In the Name of Jesus
Job 14,1-6
Drittlezter Sonntag des Kirchenjahres 070 (25. Trinitatis)
Reformatio die iterum
Leonhard, hermit, † 559
6. November 2011
1. Almighty and Gracious Holy Spirit, You have given Your Church the law in order to crush secure, sinful hearts and the gospel to absolve guilty consciences. Unfortunately, throughout the ages Your Church falls prey to offering the law as the gospel. When our merits take the place of Christ’s merit then there is no certainty of satisfaction but only the gnawing realization that we have a wrathful God. Keep Your Church, therefore, firmly grounded upon the pure gospel of Christ crucified for the redemption of sinners, for only Jesus guarantees that we are justified before God. Amen.
2. 1Then Job answered: „Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. 2He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not. 3And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you? 4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. 5Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with You, and You have appointed his limits that he cannot pass, 6look away from him and leave him alone, so that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day“. This is our text.
3. The young monk Martin Luther probably sympathized with Job’s epithet in today’s First Reading, for Brother Martin’s concept of God was one of an avenging, wrathful Judge who damns all sinners to eternal hellish torment. Luther wanted to see God as a loving and forgiving God, but in his daily distress this caring God was not in view. Luther described his torment to his Father Confessor as: „I live in terror of judgment. Have you ever dared to think that God is not just? Hell’s spawn, tainted by sin, then He’s angry with us all our lives for our faults. This Righteous Judge, who damns us, threatening us with the fires of hell. I know I am evil to think it: I wish there were no God. I seek a merciful God, a God whom I can love, a God who loves me!“ ( Luther 6:40). Perhaps you have felt like Job and Luther at times in your life where God seems like an uncaring and angry Deity who presses down upon you.
4. Luther did finally recover the loving God who had become obscure in Medieval Christianity. It began with Luther’s Father Confessor, Johann von Staupitz, who counseled Luther with these words: „Look to Christ, bind yourself to Christ, and you will know God’s love. Say to Him: I am Yours; save me“ (Luther 7:37). Staupitz then sent Luther to Wittenberg in 1508 to earn his doctorate and lecture on the Holy Scriptures. Luther’s Reformation, then, was grounded on restoring basic Christian truths found in the Holy Scriptures. C. S. Lewis distilled the essentials of the Christian faith down to five points (loci) in his essay „The Weight of Glory“:
i. All children of Adam and Eve are sinful and have sinned (Erbsünde). Romans 3,23.
ii. The penalty for sin is death, both physical and eternal (Die Strafe für die Sünde). Ro 6,23.
iii. Jesus paid that penalty by His crucifixion (substitutionem poenali; solus Christus). Romans 5,8.
iv. Justification is pure gift and not your works (sola iustia; iustia imputata). Ephesians 2,8-9.
v. The assurance that you are right now justified before God (Heilsgewißheit). Ro 1; Jn 5,12-13.
5. Luther, as well as many Christians in his day as well as our own century, knew the truth of loci i and ii. Men and women are sinners; the punishment for sin is physical and eternal death. We don’t initially need the Bible to realize this, for our human experience is one of watching people grow old, succumb to illness and finally die. Scripture explains the source of this horrible cycle of existence and further reveals that the gates of hell wait to greet each person who dies. Thus Dante’s Inferno posited this phrase above hell’s entrance: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate: Abandon all hope, all you who enter here.
6. The centerpiece of Christianity is locus iii: Jesus paid the penalty for mankind’s sin by His crucifixion. The Medieval Catholic Church did not deny this point; in fact, many of Luther’s contemporary theologians proclaimed this very point. The issue for Luther, and many others both then and now, was the application of this locus. Listen to how Luther reflected upon this later in his life:
7. „Meanwhile, I had already during [1519] returned to interpret the Psalter anew. I had confidence in the fact that I was more skillful, after I had lectured in [Wittenberg] university on St. Paul’s epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians and the one to the Hebrews. I had indeed been captivated with an extraordinary enthusiasm for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was not the cold blood about the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1: »In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed,« that had stood in my way. For I hated that word „righteousness of God,“ which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they call it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner. Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that He was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said: „As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with His righteousness and wrath!“ Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat persistently upon Paul at that place, most enthusiastically desiring to know what St. Paul wanted“ (AE 34,336-37).
8. Luther humbly acknowledges that he did indeed know and believe that Jesus died on the cross as a payment for the world’s sin, but that he did not apply this satisfaction to himself. This is a common perversion of locus iv. Many Christians understand this locus as: Justification involves what Christ has done (died on the cross for sin) and also those good works we do as part of our satisfaction. Medieval Catholicism applied it this way: Christ died for your sins and rightly satisfied the eternal punishment those sins deserve; now you, good Christian, need to do works to satisfy the temporal penalties that still remain upon your sins, therefore you will do penance, revere this relic or purchase that indulgence so that you can lessen the time you spend in purgatory purging away those temporal penalties that still cling to you.
9. Luther dutifully followed these prescriptions, but his guilty conscience was not satisfied or at peace. He redoubled and tripled his efforts to satisfy God’s righteousness, but he never had any certainty of God’s satisfaction. Luther then made this discovery in the Bible as he prepared for his university lectures:
10. „At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely: »In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written: »He who through faith is righteous shall live««. There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written »He who through faith is righteous shall live«. Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered Paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scripture from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word „righteousness of God.“ Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to Paradise. Later I read Augustine’s The Spirit and the Letter, where contrary to hope I found that he, too, interpreted God’s righteousness in a similar way, as the righteousness with which God clothes us when he justifies us. Although this was heretofore said imperfectly and he did not explain all things concerning imputation clearly, it nevertheless was pleasing that God’s righteousness with which we are justified was taught“ (AE 34,336-37).
11. Luther’s a-ha eureka moment was his re-reading of Romans 3,28: »For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law«. He furthermore read Ephesians 2,8-9: »For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast«. Luther finally recovered the precious gospel proclaimed in the Holy Scriptures: Justification is pure gift and not on account of our works (sola iustia); justification is that God the Father imputes Christ’s righteousness to and upon you! Luther was so overjoyed with this rediscovery of the gospel that he became fond of Latinizing and signing his name. In a letter to Spalatin dated 20. January 1519, Luther signed his name as: Martinus Eleutherius. The word Eleutherius is the Latin transliteration of the Greek word έλεύθερος, which means „free“. Jesus said: »If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free« (John 8,31-32).
12. This freedom that justification is pure gift to you in Christ leads to locus v: The assurance that you are right now justified before God. Romans 1; John 5,12-13. This locus changed everything. The Reformers ceased the purchasing of indulgences; they then began giving the laity both the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper in the elements of the bread and the wine; they began to preach Christ, and only Christ (solus Christus), as the satisfaction for all your sins and that both the eternal and temporal punishments have been satisfied by Christ when he was sacrificed upon the cross.
13. The gospel answers Job’s lament: »Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one«. The gospel says, spoken of man, Job is right: no man or woman can make the unclean sinner clean. Therefore, God sent His only Son to do what men and women are incapable of doing: Jesus has satisfied your sinfulness; He has purged you and made you clean!
14. The gospel soothes consciences burdened by false christs and false prophets who seek to lead the elect away with great signs and wonders (Matthew 25,24). Every generation sees its share of false prophets who peddle a gospel mingled with the law and things we must do to be assured of our salvation. We have those who try to predict and date the return of Christ, and in doing so frighten weaker Christians to doubt their faith. The gospel, however, brings you blessed assurance (seligste Versicherung): Fear not, dear Christians, fear not, for you are saved by Christ alone (solus Christus) and no one and nothing can snatch you out of Christ’s redeeming hands: not your sins, not false teachers, not the tribulations of the world and not even the devil himself. You are free; you are forgiven; you belong to Jesus. Christ’s vicarious and substitutionary death solves your real problem: (which is your) sin. There is now full and complete peace between God the Father and you. You are righteous and justified on account of Christ’s merits which have now been credited to you.
15. Luther was so struck with the sweet gospel he had rediscovered in God’s Word that he wrote a note in the margin next to Romans 3,28 so that it read: »For we hold that one is justified by faith alone
apart from works of the law«. Luther underlined the word „faith“ and wrote next to it „sola“, that is, „alone“. Luther had Church precedent for this as ten Church Fathers and theologians
, including Augustine and Aquinas, noted that „faith alone“ is the proper understanding of the Apostle Paul’s Romans 3,28. Furthermore, two Catholic Bibles: The Nuremberg Bible (1483) and the Italian Bible of Geneva (1476) translated the phrase as „through faith alone“.
16. Luther, therefore, was merely standing upon the shoulders of prior Catholic theologians when he emphasized full and complete satisfaction before God through Christ Jesus. Thus pastors proclaim this same sweet gospel: your sins are forgiven by Christ. Look to Christ, bind yourself to Christ, and you will know God’s love. Amen.
17. Let us pray. We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks, for Your Name is near, and where Your Name is, there is salvation so that we are assured of our right standing before You. Amen.
One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you!
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, the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Mark © 1995 by Reuben Joseph Swanson.
Luther. Copyright © 2003 by MGM.
Luther, Martin. American Edition, Volume 34: Career of the Reformer IV (St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1960), p. 336-337. Written in Wittenberg, 1545.
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