What is the second article?
And [I believe] in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.
What does this mean?
[I believe that Jesus Christ] has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death…
In 1967, Hermann Sasse wrote that the modern man is experiencing “the disappointment of all his hope, the frustration of all his labours, the despair of the future, and lives in a state of anxiety, deprived of all comfort…” He contrasts the profound optimism with which the world began the first half of the twentieth century, armed with the triumphs of science, medicine, and technology, and then the deep pessimism with which the world turned to the second half of the twentieth century, wearied by war, revolution, and catastrophe. Within the span of sixty years, a mighty wave of optimism crashed into the shores of pessimism and bore a grim witness to the fact that despite every triumph, advancement, and breakthrough of mankind, we seem incapable of making any other use of them than to destroy our own lives. Unfortunately, the history of America and the world after 1967 wasn’t much better. War and rebellion in southeast Asia, the Iron Curtain and the communist threat in Europe, terrorism and the specter of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, recessions and economic disasters on Wall Street, sexual revolution and cultural rebellion, the death of the family unit and the rise of the hedonist individual, ecologic collapse and environmental ruin, whether at home or abroad, whether culture or politics, no matter where one looks, the age of modernism is an age of death, evil, and chaos.
One could rightly ask: why? What is the crux of the issue for modernity and the modern man? If we are to take the scriptures as our guide, the problem for modern man is, quite simply, man. Man is a sinner and fundamentally unable to progress in any other direction than sin. David confesses, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5). Paul writes, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1). Christ proclaims, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). And Moses declares, “every intention of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). Man by nature is born in sin and only sins. From conception to death, from the heart to the hands, in body and soul, man by nature is sinful and a slave to sin. He is entirely bound and captive under the lordship of sin and the devil and is unable to free himself or do otherwise. Such a fundamental slavery is finally demonstrated by death. Paul says, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23) and all men die. Death has a 100% success rate for natural man. It is a certainty and indeed the first certainty of the bible, “in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” Thus, the root of modern man’s hopelessness and pessimism is man’s own failure and hopelessness against these great tyrants, sin, death, and the devil.
If we were to take not only the testimony of history, but also common experience as our example, there is no more ready example of this bondage to sin than alcoholism. Alcohol is a good example, because within our theology of human choice that distinguishes between those things “above us” and “below us,” alcohol is something “below us,” subject to reason, external to us, and within our realm of choice. We ought to have power over whether to drink or not to drink. We can weigh and measure whether it is good or bad. We can study and observe the positive and negative repercussions of drinking. But anyone who is an alcoholic will tell you that when it comes to this thing over which we ought to be free, he or she is fundamentally unfree. And no amount of reasoning or knowledge can provide aid. Alcoholics can watch their life deteriorate around them and be keenly aware that the bottle they turn to every morning is the very thing killing them, and still persist in drinking because the issue goes so deep. And the deeper one goes into sin, the tighter its grip is on us.
This reality is what Luther confesses when he names the “I” of the confessing Christian a “lost and condemned person” who has been rescued from “all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil.” This doesn’t seem to be much basis for hope against the pessimism of the modern age, but it is in truth the most necessary foundation for true Christian hope. It is only by recognizing our true and miserable estate that the good news of Jesus Christ and his work on our behalf becomes “good news” or the Gospel.
For us lost and condemned sinners what has Jesus done? He has redeemed us, which is to say, he has rescued us from those invincible lords who held us captive— sin, death, and the devil. How has he done this? Not with the usual means of redemption this world knows according to the Law such as silver or gold, an economic exchange of like valued things, but rather with his holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:10) and similarly in Romans, “God put forward [Jesus] as a ‘mercy seat’ by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins…” (Rom 3:25). Through Jesus’ life and death, he served as that means of reconciling God and the world like the Mercy Seat of the Old Testament, and he does this by taking on the sins of the world and their punishment so that sin is no longer reckoned to the world, but reckoned to Christ, assumed and killed in his body, and there destroyed. Paul again writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21) and in another place, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us— for it is written, ‘cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Gal 3:13). Thus Paul confesses that Jesus has abrogated sin and the law which stood against us and death and the devil which lorded over us. He is the perfect sin-bearer and vicarious victim for us. And this is not for us only, but for the whole world. John writes, “He is the means of reconciliation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2).
In Christ we know God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and compassion. Jesus has abolished death, “Our savior Jesus Christ…abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:10). He has abrogated the law, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for all who believe” (Rom 10:4). He has defeated Satan, “the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8). All our enemies and causes for despair have been crushed and defeated by the work of Christ. Jesus has transformed our slavery into freedom, our sin into righteousness, our darkness into light, and our despair into hope.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, my brother and savior, I praise you for rescuing me from sin, death, and the devil’s power by your innocent suffering and death. Thank you for your great love and undeserved sacrifice that won me, a lost and condemned creature, to be yours. Give me faith to trust your reconciling work and live in the knowledge of your salvation; for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
