Sublime Faith: Believing Without Seeing

Faith should close its eyes and should not judge or decide according to what it feels or sees. For the man who believes in Christ is not to be sensible or aware of the life which he has in Him until Christ raises him from the dead. Meanwhile it should lie hidden and covered in death. God wants to cover it and put it out of sight. Yet I should know as long as I live or when I die that I have forgiveness of sins; and when I feel the greatest sins, I should be able to say: "Nevertheless I have forgiveness of sins."

When I feel my sins most painfully, when they bite, hound, and frighten me most severely, I look at Christ, believe weakly in Him, hold to Him, and say: "I am certain that Thou has said: 'He who believes on Me shall have eternal life.' Therefore, although my conscience burdens me , and sin frightens me, and my heart makes me tremble, yet the words are sure: 'Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee' (Mt. 9:2); and: 'You shall have eternal life, and I sahll raise you on the Last Day.'"

Meanwhile do not judge according to your feeling. For externally you will feel death and sin, and your heart will give you an evil conscience. Your evil life will rebuke you, the Law will frighten you, the world will persecute you, and the devil will suggest evil thoughts and temptations to you. But be not frightened, have patience. These are only external masks which serve to exercise and teach faith that it may learn that it has eternal life and where it has this life.

And though I were to die and a bear were to devour my head, and a fish my body, or a wolf were to devour by hand, Or I were torn into a thousand pieces, nevertheless I know that I shall have eternal life. Here you see what faith really is. To be sure, one imagines that believing is an easy art; but there is something sublime and grand about it.

Source: Quoted in Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says, A Practical In-home Theology for the Active Christian. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 1959 Edition, 10th Printing (1994), p.