“Luther’s view of the cross began to change when he realized that
Christ’s cry or scream [My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?] was
the result of bearing human sin. Christ himself had not committed sin;
he voluntarily took upon himself the entire sin of the world. This was
not done only in a conceptual or theoretical way. Christ really and
truly took sin upon himself, as if he had committed them in the first
place…
Luther’s next step was to take the “logic” of the cross and
apply it to his own situation. If Christ has the world’s sin on himself,
then Luther’s own sin is on Christ as well. If Luther’s sin is borne by
Christ, then he (Luther) is free of sin. If he is free of sin, then he
is righteous. The very thing that Luther tried to obtain by all his
labors in the monastery was given to him freely in Christ. Luther termed
this the “happy exchange,” whereby Christ, out of love, traded his
righteousness and purity to sinners and received from them their guilt
and shame. It is a terribly “unjust” exchange, since our sin kills
Christ while his righteousness yields life and freedom for undeserving
sinners. But it is all accomplished by God in Christ by a remarkable and
radical act of love.”
Mark D. Tranvik, Martin Luther’s Road to Freedom, pages 14-16.
John Dink
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