DLORD 15 [1, 2, 8]
Some
people in the church believe
that by His suffering of the cross
the
Lord took away sins
and made satisfaction to the Father,
and so redeemed
mankind.
Some believe, too, that He transferred to Himself
the
sins of people who have faith in Him,
bore them,
and cast them into the
depths of the sea,
that is, into hell.
. . . First, therefore, we must say
what bearing our iniquities means,
and then what it means to take them away.
To
bear iniquities means nothing else
than to endure severe temptations or
trials,
and to allow the Jews to treat Him
as they treated the Word.
He
allowed them to treat Him in the same way
because He embodied the Word.
For the church
which existed at that time among the Jews
was completely
destroyed,
having been destroyed
by their perverting everything in the
Word,
to the point that there was no truth left.
Consequently neither
did they acknowledge the Lord.
This is what is meant and symbolized by
everything having to do with the Lord’s suffering.
The prophets were treated similarly,
because they represented
the Lord
in relation to the Word
and so to the church,
and the Lord was the
prophet.
. . . the prophets represented
the state of the church and the Word.
For
whoever represents one,
also represents the other,
since the church is
founded on the Word,
and is a church in accordance with
its reception of
the Word in its life and faith.
Consequently wherever prophets
in
either Testament are mentioned,
they symbolize the doctrine of the
church
drawn from the Word.
Moreover, the Lord, as the greatest prophet,
symbolizes the church itself and the Word itself.
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