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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
The banner says, “Sola Scriptura, Gratia, Fide”, that is, “Only Scripture, Grace, Faith”. We might add, as others have done, such things as “only the Word”, or “only God”, or “only Christ” (Corzine, 53). Yet, none were campaign slogans, much less memes as we might have in our time, that were used at the time of the Reformation that is usually said to have begun 506 years ago today, when Martin Luther is traditionally held to have nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg—the community bulletin board, as it were—ninety-five theses for debate against the preachers of indulgences. Rather than campaign slogans at the time of the Reformation, apparently in the lead-up to the 400th anniversary of the Reformation, Missouri Synod theologian Theodore Engelder and others in a number of essays identified and discussed “scripture alone”, “grace alone”, and “faith alone” as the “principles” or “principle thoughts” of the Reformation (Corzine, 62-63). These three “principles” arguably are in use, for example, in the Formula of Concord’s article Concerning the Righteousness of Faith before God (SD III:6-7, 36), and the use of at least “faith alone” goes back further, for example, to the Apology (or “Defense”) of the Augsburg Confession and its discussion of Romans chapter 3, verses 24 and 28 (Ap IV:73-74), part of tonight’s Epistle Reading, where we also find others of what are called “exclusive particles”.
I do not remember that as a student in elementary and high school I was particularly excited about grammar, though when I took advanced English classes as an undergraduate I certainly learned more about grammar. Then, when I learned Greek, Hebrew, German, and Latin for graduate school, I had to have an even better grasp of grammar, and then, when I taught writing to engineering students at The University of Texas at Austin for more than four years, I learned even more about grammar. And, I am still learning, as we all should be, as with “exclusive particles”. The “exclusive particles” are words such as “only” and expressions such as “apart from”. They are “particles” in that they both have a grammatical function but do not fit into the usual main parts of speech and do not change with how they are used, as, for example, nouns decline and verbs conjugate. And, these particles are “exclusive” in that, when these particular particles are associated with other words, they exclude or “rule out” those things, such as, in today’s Epistle Reading, “apart from the law” and “apart from works of the law”.
To be sure, while the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading uses the “exclusive particles” to rule out “the law” and “works of the law” from a role in our justification—that is our being made righteous, forgiven, redeemed, saved—the law clearly is not excluded completely. St. Paul says that the law speaks specifically so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. We might like to make excuses for our sin (“the devil made me do it”). We might like to say that there were extenuating circumstances (“I broke the law only to do something good for someone else”). Others might like to think that some are not old enough to be held accountable to God (“they have not yet reached the age of assent”). Or, others might like to think that some cannot be held accountable for some other reason (“unborn children do not the difference between right and wrong”). God’s law closes every mouth and silences all such thoughts. God uses His law to show us our sin, to show us that we all have sinned and fall short of His glory and deserve nothing but death here and now and torment in hell for eternity, unless we repent, as He in His Gospel calls and enables us to do.
God’s Gospel tells of and effects His righteousness through faith for all who believe in Jesus Christ. Out of love for all sinful people, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, God put forward Jesus as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. In other words, Jesus’s death on the cross was a sacrifice that satisfied God’s righteous wrath over all people’s sin in general, and our sin in particular when we are sorry for our sin and trust in God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake. Jesus was true man, so He could die, and Jesus was true God, so His death could redeem all people. Believers who died before Jesus’s death on the cross were saved by faith, as believers who died after Jesus’s death on the cross were saved by faith. In His divine forbearance, God in some sense “passed over” the former sins, to show His righteousness at the time that Jesus died, both righteously punishing sin and making righteous all who have faith in Jesus. To paraphrase today’s Gospel Reading (John 8:31-36), when the Son sets you free, you are free indeed. The “exclusive particles” help preserve the pure teaching about God’s righteousness: “apart from the law”, “apart from works of the law”, “by grace alone”, and “by faith alone”.
Not tradition, councils, Church Fathers, reason, or spiritual dreams but “Scripture alone”, as the Word of God, is the source of pure teaching and the means of our salvation (confer Corzine, 63-64). In today’s Epistle Reading, St. Paul says that “the Law and the Prophets”, that is, the whole Old Testament, bear witness to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. The New Testament does, too. The Holy Spirit can use both Testaments as law and Gospel, and so both are read and preached to groups such as this one. And, the Gospel is applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Holy Supper. Luther’s Small Catechism reminds us that we are worthy and well-prepared for the Holy Supper when we have faith in Christ’s Words “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” (SC VI:10).
I mentioned earlier that while St. Paul uses the “exclusive particles” to rule out “the law” and “works of the law” from a role in our justification, the law clearly is not excluded completely, and neither are works of the law excluded completely. We are saved by faith alone, but, the saying goes, faith is never alone (AE 3:25; Ep III:10-12): God’s saving us leads to our doing good works, just as a cause leads to its effect. God works in and through us so that we at least want to do such things as to keep the Ten Commandments according to our various callings in life. The difference, we might say, is between justification, our being saved by grace alone through faith alone, and sanctification, our living holy lives as evident by our good works. The Roman Catholic opponents at the time of the Reformation did not get that difference right then, and Roman Catholics still do not get that difference right today. And neither do other religious traditions. Only with the proper distinction between justification and sanctification, taught by Scripture alone, can we have true peace with God and the joy that results already now.
Not quite thirty years after the nailing of the ninety-five theses, inside that same Castle Church, pastor John Bugenhagen told a capacity crowd at Luther’s funeral that “without doubt” Luther was the angel of today’s First Reading (Revelation 14:6-7), the one “with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people”. We do not necessarily have think that by Divine revelation St. John saw Luther some 1500 years in the future, though we at least should agree that Luther proclaimed the eternal gospel. And we also should proclaim that eternal gospel, too, as we do, by God’s grace, here at Pilgrim. As God gives us opportunity, let us also individually tell our family, friends, foes, and even strangers to fear God and give Him glory and to, as we do, worship Him Who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +