Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” This has been the case since the Garden of Eden. The Lord gave His word to Adam and as long as Adam remained in God’s word, Adam was free to live as the creature God had created him to be. But when Adam and Eve consented to the serpent’s temptation to set aside God’s command and step away from His word, they became enslaved to sin, death, and the power of the devil, for whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. But God gave Adam and Eve another word—the gospel that Eve’s Seed would crush the seed of the serpent—and if they remained in that word, they would be free sin’s guilt, God’s wrath, eternal death, and the power of the devil. This was the beginning of the church, the assembly of those who looked for the coming of the Promised Seed, the Messiah, the Savior. Every generation of the church, as the body of believers, is to remain in God’s Word; His word of law which shows us His holy, eternal will, and how far we fall short of His will because of our sinfulness, and His gospel, which shows us how he has loved the world by giving His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (Jn 3:16). Beginning with Adam and Eve, then their children, then their children’s child and down the line to today, believers have forgiveness, life, and salvation through the gospel, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.
But we also see throughout human history—and our own family histories—that not everyone abides in God’s word. Adam and Eve’s firstborn son, Cain, allowed his sinful desires to rule over him instead of the other way around. He murdered his brother Abel, then went out from the presence of the LORD (Gen 4:16), leaving God’s church and word to forge his own church based on his own word that came, not from God, but the imagination of his sinful heart. So Lamech, five generations from Cain, could take God’s promise to Cain, “Whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold” (Gen 4:15), and warp it. “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Gen 4:24). This is what the sinful flesh does. It says it remains in God’s word, but mutilates it so that it’s no longer God’s word, but their own word under the cloak of God’s word. The sinful flesh inherited from Adam and Eve’s fall is not contend with God’s law, so it makes up its own laws. It is not content with the gospel that that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, so it injects its own works, merits, and superstitions into the gospel. It wants the law to be a ladder to heaven and the gospel to be what puts one on the ladder so that he can climb to heaven himself, with perhaps a boost every now and then. Since the time of Cain, men have sought to add abide in their own word while imagining they are abiding in God’s word, even calling themselves ‘church,’ and persecuting the faithful remnant who, by faith, abide in God’s word.
But God, in His mercy, does not forsake His disciples who remain in His word. He preserves a faithful remnant and at times. He sends reformers to call the people to forsake their own word and return to the pure fountain of Israel—God’s word. He does this in the antediluvian—the pre-flood—world through the faithful patriarchs, Seth, Enoch, and with Noah he cleanses His church once again through a remnant of eight souls aboard an ark. Later, it’s Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, and all the prophets, calling Israel back to God’s word. The first lesson we heard read this morning tells us of one such reformation of the church. The church had languished under the apostasy of king Ahaz. He had led the church astray with idolatry so that people turned their backs on the Lord. They abided in the word of Ahaz, not the word of the Lord. But his son, Hezekiah, In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them (2 Chron 29:3). He gathers the Levites whose names we heard read, and tells them, “Sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place” (2 Chron 29:5). These men cleanse God’s house and His worship. They cast out the idolatrous superstitions Ahaz had introduced, superstitions which could save and works that obscured faith in the Promised Seed. This debris is cast out. The divinely instituted articles for worship they sanctified and restored to their proper place, so that Israel could once again hear God’s word purely taught, and by believing in it and remain it that word, be set free from their sins and have everlasting life.
You see where this is going, and more examples in both the Old and New Testament could be given. So could examples from the history of the church in the New Testament period. Falsehood is introduced, sometimes by otherwise faithful teachers who speak too carelessly about God’s word, something through false brethren who have entrenched themselves within the church. Yet God raises up men who would reform the church by casting out the debris of man-made doctrines and bad practices which obscure—and in some cases, destroy entirely—God’s word of law and gospel. Today we celebrate the Lutheran Reformation, not out of a misguided sense of triumphalism, not as a cultural relic for people of Northern European descent, but to give thanks to God that once again, He gave His church men who would reform it. Luther was not the first reformer of the church by any stretch of the imagination. Even in the century before he posted the Ninety-Five Theses to the Castle Church in the small town of Wittenberg, men called for reform of the Roman church. They inveighed against a corrupt curia, a fornicating priesthood, and a political papacy. While Luther shared these concerns, he was given grace to see that these were merely symptoms of the real issue. Where there is bad practice there is bad doctrine. If the church is acting like the world, it is because the church has ceased to abide in God’s word and chosen to abide in its own word instead.
That word does what man’s word wants to do to God’s word in every generation: It makes the law to be a ladder to heaven and the gospel to be what puts one on the ladder so that he can climb to heaven himself, with perhaps a boost every now and then. Rome taught—and sadly, still teaches—that man is justified by faith and good works. For Rome, “Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man” (CCC 1989). From this word comes a host of beliefs and practices that do not set men free from sin’s guilt, but keep them in doubt as to their salvation, since it is a combination of historical knowledge and good works. But this is not the gospel that was given to Adam and Eve, preached by the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The root of the Reformation—every single bit of it—is summarized in Paul’s words from today’s epistle: “A man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.” Man is not justified by faith in Jesus Christ and his own works, as if faith in Christ is insufficient. Man is not justified by faith in Jesus Christ and works of any law—mosaic law, moral law, or church law. God raised up the Reformer to call the church back to this word of God, that we are justified, not by works of law, but faith in Christ alone. Being justified by faith alone means that it is faith alone that apprehends Christ’s merits. Faith alone means that our sanctification, inner renewal, and good works don’t contribute to our justification. God forgives our sins freely for Jesus’ sake and imputes His perfect righteousness to us, so that we should no doubt that our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.
What does this to good works? We are justified by faith alone, but faith is never alone. Love for others, good works, self-control, and the like, are the fruits which true faith produces. Faith produces good works of love because faith receives all that God promises in the gospel. Faith rejoices in the forgiveness of sins and wants avoid sinning. Faith rejoices in Christ’s work done out of love and so wants to do good works out of love for one’s neighbor. Faith rejoices to receive God the Holy Spirit and the new identity as a son of God, so that the old life of sin might daily be put away and a new life of purity and righteousness put on; not to earn God’s favor, but because we have received God’s favor for Jesus’ sake by faith. This is the truth that sets us free from the guilt of sin because it forgives sins to all who are truly penitent. It is the truth that sets us free from the slavery to doubt that we have done enough to merit everlasting life by our good works, because it gives us the complete righteousness of Jesus as our own by faith. This is the word of Jesus, the word in which His true disciples will abide and persevere. There will always be the temptation to abandon this word for our own, or the world’s word, rather than abide in it. There will always the false church in this life, tempting many with a false Christianity that appeals to the flesh’s desire for self-righteousness. By God’s grace, those who would be disciples of the Lord Jesus will avoid both temptations, and abide, remain, and persevere unto the end in His Word, the only word that sets us free from sin. Amen.
May the peace of God which passes understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
