The hidden life of the Christian is a reality but it is not perceived. …Sin and righteousness in the Christian are in the same relationship as reality and hope. His righteousness consists in God's imputation.(P.115)
Christ's suffering is still repeated daily in our lives…Therefore our sufferings are a work of the Holy Spirit.(P.118)
Through suffering we shall arrive at the Sabbath of the soul…suffering and Faith belong together is a characteristic of the theology of the cross…Sufferings are a sign of God's grace, proof that we are God's chil¬dren. For God's eyes are always directed toward the depth and nothing lofty can stand before him. But when a man is hidden in this depth he experiences God's wonderful, saving creative power…Of course, the suffering of the saints will come to an end only at the last day .But in contrast to the suffering of the ungodly, its purpose is not punishment and destruction but grace and cleansing.(P.119).
Christ's cross and the Christian's cross belong together…the cross is a school of understanding.(P.120)
Luther knew that the true meaning of Christ's suffering can be discovered only in the act of experiencing, acting, and suffering.(P.121)
The way of peace is the way of the cross. God himself is hidden under the cross, and therefore peace is to be found only under the cross and suffering.(P.124)
God himself reveals himself in concealment; and therefore Scripture, too, speaks in the cloak of a figure. The Word addresses itself to faith; and faith is directed to what is hidden.(P.128)
Three especially important marks of the life under the cross. They are humility, trial, prayer…For Luther humility becomes most intimately connected with faith. Faith teaches humility. For faith is denial of ourselves, total rejection of self and reliance on God’s grace.(P.129)
Luther notes that the Latin word humuitas has a twofold meaning, depending upon whether it is the translation of tapeinosis or tapeinophrosyne.(P.130)
The most severe trial comes upon a person when he believes he has been forsaken and rejected by God…. Faith alone is able, in trial, to hear "the deep, secret yea beneath and above the nay"(P.136)
We are in trials when that Word has been torn out of our heart. The trial is overcome when Christ again speaks to us, when we again hear the Word.(P.137)
"The flesh is beset by sundry trials and scruples, in order that (a) its smugness may be removed and (b) occasion may not be lacking for occupying oneself with the Word and (c) prayer.(P.138)
Trial teaches prayer, prayer overcomes trial…where there is no prayer, there is in reality no faith.(P.139)
prayer leads a person to know himself…True prayer is always a prayer with empty hands. The true praying man has nothing but God, and him only by faith…We must not look at our unworthiness but at Gods command and promise. For it is Gods word and promise alone that makes our prayer good and acceptable to God.(P.140)
"It is always the case that we understand our own work before it is done, but we do not understand the work of God until it has been done".…God often postpones granting our request in order to increase the zeal of our prayer. To the praying person God becomes hidden, so that faith in prayer penetrates from the hidden God to the re¬vealed God.(P.141)
the God of the theology of the cross is the God of historical revelation, he is always an acting God.(P.156)
Jesus himself is the model of humility. We must go the way of Jesus, for Jesus is the way of life. This way leads to cross and suffering... The cross is not seen, in the first instance, as God's way to man but as man’s way to God. (P.164)
In our investigation we have dealt with the fact of the theology of the cross, not with the question of its validity. If we wanted to pursue the latter, our study would be enlarged in two directions. First, we would have to undertake a thorough investigation of the New Testament(for example, also with regard to the relation¬ship of Paul to Jesus), and second, we would have to undertake a comprehensive systematic consideration that would mean nothing less than the setting up of dogmatic prolegomena. (P.167)
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