The Descent of the Contemporary Church into Cultural Narcissism – a dialogue joined by Reformed and Lutheran Christians

In April of 2011, I had written a rather lengthy post, entitled, Money, Ministry, God, and Mammon: How “love” binds them all together – a Case in Point ...or... The “love bug” bites Answers in Genesis... on the arse.. It was written following the scandal of Ken Ham’s permanent dismissal from speaking engagements with Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.. Apparently, he was “being unloving” toward Christians who accepted the theories of Biological and Cosmic Evolution as compatible with orthodox Christian teaching, by publicly warning of their errors. Even though Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc., was informed by Answers in Genesis that Ken Ham would identify another speaker on their docket (specifically, Dr. Enns of the Biologos Foundation) and would warn those attending his own lecture that this person taught contrary to the Scriptures, even though Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc., affirmed Ken Ham’s intent to warn of these errors as their expectation, and in a way that nevertheless welcomed and encouraged him as a speaker, he was, nevertheless, “permanently fired” quite suddenly following the first convention that year: “Ken Ham was not removed for his message,” they put in writing afterwards, “Ken Ham was removed for his spirit” – whatever that means. Not buying weak explanations of this sort, many in the homeschool community smelled a rat – a political rat – and remain suspicious of, and disenfranchised from, Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.

That post attracted quite a bit of attention at the time, from outside Lutheranism, especially. As a result, one commenter was prompted to ask concerning the differences between Lutheranism and her own Presbyterian church. So I wrote a followup article, entitled, Differences between Reformed and Lutheran Doctrines – a post that has remained popular since that time. I concluded it with the following sentence: Finally, if you’re interested in what confessional Reformed and Lutheran dialogue sounds like, a good radio program to listen to is The White Horse Inn Classic, a program in the weekly line-up of Pirate Christian Radio.

Today’s post features a recording of The White Horse Inn from May of 2012, entitled, Growing in Grace & Knowledge. The title of the broadcast was taken from St. Peter’s admonition to “Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pe. 3:18), admonition which is impossible to heed without deliberately engaging the intellect. But many Christians, including many Lutherans, have been taught to distrust the intellect – “Reason is the enemy of faith,” after all. Even though Luther meant by this the use of Reason over and against the clear teaching of Scripture, many, in my recent experience, choose to chuck reason entirely out the window rather than give it a foothold, and immediately resort to the accusation “But that’s reason,” when one of their cherished falsehoods is challenged by a thoughtful, Scripturally sound and persuasive argument. They forget that Luther more famously said

Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures or evident reason... I am bound by the Scriptures... my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God, and I am neither able nor willing to recant, since it is neither safe nor right to act against conscience.”

(Schwiebert, E. (1950). Luther and His Times. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. pp. 504-505.)

Conscience. We’ve used that term many many times here on Intrepid Lutherans. Indeed, three titles worth reviewing with respect to this term include the following: The Theological Disciplines, and the nature of theological discourse..., Theological Discourse in the post-Modern Era, and “Relevance,” and Mockery of the Holy Martyrs – Conclusion. In these posts, and others, it is emphasized that Conscience is the seat of human identity and the source of one’s Public Confession. Conscience comprises those Truths from which one cannot be separated without ceasing to be who he is, those Truths which one is compelled to cling to, even in the face of his executioner. Luther emphasizes this fact as well, as he faced the Emperor and certain death, by calling upon human conscience – what he was convinced was True – as the basis for standing in the face of error and refusing to recant that Truth. And Christian conscience is founded on what God has given to mankind: His Word and human faculty, coordinate, the latter in submission to the former.

“What have you to live for?” is supposed to be the question one is encouraged to consider, as he counts his blessings and in them finds the motivation to continue onward in life. But it is a question which cannot be sufficiently considered at all, apart from the more serious question, “What are you willing to die for?” It is only in this latter question that one is brought into direct contact with his conscience and fully engages his self-identity, as he is forced to grapple with Truth and Falsehood in their grandest conception, in their most objective and meaningful reality. For the true Christian, that identity is defined by his identity in Christ, baptized (Ga. 3:26-29) and redeemed (Ga. 3:11-14), standing, through faith alone, within the shelter of God’s Saving Grace (Ro. 5:1-2).

Grace. Knowledge. Growth. As the Church not only succumbs to post-Modernism, and other forms of Cultural Narcissism, but fully embraces worldly thinking, it is being denied a collective Christian conscience with the courage, confidence and capacity to identify, confront and repudiate the errors hurled at it by the world, and individual Christians are being robbed of the cultivated faculties necessary to adequately consider and react to the withering attacks of the world against Christ, the Church, and against them, individually. The following dialogue is filled, from start to finish, with keen insight into the state of the Western world today – not of the sort that is usually shoveled under the noses of Christians, and even confessional Lutherans; not of the sort encouraging Christians and their congregations to embrace worldly methods and perspectives “for the survival of the church”; but of a less common, disappearing sort, the sort of insight with the courage, confidence and capacity to identify, confront, and repudiate worldly seductions and faith-killing perspectives. Over the past generation or two, as confessional Lutherans have wantonly retreated from cultural significance, the conservative voices among the Reformed have consistently been a couple decades ahead of us, in their understanding of the state of the World today and in sounding the warnings. They identified post-Modernism as the danger it is, soon after it broke onto the scene, and have been sounding the sirens ever since. Some confessional Lutherans are only now beginning to awake to the danger. They rediscovered the Great Tradition of Classical Education – a Lutheran birthright, no less! – and have actively promoted it as a Christian antidote to the proliferation of what is more and more being revealed as not just irreligious but militantly anti-Christian pedagogy. Some confessional Lutherans, are only now realizing that their entire school systems may be invested in ideologies that militate against basic ideas necessary to holding and retaining Christian teaching with any fidelity – ideas like objective truth and ownership of knowledge – and instead promote an experiential collectivist ideology of knowledge that inculcates no personal responsibility for knowing anything in particular. I have found that conservative voices among the Reformed have consistently been far more helpful in identifying worldly threats to Christianity, and the following dialogue is no exception.

White Horse Inn dialogue “Growing in Grace & Knowledge”

 

Quotes from the White Horse Inn dialogue “Growing in Grace & Knowledge” Dialogue participants: Dr. R.C. Sproul (PCA), Dr. Rod Rosenblatt (LCMS), Dr. Michael Horton (URNCA), Rev. Ken Jones (Glendale Missionary Baptist Church) and Dr. Kim Riddlebarger (URCNA) Knowledge and Truth have fallen on hard times in contemporary American culture. We’re distracted in many ways from thinking deeply about anything because we’re too busy focusing on ourselves, our gadgets, our schedules and our entertainment. But sadly this problem isn’t merely “out there” in the world. Overnight, many churches have become entertainment centers, and purveyors of a kind of narcissistic spirituality. We desperately need to follow the advice of the Apostle Peter who encouraged believers to “Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pe. 3:18). And that’s what we are focusing on in this edition of the White Horse Inn... When people think of sanctification, and the Christian life, sometimes not only “thinking” is put on the back burner, but sometimes it is even seen as inimical to the life of faith... [as if when] “thinking goes up, piety goes down.” We had the distinction between “head knowledge” and “heart knowledge” – the people who read books had “head knowledge” and the people who loved Jesus had “heart knowledge.” Alot of the problems, I think, have been caused by us... in our past, and it’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but there was a strong anti-intellectual strain in American Fundamentalism, but we just have to cop to it. The people who were many times most against the intellect were seen as the most spiritual. And it’s coming back to get us. Back in the middle of the 20th Century, a prominent Anglican apologist by the name of Casserly, had a chapter in one of his books called the “Treason of the Intellectual,” in which he documented how the Church had been betrayed, chiefly through the influence of 19th Century Liberalism, which was carried by the intellectual community. And as a result, he said, the people, have come to the place where, first of all, they don’t trust the intellectuals, because they’re the one’s who betrayed them. They’ve taken their Lord away and they don’t know where they can find Him. This is why he called it the “Treason of the Intellectual.” And so once they became distrustful of the intellectuals, the next step was to obviously distrust the intellect altogether. So we’ve had this weird antithesis between mind and heart... that is totally contrary to Scripture. There has been an anthropological crisis, I think, in our day, where with the advent of television and the way the media has shaped the culture... that people seem to think that if we’re going to have meaningful worship, meaningful church services, we have to understand that human nature itself has changed in the last fifty hears. Now you don’t get to the heart through the mind, now you go straight to the heart – which is mind less. This is fatal to the Christian faith. And it’s killing the Church everyday. [In addition to the history of ideas and how it shows the ways in which the Church has succumbed to secularism], there is also the kind of world we swim in, in technology for example – the fact that you can’t go to a restaurant without a TV being on, you can’t go to a public event without cellphones going off. Nicolas Carr, this is from The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brain, he says “We are too busy being dazzled or disturbed by the programming to notice what’s going on inside our heads.” And the point he’s making is that it’s not just the content, or missing the point, it’s what the medium itself is doing to us as human beings. He says, “Now, I spent my life reading and writing, but these days my concentration starts to drift after a page or two. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words, now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” And here are a couple examples. He says, “A University of Michigan professor says, ‘I can’t read War and Peace anymore. I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.’” Another person, “‘I don’t read books,’ says Joe O’Shay, a former president of the student body at Florida State University, and a 2008 recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, ‘I go to Google and I can absorb all that information quickly.’ O’Shay, a philosophy major, doesn’t see any reason to plough through chapters of text when it takes but a minute or two to cherry pick the pertinent passages using Google. ‘Sitting down and going through a book, cover to cover, doesn’t make much sense to me,’ he says, ‘It’s just not a good use of my time. And I can get all the information I need faster through the web.’.” Think of all the knowledge we have lost in information, and all the wisdom we have lost in knowledge. Christian publishing, for example, is a barren wasteland... You go to the Christian bookseller conventions, and you see the stuff that is peddled, and you wonder how anybody ever was able to secure a literary contract for this stuff, which is so poorly done, and yet, publishers are looking for new material all the time and so they publish this stuff that is so dumbed-down – and we wring our hands about that. But NOW, stuff that couldn’t even get published in that arena is on Facebook every day! Everybody is an author, everybody is a theologian... There is a kind of dumbing-down occurring where, children, for example, were once expected to learn the Westminster Catechism, or the Heidelberg Catechism, or Luther’s Small Catechism, as part of their education at home – it was just taken for granted. And NOW, some pastors look at that and say “This is too hard for ME to teach ADULTS!” I think, as you talk about technology and the spread of pseudo-communication, and pseudo-information, because that’s what it is – every opinion that a person has isn’t worth saying out loud. But since people are actually saying it out loud, what that does is trivialize genuine information. So that that which is actually significant becomes trivial! – And it also means that the old books lying there on the shelf, which are still there and are still published and are still on shelves because they actually have survived the ephemeral and the trivial, are not going to be part of the shared wisdom of our culture anymore. Hearers of the Word, we’re prejudiced already in favor of the Word, and of hearing and of reading. Mind renewal doesn’t happen simply by having a succession of experiences. We have experiences of something other than our own experience. So what happens to growth in Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ if there is no time for studied, contemplative, meditative thought? ...You can’t Google that. And how can you know the mind of Christ, unless Christ has been portrayed and presented to you in public worship? And if worship is about you and what you have to say about God, rather than about God and what He says about Himself, His Salvation and you, then there is not going to be much room for developing this mind of Christ. Our cultural context for thinking about God... Pragmatism. The narrowing of the sense that knowledge is valuable to only that which is calculable – you can weigh it, measure it, you can calculate how much it can improve your life, as William James the philosopher said, “The test of a truth claim is its cash value in experiential terms” (typical American way of putting it) – and this seems to be for a lot of people what they are demanding in terms of what [a church] is feeding them. “It’s all a matter of relativity”... This is NUTS. People are relativists only when it suits them to be relativists. AND WE SHOULDN’T SURRENDER TO THAT! People will say that “You don’t have to be rational anymore”. You speak irrationality to people, and that may entertain them for a few moments, but you will get a lot further if you try to give a sound cogent reasoned presentation – people still are put together the same way God put them together in the original Creation. So we should have confidence that... WE know that they are – on the basis of Scripture – what God says they are, and that we should appeal to them as rational beings... And that’s why I say it is such a mistake to change the character of worship to accommodate that kind of cultural sensation as if, they’re telling us, that the classic presentation of the Word of God, [with its] content... and the sacraments, and the normal things that have gone on for 2000 years, where God invested the power of the Holy Spirit in the proclamation of the Gospel. THERE IS NO REASON TO ADJUST THAT! That’s why Martin Luther said, “The worst, most impoverished student in the universe is God, because everyone thinks they can do it better...” Everybody wants to change the Gospel, make it more palatable, make it more relevant – THERE IS NOTHING MORE RELEVENT TO THAT DYING MAN’S LIFE THAN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. WHAT CAN I DO TO IMPROVE IT?! The tragedy is not that we see this lack of commitment to knowledge and truth in the culture. We expect that. But the Church is supposed to be a “heavenly outpost.” That’s where you are supposed to hear something different. And when the Church accommodates the methods as well as the mindset and perspectives of the World and continues this mindless drivel, then we are doing the people of God a great disservice. THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO HEAR WHAT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HEAR ANYWHERE ELSE... We have to have confidence, as preachers and as the Church, that God is creating the appetite. We can give them the Word of God, but we can’t give them an appetite for it. So once they have been detoxed from the culture, and also from bad church, we have to assume that underneath all of that... there is a genuine appetite for the Word of God, because wherever there is genuine saving faith, there is genuine love of the Saviour and a desire to know Him. Paul also says (warning Timothy), “In the last days people will be lovers of themselves, boastful, proud, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God...” – which pretty much describes our culture, but we can deliver it more quickly today, and give people the impression that their felt needs are their real needs. How much of “cultural narcissism” determines in churches what we are allowed to say, and how relevant we need to make the Truth, as if it weren’t relevant itself? For example, I am thinking of Bible studies, where people say “This what this means to me,” and immediately you have to go to... “What is the cash value?” in experiential terms, “How can I use this?,” not “What is God saying?” To the narcissism... having lost the idea of what the purpose, that the communication, that what takes place in the Church is different from what’s going on in the culture, we approach the Biblical text in the same way we approach self-help books, and not understanding that this is a different text! ...Having gotten away from the idea that the Church is speaking a different language and is using communication toward a different end, people come with worldly expectations... which is [where the] narcissism comes in, because everyone else in the world is telling you that you are the most important person, so why wouldn’t you think that it is all about you? When people say that “You are only about the intellectual stuff,” that is really just slanderous. God gives me a mind, and holds me accountable for a mature understanding of His Holy Word. He didn’t give us Billboard, or a Jingle, or a Bumper Sticker. [He gave us the Bible.] Look at the size of that book! ...I am ashamed of how much I have not mastered. I’m going to say something outrageous... The tendency is this: The larger the church, the less likely it is to be sound. And there is a reason for that. We’ve seen the serious problem of Christian television. Christian television is so expensive to underwrite, that the only way you’re able to do it is if you have an extremely broad base, and the only way you can have an extremely broad base is to simplify simplify simplify, and move away from the serious content of the Gospel, and, to use the language, to dumb it down. And that happens not just on TV, but it happens in our churches, as well. Beware of the man that everyone speaks well of... [Of course,] we want churches to grow like the Lord added thousands to the Church in the 1st Century, but to sustain that, they were sustained by the Word.

Johann Gerhard on 1 Timothy 3:16

Those who teach that God has already absolved all people of their sins (e.g., Walther’s famous “Easter Absolution”) and declared all people righteous in Christ, whether they believe in Christ or not, have to take short phrases out of context in order to read their doctrine back into the Scriptures and the writings of the Lutheran Fathers.  As their proof passages for universal absolution apart from the Means of Grace and apart from faith fall one by one (e.g., Rom. 3:24, Rom. 4:25, Rom. 5:18, 2 Cor. 5:19, all of which teach justification by faith, not apart from faith or before faith), they are left grasping at straws to fortify their teetering teaching of an Easter Absolution of all men.  So some have isolated one phrase from 1 Tim. 3:16 to prove what they claim is the very foundation of our faith.  Following F. Pieper blindly and uncritically, they isolate one phrase from Johann Gerhard (which was repeated by Abraham Calov) on this verse (the same phrase being repeated in their commentaries on Rom. 4:25) to “prove” that the Lutheran Church has always taught that all men were absolved by God—apart from the Means of Grace and apart from faith—in the resurrection of Christ.

As usual, a simple glance at the Scriptural context reveals no such universal absolution.  And as usual, a look at the context of the Lutheran Fathers reveals that they did not teach such a thing, either.

The following is a translation of the section from Johann Gerhard’s commentary on 1 Timothy dealing with the phrase “justified in the spirit” in 1 Tim. 3:16.  It is the entire section that deals with that phrase, plus a translation of Gerhard's concluding analysis of the verse.

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Adnotationes ad Priorem D. Pauli ad Timotheum Epistolam
Annotations on St. Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy
by Johann Gerhard (1582-1637)

Ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι (“He was justified in spirit”). (1) Theodoret, Primasius, Sedulius, Anselm, Thomas, Lyranus, Cajetan, Gagnaeus, Justininanus, etc., understand “spirit” as “Holy Spirit,” so that the sense is: Just as ὁ θεάνθρωπος (the God-Man) Christ Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, so from the beginning of His conception by the Holy Spirit He was made righteous and holy in such a way that He never had nor did He commit any sin. But “to be justified” is never attributed anywhere to Christ in the sense of “to be made righteous.”  Nor would it denote anything special in Christ, since it is common to all righteous men that they have been justified in the Spirit. (2) It is more correctly understood as the Deity of Christ, since whatever is beyond human in Christ is called “spirit.” Therefore, it says, “The Son of God was manifested in the flesh, justified by means of the spirit,” that is, His Deity, by the strength of which He performed miracles and raised Himself from the dead. Therefore, by means of His miracles, performed by the power of a holy spirit, but especially by means of the resurrection, He demonstrated Himself to be the Son of God against the calumnies of His enemies. (Rom. 1:4, 1 Pet. 3:18).

By means of the spirit He was shown to be righteous and true (Latin declaratus est justus et verax) in works and doctrine, and He was also set free (Latin absolutus - absolved) from all the calumnies of the Jews. This type of justification for God agrees with Ps. 51:6, Matt. 11:18, Luke 7:29.

“He was justified,” that is, He was shown to be righteous (Latin justus declaratus), since in and by means of the resurrection Christ was set free (Latin absolutus - absolved) from the sins of men that He took upon Himself as Guarantor in order to make satisfaction for them to the Father.

[commentary on the rest of the verse follows, concluding with the following:]

Observe the steps in the apostolic saying: (1) “God was manifested in flesh.”  This is the incarnation. (2) “Justified in spirit.” This is the policy (politia) or the conduct (conversatio) of Christ on this earth, in which, by means of various miracles, He demonstrated Himself to be the Son of God. (3) “Seen by angels.” This is the resurrection. (4) “Preached among the nations.” This is the preaching of the Gospel, which some received by faith.  (5) “Received in glory.” This is the ascension.

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It is clear from his own exposition of 1 Tim. 3:16 that Johann Gerhard did not find in this verse a universal absolution of all men.  What he found was that, through the miracles He performed on earth and especially through His greatest miracle of raising Himself from the dead, Christ demonstrated His Deity.  Gerhard did not apply this “setting free” (“justification, vindication, absolution”) of Christ to all men.  He explicitly explains “this type of justification for God” in a different sense than the Book of Concord describes the justification of sinners.  In other words, Gerhard is not describing the article of justification in these words, nor is he referring at all to the “forensic (divine courtroom) justification,” either of Christ or of anyone else.

What Gerhard does say about Christ is the same thing we say about Christ who deny a universal absolution without faith.  Namely, that Christ “took upon Himself the sins of men as Guarantor in order to make satisfaction for them to the Father.” Indeed, Christ bore the sins of all and made satisfaction for the sins of all.  He served as Guarantor (or “Sponsor”) of all men.  And He was “shown to be righteous” in being “set free”(“absolved”) from sin's penalty, which is death.

But to make satisfaction for the sins of all does not result in the justification of all.  It is only through faith in Christ that His satisfaction is applied to sinners so that they are justified.  And to serve as Guarantor of all men does not result in the justification of all men.  It is only through faith in the Guarantor that His payment is applied to their account so that they are justified before God.  And Christ's being “set free” from sin's penalty, namely, death, is not a reference to any announcement by God that all sinners have been “set free” (absolved) from their sins, since all unbelievers are and remain dead and condemned.

However, those who believe in Christ do share in His resurrection and His life and have already escaped from death through faith in Him, and thus, as Calov/Gerhard point out, God “has absolved us in Him” (nos in ipso absolvit) not at the time of Christ's resurrection, but at the time when we were incorporated into Christ, namely, through Holy Baptism, which is consistent with all the Scriptures and the entire Book of Concord.

The ELDoNA Theses on Justification

The ELDoNA's recently adopted Theses on Justification, to which I wholeheartedly subscribe, have now been posted to the diocesan website. Below is an explanatory announcement from the diocese, followed by an alternate link to the theses and to the essay referenced therein.

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An Announcement from the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Over the past several weeks, Internet speculation has increased over the publication of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America’s (http://eldona.org) recently adopted “Theses on the Article of Justification.” Very simply, the Theses were unanimously adopted by the diocese on August 29, 2013, but, as is only fitting, we chose to postpone their publication until such time as we received an official response to the approved form of the document from the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches (with which the diocese has been in fellowship for the past several years). It was also hoped to have a total web site overhaul completed by the date of release but, having now received a formal response from the ACLC (which does not approve these theses as written and will continue in their discussion of them with us), the diocese has chosen to publish the theses before the web site redesign is completed. Thus, the URL given for the document will change, but be assured that it will be featured prominently along with previous statements, The Niles Theses and The Malone Theses on our redesigned web site.

A few comments are in order before we get to the details of acquiring these new ELDoNA theses.

We realize that, sadly, some people have already begun to react to a document they haven’t read, based on their preexisting feelings toward the diocese or their own assumptions about the meaning(s) of “Objective Justification.” We will not even attempt to engage those who refuse to allow their opinions to be governed by the facts and regulated by the Holy Scriptures. But for those of a more humble and pious bent, we will make a few observations:

• It is false to say that the rejection of a Waltherian/Pieperian formulation of “Objective Justification” makes man a contributor to his own salvation, as if all that needed to be done were not accomplished through the work of Christ. Those who reject “Objective Justification” as defined by Walther and Pieper do not hold to any sort of Calvinistic “Limited Atonement.” The pastors of the ELDoNA confess that Christ is the atoning sacrifice not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world, even those who are ultimately in Hell for all eternity.
• Similarly, it is false to assert that holding such a position requires one to have his own faith as the object of his faith. Indeed, this same thing has also been asserted against “Objective Justification,” since the final difference between those in Heaven and those in Hell (for either position) is a matter of whether or not the benefit of Christ’s sacrifice has been received through faith. While someone might demonstrate that some individual with either position has held such a thing, this is merely a straw man used to distract from the substance of either position.
• When one says things like, “if this is not true objectively, it cannot be applied subjectively,” or “something must exist for it to be given,” there are two answers that must be given. The first is that such thinking is what led to the development of a “limbo of the fathers,” because anyone who died before the crucifixion would have “no objective substance to be applied.” The second is that the way Lutherans used to speak actually made it clear that there was something “objective” and “substantive” that was the case because of Christ’s atonement, but that it was not what Walther and his followers and Synodical Conference counterparts taught that it was (and now demand that it be). This is addressed in the theses, both with regard to what the atonement provided and to how one is to regard a promise made by God (as opposed to one made by Man).
• Thus, saying that those who hold that Waltherian “Objective Justification” is a bad formulation hold to a concept of faith that makes it the “trigger” (or “button,” or what have you) to make God justify an individual, is absolutely false. A pre-existing word from God (which is not, by the way, found anywhere in the Bible, but only supposed by Man, an extrapolation from the events of either the crucifixion or resurrection by a philosophically driven eisegesis)—declaring all men righteous is by no means necessary, as God’s promise connected to the work of Christ is more than enough. Faith does not drive justification, but is driven by (given through/created by) the atonement and the promise, so that it is exactly what Lutherans have always held it to be: the medium through which God’s grace unto justification is received.
• Some have expressed disappointment that the ELDoNA would have a statement of its own as a condition of membership in the diocese. Since not everyone who claims Scripture and the Confessions actually holds to them, statements have to be adopted from time to time to clarify issues. When such statements are accepted, the ELDoNA has been very careful to note that these are not new confessions, but the application of Scripture and the Confessions to contemporary issues and, thus, subject to modification if a better way to say something is found. Indeed, it is for this reason that the 2005 Niles Theses were modified at the founding of the diocese in 2006; the substance did not change, but a clearer wording was desired.
• Note that such a principle is not a matter of having a “quatenus subscription” to the statements or theses issued by the diocese, as some will claim; there is no matter of viewing these as accepted “insofar as they agree with Scripture (or the Confessions),” but they are adopted because they are seen as being in full agreement with God’s Word and the Confessions of His Church. While the Confessions are subscribed as an unchangeable whole, the statements of a particular body are its own possession and, unless adopted by wider Christendom, may be clarified by the unanimous agreement of said body. The ELDoNA speaks to the issues of the day, but does not intend to write or hold “new confessions.”
• Some falsely accuse the ELDoNA with a hatred of C. F. W. Walther, even postulating that this has driven the diocese to its conclusions in this matter. The fact is that the pastors of the ELDoNA have a great appreciation for Walther; they simply consider him to have been in error on various points. Just as Luther must not be made into some sort of infallible demigod, so must Walther not be so treated. Walther accomplished amazing things considering both his background in Pietism and his having to try to restore a shattered group of immigrants to whom the accusations against their bishop of living a scandalous life were the least scandalous part of the deposing of said bishop: Walther had to demonstrate to them that they were still a legitimate church. Yet, places where he erred or compromised also served to set in motion the things that have left the LCMS (and the rest of the old Synodical Conference) where it is today—not that such was his intent, nor that he even could reasonably be expected to foresee this, but it is what it is.
• Thus, too, the ELDoNA has no vendetta against the LCMS, WELS, or anyone else. From the outset, the diocese has set itself to be anything but a “micro-synod,” that is, a body that considers itself the “legitimate heirs” of the body from which it came. While other bodies may live to show themselves “right” and live in the shadow of their former affiliations, the ELDoNA has no desire to do so. Any speaking to the realities of the theology and practice of other bodies is done for the education of the parishioners of ELDoNA pastors and the exhortation of those in such bodies who would be faithful. (To date, the only document officially speaking to any particular church body’s errors was written with regard to the ELCA.)
• What the diocese has set forth in this document is exactly what was confessed by Lutherans from the very beginning. What is declared in the Theses and is demonstrated further in the essay referenced therein, “The Forensic Appeal to the Throne of Grace,” is that some have taken up the hay and stubble that some Synodical Conference theologians built upon the Scriptural teaching concerning Justification and have, thereby, taught a doctrine other than that of Scripture and the Confessions.

Concerning the Rev. Paul Rydecki’s Colloquy and the Composition of These Theses:

Some have suggested that these theses were written to facilitate the colloquy of the Rev. Paul Rydecki. The diocese exists to proclaim the name of Christ Jesus, and to do so in accord with the pattern of sound words we have learned from the holy apostles, as expressed in the Christian Book of Concord. The diocese was certainly not motivated by a need to prove Rev. Rydecki to be right about anything, even as the diocese is not motivated by a need to prove Walther wrong about anything. We are motivated, in all things, by the “one thing” that is needed, namely, Christ and His Word.

More than this, however, there was no predetermined outcome when the theses were assigned for composition: it may well have ended that the one first drafting them would end up alienating himself from the diocese or causing a division within its membership. While our desire is always to walk in full accord with Scripture and the Confessions and, thus, with one another, Bishop Heiser does not micromanage those carrying out such assignments. Scholarship is to be engaged in in such a way that the truth may prevail, and those called upon to present anything to the diocese are to submit their writings with the full expectation that correction and admonishment will take place if they are in error. (Such has happened in the past, and the rejection of fraternal admonishment has led to the termination of membership in the diocese.)

That being the case, it was a joyous occasion when the theses were found to be the unanimous teaching of the diocese. It was also a telling occasion because, with the pastors involved coming from different backgrounds and attending different seminaries at different times, such unanimity would seem unlikely. Yet, its existence speaks to what the education is like in the various seminaries and what the professors there did or did not stress. Clearly, what these theses contain is a reflection both of such emphases and of the independent study of the pastors of the diocese during their time in the Office of the Holy Ministry before their colloquy.

With no further ado, we supply you with the links both to the “Theses on the Article of Justification” and to the essay referenced therein, “The Forensic Appeal to the Throne of Grace,” which will provide you with an excellent sampling of the evidence from the orthodox Lutheran fathers regarding this article of doctrine (especially from the period termed “The Golden Age of Lutheran Orthodoxy” by Robert Preus, including the theologian he listed as the ‘most important’ after Luther and Chemnitz, namely, Johann Gerhard). This essay, the theses, and other essays from the continuing discussion of this topic will be released in print by Repristination Press (http://repristinationpress.com) at a later date.

Link to the Theses: http://tinyurl.com/lwykame

Link to the Essay: http://tinyurl.com/pv29jek 

Divine Service Explanation #3 - Liturgical Vestments

Liturgical Vestments

The chief purpose of the special vestments worn by the pastor is to exalt, not the man, but the office of the holy ministry given to the Church by Christ.  In fact, the vestments are intended to hide the man wearing them so that the focus is on his office, through which the Holy Spirit works to build up the people of Christ.  Vestments, in and of themselves, are adiaphora—things neither commanded nor forbidden by God.  As Lutherans, we use them gladly, both as a means to honor the God-given ministry of the Word, and as a confession of our place in the Church catholic.  As we confess in the Book of Concord:

 “It is helpful, so far as can be done, to honor the ministry of the Word with every kind of praise against fanatical people. These fanatics imagine that the Holy Spirit is given not through the Word, but through certain preparations of their own” (Ap. XIII:13).

“At the outset we must again make the preliminary statement that we do not abolish the Mass, but religiously maintain and defend it. For among us masses are celebrated every Lord’s Day and on the other festivals, in which the Sacrament is offered to those who wish to use it, after they have been examined and absolved. And the usual public ceremonies are observed, the series of lessons, of prayers, vestments, and other like things” (AC:XXIV:1).

Here is a brief list of the most common vestments still used by Lutherans:

Basic pastoral vestments:

Cassock   A long, close-fitting black robe that used to be the everyday wear of the clergy. It has been largely replaced by the clergy shirt and collar, but may still be worn by clergy as they perform any ministerial duties.

Surplice   A white tunic worn over the cassock in the Divine Service or Daily Offices.  It is worn by a pastor who is not the celebrant at the Sacrament.  It may also be worn by choir members or altar servers.

Alb    A long, close-fitting white robe worn by ministers at the Divine Service.  It symbolizes the baptismal garment and the righteousness of Christ.

Stole    A long, narrow strip of cloth draped around the neck, symbolizing ordination.  It is worn only by clergy. Its color changes with the liturgical season.

Cincture    A rope that is tied around the waist, serving as a belt to hold the alb and stole in place underneath the chasuble.

Chasuble    A poncho-like garment worn over the alb and stole, worn only by clergy, used exclusively by the celebrant at the Eucharist. Its color changes with the liturgical season.

Additional vestments for a bishop:

Cope    A long, circular cape.

Mitre    A pointed, ceremonial hat used by bishops to signify their office.

Crozier  A long staff with a crook at the top, resembling a shepherd’s staff.  

_______________________________________________
Divine Service Explanation #1 - The Purpose of the Divine Service
Divine Service Explanation #2 - The Church Year and Lectionary

Divine Service Explanation #1 - The Purpose of the Divine Service

Part of the Catechism instruction in my parish includes a short explanation each week of the Divine Service. The same explanation is included in our service folder the following Sunday.  These are my own explanations and can certainly be improved upon. I have decided to begin posting them here, with a link to an MS Word file in case anyone wishes to use or adapt them.


Divine Service Explanation #1

The Purpose of the Divine Service

Lutherans often use the term “Divine Service” (i.e., “the service of God”) for our weekly gathering around Word and Sacrament, both because God serves us there through the office of the Holy Ministry, and because we serve God there by joining together with fellow believers to give thanks to God and to serve one another. The emphasis in the Lutheran Divine Service is always on God’s service to us.

Other historical terms for the Divine Service: “The Mass,” “The Eucharist”

The purpose of the Divine Service is for believers in Christ to gather, at Christ’s command, around the ministry of His Word and Sacrament, in order to:

1. Hear the preaching of the Word of Christ from the called and ordained servant of Christ (Luke 10:16; John 10:16; John 8:31-32; Acts 2:42; 2 Cor. 5:20).
2. Receive admonition, correction and instruction from God’s Word, through God’s minister (Luke 12:42-44; 2 Tim. 4:2).
3. Unite with fellow believers in the communion of the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16-17; 1 Cor. 11:24-25).
4. Seek and receive forgiveness from God through His servant (Jn. 20:23; Acts 2:38,42; Matt. 26:26-28; 1 Cor. 4:1).
5. Have our faith strengthened (Rom. 10:17).
6. Be built up and continually renewed in love as the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12-32; 1 Cor. 14:3).
7. Pray to God for mercy, for ourselves and others (Acts 2:42; Matt. 6:5-13; Matt. 9:27; 1 Tim. 2:1-2).
8. Give thanks to God in the great assembly (Ps. 35:18; Col. 3:17).
9. Confess the Christian faith, for our own benefit and for the benefit of outsiders (Acts 2:46-47; Rom. 10:8-10; Rom. 15:7-13; 1 Cor. 11:26).
10. Encourage and admonish one another to remain faithful and to bear the cross patiently (Gal. 6:2; Col. 3:16; Heb. 10:24-25).

What the Bible Teaches about Baptism - Chris Rosebrough

(Posted with permission of and thanks to the author. Here is a link to a PDF copy.)

What the Bible Teaches About Baptism

& How the Earliest Christians

Understood These Biblical Texts

— by —

Chris Rosebrough

@PirateChristian

Preface

On my radio program I regularly point out the fact that the scriptures nowhere teach the popular American Evangelical belief that baptism is a “sign to the world that you’ve made a decision to follow Jesus.” As a result, I receive a lot of emails asking me about and challenging the Lutheran doctrine of baptism.

Recently, I received an email from a fellow who boldly asserted that there are no Biblical passages that teach the Lutheran doctrine of baptism. I promptly sent my critic an email containing the clearest passages in the New Testament regarding Baptism along with a note that said, “Here are the clear passages from scripture regarding Baptism. You tell me what baptism does (its purpose) according to these scriptures and who it is for. I believe exactly what these passages say.” The Biblical texts I sent him are as follows:

Acts 2:38–39: “And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

Romans 6:3–5: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Colossians 2:11–12: “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”

Acts 22:16: “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”

Titus 3:4–7: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

1 Peter 3:21–22: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

John 3:5: “Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

Upon receiving these verses, my critic promptly sent me a response in which he attempted to demonstrate that none of the texts that I sent him are actually speaking about water baptism but instead about something else. To this I responded by sending him a lengthy email containing quotes from the writings and sermons of the earliest Christians and how they understood these Biblical texts. It is important to note that these citations were written long before the usurpation of the Bishop of Rome and the corruption of church’s doctrines that occurred during the Middle Ages.

Upon receiving these excerpts from the ancient church fathers my critic pronounced every one of them to be heretics. When I pointed out the fact that none of them were heretics, and that all of them are considered to be orthodox preachers and apologists of the Christian faith, and that some of them were martyred for their confession of Christ, I received one final email. In it, my critic amended his criticism. He no longer claimed that there are no Biblical passages to support the Lutheran doctrine of baptism. Instead, he said that my problem, and by extension the problem of the earliest Christians, is that we take these Biblical passages literally.

The document you are about to read was created in order to share with you the clearest passages of scripture regarding baptism and what the earliest Christians understood these passages to mean. In so doing, it is my hope and prayer that you too, along with the ancient church and the Lutherans, will take these passages literally and will learn, in the words of Ignatius of Antioch written in 110 A.D. to, “Let your baptism be your armor; your faith, your helmet; your love, your spear; your patient endurance, your panoply.”

Chris Rosebrough

@PirateChristian

Pirate Christian Radio, August 2013

Celebrating the Birth of the Greatest Composer in the History of the West: the Lutheran, Johann Sebastian Bach

Today is the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring, and in 1685, the same can be said of musical excellence, both in the Church and in the West, as within them the full vibrance of musical life was born, as well – with the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the man known as the Greatest Composer in the History of Western Civilization. We have written much on Intrepid Lutherans about this creative Master, a fiercely orthodox Lutheran who infused his faith into his compositions through the language of counterpoint, in it battling not only Pietism but, as we detailed in our post, Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, Part 3: Johann Sebastian Bach, the apostasy of the Enlightenment. The first post in which we first featured J.S. Bach, Music for Holy Week, Part 1 – excerpts from Matthäus Passion, we summarized Bach's life and accomplishments, as follows:

“Bach perhaps needs little introduction: he was and remains the master of counterpoint and represents the pinnacle of Baroque musical achievement. In addition to his many secular works, as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig he composed a full series of Cantatas to accompany the Lutheran liturgy for each week of the Church Calendar, along with many other Sacred works as he was commissioned... It is worth noting, however, than in addition to his status as a composer, Johann Sebastian Bach was also fiercely orthodox in his Lutheranism. Being active as a composer during the rise of German Pietism and attempting to ward it off through the Sacred works he was often commissioned to compose, his professional library was proliferate with personally annotated works of Lutheran theology – he had the library of a theologian, and he used it as reference material in the composition of his works.”

Bach's genius as a composer was not entirely his own. He is known to have studied the Masters of the previous generation and incorporated their genius into his own art: men like Michael Praetorius, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Schein, and especially Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) – the greatest German composer, second to Bach, who, having composed exclusively for the Lutheran Church throughout his career, has been the subject of numerous posts on Intrepid Lutherans, as well.

Schütz studied under the Renaissance Master of antiphonal and polychoral composition, Giovanni Gabrieli, at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. So remarkable was his performance as a student, that Master Gabrieli was compelled to recommend him with the words, “In Schütz you will have a musician such as one will not find in many other places”. Indeed, upon his death in 1612, Gabrieli willed his signet ring to Schütz. Heinrich Schütz was appointed Kapellmeister at the Royal Court in Dresden in 1615, and from there through the remainder of his career, he masterfully wedded the highest musical art of the Renaissance with the German language, the purest manifestation of which, for him, was Martin Luther's translation of the the Bible.

Bach's relationship to Schütz is almost serendipitous. Recall from our post, Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, Part 2: Heinrich Schütz ... and other thoughts to ponder over the New Year Holiday... the concern Schütz had in the second third of his life over the decline in compositional integrity he had witnessed, for

“the advent of the chordal style dispensing with linear but rich polyphonic textures made it possible for technically less accomplished composers to shine with concertante figured-bass music. According to Schütz, there were hardly any younger composers in Germany willing to deal with the more profound aspects of composition. So their tonal idiom was bound to become increasingly shallow and banal.”

As a result, he published his Geistliche Chormusik (Sacred Choral Music) in 1648, dedicating it to the choir of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, to “encourage budding German composers, before they would try their hand at the concertante style ...to first demonstrate their skill in this area.” O that today's Lutheran composers would follow this advice, and avoid their own “shallow and banal tonal idiom!”

It seems to be unknown whether Bach took the recommendation of Schütz to heart, or whether those responsible for calling Bach to be Cantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig were seeking to diligently live up to the encouragement Schütz obviously meant for them, or whether his Geistliche Chormusik had any such impact by that time at all. But it is, at least, an interesting coincidence. Other interesting coincidences include Bach's place in time: Heinrich Schütz died as Pia Desideria (published 1675) was percolating in the mind of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705); Bach was born as plans for the Pietist learning center, University of Halle were being drawn; while Bach served in Leipzig, the last of the Lutheran theologians from the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy, and vigorous opponent of Pietism, Valentin Ernst Löscher (1673-1749), served as Superintendent and as pastor at the Kreuzkirche in Dresden (practically a stone's-throw from the Royal Court, and a place known to benefit from regular collaboration with Schütz); and both Bach and Löscher, being in such proximity, battled with fierce dedication against Pietism in their respective vocations. Löscher and Bach died at the opening of the Enlightenment, in 1749 and 1750, respectively – with no one, really, to take their place.

With the death of Bach, accompanied by the demise of the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy, the Spring of musical expression also came to an end, and along with it was left behind the Source of New-Life, the True teaching of God's Word upon which this Spring emerged. God's Truth gave way to Man's pride, the searing heat of Enlightenment notions, such as the “perfectibility of man,” invading both the Fine Arts and Christian Theology, first vaunting the objectivity of man's intellect, then vaunting the subjectivity of man's social and emotional existence, each iteratively warring against the other. Today, we live in the Autumn of both the Arts and the visible Church, the clouds of post-Modernism increasingly obscuring the light of Truth, upon which true art and true theology depend. We await with dread the dark Winter that is fast upon us, ready to endure it for the sake of Christ and the benefit of our neighbor, yet wondering what misery it will bring. But we remember the Spring. And we long for its return.

Johann Sebastian Bach is recognized as the Greatest Composer in the history of Western Civilization; and the work recognized as the Greatest Work of the Greatest Composer is nothing other than a Lutheran Mass – Bach's Lutheran Mass in B-Minor. We offer for our readers today, in celebration of the birth of the Greatest Composer to have ever lived, and in fond remembrance of the Spring that once was, this, a full performance of Bach's Greatest Work.


Lutheran Mass in B-Minor – by Johann Sebastian Bach

 

Remember this day that the Lord has made - Sermon for Easter Vigil

This sermon was written for the saints at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to be preached on Saturday night at the Easter Vigil, 2012.

Welcome to this new day – the day of our Lord’s resurrection from the dead! Jesus rose on the first day of the week, which began at sunset tonight. And since then, every first day of the week has been blessed. Since then, every first day of the week has become a celebration of Easter as the Church gathers around her risen Lord in Word and Sacrament until he comes again in glory to raise all the dead and to bring us into that great wedding banquet that has no end.

Today is also the Third Day – the Third Day of the Paschal Triduum, the blessed Third Day about which Jesus said, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Today has also been called “The Eighth Day” – the day of the new creation. For God made all things in six days, and on the seventh day he rested. And Christ labored for the six days of Holy Week and on the seventh day his lifeless bones rested in the tomb. But now he rests no more. Now he is risen from the dead and that changes everything. You can’t just start over again counting the days of the week as man has done since the beginning of creation, because this creation is waxing old, like a garment. This creation is destined for fire, because the sin of man – the sin of us all – has ruined it. We’ve ruined everything, and so everything must pass away; everything must be destroyed. Everything – except for the living Lord Jesus. He has already conquered sin and passed from death to immortality. He is the beginning of the new creation, a perfect creation, and the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. He is our doorway out of this dying world and our entrance into the life of the next.

And we enter through that doorway through Holy Baptism. It’s no accident that ancient baptismal fonts were octagonal – eight-sided – in shape. Because the Church understood what was really going on in that Sacrament, what was really happening in the spiritual realm. The baptized is being drawn out of this dying world and into the new creation of Christ, being clothed with Christ and with his resurrected life, the life that belongs to all of you who have been baptized and believe in the risen One.

So welcome to this day, fellow believers! Today is a new day with the dawning of new life and the beginning of the destruction of death. And whether we remember it as the first day, or the third day, or the eighth day, let us remember with the Psalmist that this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps. 118:24)! Amen.

Remember the Spirit, the water and the blood - Sermon for Good Friday Tenebrae

This sermon was written for the saints at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to be preached in the evening Tenebrae service on Good Friday, 2012.

Now the first Holy Day of the Three Holy Days comes to a close and a new day begins now at sunset – a special Sabbath Day for the Son of God, a day of perfect, undisturbed rest for his dead body in Joseph’s tomb. And just as God rested from his whole work of creating the universe on the seventh day of creation, so the Son of God rested from his whole work of salvation on the seventh day of that first Holy Week.

It had been quite a day, with all the suffering and death that the whole world of sinners had coming to them, now poured out on the sinners’ Substitute – all in a single day. And yet, even after as he died and before he was buried, God already pointed to the three gifts that flow out of Jesus’ death. Of all the things to think about and remember as Good Friday comes to a close, remember the Spirit, the water and the blood.

With his Passion – his suffering – complete, with his work of redemption finished, Jesus breathed his last and “gave up his spirit.” Then one of the soldiers pierced his side, and out came blood and water.

The Apostle John points us to those three things in his Gospel, and explains it in his first Epistle, This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.

What do these three agree about? Well, they agree that Jesus really, truly and actually died. He gave up his spirit, and blood and water flowed out of his side when it was pierced.

But they agree on more than that. Because, John says, not that they testified when Jesus died, but that they testify now. To what?

To exactly what Psalm 130 says: If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
That Psalm is fulfilled on Good Friday, at the great “It is finished!” The Lord did redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

But how is that redemption applied to you? How is it the forgiveness Jesus won applied to you so that you may be justified? How does the forgiveness that is “with the Lord” get to you so that you are forgiven, so that you can stand before God?
It’s by the Spirit, the water and the blood.

On that very first Easter Sunday, the risen Jesus would appear to his disciples, breathe on them and say, “Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” The Spirit of Jesus hands out the forgiveness Jesus won on the cross in Holy Absolution, in the forgiving word spoken by the ministers of Christ.

It’s also by the water, by which the Spirit plunges us back through time and unites us with Christ. What did Peter say on Pentecost? Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins!

It’s also by the blood. What did Jesus say at the very beginning of that first Holy Day? “Take, eat; this is my body. Take, drink; this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this…”

All the benefits won by Jesus on that Good Friday, all the treasures of his life and death – forgiveness, life, salvation, victory over sin, death and the devil, a Father’s love, a place with him in Paradise – all of it comes to us now through Word and Sacrament, through the Spirit, the water and the blood. And it’s no accident that they were all there on Good Friday, just like it’s no accident that John recorded it, just like it’s no accident that you, here, in this place, have been reached by the Spirit, the water and the blood. God’s love for you and his desire for your salvation are from eternity. And just as he elected us in Christ since before the foundation of the world was laid, so he also planned Good Friday from eternity, so he also planned how and where and when the Spirit, the water and the blood would come to you to bestow on you the forgiveness purchased by the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

And just as Christ entered his Sabbath rest on that first Good Friday evening, so there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, according to the writer of the Hebrews. Let us strive to enter that rest, he says. And how will we do that? Through faith alone in Jesus Christ. And how will God sustain that faith in us until the end? Through the Spirit, the water and the blood. Remember. Amen.

Remember that it is finished - Sermon for Good Friday Chief Service

This sermon was written for the saints at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to be preached during the hours of the cross on Good Friday, 2012.

John 18 - 19 + Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 + Psalm 22

The Word of the Lord through the prophet Zechariah: Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. (Zech. 3:8-9)

Today we remember that single day, that day of once-and-for-all atonement, that day of redemption called Good Friday.

So many things to remember from Good Friday: The before-sunrise trials before Annas and the high priest Caiaphas. The false witnesses. The spitting and mocking and striking. The early-morning trials before Pilate and Herod and Pilate again. The ripping of Jesus’ back to shreds. The purple robe. The crown of thorns. The Gentile governor’s attempts to free an innocent man. The Jews’ insistence that their king be crucified.

Of course, it’s Jesus’ six hours or so on the cross that we remember most of all. And it’s that striking Psalm, 22, that painted the picture for us a thousand years before the events took place. I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. They have pierced my hands and feet. They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. All who see me mock me. He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him! All my bones are out of joint. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Isaiah has already told us why. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

But even as Jesus cries out from the cross in agony, he is directing us back to the Psalm. And what we find there is not the hopelessness of despair and guilt and punishment, but faith in God in the midst of the deepest agony, the hope of an end to punishment, an end to suffering, and the ushering in of salvation. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.

It was about the 9th hour – about 3 PM when Jesus cried out from the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani?” And it was about at the 9th hour – 3 PM on that Day of days when Jesus was delivered, his suffering ended. His Father delivered him, delivered him to death, but through death, to Paradise for his worthy soul, and to a Sabbath Day’s rest for his weary bones.

One perfect life had been lived. One perfect death had been died. A life of obedience and trust in God from start to finish – the life and death of the Man who is also God. It is finished!, Jesus cried. And was it ever! Satisfaction made. Redemption finished. Forgiveness won. For every sin of every sinner, including you.

This atonement finished by Jesus, this payment for sin made by Jesus is the firm footing for our faith. This is what is preached in the Gospel. This is what is delivered to us by God in the means of grace. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Jesus Christ with his perfect righteousness, the only righteousness that avails before God. Jesus Christ with his finished work of redemption.

Now, what sin can the devil throw in your face and say, “Oh. That one’s too big. I’m sorry. Even Jesus’ blood can’t cover that one”? “Oh. You did that? You harbored a thought like that in your heart? And you call yourself a Christian? No forgiveness for you – not if God finds out about that.”

Foolish devil. And foolish you, if you believe him. It is finished, Jesus said. There is no sacrifice or payment for sin left to be made. Once for all, it is finished.

Or, what good work will the fool devil fool you into doing in order to make God “happy”? What good Christian sacrifice will you make for him, to hold it up next to Jesus hanging on the cross, “See, God! Well, Jesus did all that, but I did this! Look here! Look at me! I’m a good Christian, aren’t I?”

You might as well be one of the damned Pharisees who called for Jesus’ crucifixion. Because if you dare to hold up another righteousness before God than that of Jesus, if you dare to rely on any sacrifice but the sacrifice of Jesus, then you will be locked out of the heaven Jesus won for you. It is finished, Jesus said. God’s law has been satisfied. Don’t try to satisfy it some more.

Instead, trust in the satisfaction Jesus made! Trust in the crucified One. Hold his sacrifice up before God and say, “See! Look at this! Look only at this! Accept me because of this! Because of him!” That’s faith. You really want to make God happy? Then remember that it is finished, that God is already appeased by the sacrifice of Jesus, and happy with all who put their faith in him.

As the Psalm says, All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. Yes, the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, even as the Church has remembered for some 2,000 years, even as we are doing today. It is God’s will that you remember this Day of days, Good Friday, that you remember Jesus Christ and him crucified, that you worship him and tell of him to the next generation. But of all the events of Good Friday, of the crucifixion itself, God wants you to remember this, that it is finished. Salvation has been won, for you. Amen.