The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1904, Page 42

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42

The Lutheran Pioneer.

Christ Has Redeemed Us from Death.

When God forbade Adam to eat of the tree of
knowledge, He added, ‘‘In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.’? And after the fall
God confirmed this threat, saying to Adam, ‘“‘In
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou
taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return.’? According to these words of the Lord
death is the wages of sin. The union of body and
soul shall come.to an end, and the body will return
unto the ground whence it was taken. Had man
not sinned, death would not have come into the
world, the unnatural separation of body and soul
would never have taken place.

But what makes the separation of body and soul
so awful is this that it is followed by eternal separa-
tion from God. Temporal death is followed by eter-
nal death. The consequences of sin are death and
damnation. Life for the natural man is but a look-
ing forward to that hour when through the gates of
- temporal death he must pass into eternal death.

They that are in the chains of sin are through the
fear of death all their lifetime subject to bondage,
knowing as they do that temporal death will be fol-
lowed by what is infinitely more terrible, namely,
eternal death in the flames of hell.

From this curse of sin, temporal and eternal
-death, Christ has redeemed us. Hebr. 2, 14. 15 we
read: ‘‘Forasmuch then as children are partakers
of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took
part of the same; that through death He might
destroy him that had the power of death, that is,
the devil; and deliver them who through fear of
death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
To save us from death, Christ was born a true man
of the Virgin Mary. He became like unto us in all
things, only He was without sin. Full of hatred
Satan goaded on the Jews; till, finally, they cruci-
fied Christ. Great was the rejoicing in hell. But
this joy was of short duration, for by His death
Christ had destroyed death and him that had the
power of death, that is, the devil.

Death did, iadeade swallow up Christ, but Christ
was for death a fatal poison. Inkilling C Christ death
lost its power over us.

He that believes in Christ is the. victor’ over
death. Though the believer’s body must see cor-
; ruption, though he must often experience great

“agony in death, yet all these outward terrors of
death are really no longer death, but only the
"shadow of death. Real death is eternal separation

from God, pnd temporal death, instead of separat-

ing the believer from God, is rather the welcome
messenger taking him into God’s presence. Tem-
poral death is but the passing through a dark val-
ley which opens into a land of sunlight and glory
beyond; it is the passing through Jordan into the
Land of Promise.

“Christ hath abolished death, and brought life
and immortality to light,’? 2Tim.1, 10. He hay-
ing gained for us forgiveness of sin, we have life
and salvation in Him.

Death may, indeed, cause us to tremble, because
of our weak faith, but its power is gone, it cannot
harm us, and at the very point where it seems to
have overcome us it has, on the contrary, delivered
us from every evil and taken us into life eternal.

As yet this our redemption from death may not
be apparent; the cold, dark, and dreary grave awaits
us, as it does the unbeliever, and corruption lays
its ruthless hands upon us, as it does upon the un-
converted sinner; but on the glorious day of the
resurrection our bodies also will take part in the
glorious victory Christ has gained for us. Then
will our bodies not only rise from the dead, but
they will shine like the sun, and we will be with
the Lord forever.

Jesus Christ, God’s only Son,

To our low state descended,

The cause of Death He has undone,
His power forever ended,

Ruined all his right and claim,

And left him nothing but the name, —
His sting is lost forever. Hallelujah.

F.J.L.

en

- Sincerity Not Enough. -

The ‘popular saying is: ‘‘It makes no differ-~
ence what a man believes, just so he is sincere.’’
What a great folly that is, yea, what a hurtful lie!
A man’s sincerity will not save him from the evil
consequences of believing a falsehood. The man
who in the darkness took, by mistake, poison in-
stead of medicine, sincerely believed that he was
taking medicine; but his sincerity did not save him.

If a man is wrong, his sincerity will not make
him right. A few years ago an engineer of the Con-
tinental Limited train took his dispatch from the
station agent and read it: ‘“‘Pass at Sand Creek,”’
but it was written: ‘‘Pass at Seneca.’? He sincerely
believed that he had read aright, and so he ran his
engine. ‘The result was a crash of two passenger
trains, and the telegraph wires flashed across the
country: ‘‘Highty dead and 125 injured.”’ The en-
gineer was wrong, and his sincerity did not make
him right.