Sermon 335I

SERMON 335/I You cannot put new wine into old wineskins. "No one who is still in love with his sins can return to innocence. Therefore, my brethren, see that if you have at any time deviated even slightly from the path of rightness, you correct it and return to the true way of life." "He who loves wealth and fears separation from it does not really believe himself when he says that he believes in Christ. He promises Christ a part of himself, but reserves for himself the larger part."

ON THE BIRTHDAY OF THE MARTYRS

Our buyer has cleansed with a price what he had bought.

We know what we sang, and we hold it well: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. For by His price, the death of the saints is precious. Therefore, it is not surprising that the death of those who have been bought at such a price is precious. Indeed, the world cannot be weighed against His blood through which the world was made. But so that He might have blood to shed for us, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. His blood, therefore, is the price of all of us, which blood was shed for the remission of sins. For what were sinners worth, or how much were they worth? Was that blood truly the price of sinners? For Christ died for the ungodly. Hear the Apostle: God, he says, commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were yet sinners, did we value so much? Nay, we would be worth nothing if we remained sinners. That buyer of ours cleansed by His price what He purchased. For how could a sinner be worth so much unless he was cleansed by His price?

Absolutely not by loving sinners, Christ died for sinners.

Therefore, let us not look back to what we were before He redeemed us, lest we remain on the path. And let us not look back, yet let us keep it in our memory. For if we look back, we return to it; if we forget it, we will be ungrateful. What we were, it is good both to remember and to quickly hate: to remember in order to give thanks, to hate so as not to return to former things. For Jesus did not die for sinners by loving their sins. When we look for this on the surface, it meets with some difficulty in the question. For how did He not love those for whom He wished to die? And who are those for whom He wished to die? You heard the Apostle: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore, if He loved those for whom He died, and they are sinners for whom He died, therefore He loved sinners. The sinner should be silent, let the Savior speak. I know where what you say comes from, O sinner: you love to be a sinner. For you would not say: the Savior loved sinners, unless you loved to be a sinner. Therefore, let the sinner be silent, as I said; let the Savior speak. What does the Savior say? Behold, you are now made whole, sin no more, lest something worse happen to you. How threateningly He forbade what you loved! Does He therefore love what you wished to be, against whom He threatens such things if you return to what you were?

How then did He die for sinners if He does not love sinners? By absolutely not loving sinners, He died for sinners. Understand, and you will not struggle. You ask me how He did not love sinners who died for sinners. Tell me first what I am asking you, and you will yourself answer what you had questioned. What does each person love, do they want it to be, or do they not want it to be? I think that if you love your children, you want them to be; but if you do not want them to be, you do not love them. And whatever you love, you want it to exist, nor at all do you love that which you desire not to be. What, then, did the Lord will when He died for us? That we be sinners, or that we be freed from sins? If He died for us in order to erase our sins, did He love what He erased? Who erases what they love? If you are faithful, if you have believed in Him, if you have your heart above, to write what you are, He erased what you were.

There is one blood given as cleansing.

Behold him. Listen to him speaking in the psalm through prophecy: “Their infirmities were multiplied,” he said, “afterwards they hastened.” What does it mean: “Their infirmities were multiplied”? The law entered, so that the offense might abound. And what: “afterwards they hastened”? Where the offense abounded, grace abounded much more. What then? “Afterwards they hastened, because, filled with diseases, they sought the doctor. What then? I will not gather their assemblies from blood.” What does it mean: “I will not gather their assemblies from blood”? I will not gather them through those sacrifices of animals, not from blood, but from blood, because of which blood the death of His saints is precious in the sight of the Lord. Therefore, I will no longer gather their assemblies from blood. For by those bloods they were convicted, not cleansed. One blood was given and shed, cleansing, for many bloods convicting. One blood was given, and what then? Nor will I remember their names through my lips. Before that one blood was shed, when their assemblies were gathered from blood, their names did not die: adulterer, he was an adulterer; thief, he was a thief; assaulter, he was an assaulter; sacrilegious, he was sacrilegious. One blood was shed: “I will not remember their names through my lips.” Do not be deceived, says the Apostle, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God; these were their names. And to know that these were their names, hear what follows: “And such were some of you.” And where is: “Nor will I remember their names through my lips”? “But you were washed, but you were sanctified.” Therefore now you are not what you once were.

Christ came to the sick to make them healthy.

Certainly God loves sinners: certainly sinners, through His blood, are not what they were. How are they loved when the Lord Christ loved the righteous, not sinners? He loved what He wanted to make, not what He found. A doctor, if he fulfills what his title implies, loves the healthy, not the sick. And indeed I dare to say, and it is true, that He came to the sick precisely because He does not love the sick. What I said may seem contradictory, but I ask: Why did He come to the sick? To make them healthy. Therefore, He does not love the sick. He loves what He wants to make, not what He wants to remove. Therefore, the holy martyrs became healthy, bought at such a great price, redeemed by their Creator. They are twice servants, because they were both made and bought. And from where they are twice servants, thence they are free: bondsmen of the Creator, brothers of the Redeemer. If you want to see the servants, read the Gospel as an inventory; there you will see where they are bought. Pay attention to the transactions themselves: their price hung on the wood, was struck, was poured out. He poured out and bought: you read, and you find the inventory of servants. He made them brothers from servants, and what was the inventory of servants became the testament of sons. Amen.