Luther: "God kills to make alive"

In regard to this line of thought there is also a celebrated dictum of Gregory: “The ungodly do good to us by doing evil.”⁴⁵ And Augustine says of the infants slain by Herod that an enemy with his whole strength and all the resources of his kingdom could not have benefited the children more than by killing them.⁴⁶

Accordingly, God humbles those who are His to exalt them; He kills them to make them alive; He confounds them to glorify them; He makes them subject to raise them up. This is the art of arts and science of sciences which is not usually learned or discovered except with great toil and by a few; but it is nevertheless sure and certain, as this example testifies, for what is stated in Ps. 105:21 is true: “The Lord appointed Joseph king of Egypt and lord and savior of many.” How? By having him sold, cast off, killed. These are works of God which are not understood unless they are fulfilled and completed. In the meantime, however, while they are being carried out, they cannot be grasped except by faith alone. For it is necessary simply to hold fast to this: “I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, Maker of heaven and earth, etc.”

In the same manner, when I am about to depart from this life, I support myself with this consolation that I believe in God’s Son. And yet I am buried; I am eaten by worms; I am consumed by the most foul rottenness, as Job says (Job 17:14): “I said to the rottenness, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worms, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister.’ ” Here I do not discern God’s plan, that although I die and rot away, I must at some time be revived. But God has promised and said (cf. John 14:19): “You will live, for I live, and you will live. I am the Lord your God!” How? In eternal life and with a more beautiful and brighter body than the body of the sun. At present I do not see or feel this, but I believe it and suffer this very short delay. For this life has already been prepared, and in the meantime the crown of the kingdom and glory is being prepared “which the Lord will give me on that Day, the righteous Judge,” as Paul says (2 Tim. 4:8), “and not only to me, but also to those who love His coming.”

But all these things are done in a hidden manner, and so the wonderful concealment of God must be borne and endured. Jacob and Joseph do not see the crown of the kingdom, nor do the brothers adore him on bended knees, as will happen later in Egypt, but by this selling future events are being prepared, and before God they are regarded as past and over. With our God this is as if it had already taken place. It certainly comes to pass! LW 6