The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1915, Page 51

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

The Lutheran Pioneer.

51

who was acquainted with grief, by far outshines
that of other men, however celebrated they may be
at present, or may have been in the past. Yea, the
time will come when He will be universally acknowl-
edged as the King of Glory even by His enemies,
all of whom will then have been made His foot-
stool. “The queen of the South came from the
uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of
Solomon; and, behold, a Greater than Solomon is
here,” Matt. 12, 42. Field Marshall von Hinden-
burg has acquired great fame on account of the
brilliant victories he won, and the Germans call
him the Liberator of East Prussia. While such
9, commander may free a nation, or part of a nation,
from temporal foes, not by his own power, but be-
_ cause the almighty Ruler of the universe granted
him success, Jesus Christ will forever be honored
as the greatest Liberator, for He has delivered the
whole world from the fiercest spiritual and eternal
enemics, and has accomplished this work by His
own power. In short, He is our Savior.

In order, however, that He might perform His
work of redemption, it was necessary that He should
be a unique Person —the God-man. It was neces-
sary that He should assume the human nature, in
order that He might perfectly fulfil the Law for
us as our holy human Brother and Substitute, and
also that He might be wounded for our trans-
gressions, bruised for our iniquities, and pay the
penalty of death in our stead; for God cannot suffer
and die according to His divine nature, He being
a Spirit. ‘“Forasmuch, then, as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself like-
wise took part of the same, that through death He
might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil.” (Heb. 2, 14.)

On the other hand, a mere man, “could by no

means have redeemed his brother, nor give to God °

a ransom for him; for the redemption of their soul
is precious, and it ceaseth forever.” (Ps. 49, 7. 8.)
Remember what our Lord said to John the Baptist
when the latter forbade Him to be baptized, “Suffer
it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil
all righteousness,” that is, to fulfil the command-
ments, as the sinners’ Substitute. Then he suffered
Him. A mere man, however, could have fulfilled
the Law only for himself, not for others. We needed
a-human Substitute who would be also true God,
and as such not bound to fulfil the Law for His
own Person, He being the Lawgiver, who is not
“ander the Law.” Only such a Person would be
able to fulfil the divine commandments for others,

namely, for His sinful brethren and sisters according
to the flesh. — Let us also consider John the Bap-
tist’s words concerning Christ: “Behold the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Our Substitute should not only bear the visible
shameful burden of the cross, but also an enormous
invisible load, the sins of all sinners, in order to
free us from sin and the divine curse. This required
divine power. —St. Paul tells us that Christ by
His blood reconciled God and the world. (Eph.
2,13—16.) Hence it was His task to appease God’s
wrath, again a task too gigantic for any creature,
whether it be man or angel. — When Christ foretold
His bitter suffering and death, He also used the
words: “The Prince of this world cometh, and hath
nothing in Me.” But in order that He might con-
quer the devil, it was again necessary that our Re-
deemer should be God. Nor would a mere man
have been sufficient to “taste” eternal “death for
every man,” and thereby “abolish death, and bring
life and immortality to light.”

In the following words Luther emphasizes the
fact that a redeemer who is not God and man at the
same time would be of no avail to us: “We must
cling to the doctrine that Christ, our Lord, is true,
natural God and man, and equal to the Father in
divine essence and life. For if He were a man like
me or you, He would have been entirely too weak to
overcome Satan, death, and sin, and therefore not
able to help us. Hence we must have a Savior who
is true God, and a Lord of sin, death, and hell. But
if we permit the devil to overthrow this foundation,
that Christ is true God, His suffering, death, and
resurrection does not benefit us aught, and we have
no hope of obtaining eternal life and salvation.
To sum up,—we could not then in any wise take
comfort in any of the consoling promises of Scrip-
ture. Again, if we do not believe that He had
a human nature, we are also lost; for if He were
not a true man, He could not have redeemed the
human. race, because He could not have suffered
and died.”

Christ actually was such a unique Person as
we needed for our salvation. He was true God,
begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true
man, born of the Virgin Mary. This is the plain
teaching of the Bible, as our next article will show.

H. OstErHUvs.

You can do more than pray after you have
prayed; but you cannot do more than pray until
you have prayed.