Pastors' Keystrokes

Faith Makes One Worthy

Written by Pastor Nuckols Wednesday, 17 March 2010 13:52

“Faith makes one worthy.” This alone stands the test in the all-revealing, merciful-unmerciful light of death. And this light radiates back into our life. By means of this light the life of the Christian becomes radically different from that of the non-Christian.

The life of the Lutheran Christian does not distinguish itself from that of others. In its content, in the areas it embraces, it is not different; it is just as boundlessly rich and great as the life of all other people. The Christian neither detracts from nor adds to life’s outer confines. However, since his is a life of faith, everything in his innermost nature must become different. For the Christian must live his life fully aware that its every detail is open to the view of God and that his life is designed for eternal perfection and completeness. He recognizes God’s presence in everything and he knows that all guilt is judged and canceled by God’s mercy. His life becomes clear and meaningful solely in the light of its eternal destiny. Because he knows how destructive and unbridled our innermost nature is, he appreciates the miracle of the divine institutions, of state, church, and marriage, which God has established in an evil and devil-infested world. He serves them with a joy which divines perfection beyond them.

To him marriage is a token of the mercy which from the beginning took cognizance of man’s need: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). In his vocation the Christian hears God’s summons, which exempts him from the manifold other tasks and demands surrounding him. He is not bound to do this or that to which inclination or a sense of duty may try to impel him. His duty is clearly prescribed in his calling, and thus he is excused by God from the thousand and one tasks which life may place at his door. With good conscience he may decline the challenge of urgent service if the latter conflicts with the duties of his vocation. He devotes himself wholeheartedly to service to God and state, assigned to him by God. This will never involve any moral conflicts; for he believes firmly that he is rendering the state his best service even when he finds it necessary, for the Gospel’s sake, to obey God rather than man, and even though that service may involve the role of martyrdom.

In all this the Lutheran Christian is liberated from slavish legalism and is emboldened to courageous action by the instinctive assurance of love. And finally he knows that by faith he has been delivered from the accusations of tasks unfulfilled, accusations which follow him from life into death. Confidently he commits these to Him who can balance the books of his life.

The fact will ever go unchallenged that faith must produce its masterpiece for the hour of death, when our whole life is compressed into one overpowering present, assails us, and turns us out into impenetrable darkness. Luther knew very well how hard it is to die confidently and how difficult fearless and honest premeditation on death is. “We have all been ordered to die, and no one will be able to die for another. But each one will be obliged to contend against death in his own person. We may be able to shout into one another’s ears, but each one will have to be fit for himself at the time of death. I shall not be with you, nor you with me. For this reason everyone will have to know well the chief articles that pertain to a Christian; he must be equipped.”

Luther always classed loneliness among the grave Anfechtungen that will confront us in the hour of death. Therefore Luther and Lutheranism ardently practiced the “shouting in the ears,” the supporting and helpful custom of praying with a dying person and leading him in prayer, quite in contrast to us. A false shyness has made us cruel toward those who are sorely assailed on their dying beds. In their gravest hour we desert them, or, what is often still worse, we deceive them with regard to the gravity of their condition. And at that we never know whether they do not see through our deception. Who of us has the courage to repeat the words of Karl Holl: “I should not like to be cheated out of death” (Ich möchte um den Tod nicht betrogen sein)?

 Therefore Luther, in his Sterbebüchlein, left no stone unturned in his effort to show that man is not deserted in his dying hour. “No Christian should doubt at his end that he is not alone when dying, but he should be confident that very many eyes are looking at him.” The eyes of God and of Christ, the eyes of the angels, the eyes of the deceased and the living Christians. Now, in this moment, everything that the church of all times and all places, or, as Luther liked to put it, the communion of saints, has of love, intercession, and supporting power is present for him, the lonely individual. “A Christian should envisage this and should have no doubt regarding it. This emboldens him to die.”

The fact that the entire burden of our life again threatens to bear down upon us in the hour of death gives loneliness its sting. The dissonance of our life, our imperfections, our unworthiness, the question of election, which has tortured so many — all this again looms huge before us. For this reason it is too late to try to come to terms with death at life’s end. “We should think about death while we are alive, and we should summon him while he is still far away and is not pressing us. But when we are dying, when he is present of himself and with power all too great, this is dangerous and to no avail. Then one must want to erase his picture and not be willing to see it.”

It is the real art of faith, difficult to acquire, and its indescribable privilege to brush lightly aside all the oppressing questions which sharpen the sting of death and to place all our worries into the hands of God alone. All worrisome questions find their answer in Luther’s wonderfully comforting words: “You must let God be God; He knows more about you than you yourself.” 

But all of this would have been feeble words for Luther if every word of faith and about faith were not a reference to, and a testimony of, Him who conquered death, sin, and the devil for us. In Christ alone this faith, which must stand the test of the severest trials, finds its goal and its strength. “It is a high art and a lesson which no saint has been able to master or fathom unless he has been in despair, in the anguish of death, or in extreme danger. For there one sees that faith overcomes sin, death, devil, and hell. These are no ordinary enemies; they make you sweat, crush your bones, and make heaven and earth too confining for you. At such a time there is no one who could help you but this Person alone, who says: It must be I who dare not lose you. This is the Father’s will.” 

The onslaught of these powers that make one sweat and that crush bones has been borne to the utmost by Christ. In contrast to the Catholic Church, Luther described again and again how Christ was not only smitten and tortured physically but that His soul, too, tasted to the dregs all the anguish and loneliness of man. His bloody sweat was a symptom of a real and natural dread of death, a dread which Luther courageously admitted again and again. It was a terrible reality that God had forsaken Him. Nothing of the depths of man’s fear and despair of election was spared Him, nor did He suffer this only partially or apparently. Only in this way did He overcome death on the cross, not by protesting and fighting against it but by silent submission and by calmly surveying the images of death, sin, and hell, the sources of sorrow and anguish for Him and for us. “He paid heed to the cherished wish of His Father so completely that He forgot His death, His sin, His hell that were unleashed against Him and prayed for them, for their death, sin, and hell.”

God has taken Him, the Victor, unto Himself and has promised Him to us for our constant companionship, so that even the loneliest person is never alone in death but has Christ at his side. Long before we could extend our hand to Him, He reached forth, rescued us from the gulf which separated us from God and which Luther called eternal death, and gained for us a home with God.

Our Sanctification

Written by Pastor Nuckols Monday, 08 March 2010 11:59

Luther placed justification, the doctrine of God’s free grace in Jesus Christ, at the heart of his theology. Man is saved not by anything he does or could hope to do, but by what God has done once and for all in Jesus Christ. Since the Reformation, God’s accepting the death of Christ in place of the sinner’s death has been the hallmark of Protestantism and more specifically of Lutheran churches. Salvation is sola gratia and sola fide. God justifies the sinner purely out of His grace through faith without works. Just as no one raises himself from the dead, so no one makes himself a Christian. God, who brought Jesus back from the dead, alone brings believers to Christ and declares them righteous. Lutherans hold that justification is monergistic, a Greek derivative, which means that a thing has only one cause. God alone converts Christians. He alone justifies believers. This principle also applies to sanctification. He alone makes us holy. God is the cause and content of our sanctification.

Lutherans recognize that Christians, as sinners, are never immune to the Law’s moral demands and its threats against sin, but in the strictest sense these warnings do not belong to Christian sanctification, the life believers live in Christ and in which Christ lives in them. At times, the New Testament uses the words sanctify and sanctification of God’s entire activity of God in bringing about man’s salvation. More specifically it refers to the work of the Holy Spirit to bring people to salvation, to keep them in the true faith and finally to raise them from the dead and give them eternal life (Small Catechism). All these works are also performed by the Father and the Son. Since God is not morally neutral and does not choose to be holy, but He is holy, all His works necessarily share in His holiness. The connection between the Holy Spirit and sanctification is seen in the Latin for the Third Person of the Trinity, Spiritus Sanctus. The Spirit who is holy in Himself makes believers holy, sanctifies them by working faith in Christ in them and He becomes the sources of all their good works. Sanctification means that the Spirit permeates everything the Christian thinks, says and does. The Christian’s personal holiness is as much a monergistic activity of the Holy Spirit as is his justification and conversion. The Spirit who alone creates faith is no less active after conversion than He was before.

Our Augsburg Confession recognizes those things which keep society and government together as good works, but strictly speaking, they do not belong to a Christian’s personal holiness and have no necessary relationship to justification. Unbelievers can do these works as can Christians. The works of sanctification are, strictly speaking, only those which Christians can do. They find their source, content and form in Christ’s offering of Himself for others and are given to Christians by the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who is sent into the world by the Son. Sanctification is a Trinitarian act. God dwells in the believer in order to accomplish what He wants. The petition of the Lord’s Prayer that “God’s will be done” is a prayer for our own sanctification.

Our sanctification finds its closest point of contact in the earthly life of Jesus who gave Himself for us. Christ’s giving of Himself is in turn an extension of the Father giving of His Son, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” The sending of the Son as a sacrifice reflects the Father’s eternal giving of Himself in begetting the Son, “begotten of His Father before all worlds.” So the Christian doctrine of sanctification draws its substance from atonement, incarnation, and even the mystery of the Holy Trinity itself. This self-giving of God and of Christ take form in the lives of believers and saints, especially those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel and martyred. On that account, St. Paul sets himself and his companions in their sufferings as patterns of sanctification for those to whom they preached the Gospel.

In actual practice our sanctification is only a weak reflection of Christ’s life. Good motives often turn into evil desires. Good works come to be valued as our own ethical accomplishments. Moral self-admiration and ethical self-absorption soon replace total reliance on God. The sanctified life constantly needs to be fully and only informed by Christ’s life and death, or our personal holiness will soon deteriorate into a degenerate legalism and barren moralism. God allows us Christians to be plagued by sin and a sense of moral inadequacy to force us to see the impossibility of a self-generated holiness. Our only hope is to look to Christ in whom alone we have a perfect and complete sanctification. “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).”

Are the Keys Relevant Anymore?

Written by Pastor Nuckols Thursday, 25 February 2010 15:40

The horrible abuse and misunderstanding of the precious keys is one of the greatest plagues which God’s wrath has spread over the ungrateful world. It has increased so greatly in Christendom that almost nowhere in the world do we find a true use and understanding of the keys” (Luther’s Works AE 40:325). Luther’s comment from “The Keys” certainly applied to the unfortunate situation in the medieval Roman Catholic Church. Rome obscured the gracious work of Christ on the cross by making its efficaciousness dependent on human obedience—repentance was turned into a human act that earned God’s forgiveness. But by the time Luther wrote “The Keys” in 1530 he was aware of danger on another front. “Remember that the keys or the forgiveness of sins are not based on our own repentance or worthiness . . . Such teachings are entirely Pelagian, Mohammeden (Turkisch), pagan, Jewish, like those of the Anabaptists, fanatic, and anti-Christian” (LW AE 40:364). Rome was certainly in error—as were any who compromised the certainty of forgiveness centered in Christ’s cross.

What was at stake? For Luther it was the keys of the kingdom—the binding and loosing message of Law and Gospel. Through the keys Christ Himself condemned sin and unbelief, as well as freeing condemned and lost sinners. “The key which binds is the power or office to punish the sinner who refuses to repent by means of a public condemnation to eternal death and separation from the rest of Christendom. And when such judgment is pronounced, it is as a judgment of Christ Himself . . . The loosing key is the power or office to absolve the sinner who makes confession and is converted from sins, promising again eternal life. And it has the same significance as if Christ Himself passed judgment” (LW AE 40:372).

The keys carry the Gospel, in the broad sense, forward, condemning self-assured people of their sin and assuring the contrite of their forgiveness. The binding key, however, is for Luther only a means to an end. The ultimate aim of the keys is the forgiveness of sins. The loosing key, like baptism, creates new life. The keys are efficacious because of their Christological character. Thus, the application of the loosing key is God’s act, which delivers the life-giving forgiveness won by Christ. Assurance stems from the application of the loosing key.

By the time the 17^th century rolled around, a goodly number of Lutherans began to question whether the proclamation of the loosing key had not become too easy and free. “Should we not put a greater emphasis on seeing the necessary fruits of repentance before we proclaim the word of absolution?” they asked. “Is mere confession of sins enough?” For instance, Johann Arndt (1555-1621) outlined his understanding of the relationship between faith and repentance as follows: “Have I not preached to you out of which forgiveness comes? Where is your repentance? Where is the true living faith? Where is the renewal of your mind, the church of life? It is where forgiveness of sins is” (True Christianity [Paulist Press, 1979], 114). Later, Philip Spener would extend Arndt’s theology and note: “How many there are who live such a manifestly unchristian life that they themselves cannot deny that the Law is broken at every point, who have no intention of mending their ways in the future, and yet who pretend to be firmly convinced that they will be saved in spite of all this! . . . They are sure of this because it is of course not possible to be saved on account of one’s life, but they believe in Christ and put all their trust in Him, that this cannot fail, and they will surely be saved by such faith.” Such a faith, says Spener, “leads many people to damnation” (Pia Desideria, 64).

Spener believed that people trusted too much in the reception of the sacraments, and did not stress good works enough. Thus, concluded Spener, it was the pastor’s responsibility to determine who was and was not a true believer, for it was to true believers alone that forgiveness was to be preached.

The contrast between Luther and Spener is clear. Where Luther underscores the necessity of both keys, Spener slips toward an emphasis on the binding key. In other words, Spener limits the proclamation of the Gospel to those whom he is convinced show the satisfactory fruits of faith. Works of the Law become the standard by which the presence of faith is judged. Luther will not abide those who persist in manifest, public sin. On the other hand, Luther rejects the notion that the Law can engender good works. Rather, the fruits of faith will flow from the application of the loosing key.

For Luther it is a matter of assurance for the contrite—one’s works only lead to uncertainty and, ultimately, to despair. Christ is displaced with self. While Spener continually examines the character of an individual’s repentance from the perspective of the binding key as evidenced by works, Luther stresses the fact of the individual’s sinfulness that has been covered by the blood of Christ applied in the loosing key. For the voice of the pastor speaking the absolution is Christ’s voice.

Here, God has graciously maintained the keys. And through the keys, faithfully administered publicly by the Office of the Holy Ministry and privately in the “mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren (Book of Concord, 310), Christ speaks. And where Christ speaks, His keys effect His promise of forgiveness.

Excerpts from Luther's "Meditation on Christ"

Written by Pastor Nuckols Tuesday, 16 February 2010 18:36

They contemplate Christ’s passion aright who view it with a terror-stricken heart and a despairing conscience. This terror must be felt as you witness the stern wrath and the unchanging earnestness with which God looks upon sin and sinners, so much so that He was unwilling to release sinners even for His only and dearest Son without His payment of the severest penalty for them. Thus He says in Isaiah 53 [: 8 ], “I have chastised Him for the transgressions of My people.” If the dearest child is punished thus, what will be the fate of sinners? (Luke 23:31).  It must be an inexpressible and unbearable earnestness that forces such a great and infinite Person to suffer and die to appease it. And if you seriously consider that it is God’s very own Son, the eternal wisdom of the Father, who suffers, you will be terrified indeed. The more you think about it, the more intensely will you be frightened.

We must give ourselves wholly to this matter, for the main benefit of Christ’s passion is that man sees into his own true self and that he be terrified and crushed by this. Unless we seek that knowledge, we do not derive much benefit from Christ’s passion. The real and true work of Christ’s passion is to make man conformable to Christ, so that man’s conscience is tormented by his sins in like measure as Christ was pitiably tormented in body and soul by our sins. This does not call for many words but for profound reflection and a great awe of sins. Take this as an illustration: a criminal is sentenced to death for the murder of the child of a prince or a king. In the meantime you go your carefree way, singing and playing, until you are cruelly arrested and convicted of having inspired the murderer. Now the whole world closes in upon you, especially since your conscience also deserts you.

Now, you cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that His wounds and sufferings are your sins, to be borne and paid for by Him, as we read in Isaiah 53 [: 6 ], “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” St. Peter says, “in His body has He borne our sins on the wood of the cross” [ I Pet. 2:24 ]. St. Paul says, “God has made Him a sinner for us, so that through Him we would be made just” [ II Cor. 5:21 ]. You must stake everything on these and similar verses. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously must you cling to them. If you do not do that, but presume to still your conscience with your own contrition and sorrow, you will never obtain peace of mind, but will have to despair in the end. If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by His resurrection, and then boldly believe this, it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by His resurrection. Now you see no wounds, no pain in Him, and no sign of sin. Thus St. Paul declares that “Christ died for our sin and rose for our justification” [ Rom. 4:25 ]. That is to say, in His suffering Christ makes our sin known and thus destroys it, but through His resurrection He justifies us and delivers us from all sin, if we believe this.