Luther Says: On Good Friday Christ Became the Sinner For The World

By: Rev. Jack Cascione

The following is part of Luther's commentary on Galatians 3:13 from Volume 279-280, American Edition.

KJV Galatians 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

"Is. 53:6 speaks the same way about Christ. It says: "God has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all." These words must not be diluted but must be left in
their precise and serious sense. For God is not joking in the words of the
prophet; He is speaking seriously and out of great love, namely, that this
Lamb of God, Christ, should bear the iniquity of us all. But what does it
mean to "bear"? The sophists reply: "To be punished." Good. But why is
Christ punished? Is it not because He has sin and bears sin? That Christ has
sin is the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Psalms. Thus in Ps. 40:12 we
read: "My iniquities have overtaken Me"; in Ps. 41:4: "I said: 'O Lord, be
gracious to Me; heal Me, for I have sinned against Thee!' "; and in Ps.
69:5: "O God, Thou knowest My folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden
from Thee." In these psalms the Holy Spirit is speaking in the Person of
Christ and testifying in clear words that He has sinned or has sins. These
testimonies of the psalms are not the words of an innocent one; they are the
words of the suffering Christ, who undertook to bear the person of all
sinners and therefore was made guilty of the sins of the entire world.

"Therefore Christ not only was crucified and died, but by divine love sin
was laid upon Him. When sin was laid upon Him, the Law came and said: "Let
every sinner die! And therefore, Christ, if You want to reply that You are
guilty and that You bear the punishment, you must bear the sin and the curse
as well." Therefore Paul correctly applies to Christ this general Law from
Moses: "Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree." Christ hung on a tree;
therefore Christ is a curse of God.

"And this is our highest comfort, to clothe and wrap Christ this way in my
sins, your sins, and the sins of the entire world, and in this way to behold
Him bearing all our sins. When He is beheld this way, He easily removes all
the fanatical opinions of our opponents about justification by works. For
the papists dream about a kind of faith "formed by love." Through this they
want to remove sins and be justified. This is clearly to unwrap Christ and
to unclothe Him from our sins, to make Him innocent, to burden and overwhelm
ourselves with our own sins, and to behold them, not in Christ but in
ourselves. This is to abolish Christ and make Him useless. For if it is true
that we abolish sins by the works of the Law and by love, then Christ does
not take them away, but we do. But if He is truly the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world, who became a curse for us, and who was wrapped
in our sins, it necessarily follows that we cannot be justified and take
away sins through love. For God has laid our sins, not upon us but upon
Christ, His Son. If they are taken away by Him, then they cannot be taken
away by us. All Scripture says this, and we confess and pray the same thing
in the Creed when we say: "I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who
suffered, was crucified, and died for us."

"This is the most joyous of all doctrines and the one that contains the most
comfort. It teaches that we have the indescribable and inestimable mercy and
love of God. When the merciful Father saw that we were being oppressed
through the Law, that we were being held under a curse, and that we could
not be liberated from it by anything, He sent His Son into the world, heaped
all the sins of all men upon Him, and said to Him: "Be Peter the denier;
Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, and assaulter; David the adulterer; the
sinner who ate the apple in Paradise; the thief on the cross. In short, be
the person of all men, the one who has committed the sins of all men. And
see to it that You pay and make satisfaction for them." Now the Law comes
and says: "I find Him a sinner, who takes upon Himself the sins of all men.
I do not see any other sins than those in Him. Therefore let Him die on the
cross!" And so it attacks Him and kills Him. By this deed the whole world is
purged and expiated from all sins, and thus it is set free from death and
from every evil. But when sin and death have been abolished by this one man,
God does not want to see anything else in the whole world, especially if it
were to believe, except sheer cleansing and righteousness. And if any
remnants of sin were to remain, still for the sake of Christ, the shining
Sun, God would not notice them.

April 17, 2003