The Festival of the Reformation
Galatians 2.16-21 + John 8.31-36
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In today’s gospel lesson Jesus tells some Jews who believed in Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They had begun to believe in Him so He encouraged them to remain in His word. Only by remaining in His word would they be set free. When these Jews hear this, they showed that their minds are still set on earthly things. They hear about freedom, and they immediately think of political freedoms. Suffering from a moment of historical amnesia, they retort, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’?” They, of course, been in bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt, laboring under the coercion of Pharaoh’s taskmasters, but Jesus passes over this because He is not teaching about worldly freedom, His kingdom, after all, is not of this world. He is speaking of freedom from sin. “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin—whoever practices it—is a slave of sin.” To be a slave of sin means that sin is one’s master. To be a slave of sin is to obey its lusts and desires when they arise in one’s flesh. To be a slave of sin is to even offer the members of one’s own body and mind to serve sin’s will.
Christ has come to set free those who enslaved by sin. He frees them by His word. Christ’s word is the word of forgiveness earned at the cross, given freely by grace, and received by sinners by faith, believing the promise that God wants to forgive their sins for Jesus’ sake. Christ’s word also brings His perfect righteousness with it. He dies to make perfect payment for the sins of the world, but before He suffered and died, He lived a perfect life under God’s law. Jesus’ word is the gospel by which sins are forgiven, taken away, and detached from the sinner, and by which Christ’s perfect righteousness is imputed to the sinner, so that he is justified—declared righteous in God’s sight. This is proclaimed in Christ’s word—the gospel—and it is received by faith alone, simply by believing it to be true for you. And since we receive the forgiveness of sins and Christ’s righteousness by faith, that means we do not earn it, merit it, or deserve it by anything we have done. St. Paul reminds us of this in Ephesians 2[:8-9], “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
By giving us His grace—the forgiveness of sins and His perfect righteousness—by faith and not works, Christ is also teaching us that His word sets us free from the law’s demands and coercion. The law demands obedience, not just once, but always. The law demands obedience, not just in our outward behavior, but in the heart and motivation. By faith you are saved and counted perfectly righteous in God’s sight, therefore the law can make no more demands of you. It cannot condemn you because you are righteous with the righteousness of Jesus. This does not mean the law is nothing to you, of course. By faith, you reborn as sons of God, even God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10). You are recreated, regenerated, and reborn by faith so that you might live according to the law— not to earn God’s favor—but because He favors you, forgives you, and sees you with the righteousness of Jesus. This is how the Jesus’ word sets us free. It sets us free from our sins and their guilt. It sets us free from the law’s compulsion. It sets us free to be sons of God who serve one another in love according to God’s commandments, since love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:10).
All of this is yours by faith. But it is not enough to believe once. You must abide, or remain, in His word. That is where the Jews with whom Jesus spoke had trouble. They believed in Christ but also wanted the fact that they were Abaham’s descendants to count for something. They had been circumcised, after all! They lived in God’s law, meticulously obeying it, observing the sabbath, abstaining from forbidden foods, and other things the law demanded. But none of this set them free. None of these observances made them God’s people, or even kept them as God’s people. That was never the purpose of the law. The law was to show them that they were enslaved to sin so that they would look yearningly for the Christ, who would free them from their sin, give them new hearts, and make them sons who would abide in God’s house forever. Jesus is clear, only the Son sets them free, not their genealogy, not their circumcision, nor even these things combined with Jesus. It is Jesus alone. This was the word they were to remain in. And this was their temptation, to abandon Jesus’ word and put their trust in their own works or a combination of their faith in Christ plus their own merits.
It was not just the Jews that faced this temptation, it was the gentile converts to the faith as well. Paul preached the gospel and its freedom—from sin’s slavery and from the law’s coercion—to the Galatians. But after he moved on, false teachers moved in. They taught that circumcision was necessary in addition to faith in Christ. By adding a work of the law to their justification, the Galatians abandoned Christ’s word and their freedom to live in the law without coercion. They were back under law. Even though it looked like gospel because Jesus was still in the picture, there was something in the picture with Jesus, and so it was not the same Jesus at all. Paul puts it to them very clearly, saying three times in the epistle that man is not justified by works of law but faith in Christ Jesus. Period. He reminds them, that through the law he died to the law and its demands so that he might live to God by faith, saying, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” By faith in Christ, Paul lived to God, doing good works, no to earn God’s favor, but because by faith he enjoyed God’s favor and forgiveness, so that Christ dwelt in Him.
The church in every age of the world is faced with the temptation that the Jews and the Galatians fell: to look for freedom from sin, guilt, and the law’s demands, in our own contribution, in our own merits, in our worthiness. Sadly, the church has often fallen to this temptation and invited her children to look for forgiveness, freedom from sin, and godly lives by combing Jesus with works of law. The church or Rome did this in many ways, allowing the doctrine and men and demons into her midst, teaching God’s baptized children that faith in Christ was not enough, it must be combined with works, with love, in order to justify sinners and obtain God’s forgiveness. The Mass—the church’s service of Holy Communion—which Christ gave to the church to give His forgiveness to the church, was turned into a work offered back to God to earn the forgiveness of sins. The baptized were taught to pray to Mary and the saints for their merits, their help, and their prayers, contrary to Holy Scripture. But most of all, the baptized were taught to trust in their own works, in their own satisfactions to please God and eventually, through the course of life, justify them in God’s sight. But our Lord had mercy and sent Dr. Luther to rediscover the gospel of God’s grace for Christ’s sake, that man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. With this gospel restored, so was the Mass, prayer, good works, and so many other articles of the Christian faith restored to their proper places and gifts of God and responses to the freedom God gives in the gospel from sin and the law’s coercion.
The message of the Reformation is to remain in Christ’s word. Every generation faces the temptation to add, subtract, multiply, and divide Christ’s word. But this is not what Jesus’ disciples do. They abide in His word, the word which presents us with salvation by God’s grace alone, for the sake of Christ alone, received through faith alone, not by works of law or even faith formed by works of law. True freedom from sin’s guilt and condemnation come by looking solely to Christ and Him crucified, believing that His perfect obedience and His innocent, bitter suffering and death pay for our sins. True freedom from the law’s demands of external and internal perfection come only from faith in the gospel which says, “God sees me as righteous because, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I believe in His Son.” Freedom comes by faith which makes us sons of God who dwell in His house forever and who walk in the good works God teaches us in His commandments, because the life which we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.” Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
