Romans 10,3-17. 17. Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever 

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Romans 10,9-17 4816

17. Sonntag nach Trinitatis  062  

Richardis, Wife of Charles the Fat, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, ✠ 893 

18. September 2016 

1. О Heavenly Father, Lord God: We beseech You so to guide and direct us by Your Holy Spirit, so that we may not exalt ourselves, but humbly fear You, with our whole hearts hear and keep Your Word, and hallow the Lord’s day, so that we also may be hallowed by Your Word; help us, first, to place our hope and confidence in Your Son, Jesus Christ, who alone is our righteousness and Redeemer, and, then, so to amend and better our lives in accordance with Your Word,  so that we may avoid all offenses and finally obtain eternal salvation, through Your grace in Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end.  Amen. (Veit Dietrich for the 17. Sn. n. Trinitatis) 

2. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says: »Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.« [Isaiah 28,16] For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For »everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.« [Joel 2,32] But how are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written: »How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel!« [Isaiah 52,7] But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says: »O Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?« [Isaiah 53,1] So faith arrives from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.  

3. The Apostle Paul proclaims in his epistle: »There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him, for everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved. [Joel 2,32]« St. Paul tells us that God is a universal God. He is the God of the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans and even of us living in America. Paul is not saying, however, that all people are saved simply because they believe in God, nor is he saying that there are many different ways to understand God. Paul is saying that in Christianity, we have a God who is for all people. 

4. Saint Paul makes it clear that the God of the Jews and the nations is the God who suffered on the cross, died for our sins, was buried, descended into hades and on the third day rose from His grave. This God is none other than Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God the Father. The Apostle Peter clearly proclaims: »This Jesus has become the Cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved« (Acts 4,11-12). 

5. What the apostles teach is that from the very beginning the true saving religion has been and always will be that religion that is built upon Christ. This means that from the very beginning of the Bible, Jesus is the one who is promised to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3: He is the seed of the woman who crushed the head of the seed of the serpent. When God called Abraham to follow Him, He was calling Abraham to look for Jesus, who would be his future offspring who would bless all the nations. When God codified the Jewish religion under Moses, the covenant and the Torah, He was grounding those tenets upon Jesus, for the tenets of the Mosaic covenant were meant to point forward to Jesus; the temple, the animal sacrifices and the meticulous ritual laws of the priesthood all existed to not only guarantee the assurance that sin was forgiven in the covenant but that the Messiah would fulfill this very covenant that prepared the Jews for His advent. This is why we call that Mosaic covenant the old testament and the Biblical books that explain Jesus fulfilling the Law and the Prophets as the new testament. God even told Moses that He would raise up a prophet to succeed him, and the prophet who succeeded Moses is Jesus (Deuteronomy 18,18). The Apostle John says: »The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Later, Philip found Nathanael and said to him: „We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.“« (John 1,17.45). The Apostle Paul tells us that the law is the pedagogue preparing us for the arrival of Christ Jesus (Galatians 3,24-26). Both the old and new testaments point to Jesus the Christ. 

6. The  Holy Scriptures proclaim: »Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved« (Joel 2,32; Romans 10,13). Paul was quoting the Prophet Joel, who earlier had said: »Return to the Lord your God, repenting of your sins, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster« (Joel 2,12-13). The gospel of Christ Jesus crucified for sinners is for everyone; to the Jew first and also to the nations. 

7. To call upon the Name of Jesus is to trust upon Him for salvation. Paul preaches in his epistle: »If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.« This preaching (κήρυγμα) focuses upon the gospel of Christ crucified. St. Paul told the Corinthian Christians: »I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God« (1. Corinthians 2,1-5). This is the preaching that Holy Spirit uses to create faith. You believe in Jesus by the power of God, just as Paul says: »So faith arrives from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.« 

8. Those who believe in the risen Christ are justified and forgiven. God the Father imputes Jesus’ own righteousness to you. We call this the blessed exchange (die fröhliche Wechsel), for Christ took upon Himself our original sin and gave us in exchange His own original righteousness. »Faith arrives from hearing the word of Christ« The Word of God does not return void: you have heard the gospel; you have believed this gospel; on account of the gospel, you are righteous before God Almighty.   Amen.

9. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, You have the words of eternal life! May our singing of Your steadfast love make known Your faithfulness to succeeding generations so that through Your gospel of Christ crucified they believe unto life everlasting.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

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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.