THE WEEK OF EASTER - FRIDAY

LESSON: MATTHEW 26:69-75

Jesus our Lord … was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Romans 4:25

You cast your sins from yourself on to Christ when you firmly believe that His wounds and sufferings are your sins, that He bore them and paid for them as Isaiah declared: “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Peter also says: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” that is, the cross (1 Peter 2:24), and St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21, AV).

On this and similar passages you must stake everything in full reliance, and the more so if your conscience is giving you serious trouble. If you do not do this but presume to quieten your conscience by way of your own penitence and satisfaction, you will never find peace and end up in despair. It does not matter how much penitence and satisfaction we have to offer; our sins keep on piling up and gaining the upper hand. But when we see them borne by Christ and conquered by His glorious resurrection from the dead and we have boldness of faith, our sins are dead and blotted out. For they could not remain on Christ. They have been swallowed up by His resurrection. Now you see no wounds, no pains in Him, that is, no signs of sin.

SL 11:580 (13)
AE 76:430

PRAYER: Thanks and praise be to You, Lord Jesus, for the complete victory over sin which You gained for us when You bore our sins on the cross and destroyed them in Your glorious resurrection from the dead. Amen.