Written by Pastor Nuckols
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 18:36
They contemplate Christ’s passion aright who view it with a terror-stricken heart and a despairing conscience. This terror must be felt as you witness the stern wrath and the unchanging earnestness with which God looks upon sin and sinners, so much so that He was unwilling to release sinners even for His only and dearest Son without His payment of the severest penalty for them. Thus He says in Isaiah 53 [: 8 ], “I have chastised Him for the transgressions of My people.” If the dearest child is punished thus, what will be the fate of sinners? (Luke 23:31). It must be an inexpressible and unbearable earnestness that forces such a great and infinite Person to suffer and die to appease it. And if you seriously consider that it is God’s very own Son, the eternal wisdom of the Father, who suffers, you will be terrified indeed. The more you think about it, the more intensely will you be frightened.
We must give ourselves wholly to this matter, for the main benefit of Christ’s passion is that man sees into his own true self and that he be terrified and crushed by this. Unless we seek that knowledge, we do not derive much benefit from Christ’s passion. The real and true work of Christ’s passion is to make man conformable to Christ, so that man’s conscience is tormented by his sins in like measure as Christ was pitiably tormented in body and soul by our sins. This does not call for many words but for profound reflection and a great awe of sins. Take this as an illustration: a criminal is sentenced to death for the murder of the child of a prince or a king. In the meantime you go your carefree way, singing and playing, until you are cruelly arrested and convicted of having inspired the murderer. Now the whole world closes in upon you, especially since your conscience also deserts you.
Now, you cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that His wounds and sufferings are your sins, to be borne and paid for by Him, as we read in Isaiah 53 [: 6 ], “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” St. Peter says, “in His body has He borne our sins on the wood of the cross” [ I Pet. 2:24 ]. St. Paul says, “God has made Him a sinner for us, so that through Him we would be made just” [ II Cor. 5:21 ]. You must stake everything on these and similar verses. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously must you cling to them. If you do not do that, but presume to still your conscience with your own contrition and sorrow, you will never obtain peace of mind, but will have to despair in the end. If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by His resurrection, and then boldly believe this, it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by His resurrection. Now you see no wounds, no pain in Him, and no sign of sin. Thus St. Paul declares that “Christ died for our sin and rose for our justification” [ Rom. 4:25 ]. That is to say, in His suffering Christ makes our sin known and thus destroys it, but through His resurrection He justifies us and delivers us from all sin, if we believe this.
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