Sunday, October 25, 2026
“Since Christ has full atonement made / And brought to us salvation. / Each Christian therefore may be glad / And build on this foundation / Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead, / Your death is now my life indeed, / For You have paid my ransom.”
In the Apostles’ Creed we confess our belief in the Lord Jesus, who “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we know these facts about our Lord to be true, and we believe that He suffered and died for us. On the cross Jesus said, “It is finished,” and bowed His head and died (see John 19:30). Jesus completed the work of redemption that the Father had given Him to do. Our hymn offers four ways to describe what Jesus accomplished for us.
“Christ has full atonement made.” The word “atonement” comes from the two words “at one.” By His death, Jesus paid the debt we owed for our sins. He suffered the penalty of death we deserved. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19b). Our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled, at one, with God. Through His death, Jesus “brought to us salvation.” Salvation is a word that refers to being delivered, to being saved from something. By taking onto Himself the punishment for our sins, Jesus delivered us from sin and death and from the wrath and judgment of God that will come upon this world on the Last Day. It is Jesus “who delivers us from the wrath to come” (see 1 Thessalonians 1:10). Through Jesus’ death, “He [God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).
In our hymn we pray, “Your death is now my life indeed.” In Baptism we are united to Jesus’ death and burial and raised with Him to new life. This newness of life begins now. We can say with the apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20a). Then, when Jesus returns, we will be raised bodily from death as Jesus was raised. In our hymn we also give thanks to Jesus as we sing, “You have paid my ransom.” Once enslaved by sin and death, we have been ransomed and set free. The price was paid, not with silver or gold, “but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:19a). We describe what Jesus has done for us in different ways—atonement, salvation, newness of life, and ransom—but it is the truth in which we rejoice and the foundation on which we build our lives.
WE PRAY: Jesus, Your death is my life. Lead me to build my life on this foundation. Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Carol Geisler. It is based on the hymn, “Salvation unto Us Has Come,” which is number 555 in the Lutheran Service Book.
Reflection Questions: