Johann Gerhard - "Consider, O faithful soul, His immeasurable love towards thee!" (Born on this day in 1582)

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Regi Addictissimus

Completely sold out to the King
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Johann Gerhard was born on this day, 10/17, in 1582. Gerhard is considered to be the Lutheran theologian by many. He was a scholastic theologian and devotional writer during the period of Orthodoxy. He was a professor of theology at the University of Jena for 21 years. He died in 1637. He wrote a 23-volume Lutheran dogmatics as well as some of the most beloved devotional material from that tradition.

Here is a snippet from his meditation on the soul's spiritual marriage with Christ:

Consider, O faithful soul, His immeasurable love towards thee! A love that brought Him from heaven to earth; a love that bound Him to the post to be scourged; a love that nailed Him to the cross; a love that enclosed Him in the sepulchre; a love that dragged Him down to hell! What led Him to suffer all this, but a tender love for His spouse? And our hearts must be harder than stone and lead if such mighty love as this does not draw them upwards to God, from whom it first drew God Himself down to men. The bride was naked and bare (Ez. 16:22); nor could she thus appear in the royal palace of the heavenly King; but He clothed her with the garments of salvation, and covered her with the robe of righteousness (Is. 61:10). When she lay wrapped in the filthy garments of her sins and in the shameful rags of her iniquities, He gave fine linen, clean and white, in which she might clothe herself; for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints (Rev. 19:8). This garment is the righteousness of her Spouse, procured by His death and passion.

Gerhard, Johann. Gerhard’s Sacred Meditations. Trans. C. W. Heisler. Philadelphia, PA: Lutheran Publication Society, 1896. Print.
 
Thanks for this post, Robert. I was meditating a lot the other day on how the love of God in Christ Jesus is magnified by considering that its objects are totally depraved sinners. This extract ties in nicely with that theme.
 
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