Introduction: Herein lives and breathes our Christ in the manger of our hearts! Allow this Gospel message to penetrate your hearts and teach others. There is no other gift so valuable I could give which comes from my heart and the depths of my soul. This proclamation of the Word addresses every question, problem, and perplexity of man. If your life is consumed with anything other than how you get rid of the stain of sin on your conscience, then your life is an eternal wasteland. Even when you have answered the question aright, you must be consumed with waging war with Satan so that you see your sin transferred always to Christ. I am astonished that Christ pierced my heart and soul with this true message, in light of my arrogance, knowledge and zeal. It took no less than 25 years of dire tribulation. BEHOLD! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Isaiah 53

"Who has believed what we have heard?" The prophet complains about the unbelief of the Jews who could not conceive of such an Annointed One as Isaiah was proclaiming. Everyone wants a Christ born of the figment of his own imagination. In like manner, no one today can conceive of a Christ who would spew the church out of His mouth. The Jews could not envision a Christ dying so wretched a death, just as our "Jews" today cannot imagine that all we need of Christ is in the Meal when partaken of in faith. Just as it didn't make sense to those in Noah's day that they needed the ark, so our post-diluvian fools cannot give ascent to their need to be led away from the coming fiery wrath of God via Luther. They do not believe what we have heard, but ignore the power of the Word through the voice of Baptism and the Supper; for this unbelief Christ will spew them out of His mouth, proving that many are called but few are chosen, and reminding us that many will say in that day, "Lord, Lord… " but Christ will proclaim that He never knew them.

"He had no form or comliness to attract us to him." Luther states that this means that we "deprive Him of everything. Everything about Him was repulsive. The people treated him in a most horrible way." The nature of man cannot accept the "weakness" of Christ. But Christ is strong today and everyone gladly embraces this strong Christ who grants much money, political power and unconditional acceptance. The mind readily relates to this beautiful christ.

Confession: Godliness repulses me.

"He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, and we esteemed him not." That is, "one for whom there is no concern whatever, one from whom all turn away." The world is preoccupied with its own esteem. Christ suffered a physical, open, and extremely shameful suffering. Are you willing to take up the cross of Christ, or will you also leave this true Christ like most? Christ was a "man wounded and beaten." Have you been wounded for Christ? Do you bear His wounds and shame and disfigurement, or nurse your own? Are you repulsed at the true Christ who is repulsed at human effort, free will, and self-righteousness? If we are honest, our instinct toward Christ is the same as when we see someone we hate and detest. Christ was sick at heart because of His own people's rejection of the Word of God; are you willing to carry this cross?

Everyone is wounded. Being born is nothing but a perpetual wound. But have you been wounded for Christ? The Law, sin, and death are wounds, but allowing Christ to take these wounds is a wound itself to the human spirit.

Confession: The true meaning of the Word offends and wounds me; I want the praise of man more than the shame of the cross.

"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted." Luther: Christ was cursed and killed FOR US. It is not enough to know the matter, the suffering, but it is necessary to know its function. The pope retained the matter but denied the function. The Baptists deny both. (I quote for you Bill, the Charismatic warrior against the Roman Catholics: "My salvation is not in water baptism or the communion of the Lord's supper but it is in Christ himself. My faith is in him. I have been baptized and I take communion because the Lord told me to." You see how he/they put their faith in their obedience rather than in the Word.) Christ must be implemented moment by moment because we are sinners moment by moment. Here you see the fountain head from which St. Paul draws countless streams of the suffering and merits of Christ, and he condemns all religions, merits, and endeavors in the whole world through which men seek salvation."

"It is difficult for the flesh to repudiate all its resources, to turn away from self, and to be carried over to Christ. It is for us who have merited nothing not to have regard for our merits but simply cling to the Word between heaven and earth, even though we do not feel it. These words, OUR, US, FOR US, must be written in letters of gold. This is the preaching of the whole Gospel, to show us that Christ suffered for our sake contrary to law, right and custom."

Confession: I fight the Gospel by maintaining my right, dignity and esteem.

"He was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought peace was upon him." This statement honestly considered will reveal to you your need, sin, and hypocrisy: "It is all the same whether I have sinned or whether I have done well." The conscience condemns for sins and consoles upon the basis of works, but believes with great difficulty that in Christ sins and works are all the same—equally sinful and equally pardoned.

The principal question in life: How will the conscience find true peace? A godly conscience is molded through the Word while an ungodly conscience is shaped by the world. The great warrior Bill is an example of worldly wisdom. Obedience just makes sense to his mind so he runs with it, but in his running he is running against and away from faith. Then, as all hypocrites do, he adds the name of Christ and God to his well-formulated religion. In this way, he/they have a form of godliness but they deny the true power of the Word. True godliness looks like this: The only thing I will allow to live in my conscience are these words, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," and "This is My body given for you for the forgiveness of sins." No trust is put in works or acts of obedience; rather, we believe that we have been elected through the Word, sustained through the Word, and animated through the Word, despite all external evidence to the contrary.

To illustrate: Fort Knox is the conscience, the Spirit-enlightened mind is the door, and Christ is the gold in the conscience. The individual bars of gold are the promises of Christ: THIS IS MY BODY, THIS IS MY BLOOD, GIVEN FOR YOU FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS. If I allow any other dirty thought to take its place amidst this gold, then I have denied Christ. Any other thoughts would include: "My sin is too great"; "I must make up for my sin"; "God is against me." Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, not even the assessment of the whole church. As long as I know I am sorry for my sins, though I don't trust my contrition, and know that I believe the Word even when it seems that God Himself is fighting against me, then I will not fear any thing, but rest comfortably upon the Word.

Confession: I work to appease my conscience because my mother told me that good boys and girls do good things.

Luther: Christ alone bears our sins. Our works are not Christ. Therefore, there is no righteousness of works. We can preach and uphold this passage in public, but we can only believe it with difficulty in private. If we preserve this article, 'Jesus Christ is the Savior,' all other articles concerning the Holy Spirit and of the church and of Scripture are safe. Thus Satan attacks no article so much as this one. He alone is a Christian who believes that Christ labors for us and that He is the Lamb of God slain for our sins. While this article stands, all the monasteries of righteousness are struck down by lightning. In the light of this text read all the epistles of Paul with regard to redemption, salvation, and liberation, because they are all drawn from the fountain. A blind papacy read and chanted these and similar words as in a dream, and no one really considered them. If they had, they would have cast off all righteousness from themselves. Hence it is not enough to know and accept the fact. One must also accept the function and the power of the fact. If we have this, we stand unconquered on the royal road, and the Holy Spirit is present in the face of all sects and deceptions. When this doctrine is safe, we firmly stand up to all people, but where this article is lost, we proceed from error to error, as we observe in the babbling of the Pentecostals and Billy Graham. Our nature is opposed to the function and power of Christ's Passion. As far as the fact itself is concerned, both the pope and the Turk believe it and proclaim it, but they do not accept its function. As for you, lift up this article and extol it above every law and righteousness and let it be to you a measureless sea over against a little spark. The sea is Christ who has suffered. Your works and your righteousness are the little spark. Therefore beware, as you place your sins on your conscience, that you do not panic, but freely place them on Christ, as this text says, 'He has borne our iniquities.' We must clearly transfer our sins from ourselves to Christ. If you want to regard your sin as resting on you, such a thought in your heart is not of God but of Satan himself, contrary to Scripture, which by God's will places your sin on Christ. Hence you must say: 'I see my sin in Christ, therefore my sin is not mine but another's. I see it in Christ.' It is a great thing to say confidently: 'My sin is not mine.'

Confession: There is a monk within my breast.

Confession: My self-righteousness is so deep, I cannot fathom it.

Confession: My guilty conscience, anxiety, and uneasiness prove I have placed my sins on my conscience rather than on Christ.

Confession: I mock this "transfer" by treating my sins as if unowned and unfelt. I greatly minimize my sin by minimizing my understanding of the 10 Commandments. I fail to see the wrath of God directed toward my sin, even when I am in Christ.

Observation: The great division and sectarianism rampant today indicate this main plank of salvation is not safe.

Statement of faith: I reject the world's notion that faith is an easy thing.

Statement of faith: Our religion knows nothing of get-rich-schemes and decision-making.

Confession: I have a deep need to have the form of God instead of the power of godliness. I accept the fact, but deny the function of salvation with my very life.

Statement of faith: MY SIN IS NOT MY OWN.

Luther continues in this most precious Commodity: Something further must be noted, lest those who do not feel this {forgiveness/transfer} despair. (These are the "wounded", those with weak and timid consciences, those who have been badgered, downtrodden, emotionally weak. These should be a blessing to us because they are "naturally" in a state which we should seek.) There Satan can turn the antidote into poison and the hope into despair. For when a Christian hears these supreme consolations and then sees how weak he is with regard to his faith in them, he soon thinks that they do not apply to him. In this way Satan can turn consolation into distress. But as for you, however weak you are, know that you are a Christian, whether you believe perfectly or imperfectly, even while weakness and a feeling of death and sin remain with you. To such a person we must say: 'Brother, your situation is not desperate, but pray together with the apostles for the perfection of your faith.' Paul also struggled with this problem and was deeply disturbed. A Christian is not yet perfect, but he is a Christian who has, that is, who begins to have, the righteousness of God. I say this for the sake of the weak, so that they will not despair when they feel the bite of sin within themselves. They should not yet be masters and doctors but disciples of Christ, people who learn Christ, not perfect teachers. Let it suffice for us to remain with that Word as learners. It is enough for us to have begun and to be in the state of reaching after what is before us. Hence a Christian man must be especially vexed in his conscience and heart by Satan, and yet he must remain in the Word and not seek peace anywhere else than in Christ. We must not make a log or a rock out of the Christian as one who does not feel sin in himself. This is the claim of the exceedingly spiritual Pentecostals."

Confession: I am afraid to peel away the layers of peace I have built up so as to see my insecurity and troubled conscience.

Confession: I confess my arrogance in assuming myself to be a master of the Word. (This is a most needed confession today, especially by those who do not claim to know the Bible that well, yet talk so dogmatically.)

How do I feel sin? Not like I used to by feeling guilty over insignificant sins, working to feel better about them, but ignoring my spiritual blasphemy. Now, the more I understand the Law and myself, the more I feel my sin to the point of sobs, But I feebly look to Christ. God has greatly delivered me from my seared conscience of creating insignificant sins but ignoring great and grave sins. I was an idolater who had created my own salvation and ignored God's.

"The chastisement of peace." Away with the papists and those who set Christ before us as a terrible judge and have turned the saints into intercessors. They have added fuel to the fire. By nature we are already afraid of God. His chastisement is the remedy that brings peace to our conscience. Before Christ there is nothing but disorder. Note the wonderful exchange: One man sins, another pays the penalty; one deserves peace, the other has it.

Confession: I am afraid of God.

Confession: I have created nothing but disorder in my life. I sin hourly by creating "order" apart from Christ.

"And with His stripes we are healed." This balm of Christ is a remarkable plaster. His stripes are healing. The stripes should be ours and the healing in Christ. Hence this is what we must say to the Christian: "If you want to be healed, do not look at your own wounds, but fix your gaze on Christ." (Example: Judas looked at his wound and perished. Depressed persons are looking only at their wound.) We must proudly wear His stripes in our spirit; especially the stripes which stripe our minds due to the rebuke of the Word.

"All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." The prophet calls all our labors and endeavors errors. In this text all the apostles have attacked the religions and the Law itself. The religions through their own rules and their own way want to load our sins on us and say, "If you will observe these things, you will be free from your sins." The whole world can put up with every sectarian teaching and even support it in peace. But it cannot bear this faith and the rejection of all works and merits. Because self-glory is brought to naught and the world likes to hear its own glory, it is not willing to reject its own. The head of self -righteousness must be lopped off. I grant that the works of the godly are good and right, but they do not justify. This Satan cannot bear, and because of this we are persecuted and we suffer to the present day, since we have taught all things in peace, tranquillity, patience, and purity, more than he, certainly. By this text we have cast down every foreign righteousness and hypocrisy. Therefore write this text on the foundation in golden letters or in your own blood. Christ has nothing from us but death and labor and we have righteousness and life from Him.

Confession: I create my own atonement when I remain in a feeling of guilt.

"He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth: he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent." This expresses the will and the patience of Christ as He suffers, that He does not even think of vengeance. This is the way for Christians to suffer, that they endure very patiently without threats and curses, yea, that they pray for and bless their tormentors. This is the force of that crucifixion, that such a Christ will suffer who is described as overflowing in suffering like that of a sheep, with His whole heart filled with love. So Christ, keeping silence, always sympathizes with their ills. Thus you have Christ undergoing most shameful suffering in His person and yet suffering with a most patient heart.

"By oppression and judgment he was taken away. As for His generation, who will tell it? For he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression of my people he was stricken." That is, He is not dead but taken away from oppression. Here he says that His oppression and judgment is finished. This cannot be said of a dead person remaining in the grave, but it can be said of one liberated and revived.

"As for His generation, who will tell it?" Who can relate its duration, since His life and duration is eternal. Note the two contrary statements: Someone dying and yet enduring forever. Here, then, the prophet established Christ in an eternal age, something that cannot be expressed, namely, that He has been transposed into eternal life. Ever and again he says "for the sins of My people." Let us not simply pass over Christ's suffering, but we must always look to its function, that it was for the sake of our sins. He says that He was separated and brought into another life, something no one understands from the perspective of this life. Through this suffering He was transported from a mortal existence to an immortal one. A true Christian follows this rule of the spiritual life.

Confession: I rejoice more in the fact of Christ than in the form of Christ. I avoid all forms of suffering

Confession: I minimize my sin and Christ's atonement for my sin.

"His grave will be given Him with the ungodly and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth." The most innocent Christ was judged by the Jews to be the most guilty.

Fact: A true Christian will be accused of being disorderly and an insurrectionist.

"Yet he gave His soul as an offering for the guilty, and so shall see His seed and His days shall be prolonged." Now he describes the fruit of His passion, and this is His fruit, that He will have His future kingdom according to the statement: "He sits at the right hand of the Father, from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead." Transgression is properly called guilt. To commit sin properly means that someone has done something and remains guilty. Thus we are unable to remove our guilt. Therefore only Christ can do it.

Confession: I consciously and unconsciously feverishly work to remove my guilt.

Statement of faith: I am nothing but sin, therefore my whole person must be borne by Christ.

Statement of faith: My spirit craves a deeper knowledge and rebuke of sin, though my flesh loathes it. My mind is the major portion of my flesh.

"After the travail of His soul He shall see the fruit and be satisfied. By His knowledge He will justify many, because He shall bear their iniquities." Luther paraphrases: "Everything will go just as He wants it." Those who confess that their sins have been borne by Him are righteous. The definition of righteousness is wonderful. Many say that righteousness is the fixed will to render to each his own. Here he says that righteousness is the knowledge of Christ, who bears our iniquities. Whoever will, therefore, know and believe in Christ as bearing his sins will be righteous.

A Christian cannot arrive at this knowledge by means of any laws, either moral or civil, but he must ascend to heaven by means of the Gospel. There is no other plan or method of obtaining liberty than the knowledge of Christ. For that reason Peter and Paul are constantly saying that we must increase in this knowledge, since we can never be perfect in it (2 Peter 3:18; Co. 1:10). The knowledge of Christ must be construed in a passive sense. It is that by which He is known, the proclamation of His suffering and death. You must therefore note this new definition of righteousness. Righteousness is the knowledge of Christ. What is Christ? He is the person who bears all our sins. These are unspeakable gifts and hidden and unutterable kinds of wisdom.

Confession: I undermine the genuine, saving knowledge of Christ by my pursuit of Christian character.

Confession: I am far too active to be a Christian.

Fact: Christians today understand knowledge only in an active sense. Hence, all the Bible studies and Bible Schools.

Confession: I climb to the knowledge of the Word, rather than waiting on the Spirit to transcend me beyond myself to the true Word.

Statement of faith: I sit quietly in my spirit, under the tutelage of Luther, and quietly listen to the voice of God, "This is My body given for you for the remission of sins."

The individual words must be read and considered with the most watchful eyes, so that it is not simply any kind of knowledge or understanding but a knowledge which justifies, in opposition to other kinds of knowledge. Thus you see this remarkable definition of righteousness through the knowledge of God. It sounds ridiculous to call righteousness speculative knowledge. Therefore it is said in Jer. 9:24: "Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me." Therefore this knowledge is the formal and substantial righteousness of the Christians, that is, faith in Christ, which I obtain through the Word. The Word I receive through the intellect, but to assent to that Word is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not the work of reason, which always seeks its own kinds of righteousness. The Word, however, sets forth another righteousness through the consideration and the promises of Scripture, which cause this faith to be accounted for righteousness. This is our glory to know for certain that our righteousness is divine in that God does not impute our sins. Therefore our righteousness is nothing else than knowing God. Let the Christian who has been persuaded by these words cling firmly to them, and let him not be deceived by any pretense of works or by his own suffering, but rather let him say: "It is written that the knowledge of God is our righteousness, and therefore no monk, no celibate, etc., is justified."

Fact: Self-chosen suffering is most deceiving.

"And He shall bear their iniquities." Here he repeats the foundation. To bring Christ, this is righteousness. Another part is, Who is Christ? He answers: "Christ is not a judge and tormentor and tyrant, as reason apart from the Word fashions Him, but He is the bearer of our iniquities." Yet He will become judge and tyrant to those who refused to believe in Him. It is, however, the office of Christ to bear our sins. Hence we must conclude from this text: "If Christ bears my iniquities, then I do not bear them."

We must diligently observe this article. I see that there are many snorers treating this article. They are the ones who consider these words the way a man does who looks at his face in a mirror (James 1:23). The moment they come upon another object or business, they are overwhelmed, and they forget the grace of God. For that reason you must most diligently consider this article and not allow yourself to be led astray by other teachings, occupations, or persecutions.

Fact: Luther keeps me on "task."

Confession: I run from "Christian" tangent to "Christian" tangent.

Confession: What is most important to God concerning me—justification—is least important to me.

Prayer: May You set my face as flint toward this most important Doctrine, which is the Gospel Itself.

"Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong since He poured out His soul in death and was numbered with the transgressors; He gave His life into death, yet He bore the sins of many." The prophet repeats the suffering of Christ and with this battering ram he strikes the stubbornness of the Jews who do not want to hear about the Christ who dies but who look for a Christ who never dies. Rather, Christ died the most despised kind of death in the midst of robbers.

After describing His death he delineates the force and power of His sufferings. He says, "He did not die in vain, but all promises of Scripture have been fulfilled."

"And made intercession for the transgressors." Christ's patience is commended to us. He was heartily glad to do it. First He depicts the suffering, second, the kind of suffering, third, the power of the suffering, and fourth, His patience. Thus He compassionately prayed for transgressors and crucifiers and shed tears for them and did not deal with them with threats. Who can place the Christ thus depicted in love into his heart, as He is here described? Oh, we would be blessed people if we could believe this most noble text, which must be magnified. I would wish it to be honored in the church, so that we might accustom ourselves to an alert study of this text, to bring us to see Christ as none other than the One who bears and shoulders the burden of our sins. This figure is a solace to the afflicted, but to snoring readers these are nothing but idle words.

Fact: A Christian preaching looks impatient; but his inner life is wholly patience.

Confession: This study wearies my flesh and I spurn it. God be merciful to me a fool and a sinner.

Love in the simplicity of the manger-Christ,

Dad
Christmas 2001