[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! From the darkness, perhaps from the intoxication of New Year's Eve, we have arrived in the uncertainty of the New Year. This new year stands before us like a great question mark: will it be our friend or our enemy? Will it make our old, beautiful dreams and plans come true, or will it burden our shoulders and our hearts with more worries, fears and anxieties? Some people are optimistic about the future. We should ask on what they base their great sangfroid. Some people are darkly optimistic. We should ask what they base their dark vision on. Both are guesswork, wishful thinking, groping in uncertainty. Is there then nothing certain to cling to, to orient oneself to, to provide a reliable, solid point of reference in this hesitant great uncertainty? They say: nothing is certain but death. It is true! Everything else is contingent, unstable, variable, uncertain. Only death is absolutely certain. But that is not a comforting certainty! It is precisely the fact that death is so certain that makes our lives so terribly uncertain!My brothers and sisters, here is the great consolation for us, the people of God, that we have a certainty beyond death that is even greater than death! In every dark uncertainty and in the still darker certainty of death there is a shining point, a firm support, a majestic certainty. That to which the apostle Paul clung in the terrible storms of his life: the eternal, unchanging love of the mighty God! That is why, even in the midst of his many sufferings and agonies, the apostle can still exult: "I am convinced that nothing in the world can separate us from the love of God which is in our Lord Jesus Christ." This love of God for His elect, for His Church, is indeed more than all and greater than all! In this love I can then be absolutely certain through my faith in Christ, and have no reason to doubt it for a moment. For this love of God, by what He did for Jesus Christ when He gave Him up for us to die, is also firmly and unshakably established. "He who did not please his own Son," says the apostle, "but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him also give us all things?
Of course, whoever does not count on the divine love revealed and proved in Christ, that is, not on the redeeming love of God, but only on the goodness of a so-called "Good God", a very misunderstood goodness: he places his trust on a very uncertain foundation, builds his faith on sand, which the first gale of wind destroys. God's love is an unshakable certainty only for those who receive it through the channel through which God communicates it: through the person of the crucified and risen, living Jesus Christ! And let us not misunderstand, lest anyone build his confidence on sand! That is all that this Word and this sermon are about: nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in our Lord Jesus Christ.
From this testimony we see, first of all, that Paul is not certain that he will love God in the midst of all his tribulations, that he will cling to His mighty hand with the arms of his faith and trust, but that he is convinced that God will always love him, equally, unchangingly. And that is the essential difference! Our lives would be most uncertain if our fate depended on our love for God! For even we sometimes turn away from Him gruffly, when we think in our short-sightedness that He has wronged us. Indeed, we rebel against Him, we sulk against Him. We would be the most oppressed if it were left to us to cling to God's hand. It would be as if an iron rod were encouraged to grip the magnet with great force. I would never dare to say that I will love the Lord God with equal fervour in all circumstances. For there is nothing more variable than human souls and human feelings. My certainty, therefore, is not in myself, but in the Lord God, who has proved once and for all His eternal love for me by becoming man in Christ, taking my fate, taking my sins upon Himself, suffering my punishment, and redeeming me from death. This love for me never changes, never grows cold and never fades. It is a very happy thing to be able to say that you love God, but it is an even greater and happier thing to be loved by Him!
And now, on the threshold of this new year, let me proclaim to every redeemed soul in Christ this greatest and happiest assurance, that He loves us! Every day of the year that is about to begin, remember, my brother, that God, the most mighty Lord of the universe, loves you infinitely, unchangeably, and unceasingly!
When Paul testifies that nothing in the world can separate us from God's love, he also lets us know that this great love of God does not exclude us from difficulties and inconveniences in our lives. God does not want to encourage us with false serenity. He promises no one an untroubled, flowery life. On the contrary, the Word speaks directly of affliction, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness - that is, privations - as well as of peril and weapons (cf. v. 35). But in all these things we are exceedingly triumphant, through Him who loved us" (verses 36-37) What is important here is that we are triumphant in all these things. So it is not that God's love saves His beloved from all these difficulties, but that in all these difficulties God's grace preserves them and leads His beloved to triumph.
Jesus says of His believing church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. So he is saying that the dreadful gates of hell do open upon the church. The church of Christ will be buffeted and broken by terrible earthly and demonic forces. All satanic powers here on earth will ultimately break and crumble upon the church of Christ, the true church. And the true church of Christ will not be harmed by suffering and affliction: the heavier its cross, the more it will grow and grow. To give just one example: in Germany, the churches which were most spiritually strengthened before 1944 were those which, because of their steadfast faithfulness, were subjected to the most distress and persecution. Word for word, "in all these things we shall triumph exceedingly" (v. 37), was fulfilled The Church of Christ, if it is truly Christ's, has no reason to fear even the gates of hell, for in all tribulation it remains the victor, and that because nothing and no one is able to loosen or tear it from its communion with God.
For us, as individuals, there may come in the New Year many troubles and sufferings, but none of them can make the love of God uncertain for us. Paul says: "Neither death nor life": we too may encounter death on the bumpy roads of the year ahead. We may be visited by this unwelcome guest, or we may experience the many joys and joys of a life in the making - but none of these can separate us from God's love!
"Neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers": we can and will meet Satan, the evil ruler of the world, tempting, tempting, even overthrowing, coming to us in the form of earthly power, a world order that denies God, never having the power to tear us from the heart of God.
"Neither hereafter nor hereafter".
"Neither high nor low": our lives may rise to high peaks on the chariot of fortune and riches, or, on the contrary, we may fall into great dark depths, but in both the heights and the depths God's love remains close to us.
"No other creature can separate us from the love of God," the apostle concludes. And would he not have been right? Could it have been conceivable that when the apostle was stoned, scourged, imprisoned or executed, he would have been less loved by God? Would this sad fate be evidence that God's love for the apostle had diminished? No, my brethren! Such and such a change in our fate does not mean that God loves us less!
"We triumph through Him who loved us", says the Word. Where God's love is, all things are predestined to happen. There is predestination, there is power and deliverance, for there can never be greater need and tribulation than there is in God! It may happen that my strength leaves me, my friends desert me, my money runs out, I am orphaned, I have no one and nothing left, but as long as God remains with me, I can endure anything! It's easier to lose everything and keep only the Lord God than to add to everything and do without God!
This Word, my brothers and sisters, is a life insurance! Yes: life insurance! One that costs nothing, because God has paid it for us with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. A life insurance that you yourself will receive after your death, not those who belong to you. A life insurance policy that never loses its value. That cannot be stolen, that cannot be destroyed by inflation, that cannot be destroyed by any earthquake or upheaval, that can never go bankrupt. It is a guarantee of eternal life, through the love of God! Accept it or renew it this New Year's morning, by letting into your heart the only certainty: the love of God in the dead and risen Christ!
Amen
Date: 1 January 1948 New Year's Day.