Pointing to Christ

This is my favorite picture from the Reformation: it is of Martin Luther using the word of God to point to Christ crucified.  This is the goal of all Christian reformation: to direct and redirect men to Christ.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified…  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

—1 Corinthians 2:2-5 (NIV-1984).

All congregations on earth are always in need of constant reformation.  However, some don’t know it.

FMI

For more information on the above painting by Lucas Cranach (the elder), check out this post entitled “Cranach in the Study” by Pastor Caauwe.

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Only God Can Grow His Church

We should serve God to the best of our abilities within our vocations.  God will care for His Church.  One cannot emphasize enough “the utter dependence of the church on her Lord,” because her trust in Him is her greatest strength.

God uses the gospel to bring us to faith, to keep us in the one true faith, and to perfect our faith.  (Hebrews 12:2).  His one gospel does all that.  Therefore, those called to distribute God’s gospel in word and sacrament should work to deliver only that gospel.  No other “gospel” or human wisdom should be sought, because only God can grow His Church.  (Galatians 1:8).

With Might of Ours Can Naught Be Done

No man or creature is able by any thoughts, wisdom, or abilities of his own to advance and maintain the church.  In this matter, therefore, neither power nor might nor protection, with which we may console ourselves and on which we may rely, is to be sought from the world.

On the contrary, this task rests entirely and completely in the hands of God alone.  He must maintain the church through His divine power, as in fact He has done constantly and marvelously from the beginning in the midst of great weakness, divisions caused by sects and heretics, and persecutions brought on by tyrants.  The control of the church is entirely His own, although He commits the office and ministry to men whom He would require and employ to dispense His Word and Sacrament.  Therefore every Christian, especially he who is in this office of ministering to others, should make it his sole purpose faithfully to serve God in the sphere into which He has called and placed him and to carry out whatever he has been commanded to do.

But the care as to where and how the church may continue and be maintained against the devil and the world is to be referred entirely to the Lord.  He has assumed the entire responsibility for this task and has thereby divested us of all care so that we may be certain that the church will stand and endure.  For if the cause of the church were to depend on the counsel, power, and will of man, the devil would soon subvert and overthrow it with his power.

— What Luther Says, Volume I, compiled by Ewald Plass,
Concordia Publishing House, 1972.  Page 283.

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Thy Word is a Trusty Shield and Weapon

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  (John 1:1).

“A mighty fortress is our God,
A trusty shield and weapon;
He helps us free from every need
That has us now o’er taken.
The old evil foe
Now means deadly woe;
Deep guile and great might
Are his dread arms in fight;
On earth is not his equal.”

The Word “of God is living and active.”  It is sharper than any sword.  (Hebrews 4:12).

“With might of ours can naught be done,
Soon were our loss effected;
But for us fights the valiant one,
Whom God himself elected.
You ask, “Who is this?”
Jesus Christ it is,
The almighty Lord.
And there’s no other God;
He holds the field forever.”

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the sea …”  (Psalm 46:1-2).

“Though devils all the world should fill,
All eager to devour us,
We tremble not, we fear no ill;
They shall not overpow’r us.
This world’s prince may still
Scowl fierce as he will,
He can harm us none.
He’s judged; the deed is done!
One little word can fell him.”

“‘Is not my word like fire,’ declares the Lord, ‘and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?’”  (Jeremiah 23:29).

“The Word they still shall let remain,
Nor any thanks have for it;
He’s by our side upon the plain
With his good gifts and Spirit.
And do what they will—
Hate, steal, hurt, or kill—
Though all may be gone,
Our victory is won;
The kingdom’s ours forever!”

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

(Luke 21:33).  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16).

Amen.

— “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” Christian Worship, 200.
Scripture quotes: NIV, 1984.

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Reformation Day and Repentance

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany.  Luther posted these theses in the hope of sparking a debate, and spark a debate they did.  The posting of the 95 theses is the symbolic start of the Reformation, and it is fitting that they deal with repentance.  Repentance and true reform always go hand in hand.

Here are the first three of Luther’s 95 theses, also known as the “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.”

1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” [Matt. 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
2. This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.
3. Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortifications of the flesh.  [Luther's Works, volume 31].

When Jesus began his ministry, he said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”  (Matthew 4:17).  Christ came to bring repentance which is a gift of God.  (Acts 11:18).

According to the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, repentance consists of two parts: contrition and faith.  Contrition “is the true terror of conscience which feels that God is angry with sin, and grieves that it has sinned.”  “Faith is the divine service (latreia) that receives the benefits offered by God” in promise and sacrament.  (Art. V, 232 & Art. IV, 49).

The law terrifies and makes contrite.  The promise of God creates faith in Christ through whom we are freely justified.  The fruit of the Law & Gospel is contrition & faith.  Together they produce repentance.  And that fruit, that fruit of repentance, is the fruit of Christ.  (John 15:4).  Indeed, when “Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

And that which God has willed he also gives.  Reform and repentance are both the gift of God.  (Acts 11:18).

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Notes:  Pastor Matthew Harrison, the newly elected President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), has all 95 theses listed on his blog: Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison.

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Chrysostom on the Nature of Christ

Let us learn to know to which nature the Father said, “Share My seat.”  It is the same nature to which had been said, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

—John Chrysostom in Epistle 65 to Leo …

It is great and wonderful and awe-inspiring that our flesh is seated above and worshiped by angels and archangels, by seraphim and cherubim.  When I reflect on this, I am entranced and seem to be outside myself.

—John Chrysostom, on Hebrews 2.

— Concordia, The Lutheran Confessions: A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord.  Concordia Publishing House; St. Louis, 2006, page 636.

These quotes along with many others were included in the Catalog of Testimonies (an appendix to the Book of Concord) to show that the Church’s universal orthodox belief has been that Jesus’ physical body has divine properties and can be physically consumed in the Lord’s Supper.

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“The Word,” a Martin Luther Quote

In his Second Sermon upon his return to Wittenberg, in response to the radical “reforms” of Karlstadt, Martin Luther said:

Once, when Paul came to Athens (Acts 17 [:16–32]), a mighty city, he found in the temple many ancient altars, and he went from one to the other and looked at them all, but he did not kick down a single one of them with his foot.  Rather he stood up in the middle of the market place and said they were nothing but idolatrous things and begged the people to forsake them; yet he did not destroy one of them by force.  When the Word took hold of their hearts, they forsook them of their own accord, and in consequence the thing fell of itself.  Likewise, if I had seen them holding mass, I would have preached to them and admonished them.  Had they heeded my admonition, I would have won them; if not, I would nevertheless not have torn them from it by the hair or employed any force, but simply allowed the Word to act and prayed for them.  For the Word created heaven and earth and all things [Ps. 33:6]; the Word must do this thing, and not we poor sinners.

In short, I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion.  Take myself as an example.  I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force.  I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing.  And while I slept [cf. Mark 4:26–29], or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it.  I did nothing; the Word did everything.  Had I desired to foment trouble, I could have brought great bloodshed upon Germany; indeed, I could have started such a game that even the emperor would not have been safe.  But what would it have been?  Mere fool’s play.  I did nothing; I let the Word do its work.  What do you suppose is Satan’s thought when one tries to do the thing by kicking up a row?  He sits back in hell and thinks:  Oh, what a fine game the poor fools are up to now!  But when we spread the Word alone and let it alone do the work, that distresses him.  For it is almighty, and takes captive the hearts, and when the hearts are captured the work will fall of itself.

— The Second Sermon, March 10, 1522, Monday after Invocavit.  [Luther, M. (1999, c1959).  Vol. 51: Luther's works, vol. 51: Sermons I.  (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.).  Luther's Works (51:III-78).  Philadelphia: Fortress Press].  Emphasis added.

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”  (Luke 21:33).  Foolish pastors refuse to trust the Word of God, and instead trust the methods of the so-called church Growth Movement.  The church Growth Movement is a foundation of sand.  Instead, we should build on the Rock.  (Matthew 7:24-27).  The Word of the Lord is the Rock that endures forever.

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Quote from The Conservative Reformation

It is vastly more important, then, to know what the Reformation retained than what it overthrew; for the overthrow of error, though often an indispensable prerequisite to the establishment of truth, is not truth itself; it may clear the foundation, simply to substitute one error for another, perhaps a greater for a less.

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The mightiest weapon which the Reformation employed against Rome was, not Rome’s errors, but Rome’s truths…  There was no fear of truth, simply because Rome held it, and no disposition to embrace error, because it might be employed with advantage to Rome’s injury.  While it established broadly and deeply the right of private judgment, it did not make that abuse of it which has since been so common.  From the position, that the essential truths of the word of God are clear to any Christian mind that examines them properly, it did not leap to the conclusion, that a thousand generations or a thousand examiners were as likely, or more likely, to be wrong than one.

— Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology (repr. St. Louis: Concordia, 2007), 202-203.

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“Book of Concord” Half-Price Sale

Is this a dry dusty old worn-out book?

For the month of June, Concordia Publishing House is selling all their editions of the Book of Concord at half the regular price.  Here is a link to their sale page:

• June Sale – 50% off Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions

These are excellent prices, and they provide an opportunity for many to learn about the true teachings of the Lutheran Reformation.  The truth does not change; therefore, because these teachings are founded on the Scriptures, they are as relevant to eternal life as they ever were.

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Classical Education

In response to a previous post entitled Concord and Confirmation, a couple of commentators began a discussion about classical education.  This got me interested in the subject, so when I heard that Issues, Etc.™ was doing a segment on classical education, I decided to listen.

Click here to download the April, 29, 2009 Issues, Etc. broadcast.

Here are the further resources & reading links listed on the Issues, Etc. on-demand page:

• The Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education (CCLE)
• “Why Classical Education?” by Dr. Steven Hein (pdf)
• “An Educational Philosophy for Lutheran Education” by Dr. Steven Hein (pdf)

Here is a page entitled “What is classical education?“  This page presents a good definition of classical education, but omits mention of the study of classical languages.  Classical education was revived by the Lutheran Reformers and was a key contributor to the Reformation.

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Reformation Sunday 2008 Sermon

On Reformation Sunday 2008 A.D., Pastor Glende preached a sermon about the future of our congregation.  We are 140 years old, and celebrated this milestone with a sermon series about our past, present, and future.  Reformation Sunday’s sermon was about our future.

During the sermon, Pastor asked us to write on two pieces of paper:

• On the first piece of paper, we were supposed to write one thing we would change about our congregation.  So I wrote that our church needed “more Gospel/Jesus.”

• On the second piece of paper we were supposed to write the name of a person we would like to come to our church and an idea for getting them to attend.  So I wrote the name of a friend & “tradition.”  (By “tradition” I meant to say respectful reverent worship of God).  Most of the people in this area and in my circle are Roman Catholic, and while they have expressed sympathy for the Gospel of Jesus Christ they have also expressed deep offense at the way we handle the Lord’s Supper.

Here is the sermon, it is 19 minutes long:

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