The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1906, Page 66

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66

The Lutheran Pioneer.

giving them pardon of sins and everlasting salva-
tion. He takes them to the inn of His Church to
be taken care of until He comes again fo take them
to the place He has prepared for them in His
Father’s house. And the poor, helpless sinner has
nothing to pay —nothing to pay for the binding
up of his wounds, nothing to pay for the oil and
the wine, nothing to pay for the place and portion
of Christ in the heavenlies, nothing to pay for the
inheritance of the saints in light. All to him and
for him is without money and without price. Jesus,
the Good Samaritan, has paid it all. O infinite
grace — grace just suited to the sinner’s need!
For he has nothing, but is helpless and hopeless.
As a lost, ruined, and condemned sinner he can
get salvation only by grace through faith in Jesus,
the Friend of sinners, the Good Samaritan.

Blessed is he who has learned to know the loy-
ing grace of the Good Samaritan and has been
taken up out of the misery of sin and brought into
the inn of the church, healed, saved, recovered,
happy! He wonders at the love that put him there
—a love which owed him nothing —a love not
even sought or known before. He will love that
Friend who first loved him, and will trust and find
comfort in His never-changing love in the days of
sorrow and affliction. Constrained by this love, he
will himself be a.Samaritan in serving and assist-
ing his neighbor, especially in helping to make
known to sinners the Gospel of Jesus, the Good
Samaritan.

- _———_—_—_—__o-c-o__—_

“I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins.”

II.

In the parable of the Pharisee and the publican,
Christ tells us that the latter went down to his house
justified. Irom this we learn that the publican had
been tried, and if he was tried, he must have been
accused; for without an accusation there can be no
trial, just as without a trial there can be no justifi-
cation. ‘The result of a trial will be the public an-
nouncement of the judge that the accused is inno-
cent and therefore not to be punished, or that he is
guilty and must bear the punishment his crime de-
serves. The publican was justified, that is, he was
declared innocent.

Tf no accusation or charge be brought against a
person, he has no need. of being justified; but as
s00n as he is accused of wrongdoing, though he be
entirely innocent, he has an opportunity of justi-

fying himself by showing his innocence; and his
judge, if he be just, will then publicly declare the

-accusation unfounded and pronounce the accused

innocent of the crime charged against him.

This would be justification in its first meaning;
but in this sense none can, strictly speaking, be justi-
fied, since all are sinners, and all are justly accused.
The Law accuses us: for all are made under the
Law, and “we know’that what thin gs soever the Law
saith it saith to them that are under the Law: that
every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God,’ Rom. 3, 19. So also
Salan accuses us. He is “the adversary,” 1 Pet. 5, 8,
“the accuser of our brethren, that accuses them be-
fore our God day and night,” Rev. 12, 10. And
again, conscience is a continual accuser, bearing
witness against us. And truly, none but those who
have learned by experience can tell what the pangs
inflicted by a guilty and awakened conscience are.
A man may flee from many calamities and bear up
patiently under many burdens, but he can as little
flee from an accusing conscience as he can flee
from himself.

Against these accusers, in the first sense of the
word, “no flesh living can be justified.” We must,
then, look for some other meaning of the term,
according to which the publican, who confesses him-
self to be a sinner, could go down to his house
justified. And thus we find that to justify a person
often means to pronounce sentence in his favor, to
acquit him of guilt, to excuse him from burden, to
free him from punishment, and to repute or deem
him just. Thus also justification, in a still wider
sense, is not opposed to accusation only, but to con-
demnation. Thus Solomon says, Prov. 17, 15:
“He that justificth the wicked, and he that con-
demneth the just, even they both are an abomination
to the Lord;” and Christ declares, Matt. 12, 37:
“By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy
words thou shalt be condemned.”

Tn the Gospel sense of the Word, justification’
is “of God,” and means that He acquits us from
guilt, cohdemnation, and punishment by full and
free remission of our sins, reputing and declaring
us just persons, and deals with us as though we
were upright and innocent in His sight. It is an
act of judgment performed by God, by which He
declares His own righteousness and justice, and at
the same time our liberation from the punishment
due to transgression: His justice consisting in ac-
cepting a competent satisfaction offered instead of
the debt due Him, and in reparation of the injury