1. Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands,
For our offenses given;
But now at God's right hand He stands
And brings us life from heaven;
Therefore let us joyful be
And sing to God right thankfully
Loud songs of hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
2. No son of man could conquer Death,
Such mischief sin had wrought us,
For innocence dwelt not on earth,
And therefore Death had brought us
Into thraldom from of old
And ever grew more strong and bold
And kept us in his bondage. Hallelujah!
3. But Jesus Christ, God's only Son,
To our low state descended,
The cause of Death He has undone,
His power forever ended,
Ruined all his right and claim
And left him nothing but the name,--
His sting is lost forever.
Hallelujah!
4. It was a strange and dreadful strife
When Life and Death contended;
The victory remained with Life,
The reign of Death was ended;
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That Death is swallowed up by Death,
His sting is lost forever.
Hallelujah!
5. Here the true Paschal Lamb we see,
Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree--
So strong His love!--to save us.
See, His blood doth mark our door;
Faith points to it, Death passes o'er,
And Satan cannot harm us.
Hallelujah!
6. So let us keep the festival
Whereto the Lord invites us;
Christ is himself the Joy of all,
The Sun that warms and lights us.
By His grace He doth impart
Eternal sunshine to the heart;
The night of sin is ended.
Hallelujah!
7. Then let us feast this Easter Day
On Christ, the Bread of heaven;
The Word of Grace hath purged away
The old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed,
He is our meat and drink indeed;
Faith lives upon no other.
Hallelujah! (Luther's Hymn)
1. Jesus Christ became sin for us but He was not a sinner. Sin was applied to Him so we might become the righteousness of God in Him. At the Cross in His propitiation and expiation, He appeased the wrath of the Father and removed sin as far as the east is from the west. He earned spiritual salvation for us by His perfect life, and He died for our sin to the Father that we might be forgiven and cleansed.
2. The question is, does God forgive the worst offender? If someone committed murder would God forgive them? Did God forgive Moses, David and Paul? Suppose its the worst offense concerning murder, does God forgive that offense? I would say that God means the Cross for the most desperate case.
3. With prayer and a searching of God's commandments from Scripture, I think a criminal could reform unto repentance and faith. I think reformation by itself is nothing, because everyone is in desperate need of divine grace. If they learn that Jesus took their place they will savingly understand the profound importance of the work of Christ alone in their place. Saving knowledge comes with the work of the Spirit of God; that is, He gives us the redemptive wisdom to hold onto Christ but He first holds onto us.
4. We must understand the impeccableness or sinlessness of the divine and holy substitute. Christ was innocent of sin, corruption or depravity unlike Adam. Adam had the changeable will to fall into sin, but Christ had the unchangeable will to fall into sin; that is, He was immutably sinless. Christ did not have the potential to fall into sin and He could never submit to outward temptations. He was indeed the Second Adam but no sinner could fulfill the place of a substitute if they were not sinless. Only a sinless substitute would work in God's redemptive plan; that is, Jesus did not share in the original depravity of the imputation of sin when He was born and He did not suffer from radical corruption like our first parents. He was the Lamb without blemish; that is, He was free from original sin and total depravity.
5. At the Cross, sin was imputed to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior; that is, He bore our sin on the redemptive tree. The Father laid on Him the iniquities of us all. He was our sin-offering; however, He knew no sin but sin was applied to Him alone. That means He bore all our defilement, depravity, corruption, and evil.
6. The Cross happened that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. This righteousness was a pure righteousness; a good righteousness; a holy righteousness; a altogether lovely righteousness and a heavenly righteousness. It was indeed God-honoring and God-delighting righteousness.
7. I think the substitute had to be divine; that is, the substitute had to be God Incarnate. God bore our sins on the Cross; that is, only God could do this. It would take the righteousness of God Himself to stand before God Himself and this is why the substitute had to be God in human flesh.
8. The sacrifice had to be free. Jesus died freely and He was the Good Shepherd who gave Himself freely for His people. We cannot merit spiritual salvation; we cannot deserve salvation; and we cannot deserve the redemption that is only found in the Cross of our great God and Redeemer Jesus Christ!
9. The substitute had to be born of woman but conceived of the Holy Ghost. He had to conceived by the Holy Spirit of God because the human race is a sinful race. Jesus was not a sinner and it means He was free from original sin and radical corruption. Jesus asked who accuses Him of sin and no one replied because they were convicted of His sinless testimony in a spiritual sense.
10. The substitute had to be eternal; that is, He was the eternal Son of God or God the Son. His life and death out do all of our eternal sin before the Father because the Son was and is eternal. The Son is eternal because He is the God-man; that is, He knows of all our weaknesses and infirmities because He was truly and fully man, but He also knows what it means to be God because from everlasting He existed as the eternal and Incarnate Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
11. We needed an authentic and divine righteousness; that is, only a God-born righteousness would do but everyone who embraces it by faith does not enter into Godhood; however, we remain sinners in the presence of God but we are also righteous. It is what Luther said at the same time just and sinner. We can only be just if we have His imputed righteousness, and it only comes to us by His Spirit's spiritual application to us in sovereign regeneration (John 3; Titus 3:5). He gives us a heart of flesh and takes out the heart of stone, and He provides for us His divine righteousness by the sufficiency of grace alone through faith alone.
12. We needed a substitute that already existed from everlasting to everlasting; that is, the Bible clearly says there is nothing new under the sun. I think we can safely say that God the Son existed before His birth in Bethlehem; that is, He was the Angel of God that men worshiped; however, He was not the redeemer of the angelic race but only of the human race through the holy incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth. God became man in Jesus Christ; that means Jesus is the divine Second Person of the Trinity.
13. We needed Someone who was the essence of grace and righteousness but this Someone could not be anyone but He needed to be God and man in complete sinlessness, the Incarnate Second Member of the Trinity. Jesus was Incarnate grace and righteousness. He is the dispenser and source of grace and righteousness. He is the central theme of grace and righteousness. There is no need to go through another intercessor to get to the grace and righteousness of Jesus. We may come to Him for grace and righteousness. It is a free grace and righteousness that only needs to be received through the instrumentality of faith alone and simple trust.
14. We needed Someone who was the essence of purity and holiness and uprightness. Jesus was Incarnate purity, holiness, uprightness. He is the dispenser and source of purity, holiness, uprightness. He is the central theme of purity, holiness, and uprightness. There is no need to go through another intercessor to get purity, holiness and uprightness. We must go to Jesus to get purity, holiness and uprightness. We come to Him for purity, holiness and uprightness. It is a free purity, holiness and uprightness that only needs to be received by simple hope and love.
15. We needed Someone who was the essence of goodness and mercy and loving-kindnesses. Jesus was Incarnate goodness, mercy and loving-kindnesses. He is the dispenser and source of goodness, mercy and loving-kindnesses. He is the central theme of goodness, mercy and loving-kindnesses. There is no need to go through another mediator to get goodness, mercy and loving-kindnesses. We must go to Jesus to get goodness, mercy and loving-kindnesses. We come to Him for it because He is the very heart of it. He gives freely and all that needs to be done to embrace it by simple faith.
16. We needed Someone who was the essence of love. Jesus was Incarnate love and wisdom. He is the dispenser and source of all love and wisdom and knowledge. He is the central theme of love and wisdom and knowledge. There is no need for another advocate (save the Holy Spirit) to get the essence of love, wisdom and knowledge. We must go to Jesus to get it because He is truly wonderful. He gives freely and all that must be done is to grasp it by the loving and holy charity of faith (a work of the Spirit alone).
17. We needed Someone who was the essence of joy. Jesus was Incarnate joy. He is the dispenser and source of all joy. He is the central theme of joy. There is no need for another mediator but Jesus because He is the personification of joy. We must go to Jesus to get joy because He is truly awesome. He gives freely and to have joy we only must come to Him on the basis that He approves which is by faith.
18. We needed Someone who was the essence of patience and faithfulness. He is the dispenser and source of all patience and faithfulness. He is the central theme of patience and faithfulness. There is no need for another advocate but Jesus because He is by virtue the essence of patience and faithfulness; that is, if there ever was a personification of something it is Jesus as patience and faithfulness. We must go to Jesus to get it because He is truly marvelous. He gives it freely to us on the grounds of trusting in Him alone for spiritual salvation in Christ Jesus.
19. We needed Someone who was the essence of self-control and obedience. He is the dispenser and source of all self-control and obedience. He is the central theme of self-control and obedience. There is no need for another intercessor because He is the essence of self-control and obedience. Jesus lived a sinless life; that is, He obeyed all the testimonies, judgments, statues, law and will of God. We must go to Him for it because He provides it freely through faith and simple trust. We may not have faith but He is able to be faithful to us when we are faithless.
20. We needed Someone who was the essence of prophethood. He was able to reveal the divine, holy and upright truth of God to the people of Israel. He is the sole dispenser and source of truth; that is, He is Incarnate truth. He is the central theme of truth because He is truth. There is no need for another mediator because Jesus was prophet. We do not need visions from the Virgin Mary, because we have the divine, holy and awesome testimony of divine Scripture. Jesus lived as a prophet of God on earth as a sinless Man of Nazareth. We must come to Him on the grounds of a simple hope and rest in His merits.
21. We needed Someone who was the essence of the priesthood. He was able to offer Himself and provide forgiveness and cleansing for His people. He is the dispenser and source of offering Himself for the people to be forgiven and cleansed through His eternal sacrifice once and for all. He is indeed the Incarnate Priest who came into the world to save the world. We do not need to say that through the sufferings of Mary she suffered for the sins of God's people. Only the redemptive suffering of Jesus gives us the perfect picture of the forgiveness of sins. Jesus lived a priest of God on earth as the God-man who never rejected any who came to Him on the grounds of faith alone.
22. We needed Someone who was the essence of kinghood. He was able to rule over a group of people in the nation of Israel as the Incarnate King. Jesus is the dispenser and source of royalty; that is, only His elect family are royal. Every brother and sister in Christ is of royalty. He is indeed the Incarnate King. We dare not say that since Jesus is King, Mary is Queen. We ought to rightly emphasize that Jesus is rightly and solely King and no other bares a great title like unto Himself.
23. We needed Someone who was the essence of the God-man. He was able to conduct His whole ministry as the God-man. He breathed, walked and talked as the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son. Jesus is the dispenser and source of imputed righteousness through faith alone. Jesus never makes someone god because there is no god besides Him. If we are divine in glory, it can't mean we are gods because there is but one God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is wrong to say as the polytheist says that there is many gods; that is, there is one God revealed in three distinct Persons.
24. We needed Someone who was the essence of sin for us to be judged by God in our behalf as a once and for all sacrifice. No one could atone for the sins of the world; that is, Buddha could not and it never entered his mind and likewise all the rest of the pretenders. He stated His mission forthrightly; that is, He declared Himself to be the Good Shepherd that lays down His life for His sheep. There is no other way for Him to atone for sin but by His cross because it was the will of the Father that He atone for sin only at the Cross which was revealed in the agony in the Garden.
25. We needed Someone to remind us by His Spirit of His eternal atonement. We remember His awesome atonement in a special way through holy communion. Jesus is truly and divinely present in the Eucharist at sacred communion. He is present through His omnipresence but He is there in a special consecrated sense through the Word of God and the preacher.
1. All praise to Thee, eternal God,
Who, clothed in garb of flesh and blood,
Dost take a manger for Thy throne,
While worlds on worlds are Thine alone.
Hallelujah!
2. Once did the skies before Thee bow;
A virgin's arms contain Thee now,
While angels, who in Thee rejoice,
Now listen for Thine infant voice.
Hallelujah!
3. A little Child, Thou art our Guest
That weary ones in Thee may rest;
Forlorn and lowly is Thy birth
That we may rise to heaven from earth.
Hallelujah!
4. Thou comest in the darksome night
To make us children of the light,
To make us in the realms divine,
Like Thine own angels, round Thee shine.
Hallelujah!
5. All this for us Thy love hath done;
By This to Thee our love is won;
For this our joyful songs we raise
And shout our thanks in ceaseless praise.
Hallelujah! (Luther's Hymn)
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