We Need The Gospel Too, Ya Know

The Gospel is the sweet savor of salvation for all those who believe. It's the verdict rendered in the work of Christ alone that says 'not guilty!' It is not milk for the babes, nor is it simply something we need to tell unbelievers. It's not something we can move beyond or move past. It's not something we can brush aside as we move on to bigger and better things, or deeper Christian concepts.

It's our lifeblood. It's Jesus.

As I see it, having been through numerous churches in my years, the Confessional Lutheran churches seem to be the only ones who practice this. Now, hear me out. I do not mean to say that there is no Gospel in Evangelical churches, or Reformed Churches, or Orthodox churches, or Roman Catholic churches. Because, you know what, there is. Wherever God's Word is proclaimed and Christ crucified is preached, there is some Gospel there.

But, we need the Gospel continually. The pastor, priest, or whoever is giving the homily or sermon is quite simply put not doing their job if they do not preach Christ crucified for the forgiveness of all of our sins. Every sermon. And if they do not, they have just done the congregation a huge disservice.

We can never relegate the Gospel to secondary status. All too many churches and Christian believers categorize the Gospel as something they already know, so they think they do not need to hear it. What they really need, they surmise, are commands and instructions on how to live a holier life. Now, I grant you, Scripture is replete with commands on how to live. The Decalogue (10 commandments) is the prime example of this.

But...that pesky Law of God always accuses us and shows us that we have not loved the Lord our God with our whole heart, nor have we loved our neighbors as ourselves. We need the Law. The Law is good! (Rom 7) And even more than that, we need the Christ who kept it perfectly on our behalf.

This is why, when we enter the Divine Service, we not only invoke the Triune Name of God by beginning our liturgy in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; but also why the next thing we do is confess our sins and receive a one-sided divine forgiveness through the office of the pastor. As surely as Christ has forgiven our sins, our sins are forgiven by those who stand in the stead of Christ in the office of the ministry. This is why Confessional Lutheranism retains private Confession and Absolution. Yet, this is also why Confessional Lutheranism retains private Confession and Absolution apart from works of satisfaction (aka the Sacrament of Penance in the RCC). The works of satisfaction bit in essence turns the Gospel right back into the Law, as the Roman parishioners are required to do works of satisfaction after Confession, and so on.

But I am not intending to make this a discourse about Roman Catholic Sacraments. Rome has written plenty on that topic, and we will allow Rome to speak for herself in this matter.

Back to the Divine Service. As we enter we are absolved. This is an entrance or introduction of sorts, as we prepare for the Real Presence of Christ in the reading of the Holy Scriptures. Lutherans sometimes relegate the Real Presence to the Eucharist, but in reality, we would be remiss to mention that Christ is present in the Divine Service through the reading of the Word as well. The climax of the Liturgy of the Word in the Divine Service is the reading of the Holy Gospel; the very words of Christ Himself.

Yet, after the reading of the Word, we move on to the sermon (or homily). Here is a bridge from the liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the Sacrament, and the pastor has a simple, but also very difficult, task to accomplish here. The pastor's job in the sermon, every Sunday, is to deliver us the Law of God that kills us and shows us that we are by nature sinful and unclean and stand condemned before God. However, he is also bound to deliver us the Gospel. After preaching that Law, He is to preach Christ crucified for the forgiveness of our sins. The Gospel is not a crutch to bring us back to the Law. The Gospel stands by itself, proclaiming the forgiveness of sins because of Christ's merit, not ours. And done. That is a sermon.

Far from being some sort of "radical" Lutheranism, this is simply the pattern we see over and over in Scripture when the Apostles are preaching.

We need that forgiveness proclaimed every time we gather in the Divine Service in the presence of Christ Himself, angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.

Here is where, as I see it, only the Confessional Lutheran churches stand tall and faithful. Most churches will offer not a proclamation of the Gospel in a sermon, but a guide on what God wants us to do, how to live, or how to do this or that. Most pastors will offer suggestions (from Scripture, in their defense) on how to better follow Jesus by loving God and your neighbor. If the Gospel is mentioned and preached (praise be to God when it is!), it generally is used to move us on to 'bigger and better' things. Like following the Law (commands).

But, that puts us right back where we started. In despair. We hear that Word of God in the Law. We hear those commandments on how to love one another and love God. And once again, we realize that we are in deep trouble. We try to do them. We do our best to honor God. But if we're being honest, we fall completely and utterly short.

Proper distinction and proper usage of the Law and the Gospel seems simple, but in reality, it's not easy. Our pastors have a difficult task of moving us from the Law that condemns us to the forgiveness of sins in Christ that saves us, apart from the Law.

We need the Gospel just as much as every non-Christian in the world today. We need forgiveness just as much as them too. The Gospel does this. It is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16). The Law is not.

Nor should we revert to a sermon format of Law-Gospel-Law (in essence this is what Reformed Theology does). Nor is it just to preach the Law by either preaching strictly on works and holy living or even turning the Gospel into a command to be followed (this is essentially what Rome does). We need Law to accuse and kill, and Gospel to save and forgive. I am not denying the third use of the Law, and our Confessions uphold it in strong language as well. The Divine Service, however, is to give to us the forgiveness of sins, something which the Law, nor our living, can ever possibly do.

The Gospel. It's everything. And you, Christian, need it continually. Just like every other person in this world.

The Gospel is everything because Christ and what He has done is everything.

Grace and Peace

We're All Sacramental. Kind Of. Unless We're Not.

Pretty much every Christian church has Sacraments. And if a church has no sacraments, it rejects means of grace. That usually leads to a false dichotomy between spiritual and physical (*cough* Gnosticism *cough*).

33 year LCMS veteran Pr. Peters wrote an excellent piece on made up sacraments, and I would like to piggyback his thoughts and hit it from a different angle a bit. The blog is found here:

Made Up Sacraments  <<< READ THIS!!!

sac-ra-ment (noun)

Ecclesiastical . a visible sign of an inward grace, especially one of the solemn Christian rites considered to have been instituted by Jesus Christ to symbolize or confer grace: the sacraments of the Protestant churches are baptism and the Lord's Supper; the sacraments of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches are baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, matrimony, penance, holy orders, and extreme unction.

 

That's the definition we get from dictionary.com. According to that site, a sacrament either symbolizes grace or is a means of grace (confers it). I would argue strongly for the latter; that a sacrament is a means of grace, and that is why mainline evangelicalism will not call baptism and the Lord's Supper sacraments. Rather, they are termed as ordinances. An ordinance carries the force of a ceremony or rite, in a purely symbolic sense. No grace is conferred.

 

However, even in these mainline churches, they still have sacraments. They're just not the ones that Christ gave to us. So if baptism and the Lord's Supper aren't sacraments, but rather ordinances...what are the sacraments? More specifically, what are the means of grace in mainstream churches? Well, here are a few.

 

1. Prayer

 

Prayer becomes a form of transaction with God rather than an act of worship and thanksgiving. Prayer is a vital part of Christian life, but it's not something we do to get God to do our will.

 

2. Altar Calls

 

How many times have you seen an evangelical altar call where people walk the aisle and make a decision for Christ? This heterodox practice traces it's roots back to the Second Great Awakening and Pelagian teachers such as Charles Grandison Finney.

 

One big altar call

 

The altar call, sometimes referred to as the invitation, has become a staple of American Evangelicalism, especially in Baptist and Methodist churches. Sadly, nothing even remotely close to this is ever found in Scripture.

 

Know what else came out of the Second Great Awakening? Seventh-Day Adventism, The Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

 

3. The Sinner's Prayer

 

How often have you heard a pastor or evangelist lead people in the sinner's prayer? As someone who was a baptist for years, I heard it a lot. It was almost a given. We took it for granted. That is how one gets saved. You admit that you're a sinner and that you need a Savior, then ask Jesus into your heart. Or, as I have heard stated repeatedly lately (I don't know why, but I have), you "pray" Jesus into your heart.

The Sinner's Prayer: An Example

This is the big one. The evangelical sacrament if there ever was one.

 

The problem is, this is unbiblical at best. Where did any of the Apostle's ever lead a congregation in an altar call or the sinner's prayer in Scripture? You'll search in vain for it, because none of that is in there.

 

Yeah. It's sort of like this in some circles.

 

 

 

I could go on and on and perhaps name some more. I won't. The point is this: None of these things (well, prayer is) are Christian practices. People don't "get saved" by walking an aisle, coming forward to the altar, or praying a prayer asking Jesus into their heart. Only God's creative Word gives us grace that creates faith. Not our choice and not a memorized sinner's prayer that puts Christ in our heart.

 

Here is where someone will interject and say that the methods can change. No, you don't use an argument from methodology to justify unbiblical practices and pragmatism.

 

God did however give us His Word and Sacraments. According to Scripture, they are Baptism and the Lord's Supper. In these, the Word is given to us. In preaching, the Word is given to us. In public reading of Scripture (or private), the Word is given to us.

 

Why did early American Evangelicalism decide to introduce these new methods into their churches? We could probably write a book on that (Such as Michael Horton's Made in America) but we'll keep it simple: Early 19th century American ideals revolved around the sovereignty of the individual and the power of the will (like the self-made man). Those ideals got imported right into faith and practice in Baptist and Methodist churches, and voila.

What is even more appalling is that generally these folks tend to say they stick to Scripture alone, then turn around and reject the sacraments and insert their own.

Now it was not about God giving Himself to us as a gift in Word and Sacrament, it was all about us appropriating it by an act of our will.

 

And sadly, this stuff is still going strong.

+Pax+

If Ur Theology ______ You Might Be A __________

The Church is a hospital for sinners. That is true. The Church is the place where Word and Sacrament are preached and administered, and those are things that you need. Sadly, nowadays, especially in light of our egalitarian and postmodern society, there are some downright wrong ideas of the Church out there. At the very least, there are ideas that throw the baby out with the bathwater.

One such problem running rampant these days is a severe lack of a doctrine of the Office of the Ministry, which leads to a denial of any sort of structure within the Church and finally to self-sufficient worship where there are no means of grace present, no pastors, and no authority. I refer to modern House Church movements mainly.

It is true that local churches met in houses in the first century. However, what is also true is that those first century house churches were nothing like what people are trying to bring back today. They generally met in very large houses that accomodated many people. It wasn't four people sitting around whipping up an emotional atmosphere with an acoustic guitar. It wasn't unstructured anti-liturgical spontaneous combustion either.

The worst theological book I have ever read, Pagan Christianity by Viola and Barna, argued for these sorts of things. Their arguments were extremely faulty for the most part. In essence, some of their argumentation went sort of like this:

• The Early Church met in houses.
• We meet in buildings specifically for "church."
• Therefore, buildings for church are pagan because we're not meeting in houses.

No really, that's sort of how they argued in a roundabout way. Yet this is not the main point of this blog. Having a building for corporate worship is a blessing, not a sin. I'm pretty sure the first century Christians didn't have the resources to just up and build church buildings. So much for the Prosperity Gospel, eh?

The underlying problem with all of this is that this movement does not have any sort of doctrine of the Office of the Ministry. They use the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers quite incorrectly in order to do away with structure within the church and offices within the church. They generally think ordination is a scam as well.

But, this is precisely what Christ Himself instituted. He brought a Kingdom, of which He is the King. He also sent officers to do His work within that Kingdom. He sent Apostles first and then the Apostles sent more people. We have pastors, for instance. The Roman Catholic Church has priests. The bottom line is that the Church needs officers. The Church needs overseers. The Church needs pastors, elders, and deacons. Christ instituted offices. He did not institute a spontaneous free-for-all.

This is not about equality. We're all equal in Christ. It's about what Jesus Christ Himself gave us.

These officers are ordained and commissioned to do Christ's work, to deliver Christ to a sinful world via His Word, given to us in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments.

Yes, the Greek word used for church in the New Testament (and the Septuagint) means an assembly, more or less. The House Church proponents once again abuse the meaning of this word to flaunt their self-sufficient agenda. In short, they use the definition of the Greek word for church and eliminate everything that comes with that term. It's just an assembly of believers, they say. And again, that's true. But within that assembly of believers, Christ gave us the Office of the Ministry.

Looks like fun, but this aint church.

So, if you are running away from the Church as Kingdom of believers that includes offices of leadership, you're running in the wrong direction. The Church is an assembly, but it's also an institution. Christ Himself gave us men to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments. He didn't set up a House Church with no leadership and a heavy dose of spontaneity.

If you're running away from the Church as both assembly of saints and institution of grace with clear leadership and confessions - and running to a house church instead - you're actually running away from Christ and what He gave us.



You're not "doing church." Your version of church isn't more authentic or more real. It's actually false, prideful, and unbelieving. In reality, you're playing church much like little girls play tea parties with empty plastic cups. There is no substance. There is no leadership. You have no Sacrament. There is absolutely nothing except yourself to guard against heresy.

You got nothing, yo. It's nothing more than a version of me, myself, and I Christianity. They love Jesus, but they don't love what He gave us. They love their Father in heaven, but they despise their mother that Christ gave them here to give them grace and guide them to eternity.

Don't get me wrong here either. I am in no way against house worship and family worship. I'm not against small groups. I'm not against meeting together to pray and read the Scriptures as often as possible. But Max and his acoustic is not a means of grace, either.

Don't run from the Church, silly.

But those things are not the church catholic. You need to go to that place, usually held in a building, that delivers Word and Sacrament to you. Stop despising Christ's gifts to you just because you don't like corporate worship and think you can do it better yourself. You can't, and what you are doing is not church.

So yeah...If Ur Theology says you should run away from that mother the Church that Christ gave you, that hospital for sinners and that embassy of grace via Word and Sacrament through the Office of the Ministry, given for you to deliver the forgiveness of sins...

You might be a pagan yourself, because what you're passing off as church is a form of unbelief.

House Churches in the modern day form are nothing more than rebellions against what Christ Himself gave us, and Viola and Barna's book Pagan Christianity is the epitome of this rant against what Christ instituted. Don't be fooled by a couple guys with an agenda. Get to church.

It's 9/11 Today. But...

September 11 is a day that will be forever etched in the minds of Americans. Images of planes slamming into buildings, our American countrymen and women dying, and a scene of complete and utter carnage in New York. And how can we forget the Benghazi attacks where four Americans died needlessly, two of them heroically responding to an attack after being told to stand down; sacrificing themselves for their country?

We will, as Americans, never forget these things. And we shouldn't.

Yet, this is not about wars, or rumors of wars, or terrorism, or American patriotism. This is not another somber remembrance of 9/11, of which we already have a plethora. Nor will this be a politcal rant condemning our former or current administrations. These things are needed of course, to remind us of our history and to analyze our leadership.

This is not going to be about any of that. It's going to be about our blessed and glorious hope we have in Christ. We are reminded by the author of Hebrews, that despite all of the evil in the world today, we have a greater hope. We are not looking for an earthly city, and what we hope for cannot be derailed by evil leaders, terrorism, or persecution.

Hebrews 12:22-24: But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

We have come to Christ, the King of the heavenly Jerusalem. Christ has saved us through His Word. His Word is grace, coming to us in water, bread, wine, absolution, and preaching. And it does what it says and creates faith and forgives sins in those who receive it. In short, it saves us.

We can say, along with the Church catholic, that our hope is not in this world, even though Christ comes to us in this world. We remain here in the world, but we are not of the world. But rather;

Our hope is in the Name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

We can confess, along with the Church catholic, the Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds.

We pray, as Christ taught us to pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven.
Hallowed be Thy Name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the Kingdom
And the power
And the glory
Forever and ever
Amen

And we continue to sing;

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.
Amen

For Christ has died to redeem this fallen world. Thanks be to God.

John 1:29: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!