✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
1. Peter 2,2-10 4014
6. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 051
The Seven Sleepers, Virgin, Martyrs 250
27. Juli 2014
1. O Christ, we are baptized into Your death and now overcome death with Your death. Help us to believe all the blessings You promise to us in Holy Baptism, particularly the new life that has dawned upon us that transforms our perishable body into an imperishable body. (VELKD, Prayer for 6. Sunday after Trinity § 1). Amen.
2. »Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to Him, a Living Stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: »Behold, I am laying in Zion a Stone, a Cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.« So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe: »The Stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone,« and »A Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of offense.« They stumble because they disobey the Word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
3. In this morning’s Gospel lection, Jesus told His apostles to baptize and teach. This apostolic command is fulfilled in our lives: we have been baptized in the Triune Name of God and we are taught the words of Jesus. As young Christians, we were taught simple things, spiritual milk that nourished our faith, but as we have grown mature we are taught complex things, spiritual meat that strengthens our faith. The temptation is for Christians to want only the simple milk and to pass on the complicated meat. The Apostle Peter gives us some challenging doctrine when he writes in his epistle: »You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.«
4. The challenging aspect of these verses is that they teach contrary to what most people, Christians and unbelievers alike, believe about Israel. In the old testament, Yahweh had made this covenant with Abraham: his descendants would be blessed and chosen by God Himself. Abraham’s twelve grandsons became the patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of the nation of Israel. Yahweh blessed Israel with land, sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin and the temple. Yahweh called Israel: »My treasured possession among all peoples, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation« (Exodus 19,5-6). For thousands of years, the old testament gave Israel Yahweh’s „most favored nation status“. Many believe the nation of Israel still has this favored status before the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Turn on the news and you will hear politicians and political pundits speaking eloquently about Israel as God’s chosen people. Almost every televangelist on TV will encourage you to support Israel because they are the chosen of God. The Apostle Peter, however, declared in his epistle that the Church, and Christians, now enjoy this favored status before God. The apostle transfers the blessings given to Israel onto the Church. The Apostle Paul agrees with Peter: »Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring« (Romans 9,6-8). »It is those of faith who are the sons and daughters of Abraham. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring, and his offspring is Christ. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise« (Galatians 3,7.16.29).
5. Did you ever wonder why Jesus chose from among all His many disciples only 12 to be named apostles? Jesus was fulfilling the old testament. Yahweh chose Abraham, the man of faith, and made 12 of his descendants the ancestors of the 12 Tribes of Israel. Jesus is the man of faith who chose the 12 Apostles of His Church. He commissioned these 12 to become establish the Church through baptizing and preaching (Matthew 19,28; Revelation 4,4). Jesus fulfilled the old testament and established the new testament in its place. The old testament promised land, forgiveness and a temple to His old testament Israel. The old testament was grounded in geographic property. God had set aside a swath of property on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, a bit larger than the size of the State of New Jersey, and gave this land to Abraham’s descendants. He established sacrifices for the forgiveness of their sins, and these sacrifices were performed at the temple where Yahweh’s glorious presence really dwelt. The new testament fulfills the promise of land in Jesus. Where He is, there are His people. This building and property are rightly called a church because we are gathered here in the Name of Jesus to worship and praise Him. Jesus Himself is also the sacrifice, once for all, that has forgiven the sin of the entire world. Finally, Jesus is the temple, for He destroyed His body in death and then raised it up again in three days. Jesus is God who became man, and He is the True Temple of His Heavenly Father. Jesus dwells among us, and thus God dwells among us in an even greater and more glorious way than He did in the most holy place of the Jerusalem temple.
6. There is only one covenant and one holy people. The old covenant with all its statutes has been fulfilled in Jesus. The new covenant is founded upon Jesus and has its own statutes. There is only one way to eternal life, and that is through Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14,6). The Apostle Paul writes that the old dietary laws, the animal sacrifices and the festivals, all integral to keeping the old testament given at Mount Sinai, are all fulfilled in Jesus. Paul declares: »Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ (Colossians 2,16-17). Thus there are not two ways of salvation: one for the Jews and another for everyone else. Jews who keep the old testament are not saved, for that testament is now null and void. They have no land, no priests, no animal sacrifices and no temple. This is by God’s will, a will that He enforced in AD 70 when He sent the Romans legions to deport the Jews from His land, raze the temple to the ground and put an end, once and for all, to the old testament. O people will claim that the Jews have returned to their ancestral lands, and the nation of modern-day Israel encompasses much of the borders that Yahweh had given them after they entered the promised land of Canaan. The problem is, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the eastern half of Jerusalem are all occupied territory that the Israelis took in violation of international law and the UN mandate that established the borders for Israel in 1947. In spite of all this, Israel does not control the most important piece of real estate in all the land: Mount Zion where the temple once stood. The Muslims control Mount Zion and in 691 built the Dome of the Rock mosque on the very site of the destroyed Jewish temple. There is no priestly caste in modern Israel, and there are no sacrifices performed as outlined in the Sinai covenant. The temple was destroyed 1944 years ago and has never been rebuilt. Israel claims the Wailing Wall as a holy site, but the Wailing Wall was never part of the old temple real estate proper.
7. All who believe in Jesus are properly referred to as God’s chosen people. The promises and the testament are fulfilled in Jesus. All Christians, whether they are of Jewish descent or Gentile descent, are children of God. Paul describes it this way: »The Word of God has not failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, (Romans 9,6-7) because there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call upon Him, for everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10,12-13). God has not rejected His Jewish people whom He foreknew, but He broke off some of the Jewish branches, and grafted in you, a wild Gentile shoot, among the others and you now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. A partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved (Romans 11,17.20.25-26). Yes, all Israel will be saved, and is now saved. Israel comprises those who believe in Jesus, just as it was for Abraham, David and the other old testament patriarchs who believed in, and looked forward to the revealing of, Jesus, and those today, mainly Gentiles, who believe in Jesus. Israel comprises both Jews and Gentiles who have been baptized, believe the gospel and are taught the truths of Jesus who fulfilled the promises given in the Bible. We call this Israel today the Church, but it is the same people: all those, regardless of ethnic background, who believe the gospel and trust in Jesus for salvation from sin, death and hell.
8. Thus you have been baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Your baptism has grafted you into the tree of Israel. Your family tree includes countless Gentiles, like Martin Luther, Olaf Tryggvason, Gustav Eriksson and Won-Yong Ji. Jews like the apostles, Mary Magdalene and New Testament disciples, Jewish kings like David and Hezekiah, patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, matriarchs like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, antediluvian believers like Shem, Noah, Enoch, Adam and Eve. You have been taught that all of Scripture speaks of, and points to, Christ Jesus. His death and resurrection have opened up the eternal life of salvation in God’s holy fellowship. You have the promise of God’s everlasting presence with and beside you, for Jesus promises to be with you always, to the end of the age. And when the end of the age arrives on that last day, when Jesus returns to resurrect your body with your soul, a new age will dawn, an age of the new heavens and earth where all creation will be pure and holy just as it was in Genesis and the Garden of Eden. Amen.
9. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, we will proclaim You in the midst of the congregation and we will praise You for calling us to faith and grafting us into Your family so that we may enjoy everlasting life with Your forever and ever. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.
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