392. Friday after Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Lord, give unto us the spirit of revelation
in the knowledge of thee. Amen.
Galatians 2, 19-21. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
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Here we again have one of those divine scripture passages which, when we examine it, seems to transcend all the others in glory. — In Romans 7, 1-13, Paul has explained how he through the law was dead to the law, that he might live unto God. Worldly-minded and self-righteous men do not feel the condemnation of the law; even as a dead body does not feel the surgeon’s knife. But the penitent sinner knows that the law works wrath, and revives sin; so that sin, taking occasion by the commandment, slays him. In this way only can the soul learn to give heed to the gospel of faith; namely this: Christ is crucified for you, and thus you are crucified; the law’s demands have been fulfilled; the punishment has been borne; the accursed death has been suffered, suffered with entire willingness, without sin and without complaint; Christ truly died, not without cause, but as one wholly guilty, the object of God’s righteous anger. All this for you; can it have been done in vain? And now you are baptized into his death (Rom. 6, 3; Gal. 3, 27), and are through faith united to him; so that his death and his life are yours. Thus you are dead to the law, and justification by the law must, therefore, be entirely out of the question; but thus you are also raised up with Christ, that you may live the life of Christ unto God. He has bestowed on you that love wherewith he loved unto death; he who gave himself for you has given himself to you; and the Spirit has given you faith, through which you receive him, and live in him. You are dead to sin, but living unto God; for Christ lives in you. Thus saith the gospel; — what do you think of it? Is not Christ in truth crucified and risen again; and have you not been baptized into his death and resurrection? Are you going to defeat the arrangement which God has made: His death to be your death; his life, your life? “Alas, I cannot find his life in me,” say you? I answer: Faith does not lay hold on that which we find in ourselves, but on that which God has done for us, and speaks to us. “The life which I now live in the flesh,” says the apostle, “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” “We must, therefore,” as Luther says, “when dealing with the righteousness of the Christians, pay no regard to ourselves; else, no matter how we take it, the gospel could apply to none but saints, who fulfill the deeds of the law. No; I must fix my eyes on nothing but Jesus Christ, the crucified Savior, who rose again from the dead. For if I turn my eyes from Christ, I am undone.” “Learn to say confidently and fearlessly: I am Christ; not personally, but in the sense that the righteousness, the victory, and the life of Christ are mine. For Christ says: I am this needy sinner; that is to say: His sin and death are my sin and death; through faith he clings to me, and I dwell in him.” — Help us, O God, to believe with childlike confidence, and in all our life to praise thee for thy infinite mercy. Amen.*
This I believe — yea, rather,
Of this I make my boast,
That God is my dear Father,
The Friend who loves me most;
And that, whate’er betide me,
My Savior is at hand,
Through stormy seas to guide me,
And bring me safe to land.
[TLH 528 (listen here) or LSB 724, ELH 517 (listen here); see also video below]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.