The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1898, Page 13

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PuBLIsHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LutnEeraN SynopicaL CoNFERENCE OF Nort AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

Entered at the Post Of_ice at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XX.

St. Louis, Mo., April, 1898.

No. 4.

“It Is Finished.”

Sinner, why that look of sadness?
Why thus weep, and sigh, and groan?
All thy unbelief is madness,
All thy griefs could not atone.
It is finished! Hallelujah!
Jesus saves, and He alone.

Why such doubting of salvation?
Why not take Him at His word?
There is now no condemnation
To the soul that trusts the Lord.
It is finished! Hallelujah !
Oh, what joy it doth afford!

See! for sin, what bitter anguish
. Jesus bore upon the tree;
See Him left by God to languish
In atoning agony!
It is finished! Hallelujah!
Jesus died from wrath to free!

He did free us! Hallelujah!
Easter tidings we now hear.
Christ is risen! Hallelujah!
Swectest song that greets our ear.
It is finished! Hallelujah !
Christ is risen! Cast out fear!

—2.-e<>e->

“He Did It.”

A sick woman was visited by a neighbor,
who came to comfort her. But she was a bad
comforter. Speaking of the good deeds done
by her friend, she said, ‘‘You may rest easy ;
for you have always done the best you could.
How often have we all wished that we were
as good as you!’’ :

The sick woman feebly shook her head,
and then pointing to a picture which hung on
the wall, and which represented the resurrec-
tion of Christ, she said, ‘‘He did it.”’

“Did what, dear?”’ asked her neighbor.

‘He redeemed me,’’ was the happy answer.

Happy woman! She trusted not in what
she did, but in what Christ did for her. Look-
ing away from her own self, she with the eye
of faith looked simply to the risen Saviour.
In His finished work alone she trusted, and
thus she found peace. Well could she point
to the rising Saviour with the words: ‘‘He
did it.” His resurrection is the proof that
He did the work which He came to do. He

did not merely try to do the work of redemp-
tion. No; He didit. For this work He was
sent into the world. ‘‘When the fulness of
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the. law, to redeem
them that were under the law,’’ Gal. 4,4. He
‘‘gave Himself for our sins’’ into sufferings
and death. He took our place under the law,
and as our substitute and representative He
lived, and suffered, and died, in order to set
us free from the curse of the law, from sin,
death, devil, and hell. When He was laid
into the grave, it seemed as if these our
enemies had won the victory; and if He
had remained in the tomb, they would have
triumphed. St. Paul says, ‘‘If Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your
sins.’’? But Christ is raised, and our faith is
not vain, and we who believe in Him are not
in our sins. ‘he Lord is risen! He is risen
indeed! He came forth from the grave as
the mighty conqueror, and since He is our
representative, His victory is our victory, His
triumph is our triumph. In Him we suffered
and died, in Him we are set free. Christ’s
resurrection is the crowning proof that God
accepted the price which our Saviour paid for
our redemption. ‘The work which He came
to do is done. He did it. The sinner is
simply to trust in that finished work of Jesus,
who ‘was delivered for our offenses, and was
raised again for our justification.” The mo-
ment he does this, he enjoys the benefits of
Christ’s resurrection and is saved. For Christ
is risen! And ‘‘there is therefore now no con-
demnation to them which are in Christ J esus,”’

Rom. 8, 1.

——-o<-e.

Do you Believe in the Risen Saviour?

This is an important question. St. Paul
says, ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised Him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved,’’ Rom. 10, 9. Mark well
the words: ‘‘in thine heart.”” Ah, there is so
much believing with the head. That is the
reason why so many are not filled with joy at
the glad Easter tidings. They do not deny
the fact of Christ’s resurrection. They take.

it to be true just as they take it to be true
that Columbus discovered America. But this
believing with the head only will not save a
man, will not fill his heart with joy. St. Paul
says, ‘‘If thou shalt believe in thine heart that
God raised Christ from the dead, thou shalt
be saved.”’ Asa poor, lost, and condemned
sinner you must with your heart trust in the
risen Saviour. In His resurrection you must
see the proof that your enemies were con-
quered, that your sins were left in the grave,
that you were set free and absolved from all
your sins. Thus the Easter tidings will fill
your heart with joy. Why should you not
rejoice? Being planted in Christ by the faith
of your heart, you need fear no curse of the
law, no wrath of God, no death, no devil, no
hell. Looking into the empty grave of your
risen Saviour, you can cry out triumphantly:
“Since Christ is free, now J am free

From all unrighteousness,

Since He is just, now J am just,

He is my righteousness.”

——s—- oP oo

Overcome by the Truth.

The learned and celebrated Lord Lyttleton
was an infidel, denying the divinity of Christ.
He not only despised Jesus, but he also tried
to persuade others that Christ must be re-
jected. Convinced that the truth of the Chris—
tian religion must stand as long as the story
of Christ’s resurrection is not thoroughly re-
futed, he undertook to refute the writings of
those that defended the fact which he denied.
But in the midst of his labors he was over-
come by the power of divine truth. He not
only desisted from his undertaking, but he
confessed publicly that he believed in Christ,
the Son of God, the crucified and risen Saviour.
He had been a persecuting Saul and now be-
came a zealous Paul, defending the truth of
the Gospel in his writings. In defence of the
Christian religion he wrote a long argument
based on the story of the conversion of
St. Paul, an argument of which so distin-
guished a literary man as Dr. Johnson has
declared that it is one ‘‘to which infidelity
has never been able to fabricate a specious
answer.”