greehnery

[greehnery]

Sin: Taken, Not Forsaken

“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” ‭‭ John‬ ‭1:29‬ 

Bad habits are hard to kick. Truth be told, one of the biggest reasons for that is that there’s something comforting or enjoyable about them that makes them seem like anything but—even while they kill us.

Perhaps with enough effort and dedication though, we can rid ourselves of such things. Become better people. This does seem to happen, true enough. If we’re honest it’s something we see manifest even with those who may not be believers in Christ. It’s not something you need Him for and it’s not what He came to do.

Because though the law calls for it, it doesn’t actually make you better.

Try as you may to master your own flesh, to let go of your sin, you will only end up even more inward bent and bound. In spite of your apparent victories, you’ll end up even worse of a sinner.

You and I need someone to wrest our sin from our filthy, desperately wicked hands. “Over my dead body,” the retort goes, when something we cherish so dearly is threatened so.

To which Jesus responds, “Exactly.” For the wages of sin is death. Such is what our sins earn us, no exceptions. No escape. When the law spots and accuses of sin, its judgement is final: you must die. Such is the only way your sin and mine will ever be defeated.

What are we to do then? Is all hope lost? Are we simply damned? It would seem so. But...

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Behold His wounds, by which you are healed. Behold your sin in His body. Behold Him who became sin for you! Behold His death, and make no mistake—it is yours also!

Behold His burial. Behold your sin laid there to rest in the grave, sealed away, never to be seen or heard from again.

Behold His resurrection, in which new life springs forth, freely, as the Father by the Spirit breathes on Him. Behold, the Son shares this breath of life with you, without reservation, without hesitation.

And lest there be any doubt of what has happened, behold the marks in His hands, feet and side. Behold their inscription, your very own name.

Peace be with you. For you, dear sinner, have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. On account of Christ your sin is forgiven entirely—past, present and future. It’s defeated and done with; the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is finished. Go, and sin no more!

[greehnery]

Baptism Now Saves You

“You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Colossians 3:3

This is a distinctly baptismal word of promise. A forthright declaration of its potency. Its truth. Its actuality. Because it is not our work, but God’s, baptism accomplishes what it says, and yes, it very much saves us by pulling us out of our fruitless endeavoring to find God, who is our salvation, where He will not be found. Because it is not His will to be found there.

All too often though, it is said that baptism is merely an outward show of inward obedience. Yet if the waters of baptism are emptied of the Word of promise put there by God—His very name, which becomes yours, along with His perfect righteousness in your stead—then the rest of your Christian life will follow this same pattern. Following sign after sign, fumbling around in the darkness of your own sinful heart (to say nothing of everyone else’s) in order to find some measure of faith’s veracity. Faith without works is dead, so get busy. Prove yourself.

And when that lofty effort inevitably falls through, remember your baptism, and all that is already yours in Christ.

It is finished! Your sin is forgiven. You, dear sinner, have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

[greehnery]

Faith Active through Love

“Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.’”

Luke 18:15-17 ESV

Faith without works is dead.

Surely this statement of James post-Jesus was already on the disciples’ minds as they saw crowds bringing helpless little infants to Jesus that He may touch and bless them.

What a waste of His precious time and energy! They can’t think for themselves! They can’t understand what’s going on here! These are adult matters—or at least young adult matters. There’s a point at which we learn to reason and begin to grasp accountability, responsibility, and the like. Big words.

Yet it is precisely such as these, Jesus says, the kingdom of God belongs to. And not only that—if we cannot receive the kingdom—Jesus!—like one of these, in all their perfect, precious passivity, we will not enter it.

We object, “but wait! Isn’t what James said true? Surely if we have nothing to give, we still have something to prove!”

Yes to the first, and a resounding N O to the second.

And that’s good news. The greatest news you will ever hear. For God does not lie, and when He says in His death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, “it is finished—I forgive you!”, He means it!

What He demands in His law is fully and completely given in His gospel promise for you, in preaching, in the waters of baptism laden with His name, and in the lowly bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, declared to be His very body and blood. On account of His blood you, dear wretched sinner, are declared perfectly righteous and obedient to God. Your sin is His, His works are yours. In Christ you have nothing to gain nor prove to Him, to yourself, or anyone else.

The faith created by the hearing of this promise gravitates to its Maker and Giver, who gives all of Himself in its very utterance. Trusts His faithfulness in spite of our faithlessness. Hears, believes, and confesses in kind the utter sufficiency of the preached Word in and of itself. And thereby declares Him to the just justifier of the unjust, who are conceived and brought forth in iniquity.

Just as infants know and trust their parents to provide their every need, so it is with us and our Heavenly Father. Out of such faith, not our works, real fruit is borne (Gal. 5:16-25). Let the little children come, and...

“Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

John 3:7-8

Rest easy, dear sinner. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

[greehnery]

For Freedom, For You

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.”

John‬ ‭10:10, Galatians‬ ‭4:21-22

One takes. The other gives. One uproots; the other plants.

It goes without saying right now that we’re living in tumultuous times. Voices surround us every day, vice and virtue, beating us into submission. Sometimes it happens to us; sometimes we’re the ones doling it out. What with the pandemic and the pressures to be seen as righteous in our response to it, as well as the poison that is our own politics, berating one another, including our own brothers and sisters in Christ based on one another’s ballots...deep down our heart’s collective cry is one of deliverance.

This is most certainly true for everyone, in all of human history, both Christian and secular. We all want salvation. Perhaps more aptly and especially in this moment, what we want, truly, is freedom. And without us even realizing it, having to spend an entire year plus right now with this “new normal” is exposing the depths of our fallen reality.

What we need is a pure, undefiled, unthwartable promise.

Law, you see, is the language of our natural man. It’s more than just a set of commands etched on stone—perfect picture though that may be of our faithless hearts—and it’s more than just the first five books of the Bible (the Torah). It’s really the stuff of our daily lives. Hence the petition of the Lord’s Prayer to “give us this day our daily bread”. It’s the air we breathe. Food, clothing. Circumstances, even. In a sense then there would seem to be nothing in this world more real. But Jesus assures us, life is so much more than these.

Yet our tendency is to think that if anything is going to get done, demands (and maybe some good old fashioned spiritual elbow grease) are going to bring it about. Certainly the promises of God (to say nothing of our own) by comparison seem weak, pitiful, and powerless; such is how they come to us after all. But the law, it turns out, is spiritual; we are made of flesh. Left to ourselves a promise becomes an aid to the law at best, if not completely synonymous with it.

When we speak of promises, we too often treat them like anything but—and talk like thieves and robbers, belittling the very power of God unto salvation in favor of some fragment of “freedom” we suppose sin hasn’t permeated in us—rather than faithfully delivering the same life-giving Word we’ve been given in all its radical death-defying purity.

So enamored are we with the ���strong man armed’ in all his apparent glory--with his crossed t’s and dotted i’s--that we forget about the puny little child lying in a filthy manger, born to die—who nevertheless binds up this strong man and divides the spoil among the citizens of His eternal kingdom. After all, sight is better than sound, and actions speak louder than words...right? Speaking of which, who wants a God in diapers, “Lord at thy birth”, as we rightly sing, while He was yet—excuse my French—a literal pants-crapper, swimming not only in his own stink but that of His creatures surrounding Him...who grows up to waste His life preaching such a foolish thing as forgiveness to all the wrong people, only to be strung up on a cross, to die the most humiliating death known to man? To say nothing of even being associated with one so pitiful...What a joke!

Rather, when we speak of this precious, living Promise—the Word made flesh, God’s own Christ—we throw Him to the voracious beast that is the law, to be swallowed up in yet more “shoulds”, “oughts”, and “musts”. Why this hunger and thirst for what does not ultimately satisfy, much less save?

We forget, willingly at times, that it was for freedom that Christ has set us free. Let me say that again. It was for freedom that Christ has set us free. That’s free freedom—given freely!

Because as beings who presume themselves to be free already, true freedom—Christian freedom, as promised by and only through Christ—is not only frightening, it is offensive.

On that note, allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment.

When the serpent said to Adam and Eve that they would not die when they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was he correct? Likewise when he said to them that their eyes would be opened?

Of course he was. After that first bite, there they stood—alive and kicking, with freshly opened eyes. It’s what he did not say that perpetrated the lie and powered the temptation toward life in morality rather than simple, creaturely sufficiency in the things God had made for us (and consequently, in Himself, as they were sacramentally given).

So it is now. Just so is the law correct in accusing us of sin left, right, up, down and all around. In exposing the gravity of our sinful condition—not just the sum total of sins (plural) over against our “good works”—and leaving us with absolutely no breathing room with which to justify ourselves. Just so is the law holy, righteous and just in stopping our lying mouths cold—putting us sinners to death. Dashing us to pieces.

It is when we fail to recognize its limit, its end in Christ, that the heart of man becomes a living hell, bound to trust in its own (feigned) goodness come hell or high water. And we ought not think ourselves immune as Christians; we are, after all, simultaneously justified and sinful, not one or the other, but 100% sinful in and of ourselves and 100% righteous, externally, in Christ.

Therefore, this love affair we have with unknowns, uncertainties, unfaithfuls, and indeed, what remains unsaid, undone, is very real and ever-present within us.

Put another way, given the choice—we would go for the unpreached God, hidden and obscured in all His overwhelming glory and majesty—in short, by the law—over God given, God preached, God clothed in womb, water and Word of promise any day. Because the former puts some distance between us and God, allowing us to size things up and make our decision “for Him”, while the latter gets all up in our sinful business, claiming it as His own so as to lavish His perfect righteousness on those who did not ask for it (for we hate the light, and hide our faces from it, He rightly says). Jesus comes to flip the salvific script on us, and we who want to be the stars of the story and trust that the law ultimately proves it to be so don’t like it one bit.

And whenever the gospel is not proclaimed to sinners in all its scandalous freedom, grace and truth, it allows us time and space—valuable materials from which we forge a host of hollow, idolatrous promise-makers. All of which sound sanctified and blessed, but amount to us making a name for ourselves—and end with a crucified, abandoned Christ. Make no mistake; God is not mocked.

As He put it through the prophet Jeremiah:

“Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” ‭‭

Both Christ and the religious bigwigs of his day (whom aren’t so different from us today) made their claims to freedom. But because death itself could not hold Him...God preached in the Word of the cross is decidedly the opposite of all our haughty hopes and autonomous dreams. He is precisely the death of them, of us as sinners, the death of death itself, and the beginning of a new creation. Not phony, little-g gods, but rather something far more earthy. Mundane. Perhaps even distinctly unappealing, and not particularly “beautiful” or glorious as we are so apt to think.

Humans. Creatures whose bondage to dead works, to self-sustenance, justification and glorification is a thing of the past. Good trees which produce—you guessed it—good fruit! Who simply live and give. And this, not by the sight of the law. Not by being goaded into it some such way. But by bare-naked, passive faith in the promise that it will happen, because God said so.

After all, He does not lie—he speaks, and the thing is, in fact, done. He alone calls a thing what it is, who calls into existence that which does not exist. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

And this, brothers and sisters in Christ, is where freedom becomes so, well, freeing. And for sinners, utterly frightening. We know ourselves. And consequently we fear what others might do when they are truly set free, by being told, again and again, while they are yet sinners—that it really is finished, that in baptism Christ’s death and resurrection is in a very tangible and present way theirs, they are forgiven, and there is nothing left for them to do. Period.

Where the law is all we ever hear, there is nothing but all manner of uncertainty, strife, envy, murder, and selfishness in our foolish pursuit of some ideal of perfection...but where the promise of God—Christ for you—is spoken, law’s relentless voice is both fulfilled and finally stilled as with the waves of the sea...and there exists no more accusation, no transgression, no condemnation.

What then? Is the very question that the apostle Paul not only anticipated, but answered time and again not with to-do lists, however short, but with this blessed good news. And while it may seem like I’ve just been prattling on about pithy, sanctimonious nonsense in light of all that’s going on around us—it has everything to do not just with eternity, but with our messy lives in the here and now, in a world very much given back to us who believe. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

The good news is simply that in the midst of all the muck and mire and God-knows-what of your everyday life, the kingdom of heaven has come near. You don’t have to “meet your Maker” as it were, because He has already met you in this very Word. And though you feel anything but free, especially right now, your bondage to sin is over. On account of this little Christ, crucified for your transgression and risen for your justification...you—yes, you—are forgiven and free indeed.

The grass withers, and the flowers fade, and so too do we...but the Word of the Lord stands forever. Hear His promise for you once more: come what may, dear sinner, you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

[greehnery]

You are Not “Free Will”, But Forgiven (Therefore Free)!

Excerpted from “Luther’s Outlaw God, Volume 2: Hidden in the Cross”, pp. 117 – 119;

“Erasmus thought that, taken in total, church history testified against Luther’s gospel by saying that all the saints that have made up what we call “church” are demonstrably on the side of free will… Erasmus determined that if one took care to look at church history, a saint is simply one who argues for free will, and then follows through that assumption with the living demonstration of its truth by effectively ruling one’s own will. Of course, self-rule is not autonomous for Erasmus. It is helped every step of the way by grace…

… So God’s revelation in the church is both free will and the law, and these explain what history itself is for. God wants you to know he is law, and you are free will in relation to this law. That is the Great Tradition of the orthodox church in a nutshell and is the glue for Erasmus of the narrative of both church and world.

... Luther simply blows this up…

... Church history especially reveals opposition to Christ, and then what Christ does to overcome it… History is the story of saintly opposition to God that does not cease unto death, and the greatest opposition does not come from the basest sinners, but those with the highest intellect and moral virtue…

For Luther, history is the assault on Christ that does not cease until history itself ends… When history ends, so does the law. That law, from beginning to end, accuses sinners of sins – showing us who they are – but law does not reveal the inner heart or will of God. The laws of history are not a glimpse into the hidden mind of God. God’s ways of hiding and revealing himself take place where and when historians are least able to grasp them. God hides outside of preaching, and reveals himself inside of it… Luther’s saint was no longer measured by the law, but by whether the gospel was preached to him. Neither is history measured by that same law. That reversal of sainthood and history is another instance of Luther’s bomb that blows up free will and the theology of God as the law…”

[greehnery]

Yeah, but...

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

--Matthew 5:48

What is your first thought when you hear these words? Despair? Encouragement? Indifference?

Do you perhaps recognize that this is in fact an impossible command from Christ? Good.

But what is then your next reaction? For many, it’s to soften the words—to shield oneself from the sheer full-frontal accusation of absolute sin inherent in them, to protect our own spiritual aspirations toward this “goal” of perfection at all costs, and perhaps even to excuse God from doing something we perceive to be so downright unfair. After all, that’s what sanctification is all about, right?

Having our sin exposed by the law and mustering the willpower to kill it off bit by bit until there’s nothing left? Why would He be so cruel as to tell us on pain of death to do something He knew we not only wouldn’t do, but couldn’t?

In other words, we take a straightforward command like this not as it is, without exception, but make it doable. Be perfect + grace simply becomes “do your best”.

But Jesus does not even make the slightest suggestion that that is the case. In fact it goes against not only everything He just said in His Sermon on the Mount, in which He took the law as it is commonly understood and actually cranked up the heat, but dilutes the condemning voice thereof: “do this, and live; the wages of sin is death; for all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written: Everyone who does not continue doing everything written in the book of the law is cursed.” (Romans 6:23a, Galatians 3:10). To say nothing of the sharp indictment of our righteousness as filthy given by God through the Old Testament prophet (Isaiah 64:6).

As this very same divine Law is a mirror, exposing sin for what it is, Paul states it bluntly in Galatians what this pursuit of perfection by desperately wicked sinners like us ultimately looks like, and how it ends;

“Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I tell you about these things in advance — as I told you before — that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Galatians 5:19-21

And as Martin Luther put it in his Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11:

“Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present unless the judgement of condemnation is feared in every work.”

Every work. Good and bad, grace or no grace. For what, if free will be so prevalent, stops us from assuming for ourselves what belongs only to God? Including...free will itself?

Grace does not remove the death penalty. It doesn’t grade on a curve. The law’s just sentence on us sinners is final. Death is necessary, that new life may spring forth from the weakest and most unlikely Word, apart from the law: “I forgive you” (Isaiah 43:25).

And what is started by this Word—created from the nothing of our sin, death, and deserved hell, is sustained and finished thereby. That’s a pure promise (1 Thess. 5:23-24, Hebrews 10:14)!

There is no room in the Gospel for our sinful, preconceived notion of “free will” toward God. Those who believe have none of the time necessary for decision making on their own; rather, as Christ Himself assures us, “He who hears my word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24; emphasis mine). In other words, the thing is done already! Even the faith which we are so eager to claim for ourselves is rather wrought purely by the creative word of God’s love for us. The cross—the death and resurrection of Christ—is His decision for us. His death and life are ours simply in trusting that it is already so.

The foolishness of the message we preach is that actually telling the truth of salvation—that we don’t have to do a thing to attain it, indeed that we cannot and will not, that it really is finished, and pure gift on account of Christ’s finished work for us at that—does not produce dead do-nothings! Which certainly includes the common objection of licentiousness (I like to consider the story of the jailer and the miraculously freed inmates of Acts 16:25-34 with regards to this, for one!). God has indeed chosen what is weak and foolish in this world, this legal sphere we live in, to shame the wise, those who champion their own fleshly will and reasonings over the wisdom and weakness of God (1 Cor. 1:18-31).

The cross isn’t just an “old, old story”, as the song goes; as God’s chosen people, it’s our story, here and now, just as relevant and powerful now as ever—and continues to be so until the Lord takes us home. Full stop. Weary sinner, you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. It is finished!

[greehnery]

Forde: on Gospel Timidity

“Shall we sin the more that grace may abound? By no means! Why? For you have died and how can you who have died to sin still live in it? The reason why abounding grace does not lead to sin lies in the fact that in its radicality it puts an end to the old, not in some species of compromise with the old. Furthermore, we miss the radicality of that if we do not see that this death is announced as an accomplished fact: you have died. The death is not something yet to be done, one last act of spiritual suicide for “free choice”. If Jesus died for all, then all have died (2 Cor. 5:14).

There is too much timidity, too much worry that the gospel is going to harm someone, too much of a tendency to buffer the message to bring it under control.

It is essential to see that everything hangs in the balance here. Faith comes by hearing. Will the old persist? Will we understand ourselves to be continuously existing subjects called upon to exercise our evanescent modicum of free choice to carve our some sort of eternal destiny for ourselves?

That depends. It depends on whether someone has the courage to announce to us, “you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God!”

--Gerhard Forde

[greehnery]

Great talk on election, the Law, “predestination sickness”...and its cure! Spoilers: it’s not found in the Law. It’s much too free for that (Isaiah 43:25, 55:1-2); “It is I who sweep away your transgressions for My own sake and remember your sins no more.”

[greehnery]

Had I Been Aware

“Come and listen, all who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for me. I cried out to Him with my mouth, and praise was on my tongue. If I had been aware of malice in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. However, God has listened; He has paid attention to the sound of my prayer. May God be praised! He has not turned away my prayer or turned His faithful love from me.”

‭‭—Psalm ‭66:16-20‬

All too often in churches the beautiful and magnificent promises of God are heralded loud…but perhaps not so clear. Just as quickly as we proclaim Christ crucified and risen for the forgiveness of sins do we hear strings attached. We may well preach the sufficiency of God’s grace, but only insomuch as it grants us the ability to “choose” Him—as though the Gospel were but a call to legal obedience, a do-over of Eden, or some other such form of law, nothing more, nothing less. But speculation and “second chances” are not a promise of good news. The fear of the scandalous and sure freedom brought by the Gospel in the context of pious (and many well-meaning) church-going folk has always been one of lawlessness; tell people that they are free indeed in Christ from self—sin, death, hell, and yes, even the law—and they’re bound to wander off into all manner of anarchy and licentiousness. What kind of world would that be, where a promise holds utmost preeminence and power over imperatives, even going so far as to bring them to an end? We must keep this monster—God Himself—on a leash!

This was true even back in the apostle Paul’s day, which is what brought him in his tremendous theological discourse that is the book of Romans to pen Romans 6, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He had just stated at the end of the chapter prior that where the law multiplied and exposed sin, God’s grace was greater still! Naturally, this leads us to ask, “so what? That sounds like we can just sin ourselves silly! Right?”

But this is the Old Adam and Eve in us, whose will is bound in sin, desperately fighting to stay alive in light of the good news of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ—His death and life, which in a very present and tangible way become ours in baptism. His death and life, which we would not only refuse Him but ourselves too (Matthew 16:21-25). It’s our sinful self struggling to keep some skin in the salvation game—to be justified and sanctified in some minuscule way apart from the promise of God (Romans 1:16-17).

Much to the old Adam and Eve’s chagrin, done, crucified and buried with Christ is the old, dead, legal way of thinking. As such Paul does not respond to this objection of the flesh with law, but with the Gospel—good news! He does not give us a ladder by which forgiveness, salvation, sanctification, and the whole shebang are now possible—but a promise of what is now our reality in, and on account of Christ for us. Nothing is more real, more certain than faith that comes by hearing this same Word (Romans 10:17, 1 Cor. 1:26-31)!

The rejoicing of the psalmist here is likewise magnified by his awareness of his great sin in light of such a holy and majestic God (Psalm 66:18). Indeed, why should any of us expect our prayers, which are laced with sin and self-concern above God and others, to ever be heard by one so perfect and righteous as He? Even our flimsy attempts at repentance are half-hearted at best (as evidenced by the objection at the start of Romans 6). And like the psalmist, none of us truly know the depth of our sin (Psalm 19:12). If only a fraction of such knowledge is so crushing, how much more glorious and freeing is the promise of forgiveness for God’s own namesake (Isaiah 43:25)? That is, outside of us, and anything we say, think, feel, or do?

As it turns out, we do not have to clean up our act to come to Him. The simple fact of the law is that God will not hear a sinner’s prayer, no matter how pious. But the good news is that we have an advocate—a Mediator (John 9:30-31). One perfect, sinless Man who took on our sin and became the world’s biggest sinner for us, that we may be made righteous in Him, Christ Jesus. He is the end of sin, death, hell, and yes, even the law for all who believe (Romans 10:4, Galatians 3:24). As surely as the water and Word of baptism does Christ’s blood cleanse us perfectly of all sin in the Father’s eyes, so that when he sees us and hears us, he sees and hears not the sinner, but the sinless One, His only begotten Son. By His stripes we are healed, and by His Word, His promise of forgiveness for His own sake, we are made new. Again and again and again!

Rest! It is finished; for Jesus’ sake our sin is forgiven in its entirety—past, present and future, right here and now. God raised Him from the dead and sent Him to you, to bless you by repenting you…of you, to Himself (Acts 3:26). It is the Father’s good pleasure to freely give of His kingdom, before we ever ask!

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

[greehnery]

What happens when God gives a promise, only to suddenly and silently attack it in the very next minute? Jacob, in his own encounter, has much to say, as does the Author and Finisher of his faith, and ours. You who are weary and burdened, rest; it is finished! On account of Christ, you are forgiven!

[greehnery]

Just Tell Us What to Do

“This great fire will consume us and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. For who out of all mankind has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, as we have, and lived? Go near and listen to everything the Lord our God says. Then you can tell us everything the Lord our God tells you; we will listen and obey.”

— Deuteronomy 5:25-26

It goes without saying that we’re living in uncertain times right now. Pandemics, politics, protests…it seems there’s fire all around us. Condemnation and judgement abound everywhere you look, regardless of party lines. “Wear a mask.” “Don’t wear a mask.” “Don’t believe that headline, it’s obviously a political ploy.” “Don’t you care about spreading this virus to someone especially vulnerable?” “A vote for this guy is a vote against this cause.” “Not voting is a vote for that cause.” “Speak out against racism; silence is conformity.” On and on it goes. And this has all exploded within a matter of months.

No matter who you talk to, all (or most, at least) would agree that we’re ready for the great societal and economical unrest, as well as the myriad injustices plaguing our world right now, to come to an end…or in smaller, more comfortable terms, for a sense of peace and normalcy to return to our daily lives. To have things under control, perhaps. The trouble is, not all (or most, in fact) agree on just how to approach this lofty goal.

Whether we admit it or not, whether we’re even aware of it or not, we all have a dog in the race of civil righteousness. The law may be written on all our hearts, but we all want to own it, to be right by it, to be its masters and judges, not so much for the good of others…which is just what the law was given to expose in us (Jeremiah 17:9).

Frankly, we just want to be told what to do. Which includes every should, ought, and must you can think of. Because we not only think we can do it, but that we will do it. Such haughtiness was the case with Israel back in Moses’ day, and it’s no different with us today. We’re not only desperate self-justifiers at heart…but there’s really no one we trust in this world more than ourselves, if we’re being honest. And the more the law is haplessly thrown around as it is in our current cultural climate, the more it destroys our ability to trust one another. Left to the legal sphere of this fallen world, we can but ask, as Pontius Pilate once did…”what is truth?”

Yet in spite of our great sin, starting with the First Commandment on down…we have been given something greater than law—that is, something to do, which incessantly, ceaselessly, and mercilessly condemns and kills each and every one of us, for the law demands absolute perfection at all times. No exceptions (Matthew 5:48).

Rather, we have been given a promise. Something done for us, perfect and complete, from before the foundation of the world. One of forgiveness and restoration, not as a condition, but as a person. Life!

“But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been revealed — attested by the Law and the Prophets — that is, God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.”

— Romans 3:21-26

We are forgiven and free on account of Christ (Isaiah 43:25). Full stop! Christ is the end of the law for all who believe (Romans 10:4, Galatians 3:24). In baptism, His death, burial and resurrection become ours in a way that can be seen, felt, grasped, and remembered, just as surely as the water washed and the Word spoken over us. Along with all of God’s promises in Him, from now until He returns for His bride, the church (2 Cor. 1:18-22). The same for the Lord’s Supper, wherein His body and blood are consumed, and His holiness, in a very real, immediate, and tangible way, is taken in.

But then this begs the question posed in the title of this piece, and by our current circumstances…right? A promise is great and all, but we still need to be told what to do…right? Faith is wonderful, but some marching orders set before our eyes on tablets of stone (or aluminum and glass, or even just pencil and paper) would be a lot less scary (not to mention less risky)…

Right?

As Martin Luther once put it,

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

That’s quite a conundrum. But such is the Christian. Put another way (also by Luther), we are simul justus et peccator. Simultaneously justified and sinful. This is far weightier than the common evangelical saying that we are sinners saved by grace—which could easily, and often does, imply that we are far more righteous and far less sinful in ourselves than we really are. To the contrary, the simul calls a thing what it is—“I the sinner, God the justifier”. That is, we are and always will be, in these fleshly bodies, 100% sinful, and in Christ, entirely outside of ourselves, declared 100% righteous.

We need to hear the law preached in all its terrible weight. Not as a friend, for that is Christ. The letter kills. But the Spirit—the Word of Christ and Him crucified that is the Gospel—gives life. This we need to hear in all its surpassing glory and scandalous freedom! For it is the very power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16-17). When push comes to shove, we live by faith in God’s promises, not the sight of the law.

And that is the point of all this theological talk. To declare just how free we are in Christ, and to proclaim that very freedom to wretched, damnable, self-absorbed captives like me and you. In a very real and present way…what more can be said, when all is said and done? It is finished! Christ is risen and seated at the Father’s right hand, and for His own sake we are forgiven.

“Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters; and you without money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost!”

Isaiah 55:1

Freely we have received. Freely give!

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

[greehnery]

Pretty sure you’ve never heard the Parable of the Good Samaritan quite like this before. I had to listen to it twice, lol. For real though, this is what proper Law/Gospel distinction and exegesis does--puts Christ crucified and risen for us at the absolute center of everything, and does not concede an inch. Check it out! You won’t be sorry.

[greehnery]

“There won’t be a cry of ‘it is finished,’ you’ll have to finish it on your own. There won’t be a burial either. You’ll have to die to your sin all by yourself, just do your best when death overtakes you. Try your hardest to resurrect on the third day, and if you do, then you must make the long jump to the presence of God and stand there before the Almighty Judge. Wash your hands really well; they’ve got to be super clean. And your heart must be altogether pure with not even the tiniest spot of sin.” And so on. Prophets like these never run out of good advice.”

The bad news is, this is the crux of what preaching tends to sound like oftentimes when law and gospel are not rightly distinguished. Perhaps the gospel is preached, albeit balled up with conditions, laws, you name it--something for your frail sense of “free will” toward God to muster up on its own.

True enough, this is the righteous decree of the law of God; “be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Absolutely no exceptions.

The good news is...the law is not the good news! The gospel! The promise that freely gives what the law demands. It really is finished, and you are forgiven, right now, for Jesus’ sake!

[greehnery]

Law in a World of Lawless Sinners

“When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn’t become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there’s no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the inexorable law of diminishing returns. The mania for punishment will therefore get worse before it gets better.”

—Alan Jacobs, “Snakes and Ladders”

This is so good, y’all. And incidentally, so is the law...when used lawfully (1 Timothy 1:3-11).

The great irony, however, is that we all, as lawless sinners, actually love the law with all our being. I mean, if the first and foremost commandment says anything of us, that’s it right there. What else do we know apart from God but the law? If we don’t love Him with all we are, we certainly don’t truly love anyone else as much as we think. Everything is rooted in self. And the law written on our hearts, being the cruel taskmaster that it is, happens to be the only “friend” we’ve got.

When asked, “what if Satan took over a city?" this is what Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse had to say...

"All of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am," and churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ is not preached."

Striking how loathe we are to believe Satan’s willingness to masquerade as an angel of light. We immediately gravitate toward the more obvious and convenient appearance of evil against the law, rather than against the gospel. Evil then becomes whatever is contrary to speculation...which happens to be the very promise in Christ, the forgiveness of sin, which actually gives and sustains life.

The shocking reality is that the Old Adam, our sinful flesh, desperately wants to be justified in any way possible before God and others apart from Christ. This is why we need the Gospel front and center in churches, rightly divided from the law. We need Christ for us proclaimed loud and clear. The promise of forgiveness in His name, not further speculation of how to maybe fix ourselves by showing enough contrition over sin first, then spending a lifetime climbing a self-righteous ladder to get to where we think He is, or to be who we think He wants us to be...which is the best the law can ever offer us.

No, in light of the law’s scathing, true, and relentless voice of condemnation, we need to hear the truer absolution proclaimed boldly and freely (Isaiah 43:25).

‘Your sin is forgiven on account of Christ.’

Every day. Every week. Always. And especially in our pulpits, which all too often are completely oblivious to what pure promise sounds like apart from the law, and rife with monotonous, one-note legal preaching. No, rather, it’s the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation, the very end of the law, for all who believe (Romans 1:16-17, 10:4). The One and only Word which makes all things new, over and over and over! And will do so finally and absolutely when Christ returns to rule and reign forevermore. Anytime we are not fed with the Bread of Life, and given freely to drink from the Fountain of Living Water that is Christ alone, we will slide into merciless moralism. “Take; eat; this is my body which is given for you,” Jesus said as He instituted the Lord’s Supper before His death on the cross. Oh, that we actually trusted the Word of God to do what He has sent it to do, that it will not return to Him void, that in Christ, our Creator, the Author and Finisher of our faith--we have nothing to prove to the Father nor anyone else, and that He really doesn’t need our help. Our neighbor does!

The Law cannot save. It accuses. Kills. Divides. Produces wrath. Destroys us in our self-righteous pretension and ambition. And when we by the Spirit are brought to terms with the death we must die (Romans 6:23a), there stands the crucified and risen Christ, who was there all along, taking our sin as His own, and in no uncertain terms becoming sin for us, that His righteousness may be ours, freely, before we ever ask. The one thing we desperately wicked sinners don’t want to hear finally becomes our living hope: it is finished (2 Cor. 5:21, John 19:30, Rom. 6:23b).

Repent, and believe the good news!

[greehnery]

You Are Not as White as Snow

This post is taken from The Sinner/Saint Devotional: 60 Days in the Psalms (found here). This entry in particular was written by Daniel Emery Price:

“Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

Psalm 51:7

Hanging on to our sin is a terrible business. When it goes unconfessed, we usually try to double and triple down on it to keep it off the radar. Then we end up with far more than just the initial transgression we try to hide. And something happens to our conscience during our unholy charade. We stop feeling the weight of our sin. We are simply self-blinded to what we’ve done. And in the end, we tragically feel and see nothing.

David was in this position when he received a rebuke from the prophet Nathan. David had slept with his friend’s wife, whom he got pregnant, then tried to cover it up, and in the end, he had his friend killed. How long did David hang onto these sins without confessing them? Long enough for a baby to be born. And long enough to no longer feel their weight.

So Nathan told David a story about a poor man who owned only a single lamb, which he loved like one of his children. One day his rich neighbor took the poor man’s lamb and cooked it for his guests. David was enraged over this injustice and demanded punishment. In fact, David wanted the rich man killed. At that moment Nathan unloaded four words that utterly crushed David—four words that exposed everything David was hiding. As David called for the execution of the rich lamb thief, Nathan responded by saying: “You are the man!”

Nathan confronting David is a helpful narrative picture of what the Law does to all of us. It calls a thing what it is. It exposes the heart. It accuses us—every time.

I understand David’s plight. I’ve been there. I’ve been named “the man”—and I pray you have too. It’s the voice we all need to call us out and the hammer we all need to break us down. I’m grateful for Nathan. Without the matter-of-fact voice of the Law that he declared, we may have never received the gift that poured out of David after God gifted him with repentance. And we now have this treasury in Psalm 51.

I’ve read Psalm 51, prayed Psalm 51, and sung Psalm 51. As I recently read it once again, verse 7 jumped out at me. As David pleads for forgiveness, he makes an incredible statement. He asks for his sin to be purged—to be made clean. And then the verse states that “if God washes him, he will be whiter than snow.

Did you catch that? Not “white as snow” but “whiter than snow.” It’s as if David is unable to find an example to accurately compare the purity that flows from God washing a sinner. The winter snow is the best example David can come up with, but it still falls short. You see, when sinners are forgiven—when they are washed—when they are baptized into the forgiveness and grace of God, they do not come out white as snow; they come out whiter. The pure driven snow has nothing on the imputed righteousness of Christ. The radical truth is this: when the Law comes in and rightly names us “the man” (as God repents us), Jesus enters the scene and states: “No . . . I am the man.”

Jesus became every sin that condemned David, and he has become every sin that condemns you or me. Jesus became “the man” for the whole world of sinners. The cross of Christ is where perfection took away sin and sinners attained perfection. This cross is the gory and grizzly display of pure grace in which the world is declared righteous.

For every sinner/saint on the run. For every transgressor in hiding. Jesus has been named “the man” for you. Come stand in the light. You’re not white as snow. You wear Christ’s righteousness, and that’s a whole lot whiter than snow ever will be.

[greehnery]

“The great beauty of watching lo-fi, made-at-home, amateur aesthetics sweep the nation is that it reminds us that none of us really needs to put up the facade in the first place. After all, pretending that we have it all together is precisely the kind of naive thinking that often comes crashing down on us at the most inopportune moments. And isn’t that the governing philosophy that got the U.S. into this mess in the first place?”

Really enjoyed this article from Mockingbird. When the Law says, “be sure your sin will catch up with you” (Numbers 32:23), we find Christ graciously awaiting us the whole time, full of good news: “the kingdom of God has come near”, “it is finished” (Mark 1:14-15, John 19:30)!

[greehnery]

“Back to your holy holes”: Right Where the Devil Wants Us

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men. You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Matthew 5:13-16

“Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery. Take note! I, Paul, tell you that if you get yourselves circumcised, Christ will not benefit you at all. Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to keep the entire law.”

Galatians 5:1-3

•••

For the Christian, this fallen world we live in is fraught with difficulties, persecutions and sufferings. Much of this hits very close to home—that is, within our own flesh, as it wars against the capital-S Spirit. We are simul justus et peccator, after all. Simultaneously justified in Christ (completely outside of ourselves) and sinful (completely within).

In the sense that we are justified, then, we are strangers and pilgrims in the here and now, waiting for the coming Kingdom in all its glory. Still yet, we are sinners to the core. As long as we live in these corruptible bodies of flesh this will be so, and to a much greater degree than we’re all aware. Never this side of heaven are we not desperately wicked, seeking to justify ourselves by the Law apart from our Justifier and Savior, Jesus, who gave His life to free us from this very endeavor, and the ruthless self-awareness and scrutiny that flows from our inherent sin nature, by His Word of promise alone: Your sin is forgiven.

He has indeed forgiven our sin, set us free in Himself from the righteous requirement and obligation of the Law, reconciled all things to Himself, and entrusted us with this message of reconciliation, which Paul calls in Romans 1 the very power of God unto salvation. The letter (Law) kills, and the Spirit (Gospel) gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). God’s Word is both destructive and creative.

He has sent us out as sheep among wolves and prepared good works for us by His Word; that is, it is His Word that does the work, first in us, then in others, as we freely give what we have been freely given; and in this, He Himself has declared us both salt and light! He has given us a message, a living and active Word, not of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7...and again, Romans 1:16-17!).

Persecutions and disagreements will happen; sinners will be sinners, quite heinously in fact, but we ought not think too highly of ourselves, lest we too fall (1 Cor. 10:12).

And what is the most dangerous spot for God’s people to stumble into? It’s what I like to call our holy holes. Those pitfalls of pure moralism, self-righteousness and frustration with our fellow man, such that we find ourselves retreating entirely from, or in a sense falling back into, the world we are called--and even gifted--to be in, rather than of. We become another Jonah, refusing to proclaim God’s mercy to those we personally feel don’t deserve it (forgetting the miserable, wretched state we ourselves are very much still in apart from it)! We say, on the basis or our perceived merit and their lack thereof, “you need what I have, but until you clean up your act there’s no way I’m handing it over.”

This is not how our Father works salvation in us. But if the enemy can isolate and curve us inward in such a way, he not only silences the Word of Christ, but quenches the Spirit, and by extension, our freedom in Christ, by bringing us back into self-imposed and self-centered bondage (effectively keeping others in theirs as well). And if we are to live by our own righteousness, we had better be ready to see it through to perfection. For the Law demands no less; the wages of sin, any sin, is death.

Which, graciously, is just what the Law will do to us if we are indeed intent on living this way. It must, if we are to decrease so that Christ may increase. God is not mocked; one way or another, we must die to ourselves, and our so-called “free will” where God is concerned, so that Christ may live in us…freely! For the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

We must remember that it is not our job to fix this world (or even ourselves). Both such endeavors are not only a lost cause, they are not the gospel. The Good News, rather, is that our sin is forgiven for Jesus’ sake. All of it—past, present and future. And that through this very word of His death, burial and resurrection, and His finished atoning and justifying work on our behalf, He is making all things new! What a blessing that we filthy, lowly and stubborn sinners should be made to partake of!

Don’t just do something, then…stand there, in the freedom of that forgiveness. Rest. It is finished!

Grace and peace, in Jesus’ name. Amen.