Category: Christianity

We have been buried with Christ by baptism into death, and raised to new life in Him. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, purchased and won from sin, death and hell by the precious blood of Christ. How then are we to deal with popular culture that surrounds us with vile and degrading speech, sexual impurity and all manner of sinful behaviors, which are rewarded, praised and idolized by so many?

Sadly, there are some who believe that they are free to consume the sinful pollution pumping out of the sewers of popular culture. Some Christians are so confused about what lives of sanctification are all about that they mistakenly think that concern about such things is somehow “pietism” or that striving to lead holy and pure lives marks one as a Pietist. This is wrong. This is error. This is sin.

The Gospel is never an excuse. Justification is about justifying sinners, not sin. The Gospel is about forgiveness of sin, not license to sin. We are set free to live new lives in Christ, not remain in the muck and mire of sin. We are not to think that we can do whatever we want just because we can run to church on Sunday to be forgiven.

We all need to keep a close guard over what comes our out of our mouths, and what we permit to fill our eyes, and our ears. We are to be serious about lives of Christian sanctification. No excuses. No avoiding the subject. We say, “No” to anything that is contrary to God’s will in our lives, and say “Yes” to the upward calling of God that is ours in Christ Jesus. Lord, have mercy on me for those times I’ve forgotten, and neglected, my calling in Christ!

I remain concerned that in our efforts to make sure people realize they are not saved by their works, we have allowed some to believe that their behaviors and works make no difference, that they are perfectly free to wallow in the mire and muck of this world, and that they should not give their attention to striving mightily to resist temptation, to flee all forms of immorality and, by God’s grace, and with His help, to be imitators of God, even as God Word says we should. Read this, from Ephesians 5, carefully:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For
you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or
impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

   “Awake, O sleeper,
   and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

There is only one way here. It is the way of repentance. For the sins of thought, word and deed we flee for refuge to the infinite mercy of God in Christ Jesus. We pray for strength to resist temptation, to flee immorality, to not even let the works of darkness be named among us.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if
there be any praise, think on these things. Philppians 3:8

May God grant it, for Jesus sake.

Almost entirely unknown today, in the church, not to mention the world, is this day, set aside in the historic church year to honor the memory of the baby boys slaughtered at the hand of Herod’s troops in the town of Bethlehem. If you recall, when Herod heard from the wise men that one had been born King of the Jews in Bethlehem, he commanded troops to enter the town and kill every male child. The slaughter of children deemed inconvenient or an obstacle to the fulfillment of personal ambitions or plans continues today, of course, in the slaughter that is abortion.

A prayer for this day:

Lord Jesus Christ, in your humility you have stooped to share our human life with the most defenseless of your children: may we who have received these gifts of your passion rejoice in celebrating the witness of the Holy Innocents to the purity of your sacrifice made once for all upon the cross; for you are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Here are some other thoughts from another source.

Pfatteicher (Festivals and Commemorations) associates
these three “heavenly birthday” celebrations with the birthday of
Christ: “as he was born into this world from that, so they were born into
that world from this” [p. 464].

These three festivals are also sometimes distinguished by:

 

St. Stephen — a martyr in will and deed

 

St. John — a martyr in will, but not in deed (the only
    apostle not to have been martyred)

 

The Holy Innocents — martyrs in deed, but not in will.
    “Although the Holy Children … were not believers and were unaware of
    the reason for their fate, they were killed for the sake of Christ, and in a
    sense in place of him, and the church by the beginning of the third century
    recognized them as martyrs” (Pfatteicher, p. 470).

 

If these festivals are celebrated, they help us quickly move
from the sentimentality of Christmas and a “cute” baby, to the dire
costs of discipleship.

As a general theme, life after Christmas is not all that
sweet. Following the birth of Jesus there is anger and murder, weeping and
wailing, moving and resettling. After our wonderful Christmas celebrations we
are again confronted with the fact that the kingdom has not fully arrived. The
“peace on earth” sung by the angels (in Luke) is followed by death and
destruction, suffering and evil. Salvation for Joseph and his family meant
hearing and believing the word from God and then doing them.

There is also great irony in this section. Chapter 1
proclaims that Jesus is the Son of God — Emmanuel — God with us, but now we
see “God with us” fleeing for his life. We see the “savior”
needing to be saved from Herod’s anger. Two thoughts from this
“reversal”: (1) It is an indication of the “emptying” of
Jesus who comes as a suffering servant, rather than a powerful god. (2) For
Matthew, Jesus “needed” to do these things to fulfill OT prophecies.
Jesus comes “to fulfill all righteousness” (3:15). He comes to do what
God requires of him and not to fulfill his own desires.

Matthew 2 indicates two responses to the revelation about
Jesus — Gentile Magi come to worship the child. The Jewish king, Herod, seeks
to destroy the child. It is important, especially in Matthew, to recognize that
it is not all “the Jews” who reject Jesus. It is likely that in
Matthew’s Christian community, there were many Jewish converts. At Jesus’ birth,
it is King Herod who seeks to destroy Jesus. At his crucifixion, other Jewish
authorities seek to destroy Jesus. In both cases, they are unsuccessful. Jesus
is taken away for a time, then is brought back.

A connection between our text and the passion is made with
the word apollumi, which is used of Herod’s desire to
“destroy/kill” the child in 2:13; and chief priests’ and elders’
desire to “have Jesus killed” in 27:20. Another connection could be
with empaizo. This word is used to refer to what the Magi do to Herod in
2:16 (“tricked” in NRSV); but its four other uses refer to Jesus being
“mocked” by others (20:19; 27:29, 31, 41) at his crucifixion. This
text pre-figures the crucifixion/resurrection event.

I was just in a conversation with two younger men who were seriously saying that listening to the audio pornography and vile filfth of Eminem is appropriate for Christians. One suggested that because only what comes out of a man is what makes him sinful that it matters not what he sees, or hears, as a Christian. These two young men are sadly typical of a poorly formed understanding of the life of good works to which we are called as Christians that seems pandemic in the Christian  Church, where apparently some can wax eloquent about how they are striving to be faithful to God’s Word, but then turn right around and wallow in the mire and squalor of sin. This all the more underscores for me the point that we have a serious lack of emphasis on sanctification in our beloved Lutheran church. There is much teaching that is not being done, that must done. Simply repeating formulas and phrases about justification is not teaching and preaching the whole counsel of God. Comforting people with the Gospel when there is no genuine repentance for sin is doing them a disservice. There is a serious “short circuit” here that we need to be mindful of. Let this be clear. Listening to the “music” of swine such as Eminem is
sinful and willfully choosing to listen to it is sin that drives out
the Holy Spirit. This is deadly serious business. Deadly. Serious.

Pastors who wash their hands of this responsibility claiming that they want to avoid interjecting law into their sermons when they have preached the Gospel are simply shirking their duty as preachers and are being unfaithful to God’s Word.

We have done such a fine job explaining that we are not saved by works that we have, I fear, neglected to urge the faithful to lives of good works as faithfully and clearly as we should. This should not be so among us brethren.

I’m growing increasingly concerned that with the necessary distinction between faith and works that we must always maintain, we Lutherans are tempted to speak of good works and the life of sanctification in such a way as to either minimize it, or worse yet, neglect it. I read sermons and hear comments that give me the impression that some Lutherans think that good works are something that “just happen” on some sort of a spiritual auto-pilot. Concern over a person believing their works are meritorious has led to what borders on paranoia to the point that good works are simply not taught or discussed as they should be. It seems some have forgotten that in fact we do confess three uses of the law, not just a first or second use.

The Apostle, St. Paul, never ceases to urge good works on his listeners nad readers. I recall a conversation once with a person who should know better telling me that the exhortations to good works and lengthy discussions of sanctification we find in the New Testament are not a model at all for preaching, since Paul is not “preaching” but rather writing a letter. This is not a good thing.

Two years ago an article appeared that put matters well and sounded a very important word of warning and caution. It is by Professor Kurt E. Marquart of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I strongly encourage you to give it your most serious attention.

Antinomian Aversion to Sanctification?

An emerited brother writes that he is disturbed by a kind of preaching that avoids sanctification and “seemingly questions the Formula of Concord . . . about the Third Use of the Law.” The odd thing is that this attitude, he writes, is found among would-be confessional pastors, even though it is really akin to the antinomianism of “Seminex”! He asks, “How can one read the Scriptures over and over and not see how much and how often our Lord (in the Gospels) and the Apostles (in the Epistles) call for Christian sanctification, crucifying the flesh, putting down the old man and putting on the new man, abounding in the work of the Lord, provoking to love and good works, being fruitful . . . ?”

I really have no idea where the anti-sanctification bias comes from. Perhaps it is a knee-jerk over-reaction to “Evangelicalism”: since they stress practical guidance for daily living, we should not! Should we not rather give even more and better practical guidance, just because we distinguish clearly between Law and Gospel? Especially given our anti-sacramental environment, it is of course highly necessary to stress the holy means of grace in our preaching. But we must beware of creating a kind of clericalist caricature that gives the impression that the whole point of the Christian life is to be constantly taking in preaching, absolution and Holy Communion-while ordinary daily life and callings are just humdrum time-fillers in between! That would be like saying that we live to eat, rather than eating to live. The real point of our constant feeding by faith, on the Bread of Life, is that we might gain an ever-firmer hold of Heaven-and meanwhile become ever more useful on earth! We have, after all, been “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Cars, too, are not made to be fueled and oiled forever at service-stations. Rather, they are serviced in order that they might yield useful mileage in getting us where we need to go. Real good works before God are not showy, sanctimonious pomp and circumstance, or liturgical falderal in church, but, for example, “when a poor servant girl takes care of a little child or faithfully does what she is told” (Large Catechism, Ten Commandments, par. 314, Kolb-Wengert, pg. 428).

The royal priesthood of believers needs to recover their sense of joy and high privilege in their daily service to God (1 Pet. 2:9). The “living sacrifice” of bodies, according to their various callings, is the Christian’s “reasonable service” or God-pleasing worship, to which St. Paul exhorts the Romans “by the mercies of God” (Rom. 12:1), which he had set out so forcefully in the preceding eleven chapters! Or, as St. James puts it: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (1:27). Liberal churches tend to stress the one, and conservatives one the other, but the Lord would have us do both!

Antinomianism appeals particularly to the Lutheran flesh. But it cannot claim the great Reformer as patron. On the contrary, he writes:

“That is what my Antinomians, too, are doing today, who are preaching beautifully and (as I cannot but think) with real sincerity about Christ’s grace, about the forgiveness of sin and whatever else can be said about the doctrine of redemption. But they flee s if t were the very devil the consequence that they should tell the people about the third article, of sanctification, that is, of new life in Christ. They think one should not frighten or trouble the people, but rather always preach comfortingly about grace and the forgiveness of sins in Christ, and under no circumstance use these or similar words, “Listen! You want to be a Christian and at the same time remain an adulterer, a whoremonger, a drunken swine, arrogant, covetous, a usurer, envious, vindictive, malicious, etc.!” Instead they say, “Listen! Though you are an adultery, a wordmonger, a miser, or other kind of sinner, if you but believe, you are saved, and you need not fear the law. Christ has fulfilled it all! . . . They may be fine Easter preachers, but they are very poor Pentecost preachers, for they do not preach… “about the sanctification by the Holy Spirit,” but solely about the redemption of Jesus Christ, although Christ (whom they extol so highly, and rightly so) is Christ, that is, He has purchased redemption from sin and death so that the Holy Spirit might transform us out of the old Adam into new men . . . Christ did not earn only gratia, grace, for us, but also donum, “the gift of the Holy Spirit,” so that we might have not only forgiveness of, but also cessation of, sin. Now he who does not abstain fro sin, but persists in his evil life, must have a different Christ, that of the Antinomians; the real Christ is not there, even if all the angels would cry, “Christ! Christ!” He must be damned with this, his new Christ (On the Council and the Church, Luther’s Works, 41:113-114).

Where are the “practical and clear sermons,” which according to the Apology “hold an audience” (XXIV, 50, p. 267). Apology XV, 42-44 (p. 229) explains:

“The chief worship of God is to preach the Gospel…in our churches all the sermons deal with topics like these: repentance, fear of God, faith in Christ, the righteousness of faith, prayer . . . the cross, respect for the magistrates and all civil orders, the distinction between the kingdom of Christ (the spiritual kingdom) and political affairs, marriage, the education and instruction of children, chastity, and all the works of love.”

“Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, unto Thy Church Thy Holy Spirit, and the wisdom which cometh down from above, that Thy Word, as becometh it, may not be bound, but have free course and be preached to the joy and edifying of Christ’s holy people, that I steadfast faith we may serve Thee, and in the confession of Thy Name abide unto the end: through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.”

Kurt Marquart

Concordia Theological Quarterly

July/October 2003
Pages 379-381

Today in the historic church year, the stoning of St. Stephen is commemorated. Christmas, you see, is serious business, a very deadly business. God sent into this world His Son, who, like Stephen, was killed at the hands of sinful men. Our Lord Christ was the true and faithful Witness from the Father, but the world received Him not. But this did not stop our Lord. He knew why He had come. He knew what He had to do. He did not turn back. He did not run. He set His face like flint, and scorning the cross’ shame, He endured it for our life and salvation. Life died. The dead live. What a blessed mystery and joy.

And so, on the day after Christ’s birth, there is commemorated the first martyr in the church, St. Stephen, who died as a faithful confessor and witness of His Lord. The word “martyr,” a Greek word, means, “witness.” The confession of Christ as the only way, the only truth, and the only life is not a message any more popular today. A cute baby in a manger seems harmless enough to many, but when that baby’s mission is proclaimed and insisted upon, in various ways our culture starts gathering its stones to stop this proclamation.

On a day when shopping mall parking lots are stuffed full of people trying to return gifts, there is a certain dreadful and wonderful irony that the church this day remembers Stephen, killed by those who did not want the Lord’s gift of a Christ. And so, they took up stones to murder one of the Christ child’s faithful disciples, St. Stephen, who went to his death confessing the gift of the Savior Jesus.

Ponder and meditate on the reality of death as the ultimate cost of discipleship. Recall our Lord’s words, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall
lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it” [Mark 8:35]. Consider your own calling in life. When, and where, are the opportunities in your life to confess your Savior? What do you sacrifice in order to bear witness to your Lord? When have you remained silent? When have you compromised your confession in order to avoid the “stones” of those who would persecute the Faith? Confess those sins and repent of them. Thank God for faithful Stephen and His confession of the One whose blood cleanses us from all sins, and sets us free to confess Him with joy and confidence. May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ give you great strength and joy in confessing His Son, as you follow the example of Blessed St. Stephen. God grant it, for Jesus sake.

You may find it a real blessing to meditate prayerfully on the libretta of Bach’s Cantata 57, prepared specifically for St. Stephen’s day. Note the sturdy realism of this text.