Reformation Sunday
10/30/10
John 8:31-36
Bror Erickson
[31] So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, [32] and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." [33] They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?"
[34] Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. [35] The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. [36] So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:31-36 (ESV)
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Christ’s word is truth, Christ’s word sets you free. Christ’s word is “Your sins are forgiven.” With these words he sets us free from the bondage of sin, the slavery to sin.
Today is Reformation Sunday. It was on All Hallow’s Eve, a Christian holiday celebrated for centuries already by the time Luther came along, celebrating the fight between good and evil, that Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg bulletin board that was the church door, a place that was at that time a prominent place in the community as everyone went to church on a regular basis. There really wasn’t a whole lot significant about nailing it to the church door, any more than the Bunco registration on ours. But the day had significance. It was an apropos day to kick off a spiritual battle with evil practices of saint worship and indulgences that had crept into the church. That and the next day the huge collection of saint relics would be displayed for the people to come and worship thereby earning time out of purgatory. It is peculiar though reading those theses, that they don’t exactly display all those hallmarks of Reformation thought one would suppose them to. They marked the beginning of a struggle that would send Luther and others back to the scriptures over and over again to examine what exactly was wrong with the church. Perhaps a case where something smells rotten, but it takes a bit of investigating to find the source of the rottenness. You know, like that rotten French fry in your car, you can‘t see it and you begin to search, at first you think it is the sneakers in the back seat? In the end the Reformation became about the forgiveness of sins, and how it is that one is actually made righteous in the face of God. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
I suppose this sentence today makes about as much sense to the vast majority of Christians as it did to the Jews who had believed in Jesus. You see we struggle with this damnable heresy called “free will” or in these parts “free agency.” and this doctrine does nothing but keep one in bondage to sin death and the devil, it is the devil’s Orwellian double speak.
You know how Orwell talks about the government subterfuge of double speak in his book “1984,” the pastime of politicians to say one thing and mean by it quite another thing. The Devil does this too. And his word of choice these days is free will.
The Jews thought they were free because of their family ancestry, because they struggled to keep the law so well. They could not understand this concept of bondage, bondage to sin which made them children of Satan, the father of lies. Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. During the reformation these topics were taken up in the now famous debate between Erasmus and Luther. Erasmus wrote “On Free Will” trying to defend the Roman Catholic Church and thereby show his suspect loyalty to the church in the Reformation. Luther responded in writing “The Bondage of the Will” which though not as elegantly written as Erasmus’s diatribe, is a much more fun book to read for its scrappy character and blue collar language. You guys that haven’t read much Luther miss out on a man who knows how to scrap. “The Bondage of the Will” is Luther at his best.
But this is what Luther had come to learn in his life and intense study of God’s word. He was not free. Day in and day out he toiled against sin to make himself perfect, to pacify God, to find forgiveness. But in the end he found, to quote Luther, “If the will is free then there is no such thing as Grace”. “If you abide (remain, dwell) in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know truth and the truth will set you free.”
We have to be set free. We are born in bondage. We are sinners not because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners, slaves to sin. Jesus comes to set us free from sin, because our wills simply aren’t free.
Now don’t take that to mean that things are beyond your choice. Equally bad as this heresy of Free Will is concerned, is this heresy called Determinism, or the idea that God is to blame for everything you do. Lutherans have always acknowledged that there are things below us that are under our control. You get to choose your job, your spouse, what you eat for dinner, whether or not you want to go to church, have children etc. You can even restrain yourself from outward and blatant sin. Just because you think of adultery, fornication, murder, stealing etc doesn‘t mean you have to follow through, you can and should restrain yourself from doing such things. We just can’t choose to be sinless. We can’t choose God, or choose to be forgiven. Some things are beyond our ability. We can’t set ourselves free, even harder when we confuse our slavery for freedom. Even our own attempts at righteousness, our attempt to justify ourselves before God, are born of our sinful nature, and are sin. Our good works when born of a sense of Karma, or an effort to make ourselves better in the eyes of God sinful. Try to make up for a sin by doing something we perceive to be good, and it is sin.
See being free, being righteous, being forgiven, these things are not in our control. But Jesus says to the Jews who had believed in Him, if you remain in my word, you are trully my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
These words come after a long discussion in which Jesus shows that he is the Messiah. Some of the Jews believed in him, others I suppose did not. Jesus wants them to understand what it means to believe in him. It means to remain in his word. It means to hold to his word steadfastly. It means that when Jesus speaks we not only believe in him, but we believe him and what he says. And that is a problem today. So many give nothing but lip service to Jesus, saying they believe in Him, and nothing but lip service to His word, proclaiming that the Bible is inerrant etc, but believing nary a word it says. People read it and read nothing but law. They confuse the gospel, good news, with law, and return like dogs to vomit back to their slavery. They will not hear when Jesus says “your sins are forgiven.”
But this is Jesus word, your sins are forgiven. That above all is what he came to say to this world, what he came to accomplish in this world, that your sins are forgiven. Yes yours. There is nothing more for you to do. Salvation is yours, not because of what you have done or will do. Not because you chose Jesus, but because of what Jesus did when he chose you, and decided to wash all your sins away in the waters of Holy Baptism. And now because of that baptism, because of his choice to die for you sins, rise from the dead that you might walk in the newness of life, now you remain in his word, you abide in his word, you live in forgiveness, because forgiveness is the source and substance of the Christian life.
Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment