ity of recognizing the inexpressible love and grace of God
toward us. Only so can the terrified heart of man regain comfort. It
must be made aware why God spared not his own Son but offered him a
sacrifice upon the cross, delivered him to death; namely, that his
wrath might be lifted from us once more. What greater love and
blessing could be shown? The sacrifice of Christ is presented to us to
give us sure comfort against the terrors of sin. For we may perceive
and be confident that we shall not be lost because of our sins when
God makes such a sacrifice the precious pledge to us of his favor and
promised salvation.

Therefore, though your sins are great and deserve the awful wrath of
God, yet the sacrifice represented by the death of the Son of God is
infinitely greater. And in this sacrifice God grants you a sure token
of his grace and the forgiveness of your sins. But that forgiveness
must be apprehended by the faith which holds fast the declaration,
"Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." By this promise must faith
be comforted and strengthened.

"Wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with
the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth."

26. Having, then, a Paschal Lamb and a true Easter, let us rightly
value them. Let us observe the festival with the gladness it ought to
inspire. Let us no longer eat the old leaven, but true wafers and
paschal cakes. Where the Paschal Lamb is, there must be the unleavened
bread. The former is Christ sacrificed for us. To this sacrifice we
can add nothing; we can only receive and enjoy it by faith,
recognizing it as a gift to us.

However, possessing the Paschal Lamb, it is incumbent upon us to
partake also of the sweet festal bread; in other words, while
embracing the faith of the Passover, we are to maintain the true
doctrine of the Gospel, illustrating it by the godly example of our
own lives. We should live an eternal Easter life, as it were, to carry
out Paul's analogy, a life wherein we, as justified, sanctified and
purified people, continue in peace and the joy of the Holy Spirit, so
long as we remain on earth.

27. In this verse, as in the preceding one, Paul contrasts the leaven
and the unleavened bread. He makes leaven a general term for
everything which proceeds from flesh and blood and an unrenewed sinful
nature, but classifies it under two heads--the leaven of malice and
the leaven of wickedn