The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1883, Page 5

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PuBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LurnerRAN SynopicaL CoNFERENCE oF Norto AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., 25 second-class matter.

Vol. Y.

St. Louis, Mo.,: February, 1883.

No. 2.

(For the ‘*Lutheran Pioncer.’?)

St. Luke 2, 25—32.

ation’ O dearest Jesus, Thee I pray:
Within my heart do make Thy stay,
That I, like Simeon of old,

Thee, Lord, may joyfully infold.

Thou art my life and happiness,

With whom our God mankind did bless;

O cleanse and purify my heart,

That from Thy paths I ne’er depart.

Lord, with Thy light show me the way,

That never I may go astray;

Ward off all sorrow and despair,

And let me be Thine own fore’er.

+ Lift up Thy face upon me, Lord,

In life and death Thine help afford;

Then I will leave most cheerfully

This world, whene’er it pleaseth Thee.
(Bartholomew Hilder, +1635. Tr. by A. Crull, 1883.)

-——~> + o<m>e-

Under the Law.

WE ARE UNDER THE Law.

We are under the demands of the Law. God’s
law is His holy, eternal, and unchangeable will
which he planted in the heart of man, and
which He declared from Mount Sinai amid
thundering and lightening. All men are under
the demands of this law, the sum of which is
given in these words of Christ: ‘‘Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ‘Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’’ The law

demands of every man that he, with a perfectly |

pure and undefiled heart, love God above all
things and his neighbor as himself.

We are under the curse of the Law. The law
of God has its penalty. ‘‘ The soul that sin-
neth, it shall die,’’ (Ezek. 18, £). It curses
every one that breaks its commandments.
‘¢ Cursed is every one that continueth not in all
things which are written in the book of the law
to do them,”’ (Gal. 3, 10). All men are by
nature under this terrible curse of the law.
‘‘Wor all have sinned, and come short of the
glory of God,’’ (Rom. 3, 28). ‘“There is none
righteous, no, not one,” (Rom. 3,10). Every
commandment of the law pertains, not only to
the outward conduct,: but to the heart of man.
Take for example the fifth commandment. It

says, “Thou shalt not kill.’ Now, from the
Scriptures we learn that we may break this
commandment without taking human life; for
“‘whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,”
(i John 3, 15). If, then, you have ever hated
your fellow-man, although you may not have
expressed the bitter feeling, it is clear that in
the sight of God you are a murderer. And so
it is with the other commandments. The rotten,
corrupt nature of man is not obedient to them ;
neither can it be. Every commandment, there-
fore, cries out: Guilty! Guilty! And man’s
own conscience re-echoes the cry: Guilty!
Guilty! And the law of God thunders forth
its curse and condemns man to eternal damna-
tion.
Is there no help? Yes, thanks be to God!

CHRIST WAS MADE UNDER THE Law.

Christ was made under the demands of the Law.
“God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that
were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons,’ (Gal. 4, 4.5). The de-
mands of the law must be fulfilled, and since
we could not do this, the Son of God took our
place. He, in His great love to sinners, be-
came man and was made under the law, in
order to fulfil all its demands in our stead. In
the book of Psalms He, the promised Messiah,
says, ‘‘Lo, I come: in the volume of the book
it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O
my God; yea thy law is within my heart,”
(Psa. 40, 7. 8). And when He had come He
said, ‘Think not that I am come to destroy
the law, or the prophets: I am not come to de-
stroy, but to fulfil,’? (Matth. 5,17). In the
second chapter of St. Luke we read that Christ
went with His parents to Nazareth and was
‘“subject unto them.” He thus fulfilled the
fourth commandment. And so it is with all
the commandments. Christ was free from sin
in His nature and was not subject to the law
of God, but He took our place under the law
and fulfilled its demands perfectly for all sinners.

Christ was made under the curse of the Law.
Not only the demands of the law must be ful-
filled, but its curse must be borne if sinners are
to be saved. Christ therefore took that curse
upon Himself and, in the stead of-all sinners,

bore it in His sufferings and in His death.
‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the
law, being made a curse for us,’ (Gal. 3, 13).
“He was wounded for our transgressions, he
was bruised for our iniquities,” (Isa. 53). Thus
He, the Lamb of God, took away the curse
and perfectly satisfied the eternal justice of
God.

And now remember, dear reader, that Christ’s

perfect obedience to the demands of the law
and the redemption from the curse of the law
are freely offered to every sinner in the Gospel.
Blessed are they who accept it with true faith.
There is ‘‘no condemnation to them which are

in Christ Jesus,’ (Rom. 8,1). ‘Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to every one
that believeth,’’ (Rom. 10, 4).

OE © a

“Jesus!”

A Christian Hindoo was dying, and his
heathen comrades came around him and tried
to comfort him by reading some of the pages
of their theology; but he waved his hand, as
much as to say, ‘‘I don’t want to hear it.’”
Then they called in a heathen priest, and he
said, ‘“‘If you will only recite the Numtra it
will deliver you from hell.”” He waved his ~
hand, as much as to say, ‘‘I don’t want to hear
that.”? Then they said, ‘‘ Call on Juggernaut.’”
He shook his head, as much as to say, ‘“‘I can’t
do that.’? Then they thought perhaps he was
too weary to speak, and they said, ‘‘Now, if
you can’t say ‘Juggernaut,’ think of that god.’’
He shook his head again, as much as to say,
“No, no.”? Then they bent down to his pil-
low, and they said, ‘‘In what will you trust?”
His face lighted up with the very glories of the
celestial sphere as he cried out, rallying all his
dying energies, “‘Jesus!”

——= oboe a

Wun I say, one “ought not to bear malice,’
and then do all manner of evils to mine ad-
versary, how shall I be able by words to win’
him, while by my deeds I am frightening him’
away? Let us catch them then by our mode’
of life; and by their souls let us build up the
Church, and of these let us amass our wealth.
There is nothing to weigh against a soul, not
even the whole world.—Chrysostom.