Many evangelicals tend to speak of salvation relationship as us having a personal relationship with Jesus foremost. On the other hand, us Confessional Lutherans focus on that as being God Incarnate's relationship to us that is a top down and heaven meets earth type of relationship. And this will be the focus here.
Apart from Christ, our own relationship we have to God is that of being lost sinners condemned by the law. Though the law may curb our sins (first use of the law), it does not make us any less condemned as sinners. The mirror (second) use of the law, which in the Confessional Lutheran view is the primary use, reveals to us our sins that we have in us (and continues to do so even after our conversion) to bring us to contrition and drives us by grace through faith to the Gospel which gives to us from outside ourselves that forgiveness of sins that the law cannot give us.
So how does this relate to Christ's top down and heaven meets earth relationship to us? The law shows us we cannot come to salvation by reaching up to God by human efforts. Instead, God the Son condescended to our level by taking on human flesh. Through His active obedience, He fulfilled the law fully on our behalf, and through His passive obedience, He died in our place as the spotless Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And we can have hope because He rose again to assure us we can have new life in Him.
And how does God brings it about where we receive what Christ did for us- which is forgiveness of sins won for us at the Cross? Just as the Incarnation is heaven meets earth, so is the means of grace by which God reaches us. The means of grace by which God Incarnate condescends to come to us to deliver His forgiveness are Word and Sacrament, which is why those are also called the Visible Gospel. Those are tangible means by which we can hear, touch, taste, smell, feel and see the Gospel, and by which God employs all our senses to give us assurance of Christ with us to give us His salvation in His finished work at the Cross.
So when the water is poured, sprinted or immersed over us in Holy Baptism, it's heaven meets earth. It is Christ's top down relationship with us, where He comes to us giving us Himself and His blood that washes away our sins. When we hear the words of Absolution, though such words are spoken by the pastor, it is Christ being with us speaking His words of forgiveness to us just as He spoke to the thief on the Cross to assure him. When in Holy Communion, we take the bread and hear the words, "This is My body given for you", and when we take the cup and hear the words, "This is the new covenant in My blood poured out for the remission of sins," God Incarnate condescended to us in top down and heaven meets relationship to us to give us His forgiveness to continually assure us He is still with us in real person, real time, and real place. We have that objective assurance.
The Gospel (good news that Christ had paid for our sins) given to us in Word and Sacrament is what gives us saving faith, that the Holy Spirit works to give us. It is a saving, justifying faith that clings to His person and His forgiveness. That faith is both Incarnational and sacramental. It is a faith that God continues to nourish and sustains in the means of grace. It is a faith that has objective means to look to, where we can be fully assured what Christ did on the Cross is given unto us.
It is a top down, heaven meets earth relationship that Christ has with us that as a result we because the same gospel that justifies us in Christ also now sanctifies us by grace through faith unto good works. And God now accepts our good works, for Christ's sake, because He sees Christ's righteousness as covering us though we remain sinners (though repentant sinners). And how do we know what God desires of us? The law gives us that guide (third use of the law which is only true only for those in Christ).
Can the law assures us though if we use it as guide? No, since the mirror use of the law will always accuse us in regards to showing where we are still sinful. That is why we are driven back to the Gospel given us from outside ourselves in Word and Sacrament. We constantly need that means of grace to continually have our sins forgiven in Christ crucified for us and to continually sanctify us unto good works. The law simply shows us what is pleasing to God that we may have obedience of faith, but the Gospel sanctifies us unto that.
The end results of God Incarnate's top down heaven meets earth relationship with us in Word and Sacrament, where God is gloried in our salvation, are that we in turn glorify and praise God (in responding to His vertical relationship to us) and we go out of the church divine service (where heaven meets earth) and serve God and we serve our neighbors in a horizontal relationship as we are called to do in regards to good works accepted by God, for Christ's sake.
Here we stand.
Really awesome.
ReplyDelete