38. And your patience and longsuffering, Paul says, must be exercised
"with joy." In these severe, multiplied and long temptations you must
not allow yourselves to be filled with sad and depressing thoughts.
You are to be hopeful and joyous, despising the devil and the
troubles and tumults of the world and himself. Rejoice because you
have on your side the knowledge of the divine will in Christ, and his
power and glorious might, and doubt not that his omnipotence will
help you through.
39. Finally the apostle enjoins us to give thanks, or to be thankful.
Forget not, he would say, the unspeakable benefits and gifts God has
bestowed upon you above all men on earth. He has richly blessed you,
and liberated you from the power and might of sin, death, hell and
the devil, wherein you would, for all you could help yourselves, have
had to remain eternally captive; he has appointed you for eternal
glory, making you co-heirs with the saints elected for his eternal
kingdom; and he has made you partakers of all eternal, divine,
heavenly blessings. In your sufferings and conflicts, remember these
glories ordained for and given to you, and remembering rejoice the
more and willingly fight and suffer to obtain possession, to enjoy
the fruition, of what is certainly appropriated to you in the Word
and in faith.
40. The writer of the epistle calls it "the inheritance of the saints
in light," or of the "light" saints, that is, the true saints. Thus
he distinguishes from false saints, intimating that there are two
classes of saints. To one class belong the many in the world who have
only their own claim to sainthood: the Jews, for instance, with their
holiness of the Law; and the world generally, the philosophers,
jurists and their kind, with their self-righteousness. These are not
saints of light; they are saints of darkness, unclean, even defiled.
In Philippians 3, 8 Paul counts such righteousness loss and refuse.
To this class belong also many false, hypocritical saints in the
company of Christians who have the Gospel; they, too, hear the Gospel
and attend upon the Holy Supper, but they remain in darkness, without
the least experience of the wisdom and understanding that knows the
divine will. But they who exercise themselves in these spiritual
graces by faith, love and patience in temptation, and perceive the
wonderful grace and blessing God imparts through the Gospel--these
honorably may be called the saints, destined, even appointed, to
eternal light and joy in God's kingdom.
"Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us
into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our
redemption, the forgiveness of our sins."
41. Paul now expatiates on the things that call for our gratitude to
God the Father. He sums up the whole teaching of the Gospel, showing
us what is ours in Christ and giving a glorious and comforting
description of his person and the blessing he brings. But first, he
says, we ought, above all, to thank God unceasingly for the knowledge
of his revealed Gospel. In it we have no small treasure. Rather, it
is a possession with which all the gold, silver and other riches of
this world, all the earthly joy and comfort of this life, are not to
be compared. For it means redemption from eternal, irreparable loss
and ruin under God's eternal, unbearable wrath and condemnation. And
this wretchedness was the result of our sin. We were committed to sin
and without help, without deliverance, ay, we were captive in such
blindness and darkness that we did not recognize our misery; much
less could we devise and effect our escape. Now, in place of this
misery, we have, without any merit on our part, any preparation, any
deed or design, ay, without even a thought, assuredly received,
through God's unfathomable grace and mercy, redemption, or the
forgiveness of sins.