Luther on Galatians

Hello,
it's Nicolai here, and I wanted to share something I found in Dr. Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians. I love the way he quotes Psalms. This is part of his comment on the verse where it says, "cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree":

Paul does not say that Christ was made a curse for himself, but for us. Christ is innocent as far as his own person is concerned, and therefore he ought not to have been hanged upon a tree. But because, under the law of Moses, every thief and criminal had to be hanged, Christ too had to be hanged, for he sustained the person of a sinner and of a thief - not just one, but all sinners and thieves. We are sinners and thieves and therefore guilty of death and everlasting damnation. But Christ took all our sins upon him and for them died upon the cross Therefore, it was right for him to be "numbered with the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:12).

No doubt the prophets all foresaw that Christ would become the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, and blasphemer that ever was or could be in the world. Being made a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, he is not now an innocent person without sins, not now the Son of God born of the Virgin Mary, but a sinner who carries the sin of Paul, who was a blasphemer, an oppressor, and a persecutor; of Peter, who denied Christ; of David, who was an adulterer and a murderer and caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord. In short, Christ bears all the sins of all people in his body. It was not that he himself committed these sins, but he received the sins that we had committed; they were laid on his own body, that he might make satisfaction for them with his own blood (see Isaiah 53:5; Matthew 20:18-19). Therefore, this general sentence of Moses includes Christ too (even though in his own person he was innocent), because it found him among sinners and transgressors - just as the magistrate takes a man for a thief and punishes him when he finds him among other thieves and transgressors, even if he never committed a crime himself. Christ was not only found among sinners, but of his own accord and by the will of his Father he was a companion of sinners and took upon himself the flesh and blood of those who were sinners and thieves and plunged into all kinds of sin. When the law, therefore, found him among thieves, it condemned and killed him as a thief.

Some people will say it is quite absurd and slanderous to call the Son of God a cursed sinner. I answer that if you deny him to be a sinner and to be cursed, you must also deny that he was crucified and died. It is no less absurd to say (as our faith confesses and believes) that the Son of God was crucified and suffered the pains of sin and death than to say that he is a sinner and cursed and the greatest of all sinners (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). He is truly innocent because he is the unspotted and undefiled Lamb of God (John 1:29). But because he bears the sins of the world, his innocence is burdened with the sins and guilt of the whole world. Whatever sins I, you, and all of us have done, or will do later, are Christ's own sins, as truly as if he himself had done them. In short, our sin has to become Christ's own sin, or else we will perish forever.

Isaiah says of Christ that "the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). We must not make these words less than they are. In these words of the prophet, God is not playing games but is telling us earnestly and out of great love that Christ, the Lamb of God, would bear the sins of us all. But what does it mean to bear them? If it menas Christ is punished, why is he punished? Is it not because he has and bears sin? The Holy Spirit tells us in Psalm 40 that Christ has sin: "My sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head" (verse 12; see also Psalm 41:4 and 69:5). The Holy Spirit is speaking in the person of Christ and clearly says that he had sins. This testimony is not the voice of an innocent, but of a suffering Christ who took upon him the person of all sinners and therefore was made guilty of the sins of the whole world.

Christ, therefore, was not only crucified and died, but also (through the love of the divine majesty) sin was laid on him. Therefore, Paul is quite right to apply this general statement of Moses to Christ. Christ was hanged on a tree; therefore, Christ was cursed by God.

It is an extraordinary consolation for all Christians to clothe Christ with our sins, to wrap him in my sins, your sins, and the sins of the whole world, and so to behold him bearing all our iniquities. Seeing him like this will easily overcome all ideas of justification by works. If we think that faith adorned with love takes sins away and justifies us before God, we strip Christ of our sins, make him innocent, and charge and overwhelm ourselves with our own sins and look upon them not in Christ but in ourselves. This makes Christ utterly useless to us. If it is true that we take away sins by obeying the law and by works of love, then Christ does not take them away. If he is the Lamb of God cursed for us, we cannot be justified by what we do. God has laid our sins not upon us, but upon his Son, Christ, so that he, bearing the punishment for them, might be our peace, and so that by his wounds we might be healed (Isaiah 53:5). Therefore, they cannot be taken away by us. All Scripture bears witness to this; and we also confess it in the articles of Christian belief when we say, "I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who suffered, was crucified and died for us."

Merry Christmas =)

The Haiti Disaster

Glen posts an explanation for the disasters like Haiti:

http://christthetruth.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/more-than-a-million-dead/

The non-Christian can hope for nothing greater than ’safer’ buildings on the same old fault line. And as they labour admirably for this, many will ask why God does not seem to be cooperating with their desire to pretty up the demolition site. They plan to build some lovely houses on this sand and they imagine God to be standing in the way of their saving purposes. Of course it’s the other way around...

The Lord has a salvation so audacious He can call earthquakes ‘birth-pains’. (As can Paul – Rom 8:22).

Passing through the fire (2)

In relation to the previous post

why is it that after passing through the fires of judgment,
there needs to be a time of rest - before the new life

Note Jesus' body after the cross, resting in the grave

Note the 70 years after the burning of Israel - till the return

Note the subsiding of flood waters in Noah's time

Note the lag time between a 'seed dying' and the germination of a new plant

The next age is said to be the Age of Rest - the Sabbath age(s)
where there is no 'ordinary work'

or perhaps the theology is not quite right
as in the Sabbath is the time of restoration - a time of comfort
proceeded then by the time of New Life, New Age, New Activity
so Sabbath then becomes the underlying value of the New Creation?

We died with Him, so we also will rest with Him, then raised with Him, ascended with Him, seated with Him, judging with Him, and then - life eternal with Him, ruling with Him

More takers?

Passing through the fire

It was just pointed out to me that:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 2 Peter 3:10

Does not give the image of total destruction
but rather of the entire universe passing through a refinery furnace

i.e. some things will be destroyed (the dross) - others will be refined

so assuming this will all happen like Christ on the cross,

His body, now riddled with sin
is passed through the fires of His Father's judgment
what is left however is a spiritual body - fully seen in Rev 1
the difference is that every part of Him is a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor 15)
as opposed to an animated piece of meat

So then... here's a question

Is it that something that was created in the first run - remains after passing through the fire?

Or is it that it is really something brand new?

Or is it something totally different all together
I have a feeling the phrase 'swallowed up' has something to do with it

(this topic is now brought up a lot by current theologians in a big way because of all this 'creation preservation' stuff)

Any takers?

Jesus as saviour first, judge later

Do not judge others, lest you be judged..

Christ proclaims to us that we are not to come as the judges of the world
for Christ Himself did not come into the world to judge, but to save

Therefore when we cast judgement as the judge, we proclaim ourselves greater than Christ

So we are prevented from making any judgement
Jesus (Matt 7, 18), James (james 3-4) & Paul (1 cor 5) tell us that if we judge as judges
the reason is because we 'want to be the greatest'
we put others down

therefore we are 'blind guides'
we presume we can see what is wrong with that person
even though the fact that we are judges means there's a huge lot wrong with us!
we are of no help to anyone else
and we will only cause others to fall into the same pit of destruction
the minute we try to get close to help
we stab them with the huge spear that we are carrying out of our eye

however, when Christ pulls the log out of our eye and nails Himself to it for us
then we can see clearly..
we now have correct vision - the log where it should be - cross-vision
we can now pull that log out of the eye of others
by sacrificing ourselves for their sake

i.e. we come as discerning judges - saviors
we 'judge' who is lost and how we can bring them to the cross
we are useful and we confront others, even discipline them
only to build them up and not to put them down

we do that by giving up our lives for them
facing rebuke by them
facing abuse by them
being rejected by them
cursed by them
time and time again...
finally..
being put to death by them
this is the only way to show love - Jesus style

so that they may be saved...

and this.. stunningly enough
within the church alone (we never judge the world!)
that others outside may see
and enter.. because they see our love one for another
that is the insanity of biblical evangelism.... (john 13)

in this we see the mystery:
Christ died 'for the church' - indeed by this - Christ died 'for the whole world'

in the end.. if they still refuse
we will be their Judges
we will deliver the sentence of condemnation
together with Christ

Come now, you rich...

Hey,

Read this bit of James in prep for SWOT. It's so hard hitting, I'd encourage you to read it a few times and dwell on each word, and then read the commentary below that really brings it home. The sword is sharp indeed...

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. James 5:1-3


The first half of the paragraph is a description of the awful misery that will come upon the rich. In the first place, they will lose their wealth. But that by itself is far too tame an exposition of James's words. The rich will find their hoarded wealth rotted, their fine clothes moth-eaten and their treasured gold and silver corroded (images that recall Jesus' words in Mt 6:20). James gives vivid and terrible images of the destruction of their wealth, indicating that the rich will experience horror and despair over their loss. They will weep and wail in misery. The verb wail is onomatopoeic--ololyzo--adding to the vividness of the imagery by sounding like the wailing it describes. It conveys the sounds of "weeping accompanied by recurring shouts of pain" (Kistemaker 1986:156), bringing to mind the experience of excruciating grief or anguish. The rich will lose everything they have devoted themselves to and everything they have relied upon. Theirs will be the despair of people who discover their dreams and treasures destroyed forever.

If the rich were only misguided in devoting themselves to their wealth, this first misery would be enough. But there is a second level to their misery: the destruction of the wealth will consume the rich people themselves. The imagery expresses forcefully that their sin has been a deliberate pursuit of evil. Literally, James says, the rust or corrosion on the gold and silver will be the active agent against the rich. The corrosive action will take two forms: first to testify against the rich (acting as evidence of their guilt) and then to eat their flesh like fire (acting as punishment for their sin).

There are, then, three miseries specified for the rich: despair from losing their wealth, guilt from the evidence against them and horrible pain from being devoured in the judgment upon them. (IVP Commentary)