The year was 1665, and the religious climate in the German province of Brandenburg was anything but calm. The Elector, Friedrich Wilhlem, was tired of the constant arguments between Lutheran and Reformed pastors in his territory. Being a member of the Reformed-group, Friedrich saw the Lutheran pastors who refused to compromise on the doctrines of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as stubborn and obstinate. He ordered them to keep silence in regards to their doctrinal differences or lose their pulpits. They were allowed to continue preaching, just not concerning the doctrines that were in question. For his refusal to compromise, Paul Gerhardt was forced to resign his pastorate. Nine years earlier He had written the following words:

“Not hunger, thirst, nor danger,

Not pain, nor pinching want,

Nor mighty princes’ anger,

My fearless soul shall daunt.”

ELH 517

The suffering which Gerhardt faced at the hands of Friedrich Wilhlem, which he referred to as “a small Berlin sort of Martyrdom”, truly was small in comparison to other hardships he had already endured. His early years were spent enduring the Thirty Years’ War and the Plague, disasters which left Germany without twenty to thirty per cent of its previous population. Although he was a bright theologian and a talented poet, due to the tragic times in which he lived, he was not able to secure a preaching position until he was well into his forties. He was married at the age of forty-seven and they were blessed with five children; but four of the children died in infancy or childhood and his wife died after only thirteen years of marriage. It is no wonder he is referred to as “a theologian sifted in Satan’s sieve.”

Inspired by St. Paul’s words “If God Himself be for us, who can be against us,” Gerhardt bore his cross through war and pestilence, familial tragedy and tyrannical oppression. In 1666, though he was the most popular preacher in Berlin, he was stripped of his pulpit and forbidden even to preach privately in his home. In response he humbly proclaimed, “I am willing and ready to seal the truth of the gospel with my blood, and as a true Paul with St. Paul I will offer my neck to the sword.” Gerhardt humbly offered his head, for he knew that for the Christian death was an entrance into life. He knew there was another Man of sorrows who was familiar with suffering, One far greater than he, who had taken up his infirmities and carried his sorrows for him. He knew that Christ’s atonement provided for his safe passage out of death and into life, a truth he confessed beautifully in the following words from the fifth and sixth verses of his hymn If God Himself Be for Me:

He cancelled my offenses,

And saved my soul from death;

‘Tis He who ever cleanses

Me from my sins through faith.

In Him I can be cheerful,

Bold, and undaunted aye.

In Him I am not fearful

Of God’s great Judgment Day.

Naught, naught can e’er condemn me,

Nor set my hope aside;

Now hell no more can claim me,

Its fury I deride.

No sentence e’re reproves me,

No ill destroys my peace,

For Christ, my Savior, loves me

And shields me with His grace.

In his life and work Gerhardt demonstrated the qualities of Christian piety, humility and deep devotion to the Word of God. In 1653 he paraphrased Psalm 1 in his hymn Blessed is the Man, when he wrote,

Blessed is the man that never

Doth in godless counsel meet;

Nor in sinners’ way stands ever,

Nor sits in the scorners seat,

But on God’s all perfect law

Meditates with holy awe;

Day and night he delves for treasure

In the Word--‘tis all his pleasure.

ELH 457

Gerhardt is not a man who many would call blessed, but he truly was a blessed man. God blessed him with faith in baptism. He blessed him as he used the hardships in his life to make him ever more dependent on Christ alone for peace. This fact was one that Gerhardt kept before his eyes throughout his life. You can hear it ringing out in the final verse of If God Himself Be for Me:

My merry heart is springing,

And knows not how to pine;

‘Tis full of joy and singing,

And radiancy divine.

The Sun whose smiles so cheer me

Is Jesus Christ alone;

To have Him always near me

Is heav’n itself begun.

ELH 517

In this, the 400^th anniversary of Paul Gerhardt’s birth, we thank God for his life and work. His is a life we would all be privileged to emulate.

Christopher Dale is pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hawley, Minnesota and Calvary Lutheran Church in Ulen, Minnesota.