When Adam lived, that is, when he sinned, death devoured life; when Christ died, that is, was justified, then life, which is Christ, swallowed up and devoured death; therefore God be praised, that Christ died, and has got the victory.
Of the Resurrection 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.
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
Of the Resurrection 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!
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.
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.
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.
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