✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Galatians 2,16-21 4412
11. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 056
Gebald, hermit near Nürnberg, 8th or 11th c.
19. August 2012
1. O Triune God, our Fount of mercy. We ask You: Come and dwell among us. Come and create new life. Have mercy on Your Church. Live among us and speak through us. Have mercy on all, those who are baptized, the bishops and pastors. Come and breath upon our congregation, for the spiritual and diaconal communities in Your Church, for the Church throughout the world. Breathe upon us the righteousness of Jesus. Amen.
2. We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because no one will be justified by works of the law. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
3. The Apostle Paul is perhaps the most eloquent of the apostles in speaking about justification. Paul’s words are simple yet deeply profound. Can he state it any clearer? »A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ«. This pure message of the gospel grates and irritates our human pride. We enjoy being in control and having a say in our lives. Our minds falsely reason: if I have sinned against God Almighty, then it is my responsibility to merit His forgiveness by my good deeds and intentions. We don’t even have to invent our own works, for God’s law clearly tells us to love God and love our neighbors. Did not Jesus Himself tell the rich young man: do these works of the 10 Commandments and you will merit eternal life (Matthew 19,17)?
4. Paul clearly teaches that we cannot earn righteousness by obeying the law. The Commandments clearly give us a God-pleasing guide for righteous living, but those same Commandments are an unrelenting taskmaster that always demands more and more from us. Jesus taught the same. The rich young man prided himself in perfectly keeping the law, but Jesus exhorted him to an even higher legal standard: well and good, now sell all your wealth, give it to the poor and follow Me. The apostles asked Jesus how many times a day should they forgive someone who has wronged them. They offered the gracious number seven. Surely seven times a day is sufficient forgiveness to extend to a sinner, but Jesus raised that legal number exponentially higher: no, not seven times a day, but forgive him 490 times in a day! Read the Beatitudes. There Jesus demands ever higher standards of law-keeping. We should love our friends; yes, Jesus responds, but even more should you love your enemies. Skin for skin, right Jesus? Do unto others as they do unto you. Jesus declares, no: if someone slaps your cheek, offer the other one to be stuck too. If someone asks for your shirt, give them your coat also. If you are asked to help someone for a mile, go another mile to get them help. We cannot earn righteousness by doing the law, because once we think we have mastered all that is required, Jesus raises the bar ever higher.
5. Those who seek to earn God’s good favor by their good works of the law are destined for a great fall and a searing judgment. When a person, no matter how well-intentioned, seeks to merit righteousness and justification, then he or she is found to be immediately at odds with Jesus and His way of meriting righteousness upon men and women.
6. The way of righteousness, the way of justification, is the way of the cross. Jesus merits our righteousness. Jesus justifies us, and He does so by suffering and dying on the cross.
7. Christ crucified answers the age-long question: What does God think of me? If God does not reveal Himself to fallen humanity, then we do not know where we ultimately stand before Him. Is God angry at us? Will He overlook our sinfulness? And how will He do this? What is my part in this as I stand before Him? When God is hidden, then there is uncertainty, and uncertainty leads to fear of God and what His ultimate judgment may be.
8. The crucified Christ shows us the revealed God in all His wonderful, merciful love. God thinks so much of us that He punished His own Son so that our salvation would be secured. God is no longer angry at us, for His anger has been poured out in full upon Jesus, and Jesus shows us the friendly heart of our Heavenly Father. God has and will overlook our sinfulness because Jesus has paid the ransom price for our sin. Our part is to stand before God’s throne with humble thanks as we receive by faith His final verdict that we are righteous in His sight on account of Jesus.
9. „Jesus did not come to add one legalistic straw to camel’s back; he came to die for us and to bring new life in the resurrection. We do not have to believe Jesus or his teachings because he is divine or sent from God. That would make him only a new Moses. Jesus is our Savior. Believe is not a matter of „have to“. Jesus is not a law-giver. He is the one who comes to set us free so that we will want to believe. So he comes to die under the law to redeem those who are under the law“ (Forde 81).
10. God would have us righteous. The law teaches a righteousness of „do this, and live“, but that same law brutally reveals that we cannot do these good and holy commandments, therefore we shall not live eternally. The gospel reveals the very same righteousness of the law, but the gospel tells us to believe in Jesus the Righteous One and you will live eternally. The Apostle Paul said it this way: »The Son of God loved us and gave Himself for us«. And again: »The gospel is the power of salvation to everyone who believes. For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel beginning and ending in faith, as it has been written, »The righteous will live by faith.«« (Romans 1,16-17). This faith hears the absolution of God, I forgive you, and believes that the forgiveness purchased on the cross is for you.
11. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, our Righteousness, make known Your saving work of the cross and the empty tomb so that we may call upon Your name and give thanks to You, our Justification. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
Forde, Gerhard O. Theology is for Proclamation. Copyright © 1990 Augsburg Fortress.
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