The Festival of Good Friday,
30 March 2018,
Concordia Lutheran Mission,
Terrebonne, Oregon.
“Christ’s Passion Heals
Conscience, Soul, and Body.”
But He was wounded for our transgression, he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed..
Isaiah 53:5.
Introduction.
What wounds healed are these? These wounds are the wounds of our sin and the sin of all men because Christ bore the guilt of our transgressions. Obviously, these sins are not Christ’s because Isaiah says “our transgressions” He bore.
Because Christ is sinless, God had to impute to Him the sins of men in order for Him to bear the punishments of sin and save. On account of bearing the guilt of our sins, Christ bore the punishment for sin and expiated it.
Because Christ bore the punishment for sin, no punishment remains for us or for any man. Consequently, His stripes, His wounds, His suffering the consequences of sin, He saves men from sin.
Through the Gospel Christ’s Passion clears and heals the conscience of men. From there the soul and body are revived and healed, the soul immediately, and the body in the resurrection on the Last Day.
By Christ’s Passion, men are healed in conscience, body, and soul, which means that they have been saved, gained life everlasting, and the resurrection of the body.
I. Christ Heals by His Passion through Removing Sin which Forever Horribly Injured.
A. Sin forever injured man and caused him to perish.
As the Gospel subsides from our culture, sin is taken less seriously. After all, if sin not be a grave matter, why bother with Absolution of sin, which is the Gospel[1]?
Sin, however, is a grave matter. The Death of the Son of God for sin reminds us sin has infinite and everlasting consequences because sin is offense against God, who is infinite and eternal. The Lutheran Church confesses:
Yes, what more forceful, more terrible declaration and preaching of God's wrath against sin is there than the suffering and death of Christ, His Son? But as long as all this preaches God's wrath and terrifies people, it is not yet the preaching of the Gospel nor Christ's own preaching, but that of Moses and the Law against the impenitent. For the Gospel and Christ were never ordained and given for the purpose of terrifying and condemning, but for comforting and cheering those who are terrified and timid.[2]
St. John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople in 4th and 5th centuries, writes in a sermon from that time:
... the wound required so great attendance, that the Lord of all came down to die, and so put a stop to the evil ... .[3]
This great wound obviously devastated man, wounding him in conscience, soul, and body forever. Because of an evil conscience over sin, men no longer warm to their Creator and Sustainer but rather flee Him[4], cutting themselves off from the Source of Life and perish. The Apostle St. Paul writes:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.[5]
B. Christ heals man of sin by His Passion.
As St. John Chrysostom has already noted in his sermon, God Himself intervened to heal and deliver man from his great self-inflicted injuries of sin. The prophet Isaiah writes of God’s intervention to deliver man from this great wound of sin by God Himself bearing these wounds:
But He was wounded for our transgression, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed..[6]
In the first place, the prophet Isaiah makes it plain that Christ suffered these injuries not because of anything He had done, but, rather, because our sins were reckoned to Him. The prophet Isaiah here by Divine inspiration reproduces what David had written of the Messiah in his day[7] – and upon which passage we meditated during Advent this year past – namely, that the Messiah would suffer because our iniquity and the iniquity of all men were reckoned to Him:
I will be His Father, and He shall be My Son, [whom, when {I} declare Him iniquitous[8]], I will chasten Him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men.[9]
Christ truly bore the guilt of our iniquity because He bore the consequences of iniquity, namely, “the stripes of men”. Consequently, Christ claims in Psalm 69 our sins as His own:
O God, Thou knowest My foolishness; and My sins are not hid from Thee.[10]
David teaches that Christ’s wounds, the “stripes of men”, came about because God reckoned our iniquity to Him when He “declared Him iniquitous”. The prophet Isaiah likewise reproduces and brings out this point that David taught that Christ’s “stripes” came about because the Lord “laid on him the iniquity of us all.[11]”
Secondly, David teaches that Christ was chastened with the rod of men for the iniquity of men He bore, which chastening Isaiah teaches produced our peace with God – “the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.” Peace with God came about through Christ because He Atoned for sin and reconciled God to men. The Apostle St. Paul writes:
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.[12]
Finally, because Christ in His Passion suffered these wounds for us, these wounds no longer avail for us and we are delivered. The Apostle St. Peter writes:
Who his own self bare out sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.[13]
II. Christ by His Passion through the Gospel Heals the Wounds of Sin, Saves, and Gives Life Eternal.
A. Christ’s Passion by the Gospel heals the conscience and saves.
Because a guilty conscience slew man, a clear conscience saves man. The Apostle St. Peter writes:
The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience[14] toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ ... .[15]
Holy Baptism clears the guilty conscience of men because Holy Baptism delivers to men the Absolution of all sin through Christ’s Passion. For the Apostle St. Peter writes that “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ”. Christ’s Resurrection was the Absolution of all men won by His Passion. The Apostle St. Paul writes:
Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.[16]
The Rev. Dr. Francis Pieper writes:
Now, then, if the Father raised Christ from the dead, He, by this glorious resurrection act, declared that the sins of the whole world are fully expiated, or atoned for, and that all mankind is now regarded as righteous before His divine tribunal. This gracious reconciliation and justification is clearly taught in Rom. 4:25: “Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.” This truth Dr. Walther stressed anew in America. He taught that the resurrection of Christ from the dead is the actual absolution pronounced upon all sinners. ... Calov[17], following Gerhard[18], rightly points out the relation of Christ’s resurrection to our justification as follows: “Christ’s resurrection took place as an actual absolution from sin. ... As God punished our sins in Christ, upon whom He laid them and to whom He imputed them, as our bondsman, so He also, by the very act of raising Him from the dead, absolved Him from our sins imputed to Him, and so He absolved also us in Him.”[19]
With the conscience healed of the damage of sin, men return to God and are saved.
B. Healed conscience restores body and soul.
Where the conscience is no longer in flight from God through the Gospel, there soul and body are healed. The Apostle St. Paul writes of the immediate healing and restoration of the soul through the Gospel:
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.[20]
Where the soul is healed, there also the body is healed in the resurrection on the Last Day when Christ returns again in glory. The Apostle St. Paul writes:
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.[21]
The Lutheran Church confesses the Gospel heals body and soul through Christ’s Passion:
For here He offers to us the entire treasure which He has brought for us from heaven, and to which He invites us also in other places with the greatest kindness, as when He says in St. Matthew 11, 28: Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now it is surely a sin and a shame that He so cordially and faithfully summons and exhorts us to our highest and greatest good, and we act so distantly with regard to it, and permit so long a time to pass [without partaking of the Sacrament] that we grow quite cold and hardened, so that we have no inclination or love for it. We must never regard the Sacrament as something incurious from which we had better flee, but as a pure, wholesome, comforting remedy imparting salvation and comfort, which will cure you and give you life both in soul and body. For where the soul has recovered, the body also is relieved.[22]
Conclusion.
The wounds Christ suffered on Good Friday are our wounds wrought by our sins. God in His Mercy did not desire men to suffer the consequences of their own making so He deigned to suffer them for us. Because God Himself bore the consequences of transgressions, men no longer bear them and are saved.
Christ heals the wounds of sin by His Passion through the Gospel. Through the Gospel Peace with God is given, healing the conscience injured by sin, restoring men to God, and, thereby, healing the soul immediately and healing the body in the resurrection when Christ returns again in glory.
Amen.
1
[1]“Moreover, the power of the keys administers and presents the Gospel through absolution, which [proclaims peace to me and] is the true voice of the Gospel. {German: The word of absolution speaks peace to me and is the Gospel itself.} Thus we also comprise absolution when we speak of faith, because faith cometh by hearing, as Paul says Rom. 10, 17. For when the Gospel is heard, and the absolution [i.e., the promise of divine grace] is heard, the conscience is encouraged and receives consolation.” The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XII. (V.).39, Triglotta, pp. 261 translation from the German in braces is mine.
[2]The Formula of Concord, Article V.12, Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, A Reader's Edition, p. 555.
[3]St. John Chrysostom, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans, ed. Philip Schaff, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., reprinted, September 1980, p. 412.
“Chrysostom, John. Patriarch of Constantinople; b. 345 or 347; d. 407. His name 'Golden-mouthed' [Chrysostom is derived from the Greek words chrysos {gold} and stoma {mouth}; hence, ‘Golden-mouthed’] was not applied to him till after his death. Member of a rich patrician family, he studied rhetoric and philosophy, intended to follow law, but turned to the Scriptures instead, leading the life of a strict ascetic in the first years after his baptism; labored as priest in Antioch for twelve years; became patriarch of Constantinople in 398. He immediately inaugurated certain needed reforms and laid the foundation for systematic charitable work. But his position became increasingly insecure on account of the enemies which he made by his rigorous rules and by his fearless attacks on the luxury of his day. Theophilus of Alexandria finally succeeded in having a synod called under the auspices of Empress Eudocia, the Synod ad Quercum, in 403, by which Chrysostom was deposed and banished. After his recall a second synod, held in Constantinople, once more condemned him, whereupon he, yielding only to force, was banished to Asia Minor. The hardships of the last journeys were too great for him, and he died before reaching his final destination, at Comana, Asia Minor." Concordia Cyclopedia, p. 143, s.v. “Chrysostom, John”, amplification in brackets added.
[4]“The reason Adam gives for fleeing from God is that he heard the voice of God. But that reasoning was utterly foolish. ‘Had he not heard the voice of the Lord before, when the Lord forbade him to eat of the fruit of the tree? Why did he not then also fear and hide himself? How was it that then he stood, with joy and with uplifted countenance, seeing and hearing God? He is no longer the same Adam; he is totally changed ... and has become quite another man; he now looks about for a lie and a false cause for his defense.’ [Luther].” The Rev. Dr. Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. I, pp. 545, 546, amplification in brackets added.
[5]Romans 5:12. “The Formula of Concord summarizes it thus: ‘We believe, teach, and confess that original sin is not a slight ... but so deep a corruption of human nature that nothing health or uncorrupt has remained in man’s body or soul, in his inner or outward powers, but, as the Church sings: “Through Adam’s fall is all corrupt, Nature and essence human.” This damage is unspeakable, and cannot be discerned by reasons, but only from God’s Word. And [we affirm] that no one but god alone can separate from one another the nature and this corruption of the nature.’” The Rev. Dr. Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. I, p. 549.
[6]Isaiah 53:5.
[7]The Hebrew words David and Isaiah use for chastisement and stripes are synonyms.
[8]The translation from the Hebrew in brackets is mine. It follows the rule “Under the causative [the author here speaks of the Hebrew verb form the Hiphil] is also included the declarative sense, e.g., ... to pronounce just; ... to pronounce guilty ... .” Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, eds., E. Kautzsch, A. E. Cowley, tr. A. E. Cowley, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, p. 144. The “declarative sense” is another expression for the forensic sense.
“The Son of David will carry the iniquity of His people, and will be punished by God with whips and scourges, which man has deserved. In this way He will redeem His people from their sins and punishment.” The Rev. Dr. George Stoeckhardt, Wisdom for Today, Vol. I, tr. the Rev. Arthur E. Beck, Ft. Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, p. 254.
“It may also mark an action simultaneous to that of the main verb; the simultaneous action is shown by an infinitive ... in a circumstantial clause.” Bruce K. Waltke, M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990, p. 196.
“The Infinitive Construct, with preposition and suffix, may occur together with the Perfect or the Imperfect, as verbal nouns. ... The suffixes of the Infinite Construct may denote either the subject or the object ... .” J. Weingreen, A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew, Oxford: Clarendon Press, New York: Oxford University Press, second edition1959, p. 132.
The Hebrew in brackets literally reads, “whom, in declaring Him iniquitous”. I’ve rendered it into a little smoother English and translated it, “whom, when {I} declare Him iniquitous”, namely, Christ is declared iniquitous by God’s imputing or reckoning our sins to Him so He can Atone for them and deliver us from our sins. “Before translating an English sentence with a subordinate clause, always convert the sentence into idiomatic Hebrew thought, as above.” J. Weingreen, A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew, Oxford: Clarendon Press, New York: Oxford University Press, second edition1959, p. 132.
[9]Text is from the Rev. Dr. P. E. Kretzmann’s Popular Commentary of the Bible, The Old Testament, The Historical Books of the Old Testament: Genesis to Esther, Vol. I, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1923, p. 521, amplification in brackets added.
Concordia Publishing House captions II Samuel 7 in its 1905 edition of Luther’s German translation of the Bible: “David bekommt die Verheissuing des Messias ... . [David receives the Promise of the Messiah]Die Bibel oder die ganze Heilige Schrift Alten und Neuen Testaments, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung Dr. Martin Luthers (The Bible or the Entire Holy Scripture, Old and New Testaments, according to the German Translation of Dr. Martin Luther), St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1905, p. 588, translation from the German in brackets is mine.