Jesus: Our Redeemer

If God Himself Be for Me (LSB 724, st. 1)

If God Himself be for me,
   I may a host defy;
For when I pray, before me
   My foes, confounded, fly.
If Christ, my head and master,
   Befriend me from above,
What foe or what disaster
   Can drive me from His love?

In this first stanza, Paul Gerhardt echos Paul in Romans 8:31 "What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?" Similar questions appear again and again throughout Scripture:

• In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.  What can flesh do to me?  (Ps. 56:4)
• The LORD is on my side; I will not fear.  What can man do to me?  (Ps. 118:6)
• He who vindicates me is near.  Who will contend with me?  Let us stand up together.  Who is my adversary?  Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty? (Is. 50:8–9)

Why can we be confident against those who would seek our destruction? Because God has redeemed us through Christ Jesus.  Our foes flee not because of anything we have done.  No, they flee because the One we pray to has defeated sin, death, and the devil, and He then befriends us because, as Luther says in his explanation of the third article of the Apostles' Creed, "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him."  Christ has done it all. We are firmly in His hand and no one can drive us from Him.

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Sources:

Lutheran Service Book (CPH, 2006)

The Lutheran Study Bible (CPH, 2009)