LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 101

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102 DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS

evil tree can grow” (WA 40 II, 380). Put in concrete
terms, we are not sinners because we pulled little girls’
hair, but we pulled little girls’ hair because we are
sinners. Take another example. Most of us shaved this
morning. And most of us will shave again tomorrow
morning. In his “‘Tischreden” Luther says that “origi-
nal sin in a man is like his beard,” shaved off today yet
grown again by tomorrow. And it is only, so Luther goes
on, “when the shovel beats the ground on his grave,”
that the beard quits growing. In the meantime, we can
only resist it and must “always cut offits hair” (WA—T
1, No. 138).

We feel this burden. We confess it to God and to one
another. We feel bad about it. However, no matter how
contrite we may be, no matter how vigorously we “shave
the beard,” we do not fathom the evil, our evil before
Him whose eyes are “as a flame of fire, and his feet like
unto fine brass ... and his voice as the sound of many
waters” (Rev. 1:14; 15). Luther says, “By special benefit
of divine goodness no one fully and perfectly under-
stands and feels what sin and the power of the Law
really are. If conscience truly touched and tormented a
man, if he truly felt the gravity and the enormity of sin,
he could not live long if indeed he did not suddenly die”
(WA 40 III, 629).

What folly then to seek comfort in ourselves, our
works, whether that bein the daily routine of our calling
back home or in passing the most stirring resolution
that would, under God, give wings to the Gospel and
send it to the uttermost part of the earth. And no wonder
that Melanchthon reminds us so frequently in the Apol-
ogy to the Augsburg Confession that we cannot set our
works “against the wrath and judgment of God.” He is
simply repeating the message of the Spirit in Romans 3:
“By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified
in His sight” (v. 20). And the Law speaks so that “every
mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). It is “not of works,” as
Luther drives home so strongly in his lectures on
Galatians when he says: “Our sins are so great, infinite,
and invincible that it is impossible for the whole world
to render satisfaction for one of them” (WA 40], 84). Let
this suffice for now about “sinners.”

Il

It is time to hear how sinners become saints! Luther
asks, “What, now, is the treasure wherewith we are
ransomed? Not corruptible gold or silver but the pre-
cious blood of Christ, the Son of God. This treasure is so
costly and noble that no human sense or reason can
grasp it, insomuch that only one drop of this innocent
blood would have been more than enough for the sin of
all the world. Nevertheless, the Father wanted to lavish
His grace upon us so richly and has let our redemption
cost Him so much that He permitted Christ, His Son, to
shed all His blood for us and has thus bestowed on us the
entire treasure” (WA 12, 291). Here our father in Christ
capsules all those beautiful passages from Paul’s Letter
to the Galatians that speak of the Savior’s work in
carrying our sins to His cross and earning our heaven.

Dr. Reuben Swanson and Dr. James Crumley

He “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us;
from this present evil world” (1:4). “Christ hath -re-
deemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse,
for us” (3:13). He “loved me and gave Himself for me’,
(2:20). “God forbid that I should glory, save in the crogs:
of our Lord Jesus Christ.” No wonder that Luther, in
expounding this letter says, “The Christ whois given.to!
us has not done something meager for us and has nob;
been playing” (LW 26, p. 234). And already in his earlier,
1519 lectures on the same book he said, “May therey
perish and be accursed every doctrine from heaveny
from the earth, or whencesoever brought, which teach
man to place his confidence in works, in righteousness}
in merits other than those which belong to Jes
Christ” (WA 2, 462).
What is the result? Because Christ has paid the pri
God now covers us with the mantle of Christ’s righ
teousness. He declares us just, holy, pure, righteo
“without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Ep
5:27). We call this justification, that is, God, out of pu
mercy, for the sake of the merits of Christ, declares
just by faith. Luther says it this way: “The doctrine
justification is this, that we are pronounced righteous
and are saved solely by faith in Christ, and withoué
works” (LW 26, 223). And who can speak of this most
glorious article of faith without quoting the fo
article of the Augsburg Confession: “It is also taug:
among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sina
righteousness before God by our own merits, works,
satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin
become righteous before God by grace, for Christ’ss
through faith, when we believe that Christ suffere
us and that for His sake our sin is forgive
righteousness and eternal life are given to us. For
will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness.
Through faith, we say. The merits of Christ
grasped by faith. “Abraham believed God,” s
says in Galatians 3, “and it was accounted to hin
righteousness.” When Luther lectured on this vers
pointed out, “On account of this faith in Chris
does not see the sin that still remains in me. For 80.
as I goon living in the flesh, there is certainly sinin#
But meanwhile, Christ protects me under the shade
His wings and spreads over me the wide heaven 0: