To me, that is the distorted Gospel being taught today, the Gospel where things are added to and/or detracted from being saved by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone.
I found it interesting that if you Google death by a thousand cuts and then click on the Wikipedia link, it is associated with creeping normalcy, defined "the way a major negative change, which happens slowly in many unnoticed increments, is not perceived as objectionable."
A major negative change is not perceived as objectionable.
A major negative change is not perceived as objectionable.
A major negative change is not perceived as objectionable.
Thus, even more so, upon trying to get a bit of history on death by a thousand cuts, am I convinced such is an apt metaphor for what is happening to the pure Gospel.
Again and again, I heard that the Old Testament, aside from being sort of a history for Christians, was about Jews and for Jews. Those verses are not for you, Myrtle. "Those" verses were all the non-Jesus ones. Funny, though, because that collection of verses I mentioned the other day would most certainly included 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness," which, in turn, would include the Old Testament as a whole!
Separate and apart. Isolated. Separate even from another verse from that "collection," the very next verse and conclusion of the sentence: "so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."
What is all Scripture good for? For making us better Christians, better examples of faith, better witnesses for Christ. That is what is taught, whether blatantly or subtlety. The self-actualization of faith is the end game, the finish line to cross.
But, again, I wondered what that verse was in context. So, here is all of chapter 3:
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.
Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
A part of me smiles. Is not God seemingly always telling us that hard times are coming? From the garden, before the flood, through the dessert, across the kingdoms, before Calgary, and until Jesus Christ comes again.
He is. Our Triune God is telling us this very thing. He is because we are sinners, and sin is our self-actualization. Sin! It is all we are, all we can be, in our hearts and minds and bodies. There is nothing redeemable about us, in us, by us. Nothing. Apart from the grace of God, we cannot fear and love and trust Him. Apart from the gift of faith, we cannot repent and believe. Apart from the Living Word worked in our lives by the Holy Spirit, we are not and never will be sanctified.
Original sin (in human nature) is not just this entire absence of all good in spiritual, divine things. Original sin is more than the lost image of God in mankind; it is at the same time also a deep, wicked, horrible, fathomless, mysterious, and unspeakable corruption of the entire human nature and all its powers. It is especially a corruption of the soul's highest, chief powers in the understanding, heart, and will. So now, since the fall, a person inherits an inborn wicked disposition and inward impurity of heart, an evil lust and tendency. We all by disposition and nature inherit from Adam a heart, feeling, and thought that are, according to their highest powers and the light of reasons, naturally inclined and disposed directly against God and His chief commandments. Yes, they are hostile toward God, especially in divine and spiritual things. For in other respects, regarding natural, outward things that are subject to reason, a person still has power, ability, and to a certain degree understanding--although very much weakened. All of this, however, has been so infected and contaminated by original sin that it is of no use toward God. ~BOC, FSD, I, 11-12
Throughout the Prophets and the Psalms this worship (this latreia) is highly praised, even though the Law does not teach the free forgiveness of sins. The Old Testament Fathers knew the promise about Christ, that God for Christ's sake wanted to forgive sins. They understood that Christ would be the price for our sins. They knew that our works are not a price for so great a matter. So they received free mercy and forgiveness of sins by faith, just as the saints in the New Testament. To this point belong those frequent repetitions about free mercy and forgiveness of sins by faith that appear in the Psalms and the Prophets. For example, Psalm 130:3 says, "If You, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" Here David confesses his sins and does not list his merits. He adds, "But with You there is forgiveness" (v.4). Here he comforts himself by his trust in God's mercy, and he refers to the promise, "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in His word I hope" (v. 5). This means, "Because You have promised the forgiveness of sins, I am sustained by Your promise." Therefore, the Fathers also were justified, not by the Law, but by the promise and faith. It is amazing that the adversaries diminish faith to such a degree, even though they see that it is everywhere praised as a great service. For example, Psalm 50:15 says, "Call upon Me in the day of troubles; I will deliver you." God wants Himself to be known. He wants Himself to be worshipped, so that we receive benefits from Him and receive them because of His mercy, not because of our merits. This is the richest consolation in all afflictions. The adversaries band such consolation when they diminish and disparage faith and teach only that by means of works and merits people interact with God. ~BOC, AP, IV (II), 57-60
Therefore we constantly maintain this point: God does not want to deal with us in any other way that through the spoken Word and through the Sacraments Whatever is praised as from the Spirit--without the Word and Sacraments--is the devil himself. God wanted to appear even to Moses through the bush and spoken Word. No prophet, neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments or the spoken Word. John the Baptist was not conceived without the word of Gabriel coming first, nor did he leap in his mother's womb without Mary's voice. Peter says, "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Without the outward Word, however, they were not holy. Much less would the Holy Spirit have moved them to speak when they were still unholy. They were holy, says he, since the Holy Spirit spoke through them. ~BOC, SA, III, IX, 10-13
But I had not yet made the connection, I had not yet fully understood or grasped what the Apology teaches so clearly: that salvation has come to mankind in the same manner throughout all time in the free mercy and forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ. I suppose the easiest way to say is that some were given faith before the Promise was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and some were given faith after the Promise was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus. But, then again, is not the Promise fulfilled each and every time the Holy Spirit bestows faith? Is not Jesus still coming to us each and every time we hear the Living Word, each and every time someone is baptized, each and every time the Lord's Supper is rightly celebrated?
Faith is Brought By the Holy Spirit
We unanimously believe, teach, and confess the following about the righteousness of faith before God, in accordance with the comprehensive summary of our faith and confession presented above. A poor sinful person is justified before God, that is, absolved and declared free and exempt from all his sins and from the sentence of well-deserved condemnation, and is adopted into sonship and inheritance of eternal life, without any preceding, present, or subsequent works, out of pure grace, because of the sole merit, complete obedience, bitter suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. His obedience is credited to us for righteousness.
These treasures are brought to us by the Holy Spirit in the promise of the Holy Gospel. Faith alone is the only means through which we lay hold on, accept, apply, and take them for ourselves. This faith is God's gift, by which we truly learn to know Christ, our Redeemer, in the Word of the Gospel and trust in Him. We trust that for the sake of His obedience alone we have the forgiveness of sins by grace, are regarded as godly and righteousness by God the Father, and are eternally saved. ~BOC, FSD, III, 9-11
Conversion is Passive
Dr. Luther has written that a person's will in his conversion is purely passive, that is, that it does nothing at all. This is to be understood with respect to divine grace in the kindling of the new movements, that is, when God's Spirit, through the heard Word or the use of the holy Sacraments, lays hold of a person's will and works in him the new birth and conversion. When the Holy Spirit has worked and accomplish this, and a person's will has been changed and renewed by His divine power and working alone, then the new will of that person is an instrument and organ of God the Holy Spirit. So that person not only accepts grace, but he cooperates with the Holy Spirit in the works that follow. ~BOC, FE, II, 18
The Law Has No Power to Help Us Begin and Continue It
The Law indeed says it is God's will and command that we should walk in a new life. But it does not give the power and ability to begin and to do it. The Holy Spirit renews the heart. He is given and received, not through the Law, but through the preaching of the Gospel. Thereafter, the Holy Spirit uses the Law in order to teach the regenerate from it and to point out and show them in the Ten Commandments what is the "will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2) in what "good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk" (Ephesians 2:10). He encourages them to this. When they are idle, negligent and rebellious in this mater because of the flesh, He rebukes them through the Law. So the Spirit carries out both offices together: He slays and makes alive. He leads into hell and brings up again. For His office is not only to comfort, but also to rebuke. For it is written, "when [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will convict the world [which includes also the old Adam] concerning sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8). Sin is everything that is contrary to God's Law. St. Paul says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof" (2 Timothy 3:16), and to rebuke is the Law's special office. Therefore, as often as believers stumble, they are rebuked by the Holy Spirit from the Law. By the same Spirit they are raised up and comforted again with the preaching of the Holy Gospel. ~BOC, FSD, VI, 11-14
Apart from Christ We Can Do Nothing
Also Romans 10:17 says, "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." It is God's will that His Word should be heard and that a person's ears should not be closed. With this Word the Holy Spirit is present and opens hearts, so that people pay attention to it and are converted only through the Holy Spirit's grace and power, who alone does the work of converting a person. For without His grace, and if He does not grant the increase, all our willing and running, our planting, sowing, and watering--are all nothing. As Christ says, in John 15:5 "Apart from me you can do nothing." With these brief words the Spirit denies free will its powers and ascribes everything to God's grace, in order that no one may boast before God. ~BOC, FE, II, 5-6
Thus Faith Enables Good Works
Therefore, it is easy to see that this doctrine is not to be accused of banning good works. Instead, it is to be commended all the more because it shows how we are enabled to do good works. For without faith, human nature cannot, in any way, do the works of the First or Second Commandment. Without faith, human nature cannot call upon God, nor expect anything from Him, nor bear the cross. Instead human nature seeks and trusts in human help. So when there is no faith and trust in God, all kinds of lusts and human intentions rule in the heart. This is why Christ says, "Apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). That is why the Church sings: "Lacking Your divine favor, there is nothing in man. Nothing in him is harmless." ~BOC, AC, XX, 35-40
The Holy Spirit Sanctifies, Not Good Works
Merely preaching the Law, without Christ, either makes proud people, who imagine that they can fulfill the Law by outward works, or forces them utterly to despair. Therefore, Christ takes the Law into His hands and explains it spiritually. He reveals His wrath from heaven on all sinners and show how great it is. In this teaching sinners are directed to the Law, and from it they first learn to know their sins correctly--a confession that Moses could never wrestle out of them. For as the apostle testified, even though Moses is read, the veil he put over his face is never lifted. So they cannot understand the Law spiritually, and what great things it requires of us, and how severely it curses and condemns us because we cannot keep or fulfill it. "But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed." (2 Corinthians 3:16). ~BOC, FSD, V, 10
In my years in the mainline evangelical church, there were so many concepts taught from pulpit to classroom to bible study that still fill my mind and frame my understanding of faith and yet are not of the true Gospel. They are a specious collection of concepts based on verses, coupled with the guiding principles of personal development, relationship building, and self-actualization, all gilded in relevant language. Arrogant of me to say? Perhaps, but everything that I read in the Christian Book of Concord (BOC) cuts across everything that I have ever been taught about the giving, building, and sustaining of faith.
In a way, I believe this happened somewhere along the lines when the Old Testament was riven from the New Testament with regard to faith, whenever that shift began in the Church. By this I mean, the Old Testament became a source of examples of faith and God's character and the promise of a Messiah. But not salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone.
Again and again, I heard that the Old Testament, aside from being sort of a history for Christians, was about Jews and for Jews. Those verses are not for you, Myrtle. "Those" verses were all the non-Jesus ones. Funny, though, because that collection of verses I mentioned the other day would most certainly included 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness," which, in turn, would include the Old Testament as a whole!
Separate and apart. Isolated. Separate even from another verse from that "collection," the very next verse and conclusion of the sentence: "so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."
What is all Scripture good for? For making us better Christians, better examples of faith, better witnesses for Christ. That is what is taught, whether blatantly or subtlety. The self-actualization of faith is the end game, the finish line to cross.
But, again, I wondered what that verse was in context. So, here is all of chapter 3:
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.
Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
A part of me smiles. Is not God seemingly always telling us that hard times are coming? From the garden, before the flood, through the dessert, across the kingdoms, before Calgary, and until Jesus Christ comes again.
He is. Our Triune God is telling us this very thing. He is because we are sinners, and sin is our self-actualization. Sin! It is all we are, all we can be, in our hearts and minds and bodies. There is nothing redeemable about us, in us, by us. Nothing. Apart from the grace of God, we cannot fear and love and trust Him. Apart from the gift of faith, we cannot repent and believe. Apart from the Living Word worked in our lives by the Holy Spirit, we are not and never will be sanctified.
Ah, but I digressed a bit. Back to the faith of the Old Testament.
In all seriousness, while I have been thinking about the metaphor of death by a thousand cuts for a long time, I will freely admit that it was only today (now yesterday) that I learned salvation in the Old Testament was/is the same as in the New Testament. I learned this through a quote from the BOC that I posted to the Snippets blog:
In all seriousness, while I have been thinking about the metaphor of death by a thousand cuts for a long time, I will freely admit that it was only today (now yesterday) that I learned salvation in the Old Testament was/is the same as in the New Testament. I learned this through a quote from the BOC that I posted to the Snippets blog:
[Yes, the wicked part of me reveled in the fact that my beloved Psalter was used as the example of how faith came through the Promise even in the Old Testament.]
Now, I have already posted how our triune God has chosen to only speak to us, work in us, through the Living Word:
Therefore we constantly maintain this point: God does not want to deal with us in any other way that through the spoken Word and through the Sacraments Whatever is praised as from the Spirit--without the Word and Sacraments--is the devil himself. God wanted to appear even to Moses through the bush and spoken Word. No prophet, neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments or the spoken Word. John the Baptist was not conceived without the word of Gabriel coming first, nor did he leap in his mother's womb without Mary's voice. Peter says, "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Without the outward Word, however, they were not holy. Much less would the Holy Spirit have moved them to speak when they were still unholy. They were holy, says he, since the Holy Spirit spoke through them. ~BOC, SA, III, IX, 10-13
But I had not yet made the connection, I had not yet fully understood or grasped what the Apology teaches so clearly: that salvation has come to mankind in the same manner throughout all time in the free mercy and forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ. I suppose the easiest way to say is that some were given faith before the Promise was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and some were given faith after the Promise was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus. But, then again, is not the Promise fulfilled each and every time the Holy Spirit bestows faith? Is not Jesus still coming to us each and every time we hear the Living Word, each and every time someone is baptized, each and every time the Lord's Supper is rightly celebrated?
[A small part of me has been reveling and exulting in learning this all day (now night).]
Anyway, I wanted to post a few quotes to show that the doctrine of the Living Word emphasizing where the source and will and strength for faith, for sanctification, and for good works lie:
Flesh is Always Against God
The flesh distrusts God, trusts in present things, seeks human aid in trouble, even contrary to God's will. It flees from suffering, which it ought to bear because of God's commands. It doubts God's mercy and so on. The Holy Spirit in our hearts fights against such tendencies in order to suppress and kill them and to produce new spiritual motives. ~BOC, AP, V (III), 49-50
The flesh distrusts God, trusts in present things, seeks human aid in trouble, even contrary to God's will. It flees from suffering, which it ought to bear because of God's commands. It doubts God's mercy and so on. The Holy Spirit in our hearts fights against such tendencies in order to suppress and kill them and to produce new spiritual motives. ~BOC, AP, V (III), 49-50
Faith is Brought By the Holy Spirit
We unanimously believe, teach, and confess the following about the righteousness of faith before God, in accordance with the comprehensive summary of our faith and confession presented above. A poor sinful person is justified before God, that is, absolved and declared free and exempt from all his sins and from the sentence of well-deserved condemnation, and is adopted into sonship and inheritance of eternal life, without any preceding, present, or subsequent works, out of pure grace, because of the sole merit, complete obedience, bitter suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. His obedience is credited to us for righteousness.
These treasures are brought to us by the Holy Spirit in the promise of the Holy Gospel. Faith alone is the only means through which we lay hold on, accept, apply, and take them for ourselves. This faith is God's gift, by which we truly learn to know Christ, our Redeemer, in the Word of the Gospel and trust in Him. We trust that for the sake of His obedience alone we have the forgiveness of sins by grace, are regarded as godly and righteousness by God the Father, and are eternally saved. ~BOC, FSD, III, 9-11
Conversion is Passive
Dr. Luther has written that a person's will in his conversion is purely passive, that is, that it does nothing at all. This is to be understood with respect to divine grace in the kindling of the new movements, that is, when God's Spirit, through the heard Word or the use of the holy Sacraments, lays hold of a person's will and works in him the new birth and conversion. When the Holy Spirit has worked and accomplish this, and a person's will has been changed and renewed by His divine power and working alone, then the new will of that person is an instrument and organ of God the Holy Spirit. So that person not only accepts grace, but he cooperates with the Holy Spirit in the works that follow. ~BOC, FE, II, 18
The Law Has No Power to Help Us Begin and Continue It
The Law indeed says it is God's will and command that we should walk in a new life. But it does not give the power and ability to begin and to do it. The Holy Spirit renews the heart. He is given and received, not through the Law, but through the preaching of the Gospel. Thereafter, the Holy Spirit uses the Law in order to teach the regenerate from it and to point out and show them in the Ten Commandments what is the "will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2) in what "good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk" (Ephesians 2:10). He encourages them to this. When they are idle, negligent and rebellious in this mater because of the flesh, He rebukes them through the Law. So the Spirit carries out both offices together: He slays and makes alive. He leads into hell and brings up again. For His office is not only to comfort, but also to rebuke. For it is written, "when [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will convict the world [which includes also the old Adam] concerning sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8). Sin is everything that is contrary to God's Law. St. Paul says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof" (2 Timothy 3:16), and to rebuke is the Law's special office. Therefore, as often as believers stumble, they are rebuked by the Holy Spirit from the Law. By the same Spirit they are raised up and comforted again with the preaching of the Holy Gospel. ~BOC, FSD, VI, 11-14
Apart from Christ We Can Do Nothing
Also Romans 10:17 says, "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." It is God's will that His Word should be heard and that a person's ears should not be closed. With this Word the Holy Spirit is present and opens hearts, so that people pay attention to it and are converted only through the Holy Spirit's grace and power, who alone does the work of converting a person. For without His grace, and if He does not grant the increase, all our willing and running, our planting, sowing, and watering--are all nothing. As Christ says, in John 15:5 "Apart from me you can do nothing." With these brief words the Spirit denies free will its powers and ascribes everything to God's grace, in order that no one may boast before God. ~BOC, FE, II, 5-6
Thus Faith Enables Good Works
Therefore, it is easy to see that this doctrine is not to be accused of banning good works. Instead, it is to be commended all the more because it shows how we are enabled to do good works. For without faith, human nature cannot, in any way, do the works of the First or Second Commandment. Without faith, human nature cannot call upon God, nor expect anything from Him, nor bear the cross. Instead human nature seeks and trusts in human help. So when there is no faith and trust in God, all kinds of lusts and human intentions rule in the heart. This is why Christ says, "Apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). That is why the Church sings: "Lacking Your divine favor, there is nothing in man. Nothing in him is harmless." ~BOC, AC, XX, 35-40
The Holy Spirit Sanctifies, Not Good Works
For there are many kinds of spirits mentioned in the Holy Scriptures, such as the spirit of man, heavenly spirits, and evil spirits. But God's Spirit alone is called the Holy Spirit, that is He who has sanctified and still sanctifies us. For just as the Father is called "Creator" and the Son is called "Redeemer," so the Holy Spirit, from His work, must be called "Sanctifier," or "One who makes holy." ~BOC, LC, II, 36
We are Sanctified Through the Living Word
Whenever God's Word is taught, preached, heard, read, or mediated upon, then the person, day, and work are sanctified. This is not because of the outward work, but because of the Word, which makes saints of us all. ~BOC, LC, I, 92
The Holy Spirit Carries on His Work to the Last Day
But the Holy Spirit carries on His work without ceasing to the Last Day. For that purpose He has appointed a congregation upon earth by which He speaks and does everything. For He has not yet brought together all His Christian Church or granted all forgiveness. Therefore, we believe in Him who daily brings us into the fellowship of this Christian Church through the Word. Through the same Word and the forgiveness of sins He bestows, increases, and strengthens faith. So when He has done it all, and we abide in this and die to the world and to all evil, He may finally make us perfectly and forever holy. Even now we expect this in faith through the Word. ~BOC, LC, II, 61-62
I could quote more ... about how the Living Word makes the Sacraments, how the Sacraments are the work of God, how Christ is the best teacher of the Living Word, etc. But the main point I wanted to show here is this unbroken line in the sand that circles the world round, that bars all creation: Original Sin. We cannot cross the line to God, to salvation, to faith, to sanctification. Only the Holy Spirit can and does and will continue to do so.
The Holy Spirit Carries on His Work to the Last Day
But the Holy Spirit carries on His work without ceasing to the Last Day. For that purpose He has appointed a congregation upon earth by which He speaks and does everything. For He has not yet brought together all His Christian Church or granted all forgiveness. Therefore, we believe in Him who daily brings us into the fellowship of this Christian Church through the Word. Through the same Word and the forgiveness of sins He bestows, increases, and strengthens faith. So when He has done it all, and we abide in this and die to the world and to all evil, He may finally make us perfectly and forever holy. Even now we expect this in faith through the Word. ~BOC, LC, II, 61-62
I could quote more ... about how the Living Word makes the Sacraments, how the Sacraments are the work of God, how Christ is the best teacher of the Living Word, etc. But the main point I wanted to show here is this unbroken line in the sand that circles the world round, that bars all creation: Original Sin. We cannot cross the line to God, to salvation, to faith, to sanctification. Only the Holy Spirit can and does and will continue to do so.
God created us. Jesus Saved us. The Holy Spirit bestows, builds, and sustains faith, sanctifying us through the Living Word. Faith is the author and doer of all good works. Not us.
In the pure doctrine, there simply is no place for humanity, for human nature or wisdom or strength, in spiritual matters. It is all about the Promise, about Christ crucified for us.
Yet that pure Gospel is dying in our churches today. It is being felled through death by a thousand cuts. Those cuts all begin, continue, and end with man. They are every teaching, every concept, every principle, every trend, every teaching approach, every outreach effort, every relevant change, every modernizing, every supposition, every story, every analogy that steals the honor and glory from Jesus Christ to focus on our worship, our working out of faith, our piety, our outreach, our devotion, our worship, our serving, our relationships with God.
It is a death we notice not. An inimical and egregious perfidy committed against Christ and against His beloved that we welcome, fund, research, publish, celebrate, and fawn over. We have become so enamored with our own words that we have lost sight of the power and the sufficiency of God's Words.
- Asking what would Jesus do.
- Sharing your testimony.
- Identifying and pursuing components of godly living.
- Developing and executing principles of a growing church.
- Tips and tools to effective presentations while preaching.
- Foundational approaches to saving our society.
- Capturing our culture for Christ.
- How to speak to the lost in today's world.
- Inclusive services, curriculums, and fellowship opportunities.
- Reading the latest books.
- Posting the latest captioned photo.
- Proving your devotion by _________.
But you know that "favorite" quote of mine I am wont to return to again and again and again, the bit of doctrine teaching us that the Living Word has and is able to do all that God is and can do (LC, IV, 17). The promise of Isaiah 55 and all of Holy Scripture wrapped up in a single, concise, concrete truth.
Every step we take away from the Living Word being our first source, from the pure doctrine being our first research reference, and from the Word and the Sacraments being our sole focus in our services is a cutting away of the flesh of the pure Gospel.
In the churches I grew up in, the Gospel was nearly picked clean, a bare-boned cadaver used best as a starting point from which we were to go out and strive to become all that God means for us to be, strengthen our relationship to Christ, to further His work in this world, to lead others to a saving knowledge of Jesus, to share our faith.
We cannot be who God means us to be until we are raised in glory. Our foe saw to that. In the garden and now, today, in his wily, unceasing assaults, in the ways of the world, and in our own flesh. We do not build relationships with Christ, for it is He who draws us to Himself and holds us in His hands. We do not further God's work in this world because it is the Holy Spirit who guides, empowers, and accomplishes the good works prepared for us by God who cares for and tends to all creation. We do not lead others to a saving knowledge of Christ, for only the Holy Spirit opens hearts and eyes and ears and minds, giving faith where and when it pleases God. We have no testimony to share that is about our saving faith. We receive and live by and with and through the faith of Jesus Christ, so it is ours only in the sense that it is a gift bestowed to individuals--not nations or races or cultures--but the actor (the doer) of that faith is Jesus, not us.
In my opinion, the most effective tool in the wielding of death by a thousand cuts are the specious foundations of Christian living theologies abounding today. We claim that this is all mere semantics. That meaning is made in the individual and is idiosyncratic in nature. Thus, we search for personal meaning, personal application, and yet, oddly, we do so in a standardized fashion that we may proscribe for others. That standardization is built upon concepts we pluck from the Bible and from our notions of reverence or worship or working out of faith. So, one group grabs ahold of the notion of the order of creation and makes it Law for the godly Christian. Another focuses on the best way to equip ourselves to do God's work. Still another details the minutia of proper movements during worship to in order to be truly devout. Here a group focuses on what living out the Law should look like in daily every life. There a group focuses on modeling Jesus in outreach to others, from climbing trees to standing in public squares. And we have the group holding the pursuit of a godly government and a pious culture as the proper course of action for all Christians.
Jesus. The teacher of the Law. Jesus. The One who lifts the veil. Jesus. The One who frees us from Moses. Jesus. The One in whom we have no condemnation and the freedom to live bound not by law.
Centuries ago the Church fathers warned of the dangers of the Law without Christ. All throughout the BOC lies the delineation of what the Gospel is not, what the Law is not, what flesh is not, what repentance is not, what faith is not, what works are not, what our doctrine is not, even as we are taught what those are. Fierce, ferocious, uncompromising defense and confession of the true Gospel.
Decades ago, throughout the lectures that comprise The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, Walther also emphasized the not. In fact, the very first words of his series were:
"It is not my intention to give a systematic treatment of the doctrine of the Law and the Gospel in these lectures. My aim is rather to show you how easy it is to work a great damage upon your hearers by confounding Law and Gospel spite of their fundamental difference and thus to frustrate the aim of both doctrines" (p. 6).
I believe it is no accident, no clever, crafty presentation technique that Walther begins with teaching what the proper distinction between Law and Gospel is not. Six points Walther makes about what that distinction is not. And a common thread woven throughout his lectures is that Jesus is not the new Moses.
And so I would proffer that the dismissal or disregard of the not is the edge of the blade of every tool used for every cut that is killing the true Gospel.
And yet this
despite the sin of man,
despite the hunger we have for the teaching of enthusiasts,
despite the goal of spiritual self-actualization,
the pure Gospel will remain.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
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