Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMartin Luther Collection: Luther, Martin - Table Talks: 36. Of The Resurrection
TOPIC: Luther, Martin - Table Talks (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 36. Of The Resurrection
Other Subjects in this Topic:
OF THE RESURRECTION
-----------------------
DCCLIII.
On Easter Sunday, 1544, Luther made an excellent sermon on the resurrection
from the dead, out of the epistle appointed for that day, handling this
sentence: "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it
die." When Abraham intended to sacrifice his son, he believed that God out
of the ashes would raise him again, and make him a father of children. The
faith of Adam and of Eve preserved them, because they trusted and believed
in the promised seed. For to him that believes everything is possible. The
conception and birth of every human creature, proceeding out of a drop of
blood, is no less a miracle and wonder-work of God, than that Adam was made
out of a clod of earth, and Eve out of a fleshy rib. The world is full of
such works of wonder, but we are blind, and cannot see them. The whole world
is not able to create one member, no, not so much as a small leaf. The
manner of the resurrection consists in these words: "Arise, come, stand up,
appear, rejoice ye which dwell in the dust of the earth." I shall arise
again and shall speak with you; this finger wherewith I point must come to
me again; everything must come again; for it is written: "God will create a
new heaven and a new earth, wherein righteousness shall dwell." It will be
no arid waste, but a beautiful new earth, where all the just will dwell
together. There will be no carnivorous beasts, or venomous creatures, for
all such, like ourselves, will be relieved from the curse of sin, and will
be to us as friendly as they were to Adam in Paradise. There will be little
gods, with golden hair, shining like precious stones. The foliage of the
trees, and the verdure of the grass, will have the brilliancy of emeralds;
and we ourselves, delivered from our mundane subjection to gross appetites
and necessities, shall have the same form as here, but infinitely more
perfect. Our eyes will be radiant as the purest silver, and we shall be
exempt from all sickness and tribulation. We shall behold the glorious
Creator face to face; and then, what ineffable satisfaction will it be to
find our relations and friends among the just! If we were all one here, we
should have peace among ourselves, but God orders it otherwise, to the end
we may yearn and sigh after the future paternal home, and become weary of
this troublesome life. Now, if there be joy in the chosen, so must the
highest sorrow and despair be in the damned.
DCCLIV.
The 7th of August, 1538, Luther discoursed concerning the life to come,
and said: In my late sickness I lay very weak, and committed myself to God,
when many things fell into my mind, concerning the everlasting life, what it
is, what joys we there shall have, and I was convinced that everything shall
be revealed, which through Christ is presented unto us, and is already ours,
seeing we believe it. Here on earth we cannot know what the creation of the
new world shall be, for we are not able to comprehend or understand the
creation of this temporal world, or of its creatures, which are visible and
corporal. The joys that are everlasting are beyond the comprehension of any
human creature. As Isaiah says: "Ye shall be everlastingly joyful in
glorious joy." But how comes it that we cannot believe God's Word, seeing
that all things are accomplished which the Scripture speaks touching the
resurrection of the dead? This proves original sin as the cause of it. The
ungodly and damned at the last day shall be under the ground, but in some
measure shall behold the great joys and glory of the chosen and saved, and
thereby shall be so much the more pained and tormented.
Has our Lord God created this evanescent and temporal kingdom, the sky,
and earth, and all that is therein, so fair; how much more fair and glorious
will he, then, make yonder celestial everlasting kingdom!
DCCLV.
When I lay sucking at my mother's breast, I had no notion how I should
afterwards eat, drink, or live. Even so we on earth have no idea what the
life to come will be.
DCCLVI.
I hold the gnashing of teeth of the damned to be an external pain
following upon an evil conscience, that is, despair, when men see themselves
abandoned by God.
DCCLVII.
I wish from my heart Zwinglius could be saved, but I fear the contrary;
for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be damned. God's judgment
is sure and certain, and we may safely pronounce it against all the ungodly,
unless God reserve unto himself a peculiar privilege and dispensation. Even
so, David from his heart wished that his son Absalom might be saved, when he
said: "Absalom my son, Absalom my son;" yet he certainly believed that he
was damned, and bewailed him, not only that he died corporally, but was also
lost everlastingly; for he knew that he had died in rebellion, in incest,
and that he had hunted his father out of the kingdom.
DCCLVIII.
The Fathers made four sorts of hell. 1. The forefront, wherein they
say, the patriarch's were until Christ descended into hell. 2. The feeling
of pain, yet only temporal, as purgatory. 3. Where unbaptized children are,
but feel no pain. 4. Where the damned are, which feel everlasting pain. This
is the right hell; the other three are only human imaginings. In Popedom
they sang an evil song: "Our sighs called upon thee, our pitiful
lamentations sought thee," etc. This was not Christian-like, for the Gospel
says: "They are in Abraham's bosom." Isaiah: "They go into their chambers;"
and Ecclesiasticus: "The righteous is in the Lord's hand, let him die how he
will, yea, although he be overtaken by death." What hell is, we know not;
only this we know, that there is such a sure and certain place, as is
written of the rich glutton, when Abraham said unto him: "There is a great
space between you and us."
DCCLVIX.
Ah! loving God, defer not thy coming. I await impatiently the day when
the spring shall return, when day and night shall be of equal length, and
when Aurora shall be clear and bright. One day will come a thick black cloud
out of which will issue three flashes of lightning, and a clap of thunder
will be heard, and in a moment, heaven and earth will be covered with
confusion. The Lord be praised, who has taught us to sigh and yearn after
that day. In Popedom they are all afraid thereof, as is testified by their
hymn, Dies irae dies illa. I hope that day is not far off. Christ says: "At
that time, ye shall scarcely find faith on the earth." If we make an
account, we shall find, that we have the Gospel now only in a corner. Asia
and Africa have it not, the Gospel is not preached in Europe, in Greece,
Italy, Hungary, Spain, France, England, or in Poland. And this little corner
where it is, Saxony, will not hinder the coming of the last day of judgment.
The predictions of the apocalypse are accomplished already, as far as the
white horse. The world cannot stand long, perhaps a hundred years at the
outside.
When the Turk begins to decline, then the last day will be at hand, for
then the testimony of the Scripture must be verified. The loving Lord will
come, as the Scripture says: "For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, yet a little
while and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry
land: and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall
come." At the last there will be great alteration and commotion; and already
there are great commotions among men. Never had the men of law so much
occupation as now. There are vehement dissensions in our families and
discord in the church.
DCCLX.
About the time of Easter in April, when they least of all feared rain,
Pharaoh was swallowed up in the Red Sea, and the nation of Israel delivered
from Egypt. `Twas about the same time the world was created; at the same
time the year is changed, and at the same time Christ rose again to renew
the world. Perchance the last day will come about the same time. I am of the
opinion it will be about Easter, when the year is finest and fairest, and
early in the morning, at sunrise, as at the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah. The elements will be gloomy with earthquakes and thunderings about
an hour or little longer, and the secure people will say: "Pish, thou fool,
hast thou never heard it thunder?"
The science of alchemy I like well, and, indeed, `tis the philosophy of
the ancients. I like it not only for the profits it brings in melting
metals, in decocting preparing, extracting, and distilling herbs, roots; I
like it also for the sake of the allegory and secret signification, which is
exceedingly fine, touching the resurrection of the dead at the last day.
For, as in a furnace the fire extracts and separates from a substance the
other portions, and carries upward the spirit, the life, the sap, the
strength, while the unclean matter, the dregs, remain at the bottom, like a
dead and worthless carcass; even so God, at the day of judgment, will
separate all things through fire, the righteous from the ungodly. The
Christians and righteous shall ascend upward into heaven, and there live
everlastingly, but the wicked and the ungodly, as the dross and filth, shall
remain in hell, and there be damned.