Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: 2. Corinthians 3,3-9. Trinity XX

2. Corinthians 3,3-9 5424

20. Trinitatis. Trinity xx 67

Colomann, Martyr in Stockerau (Vienna), Austria 1012

13. Oktober 2024

1. ℣ Yahweh our God is righteous in all His works:

℟ For we have not obeyed His Voice (Daniel 9,14b vul lxx mas).

iustus Dominus Deus noster in omnibus operibus suis: quae fecit non enim audivimus vocem eius. lxx mas

O Merciful and Loving God, let our hearts be emptied of all worldly, sinful and wicked thoughts. Fill our hearts with Your Holy Spirit, that He may create good impulses in us. Help us to remember Jesus Christ, and always to keep before our eyes the blood that He shed and His death. Amen. (Stark 405-6; English 293).

2. »And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. «

3. The Apostle Paul uses the image of a letter in the 3^rd chapter of his epistle. The Greek Corinthians understood this image. Perhaps you learned in grade school how to write a letter; do they even teach children this nowadays? In Paul’s day, a standard Greco-Roman letter followed this general format: who it’s from, who’s the recipient, the reason for the letter, the text of the letter and a personal greeting at the end. Paul’s epistles follow this format, but he like to put a blessing at the beginning of his epistle and often had an extended greeting from himself and others at the conclusion. In his 2. Epistle to the Corinthians he wrote: »Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ« (1,2). That is a very fine greeting reminding the Corinthians who they are and whose they are: they are Christians, and they belong to Christ.

4. But the Corinthians had a number of sinful issues Paul needed to address. Most of them he writes about in his 1^st epistle; this 2^nd epistle is a follow up. He mentions a brief visit he had made earlier that did not go well. Someone had accused Paul and his companions of having ulterior motives for preaching the gospel to them. This caused Paul great pain and anguish of heart. Paul was not some peddler of God’s Word, but a man of sincerity. His only motive was to preach them the gospel of Christ and bring them the words of eternal life.

5. In Paul’s day there were competing messages of salvation. Some from the Jerusalem Church, the mother church of all the other daughter churches, were telling the Gentile Christians: the gospel is Christ’s crucified and risen from the dead and follow the covenant of Moses with its circumcision and dietary laws. Then there was every one else, including Paul, preaching: the gospel is Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Well, which is it? Christ plus the law, or solus Christus (Christ alone)? The council in Acts 15 addressed this issue and made it clear: the gospel is Christ alone. James, the brother of Jesus who was also the Bishop of Jerusalem, Paul and Peter all affirmed this. Case closed.

6. Well, not case closed. Our fallen nature is adept at reopening closed cases. It seems every generation in the Church has to deal with some faction that wants to add to the gospel. One of my seminary professors, Dr. Norman Nagel, called these additions „Christ clinchers.“ What do we want to add to Christ as evidence that can show that Christ really works (Nagel 159). These Christ clinchers are always something we must do, and our fallen nature takes great sinful pride in this. See, I’m helping Jesus! I’m doing my part! This is fine if it is regarding sanctification where we are doing good works for our neighbor, for in that the Holy Spirit helps us lead good Christian lives. But it never stays confined there; it always sneaks into the doctrine of justification, and once there it is a deadly toxin.

7. It manifests in different ways (and like a hydra when you cut off one head another one or two spring forth!). Christ started the process of my salvation, now I must finish it. Or, Christ has redeemed me, now I must work hard to prove I’m worthy of His redemption. What can I do to make Him love and forgive me more? „To insist on our merits is to rob Christ of doing it all for us. If we can do it, then Christ died unnecessarily, in vain. Paul would bring home to us the peril of diminishing or rejecting the completeness of Christ’s redemption, for if our reliance is not completely in Christ, then it is in ourselves and it is all up with us. If we are unwilling to receive all as a gift from God and would claim our due, then we shall receive the wages we claim, which is being left to ourselves by God, which is hell“ (Nagel 206).

8. „God has not given two ways of salvation—one of gift and promise and another of our getting achievements by the works of the Law. That is to make the Law contradict the gift-giving promises. God gives only the one way to His favor, which is the way of His giving and our receiving. His giving what we do not deserve is His grace. Our receiving what He gives is faith. Gods’ way is the way of gracious giving and the only response to that is our receiving, our faith“ (Nagel 206). Even our faith is not something that we have produced. Martin Luther teaches us in the 3^rd article of the Creed: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith (Small Catechism). Yes, even our faith is God’s gift to us!

9. The repentant tax collector is one who fully trusted in God. »But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying: „God, be propitiated to me, a sinner!“ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified« (Luke 18,13-14a). The penitent insurrectionist crucified next to Jesus is another who put his trust completely in Christ. He was being executed for his heinous crimes, but sought salvation and mercy in Christ alone. »„Jesus, remember me when You come into Your reign.“ „Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise“« (Luke 23,42-43). Again Dr. Nagel put it so simply and powerfully: „No sin can now condemn us. When we ask: ‘Where are my sins?’, we look to the cross. That’s where my sins are, hanging on Jesus who answers for them and then He sees to it that His salvation is delivered to us through the means of grace: Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, Holy Communion“ (Nagel Easter 2014 interview).

10. Our Divine Service Setting III liturgy wonderfully teaches this to us. We say: I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and have justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. And at Compline: I confess to God Almighty before the whole company of heaven and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned in thought, word and deed by my fault, by my own fault, by my most grievous fault (lsb 254). No getting around who we are and what we bring to Jesus—sinners and sin! Also no doubt what Jesus gives us—full and complete forgiveness. In Holy Baptism, He has washed away all your sins. In Holy Absolution, He forgives you all your sins. In Holy Communion, He puts His body and blood in you to eat and drink for the remission of all your sins. That’s the gospel! Nothing from us needs to be added to it, for what could we possibly add to the gospel? Nothing, because the gospel is sufficient and complete, solus Christus, in Christ alone. It was this pure gospel of Christ that finally liberated Martin Luther from the despair of his sin, and this same gospel delivers us just as completely.

11. You are saved. You are justified. You are sanctified. Christ has made it so. His gospel proclaims it. Believe it, for it is for you, in your Baptism, when you are Absolved and when you receive Holy Communion. The gospel is yours by grace and it is free on account of Christ. You can be certain of it, for Christ alone is your Savior and your Righteousness.

12. 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.

(Salvation unto Us Has Come lsb 555,6 2006 Paul Speratus 1484-1551).

This is most certainly true.

13. Et pax Dei, quæ exuperat omnem sensum, custodiat corda vestra, et intelligentias vestras in Christo Jesu. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7). Amen.

14. Let us pray. O Lord, to Thy merciful providence we commend the wants of all mankind; cause the light of Thy glorious Gospel to shine throughout the world; bless Thy whole Church, heal the divisions of her and grant to her, the blessings of truth, unity and peace; bless our country, defend our President and all others in authority; give faith and diligence to the clergy; hear the cry of the poor and needy; bless the members, absent and present, of this household; be gracious to all our relatives and friends; and grant, O Lord, that we may all at length find rest and peace with Thy saints in Thine eternal kingdom. Amen. (Trinity XX, 2^nd Vespers Collect. The Daily Office).

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Septuaginta, Vol. I and II 2. Revised Edition © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Sunday, October 13, 2024

2. Corinthians 3,3-9. Trinity XX

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