Reconciled to God

Via “What is Christianity?”

Reconciled to God! These words express the greatest happiness that mortal man can know. Since the Fall the life of man on earth is filled with sorrow and misery. This is taught by Scripture, and this we know from experience. But for every one who through faith in the Gospel of Christ knows that he is reconciled to God, there is really no more unhappiness on earth: for such a one has overcome the world with all its anguish and woe. That which is terrible here on earth holds no terror for him, for even in the darkest night of tribulations he sees the heavens opened. Poverty, pain, illness, especially chronic and incurable illness, are certainly not easy to bear; but whoever has the assurance of being reconciled to God nevertheless is able to say: “Whom have in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the Strength of my heart and my Portion forever.” Ps. 73, 25.26. Death also is no trifle. Against death the whole world is powerless; not even the greatest genius can escape it. The German poet Schiller confesses in a letter to Baron von Humboldt that he knows of no consolation in the face of death. But he who knows that he is reconciled to God can boldly confess even in the hour of death: “O death, where is thy sting?” 1 Cor. 15,55. Above all it is not easy to give oneself up to be stoned, beheaded, or burned. Nevertheless St. Stephen, beholding the open heaven, Acts 7, 55, kept a cheerful spirit while he was being stoned to death; and John Huss at Constance confidently commended his spirit into his Savior’s hands in the midst of the flames and was even able to offer up a prayer for his benighted accusers. In discussing this subject, Luther declares: “Whoever knows that God is gracious to him walks through life along a path of roses, even in tribulation, and for him the land flows with milk, honey, and precious wine.” (St. L. Ed., II, 1968, 201-205.)