Legend has it that one day the devil came to Martin Luther and tried to get him to doubt his salvation by presenting him with a long list of sins that Luther was guilty of committing. Luther then told the devil that his list was incomplete. So the devil left and came back with even more sins to add to the list. At that point, Luther said to the devil, “That’s fine. Now write across the list in red ink, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.’” The devil was silenced.
Luther in that story showed that he understood the deal that God has cut with all those who are His. He understood that “the just shall live by faith; that by the works of the law no flesh will be justified; and that our sins are forgiven, every single one of them, past, present, and future!” And as Paul will teach us in today’s lesson, through the example of Abraham, the deal God has cut with us through the Gospel is a unilateral deal where He does all the work, and all we have to do is believe! Can you get a better deal than that? No!
George