evenge? I am already too highly honored of God in the fact that my
sufferings meet his approbation and that he will perfectly avenge me
of mine enemies. What can it advantage me for them to burn eternally
in hell? I will rather pray and use my utmost efforts for their
conversion. If I fail and they are determined to persist in their
course, I must bring the matter home to God--must commit it to him.

"Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we,
having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness."

37. Peter's is the true preaching concerning the passion of Christ. He
teaches not only the merit in Christ's sufferings, but introduces both
themes--its efficacy and example. Such is Paul's custom, also. In this
verse Peter presents Christ's sufferings in the light of a sacrifice
for sin. They constitute a work acceptable to God as satisfaction for
the sins of the whole world and effective to reconcile him to men. So
great is God's wrath toward sin that none but that eternal one, the
Son of God, could avert it. He had himself to be the sacrifice, to
allow his body to be nailed to the cross. The cross was the altar
whereupon the sacrifice was consumed--wholly burned--in the fire of
his unfathomable love. He had to be his own high priest in this
sacrifice: for no earthly mortal, all being sinners and unclean, could
offer to God the sacrifice of his beloved and wholly sinless Son; the
boasting of the priests of Antichrist in regard to their masses, to
the contrary notwithstanding. Now, by the single sacrifice of God's
Son, our sins are remitted and we obtain grace and forgiveness; and
this fact can be grasped in no other way than through faith.

38. Peter mentions the ultimate object of the divine sacrifice made
for us, what it accomplished in us, the fruit Christ's passion shall
yield; for he would not have the Christian Church overlook that point,
or neglect to preach it. Christ, he tells us, took upon himself our
sins, suffering the penalty. Therefore, Christ alone is entitled to be
called a sacrifice for all our sins. It was not designed, however,
that after the sacrifice we should remain as before; on the contrary,
the purpose was ultimately to work in us freedom from sins, to have us
live no longer unto sin but unto righteousness. Now, if in Christ our
sins are sacrificed, they are put to death, blotted out; for to
sacrifice means to slay, to kill. Under the Old Testament
dispensation, all sacrif