Bridging the gap between Proclamation of the Word, and administrating the Sacraments

5.0 out of 5 stars Bridging the gap between Proclamation of the Word, and administrating the Sacraments, September 13, 2010
By Bror Erickson "Your Brother in Christ" (Tooele Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Theology Is for Proclamation (Paperback)
Any Pastor who is interested in improving his sermons will be enriched reading this book. Gerhard combats the tendency for a sermon to become a lecture on theology with no real proclamation of salvation. He distinguishes between 1st order 2nd order discourse. one way to think about his is talking about the Gospel, rather than proclaiming the Gospel. One can talk about the Gospel without ever applying the Gospel to those who are listening. The Sermon never gets around to "for you." Perhaps this is a due to a timid pastor who doesn't want to step on toes so talks about sin in the abstract without convicting one of it, and therefore than talking about the gospel in an abstract manner. Of course reformed are ever hesitant to get around to the for you, because they aren't sure. Limited Atonement makes it impossible for the preacher to say with any certainty that Jesus died for you, that Jesus forgives you. But this is the wonderful thing about the Gospel, objective justification manifests itself in subjective salvation. Jesus died for the entire world (John 30)therefore he died for you, therefore your sins are forgiven, yes your sins.
A helpful analogy he has in this book is that he writes of "two lovers conversing" what would your girlfriend make of it if when asking you if you love her, you said yes, I love the whole world, or started talking about what love is, but never getting around to telling her that you do love her, specifically. This is the rub. If we are to be spokesmen for God then we need to apply his love to those who are hearing not just talk about God's love in the abstract.
That is we can not give someone faith by talking about faith, but we give them something to believe in, Jesus Christ died for you. His contention ultimately is that our our gospel proclamation should be more in line with the way the sacraments are administered. The sacraments are the gospel in concrete, water is poured words are spoken, no one can debate, baptism has happened. It matters very little if you believe it, it has happened. The body is eaten, the blood is drunk, the Lord's supper has taken place, sins have been forgiven. It isn't open for debate. What is done is done. So our proclamation is to be Christ died for you, spoken in such a manner that it isn't opened for debate.
All theology is to be going to this point. It is to serve in making this point. your sins are forgiven. It is true whether or not you believe it. Only this approach keeps us from making faith our work something we add to our salvation, but something that merely grabs hold of our salvation and rejoices.
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