1 Thess 4, 13-18 (25.søn. efter trinitatis)

My dear friends, since this misfortune has happened to our beloved sovereign prince, and the habit and custom of holding masses for the dead and funeral processions when they are buried has ceased, we nevertheless do not wish to allow this service of worship to be omitted, in order that we may preach God’s Word to the praise of God and the betterment of the people. For we must deal with the subject and also do what is right on this occasion, since the Lord our God has again1 taken unto himself and graciously summoned our beloved head.

Therefore we shall take as our text what St. Paul says to the Thessalonians in the fourth chapter:

“But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” I Thess. 4:13–14.

So much we shall take up for now, in order that I may not overburden myself and you.

You know that the greatest divine service is the preaching of the Word of God, and not only the greatest divine service, but also the best we can have in every situation; but especially on these solemn occasions of sorrow there is nothing better we can do than to preach. Now St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians that they are not to sorrow as others do who have no hope.

For there were some pagans who held that it was a manly virtue not to grieve or weep when a good and loved friend died, just as in our times the sectarians began to try and make sticks and stones of us by alleging that one must eliminate the creature altogether and not accept anything that is natural; even though father, mother, son, daughter, or prince should die, one must simply go on with dry eyes and a serene heart. Thus these heathens were trying to re- establish virtue. But at bottom it is an artificial virtue and a fabricated strength, which God did not create and also does not please him at all. And the reason is that such a hard heart, which is not softened when a good friend dies, shows that he never did have any real liking or love for him, or he wants to be a hypocrite and appear to be so firm before men that they will praise him and say: Ah, there’s a man who has a firm hold on himself!

This fabricated sectarian and heathen virtue we condemn and say that it is not right. For not only examples from the holy fathers but also the Word of God in the Scriptures declare that it is right and fitting, even godly, to mourn a good friend who has died, as Paul himself indicates in these words which he utters at the end of this chapter: “Therefore comfort one another” I Thess. 4:18. If one is to comfort oneself, then there must have been sorrow, grief, and mourning. Now obviously those to whom Paul is here writing were Christian people, who were pleasing to God and possessed of the Holy Spirit, and yet Paul does not disapprove of their grief but only that it must be Christian and in moderation.

Since this is so, why should not we too properly mourn and grieve because our head, the beloved sovereign, lies here dead? For the steadfast man is not the one who thinks himself so strong that he refuses to be touched when a good friend has slipped away; rather the Christian is one who is hurt but yet endures it in such a way that the spirit rules the flesh. For God has not created man to be a stick or a stone. He has given him five senses and a heart of flesh in order that he may love his friends, be angry with his enemies, and to lament and grieve when his dear friends suffer evil. Thus St. Paul also says in Phil. 2 :27 that his heart was grieved for his servant Epaphroditus and that God had had mercy not only on Epaphroditus but on him and permitted him to be restored, lest he should have sorrow upon sorrow. Christ also was deeply moved at the death of Lazarus in John 11 :33. These and similar examples are far more sure and better than this unprofitable chatter which would make sticks and stones of us and forbid us to weep or sorrow over the deceased.

Let this suffice as a preface and introduction to this sermon. Now let us listen to the text as it comforts us. This is what the beloved Paul says:

“But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” I Thess. 4:13.

Here St. Paul puts in some good sugar, mixing the bitterness which is here with sweetness, and saying: You are sorrowful and grieving over those who have died. It is true that it hurts to lose a good friend. I do not reproach you for this; I praise it, for it is a sign that these are good hearts which are thus concerned about the deceased. But you must discriminate between your death and the death of the heathen, between your sorrow and that of the heathen. They have no hope after this life, but you know that you do not die but only fall asleep. For “since we believe,” he goes on, “that Jesus died and rose again” I Thess. 4:14, it is also certain that God will bring with him those who have died in Christ and will not let them simply remain where we think they remain, but will bring them to himself.

Note particularly that he does not say: Since you believe that Christ fell asleep. He rather speaks more sternly of Christ’s death than ours and says: Since we believe that Christ died. But of us he says that we do not die, but only fall asleep. He calls our death not a death, but a sleep, and Christ’s death he calls a real death. Thus he attributes to the death of Christ such exceeding power that by comparison we should consider our death a sleep. For this is the right way to give comfort, to take the death which we suffer as far as possible from our eyes, at least according to the spirit, and look straight at the death of Christ. Therefore St. Paul in these words is saying: Why do you think so much about your death? Look at him who is really dead, compared with whom all the other dead are as nothing. They did not die, but he died. Therefore, if we are going to grieve, we should also grieve over Christ’s death. That was a real death, not only in itself, because it was so bitter, ignominious, and grandiose, but also because it is so potent that it has baptized all the other dead, so that now they are called, not dead, but sleepers. And this is true, for we see in the Passion that Christ died as no one else dies or ever will die.

Therefore, says St. Paul, if you are assailed by sorrow and grief on account of your good friends whom you have lost, then look to this death and mingle, yea, cover with the death of Christ all other human deaths, and so magnify this death that other deaths are only a sleep compared with it. If this is true, why should we sorrow much over the death of others or even our own death and burial? After all, it is only a man that dies, and not even the whole man, but only a part, the body, but here is God’s Son himself, here the Lord of creation dies. My death and your death will not have the bitterness which Christ’s death had because he is immeasurably different from all other dead, in himself and by reason of his person.

Thus St. Paul is trying to turn us around and draw us into the death of Christ, that we may see how immeasurably great it is, in order that when your heart is grieved over a good friend who has died you may learn to say: Here you are grieving so much over your friend, who would have to die some day anyhow; why don’t you also grieve over this death? Why aren’t you also weeping and lamenting over Christ your Lord, whose death was so much greater and more horrible than that of all other men? As the beloved apostles cf. Luke 24:17–24 had to do when they were present at his passing and also thought he would remain dead; as we think when we judge according to our five senses. No better comfort can be found than to contemplate this death and see how mighty and glorious it has become and how it has devoured all other deaths, so that, by comparison, this death is the most grievous and cruel of all. Therefore he goes on to say:

“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” I Thess. 4:14.

It is as if he were saying: Be of good courage and cheer up, for if this is true there is no need to sorrow over those who have fallen asleep. The only important thing here is that we lay hold of this article that Christ died and rose again, when we are in distress and there is sorrow and grief. Just as now, when our sovereign prince, our beloved lord and father has fallen, under whose protection we have lived in peace till now and from whose hands we have eaten our dear bread, and now there will be another ruler and government, and nobody knows how it will turn out. The only one who knows is God, who has now taken from us our head and has not revealed what he proposes to do with us henceforth. Therefore in this case we may well be afraid and distressed; although I do not doubt that there are some among you who are not particularly concerned about it and think that it is an easy matter to take hold of government. But changing and improving are two different things. Changing the government we will leave to men, but improving it is in God’s hands alone.

Now, because all this is so, the best consolation is to say with St. Paul: Beloved, look not at this dead body; you have something higher and better to contemplate, namely, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you gaze steadfastly at this mirror and image, at Christ the Lord, who died and rose again, you will see where you will go and where those will go who have not fallen asleep in Christ, namely, that God intends to bring with him you and all others who have been baptized and have fallen asleep in Christ, because he has wrapped them in Christ’s death and included them in his resurrection and does not intend to leave them lying under the ground, even though for our reason and five senses there is no reason why this should be so, in order that faith may find room and we learn to trust God even in that which we do not see.

Therefore, even though it is hard, we must learn to look at the death of Christ, through which our death is destroyed, and even though it seems otherwise to our eyes, the Holy Spirit nevertheless mingles this sour vinegar with honey and sugar, that our faith may soar up to God and learn to see the dead, not lying in the grave and coffin, but in Christ. When you see him there, then the dead body is no longer in the coffin. Even though the carcass be foul and stinking it makes no difference; turn your eyes and nose and all five senses away and remember what St. Paul says in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians I Cor. 15:42–50: One buries the body in all dishonor; this is true, but don’t look at that, for it will rise again in all glory. It is buried and sown as something perishable and it will rise up imperishable. It is sown in weakness and will rise in power. It is sown a natural body and will rise a spiritual body, etc. Thus he is constantly taming our hearts, because he cannot turn our eyes, away from that which the eyes see to that which God is saying and to Christ, so that we may have no doubt that he will bring us with Christ. So anyone who can believe this will have good comfort in his own death and the death of other people.

Since St. Paul so extols the dead, as you have heard, we ought to thank God unceasingly for his grace in also including our beloved elector in the death of Christ and embracing him in his resurrection. For you know what a death he suffered in Augsburg at the Diet.2 I shall not praise him now for his great virtues, but rather let him remain a sinner like all the rest of us, who also purpose to go to the judgment and hand over to our Lord God many a grievous sin, as we too hold steadfast to that article which is called “the forgiveness of sins.” Therefore I am not going to make out that our beloved lord was altogether pure, though he was a very devout, kindly man, free of all guile, in whom never in my lifetime have I seen the slightest pride, anger, or envy, who was able to bear and forgive all things readily and was more than mild. I shall say no more of this virtue now.

If along with this he sometimes failed in government, what can be said against that? A prince is also a human being and always has ten devils around him where another man has only one, so that God must give him special guidance and set his angels about him. When we see them sometimes make a false step in government we are quick to say, Ah, I would have done so and so, but if we were to govern we would probably drive the cart into the mire or even turn it upside down. So nobody can do right as far as we are concerned, and if we look at ourselves we have never yet been right. All this we shall pass over now and we shall stick to praising him, as St. Paul praises his Christians, saying that God will bring with him those who are in Christ, and we shall not look upon him according to his temporal death, but according to Christ’s death and his spiritual death, which he died in accord with Christ.

For you all know how, following Christ, he died two years ago in Augsburg and suffered the real death,3 not only for himself, but for us all, when he was obliged to swallow all kinds of bitter broth and venom which the devil had poured out for him. This is the real, horrible death, when the devil wears a man down. There our beloved elector openly confessed Christ’s death and resurrection before the whole world and he stuck to it, staking his land and people, indeed his own body and life, upon it. There can be no doubt that he felt this death and its severity in his heart. And since this confession is publicly known we are ready to praise him for it as a Christian. If along with this there should be something lacking in his personal life in government, we shall let this pass, for we will not consider such insignificant sins in such a great person, but rather, over against this, praise the fact that he confessed Christ’s death and resurrection, by which He swallowed up death and hell and all sins, and remained steadfast in this confession. This covers and swallows up the multitude of sins as the great ocean swallows a spark of fire. Therefore all other sins are as nothing compared with this one thing, that Christ’s death and resurrection be not denied, but openly confessed.

We should therefore take comfort in the fact that Christ died and our beloved prince is caught up and fallen asleep in Christ’s death and that he suffered a far more bitter death at Augsburg than now, a death which we are still obliged to suffer daily and incessantly from the tyrants and sectarians, and, indeed, also from our own conscience and the devil. This is the real death. The other physical death, when we pass away in bed, is only a childish death Kindersterben or an animal death. The other, however, is the real, manly death, which still faces us, the death in which we would rather risk our neck, if this were possible, before we would deny the man who is called Jesus Christ. This may be called a manly, real death, and St. Paul also speaks of it in the eleventh chapter of I Corinthians I Cor. 15:31: “I protest, brethren, by my pride in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!” The other death is only when the reason and the five senses die, the eyes no longer see, the ears do not hear, and the hands no longer feel, etc. So a cow also dies; it is only an outward dying away of the body, the poor bag of worms;4 it is only a childish death compared with the other death.

As far as that death is concerned, our beloved prince has now passed away and one could feel that it was only a childish death; for our Lord God had so caught him up in His death that he suffered no buffering at all nor disputed much with the devil, as some do, who fall into despair over the grievous thought of sin, the last judgment, hell, and the like, which the devil inspires in them, and labor over it so that the cold sweat breaks out and they are almost paralyzed. This is a real death, not a baby death. But when it happens, as it did with our beloved prince, that the body merely lies upon the bed and there is no fright and trembling, because he was called into Christ’s kingdom through baptism and afterwards openly confessed Christ and listened with all diligence and his whole heart to God’s Word, and thus only the five sense died away—then this is the least of death and only half of death, when a man struggles only with physical death, even though we untempted folk think it the greatest. It is not the real death, which one should struggle with in the heart.

Therefore, the person whom God takes away in such a way that he does not feel the poisoned darts of the devil dies truly and well. So God took this man away. There was nothing there, as I saw it, except a real childish death. Our dear Lord God was thinking: The good prince has already gone through his real death at Augsburg; therefore I have included him in my death and henceforth he shall nevermore die, except physically. So that he passed away as in a sleep, as children and irrational animals die, except that animals have no hope of another life. Therefore it is a comforting death when a person dies so gently, his five senses simply dying away, if only the person looks upon it rightly; when he passes on so wrapped in our Lord Christ’s suffering that our Lord God says: I will allow the devil to destroy you only physically; therefore do not look so steadily at your death, but look at the fact that my Son died for you and the fact that you have already been spiritually killed. So now I will send death to you only in the sense that you will die as far as your five senses are concerned, as in a sleep.

For this reason we shall reckon our beloved sovereign among those who sleep in Jesus Christ, but especially because he did not depart from the confession of the death and resurrection of Christ, but suffered all manner of injury and affront for it. We therefore are not going to make him a living saint. If some sin crept in,5 let it go, we shall let him remain a human being, but will so cloak it over that the devil will not see such small sins and emphasize the great works which the angels in heaven will extol. For what can the devil bring up against his personal righteousness, since Christ is standing there alongside him and for him with His death and resurrection, which is more than the sin of the whole world?

It is my hope that we too shall die this way and carry with us to heaven a poor sinner, if only we hold on to this cloak and wrap ourselves in the death of the Son of God and cover and veil ourselves with his resurrection. If we stand firmly upon this and never depart from it, then our righteousness will be so great that all our sins, no matter what they are, will be as a tiny spark and our righteousness as a great ocean, and our death will be far less than a sleep and a dream. Moreover, the shame of our being buried so nastily is covered with a dignity which is called the resurrection of Jesus Christ, by which it is so adorned that the sun is put to shame when it looks upon it and the beloved angels cannot gaze upon it sufficiently. We are graced and adorned with such beauty that all the other uncleanness of our poor body, such as death and the like, are as nothing.

Hence, one must look upon a Christian death with different eyes, not the way a cow stares at a new gate, and smells it in a different way, not as a cow sniffs grass, by learning to speak and think of it as the Scriptures do and not considering deceased Christians to be dead and buried people. To the five senses that is the way it appears. As far as they can lead us, it brings only woe. Therefore go beyond them and listen to what St. Paul says here, that they are sleeping in Christ and God will bring them with Christ as he brought with him the Savior, the devourer of death, the destroyer of the devil. Learn to comfort yourselves with these words and instil in your hearts the fact that it is far more certain that Duke John of Saxony will come out of the grave and be far more splendid than the sun is now cf. Dan. 12:3; Isa. 60:19 than that he is lying here before our eyes. This is not so certain as the fact that he will live again and go forth with Christ because God cannot lie. But take it to heart! For he who does not have this comfort can neither comfort himself nor be happy, but the more the Word escapes him the more the consolation also escapes him.

Therefore, let us comfort ourselves now in this sorrow with the fact that we know with certainty that he will rise again with Christ. For here the words of Christ stood sure: “Every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father” Matt. 10:32. Otherwise, if that Man had not ascended into heaven, we could have little hope indeed.

But when some keep coming with the law and arguing: Now my dear, who knows whether God will consider you to be good? This is the dismal devil himself, who is always pointing us to personal righteousness,6 how good I am and how bad I am; for his whole skill consists in using this image of our goodness to snatch from our eyes the image of the Man who died and rose again. Therefore, it was a very good thing that happened with our prince, that he was not drawn into this disputation,7 otherwise the devil would doubtless have assailed him: Listen to me; how have you lived, how have you reigned? and so on; and would have presented him with a record which would have terrified him and subjected him to a hard struggle. This is the devil’s strategy and he often hies it on me. He asks me how good and how evil I am, and, what is more, he makes a very masterful use of the Scriptures and the law. You must do this and that. You must be good and keep the law. But you have not kept it?

Since we are still in the week of mourning and have begun to comfort ourselves with God’s Word from St. Paul’s Epistle, we shall now speak somewhat further about it for further comfort and expound the chosen text fully.

In the first part of this Epistle of St. Paul we have heard how he admonishes and comforts the Christians, telling them that they should not act so dreadfully by weeping and wailing over the deceased, but rather show that there is a difference between those who have no hope, that is, the unbelievers and pagans, and us, who believe in Christ and have far different minds, hearts, and thoughts from theirs. For a Christian should be a new creature or a newly created work of God, who in all things speaks and thinks and judges differently from the way the world speaks or judges. And because he is a new man, everything here in this life should and must become new through faith, as it will become new in the life to come through manifest revelation itself. Now the world cannot do anything else but think of death according to its ancient custom and nature, that it is the most abominable and horrible thing on earth, the end of life and all joy, just as it also follows that ancient delusion in looking upon all other misery and misfortune as something which is evil and intolerable, from which it should flee, and when it happens, it is terrified and is ready to give up in despair.

But a Christian, on the contrary, as a new man, should be so constituted that he can have far different, even completely opposite thoughts and, as St. Paul says in Rom. 5 :3, can even boast and glory and rejoice when things go wrong, and his heart should seize only upon such thoughts as that he possesses great wealth when he is poor, that he is a mighty prince and lord when he lies in prison and superlatively strong when he is weak and sick, and that he is floating in honors when he is being covered with shame and ignominy. He should know that he only becomes a new, living man when he dies here and now; in short, he must gain a completely new heart and mind and thereby make all things on earth new, and thus begin here a prelude to the life to come, when all things will become as new, manifestly and visibly, as he now imagines and conceives them by faith according to his new nature.

And all this, not in us, but in Christ, as St. Paul here shows us; for he alone accomplished the deed of having all things new already in this manifest and visible life and, as St. Paul says in Rom. 6 :9, will never die again and death has no power or dominion over him, but rather everything that it was able to do, even physically, was stripped away, so that it was no longer able to bind, or imprison or torment him with hunger, thirst, and wounds. In short, death lost all its venom, cords, spear, sword, and whatever evil it possesses to Christ. In this Man we too should allow ourselves to think even now that all things have become new and accustom ourselves to the strong thoughts of faith, keeping ever before our eyes the beloved image of the dead and risen Christ and carrying it with us against the old nature, which still assails and confronts us and tries to frighten us with misery, distress, misfortune, poverty, death, and whatever else there may be.

You see why the Apostle uses these particular words: you should be different from the other people, who have no hope, simply because you believe that Christ rose from the dead and that through him death has been conquered. It is as if he were saying: In this way you have become people who are altogether different from what you were as you came from your father and mother and earthly being. Since you have been baptized in His name, as well as into His nature and kingdom, death and resurrection, you must remember that your whole attitude toward those things of which the world is terrified should be different, and that you should have eyes, ears, senses, and thoughts which are different from those you had before from Adam, when you were frightened and sorrowful, as those who had no hope. But now you no longer act this way, but think and speak just the opposite, confident that, because he has overcome death, he will also snatch us from death and bring us with him. For he rose again in order that he take us with him out of death into life and eternal glory cf. Eph. 2:6.

This, after all, is what had to be done by the dear patriarchs, who had not yet seen the work and image of Christ’s rising from the dead which has been presented to us, but saw it only in faith and from afar, as through dark blue clouds, whereas for us the clear, bright sun is shining. Nevertheless, they had to depend on Christ, who was still far away, and also soar up to the comforting thought that through his resurrection they too would rise up from death and live with him. That is why they sang such comforting songs: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Ps. 116 :15).9 Again in Ps. 72 :14: “Precious is their blood in his sight.” And again in Ps. 9 :12: “He who avenges blood is mindful of them.”

So they go on speaking, those devout hearts, and from such words they must have spun many a strong sermon—though they were doubtless briefly expressed and written only as a theme or conclusion of their sermons—for they have provided mighty and rich consolation, with which one can lift up a man’s heart, because they argue so powerfully. This is their argument: Dear friend, you may well think otherwise and to your eyes it looks as if the death of the saints is pure defeat and destruction and it appears as if they now were utterly forgotten and silenced, as if they had no God to befriend them, because he did not befriend them while they were living and allowed them to perish so miserably as those who are torn and devoured and burned and pulverized. So no rational mind can say anything else but that their death was a pitiful, miserable, shameful thing. But before God, say the dear patriarchs, you must take it as sure truth that when a saint (which means every Christian) dies, then there is offered to him excellent, costly, precious sacrifice, the loveliest and sweetest odor of incense and the best and highest worship Gottesdienst that can ever be given to him.

For he does not care so much for the living saints as the dead. Indeed, while they are living he allows them to go their way, so weak and miserable and tormenting themselves with sin, the world, the devil, and death, as if he did not even see it and would not help them. But no sooner are they out of the sight of men and have become a foul, stinking carcass, which nobody can abide, or powder and dust, so that nobody knows where they are, cut off and forgotten by all the world as those who have nothing more to hope for, then, and precisely then, do they begin to become a precious thing in the sight of God. Then they not only begin really to live but also become a precious treasure which God himself holds dear and precious and glories in beyond all else. And the more they are forgotten in the eyes of the world the more he honors and glorifiesthem.

You have a beautiful example of this in the first two brothers in Gen. 4 :8–16. When the rascal Cain had secretly murdered and buried his brother he walked away and wiped his mouth as if he had done nothing wrong,10 thinking that nobody would know and it would remain secret, since Abel had nobody to take his part, etc. And when God asked him, “Were is Abel your brother?” he acted so holy and pure that he even boasted that he was not responsible for him and said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” But then came “he who avenges blood” Ps. 9:12,11 who requires and avenges the blood of his saints cf. Ezek. 3:18–20; Rev. 6:10; 19:2, and said, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” Gen. 4:10. Who tells God to speak so? He cannot forget it, now that he is dead and gone, but must call out from heaven and cry over this blood which troubles him so greatly that he can neither bear it nor keep silent, even though he could have averted it and prevented Cain’s now being alone without a brother or heir, but punishes him so severely that he must be cast out by his parents and even the earth is cursed on his account. That means that he really cares for this blood which was now corrupted. He did not show such care and concern while Abel was living, except that he was pleased with his sacrifice. But now that he is gone and lying under the ground, he forthwith becomes alive and speaks in heaven, so that God himself speaks for him and makes such an outcry in all the world that both he and his murderer must stand eternally as an example in the Scriptures which will never be extinguished.

You see, this is how the dear patriarchs looked upon such an example and drew from it their sayings that the dead saints most certainly live in the sight of God and will rise again more glorious than before. For he does not concern himself in this way with any living beasts or cattle and whatever has no hope, nor with the tyrants and the godless, who die in the devil’s name. But he is concerned with his poor saints, who perish so miserably and shamefully, and consider their deaths more precious than their whole lives. For their lives cannot be without sin, even though they too are subject to forgiveness and to Christ; but it is as nothing compared to a man’s leaving this life and dying to sin and the world; for then God opens both his eyes and all the angels must be there to wait upon him, below and above and round about him, if it so be that he is clothed with the baptism of Christ and with faith and God’s Word that he may be counted among those who are called God’s saints.

For surely you know, thank God, who God’s saints are; that the Scriptures do not mean the saints in heaven above, as the pope creates saints, whom one should invoke, whose days one should observe with fasting, and whom one should choose as mediators. Nor does it mean those who have sanctified themselves, like the Carthusians, the barefooted friars, and other monks or pilgrims12 and such like devils who want to make themselves holy through their works. It means rather those whom God has sanctified, without any of their works or co- operation whatsoever, by reason of the fact that they are baptized in Christ’s name, sprinkled and washed clean with his blood, and endowed and adorned with his dear Word and gifts of the Holy Spirit. All of which we have not engendered and cannot engender, but must receive from him by pure grace. But he who does not have this and seeks some other holiness is a stench and abomination to the Lord, because he denies that this bath of the blood of the innocent Lamb does not make one holy and clean.

Now those who are such baptized Christians, who love his Word, hold fast to it, and die in the same, no matter whether they are hanged, broken on the wheel, burned, drowned, or perish of pestilence, fever, or the like, simply include them in Christ’s death and resurrection and without a moment’s hesitation speak this text over them: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” Ps. 116:15; for he deems it i.e., their dying an excellent and beautiful treasure, the most precious jewel on earth. Whether the devil strangle you in your bed or the hangman on the gallows, it is settled that such a death is a holy death and so highly esteemed by him that he will not leave it unavenged, but will hale the devil who kills you before the judgment and torture him with eternal punishment, strike off the head of sin, bury death in hell, and avenge everything that has caused his saint to die.

And because he so greatly cares for them, he certainly will not allow them to remain in death, perishing and decaying in the earth, but will raise them again, so that their death shall not be a death, but a completely new life with Christ in everlasting light and glory, as we confidently and without all doubt hope in the case of our beloved head the deceased Elector John. Though we have lost him according to the body and the old nature, he is not lost and not forgotten before God in Christ, who has received him and brought him to rest, so that now he is safe from the devil and all enemies, and will bring him and all the saints with him on the last day before our eyes and the eyes of the whole world.

Behold, this is what St. Paul is trying to do with this text, with which he bids his Thessalonians to comfort one another, and with which we also ought to comfort ourselves as they did and thank God when we see him taking away a person in the knowledge of his Word, even though it is true that as far as the outward man is concerned it is not altogether without grief and sorrow. For not yet do we have holiness entire, but only in our hearts by faith. We still do not lay hold of it in our outward being; we are still stuck in the muck and mire of our old Adam, who still befouls himself and hawks and snuffles. We must let him have his clinging muck, infirmities, and sins until he is completely buried; then there will be an end to all grief and suffering.

Nevertheless, beyond and above this grief there should be the faith that Christ died and rose again for the sake of his Christians and that their death is a noble, precious treasure, in order that we may learn to distinguish between the world’s eyes and God’s eyes, between reason, according to which the old man remains in the grave, and faith, by which we are new, heavenly men and receive totally new hearts and thoughts about death and all misfortune.

And we must on no account judge as the world sees it, but as it appears before God in the new being, which we do not see but only hear spoken of in the Word. We should lay hold of this example, which the Scriptures provide, that he was so greatly and earnestly concerned about the dead Abel, and realize that it was written for us and set before us as a fine mirror, yea, as a sun, for all who die, as he died, in God’s Word, and that as he looked upon him after his death so he will most certainly look upon all who live and die in faith in him.

This, then, was St. Paul’s conclusion: If you have believed and understood that Christ died and rose again, then there can be no doubt that he will also raise up with him those who have fallen asleep, if they have remained in him and therefore have died in him and through him and, indeed, also for his sake. For if we are baptized and believe in Christ, we shall certainly not die for our sake but for Christ’s sake, as he too did not die for his own sake, for there was no death in him. But the devil kills the Christians and destroys them with all manner of torments, and this he does solely because they believe and are Christians. For he cannot abide anybody on earth who believes in Christ, though he also gives the others their due. But to these he is especially hostile and he means to destroy them, the sooner the better. He slinks about day and night and will not rest until he kills and exterminates them. And to accomplish this he employs all kinds of plagues, war, sword, fire, water, pestilence, syphilis, apoplexy, dysentery, etc., which, as the Scripture says, are all his weapons, his arrows, armor, and equipment, by which he accomplishes nothing less than to kill the Christians. For he is the master and author of death, who first introduced death, says the Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 2:14, and the chief hangman to destroy the believers. And he also honestly pursues his craft throughout the whole world and kills us all in the end, as he also killed Christ, so that every Christian owes his death to him.

But Christ, on the other hand, is a lord and prince13 of life beyond all the power of the devil. Therefore he leads out his own and brings them with him to heaven, because they are in him, and they live and die and lie in his bosom and arms, not in the grave or in the power of the devil, except in the old being. Just as Christ also, though he lay in the grave, yet in a moment he was both dead and alive and rose again like a lightning flash from heaven. So he will raise us too in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, out of the grave, the dust, the water, and we shall stand in full view, utterly pure and clean as the bright sun. This is what St. Paul certainly wants us to conclude and believe (though it is incredible and ridiculous to reason) as a sure consequence of the fact that Christ died and rose again. Then he goes on and proceeds to explain how this will happen, saying:

“For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep” I Thess. 4:15.

With these words he provides a preface, the more to strengthen their faith. For he is concerned, the dear Apostle, lest this message be considered too slightly and not be taken as the Word of God, this message which speaks of such glorious, incomprehensible things. For God himself had not let it ring forth from heaven with glorious splendor by thousands of angels, in which case we should all have had to fall on our knees and accept it and believe it with trembling, but rather committed it to an insignificant, poor man like Paul, who was a poor, plain person. He himself says that the Corinthians were saying of him that he preached and wrote as if he were a god and yet was such a small, insignificant person with a thin, dried- up body, which was the reason why the false apostles proudly despised and belittled him II Cor. 10:7–12.

So he says: I know very well that I am speaking of things so high that the world and reason is offended. Therefore I beg and admonish you not to look upon us, nor to accept as our word what we are saying, but rather to forget our person and listen to it as the word of the divine Majesty spoken from heaven. For it is a great hindrance to faith to stare at the masks and persons with one’s eyes, as flesh and reason does, so that one cannot see and esteem the Word as greatly as it should be. This also happens with baptism, where one sees nothing but the finger of the man who is baptizing and the water which he pours over the child, a mere creature, and hears nothing but the poor voice from the lips of the baptizer, so that for us men it seems all too insignificant.

Therefore, see to it, he is saying, that you pay no heed to how insignificant the person or creature may be, but rather be assured that the word which I speak is God’s Word, which he himself is speaking. But if it is God’s Word, then it must be mightier than heaven and earth and all angels and the devil besides. For what is all power in heaven and earth compared with what God says? If, then, you believe that what I preach to you is God’s Word, then you will easily believe what is says. That’s the only effort that’s necessary, positively to believe that it is God’s Word; after that there is no trouble. For with one word he created heaven and earth and all that is in them when everywhere there was still nothing and every year creates new fruits and what lovely summer brings. So it is here; though you see that everything dies away and less remains of man than summer in coldest winter, when neither foliage nor grass remains and no leaf or fruit is to be found upon a tree, here there is even less life, since what the person has been becomes altogether powder and dust, burned to powder by fire or wasted in water or eaten by birds and animals and worms in the ground. And yet, as surely as God’s Word is true, you must firmly believe that he will bring us forth again as a whole transformed body, just as he now does every year as a symbol, bringing back from dead winter a beautiful, green summer, and as he made everything out of nothing. Therefore, by all means remember to accept it, not as man’s word, but as God’s Word.

This is what will happen, he says: “We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep” I Thess. 4:17. This is a paraphrase, spoken in a roundabout way, but, briefly, what it says is that we shall all go thither together at the same time, both those who have died previously and those who have lived until Christ’s coming and that thus all will soar up together in an instant and see one another again. It says, therefore, that we who may still be living will not see the Lord Christ any sooner than those who have died, even though we shall be drawn upward with open eyes and still be living in the body, whereas the others have long since decayed and, to our minds, become nothing, and even though it would seem that we, who are still living, would be the first and would see the Lord much sooner than the dead. But he would have it that the dead would all rise with us in the same moment and have eyes as pure and fine as ours to see as well as we do. (Reason calls this ridiculous, but he tells me that he is speaking the Word of God:)

He therefore will do the same with Christians that he did with Christ, whom he raised up from the locked and sealed grave in the twinkling of an eye, so that in the selfsame moment he was in it and out of it. So in the last moment he will bring together both us who are still living in our five senses, and all who are decomposed, pulverized, and scattered throughout the world, and we and they together will be caught up to heaven, soaring in the clouds (as he says later), lighter than the birds cf. I Cor. 15:39 and more beautiful than the sun cf. I Cor. 15:41, and the heavens will be so full of light and splendor that all the light and splendor of the sun and all the stars will be as nothing compared with it, and we shall see neither sun nor stars for the light and splendor of Christ and his angels and saints. Now I know that this sounds as false as a sweet idea and human dream, but I have declared that it is God’s Word. He who will not believe this cannot believe us either. It’s one and the same thing.

Then he goes on to tell how the Lord Christ will come, by what means he will perform it, and what power he will employ to accomplish it.

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words” I Thess. 4:16–18.

This is the meaning we have just explained, namely, that everything will happen at once, that we are not to think that we who are living will arrive and see Christ sooner, but will be caught up together with him, all in one moment, that we shall be changed and they be made alive again out of the grave and the dust in the selfsame moment, and, wherever we may be found, fly straightway into the air, most beautifully clothed. And this he, the Lord, will do. He will no longer send an apostle or preacher or John the Baptist, but will come down in his own person as a Lord in his majesty, with a great shout of command and the voice and trumpet of the arch-angel.

These words are purely allegorical. He was trying to paint a picture, as we must use pictures with children and simple people, and use words which we are accustomed to use in describing a grand, magnificent march of an army, when a lord takes the field in great triumph with his lifeguards, banners, trumpets, and canisters, so that everyone hears that he is coming. So Christ too will go forth with a shout of command and cause a trumpet to sound which is called the trumpet of God. This will be done by the archangel with his innumerable host of angels, who will be his vanguard or forerunners and set up such a tumult that heaven and earth will be burned in an instant and lie in a heap, transformed, and the dead will be brought together from everywhere. That will be quite a different trumpet and it will sound quite different from our trumpets and canisters on earth. But it will be his own voice and language, perhaps Hebrew, but even if it is not a particular language, it will be a voice which will wake all the dead.

I like to think that it will be a voice which says: Rise up, ye dead! as Christ called the dead Lazarus from the grave, “Lazarus, come out,” (John 11 :48) and as he said to the girl and the young man in Matt. 9 :25 and Luke 7 :14, “I say to you, arise,” accomplishing it with one word, as he spoke to the blind and the lepers: Receive your sight, be clean, etc. Here Paul calls this a cry of command or the voice of the archangel, that is to say, the voice of the archangel will shout so that it will be heard with our ears. And yet it is called a trumpet of God, that is, a trumpet by which God will wake up the dead through his divine power, just as he said in John 5 :28–29, “The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life,” etc. Here he means, not the voice which Christ himself will utter, but the voice of the archangel and the trumpet, which is God’s voice or trumpet. Just as here on earth the preacher’s voice which proclaims God’s Word is not called man’s word but God’s Word, so here the voice is the voice of the archangel and yet the voice of the Lord Christ, as being spoken by his command and power.

You see, he portrayed how it will happen in such grand terms in order that we should be confident and bold and not be so frightened over those who die, especially those who die in faith in and through Christ, and that we should hope that Christ himself may come and take them, and us with them. That we should hope that the archangel will come first with his trumpets and thousands of angels (like the angel in Luke 2 :13 who appeared to the shepherds at Christ’s birth with the multitude of the heavenly host) and strike up the cry of command, with Christ suddenly striding forth, and afterwards, when we have been raised and caught up into heaven, sing everlastingly: Gloria in excelsis Deo, “Glory to God in the highest” Luke 2:14.

This, concludes St. Paul, we should most certainly expect, and comfort one another with these words. And he describes it so confidently, as if it had already happened. He prophesies of future things still not experienced as if they were history, in order that he may make us as certain as he is, that we may not be frightened of death and disdain all plague, pestilence, and disease, and keep our eyes fixed upon that beautiful picture of what is to come, when out of this present winter in which everything is dead and buried he will make a beautiful, eternal summer and bring forth the flesh, which lies buried and decayed, far more beautiful and glorious than it ever was before, as St. Paul says in I Cor. 15 :43, “It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” For dishonor and weakness means that miserable, shameful form of man, than which there is no more shameful, insufferable carcass on earth, which is a great dishonor and shame to this noble creature. But this does not matter, for it will be raised again in honor and in a glorious form, just as a seed which is cast into the ground must decay and become nothing, but when summer comes it comes forth again with beautiful blades and ears of corn.

So we too should hope and shall hope that the merciful God has thus taken our beloved, deceased elector and will raise him up again with Christ, because, after all, we know that he was baptized into Christ, and that he so confessed the gospel and remained steadfast in the Christian confession and died in the same, that I have no doubt that when the trumpet of the archangel is sounded he will joyfully rise in an instant from this crypt and, with us and all Christians, go to meet Christ, shining more brightly than the sun and all the stars. To this end help us, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.