“I love much, and am loved little”; it is multiplied in the case of our Lord, who in suffering as in all things has pre-eminence.
Just consider the wretched idea, attention and opinion which we ourselves had of him and in relation to him from childhood on; what a poor submission of the heart, what thanklessness in relation to his merit, what estrangement from following him, what a secret fear in the presence of his people because we were all called Christians and were baptized in his name. Thus sin lies in unbelief and expresses itself in an indifference, alienation, deviation, and cold-mindedness toward the Lord, or in open enmity with and rebellion against him. The outbreak of the deed (for which conscience and law punishes) is only the fruit and testimony of the inner corruption and wicked motives of the heart, in which sin is actually to be sought, and according to which people are of two sorts: first, completely dead; second, awakened to life.
Those who with their corruption are completely dead and insensible, that is, cool-headed and composed, come to be thought of in part as fine, honorable, quiet, yes, even pious and God-fearing people, as if they still had a feeling of God and conscience, a sense of the numinous.5 But they are without feeling for the Savior and are indifferent and cold-minded toward the true good; with respect to the Savior they are without him, that is to say, without God. Moreover, they can often to be sure intend good, they can look closely at much good in the understanding and in the depths of the self through presentations of the divine Word and the power of prevenient grace, or they can also be excited at times by solid inferences and thoughts, but it goes no further than fantasy, or reason, then vanishes again and cannot be from God because it does not remain. (If its source were God the person would abide in him. 1 John 3:6, 9). It surely happens that those people are not hostile and obstructive to the rule of Christ, yes they are even useful to and promotive of it, and they love the good; but their hearts remain stone.
They can also grasp that they are good for nothing and are in poverty, but it is only a fleeting thought; at the same time they remain lazy, negligent, and carefree and cannot get a handle on their very selves. They have no power to help themselves, but rather remain lying in death. Still, they remain well-disposed toward the good, and their hearts are a tender object of the Savior, so that when he sees his time and they are brought to the sign of grace, they soon can be helped; it might be that they are too well pleased in their present circumstances and through them perish wretchedly.
Such dead people are either virtuous, finally able to go so far in the false piety and improvement allowed by Satan that they progress in spirituality to the angels; or they are corrupt. Even though they live in all sins just the same, these people do not blaspheme, but rather allow the good to stand, like Felix: because they are dead to spiritual things; and there is with those same people, if they are not met at a sensitive corner, almost the same circumstance [as Felix], (and then it amounts to a manner of life).
Others in the category of unbelief are not dead, but rather living and active enough, enlivened and invigorated by the spirit of the world and stirred up by hell (James 3:6). They bear the image of the devil and are declared, public, trained, yes truly purchased enemies of the rule of Christ. They diligently seek to hinder by all sorts of ways and methods, and make it a special merit and religious duty to let themselves be instruments against the work and the servants of God; they often have no glory and benefit, but rather detriment and shame because of it and they do it anyway. Such people are truly dangerous sinners and tools of Satan and indeed they even become his martyrs: they are almost unconquerable; and because they are hard, yes almost impossible, to persuade on account of the deeply established foundation of their sin, the Lord must employ highly unusual means for their salvation if it is ever to come about at all.
They are, to repeat, either virtuous like Saul, who even greatly raged and believed that he had to do many terrible things against the name of Jesus, while at the same time he was blameless and pious according to the Law; or they are corrupt and vicious, who in their crude wrongdoing have occasionally become mockers and enemies of the truth. Those women and men who serve Christ are intolerable to look upon because they rebuke and censure such evil-doing, as the matter finds expression in the Book of Wisdom,6 and Herod is a biblical example of it (Mark 6: 18–19). All these sorts are wretched and lost and need a Savior who could help them out of this predicament, if they are willing and obliged to be saved.
But what does salvation mean? It means one is torn from the ruling authority of darkness and one is placed within the ruling authority of Jesus. He will help the dead out of their death, bring the slaves of Satan to freedom, take away enmity and unbelief, and give faith and love in their place.
The Lord himself must make a beginning for such a salvation: since no saying of Jesus about people demands that they should begin and help themselves, rather the Savior said, “I will draw them all to me. They only have to let themselves be saved and reconciled.” He will do it all through his Spirit. Cast fire upon the earth and pour out his love upon all hearts, yes even breathe the breath of life into the dead. One must only be still and wait and be attentive to the voice of the Lord when he comes to the heart with his power, his fire, his promptings, and his Spirit, and thereafter not talk things over with flesh and blood but be obedient to the heavenly visitation.
God sees according to his wisdom, so he can make an impression on each soul in the best, that is, most effective, way. The methods, occasions, and hours are different for all so that one cannot determine it. The Lord takes hold of one in preaching, another in his house, overcomes a third in the street, another again out in the field, and seizes a fifth in the very act of sinning. Therefore, it is not in accordance with the Gospel to lay down fixed rules, or to set forth methods7 and forms in which souls must first be situated, or to expect a coincident method in the seeking and gathering of souls. One must entrust to the Savior’s free grace and judgment how he can and will reach souls.
But in the meantime he is indeed willing and ready to receive all souls with prevenient grace.8 Therefore it is inexcusable, an atrocious sin, if one seeks to elude and avoid the Holy Spirit when he9 comes to the soul with divine power, or is frivolous, light-minded and neglectful of the Spirit’s drawing near. Then one can often miss a moment upon which great grace and salvation depended, a moment which one cannot bring back again for days or years, and which one seeks fruitlessly for a long time, until the Holy Spirit, who in the meantime returned to his place again (Hosea 5:15), returns in grace.10 Therefore, one must leave everything lie just as it is when such times and promptings of grace come, because all things (including the most important commercial dealings in the world) can be retrieved except this visitation itself. Indeed, if someone were in church and felt the Holy Spirit begin to preach in his heart, he should follow Dr. Luther’s counsel; let the preacher one can see preach on, and attend instead to the gracious movement, in the heart, of the preacher one cannot see.
It is good to notice this, in order that one not make a mess of, hinder, and stop the work of God, but rather make it firm and durable with prayer and supplication. It can even happen in a person’s heart this briefly, when one has no other opportunity, “Lord! Have mercy! Lord, be gracious to me, a sinner!” This carries just as much weight with God, as if one had spoken many words; since Moses himself spoke no words at all (Exodus 14:15), that is to say, he just cried out. But at the same time it must be nothing compulsory and feigned, but rather free and brought about by the grace of God, because otherwise one impedes both self and others. One must simply allow grace to have a free run in all its work, until faith has been joined with the Word (see Hebrews 4:2 as a foundation text). This does not come about because of deep understanding, great aptitude, courage and worthiness, or even from a journey of soaring genius beyond the divine boundary, but rather from the free mercy of God in the order of grace.
The cause of all grace is to be sought in the merits and sufficiency of Christ alone. He must become and remain the only source of our salvation, and must matter and have value for us; he must be effective for us, only in his bloody form on the cross. Because on the cross he himself was baptized with
