Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: 2. Corinthians 3,3-9. 20th Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

2. Corinthians 3,3-9 5414

20. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 065; The Commemoration of the Reformation

Victoria, Martyr 304 ✠

All Souls

2. November 2014

1. O Merciful God, Thou Source of Truth, we thank You for the men and women, who bravely confess You, who give to others Your gracious gifts, who trust in life, venerate Your Glory and expose the lies of the evil one. We pray that You, speak through them, spread Your truth, accomplish Your will and work according to Your good pleasure. (VELKD, Prayer for den Gedenktag der Reformation § 1). Amen.

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 Church is constantly in danger of replacing the testament of the Spirit with the testament of the law. The Church is constantly tempted to replace the gospel with the law. Thus the Lutheran Reformation was ignited with Martin Luther’s posting of the Ninety-Five Theses on the Schloßkirche (Castle Church) in Wittenberg in 1517. His Disputation on Indulgences was the beginning of a debate to rescue the gospel for the Church and Christians. Perhaps the most important thesis that Luther posted is Thesis 62: The true treasure of the Church is the most holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God (Luther, On the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences). The gospel is simply this: »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 by works of the law no one will be justified« (Galatians 2,16).

4. There are, however, competing „gospels“ vying for attention in the Church. Not that there are multiple gospels of equal value, for there is only the true gospel and other competing proclamations that claim to be the gospel but are really diluted proclamations void of the power and Spirit of God’s grace. The Apostle Paul exhorted Christians in his Epistle to the Galatians: »I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be damned to hell! As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be damned to hell! For I would have you know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received the gospel through a revelation of Jesus Christ« (Galatians 1,6-9.11-12). The competing message preached by some in Paul’s day was: „It is not enough to believe the gospel of Christ crucified and risen for your salvation. If you want to be certain of your salvation, then you must also get circumcised and follow the Jewish dietary laws.“ In effect, these Judaizing Christians said justification consists in faith in the gospel plus doing the works commanded in the old testament, particularly circumcision and dietary regulations. Paul replied to them: No!; and he upheld the apostolic preaching that salvation is only by the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection that is received through faith and thus credited to the believer by grace as justification before God the Father.

5. Luther’s challenge was a Medieval version of Paul’s adversaries: laws, particularly indulgences, relics and penances, were drawn up to bring comfort to distraught consciences. These laws diluted the gospel’s effect in people’s lives to the extent that they trusted their penitential works more than the grace of the gospel.

6. The competing message in 21. century American Christianity is moralistic therapeutic deism. This term was first introduced in the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (2005) by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. They wrote that individuals develop their own personal religious system and borrow ideas from established religions that they’re familiar with. Many include Jesus in their religion, and hence they self-identify as Christians. Moralistic therapeutic deism thus highlights the following tenets:

A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth (deism).

This god wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions (moralistic).

The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself (therapeutic).

Therefore, god does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem (deism and therapeutic).

Good people go to heaven when they die (moralistic).

Just add to these tenets Jesus and a few Bible passages and you have what essentially passes for populist American Evangelical Christianity today. This contorted message goes back decades. Robert Schuller popularized it in the 70s and 80s from his Crystal Cathedral’s Hour of Power program. Millions read his 1985 best-selling book The Be Happy Attitudes: Eight Positive Attitudes that can Transform Your Life. Joel Osteen has taken up this mantle today. Millions have read his 2004 best-selling book Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential. Their message is essentially a Christianized self-help approach to live a better, moral life.

7. Yes, the apostles and pastors exhort Christians to live their faith, and this includes exhortation to Godly morality, but the cornerstone of the Christian faith is not the moralistic therapeutics that is the common fare on any given Christian TV show. The Christian faith is grounded solidly and only on Christ and Him crucified. This is the gospel that supported all of Jesus’ and the apostles’ preaching. »For the letter of the law kills, but the Spirit of the gospel gives life.« The Apostle Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Philippians that »we do not have a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but a righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith so that we may know Him and the power of Christ’s resurrection« (Philippians 3,9-10). This righteousness that comes through Christ is the pure, true gospel of the Church. No other religion has this gospel that is grounded on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ Jesus. The one holy catholic and apostolic Church alone has the word of salvation, and it is proclaimed to you this day, and every Sunday, for the certainty of your salvation and the assurance that your sin is forgiven, all through Christ alone.

9. The gospel of Christ Jesus crucified and risen for you and your sinfulness justifies you: all your sins have been paid for and you are now righteous before God the Father. The gospel sanctifies you: the Holy Spirit daily works in you to create good works by which your neighbors are blessed. The gospel is revealed by faith and received by faith. You are saved. You are righteous. You are sanctified. Christ has made it so. The gospel proclaims it. Believe it, for the gospel is the power of God the Son working in your life through the Holy Scriptures, Holy Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Absolution. The gospel is yours by grace and it is free all on account of Christ. You can be certain of it, for Christ alone is your righteousness. Amen.

10. Let us pray. O Yahweh, teach me the way of Your statutes, and I will observe them to the end . Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Soli Deo Gloria

✠

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.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

2. Corinthians 3,3-9. 20th Sunday after Trinity

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