Pastor Mark's Blog

St. Paul writes to the church in Rome:

“8 But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Reading this, we all need to ask ourselves, “Is the word near to me or not?” If so, how would we determine that it is or whether it is not near? How do we know that the words which we receive contain or communicate the word of God, both the law of God and gospel of Jesus Christ, the latter alone which creates the faith by which we are justified?

Since the earliest days of the church, the word of God has been adulterated by sinful human beings. Even with the best of intentions, in the hope of evangelism and mission, the word becomes obscured. Not infrequently when quoting scripture, amazingly enough, the word, the gospel of Jesus Christ, often gets lost, a favourite trick of the devil. Scripture itself warns us of this, “3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (II Timothy 4:3-4). The ever present danger in the church is that the church seeks to attract people by appealing to “itchy ears” and by finding teachers to suit our own passions.

So, what do we sinners like to hear? Plainly enough, we like to hear that we are basically just fine, just as we are, or “Just as I am,” as the old hymn puts it. Whereas it is true that God comes to us “just as we are,” he does not want to leave us there. “Just as we are” does not mean that we are justified, i.e. made holy by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone through the word alone. If we were “just fine” just as we are, then we would have no need of a saviour, and Jesus could have spared himself his death on the cross.

Arguably, the most insidious aspect of humanity’s sinful nature is our individual and collective self-righteousness. Everywhere we turn we encounter such self-righteousness. It is that which unites us and divides all of us as sinners. None of us likes to hear that we are fallible, feeble, frail, full of folly, or false. Of course, we know it deep on our hearts, but to hear it from others is often unbearable because thereby our self-delusions are ripped from us. We are exposed, left to stew in our shame. Secular society tries to attenuate or eliminate this by changing laws and morals to accommodate seemingly every sin known to humanity. The hope is that by making sinful deeds legal, one makes them right, and thus the committing of sins is not merely right but even righteous.

Scripture does not allow that, even when people use the its words to justify their thoughts, words, and deeds contrary to the will of God. The Bible contains account after account of people deviating from God’s word. Whether in ancient Israel or secular society, this Bible verse still hold true, “Everyone [does] what [is] right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6), and there is hell to pay if anyone tries to tell us differently.

Because the word of God comes to us as both law and gospel, the church and its mission literally face an almighty conundrum. We self-righteous sinners do not want to hear or acknowledge that we are sinners. Similarly, we self-righteous sinners believing that we are already alright, just, good, and righteous see no real need for God or his righteousness. Since sinful, self-righteous sinners perceive no need for what God has to offer, churches all too frequently seek to give sinners what sinners perceive that they need or want. So, churches descend into all manner of self-righteous activities believing that they are full of good people doing good things for the betterment of society. Sadly, from a superficial point of view, secular atheists are often better at bettering society than Christians.

Luther writes that “the true function and the chief and proper use of the Law is to reveal to man his sin, blindness, misery, wickedness, ignorance, hate and contempt of God, death, hell, judgment, and the well-deserved wrath of God” (LW 26:309). Well, what sinner in his or her self-righteous mind wants to hear that? If the church goes about preaching the law, surely it will drive people straight back out the front door, and who wants that? Church growth committees certainly do not! What is the church to do? How can it overcome this nightmarish public relations fiasco?

Luther continues, “This does not mean that it was the chief purpose of God in giving the Law only to cause death and damnation; … For the Law is a Word that shows life and drives us toward it. Therefore it was not given only for the sake of death. But this is its chief use and end: to reveal death, in order that the nature and enormity of sin might thus become apparent… When God saw that the most widespread pestilence in the whole world, that is, hypocrisy and confidence in one’s own saintliness, could not be restrained and crushed in any other way, He decided to kill it by means of the Law. This was not to be permanent; but it had as its purpose that when this pestilence was killed, man would be raised up again and would hear this voice beyond the Law” (LW 26:335). The law drives us though death beyond our self-righteousness to hear the voice of the gospel, the voice of Jesus Christ, who does not want to leave us where we are, just as we are. For that, God delivers the gospel to remove us from the grips of sin, death, and terminal self-righteousness.

“[T]he Gospel is a light that illumines hearts and makes them alive. It discloses what grace and the mercy of God are; what the forgiveness of sins, blessing, righteousness, life, and eternal salvation are; and how we are to attain to these. When we distinguish the Law from the Gospel this way, we attribute to each its proper use and function. You will not find anything about this distinction between the Law and the Gospel in the books of the monks, the canonists, and the recent and ancient theologians. Augustine taught and expressed it to some extent. Jerome and others like him knew nothing at all about it. In other words, for many centuries there has been a remarkable silence about this in all the schools and churches. This situation has produced a very dangerous condition for consciences; for unless the Gospel is clearly distinguished from the Law, Christian doctrine cannot be kept sound. But when this distinction is recognized, the true meaning of justification is recognized” (LW 26:313).

Lutherans are they only Christians who, in theory, should know how to distinguish the law from the gospel. In distinguishing the law from the gospel, the word of God as law and gospel becomes crystal clear and ever so near. The law cuts to the quick. It kills the self-righteous sinner. Then, the gospel proclaims the forgiveness of sins to ears dying to hear. The gospel raises us to newness of life. By faith alone it justifies the sinner who is freed from the tyrannical delusion of self-righteousness and liberated to live with God in God’s gift of holiness. Law and gospel, the cross and the resurrection, are God’s almighty conundrum to save sinners. So, what are the church and its mission to do? Be forgiven through Jesus Christ in thought, word, and deed!

Mother’s Day arrives in May, at least for mothers in the USA. Mothering Sunday in Britain is already spent, having arrived on the fourth Sunday in Lent.

If you are reading this little article, you were most likely born of a woman and have or have had a mother or mother figure. If you were not born of woman, you might still have a mother, although you may not be a human being. If you are not a human being, you may still continue reading. If you cannot read, ask your mother for help.

Most of us take being here, i.e. being alive, for granted, and so it is. We are all here because someone has given us the gift of life. We were conceived by the efforts of others. We were gestated in the body of a mother who with her own body gave us food and oxygen, protection and shelter. Likewise, with her own body she collected and removed the biological waste associated with our fetal development. Giving of life and removing what could become deathly toxic is a marvelous phenomenon to behold, regardless of the species.

Further, as children we often took or take the lives of our mothers for granted. It is a given. Mothers have seemingly always been there, unless they were not. Whereas all of us have been given birth by a mother, whether surgically assisted or not, not all of us have mothers, and not all of us have cordial relationships with our mothers. Some mothers die giving birth. Some mothers cannot care for their babies and put them up for adoption. Some mothers have their children removed. Some mothers are removed from their children. So many mother-child relationships can become strained and broken because so many events, dynamics, and other matters can interfere, interrupt, inhibit, and even terminate a mother-child relationship. Even if our mothers are not here, i.e. are no longer present for some reason, we are here because of them. No matter what, even if everything in the relationship has gone to hell, we have still been given the gift of life by a mother.

The mother-child relationship is part of the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Scripture relays to us that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, entered into human flesh and human life the same way as we all do, through a mother. When Jesus was conceived in the Virgin Mary of the Holy Spirit, that conception was a gift. Mary received that gift, and then in her womb she gave the gestating Jesus food and oxygen, protection and shelter. Her body absorbed and carried biological waste away from her fetus so that her son would live to be born. When Jesus was born, he was given by God, his father, and by Mary, his mother, as a gift to the world. In his article “Christ was Born a Jew,” Martin Luther describes this relationship as follows,

“Thus the word, by which God promises that Christ will be the seed of Abraham, requires that Christ be born of a woman and be her natural child. He does not come from the earth like Adam [Gen. 2:7]; neither is he from Adam’s rib like Eve [Gen. 2:21–22]. He comes rather like any woman’s child, from her seed. The earth was not the natural seed for Adam’s body; neither was Adam’s rib the natural seed for Eve’s body. But the virgin’s flesh and blood, from which children come in the case of all other women, was the natural seed of Christ’s body. And she too was of the seed of Abraham” (LW 45:204)

The relationship between God the Father, and Mary, Jesus’ mother, also symbolically reflects our lives in Christ. Jesus is given to us by the Father and his mother, and we take Jesus for granted. The word of God is the womb of Christ in which we are conceived in the faith, gestated in the faith, reborn through baptism in the faith, raised to newness of life in the faith, and fed at the Lord’s Supper in the faith. As Mary carried Jesus, fed him, and protected him with her own body, so too Jesus carries us, feeds us, and protects us by his word having made us through baptism a part of his body. That body was given on the cross to take away the deathly toxicity of the sin of whole world, to save us from all our sin-filled relationships going or gone to hell.

For some, mother’s Day can be a time of delight and thanksgiving. For others, it can be another reminder of strain, conflict, heartache, damage, and loss. For most of us, it is probably a mixture of both in different ways at different times. Although Jesus was born of a woman, like the rest of us, he was not born into sinful flesh, like the rest of us. As John’s gospel portrays, the word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Jesus was born of a woman in order to heal our relationship with God which we human beings through Adam broke by disregarding and disbelieving his word (Galatians 4:4-7). Jesus was given to us sinners so that we could hand him over to a death on the cross, for him to be raised by his Father, in order that he might give us sinners, declared righteous and holy by faith alone, to his Father. Mother’s Day is a given giving.

Regardless of the state or vitality of our relationships with our own mothers, on Mother’s Day we can thank God for those who have granted us life because God has given us his Son who gives us the gift of eternal life already in this life.

Luther lectured on the book of Galatians in 1531. Notes were taken of his lectures by various individuals, and these were used to publish a commentary on Galatians by Luther in 1535. The extensive notes taken by Georg Rörer were so good that his have been included in the Weimar Edition of Luther’s works along with the published commentary from 1535. Imagine not only hearing Luther lecture, but then having your notes published alongside his commentary. It must have been quite an honour.

Anyway, Rörer records Luther making some rather interesting comments about religion and religions. Here are two examples:

“There is no difference between a Jew, Papist, Turk. Of course, the rites are diverse, but it is the same heart and thoughts … because it is as follows: if I do thus, God will be merciful to me. It is the same passion of all men in their souls (hearts), [but] there is no middle way between the knowledge of Christ and human activity. Thereafter, it doesn’t matter, whether one is a Papist, Turk, Jew, one faith is as the other. For that reason, they are very much fools, because they fight each other on account of religion.” (WA 40, 1; 603-604,3).

“Every religion is idolatry, and whoever is more prayerful, more spiritual, … this is more pestilent that one averts one’s gaze (eye) from faith in Christ and what is his … Outside of Christ all the religions are idols.” (WA 40, 2: 110,6-111,1)

In short, Luther is saying that all religions are based on the law, i.e. following rules to gain God’s favour, as cited above, “If I do thus, God will be merciful to me.” Over against vain human efforts to gain God’s grace stands Jesus Christ and his gift of salvation given to all sinful human beings. This gift cannot be not earned or achieved. Instead, by God’s grace alone it is received by faith alone. That Jesus has won this gift for us sinners on the cross and in the resurrection and that Jesus has given this gift to us “for free” is unbelievably “good news.” In English, the theological word for good news” is “gospel.”

For Luther, the law and the gospel are diametrically opposed. As we all know through our own experience, our best efforts to fulfil the commandments in the Bible, i.e. the law, fail miserably. Furthermore, when we do manage to fulfil some of them, our sin calls us to bask in the glory of our achievements. In other words, our “good works” are inevitably undermined by the sins of pride and self-righteousness. Round and round and round we go … Maybe that is why St. Augustine defined sin as being turned in on ourselves (incuravatus in se).

That, however, is only the half of it. Luther goes on to declare that all religions outside of Christ are idols. Those are strong words, but the theology behind them is really quite simple. If one’s religion requires one to be busy trying to achieve salvation by winning God’s favour, and if the one true God has given sinners salvation as a gift through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then the gods which demand fulfilment of the law are not truly God. Such gods reveal themselves to be what all false gods are, namely idols.
In our modern, ecumenical, and politically correct age, people who are “religious” frequently succumb to the notion that the different religions offer different ways to get to the one God. Luther claims the opposite. All religions lead to false gods, to idols. Consequently, all religions lead their adherents not only away from the one true God but through their various religious practices lead their adherents to a dead end. For Luther, religion is a diabolical road to nowhere.

For this reason, the season of Lent can mislead many into a false observance. In some denominations, the idea of “giving up something for Lent” would be deemed a “good work” which would merit favour with God. Typically, people “punish” themselves by giving up something which they enjoy, like chocolate or cake or some other similar, superhuman sacrifice. Much more rarely are those who try to give up something truly sinful, and depending on the sin, that could make telling others about one’s Lenten sacrifice a little bit tricky. So, is “religiously” attending midweek Lenten services an idolatrous “good work” or a burdensome act of contrition, which in the end is still an idolatrous good work?

For Lutherans, extra Lenten services offer something diametrically opposed to religion and its various idols. At midweek Lenten serves, we gather to hear God’s word in both law and gospel. That is to hear that we are sinners prey to idolatry of all kinds and descriptions and then to hear that through faith alone in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection we are truly forgiven of our sins by the one true God. Lenten services, like Sunday services, are not something which we do. Instead, they are opportunities in which God does something to us. He reminds us of our fallen nature, he calls us to acknowledge and confess such sins, and then he declares that we are forgiven, even righteous, as a gift, through faith alone. So, this Lenten season, have a few extra slices of chocolate cake and celebrate the gift of your forgiveness with others.

The Old Testament book of Proverbs is just that, a collection of sayings that speak a general truth or offer advice. When was the last time that you read any of the Proverbs? Whence do you get your advice in times of trouble or strife?

Traditionally, most of us seeking advice turn to family or friends. Further from home, there are always the “agony aunt” columns in the newspapers. Today, many “Google” questions hoping to be given useful answers or log on to social media or read blogs or the like to obtain advice from self-proclaimed experts. In comparison, randomly or systematically reading the Proverbs for tips on life seems more like sifting through the haystack in search of the proverbial needle, i.e. much of it seems not to apply to any given concern or issue.

That raises the question why we tend to want advice in times of trouble when we could seek out such advice in advance. Instead of flipping through the pages of the Bible in a crisis, what if we read the Bible regularly, i.e. in advance of life’s dilemmas and concerns? Rather than searching the haystack for the proverbial needle, what if we knew the haystack so well that finding the needle was not a concern in addressing our concerns because the needle was never lost?

Part of the problem with life’s problems is that they seem to introduce hindrances, obstacles, and even dead ends into the course of life. Imagine watching an old film, and instead of it ending with the words “The End” shining on the screen, somewhere in the middle of a scene in the middle of the film the screen suddenly goes black, and then the words “Dead End” appear. That may seem a terribly contrived example because as we know in real life the film will not usually end without a warning, such as problems with the projector bulb or the film jumping out of sync or the like. The really upsetting aspect in this hypothetical crisis would be accidently knocking the popcorn all over the floor, most of which could not be consumed within the five second rule.

More pertinent examples of hindrances, obstacles, and mayhem from real life, however, might include waking up from the anesthesia and realizing that the sermon is not yet over, having a flat tire on the way to work, having the seam in one’s trousers split in the middle of a job interview, getting lost in a strange town, receiving a call from the police about one of your children, discovering that your spouse is having an affair, or being told by the doctor that the condition is terminal.

Hindrances, obstacles, and dead ends place a question mark over what we expect, or expected, to be the future. Our sense of hope in life is inextricably tied to our prospects for a future which we generally take for granted. When our future becomes uncertain or nonexistent, despair can easily overtake us, compounding what may already be a dire situation. Despair itself feels like a dead end. In such times, we may find ourselves looking longingly at those around us whose fortunes seem certain. Meanwhile, in contrast, we may not have the time, energy, desire, or hope to look for the needle in our haystack set alight by the trials of life.

In such times of crisis, it may seem nothing short of futile to search the Bible and, if lucky, be to find, “Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day. Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off” (Proverbs 23:17-18 – ESV). With such a proverb, we are already carrying with us the proverbial needle everyday and hopefully doing so completely unconcerned that the whole haystack could go up in flames. Furthermore, with such a needle to hand, we are much more ready to be able to stitch our lives back together in times of crisis.

Amidst all the hindrances, obstacles, mayhem, and dead ends in life, we Christians always have something which non-believers do not have, namely a future. That future is the promise in this life of the gift of eternal life given to each one of us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We hear that promise proclaimed to us. We become part of that promise in baptism. We taste that promise at the Lord’s table. Listen to St. Paul describe the reality of this promise, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-29 – ESV). Jesus Christ, our crucified Lord, is our future, is our hope, and is our life in all the shadows of death because God the Father raised him from the dead. When life’s problems arise, remember that in baptism you have been raised with Christ, and “surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.”

Scripture says, “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Revelation 21:5 – ESV). Wouldn’t that be nice? We read passages like this, particularly when our old, sinful world seems to be a bit depressive, if not oppressive, especially when facing tragedy or death. Would it not be grand if everything were new, fresh, and pristine? Think of a world without distress, disease, hunger, pollution or the like. Imagine what kind of a song John Lennon might compose on that notion. Why do people of all times, nations, and religions seem to share this same dream of all things being new?

Plainly, we all learn very early in life that there is something wrong not just with our planet but particularly with us human beings. On the lighter side of things, children or siblings are heard very often to complain, “It’s not fair!” to which the reply is often, “Life’s not fair.” So, why is life not fair? On the more heinous side, some children are abused and killed before they have the words to utter, “It’s not fair,” because someone no longer wanted to hear them cry. “Luckily” for many or most of us, we are oblivious to the suffering that so many in our world endure until they cannot endure any longer. In relation to the massive plight of so many at any given time in human history, complaining that “it’s not fair” seems trite, if not self-absorbed at best.

In light of, or in the shadow of, our sinful human reality, the juxtaposition of “I am making all things new” and “these words are trustworthy and true” seems to underscore our human experience that nothing is new or true and thus that neither statement is much more than “pie in the sky.” Such is the criticism of those who discount the Bible and the Christian faith. This disregard, if not disdain, seems to arise from the discrepancy between these words and our reality. Such critics, however, fail to understand our human reality. Although they seem to recognize the symptoms of humanity’s plight, they fail to grasp that humanity’s primary predicament is not merely symptom but sin, something over which critics of the faith have no power either to address or remedy. It would be interesting to research whether and why critics of scripture and the Christian faith make “New Year’s resolutions,” and if so, whether they are any better than the rest of the world at keeping them? Even if they are better, are they able to keep all of them all the time? Even the idealists fall into the reality and hypocrisy of human sin, whether or not they can or will acknowledge it.

As most of humanity cannot grasp the reality of human sin, they are not only unable to address it but even more unable to grasp or believe that God has done exactly that. Viewed more broadly, the modern day rejection of Christians and their faith is nothing more that the continuing rejection of Jesus Christ. By disregarding and disdaining the Son of God, sinful human beings triumphantly declared that they had solved a problem, but in reality they only demonstrated again that they had failed to understand the problem or even its symptoms. More poignantly, they failed to understand that the crucifixion of Jesus is God’s solution to human sin. How so?

As indicated above, when human beings think of making “all things new,” we imagine everything to be new, fresh, and pristine. For that to happen, though, everything existing would been to be destroyed in order to give way to the new. Instead of destroying all, or nearly all like in the flood in Noah’s time, God instead sent his Son, the word made flesh, into our human sinful existence to call us out of the darkness and destructiveness of sin and death. Taking on human flesh, God let darkness and death overshadow the light of his word in Jesus on the cross. Three days later, God called for the darkness of sin and death to be obliterated by the light of the word of Jesus’ resurrection. The juxtaposition of the cross and the resurrection comprise and compose the words which are trustworthy and true. The proclamation of these words makes everything new because it creates in sinners dead to God a living faith in the living God. That is not something which the human mind can grasp. Instead, with these words God grasps the human heart and holds it fast in his love and forgiveness forever. The faith created by this word in us sinners is not merely to mimic a resolution for a new year, but rather this faith is a whole and holy new way of being every minute of every day until time passes away.

In the church, one hears a lot about the topic of love, and with good reason. In the Old Testament, one reads, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy, 6:4-5). This verse is repeated with slight variations by Matthew (22:37), Mark (12:30), and Luke (10:27). In John’s gospel, Jesus gives his disciples a “new commandment” that they love one another not just as they love themselves but as Jesus loved them (13:34). In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul famously says, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love”( I Corinthians 13:13). In that light, it would seem that love is the be all and end all, or is it?

In his lectures on Galatians in 1535, Martin Luther rather surprisingly writes,

“Thus there are many others today who want to be counted as evangelical [i.e. Protestant] theologians and who, so far as their words are concerned, do teach that men are delivered from their sins by the death of Christ. Meanwhile, however, they insult Christ most grievously by distorting and overthrowing His Word in a villainous and wicked manner. In addition, they teach faith in a way that attributes more to love than to faith; for they imagine that God regards and accepts us on account of the love with which we love God and our neighbor after we have already been reconciled. If this is true, then we have no need whatever of Christ. In this way they serve, not the true God but an idol of their own heart—an idol which they have made up for themselves. For the true God does not regard or accept us on account of our love, virtue, or newness of life (Rom. 6:4); He does so on account of Christ. But they raise the objection: “Yet He commands that we love Him with all our heart.” All right, but it does not follow: “God has commanded; therefore we do so.” If we loved God with all our heart, etc., then, of course, we would be justified and would live on account of that obedience, according to the statement (Lev. 18:5): “By doing this a man shall live.” But the Gospel says: “You are not doing this; therefore you shall not live on account of it.” For the statement, “You shall love the Lord,” requires perfect obedience, perfect fear, trust, and love toward God. In the corruption of their nature men neither do nor can produce this. Therefore the Law, “You shall love the Lord,” does not justify but accuses and damns all men, in accordance with the statement (Rom. 4:15): “The Law brings wrath.” But “Christ is the end of the Law, that everyone who has faith may be justified” (Rom. 10:4)” (LW 26:398).

You may need to read that through a second time. After being reconciled to God it is “villainous and wicked” to teach that our love for God makes us acceptable to God. In fact, to teach and to do so serves “not the true God but an idol of [one’s] own heart,” an idol made up by oneself for oneself. But, but, but … On second thought, who does Luther think that he is to contradict the Bible?

All appearances aside, Luther does not contradict Scripture. He merely does what few before and few after him seem insightful enough to do on a regular basis. He views Scripture as the word of God given in both law and gospel. The law tells sinful human beings what they must do to avoid sin and tells that they have sinned after the fact. In the end, the law convicts and condemns guilty sinners before God, declaring them unredeemably unrighteous. As Romans, 3:23 says, “… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, …” The gospel, however, promises the forgiveness of sins by faith alone in the crucified and resurrected Christ, the son of God. The proclamation of that promise creates faith in the hearers. That faith is the restoration of the broken relationship with God, which brings this discussion to the nature of relationships.

Love, as either an emotion or an action, is not the basis for or foundation of a relationship. It may be the driving force and manifest expression thereof, but love is only the materials and energy, so to speak, to build the bridge. The bridge itself is trust or faith. It is possible to love someone deeply, but not trust him or her. Without trust, a relationship is at best impaired. The bridge is weak and wobbly, unable to hold or support those wishing to traverse it. Although it is true that “God is love” (I John 4:8), when Adam and Eve stopped trusting God and his word as much as they trusted the serpent, their relationship with God was not only impaired. It was broken. Theologians call this condition “Sin” followed by ungodly deeds called “sins.”

In contrast to Luther’s day, it is increasingly the case today that “evangelical [i.e. Protestant] theologians” cite “love” as the reason to excuse or to justify or even to celebrate just about any or every human sin imaginable, despite being contrary to God’s will as clearly given in the Bible. If “love” is the reason, some argue, then whatever sinners do must be not only acceptable but right, right? What, however, do sinners love to do more than sin? In the end, the vague, carnal notion of “love” propounded by sinners is just another idol of the human heart, better known as lust in all its expressions.

So, commanding sinners in a broken relationship with God to love God with their whole being, or commanding them to love one another as Jesus loved them simply does not make it happen. It expresses wishful thinking and wastes breath. In reality, such commands only show how much we sinners love neither God nor one another either as we love ourselves or as Jesus loves us.

“When God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, …” (John 3:16), he entrusted the love of his life (and the life of his love) into the hands of sinners unable and unwilling to love him in return. It was, thus, a gift of love unto certain death. At his incarnation, Jesus stepped into the breach, and that he was broken on the cross, to be laid in a tomb forever.

Nonetheless, God the Father’s faithfulness to God the Son remained whole and thus holy. By entering into the depths of death in humanity’s broken relationship with God, Jesus filled the void with an eternal life-giving power and promise able to create anew the light of life in the darkness of sinful human hearts. The word of this promise creates the faith needed to heal humanity’s broken relationship with God. Believing (trusting) that we sinners are accepted and forgiven by God for Christ’s sake becomes our new relationship with God because God so loved the world, and “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Does the devil have a theology? Why would anyone pose such a question? The devil is supposed to be the antithesis of God. So, it would seem unlikely that the devil would have a “theology,” a word which stems from “theos” meaning god and “logos” (-ology) meaning word or study. Rephrasing the question in that light, does the devil have a word of or from God? It seems like an absurd idea, does it not?

As silly as the question might be, in Genesis the serpent “said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?’ 2 And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ 4 But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Genesis. 3:1-5).

Similarly, Matthew depicts how the devil tempted Jesus in the desert using biblical passages:

“5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ [Psalm 91:11] and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’” [Psalm 91:12] (Matthew 4:5-6).

These two examples indicate that the devil will use scripture to tempt both man and the son of man. It is a clever ploy. On the one hand, believers like to describe scripture as the word of God, with some saying that it is inerrant or infallible or both. So, if the devil quotes the Bible, is he using God’s word, and is what he says inerrant or infallible or both? Plainly, this is not the case. Misusing or misinterpreting God’s word is certainly demonic. So, what does it mean when human beings do the same? It means that sinful human beings misuse or abuse God’s word to suit their own sinful purposes, just like the devil. So, if theologian after theologian throughout history has mixed his or her own teachings with God’s word for their own sinful purposes, wittingly or not, should one not thus conclude not only that the devil is a theologian but the father of all theologians? If that is the case, would this not also mean that all theologians are of the devil?

Luther writes, “From these and many similar sayings it has been clearly and convincingly enough proven that God has strictly and sharply forbidden the doctrines and works of men in the church, as being contrary to faith and leading men away from the truth, that is, they are sheer lies and fraud before God. And where the devil has gotten involved—that one embellishes them with God’s name or the apostles’ names, and sells them under these names—then they are no longer simple lies and fraud, but also horrible blasphemy, idolatry, and abomination. For then the devil makes God a liar and deceiver, as though God had spoken such lies or done such works; and the people fall for it, believe it, and depend on it, as if God had said and done it, and thus they give their trust and honor, which is due to God alone, to lies and to the devil” (LW 41:302-303).

Nowadays, people are not so forthright, or perhaps so condemning as Luther. Today, we live in an “inclusive,” secular society and in an ecumenical age when we agree that our disagreements are declared to be no longer church-dividing disagreements. Ecumenists call this “differentiated consensus.” In plain English, that means talking out of both sides of one’s mouth hoping that no one will notice or take offense or, if they notice, will not call us duplicitous or liars or idolaters or blasphemers or demonic. Instead, such churches and their leaders arrogate to themselves the right to devise and to implement all manner of human doctrines and works in God’s name but without God and even contrary to God, just like the devil. When this happens in Protestant churches, it means that the Reformation has been thrown out with the baptismal water. For Luther, following scripture, one cannot serve two masters.

So, are you a theologian of God or a theologian of the devil? Do you read your Bible, or do you not? When you interpret the Bible, do you seek to know and communicate God’s word and God’s will or to effect your own in God’s name? How can you recognize the difference, or do you just happily mix a few words from scripture with your ideas and decree it all to be simply divine?

Unfortunately, we sinners mix and mash God’s word with our sinful words and ideas all the time. In the cauldron of our devoutly self-righteous religiosity, we brew and stew the best of intentions (WA 46:789.16–27 = LW 22:274), adding a little folk religion, a little superstition, a few Bible verses, and a whole heap of unbelief to conjure up a concoction of pious and prayerful platitudes which plainly perpetuate the seemingly all-pervasive power of paganism.

St. Luke’s Theological Academy (SLTA) was founded in part to address this very human, very mundane, very demonic tendency in all of us. A faithful, mission-minded church needs to be full of the faith in Christ which only comes from the word of God, purely taught and proclaimed in both law and gospel. As Luther says, “Whoever knows how to distinguish the gospel from the law may thank God and know that one is a theologian (WA 40, I:207.17–18 = LW 26:115).

By that criterion, the devil is no theologian, but what about you as a member of the priesthood of all believes? Contrary to much of church life, it is not enough for any of us to quote a few Bible verses to undergird our opinions and positions as divine decree. The devil does that, routinely! Instead, a faithful church needs to be strategically theological and theologically strategic. That means always led by the word of God in all things. That comes not only from knowing the word of God in the Bible but also knowing what that word means by differentiating the law properly from the gospel. Only then can a faithful church communicate God’s word theo-logically according to God’s will as revealed it in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If this concept seems new or foreign to you, it may be time to take a course or two at SLTA.

Americans like to think of themselves as free. The first verse of the USA’s national anthem describes the “ star-spangled banner” waving “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” The US Declaration of Independence states that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Likewise, the Declaration’s conclusion calls for the united Colonies to be “Free and Independent States.” For Americans, the words “independence” and “freedom” seem to go hand in hand. How could one exist without the other?

Whereas Americans pride themselves and their nation on freedoms, most people are aware that freedom is a relative matter. It is often stated that freedom comes with responsibility. Every group, community, and country has limitations on unbridled individual freedoms (complete anarchy) for the sake and safety of both individuals and the group. For example, one is generally not free to inflict harm on oneself or others, to steal, and so forth. With the gradual dissolution of Judeo-Christian norms in western society, however, balancing individual freedoms while dissolving established norms has increased conflict and courtroom battles.

As may are aware, the understanding of freedom in the USA and in western society generally has shifted. Secular society’s understanding of freedom seems to concentrate on giving human beings the “right” to be free from religion; in other words, to be as sinful as they desire by dissolving norms, laws, and even opinions which “get in the way” of such “freedom.” Viewed biblically, the marginalization of Judeo-Christian societal principles through the so-called separation of church and state has effected an unbridled collapsing of the spiritual into the realm of human flesh. It seems as if human sin now holds dominion even over the realm of God.

This so-called separation of church and state can be espoused because most people mistakenly believe that we human beings live on middle or neutral ground from which we are able to choose between good and evil. This mistaken notion is as old as the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve (Genesis chapters 2 and 3). Borrowing from pagan philosophy, the early church theologian, Origen, held that the human being is composed of three parts, namely the “flesh, soul, and spirit, with soul standing in the middle and being capable of turning either way, toward the flesh or toward the spirit” (LW 33:275). In secularized society today, the spiritual has been asphyxiated, and the soul has been trampled under foot. So, all that remains is the flesh and its claims to be right. If anyone should intervene or interfere, the flesh self-righteously seeks revenge and retribution, as a matter of “human rights,” of which the secular media and the courts of law are full.

In light of the Declaration of Independence, why does it seem that it is becoming increasingly difficult, especially for US Christians, to practice their constitutionally given religious liberty? Are not all human beings, whether religious or not, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” like liberty? What happens, however, when secular government has effectively replaced the Creator in granting such rights? That said, what kind of freedom and rights free from sin can sinful, human beings offer or guarantee to human society? Are such freedoms not just another reincarnation of the story of Adam and Eve whenever human beings apart from God claim to know good from evil?

Luther knew well the dynamics between the spirit, the flesh, the law, and God. In his treatise on The Bondage of the Will, Luther writes,

“Scripture, however, represents man as one who is not only bound, wretched, captive, sick, and dead, but in addition to his other miseries is afflicted, through the agency of Satan his prince, with this misery of blindness, so that he believes himself to be free, happy, unfettered, able, well, and alive. For Satan knows that if men were aware of their misery, he would not be able to retain a single one of them in his kingdom, because God could not but at once pity and succour them in their acknowledged and crying wretchedness, seeing he is so highly extolled throughout Scripture as being near to the contrite in heart [Ps. 34:18], as Christ too declares himself according to Isaiah 61, to have been sent to preach the gospel to the poor and to bind up the brokenhearted [Luke 4:18]. Accordingly, it is Satan’s work to prevent men from recognizing their plight and to keep them presuming that they can do everything they are told. But the work of Moses or a lawgiver is the opposite of this, namely, to make man’s plight plain to him by means of the law and thus to break and confound him by self-knowledge, so as to prepare him for grace and send him to Christ that he may be saved. They are therefore not absurd but emphatically serious and necessary things that are done by the law” (LW 33:130-131).

As is increasingly apparent in society around us, those who propound and promote the freedom of the flesh are not only blinded by sin but also seek to avoid knowledge of sin by dissolving any and every rule or law or person or belief which may expose their sin. According to Luther, however, human freedom to wallow in our flesh of sin and in our sins of the flesh is nothing other than a self-delusional existence in bondage to the demonic. Such “freedom” is literally a devilish, dead end. “Original sin itself, therefore, leaves free choice with no capacity to do anything but sin and be damned” (LW 33:272). The freedom which secular society espouses is, paradoxically, an unbridled freedom to be enslaved in sin. That human freedom is necessarily bound in sin makes one wonder what the phrase “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” means at all.

The freedoms which many Americans still hold dear were once asserted in the belief that a “Creator” endowed his creatures with “unalienable rights.” Today, like the King of England, the “Creator” has also been deposed, and “unalienable rights” are increasingly granted only to the flesh by the flesh for the flesh in the service of “freedom” for human sin. Having succeeded in dispensing with the divine, the power of the flesh now dominating society, and many governmental agencies and bodies, increasingly seeks to silence (to crucify) anyone who is, instead, held captive by the word and spirit of the living Christ.

Over against this prevailing predicament of human servitude to sin stands the author of all liberation movements. The God who brought the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land is the God who brought home the exiles held in captivity in Babylonian. Moving beyond the temporal and political, this is the same God who sent his son in human flesh into a world bound by human sin to proclaim in word and sacrament a gospel of liberation from the powers of sin, death, and the devil. As Luther writes, “Thus we see what a great and excellent thing Baptism is, which snatches us from the jaws of the devil and makes God our own, overcomes and takes away sin and daily strengthens the new man, and always remains until we pass from this present misery to eternal glory” (Large Catechism, 4.83, Tappert, 446).

Although the flesh always seeks to silence this gospel, God raised the crucified Christ from the dead. The proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection is the life-giving power of God for the salvation of all sinners who believe (Romans 1:16-17). Contrary to human understanding, this freedom comes not by independence but instead in total dependence on the living word of the God revealed to us sinners in Jesus Christ. For Christians, Independence Day is actually Easter Sunday, celebrated every week, every Sunday, in churches throughout the world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not parish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

In his Large Catechism, Luther writes about a great treasure:

“In Baptism, therefore, every Christian has enough to study and to practice all his life. He always has enough to do to believe firmly what Baptism promises and brings — victory over death and the devil, forgiveness of sin, God’s grace, the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit with his gifts. In short, the blessings of Baptism are so boundless that if timid nature considers them, it may well doubt whether they could all be true. Suppose there were a physician who had such skill that people would not die, or even though they died would afterward live forever. Just think how the world would snow and rain money upon him! Because of the pressing crowd of rich men no one else could get near him. Now, here in Baptism there is brought free to every man’s door just such a priceless medicine which swallows up death and saves the lives of all men.

“To appreciate and use Baptism aright, we must draw strength and comfort from it when our sins or conscience oppress us, and we must retort, “But I am baptized! And if I am baptized, I have the promise that I shall be saved and have eternal life, both in soul and body.” This is the reason why these two things are done in Baptism: the body has water poured over it, though it cannot receive anything but the water, and meanwhile the Word is spoken so that the soul may grasp it.

“Since the water and the Word together constitute one Baptism, body and soul shall be saved and live forever: the soul through the Word in which it believes, the body because it is united with the soul and apprehends Baptism in the only way it can. No greater jewel, therefore, can adorn our body and soul than Baptism, for through it we obtain perfect holiness and salvation, which no other kind of life and no work on earth can acquire” (Book of Concord, Tappert, 441-442).

We all have been given this “priceless medicine which swallows up death and saves” humanity for free. It sometimes makes one wonder why we have so much difficulty parting with our temporal “treasures,” i.e., personal resources,  in support of the mission of the gospel. So, what in our lives is more important and more valuable than this gift?

The treasure which God has given us in the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not hidden. We do not need to “hunt” for it. We cannot earn or buy it. Instead, through Christ, God has revealed his boundless love for us sinners. In Christ, God wrapped himself in human flesh to find us sinners wherever we may be found. On the cross, Christ redeemed us sinners from the power of sin and death, and in the resurrection, Christ clothed us in newness of life. This treasure is given to us in baptism.

There is a trendy phrase in American English these days called “pay it forward.” In Christ, God has given us the gift of himself. In “return,” God calls all priests ordained through the sacrament of Holy Baptism to “pay it forward” in the lives of those whom we are called to serve. How are you called to “pay it forward” in the lives of others?

In 1521, Luther listed and defended statements which the church of his day denounced. The resulting treatise was entitled Defense and Explanation of All the Articles. In relation to one of his statements, “A righteous man sins in all his good works,” Luther comments,

“This article annoys the great saints of work-righteousness, who place their trust not in God’s mercy, but in their own righteousness, that is, on sand. What happened to the house built on sand in Matt. 7[:26] will also happen to them. But a godly Christian ought to learn and know that all his good works are inadequate and insufficient in the sight of God. In the company of all the dear saints he ought to despair of his own works and rely solely on the mercy of God, putting all confidence and trust in him. Therefore we want to establish this article very firmly and see what the dear saints have to say about it” (LW 32:38).

It is highly likely that this article also annoys most lesser saints because most of us consider our “good works” to be good! When we do good works, we often feel “good,” but that, of course, depends on the good work. Raking leaves for hours in the hot sun to assist someone unable to do so, and especially for no pay and possibly no thanks, would probably not qualify as a “feel good” experience. Instead, we prefer to do “good works” when and where it suits us, especially “good works” which require little effort and receive some type of recognition or praise and, perhaps best of all, some monetary or material reward.

Paradoxically, we do not view our “good works” as sinful because of our human sin. Human sin blinds us to our sinful nature. In that sin, we believe that we are not sinful, or not very sinful, even when we do “bad things,” because doing something “bad” does not make us “bad,” or so we reason. On balance, most people would probably think that their 85% good deeds compared to their 15% not-so-good deeds is pretty good. Of course, one should especially remember that not-so-good deeds are not the same as bad deeds, or so we reason.

When was the last time that you gave much thought to why you do any “not-so-good” or even “bad” deeds at all, and if you have contemplated this, why did you do them in the first place? Furthermore, why would you even want to do them? Worse yet, why did you not refrain from doing them? Conversely, why would you not want to do “good” and “godly” deeds all the time? Well? What kind of a person are you?

So, we defend ourselves with the feeblest of defenses, like “nobody’s perfect” or “to err is human,” seeking in yet another way to place ourselves in the mostly good category, and if God does not like it, then God can just go to hell, right? Such is the state of sinful humanity, particularly our clever, atheistic humanity which exonerates itself with all manner of anti-religious self-righteousness. That is perhaps a little better, in their eyes, than being like “those hypocritical Christians” who cloth themselves in religious self-righteousness. Either way, the cross of Christ is the human attempt to tell God to go to hell for no liking our sinful self-righteousness.

All this makes one wonder which is more difficult, believing in God or believing in sin. In fact, theologically, the two are one and the same because the subject matter of theology pertains to the justifying God (deus iustificans) and the sinful human being (homo peccator). Physiologically or medically, we often know that something is not quite right with our bodies, but none of us likes to be told that we are terminally ill, especially when we generally feel “pretty good.” With time, however, the terminal condition becomes decided final, against our will and choice. Such is the consequence for all human beings because of human sin (Romans 6:23). Likewise, although we generally feel good about ourselves, even our sinful selves, and out “good works,” nonetheless our impending death is remains unimpeded because of our sin, our broken relationship with God, and our futile attempts to justify ourselves by our own efforts. Luther is basically saying that not a single good work on our part can stave off death. That is why in relation to our salvation our “good works” are at best good for nothing.

So, if our good works are no good, why do them at all? What is to be gained? The questions themselves reflect our selfish, sinful nature. In reality, which means solely from God’s perspective, any good works which we do are gifts given by God to others through us. Our “good works” are not our gifts to give. Instead, they are God’s gifts given to fellow sinners in need. That is exactly what Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection demonstrate, teach, and proclaim. Through Jesus Christ, God has given the gift of salvation, i.e. justification by grace alone through faith alone, to sinners as a gift, even if they are oblivious to this gift. This one good work promises to give death-bound human beings eternal life, at least to those human beings who believe that their innate sinfulness is forgiven by God’s overwhelming graciousness.