captive to Satan once I lay,
  in inner death forlorn;
  My sins oppressed me night and day,
  Therein I had been born,
  And deeper fell howe'er I strove;
  My life had neither joy nor love,
  So sore had sin possessed me.

  My good works could avail me nought,
  For they with sin were stained;
  My will against God's justice fought,
  And dead to good remained;
  My anguish drove me to despair,
  For Death I knew was waiting there,
  And what but Hell was left me?

  Then God in His eternity
  Looked on my boundless woe,
  His deep compassions flowed toward me,
  True succour to bestow:
  His Father's heart did yearn and melt
  To heal the bitter pains I felt,
  Though it should cost His dearest.

  He spake to His beloved Son:
  "Go Thou, my heart's bright Crown,
  The time for pity is begun,
  Go Thou in mercy down
  To break for men Sin's heavy chain,
  To end for them Death's hopeless reign,
  And give them life eternal."

  The Son delighteth to obey,
  And born of virgin mother,
  Awhile on this low earth did stay,
  And thus became my Brother;
  His mighty power He hidden bore,
  A servant's form like mine He wore,
  My foe for me to vanquish.

  To me He spake: "Hold fast by Me,
  And thou shalt conquer now;
  Myself I wholly give for thee,
  For thee I wrestle now;
  For I am with thee, thou art Mine,
  Henceforth My place is also thine,
  The foe shall never part us.

  "I know that he will shed My blood,
  And take My life away;
  But I will bear it for thy good,
  Only believe alway;
  Death swallows up this life of Mine,
  My innocence all sins of thine,
  And so art thou delivered.

  "And when I rise to heaven above,
  Where is my Father's home,
  I still will be Thy Lord in love,
  And bid my Spirit come
  To solace thee in every woe,
  To teach thee Me aright to know,
  And into Truth to guide thee.

  "And even as I have done and said,
  So shalt thou say and do,
  That so God's kingdom may be spread,
  And He have honour due;
  And this last counsel give I thee,
  From men's additions keep thou free
  The treasure I have left thee."

  * * *

  Which words describe your experience of salvation?

  ---

  Related:

  • Martin Luther on assurance
  • who are we to say . . . (Christ's atonement and assurance)
  • Jack Bauer & the Atonement
  • Luther's Commentary on Galatians
  • Labor Day: Do you know the blessedness of not working? (Romans 4:1-8) (about penance)
    
  • Reformation Day: Martin Luther on "How One is Justified before God, and of Good Works"
  • Bible Reading: Jeremiah 23--THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
  • Kingdom-Obsessed People don't keep looking back at past sins (dealing with guilt): "Forgiven Sinner, What Do You See?"
  • Dealing with past sins & guilt: Micah 7-False guilt vs.Godly guilt--Godly guilt causes us to rise rather than remain fallen
    
  • "Either we accept the atonement of Christ or we repeat it."
  • Bible Reading: Ezekiel 7–"But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more"
  • "Salvation unto Us Has Come by God's free grace & favor"
  • Letter 15 on assurance and fighting for joy (Joy is a gift of God, more than a feeling)
  • Letter 10 on assurance and fighting for joy (joy is for ALL!)
  • Letter 11 on assurance and fighting for joy (the Lord is at hand! - Philippians 4)
  • Letter 26 on assurance and fighting for joy (laughing/rejoicing at the days to come)

  • 12:02 PM
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