The Suffering of Christ — Part One

I invite you to take your Bibles as we continue our study in 1 Peter. And as we do so, we remind one another that the reason we continue to study our Bibles in this way is because the advertisement at present for some form of Yellow Pages which is on our radios has got it right, where, if you’ve heard this commercial, it has the recurring background to it, “The answer’s in the book. The answer’s in the book.” And as I listened to that the other day, I said, “This is a great commercial. I wish I’d thought of it first.” But it’d be a super thing for a church advertisement on the radio, as a backdrop: “The answer’s in the Book.”

And it is with the conviction that the answer is in the Book (not, in this case, the Yellow Pages but in God’s inspired Word, the Bible) that we continue to come day by day and as families and as individuals to open our Bibles, not simply that we might have blessed thoughts that impinge upon us—although there is much that blesses us from the Word—not simply that our knowledge might increase, but ultimately that our lives might be changed. And this letter, which Peter wrote to the scattered believers of his day, is rich, I think we’ve been discovering, with help for those who would walk the path of discipleship to Jesus Christ, who would follow in his footsteps.

And last Sunday morning, we began a section which concerns the whole area of suffering. It began at the thirteenth verse. And as we pick it up this morning around verse 17 and 18, we need to recognize before one another that we’re looking together at what is arguably one of the most difficult sections of the whole of the New Testament both to understand and to expound. And the study this morning actually provides us with an opportunity to reinforce what we’ve used as a kind of foundational premise in our study of the Bible, as we’ve stated on numerous occasions: that when we come to the Scriptures, it is our conviction that God has made it such that the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. We don’t affirm that as a result of a spirit of laziness, nor because of an unwillingness to think; but rather, we affirm that in order to prevent us from an undue preoccupation with a portion of Scripture which we may never be able to unravel to our satisfaction until we have the privilege and opportunity of meeting the author face-to-face.

Now, there is a place and there is a time for the wrestling with and the delving into all the textual difficulties which surround a passage such as this. This may be the place, but I want you to know that this is not the time. Having said that I’m not going to get into it, let me get into it enough to let you know that there is something to get into and to let you know that I have got into it enough to be able to get into it if you want to phone me up at the office. Okay?

Three Classic Interpretations

There have been three classic interpretations of what is being said here, primarily in the sentence which begins, bridging 18 and 19, “He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” Now, you read that, and you say, “Now, wait. Let’s just read that again. We’ll try and read it a different way and see how it comes out.” Well, do that. And I’ll tell you: it comes out the exact same way.

The three classical interpretations of what was taking place here, in terms of Christ’s work, have been these.

Number one: that Jesus descended into hell and preached to the spirits of those who had perished in the flood at the time of Noah. That is one explanation of this passage of Scripture which has run and remains an explanation current in contemporary theology—that Jesus was down there preaching supremely to the spirits of those who had perished in the flood during the time of Noah.

Second line of interpretation is that in actual fact, Jesus did this preaching in the Spirit through Noah. Now, you need to turn back to 1:11 to understand why this is one of the lines of interpretation. You may remember that we said, when we studied 1 Peter 1:11, that the prophets were, like, on their tiptoes trying to get a full grasp of the nature of the salvation about which they were speaking. They had the beginning, if you like, of the jigsaw puzzle, but they did not have the end of it. And there Peter says that they were searching “intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances”—now, notice the next phrase—“to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.”[1] And so, theologians have said, so it was the Spirit of Christ who was in Noah who was proclaiming to the people at the time of the flood the message which God intended them to hear.

The third line of interpretation is that Jesus descends into the depths of the earth (into Hades, or into hell), and he preaches to the spirits in prison, who are (says line of interpretation number three) the fallen angels rather than human beings, so that line three of interpreting this section is that Jesus descended—which you have in the Apostles’ Creed: “He descended into hell,” you remember—he descended, and he proclaimed to the spirits in prison (namely, to the fallen angels) his victory and his triumph and their inability to thwart the eternal purposes of God.

Now, since you will be doubtless interested as to which of the three I lean to, it is to the third of these. And I’m going to tell you why and then just move away from it.

The word for “spirits” here in the Greek, pneumasin, when it is used on its own, without any qualification… For example, it is used in the Bible as “the spirits of just men made perfect”;[2] it’s the same word, but it is qualified by “the spirits of just men.” When the word “spirits” is used on its own, it always refers to supernatural beings. And it is used on its own right here. Furthermore, Jewish tradition refers to these fallen angels as having disobeyed God and having been punished by imprisonment and having had that take place in the period immediately prior to the flood, so that as the Jews grew up, they understood that Satan and his rebellious group along with him had been imprisoned immediately prior to the flood.

Now, when you take that notion and you consider it in light of—and you’re going to have to make your fingers do the walking this morning—2 Peter 2:4–5 and Jude 6–7, I think you’ll see that the facts seem to strongly favor this interpretation. However, I admit my own bias in it. Two Peter 2:4: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people,” and so on and so on. You’ll notice that he says, “God did not spare [the] angels when they sinned,” and then, immediately, the reference to the flood. In Jude, the second-last book of the Bible, and verses 6–7: “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.”

So this line of interpretation runs like this: Before the body of Jesus was raised from the tomb, it was limitless. He was in control from that moment on. He did not have to wait around to rise again. And he, being made alive in his spirit, went to these spirits down there—these fallen angels—and announced to them his triumph.

One further reference to just add to this: Colossians 2:14–15. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Speaking of the work of redemption, the work on the cross, Paul writes—verse 13, the final sentence—“He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” Now notice this next verse: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”—so that immediately the work of redemption was accomplished, Jesus descends to these spirits kept in prison, and he announces to them the victory and the triumph which is now going to become apparent to the world in his resurrection. That is one line of interpretation.

Having said that, none of the lines of interpretation is free from difficulty. And you should know that Martin Luther—who was a pretty good theologian, I think we’d all agree—said of this, “A wonderful text is this, and a more obscure passage … than any other in the New Testament, so that I do not know for a certainty just what Peter mean[t].”[3] And neither do I. But if you do, then that’s fine. You write your answer on the card and just send it in, and we’ll be glad to hear from you.

That should be enough either to confuse you hopelessly or to stir your interest. But nevertheless, these are the three classical lines of interpretation, and there is dubiety about them all.

The Suffering of Jesus

Now, despite those questions, what do we know? Despite these various uncertainties, we do know this: that the central theme that Peter is addressing here, albeit in a fairly complex pattern, has to do with the suffering of Christ. That’s his main thing. He is making perfectly plain certain truths concerning the suffering of Jesus. And in verse 17, he has noted the two factors that mark Christian suffering out as unique. He tells us in verse 17 that suffering as a Christian will be marked by, one, that that suffering is by God’s will, or it is God-ordained suffering; and two, that it is undeserved suffering. When we suffer as a Christian, knowing that God has our lives in the center of his grasp, knowing that he holds us in the palm of his hand, knowing that the very hairs of our heads are numbered, we then can safely assume that God is master even over this circumstance in which we find ourselves; that he, somehow, in providential care that we may not fully understand, he is in control; and also that we ought not look for blame in our lives or in the lives of others concerning this, because this suffering will in itself, in essence, be undeserved.

Now, having said that in verse 17, reminding these believers who were going through it, he then goes on in the eighteenth verse and following to show that Jesus is the supreme example of one who endured such suffering. This is very, very practical for his readers. Many of them were going to be thrown to the lions. Many of them were going to end up burned to a stake, not only in his generation but in the generations that would follow. One of the tragedies is that we don’t read church history anymore—that we’re not reading concerning what happened for the things of Christ and the gospel even in our own English-speaking worlds: the stories of Latimer being burned at the stake because of his convictions concerning Christ and his Word and the gospel; and with Ridley and Latimer, and Ridley fearful, and Latimer saying to him, “Don’t worry, Master Ridley. Today we will light such a candle in England that all of history will never be able to put it out.”[4] Now, he needed to know something. As he burned, he needed to know that somehow, God was in control, and secondly, that he was not being punished because of his abuse but because of his conviction concerning the gospel. And for those who would face such difficulty, Peter says, “Now, let’s look away to Jesus, and let’s see in him the supreme example of this perspective.”

And that’s why this morning we’re going to consider, first of all, the character of the suffering of Jesus—three things concerning it that I’ve marked in your bulletin.

Jesus’ Suffering Was Undeserved

First of all, it was undeserved. And once again, you’re going to be nimble through the Bible if you want to follow along today.

The opening phrase of verse 18, “For Christ died for sins once for all,” will sound familiar to some of us—to those of us who remember 2:21 and the time that we spent on that. Remember, when we looked there, we discovered Peter saying, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you.”[5] And we made much on that occasion of the fact that Jesus did not suffer simply as an example but that he suffered as a Sin-Bearer. And once again, Peter can’t get far away from this, and so he returns to it. And he wants his readers to understand that if ever there was unjust suffering, it was in the death of Jesus Christ.

Now, in order to bring this home to us this morning with force, let’s turn back into the Gospels and realize how much there is which underscores the nature of Christ’s undeserved suffering. Turn, first of all, to John chapter 18 and to the encounter between Jesus and Pilate and between Pilate and the Jews. Remember, the Jews were there with their trumped-up charges concerning Jesus. They could not bring death to bear upon him. They did not have the prerogative to do so. They needed a different system of justice—or of injustice, if you like. And so Pilate was key to their plans. And they needed to coerce Pilate.

If ever there was unjust suffering, it was in the death of Jesus Christ.

And the Jews, verse 28, “to avoid ceremonial uncleanness … did[n’t] enter the palace.” There’s a great irony in that, isn’t there? They didn’t want to get their hands dirty. They were just about to crucify the Messiah, but they didn’t want to do anything wrong by being ceremonially unclean in Pilate’s palace. “So,” verse 29, “Pilate came out to them and asked, ‘What charges are you bringing against this man?’” Verse 30: “‘If he were not a criminal,’ they replied, ‘we would not have handed him over to you.’” Now, any good attorney isn’t going to take that in a court of law. He’s going to come back at that a second time, and he’s going to say, “No, no. I would like you to state explicitly the charges against this man, Jesus Christ.” And the Jews bumble and stumble around because they know they do not have one valid word of accusation against him. They have been unable to accuse him of sin. All they’re able to accuse him of is the trumped-up charges of breaking the ceremonial accretions which they had created to the law of God, which Jesus had come patently to fulfill. So Pilate is confronted by the fact of the undeserved nature of what Christ is already going through.

Turn back a book to Luke and to chapter 23. Luke chapter 23. The story has gone further now. The crucifixion has taken place. And as they hang on the cross, “one of the criminals”—verse 39—“who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’” Verse 40: “But the other criminal rebuked him: ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence?’” Now, notice verse 41: “‘We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong’”—that the undeserved nature of the suffering of Jesus had not simply made its way through the crowd, but it made its way right up to the very scene, so that those who were hanging on the crosses beside him had understood the travesty of justice which was actually taking place.

The forty-seventh verse: as darkness covered the ground—the whole earth—and as the words of Jesus entering into eternity are uttered (“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”[6]), “the centurion,” who doubtless had seen many of these crucifixions, and “seeing what had happened, praised God and said, ‘Surely this was a righteous man.’” Isn’t that an amazing statement? The hard-bitten centurion, who had all the soldiers under his command, for whom crucifixion was a routine affair, noticed in this whole event: something was wrong. And his conclusion at the end of it is “This man was in the right. Therefore, his suffering was undeserved.”

And if we need one final illustration of this truth, we need only to turn to Matthew chapter 27 and to the cruel and bitter scene as Judas, verse 3, “was seized with remorse.” Why? Because he knew Jesus was innocent. And he “returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders.” And what did he say? Verse 4: “‘I have sinned,’ he said, ‘for I have betrayed innocent blood.’”

Now, you say, “This is a small matter, is it not? We understand this. We’ve known this for a while. It really shouldn’t have happened,” and so on. Loved ones, this is absolutely pivotal in all of our understanding of the gospel. The suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross was undeserved, right? But it was for sin, right? But if he had no sin, then it must be for the sins of someone else, right? Therefore, whose sin? The sinner’s sin! Any sinners present this morning? Then the wonder of this death becomes incredible—that a man died unjustly! Bore pain he never deserved! Died as a substitute for the sins of others! That’s why Peter tells us that being himself righteous, the suffering he bore was the penalty due to the sins of the unrighteous. Therefore, those who are unrighteous ought to run to Christ, the Righteous One, to thank him in adoring worship for the wonder of what he has done.

See, ultimately, the cross is not something to dangle around our necks as an ornament. The cross is not something, ultimately, to hang up on a wall and put flowers around it. The cross is the equivalent of an electric chair. And into that electric chair of the first century went a man who didn’t deserve to die. Now, until we’ve understood that, the good news is an irrelevancy. That’s why I make much of it. That’s why Peter returns to it.

Jesus’ Suffering Was Unrepeatable

The second thing to notice is that it was not only undeserved, but it was unrepeatable. Unrepeatable. Notice: “For Christ died for sins…” What’s the next word? “Once”! “Once for all.” All who will be redeemed will be redeemed as a result of this “once” sacrifice of Jesus.

No other door, no other way,
No other guide to the realms of day,
No other helper when tempted to stray,
No other friend like Jesus.

“Once.”

Now, why does Peter make much of this? Because many of his readers were Jewish. And having been brought up with the Jewish Levitical system, they understood that the priests were constantly about the business of sacrifice. And in order to sacrifice effectively, they must sacrifice for their own sins. And then, having ceremonially cleansed themselves, they were then able to enter on that one day of atonement into the holy of holies and sacrifice for the sins of the people, which was a tremendous event.[7] However, all the people understood, including the priest, that he had no sooner completed that sacrifice and turned and come back out into the mainstream of life until the news dawned on him once again that it was only a matter of time before he must needs to go through the process all over, because that sacrifice could never be final, could never be complete, could never be all-embracing.

And that’s why the Jews looked forward to the day, to the one who would come even as the lamb had been provided in the redemption from Egypt, bringing them on their journey into the promised land; as they looked for the Lamb of God who was to come, who would take away the sin of the world,[8] who would make a sacrifice that would be once for all; it would be complete; it would be effective. All who are saved pass from darkness to light by means of this one sacrifice for sins.

Those who are unrighteous ought to run to Christ, the Righteous One, to thank him in adoring worship for the wonder of what he has done.

Turn with me for a moment to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 9. For those of you who are beginning to wilt looking at the outline, let me give you a word of encouragement: we won’t go beyond the character of his suffering this morning. We’ll save the consequences for next Sunday morning.

Hebrews 9:26. Speaking of the sacrifice of Jesus and contrasting it with the sacrifices of the Old Testament—you really need to read the whole chapter, but let’s pick it up at verse 25: “Nor did he enter”—that is, Jesus—“heaven to offer himself again and again.” Notice that phrase. You don’t have Jesus going in and out of heaven again and again, making sacrifices, in “the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.”[9] That’s the little scene I’ve just described for us. “Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world.” Okay? There would have had to been some repeatable dimension to the sacrifice of Jesus. “But now,” in this time-space capsule, “he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed”—how many times?—“once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

So we look back to the cross and to his sacrifice, which makes it possible for us to have the debt and guilt of our sin to be wiped clean. So we look back and say, “That’s fantastic!”

Upon a life I [did] not [live],
Upon a death I did not die,
Another’s life, another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity.[10]

So I look back to that. And when the Evil One comes to me and says, “You know, you sinned today,” I must tell him, “You must come with me to the cross, because there Jesus bore my sin.” But that’s not all! I am looking forward to the day when he comes again in glory and I will be gathered up with him and all the redeemed and we will share with him the joys of eternity. So we look back in gratitude, and we look forward in expectation.

Now, you say, “Isn’t that just very straightforward?” Well, I hope it is, but I’m not sure. Hebrews 10:10: “And by that will”—the will relating to what Christ has left for us by means of his sacrifice—“we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ”—note the phrase—“once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” Verse 14: “Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” This is amazing theology, loved ones. You’ve got to get your heart into this and your head into this! This is amazing truth!

Now, what am I leading up to? When you read certain history books, and increasingly so today, you may be tempted to believe, may be left with the impression, that the Reformers—i.e., Calvin, and Luther, and Melanchthon, and Zwingli, and the rest—that the Reformers were a group of kind of disgruntled weirdos who had grabbed onto one or two things and made a dreadful fuss in their generation. They made a fuss about nothing, some would want us to believe, and the sooner we would get back to the time pre the Reformation fuss, then we would all be an awful lot better off.

Well, when, in point of fact, you read history, and you read the development of the church, you discover that that was not the case. Those of you who have read—I was reminded of this this week—the early instances of Luther celebrating the Mass as a Roman Catholic monk, you will have read of the strange experience in his spirit as he wrestled with the awesome notion that what was taking place, he said to the people, was the resacrifice of Jesus Christ by means of the Mass. And Luther said to himself, “How can this be? If Jesus Christ has ‘offered once for all a sacrifice for sins,’ and there can be no repetition, what in the world am I doing!” said Luther. And it was there that the seeds of the Reformation began.

Calvin: the same as he wrestled with this truth and finally stands up and says, “We can’t do this! Either we go with the Bible, which says this, or we go with the continued stream out of the Dark Ages, which says something else.” So people asked Calvin. They said to him, “Mr. Calvin, why would you leave the church when the prophets remained in apostate Israel?” Good question! “Calvin, you said there’s a lot wrong with the church, and you say you’ve got to leave and start a new one. What about the prophets in Israel? There was a lot, lot wrong in Israel, but they stayed. Why don’t you stay, Calvin?” And his answer, which you can read in his Institutes, is this: that the prophets, he said, never were called to participate in an act of worship that was sacrilegious. And had they been, they would have left, too, said Calvin.[11]

Now, there is a prevailing notion, loved ones, that all this is in the past—that somehow or another, this has all been swept aside in the ebb and flow of history. And I want you to know this morning that I am not addressing this out of any desire for division or disharmony or to champion a cause. I do so out of the emergence of the text of Scripture and out of a desire for the purity of the gospel. I constantly meet people who tell me, “Oh, Alistair, you know, some of that stuff you’ve got about the Reformation, that was all… Haven’t you read Vatican II?” They haven’t read Vatican II themselves, but it sounds good. All right?

Yes, I have. Here we go. This is the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy in Vatican II, the most up-to-date, redefined expression of Roman Catholic theology as it relates to the sacrifice of the Mass. This is what it says:

Hence the Mass, the Lord’s Supper, is at the same time and inseparably: A sacrifice in which the Sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated …. For in it Christ perpetuates in an unbloody manner the sacrifice offered on the cross, offering Himself to the Father for the world’s salvation through the ministry of [the] priests.[12]

That is what is happening in the Roman Catholic Mass.

Now, loved ones, it is not the Roman Catholic Church that has difficulty with this. It is the Protestant church that has turned its back on the Bible. That is why in the talks between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church in Great Britain, it is the Catholic Church which stands in the way of ultimate union, because it believes this absolutely and implicitly, and recognizes that the Reformation church does not believe this, and therefore cannot celebrate Communion—the Mass—with those Reformation folks until first they capitulate once again to the pre-Reformation truth succinctly enunciated, once again, in Vatican II.

My son came home from school the other day, and he told me… “The other day” is a euphemism for four weeks ago. And then he said to me, he said, “One of our tea… He said… Man! He said, ‘You ought to read about this guy, Calvin,’ he said. ‘He was…’ I forget what he called him—a ‘mean dude’ or something. I don’t know.”

And I said, “Do you know who Calvin was?”

He says, “Oh yeah, I know who Calvin was.” He says, “He was that guy that was giving the Church a bad time.”

And I said…

And he says, “You know,” he said, “the teacher asked us if there were any Protestants in the class.”

And I said, “Were there?”

And he says, “Well, about four kids put up their hands.”

I said, “Did you put up your hand?”

He says, “No!” He says, “I’m not a Protestant!”

So I said, “Well, what in the world do you think you are?”

Basically, the kid said, “You know,” he said, “I just know about Jesus and stuff.” And there’s a sense in which that’s just fantastic. But there’s another sense in which it’s phenomenally dangerous.

Jesus’ Suffering Was Purposeful

The sacrifice of Jesus was undeserved, was unrepeatable, and finally, it was purposeful. Purposeful. The reason that it took place was to bring us to God—so that we might be reconciled to a holy God, so that those of us who come in repentance and faith to Jesus might have unhindered access to the presence of God and that we might have unbroken, abiding enjoyment of his company.

That’s the significance, you see, when you read in Mark 15 of the temple curtain being torn in two.[13] Sometimes we read the Gospel record, and it says, “And the temple curtain was torn in two,” and people say, “Oh, very interesting. Yes.” Kind of, “You know, that’s fun. You know, you tear a couple of curtains. There’s got to be something in it.” Do you understand, loved ones, what it was? The minute that Jesus Christ died, the curtain was torn—not when he emerged from the grave. It wasn’t on resurrection morning that the curtain tore. It was right then, as soon as the sacrifice for sin was made. Bam! The curtain was open. Saying what? “Finished!” Saying this: “You want to know God? Come now.” Saying, “You want to know the reality of your sins forgiven in a sacrifice once for all? Come now. Do you want to be able to lay your head on the pillow at night and know that heaven is your home, that Christ is your Savior? Come now!” Not “Get mangled up in some kind of superstitious approach to things whereby we’re hanging helplessly by a thread, hoping that somehow we might gain heaven’s door.” No, Jesus did this that men and women this morning might be brought to God.

Here’s the question: Have we come to God? Have we come to him? Have you, as an individual this morning, come to God? Not “Have you come to church?” Have you come to God for yourself? Have you said, “I acknowledge that Jesus is the sacrifice for sin, and I acknowledge that I am a sinner. Therefore, I acknowledge that he made the sacrifice that I proclaim I need. And therefore, I am going to get alone with Christ, and I am going to ask him to make actual in my experience the reality and wonder of his redeeming love, that I might know that he has brought me to his heavenly Father.” The wonder of the atonement, loved ones, was not to show us how important we are to God, was not ultimately to deal with our diminished self-esteem. Rather, it was to bear the sin which you and I must acknowledge we have.

Jesus’ sacrifice took place to bring us to God—so that we might be reconciled to a holy God.

Who would say this morning,

I take, O cross, thy shadow
For my abiding place:
I ask no other sunshine
Than the sunshine of [thy] face;
Content to let the world go by,
To know no gain nor loss;
My sinful self my only shame,
My glory all the cross.[14]

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ: undeserved, unrepeatable, and purposeful.

Let’s bow together in prayer:

Make the Book live to me, O Lord,
Show me thyself within thy Word,
Show me myself and show me my Savior,
And make the Book live to me.[15]

Look upon us, gracious Father, I pray, in these final moments of our morning worship. As you see our hearts an open book before you, grant to us grace, that wherever we are on the spiritual pilgrimage of our lives, that we might know the reality of what it means to enter into the benefits of Christ’s undeserved, unrepeatable, purposeful sacrifice for sin. I pray, O Lord, that in your mercy, none may walk from this building this morning trusting in anything other than the atoning work of Jesus bearing sin in his own body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.[16]

Thank you for this time. Thank you for each other. Thank you for the privilege of freedom in worship. As we face the challenges of another week, grant that these truths may be so translated to our hands and to our feet that we may be able to impact the lives of others with the good news that the price has been paid, the work has been accomplished, that the door is open, that Christ is Savior. We commit one another to your care.

May grace, and mercy, and peace from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be the abiding portion of each one, today and forevermore. Amen.

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[1] 1 Peter 1:10–11 (NIV 1984).

[2] Hebrews 12:23 (KJV).

[3] Martin Luther, Commentary on Peter and Jude, trans. and ed. John Nichols Lenker (Grand Rapids: Kregel Classics, 1990), 166.

[4] Quoted in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, chap. 16. Paraphrased.

[5] 1 Peter 2:21 (NIV 1984). Emphasis added.

[6] Luke 23:46 (NIV 1984).

[7] See Leviticus 16.

[8] See John 1:29.

[9] Hebrews 9:25 (NIV 1984).

[10] Horatius Bonar, “Upon a Live I Have Not Lived” (1881).

[11] See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.2.9.

[12] Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction on Eucharistic Worship 3a, c.

[13] See Mark 15:38.

[14] Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” (1868).

[15] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.”

[16] See 1 Peter 2:24.