This is for "Me", "Us"

Here’s the passage I get to teach this coming Sunday and a story from the trip I took this summer:

Romans 8:31-39

³¹  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
³²  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
³³  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
³⁴  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
³⁵  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
³⁶  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
³⁷  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
³⁸  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
³⁹  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Two great men stood side by side in the early Reformation movement. One was, of course, Martin Luther, the activist. The other was Philipp Melanchthon, the scholar. 

Luther once said of their relationship:

“I am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike, fighting against innumerable monsters and devils. I am born for the removing of stumps and stones, cutting away thistles and thorns, and clearing the wild forests; but master Philip comes along softly and gently, sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has abundantly bestowed upon him.”

What Luther said of Melanchthon was so true.  Melanchthon's friend Camerarius wrote of him that as a boy he was gentle, winsome, unassuming, and scholarly, with an abiding look of innocence.

Melanchthon liked people, and people liked him. He was born in a tiny village named Bretten, on the Rhine river. His birth name was Philip Schwartzerdt.  By all accounts as he grew people recognized his scholary brilliance. In the year 1516, when Melanchthon was only nineteen years old, the great European humanist, Erasmus wrote of him, "What purity and elegance of style! What rare learning! What comprehensive reading! What tenderness and refinement in his extraordinary genius!"

Melanchthon's family name of Schwartzert but it was changed to its Greek equivalent "Melanchthon” because of his mastery of the Greek and Roman classics that helped spark a new enthusiasm for those languages.

The great church historian Philip Schaff gives Melanchthon more credit than anyone, even Erasmus, for reviving the study of Greek literature. And the study of Greek opened the way for the triumph of the Reformation. (Melanchthon often said that the ancient languages were the swaddling clothes of the Christ Child.)

Melanchthon was also a gifted preacher. At the age of twenty-one he became a professor at the University of Wittenberg, where Luther taught. Melanchthon's specialty was preaching in Latin to the students who did not know German, and his Sunday sermons drew crowds of 1,500 to 2,000.

Luther and Melanchthon made a great pair. Luther knew that Melanchthon was all gold, and he never attempted to disguise his appreciation. Nor could Luther ever forget the day when his friend showed him that the word which had always been translated "penance" really meant "repentance," a change of heart. Melanchthon likewise loved Luther. Luther was his hero. He wrote simply, "If there is anyone whom I dearly love, and whom I embrace with my whole heart, it is Martin Luther." They were a perfect match. 

J. W. Richard wrote about Melanchthon:

In matters of intellect he had a quick perception, an acute penetration, a retentive memory, an ardent thirst for knowledge, and the ability to express his thoughts with accuracy and precision.

They stood together to the end. When Luther died, Melanchthon gave the funeral oration over his grave. And when Melanchthon died a few years later, his body was lowered into the same grave, where they now sleep side by side in the Castle Church of Wittenberg.

Where did Melanchthon get his strength? What made this gentle, retiring man stand with Luther against the world? The heart of his strength was in his God-secured belief:  "If God is for us, who can be against us?". In his lectures and correspondence that verse is quoted more than any other Scripture. It still hangs on his study wall in Wittenberg where visitors can see it.

As the record has it, when Melanchthon sensed he was dying he asked to be placed on the traveling bed in his study because that is where he was happiest. When the pastor read Romans 8:31, Melanchthon exclaimed, "Read those words again!" The pastor read, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Melanchthon murmured in a kind of ecstasy, "That's it! That's it!" This text had always been the greatest comfort to him. In the darkest hours of his life when death was near, he comforted himself again by reciting, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"

That is for us also our security…our hope…God’s promise to us. 

Stop, realize this…even as “Immanuel” means “God with us”…the US, is ME, YOU… God is with me…God is with you.

It is not an impersonal or vague generalization that we see, but a reality of life that is intimate, loved, secure and eternal. 

God is for me… God is for you…  We are secure in this grand eternal love.