After reading a number of commentaries and listening to sermons of this passage, the title unfortunately appears to be “Persistence Pays Off.” This is not really a parable but an illustration story to make a point. Jesus tells of going to a friend of yours and asking for three loaves of bread but your friend says that the door is shut, he and his children are in bed and he can’t give him the loaves. However, if you are persistent, he will rise and give you as much as you need. Now what possibly could be the meaning of this story?

It appears that there are many who imagine that by their much praying and if in particular they have a crew of praying people, that there will be a greater chance that God will hear and respond to such prayers favorably. Yes, there are many examples of apparently miraculous answers to prayers but is it because there were many people with much prayer or because the prayer of the righteous availeth much?

Unlike a parable which speaks of how things do operate in the kingdom of God on earth; that is, the holy Christian Church, this story is an example of how God is far better than the unwilling friend. God instead says, “Ask” and it’s given; “Seek” and it’s found; “Open” and it’s opened. The key is verse 13 which reveals that if even a friend who at first is evil toward your request will finally provide what you need because of your insistence, you can only imagine how your loving God will provide what you really need instantly.

One way to begin such a sermon is to ask the congregation if they remember a prayer God did not answer. If anyone does remember such a prayer, either they are an unbeliever or they do not understand Christian prayer. God’s answer is immediate, always to your good, always according to His will and always in keeping with His promises. He never promises you a rose garden but does promise to help you get through the thorns of life and cope with whatever the devil, the world and your flesh can throw your way.

We do not have a god of the Law who will answer because of your much work at praying. We have instead the God of the Gospel Who answers immediately and, at times, before we even ask, because of the work His Son did for you on the cross. Once through faith you have become His child, He will never give you a stone when you ask for bread or a serpent when you request fish or a scorpion when you desire an egg. He is the God of grace in giving you what you do not deserve beginning with the forgiveness of sins, the robe of righteousness and eternal life.

Some passages are more difficult than others to preach about by first getting the laity confused. This is a no brainer in accomplishing that goal. Those of you who have been following this blog for some years now may have figured out the style we employ in most sermons. We attempt to find the “contradiction” in the text which then leads to confusing the laity which confusion is ovecome only through the use of Law and Gospel. One of the best ways to begin the confusion is by means of a question to the old Adam. So here goes.

“When you come home from work (shopping, school, etc.) what do you think God would prefer you to do? Read the newspaper or read the Bible?” Such a question places the hearer in a real dilemma. He expects that the correct answer is “to read the Bible” but the hesitation comes about because he knows he prefers to read the paper or look at the news on TV. Which then leads to the text and in this case the event of Jesus’ visit to the home ofMartha and Mary.

Because the old Adam interprets the Bible through the prism of trying to find principles of life in order to keep score of how righteous we are, it is quite sensible that most people find a principle of life in this Martha and Mary visit. It is that when we have a choice between listening to Jesus and doing something else, we should listen to Jesus. So the conclusion that we ought to read the Bible rather than the paper when we come home from work.

However, from a Law and Gospel perspective, when God criticizes someone it is never just for a sin committed. It is also for the unbelief behind that sin. It is not that Martha is angry with Mary for not helping out. Martha is troubled with the attitude of Jesus. Listen to her words with special emphasis provided: “Lord, do you NOT CARE that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore TELL HER to help me.”

Here is a creature telling off the Creator! This is not a simple temper tantrum from one sister to another. It is an assault against Jesus as being true God. We would venture to say that had Martha continued to do the work of serving while listening with one ear to the words of Jesus without any rancor against Mary, then there woud have been no criticism from Jesus. One of the wonderful rediscoveries about the Reformation is that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is not necessarily only a spiritual work. It also can be a temporal work such as the changing of the baby’s diaper or making a dinner.

No, it’s not a sin to read the paper rather than the Bible when you arrive home. It is not just a matter of priorities but an understanding of doing all things from a Christ-centered motivation. And when we sin, we can flee to the cross and hear the words addressed to each of us, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

It’s known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan which makes it wrong on two counts. First, it is NOT a parable. Parables are about what happens in the kingdom of God with Jesus as the primary person of the parable. Now there have been those who attempt to make Jesus the Jewish person who was attacked, the Samaritan who helped him, the animal upon whom the Samaritan placed the Jew and so forth. Furthermore, the real point is not about loving Samaritans or Jews but it is an answer to the question of the deceptive lawyer. How so?

The lawyer asks what he is to do to inherit eternal life. Think about that for a moment. If someone were to ask you about what they needed to DO to get to heaven, would you not tell them, “Nothing?” Would you not point them to Jesus as Savior Who died to take away the punishment of sin and Who rose to affirm that His mission was successfully accomplished? Look what Jesus says!  “What is written in the Law?” Jesus points to the Law as the way of salvation? Why did He do so?

Being the top theologian of His day, Jesus knew well the distinctions between Law and Gospel With the lawyer Jesus realizes that the man imagines that he can be good enough to merit salvation. So Jesus not only points him to the law but when the lawyer correctly quotes Deuteronomy 6 as part of the Jewish Shema, Jesus responds, “Do this and you will live.” “Do this and you will live!!!!” Has Jesus forgotten that a man is saved by grace through faith and not byworks of the Law? Or, is there something else going on here?

Of course there is. Jesus knows that when you are speaking with someone who imagines that they can merit their way to heaven, you demonstrate to them where they fall short. So the reason for a story about an enemy being a good person in helping out someone in need. The point is clear. Jesus is simply telling the lawyer one area of his life where he falls short of the glory of God. There really is NO GOSPEL in the entire passage. It is all Law. Because as Jesus said, it is wrong to give pearls to the swine. That is, it is bad theology to proclaim the Gospel to someone who imagines that they are not as sinful as God regards them.

To show that this is NOT a parable, simply go to a parallel conversation in Mark 10 with the rich man. The SAME QUESTION is asked but this time the problem is love of money which Jesus points out. When the disciples ask Jesus who can be saved, He answers that it is IMPOSSIBLE  with man but not with God for with God all things are possible. Jesus is making the point that even with the help of God it is impossible for a man to contribute to his salvation. No, as an unbeliever, he is dead in sin and therefore cannot possibly respond. The response comes only when the Holy Spirit creates faith and good works follow after a person is totally saved.

In both Mark 10 and Luke 10 conversations with the lawyer/rich man, Jesus speaks no Gospel for each of them needs to hear the Law in all its severity. While both passages give no indication whether either of the men ever came to faith, we know that because of Jesus’ Law and Gospel preaching some Pharisees, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, did come to faith trusting in the promises of the Gospel connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you look up the word “Karma” on the Internet, you will find that some sites find the teaching of Karma not only in Buddhism and Hinduism but also in Christianity! In fact, they use this verse from Galatains 6 as evidence that Christians also believe in Karma. Karma can be summarized by the notion that “what goes around, comes around.” It is the idea that in the long run, people get what they deserve. In Buddhism and other such religions, Karma is tied to the teaching of Reincarnation which is the belief that human beings today have had past lives and actions that have an effect on what kind of life they have today.

If they were evil in a past life, then they are reincarnated into a body–not necessarily human–in which they make up for their past sins. Karma then becomes a teaching that attempts to resolve why bad things happen to good people. One can break out of a cycle of being reincarnated into an inferior being by being more ethical in the present life so that in the next body one is elevated to a higher level.

The worse effect of Karma is that because people need to go through purification in the present life, there is not much motivation to help the needy, the poor, the sick and so forth because then you get in the way of the purification process.  As an aside, this is one of the reasons why the unbelieving Pharisees were angry with Jesus for healing lepers and the demon possessed. He was in essence removing the deserved consequences of their sin attributed to them by God. Jesus was therefore getting in the way of God’s justice.

And that is the primary reason why Christianity does not believe in Karma as taught by false religions. For the Christian God is not a God of justice in giving everyone what he or she deserves. Rather the holy Trinity is a merciful God in not giving people what they deserve and a gracious God in giving people what they do not deserve; namely, the forgiveness of sins, the robe of righteousnses and eternal salvation.

What Galatians 6:7 does not mean by “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” is some unbreakable principle of karma. Instead, it refers to God’s plan that those who are believers reap the free gift of salvation while those who are unbelievers reap what they hope for; namely, an eternity without the true God. The Christian faith does not permit, therefore, the commonly held notion that when something bad happens to us and we can complian, ”What did I do to deserve this?” We believe, teach and confess instead that what we truly deserve is nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. Anything short of that is a gracious gift from a loving God Who became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ.

Two of the primary understandings of the Christian faith in the United States are Evangelicals land Reformation thinkers. The main difference is that Evangelicals–and in this case we would include Roman Catholics–beleive in a decision theology of sorts. In other words, Evangelicals believe that the natural man is not so fallen that he cannot cooperate in some way with God’s grace either to take the first steps in his salvation or to invite Christ into his heart. Reformation Christians, on the other hand, teach that there is nothing an unbeliever can do, say or think in order to become saved. To put it bluntly, God is not able to teach an unbeliever what to do, say or think in order to become saved. Instead, salvation is a gracious gift from God given to those who do NOT deserve it!

These two views of Christian theology have different understandings on many doctrines. Galatians 5 speaks of the difference between walking in the Spirit and walking in the flesh. For Evangelicals walking in the Spirit means to keep from sinning. The indication that a person is walking in the Spirit is that he has changed his life, he is more at peace, he feels God’s presence, he is blessed more and more. This is in stark contrast to the Reformation view that walking in the Spirit is what a believing sinner does in that he lives a life of repentance, not sinlessness. For the Reformation believer, walking in the flesh is not simply committing sin but enjoying it, practicing it and refusing to repent of it.

These differences are made clearer by what each means by not being “under the law” as verse 18 reveals. Reformation theology teaches that being under the Law means that a person imagines he can contribute to or cooperate with God to become saved. Such living under the Law results in living under the curse of the Law which God promised would lead to death. Living under the Law is living according to the thinking of Satan while living under the cross is living according to the thinking of the Triune God.

It is not surprising to find congregational members concluding that by going to church, praying a lot, helping out the neighbor and so forth that they are making sure that they go to heaven. But the Reformation revealed that if Christian’s motivation to do good works is for the purpose of staying saved, that is sin. God would prefer a dish of dirt rather than your works as a way of meriting your salvation. The Reformation Christian will do fruit of the Holy Spirit but not with the purpose of sealing salvation. God does not need or appreciate works done with such a motivation because it takes away the glory of Jesus and replaces it with our own. To some degree then, Evangelical thinking today stems from a theology of self-glory in contrast to Reformation theology which stands squarely on the theology of the cross.

The interpretation and application of this verse all depends on how one understands the Greek word for “tutor” which is also our English “pedagogue.” Different translations use “guardian,” “pedagogue,” “tutor” and the King James has “schoolmaster.” Unfortunately, most of these have the concept of the office of a teacher as though the Law was teaching us how to get to the real teacher, Jesus Christ. However, of the options provided the closest to come to the real sense is “guardian.” For this individual was a trustworthy slave of either a wealthy Greek or Roman family. His task was not to teach the young boy but to guard and supervise his morals. In fact, the boy was not even permitted to step out of the house without this guardian until he reached manhood.

Not only was the Law a guardian in that is made us aware of sin (Romans 3:20) but it also had a curbing use to keep us from doing sin. For most young men this guardian was not so much a friend as a jailer keeping in check the behavior of the boys. By means of the motivation of either fear of punishment or hope of reward, the Law worked on the basis of the self-interest of the individual to keep him in check. The guardian was not so much a friend of the boy as a watcher and judge over all that he did.

The Law as a teaching tutor therefore is a total misunderstanding if one has the sense that it teaches us how to be saved. For no teaching is possible–even by God Himself–to help the natural man become saved. The Gospel of Christianity is NOT a set of teachings as to what you are to do in order to become saved. There are no steps to salvation that anyone can follow; there is no possibility for an unbeliever to make a right choice or provide an invitation to God to come into his life.

The bottom line is that the Law cannot teach anyone how to be saved because its purpose is to make natural man aware of his total inability to do, say or think anything that will help him to be saved. And the Gospel is also not a teaching of how one is saved. Instead, the Gospel is the announcement that your sins have been forgiven at the cross of Christ and that effort on the part of Jesus was absolutely successful in light of His resurrection from the dead. 

It is NOT that Christianity doesn’t teach. It’s just that the Christian faith doesn’t teach anyone how to be saved. Rather, the faith reveals how you have been saved. Only after you are totally saved does the faith begin to teach you. It teaches you how God and God alone became a human being to save you; it teaches about the mercy and grace of God; it teaches all the gracious promises of God for the believer in Christ and it teaches about the celestial heaven after the Day of Judgment. Yes, Christianity teaches. It just doesn’t teach an unbeliever how to be saved. God is not capable of providing you with a 4-step plan as to what you are to do in order to be saved.

Indeed, salvation come by grace through faith on account of Jesus Christ. And that came about for many because the Law made them aware of the impossibility of being able to do anything to get saved. Instead, salvation is a gift from God that comes not through hearing instructions as to how to be saved but through hearing the revelation from God Himself as to how God saves you without any contribution or cooperation on your part.

Some passages of Scripture really hit the nail on the head in regard to the essential teaching of the Christian faith. This is one such passage. For while there are passages which appear at first reading to contradict Christianity when works are said to be what gets one into heaven, this passage from Galatians 3 reveals the true purpose of the cross of Christ. The sermon may begin by asking the hearers what they consider to be the true purpose of the cross. For some, the cross is an example we are to follow in setting aside our desires for the needs of another person. Others may speak of the cross as the event when my sins were taken away.

It has been my experience that even the answer of the forgiveness of sins as a benefit of the cross is not properly understood. For example, I recently heard a theologian speak of the idea that because of the cross, we are now innocent. That can be confusing. For it leads to the following analogy in a court room. The jury comes back and indicates that the evidence has not been sufficient to find a person guilty and therefore makes the judgment of “not guilty.” But that is not the message of Christianity. There is more than sufficient evidence to find each of us guilty as poor, miserable sinners deserving nothing but temporal and eternal punishment.

Then what is a more appropriate court room analogy? You are arrested for going over the speed limit. The judge declares you guilty and the sentence is either a $100.00 fine or ten days in jail. Now you have no money at all. However, your brother is in court and offers to pay the $100.00 fine. Will the judge accept the payment from someone other than  you? In such a case, he would. Having had the fine paid, you are free to go but are you innocent of the crime? The answer is no. You are still guilty; it’s just that the penalty was fulfilled by someone other than you.

The Christian faith reveals that from our conception, every human being is under the sentence or condemnation of eternal death because of our sins. At the cross, Jesus did NOT take away  your sins as though you no longer sin. What He did was pay the penalty of the curse of the Law. How did He then buy or redeem us from eternal death? The verse is clear, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree).’”

The concept of forgiveness does not mean that our sins disappear nor does it mean that suddenly we are now innocent. Insead, forgiveness can be be defined as God declaring that we are no longer held accountable for our sin! And the reason God does this is in light of Jesus Christ becoming your substitute and being held accountable for your sin. He was forsaken by God the Father at the cross so that the believer in Jesus will never be forsaken!

Just as God declared what seemed impossible to be true about Jesus; namely, that He became the worst sinner on earth because He carried every sin to the cross, so also God now declares what seems tobe impossible about you; namely, that you are no longer held accountable for any sin and therefore are regarded by God as a sinless saint. Thus, the paradoxical nature of the Christian faith is as follows:  From the point of view of the Law you are a 100% sinner deserving eternal death. From the point of view of the Gospel, you are a 100% saint receiving not only the full forgiveness of sins but also the robe of Christ’s righteousness in the sacramental waters of holy baptism.

Few would disagree with Paul’s point that his knowledge of Christianity did not come from or through human beings but through a special revelation given to him during his three years in Arabia. The point of the sermon is not simply to help the hearer understand the text (Scripture interprets Scripture) but also to apply the text (distinctions between Law and Gospel). The L&G handle would be the key difference between Judaism and true Christianity. Paul considered himself a top notch follower of Judaiam but a persecutor of the Church of God. What is the difference between the two?

It is a difference that Christians still make today as they turn the religion of grace into a religion of obedience. Judaism appeared on the scene around the time of the Babylonian captivity when the temple was replaced with synagogues; priests with rabbis and sacrifices with reading of the Law. As with Judaism today at your neighborhood synagogue, there is a great emphasis on one’s works becoming worthy of salvation. The Pharisee’s prayer of Luke 18 thanked God for not being like the sinner. How sad.

The old Adam within each Christian attempts to make us eat of the forbidden fruit of works righteousness and to regard Jesus as only Example rather than Savior. Some do so by imagining that their frequent attendance in worship, taking the Lord’s Supper and hefty offerings are what pleases God to save us. Of course, all such works are said to be motivated by the Holy Spirit thinking thereby that the charge of doing works out of self-interest would be bypassed. But no such luck.

For Paul, proper preaching of the Law consists of three parts:  God’s demand; it must be perfect and no one can fulfill it. However the Gospel may be in its specificity, it always comes down to this point–What man could not do by the law because we are weak in the flesh, God did and then transferred all the benefits of the cross and empty tomb to the undeserving who receive them by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Law is so subtle in its temptation that even the notion that I am well considered in God’s eyes because I know I am a sinner and give all the credit to Jesus becomes a form of legalism. That is why the life of the Christian is not one of increasing goodness but a sense of the need for an increase in repentance. The danger is that we become boastful of our humility and our better understanding of doctrine than other Christians have.

The text is a wonderful opportunity to remind each of us that our conversion was exactly like that of St. Paul’s. A conversion against our sinful will as God transplanted a new heart and a right will on our road to Damascus. A conversion not by man but through the power of the Holy Spirit Himself as He sanctifies us through the Word and keeps us in the one true faith forever and ever.

There is no doubt that Christians regard Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised Messiah (in Hebrew) or Christ (in Greek). They would also agree that He is the Son of Man promised in Daniel 7 to be sent by the Ancient of Days (the Father) to save sinners from eternal damnation. They also refer to Him as Savior. But on this holy Sunday there is another dimension to the personhood of Jesus that needs attention. Jesus is God!

For Christians today there is not much difference in referring to Him as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of Man, the Redeemer, the Savior and God. However, the teaching that Jesus of Nazareth is God Himself was most hard to accept. No, it was impossible to accept by the unbelieving Jews. The text has them accusing Him of being a Samaritan and having a demon because of what they considered to be His blasphemy.

They must have torn their hair out–if not tear their robes–when in verse 58 Jesus used the name of God for Himself. It is not that easy to recognize the name of God being used in the English translation of “before Abraham was, I AM.” In this translation, at least the I AM is capatalized. For in Greek, the personal pronoun is part of the verb form. However, Jesus in reality says, “Before Abraham was, I, I AM.” The double “I” is a reference back to Exodus 3 when God reveals to Moses His name, “Yahweh” which is literally “I AM WHO I AM.”

The closest we have in our literature to what this means is in the comic strip, Popeye, the Sailor Man. He and Bluto are arguing over who is going to take out Olive Oyle. Bluto says, “Who’s going to stop me from taking her out?” and Popeye replies, “I am who I am” puffing a few times on his pipe as he speaks. The best way I have found to understanding that is to say, “I fulfill what I promise.” In other words, I have made a promise and I will make sure it is kept!

While there are references in the Old Testament to the Messiah being God Himself, almost 70 passages make it clear that the Angel of the LORD is the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ Himself. For more info on this, examine the book “The Angel of Angels” written by Pastor Peter Kurowski available from www.lawgospel.com. That the man Jesus is also true God means that His promises are always sure and never failing. We can be assured of our salvation as we recall the blessed promises given to us through the waters of baptism. It is indeed a washing of regeneraion resulting in an eternal salvation beginning right here and now.

Have you ever wondered why the feast of Pentecost has as its Old Testament reading the Tower or Babel? The usual answer is that both the Tower of Babel incident as well as the event of Pentecost involve foreign languages. Whereas the Babel event led to a confusion among people with the creation of foreign languages, the Pentecost event has the disciples speaking in other known foreign languages so that those from other countries can understand the message of the Gospel. It’s a neat shift from confusion to unity because of Christ. However, the parallel breaks down somewhat in that while Babel involved going from one language to many languages, Pentecost involved speaking in the different languages.

Examining the text, though, from a Law and Gospel point of view, something else begs our attention. The confusion of Law and Gospel normally takes place when the Law is said to have a use that God does not permit. In fact, it is a use that the Law was never given. Yet every other religion of the world, except for Christianity, makes great use of this nonuse of the Law. And that is the Law becoming a step ladder to heaven.

Now while it is true that the heaven which the Tower of Babel folks wanted to reach was not the heavenly place of God but perhaps only the sky with the clouds beneath their planned tower, special attention to verse 4 reveals their true intenion. They wanted to “make a name for ourselves.” This is pure idolatry of self and a breaking of the first commandment not to have anyone above God Himself.

With that in mind, we now see a most interesting distinction between Babel and Pentecost. I call it the ascending vs. descending motif. In every false religion of the world, mankind assumes that his task is to appease or placate an angry god. That is done by some kind of word, thought or work which is then rewarded by the god first liking you, then loving you and perhaps, saving you. Using our chosen analogy, every religion in the world attempts some method of ascending to God.

In start contrast to that, we find Pentecost doing the very opposite. No, we don’t descend to God but God descends to us. The great miracle of the Incarnation led to the death of a perfect human being for all sinful human beings. Pentecost is another part of God’s plan in having God Himself–that is, the Holy Spirit–not simply descending upon the people but entering into their hearts and making their bodies His holy temple. What a great difference is Babel from Pentecost. It’s the difference between salvation by the Law in constrast to salvation by the cross and resurrection; that is, the Gospel.

Sounds somewhat ominous, doesn’t it? The only way to have a right to the tree of life is that you have to do His commandments? You might ask your listeners to put up their hands if they have been able to “do His commandments” perfectly, because we do have a holy God and nothing but the best will satisfy Him. Just received an email from a listener to “Law and Gospel” on AM 850 KFUO who attached a Facebook posting about how the Bible teaches that the only way to get to heaven is to be sinless. Interestingly, he himself writes, “…even though I personally haven’t reached sinless perfection in my own life, I believe it is as a result of not being born again.” Good luck with that, we say. Why? Because I have never met anyone who has a sinless life. There was only One and He is God.

Among the numerous passages he cites he imagines supports sinless perfection, this passage from Revelation 22:14 could have been one of them. And it is why the distinctions of Law and Gospel need to be mentioned in every sermon as the text is applied to the hearers. Reading the Bible without understanding Law and Gospel is kinda like builiding a wall in your basement without knowledge of construction and load bearing and….etc. I know of what I speak when the wall we built was attached to the ceiling because we couldn’t figure out how to attach it to a cement basement floor. It lasted about a month.

Its not that any person cannot be saved by reading the Bible. It’s just that he won’t totally understand why he is saved; how he became saved and how to teach God’s way of salvation to others. He will actually read Revelation 22:14 and conclude that the only way one has a right to the tree of life is by meriting such right through doing His commandments!

However, one can have a right to something either because he has earned it or because he has certain rights he hasn’t earned. In regard to the former, you have a right to a paycheck if you work for a company. You merited it. However, you also have a right to an inheritance if your parents die which you didn’t earn or merit. You were born into the privilege of having such a right.

So also with Christiainty. The right we have to the tree of life is part of the free gift one receives when that conversion heart transplant takes place through Word and Sacrament by the power of the Holy Spirit. Also part of the free package is recognition by God that you are doing His commandments. First of all, you are absolved or forgiven for not doing His commandments; you are dressed in the robe of righteousness to take care of your sins of omission and finally, through the love of Christ placed in your heart at conversion by the Holy Spirit, you do accomplish fruit of the Holy Spirit. To put it bluntly, the Christian believer is regarded by God as fulfilling perfectly every commandment of Almighty God. That’s why the Bible addresses members of the Church as “saints.”

Verse 14 is easy to understand and apply as long as you don’t put the cart before the horse. That is, don’t give the impression that you first do His commandments by your own will thereby meriting a right to the tree of life. No, instead God creates in you a clean heart and right spirit (Psalm 51) which spontaneously produces fruit of the Holy Spirit that God declares to be sinless good works. The right to the tree of life is part of our inheritance given to us as a free gift by grace through faith on account of Jesus Christ and Him alone!

Why the Bible at times appears to be so confusing is due to passages such as this one. For does it not appear at first glance to contradict the primary message of the Gospel that salvation is NOT by works but by grace through faith in Jesus Christ? However, this passage appears to say that if you are defiled or cause an abomination or a lie, you are unable to enter into the celestial kingdom of heaven. Which of us does that not include? Are we not all truly poor, miserable sinners deserving nothing but temporal and eternal punishment because of the curse of the Law?

It is verses like these that cause great fear even among Christians. For the more you read the Bible, the more you realize how far short you fall from the glory of God. We indeed, from the point of view of the Law, are defiled. Rather than attempt to paint a rosy picture of the Christian life, the purpose of the Law is to cause fear and trembling that we are not pure enough to merit entrance into the celestial heaven. Each week the chosen readings include some form of this Law that is to be used to accuse every hearer of not being able to save oneself. Why? So that the person will realize that salvation has to come from outside of oneself.

And that’s the purpose of preaching the Gospel. To summarize, we would understand proper preaching of the Law to make demands on the person that are impossible to fulfill perfectly. The Gospel is the Good News that we can give up trying to merit our way to heaven because God and God alone has fulfilled all of His Will for us and then transfers that righteousness and the forgiveness of sins to human beings.

It’s fairly obvious that the Law of Revelation 21:27 is clear as each person understands that he is defiled. Then what hope does one have in entering through the pearly gates? The verse includes the Gospel as understood properly. We have often said that every passage of the Bible can be understood in one of two ways–the wrong way and the right way. Or another way of putting it, is by living under the Law or by living under the Gospel. So also with verse 27. How so?

Living under the Law, we would interpret Revelation 21:27 to say that the way one gets his name to be written in the Book of Life is by cleaning up his act so he is no longer defiled, causing an abomination or lying. Living under the Gospel, the passage is to be understood that being written in the Lamb’s Book of Life is not something we accomplish by thought, word or deed. Rather it is totally the work of God Who takes unworthy, defiled sinners and cleanses them in the blood of the Lamb. The free gifts of the forgiveness of sins and the robe of righteousness received in water baptism is God’s means of cleansing us.

Note well that Revelations 21:27 does not say that the ones who are saved are those “who write their names in the Book of Life” but rather whose names “are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” The passive, rather than active verb, reveals that it is God Who does the writing and He does so purely out of fatherly goodness and divine grace without any merit or worthiness in us. So rather than cross one’s fingers hoping to make it through the pearly gates by our works, we are confident that our entrance into the celestial kingdom will occur the same way we entered into the earthly kingdom of God; that is, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as LORD and Savior!

There was a summary report in USA Today about a survey among Millenialists. It concluded that though many of these young people are spiritual; they are not that religious. This means that they don’t read the Bible often, they rarely attend church, do not belong to a denomination and are unlikely that religion is a high priority in their lives. This does not surprise us at all in light of the anemic preaching that one is forced to listen to in many an evangelical pulpit (or aisle or stage as the case may be). The minimal knowledge of the Bible coupled with law oriented or social ministry content of most sermons is sufficient to drive away most thinking people.

In Acts 11, the apostle Peter almost became a part of such a group. After hearing from God in a vision that he was to kill and eat what the Old Testament ceremonial laws considered unclean, Peter refused to do so claiming that “nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth” (verse 8). I am confident that many millenialists would not understand God’s response, “What I have cleansed you must not call common” (verse 9)

We know from the context that God had prepared this vision for Peter to underscore the revelation that “God has also granted to Gentiles repentance to life” (verse 18). Gentiles were certainly considered unclean and not part of the people of God by many in Judaism. That new religion considered only Israel as worthy of salvation particularly in light of the ceremonial laws barring Gentiles from certain parts of the temple. What God is telling Peter is that just as all unclean food is now considered as worthy for consumption in light of the passion of our LORD, so also the hated Gentiles are to be included as part of the people of God as they come to faith in Jesus Christ as Savior.

Now that the interpretation of the text is complete using the principle of Scripture interprets Scripture, it is time to move to the application of the text using the principle of the distinctions between Law and Gospel. The sermon can point out that the members of the congregation are not only like Peter in often thinking of others but also of oneself. That is, if you were to ask most Christians today whether they are righteous enough to go to heaven, they would say “no.” How sad. Such a response again makes it clear that God’s work of cleansing the unclean is not relevant to their own sinful lives.

The truth of the Gospel,though, is that in light of the cross of Christ, that suffering and death resulted in the payment of eternal damnation that each of us owe God due to our sin. Forgiveness is God’s way of no longer holding you accountable for your sins. Heaven is your home and it begins right here and now on earth as you have become an adopted member of the holy Christian Church. The goal of the sermon would be to reveal to the listeners that they also, who were once unclean due to the stench of sin, are now cleansed in the blood of Christ. Heaven will not only be the gift they will receive but heaven on earth as part of the Christian Church is the gift they have already received due to the waters of baptism.

We live in a religious atmosphere that assumes a person has some kind of will to make a decision to become a Christian either by doing some kind of good work or by inviting Christ into the heart. If the false teaching is not that obvious, most Christians shudder to think if they would miss church on purpose or if they continue to do some kind of sin again and again.

To put it another way, the old Adam of every Christian wants to give you the impression that first you make an effort to believe and then you become a sheep of the Lord. However, Jesus appears to say the very opposite; namely, that those who are rejecting His Word are those who are not of His sheep. That is to say, first you become a sheep of the flock of God and then you believe! (Luke 15 and the parable of the Lost Sheep.)

But then, what does Jesus mean that the works He does in His Father’s name bear witness of Him? Is that not just another way of saying that the miracles He does are the evidence the unbeliever needs to be convinced to believe? The point Jesus is making though, is that because they do not believe, even His miracles are not persuasive. How many times do we look around for some sign from God that our decision is the correct one? We are often like those unbelieving religious leaders!

For you see, the miracles of Jesus never convinced an unbeliever to become a believer. Instead, they were to give assurance to believers that the promises of the Old Testament predicted that the One Who would be doing theses miracles is the promised Messiah. For those with faith in the promises of God as found in the Old Testament books, the miracles were persuasive. But for those who were unbelievers, no miracles would suffice to create faith. Instead, faith is created by hearing the Word of God, not by being convinced through miraculous signs and wonders.

The key passage to remind us of that is the parable of Lazarus and Dives (Luke 16:10-31). Though the rich man is convinced that if Lazarus would only go to warn his five unbelieving brothers about what is in store for them, then they would believe. Listen carefully to Abraham’s words, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them…If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.”

And we know that to be true. When Jesus rose from the dead, His resurrection was not something that either the devils or unbelieving Pharisees denied. The Pharisees thought that, as with the raising of Lazarus from the dead, it was a trick of the devil. Pastor and parents should not waste time attempting to “prove” the truth of the Christian faith by means of evidence or signs and wonders. Instead, the Word of God is quite adequate to accuse one of his utter sinfulness and impossibility to do anything to save himself. And the Word of God is quite adequate through the power of the Holy Spirit to make any unbeliever a sheep of the flock of God with all the subsequent benefits of faith, the forgiveness of sins and the robe of righteousness!

This event takes place after the resurrection of our Lord when Peter had seen Jesus in the upper room on that Easter eve. This event takes place later. What is interesting is to compare what Peter did here after the multitude of fish was caught and what he did during the first miracle of the multitude of fish caught. That is found in the 5th chapter of Luke, verses 1 to 9 with special reference to verse 8. “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’”

Do you see the difference in the response Peter makes prior to the resurrection and after? It is a Law and Gospel distinction. When Peter first sees a miracle of fish being caught, he is a lot like Isaiah in the sixth chapter in which he moans that “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.” When you live under the Law there is a fear of coming face to face with God. Likewise, Peter’s second response after the resurrection is much like Isaiah’s after the angel touches his lips with a burning coal from the altar. When God asks who will go for Him, Isaiah responds, “Send me, send me.”

Under the Law fallen human beings recognize their unworthiness to come before God. But when an angel touches lips or the Lord says on the night of the resurrection, “Peace be to you,” there is a recognition through faith that even sinners are now able to approach God. This difference in Peter can be very helpful to members of the congregation who still feel that their sins are so great that they cannot approach the throne of God, even in prayer. It is a wonderful opportunity for the pastor to comfort and console through the proper distinctions between Law and Gospel.

Tell me the first thing that comes into your mind when I name these apostles: Judas (the betrayer); Peter (the denier) and Thomas (the doubter). Isn’t it interesting that most people think of something negative of these apostles, particularly if you begin with Judas. Today the text focuses on Thomas and because of his refusal to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead when told by the others, has come to be known as “Doubting Thomas.” Of course this is the same Thomas who is quoted in John 11:16 in regard to going to Lazarus who had died in hostile territory, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”

Thomas is also the one whose question, “Lord we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?” led to Jesus’ well-known answer, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” So, one question, one affirmation of faith and one statement of doubt. Is there another to break the tie? And we find that statement also as part of our passage when Thomas sees the Christ and exclaims, “My Lord and my God!”

While there are those who interpret this scene as Thomas finally being convinced when he has the evidence of being able to touch Jesus, it is of some note that no mention is made that Thomas does any touching like he said he would need to do before he believed. For you see, faith does not come by evidence that persuades us of the truth of Christian claims; faith comes about when we are face to face with the Word of God. While we today will not see the Word of God in the Person of the risen Christ standing before us, we see with eyes of faith through the Word of God as found in holy Scripture.

Sadly, even some Christians today continue to long for some kind of sign from God to help us make decisions or know what to do. Yet, there is no sign except that of Jonah in the belly of the fish for three days. So also, our God-given faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead provides all the evidence we need for the truthfulness of not only the words of Jesus but those of the prophets and apostles also. Through blind faith (which means no evidence necessary) we can be assured that our salvation is sure and certain for His promises in the waters of baptism bring eternal life and salvation to even the worst of sinners like you and like me.
In fact, such a Word makes simple water into a washing of regeneration and simple bread and wine into a feeding of the true body and blood of Jesus, the Christ.

After more than 38 years in the ministry, it is difficult to come up with a new twist to the Easter festival of Christ’s resurrection. Upon reflection, however, is not every Sunday an Easter celebration as it is impossible to exhaust from a human point of view the application of the Easter event in our lives? During Law and Gospel radio broadcasts Monday through Friday at www.lawgospel.com and click RADIO, I often encourage the laity to bring a blank piece of paper to church and then during the sermon write down anything that they had never heard before. For the sermon task is not simply a reminder of catechetical instruction but an attempt to dig deeper into the insights of the text so that true comfort from the Gospel becomes a brilliant light in our world of darkness.

I would venture to say that most laity would not know how to interpret and apply Paul’s words that by man came death but by another Man came the resurrection of the dead. They might venture to say that the verse refers to the physical death we will endure because of our sin but we need not fear because Jesus will raise our bodies from the ground to be fashioned like unto His glorious body.

The sticking point is what Paul–and therefore what the Holy Spirit–means by “death.” It is not what we often think of that the physical body dies because of disease, old age, an accident and so forth. No, this death took place immediately when Eve and Adam sinned. In fact, their death took place while they were still alive. For the death spoken of here is the separation between man and God. Recall how the two fallen creatures attempted to hide where God was!

The Bible often speaks of the walking dead; namely, those unbelievers who appeaer to be alive but who from God’s point of view are dead in tresspasses and sin. The Easter event celebrates the victory of the Good Friday crucfixion which did not take away sins in the sense that Christians no longer sin. Instead, what was taken away was the punishment each of us deserve before a just God. Praise the Lord that the true God is instead merciful and gracious, not holding us accountable for our sins and providing us with heaven as our home even though we confess we do not deserve it.

This new eternal life begins for the believer not after Judgment Day but at the point of our converstion through the waters of baptism as an infant or through hearing the pure and profitable Word of God reaching our ears. Easter is not just a foretaste of the heaven we will enter after Judgment Day; it is the entrance into the heaven on earth referred to by God as the one and holy Christian Church made up of believers from around the world as part of the body of Christ. Easter, more than any other festival worship service, brings home to us that He died so that we will never really die and He lives so that we will live also. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

This verse could be used as one of the foundational passages for Reformation Christianity. For it clearly reveals that for the unbeliever, no sign, no miracle, no evidence can move him an inch closer to faith in Jesus Christ. It is clear that miracles were not for unbelievers as they were for believers who were looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. As Jesus responded to the disciples sent by John to ask whether He was the Messiah: “The blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame run….” But for the unbeliever, even the raising of Lazarus from the dead was considered to be a trick of the devil.

From an L&G point of view, it is the theologian of self-glory who interprets God’s attitude toward him by his experience–by the world around him. Things going well? God loves me. Things not going so good? I must have messed up somewhere, quoting a couple of friends from Job as well as the attitude on the part of the Pharisees who jumped to the conclusion that the blind, deaf, mute and lame were just getting what they deserved.

It is a hard saying in this scientific age to hold to but in reality there is no evidence for the object of our Christian faith. For that object is not the historical events recorded by God’s Word but the gracious promises of forgiveness and salvation connected to the passion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ! It is so sad to hear many evangelicals provide a testimony that focuses on what is happening in their lives rather than a Biblical testimony of, “Here is what Jesus did for you!”

The disciples would soon learn after the hallelujahs of Palm Sunday that the cries of “Crucify Him” would be met with no resistance at all from the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son Himself. Willingly he experienced that which cannot be possibly be considered as proper evidence of God saving us by an accursed, humiliating death on the cross. But the eyes of faith–which is all the evidence necessary for the believer (Hebrews 11)–makes note that the crucifixion took away the curse of the Law hanging over the world and as He promised, three days later is the resurrection.

Pastors best prepare their people for holy week, the holy Supper, holy Good Friday and the holy resurrection by moving from the sandy foundation of so-called evidence to the rock solid foundation of the Word of God alone. That is what is truly meant by “sola Scriptura” (Scripture alone). Anything more is an attempt to reason the unreasonable and to make common sense out of the nonsense from a human point of view of what God indeed did for you.

It is not often that a Bible verse is as clear in its summary of radical Christianity as is Philippians 3:9. In stark contrast to the world’s religion which come from the imagination of humans, the only religion of truth, Christianity, which comes from the revelation of God, decimates common sense theology. For in all religions of the world it is clear that what you say, think and do make a huge difference in whether or not you will be saved and remain saved. But not in Christianity. For saying, thinking and doing the right way is all a part of the righteousness from the law. The law here is simply a synonym for God’s will. His will is that the path of salvation to heaven is through perfect thoughts, words and deeds.

That impossible-to-obey Law stands in stark contrast to the Gospel which reveals that the righteousness which is absolutely necessary for salvation comes from God and God alone. It was the rediscovery by the Reformation that through faith and faith alone, God now declares you to be righteous in His sight. There is hardly an adequate analogy in the world with which to compare such a miraculous decision on God’s part.

Now Paul clarifies that while God considers him righteous and therefore sinless, in his own body he has not yet attained perfection (verse 12) but he presses on. How can we understand this seeming contradiction that in his own eyes, Paul is not perfect but in God’s eyes, he is regarded as perfect and sinless. To begin with, theology is the art of making distinctions and one is called for in answer to our apparent dilemma.

An analogy of some distinction is ready to help clarify the conundrum. Can one not say that an adopted child is fully adopted while not yet attaining full maturity in the family? Of course. In a similar way, what saves you is not your attaining perfect righteousness. What says you, from God’s point of view, is your receiving the perfect righteousness of the obedience of Jesus while on earth. It comes in the form of the robe of righteousness and covers all of your inability to attain your own righteousness.

Now the impossible part of the Christian faith which the world cannot fathom is that such a righteousness comes to us through the grace gifted process of believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Gospel is not simply the true historical facts of the Scripture but the sure promises God makes you on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Promises such as your sins are forgiven; you are wearing the robe of righteousness; God will never leave you nor forsake you; No temptation shall overcome you…and on and on and on.

In Christ–which means through faith in His gracious promises–God has declared that we are already perfect in His sight and therefore there is no need to hand God our “good” works to appease or placate His anger. Such appeasement took place at the cross of Jesus! Thus, we rejoice with all the saints both here on earth and those who have gone before us at having been gifted as a member of the family of God by grace through faith on account of Jesus Christ.

First of all, this parable is misnamed as the “Prodigal Son” because it makes the younger son the key element rather than the father who represents Jesus Himself. We prefer the name “The Compassionate Father” just as the other two parables in the chapter can be titled as “The Rejoicing Shepherd” and “The Caring Woman.” For recent remarks on the third parable of the chapter go to www.lawgospel.com under RADIO and click on Monday, March 8, 2010 for an hour analysis. Also, under PRODUCTS/RESOURCES under CDs there is a series of 16 hours called “Renaming the Parables” which includes all three parables from Luke 15.

Since the key feature of any sermon is to use both Law and Gospel, this parable provides numerous opportunities. For this sermon we will concentrate on the decision of the younger son to return to his father. It is amazing how many refer to this as an act of repentance. There are two problems with such a conclusion. The first is that would be inconsistent not only with the Christian faith but with the other two parables in the chapter. The Christian faith does not regard repentance as a decision we make. As the first parable reveals, repentance is God’s action in finding us, carrying us on His shoulders and taking us back home.

This is even clearer by using the following three questions. They are: “What did the sheep do to get found?” What did the coin do to get found?” And, “What did the younger son do to be found by the Father?” The sheep did nothing; the coin did nothing but the younger son made the right decision??? This goes against the Christian faith that salvation, which includes proper repentance, is not an act of our will but as a gracious act on the part of God alone without our cooperation or contribution.

Finally, the original Greek speaks about him coming to himself. What does that mean? While the KJV, NKJ and ESV translate this as “he came to himself” the New American Standard has “But when he came to his senses” and the Douay-Rheims translates this as “And returning to himself.” Coming to one’s senses or returning to think about oneself is not a positive sign when we realize the spiritual state of this son who told his father to drop dead. But could this be a sincere change in his spiritual life? We think not in light of what he actually says. First, he compares himself with “hired servants” not with regular servants or slaves. He imagines that he should be getting at least what they get even after all his rebellion against his father. Furthermore, he attempts a weapon of persuasion in imagining that his father will hire him for one of the best paying jobs on the estate! This is not true repentance; it is an attempt to manipulate his father.

Then when does true repentance take place? It does so in the same way that the previous two previous parables illustrate repentance. The sheep does not return to the Shepherd; instead, the Shepherd finds the sheep. And the coin does not make known where it is hidden; the Woman finds the coin. So also, what results in true repentance is not the act of the will on the part of the younger son to return to manipulate his father; rather, it is the Father’s compassionate act of running to his son, falling on his neck and kissing him. Totally unexpected! And this results in the son truly confessing his sin and LEAVING OUT the request to be hired as one of the best paying workers on the farm!

The goal of the sermon is first to interpret properly the text as the people originally heard it spoken by Jesus. But then the text needs to be applied. This is where a pastor who knows his members well will be able to make a proper application. I have used this as a pastor in demonstrating how the members often conclude that because they are coming to church on a Sunday that God will bless them more this week than if they had not attended. Others imagine that because of their sacrificial offerings, God will be more inclined to answer their prayers.

Other sermons may remind members that leaving traditional Christ-focused liturgies and going to ”feelgood” contemporary music combined with “I-I-I-me-me-me words” will not be a way in which God can be manipulated to reach out to the youth or baby boomers. The Law can be used against parents who imagine that being a friend of their children rather than a proper parent will result in obedient and loving children. And the list goes on and on as we attempt to make use of manipulative techniques at home and at work to get our way.

The Gospel message is that we have a God Who makes it unnecesssary to use such techniques to have a right relationship with the holy Trinity. To believe in Jesus Christ means that we no longer need to protect ourselves or reach out to others by such manipulative methods. Instead, the Gospel promises are sufficient to carry us through the day as well as to comfort us in our time of need. In a sense, we are all prodigal sons who are often unaware of the compassionate Father we already have in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, Who died, so that we will never really die spiritually and Who lives so that we will live eternally.

A typical passage from the Bible in which all the signs are reversed. Just as the world regards evil as good (getting God’s attention through our “good” works) and regards good as evil (suffering), so also the world regards the ways of God as unfair. Ezekiel is running up against those who can’t understand a god who would disregard all the “righteous” works of a man who thinks he will be delivered from his transgressions because of his righteousness. They can’t seem to understand that such a self-righteous individual imagines that he can control the God of the universe by his puny works? Thus, God is considered as unfair not to take into account human effort and good deed.

But what really has them at wit’s end is the notion that those who have practiced sin all their life could also look forward to a heavenly home with all of their sins forgiven. It just isn’t fair that such a gift be given to those who do not deserve it. This is not a just God, they say. We agree wholeheartedly. For we dare not desire a just God Who would then give us what we truly deserve; namely, temporal and eternal punishment. Even the best of our efforts involve old Adam sinful motivation out of our self-interest.

One could make a case that Jesus Himself was crucified because He was not just according to Judaism. Not only would He disobey ceremonial laws of the Sabbath but He also befriended the hated tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans and other such “sinners.” “Thank God, I’m not like them” is the self-prayer of the self-righteous Pharisee who does not realize how taken up with himself he has become.

The problem, though, is how do we arrive at that righteousness that God considers as adquate for entry into heaven? The answer is we don’t. That is the primary theme of the Christian faith that what man could not do because he is incapable of a sinless good work, God did in the Person and work of Jesus, the Christ! He became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God through Him. He died so that we might live. The paradoxical nature of the cross is mentioned in “Seduction of Extremes” by Peter Kurowski which can be found at www.lawgospel.com under Products/Rsources.

Unlike other man-made religions which are commonsensical in nature, the unique charateristic of Christianity is its paradoxical side. A paradox is a statement that upon first hearing sounds contradictory. However, after more reflection and explanation, it makes sense to the one with eyes of faith. That is why Christians hold to these ridiculous notions: Jesus is both God and man; God is both One and Three; I am at the same time 100% sinner and 100% saint.

The passage from Ezekiel reveals that we can become the voice through which God speaks as we boldly proclaim the Law to assert one’s sinfulfness and then gladly proclaim the Gospel which reveals the merciful and gracious side of God. For unlike justice which gives a person what he deserves; mercy does not give a person what he deserves and grace gives a person what he does not deserve (forgiveness and the robe of righteousness). It may be that our message sounds ridiculous to ears of wax but to eyes of faith, it is believed as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Yes, we are in the season of Lent but the reading is not referring to the Son of Man, Jesus Christ as deserving to die, but rather to the prophet Jeremiah. And for what reason are the priests and prophets of that day encouraging the princes to put Jeremiah to death? Because “he has prophesied against this city” (Jerusalem). Jeremiah, of course, was simply repeating the message from God that the city and its temple would be destroyed by infidels because of the unbelief of the people. They refused to listen to Jeremiah, regarding his speech as that of a traitor. Surely, God would not permit His holy city and His great temple to be destroyed they thought. 

One could make the point that what is true about Jerusalem might also be true about the United States of America. Certainly with the hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like, it appears that God is sending some kind of warning to the people. We have already seen how some preachers are ridiculed for the idea that weather phenomenon could be a result of gross sin and immoral behavior. While it is true that we cannot make such a judgment apart from God’s Word, there is no doubt that God Himself brought destruction upon those who strayed from His Word.

However, there is another point that could be stressed. Jesus was in a long line of spiritual prophets who were persecuted for speaking the Word of God. How many of those listening today can point to a time of perseuction in their lives for the message they told others about Jesus Christ. Few indeed. Is it that no one is listening or cares? Or might it be that we are not speaking the message of the Christian faith in as radical and offensive manner as it is written? Too often we Christians shy away from speaking forthrightly about the Word of God lest we “offend” someone. Our definition of “offense” is that we get others angry with us.

Now there is no doubt that some Christians speak the Word of God in such a way that even displeases God. I’m not just speaking of false doctrine but true doctrine spoken with an attitude of pride and legalism. We need to remember that we are sinners deserving nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. Yet God desires to make use of our lips to proclaim the only saving message for fallen human beings. Because the speaking of the Law upsets and “offends” many, we tend to water down the Law. This results in those hearing as being unable to realize their need for the Gospel message of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We rejoice when we realize that at times God takes the words we speak to bring repentance, joy and comfort to an unbeliever who by the power of the Holy Spirit has a new heart and right spirit created. One need not become a pastor to proclaim an effective word. It can be done by a parent, a brother or sister, a friend, a co-worker and anyone else who provides the Holy Spirit with the proper Word from the inspired Word. What a wonderful means of grace God has given us to speak to others. And what a comfort to each of us it is to know that one of the beatitudes brings blessings to those who are persecuted.

Before analyzing Romans 10:9, one short word for those who are going to be speaking on the temptations of Jesus. The great temptation is to use the pericope as an example of how we keep from being tempted. That is a confusion of Law and Gospel because it makes us rather than Jesus the center of the wilderness experience. Remember that the entire Bible was written so that you might believe in Jesus; not primarily so that you can overcome temptation. It is not an error to teach how to overcome temptation; it’s just that this isn’t the main theme of this pericope.

As to Romans 10:9, it is probably among Christians, and not just evangelicals (decision theologians) one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. The passage is read as though the apostle Paul is answering the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Answer: “Confess with your mouth…believe in your heart.” The problem with that is no unbeliever is capable of following such advice. For the unbeliever is dead in sin and will never confess nor believe as long as Jesus is not regarded as God Himself.

To make the point, what is the difference between these two promises? “If you get a promotion, you will receive more money.” “If you are my son, you will receive more money.” The outcome is the same. However, there is a huge difference in fulfilling the “if” clause. The first can be likened to living under the Law by which you receive more money by something you do. The second can be likened to living under the Gospel by which you receive more money by doing nothing. The first is dependent on your work; the second is dependent on what someone else has done to make you a son either by being begotten or being adopted.

Romans 10:9 is often understood as the first promise rather than as the second promise it truly is. That is to say, Paul is not answering a question of unbelievers as to what one needs to do in order to be saved. Rather, this passage answers the question of a believer who wonders whether or not he is truly saved. Paul’s answer, “Do you confess with your mouth and do you believe in your heart” is not to provide a roadmap to salvation but rather an assurance that one has already been totally saved by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Law promises are conditional based on your accomplishing some work through your will in order to be saved. Gospel promises are unconditional in that the promise is never based on your words, thoughts or actions but always on the work of Jesus Christ with special reference to His death and resurrection. Not to keep a clear Law and Gospel distinction between promises of the Law and those of the Gospel is to fall into the trap of both confusion and false comfort.

The greatest danger in not understanding a L&G perspective for these verses is to imagine that the way you get someone to become a believer is to encourage them to confess with their mouth and believe in their heart by a series of 4 or 5 steps. For good measure, such false evangelism should also include verse 13 and encourage them to call upon the name of the Lord because then they will be saved! Ridiculous. Such a calling on the name of the Lord for the purpose of becoming saved reminds us of the prophets of Baal who called upon their dead god to bring fire to the altar.

The bottom line is that Jesus has done all the work to save us as our walk through Lent will reveal. The way we lead a person to faith is not by giving them a set of rules that they need to fulfill but in proclaiming the Gospel. The content of the Gospel is not only the events of Jesus’ suffering and passion but also the promises and benefits which are available to the world because of His death and His resurrection. In fact, Paul says just that in verse 17 of the same chapter 10, “And faith comes by hearing the Word of God.” It’s a significant difference between L&G.

The “more glory” phrase can refer to the fact that when Moses was on Mt. Sinai, his face was reflecting the glory of God while the face of Jesus on Mt. Transfiguration was radiating the glory of God, being God Himself. This last Sunday of the Epiphany season once more reminds us that Jesus is not simply our Savior because He is both the promised Son of Man (Daniel 7) and the promised Messiah (Gen 3:15) but He is God Himself. For there is no angel that has his own glory but instead reflects the glory of God. For Jesus is like the sun’s brightness that comes from within itself while we human beings reflect God’s glory as does the moon the sun’s glory. (See I Corinthians 15)

This distinction between Jesus and Moses goes far beyond the source of the brightness of their respective visage. It involves the great distinctions between Law and Gospel as understood with the phrases “the old Testament” and “the new Testament.” Surprisingly, these phrases when used by the Bible never refer to the set of books written before and then after the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Rather, the old Testament refers to that old covenant inaugurated in Exodus 24 and the new Testament refers to that new covenant inaugurated in 1 Corinthians 11 with the holy eucharist.

The covenant Moses presided over was in essence of Law since the promises upon which it stood were those of the people who said, “All these things we will do and obey.” As Hebrews points out elsewhere, the new covenant was based on better promises; that is, the promises of God Himself and alone. For the holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit both begin and finalize our salvation without any contribution or cooperation on our part. Chapters in Hebrews clearly distinguish between the 2 covenants; the first leading to certain death and the second resulting in the forgiveness of sins for the entire world.

While Moses on the mountain of Transfiguration represents the Law and its dire consequences, Elijah represents the prophetic sure hope of a new age brought in by the coming of God Himself in flesh. While indeed there is a glory of Moses and Elijah, that of Jesus far transcends theirs. Unlike many sermons that want to make the point that the disciples had to return to the valley after that mountaintop experience, we instead prefer to preach how Jesus Himself returned to the valley to continue His saving miracles and salvation. That is the point of the Transfiguration for us. That He, Who ascended into the heavens, will never leave us nor forsake us as we endure the valley of this earth looking forward to the fulfillment of the heavenly kingdom after that glorious Day of Judgment.

Isaiah is in the midst of a vision with the Lord God sitting on a throne, high and lifted up surrounded by seraphim angels with 6 wings. Is that why he said, “Woe is me”? From an L&G point of view, the Woe is me is the natural response on the part of human beings when confronting God. Because all fallen human beings live under the Law, they are under the impression that their works, their thoughts and their words will make a difference as to whether or not God will decide to save them. Realizing how far short each of us fail to live up to God’s perfect demands, we naturally conclude that we are in big trouble in the presence God Himself. The Gospel reading from Luke 5 reveals a similar response on the part of Peter after the miracle of the fishes.

The goal of the sermon is to see to it that every listener is cut to the bone with his or her inability to be right with God through personal effort. It is a proper preaching of the Law that never uses the Law as a means of getting right with God. Instead, the Law is used to do God’s work of accusation and damnation. The sermon is not to direct the accusing finger of the Law to those outside the fellowship gathered together but rather to hammer home the fearful consequences of those who will die under the curse of the Law.

The Gospel provides no help to the unbeliever or believer, for that matter, in saving oneself. Rather, the Gospel is the announced promise that God will do all the saving with neither cooperation with or contribution from anyone who is attempting to save himself. That comes home so clearly in this passage as an angel needs tongs to remove the blazing hot coal from the altar. What happens next is often overlooked. That same hot coal is then applied to the lips of Isaiah. But rather than a scream from the man, verse 7 reveals that now his iniquity is taken away and his sin purged.

This needs further clarification. For the word iniquity could refer to the sin itself but that would be ridiculous because no one stops sinning when forgiven. Rather, the Hebrew word for “iniquity” refers to the punishment that should be ours because of our sin. It refers to the consequences of being under the curse of the Law. What Jesus did on the cross was not take away our sins but take away our eternal punishment that should have been ours. We are forgiven in the sense that we are no longer held accountable by God for our sins. Why? Because Jesus was held accountable on the cross.

As an aside, this also provides a wonderful opportunity to speak of water baptism. Just as God uses a hot coal that conveys the forgiveness of sins, so also in the Pentecost baptism God conveys the forgiveness of sins through a splash of water into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So also, the same God provides the true body and blood under the form, not of a coal or splash of water but through a morsel of bread and a sip of wine. What a mystery! Or as Jerome translated into the Latin Vulgate, what a sacrament!

This passage is a splendid example of how difficult it is to preach consistently Law and Gospel sermons. Using theological language, this passage is in the context of sanctification, not justification. That is, the passage has to deal with how the Christian behaves not how he becomes a child of God. In fact, keeping in mind the context of Corinthians, this passage is the behavior only of a child of God. It is truly a waste of time to preach this to unbelievers, if, for no other reason, is the fact that this passage is speaking of the fruit of the Holy Spirit which only a believer can receive properly.

If the sermon simply reveals what true love is, it’s kinda like having a recipe for cookies but only writing about how good they taste, not what are the ingredients or how they are to be put together and baked. Paul has spent a lot of time prior to chapter 13 talking about nothing other than Christ crucified (verse 2:2). To put it another way, the final product cannot be created until the individual ingredients are well known. You can’t preach sanctification until you exhaust justification.

There are three uses of the Law; the first concerned with the government while the second and third with the Church. The second accuses each of us of failing to meet God’s requirements. However, these passages in chapter 13 are not used to accuse someone of falling short of the glory of God. Instead, they are to be viewed as an answer to the question of believers who ask, “What pleases you God?” Simply preaching about what love is will not produce that love anymore than talking about how a person can fly like a bird will result in such flying.

The third use of the Law is information to the believer who sincerely wants to do the will of God out of a free and unbound will. That is, knowing that there is nothing that we can do to earn God’s favor or keep our salvation, we are now free to do good works without any compulsion or necessity to do so. For when you will gain nothing in your salvation by doing a good work, you are truly free to do them unlike others in every other religion in the world who have to do good works in order to be saved.

The analogy to bring forth is again the behavior of children. What a difference it is to a child to have to obey parents in order to be fed, clothed and housed in contrast to even the disobedient child who receives these gifts from loving parents. That the parents love the child spontaneously covers a multitude of sins. That God’s love for each of us resulted in Christ’s death on the cross indeed covers a mulititude of our sins.

Preaching about loving one another is not an exercise of explanation but rather a proclamation of the reality of what already is in place. For you and I who know and practice sin are incapable of doing even one good work, yet we now have a Savior Who took upon Himself our sin and exchanged it with His righteousness and salvation. Proper preaching of this chapter on love is not to answer the question of what we are to do to get right with God. Instead, chapter 13 is an answer to those who already have been declared right with God who now want to know what is pleasing in His sight. It’s not sanctification first and then justification; it’s justification first and then sanctification.

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What has Jesus being rejected in Nazareth have to do with hearers of this event today? The purpose of every sermon is to get people to think as God does. God’s plan is that every passage of Scripture is to be used to move people to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and therefore freely receive spiritual life. This reading is chosen as part of the season of Epiphany so somehow it manifests and discloses the true nature of Jesus Christ. After Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61, He concludes that what Isaiah is speaking of is finally fulfilled today.

What Jesus quotes is the passage about the One Who has come to preach the gospel to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, free the captives and so on. The first response of the people is to marvel at the gracious words He used in explaining the text. What gracious words? Once more we need to get into the shoes of the Palestinian hearers who had been taught by Judaism that you earned God’s grace by following the Law and particularly the ceremonial law. Whatever Jesus said, it must have been in line with the rest of the Gospel promises that Isaiah is talking about a salvation that is freely given by God Himself.

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Reading chapters 60 and 61 of Isaiah will quickly reveal that the Savior Who is coming is God Himself. By Jesus proclaiming that this passage is fulfilled today, He is revealing and manifesting Himself not only as the promised Messiah but as God Himself. It is most ironic that though He will not do a miracle as He did in Capernaum, He ends up doing a miracle by simply “passing through the midst of them” (verse 30) when they attempt to “throw Him down over the cliff.”

Part of the gracious revelation that Jesus does speak of is how the Gentiles (those in the town of Capernaum, the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian) are also incorporated into this new kingdom which the Messiah is ushering in. This is radical theology and must have been shocking to those listening to His sermon. For such gracious words had rarely been taught in the way that Jesus explains them. To become a child of God through no effort of your own and without any contribution to the process was totally out of sync with the teachings of the new religion called Judaism. (For more info on Judaism, check elsewhere on this blog by using the “Search” mechanism above.)

The application of this message is that the gracious words spoken by Jesus to His own hometown folks are also addressed to us today. We, who are accused by the Law of attempting to get right with God by our church attendance, offerings and good works need also to be condemned for such manipulation of God. For those outside the faith, there will be anger directed toward Jesus even today that our own works, words and thoughts have no bearing as to whether or not we are saved. Instead, the Holy Spirit takes the same words spoken by the Word Himself and creates a new heart and new spirit.

We therefore rely (trust) on the gracious promsies of the Gospel to be saved rather than the efforts we attempt to do in order to get reconciled with God. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the God/Man, God is already reconciled to the whole world. Through the preaching of the pure Word of God and the proper administration of the holy sacraments, man becomes reconciled to God. Now that is a gracious message to a world burdened as it is today in so many ways.

This true event of Jesus changing 180 gallons of water into the best wine is a great example of how the true purpose of this passage can get lost in trying to figure out certain questions of doctrine. This passage has been used to argue whether God permits us to drink wine or only grape juice, whether or not Mary is sinless and how this passage shows why we should pray to her and also a principle of life that one should give out the bad first and then later give out the best. Ridiculous. While these themes can be discussed on the basis of other passages, none of these themes are why the Holy Spirit inspired John to remember this event among all the other events that could not be contained in all the books of the world (John 21:25).

What then is the purpose of this passage? Part of the answer is that it is a primary text used for Epiphany. Epiphany reminds us of God’s way of revealing and disclosing the Person and Work of Jesus. Last week’s Baptism of our Lord was that He is seen as the Son of God. This week’s emphasis is Jesus as manifesting His glory which is the glory of God Himself. Jesus is more than the Son of Man; He is more than the promised Messiah; He is more than Savior; He is indeed God Himself!

One way to bring in a Law and Gospel theme would be to accuse the hearers of not believing how God uses the plain things of this world to accomplish the impossible. For example, this event demonstrates how Jesus as God changed simple water into wine which from a physics point of view takes the energy of an atomic bomb. But this is the same One Who raised a dead Lazarus simply by speaking a word. For the comfort of the hearers, this is also the One Who through the power of the Holy Spirit takes simple water and creates a new heart and new spirit within an infant.

Baptism, therefore is not only an important theme for the Baptism of our Lord, but it is also a significant theme in regard to Jesus’ use of water to make wine. It is of some interest that the rabbis in Jesus’ day conjectured that the fruit Eve and Adam ate was that of the fruit of the grape. How interesting is that the fruit which was traditionally part of the Fall of human beings into sin is also the fruit of Jesus’ first miracle as He begins to usher in the Kingdom of God.

Every passage of Scripture according to John himself is to “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” That is not the subject of just interpretation using the principle of Scripture interprets Scripture, but also the subject of application which takes place through the distinctions of Law and Gospel. During this entire Epiphany season, the goal of every Bible study and sermon should be to give glory to Jesus because He Himself is God indeed!

The word Epiphany in the Greek language means a manifestation or appearance. The Church uses the term to refer as to how the holy Scriptures manifest Jesus the man from Nazareth. While the date could be January 6 or January 19 depending on the calendar system used, it primarily focuses on the coming of the Wise Men to the baby Jesus some time after the family left the stable and now resided in a home. The significant item mentioned in that visit is that the Wise Men worshipped the Child. This demonstrates their understanding that He was indeed God Himself.

While for many Christians who have heard the Biblical accounts of Jesus again and again, we often assume that the Old Testament made it clear that the Messiah would be God Himself. But that certainly was not obvious to the majority of Jews living at the time of Jesus. Indeed, the Messiah would be the promised Son of Man but that he would be God Himself was not taught. It is a fact that once we read the New Testament, we now interpret the Old Testament books with new eyeglasses and see passages that are indeed read as the promised Messiah would be God Himself.

If interested in a longer presentation of the Epiphany appearances of Jesus go to www.lawgospel.com and click on Radio to hear our explanation of the Epiphany of Jesus on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’s broadcasts.

One such passage is in today’s readings from Isaiah 43. Verse 1 is God the LORD revealing that He created Jacob and formed Israel. Verse 3 even reveals that “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” There is nowhere in the Old Testament that God reassigns the task of being Savior to either a created angel or created human being. No, God Himself is our Savior. Thus, when Jesus is born, the Church refers to it as the incarnation of the Son of God. John the Baptizer himself speaks of Jesus as the One in Whose hand is the winnowing fan and that He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17). When one looks up this reference in Isaiah and Jeremiah, it is clear that God is the One Who does this work.

The goal of this sermon would be to concentrate on the Epiphany or appearing of Jesus not only as the Son of Man as promised; not only as the Messiah as promised, but specifically as God Himself becoming incarnate to fulfill His promises of salvation that He made through the prophets. 1 Corinthians, chapter 3 makes clear that those of us living in the times of the New Testament are learning about God in a way that was not clear to those who came before us. The Corinthians’ passage makes specific note of the Gentiles also being part of God’s holy people without any distinction between Jew and Gentile.

But among the greatest of revelation and insight made clearly known to New Testament believers, is that the Messiah is none other than God Himself. This is a most comforting revelation because it means we can pray to the man Jesus because He is also God and in His humanity is omnipresent, all knowing and all merciful and gracious. He indeed is the proper mediator between God and man because He is both God and man. Christians today need to be aware of how radical was such a notion to many of the Jews at the time of Jesus that the Messiah was more than a super Son of Man–He was and is God Himself!

For a fuller examination of the Epiphany appearances of Jesus as God, go to www.lawgospel.com and click the Radio button to hear the Monday through Wednesday broadcasts of Law and Gospel.

There is no greater unanswered question of all Christianity than, “Why some and not others?” Those who attempt to answer it will always fall into false doctrine. About the closest the Bible comes to answering that question is found in verse 5, “according to the good pleasure of His will.” While this is an answer it still does not satisfy the human’s desire to be in control of our destiny.

Of more importance is the analogy of what salvation really is. In every other religion of the world which has a personal god, salvation is up to us in meeting the divine demands for the purpose of meriting our becoming saved. However, in Christianity, there is no road or path of self-glory to reach such a destination. For our salvation is impossible to achieve if it means either doing works of perfection or making up for our sins.

The analogy God prefers for our salvation is ” adoption.” What does a baby do to get adoopted? Nothing. What does a child do to stay adopted? Nothing. Only Christiainity denounces our works as a means of salvation to make it clear that we are saved by grace. Grace means we do not deserve salvation. And that takes place because of a merciful God Who will not hold us accountable for our sins because of what His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ did on the cross and from the empty grave.

Why are some saved and others are not? We not only do not know but need not to know or else God would have revealed the answer in His holy Word. Instead, we know that those who are saved are saved through hearing that Word and receiving those holy sacraments which the Holy Spirit uses to create and sustain faith, salvation and our adoption as children of God!